افتتحت مساء الخميس ندوة “بناء رابطة المصير المشترك بين الصين والدول العربية ودور وسائل الإعلام ومراكز الفكر” في العاصمة الصينية بكين برعاية مجموعة الصين للإعلام الدولي وتنظيم مشترك لمركز إعلام أوروبا الغربية وأفريقيا (دار مجلة الصين اليوم) ومؤسسة “شبكة الصين” الإخبارية ( china.org.cn )، ومؤسسة بيت الحكمة للثقافة والإعلام.

وحضر الندوة كل من قاو آن مينغ نائب رئيس مجموعة الصين للإعلام الدولي ورئيس تحريرها، وأحمد السعيد المدير العام لمؤسسة بيت الحكمة للثقافة والإعلام، ووو سي كه المبعوث الخاص الأسبق للحكومة الصينية لقضايا الشرق الأوسط، وألقوا كلمات. كما شارك أكثر من 50 خبيرا وباحثا من وسائل الإعلام ومراكز الفكر في الصين ومصر والسعودية وقطر والإمارات والمغرب ولبنان، ناقشوا بشكل متعمق نتائج القمة الصينية العربية الأولى المثمرة، وكيفية مساهمة وسائل الإعلام ومراكز الفكر في بناء مجتمع مصير مشترك صيني – عربي نحو العصر الجديد.

وفي جلسة المناقشة الموضوعية، شارك وانغ شياو هوي رئيس تحرير شبكة الصين، وشريف قنديل رئيس تحرير جريدة المدينة السعودية، ويوي يون تشيوان عميد معهد الصين والعالم المعاصر، وأحمد سلام الرئيس السابق للإدارة المركزية لشؤون مكتب رئيس الهيئة العامة للاستعلامات، وجياو شيانغ رئيس تحرير مكتب تحرير الأخبار الدولية لصحيفة الشعب اليومية، وبشار شبارو المدير التنفيذي لدار جامعة حمد بن خليفة للنشر، ودينغ جيون مدير معهد الشرق الأوسط بجامعة شانغهاي للدراسات الأجنبية، وأحمد سعيد العلوي رئيس تحرير بوابة العين الإخبارية بالإمارات، وهو يوي شيانغ عميد كلية الشرق الأوسط بجامعة بكين للدراسات الدولية، وفؤاد الغـزير الأستاذ في جامعة الحسن الأول المغربية، وحسين إسماعيل المدير التنفيذي لفرع الشرق الأوسط لدار مجلة الصين اليوم، وتمارا برّو الباحثة في السياسة الدولية بجامعة لبنان، ولفيف من الخبراء والباحثين شاركوا في تبادل الأفكار بنشاط حول موضوع الندوة.

وفي خطابه الختامي، لخص هو باو مين، مدير مركز إعلام أوروبا الغربية وأفريقيا التابع لمجموعة الصين للإعلام الدولي، التوافق الذي تم التوصل إليه في الندوة، معربا عن أمله في أن تنتهز وسائل الإعلام ومراكز الفكر الصينية والعربية الإنجازات الكبرى للقمة الصينية العربية الأولى كفرصة ذهبية وتنطلق من هذه الندوة كنقطة انطلاق جديدة للعمل المشترك لتعزيز التعاون والتبادل الشعبي والثقافي الصيني العربي الشامل ومتعدد المستويات وواسع النطاق، وتعزيز التفاهم والترابط والتواصل المتبادل بين الشعبين الصيني والعربي، وتقديم وسائل الإعلام ومراكز الفكر مساهمات في بناء مجتمع مصير مشترك صيني – عربي نحو العصر الجديد، من أجل خلق آفاق مشرقة لتنمية الصين والدول العربية، وللحياة السعيدة المشتركة للشعبين الصيني والعربي

المصدر: دنيا الوطن

بخلاف علاقتها القوية والإستراتيجية مع الهند، تنظر واشنطن إلى باكستان على أنها “صديق عدو” وتخشى من تحالفها مع الخصمين الصيني والروسي، خاصة في ظل الحرب الجارية في أوكرانيا.

وفي مقابلة حصرية مع الجزيرة ضمن برنامج “من واشنطن” خلال زيارته إلى الولايات المتحدة الأميركية، قال وزير خارجية باكستان، بيلاوال بوتو زرداري إن الولايات المتحدة هي الزبون الأكبر لباكستان وتجمعهما علاقات تاريخية وثيقة، معربا عن أمله في ألا يكون لسياسة الكذب والتضليل أثر على علاقات بلاده مع الولايات المتحدة، في إشارة منه إلى رئيس الوزراء الباكستاني السابق عمران خان الذي اتهم الأميركيين بالإطاحة به.

وعن علاقات باكستان مع الصين التي تعتبر خصما للولايات المتحدة، قال إن بلاده لديها علاقات جيدة مع البلدين، وقد قامت بدور بارز في إقامة علاقات دبلوماسية بين واشنطن وبكين، مشددا على أهمية التعاون لضمان الأمن الإقليمي والدولي.

ودعا بوتو زرداري أيضا الحكومة الانتقالية في أفغانستان إلى الالتزام بوعودها للمجتمع الدولي من أجل تحقيق السلام في المنطقة. وفي المقابل طالب المجتمع الدولي بعدم التخلي عن كابل التي يوجد بها 97% من الناس تحت خط الفقر، مشددا على أهمية فتح مزيد من الحوار مع الحكومة الأفغانية، والإفراج عن الأرصدة الأفغانية المجمدة في الخارج.

وقال عبد الرحمن مطر مراسل الجزيرة في إسلام آباد إن باكستان هي حليف رئيسي للولايات المتحدة منذ نحو 70 عاما وتجدد هذا التحالف منذ عام 2001 في إطار محاربة ما يسمى الإرهاب، وبدأت العلاقة بين البلدين تتوتر في عهد الرئيس الأميركي الأسبق باراك أوباما الذي كان يتهم باكستان بأنها تمارس دورا مزدوجا في عملية مكافحة ما يسمى الإرهاب، مؤكدا أن الحكومة الباكستانية الحالية تسعى إلى تجديد التحالف مع الأميركيين.

تباين مواقف الهند وباكستان بشأن ملف أوكرانيا

وعن موقف واشنطن من علاقة باكستان بالهند، رأت أبارنا باندي، وهي باحثة وزميلة في معهد هدسون أن الولايات المتحدة تريد علاقات متوازنة بين الطرفين ولا ترغب في اندلاع صراع بينهما، لكنها تجد دوما صعوبة في تحسين علاقاتهما مع بعض، ووصفت وضعهما الحالي بأنه حالة من السلام البارد.

