China Locked in a Hybrid War with the US

**OhOh** · 29-03-2020, 06:46 PM

China locked in hybrid war with US

Fallout from Covid-19 outbreak puts Beijing and Washington on a collision course

by Pepe Escobar
March 17, 2020

"Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yiat the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.

Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi’s terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a “people’s war” had to be launched.

Moreover, he described the virus as a demon or devil. Xi is a Confucianist. Unlike some other ancient Chinese thinkers, Confucius was loath to discuss supernatural forces and judgment in the afterlife. However, in a Chinese cultural context, devil means “white devils” or “foreign devils”: guailo in Mandarin, gweilo in Cantonese. This was Xi delivering a powerful statement in code.

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

He directly quoted US CDC director Robert Redfield who, when asked last week whether some deaths by coronavirus had been discovered posthumously in the US, replied that “some cases have actually been diagnosed this way in the US today.”

Zhao’s explosive conclusion is that Covid-19 was already in effect in the US before being identified in Wuhan – due to the by now fully documented inability of US to test and verify differences compared with the flu.

Adding all that to the fact that coronavirus genome variations in Iran and Italy were sequenced and it was revealed they do not belong to the variety that infected Wuhan, Chinese media are now openly asking questions and drawing a connection with the shutting down in August last year of the “unsafe” military bioweapon lab at Fort Detrick, the Military Games, and the Wuhan epidemic. Some of these questions had been asked – with no response – inside the US itself.

Extra questions linger about the opaque Event 201 in New York on October 18, 2019: a rehearsal for a worldwide pandemic caused by a deadly virus – which happened to be coronavirus. This magnificent coincidence happened one month before the outbreak in Wuhan.

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

Irrespective of its origin, which is still not conclusively established, as much as Trump tweets about the “Chinese virus,” Covid-19 already poses immensely serious questions about biopolitics (where’s Foucault when we need him?) and bio-terror.

The working hypothesis of coronavirus as a very powerful but not Armageddon-provoking bio-weapon unveils it as a perfect vehicle for widespread social control – on a global scale.

Cuba rises as a biotech power

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

The chessboard is changing at breakneck speed. Once Beijing identified coronavirus as a bio-weapon attack the “people’s war” was launched with the full force of the state. Methodically. On a “whatever it takes” basis. Now we are entering a new stage, which will be used by Beijing to substantially recalibrate the interaction with the West, and under very different frameworks when it comes to the US and the EU.

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

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic could not have been more explicit: “The only country that can help us is China. By now, you all understood that European solidarity does not exist. That was a fairy tale on paper.”

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

Now compare all of the above with the Trump administration offering $1 billion to poach German scientists working at biotech firm Curevac, based in Thuringia, on an experimental vaccine against Covid-19, to have it as a vaccine “only for the United States.”

Social engineering psy-op?

Sandro Mezzadra, co-author with Brett Neilson of the seminal The Politics of Operations: Excavating Contemporary Capitalism, is already trying to conceptualize where we stand now in terms of fighting Covid-19.
We are facing a choice between a Malthusian strand – inspired by social Darwinism – “led by the Johnson-Trump-Bolsonaro axis” and, on the other side, a strand pointing to the “requalification of public health as a fundamental tool,” exemplified by China, South Korea and Italy. There are key lessons to be learned from South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

The stark option, Mezzadra notes, is between a “natural population selection,” with thousands of dead, and “defending society” by employing “variable degrees of authoritarianism and social control.” It’s easy to imagine who stands to benefit from this social re-engineering, a 21^st century remix of Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.

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

Not to mention the poetic justice of the actual St. Corona (“crown” in Latin) being buried in the city of Anzu since the 9^th century. St. Corona was a Christian killed under Marcus Aurelius in 165 AD, and has been for centuries one of the patron saints of pandemics.

Not even trillions of dollars raining from the sky by an act of divine Fed mercy were able to cure Covid-19. G-7 “leaders” had to resort to a videoconference to realize how clueless they are – even as China’s fight against coronavirus gave the West a head start of several weeks.

Shanghai-based Dr. Zhang Wenhong, one of China’s top infectious disease experts, whose analyses have been spot on so far, now says China has emerged from the darkest days in the “people’s war” against Covid-19. But he does not think this will be over by summer. Now extrapolate what he’s saying to the Western world.

