Month: April 2020

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Foreign Policy Update

CHINA – COVID-19

China increased by 50% its total death count from the COVID-19 virus on Friday, April 17, 2020 – the typically news day of the week when there is a smaller audience. This provides additional evidence backing the growing concerns of other countries, including the United States, that China and its ruling Communist Party deliberately deceived the world about the disease. In a recent interview Secretary of State Michael Pompeo discussed China’s actions and what it cost the US and the world in terms of lives lost and the economic destruction of thriving economies.

“It’s very clear now that the Chinese Communist Party and the World Health Organization didn’t put that information out into the international space as they’re required to do in a timely fashion, and the result of that is that we now have this global pandemic…  We are still asking the Chinese Communist Party to allow experts to get into that virology lab so that we can determine precisely where this virus began.  It’s not political.  This is about science and epidemiology.  We need to understand what has taken place so that we can reduce risk to Americans in the days and weeks and months ahead and get the global economy back on track,” Pompeo said.    

CHINA – G5

When asked in an interview if America’s allies in Europe are reconsidering their position on allowing China to, in essence, control their information, Pompeo said that the Trump administration has been out telling the world about the threats that are posed from allowing the Chinese Communist Party to own the infrastructure whether it is Huawei or ZTE. The COVID-19 virus may be the single most significant point in this battle as it puts China’s behavior in the spotlight. Countries that were willing to overlook minor issues may not be doing so in the future.

“I am very confident that at this moment, this moment where the Chinese Communist Party failed to be transparent and open and handle data in an appropriate way, will cause many, many countries to rethink what they were doing with respect to their telecom architecture, and when Huawei comes knocking to sell them equipment and hardware, that they will have a different prism through which to view that decision,” he said.

IRAN

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While all eyes are focused on China Iran has felt free to act in a belligerent manner toward the US Navy in the Middle East. Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels have conducted what are labeled “dangerous and harassing approaches” to several U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, coming as close as 10 yards away. The United States has video showing what occurred which will make it difficult for Iran to deny its behavior.

“…we have seen this before where the Iranians behaved in ways that were inconsistent with international law,” said Pompeo. He pointed out that the current Administration is serious about protecting the country and the US military and its Navy and that it will be making decisions about how to respond.

NORTH KOREA

On April 15,  2020, the US Departments of State, Homeland Security, Treasury, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an advisory to raise the awareness of the cyber threat posed by North Korea.  The advisory highlights North Korea’s malicious cyber activities around the world, identifies US government resources that provide technical and threat information, and includes recommended measures to counter the cyber threat. This past week North Korea launched missile off its east coast in a failed attempt to garner some of the world’s attention during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and conducted cyberwarfare against many western targets.

According to a statement issued by the US Department of States, “North Korea’s malicious cyber activities threaten the United States and countries around the world and, in particular, pose a significant threat to the integrity and stability of the international financial system. The United States works closely with like-minded countries to focus attention on and condemn disruptive, destructive, or otherwise destabilizing behavior in cyberspace.”  It appears unlikely that the North Korean threat will diminish during the pandemic.

 DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

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China’s Escalating Aggression

What constitutes a strike force and when is it dangerous?

On the evening of April 11, 2020, while the world sat transfixed over the climbing death tally from the Covid-19 virus, its latest unseen enemy, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning along with two guided-missile destroyers, two guided-missile frigates, and a combat support ship sailed through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa. The carrier strike group came within 205 miles of Taiwan. Just 48 hours earlier the PLAF flew a J-11 fighter, H-6 bomber, and a KJ-500 reconnaissance plane past the southwestern tip of the island. 

That group then moved on to track a US R-135 electronic surveillance aircraft in international airspace in the western Pacific. At a time when the United States’ two aircraft carriers in the region, the USS Roosevelt and USS Reagan, are docked tending to Covid-19 cases on board, the question arises as to why China decided to push forward with a show of force. 

