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FTR#1196 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 3

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FTR #1196 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment [5].

[6]Intro­duc­tion: The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of two arti­cles that frame the analy­sis of the New Cold War with Chi­na.

” . . . . ‘the polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic is pre­cise­ly that what no one expects, in the West — where agi­ta­tion­al report­ing usu­al­ly only con­firms resent­ful clichés about Chi­na. . . .”

Much jour­nal­is­tic blovi­at­ing and diplo­mat­ic and mil­i­tary pos­tur­ing in the U.S. has been devot­ed to Chi­na’s occu­pa­tion of unin­hab­it­ed atolls in the South Chi­na Sea and waters around Chi­na.

In addi­tion to fail­ure [7] to under­stand this in the his­tor­i­cal con­text of Chi­na’s expe­ri­ence dur­ing the Opi­um Wars and the con­flict with the Japan­ese dur­ing World War II [8], the cov­er­age in the West has omit­ted dis­cus­sion of sim­i­lar occu­pa­tion and (in some cas­es) mil­i­ta­riza­tion of such islands in those waters by oth­er coun­tries in the region: ” . . . . Offi­cial­ly, Berlin jus­ti­fies the frigate Bay­ern’s deploy­ment to East Asia with its inten­tion to pro­mote the imple­men­ta­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. This per­tains par­tic­u­lar­ly to con­flicts over numer­ous islands and atolls in the South Chi­na Sea that are con­test­ed by the ripar­i­ans and where Chi­na claims 28 of them and uses some mil­i­tar­i­ly, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS). Accord­ing to CSIS, the Philip­pines con­trol nine, Malaysia, five and Tai­wan, one island, where­as Viet­nam has estab­lished around 50 out­posts of var­i­ous sorts. All four coun­tries also have a mil­i­tary pres­ence on some of the islands and atolls they are occu­py­ing. . . .”

As not­ed in the Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy arti­cle, the Ger­man (and U.S. and U.K.) posi­tion is bla­tant­ly hyp­o­crit­i­cal: ” . . . . The frigate Bay­ern, which set sail for East Asia yes­ter­day, will soon make a port call at Diego Gar­cia, an island under occu­pa­tion, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, and serv­ing mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. It is the main island of the Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago in the mid­dle of the Indi­an Ocean and the site of a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant US mil­i­tary base. The Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago is an old British colo­nial pos­ses­sion that had once belonged to Mau­ri­tius. It was detached, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, dur­ing the decol­o­niza­tion of Mau­ri­tius, to allow the Unit­ed States to con­struct a mil­i­tary base. The pop­u­la­tion was deport­ed to impov­er­ished regions on Mau­ri­tius. In the mean­time, sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al court rul­ings have been hand­ed down and a UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly res­o­lu­tion has been passed on this issue — all con­clud­ing that Mau­ri­tius has sov­er­eign­ty over Diego Gar­cia and call­ing on the Unit­ed King­dom to hand back the ille­gal­ly occu­pied Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago. To this day, Lon­don and Wash­ing­ton refuse to com­ply. . . .”

Anoth­er Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy [9] arti­cle sets forth many of Mr. Emory’s fears and obser­va­tions con­cern­ing con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the U.S.

Among those con­cerns and fears:

  1. ” . . . . the major shift in the glob­al bal­ance of pow­er, shap­ing our present, with Chi­na’s rise and the USA seek­ing to hold the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na down, to pre­serve its glob­al dom­i­nance. The con­se­quences are a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion of the con­flict, which could lead to a Third World War. . . .”
  2. ” . . . . At the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the Mid­dle King­dom (Chi­na) — which had one-third of the world’s pop­u­la­tion — was still gen­er­at­ing a third of the world’s eco­nom­ic out­put. There­fore, it was the world’s great­est eco­nom­ic pow­er — as it had already been for many cen­turies. . . .”
  3. ” . . . . Chi­na’s resur­gence, fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion brought on par­tic­u­lar­ly by the west­ern colo­nial pow­ers [8] was pos­si­ble, Baron explains, not least because ‘the polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic is pre­cise­ly that what no one expects, in the West — where agi­ta­tion­al report­ing usu­al­ly only con­firms resent­ful clichés about Chi­na. It is ‘high­ly flex­i­ble, adven­tur­ous, and adapt­able.’ Baron quotes Sebas­t­ian Heil­mann and Eliz­a­beth Per­ry, both experts on Chi­na, say­ing pol­i­tics is explic­it­ly under­stood as a ‘process of con­stant trans­for­ma­tions and con­flict man­age­ment, with tri­al runs and ad hoc adap­ta­tions.’ The Chi­nese sys­tem is a far cry from being a rigid, inflex­i­ble author­i­tar­i­an­ism. . . .”
  4. ” . . . . Baron depicts the for­eign pol­i­cy the USA — at home increas­ing­ly decay­ing — has been indulging in since the end of the cold war: an extreme­ly aggres­sive approach toward Rus­sia, gru­el­ing wars — such as in Iraq — in addi­tion to ‘regime change oper­a­tions’ and unscrupu­lous extra-ter­ri­to­r­i­al sanc­tions. ‘The mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al-com­plex and the intel­li­gence ser­vices (...) have seized an enor­mous amount of pow­er,’ notes the pub­li­cist, and warns that only exter­nal aggres­sion can hold the coun­try togeth­er: ‘The con­vic­tion that Amer­i­ca must be at the top in the world,’ is, at the moment, ‘almost the only thing that the deeply antag­o­nis­tic Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans can still agree on.’ Baron speaks of ‘impe­r­i­al arro­gance.’ . . .”
  5. ” . . . . ‘To defend its lost hege­mon­ic posi­tion’ the Unit­ed States ‘is not pri­mar­i­ly seek­ing to regain its com­pet­i­tive­ness,’ Baron observes, but rather it is striv­ing ‘by any means and on all fronts, to pre­vent — or at least restrain — Chi­na’s progress.’ . . . . Ulti­mate­ly, ‘the threat of a Third World War’ looms large. . . .”

