Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 23-Jun-2021 World View: Babylon Bee headlines

These headlines are from the daily e-mail from Babylon Bee:

• Walls Of IRS Building Come Tumbling Down After Ron Paul
  Marches Around 7 Times Blowing Trumpets
  
• Woman Briefly Identifies As Man To Avoid Long Bathroom Line
  
• NFL Player Announces He Is Gay, Is Switching Over To Soccer
  
• Sesame Street Airs 4-Hour-Long Special Where The Count
  Counts All 471 Genders
  
• Fans Rejoice As Amazon Reveals Lord Of The Rings Show
  Will Just Be 10 Seasons About Tom Bombadil
  
• Awooga! We've Got All The Exclusive Pics Of Victoria's Secret's
  Stunning New Supermodels!
  
• Man On Deathbed Deeply Regrets Not Spending More Time
  Arguing On Facebook

Here's an article that was published last month:

*** BabylonBee(05/6/2021): White Liberals Watch In Amazement As Black
Man Acquires ID

https://babylonbee.com/news/white-libera...cquires-id

• Black man acquires ID as open-mouthed white liberals look on

White Liberals Watch In Amazement As Black Man Acquires ID
May 6th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com

HAMPTON FALLS, IA—White liberals gathered in the town of Hampton Falls
were shocked and astonished as local black man, accountant, and father
of three Michael Sparkton walked right into a DOT office and acquired
an ID without any assistance from liberals whatsoever.

"It was amazing -- he was smart, clean, and articulate enough to walk
right in and acquire the ID without consulting us white people at
all," said anti-racist activist Chloe Ryder to reporters. "He walked
right in and got the ID, no questions asked. We thought it would be
way above his intelligence level because, well. You know what I'm
saying, right? Yeah. You know."

Reporters said they did not know, and Ryder was forced to whisper,
"because he's black and I don't think he's capable of doing it!"

At publishing time, the liberals were amazed to see he had walked up
to a vending machine and purchased a bottle of water all by himself.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 24-Jun-21 World View -- Myanmar/Burma army fights new militia in Mandalay as civil war spreads

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Myanmar/Burma army fights new militia in Mandalay as civil war spreads
  
• The 2021 coup vs the violent 2007 and 1988 demonstrations
  
• The rise of the Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs)
  
• The war in Myanmar vs the war in Syria
  
• China's strategic interest in Myanmar / Burma
  
• Russia's strategic interest in the Myanmar/Burma war
  
• Thailand supports the coup and the slaughter
  
• Karmic justice continues
  

****
**** Myanmar/Burma army fights new militia in Mandalay as civil war spreads
****


Map of Myanmar / Burma, showing verious ethnic groups and militias (EAGs) (Economist)

A significant new escalation in the civil war in Myanmar / Burma
occurred on Tuesday as the junta regime's armed forces clashed with
the Mandalay People’s Defence Force (Mandalay PDF), a newly formed
anti-junta militia in Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city.

Since the February 1 army coup that installed the junta dictatorship,
junta forces have been clashing with militias for months in rural
areas. What's different this time is that the new militia is that the
clash is occurring in a large urban center, Mandalay. As the civil
war progresses, this could lead to large-scale carnage among the huge,
dense population of Mandalay. According to the junta, troops killed
four people and arrested eight others.

The United Nations is warning that unless something is done, Myanmar
will accelerate to a civil war of "unprecedented scale."
Well, of course, there are many civil wars of "unprecedented scale"
all the time, including Burma's last generational crisis civil
war (1948-58), so let's ignore the UN hyperbole.

Nothing will be done because the United Nations has become
completely toothless. Any resolution in the Security Council
is a joke, vetoed by Russia and China. There was a
non-binding resolution passed last week by the UN General Assembly.
It had been debated for three months and was supposed to call
for an arms embargo, but it only passed after the arms embargo
stuff was deleted, so the resolution says exactly nothing.

The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Myanmar's gemstone
industry, which funds the army's violent actions, as well as a number
of individuals in the junta's government. These sanctions will do no
good, but it's interesting to mention them because it shows, once
again, that the US is policeman of the world, and can actually take
action while the UN can only pass toothless resolutions.

****
**** The 2021 coup vs the violent 2007 and 1988 demonstrations
****

As I've described starting with the massive demonstrations in 2007 by
the "'88 Generation," Burma's last two generational crisis wars
(1886-91 and 1948-58) were extremely bloody and violent civil wars
involving multiple ethnic groups. (See "Burma: Growing demonstrations by the '88 Generation' raise fears of new slaughter"
)

As expected, the demonstrations in 2007 fizzled out, because
Myanmar/Burma was a generational Unraveling era, when the last
aging survivors of the preceding crisis war exert all their
political power to prevent a new crisis war.

But starting in 2016, 58 years after the end of the last crisis war,
the survivors were almost all gone (dead or retired), and the people
in power were in younger generations, with no sense of history.

Starting in 2011, Buddhists began attacking Muslim Rohingyas in
villages across Burma, particularly the 1.1 million ethnic Rohingyas
in Rakhine State. Mobs of Buddhists attacked Muslims, conducting
atrocities including torture and rape, killing hundreds and forcing
hundreds of thousands to leave their homes to flee from the attacks.
In some cases, the Buddhists burned down entire Rohingya villages to
the ground.

However, the worst violence began after a terrorist attack on Ausgust
25, 2017. The Tatmadaw (the army) responded with a sweep of violence
against Rohingyas, causing thousands of them to flee their villages
and head for the Bangladesh border, where they hoped to cross and
reach a refugee camp. The Burmese army shot them as they were
fleeing, including women and children, killing dozens. This was the
beginning of mass genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas.
There are now a million Rohingyas who were forced to flee across the
border into Bangladesh, where they're living in filthy refugee camps.

However, that wasn't the end of the Tatmadaw's program of mass
torture, rape and slaughter. After the coup of February 1 of this
year, that same army turned on its own people. The Tatmadaw has been
conducting torture, rape and slaughter of the ordinary Burmans, the
Burmese people. And this time it isn't fizzling the way it did in
2007. Isn't it amazing, Dear Reader, what crazy things people do
during a generational Crisis era?

****
**** The rise of the Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs)
****

So as Generational Dynamics has been predicting, the army and the
people of Myanmar/Burma are refighting their last generational crisis
war, which was a massive bloody war among ethnic groups (1948-58),
with intervention by the Chinese.

But now there's a new acronym appearing in news reports: EAG, which
stands for "Ethnic Armed Group." The EAGs are militias formed by
different anti-junta ethnic groups in Myanmar. There are 135 ethnic
groups in Myanmar, so there is the possibility of 135 different EAGs.
The population of Myanmar numbers somewhere between 51 and 55 million
people. Of this, around 68% are considered part of the dominant ethnic
group - the Bamar (also known as the Burmans).

Here are some of the most significant EAGs:

• The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is a separatist group in
  Kachin State in northern Myanmar, along the border with China. The
  Tatmadaw is attacking the KIA with bombing raids and ground
  forces.
  
  
• The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) is a separatist group in
  Karen State (Kayin State, Kayah State) in southern Myanmar, along the
  border with Thailand. Bombing by the Tatmadaw has driven many Karenni
  across the border into Thailand, where they are not being welcomed by
  the Thai junta leader.
  
  
• The Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), a merger of
  established insurgent groups and new militias from Kayah state,
  ambushed 150 soldiers on May 31.
  
  
• The United Wa State Army (UWSA) is backed by China and has been
  silent on the coup, though it has traditionally distributed arms
  to other EAGs.
  
  
• The Three Brotherhood Alliance – made up of the Ta’ang National
  Liberation Army (TNLA), Rakhine Arakan Army (AA) and Kokang Myanmar
  National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) – appear to be using the
  prospect of supporting the protestors to leverage concessions from the
  Tatmadaw.

****
**** The war in Myanmar vs the war in Syria
****

Many people are comparing the civil war in Myanmar against the
civil war in Syria.

Here's a comparison by the analysts at Lowy in Australia:

<QUOTE>"Like their fellow Syrian protestors, civilians in
Myanmar are forming their own militias. Myanmar already had a
patchwork of ethnic militias, some of which have stepped up
attacks on the military, known as the Tatmadaw, ostensibly in
support of the protestors. Geopolitically, the fault lines mirror
the Syrian conflict, with Russia and China blocking Western-led
efforts to censure the Tatmadaw at the United Nations.

Nonetheless, there are substantial differences between 2021
Myanmar and 2011–12 Syria.