The Liaoning hasn’t visited these waters since June 2019. In the months preceding the global onset of the Covid-19 virus the PLAF and PLAN ramped up China’s aggressive behavior offshore. Was this latest event by a strike force intent only on testing Taiwan’s preparedness and response? Or, does it portend a future fraught with more negative challenges for the rest of the world? Have the major nations lost their vigilance in tracking China’s long-term grand strategy to emerge as a global power and regional hegemon inside of the next two decades? These are questions western military planners and American politicians need to be asking now while viable options still exist. It also should be of concern to the American public as China is not above using whatever type power it can wield to bully and inflict damage on nation-states it views as competitors or enemies. 

At the same time as Beijing is claiming ignorance over the origin of the pandemic, or blaming it on the United States, its leaders are implementing faux export restrictions to withhold US-bound medical supplies needed to combat the virus. These include large quantities of test kits already FDA approved, N-95 face masks, personal protective equipment, and other types of critical medical goods stuck in warehouses and at Chinese airports. China’s new regulations, established this month, come down from high-ranking officials in Beijing as Covid-19 cases pass the two million mark worldwide. 

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The extra 10 days needed to meet these new rules means lives lost overseas. The world can be certain President Xi Jinping is aware of the impact. In March, on a phone call with President Trump, President Xi promised to help with the pandemic. It is yet another example of China’s devious version of using its growing power to strike out at the world. This is the real China western governments must face, and come to terms with, in 2020 and beyond. The veil has lifted. The values and goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leadership do not align with those of western nations. 

China’s strategic behavior often belies its true militaristic goals. Intentional or not, Beijing’s handling of the current crisis has opened to the world a brief window into the inner workings of CCP planners. President Xi, who also is Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, is an authoritarian leader determined to undermine Western liberal values. Whether it is the export of G-5 network technologies, which in effect restrict individual freedom by acting as an artificial intelligence-based surveillance system,  or nationalized internet services with the ability to restrict political dissent and discourse across the developing world, China is determined to woo the world, defy conventional behavior and overtake the United States as the global hegemon. Whether recognized or not, be it through a traditional strike force group on the high seas, a cyber force in space, or outright physical bullying, the world is engaged in a total, protracted struggle with China. Two years ago, Rick Fisher, a China military expert, warned the US Congress that the United States has about ten years to take action to counter the Chinese threat. We have eight left. The Covid-19 virus might be the lynchpin that seals China’s fate. The lovefest with China will dissipate only if world leaders are vigilant and recognize the global domination plans of the government of the People’s Republic of China and act.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo:China’s first home-built aircraft carrier leaves Dalian in Northeast China’s Liaoning province for sea trials on May 13, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

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Contempt

It has become increasingly evident that many American elites, primarily left wing, progressive, and Democrat leaders have bitter contempt for an overwhelming portion of the nation. It is, in many ways, a subtext of the 2020 election.

The trend has been building for some time. In 2008, Barack Obama alleged that those who disagreed with him were “bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”  In 2016, Hillary Clinton said that half of those who opposed her were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic.”  Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg expressed his contempt for farmers, stating that “I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer…It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.” Bloomberg has also proclaimed that “We just can’t let the average American have guns in a crowded place…” 

Numerous Democratic elected officials have endorsed the “Green New Deal,” a concept that would have only a questionable impact on the environment, but would quite definitely result in massive blue collar job losses.  It is a position which oozes contempt for the needs of a vast number of hard-working Americans.

The contempt for American traditions and values is not restricted to The inability of males to have an erection hard http://deeprootsmag.org/2012/12/18/kind-of-sort-ofno-really-good-exceptional-even/ generic cialis online enough to have a satisfying sex. The heart is check address now viagra pill on line the pumping apparatus of the body. sale on viagra The innovative technology and branded medication has enabled millions of men across the globe to get back their erection power and perform passionately in bed for many hours. They also are a good source of zinc, and the online purchase of cialis penis likes that. politicians.  National Review notes that New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman has pontificated that a single party autocracy, such as China, can “have great advantages.”

Once considered sacrosanct, the Bill of Rights has been subjected to repeated attacks from the left, who contemptuously seek to limit the free speech provisions of the First Amendment, abolish the Second Amendment, and ignore the Ninth and Tenth Amendments which limit the power of the federal government.