واعتبرت باندي -في حديثها لبرنامج “من واشنطن”- أن الهند هي حليف إستراتيجي للولايات المتحدة، في حين أن الأميركيين لديهم استياء من باكستان ولديهم تصور بأنها “صديق عدو” بسبب دعمها لمجموعة حاربت أميركا خلال الوجود الأميركي في أفغانستان.

وبالنسبة لملف أوكرانيا، قالت الباحثة إن لدى نيودلهي وإسلام آباد وجهتي نظر مختلفتين بسبب طبيعة علاقاتهما مع روسيا، فالهند لها علاقات إستراتيجية مع موسكو ذات طبيعة دفاعية واشترت منها مصادر طاقة وغيرها، في حين لا توجد علاقات عسكرية وإستراتيجية بين روسيا وباكستان، مؤكدة أن واشنطن لا تريد أي تقارب بين البلدين مع الصين وروسيا.

ومن جهته، أكد سفير الولايات المتحدة السابق في الهند، توماس بيكرينغ، أن واشنطن تجد صعوبة في تحقيق حالة من التوازن بين الهند وباكستان، وأنها كانت خلال فترة الحرب الباردة تميل إلى إسلام آباد، لكن الموقف تغير في أواخر الثمانينيات والتسعينيات، حيث صارت تميل إلى نيودلهي.

المصدر : الجزيرة

Far-fetched as it sounds, this year’s winners are all connected to a CIA offshoot, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and parroted CIA / State Department / Pentagon talking points about Ukraine and Russia in their acceptance speeches

(CovertAction Magazine) : Source

The Nobel Prize Committee has five judges, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, who are tasked with choosing Nobel Prizewinners.

But people are starting to wonder if there is a 6^th Nobel Prize judge, not appointed by the Norwegian parliament, but by the CIA, who is tasked with making sure that winners of the coveted Nobel Peace Prize advance the agenda of U.S. policy makers.

Although the idea may seem far-fetched, this year’s winners all have connections to a CIA offshoot, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Oleksandra Matviichuk, for example, who accepted this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Ukraine Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) on December 10, had received the NED’s annual Democracy Award on behalf of the CCL six months earlier.^[1]

The NED was founded in the 1980s to promote propaganda and regime-change operations in the service of U.S. imperial interests. Allen Weinstein, the director of the research study that led to creation of the NED remarked in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The two other recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian dissident, and Memorial, a human rights organization expelled from Russia for violating its foreign agent law, have also received NED awards and probable financing.

While the Nobel Peace Prize has previously gone to warmongers like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama,^[2] never before has it gone to organizations that were intricately associated with a foreign intelligence agency specializing in political skullduggery and psychological warfare.

The entire Nobel Peace Prize ceremony this year seemed to be part of a public relations spectacle whose purpose was to mobilize public opinion against Russia and to support a military escalation of the war in Ukraine.

In their victory speeches, all three Peace Prize recipients ritually denounced Russian war crimes and aggression and issued support for the war in Ukraine. Oleksandra Matviichuk also directly asked the Norwegian government for more air defense for Ukraine and other types of weapons.

Promoting a Fairy Tale Version of Reality

Matviichuk’s speech was notable for its overt Russophobia and Manichaean view of world affairs that showed a fundamental naiveté about the character of Western governments.

Matviichuk said that the West had turned a blind eye to Russia’s “destruction of its own civil society,” and “shook hands with the Russian leadership, built gas pipelines and conducted business as usual” when, for decades, “Russian troops had been committing crimes in different countries.”

In Matviichuk’s telling, the “innocent” West is complicit in appeasing Russia—though for the last few decades, it was U.S. troops and its proxies that rampaged across the Middle East and committed massive war crimes.

All while Russia has often intervened in self-defense against U.S.-NATO aggression—like in Georgia in 2008—or at the request of a besieged ally, like in Syria, where it saved the country from the fate of Libya which had been destroyed by the 2011 U.S.-NATO intervention.

Matviichuk claimed in her speech that the war in Ukraine is “not a war of two states—but of two systems—authoritarianism and democracy.”

If that is the case, it is not clear which side she is on as her president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has banned eleven opposition parties, including the communist party, which is legal in Russia, and mounted a Phoenix-style operation to silence dissidents.

Matviichuk suggested earlier in her speech that the world had not adequately responded to “the act of aggression and annexation of Crimea, which were the first such cases in post-war Europe.”

Crimea, however, had historically been part of Russia and was never invaded. Its people voted to rejoin Russia in a referendum after the U.S. and EU had backed a right-wing coup in Ukraine that represented a vital security threat to Russia on its border.

Matviichuk presented more false history when she claimed that “the Russian people were responsible for this disgraceful chapter in their history [the invasion of Ukraine] and their desire to forcefully restore their former empire.”

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, however, was not an attempt to restore the Russian empire, but was carried out in response to genuine national security threats that Russia faced as a result of the right-wing coup in Ukraine and NATO advancement on its border.

Matviichuk further omits that Russia was carrying out a genuine humanitarian intervention by trying to save the people of eastern Ukraine who had been the target of an ethnic-cleansing operation by the Ukrainian military, which left 14,000 civilians dead.

Matviichuk concluded part of her speech by stating:

“People of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world. But peace cannot be reached by the country under attack laying down its arms. This would not be peace, but occupation. After the liberation of Bucha, we found a lot of civilians murdered in the streets and courtyards of their homes. These people were unarmed. We must stop pretending deferred military threats are ‘political compromises.’ The democratic world has grown accustomed to making concessions to dictatorships. And that is why the willingness of the Ukrainian people to resist Russian imperialism is so important. We will not leave people in the occupied territories to be killed and tortured. People’s lives cannot be a ‘political compromise.’ Fighting for peace does not not mean yielding to pressure of the aggressor, it means protecting people from its cruelty.”

It is astounding that someone would use the platform accorded to her by winning a major world peace prize to try to rationalize a war that her country had started—in 2014 when it attacked the people of eastern Ukraine who voted for more autonomy after a foreign-backed coup in Ukraine, and after the post-coup government imposed draconian language laws.^[3]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019) has even disclosed that Ukraine had no intention of abiding by the Minsk peace agreements, which could have prevented a full-scale conflict with Russia. Instead, Ukraine signed those agreements as a stalling tactic to give it more time to build up its military power and accrue more weaponry and support from the U.S. so it could fight Russia from a position of strength.

