PETER KOENIG—Common Prosperity is a key element of socialism.
It is not just an equal distribution of goods and assets.
It is much more.
It involves people, working and engaging themselves on gaining knowledge to make Common Prosperity a sustainable objective, and to incite new ideas, for example, through education programs and interchange of experiences, as well as joint country-to-country projects with Technical Assistance (TA) through the Belt and Road Initiative.
MICHAL T KLARE—At this moment, the Department of Defense is preparing a new edition of its National Defense Strategy and this time climate change will finally be officially identified as a major threat to American security. In an executive order signed on January 27th, his first full day in office, President Joe Biden directed the secretary of defense to “consider the risks of climate change” in that new edition.
There can be no doubt that the Chinese military leadership will translate that new National Defense Strategy as soon as it’s released, probably later this year. After all, a lot of it will be focused on the sort of U.S. military moves to counter China’s rise in Asia that have been emphasized by both the Trump and Biden administrations. But it will be interesting to see what they make of the language on climate change and if similar language begins to appear in Chinese military documents.
Taiwan has been a topic of conversation in the U.S. corporate media throughout the month of October. Headlines have circulated that claim China has escalated military tensions by flying military aircraft over Taiwan’s so-called Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The ADIZ was created by the United States after World War II and isn’t recognized by international law. In fact, Taiwan’s so-called ADIZ includes large portions of mainland China. This hasn’t stopped the U.S. media from beating the drums of war with China.
MATTHEW EHRET—As far as freedom of religion is concerned, China is a land that is home to over 50 million Christians and has over 65,000 churches of protestant and catholic denominations. Muslims make up the majority of the population in Xinjiang which hosts over 24,000 Mosques which is a far greater per capita number than anything found in the USA. Buddhist and Daoist temples abound across China as well. For a refutation of the Uyghur genocide myth, click here.
While China is a secular state, it has come a long way from the anti-religious outlook dominant during the dark days of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. Even China’s constitution protects freedom of religion (article 36), with the simple caveat that “No state organ, social organization or individual shall coerce citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion, nor shall they discriminate against citizens who believe in or do not believe in any religion. The state shall protect normal religious activities. No one shall use religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the state’s education system.” And most importantly: “Religious groups and religious affairs shall not be subject to control by foreign forces.”
TELESUR—”Peruvian President Pedro Castillo participated virtually in the Canton Fair in China and highlighted the importance of this Asian country as a strategic partner of Peru in the Asia Pacific, in foreign trade and investment…And even despite the effects of the pandemic, in 2021 we observe a REMARKABLE recovery of our bilateral trade flows, which, as of the first half of the year, surpassed 14 billion dollars,” he added.