Flying Economy Class,
Nancy Pelosi is flying to Taiwan with a whole aircraft carrier group going ahead and not one, but many military planes in a huge defensive formation.
Nancy unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square back in 1991, when she was just a little Congresswoman, standing between 2 tall white neocon guys.
It was a photo-op 2 years after the 1989 incident (largely arranged by the US), and the Chinese shut it right down, but they didn't forget it.
So, from a Chinese perspective, the most actually-powerful elected official in US government, second-in-line for the presidency, behind a president who will be ousted later this year, and a VP who can never, ever be more than a bad stage prop, certainly not POTUS, goes to China's trigger-point-red-flag with a huge air-sea armada as an open challenge. (Recall how Agnew was removed before Nixon was deposed.)
This can only be completely intentional on the part of American Ruling Elites. China can see this. Xi just talked to babbling-Joe. Xi gets it, I'm sure.
This simultaneously signals a change of direction and a change of leadership. Nancy P. is plausible as an actual POTUS, not a string puppet.
The Biden Crime Family was deeply tied into Ukraine and China by graft. There is enough in the press to convict Joe and Hunter. Joe and Hunter can take the fall for Ukraine and also tar China,. This will justify more hostility towards China, which will crash the American consumer economy, but reduce the trade deficit. It will set the stage to rebuild American industry. China can play into this now by sending fighter planes up to scare fearless Nancy, and the Chinese Navy to threaten brave Taiwan, and the brave American navy with the Ronald Reagan carrier group.
Xi is kind of stuck. He has to look strong at home against this American provocation, which it really, clearly is, but how can he look strong at home without looking mean and threatening to brave Nancy Pelosi in the US? He can't. He's caught in this trap. Nancy looks Presidential and Joe looks befuddled and beholden to China.
Nancy P. has been looking at the POTUS job a long time, but did not look electable, but she would be re-electable, especially if the US goes to "war" with China.
The timeline would need to go pretty quickly, because Europe needs to be friends with Russia again before the weather cools off, before October. Europe can't sustain its economy. It has proven that, and after a no-energy winter, it might not be able to revive. NATO/EU shoving Russia down the basement stairs failed spectacularly. Russia never even lost balance and is stronger every day. China is economically very strong, but has a lot of exploitable weak points, both economically and militarily. Russia has proven unassailable, so China becomes the enemy of choice now.
In my opinion, this would also signal a transfer of power to the "nationalist", "rationalist" American elites, and under a strong and believable chief executive. The American power-muddle would be settled, not by The Donald, but by The Nancy.
You might consider this scenario overly fanciful, but it would be a pivot to allow a lot of policies to change quickly, which is practical, and it would give the Democratic Party some kind of hope to hang onto power in 2024, even presuming that they lose the midterms badly this November.
Was/is Taiwan an "inseparable" part of China? Wikipedia has this:
From the late 13th to early 17th centuries, Chinese people gradually came into contact with Taiwan and started settling there. Named Formosa by Portuguese explorers, the south of the island was colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century whilst the Spanish built a settlement in the north which lasted until 1642. These European settlements were followed by an influx of Hoklo (a Han group)people including Hakka immigrants from the Fujian and Guangdong areas of mainland China, across the Taiwan Strait.
In 1662, Koxinga, a loyalist of the Ming dynasty who had lost control of mainland China in 1644, defeated the Dutch and established a base of operations on the island. His forces were defeated by the Qing dynasty in 1683, and parts of Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing empire. Following the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Qing ceded the island, along with Penghu, to the Empire of Japan...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taiwan
So, after about 200 years of Chinese imperial rule, as something of a backward colony, Taiwan entered the modern era with 50 years of Japanese rule, followed by a form of industrial fascism under Chiang Kai-shek, with American overlordship. After that, Taiwan became a neutral territory, in an agreed stalemate between the American Empire and a rising China, which could not yet militarily contest it. During this time of peace, Taiwan became the foremost chipmaker in the world, with manufacturing excellence in other fields, similar to that of South Korea and Japan.
