For months the Western propaganda machine told us Russia had miscalculated, faced military humiliation, would suffer a huge economic crisis, and Putin would fall. Then the non-stop triumphalism began to wane, news became scarce. From wall to wall coverage, the BBC fell silent 1/7
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Martin Jacques
@martjacques
Author, 'When China Rules the World', columnist, broadcaster, speaker. Chair of
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With regard to Covid deaths, China has hugely outperformed the West. China's total is 5,226 deaths, the US 1.05 million. China prioritised life, the West the economy. It was a huge embarrassment for the West. The West has never had the humility to acknowledge China's success.1/6
It looks as if the coup in Pakistan was actively encouraged by the US worried about Imran Khan's growing links with China via Belt&Road. Expect more US-sponsored regime change in countries leaning towards China. Unlike US, China does not believe in such political interference
Huge demos in Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi against the coup in Pakistan. Massive support for Imran Khan and anger against the corrupt political mafias and generals that unseated him with US support. Khan is a radical new voice of the people pursuing an independent foreign policy.
Sinophobia seriously distorts the West's coverage of COP26. China has half the emissions per capita of the US. The US accounts for 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions ever. China has 50% of the world's EVs, provides 80% of the world's solar panels and has 400,000 electric buses.
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In fact, the West has miscalculated on an epic scale with the most profound and far-reaching consequences. How could the West have got it so wrong? Because they think the world is still somehow dominated by the West as it was for so long. That is history not the present. 2/7
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A prisoner of ways of thinking that belong to a previous era of Western dominance, the West inhabits a world that no longer exists. The West has its front to the past and its back to the future. It is out of time. And every miscalculation it makes only accelerates its decline.7/7
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Russia will not be defeated. But Ukraine will be. The West misled it. At the very least it will be dismembered. The Western defeat in Ukraine will join Iraq, Afghanistan and the 2008 financial crisis as famous landmarks in Western decline. 5/7
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This has been an extraordinary demonstration of how out of touch the US and Europe now are with the rest of the world (ie, the great majority of countries). Most do not share the Western view of the war. India has refused to do the West's bidding. ASEAN and China likewise. 3/7
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Europe's economy will shrink. Living standards will fall sharply. Europe will be riven with divisions. Governments will fall. The continent faces very dark times. The crisis will hasten Europe's growing marginality. It will pay a huge price for its Atlanticist turn 6/7
Have you noticed that whenever China takes economic action against a country, the West calls it economic coercion; and whenever the West does it - and the West does it on a huge scale - it is called economic sanctions? Economic warfare of this kind has become a major US weapon.
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The rise of the developing world over the last 40 years has transformed the world. It is independent-minded and often leans towards China. The voice of the West matters less and less. And yet the West seems incapable - both right and left - of recognising this. 4/7
What is Scott Morrison's outrage really about? The photo? I think not. What really offends him is that he doesn't think the Chinese have a right to comment on the murderous behaviour of Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
The idea G7 could create a serious alternative to Belt and Road is pure fantasy:
1 The West is mired in debt
2 They haven't got a clue how to do it
3 They don't believe in offering this kind of help to developing countries
4 They have bad-mouthed Belt&Road ever since 2013
A year ago the West blamed China for Covid in a truly shameful onslaught. In fact China performed brilliantly. The worst performers: Trump, Bolsonaro, Johnson and Modi. In a huge test of governance China passed with flying colours, the US and its allies screwed up on a mega scale
The new military pact signed by the US, UK and Australia is aimed at China. Far from improving relations it will worsen them. It is straight from the Cold War playbook. But far from being a sign of strength it is a demonstration of the West's weakness in East Asia. Thread ↓↓
If Putin is a war criminal what does that make George W Bush? Or Tony Blair even? They were responsible for the deaths of hugely more people. Around 400,000.
Farewell, G7: You once dominated the world, now you are a shrinking faction of it. You cannot bear your diminished status. So you blame China. You hold it responsible for your own failure. Treat China with respect. Regard it as your equal. Honour the achievement of 1.4 bn people.
