The WHO wants to investigate the case of a 25-year-old Milan resident who, in November 2019, visited a hospital with a sore throat and skin lesions: symptoms of a disease that wouldn’t be discovered in Wuhan in China for another month. She left behind a skin sample, smaller than a dime, that in two tests conducted more than six months later yielded traces of the Covid-19 virus.  Read full article $ →

Italian researchers reported a higher than usual number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu in Lombardy in the last quarter of 2019 in a sign that the new coronavirus might have circulated earlier than thought.  Read full article  →

Last December, Xi Jinping promised that non-fossil fuels would account for 25% of China’s energy mix by 2030 – up from 20% announced in 2015. The 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) calls for China to reduce energy intensity by 13.5% by 2025. In April, Xi promised that China’s coal consumption will peak during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). Consider this:

• When active trading launches later this month, China’s CO2 Exchange Trading Scheme will be the world’s largest carbon market, covering 6% of global emissions.
• It will nearly double the proportion of global emissions covered under such schemes (see Fig. 1).
• Ultimately China’s ETS could cover as much as 11% of total global emissions.
• The PBOC has pursued a range of measures to make green assets more attractive to banks, including:
• Preferential interest rates for green projects
• Refinancing funds designated for green financial products
• Permission to use green bonds as collateral for PBoC lending facilities
• It has also sought to increase the role of green finance in financial performance assessments, by:

1. Incorporating green finance into the macroprudential assessment framework for banks
2. Increasing green assets’ weighting in risk assessments
3. Strengthening environmental impact reporting and mandatory disclosures by both financial institutions and borrowers
4. As a result, green finance has seen strong growth in China over the past five years.
5. In 2020, green bond issuance skyrocketed to USD 120 billion – up from just USD 35 billion in 2016.
6. In 2020, green lending in 21 major financial institutions – which account for over 80% of Chinese banking assets – was RMB 11 trillion, up from RMB 7.5 trillion in 2016.
7. Xi’s use of the international stage to announce China’s commitments ensured that domestic actors have no option but to make them happen.These goals are a floor, not a ceiling. Read full article $→

EU foreign ministers approved plans to develop a rival global investment strategy as an alternative to the BRI. The EU’s economic, foreign and development policy, security interests and 'values' will be advanced–a euphemism for Athenian democracy and related pre-conditions. Read full article $→ 

Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong-un have pledged to strengthen their friendly relations as they exchanged messages on the 60th anniversary of a bilateral landmark defense treaty. Under the 1961 agreement, China and North Korea must automatically defend each other when one of them is attacked. Xi said he is ready to work with Kim to “take bilateral friendly cooperation to a new level and deliver more benefits to the two countries and two peoples.” Read full article $→ 

Meng Wanzhou's extradition case suffered a major blow. A Canadian judge ruled that HSBC documents showing that US authorities had made selective, misleading and “outright false” claims about the Huawei CFO could play no part in the case. [Ed: Under Hong Kong's controversial extradition law one had to commit a crime. Under Canadian law one can be extradited if they "may" have committed a crime].  Read full article $→ 

Montenegro reached deal with Western banks to restructure Chinese debt: US and French banks help Balkan state refinance nearly US$1 billion in loans from Exim Bank of China, dropping interest rate to less than 1 per cent to counter Beijing’s influence in the region. Read full article $→ 

Huawei  demanded that Verizon, the American cell phone carrier, pay it $1 billion for the use of dozens of Huawei patents. Verizon now says they have reached a happy settlement with Huawei, without disclosing terms. Read full article $→ 

After a second US air force plane landed on the island of Taiwan in less than two months, the PLA warned that it can expel, fire warning shots or even shoot down foreign military aircraft that trespass upon China's airspace.  Read full article $ →

The Chinese presence is broad and deep 

The master of mini-dealmaking is Tencent.

New Chinese stars are rising all the time.

On the Silk Road again

The Iranian equation

That non-withdrawal withdrawal

Dragged Screaming over the cliff.

By Hugh Steadman

Readers should take a few minutes and study the 2021 Lowy Institute poll, above, in detail. At the start of 2017, Australia and China were close partners. Polls would show that both parties anticipated a golden future for their economic partnership. As the current poll reveals, this relationship has now soured dramatically. There is no obvious reason for it having done so other than deliberate manipulation by government agencies.

I would have found this extraordinary were it not for my having picked up on an early indicator of what was going on behind the scenes. Tony Kevin (15 minute read.)

