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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom Clifford.

Beijing.

It is not Munich 1938 but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first visit to China on Sunday does have a whiff of “peace in our time”.

It is perhaps sobering to realize that despite US-China ties being hailed as the world’s key bilateral relationship, Blinken is the most senior Biden administration official to travel to China, and it marks the first visit by a US secretary of state to Beijing since October 2018.

There is much to discuss.

Warships and, less commented on but even more dangerous, submarines from both the US and China have been playing a game of bluff in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. China claims the area while the US insists it is international waters. Technically the US is right but ownership of these waters has been part of China’s diplomacy and narrative since before the communists seized power in 1949.

The meeting itself is a huge step forward as it provides a setting to ease tensions and strike trade agreements. But this meeting is about appearance not substance.

There is, though, a domestic agenda that Xi is determined to follow through on and, unlike other Chinese leaders since Mao, tense relations with the US won’t do him any harm.

The days of the black and white cat are gone. That famous phrase credited to Deng Xiaoping as he launched his reforms,  “it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice’’, has been binned. Today the cat’s color matters a great deal. “The get rich is glorious’’ social contract of the post-Tiananmen Square era of 1989 has been ditched as Xi tries to secure his place in history directly behind Mao and above Deng. Now it is about the strength of the party, not the economy, stupid.

And through this realignment, Xi demands a place in history above that of Deng because, according to the accepted doctrine, the party is in its third great development phase. Mao brought the communists to power. Deng made the country richer. Xi, according to this theory, seeks to make China strong.

And this is the conundrum. What does this mean? China, with a weakening economy, can only appear strong by having tense relations with the US. If it acts like an ally it runs the risk of being seen as subservient.

Xi will not be the first ruler to divert attention from their mishandling of the economy by standing up to a “foreign threat”. Nationalism knows no boundaries.

Xi is not under threat at home but he is not popular and there is a feeling that under his watch an opportunity has been missed.

Structural problems that should have been addressed have been allowed to fester. The declining population is hampering growth. Single child mothers have no incentives to have another child. Hardly surprising, when kindergarten fees in the major and generally wealthier east coast cities cost as much as college fees in the US or Britain.

Xi  has adopted a “look over there approach”. Hong Kong has been forced to abandon its “one China, two systems policy”. Border clashes with India are becoming more common. The South China Sea has been militarized. An invasion of Taiwan seems a distinct possibility. China has the world’s largest army and navy. Xi has turned his attention to the Middle East to undermine America’s influence with his involvement in ensuring Saudi-Iranian rapprochement. This was apparent at a meeting in Beijing of the countries’ foreign ministers in April.

China has peaked economically and its ambition of surpassing the US as the world’s biggest power, under its own steam, seems less inevitable. What cannot be discounted is that the US commits what would be welcomed in Beijing as an act of gross self harm by electing Trump again. Beijing feels confident that should the US stumble under another  spell in office by the “hair apparent” China could, by default, easily pick up the pieces and claim economic supremacy.

But with or without Trump, Beijing, reacting to a mixture of feeling embarrassed at is declining economic clout and a sense that the time is right for action to achieve its destiny, might opt for bolder and more reckless behavior on the global stage.

It may not be Munich but these few days in Beijing may, like that event in 1938, yet be seen a prelude to a more belligerent period.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom Clifford.

Photograph Source: LatakiaHill – CC BY-SA 4.0

Beijing.

It was a tiny incident, not captured by TV cameras, nor did it make headlines across the world. But it suggested a seismic shift in attitudes. The men in white hazmat suits, (the Big Whites as they are known as or da bai in Mandarin) had come to lock down a building of about 100 residents in northern Beijing. It was close to 5pm on Sunday. The Big Whites erected steel barriers and were about to cordon off the 26-floor structure with a large metal fence. Then the women came out. They were a group of mothers of small children and residents of the building. They berated the officials, shouting at them. Security guards hurriedly arrived and menacingly took up position. Everyone expected the women to back down, accept the lockdown, be arrested or at least cautioned. Those who challenge authority in China normally pay a heavy price. But the women stood their ground. Shouts and insults were exchanged. And then incredibly the men in white suits took down the barriers and left. The security guards also left. People on the street who were queuing for Covid tests witnessed the incident and applauded the outcome. China is changing socially as well as economically.

The miracle that has transformed the country’s fortunes over the past four decades was due in large part to local-level policy innovation and experimentation. Beijing unleashed the hounds of capitalism and let the provinces get on with the job. Growth was the priority. President Xi Jinping changed that. His priority and the party’s since he came to office in 2012 was enhancing the party’s position. He believed that great prosperity gave people greater choice and the party position would, consequently, be undermined. People with financial security do not need to follow party manifestos or doff their caps to officials. Even before COVID broke in early 2020 Xi had implemented measures to curtail GDP growth that was then about 6 per cent. Then Covid hit and Xi shut down Wuhan city, the scene of the first mass outbreak, with 11 million people. This it must be stressed met with initial public acclaim. But Xi’s zero-covid policy was political and not health based. People quickly tired of it. Shunning the introduction of more effective Western vaccines, Xi allowed the elderly to avoid vaccination and claims, wrongly, that the Omicron variant is as lethal as the initial outbreak. It isn’t. The health sector in China has been ravished by corruption. Exposing it to the harsh spotlight of extensive media coverage would raise questions about its financing or more pertinent, lack of investment even though billions of dollars have been allocated to the sector. Even a cursory visit to any state hospital would show the chronic lack of investment in what is, after all, still a communist country. 