One can­not under­stand con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the polit­i­cal his­to­ry of that coun­try over the last cou­ple of cen­turies with­out a com­pre­hen­sive grasp of the effect of the Opi­um Wars on that nation and its peo­ple.

Indeed, one can­not grasp Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics with­out an under­stand­ing of the nar­cotics trade’s [10] cen­tral posi­tion in that country’s pol­i­tics.

A viable under­stand­ing of Chi­na’s past yields under­stand­ing of its present. 

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the Opi­um Wars include:

  1. The eco­nom­ic imper­a­tive [11] for the con­flicts were the trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th cen­tu­ry the demand for Chi­nese lux­u­ry goods (par­tic­u­lar­ly silk, porce­lain, and tea) cre­at­ed a trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain. Euro­pean sil­ver flowed into Chi­na [12] through the Can­ton Sys­tem [13], which con­fined incom­ing for­eign trade to the south­ern port city of Can­ton [14]. . . .”
  2. To alter that dynam­ic, the British East India Com­pa­ny turned to the opi­um trade [11]: “ . . . . To counter this imbal­ance, the British East India Com­pa­ny [15] began to grow opi­um [16] in Ben­gal [17] and allowed pri­vate British mer­chants to sell opi­um to Chi­nese smug­glers for ille­gal sale in Chi­na. The influx of nar­cotics reversed the Chi­nese trade sur­plus [18], drained the econ­o­my of sil­ver, and increased the num­bers of opi­um addicts inside the coun­try, out­comes that seri­ous­ly wor­ried Chi­nese offi­cials. . . .
  3. The Chi­nese attempt at inter­dict­ing the opi­um trade was coun­tered with force of arms: [11] “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emper­or [19], reject­ing pro­pos­als to legal­ize and tax opi­um, appoint­ed Viceroy [20]Lin Zexu [21] to go to Can­ton [14] to halt the opi­um trade com­plete­ly.[8] [22] Lin wrote an open let­ter to Queen Vic­to­ria [23], which she nev­er saw, appeal­ing to her moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop the opi­um trade.[9] [24] Lin then resort­ed to using force in the west­ern mer­chants’ enclave. He con­fis­cat­ed all sup­plies and ordered a block­ade of for­eign ships on the Pearl Riv­er. Lin also con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of Euro­pean opi­um.[10] [25] The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed by dis­patch­ing a mil­i­tary force to Chi­na and in the ensu­ing con­flict, the Roy­al Navy [26] used its naval and gun­nery pow­er to inflict a series of deci­sive defeats on the Chi­nese Empire,[11] [27] a tac­tic lat­er referred to as gun­boat diplo­ma­cy [28].  . . .”
  4. Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking [11], Chi­na expe­ri­enced [10]: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking [29]—the first of what the Chi­nese lat­er called the unequal treaties [30]—which grant­ed an indem­ni­ty [31]  and extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty [32] to British sub­jects in Chi­na . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking [29] not only opened the way for fur­ther opi­um trade, but ced­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Hong Kong . . . .
  5. The trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain wors­ened, and the expense of main­tain new colo­nial territories—including Hong Kong (appro­pri­at­ed through the first Opi­um War)—led to the sec­ond Opi­um War [10]. Note that the “extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty” grant­ed to British sub­jects exempt­ed them from Chi­nese law, includ­ing the offi­cial pro­hi­bi­tion against opi­um traf­fick­ing: “ . . . . Despite the new ports avail­able for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from Chi­na had reached nine times their exports to the coun­try. At the same time British impe­r­i­al finances came under fur­ther pres­sure from the expense of admin­is­ter­ing the bur­geon­ing colonies of Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore in addi­tion to India. Only the lat­ter’s opi­um could bal­ance the deficit. [30] [33]Along with var­i­ous com­plaints about the treat­ment of British mer­chants in Chi­nese ports and the Qing gov­ern­men­t’s refusal to accept fur­ther for­eign ambas­sadors, the rel­a­tive­ly minor ‘Arrow Inci­dent’ pro­vid­ed the pre­text the British need­ed to once more resort to mil­i­tary force to ensure the opi­um kept flow­ing. . . . Mat­ters quick­ly esca­lat­ed and led to the Sec­ond Opi­um War [34] . . . .”
  6. As a result of the Sec­ond Opi­um War [34], Chi­na was oblig­ed to Cede No.1 Dis­trict of Kowloon [35] (south of present-day Bound­ary Street [36]) to Britain; grant “free­dom of reli­gion,” which led to an influx of West­ern Mis­sion­ar­ies, U.S. in par­tic­u­lar; British ships were allowed to car­ry inden­tured Chi­nese to the Amer­i­c­as; legal­iza­tion of the opi­um trade.”
  7. Fierce, elo­quent con­dem­na­tion of the Opi­um Wars was voiced [34] by British Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone: “ . . . . The opi­um trade [37] incurred intense enmi­ty from the lat­er British Prime Min­is­ter William Ewart Glad­stone [38].[34] [39] As a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Glad­stone called it ‘most infa­mous and atro­cious’, refer­ring to the opi­um trade between Chi­na and British India in par­tic­u­lar.[35] [40] Glad­stone was fierce­ly against both of the Opi­um Wars [41], was ardent­ly opposed to the British trade in opi­um to Chi­na, and denounced British vio­lence against Chi­nese.[36] [42] Glad­stone lam­bast­ed it as ‘Palmer­ston’s Opi­um War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judg­ments of God upon Eng­land for our nation­al iniq­ui­ty towards Chi­na’ in May 1840.[37] [43] A famous speech was made by Glad­stone in Par­lia­ment against the First Opi­um War [11].[38] [44][39] [45] Glad­stone crit­i­cized it as ‘a war more unjust in its ori­gin, a war more cal­cu­lat­ed in its progress to cov­er this coun­try with per­ma­nent dis­grace’. . . .”

