The White House’s top official for Asia said on Wednesday that the era of US engagement with China is over, and now, the two countries’ relationship will be defined by competition.
“The period that was broadly described as engagement has come to an end,” said Kurt Campbell, the head of Indo-Pacific affairs on the National Security Council. Speaking at an event hosted by Stanford University, Campbell said US policy towards China will now follow a “new set of strategic parameters” and that “the dominant paradigm is going to be competition.”
Campbell blamed the shift in policy on Chinese President Xi Jinping and said Beijing is shifting its policies to “harsh power, or hard power.” Campbell said the best way to confront China is “to work with allies, partners, and friends.”
Boosting military cooperation with allies in Asia is key to the Biden administration’s China policy. As part of this strategy, the US is strengthening the group known as Quad, whose members include the US, Australia, India, and Japan. President Biden held the first-ever summit between Quad leaders virtually in March. Campbell said the US is planning to convene an in-person Quad summit for this fall.
In the Obama administration, Campbell was the top Asia diplomat in the State Department and is seen as the architect of what became known as the “pivot” to Asia. While President Obama began reshuffling some resources to the Indo-Pacific to challenge China, his disastrous interventions in the Middle East got him bogged down, and the pivot was not fully realized.
Campbell says Biden’s Asia pivot — which is a continuation of Trump’s — is for real. “For the first time, really, we are now shifting our strategic focus, our economic interests, our military might more to the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
The Pentagon recently identified China as the top “pacing threat” facing the US military, and military leaders are repeating the mantra. President Biden has also made it clear that China is his top foreign policy priority. In his first address to Congress, Biden said the US is in competition with China to “win the 21st century.” To compete with China, Biden said he told President Xi that the US will militarize the Indo-Pacific “just as we do with NATO in Europe.”
How careless. They seem to have “lost China” for a second time.
China wasn’t “ours” to lose.
The Chinese have known all along it would come to this.
They are well prepared for any type of aggressive action taken by the US.
I can only imagine they must wonder what took so long.
China is now far too powerful economically and the US far too weak militarily to cause any serious concern.
China can call up and properly equip 100 million men to defend the borders.
Even if the US pulled all its military from all over the world and attacked China, it would not be nearly enough.
That’s the part which continues to amaze me – that they anticipated Imperial America coming for them. Possibly this is because they’ve seen a succession of Pompous Arseho*le Presidents starting with Clinton. One wonders if Clinton’s attack on their embassy in Yugoslavia didn’t start opening their eyes. From that point they would have watched events in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the attempts to suffocate Iran.
Trump was an horrible, awful, and monstrous President in every way. Biden is showing many signs of being even worse in Foreign Affairs.
That’s saying something!
I’m still wondering why Clinton bombed the China embassy in Belgrade. No doubt you’re right, but by what logic was this considered tactically or strategically valid?
Was there a Bimbo Eruption going on? That would have been a tactical reason for the dual Clinton Presidency (that’s what she said).
Robert, it was an error made by our blessed military.
That was the lie at the time. The proof of which is that it was pronounced as the official truth.
I remember reading some obscure transcripts by Mao Tse-tung years ago.
He warned the future generations of Chinese leaders that one day the US would seriously attack China whenever it became a legitimate threat. Perhaps even with nuclear weapons.
He had no illusions, even back then, regarding a benevolent US hegemony.
So, he advised future leaders to always appear weak and subservient to US interests until the very last minute when China’s true power could no longer be hidden.
He advised the future CCP leaders to be ready for that day because it would almost certainly be all-out war if they were not very careful.
Mao was extremely well educated and was well aware of the famous “Thucydides’ Trap”.
Mar, maybe the Nimitz, “Tic Tacs” are indeed China’s???? If so USA finished.
Smith, Trump was an AZZhole often but not nearly as bad as your rant screams out. Trump was under attack by every MOFU DC Ghoul and news media before he even took office, open your eyes and realize just what went down.