It’s not even spring yet, and we already know it takes a virus to mercilessly shatter the Goddess of the Market. Last Friday, Goldman Sachs told no fewer than 1,500 corporations that there was no systemic risk. That was false.
New York banking sources told me the truth: systemic risk became way more severe in 2020 than in 1979, 1987 or 2008 because of the hugely heightened danger that the $1.5 quadrillion derivative market would collapse.

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

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

We are still barely starting to understand the consequences of Covid-19 for the future of neoliberal turbo-capitalism. What’s certain is that the whole global economy has been hit by an insidious, literally invisible circuit breaker. This may be just a “coincidence.” Or this may be, as some are boldly arguing, part of a possible, massive psy-op creating the perfect geopolitlcal and social engineering environment for full-spectrum dominance.

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

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-...d-war-with-us/

**OhOh** · 29-03-2020, 06:52 PM

A video featuring the same journalist:

**HermantheGerman** · 29-03-2020, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by OhOh

China locked in hybrid war with US

You can post something about China as soon as THEY come up with a cure for covid-19.

The rest is all garbage !

**Klondyke** · 29-03-2020, 07:36 PM

Whatever we think about China, in these days they have been the only one together with the bad Russians to provide deliveries of medical stuff to EU and other states...

**PlanK** · 29-03-2020, 07:43 PM

^
No they haven't.
Plenty of aid went to Italy from other states. It just didn't register on 'alt news' radar.

**harrybarracuda** · 29-03-2020, 07:46 PM

The only reason the chinkies have got all this medical shit to give to people is that they sneakily purchased it from around the world before announcing the fucking thing in the first place.

C U N T S.

**HermantheGerman** · 29-03-2020, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Plan B

^
No they haven't.
Plenty of aid went to Italy from other states. It just didn't register on 'alt news' radar.

It's like having to say "Thank you" to a woman who you had sex with, and finding out she has just giving to aids.

**Cujo** · 29-03-2020, 11:36 PM

What the hell is a 'hybrid' war?
that's some real conspiracy theory bs right there.

**Cujo** · 29-03-2020, 11:42 PM

oops..

**OhOh** · 30-03-2020, 12:40 AM

Thanks admin.

**OhOh** · 30-03-2020, 12:51 AM

Originally Posted by Cujo

What the hell is a 'hybrid' war?

(PDF) Hybrid Warfare – A Form of Asymmetric Conflict

Explainer: what is 'hybrid warfare' and what is meant by the 'grey zone'?

Hybrid warfare - Wikipedia

**SKkin** · 30-03-2020, 12:59 AM

^You'll probably need a Guardian link for that one.

**harrybarracuda** · 30-03-2020, 01:40 AM

I think the important question is:

What are we going to do to stop the bat munching chinkies spreading more diseases?

**panama hat** · 30-03-2020, 04:27 AM

Originally Posted by Klondyke

in these days they have been the only one together with the bad Russians to provide deliveries of medical stuff to EU and other states...

Except you're lying again - why do you keep spreading such blatant and childish propaganda? Do you have a link for this or is it just another one of your brainfarts?

FOK

"Should China succeed in the global propaganda war around coronavirus, as it appears to be attempting, the CCP will have achieved a revision of history in real-time on the screens of social media users everywhere.

But this would be ironic, because as Bandurski says: “we cannot, or should not, forget the fact that the Chinese Communist Party's obsession with perception over truth was actually how the saga of this global pandemic began."

The war within the war over coronavirus

edit: addition of link

**MarilynMonroe** · 30-03-2020, 04:46 AM

Originally Posted by Plan B

^
No they haven't.
Plenty of aid went to Italy from other states. It just didn't register on 'alt news' radar.

Exactly South Korea in particular has given much aid (test kits that tell you if you have the virus in 7 mins) to many countries including Spain.

China has given tests to Spain that are defunct. 640,000 to be exact that were given to Spain that don't work properly.

China reportedly sold Spain 640,000 COVID-19 test kits that don’t work – twitchy.com

-----
The issue is serious for foreigners who have entered China in the last month or who just live there in general. I have a few friends (Canadians) who are still working on the mainland and they posted this recently on their facebook. It sucks to be white person in China now. You are presumed to be American.

Written by a friend in a city called Wenzhou.