Biden is in Asia to drum up support for US's answer to China's Belt and Road. Prediction: it will be a miserable failure. China enjoys huge economic support in East Asia because it started in the early 90s and its market is huge. The US doesn't even offer market access. 1/3
What a triumph! The West so wished that the Winter Olympics was going to be a flop. But the big flop was Biden's diplomatic boycott: barely any countries supported it - and no one talked about it. China faced two huge challenges: Covid and US hostility. China conquered both. 1/4
Genocide, thanks to the US, is rapidly losing its meaning. Biden accuses Russia of genocide. If Russia is guilty, the US was certainly guilty in Iraq. But neither are genocide. Genocide means the extermination of a people. Even more absurd: Pompeo's claim of genocide in Xinjiang
* China's vaccine count is over 1.9bn. Over 70% of the population have had two doses
*China has supplied the world with 45% of that total. It has provided 1 dose to the world for every 2 doses given in China
* By Aug 4, China had shipped 770m doses to the world, 7x that of US
Covid is over? The lie perpetrated by UK govt. 646 deaths yesterday in UK, 1636 in last 3 days. 1.7 million with Long Covid. Why is the media silent? It's guilty of collusion. Far more attention given to Shanghai where hardly any have died. It's called the politics of distraction
The US is in disarray. Biden still has no economic plan for Asia. Its post-Soviet order in Europe is in tatters. It launched its assault on China without a strategy. Its economy is too weak for it to be the global hegemon. China has replaced it as the key driver of global growth.
Having spent more than a month China-bashing, ridiculing the Chinese govt on covid19, western pundits now forced to eat humble pie. China’s efforts are an example to us all. The West is hopelessly ill-prepared. We wasted all that time China gave us
Hong Kong under British rule circa 1900. Human rights? What human rights. The UK likes to forget about the brutality and humiliation of their colonial rule
1/6 We are in a new Cold War. The US sees China as its enemy. Why the change? Before the 2008 financial crisis it believed China's rise was unsustainable. They were wrong; instead the 2008 crisis undermined the US. So it now sees China's rise as a threat to its global hegemony.
New UN report: By end of 2022 deaths in the Yemen war will reach 377,000. Earlier UN report: US, UK & France may be complicit in committing war crimes in Yemen by selling weapons and providing support to Saudi-led coalition which is deliberately starving civilians.
#Huawei 1/5 The UK has taken leave of its senses. This period will become famous in our history as an exercise in national suicide. We left the EU, our biggest trading partner. We now decide that China, the largest economy in the world, is our greatest enemy.
The term 'Indo-Pacific' is a US invention. It has no geographic, political or cultural meaning. The aim is simple: to exclude and contain China. It is a Cold War Mark 2 strategy designed to counter China's rise. It will fail miserably. There is no future without China.
History turns full circle. In 1793 Chinese Emperor Qianlong told the British King: 'we don't have the slightest need of your country's manufactures.' So marked the start of China's 150 year decline. In 2020 UK tells China that it has no need of China's latest technology.
1/8 Britain is in almost complete lockdown. Nine months since the first. Europe is closing its borders to the British. Across Europe the pandemic is worsening. The US has over 300,000 dead. Far from getting better, the situation in the West is getting worse. The West has failed.
The international order will only survive if it adapts to the rise of China and acknowledges its huge importance in the world. If it doesn't, it will become increasingly irrelevant. This is not a threat. It is plain obvious. China will be twice the size of the US in the 2030s
1. My son, Ravi, was meant to be studying at Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar. Instead, he has been very ill in London for the last 10 months with #LongCovid. 1/4
1/8 The year started with a major Western assault on China over its handling of Covid-19. China was on the defensive. 2020 is ending with China riding high and the West in a huge mess. The most obvious reason is that China handled Covid brilliantly and the West failed miserably.
The Pelosi visit must be seen in the context of the dramatic failure of US foreign policy since 9/11: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and increasingly Ukraine. Why? As a superpower in decline, it no longer controls or shapes the world as it used to. It has lost its compass.1/5
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This is wrong. Covid is not the flu. It has serious long-term effects. It damages organs, the heart, leaves clots on the lungs - not occasionally but frequently. There has been a conspiracy of silence in the West about this. In the UK 2 million people suffer from Long Covid. 3/6
Chinese Ambassador to US Qin Gang interviewed on CBS Face the Nation by anchor Margaret Brennan this morning. Constantly interrupted. When are Americans going to learn to treat the Chinese with respect? Have spent too much time bossing the world around. Despicable arrogance.