Three key elements helped create the Syrian conflagration: a mass
armed uprising, extensive foreign intervention on both sides and
an influx of foreign fighters. None of those elements currently
exist in Myanmar, and it is unclear whether they ever will –
particularly the second and third."<END QUOTE>

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this analysis
is nonsense, and it's instructive to understand why.

Syria's last generational crisis war climaxed in February 1982 with
the destruction of the town of Hama, by Hafez al-Assad. His son,
Bashar al-Assad, launched an attack on peaceful protesters in 2011,
during a generational Awakening/Unraveling era. During such an era,
the traumatized survivors of the previous crisis war do what they can
to prevent a new war. Bashar al-Assad's army suffered from poor
morale and heavy desertions, and in 2015, al-Assad announced that he
was going to lose the war. At that point, Russia intervened. That's
why there was "extensive foreign intervention on both sides and an
influx of foreign fighters." This was the result of an unpopular
war during an Awakening/Unraveling era.

So when comparing the Syria war to the Myanmar war, the reason for
Russian (and Iranian) intervention in the Syrian war was that al-Assad
was going to be defeated. It is typical for an Awakening/Unraveling
war to fizzle, just like the Myanmar rebellions in 2007 and 1988.

Myanmar has been in a generational Crisis era since 2016. There
is no chance that this war will fizzle like the Syria war.
It's possible that the Chinese will intervene, but that's because
of the fighting along China's border.

****
**** China's strategic interest in Myanmar / Burma
****


Globe showing China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (Switzerland's Federal Intelligence Service)

China has for years been supplying weapons to the Tatmadaw, but has
been reluctant to fully endorse the February 1 coup, because the
Chinese Communists fear that the people of Myanmar will turn against
the Chinese.

Myanmar is an essential element of the Chinese Communists' delusional
grand plan to lead and control the world within five years. According
to this plan, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will bring peace
and harmony to the entire world, and all countries will resolve their
mutual differences and accede to China's leadership. The only thing
that can go wrong, according to this delusiona plan, is that the US
will be jealous, and will go to war with China to stop it.

The major BRI project in Myanmar is the China-Myanmar Economic
Corridor (CMEC), which is strategically essential to China's grand
plan, since it provides a corridor for the transport of people and
goods between China's Yunnan province and the Indian Ocean, through
Myanmar's ports. This is similar to the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC), which connects China's Xinjiang province to
Pakistan's Gwardar port, which China now controls.

Both CMEC and CPEC are essential to China's delusional grand plan,
since they have to counter the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, formed
by the US, along with Australia, India and Japan, with the obvious
goal of countering China.

So the Myanmar civil war is more than just an inconvenience to the
Chinese Communists. It's a threat to their whole delusional plan for
world domination. What the Chinese really want is for the war to just
end and go away, but in a generational Crisis era, that's very
unlikely. It's much more likely that it will re-fight the previous
crisis war, the extremely bloody 1948-58 civil war that involved all
of Burma's ethnic groups, and forced the Chinese to intervene to
protect their border.

****
**** Russia's strategic interest in the Myanmar/Burma war
****


Myanmar's arms suppliers -- China, Russia, India, S. Korea, Belarus, etc. (Nikkei)

China and Russia have historically been the biggest weapons suppliers
to the Tatmadaw, but they have different objectives.

Neither the Russians nor the Chinese care at all how many Myanmar
civilians are tortured, raped, beaten or slaughtered. The Russians
and the Chinese don't even care how many of their own people are
tortured, raped, beaten or slaughtered, let alone the Myanmar people.

So the Russians are perfectly happy to fully support the coup, and
continue to supply weapons to the Tatmadaw. Russia does not share
a border with Myanmar, and so any genocide or mass slaughter is
miles away, and easily ignored.

But as we said, the civil war is a problem for the Chinese. The war
could spill over across the border into China, and the people of
Myanmar could turn against China, at a time when their support is
needed for the CMEC and China's grand delusional plan to run the
world. Thus, it is critical for China that the Myanmar people not
blame the Chinese for the ongoing violence. There have already been
attacks on Chinese factories by groups claiming that the Chinese are
supporting the army violence. So the Chinese will continue supplying
weapons, but will keep as low a profile as possible.

For the Tatmadaw, the situation is ideal. They can play the Russians
and Chinese off against each other, and get all the weapons they want
for their fun program of torture, rape, beatings and slaughter.

In fact, there are eight countries that have openly expressed support
for the coup and the violence: Russia, China, India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

****
**** Thailand supports the coup and the slaughter
****


Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, Myanmar's leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. (Reuters)

Just as China has a potential problem along the border with
Myanmar, Thailand has an actual problem.

More than 20,000 villagers, mostly women and children, in Karen State
(Kayin State, Kayah State) have been forced to flee from their homes
into the jungle to escape the relentless airstrikes and artillery fire
by the Tatmadaw. The targets are supposed to be military targets of
the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), but as always happens with
genocidal armies, the Tatmadaw are most targeting civilians, in order
to "send a message."

As food is scarce in the jungle, with stories emerging of mothers
having to feed their children with insects, many villagers have fled
across the border into Thailand. Thailand has set up military
checkpoints along the border, and is pushing villagers back across the
border into Myanmar.

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha fully supports the coup
and the violence by Myanmar's coup leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. That
is because Prayuth conducted his own coup in 2014, overthrowing the
democratically elected government of Thailand, and Hlaing was the
first foreign leader to congratulate him. (See "23-May-14 World View -- Thailand's army seizes power in major victory for 'yellow shirt' elites"
)

But there hasn't been similar violence in Thailand as is occurring in
Myanmar. According to reports, Hlaing has been asking for advice from
Prayuth in back-channel discussions, but so far they haven't worked.

Once again, the explanation is the difference in generational era.
Thailand's last generational crisis war was the extremely violent
"Killing Fields war" in the 1970s next door in Cambodia, so Thailand
is in an Awakening/Unraveling era, while Myanmar is in a generational
Crisis era. So Prayuth might be able to provide some interesting
details, but nothing he says will help quell the Crisis era fury of
the anti-junta rebels in Thailand.

****
**** Karmic justice continues
****

As I've written before, the situation in Myanmar/Burma reeks of
Karmic justice.

Since 2011, Burma's army has been committing atrocities on Muslim
ethnic Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, including gang rape, violent
torture, execution-style killings and the razing of entire villages,
in a scorched earth campaign. These atrocities have been cheered by
the ordinary Myanmar people, led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, most
of whom apparently hate the Rohingyas.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi became a "useful idiot" for the army by presenting a
sympathetic, tired, weary, female face to the world, defending the
army to deflect the horrors and atrocities that are occurring in their
country. In 2019, the International Court of Justice in the Hague
held a trial on Burma's genocide, and Aung Sang Suu Kyi came and
defended the army, saying that nothing had happened.

So now the same atrocities that the Buddhist monks cheered when used
against the Muslim Rohingyas are being used against the Buddhists, and
the "useful idiot" Aung Sang Suu Kyi is in jail, where she'll probably
be killed when it's convenient for the Tatmadaw. That's full Karmic
justice.

In the meantime, it's not just the people of Myanmar who are going to
suffer. This is a highly explosive situation, and it's very likely to
spread to other countries in the region, including China, Thailand and
India. In the Generational Dynamics forum, we keep discussing various
scenarios that could lead eventually into a world war, and this is one
possibility.

