ASIA AFFAIRS

JEFF J. BROWN—It’s sad, but like the bogus Muslim concentration camp Big Lie, it works every time. The problem is 99% of Westerners mistakenly believe they have a “free press”, barely read beyond the well-orchestrated, sensational headlines, swallow it all as gospel truth, post it on their Facebook and Twitter pages, then are “experts” at the dinner table and around the water cooler at work – Hey, look at me, I subscribe to the Economist and the New York Times! This, while they are equally brainwashed that socialist, communist, anti-imperial media are all “totalitarian” and unworthy of consideration. What the BLPM does is ingeniously and diabolically effective.

LEONID SAVIN—Stories about bad guys tend to be the most effective. In general, the idea of the villain is used in the methodology of the political frame – the technique is always used in US elections, but it is also widely used in foreign policy. A test tube filled with washing powder can be waved around and Saddam Hussein can be accused of having chemical weapons. That was a story that did its job perfectly. Accusing Iran of preparing to develop nuclear weapons proved to be more complicated. Now, the volleys of an information war against China can be heard. While America’s top officials and bureaucrats do their thing, the country’s corporate media outlets are developing other avenues.

Global warming in recent years has accelerated the melting of ice and snow in the Arctic region. As economic globalization and regional integration further develops and deepens, the Arctic is gaining global significance for its rising strategic, economic values and those relating to scientific research, environmental protection, sea passages, and natural resources. The Arctic situation now goes beyond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature, having a vital bearing on the interests of States outside the region and the interests of the international community as a whole, as well as on the survival, the development, and the shared future for mankind. It is an issue with global implications and international impacts.

JEFF J. BROWN—Interviewing Ed Curtin on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1967 “he signed his own death warrant” speech, Beyond Vietnam: a Time to Break the Silence, and his cold blooded assassination at the hands of the US government exactly 365 days later, was a meaningful, memorable time. After hanging up, I felt better about my global point of view and the future of humanity, against all the odds. He told me that in two months, he is being pushed out of his 20-year professorship at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. This school and its students will be greatly diminished by his involuntary departure.

BEN McGRATH—Japan will purchase 147 F-35 fighter jets, including 42 of the F-35Bs for the aircraft carriers. Other jets will be stationed on islands in the East China Sea, around the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan intends to equip these jets with long-range cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 900 kilometers. These Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), would, in the words of their developer US-based Lockheed Martin, give Japan the ability to “destroy hostile air defenses and high value, well defended, fixed and relocatable targets while keeping aircraft safely out of range from hostile air defense systems.” Japan will also pursue the development of hypersonic guided missiles that evade radar systems.