1. Much jour­nal­is­tic blovi­at­ing and diplo­mat­ic and mil­i­tary pos­tur­ing in the U.S. has been devot­ed to Chi­na’s occu­pa­tion of unin­hab­it­ed atolls in the South Chi­na Sea and waters around Chi­na.

In addi­tion to fail­ure to under­stand this in the his­tor­i­cal con­text of Chi­na’s expe­ri­ence dur­ing the Opi­um Wars and the con­flict with the Japan­ese dur­ing World War II [8], the cov­er­age in the West has omit­ted dis­cus­sion of sim­i­lar occu­pa­tion and (in some cas­es) mil­i­ta­riza­tion of such islands in those waters by oth­er coun­tries in the region: ” . . . . Offi­cial­ly, Berlin jus­ti­fies the frigate Bay­ern’s deploy­ment to East Asia with its inten­tion to pro­mote the imple­men­ta­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. This per­tains par­tic­u­lar­ly to con­flicts over numer­ous islands and atolls in the South Chi­na Sea that are con­test­ed by the ripar­i­ans and where Chi­na claims 28 of them and uses some mil­i­tar­i­ly, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS). Accord­ing to CSIS, the Philip­pines con­trol nine, Malaysia, five and Tai­wan, one island, where­as Viet­nam has estab­lished around 50 out­posts of var­i­ous sorts. All four coun­tries also have a mil­i­tary pres­ence on some of the islands and atolls they are occu­py­ing. . . .”

As not­ed in the Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy arti­cle, the Ger­man (and U.S. and U.K.) posi­tion is bla­tant­ly hyp­o­crit­i­cal: ” . . . . The frigate Bay­ern, which set sail for East Asia yes­ter­day, will soon make a port call at Diego Gar­cia, an island under occu­pa­tion, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, and serv­ing mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. It is the main island of the Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago in the mid­dle of the Indi­an Ocean and the site of a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant US mil­i­tary base. The Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago is an old British colo­nial pos­ses­sion that had once belonged to Mau­ri­tius. It was detached, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, dur­ing the decol­o­niza­tion of Mau­ri­tius, to allow the Unit­ed States to con­struct a mil­i­tary base. The pop­u­la­tion was deport­ed to impov­er­ished regions on Mau­ri­tius. In the mean­time, sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al court rul­ings have been hand­ed down and a UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly res­o­lu­tion has been passed on this issue — all con­clud­ing that Mau­ri­tius has sov­er­eign­ty over Diego Gar­cia and call­ing on the Unit­ed King­dom to hand back the ille­gal­ly occu­pied Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago. To this day, Lon­don and Wash­ing­ton refuse to com­ply. . . .”

“Ille­gal­ly Occu­pied Islands;” Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy; 8/03/2021. [7]

Dur­ing its East Asia tour the Ger­man frigate Bay­ern will make a port call at Diego Gar­cia. The island is the site of a US mil­i­tary base and is, accord­ing to UN courts, ille­gal­ly occu­pied by Great Britain.

The frigate Bay­ern, which set sail for East Asia yes­ter­day, will soon make a port call at Diego Gar­cia, an island under occu­pa­tion, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, and serv­ing mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. It is the main island of the Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago in the mid­dle of the Indi­an Ocean and the site of a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant US mil­i­tary base. The Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago is an old British colo­nial pos­ses­sion that had once belonged to Mau­ri­tius. It was detached, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, dur­ing the decol­o­niza­tion of Mau­ri­tius, to allow the Unit­ed States to con­struct a mil­i­tary base. The pop­u­la­tion was deport­ed to impov­er­ished regions on Mau­ri­tius. In the mean­time, sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al court rul­ings have been hand­ed down and a UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly res­o­lu­tion has been passed on this issue — all con­clud­ing that Mau­ri­tius has sov­er­eign­ty over Diego Gar­cia and call­ing on the Unit­ed King­dom to hand back the ille­gal­ly occu­pied Cha­gos Arch­i­pel­ago. To this day, Lon­don and Wash­ing­ton refuse to com­ply. This does not both­er Berlin.