Taiwan makes the chips that no other nation (Russia maybe?) can do without. No country can do without Taiwanese chips, but neither China nor the west can allow the other to completely control Taiwanese chipmaking. Making Taiwan a battlefield would be a horrible loss, but losing Taiwan would be political death.
Posing to make Taiwan the next battlefield in WW-3 definitely looks do-able. A risky plan for Taiwanese, Chinese and Americans, in that order.
This article says that massive death is the only assured outcome of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/asia/china-taiwan-invasion-scenarios-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
This article from The Saker blog is one-sided, and misses that China's rhetoric is at least as strong as that of the US.
China cannot discard her rhetoric, as the US can still choose to do. (Taiwan is not Ukraine. There's a lot of water in between. There are other differences, too.)
The current hot war of words regarding Nancy Pelosi’s announced visit to Taiwan is reaching a dangerous nexus and threatening to spill over into military action.
China considers this belligerent approach as a threat to their stated One Country, Two Systems policy as well as a threat to the 1992 consensus. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait reached the consensus in 1992 that “both sides belong to one China and will work together toward national reunification”. It defines the fundamental nature of the cross-Strait relationship and lays the political foundation for its development.
Taiwan is being used as a casus belli (an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify war) in the very same way that Ukraine was used and is currently used. A war of media, tremendous even brutal propaganda to their own citizens to paint the enemy as evil to justify their own actions, continual accusations using a human rights platform, and doubling down!
http://thesaker.is/taiwan-is-a-distraction/
Xi can't back down. Joe will likely be leaving sooner, rather than later.
..China state sources are reporting that - in a moment perhaps intent on humiliating the US administration - Xi warned Biden "those who play with fire will get burned."
Bloomberg cited Xi as saying, based on early Chinese state media reports, that "China firmly opposes separatist moves toward Taiwan independence and interference by external forces, and never allows any room for Taiwan independence forces in whatever form." As usual, Biden was urged to stick by the one-China policy, with the US president reiterating that the US intends to. In the face of Xi's firm words on the Taiwan issue, Biden affirmed that the United States does not back Taiwan independence.
Not only did Xi again lay down China's 'red lines' on Taiwan, but the Chinese leader stressed Beijing vehemently opposes the "intervention of other powers," according to quotes in China state media.
The warning comes just hours after the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered 'super carrier' has entered waters of the South China Sea, triggering PLA snap military drills in the area in response. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/xi-warns-biden-those-who-play-fire-will-get-burned-over-2-hour-call
North Korea has recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Here are some reasons why. There may be more reasons. North Korea and Russia have long had fundamentally good relations (with lots of other factors to consider).
https://geopoliticsandempire.com/2022/07/27/why-did-north-korea-recognize-donbass/
Cynthia Chung looks at an excellent topic, that of the overnight change of US foreign policy from anti-imperialism under FDR to pro-imperialist, especially the British Empire, under Truman. who Roosevelt never trusted, and rightly so. (Joseph Stalin believed that "Churchill's gang" poisoned FDR and was insulted that Russian diplomats were refused their request to see Roosevelt's body. Eleanor Roosevelt was refused a visa to the USSR for this affront.) Thanks Michael R.
‘The Special Relationship’: How the British Reconquered the United States and Established an Anglo-American Empirehttps://thesaker.is/the-special-relationship-how-the-british-reconquered-the-united-states-and-established-an-anglo-american-empire/ Berlin’s policy of abandoning imports of Russian natural gas is likely to create hardship and spark unrest, seven mayors from the German island of Ruegen wrote in a letter to the regional and federal governments on Wednesday. They also urged the federal government to allow gas imports via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, given the current technical difficulties with Nord Stream 1 – something Berlin has steadfastly rejected.
https://www.rt.com/news/559740-german-mayors-nord-stream-letter/
Did Ukraine kill these Ukrainian POWs, largely from Mariupol, held by Russian/Donetsk forces, intentionally? They get excellent targeting information from the US.
