The Art of Propaganda: Guardian's Pro-Slavery Hit Piece

June 12, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Upon reading the London Guardian's article "US may blacklist Thailand after prawn trade slavery revelations," one may actually believe a revelation regarding slavery in Thailand has been made and blacklisting Thailand is a warranted course of action. However, they would be wrong.

What the Guardian piece is in actuality, is a plagiarized, politically motivated, carefully timed attack not on the perpetrators of Thailand's human trafficking, but on the new military-led government that has already taken concrete steps to stop it - and the immense profits it has brought Western multinational big-retailers. In other words, the Guardian piece is propaganda obstructing, not assisting the ending of human trafficking.

Guardian's Piece is Plagiarized & Politically Motivated 

The Guardian claims it had investigated human trafficking in Thailand's fishing industry for 6 months, resulting in their acclaimed "revelations." However the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has been investigating and reporting on human trafficking, and in particular within Thailand's fishing industry, for years. A March 2014 report titled, "SLAVERY AT SEA: The Continued Plight of Trafficked Migrants in Thailand's Fishing Industry," covers every aspect Guardian's report did, as did a previous report published by EJF in 2013 - "Sold to the Sea: Human Trafficking in Thailand's Fishing Industry." EJF even has two videos accompanying each report, here and here respectively. Aside from political spin and threats of sanctions, the Guardian report offers nothing new, and even interviews EJF's executive director Steve Trent.

Both the Guardian's report and EJF's two reports were drafted with support from Humanity United, an opaque foundation led by an incestuous mix of big-business and US State Department representatives and part of the Omidyar Group, a for-profit and non-profit "philanthropic investment firm."

Considering this, the Guardian's overview is a verified lie. It states (emphasis added):

A six-month Guardian multimedia investigation has, for the first time, tracked how some of the world's big-supermakets, Tesco, Aldi, Walmart and Morrisons, are using suppliers relying on slave labour to put cheap prawns on their shelves. Slavery is back and here's the proof. Narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The conclusion that "slavery is back and here's the proof" along with the Guardian's updated article, "US may blacklist Thailand after prawn trade slavery revelations," attempts to portray Thailand's current government, which just came to power on May 22, 2014, as responsible for the current state of Thailand's human trafficking. The article states:

The US is considering downgrading Thailand to a human trafficking blacklist, following revelations in the Guardian that slaves are being used in the production of prawns sold in leading American, British and European supermarkets. 

Washington will directly address allegations of human trafficking in Thailand in an imminent report that could result in economic sanctions against Bangkok. The state department has confirmed it intends to review the country's response to abuses such as migrants being bought by shipowners and forced to work as slaves for years at sea without pay.

The review, expected in the middle of this month, could result in Thailand being downgraded to the lowest level in a US system that ranks 188 nations according to their willingness and efforts to combat slavery and human trafficking. A relegation to tier three could trigger economic sanctions and loss of development aid, although such punishments can be waived under certain national security considerations.

However, it is confirmed that the US State Department knew definitively of these abuses as early as last year. The US State Department's 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report (.pdf) would state explicitly that:

An assessment of the cumulative risk of labor trafficking among Burmese migrant workers in the seafood industry in Samut Sakhon found that 57 percent of the 430 workers surveyed experienced conditions of forced labor. A report released by an international organization in January 2011 noted prevalent forced labor conditions, including debt bondage, among Cambodian and Burmese individuals recruited some forcefully or through fraud—for work in the Thai fishing industry. According to the report, Burmese, Cambodian, and Thai men were trafficked onto Thai fishing boats that traveled throughout Southeast Asia and beyond, where they remained at sea for up to several years, not paid, forced to work 18 to 20 hours per day for seven days a week, and threatened and physically beaten. Similarly, an earlier UN survey found that 29 of 49 (58 percent) surveyed migrant fishermen trafficked aboard Thai fishing boats had reported witnessing a fellow fishermen killed by boat captains in instances when they were too weak or sick to work. 

Clearly, none of what the Guardian reported was a "revelation" and the United States' decision to wait until now when it had within its possession the same information it is basing its current decision on, a year ago, is evidence of a politically motivated leveraging of human tragedy to exact upon the new military-led government and its allies within Thailand's business community a penalty for ousting Thaksin Shinawatra from power. What is worse, targeting the current government may undermine efforts now finally underway to actually combat human trafficking that was taking place under Thaksin Shianwatra's rule and with the full support of his notoriously corrupt police force.

Thailand's Military-Led Government is Already Combating Human Trafficking 

Most ironic is that the United States is only considering sanctions now after it struggled to support Thaksin Shinwatra's regime while human trafficking was taking place, and now attempts to disrupt and undermine the only force in Thai politics capable and willing to combat human trafficking.

Image: PM Surayud Chulanont had signed
anti-human trafficking legislation in 2008,
but it went unenforced under Shinawatra's
corrupt police force. 