Sources:

• Mandalay People’s Defence Force / Mandalay PDF ‘declares war’ on junta (Myanmar Now, 22-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar anti-junta militia vow to take on army in a major city (Reuters, 22-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar: 4 dead in Mandalay as junta clashes with militia (Deutsche Welle, 22-Jun-2021)
  
• Life in Hiding: Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (Diplomat, 22-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar: Timely support and action by Security Council ‘really paramount’, says UN Special Envoy (UN.org, 18-Jun-2021)
  
• UN special envoy decries violence in Myanmar as 900 civilians already killed (Asian News International, New Delhi, 19-Jun-2021)
  
• Rise of armed civilian groups in Myanmar fuels fears of full-scale civil war (Guardian, London, 31-May-2021)
  
• Myanmar accelerates toward a civil war of ‘unprecedented scale’ (LA Times, 9-Apr-2021)
  
• Myanmar sinks deeper into civil war, as anti-army groups multiply (Economist, 20-Jun-2021)
  
• UN envoy warns 'mass deaths from starvation, disease and exposure' possible in Myanmar's Kayah State (Australian Broadcasting, Reuters, 20-Jun-2021)
  
• United Nations condemns Myanmar coup and calls for halt of weapon supplies to junta (Australian Broadcasting, 19-Jun-2021)
  
• EAGs / Ethnic armed groups / Myanmar is not the next Syria (Lowy Institute, Australia, 26-May-2021)
  
• Myanmar, terrorism and the demands of international politics (Lowy Institute, Australia, 15-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar pushes ASEAN to the brink (Lowy Institute, Australia, 10-Jun-2021)
  
• China Faces World's Longest Civil War in Neighboring Myanmar, A Crisis It Can't Avoid (Newsweek, 1-Jun-2021)
  
• UN stops short of calling for global arms embargo against Myanmar (Al-Jazeera, 19-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar coup displaces thousands as global refugee numbers rise (Al-Jazeera, 18-Jun-2021)
  
• Thai PM and Myanmar junta chief stay engaged via back channels (Nikkei, 12-May-2021)
  
• Myanmar junta taps Russian air power to bomb ethnic rebels (Nikkei, 15-Apr-2021)
  
• Thailand / Govt defends decision not to back UN Myanmar motion (Bangkok Post, 21-Jun-2021)
  
• UN Resolution - The situation in Myanmar (UNDocs.org, 14-Jun-2021)
  
• Myanmar journalists who fled to Thailand fined, face deportation: lawyer (AFP, 21-Jun-2021)
  
• Thailand / Myanmar / Karen / Humanitarian catastrophe on the Salween River (Bangkok Post, 19-Jun-2021)
  
• Thailand / Myanmar border crossers sneak across river during heavy rain (Bangkok Post, 18-Jun-2021)
  
• Karen / US Embassy in Thailand issues security alert due to violence near Myanmar border (Thaiger, 17-Jun-2021)
  
• Kayah / IDPs return to Karenni towns to find unidentified bodies in streets, schools (Myanmar Now, 19-Jun-2021)
  
• Ethnic Groups of Myanmar: An Ethnological Guide To Burmese Tribes (Rain Forest Cruises, 14-May-2020)

Related Articles:

• Myanmar ethnic groups in Shan State launch coordinated attack on Burmese military (11-Apr-2021)
  
  
• Myanmar/Burma protests turn into ethnic civil war (29-Mar-2021)
  
  
• Thailand's army seizes power in major victory for 'yellow shirt' elites (23-May-2014)
  
  
• America and the standard Genocide Playbook (12-Jan-2021)
  
  
• Devastating UN report on Burma shows scale of ghastly atrocities by Buddhists targeting Muslim Rohingyas (04-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Meiktila, Burma, violence has echoes of Kristallnacht (05-Apr-2013)
  
  
• Generational history of Burma (Myanmar) (26-Sep-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Myanmar, Burma, Mandalay, Tatmadaw,
88 Generation, Rohingyas, Rakhine State, Bangladesh,
Ethnic Armed Groups, EAGs, Bamar, Burmans,
Kachin Independence Army, KIA, Kachin State, China,
Karen National Liberation Army, KNLA,
Karen State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Thailand,
Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, KNDF,
United Wa State Army, UWSA,
Three Brotherhood Alliance,
Ta’ang National Liberation Army TNLA,
Rakhine Arakan Army, AA,
Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, MNDAA,
Syria, Hafaz al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad,
Belt and Road Initiative, BRI,
China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CMEC, Yunnan province,
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC, Xinjiang province,
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Australia, India, Japan,
Russia, Vietnam, Laos,
Prayuth Chan-ocha, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing,
Cambodia, Killing Fields War,
Ashin Wirathu, Karmic justice, Aung Sang Suu Kyi

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John J. Xenakis
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[pbrower2a]

This is my idea of "karmic justice" to a mass-murdering general:



Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the man who turned the German Army into the Nazi Army, signing off as Hitler's military lackey, on numerous orders for mass murders and requiring the Wehrmacht to facilitate SS-led mass-slaughters in occupied parts of the Soviet Union.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 25-Jun-2021 World View: Chinese defector Dong Jingwei

thinker Wrote:> I think that the chinese defector story is huge, @john and
> @nvigator do you guys think that this will speed up the march
> towards war or do you think it might slow it down a bit. I am also
> interested in the opinions of other forum members. Also John
> Mcafee supposedly killed himself in prison. Mcafee stated multiple
> times that he had information on government officials and that if
> he ever committed suicide, that it would mean that he was actually
> murdered. Among the things that he talked about was the " deep
> state" and how Epstein didn't kill himself. I would also like to
> read the opinions of forum members on Mcafee.

Navigator Wrote:> I mentioned in a previous post that the bad guys in history are
> impatient and impulsive. The Chinese defector may make the
> Chinese feel that they need to act sooner, before their networks
> can be rooted out. Right now I think that the current
> administration is probably in disbelief about what they are being
> told about the extent of the infiltration, so their reactions will
> be slow. So, I think the defection will accelerate the Chinese
> timetable (as does increasing blame for the pandemic, and as will
> an economic crisis).

> I have mentioned many times that the overriding characteristic of
> governmental bureaucracies is not Conspiracy, but rather
> Incompetence. McAfee, as others have pointed out, went off the
> deep end years ago. If he was going to expose anything, he would
> have done so long ago. Epstein may or may not have killed
> himself, but here it could have been a small handful of people
> (not the government as an entirety) that could have paid for doing
> him in to prevent him from spilling the goods on others (Clinton,
> Duke of York, Bill Gates).

There's a story today in the Taipei Times which says that Xi Jinping
is essentially in a state of shock brought on by the defection of Dong
Jingwei. He's a paragon of paranoia anyway, and he "has thrown the
CCP into a period of unprecedented instability not seen since the
Cultural Revolution. This spells trouble for Taiwan."

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editori...2003759760

According to the article, the basis of Xi's fears are “rotten
elements” in the CCP, most likely referring to the political faction
of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, also known as the Shanghai
clique.

It's well to remember that there are (at least) two Chinas -- the
Mandarin speaking north, and the Cantonese speaking south, which
includes Hong Kong. Shanghai serves as a power center at
the eastern end of the Yangtze River, which separates the north
from the south.

China's last two generational crisis wars were extremely bloody civil
wars between the north and the south -- the Taiping Rebellion
(1850-64) and the Communist Revolution (1934-49). And with the Hong
Kong issue becoming especially prominent right now, and with China
about to celebrate (next week) the 100th anniversary of the birth of
the Communist Party, it's not surprising that Xi Jinping's paranoia is
really catching up with him.

The referenced article says that "This spells trouble for Taiwan."
This means that the CCP, which has no coherent strategy but is
increasingly desperate and is striking out in all directions, may
decide to take some action against Taiwan to deflect criticism from
Xi.

And this would be an illustration, Navigator, of your statement that
"the overriding characteristic of governmental bureaucracies is not
Conspiracy, but rather Incompetence."

And so "thinker," when you wrote that "the chinese defector story is
huge," you may have been absolutely correct.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 26-Jun-2021 World View: 2020 Election Fraud audits

The BBC World Service, which is heavily funded by NPR and is required
to report what the Democrats tell them to report, had a segment a
couple of days ago about the Maricopa Country Colorado audit -- which
incidentally is nearing completion. The BBC report was close to
hysteria, loaded with accusations of racism, conspiracy theories, and
so forth. The Democrats are scared to death of these audits, because
the audits are uncovering massive election fraud by the Democrats in a
number of states.

For those who want to dig into the gory details, the following article
is a lengthy, up to date summary of the election fraud audit
proceedings in numerous states:

*** RedState.com, 6/25/2021 - A.U.D.I.T. of Elections: Is the Dam Breaking?
https://redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2021/06/2...ng-n401670

The following states are described in the article: Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin

The article concludes with Miscellaneous news about the election.

--

I have to go back and partially temper my criticism of the BBC at the
beginning of this article. Yesterday, as Kamala Harris made that
super-farcical trip to El Paso but was nowhere near the the border,
the BBC World News TV service ran another lengthy segment on the
massive child abuse of thousands of children by the Biden
administration at the southern border.

Thousands of children are being crammed into "iceboxes" where they
have no chance to shower, they endure sexual abuse, they sleep on top
of each other for warmth, and spread lice, scabies, covid, and other
diseases. The Democrats couldn't care less about the suffering of
these thousands of children, just as they couldn't care less about the
Chinese Communist torture, rape and enslavement of millions of
Uighurs. However, the Biden administration child abuse is apparently
too much for at least one department at the BBC.

