"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry." – Ernest Hemingway
CHINESE CAMP, CA. – I recently learned that my friend and mentor, the late Harry Wu – perhaps the postmodern world's greatest human rights dissident – had passed away. This heartbreaking news actually transpired back in April 2016, while Mr. Wu was on vacation in the Central American nation of Honduras.
The New York Times published a story about it here. Harry's incredible legacy is discussed here.
Mr. Wu and I found out we had much in common during the years we knew each other – baseball, parents devoted to Roman Catholicism, interest in human rights and a life that included brutal manual labor under tremendous duress. My late father, Anthony Sr., was drafted to fight in the Korean War. I myself spent five years trying (and failing) to learn Korean, the North Korean dialect and, by default, some Mandarin characters.
There were times when Harry actually called my home, both on Long Island and in St. Louis, Missouri. This was a great honor I still cherish. We both were invited to lecture at the University of California at Berkeley. I was actually invited twice, and then a third time while I was working in Saudi Arabia. The stories on which we collaborated for WND can be found here and here. Mr. Wu, along with the late Col. David Hackworth, former leader of the 101st Airborne Division's Tiger Force, encouraged me to research and then publish a detailed white paper on how a popular, partisan rebellion could be fought and won inside of North Korea. That white paper can be found here and here and here.
World leaders bended their ears for the words sent forth by Harry Wu. Of course, Harry is best remembered for his "Laogai Foundation." He wrote me on the day it was announced this word would be added to the world's leading dictionary. Merriam-Webster succinctly explains it here. "Laogai" refers to China's slave labor apparatus, which finds its apex inside Little Brother North Korea. (With appropriate salutatory kudos to the Killing Fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia.) The Atlantic explains the nightmare of this system as enforced by some of the world's lowest oxygen-stealing parasites here.
Harry Wu exposed China's slave labor system on "60 Minutes." Watch it here. Here's another clip. And here's Harry Wu on Larry King. Funny man Jay Leno interviewed Harry Wu on "The Tonight Show." Watch it here. What's astonishing is that Harry never mentioned to me that he'd appeared on any of these popular shows. He was that humble.
As for Harry Wu's life's story, according to the New York Times:
"Mr. Wu, the son of a wealthy Roman Catholic family from Shanghai, was arrested in 1960 when he was 23 and just short of graduating from college. He was accused of criticizing the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and of being insufficiently supportive of Mao Zedong's regime. He later wrote that he had not initially been told why he was imprisoned, but that eventually a guard 'opened my file and said, 'You are a counterrevolutionary rightist and you are sentenced to life.'"
The article continues:
"Shuttling among farms, mines and prison camps, he said, he was beaten – his back and arms were broken in fights with his fellow prisoners – and placed in a coffin-like concrete case. He lost 75 pounds before he was released in 1979 when he was 42, three years after Mao's death. Mr. Wu moved to the United States in 1985, arriving with $40 to take an unpaid post as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and supporting himself by working nights at a doughnut shop.
"He became an American citizen in 1994 and a tireless critic of the 'reform through labor' system … which he refused to let the world disregard, even as Washington and other capitals sought commercial and political ties with China."
For those who have seen "Death by China," there might exist a healthy fear of that nation. Napoleon said, "Let China sleep, for when she awakes, let the nations tremble." China is now re-emerging to engage Africa, setting up a base in Djibouti and organizing a "String of Pearls" (read "bases") from China through Southeast Asia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and (as noted) Africa.
For many, our changing world is a scary place as people, information, ideas and technology flow unregulated to the four corners of the Earth. We might soon see 5 billion people on Facebook at the same time. Entire civilizations are collapsing as refugees overwhelm the developed world. Cities like Lagos, Nigeria, will grow almost exponentially. How can we feed, house, clothe, educate and provide water and a moral environment for the emerging billions?
Harry Wu had no fear of such things. He believed in the people of China and said they were China's greatest resource. Mao spoke of the Chinese people moving mountains in a way that rivals the Gospel account. If the future belongs to China, then what might that future look like?
Moon over China
Harry Wu encouraged me to journey to Namibia (formerly Southwest Africa) to investigate China's far off space tracking station set up for its maverick space program. (This includes mining helium-3 on the moon, a hypersonic glider capable of delivering nuclear weapons to any target on Earth, China's troubled space station and planned 2020 A.D. mission to Mars.)
In terms of helium-3, solar winds from our sun send this relatively clean fuel source toward the Earth – yet our atmosphere repels it. Since the moon has no atmosphere, there are at least five million tons of H-3 ready to be mined. Read about it here. An erudite analysis of helium-3 can be found here. "Explaining the Future" of helium-3 and what it means for humanity is another must-read. For fans of "cold fusion," this is about as close as you're likely to get. You can read about it here.
