China and U.S. tensions have sharply risen over the past few months,
but many might have missed this as the CV pandemic takes over our global
consciousness.
China has used the cover of the pandemic to take over the autonomy of
Hong Kong, with a security measure causing backlash within HK. China’s
bill states that the law is to prevent and punish any acts of
secession, subversion or terrorism. Several pro-democracy lawmakers
within Hing Kong criticized
China’s move to take over national security legislation, accusing them
of implementing a law to take away their limited autonomy.
The U.S. also responded,
with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the White House economic
adviser, Kevin Hassett, stating the Trump administration would punish
China. Trump himself warned of consequences for Beijing, which at first
wasn’t immediately clear. However, it has now been reported that the
U.S. has sanctioned 33 Chinese entities including businesses and
institutions for human rights violations.
As reported by Voice Of America,
the Commerce Department stated it was sanctioning nine companies and
institutions on grounds they were “complicit in human rights violations
and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary
detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against
Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in
the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.”
China replied to the U.S. threats by daring the U.S. to do
something, elevating the already exceptionally high tensions mounting
between the two countries, in addition to previous threats about sanctioning U.S. tech companies by adding them to their “unreliable entities list.”
More specifically, China essentially told the U.S.: “We’re going to
do what we want in Hong Kong, and we’re not scared of the consequences,”
according to Bloomberg.
Then a few days later Beijing said
that the U.S.’s plan of changing China was “wishful thinking,” warning
directly and distinctly that some in America were pushing relations to a
“new Cold War.”
“China
has no intention to change the U.S., nor to replace the U.S. It is also
wishful thinking for the U.S. to change China,” China, Foreign Minister
Wang Yi said.
However, these recent events aren’t the full story, the two countries have been fighting in what is being deemed a “cold war”
by U.S.Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) for the past few months. Starting
with trade deals which fell apart, then human rights violations in Hong
Kong, tensions in the South China Sea and, finally, the most recent
blaming of China for the CV pandemic which points to being started in
Wuhan as an accidental bioweapons lab leak.
Another key conflicting issue with Hong Kong is that some of the
weapons being used by Hong Kong police including tear gas, pepper spray,
and batons, are coming from U.S. companies which produce the chemicals
and ammunition. Last year lawmakers in early August called for a ban on
weapons of war that are being used for crowd control, The Epoch Times reported.
Amnesty International identified several U.S.-based companies that are supplying the crowd control equipment to police, according to a statement by the humans rights organization.
U.S. President Donald Trump promised Chinese President Xi Jinping in a
June phone call that he would stay quiet on the protests in Hong Kong
in exchange for progress in the trade war, Business Insider reported.
Although in September, during a meeting at the UN after the trade
deal seemed to fizzle out, Trump criticized China by stating that it
must respect the city’s democracy and abide by the decades-old agreement
giving it semi-autonomy, CBS reported.
In November, Trump signed into law legislation backing pro-democracy
protesters in Hong Kong, which further threatened sanctions on Chinese
and Hong Kong officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses. The
Senate passed the bill almost unanimously except for one lawmmaker
holding out, The Guardian reported.
Then in December, one month later, China banned U.S. military ships
and aircraft from visiting Hong Kong and slapped sanctions on several
U.S. non-governmental organizations for allegedly encouraging
anti-government protests according to Beijing, Reuters reported.
The U.S. sailed twice through the Taiwan Strait in April, after firing
several live missiles off the coast of the Philippine Sea as a warning
to China in March. While, just one month prior in February the U.S. sent
a total of three aircraft — two B-52 bombers and an MC-130J Commando II
tanker — near the Taiwan Strait after Chinese naval and air forces flew
over the island twice, military publication Stars And Stripes reported.
China responded to the incident in April by scrambling ships and
aircraft to “track, monitor, verify, identify and expel” the U.S. USS Barry (DDG-52) from the Paracel Island chain in the South China Sea after it conducted its “freedom of navigation” mission, South China Morning Post reported.
“These provocative acts by the U.S. side … have seriously
violated China’s sovereignty and security interests, deliberately
increased regional security risks and could easily trigger an unexpected
incident,” reads a statement from PLA Southern Theatre Command
spokesman Li Huamin, said.
Vietnam also has long taken issue with China’s activity in the area
and launched an official protest in April after a fishing boat was
allegedly rammed by a Chinese surveillance vessel, according to Reuters.
The U.S. also got involved in defending a Malaysian drillship that
also felt threatened by China’s movements in the area during China’s
April expeditions, as detailed by Foreign Policy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. also taunted Russia by sailing through the Barents Sea, for the first time in more than 30 years.
Additionally, the U.S. walked out of an open skies treaty with Russia
recently as well, marking the third withdrawal from an international
treaty, The Guardian reported. Ironically, Russia will now be able to fly over U.S. bases in Europe but the U.S. will no longer be allowed to observe Russia.
The OST is the third arms control agreement Trump has left. He took
the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and the
Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty in 2019, as this writer reported.
If that’s not enough, and it certainly should be, the U.S. has just
discussed testing nuclear weapons last week, something that hasn’t
happened since 1992 according to San Francisco Gate.
This comes after accusations of an alleged secret low-level underground
nuclear test that happened last year according to the U.S. State
Department which didn’t provide evidence, The Guardian reported.
If true, that would mean that China violated a nuclear arms treaty,
the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which allows activities
designed to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons, but not test
explosions of such, South China Morning Post reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to renew a nuclear weapons
treaty with Russia which expired and to get China to sign a contract revealing
the exact number of nuclear warheads it has in its arsenal. According
to sources in the U.S. military, China fired more than 100 ballistic
missiles during testing and exercises in 2019, reported Japan Times.
Early warning satellites for missile defense operated by the U.S. military detected the launches by China, the sources claimed.
Defense officials have warned that the US would lose a war with China
fought in the Pacific, is unable to defend Taiwan from an invasion, and
fears the Guam military base is at risk, MSN reported.
If you don’t hear the sound of war drums by now you may need a
hearing aid. For several years this author has been doing geopolitical
updates and we seem closer than ever to a heated conflict breaking out.
In the meantime we can expect a cyberspace battle and trade sanctions
from both China and the U.S.
No one wins in war except the controllers elevated in power, and
those with shares in various military industrial complex companies like
Lockheed Martin to name an American example. Meanwhile, the poor are
sent to die as soldiers are sold a propagandized lie that the enemy is
different from them, when the people dying have more in common with each
other than those giving the orders to go die.
**By [@An0nkn0wledge](@an0nkn0wledge)**
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post.
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