It is worth bearing in mind that Covid cases in China, a country of 1.4 billion people, barely record a blip on the radar.  According to official figures 5,200 have died since the pandemic began. That works out at about three Covid deaths in every million.

It is 3,000 per million in the US and 2,400 per million in the UK. It must also be pointed out that not all Covid-positive fatalities were caused by Covid, but it still gives an indication of the likely numbers.

Beijing is not threatened by sporadic unrest. It has immense firepower and other measures to deal with protest. Covid restrictions will remain as the loss of face in reducing them would carry a heavy political price. But something has changed. Xi is no longer considered beyond reproach. His policies are facing higher scrutiny in the public arena. Since Mao’s death China has been on a journey. During those tumultuous decades the party has broadly enjoyed public support under the promise of a better and wealthier tomorrow. The Chinese now fear they are being short changed. The women who protested on Sunday gave voice to frustrations shared by millions. 

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom Clifford.

Beijing.

Beidaihe, a coastal resort some 280 km north of Beijing, does not see the country’s leading politicians taking the plunge into the blue, to escape the sultry heat, but it does see them testing the political waters for two weeks from the beginning of August.  The jostling for position and power brokers doing deals may be reminiscent of political conclaves the world over but this is in a league of its own. One showpiece event will focus their minds this year.

In November central Beijing will cordon off its roads, and close it subway stations as the quinquennial 20th National Congress of the Communist Party takes place. President Xi Jinping wants to take this opportunity to be chosen for an unprecedented third term as party secretary and get his allies into top positions. Xi’s hope was that the political atmosphere could be summed up, ahead of the congress, as steady as she goes. That hope has vanished, evaporated like mist in the glare of an unforgiving sun.

Nationwide lockdowns have left more than 200 million under de facto house arrest. China is tackling challenges unlike any it has seen since the party came to power in 1949. College graduates face difficult times getting employment. Urban areas have seen protests at both Covid policies and corruption in banks that have seen deposits wiped out. Property developers are going bust and millions of people have lost their down payments.

Growth, according to the World Bank, will slow to about 4 per cent in 2022 far lower than projected in December. Nothing concentrates party minds as much as lack of growth. A growing economy is a major part of its bargain with the public that authorizes the denial of full political rights in exchange for prosperity.

But there are signs of disquiet. In recent months Premier Li Keqiang has pulled off an almost miraculous recovery for a rival who was meant to have been sidelined and was due to retire to obscurity. Xi and Li are bitter rivals. Li has issued chilling warnings over stalling economic growth.

His words are getting traction. The People’s Daily, the official party newspaper, ran a prominent 9,000-word speech by Li in May. Tongues may be wagging but it does not mean Xi will be toppled. But neither is the president as secure as he might have expected to be at the beginning of the year.

While most commentators will focus on the party congress in November, it is at the annual August seaside get-together of party elders and top officials that policies are fleshed out and promotions and demotions approved. The meeting is never announced and there are no press releases or daily updates. Party leaders arrive in their Beidaihe compound under tight security and never mingle with the tourists. If they are short of sunblock it is provided for them.

It seems almost contradictory but in a country without democracy, public opinion is listened to and taken on board. The party is in touch and Beidaihe is where it acts at its most efficient and brutal. It is a place of plain speaking. Arguments break out, positions are challenged. Consequently, it is the most important political meeting in China. Decisions taken here will never be announced but will play out over the following years.

On the international front, China is isolated. Its aggressive posturing, often with blood-curdling language that Xi encourages his diplomats to use, has also contributed to the alienation between China and the West.  The international community is nervous about the militarization of the South China Sea as it becomes a Chinese lake. Xi openly allying himself to Vladimir Putin is also causing Europeans to increasingly distance themselves from Beijing. Taiwan and the threat of an invasion is eroding China’s reputation.

Although one can never be sure what happens behind Beidaihe’s closed doors it would seem a safe bet that Xi is trying to bolster his support.   Ten years ago when he assumed office people thought he would be stepping down in 2022. His decision to continue will have consequences as will the meeting at a popular seaside resort north of Beijing. What those consequences will be we do not know. But they will be felt globally.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tom Clifford.

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Irishman. A plot twist that might have been considered too bizarre for even John le Carré. But the master of suspense shows, from beyond the grave, how to get the obituary writers rushing to update their paeans. The former British diplomat, secret agent, captivating espionage writer, and presumed Englishman, le Carré died an Irish citizen, his son confirmed. It’s like being told his fictional hero and the quintessential Englishman George Smiley was actually working for Moscow all along.

Nicholas Cornwell said his father, best known for his Cold War thrillers, became an Irish citizen before his death, aged 89, in December. The reason for the change of heart? One word. Brexit. It infuriated le Carré. “This is without doubt the greatest catastrophe and the greatest idiocy that Britain has perpetrated since the invasion of Suez,” le Carré said of Brexit at the time. “Nobody is to blame but the Brits themselves – not the Irish, not the Europeans.”