“Advo­cates of a Rules-Based Order”

Offi­cial­ly, Berlin jus­ti­fies the frigate Bay­ern’s deploy­ment to East Asia with its inten­tion to pro­mote the imple­men­ta­tion of inter­na­tion­al law. This per­tains par­tic­u­lar­ly to con­flicts over numer­ous islands and atolls in the South Chi­na Sea that are con­test­ed by the ripar­i­ans and where Chi­na claims 28 of them and uses some mil­i­tar­i­ly, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS). Accord­ing to CSIS, the Philip­pines con­trol nine, Malaysia, five and Tai­wan, one island, where­as Viet­nam has estab­lished around 50 out­posts of var­i­ous sorts. All four coun­tries also have a mil­i­tary pres­ence on some of the islands and atolls they are occupying.[1] Of course, the Ger­man Min­is­ter of Defense Annegret Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer only refers to Chi­na, when she stat­ed yes­ter­day that cur­rent­ly attempts are being made to “enforce ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ple of might makes right.” “As advo­cates of a rules-based order, we are not indif­fer­ent when exist­ing law is ignored and facts are cre­at­ed in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law.”[2] Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter Heiko Maas also claims that Ger­many is par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mit­ted to “uphold­ing inter­na­tion­al law” in “the Indo-Pacific.”[3]

Colony with Slaves

Irre­spec­tive of the dis­putes in the South Chi­ba Sea, Berlin’s claims would for­mal­ly be at least a bit more cred­i­ble, if, accord­ing to the Ger­man defense min­istry, one of the frigate Bay­ern’s first port calls were not Diego Gar­cia, the largest of the Cha­gos Islands in the mid­dle of the Indi­an Ocean.[4] The Cha­gos Islands are part of the old Euro­pean colo­nial pos­ses­sions. France had seized them in 1783 and imme­di­ate­ly import­ed slaves from Mada­gas­car and Mozam­bique to toil on coconut plan­ta­tions. In 1814, Great Britain took over the Arch­i­pel­ago. Until 1965, it had been under the admin­is­tra­tion of the British island colony of Mau­ri­tius, locat­ed east of Mada­gas­car, when Lon­don, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, ampu­tat­ed the Cha­gos Islands from Mau­ri­tius, nam­ing them the British Indi­an Ocean Ter­ri­to­ry (BIOT). Mau­ri­tius, at the time, was prepar­ing for its decol­o­niza­tion (achieved in 1968). The rea­son for the ampu­ta­tion: the Unit­ed States planned the con­struc­tion of a naval and air base on Diego Gar­cia. This is why the Arch­i­pel­ago was not grant­ed its inde­pen­dence along with Mau­ri­tius. At the end of the 1960s and the begin­ning of the 1970s, the entire pop­u­la­tion — about 2000 peo­ple — were deport­ed to impov­er­ished regions on Mau­ri­tius and the Seychelles.[5]

Wars of Aggres­sion and Inter­ro­ga­tions under Tor­ture

The Unit­ed States has used its Diego Gar­cia mil­i­tary base not least of all for the pur­pose of launch­ing air strikes in numer­ous wars, includ­ing bla­tant wars of aggres­sion, in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, as well as for the 2003 attack on Iraq. Even now, the base is of the utmost strate­gic impor­tance to the US armed forces. Experts qual­i­fy it as “the key US strate­gic out­post in the Indi­an Ocean.”[6] It also proved use­ful for the CIA’s abduc­tions of sus­pects to tor­ture cham­bers in the after­math of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. Lawrence Wilk­er­son, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Col­in Pow­ell’s Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005, con­firmed in ear­ly 2015, that Diego Gar­cia had served the CIA as a “tran­sit site.” The CIA had brought sus­pects to the base “when per­haps oth­er places were full or oth­er places were deemed too dan­ger­ous or inse­cure, or unavail­able at the moment.”[7] In such cas­es the abduct­ed were flown out to Diego Gar­cia and “housed, let us say, and inter­ro­gat­ed from time to time.” The pro­ce­dures used at the time have still not been ful­ly elu­ci­dat­ed. Those respon­si­ble for the abduc­tions and crimes of tor­ture have nev­er been pun­ished.

The UN’s Ver­dict

Nev­er­the­less, British colo­nial rule over Cha­gos — which lays the foun­da­tion for the US mil­i­tary base — has been under sharp inter­na­tion­al attack for years. In Novem­ber 2000, the for­mer inhab­i­tants ini­tial­ly suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing their depor­ta­tion offi­cial­ly ruled an injus­tice by the British High Court. They are still fight­ing for their right of return. On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2019, Mau­ri­tius won its suit before the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) in The Hague against the ille­gal ampu­ta­tion of the Cha­gos Islands in 1965. The ICJ 13 — 1 rul­ing stip­u­lates that Great Britain must return the arch­i­pel­ago to Mau­ri­tius. US Jus­tice Joan E. Donoghue was the sole dis­sent­ing vote in the rul­ing. On May 22, 2019, the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly — in a vote of 116 in favor and 6 opposed — called on the Unit­ed King­dom to com­ply with the ICJ’s ver­dict and return the islands with­in six months. Lon­don and Wash­ing­ton are ignor­ing the UN vote as well as the ICJ ver­dict. Final­ly, on Jan­u­ary 28, 2021, the UN Inter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal for the Law of the Sea in Ham­burg con­curred with the ICJ’s rul­ing and stat­ed that sov­er­eign­ty over the Cha­gos Islands remains unadul­ter­at­ed with Mauritius.[8] There­fore, Great Britain and the USA are ille­gal­ly occu­py­ing Diego Gar­cia — for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es.