About two years ago, I was approached by Tony Kevin, a former Australian ambassador, and asked to write a review on his recent book, ‘Return to Moscow.” One of my few academic achievements had been to win the prize for ‘Russian studies’ while a cadet at the RMA Sandhurst. Ever since, I have paid close attention to events within that long-suffering country. With its defeat of Nazi Germany, at a cost of thirty million casualties, Russia has given so much to a West that has scarcely acknowledged the sacrifice from which it has so greatly benefited

In coming to terms with the contents of the Lowy surveys, I regard the blog on Tony Kevin, though posted more than a year ago, as crucial to understanding the massive exercise in public opinion manipulation being conducted by the US and British establishments in their attempt to lure the Anglo-Saxon core of their ambition into an unnecessary and potentially ruinous confrontation.  The Lowy surveys make far more sense when read together with the story of Tony Kevin – and most particularly viewing the eight minute video hyperlink (included.)  Integrity It was published after a hack by ‘Anonymous’ forced Colonel Christopher Donnelly to reveal more than he would have wished for into the calculated war-mongering of the British establishment.

(Once the eye is opened to it, it doesn’t take long to spot the likely academic pressure points of Donnelley’s clusters (try Marie-Anne Brady for instance.) It was indeed serendipitous for the likes of Donnelly, that the start of his campaign should have been launched, just as the West’s main stream media was going through an acute financial crisis. So many journalists become vulnerable to the temptations placed by the Western intelligence agencies in front of their threatened careers. It is all too easy to dress self-interest and career anxiety in noble-sounding garments such as’ freedom’ and ‘democracy.’

This is especially true when the news you want hear is presented to you by apparently respectable opinion-leaders. There seems little reason to take time or responsibility to research matters for yourself when all around you speak with the same voice – and public dissent could both win you public ridicule and endanger your career.

Any casual Google search reveals no end of detail on the deliberate manipulation of western opinion to promote hostility towards Russia and China. Though the media are ruthlessly and willingly exploited in this endeavour, behind it all, are the West’s ever expanding secret intelligence agencies. These, ever since WWII, have all been slaved to Washington’s wishes. Many a much-valued career is involved in keeping this irrational hostility at boiling point.

Provided the choir sings in unison, (and it is under strict financial control) any lie, repeated loud and often enough will become accepted truth. The western public is now so gullible; the lies don’t even have to be faintly plausible. Skripals snoozing

I would argue to all the journalists, who have filled their pages with ’the truth.’ that if they could persuade their readers to believe this, they could persuade their readers to believe the moon is made of cheese.  Novichok, without the antidote, kills in less than ten minutes. How come the inventors of the nerve agent, couldn’t summon a lethal dose – not once, but twice? (They failed again when Navalny survived their alleged ministrations.) How come the chief nursing officer of the British Army, happened to be on the scene immediately after the assassins struck. (A very public, park bench, just down the road from Porton Down, the UK military’s testing site for such poisons.) All these incidents, from 9/11 to Douma, speak of supreme confidence in a propaganda story pre-digested by the flock.  By coincidence, both incidents targeting Russia, happened to occur at the peak of Washington’s propaganda campaigns to persuade the Europeans to abandon the finishing of the North Stream 2  pipeline – and, hopefully, to replace Russian gas with US-sourced LPG.

It could be argued that after 9/11, the rogue intelligence agencies could get away with anything.  (An alternative view of the 9/I1 massacre would see an old man on dialysis in a cave in the Himalayas and fifteen assorted, former Saudi shepherd boys, single-handedly, bring down the world’s most sophisticated air defence system. To see it in proportion, the Mossad would deploy a full team of around sixty well-trained operatives to assassinate a single Palestinian fund-raiser in an Arab country on Israel’s doorstep.)

The west is being led up the garden path by the intelligence agencies it has spawned.  Follow Hugh's writing here...

Original claim: Keriya Eitika Mosque demolished

My brother had arranged with some people in the village to come over tomorrow to talk about fluctuations in the village population and the general economic situation. He said: I thought long and hard but could hardly come up with anyone who could talk about these things.

It was 10 p.m. by the time we finished dinner, and the few Liangs whom my brother had invited came over. One was the village head. He’s in his 50s, the son of a storekeeper. Like his father, he has a light complexion and is pretty sharp. He watched me closely as we talked; he wanted to know what I was really up to, what my purpose was.

Another was my paternal uncle, a village accountant famous for his prudence.

Another, whom I call “Elder Brother,” left the village early on to work. At around 40, he came back to the village and hasn’t left since. He keeps to himself and is rather mysterious. He doesn’t drop in on other people, although he doesn’t object when others visit his place. One year all his hair suddenly fell out, and since then he’s worn a black woolen hat all year round.

Finally, there was a middle-aged man who lives outside the village. He’s known as somebody who can get things done.

A few hundred years ago, the two Liang brothers brought their seven sons here, established homes, and began to increase in number. Currently, there are 54 Liang households of substantial size.

The number of smaller families is less clear. For example, two brothers left to find jobs after getting married. Their parents stayed behind to help take care of the children. No matter how you divide the family, from an economic perspective, they are one small household.

Calculated this way, there would be around 150 households of more than 640 people. Young couples in their mid-30s have at least two children, and a few have three. Two families have left the village altogether. They moved to live in the cities in which they work (selling their houses and land in the village). One family’s final whereabouts is unknown because they haven’t been in touch with anyone in the village.

