Fair Dinkum, responding to the Global Times item in Thuppahi entitled “China on the World Stage: A Judicious Assessment,”….. https://thuppahis.com/2021/12/30/china-on-the-world-stage-a-judicuous-assessment/
We need to move to a new narrative about China, but also a new structure for the world, and not allow Western defence or military establishments to play language games over China, just because the rise of China doesn’t suit them. To take one example, in an article published in the US “Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy” journal this year titled “Cold war Redux: The West Loses Africa’s Horn” – just thinking about the title says much about colonialism. From the 18th to the 20th centuries, African nations were colonialised and carved up by the Britain, France, Portugal, Germany and Belgium for their own selfish gains. They did the same in Asia, the Middle East and South America. They were all Western powers.
After WW2, the peoples of Africa gradually gained their independence. In other words, they were free nations – free to choose their own destiny, so it is no longer a question of whether the “West loses Africa”. African peoples should be free to choose their own destiny without being guided, controlled, or manipulated by the US, France, Germany, Britain, Portugal or any other nation. Yet the West still feels Africa should belong to them strategically. That is what is meant by a “cold war mentality” in which the world is viewed as a playground for Western control.
We have a world democratic authority. It is called the United Nations. But for many years, the US, Israel and some EU countries have shown they don’t accept it as a forum for resolving world issues. They ignore the UN, and seek to unilaterally impose their own agendas, claiming they represent “The Greater Good”, or that global organisations such as the UN or WHO need “reforming”. By “reforming”, the US mean these organisations should come under their control, with all key appointments of Westerners sympathetic to US global interests.
What we see over and over again is that Colonialism is so deeply entrenched in Western countries, they still retain the same 18th century mindset to this day and can’t get rid of it. We need a new structure for the world – one in which Western countries learn to accept the West is no longer living in the 19th century; that the world can no longer be treated as a stage for Western governments to play their games, seeking to advance and control countries around the world.
The US needs to be reigned in. It is a nation out of control. Since WW2, their behaviour has been appalling. To mention a few instances:
- The US backed a military coup d’etat against democratically elected President Salvador Allendein Chile in 1973, because they thought they were losing control of South American countries. They didn’t care about democracy, and after Allende killed himself in the Presidential Palace rather than be taken alive, we saw a right-wing dictator generate havoc in Chile for decades. We need a memorial to these victims and a database cataloguing those who were killed, so the US crimes can face their crimes.
- In 1978, the Italian Secret Service, right wing politicians and the CIA manipulated the Red Brigades to assassinate the President of the leading Italian Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro, who had been Prime Minister of Italy (from 1963 to 1968 and 1974 to 1976), because the US didn’t agree with his policy of greater democratic power sharing in Italy.
- The US were behind the overthrow of democratically elected governments in many countries, including toppling the Najibullah government in Afghanistan in 1996; and a leftist government in Iran in the 1950s. The US and were involved in the removal of President Suharto from power in Indonesia in 1965, because, like Aldo, he sought to achieve greater democratic power sharing in Indonesia. The CIA provided lists of names to the Indonesian military which led to the killing of millions of people simply because of their political views, or because they were “perceived” to be leftists – though many were just peasants.
- We still don’t know the true story behind the assassination of Kennedy who had many enemies and rogue officials inside the CIA who desperately wanted him removed. CIA officials also hated Bobby Kennedy.
- The French government committed terrible war crimes in Cameroon with over 300,000 people being deported, tortured and executed in a 25-year campaign to “save the country of communism” as Félix Moumié left-wing movement sought independence for Cameroon. In 1960, Felix Moumie, an anti-colonialist, was assassinated by poison in Geneva.
- The CIA were also behind the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba – the democratically elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
We could go on like this for 100,000 pages describing similar cases. The list of US-Western crimes against the nations of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America is too long to go into a comment, but it reads like the history of the modern world, and still goes on to this day.
In 2005, in the same “Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy” journal mentioned above, the editor Gregory Copley published an essay titled “One China?” Once again, the White Knight of America rides into Asia in an attempt to police and control things they have no right to control. What is a US defence journal doing making judgements about cultural and political matters relating to China and Taiwan? It is the same colonial mentality of the 18th century living on today.
We cannot take at face anything a defence or strategic policy institute claims. They only think about one thing: their own Western interests.
Jean-Peirre Page
That is why counternarratives on China by Maxime Vivas, Jean-Pierre Page, and many other fine intellectuals are critically important in today’s world which is totally saturated in Western propaganda, with the same objectives as the cases listed above. Nothing has changed.
**** ****