Legislation to combat human trafficking is in fact, already in place. The "Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act B.E 2551 (2008) (.pdf)" was passed into law on January 30, 2008. It was drafted under, and signed by, the military-appointed government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont after the first coup aimed at toppling the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra was executed in 2006. However, despite the new legislation, Shinawatra's control over the nation's police prevented any enforcement.

Since the May 22, 2014 military coup, the new government has finally managed to strip from Shinawatra the immense impunity he and his political machine has operated behind for over a decade. One of the new government's first priorities was dismantling Shinawatra's increasingly paramilitary, terroristic, and centralized police force. Reuters would report in an article titled, "Thailand's junta sidelines pro-Thaksin police, governors," that:

Thailand's military is conducting a systematic reshuffle to blunt the power of officials seen as loyal to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra in what seems to be an effort to dismantle his support base and ensure he can never return to power.

Governors in 13 provinces have been transferred, mostly from the country's pro-Thaksin north and northeast, according to the junta's National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).

The junta is also restructuring the police, long seen as a bastion of support for Thaksin and his sister, ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Thaksin was a police officer for 13 years before resigning to start his own business.

While the Western media, Western politicians, and a myriad of faux-academics and NGOs parroting Western talking points decried the new government's moves, dismantling Shinawatra's support base, including the restructuring of his immensely politicized and corrupt police force, is an essential first step in combating not only human trafficking but a wide variety of corruption, abuses, and ongoing crimes against humanity that had unfolded, unchecked, and in the face of laws that have long gone unenforced under Shinawatra's rule.

Next, the new government headed by Royal Thai Army General Prayuth Chan-ocha, and with new police leadership in place, began several steps to combat human trafficking in particular, including training sessions on assistance for human trafficking victims, the creation of a sub-committee to tackle issues involving the use of foreign workers, and better regulation overall of the workforce. Swift and effective moves to crush illegal rackets across the country have already caused thousands of undocumented, illegal workers to flee from Thailand - now that existing laws are finally being enforced and new frameworks are being considered. Thai PBS would report in an article titled, "Cambodian migrants flee Thailand," that:

The Phnom Penh Post reported that thousands of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand are rushing back across the border, voluntarily repatriating themselves in the face of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards undocumented labourers. 

With the new government demonstrably solving a myriad of problems and abuses left behind by the regime of Thaksin Shianwatra, the timing and plagiarized nature of the Guardian's "revelations" is at best suspicious propaganda, and at worst an attempt to undermine the current government as part of an effort to ultimately return Shinawatra back to power and allow the abuses now fully documented and exposed to the world to continue unabated.

Curious Timing 

Since the absolute entirety of the Guardian's report is plagiarized from EJF's previous 2 years of work, the beginning of their "investigation" 6 months ago, in the month of December 2013, takes on a curious dimension. It was in December 2013 that it became clear the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra was mortally wounded and that the momentum nationwide had shifted against both him and the torrent of Western propaganda flowing across airwaves, upon newspapers, and over the Internet in his support. The prospect of a military coup was all but a certainty, leaving it as not a question of if, but of when.

That was when the propagandists at the Guardian became busy, recycling EJF's original work into a fresh documentary complete with animated reenactments, narrated by Cumberbatch, and to be published when the military finally did take over. With the Guardian and other Western media bullhorns attempting to portray Thailand as the new "North Korea" as it rounds up and holds accountable Shinawatra's political allies for a decade-long crime spree, it was certainly helpful when the Guardian's report was able to claim regarding the prospect of Thailand's soon-to-be downgraded ranking that:

A tier-3 ranking would rank Thailand alongside Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia for categorically failing to comply with the most basic international requirements to prevent trafficking and protect victims.

It is documented that both the US State Department and Humanity United which supported the creation of both EJF's reports as well as the most recent Gaurdian propaganda, knew for years of the ongoing abuses and human trafficking taking place within Thailand's fishing industry under the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra. With the Guardian beginning to load its hit piece in December of 2013 when the fall of Shinawatra's regime was imminent, and its propaganda broadside today, followed by the threat of US sanctions in light of these "revelations" Washington had already known about for years, constitutes a transparently horrifying exploitation of human suffering for political leverage.

Guardian's Assault on Thailand a Symptom of Globalization  

When foreign multinationals were profiting from years of ongoing slave labor under the Shinawatra regime, Western NGOs, governments and media outlets quietly documented it. Now that a new government has taken charge and has actively taken steps to stop slave labor, a coordinated attack is being carried out in an attempt to undermine the credibility and even stability of Thailand. The crimes the West was benefiting from are now being used as a weapon against those who are trying to stop them, in what is clearly another indictment of the bankruptcy and depravity of "globalization."

Image: Big-retail is the embodiment of "globalization" and drives the many human rights abuses feeding its expansive global supply chains. It provides incentives for paying labor the least while increasing the profit margins the most, cheating everyone in between and rotting society at home and abroad in the process. Localizing manufacturing by leveraging technology can undermine and eventually replace this toxic paradigm. 