China is leading what some observers have dubbed the "New Moon Race." As one article states: "China is very close to a breakthrough in energy production from helium-3 and the goals of its space program inspired by the visionary Professor Ouyang Ziyuan are closely, if not directly, related to securing helium-3 as a geostrategic national priority. Several other stakeholders are also working on duel use applications of helium-3 and other fusion fuels. Helium-3 is the most valuable resource on the moon.
"The other known lunar resources include titanium, nickel, the platinum group of metals, aluminum, silicon, uranium, thorium, phosphorous, diamonds, water, and rare earth elements. All of these have been mapped and analyzed by China, India, Japan, and the U.S. over recent years. The energy potential from helium-3 is significant enough for all major spacefaring nations to be racing to secure it from the lunar surface, no doubt leading to a new rush to claim territory and strip mine sections of the moon in the style of the 'Scramble for Africa.'"
One other point of note is that: "One ton of helium-3 has the potential to produce 1.5 times more destructive power than the Tsar Bomba. In other words, the potential to make a nuclear weapon with a 75 megaton yield."
Fleshing this out, we have learned: "Lacking an atmosphere, the moon has been bombarded for billions of years by solar winds carrying helium-3. As a result, the dust of the lunar surface is saturated with the gas. It has been calculated that there are about 1,100,000 metric tons of helium-3 on the lunar surface down to a depth of a few meters, and that about 40 tons of helium-3 – enough to fill the cargo bays of two space shuttles – could power the U.S. for a year at the current rate of energy consumption. Given the estimated potential energy of a ton of helium-3 (the equivalent of about 50 million barrels of crude oil), helium-3 fueled fusion could significantly decrease the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and increase mankind's productivity by orders of magnitude."
In terms of the broad strategic architecture, the brilliant Christopher Barnatt explains the postmodern "Galactic Gold Rush" for space-based natural resources here. For a look at how all of this might go wrong, meaning various nations or transnational corporations in outer space at odds over "clean energy," the sci-fi film "Screamers," starring a pretty, blue-eyed actress named Jennifer Rubin, is an ancillary cultural product that's not to be missed. Watch it here. Back on Earth, MIT throws its hat into the ring on the issue here. One of Harry Wu's private, prophetic and most salient theories was that not only would China come to dominate life on Earth, but that outer space might open up as fair game for the elites ruling in Beijing. China's space policy is analyzed here. The Atlantic paints a very broad picture of China in outer space here. China will soon send a rover to the far side of the moon, and a separate rover to Mars in 2020.
Cuba, Stanford University & OBOR
Harry Wu encouraged me to visit Cuba in an effort to gain an understanding of China's relations with that island nation. Read about that visit here. Mr. Wu also asked that I visit Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, to try and understand Stanford's complicated relationship with China. Harry taught me that China-U.S. relations are an incredibly complex machine with a plethora of moving parts. This white paper will attempt to create an educational space for others to expound upon this complex relationship for the sake of future generations. Pax Sinica stands before us. This paradigm shift is perhaps the defining issue of the 21st century.
Perhaps the best place to begin is examining China's desire for a "New Silk Road." As the Economist has pointed out in reference to the old Silk Road giving way to the new one: "This time cranes and construction crews are replacing caravans and camels. [For example] a Chinese shipping company, Cosco, took a 67% stake in Greece's second-largest port, Piraeus, from which Chinese firms are building a high-speed rail network linking the city to Hungary and eventually Germany … Work [has been planned] on the third stage of a Chinese-designed nuclear reactor in Pakistan, where China recently announced it would finance a big new highway and put $2 billion into a coal mine in the Thar desert."
"Chinese officials call that policy 'One Belt, One Road,' though they often eviscerate its exotic appeal to foreigners by using the unlovely acronym 'OBOR.' Confusingly, the road refers to ancient maritime routes between China and Europe, while the belt describes the Silk Road's better-known trails overland. OBOR puzzles many Western policymakers because it is amorphous – it has no official list of member countries, though the rough count is 60 – and because most of the projects that sport the label would probably have been built anyway.
"But OBOR matters. … The projects are vast. Official figures say there are 900 deals under way, worth $890 billion, such as a gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar to south-west China and a rail link between Beijing and Duisburg, a transport hub in Germany. China says it will invest a cumulative $4 trillion in OBOR countries, though it does not say by when. Its officials tetchily reject comparison with the Marshall Plan which, they say, was a means of rewarding America's friends and excluding its enemies after World War II. OBOR, they boast, is open to all. For what it is worth, the Marshall Plan amounted to $130 billion in current dollars."
Again, referring to the Economist:
"[China's leader] Mr Xi seems to see the new Silk Road as a way of extending China's commercial tentacles and soft power. It also plays a role in his broader foreign-policy thinking. The president has endorsed his predecessors' view that China faces a 'period of strategic opportunity' up to 2020, meaning it can take advantage of a mostly benign security environment to achieve its aim of strengthening its global power without causing conflict. OBOR, officials believe, is a good way of packaging such a strategy. It also fits with Mr Xi's 'Chinese dream' of recreating a great past.
