Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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While Russia-China trade reached a record US$240 billion (A$360 billion) in 2023, it has slowed so far this year
- Russia-China trade absolutely exploded in 2021-2023. Some plateauing is expected considering Russian domestic consumption and non military manufacturing arent too conductive for huge trade growth and Chinese EV and renewables craze reduces their needs for foreign energy imputs, much of which came and comes from Russia.
- China seems to have started using the STANs as middle men in some of their trade with Russia to circumvent some sanctions. Europe jumped to it early on but China basicaly ignored it for the first 2 years of the war and traded with Russia like nothing happened. But over the last 4-5 months the YoY export growth to Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan, Armenia, Ajerbaijan etc has been >35%. With some months hitting 80-100% for some of these countries. Its fishy as shit and its obvious that a lot of it is trade with Russia
As for the rest of the comment this seems like half baked Pekingology to me. Psychoanalysing Xi's tone and word choice. Finding some lib professors and analysts from Shanghai saying their own shit and doing the "they werent cencored by the ever cencoring no freeze peach 1984 CCP so that indicates a change in attitude state wide". Like, there are probably hundreds of thousands of west loving libs both in the CPC and in chinese univercities and commentators, there are thousands of talks, forums and articles every week across China and China always had reasonable tolerance for these people saying their minds no matter the actual shifts and trends in domestic and foreign policy. We all know these things. Gathering 5, 10 or even 50 quotes from them to make any point isnt too hard. Im 100% sure they could have written the same article last year, and the year before. Hell im sure someone else did.
Weird for someone as knowledgable as you to continue posting low quality stuff like this along with "ohhhh its so over" commentary. On your 4th account in 5 months no less
Whenever I see a ridiculously doomer comment in this thread, I immediately know it's a xiaohongshu post.
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Tbh, this sentiment about the libs being back in charge after a brief resurgence of Marxist seems like wishful thinking about China in the first place.
People can reasonably disagree on the extent to which China is committed to forming an alternative bloc to US imperialism. But it is ridiculous to make a conclusion either way based on a few years. Shit like that doesn't happen in just a few years. It takes (at minimum) decades of carefull strategic maneuvering and risk taking. It's not something you announce and then you just got to do it.
It's like people being sad about whatever BRICS summit not announcing an immediate alternative to the dollar: you basically played yourself by getting excited and then disappointed over an unrealistic wish.
I would take anything that an Australian "China expert" says with a massive grain of salt, even if they are ethnically Chinese. Our media is constantly blasting China and accusing China of every bad thing under the sun. We just can't handle the idea that China doesn't really need us, but we really, really need China, so our media projects onto them, and there are a lot of liberal Chinese-Australians who love pushing white supremacist ideas as "one of the good ones."
China is definitely trying to move away from an export driven economy to a domestic consumption one. Soon (idk how long) they will have a mostly self reliant economy, and when that time comes the west is kinda fucked imo
Look at this chart, they will probably be producing half the world's goods by 2035
I think the west knows that clock is ticking and idk about 2027 like someone else said but definitely by 2035 they will try to do something extreme.
The west has known this for decades and still let their manufacturing capabilities diminish (are they stupid?)
Here's more if anyone wants to see them
Those with power in the West have a bizarre, almost religious relationship with capitalism and western supremacy. Half the time they just assume their "natural superiority" will get them on top somehow.
What hubris, racism, and an unplanned economy does to a mofo
To be fair the next step after internal consumption is building markets in central Asia to find a sweet spot for a bunch of things, and to do that they need to let Russia lose its grip on places like Kazakhstan.
Yeah lets all read what a teaching assistant from a university in Sydney australia thinks about geopolitics based on his analysis of hand shakes and body language.
The "article" is wishful thinking. It is full of unfounded assertions that ignores basic facts. Worst of all it assumes that China doesn't see USA for what they are. Just read the transcripts China put out of the last few meetings of high ranking us and Chinese officials. "usa says one thing and does another" they all say this over and over. Xi said "The two sides should honor their commitments to each other with action," to biden over the phone.
The guy who wrote this is a clown in a land of "China Understanders"
This article is written from the perspective that the US is not actively planning to start a war with China in 2027.
When you put that in the equation you can't possibly make statements like "balance its relationships with both Russia and the West". China is not doing that, they are not so naive.
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The US navy is openly planning war under the operation name "Project 33" https://www.navy.mil/Portals/1/CNO/NAVPLAN2024/Files/CNO_NAVPLAN_2024_50Sat.pdf
Holy shit America. You've done nothing but lose wars against tiny countries for the last few decades and you still think you can take on a Superpower? During an economic crash? While army recruitment is at an all time low?! While you're funding multiple proxy wars?!?!
How can one country be so dumb?!
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Just like how a lot of people mistook Biden’s tariffs on Chinese EVs and solar panels as indication of US wanting to protect its own industries and compete with China on green technology, when the actual intention was to scare the Chinese libs into opening up their capital markets. This is already happening, and the Chinese libs fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Wasn't the further opening up the capital markets directive published in early April with Biden's tariffs coming in May?
(Not that this impacts your argument, if I remember the sequence correctly - continuing on opening up after the slap in the face from the US still adds weight to your point)
Actually, one more thing.
Just like how a lot of people mistook Biden’s tariffs on Chinese EVs and solar panels as indication of US wanting to protect its own industries and compete with China on green technology
What is your basis for the claim that that was untrue, especially considering that NATO's engineers did seem to conclude that the PRC would have significantly hurt their manufacturers if not stopped in this manner? On what basis do you conclude that the tariffs do not help NATO's domestic manufacturers?