He thought it was a massive own goal. “The idea, to me, that at the moment we should imagine we can substitute access to the biggest trade union in the world with access to the American market is terrifying,” he said.

The author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was eligible for an Irish passport through his grandmother, Olive Wolfe, who was born in County Cork.

Le Carré was actually born as David Cornwell and worked for the secret services while studying German in Switzerland at the end of the 1940s. Inspired by his MI5 colleague, the novelist John Bingham, he began publishing thrillers under the pseudonym of John le Carré.

His spies did not sip Martinis, frequent casinos nor have beautiful women as companions.  They were occupied by office politics, often egotistical, flawed and lonely.

A strange thing is happening.  For the first time in more than 840 years, since Henry II landed his forces in eastern Ireland in October 1171, it can be argued that Ireland has more power, or at least access to power, than Britain. Ireland, like Mexico, found itself in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in history. Too far from god, and intrusive neighbors. We had what is now referred to as soft power, the music, and political influence in Boston, New York and Chicago, as well as Liverpool, Glasgow and many other communities. Britain had real power, diplomatic and military that spanned the globe. But right now in 2021 it seems that Britain is diplomatically speaking adrift, at least compared to Ireland.

The reason? In 1962 former US secretary of state Dean Acheson remarked Britain has lost its empire and is seeking a role. The search continues. If its plight was advertised in a lonely hearts column it would read; Nation, on edge of Europe, seeks companionship and friendship. May lead to something better. All can apply. Sensitive about past, hopeful of the future. Please send response to Whitehall, London.

Brexit means Ireland is part of a bloc of 27 countries that, to put it politely, is bigger and more powerful than Britain. The six-letter word has changed the relationship. Like a couple seeking divorce, the husband, demanding to explore new opportunities and recapture his youth, realizes too late that all the assets are in the wife’s name.

Of course, it’s not just le Carré.

There has been a surge in applications for Irish passports from Britain.

The number of Irish passports issued in Great Britain rocketed in the years following the Brexit referendum.

This was most marked in 2019. That year saw 120,800 passports issued by Ireland’s London embassy, double that of 2016.

Now the focus turns elsewhere. After all, if le Carré is Irish then who else? There is no indication, just yet, that god is going to deny he is an Englishman.

Image Source: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – Public Domain

China shifted its gaze and few paid attention. China of the Great Wall, constructed to keep foreigners out, is now China of the great wave, with a navy to deter invasion and secure the three seas, the San Hai: the South China, East China and Yellow seas.

The century of humiliation up to 1949, as every Chinese school child learns, emerged from the sea. Infamously, in the final years of the Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager diverted funds earmarked for naval modernization to construct a new Summer Palace. This reallocation was blamed for China’s defeat in the 1894-95 war with Japan. The British had already arrived by sea as had the French and Germans. China had learnt one invaluable lesson; the sea is treacherous.

Securing the sea, secures China and, today, the ruling party. Maritime freedom of navigation? To China, it’s cover for a front door that has been kicked in too many times. Militarizing the South China Sea plays well domestically, and is not seriously challenged internationally. It does not make it right. It does make it realpolitik. A large piece of the planet’s maritime real estate has been taken over by China. There is no mistaking the fact that it is a blow to the West. Beijing understood it can act and deal with the relatively insubstantial consequences.

War, like politics, is local. Almost overlooked, out of convenience or otherwise, in just over two decades the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has built up one of the strongest navies in the world. What makes it even more formidable is that in its near waters it can rely on shore-based missiles. In sheer numbers, the PLA navy now has the world’s biggest fleet and is expanding and growing faster than any other major navy.

A defense report to the US Congress during the Trump administration did not mince its words.  In a war with China over Taiwan, “Americans could face a decisive military defeat’’.

True, US ships do sail through the Taiwan Strait. This has occurred three times since Joe Biden took the oath of office. But it is important to realize what is not happening rather than what is. Each passage, the latest earlier this month, involved destroyers. Enough to send a message. But nowhere near enough to send a warning. That would involve aircraft carriers. No American carrier has navigated the Taiwan Strait since Obama was first sworn in.

As the latest transit was being confirmed Beijing launched a salvo against US Admiral Philip Davidson.  The top US military officer in the Asia-Pacific, it charged, was guilty of exaggerating China’s military threat. Davidson had said at a Senate committee hearing a day earlier that the US was losing its military advantage over China in the Pacific and suggested an invasion of Taiwan by Beijing could be imminent.

Globally, the US remains the undisputed champion of the high seas. China’s fleet has more ships, but the US has more powerful ones.

But that’s not the point. In waters close to China, the PLA navy enjoys at least parity and probable supremacy.

The Chinese mainland can serve as a vast, unsinkable aircraft carrier. China’s warships would be close to logistical support as well as the firepower of land-based missiles and strike aircraft.

But to what end? Is securing the near seas correcting a legacy of history or the prelude to an action, the invasion of Taiwan, that, at the very least, would set back relations between China and the West for generations and raises the real possibility of conflict?