Matviichuk promoted more disinformation by suggesting that the Russians had killed all the civilians in Bucha, as in-depth investigations have determined that many civilians were killed in Bucha by the Ukrainians after Russian forces were expelled.

Her true political colors were seen at the end of the speech when she praised the “people in Iran fighting in the streets for their freedom,” and people in China who were resisting its “digital dictatorship.” This is right out of the playbook of the NED, which sponsors organizations that denounce human rights abuses of independent countries targeted by the U.S. for regime change, while extolling the heroism of dissidents who would align their country with the U.S.

Shades of Obama 2009

Matviichuk’s use of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony as a forum to promote war drew on the precedent established by the drone king, Barack Obama, when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Obama provided a tortured defense of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stating “we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

Obama continued:

“I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago—‘violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: It merely creates new and more complicated ones.’ As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak—nothing passive—nothing naïve—in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism—it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Honoring a Propaganda Agency That May Well Help Ignite World War III

While the Nobel Peace Prize has not always honored true peace activists, a truly ominous precedent has been set in giving it to a propaganda agency that may well help ignite World War III.

A key part of CCL’s current mission is to document Russian war crimes in Donbas—though Ukraine has been responsible for the majority of human rights crimes there since the war started after the U.S.-backed coup in 2014—when CCL started this work.^[4]

Residents from towns in eastern Ukraine have reported on widespread rapes and torture of captured prisoners by Ukrainian troops and constant shelling of civilian centers and terror bombing over an eight-year period.

This is ignored by the CCL, which instead has tried to spotlight the stories—real or imagined—of victims of sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine and women abducted by Russian troops and taken into captivity in Russia.

Further, the CCL has mounted an international campaign to release the Kremlin’s political prisoners, and aims to raise awareness about political persecution in what it calls Russian-occupied Crimea—which is not “occupied” since its people voted to rejoin Russia in a referendum.

The CCL fashions itself as a particular champion of the Crimean Tatars, some of whom had collaborated with Nazi Germany in World War II and who had long been used by outside powers to try to destabilize Russia and foment ethnic conflict as part of a strategy of divide and conquer.

Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, who received an award from the NED in 2018, travelled to the NATO headquarters in Brussels after the Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 agitating for an armed intervention by the UN to return Crimea to Ukrainian control, and has been a militant proponent of sanctions against Russia.

Matviichuk is co-author of the study, “The Fear Peninsula: Chronicles of Occupation and Violations of Human Rights in Crimea,” a one-sided propaganda pamphlet aimed at mobilizing public opinion in support of Ukraine’s efforts to reconquer Crimea—against the wishes of its people.

Belarusian Winner Also Has NED Connection

The politicized nature of this year’s Nobel Prize ceremony was apparent in the selection of a Belarusian dissident, Ales Bialiatski, as co-winner of the Peace Prize.

Jailed for “financing group actions that disrupted public order,” Bialiatski was part of an NED-sponsored uprising and color revolution in 2020-2021 that failed to overthrow Belarus’s socialist ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, who had saved his country in the 1990s by rejecting Western-imposed privatization and shock therapy programs and sustained a strong social safety net.^[5]

Lukashenko is a close ally of Vladimir Putin who has supported strengthening the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), an alliance of Eurasian countries promoting trade in national currencies instead of the U.S. dollar and regional economic integration as a means of presenting a strong united front against U.S. imperialism.

Bialiatski’s wife, Natalia Pinchuk, who received the Nobel Peace Prize on his behalf, used the opportunity to falsely denigrate Lukashenko for heading a “dependent dictatorship,” which she said Putin also wanted to impose on Ukraine. Pinchuk further condemned Lukashenko for “choosing to engage with society through the use of force—grenades, batons, stun guns, endless arrests and torture.”

These latter words hold some truth, though leaders throughout the world would react the same way as Lukashenko in the face of a foreign backed uprising, whose main purpose was to destroy Belarus’s successful socialist experiment and transform the country into another proxy of the U.S. and NATO that could be used as a staging ground for destabilizing Russia.

Bialiatski significantly was a panelist at a 2014 NED forum where he spoke alongside long-time NED Director and neo-conservative ideologue Carl Gershman. (See photo below.)

This indicates probable NED funding for the organization that Bialiatski established—Viasna—whose purpose has been to monitor human rights abuses committed by the Lukashenko government and to advocate for anti-regime dissidents.

In 2021, the NED provided more than $2.5 million in grants to civil society groups in Belarus, including those focused on human rights and documenting the alleged abuses of the Lukashenko government for political purposes.

By helping to paint Lukashenko as a monster in national and international media, Bialiatski’s organization and others of his kind serve U.S. imperial interests by helping to mobilize popular support for a regime-change operation directed against Europe’s last true socialist government.

Yet Another NED Connection

The third winner of this year’s Nobel Peaze Price is a banned Russian human rights organization, Memorial, whose work includes preserving the memory of the victims of Soviet gulags and Joseph Stalin’s reign, and documenting political repression and human rights violations in Russia.^[6] In 2004, its director, Arseny Roginsky, was awarded the 2004 NED Democracy Award.

This latter award suggests that Memorial—founded by Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov during perestroika in the 1980s—received financing from the NED, which was very generous in Russia toward civil society groups whose agenda was to denigrate the Soviet system and undermine Putin, who helped take back national control of Russia’s economy following a period of looting and Western exploitation under Boris Yeltsin.

In 2014, Memorial was in fact placed on a list of foreign agents by the Russian government, which suspected it of receiving foreign funding.

Should It Be Renamed the Nobel War Prize?

The Nobel Peace Prize has tarnished its reputation through many of its past selections; but this year seems worse then ever with the Nobel ceremony providing a platform for anti-Russia war incitement.

In the future, all pretenses should be thrown aside and the prize finally renamed the Nobel War Prize.

Whereas at one time genuine peace activists—like Emily Greene Balch, Linus Pauling and Martin Luther King, Jr.—were awarded the prize, now it is being conferred on war propagandists and national traitors in the pay of foreign masters who are using them merely as pawns in a deadly game in which there are no winners.

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1. The CCL also won the Georgetown University Institute for Women, Peace and Security Hillary Rodham Clinton Award bestowed annually for exceptional leadership in women’s rights. ↑
2. For a full list of winners, see here. ↑
3. For background, see Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano, The Russians Are Coming, Again (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018). ↑
4. Founded in 2007, the CCL documented human rights abuses by Ukraine’s legally elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych against protesters who launched a coup against him in February 2014, and provided legal support to those protesters. ↑
5. Bialiatski was earlier part of the Belarusian Popular Front, which helped to topple Soviet rule in Belarus in 1990-1991, and a founder of the Belarusian Union of Writers and the Martyrology of Belarus association, which investigated communist repression prior to World War II. On the success of Lukashenko’s socialist policies, see Stewart Parker, The Last Soviet Republic: Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus (London: Trafford Publishing, 2007). ↑
6. Jan Rachinsky of Memorial ritually denounced Russia and Vladimir Putin in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, stating that the “Kremlin’s attempts to denigrate the history, statehood and independence of Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations…became the ideological justification for the insane and criminal war of aggression against Ukraine.” Rachinsky went on to characterize the Russian invasion of Ukraine as unprovoked, when clearly it was not. ↑

By: Jeremy Corbyn

On Thursday, the Royal College of Nursing went on strike for the first time in their 106-year history. Understaffed, underpaid, and overworked, tens of thousands of NHS nurses walked out after being denied decent, liveable pay rises. Hailed as heroes one year, forced to use foodbanks the next, nurses’ wages have fallen more than £3,000 in real terms since 2010; three in four now say they work overtime to meet rising energy bills.

2022 will be remembered as the year that the Conservative Party plunged this country into political turmoil. However, behind the melodrama is a cost of living crisis that has pushed desperate people into destitution and the so-called middle-classes to the brink. 2022 should be remembered as the year in which relative child poverty reached its highest levels since 2007 and real wage growth reached its lowest levels in half a century (average earnings have shrunk by £80 a month, and a staggering £180 a month for public sector workers). These are the real scandals.

For some MPs, this was the year they kickstarted their reality TV career. For others, this was the year they told their children they couldn’t afford any Christmas presents. For energy companies, it was the year they laughed all the way to the bank; in the same amount of time it took for Rishi Sunak to both lose and then win a leadership contest, Shell returned £8.2 billion in profit. SSE, a multinational energy company headquartered in Scotland, saw their profits triple in just one year. Profits across the world’s seven biggest oil firms rose to almost £150 billion.

Tackling the cost of living crisis means offering an alternative to our existing economic model—a model that empowers unaccountable companies to profit off the misery of consumers and the destruction of our earth. And that means defending a value, a doctrine, and a tradition that unites us all: democracy.

Labour recently announced ‘the biggest ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people.’ I welcomed the renewal of many of the policies from the manifesto in 2019: abolishing the House of Lords, and handing powers to devolved governments, local authorities, and mayors. These plans should work hand in hand, to ensure any second chamber reflects the geographical diversity of the country. If implemented, this would decentralise a Whitehall-centric model of governance that wastes so much of this country’s regional talent, energy, and creativity.

However, devolution, decentralisation, and democracy are not just matters for the constitution. They should characterise our economy too. Regional governments are demanding greater powers for the same reason an unelected second chamber is patently arcane: we want a say over the things that affect our everyday lives. This, surely, includes the way in which our basic resources are produced and distributed.

From energy to water and from rail to mail, a small number of companies monopolise the production of basic resources to the detriment of the workers they exploit and the customers they fleece. We rely on these services and workers keep them running, but it is remote Chief Executive Officers and unaccountable shareholders who decide how they are run, and profit off their provision. Would it not make more sense for workers and consumers to decide how to run the services they provide and consume?

As prices and profits soar, it’s time to put basic resources like energy, water, rail, and mail back where they belong: in public hands. Crucially, this mould of public ownership would not be a return to 1940s-style patronage appointed Boards, but a restoration of civic accountability. Water, for example, should be a regional entity controlled by consumers, workers, and local authorities, and work closely with environmental agencies on water conservation, sewage discharges, the preseveration of coastlines, and the protection of our natural world. This democratic body would be answerable to the public, and the public alone, rather than to the dividends of distant hedge funds.

Bringing energy, water, rail, and mail into democratic public ownership is about giving local people agency over the resources they use. It’s about making sure these resources are sustainably produced and universally distributed in the interests of workers, communities, and the planet.

Beyond key utilities, a whole host of services and resources require investment, investment that local communities should control. That’s why, in 2019, we pledged to establish Regional Investment Banks across the country, run by local stakeholders who can decide—collectively—how best to direct public investment. Those seeking this investment would not make their case with reference to how much profit they could make in private, but how much they could benefit the public as a whole.

To democratise our economy, we need to democratise workplaces too. We can end workplace hierarchies and wage inequalities by giving workers the right to decide, together, how their team operates and how their pay structures are organised. If we want to kickstart a mass transfer of power, we need to redistribute wealth from those who hoard it to those who create it.

Local people know the issues facing them, and they know how to meet them better than anyone else. If we want to practice what we preach, then the same principles of democracy, devolution, and decentralisation must apply to our own parties as well. Local party members, not party leaders, should choose their candidates, create policy, and decide what their movement stands for.

Only a democratic party can provide the necessary space for creative and transformative solutions to the crises facing us all. In a world where the division between rich and poor is greater than ever before, our aim should be to unite the country around a more hopeful alternative—an alternative that recognises how we all rely on each other to survive and thrive.

This alternative is not some abstract ideal to be imagined. It is an alternative that workers are fighting for on the picket line. Even before the nurses went on strike, 2022 was a record-breaking year for industrial action. Striking workers are not just fighting for pay, essential as these demands are. They are fighting for a society without poverty, hunger, and inequality. They are fighting for a future that puts the interests of the community ahead of the greed of energy companies. They are fighting for us all.

Their collective struggle teaches us that democracy exists—it thrives—outside of Westminster. The government is trying its best to turn dedicated postal workers and railway workers into enemies of the general public—a general public that apparently also excludes university staff, bus drivers, barristers, baggage handlers, civil servants, ambulance drivers, firefighters, and charity workers. As the enormous scale of industrial action shows, striking workers are the general public. 2022 will go down in history, not as the year the Tories took the public for fools, but as the year the public fought back. United in their thousands, they are sending a clear message: this is what democracy looks like.

Source: Tribune Magazine

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About the Author

Jeremy Corbyn is the Labour member of parliament for Islington North.

A new report published by the German Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) that focuses on “prevention and intervention against Israel-related antisemitism” is pushing for further crackdowns on pro-Palestine solidarity, and even discusses moving toward the criminalization of this kind of speech and activism.

Authored by one of the IMK working groups, and adopted by the Conference earlier this month, the report consistently conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism by employing the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism. It includes specific suggestions, such as urging schools to show their students a more positive view of Israel in the classroom, and categorizes Amnesty International’s recent report on Israeli apartheid as “antisemitic.” The report even suggests prohibiting maps that “question Israel’s right to exist”; whether this includes maps of historic Palestine remains unclear.

The decisions of the IMK are not immediately legally binding, such that the report is not currently actionable. But the Conference, made up of interior ministers and senators from Germany’s 16 states, plays an important role in coordinating the activities of the country’s local governments, and its resolutions are intended to be implemented at the state level. Although this implementation is not the responsibility of the IMK, its resolutions are politically binding, as they must be passed unanimously according to the Conference’s rules.

IMK’s own informational document details that failure to abide by their resolutions would “shatter the foundations of collegial and trusting cooperation [between states] in the future.” As a rule, the state-level interior ministries proceed in accordance with IMK agreements, and they report to each other on the fates of agreements and measures taken.

In a statement to +972, Amnesty International said it “stands against antisemitism, which is antithetical to human rights. We oppose discrimination, racism and hate crime in all forms, including against Jews or people perceived as Jewish. All of Amnesty’s criticism of the Israeli government is based in international law, and on evidence of the great harm and suffering Israel’s policies cause to Palestinians. Amnesty criticizes the Israeli government, not the Israeli people or the Jewish people.”

The IMK’s spokesperson did not respond to the author’s request for comment.

‘A delusional view of the reality of occupation’

The report singles out the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, labeling it dangerous and antisemitic, and claiming that it consists of “foreign extremists, Islamist terrorist organizations and left-wing extremist groups” — a claim that has been heavily pushed by the Israeli government. It further accuses the BDS movement of “playing down Arab nationalist and Islamist antisemitism and terror in the Middle East” by justifying this rhetoric through academia. “Sympathizers of the BDS campaign can also be found in the art and culture scene as well as within the scientific community,” the report continues.

Germany’s crackdown on the BDS movement has been intensifying for years, accelerated by a 2019 Bundestag resolution that classifies it as inherently antisemitic, essentially barring organizations that support the boycott from accessing public funds and public spaces. The resolution has enabled universities, state governments, and public institutions to deny Palestinians the right to free speech and assembly.

That censorship has contributed to a swell of anti-Palestinian political sentiment and policy in Germany, the supporters of which believe it to be justified by Germany’s historical responsibility toward Israel due to the Holocaust. The result is that any criticism of Israeli oppression of Palestinians is often immediately deemed problematic.

“It is really a dangerous development in an authoritarian direction,” said Kerem Schamberger, a German communication scientist and political activist, of the new report. “The adoption of this political, instrumentalized definition of antisemitism by the state, its institutions, and its ruling politicians is a delusional view of the reality of the occupation, shielding any criticism of it.

“They are trying to criminalize and punish any pro-Palestinian act,” Schamberger continued. “They did so more generally with the anti-BDS resolution, but that was just the start. Now the states are trying to establish specific tools that they can use to target international solidarity and pro-Palestinian activists.”

‘The same old baseless arguments’

In order to counter the BDS movement, the working group that drafted the recent report recommended developing “adequate educational media and educational formats for schools,” as well as training for educators, to “convey a realistic image of Israel.”

Earlier this month, +972 reported on the German education system’s aggressive push to adopt a pro-Israel narrative in classrooms. Not only has this led to a lack of critical conversation among students, it also discourages any embrace of pro-Palestinian dialogue, often resulting in a hostile learning environment for Palestinians. According to the report, however, the IMK believes that an even stronger pro-Israel agenda is needed in schools, as well as “intensif[ied]” exchange programs with Israel.

Yet the report doesn’t just push for more ways to combat any pro-Palestinian solidarity. It also advocates harsher punishments for Palestine activism, aiming for these to be “as universal as possible.” The working group seeks to develop a model national guideline that can be used by antisemitism commissioners at the federal and state level to monitor and track antisemitic acts across the country.

The IMK also suggests “creating a new legal basis” to be able to criminalize activities against Israel or “to criminally prosecute [pro-Palestine groups’] right to exist,” including legal regulations against pro-Palestine clubs and activities under the guise of “banning antisemitic gatherings.”

Germany is already committed to blocking pro-Palestinian gatherings. Earlier this year, Berlin police arrested and detained 170 people during Nakba Day demonstrations, some of whom had done nothing more than hold a Palestinian flag or wear a keffiyeh. Berlin police also banned a vigil for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh that had been planned by Jewish organizers – all in the name of fighting antisemitism.

“This delineates yet another new attempt, nevertheless deploying the same-old baseless arguments, to chill free expression of Palestinian rights advocacy and legitimate demands for accountability through non-binding policy guidance,” Alice Garcia, the advocacy and communication manager at the European Legal Support Center, told +972.

“Of course, such measures would be difficult to approve through legislative proposals given their lack of substance and their failure to respect the fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly,” Garcia said. “This document is therefore one of the means by which the promoters of an anti-Palestinian discourse are attempting to impose a new category of acts that they would like to see become de facto illegal; thus it must be strongly condemned and challenged.”

Pushing back

Some groups have indeed been condemning and challenging rising German anti-Palestinianism. Ahmed Abed, a Palestinian-German lawyer, was recently involved in a case that exemplifies this effort. The Palestine Committee Stuttgart, a group that supports BDS, had their bank account terminated by Landesbank Baden-Württemburg (LBBW) because of the group’s anti-Zionist politics. Abed successfully helped the group get the account termination overturned – on April 26, the Stuttgart Regional Court ruled that LBBW’s actions were unjustified.

“[The court] declared that the BDS movement does not pose a threat to Jewish life in Germany,” Ahmed Abed told +972. Yet this seems to have had little impact on the authors of the report.

“The interior ministers are acting against their own constitution and against the Anti-Apartheid Convention to which Germany is committed,” Abed said of the report. “Human rights organizations are demanding sanctions because of Israeli apartheid, but peaceful forms of action like BDS are criminalized. Palestinians are to be prosecuted for statements such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ [for] the map of historic Palestine, or [over] BDS. The interior ministers simply ignore recent court decisions that do not allow this.”

Even Jewish scholars and artists from Israel are not happy with the direction things have been going in Germany over the past few years. In 2020, dozens of Jewish scholars and artists from Israel and elsewhere demanded the German government remove the Federal Antisemitism Commissioner, Felix Klein, from his position due to his “weaponization of antisemitism” against critics of Israel. “As an official representative of the German government, Mr. Klein is undermining the exercise of fundamental freedoms — this should deeply alarm your government, considering its commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law,” the letter read.

It is not yet clear what the implications of the IMK’s resolution will be, nor do we know how soon this language will become law in the states. Yet one thing is clear: it is becoming much harder to fight for Palestinian freedom in the supposedly democratic state of Germany.

Source: +972 magazine

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made his first known foreign trip since Russia invaded Ukraine more than 300 days ago, travelling to the US on a high-stakes visit to secure support for his war effort well into next year.

The Ukrainian president was filmed travelling with cars outside Przemyśl railway station in Poland.

He later flew to Washington DC, where he was greeted at the White House on Wednesday afternoon by Joe Biden.

Wearing his trademark olive green pants and sweater, Zelenskiy met the US president and his wife on the lawn.

Before the two leaders went in for talks, Biden told Zelenskiy that “it’s an honour to be by your side” and pledged continued financial, military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

“Thank you, first of all,” Zelenskiy told the US president. “It’s a great honour to be here.”

The two leaders will participate in a joint news conference and then go to Capitol Hill to address a joint session of the US Senate and House of Representatives.

While in the air, Zelenskiy tweeted that he planned to strengthen the country’s “resilience and defence capabilities”.

“Next year, we must return the Ukrainian flag and freedom to our entire land, to all our people,” he wrote.

US lawmakers are due to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45bn (£37bn) in emergency assistance to Ukraine. The latest tranche of funding would be the biggest US infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine, above even Biden’s $37bn (£30bn) emergency request.

The White House earlier announced that it intends to send advanced Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine, which it said would be vital to stop Russia’s “barbaric” rocket attacks on critical infrastructure, as well as $1bn (£828m) in additional defence assistance.

A White House statement announcing the visit said the trip would “underscore the United States’ steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through the provision of economic, humanitarian and military assistance”.

In a letter inviting Zelenskiy to address the joint meeting of Congress, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, described the fight for Ukraine as a fight for democracy.

“In the face of Putin’s horrific atrocities, Ukrainian freedom fighters have inspired the world with an iron will and an unbreakable spirit … Your courageous, patriotic, indefatigable leadership has rallied not only your people, but the world, to join the frontlines of the fight for freedom,” she wrote.

After Moscow sent tanks and troops into Ukraine in late February, Zelenskiy sought to reassure citizens that he would stay in the country as a show of strength and determination, despite threats to his life and family.

With Ukraine’s military now largely holding Russian forces back, the international trip shows the president feels confident enough in the security situation to leave.

Ukraine’s largest single military donor by far is also at a critical juncture. Democrats are likely to lose their majority in the US House of Representatives next month, meaning Zelenskiy and his White House backers are eager to make a public show of bipartisan support. Some Republicans have recently questioned the price of supporting the war.

Kyiv’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the visit was “extremely significant”. He added: “This finally puts an end to the attempts by the Russian side … to prove an allegedly growing cooling in our bilateral relations. This, of course, is not even close. The United States unequivocally supports Ukraine.”

In a call with reporters, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that continued western arms supplies to Ukraine would lead to a “deepening” of the conflict.

“The supply of weapons continues and the range of supplied weapons is expanding. All of this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict,” he said. “This does not bode well for Ukraine.”

Source: The Guardian

حذر وزير الدفاع البريطاني بن والاس، يوم الثلاثاء، من أن روسيا ستزود إيران بـ”مكونات عسكرية متقدمة” مقابل طائرات إيرانية بدون طيار تلقتها بالفعل.

وأوضح والاس، خلال خطاب نهاية العام أمام مجلس العموم البريطاني، “كيف أصبحت إيران واحدة من أكبر الداعمين العسكريين لروسيا”.

وقال الوزير البريطاني: “روسيا تعتزم تزويد إيران بمكونات عسكرية متطورة تقوض أمن الشرق الأوسط والأمن الدولي مقابل تزويد موسكو بأكثر من 300 طائرة بدون طيار من طراز (كاميكازي)”، مشددا على أهمية “فضح تلك الصفقة”.

ولم يقدم والاس أي تفاصيل أخرى.

وقال وزير الدفاع البريطاني إنه “أبقى قنوات اتصال مفتوحة” مع نظيره الروسي سيرغي شويغو “من أجل تجنب سوء التقدير وتقليل مخاطر التصعيد”، وأضاف أنه “شدد مرارا وتكرارا على أنه يجب على روسيا التوقف عن استهداف المدنيين في أوكرانيا وسحب قواتها”.

وتابع: “لا يمكننا أن نقف مكتوفي الأيدي بينما ترسل روسيا تلك الموجات من الطائرات بدون طيار لتصعيد هجومها على المدنيين الأبرياء”، مؤكدا التزام المملكة المتحدة بمواصلة تزويد أوكرانيا بالدفاعات للتصدي لهذه الهجمات.

وتواصلت شبكة CNN مع وزارة الدفاع الروسية للتعليق على تصريحات وزير الدفاع البريطاني.

وكانت إيران اعترفت بأنها أرسلت إلى روسيا “عددا محدودا من الطائرات بدون طيار” ولكن قبل بدء الحرب في أوكرانيا.

وفي 9 ديسمبر/ كانون الأول، دق البيت الأبيض ناقوس الخطر بشأن الشراكة العسكرية المزدهرة بين إيران وروسيا ، قائلا إن الولايات المتحدة ستعمل على “فضح وتعطيل” تبادل الأسلحة والمعلومات بين البلدين.

المصدر: CNN

نقلت وسائل الإعلام الرسمية الصينية، الأربعاء، عن مجلس الوزراء قوله إن الصين ستستغل الوقت المُتاح لتنفيذ إجراءات لدعم الاقتصاد بهدف تحسين النمو في أوائل عام 2023.

وأطلقت الحكومة في الأشهر الماضية سلسلة من الإجراءات لدعم النمو، مع التركيز على الإنفاق على البنية التحتية والدعم المحدود للمستهلكين، مع تخفيف قيود مالية لإنقاذ قطاع العقارات.

ونقلت وسائل الإعلام الرسمية عن مجلس الوزراء قوله عقب اجتماع: “لا يزال هناك مجال لهذه السياسات والإجراءات لتظهر آثارها، وإن بذل جهود جيدة سيُساعد أيضا على استقرار النمو العام المقبل”.

وأضاف أنه يجب على الحكومة الصينية أن “تنتهز الوقت المتاح وأن تولي اهتماما كبيرا لتنفيذ السياسات”.