That segment follows a BBC documentary earlier this month:

*** 08-Jun-2021 World View: BBC's hidden documentary: Detained in America
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61698#p61698

[pbrower2a]

(06-26-2021, 04:30 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 26-Jun-2021 World View: 2020 Election Fraud audits

The BBC World Service, which is heavily funded by NPR and is required
to report what the Democrats tell them to report, had a segment a
couple of days ago about the Maricopa Country Colorado audit -- which
incidentally is nearing completion.  The BBC report was close to
hysteria, loaded with accusations of racism, conspiracy theories, and
so forth.  The Democrats are scared to death of these audits, because
the audits are uncovering massive election fraud by the Democrats in a
number of states.

By altering ballots after the fact the "auditors" in Arizona have effectively made any further audit impossible -- and theirs unreliable. Strike 1.

Quote:For those who want to dig into the gory details, the following article
is a lengthy, up to date summary of the election fraud audit
proceedings in numerous states:

*** RedState.com, 6/25/2021 - A.U.D.I.T. of Elections: Is the Dam Breaking?
https://redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2021/06/2...ng-n401670

[/url]
RedState is not a reliable source. 





[url=https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/red-state/]Media Bias Fact-Check

Quote:Founded in 2004, RedState is a conservative news and opinion website. Until 2015, conservative radio and TV commentator Erick Erickson was editor-in-chief. The website does not have an about page and does not list a current editor.

In 2019, three senior contributors for RedState resigned after they noticed that they did not promote articles critical of President Trump via social media. In an article for The Bulwark.com, titled Why We Are Quitting RedState, Kimberly Ross and Andrea Ruth stated that “it’s hard not to note the irony that Salem Media, a company that targets “audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values,” threw its full support behind Donald Trump, a thrice-married lying philanderer who utilized bankruptcy laws and debt to con tenants and contractors out of their money. Salem now promotes anyone who is pro-Trump, even if those people gleefully flout Christian principles.”

Comment on how Media Bias Fact Check sees RedState. It is far to the Right, which is suspect in its own right. But even more troubling is that with that bias is that its level of reporting is at best "mixed" in its results.  "Mixed" results of reliability in news reporting are basically worthless because about half of what is reported is false and about half is true. Unless propaganda is completely ludicrous, as one would expect with (North) Korean Central News Agency or The Institute for Holocaust Review (David Irving's Holocaust-denial site) the worst is that which has some occasional ring of truth.    

................................

Just because one wants something to be true does not make it so.  (The philosophical term for that position is called solipsism. People who practice solipsism get into deep trouble).  The audits have been made at the insistence of Donald Trump and his closest companions, which is without precedent in American history. Contrast how gracefully Al Gore went along with the official results. There is no evidence of any more shadiness in the 2020 Presidential election than in the 2016. I suspect dirty tricks in 2016, but nothing provable -- and such is now irrelevant except for the damage that Donald Trump has done as President. 

Quote:The following states are described in the article: Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin

We can dispense with two of those (California and Colorado) because Joe Biden won those states by 10% or more. Landslide margins aren't suspect unless ballots selectively disappear on a large scale. If one is cheating, it is to best to leave the suggestion of bare wins for "your" side.

Quote: The following states are described in the article: Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin

Better. We are down to the six barest wins of Joe Biden. States that were obliged to do recou8nts (including Wisconsin) did them and got roughly the same result.

Close electoral results  that decide an election are not rare in American Presidential elections (1960, 1976, 2000, 2004, 2016, and 2020) 2016 and 2020 were close to each other, and the easiest explanation for the difference is that voters under 40 are much more D than R (about 60-40) while voters over 55 are about 5% more R than D  (and this is similarly true of the Silent, Boomers, and early-wave X). The bulk of people exiting the electorate due to death and debility (not double-counting) is about 1.6% per year in a model that suggests an average span of one's career as a potential voter begins at roughly 25 and ends at 85. (people under 25 do little voting), and that the bulk of people dying off are over 55. Because the Silent, Boomers, and early-wave X (pre-1965 cohorts) vote much the same, one need make little distinction between them. New voters are mostly under 40, and a replacement of over-55 voters by under-40 voters is a 25% swing from R to D among voters replacing each other. Over four years that is a 1.6% swing, and that alone would have swung Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin alone. 

If you want to dispute a landslide margin, then you need proof of major dishonesty, like more people voting than votes counted, with a large number of votes destroyed or not transmitted. 

Trump was still Trump, and there was little ideological difference between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Ideological flexibility has not been a virtue of American voters over the last 20 years, and 2008 was an exception only because millions started to make comparisons between 2008 and 1929  (yes, that is the 80-year cycle of the saeculum recurring more-or-less the same)  So if nothing changed except the character of the electorate, then Donald Trump should have lost for that alone. A 1.6% swing in the popular vote from political demographics alone was enough to give Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to Biden in 2020.  This overpowers general assessments of the overall desirability of Trump as seen by voters from 2016 who still voted in 2020. 

Florida seemed to be within range of such a shift that one would have expected on that alone that Trump would lose Florida as well. He won it. He lost Arizona, Georgia, and the Second Congressional District of Nebraska instead. You could check the polling from 2020, and it consistently held that Biden would win Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by small but reliable margins. Arizona got polled a lot, and almost all polls indicated that Arizona would be decided by a narrow edge.  Georgia got polled frequently, and Trump was underwater in approval numbers very consistently. 

Incumbents usually have the advantage, and Trump made the most of them. He successfully dominated the news cycles. He made the election much closer than partisan hacks like I expected. What he did to offend people on the Left consolidated his support on the Right. America has plenty of fascist-roaders who would be delighted to see someone like Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez dangling with a noose around her neck for her political views.  (That sort of pathology deserves its own death because it will solve absolutely nothing in America except to make possible torture chambers, concentration camps, and "disappearances"). 

But going after Donald Trump for his offenses and inadequacies as liberals would see it or his evident greatness as his most vehement supporters see him is irrelevant now. We have laws to determine who wins elections. In accordance with those laws, Biden won. The order in which the states count the votes for President does not matter so long as the states get fair and accurate counts. You may be troubled by the leads that Joe Biden got late that eventually decided four of the six closest states, but as I recall, Biden led the early vote count in Ohio and Texas. In both states, the mail-in and early votes got counted first, and as elsewhere those tended toward Biden. Later votes in those states went to Trump. Due to sheer volume, the votes in Maricopa County, Arizona*; Fulton County, Georgia; Wayne County, Michigan; Clark County, Nevada; Allegheny and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania; and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin were fully counted last. 

If you have watched election coverage as I do, then the results around 11 PM ET in Michigan typically look something like this as say the news analysts:

Quote:(the Republican) has a 20,000-vote lead with about 120,000 votes outstanding in Wayne County. it is too early to call Michigan.

As a raft of precincts mostly in Detroit come in with  about an 80% vote for the Democrat, the Democrat typically is called the winner when he gets about a 10,000-vote lead with a bunch more of such precincts getting complete counts. 

...Give credit to public officials for doing everything possible to thwart any possible electoral fraud. Votes are accounted for much as giant businesses account for fungible assets such as cash, inventory, and high-value raw  materials or subcomponents. Such has been the desire of public officials of both main parties, and those officials have reliably gotten their way. If someone tries to bring "late" ballots into the vote  count by some unapproved  method, then those ballots will be sequestered... and likely saved as evidence in a criminal trial. People have been caught for forging signatures of their deceased parents on ballot applications.  (There were two persons to whom I could do that  -- my now late parents, who would have caught on had I made a fraudulent signature on a loan application written a check for a large purchase. They would have caught on. Then again, I consider stealing of any kind repugnant. 

Quote: The article concludes with Miscellaneous news about the election.

It's simple enough. Joe Biden won 81 million popular votes and Donald Trump won 74 million votes... and where it really counted, Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes and  Donald Trump won 232. Donald Trump did what he could do to (in an Orwellian expression of linguistic fraud, "stop the steal") ensure that he would remain President despite the electoral results. As the Putsch took place, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made a clear, curt, and decisive statement that Joe Biden had been elected President and Kamala Harris had been  elected Vice-President and that they would be inaugurated on January 20.

In other news, as the Putsch was going on, the run-offs for the US Senate took place in Georgia, and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both Democrats, ousted  incumbent Republicans. That Putsch may have lost the Republican Party control of the  US Senate. Karma strikes again!

