Michael Roberts
In a recent email message, a good friend of mine residing in Sri Lanka, Richard Simon, contended that he was “particularly concerned to open Facebook this morning and find two posts sharing Thuppahi articles.” One of these references was to the item “Is Sri Lanka Creating a Dungeon for Itself?”
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Fair Dinkum, with this sub-title “UN resolutions reveal the West is opposed to international democracy, while it tries to block attempts directed against racism and Xenophobia”
The UN Human Rights Council has just concluded its 51st session, adopting 41 resolutions and decisions. Examining the way countries vote on these resolutions reveals much about the hypocrisy of Western values, and that all their talk of democracy, equity, and valuing human rights is just meaningless rhetoric – a fact that can be observed in two important resolutions just passed by the UNHRC.
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Circa 7th October 2022, I inserted Natasha Gooneratne’s Memo in Thuppahi on Facebook: “An Exposure: Human Rights as a Tool of US Intervention”. …. ………………………………..So, readers should focus initially on this MEMO = https://thuppahis.com/2022/10/04/an-exposure-human-rights-as-a-tool-of-us-intervention-
THAT Item drew the following two comments in Facebook which I then circulated to Natasha and a select few others by EMAIL.
Comment in FACEBOOK by Arun Devan, October 2022: “If you don’t like USA, then don’t go with the begging bowl to US and West. Sri Lanka can choose to stave or be slave. Little choices – thanks to the brutal war and useless spending on military now.”
Comment in FACEBOOK by Richard Simon, October 2022:“Why does the US want to intervene in Sri Lanka? Serious question.”
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Jeffrey Sachs, in Pearls and Irritations 24 August 2022 where the title reads thus “The west’s false narrative about Russia and China”
The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.
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Fair Dinkum, … an original set of thoughts … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
It’s good to see Australia providing aid to SL though its peanuts compared to the aid provided by India and China. This article is a good example of an Anglo-Saxon reading of an Asian situation.
Some flawed claims by the Anglo-Saxons at The Age in this article are,
– The claim China was “flexing its muscles” by “insisting on docking a giant scientific research ship despite concerns raised by India”. There is no mention that India had earlier flexed its muscles by insisting Sri Lanka deny entry to the vessel. And no analysis as to whether India had genuine security concerns or were simply politically posturing. There was also no mention of India’s interference into Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
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Ben Packham in The Australian, 16 August 2022.………… with highlighting imposed here by The Editor, Thuppahi
333 porcelain artefacts removed from a shipwreck will be returned to the Indonesian government after they were advertised online by a private seller in Perth.
The Tek Sing was packed with passengers and precious cargo when it hit a reef off the coast of Sumatra in 1822, sinking with an estimated 1500 people aboard.
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Fair Dinkum, responding here in an original essay to China’s White Paper on Taiwan ++ … with underlining emphasis in blue added by The Editor, Thuppahi
On 10 August 2022, China released a white paper on Taiwan reunification. This paper sets out the history of Taiwan as an integral part of China, but it also details significant US subversive activities in Taiwan aimed at encouraging successionist movements and gives a justification for a military response to US meddling by China under specific conditions. The paper stipulates that foreign meddling into Taiwan means Beijing must retain use of force as an option. According to the white paper, Beijing prefers a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but foreign powers meddling in Chinese domestic affairs and encouraging secessionism on the self-ruled island may make this impossible.
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Michael Roberts
Writing as a non-specialist after listening to the Chinese Ambassador’s speech at the Australian Press Club today,[1] I venture on what may seem to be outrageous geo-political hypotheticals by looking at Tasmania’s relationship with the continent of Australia. That is, I am deploying this outrageous issue as a thought-provoker.
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ABC Net Item, 10 August 2022, with this title “Chinese diplomat Wang Xining’s National Press Club address blames Canberra for fractured relations with Beijing”
Wang Xining is not a fire-breathing ideologue. In fact, China’s Deputy Head of Mission has a reputation in Canberra as a bit of a charmer — smooth, cerebral and cultured.
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Hugh White, whose title in Quarterly Essay is “Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America”
Competing with China for primacy in East Asia is by far the most serious strategic commitment America has undertaken since the Cold War. And yet Washington has launched into it with no clear idea of what would count as winning, how it could be won, how much it will cost and why winning really matters. This would seem almost unbelievably foolish and irresponsible if it did not sound so familiar. This is what happened when Washington launched America into Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, and indeed into Vietnam in the 1960s.
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