The US death toll from Covid-19 has now exceeded 900,000. That is greater than the number of British who died in the First World War. For a country that claims to believe in human rights, it shows a damning disregard for the most important human right of all, the right to live.
The US has prioritised Asia in its struggle with China. It will fail. What counts in Asia is not military but economic clout. The US thinks primarily in military terms. US economic influence continues to wane and China's to rise. China is Asian in a way the US never can be.
Do you remember back in January-April 2020 when the West was denouncing China for its failure to act against Covid? I can’t think of a more humiliating turnaround in recent history. Time to eat humble pie but the West is too arrogant to do that. But one day it will.
History lurks around corner. Fortunately China is too strong now to suffer this kind of humiliation.
Message to G7: Governance is not about nice-sounding words and phrases. It is about delivery. The Western nations are failing to deliver for their people. China is delivering. That is why the West is in deep trouble.
1/4 Why is the Western media silent on the US military build-up in the South China Sea? The danger of a military clash is growing apace. The US argument about freedom of navigation is a fig leaf to justify a growing US military presence over 5500 miles from its territory.
There is a vast military disparity between the US and China, which is a minnow in comparison. The Pentagon is intent on spending hugely greater sums. The China threat? Hardly. The US is the real threat. Fareed Zakaria, one of America’s top commentators, sets the record straight.
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The West is still playing the same game, denigrating China's zero tolerance policy, decrying China's lockdowns. The crucial argument now is no longer about the number of deaths but the number of infections. The West believes that infections don't matter.2/6
The West just can't get it right. Humbled by its dismal performance on Covid, it is now arguing China's zero-tolerance policy is unsustainable. Then whoops! Omicron arrives. Up go the restrictions. Panic stations. And China is sitting pretty. When will they learn - from China.
1/6 The West faces a perfect storm. 1. It has failed on the pandemic; a systemic failure of liberal democracy; 2. Its economies are mired in deep recession, while China's races ahead; 3. And now, as we can see, the US is facing its worst political crisis since the Civil War.
India's pandemic crisis is a tragedy. Overwhelming responsibility lies with Modi. Complacent, incompetent, arrogant. Country totally unprepared. Modi's record worse than Trump and Bolsonaro. Long-term consequences huge. India's hopes of becoming the next China are zero.
Three events tell us US efforts to contain China are a pipe dream. The latest is the crumbling of the US sponsored Summit of Americas. It promises to be a flop. Mexico and others have pulled out. In contrast China has made big inroads in Latin America, the US's backyard. 1/3
1/5 #Hongkong Does anyone believe that China had any option other than to introduce national security legislation? Would any Western country tolerate months of violence and destruction in one of its major cities? The fact is that the West would have done the same.
Shameful of Wimbledon to ban Russian players. The assumption: if you are Russian you are guilty of invading Ukraine. They are tennis players not political actors. In the cold war the BBC Proms refused to play Shostakovitch's wonderful music. Same mentality: xenophobic and racist.
When Covid-19 was confined to China, v little said abt accuracy of China's statistics; it was all abt how China had screwed up. Attack on Cn's stats came when number of deaths in Cn dwarfed by number in Europe/US. It's an attempt to deflect attention from how West screwed up.
The sub-text of Blinken's speech on China is the US's desperate determination to remain the global hegemon. The problem is that China's extraordinary rise is changing the world profoundly. That is not a conspiracy but an inevitable result of China's economic transformation.
It will take a long time to digest the longer-term meaning of the Pelosi debacle and China's response. This was a profoundly important event. Never before has China demonstrated such military will and capacity. Nothing can be the same again. 1/7
The last nine impoverished counties, all in southwest China's Guizhou Province, have just eliminated absolute poverty. China's target was to eliminate all absolute poverty by the end of 2020. It has succeeded. A marvellous achievement. China has now taken over 800m out of poverty
Kissinger, the most far-sighted Western statesman, has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the ceding of territory to Russia. The West must find a way of living with Russia. It failed to do this after the Cold War, now it must. The great casualty of this war will be Europe.
Australia is in big trouble. Half its exports go to China. Australia will be in dire economic straits without them. For 3 years, Australia has constantly attacked China, incl for Covid. China is now cutting its imports. Price for being Trump's lapdog.