Ukrainian troops shelled a prison housing prisoners of war in the suburban settlement of Yelenovka early Friday morning, according to the Donetsk People’s Republic’s deputy information minister, Daniil Bezsonov.
“There was a direct hit at a building with prisoners,” Bezsonov wrote on Telegram. “The results as of now: 40 killed, 130 wounded.”
The minister added that he believes Kiev used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers for the attack.
https://www.rt.com/russia/559817-ukraine-shells-prison-holding-pows/
What is "Russian soil"? What is "Ukraine"? Hit it with HIMARS and find out?
Kiev will not hesitate to attack Russian soil if it deems it necessary, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, threatened during a live broadcast on Wednesday.
The security council closely follows all the missile and air strikes Russia launches against Ukraine, Danilov said, adding that Ukrainian authorities are well aware of all the locations in Russia from which the attacks have been carried out. Kiev possesses “enough political will” to order a strike against these targets if such a need arises, he added.
“If needed … anyone [in the government] will act without hesitation and sign anything that needs to be signed to destroy these objects,” Danilov said.
https://www.rt.com/russia/559739-ukraine-threaten-attack-russian-territory/
Russian forces have targeted an ammunition depot in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, destroying over 100 US-made HIMARS rockets, according to an update from Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday.
“On July 24, a strike by Russia’s Aerospace Forces on an ammunition depot near the settlement of Lyubimovka, Dnepropetrovsk region, destroyed more than a hundred missiles for the US-made HIMARS Multiple launch rocket system,” the ministry’s report reads. It is also noted that up to 120 Ukrainian military personnel guarding the facility, as well as foreign mercenaries and technical specialists, were killed.
https://www.rt.com/news/559711-strike-destroys-himars-ammunition/
Medvedev shows a map of "Ukraine" as being everything within about 80 miles of Kiev, but nothing more than that.
Former Russian president presents future map of Ukraine
Medvedev offers Kiev a visual on its worst case scenario
https://www.rt.com/russia/559735-medvedev-ukraine-partition-maps/
Ann Pettifor writes a very good article on the financialized starvation weapon.
Grain Inflation: Starve the Poor, Feed the Rich
In a world of financialised globalisation, prices of food are not determined by the simplistic laws of supply and demand.
Prices are determined by a wall of money wielded by relatively few, invisible speculators and aimed at largely unregulated global grain markets.
https://annpettifor.substack.com/p/grain-inflation-starve-the-poor-feed/comments
Horowitz: Almost every single COVID death in Australian state was vaccinated
An Australian writer has collated the recent reports from New South Wales Health and found that out of 798 reported COVID deaths in the most populous Aussie state over the past eight weeks, just two of them might have been unvaccinated. For the latest full week ending on July 16, all 142 reported deaths were jabbed and 68% of them were triple-jabbed.
https://www.conservativereview.com/horowitz-covid-deaths-vaccinated-australia-2657732814.html
This is now a recurring theme.
Worldwide Monkeypox Health Emergency (PHEIC): For Bill Gates, It’s “Moneypox”: Simulation of Fictitious Monkeypox Virus Pandemic in March 2021, Goes Live in May 2022
At Reduced Risk (illustrating why one should not go 5 days without harvesting the okra)
Good morning. While we Americans are reading the entrails and the Chinese the Tea leaves, we get such epically bed leaders as to work hard not to roll over laughing at the Pomp and circumstance. The emperors are so naked it is stunning, my hope and trust is that the Chinese can see this and be strong enough not to respond. If they are paying attention they will watch as we the people put these leaders in their place. These leaders like leaders everywhere are leaders from the grace of we the people. Revoke our support from being willing to be enablers for this scum.
OT but I love the kitchen table! We had that same yellow pattern formica counter top in the kitchen I grew up in.