"OBOR matters because it is a challenge to the United States and its traditional way of thinking about world trade. In that view, there are two main trading blocs, the trans-Atlantic one and the trans-Pacific one, with Europe in the first, Asia in the second and America the focal point of each. Two proposed regional trade deals, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, embody this approach. But OBOR treats Asia and Europe as a single space, and China, not the United States, is its focal point."
We've been told: "Mr Xi has set up a 'small leading group' to oversee OBOR. This is an informal high-level body linking government and party organizations. Its boss is Zhang Gaoli, who is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party's innermost circle. It also includes the leadership's chief spin doctor and a deputy prime minister responsible for foreign trade. All the main bits of the bureaucracy have been corralled into OBOR … Its OBOR contracts are now more likely to involve Chinese firms managing the infrastructure they build, rather than (as in the past) building them and simply handing them over. In theory, this should give China an interest in working for the long term in Silk Road countries."
Yet China, like Russia, has major flaws. They include an insular, self-reverential culture, non-Romanized alphabet, underdeveloped legal system, brushes with slave labor gulags, BFF status with North Korea and a legacy of pollution and communism. Still, others point to demographic problems, as the work of ex-Stanford University researcher Stephen Mosher has proven. In case you haven't heard, China's "one-child policy" and female gendercide are simply appalling.
Mosher's "conversion" and subsequent work as an "expert" on population issues in China was the type of brave and courageous adventure Harry Wu greatly admired. In short, Mosher was thrown out of Stanford University. Ask yourself why. Forbes has asked if Stanford is colluding with China's propaganda. Read the article here. Ironically, Leland Stanford Jr., the founder of the university, became governor of California after advocating a strong anti-Chinese immigrant stance in California. This despite the fact that Chinese immigrants helped engineer one of the world's great marvels in the building of the Transcontinental Railroad through the Sierra Nevada. This was another sweeping and epic adventure Harry Wu and I often discussed.
Says Forbes in regard to China's lording over its students studying abroad:
"According to Philadelphia-based Arthur Waldron, a top Sinologist and one of the program's most outspoken critics, Confucius Institutes may play a key role in effecting China's espionage agenda. He points out that the institutes are ideal listening posts for keeping tabs on Chinese students studying abroad, particularly in the United States. The human rights campaigner [the aforementioned Steven] Mosher agrees, dubbing the institutes 'Trojan Horses with Chinese characteristics.'"
Also as noted, gendercide of females in China, (extending to radical abortion policies and the drowning of infants, toddlers and young girls) have touched raw nerves around the world. I once asked Mr. Wu if someday in the future, would the women of China establish a national holiday for men like Mosher (and others like him) who stood up for the little vulnerable females of China. The numbers of this gendercide holocaust inside China are broken down here.
The greatest hits include:
- 120 boys are born for every 100 girls. This means one out of every six girls is lost to gendercide.
- 30 million Chinese men will be unable to find spouses by 2020, threatening a dangerous bachelor boom.
- 1 million infants are abandoned in China each year, and most of these are healthy girls.
- 70,000 Chinese children are trafficked each year.
- 35,000 abortions are performed each day in China under the one-child policy.
- 500 women commit suicide every day in China. It is the only nation where more women than men kill themselves.
- 485 million people in China live on less than $2 per day.
One of Mr. Wu's favorite creations of Hollywood (there are precious few) that were able to address China's laogai slave labor system came from a "Touch by An Angel" episode titled, "The Spirit of Liberty Moon." Mr. Wu's take was that a good-looking angel (adroitly played by Roma Downey) could do wonders to awaken the American people regarding the plight of Chinese dissidents. Yet China has been granted MFN status by former President William Jefferson Clinton, become America's de facto bank, stated that America's most recent round of "quantitative easing" constituted the national default of the United States, (again as noted) raised the idea of establishing a New Silk Road from Beijing to Berlin, built an "Underground Great Wall" of nuclear-armed ICBMs (aimed at America's cities, thanks to espionage and LORAL), set their sights on the Arctic (don't forget about Russia's nuclear-armed bombers and submarines), built the world's largest radio telescope (searching for E.T.s and E.B.E.s) and established a transnational financial institution that will soon rival the IMF and World Bank.
This article claims Bill Clinton enabled China to better target U.S. cities with ICBMs in exchange for campaign cash – then campaigned for re-election in 1996 on the premise that China's ICBMs were no longer targeting U.S. cities. Neither Bob Dole nor Patrick Buchanan managed to make this an issue during the 1996 presidential campaign. The article reads, "In 1996 President Bill Clinton, at a fundraising dinner in New York City said this: 'There are no more nuclear missiles pointed at any children in the United States. I'm proud of that.' But by 1998, the CIA's National Intelligence Daily stated that 'thirteen of China's 18 long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles are targeted on the United States.'" How could such a discrepancy have occurred? The CATO Institute is not so sure about this whole dangerous-sounding state of affairs and explains why here. The Heritage Foundation adds its two cents here. WND published its own review here.
