Is China Building a "Police State" or Countering Western-sponsored Terrorism?

February 1, 2019 New Eastern Outlook   

Recent headlines across American and European news agencies have focused on the rise of a so-called Chinese "police state," specifically in regards to security infrastructure put in place in China's western region of Xinjiang.

Articles like Bloomberg's "Inside the Vast Police State at the Heart of China’s Belt and Road" and the Economist's "China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other" depict Beijing's efforts as a "Muslim crackdown" and a "massive abuse of human rights."

While such articles allude to the very real violence that has taken place in Xinjiang and elsewhere targeted by an extremist minority among China's Uighur population, it is portrayed as "resistance" by Western sources rather than terrorism.

Bloomberg's article would claim:

...state-mandated drills are part of China’s suppression campaign against Uighurs, predominately Muslim ethnic groups whose members have periodically lashed out with riots, stabbings and other attacks in protest of a government controlled by the Han Chinese majority. 

In reality, Uighur extremists are terrorists pursuing unrealistic separatism encouraged by Washington, and doing so through extreme violence.

Uighur Separatism is US Sponsored  

The United State government via the National Endowment for Democracy dedicates a page to programmes it is funding in what is listed as "Xinjiang/East Turkistan," East Turkistan being the fictional name of the imaginary state separatists seek to carve out of Chinese territory.

The inclusion of "East Turkistan" is all but an admission to US support for Uighur separatism.

The "World Uyghur Congress" (WUC) is among the groups the US NED is funding. It openly promotes separatism.

WUC is omnipresent in Western news reports, promoting allegations against Beijing regarding Xinjiang, yet WUC is actually based in Munich, Germany and Washington D.C.

WUC representatives such as Dilxat Raxit and Rebiya Kadeer are cited, making various unsubstantiated claims regarding China's treatment of Uighurs with Western news agencies often failing to mention their WUC affiliation or that the WUC is funded by the US government in articles.

Stories like, "Chinese Police Order Xinjiang's Muslims to Hand in All Copies of The Quran," published by the US State Department-funded and directed Radio Free Asia network are based entirely on WUC claims.

Further investigation would reveal the Qurans being collected were published in Saudi Arabia and deliberately rewritten to promote extremism. Newer versions printed elsewhere were not being collected.

It is just one of many examples of the US intentionally undermining security in China, then intentionally misrepresenting China's attempts to respond to these growing threats.

Uighur Extremists are Carrying out Deadly Terrorism in China 

What Bloomberg describes as "periodically lashing out" has been more accurately presented even in the Western press, years before this latest disinformation campaign against Beijing began.

Western Media Promotes Color Revolution in Asia

January 28, 2019 New Eastern Outlook

Just as the US has done across the Arab World and in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia faces political subversion aimed at transforming the region to serve Washington's interests.

Thailand is a pivotal Southeast Asian state of nearly 70 million people, with the region's second largest economy, a formidable military and able to boast as the only nation in Southeast Asia to avoid European colonisation.

It's decisive pivot away from Washington, toward Beijing and other emerging global powers has led to the current government's determination to replace aging US military hardware with Chinese, Russian and European weapons and the signing of multiple infrastructure project deals with China including high-speed rail networks both within Thailand and connecting Thailand to China via Laos.

As a key hub in Southeast Asia's ASEAN bloc, Thailand's influence either for or against American designs in the region can significantly impact Washington's ambitions.

For all of these reasons, the United States has slated Thailand for regime change.

Toward that end, Washington currently maintains a growing army of supposed "nongovernmental organisations" (NGOs) attempting to influence and control everything from the media and law, to education, the environment and even elections.

These NGOs are also actively leading protests against the current government, protests that have recently grown after the government repealed bans on political gatherings.

The current Thai government resulted from a 2014 military coup that ousted a US client government headed by Thaksin Shinawatra via his nepotist-appointed nominee (and sister) Yingluck Shinawatra.

Shinawatra supporters carried out an extensive campaign of armed violence against over half-a-year of sustained anti-Shinawatra protests in the streets of the capital, Bangkok, leaving over 20 dead. Despite the number of protesters on peak days reaching well over a million, US and European media downplayed their significance and even wrote them off as "anti-democratic." At the same time, there are examples of that same Western media justifying armed attacks on protesters as merely expressions of "frustration." 

Selling Violent Subversion as "Pro-Democratic" 

Conversely, in order to sell US-backed subversion as "pro-democratic," including recent US-backed protests now taking to the streets of Thailand, the Western media has begun introducing headlines like the Guardian's recent piece titled, "Thailand: biggest democracy protests in years held as military junta delays elections."

US NGO Teams Up with Gulf Terror Sponsor to Target Asia

January 4, 2019 New Eastern Outlook 

Fortify Rights is one of several fronts posing as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) operating across Asia.

Such fronts are in actuality extensions of US and European "soft power." Fully funded by the US, British and various European governments as well as US and European corporate foundations like convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society, Fortify Rights positions itself as self-appointed arbiter regarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law at the heart of the sovereign internal political affairs of nations like Myanmar (still called Burma by many Western media organisations and politicians), Thailand, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

Human Rights Org Partners with State Sponsor of Terrorism... 