People are being prosecuted for participation in an act that looks more like the Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace in Leningrad in 1917 than anything in American history. If people are mostly getting mild sentences so far, then such is largely for technicalities. Some participants have squealed like pigs, incriminating others to save themselves from long prison terms. The story isn't over. Consider that a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan is getting some long prison terms for participants. That plot happened less than a year ago, and only now is the State of Michigan dealing with the worst of the worst in that plot.

We don't yet know all the ramifications of the January Putsch.  I'm not in the prophecy business. Maybe my good friend "Eric the Green" can tell you what the Stars say -- and I don't mean Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.  Or for that matter, Garth Brooks and Beyonce Knowles. Or Tom Brady and Martina Navratilova.   

      
--

Quote:I have to go back and partially temper my criticism of the BBC at the
beginning of this article.  Yesterday, as Kamala Harris made that
super-farcical trip to El Paso but was nowhere near the the border,
the BBC World News TV service ran another lengthy segment on the
massive child abuse of thousands of children by the Biden
administration at the southern border.

Don't forget that it started with Trump. Bureaucracies such as the US government typically operate at a glacial pace.

Quote:Thousands of children are being crammed into "iceboxes" where they
have no chance to shower, they endure sexual abuse, they sleep on top
of each other for warmth, and spread lice, scabies, covid, and other
diseases.  The Democrats couldn't care less about the suffering of
these thousands of children, just as they couldn't care less about the
Chinese Communist torture, rape and enslavement of millions of
Uighurs.  However, the Biden administration child abuse is apparently
too much for at least one department at the BBC.

Maybe we can do nothing about Uighurs and Tibetans because China is a secretive, highly-authoritarian state. The Feds can't fire those from the Trump era who abused those children quickly enough due to civil-service rules that make firing federal employees difficult, especially when there is some partisan or ideological axe to grind.  

That segment follows a BBC documentary earlier this month:

*** 08-Jun-2021 World View: BBC's hidden documentary: Detained in America
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61698#p61698[/quote]


Whatever one's partisanship, let us clean that horrible mess up. Let's start re-uniting families, almost invariably better at nurturing their children than are bureaucratic employees who more cherish a paycheck and job  security than care for helpless children.  

*Maricopa County, Arizona does have large GOP-leaning areas such as Gilbert, Mesa, and Scottsdale; conservative votes from those communities also came in rather late which explains why the margin count narrowed in Arizona.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Jun-2021 World View: Democrat Party trollery

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > By altering ballots after the fact the "auditors" in Arizona have
> effectively made any further audit impossible -- and theirs
> unreliable. Strike 1.

That's a lie. You forgot to say that the auditors are racist white
supremacist terrorist insurrectionists like all Trump supporters.
You're exhibiting the kind of hysteria from desperate Democrat Party
trolls that I was talking about.

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Comment on how Media Bias Fact Check sees RedState. It is far to
> the Right, which is suspect in its own right.

Of course RedState is a conservative news source. Your pals in the
Democrat Party have set up a Stalinist Fascist censorship regime where
anyone who dares to report on the truth about the election fraud or
the truth about the "insurrection" hoax is canceled or destroyed. So
instead of criticizing RedState for being conservative, you should be
congratulating them for being willing to speak truth to power by
standing up to the vicious Stalinist Fascist Democrat Party censorship
regime.

The real heroes of today are those that speak truth to power, and who
stand up to the Fascist Democrat Party, and special notice must be
made of thost brave parents standing up to the Fascist school boards
indoctrinating children with hate-filled Critical Race "Theory," just
as the Chinese Communists indoctrinate children in school to hate
Christians and Democracy.

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > If you want to dispute a landslide margin, then you need proof of
> major dishonesty, like more people voting than votes counted, with
> a large number of votes destroyed or not transmitted.

The audits are apparently turning up proof of exactly that kind of
major dishonesty by the crooked Democrats in several states. I expect
the results of the audits to become public in the fall.

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Give credit to public officials for doing everything possible to
> thwart any possible electoral fraud.

Lol! That's like giving credit to a rapist for doing everything
possible to thwart any possible rape, while he's in the middle of
raping your wife.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Jun-2021 World View: Watching Fox News

(06-21-2021, 09:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > FoX News is as manipulative as Pravda was in its heyday

Lol! This is typical of your trollery, since it's the exact opposite
of the truth. The Democrat Party censorship regime allows Democrats
to know only a very narrow, heavily censored version of the news, and
Fox News presents both sides. The 6 pm ET daily newscast on Fox is a
good example.

I have a much easier task than you. I can tell people to watch all of
them -- CNN, MSNBC and Fox News -- and compare them, and you'll see
for yourself what a censored sewer CNN and MSNBC are, compared to the
"fair and balanced" presentation on Fox News.

But you can't do anything like that. You have a much harder task.
You can't tell people to watch everything and judge for yourselves,
because they'll end up preferring Fox News. You have to be like the
ol' time preacher who says that if you masturbate, then you'll go
blind. If you watch Fox News, then you'll go blind, so don't under
any circumstances watch Fox News.

Or maybe you'll be like the Dutch theologian Balthasar Bekker who said
in 1712 that if you watch Fox News, then it leads to “disturbances of
the stomach and digestion, loss of appetite or ravenous hunger,
vomiting, nausea, weakening of the organs of breathing, coughing,
hoarseness, paralysis, weakening of the organ of generation to the
point of impotence, lack of libido, back pain, disorders of the eye
and ear, total diminution of bodily powers, paleness, thinness,
pimples on the face, decline of intellectual powers, loss of memory,
attacks of rage, madness, idiocy, epilepsy, fever and finally
suicide.” So stay far away from Fox News, everyone.

In other words, you have to resort to any trollery you can find to
convince people not even to dare to watch Fox News, whereas I can tell
people watch everything -- and compare.

Lol!

[Warren Dew]

(06-25-2021, 03:43 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: It's well to remember that there are (at least) two Chinas -- the
Mandarin speaking north, and the Cantonese speaking south, which
includes Hong Kong.  Shanghai serves as a power center at
the eastern end of the Yangtze River, which separates the north
from the south.

I think it would be more accurate to view the north as comprising the Yellow River watershed.  You could view the Yangtze watershed as the south, though that would leave out the southernmost portions such as the Pearl River watershed.  However, the north bank of the Yangtze has more in common with its south bank than with the Yellow River watershed.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Jun-2021 World View: Shanghai clique

(06-25-2021, 03:43 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: > It's well to remember that there are (at least) two Chinas -- the
> Mandarin speaking north, and the Cantonese speaking south, which
> includes Hong Kong. Shanghai serves as a power center at the
> eastern end of the Yangtze River, which separates the north from
> the south.

(06-27-2021, 11:32 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > I think it would be more accurate to view the north as comprising
> the Yellow River watershed. You could view the Yangtze watershed
> as the south, though that would leave out the southernmost
> portions such as the Pearl River watershed. However, the north
> bank of the Yangtze has more in common with its south bank than
> with the Yellow River watershed.

So what role does Shanghai play? And why is the "Shanghai clique"
significant in instilling fear in Xi Jinping?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Jun-2021 World View: India moves 50,000 troops to China border

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ense-shift

India has redirected at least 50,000 additional troops to its border
with China in a historic shift toward an offensive military posture
against the world’s second-biggest economy. ...

Over the past few months, India has moved troops and fighter jet
squadrons to three distinct areas along its border with China,
according to four people familiar with the matter. All in all, India
now has roughly 200,000 troops focused on the border, two of them
said, which is an increase of more than 40% from last year. ...

Whereas previously India’s military presence was aimed at blocking
Chinese moves, the redeployment will allow Indian commanders more
options to attack and seize territory in China if necessary in a
strategy known as “offensive defense,” one of the people said. That
includes a lighter footprint involving more helicopters to airlift
soldiers from valley to valley along with artillery pieces like the
M777 howitzer built by BAE Systems Inc.

• Map showing locations of China-India border tensions

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 28-Jun-21 World View -- Japan's plans for defending Taiwan from an attack by China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan's relations with Taiwan
  
• Defending Taiwan as 'collective self-defense'
  
• Is Taiwan a 'nation'?
  
• China's plan for invading Taiwan
  
• Japan provides vaccines to Taiwan
  
• Instability of the Chinese Communist Party
  
• China's Dong Jingwei defects to the United States
  

****
**** Japan's relations with Taiwan
****


Japan's Self-Defense Forces (KYODO)

When we discuss China's planned invasion of Taiwan, we generally
(tacitly) assume that the US will be Taiwan's only foreign defender.
While it's not clear how South Korea, Vietnam, Australia or India
might react to China's invasion of Taiwan, Japan has been discussing
how it would react, in increasingly explicit terms.