It is also a wake up call for both business interests and power brokers in Thailand, and sovereign nations around the world. Interdependency is a threat to national economic stability and national security itself. Reducing dependency on foreign markets is essential in preventing the coordinated attack Thailand is now under. Thailand, diversifying its export markets among nations that do not demand preconditions to trade, nor demand exporters to be integrated into compromising "free trade" agreements, would also be useful.

For individuals around the world, shocked by the slave labor that feeds not only Walmart and Tesco's seafood aisles - but their clothing departments, electronic shelves, and toy sections as well - boycotting big-retail and permanently replacing it with local alternatives is an incremental and practical way to fight back. Leaving it to disingenuous government organizations and right advocates that allow slave labor to continue and only raise the issue when politically profitable, will only allow existing abuses to continue today and open to the door to new, additional abuses tomorrow.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Art of Propaganda: Guardian's Pro-Slavery Hit Piece

Upon reading the London Guardian's article "US may blacklist Thailand after prawn trade slavery revelations," one may actually believe a revelation regarding slavery in Thailand has been made and blacklisting Thailand is a warranted course of action. However, they would be wrong.

Westward March of Chinese Dragon in Eurasia

As the US militarily pivots into the Asia-Pacific, the Chinese steadily march westward simply through trade-oriented construction and economic projects.

The Chinese have finished the construction of a major tunnel that is part of a mountain transport corridor from Turpan to Kurla that is linked to Pakistan. The corridor is part of the extension of the Karakoram Highway that is part of a project to re-integrate the westernmost portion of the People’s Republic of China with the areas of Eurasia to its west.

Beijing has been setting up its own transportation infrastructure and energy pipelines in Eurasia, and the infrastructure being built will be the engine of an economic renaissance that is unfolding. The Chinese now have a presence all around the old Silk Road and the ancient maritime trade routes in the Indian Ocean that sold spices and precious metals.

China has been busy building deep-sea ports, holding bays, railroads, highways, tunnels, and transportation hubs throughout these regions.

Despite US pressure and attempts to militarize and control the Indian Ocean’s shipping lanes, the Chinese have been busy setting up an infrastructure network stretching all the way to Gwadar, close to the Persian Gulf, in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka from Chittagong in Bangladesh and Kyaukphyu in Myanmar.

While the US watches with displeasure from the sidelines, these Chinese projects are weaving the fabrics of Eurasian integration.

Washington’s secret wars against China in Xinjiang and Tibet

The US has tried and is continuing to try to weaken China. Washington’s attempts at weakening China have included exploiting the ethnic tensions and cleavages between the Han Chinese, which compose the majority of the Chinese population, and China’s non-Han citizens. This includes stoking tensions in East Turkestan between the Han and the predominantly-Muslim Turkic-speaking Uyghur indigenous population in the autonomous region of Xinjiang.

The US has also continuously pushed for protests and secession in Tibet. Although the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile claim that the unrest was the result of discontent with Beijing, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) teams, US planning, and CIA training were all involved in sparking and manipulating the Tibetan unrest that erupted in Lhasa on the eve of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The Han and predominately-Muslim Hui, an ethnic group comprised essentially of Hans that have mixed with Silk Road travelers and traders over the millennia, were targeted and killed during this wave of anti-Beijing unrest.

Reuters / China Daily

During the American Anthropological Association’s 110th Annual Meeting in 2011 (running from November 16 to November 20 in Montréal), one anthropologist even admitted that for research purposes that they were given privileged access to the CIA’s training program that ignited the 2008 unrest in Tibet.

The CIA even has training camps for Tibetan guerillas on American soil, away from public eyes in the Rocky Mountains.

Despite Washington’s rejections, there is also a body of literature that candidly discusses Washington’s covert Tibet operations. The Tibetan activist Jamyang Norbu wrote a chapter in a book published in 1994 and edited by Columbia University professor and Tibet specialist Robert Barnett,Resistance and Reform in Tibet, openly detailing the CIA’s role in Tibet against the Chinese government. ‘The Tibetan Resistance Movement and the Role of the CIA’ is the title of Norbu’s particular chapter. More recent literature includes the University Press of Kansas book by Kenneth Conboy and former CIA agent James Morrison that was published in 2002, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet. These authors all openly reveal how the US has waged a covert war against China by encouraging Tibetan secession and controlling the heart of the Tibetan guerilla movement fighting against Beijing.

Westward march

Washington has been pushing for trouble between China and the countries bordering China in the South China and East China Seas.

US officials dream of rebooting the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) too.

SEATO is the defunct NATO of East Asia that was supposed to expand in parallel with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), just as NATO and the European Union have expanded hand-in-glove over in Europe on the western portion of Eurasia.

There is also the Asiatic segment of the global missile shield project that the Pentagon is building next to China’s heavily populated eastern borders. This is part of a Eurasian strategy of encirclement that targets both China and Russia alike.