Beijing.

It’s over. The China threat. No Thucydides trap of rising power threatening established power. Still scope for misunderstandings, a naval clash in the South China Sea, an exchange at the border war with India, fighter jets taking matters into their hands. But the economic race with the United States is over. China has new economic goals. Actually, China has new priorities and the economy is now second fiddle to politics. Gone are the visions of a new world order. Covid has played a part but it also provides useful cover for Beijing to chart a new course. Ever since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, China’s growth rate has been dropping, even according to official figures. Beijing has indicated a willingness to accept a post-coronavirus growth target of 5 percent or less. In the BC era (Before Covid) this would have set alarm bells ringing as it was assumed that nothing less than growth of 6 or so percent could guarantee the stability required for the party to stay in power.

An October meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, supported Xi’s agenda for the 14th five-year plan. No surprise there. But the communiqué, set to be endorsed in March when the rubberstamp National People’s Congress, or parliament, meets , included an item that almost shyly stated a new departure: it said that China would “basically achieve socialist modernization” by 2035 in order to finally “reach the level of moderately developed countries’’. The rampant growth model that had astounded, frightened and helped the financial-crisis hit West, has encountered a reality too often ignored; the party is over because of the party.

China’s economy will reach a “new level”. Yes but so will the government’s capacity to monitor and control it. And that’s the change.  Xi needs growth, as his predecessors did, but he cares primarily about political control. For four decades after opening to the world in 1978, China pursued economic growth at all costs, even loosening the party’s grip. Not anymore.

Between the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the economy dipped only in 1989 and 1990. This was the time of the Tiananmen massacre and a crackdown on dissent. The China brand was damaged. It never fully recovered but its breakneck turbo-charged economic performance could not be ignored. China made headlines because of growth. Now it makes headlines for politics, threats, trade disputes, border skirmishes.

Belligerency rather than diplomacy has been the trend.  Hong Kong’s freewheeling economy has been jolted to a stop by a draconian security law. Party committees in private companies, long dormant, have been reactivated. More than a million Uighurs are in labor camps.  Beijing announced it was investigating the Alibaba Group, the flagship online retail giant founded by Jack Ma. This more than any other company was the very symbol of China’s emergence.

China is paying for Xi’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy (their version of Rambo diplomacy). India is a prime example Chinese technology giants such as Huawei, Alibaba, and TikTok were set for market dominance in the world’s second-most populous market. Then Chinese border troops killed 20 Indian soldiers in brutal hand-to-hand fighting in Ladakh in June. Consequently, Chinese tech has been almost driven from the Indian market.

China has heated disputes, regarding territory or trade, with Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Japan and the artillery from the US-Chinese trade war is rumbling in the distance.

The swashbuckling approach to international trade is over. Chinese entrepreneurs were once told to go out and multiply their profits. China will still have a global presence but the main thrust of its commercial  strategy now is to build domestic production networks, free from the threat or imposition of sanctions, that fall under party control.

Photograph Source: Sgt. Charlotte Carulli – CC BY 2.0

The lexicon has changed. Words and phrases that seemed to define our world until quite recently now belong to a bygone era. Remember BRICs? The grouping of the next economic superpowers. Well, Brazil, Russia, India and China now resemble a brash start-up promising a whole new way of doing things only to fall out among themselves.

Pivot to Asia? US forces redeploying. For what? Washington’s response has been half-hearted and ponderous. The South China Sea has been turned into a Chinese military zone. End of story. No amount of US redeploying will change that fact on the ground or in this case on the sea.

OK, how about Belt and Road? China was going to establish new markets along the traditional trade routes on both land and sea. We are not masking the truth when we acknowledge that in a time of COVID these trade routes will not be as active as once envisaged. And the Thucydides Trap? This suggested that a rising power challenging an established power will probably end in conflict. From China’s point of view that type of talk is redundant. China is no longer rising, it has emerged. No conflict.

Sanctions on China? Exports from China to the US rose 7.9 percent over 2019 to $45.2 billion despite tariff hikes on most Chinese goods by the Trump administration. You can hardly blame them in Beijing if they are asking for more sanctions.

Make America Great Again? America always was great not just through its economic muscle but because, at its best, it inspired. The American dream was not fantasy. But the storming of Congress showed an ugly side, a brush with fascism, that its opponents, China among them, will capitalise on.   After the storming many US politicians repeated, on cue, the mantra “This is not who we are.”

In Asia and China they asked, who are you? There have been times when it was who you were. The treatment of Native Americans, the 1954 overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala, at the behest if the United Fruit Company opposing labor reforms, Allende overthrown and killed in 1973 in Chile, yes on 9/11.  Marcos in the Philippines. There are many more instances. Washington has a long history of organizing the storming of parliaments in other countries.

The main problem facing the administration of US President Joe Biden is how to deal with China, how to work with it. Climate change, and the urgent need to tackle it, dictates that the Beijing dictatorship is embraced rather than shunned. Besides, establishing an anti-China coalition is pointless. There are countries in Africa, South America and Europe that just won’t buy, literally, into any such a sentiment.  Australia, Japan and South Korea have had and hope to have, a profitable relationship with China, even allowing for setbacks. The US has to mend fences, not lecture, after the Trump debacle. The tombstone of failed leadership on the grave marking US abandonment of international obligations reads; the Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership; NATO; weakened World Trade Organization; and imposed trade barriers on Washington’s closest allies.