Recently, Fortify Rights' founder American Matthew Smith announced a new and "exciting" partnership with Doha Debates. Doha Debates is a project of the Qatar Foundation which in turn was founded by the Al Thani family, the unelected rulers of Qatar, a notorious Middle Eastern dictatorship, abuser of human rights and state sponsor of terrorism.

The "exciting" partnership between Fortify Rights (a supposed human rights advocacy group) and the Qatari front "Doha Debates" is particularly troubling considering the area of cooperation involves Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority.

On Doha Debates' website it describes its partnership with Fortify Rights:

Together, Fortify Rights and Doha Debates are training a group of Rohingya refugees on the basics of photography and Instagram, and we are equipping them with mobile phones to document their lives in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, for an entire year. Through this partnership, Fortify Rights and Doha Debates hope to empower Rohingya refugees to share their stories with the world.

Despite the relatively benign stated nature of this partnership, it is troubling because it signals a possible vector through which money, training and even weapons can pass, behind a "human rights' façade, inflaming already tense ethnic troubles in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

Western Media Takes Aim at China's OBOR

December 31, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - In recent months, American, Commonwealth and European media have taken aim at China. From fabricated stories of interment camps with "1 million" Uyghir Muslims being detained in them to a more recent New York Times article claiming to have "secret plans" revealing the military dimension of its One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR), the barrage has been heavy on innuendo and accusations but lacking concrete evidence.

Considering the scale of each accusation, it would be assumed a huge wealth of evidence existed to accompany them. After all, how would China hide a detention network detaining, torturing and executing a "million" people? Or develop complex defence systems with international partners in complete secret?

Yet these stories circulating the West's most prominent newspapers, television networks and online portals aren't simply lacking in a wealth of evidence, they lack any evidence at all.

NYT Cites "Secret Plans," Provides no Evidence They Exist 

The New York Times in its article, "China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn," would claim China is pursing decidedly military objectives as part of its wider OBOR initiative. In the article's subtitle, it mentions a "secret plan to build new fighter jets."

The article itself claims:

Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware. The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times, would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarize after decades of playing catch-up. 

All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion chain of infrastructure development programs stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.

Yet, upon reading the entire article, no evidence, whatsoever, substantiates the claim that the OBOR initiative has taken a "military turn." There is also no evidence at all presented by the NYT that it has any sort of "secret plan" in its possession.

Repackaged Old News Conflated with OBOR = Smear    

China and Pakistan have longstanding military ties. China and Pakistan also are working together on infrastructure projects as part of China's wider OBOR initiative. NYT categorically fails to explain why two separate spheres of cooperation have been conflated by the newspaper.

Instead, NYT begins listing possible scenarios in which OBOR projects could be used militarily in the future. For example it claims:

A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.

This is clearly speculation on NYT's part, not drawn from "secret plans" the NYT reviewed, with the NYT not even attempting to claim otherwise.

Further into the article when Gwadar is mentioned again, it cites "military analysts," not a "confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times." These analysts, the NYT reports, merely claimed Gwadar could be used to expand China's naval footprint.

The NYT's conjecture continues, this time regarding navigation satellites:

A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft. 

The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.

The NYT intentionally adds the word "military" and includes "guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft" as examples for Beidou's use to depict this area of cooperation as sinister and militaristic. Yet even the average NYT reader must not only know satellite navigation has many significant civilian applications (food delivery, ordering taxis, road navigation, etc.) but they themselves probably use such applications on a daily basis.

US Has Little to Offer Southeast Asia

December 29, 2018 New Eastern Outlook 

Any productive relationship between two nations must include mutual benefits for both. A proposed alliance that includes no incentive for a partner nation cannot otherwise move forward save for threats and coercion.

The United States and its "pivot toward Asia" is an ongoing demonstration of this simple reality. The US seeks primacy over Asia-Pacific (now often called Indo-Pacific to reflect wider US aspirations) yet offers very little to prospective partners except costly confrontation with China and any other nation in the region or around the globe impeding American hegemony.

Lacking incentives, the US instead pursues coercion through a massive regional network of opposition groups, agitators and even militants seeking to destabilise and piecemeal replace existing political orders with those obedient and dependent on Washington.

Western-leaning online magazine, The Diplomat, in an article written by Prashanth Parameswaran titled, "Strengthening the US-Thailand Alliance for an Indo-Pacific Future," attempts to sell a US-Thai alliance, minus any actual reason for Thailand to take part in it and omitting the very real coercion the US uses to pressure Thailand to reduce partnerships with other nations actually producing tangible benefits.  

Is there really a US-Thailand Alliance Past or Present?

Parameswaran cites the Cold War as the starting point for what he calls the "US-Thailand alliance." However, it was an alliance Thailand was given little choice to join. The alternative was joining instead the list of Southeast Asian states being mercilessly bombed amid Washington's ongoing war with Vietnam.

The article fails to mention any significant, specific examples of US-Thai relations since its hosting of US troops decades ago.

The article notes Thailand's growing ties with China.