This brings us to the so-called ‘Asian Pivot’ that Hillary Clinton announced in 2011 when she claimed that the US was pivoting towards the Asia-Pacific region and away from the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

Beijing did not buy any of it. China knows better. The US has no intentions of leaving the Middle East or the Pentagon’s military playland in Afghanistan.

Instead the Chinese are continuing with their project of slowly developing a trade-based infrastructure network that moves westward towards the Caspian and Mediterranean shores of the Middle East.

Foreign Policy, the magazine founded by Samuel ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Huntington, was even given a taste of what is the obvious in China by the Stimson Center’s East Asia fellow Yun Sun in 2013: “As America pivots east, China marches in the other direction,” she explained to readers.

Eagle’s Empire of Blood v Chinese Empire of Trade

The US has not stopped skimming to halt the Chinese in their tracks. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is yet another US scheme to do this. The aim of the TPP is to isolate the Chinese by imposing trade restrictions between Beijing and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.

Beijing, however, has other plans.

China is going ahead with its projects, because it is not susceptible to Washington’s ongoing pressure and destabilization operations.

The shadow that the American Eagle has been casting from the sky over Eurasia is waning and shrinking as it steadily declines.

The Silk Road is being rebuilt in Eurasia by the Chinese Dragon and its friends. It is Marco Polo in reverse.

The Dragon and its friends, including the Russian Bear and the Iranian Lion, have different ideas about the management of their part of the world. Management in Eurasia they have declared will be local and not American. This is the basis for the blooming of an alphabetical hodgepodge of different regional organizations ranging from the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and the Eurasian Union to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Reuters / China Daily

This is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which cut Iran off from the international banking system in 2012 under Uncle Sam’s orders, reported at the end of 2013 that China’s national currency supplanted the European Union’s euro as the second most-widely used global currency after the US dollar. 8.66 percent of global trade was taking place in the Chinese yuan.

This is just the beginning. The use of the yuan will increase in international transactions.

Despite US attempts to curb Beijing globally, Chinese influence in Africa and Latin America is increasing too.

The US divided Sudan, attacked the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and created US Africa Command (AFRICOM), while their French poodles begun to re-impose themselves militarily across Africa under Nicolas Sarkozy, as part of the attempt to drive the Chinese out of Africa. The results, however, have done little and Chinese influence has continued to grow in Africa.

Across Latin America there is talk about increasing trade with China. The Chinese are preparing to start building a mega canal in Nicaragua to meet the increased demands for trade from Latin America too. At the same time, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) are also reorienting Latin America away from the US towards China and its Eurasian partners.

The Chinese presence is additionally felt in both the North Pole and South Pole. Beijing is eagerly waiting for the opening of an Arctic Silk Road or sorts and for exploration projects in Antarctica.

Beijing, in addition, is a permanent observer at the Arctic Council and China has invested heavily in the research, Arctic development projects, and exploration of the countries bordering the North Pole. Beijing’s ultimate aim is to develop an Arctic transport network and access Arctic energy reserves.

The Pentagon sees China as the biggest threat to the United States. The threat, however, is not one of a military nature; it is economic.

Chinese soft power is outflanking US hard power. Unlike Washington and its Western European friends, Chinese capitalism is not sustained by military force. While Washington continues to wage war and siphon the wealth of vanquished nations, the Chinese just continue to do business across the world as they steadily continue their westward march in Eurasia towards the banks of the Caspian and Mediterranean. In other words, China works while America boxes.

US-backed Rightists Attack Russian Embassy in Kiev

Hundreds of right-wing demonstrators attacked the Russian embassy in Kiev on Saturday, hurling petrol bombs, eggs and paint, smashing windows, tearing down Russian flags and overturning cars attached to the embassy. Police stood by as the mob laid siege to the building.

Acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia joined the attack, telling the protesters: “I am for you protesting. I am ready to be here with you and say ‘Russia get out of Ukraine’… Putin is akhuilo [fucker].”

The violent provocation followed the shooting down by anti-regime protesters in eastern Ukraine of a Ukrainian military transport flying troops into Luhansk. All 40 soldiers and 9 crewmembers aboard the transport died.

The dispatch of the transport was part of an escalation of government violence, utilizing tanks and military planes, against protesters and pro-Russian militias hostile to the US- and German-orchestrated putsch, spearheaded by fascist forces, which installed the current pro-Western regime in Kiev.

The United States and its European allies issued perfunctory statements denouncing the attack on the embassy, a blatant violation of international law. However, they signaled their support for the anti-Russian provocation by blocking a resolution submitted by Moscow to the United Nations Security Council condemning the assault and the Kiev regime’s support for it.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenuk Saturday not to reprimand him for the right-wing attack on the Russian embassy, but to express his condolences for the 49 Ukrainian forces lost in the shoot-down of the plane and reiterate “the commitment of the United States and G7 partners to raise the costs for Russia if it does not end the flow of weapons across the border and break with separatists.”

Kerry also called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to voice his “concern” over the downing of the plane and demand that Russia end “the flow of weapons and support to separatists.”

