RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/china/2020/07/xi-jinpings-gambit-not-so-inscrutable/

What’s really behind the sudden belligerence of the Chinese Communist Party? Why is it so intent on picking fights with countries that are neither a threat to it nor wish to be? Why would a country so dependent upon overseas markets for its cheap consumer goods seek to alienate many millions of customers and force those markets to look elsewhere for supplies? Similarly, why would it alienate nations that are its principal suppliers of essential raw materials, and force them to look for new markets? And why would it want to destroy economies in which it has a very substantial capital investment? What might explain this seemingly self-destructive change in behaviour?

One explanation is that the CCP genuinely believes America is now a ‘paper tiger’, that China is now in pole position to become Global Hegemon, and that it can finally throw its weight around. In Australia’s case, it may be that we are being made an example to test both our national resolve and that of the West more generally. Clearly, the CCP believes it now has us tightly in its grip, and that its control of much of the Left, especially in Daniel Andrews’ Victoria, as well as the allegiance owed to it by most of Australia’s academic elite (buttressed by 13 Confucius Centres), along with its many agents of influence in the corporate world, the media, and key bureaucracies, means that we’re impotent to resist its demands and will ultimately do as we are told.

However, this article suggests an alternative or additional explanation: that this bellicose shift reflects not some new found confidence in the historic destiny of the CCP as Global Hegemon, but quite the opposite – that it may in fact reflect the growing re-emergence of a long-standing intrinsic weakness in the Chinese regime, one that’s been there from the outset and that might soon become apparent.

The simple fact: China is ruled as a personal dictatorship by President Xi Jinping, supported by his inner circle, relying on the de facto control of the country enjoyed by the CCP, exploiting the absence of an effective constitution. Combined with the fluidity of power and authority in the highest levels of governance, the endless manoeuvrings of various elites and claimants to power, the demands of the 90 million-strong CCP membership, and the approaching succession crisis (Xi is 67), this ramshackle arrangement ensures that endemic power struggles within the CCP might easily and quickly engulf the regime. Indeed, this may already be happening. Historically, such events led to the greatest disaster in modern Chinese history.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16224/iran-nuclear-rewards

On June 30, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged the United Nations Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran. The Security Council was reluctant to do so. The UN Security Council’s unwillingness seems yet another indication of why the United States, having pulled out of the Human Rights Council and threatening to pull out of the World Health Organization in 2021, should finally go all the way and pull out of the whole “Club of Thugs” that the United Nations has become… At the very least, as has been suggested, “We pay for what we want. We insist [on] what we get, what we pay for. We abolish the system of mandatory contribution….”

The United Nations seems to have turned into a place that, instead of preventing war, preserves war.

“Iran is already violating the arms embargo, even before its expiration date. Imagine if Iranian activity were sanctioned, authorized by this group, if the restrictions are lifted. Iran will be free to become a rogue weapons dealer, supplying arms to fuel conflicts from Venezuela, to Syria, to the far reaches of Afghanistan.” — Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, UN Security Council, June 30, 2020.

In short, thanks to the previous administration, the Iranian regime, the top state sponsor of terrorism, is about to be legally free to buy and sell, and import and export advanced weapons across the world.

While Iran’s ruling mullahs have been celebrating their rewards from the nuclear deal — which, by the way, Iran never signed — according to its terms, the arms embargo against the Islamic Republic is scheduled to be lifted on October 18, 2020.

On June 30, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged the United Nations Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran. The Security Council, however — particularly China — was reluctant to do so. The UN Security Council’s unwillingness seems yet another indication of why the United States, having pulled out of the Human Rights Council and threatening to pull out of the World Health Organization in 2021, should finally go all the way and pull out of the whole “Club of Thugs” that the United Nations has become. At the very least, as has been suggested, “We pay for what we want. We insist [on] what we get, what we pay for. We abolish the system of mandatory contribution….”

Rather than being the cure for world peace, the UN is now a major obstacle to world peace. The Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, once suggested at a meeting attended by Gatestone that if delegates to the UN are not allowed to vote in their own countries, they also should not be allowed to vote at the UN. The United Nations appears to have turned into a place that, instead of preventing war, preserves war.

The primary objective of any nuclear talks with Tehran should have been to halt Iran’s nuclear program permanently, thereby eliminating the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the region and removing the strategic threat that a nuclear armed Iran would pose to the world.