{"id":156585,"date":"2020-03-23T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=156585"},"modified":"2020-03-19T06:55:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T06:55:08","slug":"china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/03\/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us\/","title":{"rendered":"China Locked in Hybrid War with US"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 Mar 2020 – Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping\u2019s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi\u2019s terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a \u201cpeople\u2019s war\u201d had to be launched.<\/p>\n

Moreover, he\u00a0described the virus as a demon<\/a>\u00a0or devil. Xi is a Confucianist. Unlike some other ancient Chinese thinkers, Confucius was loath to\u00a0discuss supernatural forces and judgment in the afterlife.<\/a>\u00a0However, in a Chinese cultural context, devil means \u201cwhite devils\u201d or \u201cforeign devils\u201d:\u00a0guailo<\/em>\u00a0in Mandarin,\u00a0gweilo<\/em>\u00a0in Cantonese. This was Xi delivering a powerful statement in code.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Zhao Lijian<\/a><\/strong>, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, voiced in an incandescent tweet the possibility that \u201cit might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan\u201d \u2013 the first blast to this effect to come from a top official \u2013 Beijing was sending up a trial balloon signaliing that the gloves were finally off. Zhao Lijian made a direct connection with the Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019, which included a delegation of 300 US military.<\/p>\n

He directly quoted\u00a0<\/a>US CDC director\u00a0Robert Redfield<\/strong>\u00a0who, when asked last week whether some deaths by coronavirus had been discovered posthumously in the US, replied that\u00a0 \u201csome cases have actually been diagnosed this way in the US today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhao\u2019s explosive conclusion is that Covid-19 was already in effect in the US before being identified in Wuhan \u2013 due to the by now fully documented inability of US to test and verify differences compared with the flu.<\/p>\n

Adding all that to the fact that coronavirus genome variations in Iran and Italy were sequenced and it was revealed they do not belong to the variety that infected Wuhan, Chinese media are now openly\u00a0\u00a0asking questions<\/a>\u00a0and drawing a connection with the\u00a0shutting down<\/a>\u00a0in August last year of the \u201cunsafe\u201d military bioweapon lab at\u00a0Fort Detrick<\/a>, the Military Games, and the Wuhan epidemic. Some of these questions had been\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 with no response \u2013 inside the US itself.<\/p>\n

Extra questions linger about the opaque\u00a0Event 201<\/a>\u00a0in New York on October 18, 2019: a rehearsal for a worldwide pandemic caused by a deadly virus \u2013 which happened to be coronavirus. This magnificent coincidence happened one month before the outbreak in Wuhan.<\/p>\n

Event 201 was sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum (WEF), the CIA, Bloomberg, John Hopkins Foundation and the UN.\u00a0 The World Military Games opened in Wuhan on the exact same day.<\/p>\n

Irrespective of its origin, which is still\u00a0not conclusively established<\/a>, as much as Trump tweets about the \u201cChinese virus,\u201d Covid-19 already poses immensely serious questions about biopolitics (where\u2019s Foucault when we need him?) and bio-terror.<\/p>\n

The working hypothesis of coronavirus as a very powerful but not Armageddon-provoking bio-weapon unveils it as a perfect vehicle for widespread social control \u2013 on a global scale.<\/p>\n

Cuba rises as a biotech power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just as a fully masked Xi visiting the Wuhan frontline last week was a graphic demonstration to the whole planet that China, with immense sacrifice, is winning the \u201cpeople\u2018s war\u201d against Covid-19, Russia, in a Sun Tzu move on Riyadh whose end result was a much cheaper barrel of oil, helped for all practical purposes to kick-start the inevitable recovery of the Chinese economy. This is how a strategic partnership works.<\/p>\n

The chessboard is changing at breakneck speed. Once Beijing identified coronavirus as a bio-weapon attack the \u201cpeople\u2019s war\u201d was launched with\u00a0the full force of the state<\/a>. Methodically. On a \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d basis. Now we are entering a new stage, which will be used by Beijing to substantially recalibrate the interaction with the West, and under very different frameworks when it comes to the US and the EU.<\/p>\n

Soft power is paramount. Beijing sent an Air China flight to Italy carrying 2,300 big boxes full of masks bearing the script, \u201cWe are waves from the same sea, leaves from the same tree, flowers from the same garden.\u201d China also sent a hefty humanitarian package to Iran, significantly aboard eight flights from Mahan Air \u2013 an airline under illegal, unilateral Trump administration sanctions.<\/p>\n

Serbian\u00a0President Aleksandar Vucic<\/strong>\u00a0could not have been more explicit:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only country that can help us is China. By now, you all understood that European solidarity does not exist. That was a fairy tale on paper.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under harsh sanctions and demonized since forever, Cuba is still able to perform breakthroughs \u2013 even on biotechnology. The anti-viral\u00a0Heberon<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 or Interferon Alpha 2b \u2013 a therapeutic, not a vaccine, has been used with great success in the treatment of coronavirus. A joint venture in China is producing an inhalable version, and at least 15 nations are already interested in importing the therapeutic.<\/p>\n

