July 25, 2020
By Margaret Kimberley
Margaret Kimberley was part of a Webinar panel organized by NoColdWar.org
Good morning everyone,
It’s morning here in New York at any rate. Greetings to you all. I want to thank this group for inviting me to participate in this very important meeting. I’m old enough to remember when Nixon went to China when I was a kid. It was said at the time that only a cold warrior could have pulled it off. Now, nearly 50 years later, the cold war has been resurrected with a vengeance and China has been declared an enemy of this government and Americans are being whipped into a frenzy of hatred and suspicion against this nation.
Now whenever we see a reference to China in the corporate media we always see the words communist party attached. This silly redundancy is war propaganda along with every other smear and slur. We are told that 1 million Uighurs are imprisoned when there is quite literally no proof of any such thing. China, is the country which first experienced the COVID-19 virus, was the first to vanquish it, and has a low death rate of less than 5,000 people to prove it. We depend here in America on China to produce masks and other protective equipment but China is declared the villain. The country that within one month of realizing there was a new communicable disease gave the world the keys to conquering it.
Instead the country which fails where China succeeds, in providing for the needs of its people and their health, is an international pariah, with most of the world barring Americans from travel and turning us into a giant leper colony. Trump speaks of the “kung flu” and the “Wuhan virus”, but it is China which conquered the disease that has killed 130,000 Americans and forced a quarantine which has caused economic devastation to millions of people here.
But Americans get nothing but war propaganda. Trump and Joe Biden outdo one another bragging about who will be tougher to China. This week we saw the U.S. government violate international law again and close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas.
But the U.S. isn’t alone. It’s lackeys and vassals, commonly known as allies, follow the lead of the gangster state in spewing what can only be called war propaganda. Just to the north of here Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau talks behind Trump’s back but never steps out of line. When Washington ordered Canada to arrest Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, they did just that. The U.S. accused Huawei of violating U.S. sanctions by doing business with Iran. There is nothing in U.S. or Canadian law which permitted her arrest but like a good little puppet, Canada did as it was told. China retaliated and arrested two Canadians who remain under detention. But Trudeau doubles down and refuses to release her.
Propaganda succeeds, it is like music that one hears over and over again. We remember it whether we intend to or not. And threats to prevent members of the Chinese Communist party, some 100 million people, from entering the United States may seem laughable but the foolishness is serious and meant to get public buy-in for dangerous acts.
That is why millions of people believe that there are millions of Uighurs in Chinese prisons. The charge is false, completely made up, like tales of WMD in Iraq, babies taken from incubators in Kuwait, Libyan soldiers popping Viagra pills, and Russians paying bounties to kill U.S. troops. But the damage is done with sheer repetition and media acting like government scribes.
We can expect to see more incidents like the closing of the Houston consulate and the Chinese government will retaliate. It is frightening that otherwise sensible people can be turned into a mob ready to believe what they’re told and declare a country which has done them no harm as an enemy. But that is not accidental.
The history isn’t new. When the Chinese revolution occurred in the late 1940s there were arguments about who “lost” China, as if China were the property of the U.S. and not a sovereign state. But that is what results from white supremacy as it plays out in foreign policy. China’s history with Europe and the U.S. is not a happy one. The Delano family for example, yes FDR’s grand parents, made a fortune trading opium. The British stole Hong Kong and now 20 years after they left are acting like the good little lap dogs that they are and joined in using Hong Kong to destabilize China. Canada and the UK aren’t alone, Australia has joined in the effort too and even raided the home of a New South Wales parliament legislator who had done nothing except advocate for better relations between the two countries.
I have referred to four of the “five eyes” nations, the UK and its settler colonial offshoots the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And as the imperial project reaches a fever pitch they all work ever more closely together.
While U.S. senators say that Chinese students should only be allowed to study Shakespeare and not science, a senator really said that, and babble about Communist party members, China forges its own way and of course incurs the wrath of the U.S. as it does.
China and Iran have an agreement to give each other aid and oil, and that means that the U.S. tantrums over sanctions will cause suffering in the short term but the targets may be the ones that prosper but of course that is why the aggression will continue.
I think it is extremely important that those of us who call ourselves members of the left know where we ought to stand. We must always be in opposition to U.S./NATO, allied vassal state aggression against China and the rest of the world too. We cannot be confused. Remember that when the U.S. speaks of human rights you are hearing from the country that has more of its population incarcerated, some 2 million people, than any other country in the world. Its military spending is larger than that of the next 10 countries combined. It allows police to kill 1,000 people every year. COVID-19 has killed thousands, impoverished more, and its profit making health care system is proof of a lack of human rights. We have to call out war propaganda whenever we see it and hear it and not allow ourselves to be drawn into bogus arguments. We cannot use the first person when thinking about government statements regarding China or any other country. Our interests are not those of the rulers and we must never forget that.
Thank you very much.