Harry Wu saw China's rise coming. He also saw giant red flags – the literal and the metaphorical. One thing Harry encouraged me to remember was that China actually invaded Vietnam in 1979 because Vietnam had, in turn, invaded Cambodia to overthrow China's friendly protégé – the Khmer Rouge. Having lived alongside ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers like "CNN Hero" Aki Ra in extreme northern Cambodia, I have often wondered why – after the horrors of the Killing Fields – China was still so committed to the Khmer Rouge. There's something about this that's absolutely terrifying. The U.S. and U.K. led the charge to give Pol Pot a seat in exile at the United Nations – the only such seat ever given. This was done to oppose Vietnam's potential attack on Thailand. (This attack never materialized. And today millions of land mines remain hidden on the borders between the Royal Kingdom of Thailand and the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia.)
Is China America's friend, foe or strategic competitor? For those interested in a career monitoring China's "underground facilities," check out this incredible job opportunity here. This position is "responsible for managing foreign underground facility topics for the Intelligence Community. The UFAC detects, characterizes, monitors, strategic foreign underground facilities and their associated country programs and assesses them for defeat."
For those who have followed the (alleged) activities of Wen Ho Lee, China's scavenging in the Serbian backwaters for debris from a shot-down U.S. stealth fighter, the growth of China's aforementioned Underground Great Wall, or nuclear-armed subs on permanent patrol (could there be a "Crimson Tide" archetype rogue launch, and how reliable is China's chain of command in this regard?), the naval "visit" brushing past Alaska and other shadowy excursions, such a career path might prove to be more than interesting.
Beijing's own data and graphics modeling U.S. casualties after absorbing a nuclear strike from the People's Republic of China are the stuff of nightmares. Check them out here and here and here. And depending on your Mandarin skills, check out this one. And this one. Make no mistake, China can reduce the U.S. to radioactive ash. The Union of Concerned Scientists lays out the case here. These articles should be read and deconstructed by all concerned Americans. Don't forget about Russia's creepy, apocalyptic "Doomsday Machine" explained in detail here.
The Washington Times reported:
"Chinese calculations for nuclear attacks on the U.S. are chillingly macabre. 'Because the Midwest states of the U.S. are sparsely populated, in order to increase the lethality, [our] nuclear attacks should mainly target the key cities on the West Coast of the United States, such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. The 12 JL-2 nuclear warheads carried by one single Type 094 SSBN can kill and wound 5 million to 12 million Americans,' the Global Times reported."
In terms of going toe-to-toe with mainland China in a nuclear exchange, if China were to hit Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Washington, D.C., and the northern Virginia suburbs, America would be crippled. If China took out 320 million Americans in a nuclear attack, the U.S. would be down to near-zero levels. If America took out 320 million Chinese, then China would still have 1 billion people ready to rebuild.
Then there is China's "payback" from the opium wars. It would seem that precursor chemicals used to fuel America's "Breaking Bad" illegal drug epidemic originate in mainland China. The Wall Street Journal explains it all here. There isn't a great deal of information available on this topic via the Internet, and it's worthy of a separate article in and of itself. The official U.S. government report on China's role in America's synthetic drug epidemic can be read here.
"Last spring, Chinese customs agents seized 70 kilograms of the narcotics fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl hidden in a cargo container bound for Mexico. The synthetic opium-like drugs were so potent that six of the agents became ill after handling them. One fell into a coma.
"Fentanyl and its analogs are killing Americans at an alarming rate, marking a deadly new chapter in the nation's struggle with opioid addiction. Fentanyl is up to 50 times as potent as heroin but easier and cheaper to produce, made from chemicals instead of fields of poppies. Legal versions of fentanyl have been sold as painkillers or anesthetics since the 1960s. Today, illicit batches are driving a surge in overdose deaths."
Thank God for "Most Favored Nation," or MFN, status. You know what they say; "With friends like these …" The Epoch Times published an interesting article on China's drug war against the United States that can be read here. CNN refines the broad architecture of the epidemic here.
The People's Republic of Power Â
China is also rising in the field of clean energy, including wind power. China boasts the world's top supercomputer. Problems with pollution? Eventually a robust environmental movement will emerge inside China. Again, as Harry Wu noted, China's people are its greatest resource.