Taiwan was a colony of Japan, thanks to the Treaty of Shimonoseki,
signed by Japan and China on April 17, 1895, after Japan's victory in
the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. China ceded Taiwan to Japan as a
result of that treaty, and Japan controlled Taiwan until Japan was
defeated in 1945. Japan's colonization of Taiwan was harsh, but there
were numerous economic benefits to Taiwan, and improvement in living
standards. When Japan declared war on China in 1937, Taiwan was an
ally of Japan against their common enemy, China.

After WW II, Taiwan and Japan had cordial relations, but there was
little talk of joint security and defense planning, since Japan had
adopted its "Pacifist Constitution," which made it illegal for Japan
to deploy armed forces for any reason other than to defend an attack
on Japanese soil.

****
**** Defending Taiwan as 'collective self-defense'
****

Finally in 2015, Japan reinterpreted the constitution to permit
"collective self-defense," which would permit Japanese military forces
to deploy armed forces for an attack on an ally, such as the United
States. (See "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan"
for a detailed explanation of what was adopted in
2015.)

So a commitment to defend Taiwan from an invasion by China is not a
simple thing as it would be in other countries, especially since the
pacifist constitution is very popular among the Japanese people, who
are still trying to figure out why they acted as they did in WW II.
But the increasily belligerent threats from China are forcing
the Japanese to look for a solution.

So with that reinterpretation of the Constitution, Japanese government
officials are considering two possible paths by which they could
militarily support the United States after a Chinese invasion of
Taiwan.

• The US has bases in Japan on Okinawa island, in southern
  Japan. A Japanese attack on those bases would be an attack on
  Japanese soil, so Japan could fight the Chinese without the
  "collective self-defense" reinterpretation. This would be especially
  true if the Chinese attack extended to Japan's Senkaku Islands, which
  China claims.
  
  
• Under the "collective self-defense" reinterpretation, Japan could
  fight alongside the US in defending Taiwan from a Chinese invasion if
  Japan's government determined that the invasion was a security threat
  that threatened Japan's own survival. For example, the Japanese might
  view the invasion of Taiwan as a stepping-stone to a planned invasion
  of Japan.

****
**** Is Taiwan a 'nation'?
****

In a debate on Covid-19 in parliament earlier this month, Japan's
prime minister Yoshihide Suga referred to Australia, New Zealand and
Taiwan and said, "These three countries have been imposing strong
restrictions on privacy rights" to curb the virus outbreak.

It's not known whether this was a slip or was intentional, but it drew
the usual hysterical complaint from China's Foreign Ministry: "China
expresses strong dissatisfaction with Japan's erroneous remarks and
has lodged a solemn protest against Japan."

China claims Taiwan as a province of China, and has repeatedly said
that they will invade Taiwan at a time of their choosing to force
Taiwan to be part of China. As a result, both the United States and
Japan have adopted a policy of "strategic ambiguity," in order to
encourage both China and Taiwan to continue thinking that the issue
can be resolved in time peacefully (which, of course, it cannot). In
particular, the US has not committed to defending Taiwan, but is
providing weapons to Taiwan for its own self-defense.

For decades, this strategic ambiguity has been debated in Washington
and Tokyo. But now, with the growing military might of China and its
growing belligerence, there is pressure on both the US and Japan to
abandon strategic ambiguity and commit to defending Taiwan in case of
attack.

These discussions are in process, and it's possible that something
will be decided within a few months, or not.

****
**** China's plan for invading Taiwan
****

According to an analysis by Ian Easton, senior director at the Project
2049 Institute, China is preparing for an all-out invasion within five
to ten years.

He says that Beijing’s optimistic version of events goes something
like this:

• Prior to an invasion, cyber and electronic warfare units would
  target Taiwan’s financial system and key infrastructure, as well as US
  satellites to reduce notice of impending ballistic missiles.
  
  
• Airstrikes would quickly aim to kill Taiwan’s top political and
  military leaders, while also immobilizing local defenses.
  
  
• An invasion would follow, with PLA warships and submarines.
  Outlying islands such as Kinmen and Pratas could be quickly subsumed
  before a fight for the Penghu archipelago, which sits just 50
  kilometers from Taiwan and is home to bases for all three branches of
  its military.
  
  
• As Chinese ships speed across the strait, thousands of
  paratroopers would appear above Taiwan’s coastlines, looking to
  penetrate defenses, capture strategic buildings and establish
  beachheads through which the PLA could bring in tens of thousands of
  soldiers who would secure a decisive victory.

Easton says that Taiwan has been preparing for just such an attack by
fortifying defenses around key landing points and conducting drills to
repel Chinese forces.

****
**** Japan provides vaccines to Taiwan
****

China has blocked Taiwan from getting doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
The Pfizer vaccine was co-developed by the German company BioNTech.
Taiwan was negotiating with Pfizer to get the vaccine, but China was
able to delay the deal indefinitely by pressuring BioNTech and the
German government. The Chinese claim that they had offered to sell
their vaccine to Taiwan, but Taiwanese law bans Chinese-made medical
products, including vaccines.

So earlier this month, Japan delivered 1.24 million doses of
AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to Japan. The Japanese foreign
ministry said that that Japan was responding to a Taiwanese request,
and that the donation reflects “Japan’s important partnership and
friendship with Taiwan.”

On Friday, Japan it would send 2 million additional doses of
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan and Vietnam, and arrangements
were being made to send 1 million doses each to Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia and the Philippines.

In addition, the United States recently shipped 2.5 million vaccine
does to Taiwan. Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tweeted, “The
Taiwan-U.S. relationship is rock solid, & we’ll keep cooperating
closely in combating COVID19. Forces for good will prevail!”

****
**** Instability of the Chinese Communist Party
****

Analysts who talk about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan usually provide a
time frame of five to ten years. That's pretty much what they have to
say, isn't it.

But any such timeline assumes that the Chinese Communists are pursuing
rational policies. As I've written in the past, crisis wars begin
with a chaotic unexpected event. WW I began because a 12-year-old
decided to shoot an Archduke in 1914. WW II began because a Japanese
soldier had to pee and got lost in the woods in 1937. Those wars were
a complete surprise, even to the belligerents. That's how WW III will
begin. It will be totally irrational and unexpected, and it could
happen any day.

A lot depends on the stability of the CCP government, and I've argued
in the past that any dictatorship is fatally flawed and unstable,
especially as compared to the US Constitutional government, with its
federal system of checks and balances. The problem is that when a
dictator does something really stupid, there's no one there to stop
him, and anyone who tries is executed. This was true, for example, of
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward (1958-59), which was possibly the
stupidest policy of any country in the history of the world, killing
tens of millions of innocent people for no reason at all, destroying
China's economy for decades.

So now we have Xi Jinping in that same position of dictator. If he
appears weak, he'll be replaced. So he has to be strong, and if he
makes a stupid decision, as Mao did, there will be no one to stop him,
and the result will be disaster.

Xi reached the position of dictator by a brutal anticorruption
campaign, begun in 2012, which targeted some two million officials in
the Chinese Communist Party. This was popular with many Chinese, but
alienated may elites.

****
**** China's Dong Jingwei defects to the United States
****

Xi Jinping is facing many problems. Domestic problems include income
inequality, environmental threats, land grabs, food safety, Air
pollution, water scarcity, and soil contamination. In addition,
China’s aging population means that more retirees are supported by
fewer young people.

Internationally, China is facing criticism about its brutal crackdown
on the free press in Hong Kong, China's arrest and enslavement of
millions of Uighurs, and illegal belligerent actions in the South
China Sea. The Chinese Communists have made it abundantly clear that
they don't care at all what others think of them, and what
international laws they violate. What we're seeing is the
millennia-old Chinese culture saying that the rest of the world are
barbarians, and are to be treated as donkeys, with no purpose except
to serve the Chinese Communists.

On top of all this, there have been reports that Xi Jinping and CCP
officials have been shocked at the defection in February of Dong
Jingwei and his daughter to the United States. Dong is China's Vice
Minister of State Security in the Chinese Ministry of Defense. He is
perhaps the highest-level Chinese defector the U.S. has ever had.

He is reported to be providing informtion about the identity of all
the Chinese spies in the US, and methods used by the Chinese to
infiltrate the US government, businesses and universities.

According to a report from Taiwan, this defection has triggered
factional fights within the CCP leading to a period of unprecedented
instability not seen since the Cultural Revolution.