Trump thrived on those attacks. His twitter account and his rallies proved that. And now he sits like an exiled King while his subjects flock to him and kiss his ass so he’s still thriving on those attacks. He wasn’t only a lousy president, like his predecessors and successor, he is absolutely the worst ex-president that ever existed. Open YOUR eyes.
The War Party considers troop numbers obsolete. And even if it’s a wash in terms of missile tech and guidance, the US has greater durance.
It’s clear to the planners, there’s no solution to the climate crisis, everything essential, from water and oil to lithium and cobalt, etc., is going to be in ever shorter supply, and that whoever wins the resource wars is going to be the only one able to live in a fashion to make life worth it. So their calculus tells them the sooner the better and at whatever the cost (in human life), losing will be even worse. The law of nature, the food chain, the strong eat the weak, is the constant.
Robert, I am with you on antiwar. I would like to add that the propaganda that “war is a good evil to control human overpopulation” has been used to aid pro-war governments. See: https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/sections/research/the-war-against-populations
Regarding the “Climate Crisis,” the first step was to establish a threat from “human driven global warming,” but carbon dioxide did not cause catastrophic global warming as alleged. It actually managed to green the planet, making the planet more fertile and effective in feeding people. The term was changed to “Climate Change” to adjust for the lack of significant global warming trend. Other than control/tax, the “Climate Crisis” is also used as a deadly distraction from the actual warmongering by the west. See Wikileaks documents: https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/40/404797_climate-assortment-of-statements-from-east-anglia-.html
The label change “global warming” to “climate change” was by way of accommodating the demotic. Though both are obviously consistent, the former has greater scientific precision. But since the popular mind is extremely limited –doesn’t keep a running measure of permafrost or sea level, etc., ….
The author of the Stratfor memo doesn’t present a single scientifically substantive argument. His entire schtick is ad hominem, accusing the science community of group-think and intellectual cowardice.
It’s the small change of oil-patch propaganda.
I have to respectfully disagree. Just to be clear, you are not accusing me and WikiLeaks (see the linked documents) of promoting oil patch propaganda, correct?
No, the Stratfor author; but am surprised you would extend credence to their offerings, any more than you do to the think-tankers who are advising the elite on global hegemony.
You are making my point. I love people and don’t want them to die from wars or pollution. That article connects the dots on how elites develop propaganda to make something “a necessary war,” even when it involves killing innocent people and death of our own children. My point is, antiwar should be front and center. Elites seeking global hegemony use the same methodology whether it’s war on terror, war on climate, war on drugs, etc.
NA, no matter how you look at it, unless there is major technology advances in energy, etc., and a move to control population via. birth not war, humans and Earth are on an express elevator to hell and the evil one awaits with a big smile. 🙁
Robert, so true, the only solution is vast population control to cut the use of those resources to those that are only parasites, takers and not producers. I am however sure the answer to many of those issues is already flying around our skies, the UAP’s,,, technology is the answer. I am basing that statement on facts, not assumptions.
Yes, that, eliminating the financial sector, is the sine qua non. But also the war industry, the pop cult, including propaganda (misnamed “news”) industry, …along with all their lawyers, accountants, etc., ….
Do the american people get a say?
No
deg, not in a long time have they had any say! DC Ghouls rule.
It will take a lot of big hellicopters to evacuate them if things anyway wrong. The embassy is no place to establish a front line. Visions of Siagon no doubt.
And so the competition, of course, is military might to win the 21st century. Who could have guessed.
Under the right circumstances we can all win,,but humans will most likely succumb to their worst desires.
This is theater, China owns Biden.
In the same way, and to the same degree, that Russia “owned” Trump, perhaps.
Which seems to have been not at all.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/biden-team-shut-down-inquiry-to-prove-lab-link-to-covid-report/
Sure. Because Pompeo’s state department was so trustworthy.
“The State Department’s inquiry grew “contentious” last year as some questioned whether the investigation was part of a Trump administration effort to blame China for the outbreak, CNN said, citing sources. CNN quoted one former State Department official as calling the work “suspicious as hell” and saying those leading the probe cut out technical experts.”