Berlin’s Moral­i­ty

Accord­ing to Ger­many’s Min­istry of Defense, the frigate Bay­ern, which set sail yes­ter­day from the port of Wil­helmshaven, will first come to the Mediter­ranean Sea, where it will par­tic­i­pate in NATO’s Sea Guardian Oper­a­tion; con­tin­u­ing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, it will then join the EU’s Oper­a­tion Ata­lan­ta at the Horn of Africa. Sub­se­quent­ly, it plans to make a call at Pak­istan’s port city Karachi, before con­tin­u­ing across the Indi­an Ocean to pay a call at Diego Gar­cia. In ref­er­ence to Diego Gar­cia, Berlin rais­es no crit­i­cism to “ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ple of might makes right” (Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer) nor to a con­stant refusal to “uphold inter­na­tion­al law” (Maas).

[1] Occu­pa­tion and Island Build­ing. amti.csis.org.

[2] Rede der Min­is­terin anlässlich des Aus­laufens der Fre­gat­te “Bay­ern”. bmvg.de 02.08.2021.

[3] Außen­min­is­ter Maas zur Abfahrt der Fre­gat­te “Bay­ern” nach Asien. Pressemit­teilung des Auswär­ti­gen Amts. 02.08.2021.

[4] Die Route der “Bay­ern”. bundeswehr.de 02.08.2021.

[5] Eine umfassende Darstel­lung der Geschichte der US-Mil­itär­ba­sis auf Diego Gar­cia bietet: David Vine: Island of Shame. The Secret His­to­ry of the U.S. Mil­i­tary Base on Diego Gar­cia. Princeton/Oxford 2009.

[6] Blake Herzinger: The pow­er of exam­ple: Amer­i­ca’s pres­ence in Diego Gar­cia. lowyinstitute.org 15.02.2021.

[7] Ian Cobain: CIA inter­ro­gat­ed sus­pects on Diego Gar­cia, says Col­in Pow­ell aide. theguardian.com 30.01.2015.

[8] Michael Vosat­ka: Seegericht­shof spricht Cha­gos-Inseln samt US-Basis “Diego Gar­cia” Mau­ri­tius zu. derstandard.de 29.01.2021.

2a. Anoth­er Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy arti­cle sets forth many of Mr. Emory’s fears and obser­va­tions con­cern­ing con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the U.S.

Among those con­cerns and fears:

  1. ” . . . . the major shift in the glob­al bal­ance of pow­er, shap­ing our present, with Chi­na’s rise and the USA seek­ing to hold the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na down, to pre­serve its glob­al dom­i­nance. The con­se­quences are a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion of the con­flict, which could lead to a Third World War. . . .”
  2. ” . . . . At the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the Mid­dle King­dom (Chi­na) — which had one-third of the world’s pop­u­la­tion — was still gen­er­at­ing a third of the world’s eco­nom­ic out­put. There­fore, it was the world’s great­est eco­nom­ic pow­er — as it had already been for many cen­turies. . . .”
  3. ” . . . . Chi­na’s resur­gence, fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion brought on par­tic­u­lar­ly by the west­ern colo­nial pow­ers [8] was pos­si­ble, Baron explains, not least because ‘the polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic is pre­cise­ly that what no one expects, in the West — where agi­ta­tion­al report­ing usu­al­ly only con­firms resent­ful clichés about Chi­na. It is ‘high­ly flex­i­ble, adven­tur­ous, and adapt­able.’ Baron quotes Sebas­t­ian Heil­mann and Eliz­a­beth Per­ry, both experts on Chi­na, say­ing pol­i­tics is explic­it­ly under­stood as a ‘process of con­stant trans­for­ma­tions and con­flict man­age­ment, with tri­al runs and ad hoc adap­ta­tions.’ The Chi­nese sys­tem is a far cry from being a rigid, inflex­i­ble author­i­tar­i­an­ism. . . .”
  4. ” . . . . Baron depicts the for­eign pol­i­cy the USA — at home increas­ing­ly decay­ing — has been indulging in since the end of the cold war: an extreme­ly aggres­sive approach toward Rus­sia, gru­el­ing wars — such as in Iraq — in addi­tion to ‘regime change oper­a­tions’ and unscrupu­lous extra-ter­ri­to­r­i­al sanc­tions. ‘The mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al-com­plex and the intel­li­gence ser­vices (...) have seized an enor­mous amount of pow­er,’ notes the pub­li­cist, and warns that only exter­nal aggres­sion can hold the coun­try togeth­er: ‘The con­vic­tion that Amer­i­ca must be at the top in the world,’ is, at the moment, ‘almost the only thing that the deeply antag­o­nis­tic Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans can still agree on.’ Baron speaks of ‘impe­r­i­al arro­gance.’ . . .”
  5. ” . . . . ‘To defend its lost hege­mon­ic posi­tion’ the Unit­ed States ‘is not pri­mar­i­ly seek­ing to regain its com­pet­i­tive­ness,’ Baron observes, but rather it is striv­ing ‘by any means and on all fronts, to pre­vent — or at least restrain — Chi­na’s progress.’ . . . . Ulti­mate­ly, ‘the threat of a Third World War’ looms large. . . .”