The US wants to bar Russia from next G20 meeting. This is a very bad idea and a sad commentary on the fitness of the US to be the global hegemon. It is a bit like banning your enemies from the world. Global governance should be based on inclusivity not who you like or don't like.
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Covid cases are running at 30,786 a day in UK;67, 366 in the US; 976 in China. Western societies will pay a severe price in terms of the long-term health of their people. Is China wrong about its zero Covid policy? This suggests China may well be right. 5/6
G7: The US and the UK are the two most reactionary Western powers. The US is desperate to remain the global hegemon; the UK dreams it still is. They look to the past. Germany is the most progressive. Forced to reinvent itself, it lives in the present: sensible, pragmatic, modest.
Time for Western nations to hang their heads in shame. Savagely criticised by the WHO's Independent Panel on the Pandemic for failing to prepare for Covid in Feb/March 2020. Instead, they were furiously denouncing China - who got it right! Will the West now apologise to China?
Biden: 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.' So there we have the unreconstructed US view of the world. Putin today. Xi tomorrow? America as God. Except US no longer has that kind of power. It is in rapid decline. The international order needs new leadership.
Can you imagine reverse happening off the US coast. So this is ‘Chinese aggression’ is it? Protecting their own coastline. The US needs to learn its ubiquitous military presence in South China Sea and airspace off China’s coast is no longer acceptable conduct in a post-US world
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Should we be surprised? The graph below on life expectancy shows that China has had a remarkable record on health for many decades. [US=blue; China=red] 6/6
Most Europeans (58%) believe ordinary voters have almost “no impact” on politics. And majority believe their country’s political system is “broken”. (Latest ECFR poll)
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The price of a cavalier attitude to the number of Covid cases is serious long-term damage to the health of many and a major burden for the health service. It is also clear that very large numbers of people have had to withdraw from the labour force because of Long Covid. 4/6
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7. The West is fighting a losing battle. China is by far the most important power in East Asia and will be even more so in the future. The West can't stop it. Sooner or later, the West will have to accept that. Instead of building walls, the West needs to build bridges with China
Does have any sense of humility? It spent January onwards endlessly attacking China on Covid. Six months on, results speak louder than words. Deaths per million; US, 450; UK, 680; China, 3. Warts and all, China, brilliant, US/UK, disastrous.
Yesterday 8 Shenzhen officials were dismissed for dereliction of duty in fight against Covid. Baroness Dido Harding, head of UK Test and Trace, wasted £22bn of public money and never got the sack. Chinese governance demands competence and responsibility: UK rewards incompetence.
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The failure of Western countries to deal with the pandemic must be understood not only in terms of deaths, but also in terms of Long Covid. There are currently at least 200,000 people in the UK who are as sick as my son. With Omicron, this number will rise significantly. 4/4
Act of sheer hypocrisy: US/Australia declare diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics because of China's human rights. US record: genocide of native Americans, slavery, oppression of African-Americans. Australia: genocide of Aborginal population, White Australia policy etc
Will China follow the UK, USSR and US and invade Afghanistan? Never. China isn't so stupid. It hasn't done anything like that since the mid-18th century. China's approach: 1 Economic aid to rebuild the country; 2 Seek Taliban support for regional stability and against terrorism.
China has so far supplied over 2.1 billion Covid-19 vaccines to 120 countries. One out of every two doses of the vaccine used globally is made in China. It now jointly produces its vaccines with 20 countries, with an annual production capacity of one billion doses.
Kissinger's wise words in 2014:
'Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.'
Huawei strikes back. On Wed night it launched its new operating system HarmonyOS 2.0. It replaces Android which had been banned by Trump. Given the market-leading products that Huawei is famous for, not least 5G, we can expect a formidable new competitor for Android and iOS.
Wuhan - New Year's Eve London - New Year's Eve
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ALT
America's finest hour in its relationship with China. Nixon to Zhou Enlai in 1972: 'We know you believe deeply in your principles, and we believe deeply in our principles. We do not ask you to compromise your principles, just as you would not ask us to compromise ours.'