The attack on the embassy was designed to inflame international tensions and move the Ukrainian crisis towards war between Russia and the major Western powers. By tacitly backing the attack, the NATO powers are essentially giving a blank check to the Kiev regime for action against Russia.

Russian officials have responded by warning that the Western powers risk dragging Russia, a nuclear-armed country, into a war.

Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov said the attackers included two groups of “well equipped” youth who were “ready to storm” the embassy. “They had baseball bats, metal rods, axes. Had they entered the territory of the embassy, I think we would not have avoided victims,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told journalists, “From our diplomats’ point of view, the aim of the attackers was to physically seize the embassy building. There are also grounds to believe that they wanted bloodshed.” Lavrov went on to say that the main forces involved in the attack were “fighters from Azov Battalion, created and financed by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky,” whom Kiev appointed as governor of Dnepropetrovsk in the south-central part of the country.

Two months ago, the leader of the fascist Right Sector, which supplied the bulk of the armed personnel who led the February 22 overthrow of the elected president, Victor Yanukovych, and installation of the anti-Russian coup regime, moved his headquarters to Dnepropetrovsk.

Russian legislator Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called on acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov to fire acting Foreign Minister Deshchytsia, saying, “I can’t really imagine how anyone, especially a Russian representative, can sit down at the negotiating table with him after such an outburst.”

In a post on Twitter, Pushkov wrote that Ukrainian officials in Kiev “are trying to pull us into a war.”

US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt provocatively responded by calling Deshchytsia “a skilled diplomat and credit to Ukraine.”

Over the weekend, NATO and Russia traded accusations that Russian and Ukrainian tanks were violating the Ukrainian-Russian border. While NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accused Russian tanks of crossing the border in “a serious escalation of the crisis in eastern Ukraine,” Russian officials blamed Ukrainian tanks for invading Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that if Ukrainian incursions continued, Moscow would “take all necessary measures to suppress them.”

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukrainian cities attacked or besieged by Kiev regime forces continues to mount. Tens of thousands of people are leaving the rebel-held city of Slavyansk, which Kiev regime forces have shelled almost daily. The city no longer has water, utilities or food.

Valentina Vasiliyevna, a pensioner in Slavyansk whose apartment was hit by a shell last week, compared the fighting in her city to that during World War II in an interview with the British Guardian. “I lived through the Great War, and now we’re living through another one,” she said.

Ukraine: Is There a Chance for De-escalation?

The situation in Ukraine is a high priority for U.S.-Russian relations on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the election of Petro Poroshenko as the new president of Ukraine, who has publicly stated that he does not plan to cease the “anti-terrorist” operation in eastern Ukraine, does not give much hope that Ukraine will get out of the bloody situation on its own. Many experts have doubts that Poroshenko will make decisions on his own in the future due to the regular visits of American officials and advisors to Ukraine. For many observers, Washington seems to see only outside influence in Ukraine coming from the Kremlin, while its own involvement is more benign. In this sense, American officials seem to see the Kremlin as part of the problem, while Washington is part of the solution.

However, this is not the case.Who needs such a war in Europe and why? What does the U.S. pursue in Ukraine? What is the future of Ukraine as American officials see it? Why is the White House, with all its influence on the Ukrainian elite, closing its eyes to the killings of civilians in Ukraine? How many peaceful Ukrainian citizens have to die in eastern Ukraine before the U.S. and its NATO allies see that Kiev’s policy is the policy of genocide against its own citizens? Could Moscow and Washington prevent the worst case scenario and become the joint solution to resolving this crisis before it becomes a civil war throughout Ukraine?

A joint Washington-Moscow video conference on June 10, 2014 examined this crisis to see if a way forward might be found. Participants included from Moscow, Mr. Yuri Rogulev, Director of the Roosevelt Center of Research of the United States of America at Moscow State University; Mr. Bogdan Bezpalko, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Center at Moscow State University; and from Washington, Mr. Daniel McAdams, Director of the Ron Paul Institute of Peace and Prosperity; andMr. Patrick Basham, Director of the Democracy Institute and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

MODERATOR: Washington, is there a chance for de-escalation of the conflict?

BASHAM: First of all, we need to calm down the situation, try diplomatic solutions and the over-all cooling off.

MCADAMS: The problem in the U.S. now is the information deficit. Actually, the mainstream media in the US treats Russia worse than it treated the USSR. Russia is demonized in American media. Moreover, the members of the U.S. Congress get their information from their staffers who in turn read the news in the Washington Post and The New York Times. American politicians cannot get the correct picture as they get the distorted facts presented to them in the first place.

MODERATOR: Moscow, what can you say?

ROGULEV: After the collapse of the USSR, many newly formed countries were in a fragile state, including Ukraine. Ukraine was a fragile state and did not have self-identification yet to be exposed to revolutions. When it comes to Ukraine, all the actions should have been very carefully thought out.

As for the mainstream media, I do agree that U.S. media is rather one-sided these days. Also, the White House uses information from the Ukrainians, namely the Ukrainian government about the situation in Ukraine, which cannot be objective.