Biden is covering for the CCP.
Why terminate a “suspicious” effort and not initiate your own,
ah, until now after the termination became public?
So he terminated a suspicious effort thinking that it wouldn’t become public? seriously? Even Biden isn’t that senile.
And here’s 15 times the Don was just like the great senile one:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736
He terminated it hoping to make it die, oops.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/didnt-age-well-wuhan-propaganda-msm-laid-bare
Hoping. But I’m sure their was a contingency plan. And the administration had issues with China back in Feb. Plus the fact that our military activity in China’s backyard increased significantly since Biden took office and our threatening rhetoric hasn’t subsided in the least. So back to your original premise that the CCP owns Biden, exactly how much more belligerent can he be?
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/13/biden-administration-has-deep-concerns-about-who-virus-origins-investigation-in-china-n1425459
Biden has been covering for the DNC his whole life. Been covering for Likud, too.
Because it’s THEIR country, not ours? If some are so sure of the origin of the virus and even if the virus escaped from the Wuhan Lab, was it a result of the American Democratic Party, the American Republican Party, and/or the Swamp funding it, thus casting blame on us? Maybe other nations would call for sending their investigators here? Just why was Ft Detrick MD, one of our own bio weapons labs, closed shortly before that? Wouldn’t make a hill a beans if we sent investigators there anyway, because the next big ENEMY is China, and the result of any so-called un-biased investigation would come up with the worst theories for China.
What a coincidence that the Military Games with full American participation of 172 military personnel with hundreds of supporting staff occurred in Wuhan China in Oct 2019. 10,000 competitors from 140 nations. What a wonderful concoction to spread a new virus by any “actor”*
*term used by propagandists for any nation or group we view as a competitor
See: “WMD in the form of a mushroom cloud, chemical spewing drones unleased on America, yellow cake, aluminum tubes, slam dunk” etc., for bs war propaganda.
A disease that becomes PAN-demic has always been traced to it’s origin as a matter of global biological health security, except this one
that first appeared in China. Not to mention their history with pandemics:
While it is sometimes hard to tell, particularly as we go back in time, the following pandemics are deemed to have started in China:
Plague in the 6th Century
Bubonic Plague in the 14th Century
Plague in the 19th Century
Influenza pandemic of 1918–19
Asian Flu pandemic of 1957–59
Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968
Russian Flu of 1977
SARS Coronavirus pandemic of 2002–03
Avian influenza bird pandemic of 2013-present
The present coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic is related to the SARS Coronavirus of 2002, and originated in China in 2020.
Thanks for illustrating why COVID-19 is most likely a natural phenomenon.
“Most likely” but afraid to confirm as was done with the others?
So what do you want to do. Detach the landmass of China from the earth and blast it into space?
As with ALL the other pandemics send an international team of experts to assess the evidence. Only problem, the CCP will never allow that.
Just which countries would that assembly of international experts be drawn from? Cuba? Russia, Iran?
Authoritarian countries, need not apply,
democratic countries are the best bet.
And … ?
A “probe” into an untestable/unfalsifiable hypothesis is one of three things:
1) A propaganda stunt; or
2) Wanking; or
3) Both.
Since it was someone else’s propaganda stunt rather than his, it’s unsurprising that he shut it down instead of letting its participants continue to wank.
The origin of the virus is provable but
China refuses to cooperate, go figure.
No problem IF Biden wanted different people on the investigation
but he just let it DIE???
Why,——- Biden OWES!
Just exactly why would China trust us with their cooperation?
Look what happened with the “gas weapons” in Syria, and the WMD in Iraq, and the ongoing bad faith in Iran, and the constant move to the Russian border, and a lot more.
Chinese don’t trust us? The shock would be if they gave us any slightest cooperation. That would be suspicious.
It doesn’t have to be “us”. Any reputable international team could do it,
but the CCP would never allow it.
I believe it came from the lab, and we must deal with that as must the rest of the world, one way or the other.
Thomas,
Why was this removed when first posted? Is it the Unz reference or link? If you will point out the problem, I will fix it.
