By: Raúl Zibechi

The three months that separate us from elections in the United States will be critical to life on the planet, according to various analyses and, in a very particular way, in the opinion of Chinese leaders, those most interested in neutralizing the offensive underway from the White House and the Pentagon.

Last Sunday, July 26, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hu Xijin, published a call for the nation to construct more nuclear missiles as a measure to confront unprecedented security challenges from the United States. In his account he wrote: “Hurry up and build more nuclear missiles to deter the crazy Americans” (https://bit.ly/3jJxbGa).

Months ago, there was another call in the same media, with the same orientation: increasing the nuclear arsenal to deter the Pentagon. According to the newspaper, it was not China’s will to increase its atomic arsenal, but the current situation suggests that clashes will take place in the South China Sea, which has become the epicenter of the conflict between the two powers.

Donald Trump’s electoral strategy is designed in an extensive interview with Steve Bannon in Asia Times, on June 12 (Bannon was head of the Trump campaign in 2016, a banker at Goldman Sachs and a White House advisor in the magnate’s presidency). He assures that if he focuses his campaign against China, he can win the election in November.

His opinions are tremendous and some sound delusional, like accusing China for the death of George Floyd, because the Afro-American had Covid-19, “which came from the CCP,” consumed fentanyl, an opioid that dice comes from the same nation, and that he never got a factory job because industry went away to the Asian country https://bit.ly/30Xo2kz).

However, it’s necessary to read the interview because it exposes US policy and the thinking of its elites. He claims that: “the Chinese government is a group of mobsters” and that the Communist Party is “a group of gangsters.” Even worse, he says that the CCP “is the unfinished work of the 20^th Century” and that this is the time to liquidate it.

There are two points of attack: stifling Hong Kong because China must be prevented access to the technology and capital of the West, and constructing a regional alliance with Japan, Australia, India and Vietnam, “around the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.” Both strategies are underway, but in Bannon’s opinion must be increased until the Communist Party is overthrown.

On June 4, Steve Bannon released what he calls the “New Federal State of China,” which even has a flag, proclaimed on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square repression, and is made up of a handful of millionaires that fled China. Beyond the fact that this objective is unattainable, the will to overthrow the Chinese regime by force should be noted.

Beijing’s response to US aggression can be read in the Global Times on that same July 26, in an article that emphasizes the “extreme danger” that bilateral relations will contain in the next three months (https://bit.ly/39CeAqI). In it, he anticipates that in those three months “it’s probable that the Trump administration launches more attacks to force China to retaliate.”

The newspaper, which reflects the Chinese government’s opinion, insists that Trump’s desire to get a second term can aggravate things in the short term. But it assures that the anti-China position “reflects the bi-partisan consensus among the US elites, and therefore China should not expect a significant change in Washington policy, even if there is a transition of power in November, which means that China should be prepared for a long fight.”

This is the central point. United States foreign policy veered from its previous centrality on the Middle East towards the Pacific and China since the Obama presidency. Based on the opinions of Chinese experts, the Global Times concludes that Beijing should not enter into provocations, like the closure of the Houston consulate.

“The key to China avoiding conflict and to winning the competition forced by the United States is to focus on its own development and to be prepared for the worst situation,” the newspaper said. The lucidity of the team leader permits it to conclude with a statement typical of its millennial culture: “The United States is not afraid of a cold war with us, it’s afraid of our development.”

They make clear that “the worst” can happen: A war in maritime waters that can derive into a nuclear war. They want to be prepared for that eventuality, but concentrate on their own development.

Those of us below must assume that things are going to get worse, that the storm/pandemic that affects us is just the first in a series of calamities that we will not be able to prevent, and that the arks in permanent construction help us face this period that puts our resistances to the test.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Friday, July 31, 2020

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/07/31/opinion/018a2pol

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee