World

A specter is haunting the world — the specter of a new kind of revolution. The Hong Kong protesters’ technology and tactics have baffled the Chinese authorities, leaving them apparently powerless to restore order, except by extreme and counter-productive violence. Hong Kong's revolutionary template will be adopted by all groups wishing to destabilize existing orders. The Hong Kong riots have unfolded despite the most intrusive surveillance state ever created. The Chinese government gathers information on every citizen, and is working to assign each a social credit score that will determine who may buy a house, get a promotion, or move to a different city.

Imagine a presidential primary campaign candidate who is far ahead in the polls. Now, imagine that candidate leading in a diverse array of early states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. This candidate is the most famous in his field. He has over four decades in the limelight. He routinely makes remarks that are offensive. Women suspect he is a sexual predator. The commentariat insist he’s finished. This politician is said to be out of step with his party’s base: his values don’t reflect theirs. Oh, and this candidate would be the oldest nominee in his party’s history, and America’s oldest elected president. This person is Donald Trump in 2016. He’s also Joe Biden in 2020.

'After I testified in front of the Canadian House of Commons, the Chinese government might have put me in a different "category" on their blacklist,' Darren Byler said with a smile on his face. 'I possibly became an enemy of the state.' Byler is a lecturer in the department of anthropology at the University of Washington. He's an avid mountain climber, a Uighur poetry and literature enthusiast, and an advocate for Uighur rights in China. Since 2017, the People's Republic has interned as many as one million Uighurs, Kazahks, Kyrgyz, and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, the Uighur 'autonomous region' in northwestern China. Byler’s testimony, and the testimony of others, resulted in a Canadian government report condemning Chinese government’s treatment of Uighurs.

The recent G20 meeting in Osaka and its surrounding events provide a sad view of the emerging New World Order: Trump exchanging love messages with Kim Jong-un and inviting him to the White House, Putin jovially clapping hands with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and so on, with Merkel and Tusk, the two voices of old European reason, marginalized and mostly ignored. This NWO is very tolerant: they all respect each other, no one is imposing on others imperialist Eurocentrist notions like women’s rights. This new spirit is best encapsulated by the interview Putin gave to the Financial Times on the eve of the Osaka summit, in which he, as expected, lambasted the ‘liberal idea’ claiming that it ‘outlived its purpose.

Trump’s decision to lift the ban on US companies doing business with Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company, is a stunning defeat for him. It’s also a major reversal for the US intelligence community, which has been concerned for years about what it considers to be Huawei’s wholesale theft of American technology.Lifting of the ban reinstates Huawei at the leading edge of China’s global spying. It undercuts months of private attempts to encourage America's allies to join in what the US hoped would be something close to a worldwide ban. And, over the long term, it also threatens America’s strategic advantage as a leader in new technologies.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is touted by Beijing as an attempt at multinational economic cooperation and development, comprising everything from foreign direct investment to the development of infrastructure. However, the purpose of the BRI is not economic or cultural but strategic, and is an effort to mask the expansion of Chinese power. In its strategic intent, the BRI should be considered an imperial project alongside the likes of the British East India Company (EIC) or the Dutch East Indian Company, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC).  With the BRI, China is exercising the 'imperial excuse', just as the EIC and VOC did centuries ago.

As US-Iran tensions rise, America’s sway over its allies is falling. Last week, Major General Christopher Ghika, the British officer second in command of anti ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, publicly contradicted the rationale behind American troop build-ups in the region. US Central Command was quick to rebuff Ghika, but Britain’s Ministry of Defence supported him. Other NATO allies, too, are balking at confrontation with Iran. Spain has withdrawn a frigate from the American-led, Gulf-bound carrier group. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, has called for ‘maximum restraint’. If there is to be a third Gulf War, the US might find itself with fewer friends than in the last.