Or perhaps it wasn’t you, but rather the same unseen hand that has “automatically”, almost comprehensively, removed/cancelled/disappeared The Unz Review commentary from all social media … and perhaps now Disqus as well?
******************
Here’s the original post, with the Unz link replaced by the essay’s title.
********************
“The” lab? Which lab is “the” lab? You of course mean the Wuhan lab, but really, is that “the” lab?
How about the North Carolina lab that Fauci admitted in Congressional testimony was doing Gain of Function research on bat corona viruses?
This discussion is infuriatingly — despairingly might be a better descriptive — infected by propagandized biases and media-generated, “perception management” reality alienation.
Angry as I am — I’m tempted to slam all you guys as being unbearably stupid — but I can’t, because we live in a post-truth era with everyone victimized by spook-and-media executed “brain rape” on behalf of the ruling class. So everyone is blameless in their confusion.
Recall what William Casey, Ronald Reagon’s CIA Director said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
Does anyone believe that our war-mongering death merchants would ever willingly give up their quest for world conquest by any means, ie a bioweapon, if a bioweapon looked to be enabling?
When The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) entered into force on 26 March 1975, those death merchants would have modified their approach, and rebranded bioweapons development as Gain of Function research, “explaining” it as necessary, as “defensive”, as permitted. As a means of “understanding the danger and preparing a defense against a (real or manufactured) epidemic.” After all, those sneaky commies were certainly going to take advantage, and continue THEIR evil work … in secret. (Talk about projection!)
Enter psychopathic death merchant Pompeo under Trump: first as CIA Director and then as Sec of State.
So if you want to talk investigations and lack of cooperation, try getting samples and a full record of the GoF research, from the Carolina lab and the Wuhan lab, (and the Mossad labs), in order to compare the genetic codes of the bat corona viruses of the various samples to those of the Wuhan and Iranian outbreaks. Then, having attempted this ***genuinely comprehensive*** investigation — not just a fraudulent investigation designed to brand China responsible — then, we can talk about “cooperation”, and “falsifiability”.
Till then, I’m going with Ron Unz and so should you: Breaking the Silence on the Origins of Covid-19
Yes, it was the Unz reference link. While the essay itself doesn’t violate Antiwar.com’s guidelines*, the comments published with it do.
* The guideline in question: “HATE SPEECH — You’re entitled to your opinion. You’re not entitled to use Antiwar.com’s facilities to publish slurs or supremacist claims based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, or to link to sites promoting such material. We don’t want that stuff here.”
Thank you for the clarification, and thank you for leaving up my post.
“China refuses to cooperate”
Which is why the hypothesis is untestable/unfalsifiable, and therefore not an actual theory.
But even absent the Chinese regime’s refusal to cooperate, there are two other problems:
1) Occam’s Razor says to go with the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions. Zoonotic diseases have made the jump to infecting humans naturally many times (the CDC estimates that 60% of human diseases happened that way). So far the known cases of zoonotic diseases being weaponized and accidentally or intentionally released is zero, so getting to it entails a number of assumptions. There were hoofbeats. The best explanation, unless you lived in Africa, was horses, not zebras.
2) So far the actual evidence for the lab leak hypothesis is non-existent. Even the junk drummed up to substitute for actual evidence tends to be risible (for example, three lab workers coming down with an infection — long after it was already clearly in community spread).
Is it POSSIBLE that COVID-19 was a lab project that got out, either accidentally or intentionally? Sure. There’s just no good reason to believe it, and no way to prove it. Which makes it almost as silly as your fantasy that Biden works for China. But not quite.
https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2021/05/16/scientists-investigation-origin-coronavirus-pandemic
I am not an expert in virology but have read some PhDs that are. Some argue there IS evidence for man-made origin. Here is the most recent I have read.
“A Bayesian analysis concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived…
Experiments in three independent laboratories also demonstrate that CoV-2 has changed genetically so much that it can no longer infect any bat species cell culture tested….