To some extent, it explains why so many on the left seem eager to give the vote to non-citizens. Those not brought up with American values are far more friendly to left-wing provisions.  In polls, however, American citizens overwhelmingly reject that concept. In a poll quoted in The Hill about San Francisco’s move to allow noncitizens to vote, “According to the survey, which is a joint project of Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, 71 percent of respondents opposed San Francisco’s decision, while only 29 percent said they supported the move. Ninety-one percent of Republicans polled said they opposed giving the right to vote to noncitizens, as did 54 percent of Democrats. Seventy percent of independents said they were also in opposition to the decision. When respondents were asked the same question but with the wording changed to include the term “illegal immigrants” instead of non-U.S. citizens, the results were nearly the same. Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they opposed the measure, while only 31 percent said they supported the measure.”

It has been noted that It is logical that elitism rises simultaneous with the growth of support for socialism. The very concept of that approach to governance is based on the idea that a selected group can somehow make better decisions about how to run your family, your business, your life, than you.

This paradigm does not arise in a vacuum.  For several generations, American universities have metamorphosed from centers of learning to propaganda mills for socialist and other hard-left causes.  America’s young have been inundated with anti-individual right, anti-free market, anti-western value lies. CNS notes that at the University of Hawaii Professor Haunani-Kay Trask stated: “’We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it.”

Illustration: Pixabay

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Refugee Resettlement and Churches

In January of this year, a Minnesota priest was forced to apologize for stating that Islam was “the greatest threat in the world” during a sermon on immigration.  “I believe it is essential to consider the religion and worldview of the immigrants or refugees,” the Rev. Nick VanDenBroeke told his parishioners, “More specifically, we should not be allowing large numbers of Muslims asylum or immigration into our country.” 

After the usual complaint was made by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Rev. VanDenBroeke issued a public apology on the website for the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis.  In an accompanying statement, Archbishop Bernard Hebda could not be more effusive in his praise of Muslims.  “I am grateful for the many examples of friendship that have been offered by the Muslim community in our region and we are committed to strengthening the relationship between the two communities,” the Archbishop stated. 

Why would the Archdiocese come down so hard and so fast on one priest?  The answer lies in a little-discussed profit center of the Catholic Church in America – Refugee Resettlement.

For years, the Catholic Charities organizations of various states have been involved in placing immigrants in communities across the United States.  To be fair, Catholic Charities is not the only religion-based organization engaged in this work – Lutheran Social Services and Baptist Child and Family Services are also deeply involved in Refugee Resettlement.  In 2018, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops received $28 million to help resettle refugees.  These funds are spread across awards entitled “Refugee Cash and Medical Assistance,” “Residential Service for Unaccompanied Children,” and “Refugee Social Services.”  Lutheran Social Services also received $28 million, and Baptist Child and Family Services received $127 million (spread among several Baptist groups under the umbrella of Baptist Child and Family Services. 

In fact, if you go to the website for Catholic Charities of Central Florida, among the services provided to immigrants are “all forms of humanitarian relief, citizenship services, employment authorization application and immigration court representation.”  The website goes on to advise their potential “customers” that “you may qualify for a grant based program,”  meaning federal aid or local financial assistance.

There is no doubt that many of these “refugees” are Muslims.  For instance, in St Louis, Missouri, the “refugee population has increased steadily since the early 1990s, when the city was designated as a preferred relocation community. Approximately 70,000 Bosnians and 5,000 Somalis presently live in the St. Louis area…these two groups are primarily Muslim…” 

Overall, according to the Pew Research Center, “since fiscal 2002 (Oct. 1, 2001, to Sept. 30, 2019), the most refugees have come from Burma (about 177,700), Iraq (144,400) and Somalia (104,100)…In fiscal 2016, the number of Muslim refugees admitted reached 38,900, a historic high…That year, Muslims accounted for 46% of the year’s refugees, the highest share since fiscal 2006.”  The Center does note that under President Trump, “Christians accounted for 79% of refugees who came to the U.S. in fiscal 2019. The U.S. admitted about 23,800 Christians, compared with about 4,900 Muslims and smaller numbers of other religious groups.” 

