CHRISTIAN MUELLER—In politics, words are deeds. The words used to describe political decisions indicate the mindset of what actors perceive as possible or impossible, desirable or undesirable. In 1899, China identified its course of action in terms of historical analogies, while the European powers largely ignored this rationale. Today, Europe would be ill-advised to ignore the role that narratives of Chinese history play in the official rhetoric and conceptualisation of politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
CHINESE WAY OF LIFE
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Bangladesh Railway: see if you can find the train
14 minutes readEach year in January Bangladesh hosts the three day Bishwa Ijtema festival. It is held at Tongi beside the river Turag a short way north of Dhaka. This is the worlds third largest gathering Muslim pilgrims with up to 5 million attending. To transport this number of people, the Bangladesh Government puts on for free special trains. The grossly overcrowded trains create a spectacular sight. However despite what has been written elsewhere, this is not the usual state of affairs on Bangladesh Railways. Regular trains are crowded and some passengers ride on the roof but nothing like the festival trains. The video shows trains taking pilgrims to the festival in the morning and returning back to the city at the end of the last day.
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Expert: Wildly successful Mao Era is airbrushed out of Western media and history books.
26 minutes readJEFF J. BROWN—In books #2 (China Rising, https://www.amazon.com/China-Rising-Capitalist-Socialist-Destinations/dp/0996487042/) and #3 (China Is Communist Dammit, https://www.amazon.com/China-Communist-Dammit-Dawn-Dynasty/dp/6027354380/) of The China Trilogy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/), I wrote extensively about the amazing success story of Mao Zedong and his government’s leadership, in freeing their people from foreign exploitation, while transforming the nation into an industrial, agricultural, military and technological powerhouse. This, in spite of Uncle Sam’s illegal and cruel blockade of the country, just like what it is still doing to other communist-socialist countries such as Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Eritrea and Venezuela today.
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60 SECONDS OVER SINOLAND: HUAWEI REDUX. OMG! UNCLE SAM & CO. ARE WAY MORE SCREWED THAN I THOUGHT!
13 minutes readJEFF J. BROWN—If your country wants 5G in the next year or three, Huawei is the man with the plan, the maven with the moxie, the monster with the mojo, the Master of the Universe. This means the United States, Five Eyes and every other country Team Trump attacks with the imperial toolbox, to stop using Chinese equipment and tear out what they have already put in, are going to be dangerously outdated and exposed, compared to those who go Sino.
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Short Term Thinking Dooms U.S. Anti-China Strategy
13 minutes readMOA—The arrest of Meng is but one part of a larger political campaign against China directed out of the office of National Security Advisor John Bolton.