Biden has his work cut out. But China and the US are not enemies. They share common interests, such as climate change and the battle against the pandemic.  China also faces huge challenges. In the rush to modernize its environment has paid a heavy toll. Its banking system is sclerotic. To describe it as Dickensian would be to give it a veneer of efficiency it does not merit. The largest note in domestic circulation is the 100 yuan bill (US$16 approx). The main reasons for this are fear of counterfeiting and to prevent large amounts of cash leaving the country. China urgently needs to introduce foreign competition and expertise to reform its financial sector.  Then there is human rights.  Xinjiang is a stain on China’s reputation and Beijing will be increasingly accountable for what is happening there. The great hope of Chinese modernizers that affluence would lead to more openness seems cruelly dashed. Chinese President Xi Jinping has one goal: to enhance the party’ leading role in society. In short, he believes that too much prosperity can damage the party’s health and that it lost too much ground in the years of largely coastal-region affluence, roughly 1990-2008, post Tiananmen to the financial crisis.

China will not be bullied but that does not mean Washington acquiesces.

Yes, the US is back. But China has arrived. Biden will be the first US president to deal with this. It will require a new lexicon.

Beijing.

It isn’t about what happened, it’s about what will happen. Our time has come is the catchphrase, a rallying cry. The people are told they have been cheated. It won’t happen again. We are the justice seekers. Upend the global trade order, it is skewed against us. This is heady stuff.

These are not the viewpoints of the (current) occupant of the White House but rather of another world leader.

The fallout from the 2020 US presidential election is providing fascinating viewing in Beijing. Chinese president Xi Jinping would never boast publically that he trumped the Donald but the small shots of Baiju to ward off the Beijing chill are being consumed in the leadership compound off Tiananmen Square with more relish than usual.

Of course there are differences between the two, not least in hair styles, but the similarities are also worth commenting on. An outsider comes to power. Xi was originally meant to be premier to Li Keqiang who was meant to be president. But Xi was able to persuade the military that he was their man more than the “economist” Li.  Xi shook things up, refuses to leave office, (an option not available to Trump unless his diligent hair-dye dripping lawyers have reinterpreted the constitution in ways not attempted before) and prefers to have his country invest in itself rather than seek markets elsewhere.

Xi has abandoned “going global” for Chinese business and finance. Xi, instead, is, again you’ve guessed it, putting China first. His policies have resulted in an extension of China’s state sector. Even the Belt and Road Initiative is now seen as primarily beneficial to large-scale state firms.

A personality cult, (much more effective than Donald’s), unseen since the days of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, is being fostered. By stripping term limits from the Chinese constitution, Xi has the right to rule for life.

Nor does Xi care much for global opinion as seen by his willingness to risk international condemnation to stamp out democratic values in Hong Kong. People outside of China still have difficulty is realizing how little the former British colony matters to people on the Chinese mainland. Hong Kongers are simply viewed as ungrateful, they have liberties undreamt of on the mainland, and their economy is not as vital to China as it once was. None of this excuses the dire state of human rights in China but the party has been able to claim, unchallenged because it controls the media, that the right to work is more important than the right to vote. The job rate is national security. The party becomes less secure if the employment rate drops.

And China feels more secure now than it’s has done for centuries. And this is why the South China Sea is so important.

For the first time since Portuguese ships reached the Chinese coast five centuries ago, China is in command or believes it is in command of waters off its coast. This means that Beijing views China as secure and the party is reaping the benefits of that. One reason is sheer, old fashioned patriotism. But the other is that the military, long a byword for inefficiency and corruption, is being seen to deliver. Without a shot being fired in anger, an era of unquestioned US dominance in Asia has drawn to a close. The coverage of the South China Sea militarization in the West has been about that, the military build-up. In China the coverage has been on the security aspect.

Xi’s ascent to power took place at a time when the West was largely distracted. Financial crises, Brexit, Trump. It seemed to have enough on its plate. The West does not know how to handle Xi. Handling the West is a dilemma the Chinese president and his advisors have not had to grapple with.  He can be sanctioned in the US but get trade deals in Europe. In reality, Beijing believes the West needs China more than China needs to change. Xi feels emboldened. The West seems reluctant and dithering. You do not have to be a student of history to appreciate that this is a dangerous mix.

Beijing.

Who lost China? The question, first asked when Mao’s dictum about power coming from the barrel of a gun proved pertinent and Truman was in the White House, is being asked again with renewed vigor. Some in the West believed that greater engagement with China would inevitably lead to the country opening up and forging closer ties to the Unites States and Europe. China always viewed things differently. It is often overlooked, though not in China, that it has engaged with the West before, not to its advantage. And then there was 1999. Chinese-people are convinced they were deliberately attacked by America. The US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 was no accident, most people in China believe.  US President Bill Clinton apologizing for the bombing, stating it was accidental did nothing to alter this viewpoint.