Besides resettling more Christians, the Trump Administration has cut down on the overall number of refugees being admitted to the United States.  According to Crux, a Catholic publication, when “President Donald Trump took office (in)2017…his administration made it clear it wanted to reduce the number of refugees the country would take in.  The number of refugees authorized for admission to the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, which began Oct. 1, 2017, was cut to 45,000, but the State Department has admitted only 10,548 in the first six months.”  The effect of this reduction in refugees admitted?  “Nearly 20 U.S. Catholic refugee resettlement programs have closed in the past two years and dozens of others have scaled back their efforts…Catholic organizations charged with resettling refugees have laid off or transferred as many as 300 employees as a direct result of the reduced numbers.”  s/

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In a less populous state like North Dakota, the financial impact of refugee resettlement is heavy.  According to the Valley News, in December of 2015, “over the past 14 years, Lutheran Social Services has resettled 4,000 refugees from 35 countries in North Dakota.”  Each refugee receives a federal grant of $925 dollars for initial housing costs, however, if you multiplied that cost by 445 immigrants estimated to be resettled in 2016, “that would lead to a cost of $423,650 for fiscal year 2016 to resettle New Americans. (Note – I came up with $411,625 when I did the math.)  Also, with the brunt of the resettlement program here in Cass County, social services estimates that about 15% of its budget goes toward serving refugees.  Their 2014 budget was more than $14,132,517, which means just over $2.1 Million was spent serving the refugee population of Cass County.”  h

According to the Lutheran Social Services webpage, their organization spends up to $755 a month for a family of 5 providing additional services after the initial $925 outlay.   

The website for Catholic Charities of North Dakota does not reflect work with the resettlement of immigrants.  However, the website for the Conference of Catholic Bishops shows that in Fiscal Years 2019 and 2020, the Bishops had received over $3 million dollars in funding for International “Migration and Refugee Assistance,” which is described as “protects refugees and internally displaced persons, helps them to repatriate when conflict ends or natural disaster responses permit, and supports resettlement to safe countries like the U.S. This level would fund the admission process for 75,000 refugees to the U.S.”  (emphasis added).

If you keep in mind that the Trump Administration cut the number of refugees allowed resettlement in the United States to 45,000 in 2018, The Catholic Bishops are asking Congress for more than 3 million dollars to resettle more than twice that number in the US alone in 2020.

Thus, when Archbishop Hebda slapped down Rev. VanDenBroeke, his financial incentive to do so becomes very clear.

This article was provided exclusively to the New York Analysis of Policy and Government by the distinguished Judge John H. Wilson, (ret.)

Photo: Pixabay

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The Case Against China, Part 2

The ruling Chinese Communist Party, and dictator-for life Xi Jingping, deliberately seeks to downplay anything that may hinder Chinas’ economy.  They know that their regime rests on an unspoken social contract with the population, which promises increasing prosperity in return for no challenges to their authoritarian control.  Bluntly stated, the Chinese Communist Party leadership intentionally endangered the health of the entire planet to avoid bad publicity.

There is motive, means, and vast numbers of dead bodies in this crime against humanity by the Chinese Communist Party, and even a history of recidivism in the matter, as well as an attempt to cover up the terrible misdeed. But how to enforce justice?

In a prior dispute, the World Court at the Hague ruled against China’s invasion of the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. There was, however, no viable means of enforcing its decision or obtaining damages from the Beijing Communist regime, which simply refused to accept the decision.

Obviously, no one seeks to compound this China-created tragedy by using the military to punish that nation’s government. That leaves financial solutions, which hits Xi Jingping and his party at their most vulnerable spot. 

There are several approaches that could be explored. China holds a vast amount of U.S. treasury bills.  It also owns many assets within the U.S. and other nations.  And of course, it profits heavily from trade with nations throughout the globe.

