A key indicator<\/em> that civilian populations are being prepared for war is the breaking of relations with the alleged enemy.\u00a0 Across the United States, universities have been forced to close their Confucius Institutes, Chinese-government supported institutions that teach Chinese language and culture, because of unfounded charges that they were stealing technological and military secrets.\u00a0 Academic and scientific collaboration between Chinese and American scholars has sharply declined.\u00a0 Similarly, restrictions on trade between Chinese and American have steadily intensified, culminating in the recent executive order by President Joe Biden blocking U.S. investments in hi-tech Chinese companies.<\/p>\n A second sign<\/em> of war fever, even more alarming for ordinary citizens, involves concerted efforts by government and news media hawks to defame the character and criminalize the behavior of activists who oppose the continued deterioration of relations with the same alleged enemy.<\/p>\n The anti-China crowd\u2019s latest target is Code Pink, one of North America\u2019s most active peace organizations, well known for its vigorous and colorful opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the NATO attack on Libya, unconditional US support for Israel, and the U.S. refusal to negotiate legitimate Russian security concerns prior to Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0 Code Pink is in the vanguard of groups publicizing and criticizing the push toward military confrontation with China.<\/p>\n On August 5, 2023 the New York Times<\/em> published an article entitled \u201cGlobal Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul\u201d \u2013 a purported expose of \u201ca charismatic American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, who is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.\u201d The article points out that Singham (the son of the late Archie Singham, a well-known leftist professor and writer) holds favorable views of the current Chinese government and has frequently advocated policies favored by that government.\u00a0 It also reports that he is married to Jodie Evans, a co-founder of Code Pink, who strongly opposes the U.S. mobilization for war against China and has also defended certain Chinese policies.<\/p>\n The Times<\/em> article is strangely worded, no doubt to avoid possible defamation lawsuits, and contains vast evidentiary gaps, but its bottom-line message is that Singham and Evans (and, by implication, Code Pink) are Chinese agents, and that they should be compelled to register as such in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.\u00a0 The sole basis for this conclusion is the assertion that these activists agree with various Chinese policies.\u00a0 Anyone who has seen Christopher Nolan\u2019s recent film, Oppenheimer<\/em>, should recognize this for the McCarthyite smear that it is.\u00a0 Apparently, Florida\u2019s Republican Senator Marco Rubio has not seen the film, or else he has not understood it.\u00a0 Immediately upon publication of the Times<\/em> article, he called for an investigation of the article\u2019s targets and asserted that they should be forced to register as foreign agents.<\/p>\n Whatever Rubio may think, the \u201cevidence\u201d adduced by the Times<\/em> reporters to support their allegation is not only thin; it is virtually nonexistent.<\/p>\n They note,<\/em> first<\/em>, that Roy Singham shares office space with a company \u201cwhose goal is to educate foreigners about \u2018the miracles that China has created on the world stage.\u2019\u201d Horrors!\u00a0 Not only is this company being mysteriously unnamed, the Times<\/em> apparently does not consider lifting a billion and a half people out of poverty and assisting other nations to do the same an achievement worth publicizing.<\/p>\n Second<\/em>, they report that Jodie Evans, who has criticized Chinese patriarchal attitudes, refused to condemn Beijing\u2019s policies toward the Uyghurs. That\u2019s their evidence of foreign agency!\u00a0 Evans\u00a0 must be a Chinese tool because she did not join the chorus chanting \u201cgenocide\u201d to describe Beijing\u2019s repressive response to Uyghur separatism.\u00a0 Whatever one thinks about this issue, the charge that Singham, Evans, and Code Pink are Chinese agents is based on nothing more than their positive views of some Chinese policies. In fact, their real \u201csin\u201d has been to oppose U.S. imperialism, U.S. refusal to negotiate peace in Ukraine, and U.S. preparations for war with China.<\/p>\n The parallels with the Oppenheimer case are obvious.\u00a0 The great physicist was branded a Soviet agent and deprived of his security clearance because he opposed U.S. nuclear policies, advocated racial and social justice at home, and worked for international peace with left-wing groups.\u00a0 The differences are interesting as well.\u00a0 Code Pink is not privy to state secrets and has no security clearance to lose.\u00a0 The main villain of the New York Times<\/em> piece, Roy Singham, is a wealthy high-tech entrepreneur who is accused of \u201cbuying\u201d support for Chinese policies in much the same way that George Soros has been said to use his fortune to support liberal activism or the Koch Brothers to bankroll conservative libertarian programs.<\/p>\n Money clearly plays a role in politics. The master of \u201cbuying support\u201d for political favorites, quantitatively in a league by itself, has long been the U.S. government with its scores of federal agencies and NGO satellites.\u00a0 Compared with that sort of influence, Roy Singham is the smallest of small potatoes.\u00a0 But the New York Times<\/em>\u2019 allegations against Singham and Jodie Evans do not even rise to the level of an anti-Soros or Koch Brothers expose.\u00a0 In fact, they are nothing more than the feeblest sort of redbaiting.<\/p>\n Roy Singham\u2019s response to the Times<\/em> reporters\u2019 charges was short and to the point:<\/p>\n \u201cI categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives. I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jodie Evans remarks were equally terse.<\/p>\n \u201cI deny your suggestion that I follow the direction of any political party, my husband or any other government or their representatives.\u00a0 I have always followed my values.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let us give these accused fighters for peace the last word.<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n A sign of war fever involves concerted efforts by government and news media hawks to defame and criminalize the behavior of activists who oppose the deterioration of relations with the alleged enemy. The anti-China crowd\u2019s latest target is Code Pink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2009,417,244,3138,2797,1126,1050,112,923,70,1594],"class_list":["post-242562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-anti-war","tag-bullying","tag-china","tag-code-pink","tag-culture-of-war","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-pentagon","tag-sanctions","tag-usa","tag-war-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242562","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=242562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242563,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242562\/revisions\/242563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/richard-rubenstein.jpg\")
<\/a>Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a> and a <\/em>professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University\u2019s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is <\/em>Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"