The US selling arms to Taiwan or keeping close ties with the Dalai Lama is not exactly viewed, in Beijing, as the behavior of a friendly partner. But up until now at least, optimism, based on “differences, sure we have them, but things will get better”, reigned. For decades since the historic Nixon-Mao meetings of the early 1970s, US policy to China has been noted for its lack of change, unlike say US relations with Moscow. Ever greater engagement with China has been the mantra.

That policy survived Tiananmen Square in 1989 and China’s premature (its market was not ready) entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 and China’s trade surpluses.

US presidents have essentially drawn from the same playbook. They have turned a blind eye, the other cheek, perhaps too often as they emphasized support for China’s continued economic emergence at the expense of human rights. A wealthier China they were convinced  benefits everyone. The view in China is more nuanced. Fine if the people are wealthier but more important for stability, the country’s rulers believe, is that the Party is more secure.

The common-held view that China’s moment has finally arrived at the expense of the US is wrong. China has made ground but the US retains the dominant role. China is not seeking dominance, certainly a greater say on the world stage, but not dominance. This is not for altruistic reasons. Beijing’s believes establishing a global presence on the world stage makes the party stronger at home. Anything more, such as being Number 1, and the benefits (from greater responsibility) immediately dry up as seen by the US. The financial crisis of 2008 started in America, after five years of a disastrous Middle Eastern war. And the Trump presidency, especially its inability to cope with the end game, has given China a greater belief in itself. There is a swagger about Beijing. But there are huge challenges facing China.

Certain sectors of the economy are doing well, but the fastest growing business in Beijing is food deliveries. The e-commerce sector is beginning to lose momentum, food deliveries aside. COVID, at least in its widely contagious form, came from Wuhan. Beijing is generally behaving arrogantly abroad and fearful at home. Its trade deals with other countries are facing a wave of criticism, something difficult for Beijing to deal with and counteract. No, this does not mean collapse is imminent but it does suggest that events could take place that the party may find threatening. For instance, an incident that ignites a surge of nationalism on the streets that sees the party hesitant and weak in its response or a naval clash in the South China Sea. Neither scenario can be discounted.

China’s accomplishments, not least economic growth and combating COVID, must be applauded but on the streets of Beijing there is little indication of celebration. Relief? Yes. Gratitude? Yes. A new US administration may mark a more cooperative phase in relations. But as the year ends the chill in the air is not just because of plunging temperatures. The last 12 months show that the unexpected may not be that unusual.

The consequences are still reverberating three decades on, obviously in Iraq and the Middle East but also further afield, after Saddam Hussein became the first Arab leader to invade another Arab nation.  On Thursday, August 2, 1990, at about 2am, 100,000 Iraqi troops and 700 tanks smashed through Kuwaiti border posts. Saddam then announced that the emir of Kuwait had been deposed and the emirate was now Iraq’s nineteenth province.

This was his second invasion of a neighbor. In September 1980 he invaded Iran believing that the rule of the ayatollahs, and their Shia branch of Islam, posed a clear and present danger to Iraq’s Sunni-dominated government.

Much of the Iranian army and air force was dependent on US spare parts and these had dried up after the fall of the Shah in 1979. Saddam believed it would be a piece of cake as much of Iran’s heavy weaponry and air power would be unusable. Initially his forces were successful, driving deep into Iran. But the Iranians fought back, launched human wave attacks against Iraqi artillery and trench warfare, reminiscent of WWI, ensued. Stalemate. The war finally ended in 1988 under a United Nations-brokered ceasefire with neither victorious, both exhausted. Kuwait had initially lent the Iraqi leader US$14 billion to help finance the conflict. Saddam believed that this debt should be written off. Kuwait refused and demanded prompt payment.

When the guns of August were unleashed in 1990 it took the UN, still catching its breath since the recent end of the Cold War, four months to take action. Eventually, on November 29, 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678 authorizing the use of military force. It charged that Iraq was refusing to comply with international demands and was in flagrant contempt of the Security Council. It declared that unless Iraq withdrew by January 15, 1991, member states were authorized “to use all necessary means” to force compliance. There were 12 votes in favor, two against (Cuba and Yemen), and one abstention (China).

Iraq’s closest ally in the Gulf had, ironically, been Kuwait. The country was the top financier of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980.  Saddam considered that Kuwait owed Iraq a huge debt of gratitude.

In examining the run-up to the war, the importance of one agreement is often overlooked. In 1975 Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Accord. This agreement of convenience suited both Saddam, who was increasingly in power but not in office until 1979, the year the Shah was overthrown. It demarcated their disputed borders and allowed Saddam to crush the Kurds in the north of Iraq who had been getting help from Iran. But it also de facto established the Shah as the Gulf’s policeman. This was a role that Saddam cherished but was not yet ready for. When the Shah was overthrown, Saddam, with the blessing of Washington, became the policeman.

Saddam felt he had saved the Gulf sheikhdoms and was worthy of greater respect. Above all, he wanted more money. But the price of oil was falling. Kuwait had raised its oil production from the Opec quota of 1.5 million barrels a day to 1.9 million just weeks before the invasion. This further lowered the oil price from US$18 (then $30.40) to US$14. A US$1-a-barrel fall cost Saddam US$1 billion a year. He felt a sense of grievance and that he was being short-changed and losing face.