Seven families work outside the village and their children attend schools where they live. Their family homes are closed up, and they have not come back for several years, and aren’t likely to anytime soon. One family lives in town but they still have a house and land in the village, and they plan to build a house soon. Three families do business in other places and come back every year or two. They have built nice family homes in the village, so it seems like they’re preparing to return in the future.

Of the several dozen families who still live in the village, the younger members work outside the village all year round, and it is the elderly, the middle-aged women, and the children who remain at home.

A woman works while her grandchild plays nearby, Tangyin County, Henan province, May 2011. People Visual
A woman works while her grandchild plays nearby, Tangyin County, Henan province, May 2011. People Visual

In addition, there are eight or nine households whose members have never left but who eke out a living from the land. They are considered the most unworldly members of the village and are the most looked down on and overlooked.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, a large number of people from Liang Village left to find jobs, and in the early years, Beijing and Xi’an were the principal destinations. In Beijing, many worked in factories, on construction sites, or as security guards. For a short time, they gathered at Beijing’s train station to scalp tickets.

After reform and opening up, finding work in the cities created new avenues for earning. No matter what you did, every year you could bring home a little bit of income. It was a way to pay both the larger expenses and the daily expenditures.

Because you had to pay tax on farmland and had to come home during the harvest season, many people simply rented their land to other villagers, on the condition that the tenant would pay the taxes and give the owner 200 jin (about 220 pounds) of wheat per annum. It was a way for families who stayed in the village to earn money. Even if the early wheat harvest only covered the taxes and the landowner’s share, the autumn harvest would be profit.

By the 1990s, it was rare to see hungry or poorly dressed people in the village, but the ability to build a new house and live comfortably — that was something only for the village cadre and other successful people, the few families who worked in business or who bought their food instead of growing it.

For the past two years, rural taxes have been suspended around the country, and according to the village head, several families have wanted to take back land they haven’t worked for years to grow wheat or corn. They don’t come back themselves, but ask relatives to do the planting and harvesting for them and then pay their wages.

There are also those who don’t want to bring the land back into production, and this has caused disputes. These disputes have nothing to do with what Fei Xiaotong (a renowned Chinese anthropologist and sociologist specializing in rural issues) called the “farmers’ rootedness in the land.” The emotional connection between farmers and the land has weakened; all that is left is a relationship based on benefit.

New houses are more and more common in the village, yet one by one, without exception, their locks have grown rusty. At the same time, the people are fewer and fewer. Only a few feeble old folks totter down the lanes, rest on the edges of fields, or gather beneath the eaves.

All across the village, weeds and debris rule the land around the houses. They reveal the village’s inner desolation, its decay, its exhaustion. Internally, the village is no longer an organic, living entity. Or perhaps we should say that its life, if indeed it has a life, has reached old age and that its very vitality is ebbing away.

This is an excerpt from “China in One Village: The Story of One Town and the Changing World” by Liang Hong, translated by Emily Goedde, published by Verso.

1. Talent at the Top: Only the brightest, most idealistic people are are admitted to politics–a policy unchanged in 2200 years.
2. Data in the Middle: policies are implemented, tracked, and optimized based on terabytes of data. The PRC is the world's largest consumer of public surveys.
3. Democracy at the Bottom: ordinary people, all unpaid amateurs, assemble twice a year to check the stats and sign off on new legislation. Policies need a minimum of 66% support to become law. That's why 95% of Chinese say the country is on the right track.

The ISC (Needham) Report

The Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China (the ISC report), published at the height of the Korean War, validated claims by North Korea and China that the US had launched bacteriological warfare (biological warfare, BW) attacks against both troops and civilian targets in those two countries over a period of several months in 1952.
   

The most vilified document of the 20th Century.

The report’s release in September, 1952, brought a withering international attack. It was roundly denounced by American and British politicians of the highest rank, ridiculed by four star generals, accused of fraud by celebrated pundits, misquoted by notable scientists, and scorned by a compliant Western press. Charges were made against the quality and truthfulness of its science. Its “unstated” political agenda was denounced. The ethics of interviewing captured US pilots was excoriated and its authors were publicly flayed as communist dupes. The report was red baited in the US halls of Congress and deemed unpatriotic to read, and therefore went unread and deliberately forgotten over the years, which has been the fate of Korean War history in general. In subsequent decades, volumes placed in American university library collections were quietly and permanently removed from circulation.
   
When the rare copy came up for auction, it was discretely purchased and disappeared from public view. This critical 67 year old truth commission document from the Korean War was slipping towards oblivion. For these very reasons, historians and truth seekers should exalt the wondrous rebirth of the ISC Report from near extinction with the publication of this new electronic edition. We welcome the sunshine that re-publication brings to a shadowy and suppressed chapter of American Cold War history. (from the introduction by Thomas Powell) 800 pages.  $9.99.