Its 2023 summit was held in Hiroshima a couple of days ago. Besides the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, the two EU leaders also participated as full members.
There were several guests. The leaders of Australia, Brazil, South Korea, and Vietnam were invited in their country’s capacity. Others were the current Chairs of G20, ASEAN, the African Union, and the Pacific Island Forum. The heads of IEA, IMF, OECD, World Bank, WHO, and WTO were also invited.
Although Kishida was the host, everybody knew who the boss of the summit was. But Biden was too preoccupied with domestic problems to be coherent or weighty. And they had a celebrity guest of honour to showcase; he was Ukraine’s Zelenskyy.
 |
| A photo opportunity with a superstar? |
What did they talk?
The following are excerpted from their communique's preamble and summary:
“More
united than ever in our determination to meet the global challenges of
this moment and set the course for a better future.
“Support
Ukraine for as long as it takes in the face of Russia’s illegal war of
aggression;
“Coordinate
our approach to economic resilience and economic security that is based on
diversifying and deepening partnerships and de-risking, not de-coupling;
“Deliver our goal of
mobilizing up to $600 billion in financing for quality infrastructure through
the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII)
“Support a free and
open Indo-Pacific and oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status
quo by force or coercion;
“Upholding and
reinforcing the free and open international order based on the rule of
law, respecting the UN Charter to the benefit of countries, large and small;
“Strongly opposing any unilateral
attempts to change the peacefully established status of territories by
force or coercion anywhere in the world and reaffirming that the acquisition of
territory by force is prohibited;
“Promoting universal human
rights, gender equality and human dignity;
“Strengthening the rules-based
multilateral trading system and keeping pace with the evolution of digital
technologies.”
(Bold fonts marked out by yours faithfully.)
Much of them is motherhood in essence. The real target was China, China, China! (Russia was just incidental!) In the full text, the following were stated:
51... We will reduce excessive dependencies in our critical supply chains...We will seek to address the challenges posed by China’s non-market policies and practices, which distort the global economy. We will counter malign practices, such as illegitimate technology transfer or data disclosure... We recognize the necessity of protecting certain advanced technologies that could be used to threaten our national security without unduly limiting trade and investment. We remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas. We strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion.... We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community... We will keep voicing our concerns about the human rights situation in China, including in Tibet and Xinjiang where forced labor is of major concern to us. We call on China to honor its commitments under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, which enshrine rights, freedoms and a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong. We call on China to act in accordance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular relations, and not to conduct interference activities aimed at undermining the security and safety of our communities, the integrity of our democratic institutions and our economic prosperity.
52...There is no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims
in the South China Sea, and we oppose China’s militarization activities in the
region.... We reiterate that the award
rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal (of UNCLO) on July 12, 2016, is a significant milestone,
which is legally binding upon the parties to those proceedings, and a useful
basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties.
Aren’t they stale dishes
that are being recycled in an unscrupulous restaurant?
We are now living in a Sinophobic world. These people are re-invoking the Yellow Peril Version 2, even though Kishida is also Yellow. (Sunak thinks he is White, and he is behaving like one. Who are we to disagree with him on this?) I suppose guests like Brazil’s Lula and Indonesia’s Jokowi must have felt very uneasy each time they brought up the same old dishes – China’s bad human rights record in Xinjiang and Tibet (next target?!), its attempt to change status quo in Taiwan, and its behaviours towards neighbours in the South China Sea. But I suppose leaders like Modi would have derived much pleasure in listening to G7's brainless chats on China. The 老奸巨猾 (lǎo jiān jù huá - cunning, crafty and wily old fox) Modi is perhaps the only one who can laugh all the way to the bank in the present geopolitical madness championed by Biden.
Russia is struggling on the Ukraine fronts, although it is still coping reasonably well. (The defence chief should have been sacked long time ago!) But the economic hardship that has been inflicted by the sanctions must be difficult for its people to endure.
Needless to say, Ukraine’s plight is even worse, thanks to their having a leader who in the first place is ethnically not even a Slav.
For outsiders like me, it was a stupid dispute in the first place. What was the necessity for Ukraine to try to join NATO? (Russia was not against their joining EU, but not NATO. It had in fact desired to join EU themselves, had not they?) And now it has turned into a proxy war, at whose costs? And at whose benefits?
To me, Biden looks sinister and hypocritical each time he opens his mouth on China.
Biden now talks about de-risking from, and not decoupling with, China. Let us not be naïve; he is through and through racist towards China. No matter what term he uses, he means this: China has to be retarded at all costs!
A pro-unification commentator in Taiwan says the G7 meeting in Hiroshima reminds him of the gathering of the officers of the Eight-Nation Alliance in Beijing in 1901 to sign the Boxer Protocol. The new cast is almost the same, except that Russia is also getting the short end of the stick. Canada is a newbie; it is Anglo-Saxon, and a willing vassal of the US, anyway.
(In 1900, about 45,000 troops from Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the US – collectively called the Eight-Nation Alliance) – invaded China to attempt to relieve the foreign legations that had been besieged by the Boxers in Beijing. China was in no position to fight the alliance at all. Many boxers and sympathisers were slaughtered alive and women were raped and bayoneted. The alliance's soldiers looted palaces, yamens (court houses) and government buildings, inflicting incalculable loss of cultural relics, and rare books, and damage to the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and other venues of great cultural heritage. Many of the items looted are now with the museums in London and Paris.
The alliance's soldiers ran wild
for more a year in Beijing and North China. The fighting ended only after China
signed a humiliating surrender – the Boxer Protocol – in 1901.)
 |
| German and Japanese soldiers witnessing the street execution of a Chinese boxer |
1850 California passes Foreign Miners Tax requiring foreign minors to pay $20/month.
1852 California
passes Foreign Miners License Tax, requiring foreigners who were not U.S.
citizens to take out a license for $3/month. This tax was raised gradually over
the next twenty years peaking at $20/month in 1870.
1854 California
Supreme Court decision makes Chinese ineligible to testify in court against
whites.
1855 California
passes “An Act to Discourage the Immigration to This State of Persons Who
Cannot Become Citizens” in attempt to prevent further Chinese immigration.
San Francisco levies a $50 tax on anyone aboard a ship attempting to dock in California who is “not eligible for naturalization.”
1858 California
passes “An Act to Prevent the Further Immigration of Chinese or Mongolians to
This State.”
1860 California
levies a Fishing tax on Chinese activities in fishing.
San
Francisco denies admission of Chinese children to general public schools.
Chinese
denied admission to San Francisco City Hospital.
1862 California
passes “An Act to Protect Free White Labor Against Competition with Chinese
Coolie Labor” (another attempt to prevent further Chinese immigration).
California Police Tax is passed,
requiring every Chinese person over the age of 18 who was not employed in the
production rice, sugar, tea, or coffee to pay a tax of $2.50/month.
1870 “Act
to Prevent Kidnapping and Importing of Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese Females
for Criminal Purposes” prevents entry of Chinese women without special
certificates. (California)
San
Francisco prohibits hiring of Chinese on municipal projects.
San
Francisco bans use of carrying poles for peddling vegetables.
San
Francisco ordinance requires 500 cubic feet of air within rooming houses. (Aimed at clearing out Chinese ghettos).
1873 San
Francisco taxes laundries using horse-drawn vehicles $4 per year, while those
with no vehicles are taxed $60 per year.
1873-75 San
Francisco passes various ordinances against the use of firecrackers and Chinese
ceremonial gongs.
1875 Law to regulate the size of
shrimping nets (reduces catch).
San Francisco Anti-Queue Law
orders shaving off queues of all Chinese arrested.
1879 California state constitution
prohibits corporations and municipal works from hiring Chinese and authorizes
cities to remove Chinese residents from within the city limits to specified
outlying areas.
1880 Fishing Act prohibits Chinese from engaging in any fishing business. Act to Prevent the Issuance of Licenses to Aliens deprives Chinese of licenses for businesses or occupations.
San
Francisco passes anti-ironing ordinance aimed at shutting down Chinese night-time
laundries.
1882
CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT PASSED BY
CONGRESS
1885 Political Codes Amendment allows
for the segregation of Chinese in schools, public facilities, hospitals, and
other places.
1893
Fish and Games Act prohibits use
of Chinese nets in fishing.
1906
Anti-Miscegenation Law prohibits
Chinese from marrying non-Chinese.
1913 Alien Land Laws prohibit buying or owning land by “aliens ineligible for citizenship.”
And nation-wide, they were systematically discriminated with the following acts:
1862 Anti-Coolie Act
Imposing
a monthly tax on Chinese immigrants seeking to do business in the state of California.
1873 Pigtail
Ordinance
Forcing
prisoners to have their hair cut within an inch of the scalp. This affected
Qing Chinese prisoners.
1875 Page
Act
Prohibiting the entry of Chines women
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
Prohibiting all immigration of Chinese
labourers for 10 years
Today’s China
is not a Qing China. Be that as it may, one should not hold any hope that the US and its allies will be nice to us (China and Chinese in
general) one day. NATO, though a faraway alliance, has openly said China is the
threat of their future. And the US has already formed QUAD, AUKUS and Chip 4 to
contain China. Anti-China sentiment is increasingly seeping into their state
laws. In Texas, Chinese citizens are barred from buying land (Senate
Bill 147), and in Florida, its House Bill 4736 proposes to ban universities from
admitting Chinese (together with Iranians, North Koreans, and Russians). Similar
measures are being contemplated in Virginia. And Montana has already banned
TikTok.
State subsidies to subsidiaries of Chinese
enterprises would also be disallowed – a case in point is the Gotion, which is
constructing an EV battery plant in Michigan. Many states are looking to restrict ownership of farmland by entities linked to China.
Between March 2020 and February, about 3,800 incidents of harassment and assaults against Asian Americans were reported.
At the Federal level, there will be more and more policies that deter Chinese university students from studying in the US. And growing number of scientists and engineers are finding themselves closely tracked by the US security apparatuses.
The following are the newer legislations that are principally targeting China:
(i)
The US Innovation of Competition Act of 2021,
which covers:
-
The CHIPS and ORAN 5G Emergency Appropriation
-
The Endless Frontier Act,
-
The Strategic Competition Act,
-
Meeting the China Challenge Act.
(ii)
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2022
(iii) The US Innovation and Competition Act of 2022
Domestically,
the bill would establish an anti-China apparatus tasked with hunting down “undue”
Chinese influence, profiling of Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals living
in the US. The Act would enact a policy to “enable the people of the US,
including the private sector, civil society, universities and other academic
institutions, State and local legislators, and other relevant actors to
identify and remain vigilant to the risks posed by undue influence of the CPC in
the US. It allocates a USD400 million a year to create a “Countering Chinese
Influence” fund.
(iv) Chips and Science Act of 2022
In February this year, the US and Japan persuaded the Netherlands to restrict chip-related exports to China. China would be further deprived of DUV, let alone EUV, machine availability
The Democrats and Republicans are trying to outdo each other to make China appear more demonic. House and Senate committees are fighting head over heel to enact more legislations that would harm China more. Every bit of Chinese influence is best rooted out. Apparatuses have specially been set up to monitor and punish. Worse still, the US is resorting to pressure other nations to eliminate anything Chinese that they perceive to be threatening. A Pukul Habis or Total Wipeout attempt – a phrase I borrow from David Boey’s recent book - to finish China.
Fortunately, China is a totally different China today. President Xi has the civilisational wisdom to overcome this madness. G7 is a club of White racists, albeit one is only an honorary White. Many leaders have already seen through them: those in the Middle East, those in Central Asia (China was hosting a China-Central Asia Summit in Xi’an – apparently, the last equivalent was held during the Tang Dynasty, some 1,400 years ago!), those in Southeast Asia, those in Latin America, those in Africa, and even those in some of the “show-me-the-money-first” Pacific island nations. This gangland of Seven can talk until the cows come home; ultimately, China will prevail. But it must be on its guard always. Besides the G7 hoodlums, you also have leaders in South Korea, the Philippines, Mongolia, Vietnam and now possibly Thailand who are always happy to see a weaker or weakened China as their neighbour.
No comments:
Post a Comment