And these days, China's "People Power" is providing most of the soldiers for United Nations peacekeeping operations. We are told, "In essence, China deploys peacekeeping troops because it needs to protect its multi-billion investments and numerous assets, enterprises and citizens abroad. Through its peacekeepers, Beijing can also elevate its status as a responsible stakeholder and security provider in the international community and improve operational capabilities of Chinese military and police forces. China cannot but advance its plan to increase connectivity between Eurasia and Africa, thanks to a network of new land-based and sea-based Silk Roads, in the presence of a deteriorated security environment across this vast space."
History tells us that circa World War II, 30 million Chinese loaded entire cities into oxcarts and walked 2,000 miles to Chungking/Chongqing, (diverting a major river in the process) while outrunning the Imperial Japanese. This was the greatest migration in human history. It was a "Homeric journey" in which schools, libraries and hospitals were dismantled and carried an equivalent distance of Florida to Montana. Over a thousand factories were taken apart and carted away. Some say 300 million tons of machinery and equipment was moved. This was done without GPS, Hello Kitty, iPhones, custom license plates, mercenaries or 18-wheel semis. The railroads the Chinese were able to use were dismantled when the railroad ties were no longer needed. As such, the Japanese army experienced a scorched-Earth policy that had been unleashed. Just as the Chinese had built (as noted) the Transcontinental Railroad through the Sierra Nevada (1865-1869), they had taken another railroad apart in what must have seemed to be a parallel universe in the 1930s. Chongqing was heavily bombed in the first mass terror raids of World War II. This was the "new capital" of "New China." Japan knew that if it could take the new capital, it would break the spirit of the Chinese people. But this was not to be.
Also notable was Operation Matterhorn, launched from British India over the Himalayas ("The Hump") and into western China to supply the Chinese fighting the Japanese. One must also remember the Koumintang, Chiang Kai-Shek and even the Kampas – Free Tibet-minded guerillas whom the U.S. recruited, funded and trained at special camps in Colorado, then abandoned after President Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Nixon's trip truly changed the world.
Some say that if Taiwan and mainland China were to switch places in history – meaning that if Mao had lost China's Civil War – then a free, open, independent, nominally Christian mainland China, based upon 1776-era archetype human rights and Magna Carta norms would already be the world's leading superpower. A tiny communist dictatorship based in Taiwan versus a titanic free and open capitalist society in mainland China is an interesting concept to ponder in terms of alternative history. Whatever one chooses to believe – as discussed in this Ivy League posting – when the politburo in Beijing looks out at the ocean and seeks to project its naval power, it sees Taiwan standing right in its face and right in its way.
Can the West stop or even contain China's rise? "Why China Won't Conquer the World" is an interesting article. Remember that the richest eight people in the world control more than the bottom 50 percent. The West's transnational elite might believe they can influence or even mitigate China's rise. Who can say for sure if this is possible? One doubts the supposition.
Could China eventually take over the world? Didn't Japan and Nazi Germany believe that conquering China and Russia (respectively) would enable them to defeat the British Empire and the United States of America? Does China look at the North American continent as "living space" for its growing population? North America, including the Arctic zone in the extreme north, Canada and the U.S. features fresh water, natural resources and fertile farmland. Thus Chinese "free-trade zones" and the buying up real estate in cities such as Detroit would put a Chinese presence smackdab in the middle of the North American continent. While all of this might sound farfetched, one might look back through history at the career of Genghis Khan, and Attila the Hun attending a Roman military academy, before fighting the Roman Legions.
Gold (paid as bribes) flowed from ancient Rome to Attila the Hun, which was used to finance the Huns and their war machine. The nation of "Hungary" is actually named after the Huns. Let this name be a lesson to the postmodern West. Saint Jerome said the Huns, "took no pity on age or wailing childhood." Constant motion and new sources of plunder were essential ingredients for the Huns' expansion. Looking back at the gross violence of centuries past, we can deconstruct the ideals of the Jacobins, "creative destruction" and Bastiat while attempting to understand the calculus of greed, violence, power and money down through history. We might also recall the quests of the Conquistadors in the Americas, the Great Trek of the Afrikaners or the establishment of Rhodesia. Immigration is history.
Zheng He has been "dusted off" and ripped out of the history books – as the ancient mariner is now viewed as the foreshadowing of a China-dominated world. Prophets like Edgar Cayce allegedly mentioned this. The Book of Revelation, seen by over a billion people as an interesting or even sacred text, speaks of "The Kings of the East." Are such stories truly prophetic, or mere myths and scary bedtime stories about the Boogeyman? Could China sweep down through the Himalayas, across India and Afghanistan, and then roll right into the Middle East to take Persia, Mesopotamia and Jerusalem, along with the oil fields of Saudi Arabia? Note that Israel was the first Middle East nation to recognize Mao's China in 1950. And China protected more than 20,000 Jews during World War II. Or is all of that irrelevant now, since data has replaced petroleum in many respects in our global village?
When China tried to press (or "buy") Portugal into handing over a former Western base in the Azores, the U.S. was quick to counter-pressure Portugal against that offer. As one of the "PIGS" nations that are not exactly economic heavyweights, this offer from China must have appeared extremely tempting. Read about the issue here, here and here. This leads us back again to China's "String of Pearls." One might consider who runs and controls the Panama Canal, the large port at Long Beach, California, or lesser-known ports in the Caribbean, like in the Bahamas.
Goodbye French Foreign Legion, hello China!
The tiny nation of Djibouti has long been an object of fasciation for great adventures of castoffs in the French Foreign Legion. Beau Travail is an epic film for fans of that genre. After 9/11, the U.S. set up a base in Djibouti at Camp Lemonnier. Anti-pirate operations and drone campaigns targeting Yemen and Somalia are run out of Djibouti. However, China has recently set up a military base in Obok, Djibouti. (Rumor has it that the French Foreign Legion has decamped to the United Arab Emirates.) We are told, "Experts say that expansion could challenge Western security partnerships that have underpinned the world order since 1945, it was reported by the Wall Street Journal."
According to one interesting article:
"The 'One Belt, One Road' initiative seeks to strengthen Chinese exports through commercial land and sea roads, largely along the historic 'Silk Road,' straddling Europe and the Middle East. The Djibouti base would be vital in ensuring the success of the latter goal, since most of China's $1 billion in daily exports to Europe traverse the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. With respect to the former plan, Toshi Yoshihara, Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, has been mapping the intersection of Chinese naval and commercial ventures across the Pacific region. Djibouti, home to both the nascent base and extensive Chinese economic investment, would clearly amount to a new pearl on the string."
Continues the article:
"A different term in Beijing's political vocabulary raises more disturbing possibilities … FPRI Senior Fellow June Teufel Dreyer … stressed the principle of 'All Under Heaven' – rooted in Chinese imperial history – which places Chinese central authority at the epicenter of a tributary system of dominance over lesser powers. One might ask whether the construction of a Djibouti base reflects the extension of 'All under Heaven' beyond China's traditional orbit.
"At a time of rapid Chinese construction of aircraft and aircraft carriers and more serious competition with American military industries, the base in Djibouti could indeed reflect a Chinese aspiration to eventually meet and surpass the United States as a military and economic power in the area. In January 2016, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a 72-hour exercise involving thousands of marines and the navy special operations regiment in the Gobi Desert in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The area's topography and climate resemble much of North Africa and the Sahel. Between 'All Under Heaven' and China's stated goal of housing up to 10,000 Chinese servicemen in Djibouti, such exercises offer ample basis for concern.
"Beijing's hard power initiative in Djibouti is meanwhile accompanied by its soft power initiatives to build ties with state and society alike. The $14 billion in Chinese support for infrastructure development, widely publicized in Djibouti, has generated enormous goodwill with the population … Far exceeding U.S. spending. There are also cultural ventures, such as the new Confucius Institute in Djibouti City, which Beijing typically uses to cultivate personal ties and 'assets' within the society. Add to all this China's $1.1 billion in trade in 2014 – roughly ten times that of the United States. As Chinese influence grows in Djibouti, its ability to influence the government's foreign policy and security strategies promises to grow along with it."
Djibouti is a member of the Arab League. It also turned down Moscow's request to build a military base in the country, which sits along one of the world's major maritime choke points.
Finally, regarding the Horn of Africa; "The growing presence of Saudi Arabia alongside China in [Djibouti] promises to strengthen security ties between Riyadh and Beijing, potentially at Washington's expense. It is but one example of the increasing interplay between China and the Arab world, for which it behooves Americans to prepare. A first step toward doing so is to address an American gap in studying the phenomenon. From government to think tanks and the academy, Arab affairs specialists have long been institutionally separated from their counterparts in Asian affairs. As the leaders, peoples, and armies of these diverse environments begin to intermingle, the Americans who study and engage them must do the same."
In yet another example of China's expanding reach, as a part of its Silk Road Corridor, China is now heavily involved in Pakistan, including trade, a port-of-call, pawning off naval ships and even dabbling in Pakistan's stock exchange.
We read: "The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor … is expected to be a transport, energy and trade bridge connecting northwest China to the Indian Ocean. Recently it was reported that China will invest $55 billion in the project, against the initial $46 billion.
"The Pakistani exchange was one of the best performers in the Asian stock market in 2016. The KSE 100 index, which shows performance of 100 major companies of Pakistan, rose over 40 percent this year. The deal between the Chinese exchanges and the Pakistani stock exchange is a breakthrough for Chinese companies in the Asian stock market. This is an important indicator showing presence of Chinese capitals in global markets. Moreover, the situation in the Pakistani stock exchange is more stable than in the Chinese market. It is one of the most stable exchanges in Asia. This is why the Chinese consortium decided to buy a stake there."