MODERATOR: We are all aware of two cases in which Russian journalists were abducted in Ukraine. Your thoughts on media in Ukraine and the U.S.?

BASHAM: Once the conflict in Ukraine was pronounced on Capitol Hill, some were proclaimed good and some – bad. Americans immediately took sides: black hats vs. white hats. However, the situation is not black and white. In the future, we will have the opportunity to learn some lessons from this crisis.

MCADAMS: American media plays an important role as it forms opinion. First, it was all over the U.S. media that Saddam (Hussein) must go, then Gaddafi must go. Now, Putin must go. This kind of rhetoric is implanted in the heads of Americans. People are taking this garbage non-stop so it is not easy to change one’s opinion and it is not easy to de-escalate the situation.

Look what happened to Libya. After the U.S. eliminated Gaddafi and after continuous NATO bombing, the country turned into a third world hell.

MODERATOR: How do you see the consequences of the Ukrainian elections when more than 7 million of the country’s citizens (Lugansk and Donetsk regions) did not participate?

BESPALKO: I cannot call this election legitimate at all. First of all, the elections were led by the people who took power after the coup d’etat. Secondly, an election cannot be held when the country is under a civil war. It is a known fact that there were no representatives from eastern Ukraine so the whole choice of candidates is highly doubtful. Besides, how can democratic elections be held when there are murders and intimidations in Kiev on a regular basis?

Frankly, I do not see any difference between Poroshenko and Turchinov. For example,the Odessa massacre is not being investigated where between forty-plus and a hundred-plus people were killed only because they had another point of view! Poroshenko suggested “humanitarian corridor” but I consider it to be just demagogy. Do you know that the Ukrainian government uses not only “Grad” rockets on its citizens in eastern Ukraine but also the “Tyulpan” (Tulip) which is a 260 caliber weapon of mass destruction?! Just today two kids were killed and it is becoming quite a normal thing there.

Poroshenko states that he is planning to end the war, but he did not offer anything new. Basically, his offer of peace is the offer for eastern Ukrainians to surrender. The only reason Poroshenko is interested in ending the war is economic; he spends $3 million per day on this war.

Donbass. No matter what Kiev says, Donbass is vital for the Ukrainian economy and losing Donbass is losing 16% of GDP, according to the Wall Street Journal. Also, nobody offered Poroshenko any financial aid so somehow all this must be financed.

ROGULEV: Many politicians are engaged in demagogy. We witness that in Ukraine as the law is broken and elections cannot be viewed as legitimate. Still, it is better to have some sort of order and government than anarchy. Chaos will continue if there is no government unless, of course, the chaos itself was created by the government. The situation went too far and this may lead to a very serious conflict. When the U.S. and EU realize the seriousness of the whole situation, they might do something about it. I do have doubts that Poroshenko can handle the situation.

It has been six months since Maidan began and we see no results whatsoever. Maidan was supposedly against corruption, oligarchs, unemployment. Nothing has changed – Poroshenko is one of the oligarchs, there is still corruption, oligarchs are in power, poverty. Nothing has changed, so what was the point of this Maidan? Many Ukrainians are disappointed and I doubt that Poroshenko can take the country out of crisis.

MODERATOR: Washington, please give us your answers.

MCADAMS: John Kerry called the Syrian elections a “big zero” where most citizens voted while in Ukraine where many Ukrainians were not able to vote, he called the elections the “victory of democracy.” The elections are legitimate only when the U.S. supported candidate wins. U.S. hypocrisy is astonishing.

Poroshenko’s elections are an “iron fist in a velvet glove.”

Another point of U.S. hypocrisy. Just imagine if Yanukovich fired missiles on the Maidan protestors, but now it is done by the Kiev government against people in eastern Ukraine and the U.S. is okay with that! The psychological impact in Slavyansk is horrible. Basically, the U.S. is demonizing pro-Russian citizens of eastern Ukraine for being Russians.

To me the humanitarian corridor by Poroshenko sounds like back door ethnic cleansing. A similar situation happened in Kosovo. In a while you might see Eastern Ukraine completely emptied of those who do not agree with the Kiev regime.

BASHAM: How do we prevent the situation from getting worse? Both sides need to focus on the bigger picture. Neither country is a strategic enemy nor rival, so there is no strategic rivalry. For the U.S. and Russia it is important to look for new economic venues of cooperation instead.

MCADAMS: It seems that the U.S. assumed some sort of mission to interfere in every conflict and every country on the planet. Why? Who cares whether Crimea is in this or that camp? Who cares about Ukraine? The U.S. seems to care about everything everywhere.

Why not focus on economic issues and investments instead of sticking our noses in other counties affairs? The U.S. seems to be compelled to interfere in other countries’ affairs all the time.

ROGULEV: The U.S. should stop the sanctions, period. It only leads to animosity, not dialogue. Second, give up the practice of punishing countries right and left. Third, the U.S. needs to continue dialogue. The U.S. and Russia have mutual interests and it should be the focus instead. Besides, the U.S. and Russa as nuclear powers have enormous responsibility.

