Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). In three weeks’ time at the NATO summit in Washington, the alleged threat to Western interests from China will be one of the three main items on the agenda. NATO is now also stretching its claws towards Asia. It wants to use regional alliances to help the USA contain Beijing’s influence.
In order to set the mood for the upcoming NATO summit, its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a clear warning to the People’s Republic of China on 17 June during his visit to Washington, D.C., for allegedly supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine by supplying technology.
Even before his visit to US President Joe Biden in the White House, Stoltenberg visited the Washington think tank WWICS (“Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars” or “Wilson Center” for short) and gave a speech there. Among other things, he briefed the hand-picked audience on the three major topics that will dominate the upcoming NATO summit. Point one on the agenda is NATO’s core business: “deterrence and defense”. Point two will be “the most urgent issue”, namely Ukraine. Point three – against the backdrop of the alleged Chinese threat – will then be dedicated to the NATO program “Global Partnerships, especially in the Indo-Pacific region”.
Here are excerpts translated by me of what Stoltenberg said in his introductory speech at the “Wilson Centre” on the third main topic:
“The war in Ukraine shows that our security is not regional but global, not least because of the support that Russia is known to receive from China and other countries. Beijing provides high-end technologies such as semiconductors and other dual-use goods. Last year, Russia imported 90 per cent of its microelectronics from China, which is used in the manufacture of missiles, tanks and aircraft. China is also working to provide Russia with enhanced satellite capabilities and imagery.”
“All this allows Moscow to cause more death and destruction in Ukraine, strengthen the Russian defense industry and circumvent the effects of sanctions and export controls.”
This statement is unparalleled in its one-sidedness. Only brains whisked into omelettes by Western war propaganda are unable to recognize that the NATO countries are not only supplying Ukraine with chips, but with ready-made high-tech weapons for attacks against Russia. But the Western fighters for the enforcement of the “rules-based order”, which the USA can change at will, seem to have been inoculated against such a simple and obvious realization. For despite the unspeakable crimes of the neoliberal un-values community supported by the West, for example currently in the Gaza Strip, the psychopathic political elite of the West presents itself as “the good guys”. That is bad enough, but what makes them particularly dangerous for the whole world is the fact that they are convinced that they are the strongest, fighting on the side of “angels” against “evil” in the form of Russia and China, i.e. Putin and Xi, and provoking a major world conflagration from their supposed position of strength.
Now let’s continue in Stoltenberg’s original tone on agenda item three: “In public, President Xi has tried to give the impression that he is holding back in this (Ukraine) conflict in order to avoid sanctions and keep trade going. The reality, however, is that China is fueling the biggest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War. And at the same time, it wants to maintain good relations with the West. Well, Beijing can’t have it both ways. At some point – if China doesn’t change course – it will have to pay the price.
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The increasing rapprochement between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia makes it even more important that we work closely with our friends in the Indo-Pacific region.
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That is why I have invited the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea to the NATO summit in Washington next month. Together, we can uphold the rules-based international order and protect our shared values.”
The People’s Republic reacted promptly to this provocation by the NATO spokesman. In unusually clear language for China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian referred to the “international community, which has its own opinion on what role NATO, the product of the Cold War and the world’s largest military alliance, is playing in the Ukraine crisis. NATO should reconsider its actions instead of making arbitrary slanderous attacks on China”.
The so-called “international community” has been propagandistically abused by the “collective West” for decades in the past. If it is called upon today by China as a witness in this matter, then this means that a large international majority in the form of the BRICS members and their aspirants stand behind China and Russia, because these states also no longer want to be pushed around by the USA and its vassals.
The current US dispatch to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a recent example of how the White House is either ignoring or refusing to recognize the real shifts in the global political, economic and military power structure. Although the US wants to pull Vietnam onto its side against China and Russia, the US political elites, who still feel like rulers of the universe, believe they can order a country like Vietnam around, as they are used to doing with their European vassals.
The US dispatch to Hanoi was prompted by reports of Russian President Putin’s upcoming trip to Vietnam later this week. This has triggered a sharp reaction in Washington, D.C. against the foreign policy of this ASEAN member. The Reuters news agency cites a statement by a spokesman for the US embassy in Hanoi: “No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities. If he can enter freely, it could normalize Russia’s flagrant violations of international law.”
The gentlemen in Washington, D.C. simply cannot jump over their hegemonic and hypocritical shadow: Firstly, because the USA does not have the right to dictate to Vietnam which heads of state may and may not visit this country, and secondly, because none of these three countries – neither the USA itself, nor Russia, nor Vietnam – recognize the “International Criminal Court” (ICC) installed by the collective West and have submitted to its jurisdiction.
By pointing out that Putin is not allowed to “travel freely”, the USA is referring to the “arrest warrant” issued against Putin by the ICC last spring under false pretenses for alleged child abduction, because Russian soldiers had initially taken Ukrainian children they had picked up without parents and relatives in the combat zone to safety in Russia. Ukrainian parents who have since contacted the Russians have had their children returned to them.