Saddam also accused Kuwait of stealing its oil by boring at a slant northwards along their frontier. Kuwait haughtily dismissed these claims. Saddam was not convinced and accused the emirate of blatantly stealing the resources of the nation whose armies saved it from Iran’s revolution. Saddam was the policeman. Now he wanted to be the law. Images of invasion, human hostages, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, anti-aircraft flak, Scud and Cruise missiles, wailing sirens, and billowing dark smoke from burning oil wells flooded our TV screens.

It was these images being viewed on TV in a fretful post-Tiananmen China that led to a radical overhaul of the nation’s military. TV news showing Cruise missiles hitting their designated targets with pinpoint accuracy both impressed and alarmed the Beijing leadership. Their military ideology and planning underwent a dramatic change. The airpower and new technology deployed by the US in the campaign to liberate Kuwait spurred China’s reevaluation of the People’s Liberation Army’s modus operandi. It launched China on a path to upgrade its armed forces, militarize the South China Sea, establish the so-called String of Pearls up to the Horn of Africa and set up missile bases along its east coast giving it command of sea approaches.

It may well be that the most understated legacy of events 30 years ago is not to be found in the shifting sands of the Gulf.

Tom Clifford, now in China, worked in Qatar with Gulf Times from 1989-1992 and covered the Gulf War for Irish and Canadian newspapers as well as for other media organizations.

The post The Gulf War, 30 Years and Counting appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

Of course, we knew Jack Charlton was human. We knew he was mortal, that he didn’t create the world. But to us, in Ireland, it just looked that way. Ireland in the 1980s was bleak. The most common reason, for people in their 20s, to meet friends in a bar was to wish them well as they headed for a new life in the UK, the US or Australia. We were haemorrhaging our young.

Every weekend, I mean every weekend, in 1984 -1986 there was a modest farewell party involving people you knew.

People attending would quickly be asked…“And when are you leaving?’’ We had our replies ready, there were well-honed. “Ah, just waiting for the visa to come through,’’ or “waiting for a room to become available in London,’’ or “the flight to Australia will be a bit cheaper in a few months’’.

Northern Ireland was claiming lives. The economy was in freefall. Jobs were scarce. It was no country for young men.

At the end of 1985 Charlton was offered the job as Ireland’s soccer manager. He should not have been. He had a great playing career but had never won anything in club management in England. Other candidates, who had won major club trophies, seemed better suited but turned down the opportunity. It looked as if Ireland had picked not the best candidate but the only candidate who actually wanted the job.

Charlton himself often recalled that moment with impish humour.  “I told them it wasn’t about the money. It was about the honour.’’ He quickly released that was a mistake.  “They wrote a number on a piece of paper, put the paper face-down on the table and slid it over to me. I looked at it and said: ‘It’s not that much of an honour’.”

And so the journey began, the Lost Tribe being brought to the promised land of football glory, Euro-88, and World Cups in 1990 and 1994. We beat England in 1988, drew with them in 1990 and beat Italy in 1994.  When news came of Charlton’s death on Saturday, the memories flooded in. We knew he had been unwell for some time. Cancer and dementia.  Not helped by heading a wet soggy, heavy ball long before today’s lighter versions were played with.

He had no airs and graces.  He was quintessentially working class. At 15 he had worked in the mines.  Along with another northern Englishman, Brian Clough, he sharply criticized the racist National Front in the mid-70s. This required no little courage. At the time they seemed to be emerging as a potent force, especially in the north. He would bow to no man, but he would take a knee today.

He went all over Ireland fishing and there are many stories of him popping into a small pub after a day by the river to chat with the locals.

Because of this, it was a commonly-held belief that Charlton paid his bar bills by check in the knowledge that publicans and restaurants would not cash them. Instead they would frame it and place it on the wall behind the counter.

Charlton, however, denied this was the case.

If I am at a bar, he said, a pint of beer will appear in front of me, even if I already have one. He added that if he did try to pay by cash, someone else would have already settled the account.

It would have been an honor to buy you a drink.

Thank you. You gave us reason to smile.

Cheers, Jack.

Incongruous, deadly, bizarre. Two nuclear powers engaging in a fatal skirmish over a piece of territory with no economic resources, using rocks and clubs with protruding nails. A stone-age fight in the nuclear era.

Einstein said he did not know what exact weapons would be used in a war with nuclear powers. But he knew the weapons of mass destruction that would be used in the one after that. Sticks and stones. Few envisioned nuclear-weapon states using such primitive weapons before launching Armageddon.

India and China dispute the world’s longest unmarked border. There has been conflict. War in 1962, easily won by China, skirmishes since then, no bullets fired since a deadly clash in 1975 when an unofficial agreement not to use firearms in the border area was reached.  It was considered that no large-scale conflict could emerge from a stone-age fight. Scrap that.

The Sino-Indian border is a hotbed of tension. According to the Indian government, the Chinese military went into Indian territory 1,025 times between 2016 and 2018. Trouble is this is easily disputed as the area is not officially marked. So what is India’s or China’s territory?