"Now that the virus has spread overseas, a lot of Chinese have begun treating us like we're carrying the plague. They assume because we're white that we must be American and therefore must have JUST come back from the USA.
When we were in Myanmar during the peak in China, there were a lot of Chinese tourists we met on the beach. We were happy to talk to them, conversing with them in Chinese. We supported them, our China family, when the world was being racist towards them.
But now they are treating us the same way they cried about the rest of the world treating them."

China Locked in a Hybrid War with the US-89871345_10157371738313353_935388377501401088_n-jpg

China Locked in a Hybrid War with the US-90357384_10157371738303353_635406262158229504_n-jpg

**Little Chuchok** · 30-03-2020, 07:00 AM

Originally Posted by Plan B

^
No they haven't.
Plenty of aid went to Italy from other states. It just didn't register on 'alt news' radar.

Yep, that's after they stripped Australia of their stocks.

**panama hat** · 30-03-2020, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by Little Chuchok

Yep, that's after they stripped Australia of their stocks.

Wealthy Chinese in Oz bought up big and sent the products to China, creating a shortage

**Latindancer** · 30-03-2020, 09:10 AM

It’s getting worse for Xi Jinping

Clamour for his ouster grows in China over handling of corona outbreak

Expressions of popular discontent, rare in China because of the risk of punishment, are increasing and mounting pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Widespread anger among Chinese citizens at the lack of transparency and withholding of information about the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic fanned the latent discontent, which, provoked by the abolition of term-limits on appointments to China’s apex posts, has been simmering since the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. The death of Wuhan hospital doctor Li Wenliang spiked this discontent. A number of reputed citizens, including party cadres, or at the least party members, and at least one former member of the CCP’s 350-odd member powerful Central Committee (CC), have been blunt in their criticism of Xi Jinping and his policies.

Criticism has been aimed at the progressively increasing security controls, party surveillance and centralisation of authority. The steady hardening of China’s security establishment is reflected in annual enhancements of the national security budget from 2013 — coinciding with Xi Jinping taking over as CCP CC general secretary, chairman of Central Military Commission (CMC) and the President. This is accompanied by expanding surveillance and introduction of security technologies like closed-circuit cameras, facial recognition and AI. The unexplained absence of Xi Jinping — whose activities otherwise feature daily on the front pages of Chinese newspapers and as lead news items on state-owned TV — from January 29 till February 10, has also attracted adverse notice.

On March 2 and February 23, Zhao Shilin, a retired professor of Minzu University and former member of the CCP CC, posted two letters to Xi Jinping, both scathing in their criticism. In his letter of February 23, Zhao Shilin said China had ‘missed the golden window of time’ around the Chinese New Year, resulting in the ‘epidemic spreading with great ferocity’. He described its cost as ‘enormous’ and ‘unspeakably painful’. Recalling Xi Jinping’s remark that the battle against coronavirus ‘is a grand test of the capacity of our nation’s system of governance’, Zhao Shilin bluntly declared, ‘Regrettably, I must say, you’re scoring zero so far!’ He identified five factors as responsible with stringent security, ensuring the party’s image and preeminence, and the centralisation of authority topping the list. These inhibited cadres and officials from doing their job and displaying initiative. Stating that ‘people from within and without the system are calling for systemic political reform’, he said these must include implementing the ‘socialist core values of freedom, democracy, equality, and rule of law’ and guaranteeing political rights of citizens, like freedom of speech. In the second letter, he reiterated, ‘There should be more than one voice in a healthy society to demand free speech’.

Many others posted similarly critical articles, risking certain punishment. Xu Zhiyong, a former lecturer at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, urged Xi Jinping to step down for his ‘inability to handle major crises’. He called Xi Jinping’s political ideology ‘confusing’, his governance model ‘outdated’ and said he had ruined China with ‘exhaustive social stability maintenance measures’. He said in conclusion, ‘I don’t think you are a villain, just someone who is not very smart. For the public’s sake, I’m asking you again: Step down, Mr Xi Jinping.’ Tsinghua University professor, Xu Zhangrun’s essay captioned, ‘Angry People No Longer Fear’, went viral on China’s social media. It accused leaders, specifically Xi Jinping, of being out of touch with the peoples’ needs and perpetuating an elite ‘small circle of leaders’ and engaging in ‘big data terrorism’. He charged they have ‘stifled public discussion and social communication and early warning mechanisms that existed originally’ and blamed this for the failure of the authorities in Hubei. The article called Xi Jinping a ‘political tyrant’ and declared ‘the sun will eventually come to this land of freedom!’