China has launched the construction of a railroad in Laos, as part of a trans-Asian railway. We have been told that, "China is trying to establish control not only over banks and companies, but also over infrastructure, including transportation and energy supplies. Thus, Beijing creates ground for its future financial and industrial leadership."
What's this all about in terms of the broad strategic architecture? The Economist, one of the best magazines in the world, explains the new paradigm via "Our bulldozers, our rules." The Economist also published "What China Wants." An amazing map of China's trade with each nation on Earth can be found here.
China's interest in Africa's natural resources is of course very well known. And China's deployment of United Nations peacekeepers in nations like South Sudan will be able to protect China's commercial interests.
North Korea, China's BFF
Another area of contention between China and the U.S. is North Korea. Harry Wu had a heart for the sufferings endured by the North Korean people. The still-to-be-settled state of affairs on the Korean peninsula that has been in place since 1953 will eventually have to be settled once and for all. Along those lines, South Korea is planning to establish a "decapitation unit" to take out North Korea's leadership – as described in this article in the New York Post. It's called the "Korean Massive Retaliation and Punishment Group." The unit was originally slated for 2019, according to CNN. But South Korea moved it up two years ahead of schedule as a result of the young Kim's constant threats to attack his neighbors with nuclear bombs. South Korea's defense minister Han Min-Koo told Yonhap news agency, "We are planning to set up a special brigade with the goal of removing or (at least) paralyzing North Korea's wartime command structure."
This article promotes the idea that South Korea, along with the United Nations and U.S., should prevent China from intervening inside North Korea in the event that nation should collapse. The main theme is to reunite North and South Korea under the ruling regime in Seoul. This would immediately make "The New Korea" one of the world's top military powers, with 1.6 million soldiers, a unified culture and language, along with nuclear, biological and biochemical weapons programs.
A white paper on such a meltdown scenario, and how U.S. Special Forces might act in terms of operations, strategy and tactics can be read here. Gordon Chang's article on "Disarming North Korea by Waging a Trade War on China" can be read here. North Korea's new nightmare includes the regime pressuring the elderly to commit suicide. Read about it here.
For its part, China has its own decapitation unit to take out North Korea's leadership if need be. You can read that story here. The U.K. Daily Mail addresses the same issue here.
The latter reads in part:
"According to the Korea Times, professor Zhe Sun told a security forum in Washington that the Chinese were debating how best to deal with the North Korean leader. 'Some Chinese scholars and policy makers began to talk about supporting surgical strikes and decapitation by the U.S. and South Korea as one policy option,' he said. 'More radical proposals indicate that China should change the leader, send troops across the border and station them in the DPRK, force the DPRK into giving up nuclear [weapons] and beginning opening up and reforming.'"
The unleashing of North Korea's biological weapons could theoretically kill hundreds of thousands or even millions in China, North Korea and South Korea, depending on the types of agents and seasonal wind patterns. Would Beijing want North Korean biological weapons to wipe out its cadre of good-looking female soldiers free of tattoos and Taco Bell? Take a look here.
Just in case there is any doubt about China's willingness to run interference for North Korea's human rights nightmare, Human Rights Watch has published the following:
"No other government has done more to enable Pyongyang's abuses than China. Fearing a collapse of the North Korean government that might bring a unified, democratic Korea to China's borders, Beijing has long argued for the status quo. It has made it clear at the Security Council that it would veto any effort at international accountability through referring the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. It has refused to cooperate with the investigations by the UN Commission of Inquiry into gross human rights violations in North Korea.
"And all the while, ordinary North Koreans continue to endure horrific human rights violations – murder, rape and sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detention, and starvation – with little hope the government officials responsible will be held accountable."
Is creating 'superhumans' the next arms race?
Much has been made over humanity's next "Long March" or "Great Leap Forward" of alleged "evolution" in regard to transhumanism or H+, cloning, so-called "Super Soldiers," "The Singularity" and possible patents on the human genome, which some say carries significant risks. There are those who feel the "next arms race" will be waged in regard to creating a "Gattaca-like" new breed of "Superhumans," and that China is in the best position to win this race. Popular Mechanics explains the conundrum here. China's notion of replicating humans at clone factories is sure to garner headlines, as is its use of the CRISPR-cas9 gene editing tool.
As for the China's potential future harvest in this realm, we have been told:
"Asia will be at the forefront of expansion of human enhancement. China has been leading the way in using CRISPR-cas9 for non-germline genetic modifications of human tissue cells for use in treatment of cancer patients. There are two primary factors contributing to emergence of genetic enhancement technologies – research to develop the technologies and popular opinion to support their deployment. In both areas, Western countries are well behind China.