These ties include the replacement of Thailand's military inventory of aging US hardware with Chinese main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and even submarines. It also includes Thai-Chinese infrastructure projects such as high-speed railways that will connect Thailand to China via Laos and the purchase of rolling stock for existing and planned domestic mass transportation networks.

None of these necessities Thailand seeks are on offer by the US save for weapons, but at a substantially higher monetary and political price Bangkok has no motivation or reason to pay.

Throughout the entirety of Parameswaran's article, no tangible project or area of cooperation between Thailand and the US is mentioned. Instead, ambiguous and otherwise meaningless terms like "meetings," "recalibrated ties" and "collaboration" are used in place where actual, tangible ties and specific projects should be listed and discussed.

EU Event Chastises China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

November 26, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

The European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) put together a day-long seminar chastising the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Organised by Jonathan Bullock, a UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament (MEP), it gathered European critics of China's rise upon the global stage along with US and European-funded agitators active in undermining Chinese-Pakistani relations.

The CPEC is a keystone project amid Chinese-Pakistani ties and an integral part of Beijing's One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR). It includes energy and transportation projects developing and connecting Pakistan's Baluchistan province along the Arabian Sea with Chinese territory along Pakistan and China's border.

When completed, the projects will increase both Pakistan's prospects and China's influence not only in Pakistan, but across the wider region. Together with other OBOR projects, CPEC will be yet another step toward the rise of Eurasia out from under centuries of European domination.

For MEP Jonathan Bullock of UKIP, it is somewhat perplexing to see a politician supposedly concerned with British independence so eager to interfere in the sovereignty of Pakistan and China, thousands of kilometers from British or indeed, all of Europe's shores.

The EFSAS website included a summary of the CPEC-oriented event:

A high level panel consisting of Members European Parliament (MEPs), Scholars and Academicians spoke at the event and discussed the construction of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its interrelated legal, geo-strategic, economic and environmental issues, which directly impact the stability of South Asia. 

Participants claimed that China would assume unwarranted influence over Pakistan over the course of the projects' construction. Concerns related to Pakistan's Kashmir region and Baluchistan were also brought up by representatives of separatist groups, many of which are funded by the US and Europe specifically to serve as vectors for Western influence in Pakistan and agents of destabilisation not only within Pakistan, but between Pakistan and its immediate neighbours (Afghanistan, India, Iran and China).

Washington's Dirty Fight Against China's OBOR

November 21, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

Five years into China's ambitious One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative sees analysts and political circles around the globe taking stock of Beijing's progress.

This includes the Wall Street Journal in its article, "U.S. Fights China for Influence, One Project at a Time: Washington prods private sector and focuses on financing as Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road’ hits obstacles."

What the article reveals and what the article omits, speaks volumes of America's response, or lack thereof.

The article claims:

The U.S. has launched a new strategy aimed at ramping up investment in Asia to vie with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s overseas infrastructure-building spree, as Beijing grapples with setbacks to its sprawling program.

The WSJ would explain:

In October, President Trump signed into law the Build Act, which creates a new development finance agency that offers loans, loan guarantees and political-risk insurance to private companies.

And that:

The Build Act allows for $60 billion in U.S. development financing around the world under the new agency, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. The IDFC merges existing programs, doubles the current agency’s spending cap and has the authority to own equity stakes in projects, giving it more flexibility to choose and guide them.

Yet what development this scheme will fund was curiously absent from both the WSJ's article, and has been consistently absent from statements being made by Washington. While the article claims China has a "head start," the reality is that Washington has had a head start of about half a century in the realm of both primacy over Asia and in spurring development.

For a variety of reasons, Washington failed to exploit either advantage.

America's gutting of its own industrial capacity, its favoring of global loan sharking and war over actual development as well as its corporate-financier sectors seeking monopolies and profits over any tangible measure of real societal progress squandered this immense head start.

Predatory Lenders: It Takes One to Know One 

The WSJ would sum up Washington's claims regarding the China's OBOR initiative, claiming:

The U.S. sees Belt and Road as a tool used by Beijing to advance its strategic and military interests. A number of Trump administration officials and U.S. lawmakers describe the risks of China using “debt traps” to gain control of sensitive infrastructure and “predatory economics” to undermine the autonomy of debt-burdened countries.

Predatory economics, however, is how many across Asia would describe the US and European-dominated International Monetary Fund's (IMF) activities in the window following World War II and ending with the start of China's OBOR initiative.

The OBOR initiative most certainly creates the risk of debt for Beijing's partner nations and undeniably expands China's influence across Eurasia, but each project is producing tangible infrastructure that will spur development within and between partner nations, an aspect consistently absent from America's half century of "development financing" via the IMF.

Washington's Campaign of Subversion, Disruption and Sabotage 

Just as the US failed for half a century to spur genuine development and instead used the IMF as a vehicle to advance the interests of Western corporations and financial institutions while stripping nations of their resources and sovereignty, Washington's new strategy to compete with China's OBOR initiative also lacks anything resembling actual development. It is instead a campaign simply to impede China's plans for the sake of containing China's rise.