Book Review: “Ami go home!;” Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy; 7/21/2021. [9]

Ste­fan Baron (for­mer Head Edi­tor of the Ger­man week­ly, WirtschaftsWoche) analy­ses the strug­gle for hege­mo­ny between the USA and Chi­na.

“Ami go home”? That is not the sort of title one would expect to see on a book by an author like Ste­fan Baron. Baron, an eco­nom­ics grad­u­ate — who in the course of his pro­fes­sion­al career has worked as finan­cial cor­re­spon­dent for “Der Spiegel,” Edi­tor-in-Chief of the “Wirtschafts Woche” and most recent­ly, as the Direc­tor of Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion for the Deutsche Bank — cer­tain­ly would not want his book to be con­sid­ered anti-Amer­i­can. In his book, the pub­li­cist, who for years had been a mem­ber of the Board of Trustees of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary Ger­man Stud­ies and who still enjoys good rela­tions with the Unit­ed States, focus­es his atten­tion on the major shift in the glob­al bal­ance of pow­er, shap­ing our present, with Chi­na’s rise and the USA seek­ing to hold the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na down, to pre­serve its glob­al dom­i­nance. The con­se­quences are a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion of the con­flict, which could lead to a Third World War, which as Baron notes, which must urgent­ly be pre­vent­ed. This con­cern leads him to harsh­ly crit­i­cize the Unit­ed States’ cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and to sug­gest ways of pre­vent­ing the esca­la­tion of the transpa­cif­ic pow­er strug­gle.

In a sober appraisal, Baron describes the seem­ing­ly relent­less “shift of the glob­al focal point of pow­er toward Asia,” with its dri­ving fac­tor being the ascen­dance of Chi­na. As the author points out, this is a resur­gence. At the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the Mid­dle King­dom (Chi­na) — which had one-third of the world’s pop­u­la­tion — was still gen­er­at­ing a third of the world’s eco­nom­ic out­put. There­fore, it was the world’s great­est eco­nom­ic pow­er — as it had already been for many cen­turies. Chi­na’s resur­gence, fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion brought on par­tic­u­lar­ly by the west­ern colo­nial pow­ers was pos­si­ble, Baron explains, not least because “the polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic is pre­cise­ly that what no one expects, in the West — where agi­ta­tion­al report­ing usu­al­ly only con­firms resent­ful clichés about Chi­na. It is “high­ly flex­i­ble, adven­tur­ous, and adapt­able.” Baron quotes Sebas­t­ian Heil­mann and Eliz­a­beth Per­ry, both experts on Chi­na, say­ing pol­i­tics is explic­it­ly under­stood as a “process of con­stant trans­for­ma­tions and con­flict man­age­ment, with tri­al runs and ad hoc adap­ta­tions.” The Chi­nese sys­tem is a far cry from being a rigid, inflex­i­ble author­i­tar­i­an­ism.

On the oth­er hand, one notices his deep dis­ap­point­ment in his descrip­tions of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in the Unit­ed States. “The land of free­dom, equal oppor­tu­ni­ty, and democ­ra­cy has degen­er­at­ed into an oli­garchy,” even a “plu­toc­ra­cy,” writes Baron. “The rule of law shows deep cracks, eco­nom­ic pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and per­spec­tives for the future are dwin­dling, the mid­dle class is melt­ing away, social inequal­i­ty and racism are ram­pant. Baron depicts the for­eign pol­i­cy the USA — at home increas­ing­ly decay­ing — has been indulging in since the end of the cold war: an extreme­ly aggres­sive approach toward Rus­sia, gru­el­ing wars — such as in Iraq — in addi­tion to “regime change oper­a­tions” and unscrupu­lous extra-ter­ri­to­r­i­al sanc­tions. “The mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al-com­plex and the intel­li­gence ser­vices (...) have seized an enor­mous amount of pow­er,” notes the pub­li­cist, and warns that only exter­nal aggres­sion can hold the coun­try togeth­er: “The con­vic­tion that Amer­i­ca must be at the top in the world,” is, at the moment, “almost the only thing that the deeply antag­o­nis­tic Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans can still agree on.” Baron speaks of “impe­r­i­al arro­gance.”

And he has no illu­sions about how dan­ger­ous the sit­u­a­tion has become. “To defend its lost hege­mon­ic posi­tion” the Unit­ed States “is not pri­mar­i­ly seek­ing to regain its com­pet­i­tive­ness,” Baron observes, but rather it is striv­ing “by any means and on all fronts, to pre­vent — or at least restrain — Chi­na’s progress.” At the moment, it is using a “trade” and a “tech­nol­o­gy war,” how­ev­er, pre­dicts the pub­li­cist, although these will “seri­ous­ly slow down Peking’s tech­no­log­i­cal catch­ing-up process, it can­not stop it.” Ulti­mate­ly, “the threat of a Third World War” looms large. Baron recalls that already in his grad­u­a­tion speech to the cadets of the US West Point Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my in 2019, US Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence had open­ly “admit­ted the prospect” that they will “one day ‘stand on the bat­tle­field,’ in oth­er words, will have to go to war.” The USA is not only the sole coun­try in the world that has “already (and with­out neces­si­ty) used nuclear weapons,” but also the one that, “unlike Chi­na, has nev­er renounced on their first use.”