Everytime US tries to focus on China as its main enemy, it gets distracted. Such is the fate of a declining hegemon with global interests. It can't let go. But it will have to. Look at Afghanistan. The Middle East is slipping. But not yet Ukraine. China doesn't have this problem
India, Pakistan, China (combined pop - 3bn) abstained on Ukraine. Pakistan congratulated India on its stand. Chinese FM Wang Yi met Indian FM in Delhi on Friday. What might this mean for India & the Quad? Semi-detached? Without India Quad is just the US and 2
of its vassal states
China is constantly under-estimated in the West. The two latest initiatives - taming tech and common prosperity - are of huge significance, for China and also for the West. They have received little coverage. Yet they are two of the most important reforms of the Xi era.
1/7 We will remember 2020 as the moment of the Great Transition. The year when China replaced the US as the world's leading power. 2008 accelerated US decline and China's rise. Ever since the gap has remorselessly closed. But 2020 will prove far more significant.
The G7 meets. Don't hold your breath. It's a shadow of its former self. In the 70s it ran the global economy. Now it lives in China's shadow, be it Belt&Road or vaccines. China has exported over 300m doses to the developing countries, the US and UK zero.
Jeffrey Sachs lets the BBC have it with both barrels. Why only question China's human rights, what about the US's miserable record? Gives the long shameful list. endlessly repeats the question. Utterly out of her depth. Brilliant exposure of BBC prejudice.
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The invasion of Ukraine signals the end of the post Cold War order. It began in 1991 and ended in 2022. There were two main reasons:
1. Russia’s inability to come to terms with its humiliation. 2. The West’s failure to find a solution to this.
Western media trivialised Cop26 and treated it like a game show. What's the latest bid? The Chinese refused to play this game. Western leaders are wedded to words not action. The Chinese believe in action not words: look at their stunning record on economic growth and Covid.
1/8 #Hongkong Chinese govt never wanted to introduce national security legislation. It should have been done by the HK govt after the handover. It was part of the Basic Law. The HK govt failed so Beijing stepped in. Every country needs national security laws - the riots proved it
Vince Cable, former UK Business Secretary, says the UK govt decision to ban Huawei from 5G "had nothing to do with national security" but "because the Americans told us we should do it." If Britain had gone ahead, we would now be at the technological forefront. "And we’re not,”
New Zealand has pulled out of Five Eyes on matters to do with China. NZ does not want to be tied to whatever the US, UK, Canada and Australia want to say or do on China. It will pursue its own relationship with China. Serious blow to those who want to use Five Eyes against China.
The G7 - Divided and in Decline:
1. US has 16% of global GDP; EU 15%
2. G7 no longer global: a Western rump
3. US priority: prevent China usurping it. EU priority: cooperate with China for future growth
4. US sees G7 as anti-China coalition; EU needs partnership with China
The US-led boycott of the Winter Olympics has been a huge flop: only 14 nations, including just 4 members of the EU. The great difference between the Summer Olympics in 2008 and the Winter Olympics in 2022 is the rise of China and the decline of the US.
The West's mistake after the Soviet collapse was imposing a Versailles-lite solution. It had lost 24% of its territory, 48% of its people, 41% of its GDP. Russia was humiliated. By taking Nato up to its borders, it was treated as a defeated power. It is not a sustainable solution
The US-China summit proved highly revealing. Before the world's media, Yang and Wang, the top Chinese foreign policy officials, in a huge display of self-confidence, made a powerful series of criticisms of the US. It was an historic moment. I explain why.
The Chinese Communist Party is the most remarkable and influential political party of modern times, the architect of China’s transformation. It has shown an extraordinary ability to change with the times and engage in a process of constant reinvention.
1 The West is in deep trouble over Covid. It was brutally exposed in 2020 as totally ill-prepared and unwilling to take the kind of measures required. Nearly two years on, in the face of Omicron, the West is once more found hugely wanting.
If Biden really means the US would use military force to defend Taiwan then we are in new territory. Even if he misspoke, it is further sign that the US is eroding its long-standing commitment to strategic ambiguity, a cornerstone of the US-China relationship for over 50 years.
1/3 East Asia's handling of the pandemic has been disgracefully ignored in the West. It shows how provincial, ignorant and narrow-minded the West has become. The biggest single reason for their success is Confucianism. But this is never mentioned.