At the time of this writing, there is not even a working hypothesis for the species of an intermediate host…
With CoV-2 the Spike Protein was almost perfectly adapted to the human lock, using 99.5% of the best amino acids possible”
https://zenodo.org/record/4642956#.YK9_rsrRahA
Awwwwww, you mean China isn’t content being second place forever? Gosh, who would’ve thought it?
Except for relatively brief periods, China has generally been the biggest and strongest country in the world. Attempting to stop this is an exercise in futility and will only accelerate our own imperial decline. Let’s instead look at this as an opportunity o restore the old republic, if we still can?
Ironic that now we’re crying about China’s shift to hard power. Part of the reason they’ve been eating our lunch in emerging markets is that their business interests don’t come with a side order of coup plotting by evangelical mercenaries. Or what have you.
Countries will side with countries who bring investment and jobs to them instead of bombs and death. Who knew
I really hope those pathetic “populists” (aka closet socialists) who have been calling for getting “tough” with China are happy they are getting what they wanted.
I remember the tales told to us by an older guy in our neighborhood who had been drafted into the Korean War. He told of how fanatical Chinese peasants – some not even armed- charged into dug-in American machine gun positions until the Americans would run out of ammunition. You can bet that the present-day, Chinese forces will be better armed this go around.
China is the Peer Competitor that the US Defense Dept needed to justify is bloated budgets and huge forces (by world standards).
All this does is crow that now they’ve got what they’d wanted and needed since the collapse of the Soviet Union almost caused peace to break out, almost led to a peace dividend at the expense of DoD like it did everywhere else.
China knows America is a country occupied and colonized by Pentagonian austeritizers who cannot rely on anyone anywhere.
A $6 trillion upcoming budget is hardly “austerity.”
I suspect he meant austerity for the dirt people.
By “dirt people” do you mean the insanely subsidized American lower and middle classes, or foreigners who get bombed and starved?
Speaking from the middle class, I haven’t noticed any insane subsidies, and $2 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see look like a highly regressive inflation tax to me. My “stimulus” check definitely doesn’t make up for a 4% cost of living increase, much less the far greater price increases I’m actually seeing.
Inflation as a tax is certainly regressive. But in the main, the top 20% of earners in the US pay 80% of the taxes, and the bottom 40% pay less in taxes than they receive in transfer payments of various kinds.
When the fake American “left” whines about “austerity,” it’s not the American people they’re saying are being kept too poor — it’s the poor, tiny, starving, pathetic US government, which across all levels “only” steals 40% of every dollar’s worth of wealth created.
This “top 20% pay 80% of taxes” narrative only counts the income tax as “taxes”. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, inflation taxes and other taxes are actually regressive.
I’m in the top 20% of earners, but I don’t see any paucity of state benefits for the top 20% (and top 10% and top 1%) of earners. I doubt that I’d have my income at all without a bloated corporative state sector.
Talk of “austerity” may only whine for more state spending, but reducing it all to “transfer payments” for the bottom 40% is stacking the rhetorical deck.
That’s a fair critique.
The function of the state is, generally speaking, to siphon wealth from the pockets of the productive class into the bank accounts of the political class. But in the case of the US, that generally is less a cash and carry proposition at the moment. In the cash sense, we don’t have the same “austerity” as governments that have to balance their budgets.
On the other hand, we also don’t have the same welfare state benefits seen in some of the European social democracies. To have that, we’d have to see the “middle class” taxed on income at 50-65%, which would never fly politically. Americans want the bennies, they just don’t want to pay the bill.
Much as it’s always fun to criticize the low hanging fruit of “government spending”…it is also pretty easy to furnish a list of “productive” government services. Consider tho, in terms of spending, interest payments per citizen is nearly triple government spending (which of course, pays it’s own interest). What interest payments buy…is permission.
“it is also pretty easy to furnish a list of ‘productive’ government services”
If it’s pretty easy to furnish, feel free to furnish it.
Well, you got a safe and emission standardized car. Licensed for various reasons.
Standardized roads, fuel, traffic signage and policing
Regulated insurance.