Most of these clashes apparently emerge from differing assessments of the location of the so-called Line of Actual Control — the de facto international border.

The military superpowers have been arguing, and fighting, for decades over territory in the high-altitude, largely uninhabited region.

Facing off at 4,600 meters high along a 3,440km border could be described as the height of folly.

It comes at a price. On Monday at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the Galwan Valley in the disputed Ladakh region.

The loss of life, believed to be the first in 45 years at the border, raises the stakes considerably.

Indian officials spoke of fighting with bare hands, clubs and stones. There were reports of Chinese casualties, but no official confirmation. Both countries accuse the other of building up infrastructure and stoking tension.

There have been agreements. But times have changed.

In 1988 the two countries were roughly equal on the economic stage. According to the World Bank, India’s gross domestic product was about $300 billion compared with China’s $312 billion that year. New Delhi’s defense budget was $10.6 billion. Beijing’s official budget was in the region of $11 billion.

A state of parity. That was then. Now China has risen, so has India, but China to greater heights. China’s GDP, north of $13 trillion, dwarfs India’s $2.7 trillion. Same story on defense spending. Beijing, again according to its official budget, splashed out $261 billion on defense expenditure in 2019. India spent about $71 billion. India has risen as an economy and a global power in the past three decades, but shrunk markedly relative to China.

China has also become more belligerent. Hide your light under a bushel, Deng Xiaoping’s mantra, has been superseded by Xi Jinping’s more aggressive foreign policy.

From island-building in the South China Sea to its shriek post-Covid-19 outbreak diplomacy, Beijing is clearly adopting a different approach.

But that is not the only difference. The Unites States under Trump is shedding its authority. Neither China or India expects or even wants US involvement and the US clearly does not want to be involved. A fatal clash between two nuclear powers and Washington does nothing. No envoys dispatched. No sense of urgency from the White House.  No demand for a cooling-down period. No leadership. Europe too seems to have lost its voice. From the East, the West looks shallow, a busted flush.

It may be that both India and China will settle their dispute amicably and quickly cool tensions. But it would be foolhardy, and dangerous, to dismiss any other alternative as unthinkable.

The post A Fatal Skirmish on the Line of Actual Control appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

Beijing.

The virus will infect millions across the globe and lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. It can be easily spread and will especially strike the young and the elderly.  But this is not what has been described as the Wuhan virus. The common flu is far deadlier. This is not to downplay the Wuhan coronavirus flu, or to give it its medical name, 2019-nCoV.

The common flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and kills up to 650,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization.

Keeping track of Wuhan virus figures is difficult, not least because of the two-week incubation period. The coronavirus outbreak, which is concentrated in Wuhan, a major transport hub in central eastern China, has so far killed 56 and infected almost 2,000. The initial symptoms of coronavirus are typically similar to those of a cold or flu, which means it is hard for people to know if they are infected, especially given that the outbreak has coincided with flu season. The mayor of Wuhan said on Sunday evening that he expected another 1,000 or so new cases. But the National Health Commission in Beijing said the number of people currently under medical observation for the virus is 30,453. This raises immediate questions about how and where they are being observed.

The response to the outbreak has been criticized with people complaining that announcing restrictions hours before they could be properly implemented allowed people to evade quarantine. The strict restrictions also risk causing resentment and distrust of authorities and the health messages they deliver.

A massive construction effort is being undertaken in Wuhan to build a 1,000-bed hospital for the virus patients.

In the past week, the number of confirmed infections has more than tripled and cases have been found in 13 provinces in China, as well as the municipalities Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin. The virus has also been confirmed in Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam.

The virus seems to have a 3 percent mortality rate. However, this could be an overestimate since there may be a far larger pool of people who have been infected by the virus but who have not suffered severe enough symptoms to attend hospital and so have not been counted in the data. Consequently, it is difficult to gauge just how contagious it is. A crucial difference is that unlike flu, there is no vaccine for the new coronavirus, which means it is more difficult for vulnerable members of the population – elderly people or those with existing respiratory or immune problems – to protect themselves.

The common flu does not grab the headlines. But attach a foreign name to a virus – such as Ebola, Zika and Wuhan – and then the headlines flow.

Apart from the obvious health concerns, there is a political dimension. Some countries, including the US, France, Australia and Japan have suggested that they want to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan and nearby areas. Just how this would take place is unclear.

Images of foreigners being airlifted or bussed out of Wuhan, while Chinese citizens remain, could see passions rise. At the very least, it will appear that there is special treatment for foreigners.

The streets of Beijing this morning are eerily quiet. Residents of the capital would normally be celebrating Chinese new year, the year of the rat, that started on Saturday, by attending temple fairs. All such fairs have been cancelled. Apart from the family fun on offer at the fairs, they provide a setting where families can pay homage to deceased relatives. Fake money and food would be burnt to appease the spirits of the deceased and ensure good health prosperity for the year ahead.

There is no anger on the streets but a sense of confusion and apprehension. This coming week should see hundreds of millions of people return from the hometowns where the celebrated the new year to their cities of work. A clearer picture will then emerge of the scale of the problems facing the authorities.