The point of mentioning all this in an article on Japan's plans to
defend Taiwan from Chinese invasion is that the invasion could occur
at any time -- maybe in the 5-10 years as predicted by the analysts,
but possibly much sooner than that with an overwhelmed dictator Xi
Jinping in charge, and the possibiity that he'll order some military
action in the Taiwan Strait to deflect from his personal or political
problems.

Sources:

• A New High In Japan’s Security Ties With Taiwan – Analysis (Observer Research Foundation, 25-Jun-2021)
  
• Japan to mention Taiwan stability in defense report for first time (Japan Times, 14-May-2021)
  
• Japan gov't studies SDF response in event of Taiwan Strait conflict (Kyodo News, 24-Apr-2021)
  
• Ian Easton / Here’s what could happen if China invaded Taiwan (Japan Times, Bloomberg, 8-Oct-2020)
  
• Ian Easton On Taiwan: Are war clouds on the horizon? (Taipei Times, 31-May-2021)
  
• Dong Jingwei - Defector / Jiang Zemin / EDITORIAL: Trouble at the top in China (Taipei Times, 26-Jun-2021)
  
• Dong Jingwei - Chinese defector / It’s Beginning to Look Like Enemy Action (American Thinker, 23-Jun-2021)
  
• China spymaster Dong Jingwei makes first public appearance since rumors he 'defected to US with Wuhan lab secrets'.... but social media speculates the image could be photoshopped (Daily Mail, London, 25-Jun-2021)
  
• Japan Sees China-Taiwan Friction as Threat to Its Security (Bloomberg, 24-Jun-2021)
  
• Japan to give 6 mln doses of vaccines to Taiwan, 5 SE Asia nations (Reuters, 25-Jun-2021)
  
• Japan / Time to re-examine Japan’s longstanding ambiguity over Taiwan (Japan Times, 24-Jun-2021)
  
• Suga refers to Taiwan as country, drawing fire from China (Japan Times, 6-Jun-2021)
  
• 'Forces for good will prevail': Taiwan welcomes massive U.S. vaccine aid (Japan Times/Reuters, 20-Jun-2021)
  
• With record warplane incursion near Taiwan, China has a message: We won't be cowed (Japan Times, 16-Jun-2021)
  
• Taiwan, feuding with China, gets vaccines from Japan (AP, 4-Jun-2021)
  
• What the United States Wants from Japan in Taiwan (Rand Corp., 10-Apr-2021)
  
• To prevent war in Taiwan Strait, Japan needs to unite with US (Nikkei, 27-Apr-2021)
  
• A “Taiwan Relations Act” for Japan? (Asia Dispatch, 25-Feb-2021)
  
• President Reagan’s Six Assurances to Taiwan (FAS, PDF, 8-Oct-2020)
  
• The Chinese Communist Party faces a host of domestic and international challenges as it aims to bolster China’s great-power status. (CouncilOnForeignRelations, 23-Jun-2021)
  
• India Shifts 50,000 Troops to China Border in Historic Move (Bloomberg, 27-Jun-2021)

Related Articles:

• Minister suggests Japan will defend Taiwan against military invasion by China (24-May-2020)
  
  
• China crosses and repudiates 'median line' separating China from Taiwan (23-Sep-2020)
  
  
• George Soros speech at Davos marks significant global shift against China (27-Jan-2019)
  
  
• Xi Jinping invokes the 1840s Opium Wars to justify military action for China's 'rejuvenation' (21-Mar-2018)
  
  
• Coronavirus coverup unravels in US as China threatens Australia (01-Jun-2021)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Taiwan, China, Xi Jinping, Dong Jingwei,
Treaty of Shimonoseki, collective self-defense, Okinawa island,
Yoshihide Suga, Ian Easton, Pfizer, BioNTech

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[pbrower2a]

(06-27-2021, 08:59 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 27-Jun-2021 World View: Democrat Party trollery

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   By altering ballots after the fact the "auditors" in Arizona have
>   effectively made any further audit impossible -- and theirs
>   unreliable. Strike 1.

That's a lie.  You forgot to say that the auditors are racist white
supremacist terrorist insurrectionists like all Trump supporters.
You're exhibiting the kind of hysteria from desperate Democrat Party
trolls that I was talking about.

Whether they are white supremacists or not matters not a whit. It is safe to assume that no insurrectionist has participated in the audit. 

Any audit is rightly done by people with disinterest in the result of the audit.

Quote:

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Comment on how Media Bias Fact Check sees RedState. It is far to
>   the Right, which is suspect in its own right.

Of course RedState is a conservative news source.  Your pals in the
Democrat Party have set up a Stalinist Fascist censorship regime where
anyone who dares to report on the truth about the election fraud or
the truth about the "insurrection" hoax is canceled or destroyed.  So
instead of criticizing RedState for being conservative, you should be
congratulating them for being willing to speak truth to power by
standing up to the vicious Stalinist Fascist Democrat Party censorship
regime.

The real heroes of today are those that speak truth to power, and who
stand up to the Fascist Democrat Party, and special notice must be
made of those brave parents standing up to the Fascist school boards
indoctrinating children with hate-filled Critical Race "Theory," just
as the Chinese Communists indoctrinate children in school to hate
Christians and Democracy.

What does the People's Republic of China or the Communist Party of China have to do with this?

"Critical Race Theory" is mostly a phantom, arcane buzzwords that some ivory-tower academics have passed around. Right-wingers have seen a few things that they dislike about it and they have chosen to use it as a cudgel against whatever challenges the beliefs they seek to foist upon the masses. The Hard Right is prone to its own sort of Inquisition against anything that gets in the way of its dream of pure plutocracy in which all people obey the economic elites or suffer dire consequences.  Donald Trump exemplifies such.

Power does not reliably bring out morality, competence, decency, or charity among the elites toward the masses. This is as true from the shamans of hunter-gatherer to academic elites, or even among people whose ideologies are diametric opposites (on the one side, nobility, plutocratic tycoons, and business executives... or the bureaucratic nomenklatura of Commie regimes. Yes, commie hacks can exploit, too -- and no less badly than those who translate wealth into political power and political power into even more wealth. 

The United States has a spotty record on ethnic equity, and it doesn't have to be as blatant as a lynching or overt slavery.    

I have seen plenty of evidence, even before the January 6 Putsch, of despotic behavior by Donald Trump unprecedented in the history of the Presidency. Trump is Wilson bigotry, Harding corruption, Nixon dirty tricks, and Reagan reaction all together -- and intensified.

Quote:

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   If you want to dispute a landslide margin, then you need proof of
>   major dishonesty, like more people voting than votes counted, with
>   a large number of votes destroyed or not transmitted.

The audits are apparently turning up proof of exactly that kind of
major dishonesty by the crooked Democrats in several states.  I expect
the results of the audits to become public in the fall.

The integrity of the 2020 Presidential election is established by auditing of the mechanical processes of voting. It's practically impossible to cheat and get away with it. The voter fraud that has been caught has largely been people forging signatures on ballot applications for deceased parents or spouses. If you are thinking of election officials cheating or letting partisan hacks cheat by stealing votes, tampering with electoral devices, or stuffing voting devices, then consider the risks that such people are taking. All of that is serious crime that will cost them (1) their plum jobs, (2) monetary losses from fines, (3) shame,  and (4) prison time. The usual criminal offender has little to lose, but more than he realizes. The election officials as a rule know that their involvement in the election is but a small part of their responsibility in jobs that pay very well and have low turnover.  

Again, if my state (Michigan) is any indicator, cheating may not be impossible but the risks for a voter or a public official are just too high. There are strict controls of custody of voting devices. The only effective way in which to cheat is outsider tampering with electioneering by partisan entities as may have happened in 2016. May. There is evidence, and such did not seem to happen in 2020.

...An aside: computer hackers are the cyber-equivalent of burglars. Legal statutes against computer hackers are comparatively primitive in contrast to those against burglars. Burglars must usually do some physical break-in on site:



   

Bears use their cunning and brute force to do their break-ins, and someone in Montana told me that some bears are able to identify Ford and Honda vehicles that have special vulnerability to bears that GM and Chrysler vehicles do not have. As is so with an ursine or a human burglar, the burglar must get physical access to the dwelling, shed, business establishment, vehicle, boat, rail car, or aircraft to get to valuables or do harm to those within. Computer hackers can do their dirty work from thousands of miles away. Using political entities that no longer exist, a computer hacker might do many of the elements of the crime in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that do harm in the Dutch East Indies. It is often unclear which country's statutes apply to the specific actions. 