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According to the Congressional Research Service, China’s Holdings of U.S. Securities as of June 2018 in U.S. securities totaled $1.6 trillion. That’s actually down from its all-time high share of 15.2% in 2009. If Washington chose to cancel that debt, it would certainly punish Beijing and provide more funds for the U.S. to use to respond to the crisis.  This, of course, is not without drawbacks.  The attractiveness of this investment is its near absolute security; this would be a sharp blow to that.

There are other avenues as well. As Public Citizen points out, “Chinese financial interests have acquired more than $120 billion of assets in the U.S. economy since 2002. Fifteen Chinese government entities (sovereign wealth funds and state-owned enterprises) and government-connected private sectors firms account for nearly 60 percent of this activity. Major transactions have been recorded in at least 40 states and in diverse sectors. This includes more than 50 acquisitions of American assets worth at least $50 million each in 2016, a high-water mark for inbound Chinese investment.” Some have suggested these assets be confiscated or held until Beijing pays the debt it owes for the Covid crisis it created.

Other financial remedies exist as well. CSIS reports that The value of China’s exports in goods annually surpasses the amount it imports from the rest of the world. In 2018, China exported $2.49 trillion in goods while it imported $2.13 trillion. Cutting trade with China, switching to other countries for the types of goods that nation exports, would be a significant blow to the Beijing regime.

The facts are clear.  In its endangerment of the world due to its horrendous record of covering up the start of new diseases, and its negligence in addressing the reasons why they occur, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been a malevolent presence on the global scene.  This is compounded by that entity’s massive investment in nuclear and conventional weaponry, its aggressiveness towards neighboring nations, and its predatory financial actions across the planet. It operates concentration camps against minorities within its own borders.  It continues to occupy Tibet. And, of course, it violates the human freedom of its own population.

It should no longer have a vote on the U.N. Security Council or the General Assembly.

The time has come to announce that the CCP is unacceptable to the world community, and to withdraw all recognition of it as a legitimate governing entity.

Illustration: Pixabay

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The Case Against China

Legislative resolutions were introduced in Washington condemning China’s actions in allowing the Covid disease to become a world wide epidemic, but words must be followed by action.

The toll taken by the Covid-19 virus is staggering, resembling that of a considerable war.

As of March 22, according to the John Hopkins University, 328,299 have been infected, and 14,376 have been killed. According to the United Nations,  the cost to the global economy has been $1 trillion, a figure that appears far lower than the real number.

Those losses have been needlessly caused.  Through negligence or malfeasance, the Chinese government’s failure to timely warn the world of the outbreak eliminated the possibility of stopping the plague in its earliest stages, a move that would have prevented its worldwide spread.

The first case of the disease occurred on November 17, reports the South China Morning Post.

However, Beijing failed to inform the World Health Organization until December 31.

The failure to render the appropriate warnings was intentional.  In fact, notes Axios,  when Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posted information on WeChat about the new virus, she was reprimanded for doing so and told not to spread information about it. When Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang provided information about virus, He was called in for questioning.

In fact, from Jan. 11–17, a prescheduled Communist Chinese Party meeting was held in Wuhan, and authorities insisted there were no new cases. the Wuhan Health Commission insisted there were no new cases. As late as Each patient is designed with a specific program to meet the clients across globe via internet and create their benchmark in those areas even where it is impossible to reach orgasm.Having impotence (Erectile Dysfunction) may not only be affected sexually but also mentally, emotionally and socially. discount sildenafil Many men feeling reluctance online cialis purchase in discussing the problem and finding the solution. If you are millions men who do not cialis 5mg discount smoke. Stress can set off depression by activating the nervous system, interrupting heart rhythm, increased tendency for clotting of the blood, and intensified inflammatory responses, all of which negatively impact the wikipedia reference viagra online quality of intimate relationships. January 14, Chinese authorities insisted that “”no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus” existed.