License procedures for drivers.
Laws and more laws for driving behavior.
Traffic engineers and planning.
A weather service for driving conditions.
Subsidized buses, trains and planes.
Subsidized parking.
Systems to remove junk cars.
GPS to figure out how to get there.
Legal systems for problems.
Jails for horrid and drunk drivers.
Not even close to perfect, but, if you drove somewhere today, and got home, I’d say it is productive.
Half of those are bad things, and the other half are things that the private sector would likely have produced earlier, better, and less expensively if government had allowed it to.
Feel free to mark which things on the list are bad, and which ones the glorious and oppressed private sector would have produced.
X = bad, P = private sector would likely have produced better
X Standardized roads, fuel, traffic signage and policing
P Regulated insurance.
X License procedures for drivers.
P Laws and more laws for driving behavior.
P Traffic engineers and planning.
P A weather service for driving conditions.
X Subsidized buses, trains and planes.
X Subsidized parking.
P Systems to remove junk cars.
P GPS to figure out how to get there.
P Legal systems for problems.
X Jails for horrid and drunk drivers.
Thomas, cut all foreign aid and reign in military spending and wars, big time, and then make other needed changes, and we can do just fine. But that ain’t gonna happen……………..
This conversation reminds me of Reagan’s welfare moms driving cadillac convertibles.
And the song,”Ten kids in a cadillac, stand in line for welfare check… We all get by, the best that we can… And we all gotta duck, when the shit hits the fan.”
Austerity is what wealthy people do to poor people to make them pay the rich people to make more jobs.
“Austerity is what wealthy people do to poor people to make them pay the rich people to make more jobs.”
Exactly.
Which is not what’s happening in the US.
That’s not to say what’s happening in the US is good, just that it’s the opposite of “austerity” for the economic bottom 50-75% of the populace.
Maybe a good start is for guys to keep their di#ks in their pants and women keep their legs crossed unless they want to work and support the babies they produce??
How about foreign nations getting $billions of our tax dollars and open borders with foreigners breaking our immigration laws with impunity and being rewarded for it.
I generally oppose foreign aid, but it’s a fraction of a percent of US government spending and generally goes to regimes, not to the people getting enslaved and killed by those regimes.
The only valid US immigration law is Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution, which forbade Congress to regulate immigration prior to 1808 — after which a constitutional amendment would have been required to create such a power.
And, Constitution aside, the difference between “borders” and “street gang turf lines” is how fancy the colors are that the thugs enforcing them wear. Nobody owes them any respect whatsoever.
If Rodney’s prayer was one day answered and people were able to ditch government and “just get along”, then guys and gals like Campbell would be out of a job. So they work hard and long doing their best to stir up the hornets and keep the friction going. The world would be far better off with out them in any position of power.
Axiom 3: Although the germination strength of an emerging society cannot see what it is becoming, it can organize itself to set a path away from known dangers and also away from those who promote problems.
“To compete with China, Biden said he told President Xi that the US will militarize the Indo-Pacific “just as we do with NATO in Europe.”
“Biden said” … ?
No, Biden didn’t say. Neocons say. The Neocon puppet, Incredible Husk President, neither says, nor thinks, nor decides anything. He reads off the teleprompter, and signs where he is told to sign.
Sounds like something he would say.
That is so true of JoBye.
A two front war, Europe and Asia, east and west, we know how well that worked out for Hitler.
How did it work out for Roosevelt?
Meh? Started in 2014 with the Obama Pivot to Asia. Media , vassal leaders on board and hey presto. No longer “The Moslems are coming!” It’s back to “The Yellow Hordes are coming!” redux 1966 The masses, now in the usual sheep like state all cry “Huzzah!”
Good luck with that- stand by for China to pull the pink slips on US businesses and calling in its loan markers.
Back up plan after COVID and immunizations to get rid of a portion of the population, would be that nuclear war.
Never going to be allowed to happen.
All this blah blah….simple really,, just the reasoning for further investment in war toys. No war is intended.