Political interests have found ways in which to ensure that outsiders cannot tamper with their data. Election officials can ensure that vote counts are off line until official. If you want to see models for such, then check the appropriate texts on accounting.   
[/quote]

Quote:[quote pid='77713' dateline='1624802390']

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Give credit to public officials for doing everything possible to
>   thwart any possible electoral fraud.

Lol! That's like giving credit to a rapist for doing everything
possible to thwart any possible rape, while he's in the middle of
raping your wife.

[/quote]


Elected officials of both parties recognize that they can lose but do not tolerate their own losses through cheating. It works to the benefit of integrity.

[Tim Randal Walker]

There are scenarios online regarding a North Korean invasion of the South. I have to wonder...would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan embolden North Korean dictator to start an invasion of the South?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 28-Jun-2021 World View: North Korean invasion

(06-28-2021, 09:38 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: > There are scenarios online regarding a North Korean invasion of
> the South. I have to wonder...would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan
> embolden North Korean dictator to start an invasion of the
> South?

Yes. In fact, the Chinese would encourage it, so that US forces would
be split between defending South Korea and defending Taiwan.

[David Horn]

(06-28-2021, 12:06 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 28-Jun-2021 World View: North Korean invasion

(06-28-2021, 09:38 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: >   There are scenarios online regarding a North Korean invasion of
>   the South. I have to wonder...would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan
>   embolden North Korean dictator to start an invasion of the
>   South?

Yes.  In fact, the Chinese would encourage it, so that US forces would
be split between defending South Korea and defending Taiwan.

I would expect the US response to a two-pronged attack like that would be offensive, not defensive.  We may not hit Beijing, but Pyongyang and many Chinese cities seem more than apt.

[Tim Randal Walker]

China and North Korea have nukes. If those countries launch Crisis wars, to reclaim what they see as their territory, we should consider what they may do.

We might see what I would describe as a hostage situation. The hostages might be, for example, Japanese cities.

Stripped of diplomatic niceties, the message to outside powers (such as the USA) would be-back off, or Tokyo will be nuked.

Think back a few years, when North Korea flew a missile over Japan. Japan is close enough to both North Korea and China that neither needs a full fledged ICBM to hit Japan.

[David Horn]

(06-29-2021, 05:25 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: China and North Korea have nukes.  If those countries launch Crisis wars, to reclaim what they see as their territory, we should consider what they may do.

We might see what I would describe as a hostage situation.  The hostages might be, for example, Japanese cities.  

Stripped of diplomatic niceties, the message to outside powers (such as the USA) would be-back off, or Tokyo will be nuked.  

Think back a few years, when North Korea flew a missile over Japan.  Japan is close enough to both North Korea and China that neither needs a full fledged ICBM to hit Japan.

We have hypersonic weapons, and, I suspect, so do the Koreans and Japanese. We know that both have missile defense shields. Nuclear threats can be dicey, but neither China nor the PDRK want to get into a hot nuclear war with the US -- especially when success is far from guaranteed.

[pbrower2a]

(06-27-2021, 08:59 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 27-Jun-2021 World View: Democrat Party trollery

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   By altering ballots after the fact the "auditors" in Arizona have
>   effectively made any further audit impossible -- and theirs
>   unreliable. Strike 1.

That's a lie.  You forgot to say that the auditors are racist white
supremacist terrorist insurrectionists like all Trump supporters.
You're exhibiting the kind of hysteria from desperate Democrat Party
trolls that I was talking about.

No, they are more subtle than that. They are more willing to do manipulation than brute force. 

Quote:

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Comment on how Media Bias Fact Check sees RedState. It is far to
>   the Right, which is suspect in its own right.

Of course RedState is a conservative news source.  Your pals in the
Democrat Party have set up a Stalinist Fascist censorship regime where
anyone who dares to report on the truth about the election fraud or
the truth about the "insurrection" hoax is canceled or destroyed.  So
instead of criticizing RedState for being conservative, you should be
congratulating them for being willing to speak truth to power by
standing up to the vicious Stalinist Fascist Democrat Party censorship
regime.

The real heroes of today are those that speak truth to power, and who
stand up to the Fascist Democrat Party, and special notice must be
made of thost brave parents standing up to the Fascist school boards
indoctrinating children with hate-filled Critical Race "Theory," just
as the Chinese Communists indoctrinate children in school to hate
Christians and Democracy.

As troubling, as I noticed, is that the reliability of news reporting from RedState is at best "mixed". It is not quite as ludicrously awful as (North) Korean Central News Agency which is consistently unreliable or the madness of Alex Jones' Infowars or sites (I assume disbanded) still loyal to the Iraqi Ba'ath Party/Satan Hussein. RedState is about as reliable as state media of Russia and China. 

'Mixed' results imply that one sometimes gets truth and sometimes does not.

Quote:

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   If you want to dispute a landslide margin, then you need proof of
>   major dishonesty, like more people voting than votes counted, with
>   a large number of votes destroyed or not transmitted.

The audits are apparently turning up proof of exactly that kind of
major dishonesty by the crooked Democrats in several states.  I expect
the results of the audits to become public in the fall.

Auditors? Obviously these 'auditors" are not the sorts who work for CPA firms who seek objectivity in judging accounting records and data behind them for reliability in financial statements. 

You are predicting something that might more easily be disproved.

I am shocked that there are no watermarks on ballots that would make the paper useless on subsequent elections. I would suggest that.   
[/quote]

Quote:[quote pid='77713' dateline='1624802390']

(06-27-2021, 04:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Give credit to public officials for doing everything possible to
>   thwart any possible electoral fraud.

Lol! That's like giving credit to a rapist for doing everything
possible to thwart any possible rape, while he's in the middle of
raping your wife.

[/quote]
No, both Parties have sought to ensure the integrity of the vote from various forms of manipulation and fraud. They have sought to ensure that tampering with voting devices, insertion of forged ballots, and the losing of valid ballots does not happen. Elections are important enough that the standards  appropriate for financial accounting of cash and other valuable resources are in place for the vote. 
Is your problem with people 'voting wrong', which means not voting as you believe that they should vote? I could make a similar case that poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South 'vote wrong' because they align themselves with economic elitists who do them no tangible good.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 04-Jul-2021 World View: BBC Investigation into horrific treatment of children at southern border

Several weeks ago I wrote about a BBC documentary on the horrific
treatment of children at the border by the Biden administration.

*** 08-Jun-2021 World View: BBC's hidden documentary: Detained in America
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61698#p61698

Thousands of children are being crammed into "iceboxes" where they
have no chance to shower, they endure sexual abuse, they sleep on top
of each other for warmth, and spread lice, scabies, covid, and other
diseases. The Democrats couldn't care less about the suffering of
these thousands of children, just as they couldn't care less about the
Chinese Communist torture, rape and enslavement of millions of
Uighurs.

As I wrote at the time, the documentary was not available online
except in the UK. The BBC receives a great deal of funding from
NPR and has to report the news as ordered by the Democrats.

However, the situation is so bad, that the BBC has followed up
with a segment on the "From Our Own Correspondents" podcast.
The podcast contains several segments, but I'm referring to
the first segment. Here's a description of the podcast:

Quote:> "America's Border Camps for Children

> From Our Own Correspondent Podcast

> Misery in facilities for migrant minors on the US-Mexico border;
> backlash against pardons in Spain; anxiety in Afghanistan; race
> and policing in Ireland; a drowned town in Turkey"

> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09mm9nn

> https://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselecto...9mm8z7.mp3

Listening to this podcast is sickening. She talks about hundreds of
girls being forcibly packed together and locked up in a tent because
they all have lice. That's just the start. Sexual assault is common,
and covid is widespread.

It's amazing that no American media, even Fox News, dares to do a
similar investigation. It shows just how powerful the Stalist Fascist
Democrat censorship regime is. It's also ironic that these crimes are
so horrific, that they're too much for even the BBC to ignore.

It's increasingly obvious that Joe Biden and the Biden administration
are vicious and evil. There's no excuse for the horrific things
they're doing. They've adopted policies to torture children at the
southern border, to kill thousands of blacks on the streets of
Chicago, Detroit, and other cities, and to destroy the US
Constitutional form of government.

There is no excuse for the Democrats. They are as vicious and evil as
the Nazis, the Soviets, the Chinese Communists, and any other horrific
regime you can think of.

They will get their comeuppance.