Madeleine Albright is befuddled by a few simple questions. Watch her squirm because she knows she is lying.
(United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001)
Countries with more covid vaccines in 2021 had higher excess mortality in the first 9 months of 2022
Positive correlation between vaccination in 2021 and excess deaths in 2022
Spike proteins in the brain and vascular system of COVID jabbed victims now showing up in autopsies as MAIN CAUSE of strokes and heart attacks
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/nationwide-call-for-vaccine-autopsies
Mar 21, 2023
by S.D. Wells
This article was originally published by SD Wells at Natural News under the title: NATIONWIDE CALL for VACCINE AUTOPSIES: Every “Unexpected” Heart Attack by a Covid-Vaccinated Young Person Should be Thoroughly Investigated by Autopsy for Spike Protein Causes
One surefire way to prove the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) clot shots (“vaccines”)are responsible for millions of suspected “unexplainable” sudden deaths, especially among healthy and young people, would be to conduct autopsies on all of them, compile the data, and publish the results. Coroners and embalmers across the globe are testifying that spike proteins are visible in vital organs of the bodies they examine, including the heart and brain.
Contrary to what all the talking heads and so-called pandemic “experts” said about the COVID vaccines, that they remain at the site of injection, the spike proteins travel throughout the vascular system, clog it up, and can cause heart failure, strokes, and vital organ complications. This is why there are so many “unexplained” deaths of healthy, young people, including athletes and military members. This must be investigated thoroughly and the results must be protected from the censorship of the vaccine industrial complex and Big Pharma.
Spike proteins in the brain and vascular system of COVID jabbed victims now showing up in autopsies as MAIN CAUSE of strokes and heart attacks
America is the land of free speech and a free press. Though mass media, social media, and tech giants are suppressing these as much as possible, it is still legal to make podcasts and publish articles and blogs about the truth of the deadly clot shots. Now is the time for every American who has lost a loved one to “sudden adult death syndrome,” an unexpected heart attack, or stroke, to step up and demand an autopsy to search for spike proteins as the main cause.
Understand that NO medical doctor in this country will blame the COVID clot shots for death, for fear they will lose their medical license (the AMA, FDA, and CDC are all in on the scam to cover up vaccine damage and vaccine-induced deaths). This sudden death of healthy people is not an unexplainable phenomenon, and it will only get much worse as more and more people are getting booster shots for the lab-made Wuhan virus. Get ready for a tsunami of “unexplainable” sudden deaths that can be easily explained by coroners and embalmers who witness firsthand these horrible vascular clots from spike proteins that clog the blood, the brain, and other vital organs.
Solvable crimes: More “unexpected” deaths from heart attacks and strokes post-COVID vaccine need autopsies to check for spike protein clogs in heart and brain
Imagine if millions of people were being murdered around the globe, and blood from the murderers was left at the scenes of the crimes, but no detectives were gathering any evidence or DNA samples at all, and it was all chalked up as “unsolvable crimes.” Vaccine violence is happening, and it’s happening at exponential rates now, thanks to the toxic spike protein injections. mRNA is designed to instruct the cells to continue producing these vascular-clotting prions indefinitely, so who is to say how many millions, if not billions, of deaths they will cause sooner than later?
This is mass genocide by vaccine violence. This must be investigated. We have the technology to find out the causes of all these unexpected, “unexplainable” sudden deaths of millions of people right after they get the Covid jabs. The elephant in the room is so obvious, but the injected masses are suffering from vax-brain and can’t see the forest for the trees. Let’s help them all see it by demanding autopsies and publishing data to expose the truth about this Vaccine Holocaust.
China’s President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin bid each other farewell following talks in Moscow.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/22/xi-tells-putin-of-changes-not-seen-for-100
Published On 22 Mar 202322 Mar 2023
President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were filmed saying warm goodbyes as their two-day meeting ended with China’s leader saying they were driving geopolitical change around the world.
The two leaders called for “responsible dialogue” to resolve the Ukraine crisis, with Xi acknowledging Beijing and Moscow had signed an agreement bringing their ties into a “new era” of cooperation.
A video of Xi’s departure on Wednesday was filmed with translators speaking for both men.
“Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together,” Xi told Putin as he stood at the door of the Kremlin to bid him farewell.
The Russian president responded: “I agree.”
Xi then put out his hand to shake Putin’s and said: “Take care please, dear friend.” Putin responded by holding Xi’s hand with both of his and saying, “Have a safe trip.”
The Chinese leader’s visit to Moscow comes days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine, where Russian forces have made little progress in recent months despite suffering heavy losses.
The talks were intended to cement the “no limits” partnership the two leaders announced last February, less than three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Putin said a Chinese proposal to end the conflict could be used as the basis of a peace settlement, but the West and Kyiv were not yet ready.
The United States has been dismissive of China’s peace plan and said a ceasefire would lock in Russian territorial gains and give Putin’s army more time to regroup.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
The dumbass West really only wants a final confrontation that will end all life on Earth. The West is being led by evil forces.
GOODBYE
Xi: “Now there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.
” Putin: “I agree.”
Xi: “Take care, dear friend.”
Putin: “Have a safe trip.”
How would the UK react if Vlad would deposit a dirty bomb in front of the UK Parliament? Bloody horrible Hypocrites.
Interview of Paul Craig Roberts by the Russian Geopolitical institute GEOFOR.
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, March 20, 2023
Region: USA
Theme: Global Economy
***
There are two main avenues to a potential US financial crisis. Such a crisis, because of US financial dominance and because of the interconnections of globalism, which was a huge mistake for humanity, would be international.
One avenue to crisis is the Federal Reserve’s current policy of raising interest rates. This policy follows many years of nearly zero interest rates in nominal terms, and negative interest rates in real terms.
During these many years the financial assets banks accumulated on their balance sheets, such as bonds, pay a low rate of interest. When the central bank (Federal Reserve) raises interest rates, the values of the lower interest rate financial instruments fall, thus shrinking the asset side of banks’ balance sheets but not the liabilities side.
Thus the central bank’s policy is pushing banks toward insolvency. When depositors realize that their deposits could be frozen for some time or lost if over $250,000 in size, as many corporation payrolls and some individual accounts are, they withdraw their deposits.
The banks cannot meet the withdrawals because their assets have shrunk in value relative to deposits and because as they sell the depreciated assets to meet the withdrawals the prices of the troubled assets fall further. Silicon Valley Bank had assets heavily weighted with low-interest rate US Treasury bonds, the value of which was driven down by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The other two banks were victims of crypto-currency which is too volatile for a bank’s balance sheet.
To prevent the failure of the three US banks from causing a general panic, it was announced that the central bank would provide all banks with sufficient cash to meet withdrawals and that all deposits were insured even if they were higher than the insured amount. This should prevent panic.
However, if the central bank continues to raise interest rates, the higher rates will push more banks into insolvency. Central banks make mistakes just like everyone else. In Europe Credit Suisse, a large international bank, is in trouble, yet the European Central Bank just announced a rise in interest rates.
The Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami
The second avenue to the crisis is the trillions of dollars in derivatives held by the five large US banks, which are international in their transactions. According to published reports, the five largest banks have $188 trillion in derivative exposure. This sum is vastly greater than the banks’ capital base. No one knows what the risk is in these derivatives. But the dollar amount is much higher than in 2008, so the potential for a worse crisis exists. A crisis only takes one mistake by one bond trader at a large institution to ignite a crisis.
The derivative crisis that occurred in 2008 (slowly building during 2006 and 2007) resulted from the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act which had prevented financial crisis for 66 years since its passage in 1933. Advocates of repeal claimed that “financial markets are self-regulating and do not need regulators setting rules.” They were wrong as became clear 9 years later.
The Glass-Steagall Act separated commercial from investment banking. Commercial banks that take in deposits and lend on that basis were not permitted to undertake more risky and speculative ventures as investment banks that at that time were capitalized by the personal fortunes of their partners. This prevented commercial banks from speculating with depositors’ money. The repeal of Glass-Steagall let commercial banks use depositors’ deposits, not the banks’ own money, to behave like investment banks. This is how the large commercial “banks too big to fail” acquired massive derivative exposure. The derivative risks were not understood either by the banks, the rating agencies, or the regulators and exploded into the 2008 crisis resulting in taxpayer bailouts of banks and a decade of low interest rate policy in order to rebuild the asset side of banks’ balance sheets.
The public was annoyed by the bailout. The result was the Dodd-Frank Act which was misrepresented by politicians, economists, and financial media as a fix of the problem caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall. But it was not a fix. Dodd-Frank created a new problem. What the Dodd-Frank Act “fixed” was to prevent taxpayer bailouts. Instead, there would be “bail-ins.” What this means is that banks in trouble would bail themselves out by being permitted to seize depositors’ money. In other words, the Dodd-Frank Act created a powerful incentive for runs on troubled banks. A troubled bank doesn’t necessarily mean, or result in, the bank’s failure. But because of the Dodd-Frank Act the depositors cannot take the risk, so they withdraw their funds and cause the bank to fail.
To summarize, smaller conservative and prudent banks that invested in “safe” assets such as US Treasury bonds face bank runs. Larger banks with massive derivative risks are one bond trader’s mistake away from exploding the financial system. The 2008 crisis and the potential for more crises rests entirely on the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the enactment of Frank-Dodd. We are looking at the total, complete failure of intelligence on the part of the US government and economists. Their handiwork has the capability of collapsing the existing financial system of the world. It was the work of total idiots.
There is, of course, the question: Is this real stupidity or is a plot unfolding to collapse the financial system as we have known it in order to “save” us with the introduction of central bank digital currency? Are we passing from the remnants of democracy and self-government into total tyranny?
A study finds that 200 US banks face the same risk as those that destroyed Silicon Valley Bank. The Federal Reserve’s higher interest rates are destroying the banks’ solvency. Yet the Federal Reserve has not backed off its disastrous policy, and with Credit Suisse’s failure looming, the EU central bank raised interest rates! Yes, people are stupid. But are they this stupid? Could this be intentional with a secret agenda in mind such as digital currency? See this.
Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, 2023
Global Research, March 21, 2023
Region: Russia and FSU, USA
Theme: Law and Justice
***
This paradigm of International Relations isn’t about upholding the UN Charter, but arbitrarily implementing double standards in advance of America’s interests and even sometimes at the expense of its own reputation in pursuit of its goals. This was recently expressed through its hypocritical approach towards Georgia-Moldova and Bosnia-Serbia as well as its equally hypocritical condemnation of the US-inspired foreign agents laws proposed by Bosnia’s Republika Srpska and Georgia.
Biden just praised the “International Criminal Court’s” (ICC) decision to issue an unenforceable warrant for President Putin’s arrest as “justified” despite the US itself still refusing to participate in that partially recognized and highly scandalous body. The Russian Embassy in DC reacted to this hypocrisy by calling that declining unipolar hegemon out for its “sluggish schizophrenia”, which perfectly embodies its “rules-based order” concept and inadvertently extends credence to Moscow’s criticism thereof.
This paradigm of International Relations isn’t about upholding the UN Charter, but arbitrarily implementing double standards in advance of America’s interests and even sometimes at the expense of its own reputation in pursuit of its goals. This was recently expressed through its hypocritical approach towards Georgia-Moldova and Bosnia-Serbia as well as its equally hypocritical condemnation of the US-inspired foreign agents laws proposed by Bosnia’s Republika Srpska and Georgia.
Leading Provider of Financial Research Says US Is Headed for Third World Status
The only “rules” that matter enough for the US to care about enforcing are those that it regards as suiting its interests at any given point in time. This explains why Biden just praised the ICC in spite of the US itself refusing to participate in it. His country’s interests are served through this public relations spectacle due to the amount of global media attention its unenforceable warrant for President Putin’s arrest has generated, which in turn contributes to misleading the public about the Ukrainian Conflict.
The targeted Western audience is made to think that there’s supposedly some credence to the false accusation that he himself personally as well as another Russian official are allegedly responsible for “abducting” Ukrainian children, thus reinforcing their perception that he’s the ultimate evil. As long as they continue wrongly thinking that he is, they’ll keep supporting their governments’ policy of extending a blank check to Kiev for indefinitely funding their de facto New Cold War bloc’s proxy war on Russia.
It doesn’t matter to them that the US is supporting a partially recognized and highly scandalous body that it doesn’t even participate in since all that’s important to them is that it’s “on the right side of history” in trying to “bring justice” to those Ukrainian children that they’re convinced were “abducted”. Those who see through this information warfare charade and thus are already skeptical of the West’s “official narrative” about the conflict or outright oppose it won’t be swayed by this latest provocation.
This insight therefore suggests that the only purpose in issuing an unenforceable warrant for President Putin’s arrest and Biden’s hypocritical support of the ICC’s decision is to reinforce the perceptions of this proxy war’s remaining supporters in the West ahead of what’ll likely be a spree of bad news very soon. “The Washington Post Finally Told The Full Truth About How Poorly Kiev’s Forces Are Faring”, which preconditioned the public to expect Kiev to experience some serious setbacks in the coming future.
Zelensky himself recently told CNN that Russia might roll through the rest of Donbass if it succeeds in capturing Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”, which could result in some of this proxy war’s most spirited supporters losing hope in their side and thus beginning to question whether any more aid is worth it. If these same folks think that continuing to indefinitely fund this conflict could “bring justice” to those Ukrainian children that they’re convinced were “abducted”, however, then they might soldier on.
Should a critical mass of them change their minds due to forthcoming events, then public opinion would decisively shift against their elites’ blank check policy, thus possibly placing enough pressure on some of them to consider whether they should change this policy. It’s this scenario that scares Western leaders more than anything else since the last thing they want is large-scale protests in the streets over this issue, hence why they’re doubling down on their deflection tactics via the ICC’s ridiculous decision.
*
This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Andrew Korybko, Global Research, 2023
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-03-20/financial-crisis-will-be-none-other-history
BY QUOTH THE RAVEN
MONDAY, MAR 20, 2023 – 5:34
Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance
It looks as though Credit Suisse is going to be sold off for pennies on the dollar, temporarily postponing a financial trainwreck, at least for a couple more hours or days, until the next shoe inevitably drops.
The Fed doesn’t seem keen to wait. U.S. dollar swap lines are being used to “enhance liquidity” and the Central Bank has all but thrown in the towel on the tightening cycle, it appears.
In response to the news and at the time of this writing, about 3:30AM EST, equity futures are mixed after being higher immediately after opening on Sunday night.
It’s tough to solidify exactly what’s going happen in the short term with U.S. markets, especially with things changing by the hour. But there are two things that I think are worth solidifying about the conundrum markets and the Federal Reserve find themselves in now.
The first is that this crisis isn’t going away anytime soon – it may shape-shift, but it’s not going away. The second is that the outcome of this crisis is going to be unlike anything that’s ever occurred in history.
Even though Central Bank bailouts look as though they’re going to be ubiquitous in coming weeks (as we’re already seeing with the Fed and the Swiss National Bank), it doesn’t mean that the crisis isn’t going to persist in another form.
These blowups in the system are zero sum games. Stop them from erupting through one manhole cover, and they have to eventually find another one to blow open.
When Central Banks all over the world bail out their respective institutions and equity markets, many will think it’s just been another crisis…and another crisis averted.
The usual Austrian “crazies” will prattle on about moral hazard, the wealth divide will get even wider, there will be “Occupy”-style protests again…but life will go on.
“Ho hum,” most market participants will say to themselves, content that another SuperSized™ bag of dogshit didn’t hit the fan during their lifetime and will instead be bequeathed unto their grandchildren at about the same point the U.S. dollar has the global appeal of a moldy Kraft Single™ cheese slice that’s been sitting out in the sun for 5 weeks straight.
But that lot has another thing coming this go-round, if you ask me. This time, the crisis truly is different because of the geopolitical setup.
As I have written about extensively over the last year, the global economy is dividing into two. On one hand, you have the West and our printing-press-based Central Banking policies. On the other hand, you have a growing constituency born out of a maturing Russian and Chinese alliance, now also inclusive of India, Saudi Arabia, and other nations. The petrodollar is dead, China and Russia are openly hoarding gold and some fund managers believe that Xi and Putin know that the West is running a ponzi scheme.
For a recent primer on just how the global economy is shifting, I’ll once again recommend this exceptional February 2023 interview with Andy Schectman, who lays out the global landscape in surgical detail, in less than an hour.
Andy lays out the thesis “that the world is poised for a monetary reset which would result in the BRICS having their own reserve currency, likely backed by gold, and how this goes hand-in-hand with de-dollarization trends that are currently unfolding”.
The important thing to realize when thinking about our current “crisis” is that this unprecedented setup globally that Andy describes very well will likely lead to an unexpected and unprecedented result.
People need to understand that the Fed can’t stop what has already been put into motion. Market psychology has broken, as I noted last week several times, and risk aversion is now front and center. The Fed has capitulated, as Zero Hedge accurately noted last night.
But no matter what the Fed does now, it’s going to be on a lag. This means they can’t just cut rates tomorrow and have the problem fixed by Wednesday. They’re now in a “dead zone” where the seeds for the next several months have already been sown no matter what action they take with rates.
I have guessed that the blowups we are seeing now are result of rate hikes that took place last year. That means that the consequences of current rates won’t be felt for another several quarters to come.
Silicon Valley Bank blew up because it was reaching for bonds when yields were near 1.5%. Their portfolio likely started to sustain serious damage as soon as rates were hiked from that level. If you don’t think other funds were taking similar bets, including continuing to buy bonds as yields became more attractive, you’re crazy.
This means that as the Fed “stayed the course” the last 12 months, others likely suffered similar-style losses as SVB’s. We just haven’t heard about them yet.
Rate expectations are moving lower now, but it’s too little too late for others whose fates have been sealed already, in my opinion. We may hear about these names in coming days.
Putting aside that this crisis will almost certainly be used to usher in a Central Bank digital currency, one could mistakenly believe that money printing will once again get everything “under control”.
But instead of that being the case this time, what if the BRICS nations use this crisis as an opportunity to challenge the Western Central Banking empire? All I’ve been writing about for the last year and a half is how central banks in places like Russia and China have been stockpiling gold.
There’s no point in doing this unless you eventually feel as though, to some degree, you’re going to have to fall back on gold as a baseline or a safeguard.
And a financial crisis is the point where people lose their faith in the existing system the most, thereby making it vulnerable to be usurped, if not practically at least psychologically. That makes a strong argument for (1) bitcoin perhaps either gaining traction or upsetting regulators enough to draw more ire right now and (2) the BRICS nations seeing this as an opportune time to try and challenge the U.S. dollar openly.
The pieces have already been put into place. The timing has never looked better:
(Chart: Zero Hedge)
Lest we forget that inflation continues to run rampantly out of control. Last year I was asking whether or not we would endure inflation or a recession, arguing that we would have to deal with one or the other due to the Fed raising rates.
It has now become clear that the central banks of the west are going to surrender to inflation. The idea of easing and trying to manage this crisis with inflation as high as it already is sets the table for the longshot hyperinflationary scenario that many people laughed at over the last year. I’m not saying it’s definitely going to happen, but I’m saying that the setup is making it look more like a possibility than ever.
As is a function of Keynesian theory, bubbles get bigger and bigger as we kick the can down the road. This means that bailouts also get bigger and bigger as we kick the can down the road. Eventually, at some point, we lose control and some economic variables (like gold and M2) go into an unstoppable parabolic spike upward while others (like, perhaps, equities) go into a dead engine stall.
To be honest, for the long-term, it’s difficult to forecast whether or not current policy will result in U.S. markets moving drastically higher on a nominal basis, or whether they will simply wind up like Japan, treading water for years to come as the Fed expands QE into every asset that isn’t nailed down.
It also remains difficult to try to forecast what’s going to happen in the short term. My guess is that equities are going to crash before eventually catching a bid once the lag of central bank panic being put into place today passes by, over the next year or so.
When the smoke clears, who knows what the situation looks like. We will have moved one iteration further into an alternate euphoric Keynesian reality than we were in March 2020, which seems impossible. Will the NASDAQ trade at a 60x multiple? Will the dollar index be at 40? Is there even a case where the US dollar holds up here and remains global reserve currency? It’s difficult to foresee, but that doesn’t make it an impossibility.
In addition to inflation, we also have to be acutely aware that there is a very real chance that war drums beat louder over the next year.
China moving into Taiwan is a real risk and we are already fighting a war against Russia via proxy in Ukraine. As China moves closer to Russia in supporting them and the US moves closer to Ukraine, the stage is set not just economically, but also militarily: the west and NATO are at war with Russia, China, and soon to be the nations they are supported by, like India and Saudi Arabia.
This war will not just be militarily, it will be over the fate of the new global reserve currency as well.
From CNN:
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will fly to Moscow next week to meet with President Vladimir Putin in his first visit to Russia since Putin launched his devastating invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.
The visit will be seen as a powerful show of Beijing’s support for Moscow in Western capitals, where leaders have grown increasingly wary of the two nations’ deepening partnership as war rages in Europe.
It will also be Xi’s first foreign trip since securing an unprecedented third term as president at the annual meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature last week.
The face to face was revealed on Friday by statements from both Beijing and the Kremlin.
Now, a look at how I’m positioned and what I continue to buy and own…(READ THE REST OF THIS PIECE HERE).
Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
“Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order”.
By China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Karsten Riise
Global Research, March 18, 2023
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Theme: Intelligence
***
Introductory Note
The Chinese document “US Hegemony and its Perils” just came out on 20 February 2023.
It is very important – and says:
“Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order”.
The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.”
In five precise paragraphs, China analyses how the US exerts hegemony and abuse of global power in the fields of politics, military, economics, technology, and culture, media, social media as well as censorship.
The Chinese analysis is harsh but accurate – and China must be expected to act upon it.
Beware the timing. The Chinese paper comes exactly the day before Putin’s Federal Council speech and two days before Chinese top-diplomat Wang Yi’s visit to Moscow.
Introductory Note by Karsten Riise
***
It should be noted that this text was released on February 20th, 2023, 4 days prior to the PRC’s statement entitled China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis
Below is the complete text of this important document entitled US Hegemony and Its Perils released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
US Hegemony and Its Perils
February 2023
Contents
Introduction
I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around
II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force
III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
Introduction
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.
In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”
Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.
The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”
In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.
The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force
The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.
◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.
The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.
The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”
In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”
◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”
◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”
V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.
◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.
◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
Click here to read the full Document
*
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Global Times
The original source of this article is China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Copyright © China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Karsten Riise, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs , 2023
Visa and Mastercard could become a problem, President Joko Widodo has warned
https://www.rt.com/business/573209-indonesia-visa-mastercard-sanctions/
FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov greeted by the President of the Indonesian Republic Joko Widodo at the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua, November 15, 2022 © Leon Neal / Getty Images
The leader of Indonesia says the country must reduce its dependence on foreign payment systems, to negate potentially disastrous economic consequences should the country ever find itself in the crosshairs of Western sanctions.
Addressing a business forum in Jakarta this week, President Joko Widodo argued that Indonesia must shield itself from geopolitical disruptions, citing the sanctions attack on Russia’s financial sector by the US, EU, and their allies over the conflict in Ukraine.
“Be very careful. We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia. Visa and Mastercard could be a problem,” Widodo said on Wednesday at a gathering that promoted the use of Indonesian-made products and services.
Last year, Indonesia rolled out a Domestic Government Credit Card (KKP) program to facilitate transactions between the central and regional governments. The president urged the public sector to adopt domestic systems, stressing that eventually “everyone should be able to use” locally-issued bank cards so that “we can be independent.”
“If we use our own platforms, and everybody is using them, from ministries and local administrations to municipal governments, then we can be more secure,” Widodo said, according to the Jakarta Post.
READ MORE: Cuba accepts Russian payment system
However, in order to compete with Visa and Mastercard, any domestic alternative must be accepted internationally, experts cited by the Post said, expressing doubt that local providers are ready for costly investments in infrastructure upgrades.
Indonesia’s domestic interbank system, GPN, currently supports only local debit cards and requires some adjustments to properly serve credit cards and international transactions, Indonesian Credit Card Association (AKKI) executive director Steve Marta told CNBC Indonesia on Saturday.
Indonesia is a major economy, ranked seventh in the world with $4.37 trillion GDP based on purchasing power parity.
Moscow rolled out its own national card system, Mir, soon after the US first targeted the country with sanctions in 2014, and prepared the internal National Payment Card System (NSPK) to smoothly take over all Visa and Mastercard transactions should the companies pull the plug.
READ MORE: Western banking crisis cannot spread to Russia – central bank
Last year, as Moscow was hit by further sanctions in response to its military operation in Ukraine, international payment systems indeed halted their services, but locally issued Western cards continued to work within the country via the NSPK. While these cards can no longer be used internationally, their expiration dates were extended indefinitely to give users enough time to comfortably migrate to the Mir system.
Russia also has its own financial messaging system, SPFS, which ensures transactions between banks both inside and outside the country, and acts as a substitute for SWIFT, which blocked many sanctioned Russian banks.
Tales from the Conspiratum 