Now compare all of the above with the Trump administration offering $1 billion to poach German scientists working at biotech firm\u00a0Curevac<\/a>, based in Thuringia, on an experimental vaccine against Covid-19, to have it as a vaccine \u201conly for the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social engineering psy-op?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sandro Mezzadra, co-author with Brett Neilson of the seminal\u00a0The Politics of Operations: Excavating Contemporary Capitalism<\/em>, is already trying to\u00a0conceptualize<\/a>\u00a0where we stand now in terms of fighting Covid-19.<\/p>\n

We are facing a choice between a Malthusian strand \u2013 inspired by social Darwinism \u2013 \u201cled by the Johnson-Trump-Bolsonaro axis\u201d and, on the other side, a strand pointing to the \u201crequalification of public health as a fundamental tool,\u201d exemplified by China, South Korea and Italy. There are key\u00a0lessons<\/a>\u00a0to be learned from South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.<\/p>\n

The stark option, Mezzadra notes, is between a \u201cnatural population selection,\u201d with thousands of dead, and \u201cdefending society\u201d by employing \u201cvariable degrees of authoritarianism and social control.\u201d It\u2019s easy to imagine who stands to benefit from this social re-engineering, a 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century remix of Poe\u2019s\u00a0The Masque of the Red Death<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid so much doom and gloom, count on Italy to offer us Tiepolo-style shades of light. Italy chose the Wuhan option, with immensely serious consequences for its already fragile economy. Quarantined Italians remarkably reacted by singing on their balconies: a true act of metaphysical revolt.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the poetic justice of the actual\u00a0St. Corona\u00a0<\/a>(\u201ccrown\u201d in Latin) being buried in the city of Anzu since the 9th<\/sup>\u00a0century. St. Corona was a Christian killed under Marcus Aurelius in 165 AD, and has been for centuries one of the patron saints of pandemics.<\/p>\n

Not even trillions of dollars raining from the sky by an act of divine Fed mercy were able to cure Covid-19. G-7 \u201cleaders\u201d had to resort to a videoconference to realize how clueless they are \u2013 even as China\u2019s fight against coronavirus gave the West a head start of several weeks.<\/p>\n

Shanghai-based Dr.\u00a0Zhang Wenhong<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>one of China\u2019s top infectious disease experts, whose analyses have been spot on so far, now says China has emerged from the darkest days in the \u201cpeople\u2019s war\u201d against Covid-19. But he does not think this will be over by summer. Now extrapolate what he\u2019s saying to the Western world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not even spring yet, and we already know it takes a virus to mercilessly shatter the Goddess of the Market. Last Friday, Goldman Sachs told no fewer than 1,500 corporations that there was no systemic risk.\u00a0That was false.<\/p>\n

New York banking sources told me the truth: systemic risk became way more severe in 2020 than in 1979, 1987 or 2008 because of the hugely heightened danger that the $1.5 quadrillion derivative market would collapse.<\/p>\n

As the sources put it, history had never before seen anything like the Fed\u2019s intervention via its little understood elimination of commercial bank reserve requirements, unleashing a potential unlimited expansion of credit to prevent a derivative implosion stemming from a total commodity and stock market collapse of all stocks around the world.<\/p>\n

Those bankers thought it would work, but as we know by now all the sound and fury signified nothing. The ghost of a derivative implosion \u2013 in this case not caused by the previous possibility, the shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz \u2013 remains.<\/p>\n

We are still barely starting to understand the consequences of Covid-19 for the future of neoliberal turbo-capitalism. What\u2019s certain is that the whole global economy has been hit by an insidious, literally invisible circuit breaker. This may be just a \u201ccoincidence.\u201d Or this may be, as some are\u00a0boldly arguing<\/a>, part of a possible, massive psy-op creating the perfect geopolitlcal and social engineering environment for full-spectrum dominance.<\/p>\n

Additionally, along the hard slog down the road, with immense, inbuilt human and economic sacrifice, with or without a reboot of the world-system, a more pressing question remains: will imperial elites still choose to keep waging full-spectrum-dominance hybrid war against China?<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/em>Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for <\/span><\/em>Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Go to Original -globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 Mar 2020 – Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping\u2019s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi\u00a0at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":156586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[239,244,1829,289,1698,710,1864,1102,304,1447,339,124,1836,75],"class_list":["post-156585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-brics","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-economy","tag-epidemics","tag-health","tag-pandemic","tag-public-health","tag-science","tag-science-and-medicine","tag-trade","tag-united-nations","tag-who","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}