National security: Denied by US to nations of the world
ALL of a sudden, the Hong Kong turmoil dawns on the world for what it really is: An aggression by the United States, not so much against China as against the nations of the world.
Over the past months, I was steadfast in the view that the pro-democracy riots that wracked the other half of China’s “one country, two systems” polity have been a machination of the US' black hand to weaken the political foundations of China and stem its sure surge as the world’s leading economy.
The Hong Kong tumult takes place during a period when China’s Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI) has already succeeded in bringing development to nearly two-thirds of the earth, has seen in fact the integration into the Chinese effort such a stalwart member of the European Union as Italy, and threatening the further diminution of the regional grouping with Brexit, thereby clearing the way for the United Kingdom’s own eventual shift to the Chinese way.
With the Asian Free Trade Agreement, concluded with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member nations — to the exclusion of the —US China had regained an added upper hand in its drive to establish a world economic order wherein all countries share in common prosperity.
The BRI has risen to the challenge of becoming the one single anathema to US world hegemony.
Hong Kong riots
So, my impulse at the start of the Hong Kong riots was to view it as America’s one more effort to stay its steady decline in world ascendancy on all fronts — political, economic and military.
I took pains to contribute to the exposé of the phenomenon, even running in one of my columns on the issue a photograph of the youthful leaders of the Hong Kong rising meeting with the US consul in Hong Kong. This by way of showing evidence that the Hong Kong upheavals are, indeed, one more US maneuver in its never-ending obsession to damn China. Certainly, I could not forget the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, when a “prodemocracy” protest threatened to bring down the Chinese socialist state. That turned out to be a US- triggered incident. But the Chinese took decisive steps to quell the uprising.
But given the current US uproar over China’s implementation of national security policy in the world’s financial hub, I am suddenly jolted into realizing that the US is at the effort for the umpteenth time — not just in China, in fact, but the world over.
Not just in China
What was the Arab Spring, for instance, but a long stretch of US so- called pro- democracy movements across the Middle East for deposing people-friendly regimes, or otherwise US-unfriendly governments, such as those of Iraq and Libya. Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi fell, the Iraqis and Libyans lost their welfare state benefits, and US got richer by controlling once again the flow of oil from those areas. The same trick was tried by the US on Syria with the pro-democracy movement that erupted in that country in 2011, but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad proved the wiser by aligning with Russia and succeeded to this day in countering the US machination.
In the Asean seas, the US has been trying its damn best to gain control of the region and thereby seize its rich deposits of oil and natural gas. To the US’ misfortune, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has been steadfast in his resolve to make good his shift of foreign policy from heavy reliance on America to a mutually beneficial relationship with China. Surmounting criticisms from US rah-rah boys, President Duterte made good his word, given at the start of his term, not to push the PCA ruling popularly deemed as unfavorable to China on claims over areas in the South China Sea. The approach has reaped for the Philippines unexpected amounts of developmental and financial assistance from China. The latest gain is the 60-40 sharing of proceeds from a joint oil-exploration in Recto Bank in favor of the Philippines, with China footing the entire bill.
Latest figures place Chinese assistance to the Philippines at $50 billion, topped further by a reported recent donation of $200 million, the amount so far rendered to the Philippines as Chinese assistance to the country’s battle against the coronavirus.
Has the US given the Philippines even just a morsel of that great Chinese benevolence?
Take it from President Rodrigo Duterte: “America has only given us law and nothing else.”
In countering US aggressive moves in the Asia Pacific region, China has gone on a binge of building forward military bases on reclaimed features of the South China Sea. This has proven effective in the military sense.
Meantime, in the economic arena, China’s success against US President Donald Trump in his trade war has likewise been overbearing, resulting in fact in Trump being called out both by US big business and US traditional allies.
The political
In only one other arena does the US hope to get one over China: the political.
When the Lam government sought to implement an extradition law — whereby to turn over criminals to mainland China — the US saw that as an opportunity to incense the Hong Kong democracy believers. Using the ilk of Joshua Wong in the forefront, the US succeeded in creating trouble that saw rioters breaking shop walls, putting up street barricades, setting shops on fire, otherwise creating mayhem through all sorts of means foul and fearsome.
With extreme forbearance, China has had the trouble quite under control until now. Despite the announcement of the commander of the Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army that he would not hesitate to use force in preserving social order, the central government has maintained its cool composure up to this time.
Now, Hong Kong is facing another wave of violence with the imminent passage of a law on national security applying to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This move has come under attack by the US, particularly by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who has blustered about the proposed legislation, attaching to it such standard US epithets as “antidemocracy” and “human rights violation” for inciting to rebellion.
If national security law is such an evil as Pompeo pictures it to be, then the US is the most in the world to have committed that evil.
It is worth quoting at length in this regard the following report from the posted May 26, 2020:
“’The dozens of laws that the US has enacted, from its Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to the recent Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, show a constant sense of urgency that the country has had for national security threats at different times,’ says the report, quoting a source.
“The US National Security Act against treason and subversion, which the then President Harry Truman signed in 1947, has been revised several times during the past 70 years. The crime of treason can lead to a maximum sentence of death and government subversion activities carry a penalty of up to 20 years in the US.”
According to the report, the Patriot Act brought about by the 9/11 attacks in 2001 has caused many power abuse issues by the US government and that the key parts of the controversial act were suspended by the US Congress in May 2015 due to wide and harsh criticism; nonetheless, most of its contents were later repackaged as the USA Freedom Act, which is still implemented.
How could the US rightly slam China for something America has herself been doing so much of – and all countries in the world are entitled to, in the first place?
I see only one plausible answer: to have the ascendancy to start trouble — as it did in the Arab Spring, in Tiananmen, where else?
In which event, China is unequivocal in its resolve, as expressed by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian: “If the US insists on hurting China’s interests, China will have to take every necessary measure to counter and oppose this.”