Resentment among the populace of Wuhan city, capital of Hubei province and epicentre of the outbreak, was evident in their protests when the epidemic was raging. During Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan’s inspection of Wuhan on February 14, they protested ‘the communist government’s suppression of freedom of speech and its hiding of information’. Residents shouted, ‘Don’t believe them’, ‘they are telling lies’, etc.

China’s leadership has taken note of this unceasing criticism. In a bid to assuage anger, the National Supervisory Commission (chaired by Xi Jinping), which was investigating handling of the case of Dr Li Wenliang — the whistleblower who was punished by the local authorities and later died — reported on March 19 that the police and Wuhan Public Security Bureau had revoked the reprimand, apologised to the doctor’s family and disciplined two police officers.

Indication of the extent of discontent surfaced last week, with reports of children of high-level veteran party cadres, also called ‘princelings’, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss Xi Jinping’s replacement. The Hong Kong-headquartered Sun TV, which focuses on China’s elite and the diaspora, said the ‘princelings’ had proposed an ‘emergency leadership group’ led by either Vice-President Wang Qishan or Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang. The appearance of such reports are normally indicative of serious inner-party conflict.

It’s getting worse for Xi Jinping : The Tribune India

**kmart** · 30-03-2020, 09:46 AM

Extra questions linger about the opaque Event 201 in New York on October 18, 2019: a rehearsal for a worldwide pandemic caused by a deadly virus – which happened to be coronavirus. This magnificent coincidence happened one month before the outbreak in Wuhan.

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

Nice timing, Bill.

**jabir** · 30-03-2020, 09:51 AM

I haven't read those articles, but do think when this is over it we will see a gradual power shift as China comes out stronger than it was going in relative to the US. Won't be overnight, global effects rarely move that fast, but just as a business is foolish to rely on a single customer or supplier, the west has for decades been dependent on China and even after this little hiccup I can't see the big players more than talk about changing that status quo.

As for spinning this as a hybrid war, still not sure what that's supposed to be but war is war and China has always been at war with the capitalist pigs, albeit fronting a sweet, placid, cooperative supplier of all things we need.

**Hugh Cow** · 30-03-2020, 09:51 AM

Covid 19 has just highlighted the flaws in the Chinese communist party system, where the image and supremacy of the party comes before the welfare of the people. Anyone in the party who thinks this can go on ad infinitum has not heeded the lessons of history.

**OhOh** · 30-03-2020, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by SKkin

^You'll probably need a Guardian link for that one.

All working fine from Thailand using Firefox. Some locations and browsers may deny access.

Two direct to article, the third to a landing page with a download link to the PDF file.

You may have some restriction in your COR, browser or search engine.

**Klondyke** · 30-03-2020, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

Covid 19 has just highlighted the flaws in the Chinese communist party system, where the image and supremacy of the party comes before the welfare of the people. Anyone in the party who thinks this can go on ad infinitum has not heeded the lessons of history.

Similar assessment can be assumed for other country (please no names here).

According to some observations, the first appearance of Covid-19 was found in the same day in January both in South Korea and USA. However, the approach and immediate actions were completely different, with completely different results.

The better results in SK are credited to the public health system.

Paradoxically, just in the same time when Bernie was sailing quite successfully with his ideas about the public health care, the hope that at last something can really be improved for the population, had abruptly been lost to another antipode offering to sail as always before...

Comparing the budget for the health and for the military, how it has changed within last 20 years, the sunk trillions in the wars...

Then, only what can be done, throw the blame on others...

**panama hat** · 30-03-2020, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Klondyke

According to some observations

. . . which you will leave unsourced as usual

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Then, only what can be done, throw the blame on others...

. . . and you do it so well, so much practice

**kmart** · 30-03-2020, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by jabir

the west has for decades been dependent on China and even after this little hiccup I can't see the big players more than talk about changing that status quo.

As for spinning this as a hybrid war, still not sure what that's supposed to be but war is war and China has always been at war with the capitalist pigs, albeit fronting a sweet, placid, cooperative supplier of all things we need.

The West farmed out it's production to China in most all areas long ago. The supposed "trade wars" and tariffs are a phony red herring in West-China relations. Both sides want the same thing and it's not 'capitalism' any more, it's full-on monopoly, where competition is not permitted.

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