"By contrast, countries like China that lack direct democratic systems are thereby less sensitive to opinion, and officials can play an outsize role in shaping public opinion to align with government priorities. This would include residual opposition to human enhancement, even if it were present. International norms are arguably emerging against genetic enhancement, but in other arenas China has proven willing to reject international norms in order to promote its own interests."
"Genetic enhancement has the potential to bring about significant national advantages. Even marginal increases in intelligence via gene editing could have significant effects on a nation's economic growth. Certain genes could give some athletes an edge in intense international competitions. Other genes may have an effect on violent tendencies, suggesting genetic engineering could reduce crime rates.
"China is well-poised to become a leader in the area of human enhancement … enhancement of its population may make China more competitive on the world stage. An unenviable dilemma for opponents of enhancement could emerge – fail to enhance and fall behind, or enhance and suffer the moral and physical consequences."
Honoring Harry Wu's memory
The best way to honor Harry Wu is to continue to monitor and deconstruct China's rise as a global power. And that is the purpose of this white paper.
Sometimes it appears that global stability is elusive at best, and that, in general terms, things are getting much worse. As noted, the Soviet Union's "Doomsday Machine" is still in place inside the "New Russia." Wired.com writes about it here. China is making strong inroads all around the globe. How China has come to dominate is dissected in this excellent video. And there are over 2.7 million hits and counting for this "alternative future" video depicting a Beijing-based Chinese professor in the year 2030 A.D. explaining the fall of America. There are more than 5 million views for this American-made TV drama clip on why America is no longer the greatest nation in the world. You can watch the later here. It would seem the status of the United States on the world stage has reached its nadir and is in decline.
As one scathing and perhaps overly harsh article put it:
"Following the public relations disaster of George W. Bush, Obama, the smooth operator from Chicago via Harvard, was enlisted to restore what he calls 'leadership' throughout the world. The Nobel Prize committee's decision was part of this: the kind of cloying reverse racism that beatified the man for no reason other than he was attractive to liberal sensibilities and, of course, American power, if not to the children he kills in impoverished, mostly Muslim countries.
"This is the Call of Obama. It is not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted, especially 'liberal brains pickled in the formaldehyde of identity politics,' as Luciana Bohne put it. 'When Obama walks into a room' gushed George Clooney, 'you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere.'"
Domestically, we are told, "The seedbed is Obama's Weimar Republic, a landscape of endemic poverty, militarized police and barbaric prisons: the consequence of a 'market' extremism which, under his presidency, prompted the transfer of $14 trillion in public money to criminal enterprises in Wall Street … Divide and rule, this is called; or identity politics in which race and gender conceal class, and allow the waging of class war."
Like this writer, the aforementioned George Clooney grew up worshipping Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan of the Cincinnati Reds. Through TV's "Ellen," Clooney received a personal visit at his home from the two baseball greats. Idols have always been a part of American culture and that's part of what makes America special. Mickey Mantle knew that just one word from him could change someone's life forever. Walter Payton (to whom I refer as "the black Mickey Mantle") took time to talk with people, and his demise from liver cancer was a terrible loss for our nation.
Harry Wu is the Asian Mickey Mantle. As a former shortstop on his college baseball team, it's my gut instinct that Harry would have felt this was the highest compliment possible. He will be missed. But his legacy as the guardian of human rights in China – and the associated analysis of the deals China is making with its outposts spanning the globe – is only just beginning.
Beyond that, one of the greatest suggestions Harry Wu gave to me, was that as a lover of the game of baseball, I should visit the "Field of Dreams" movie set and playing field in Dyersville, Iowa. I did just that and published the story here on WND. There are other ancillary cultural products on Netflix that might help us understand the ancient history of China, as well as China's relationship with the United States. Marco Polo and Hell on Wheels are series of note.
Marco Polo is a visually stunning, if not important series in that it reminds postmodern Americans that around 1200 A.D., China and India were the world's dominant/richest powers. Due to their populations and economic might, those two nations are now returning to their prior place as centers of world power and influence. Barring a nuclear war between China and India, they will once again hold the prominence they exhibited during the era of Marco Polo. A fine analysis of China and India's border disputes and points of contention can be found here. India might actually emerge as the world's number one economic superpower by 2050 A.D.
So while we, like Harry Wu, express concern and even outrage about organ harvesting in China, forced abortion, gendercide of females, (I once met a pretty blonde girl in St. Louis, Missouri, who told me, "Anthony, babies are God's proof that the world should go on!") and/or the fact that many of our Christmas toys which we give to one another – ostensibly to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ as the Savior of humanity – are drenched in the blood and sweat and tears of Chinese saints/dissidents slaving away in the laogai, we have to realize that we cannot turn Harry Wu's memory into just another idol. Not unlike the "Field of Dreams," there still exists the dream of a free and morally healthy Pax Sinica, of a reborn moral West, and the brotherhood of mankind free of oppression and nuclear war. These are the dreams Harry Wu would have wanted us all to pursue.