As for Ukraine, there are political clans, unemployment, oligarchs – these are problems in Ukraine but not “separatists” who will go to Russia and then “everything will be OK.”

Dialogue between Russia and the U.S. should be on a regular basis. For instance, Obama took a break way before Maidan started and he focused on such issues as the Magnitsky list and adoption issues. Russia is open for dialogue.

BESPALKO: We have to admit that Ukraine is a failed state and “united Ukraine” is simply not possible and needs to be divided. Why not? The Czech Republic broke into two parts very peacefully. Sudan broke into North and South Sudan. Yugoslavia disintegrated, though not as peacefully.

Crimea has left as a result of a referendum and the will of people. So, people should decide themselves. East Ukraine wants independence from Galicia, it is simply not possible to impose Galicia’s values on East Ukrainians. Perhaps, the U.S. and Russia should agree to divide spheres of interest in Ukraine.

MODERATOR: Thank you all for your participation.

Putin Representative Charges, "Russophobia Could Cause WWIII!"

Sergei Markov, a prominent Moscow analyst and former MP, who served as one of President Vladimir Putin's authorized representatives during the 2012 election campaign, was featured on the front page of Svenska Dagbladet on Sunday, June 8th, under the headline "Your Goal Is To Destroy Russia!" His exclusive interview with journalist Anna-Lena Laurén appeared in both Svenska Dagbladet and the Finnish Swedish-language paper Huvudstadsbladet.

SD quoted Markov: "There must simply be a stop to treating Russia as if we were some kind of inferior people! Europe looks at Russians today, the way you looked at Jews at a certain time. Your goal is to destroy Russia! But you will not succeed in that. Napoleon tried to do it. Hitler tried, without success. Instead, you will destroy Europe."

Telling Laurén that "pushing Russia into a corner" may have grave consequences, Markov continued: "Anti-Semitism started the Second World War, Russophobia could start the Third. The main problem is that NATO is trying to start artificial conflicts. NATO is not needed any more. It has lost its raison d'être and is therefore looking for new missions. NATO is in reality an American organization. The Jesuits American defense budget is bigger than that of the rest of the world taken together. The U.S.A. is arming at a ferocious speed and is furthermore creating private armies of mercenaries controlled by nobody, like Blackwater. This development is highly dangerous."

On June 9, Svenska Dagbladet published a follow-up interview with a prominent Swedish Russophobe, Professor emeritus of Russian Studies Kristian Gerner of Uppsala University. Even though he is a former head of the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism, Gerner supports the Nazi coup in Ukraine. SD wrote: "Gerner suspects that the reason for singling out Sweden as one of the most Russophobic countries can be traced to the activist role regarding Ukraine by Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, with the purpose of promoting the relations of that country with EU."

These articles have appeared after the month-long election campaign, during which the promoters of LaRouche's policies, the European Labor Party (EAP), held rallies in downtown Stockholm, accusing Bildt of running a private "world war" against Putin. The ostensibly pro-democracy Swedish media covered neither those rallies nor the speech of EAP Chairman Hussein Askary at a large "Stop Nazism in Ukraine" demonstration organized by Russian émigrés.

China is the "Gravest Strategic Challenge" to British Empire

In a a sharp polemic carried by the Singapore Straits Times, Dr. Jonathan Eyal, International Director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), demands immediate, sharp, provocative actions against China.

"[I]t is clear that China has crossed a fundamental psychological barrier. Beijing is no longer engaged in just a reactive or theoretical assertion of its rights to territories and waters; China now sets the strategic agenda with pre-emptive actions which create irreversible facts on the ground. And China will continue doing so unless the United States and its allies — both in Asia and elsewhere — respond in a more coherent manner."

Based in London, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, was founded in 1831, by the Duke of Wellington, and has as its President, HRH the Duke of Kent.

Eyal continued: "This is the most audacious and gravest strategic challenge to the US and its allies since the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Still, there are plenty of ways the US can effectively respond to this challenge without unleashing a war." The Full article can be seen here.

China’s New Foreign Policy: Not Conflict but Convergence of Interests

Recently, I debated the University of Chicago political theorist John Mearsheimer on the question of "Can China Rise Peacefully?" That debate took place amid torrents of international and domestic commentaries on China's seemingly more assertive foreign policy approach under the nation's new leader Xi Jinping.

Indeed, all is not well in the Pacific. Tensions are intensifying between China and Japan in the East China Sea over Diaoyu Island. Confrontations with the Philippines in the South China Sea have been two years in the running with no end in sight. America's "pivot" to Asia Pacific has confirmed to many Chinese their suspicion of containment by the superpower and emboldened China's adversaries in the region to escalate tensions. The most recent incident was China's declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone, which some have called provocative.

Yan Xuetong

PRESIDENT, CARNEGIE–TSINGHUA MANAGEMENT BOARD
CARNEGIE–TSINGHUA CENTER FOR GLOBAL POLICY

More from this author...