وتعهد قادة الصين الأسبوع الماضي بتسريع تعديل السياسات لدعم الاقتصاد المتباطئ بهدف التخفيف من تأثير زيادة إصابات كوفيد-19 على الشركات والمستهلكين في وقت يضر فيه تباطؤ الاقتصاد العالمي بالصادرات.

وخفّض البنك الدولي توقعاته للنمو في الصين للعامين الحالي والمقبل، مشيرا إلى تأثير التخفيف المفاجئ للإجراءات الصارمة لاحتواء كوفيد والتراجع المستمر في قطاع العقارات.

ونُقل عن مجلس الوزراء قوله إن الصين ستعمل على تحقيق التوازن بشكل أفضل بين إجراءات الوقاية من فيروس كورونا والجهود المبذولة لتعزيز التنمية الاقتصادية والاجتماعية، في مسعى لوضع أساس جيد للنمو في عام 2023.

وتوقع عضو لجنة السياسة النقدية في البنك المركزي الصيني، وانغ يمينغ، أن ينمو الناتج المحلي الإجمالي للصين بأكثر من 5 بالمئة خلال العام المقبل.

وقال يمينغ في وقت سابق خلال نوفمبر الماضي، إن الصين تمتلك الظروف المواتية لتحقيق نمو بنسبة 5 بالمئة على الأقل خلال 2023، مشيرا إلى أن السياسات الحكومية الأخيرة للتعامل مع أزمتي فيروس كورونا وتدهور القطاع العقاري تعتبر عوامل داعمة للنمو.

المصدر: سكاي نيوز عربية

دعا ممثل الصين الدائم لدى الأمم المتحدة تشانغ جيون المجتمع الدولي إلى العمل على دفع حل الدولتين إلى الأمام.

وقال ممثل الصين إن القضية الفلسطينية ظلت على جدول أعمال الأمم المتحدة لأكثر من سبعة عقود، مضيفا أن كل يوم يتقاعس فيه المجتمع الدولي عن العمل هو إضرار بالسلام وخيانة للعدالة وفشل للجيل المقبل.

ودعا “جميع الأطراف إلى تحكيم ضمائرهم لدعم العدالة والوفاء بالتزاماتهم عبر الأفعال”، وقال: “نأمل أن تتخذ الأمم المتحدة ومجلس الأمن خطوات جوهرية لدفع حل الدولتين قدما، ودعم الشعب الفلسطيني في استعادة وممارسة حقوقه الثابتة، حتى تتعايش فلسطين وإسرائيل بسلام، ويمكن للشعبين العربي واليهودي أن يعيشا في تناغم، ويمكن تحقيق سلام دائم في الشرق الأوسط”.

وقال إن الصين تؤيد التطبيق الكامل لحل الدولتين، مشيرا إلى أنه من غير الممكن إطالة الظلم التاريخي الذي يعاني منه الشعب الفلسطيني إلى ما لا نهاية، وأن حقوقه الوطنية المشروعة لا تقبل المقايضة، ولا يمكن رفض مطلبه بإقامة دولة مستقلة”.

وأكد أنه “يتعين على المجتمع الدولي أن يظل ملتزما بترجمة حل الدولتين من توافق في الرأي إلى إجراء ملموس، ومن رؤية إلى واقع، وأن يعمل معا في هذا الصدد”.

المصدر: سما الإخبارية

In mid-April, India is forecast to surpass China as the world’s most populous country.

The Asian giants already have more than 1.4 billion people each, and for over 70 years have accounted for more than a third of the global population.

China’s population is likely to begin shrinking next year. Last year, 10.6 million people were born, a little more than the number of deaths, thanks to a rapid drop in fertility rate. India’s fertility rate has also fallen substantially in recent decades – from 5.7 births per woman in 1950 to two births per woman today – but the rate of decline has been slower.

So what does India overtaking China as the most populous country in the world mean?

China reduced its population faster than India

China reduced its population growth rate by about half from 2% in 1973 to 1.1% in 1983.

Demographers say much of this was achieved by riding roughshod over human rights – two separate campaigns promoting just one child and then later marriages, longer gaps between children and fewer of them – in what was a predominantly rural and overwhelmingly uneducated and poor country,

India saw rapid population growth – almost 2% annually – for much of the second half of the last century. Over time, death rates fell, life expectancy rose and incomes went up. More people – especially those living in cities – accessed clean drinking water and modern sewerage. “Yet the birth rate remained high,” says Tim Dyson, a demographer at the London School of Economics.

India launched a family planning programme in 1952 and laid out a national population policy for the first time only in 1976, around the time China was busy reducing its birth rate.

But forced sterilisations of millions of poor people in an overzealous family planning programme during the 1975 Emergency – when civil liberties were suspended – led to a social backlash against family planning. “Fertility decline would have been faster for India if the Emergency hadn’t happened and if politicians had been more proactive. It also meant that all subsequent governments treaded cautiously when it came to family planning,” Prof Dyson says.

East Asian countries such as Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand, which launched population programmes much later than India, achieved lower fertility levels, cut infant and maternal mortality rates, raised incomes and improved human development earlier than India.

Yet India is not undergoing a population explosion

India has added more than a billion people since Independence in 1947, and its population is expected to grow for another 40 years. But its population growth rate has been declining for decades now, and the country has defied dire predictions about a “demographic disaster”.

So India having more people than China is no longer significant in a “concerning” way, say demographers.

Rising incomes and improved access to health and education have helped Indian women have fewer children than before, effectively flattening the growth curve. Fertility rates have dipped below replacement levels – two births per woman – in 17 out of 22 states and federally administered territories. (A replacement level is one at which new births are sufficient to maintain a steady population.)

The decline in birth rates has been faster in southern India than in the more populous north. “It is a pity that more of India could not have been like south India,” says Prof Dyson. “All things being equal, rapid population growth in parts of north India have depressed living standards”.

However, overtaking China could be significant

It could, for example, strengthen India’s claim of getting a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, which has five permanent members, including China.

India is a founding member of the UN and has always insisted that its claim to a permanent seat is just. “I think you have certain claims on things [by being the country with largest population],” says John Wilmoth, director of the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The way India’s demography is changing is also significant, according to KS James of the Mumbai-based International Institute for Population Sciences.

Despite drawbacks, India deserves some credit for managing a “healthy demographic transition” by using family planning in a democracy which was both poor and largely uneducated, says Mr James. “Most countries did this after they had achieved higher literacy and living standards.”