The battle line between US and China is going to be fought on the financial front, and if the US cannot win this fight, escalates into a hot war.
Do I have news for you
This reads like an australian farming statements to create an alternate reality. Of course there's an academic in China who's predicting a Russian loss in Ukraine. How many academics are there in China? Some of them are bound to be insanely ill informed. That to me is emblematic of how useful the article is.
'Chinese officials clarified that Beijing does not seek a formal military alliance with Russia' means much less than it seems given that context. Russia is China's source of materiel. Russia is China's access to the north sea routes. It won't be discarded in any way, shape or form because it is an imperative to China's export oriented model.
Neither must Russia compete with the west as a consumer market. First because it can't, its a small population. Second because the west is closing itself off. Not the other way around. China's bet there is a medium term growth across the entire south.
Socialism with Shanghai liberal characteristics
Anyway it's a lot of rhetoric but I would wait for actual concrete signs of decline in the relationship
While Russia-China trade reached a record US$240 billion (A$360 billion) in 2023, it has slowed so far this year, as Chinese financial institutions have sought to limit connections with Russia.
You know it's a suspicious statement when they don't say how much it's slowed by.
BEIJING, July 20. /TASS/. Trade between China and Russia rose by 1.8% in the first six months of 2024 year-on-year, exceeding $116.8 bln, the Chinese General Administration of Customs reported.
So trade has slowed by 2.6 percent, or about $3 billion out of $120 billion for the first six months of 2024.
At least you balance Russia doomerism with China doomerism
Why would you trust an Australian on anything? Australia is rabidly anti-Chinese and notirious for tarring China any chance it can get.
Signed: An Australian
Just want to show how out of touch these Chinese libs are (and easy to post since it’s in English). These people still think Russia will lose in Ukraine in the year 2024 lol.
As I have emphasized above, this are the kind of people we’re dealing with. The change in rhetoric and policy over the last year indicates that Xi’s purge of the liberals has most likely failed, and they’re back running the show now.
He needs to do a second lib yeetThe change in rhetoric and policy over the last year indicates that Xi’s purge of the liberals has most likely failed, and they’re back running the show now.
Can the lib contingent in China continue to thrive as the US ramps up its cold war against the entire nation though? It seems like as the Great Satan forces further conflict (economic if not militarily) with China, the conditions for the liberals in the CPC will become less and less hospitable while the Marxist elements will be proven both right and more prepared for the inevitability of increasing US imperial aggression. Also, if Xi was able to purge so many of them before, is there anything fundamentally different now that he won't be able to do it again?
These Chinese libs are gonna get China nuked, they literally dont understand what the west has become
Without Palestine and Russia taking up the US military industrial complex's bandwidth, china is next on the plate
DC wants to pull a Soviet Union collapse on your dumb occidentalist asses you western educated dipshits!
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I knew I smelled the Chicago boys somewhere.
Looks like Russia about to be discarded by China like a used toy
I hope that you are wrong again regarding this stuff. Hopefully, the PRC will not be making the mistake of siding with NATO against its own allies again.
They also seem to be throwing Cuba under the bus and went back to giving weapons to the Myanmar junta instead of pro Beijing separatists so...yeah...
Man wtf they need to do another liberal purge
If China ditches Russia their geopolitical understanding is of a lower level than a person with zero academic political credentials like myself. Do they not see the game being played? This is some real 🤡 ass shit. The lines have been drawn. It's western and white countries (with countries other than germany, UK, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand being the Expendables like Ukraine) versus China, Russia Iran more or less with the spoils being the right to pillage the rest of the globe.. China needs all the help they can get because the real target isn't Palestine, Iran or Russia. It's them. It's honestly mine boggling how little support they shown to the Middle East.
If China ditches Russia their geopolitical understanding is of a lower level than a person with zero academic political credentials like myself. Do they not see the game being played? This is some real 🤡 ass shit
I want to remind you of the Sino-Soviet split and the PRC allying with the US against the USSR, Vietnam, socialist Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the PRC is not at all above having a shitty foreign policy in this regard.
Unfortunately, the PRC is not at all above having a shitty foreign policy in this regard
Yeah they aren't and China is free to put themselves first again. But just like back then when they sold out the other communist countries theyre just letting the west give them enough rope to hang themselves with.
But just like back then when they sold out the other communist countries theyre just letting the west give them enough rope to hang themselves with
Claims like these - that the PRC was just playing some elaborate 10D chess and that this is all going just as planned - remain unsubstantiated. NATO is still the hegemonic power in the world that is capable of forcing the PRC to act in accordance with its wishes, such as by forcing the PRC to cut off Russia from its banks. It is not defeated yet, and all of the celebrations and assumptions that they have lost remain premature.
lmao i'd be coping this hard too if i also owned t1 property, worked at some private sector ngo mouthpiece and got a nice haircut from the a shares last week
I never really understood the BRICS being a dedollarisation organization comes from. There was never a concrete plan to do so and China still benefited from the US dollar as the world reserve.
Russia has the motivation to do so (aka diversify their foreign currencies reserves), but China doesn’t, unless they manage to find another market that can replace the US-Western market (challenge impossible)
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could it be that the infrastructure was more complicated than anyone thought? like the technology, laws or smth idk
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china betrayed socialism in 1962 and now is about to betray anti-imperialism again, i was a moron to believe that their current leadership might be actually principled for once. the chinese have always been an insincere and treacherous nation.