What is to be done? Baron relies explic­it­ly on “Europe’s eman­ci­pa­tion” from the Unit­ed States. He con­sid­ers that the inter­ests of the Euro­pean pow­ers “coin­cide nei­ther with those of the Unit­ed States nor those of Chi­na.” This is why they should not “choose between the two pow­ers” but rather “choose a third path, our own.” A “mul­ti-polar world order and peace­ful coex­is­tence of the sys­tems” should become the basis of Euro­pean for­eign pol­i­cy.” That can also be achieved, giv­en that the EU is, “itself, devoid of hege­mon­ic ambi­tions.” The lat­ter may be doubt­ed with good rea­son, along with his con­vic­tion that the EU had been forced by the USA into the con­flict with Rus­sia. It was pre­cise­ly the EU’s expan­sion of pow­er, dri­ven by old Ger­man ambi­tions to gain influ­ence in the east that had caused the dire esca­la­tion of the con­flict with Rus­sia in 2014. Even though Baron’s pro­pos­al for ther­a­py is not real­ly con­vinc­ing, his diag­no­sis, in many respects, cer­tain­ly is.

3. One can­not under­stand con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the polit­i­cal his­to­ry of that coun­try over the last cou­ple of cen­turies with­out a com­pre­hen­sive grasp of the effect of the Opi­um Wars on that nation and its peo­ple.

Indeed, one can­not grasp Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics with­out an under­stand­ing of the nar­cotics trade’s [10] cen­tral posi­tion in that country’s pol­i­tics.

A viable under­stand­ing of Chi­na’s past yields under­stand­ing of its present. 

Aware­ness of key dynam­ics of Chi­nese his­to­ry includes:

  1. The deci­sive role of Euro­pean and Amer­i­can mil­i­tary dom­i­na­tion and eco­nom­ic exploita­tion of Chi­na.
  2. The role of the nar­cotics traf­fic in the ero­sion of Chi­nese soci­ety in the 19th cen­tu­ry.
  3. The British-led “Opi­um Wars,” which were the foun­da­tion of the destruc­tion wrought by dope addic­tion in Chi­na.
  4. The Opi­um Wars and their imple­men­ta­tion by “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” of British and Euro­pean ter­ri­to­r­i­al expan­sion in Chi­na.
  5. The piv­otal role of that “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” in the British acqui­si­tion of Hong Kong.
  6. Con­tem­po­rary Chi­nese con­cern with the mil­i­tary safe­ty of their ports, ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, adja­cent seas and oceans, ship­ping lanes, mer­chant marine traf­fic. This stems in large mea­sure from China’s expe­ri­ence with “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” and the rav­aging of Chi­na by Impe­r­i­al Japan dur­ing the 1930’s and 1940’s.
  7. The intro­duc­tion of West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies into China–American mis­sion­ar­ies, in par­tic­u­lar.
  8. The fos­ter­ing of the “Mis­sion­ary posi­tion” toward Chi­na on the part of the U.S.
  9. Amer­i­can mis­sion­ar­ies’ use of mor­phine to cure Chi­nese opi­um addicts, a prac­tice so preva­lent that the Chi­nese referred to mor­phine as “Jesus opi­um.”
  10. The enor­mous opi­um trade in Chi­na as the foun­da­tion for the coa­les­cence and ascent of Shang­hai’s Green Gang and Tu Yueh-Shen: “Big Eared Tu.”
  11. The dom­i­nance of the Kuom­intang of Chi­ang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
  12. The fun­da­men­tal reliance of Chi­ang’s gov­ern­ment on the nar­cotics trade.
  13. The dom­i­nant role of Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. nar­cotics trade.
  14. The doc­tri­naire fas­cism of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and his oper­a­tional rela­tion­ships with Nazi Ger­many, Mus­solin­i’s Italy and Impe­r­i­al Japan.
  15. The cen­tral role of the Soong fam­i­ly in Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s Kuom­intang; T.V. Soong, his sis­ters Mae-ling (mar­ried to Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-Shek), Ai-ling (mar­ried to H.H. Kung, a key finance min­is­ter of the Kuo­moin­tang), and sev­er­al of T. V.‘s broth­ers, who also shared in the slic­ing of the pie under Chi­ang.
  16. The piv­otal role of Amer­i­can pub­lish­ing giant Hen­ry Luce, whose mis­sion­ary back­ground in Chi­na informed and ani­mat­ed his ado­ra­tion of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and Mme. Chi­ang.
  17. The role of the Luce pub­lish­ing empire and the enor­mous finan­cial influ­ence of the con­sum­mate­ly cor­rupt Soong fam­i­ly in spawn­ing “The Chi­na Lob­by.”
  18. The deci­sive role of the Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s refusal to fight the Japan­ese invaders, com­bined with the bru­tal repres­sion and civic inep­ti­tude in dri­ving the Chi­nese peo­ple into the arms of Mao Tse-Tung and the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the Opi­um Wars include:

  1. The eco­nom­ic imper­a­tive [11] for the con­flicts were the trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th cen­tu­ry the demand for Chi­nese lux­u­ry goods (par­tic­u­lar­ly silk, porce­lain, and tea) cre­at­ed a trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain. Euro­pean sil­ver flowed into Chi­na [12]through the Can­ton Sys­tem [13], which con­fined incom­ing for­eign trade to the south­ern port city of Can­ton [14]. . . .”
  2. To alter that dynam­ic, the British East India Com­pa­ny turned to the opi­um trade [11]: “ . . . . To counter this imbal­ance, the British East India Com­pa­ny [15] began to grow opi­um [16] in Ben­gal [17] and allowed pri­vate British mer­chants to sell opi­um to Chi­nese smug­glers for ille­gal sale in Chi­na. The influx of nar­cotics reversed the Chi­nese trade sur­plus [18], drained the econ­o­my of sil­ver, and increased the num­bers of opi­um addicts inside the coun­try, out­comes that seri­ous­ly wor­ried Chi­nese offi­cials. . . .
  3. The Chi­nese attempt at inter­dict­ing the opi­um trade was coun­tered with force of arms: [11] “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emper­or [19], reject­ing pro­pos­als to legal­ize and tax opi­um, appoint­ed Viceroy [20]Lin Zexu [21] to go to Can­ton [14] to halt the opi­um trade com­plete­ly.[8] [22] Lin wrote an open let­ter to Queen Vic­to­ria [23], which she nev­er saw, appeal­ing to her moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop the opi­um trade.[9] [24] Lin then resort­ed to using force in the west­ern mer­chants’ enclave. He con­fis­cat­ed all sup­plies and ordered a block­ade of for­eign ships on the Pearl Riv­er. Lin also con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of Euro­pean opi­um.[10] [25] The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed by dis­patch­ing a mil­i­tary force to Chi­na and in the ensu­ing con­flict, the Roy­al Navy [26] used its naval and gun­nery pow­er to inflict a series of deci­sive defeats on the Chi­nese Empire,[11] [27] a tac­tic lat­er referred to as gun­boat diplo­ma­cy [28].  . . .”
  4. Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking [11], Chi­na expe­ri­enced [10]: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking [29]—the first of what the Chi­nese lat­er called the unequal treaties [30]—which grant­ed an indem­ni­ty [31]  and extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty [32] to British sub­jects in Chi­na . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking [29] not only opened the way for fur­ther opi­um trade, but ced­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Hong Kong . . . .
  5. The trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain wors­ened, and the expense of main­tain new colo­nial territories—including Hong Kong (appro­pri­at­ed through the first Opi­um War)—led to the sec­ond Opi­um War [10]. Note that the “extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty” grant­ed to British sub­jects exempt­ed them from Chi­nese law, includ­ing the offi­cial pro­hi­bi­tion against opi­um traf­fick­ing: “ . . . . Despite the new ports avail­able for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from Chi­na had reached nine times their exports to the coun­try. At the same time British impe­r­i­al finances came under fur­ther pres­sure from the expense of admin­is­ter­ing the bur­geon­ing colonies of Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore in addi­tion to India. Only the lat­ter’s opi­um could bal­ance the deficit. [30] [33]Along with var­i­ous com­plaints about the treat­ment of British mer­chants in Chi­nese ports and the Qing gov­ern­men­t’s refusal to accept fur­ther for­eign ambas­sadors, the rel­a­tive­ly minor ‘Arrow Inci­dent’ pro­vid­ed the pre­text the British need­ed to once more resort to mil­i­tary force to ensure the opi­um kept flow­ing. . . . Mat­ters quick­ly esca­lat­ed and led to the Sec­ond Opi­um War [34] . . . .”
  6. As a result of the Sec­ond Opi­um War [34], Chi­na was oblig­ed to Cede No.1 Dis­trict of Kowloon [35] (south of present-day Bound­ary Street [36]) to Britain; grant “free­dom of reli­gion,” which led to an influx of West­ern Mis­sion­ar­ies, U.S. in par­tic­u­lar; British ships were allowed to car­ry inden­tured Chi­nese to the Amer­i­c­as; legal­iza­tion of the opi­um trade.”
  7. Fierce, elo­quent con­dem­na­tion of the Opi­um Wars was voiced [34] by British Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone: “ . . . . The opi­um trade [37] incurred intense enmi­ty from the lat­er British Prime Min­is­ter William Ewart Glad­stone [38].[34] [39] As a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Glad­stone called it ‘most infa­mous and atro­cious’, refer­ring to the opi­um trade between Chi­na and British India in par­tic­u­lar.[35] [40] Glad­stone was fierce­ly against both of the Opi­um Wars [41], was ardent­ly opposed to the British trade in opi­um to Chi­na, and denounced British vio­lence against Chi­nese.[36] [42] Glad­stone lam­bast­ed it as ‘Palmer­ston’s Opi­um War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judg­ments of God upon Eng­land for our nation­al iniq­ui­ty towards Chi­na’ in May 1840.[37] [43] A famous speech was made by Glad­stone in Par­lia­ment against the First Opi­um War [11].[38] [44][39] [45] Glad­stone crit­i­cized it as ‘a war more unjust in its ori­gin, a war more cal­cu­lat­ed in its progress to cov­er this coun­try with per­ma­nent dis­grace’. . . .”