More good news. One in five people below 25 years in the world is from India and 47% of Indians are below the age of 25. Two-thirds of Indians were born after India liberalised its economy in the early 1990s. This group of young Indians have some unique characteristics, says Shruti Rajagopalan, an economist, in a new paper. “This generation of young Indians will be the largest consumer and labour source in the knowledge and network goods economy. Indians will be the largest pool of global talent,” she says.

But there are challenges too

India needs to create enough jobs for its young working age population to reap a demographic dividend. But only 40% of of India’s working-age population works or wants to work, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

More women would need jobs as they spend less time in their working age giving birth and looking after children. The picture here is bleaker: only 10% of working-age women were participating in the labour force in October, according to CMIE, compared with 69% in China.

Then there’s migration. Some 200 million Indians have migrated within the country – between states and districts – and their numbers are bound to grow. Most are workers who leave villages for cities to find work. “Our cities will grow as migration increases because of lack of jobs and low wages in villages. Can they provide migrants a reasonable living standard? Otherwise, we will end up with more slums and disease,” says S Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert at Kerala’s International Institute of Migration and Development.

Demographers say India also needs to stop child marriages, prevent early marriages and properly register births and deaths. A skewed sex ratio at birth – meaning more boys are born than girls – remains a worry. Political rhetoric about “population control” appears to be targeted at Muslims, the country’s largest minority when, in reality, “gaps in childbearing between India’s religious groups are generally much smaller than they used to be”, according to a study from Pew Research Center.

And then there’s the ageing of India

Demographers say the ageing of India receives little attention.

In 1947, India’s median age was 21. A paltry 5% of people were above the age of 60. Today, the median age is over 28, and more than 10% of Indians are over 60 years. Southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu achieved replacement levels at least 20 years ago.

“As the working-age population declines, supporting an older population will become a growing burden on the government’s resources,” says Rukmini S, author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India.

“Family structures will have to be recast and elderly persons living alone will become an increasing source of concern,” she says.

(Source: BBC News)

Joint exercises between the Chinese and Russian navy in the East China Sea that begin this week will “further deepen” cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, China has announced.

The drills will be held off the coast of Zhejiang province south of Shanghai from Wednesday until next Tuesday, according to a brief notice posted on Monday by China’s Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army.

“This joint exercise is directed at demonstrating the determination and capability of the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats … and further deepen the China-Russia comprehensive new-era strategic partnership of coordination,” the notice said.

The Russian defence ministry said on Monday that ships involved in the joint drills included the Varyag missile cruiser, the Marshal Shaposhnikov destroyer, and two corvette-class ships of Russia’s Pacific Fleet.

The ministry said the Chinese navy planned to deploy several surface warships and a submarine for the exercise, and that military aircraft from both sides will take part.

China provided no immediate information on what units would be taking part in the exercise, which comes at a time when ties between Moscow and Beijing – while strained by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – have remained strong and China has provided political cover for Russia’s war on its neighbour amid international condemnation of Moscow’s aggression.

Russia has also more recently strongly backed China amid its tensions with the US over Taiwan.

Putting aside decades of mutual distrust, China and Russia have stepped up military exercises as part of their aligning of foreign policies in recent years to oppose the US-led liberal Western political order.

As well as refusing to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or even to refer to it as an invasion or war, Beijing has condemned Western sanctions against Moscow, and accuses Washington and NATO of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin into taking action. China also remains a major customer of Russian oil and gas which is being bought at a heavy discount.

Russia and China are also said to be “sharing a toolkit” of approaches and strategies to undermine NATO, according to Julianne Smith, US ambassador to NATO.

“Those two are increasingly sharing a toolkit that should concern the NATO alliance, Smith told the Financial Times in an article published on Tuesday.

“There’s just no question that the [People’s Republic of China] and Russia are both working to divide . . . the transatlantic partners. And we are now very aware, we all have a deeper appreciation of those efforts and are intent on addressing them,” Smith said in an interview.

“We’ve seen them share hybrid tactics,” Smith added. “I think China watches very closely how Russia relies on disinformation and things like coercion or energy security, malign or malicious cyber-operations,” she said.

NATO listed China for the first time in June as one of its strategic challenges, saying Beijing’s ambitions and its “coercive policies” undermined the Western military bloc’s “interests, security and values”.

In November, Tu-95 bombers of the Russian air force and Chinese H-6K bombers flew joint patrols over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. As part of the drills, the Russian bombers landed in China for the first time, and the Chinese bombers flew to an air base in Russia.

In September, China sent more than 2,000 troops along with more than 300 military vehicles, 21 combat aircraft and three warships to take part in a sweeping joint exercise with Russia.

The Vostok 2022 (East 2022) exercise took place in various locations in Russia’s Far East and the Sea of Japan and involved more than 50,000 troops and 5,000 weapons units, including 140 aircraft and 60 warships, according to the Russian defence ministry.

China last week also sent a squadron of navy ships through straits near Japan into the Western Pacific as Beijing blasted Tokyo’s adoption of a new national security strategy putting itself on a more offensive footing — largely as a result of the perceived threat from China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

China’s embassy in Manila accused the United States on Tuesday of driving a wedge between the Philippines and Beijing, deploring Washington’s “unfounded accusations” that it said sought to stir up trouble in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea has become one of many flashpoints in the testy relationship between China and the United States, with Washington rejecting what it calls unlawful territorial claims by Beijing in the resource-rich waters.

Beijing was reacting to a Dec. 19 statement by U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price voicing concern over the reported “escalating swarms” of Chinese vessels in the disputed waterway and an incident involving a floating piece of rocket.

Price said China’s actions “reflect continuing disregard for other South China Sea claimants and states lawfully operating in the region”. He reiterated that the United States stands by the Philippines in upholding rules-based international order.

In a statement, China’s embassy in Manila said it was “only natural for neighbours to have differences”, but added:

“The U.S. keeps meddling in the South China Sea disputes and trying to drive wedges between countries in the region, creating tensions and harming regional peace and stability.

“What the U.S. has done is not to help anyone but to serve its own geopolitical interests,” it said.

China claims vast swathes of the South China Sea that overlap with the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines. Trillions of dollars in trade flow every year through the waterway, which also contains rich fishing grounds and gas fields.

The Philippines last week expressed “great concern” over the “reported swarming” of Chinese vessels in a reef and shoal inside its exclusive economic zone.

That came a few days after the foreign ministry filed a diplomatic protest over a Chinese coastguard ship which the Philippine military said used force to retrieve a piece of rocket floating in the ocean that was being towed by a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea.

China has denied it forcefully grabbed the object, which it said last month was debris from the casing protecting the nose cone of a spacecraft launched by Beijing.

Source: Reuters