• “Conflict Control” is Key to U.S.-China Relations in a Bipolar World

• Silk Road Economic Belt Shows China’s New Strategic Direction: Promoting Integration With Its Neighbors

• Let's Not Be Friends

Mearsheimer, known for his "offensive realism" theory, put forth a hypothesis that, as China continues its rise as a great power, military conflicts are probable if not inevitable. He based his predictions on historic precedents. In a disorderly world without a supreme ruler, the theory goes, no nation can be sure of the intentions of other nations and the only way of survival is to maximize a nation's own relative strength.

The United States rose to superpower status by first achieving regional hegemony. This strategy was first articulated by the Monroe doctrine. As the young nation grew in strength the strategy was implemented by military conquests against virtually all of its neighbors from Canada to Mexico to almost all of Latin America and beyond.

It was followed by continuously defeating global challengers from Germany to Imperial Japan to the Soviet Union. America's path to world dominance was paved by countless wars. To maintain its global hegemony, America will necessarily seek to prevent China from dominating the Asia Pacific. China, on the other hand, will necessarily seek regional hegemony by driving the United States out of its backyard.

In this analysis, a single defining fault line that divides the United States as the reigning super power and China as its challenger will drive international relations for the world with war as the eventual determinant of the outcome.

While I agreed with Mearsheimer's theoretical assumptions I disagree with his predictions. Just as America's rise to dominance did not follow the path of colonial expansion taken by its predecessors Britain and France, China will also make use of alternative strategic options to achieve global leadership. In the age of nuclear weapons and globalization China has to invent new strategy for its rise.

President Xi has already signaled to the world China's strategic shift in its foreign policy outlook. Two core principles have guided Chinese foreign policy since the early 1990s. One was Deng's famous dictum of Tao Guang Yang Hui (keeping a low profile) for economic development. The other was to give the first priority to the relations with the United States.

The implications of these principles have been that China avoided confrontations at all costs and that China would never oppose the United States in any international conflicts which were not related to China.

Regarding those conflicts between the U.S. and its neighbors, China took neutral stance or even align itself with the U.S. This means for the last 20 years or so China has stood alone on the world stage, a completely neutral power without allies and assiduously avoiding making enemies, insularly focused on its internal development in the shadow of the U.S.-led global system.

Through several recent speeches, Xi has articulated a different strategic direction. China's new foreign policy outlook indicates an approach known as Fen Fa You Wei (striving for achievement) to engage its neighboring countries and to over time align their interests with China's rise. Xi specifically stressed friendship and loyalty between China and its neighbors. This shift is more significant than it sounds.

For more than twenty years, China has operated under a foreign policy framework within which it has neither friends nor enemies. With a few exceptions, all other countries were essentially treated as the same with the maintenance of an external environment most conducive to China's own economic development the paramount priority. Such a position is no longer attainable.

Under Xi, China will begin to treat friends and enemies differently. For those who are willing to play a constructive role in China's rise, China will seek ways for them to gain greater actual benefits from China's development.

By tying up certain nations' incentives along with China's development China will seek to build communities of common destinies with some of its key neighbors. We should expect these initiatives to cover much wider range of strategic elements beyond mere economic interests. A strong political dimension will be a must. Eventually this may even extend to providing security guarantees to select countries.

Specifically, the new leadership has named three strategic areas of focus: the "new silk road" with Central Asia, a maritime silk road with South East Asia, and the economic corridor through India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Nations in these regions should expect to see much increased willingness by China to underwrite substantive economic, security, and other benefits in exchange for political support for China's regional objectives.

For more than twenty years, even those nations that were generally supportive of China could not count on China to be a friend in times of need because China would make no commitments of alliance. In the future, China will decisively favor those who side with it with economic benefits and even security protections. On the contrary, those who are hostile to China will face much more sustained policies of sanctions and isolation.

China's new foreign policy outlook in the region will provide an expanded set of strategic options and ample chances to avoid using military conquests to achieve regional dominance, as America did more than a century ago.

Then, of course, there is the all important relationship with the United States. Many say the key risk in today's world affairs is the complete lack of trust between the two countries. I would argue that trust is not a prerequisite to a relatively peaceful accommodation.

China and the U.S. have not trusted each other since 1989 and are not likely to in the future. But interests will form the cornerstone of this relationship. China has risen far enough and the world has changed substantially enough that a complex web of interests bind the two countries together, not as friends but not necessarily as enemies.

Although China and the U.S. are strategic competitors, there are common interests, complementary interests and, of course, conflicting interests between them. Such complexity provides the two countries the room for active cooperation when interests converge and a degree of preventive cooperation where interests conflict.

China's rise is perhaps the most significant event for the world since the dawn of the modern era. No one can predict with precision its long-term implications. The risk of military conflict no doubt exists. But at least for the next generation, sufficient strategic options exist for peace. And Xi Jinping's new foreign policy outlook, though seemingly more assertive, puts China on a path more conducive to peace.

This article was originally published in the World Post.