The danger from this was vast. Writing in Real Clear Politics, Victor Davis Hanson reported that “the government initially hid all that knowledge from its own people in particular and in general from the world at large. Translated into American terms, that disingenuousness ensured that over 10,000 Chinese nationals and foreigners living in China flew every day on direct flights into the United States (Washington and California especially) from late November to the beginning of February, until the Trump travel ban of January 31…All this laxity was also known to the Communist apparat in Beijing, which must have been amused when Trump was roundly damned by his liberal critics as a xenophobe and racist for finally daring to stop the influx on January 31 — the first major leader to enact such a total ban.”

As a National Review article points outs, “The rulers in Beijing know that they are always one serious recession away from being turned out — and worse — and they so feared economic disruption and damage to their own institutional prestige that they placed a losing bet that the heavy hand of their police state would be heavy enough to quash the coronavirus outbreak.”

The negligence got even worse.In late January,approximately 5 million people left the city without being screened for the illness. As China celebrated the Lunar New Year Holiday, hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens moved unrestrained across the nation to join in gatherings were food bowls were shared.

Some believe that the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab close to the outbreak site, is relevant.  Others, including PJ Media,  noted that for a long time, scientists had warned for years that the eating of exotic animals in southern China was ‘a time bomb.’ Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) also originated in China, and probably jumped to humans through bats.  Coronavirus strains are also likely connected to bats.

This is not the first time that the Chinese government recklessly endangered the world. A Foreign Policy study found that in the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, “China’s Ministry of Health was aware for months of a dangerous new type of pneumonia in Guangdong province before sharing that information with other nations or issuing a nationwide bulletin to hospitals and health professionals on preventing the spread of the disease. That virus spread to 29 countries, sickened thousands of people, and killed 774 before being brought under control in July 2003… Local police punished and censored doctors and other whistleblowers who sought to raise early alarm over the novel coronavirus. Between Jan. 12 and 20, government officials chose not to report information about the infection of 15 health workers and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. The government also failed to share the basic public health information that might have helped thousands of Chinese people avoid infection themselves. Instead, it held potluck banquets for 40,000 families to celebrate Lunar New Year and offered tens of thousands of tourists free coupons for events in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated. By Jan. 23, six other countries had confirmed coronavirus cases, but the spread of undiagnosed cases was likely greater.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Photo: XInhua news Agency

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Foreign Policy Update

IRAQ

The State Department is intent on assuring the Iraqi people that the United States is a long-term, steady partner. It announced this week that Washington is pursuing a new US-Iraqi strategic dialogue to discuss the two countries’ financial, economic, security, and diplomatic partnership. The incentive behind restarting the framework now is that Iraq currently faces a number of challenges, including that of quickly forming a new, strong and independent government. As Secretary of State Michael Pompeo  stated recently, “…the Iraqi people are urging their government for change and reforms.” Before the pandemic, Iraqis were gathering by the thousands on a daily basis to demand an end to Iran’s influence in the country. 

Currently, the US is aiding Iraq’s response to COVID-19 with funds to prepare laboratories, implement public health emergency plans for points of entry, and activate case finding and event-based surveillance for influenza-like illnesses. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Dave Schenker, said Friday that the US remains the “largest donor to demining, clearing over 86 million square meters of [Iraqi] land since 2015.” Since 2014 the United States has provided more than $2.6 billion in assistance, including food, water, medicine, and shelters and is Iraq’s largest humanitarian donor. 

YEMEN

The State Department says it wants to do more in Yemen to assist with its COVID-19 response and other humanitarian assistance. The issue facing the US is that the “Houthis are obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance, interfering, preventing the monitoring and evaluation, and of course skimming to fund their war effort,” according to Assistant Secretary of State Schenker. He called for a ceasefire as well as a Houthi commitment to start following standard best international practices on the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

CONGO

Secretary Pompeo on Tuesday announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo will declare the Ebola outbreak over. “For almost two years now, the United States has led the global response to the latest outbreak of that horrible disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Within one month from the outbreak,” he said, “America deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team and other experts who supported vaccination campaigns, diagnostic processes, testing and tracing, and more.  We’ve provided more than $569 million since the outbreak began to fight Ebola in the DRC and the neighboring countries.”

AFGHANISTAN

Progress has been made in recent weeks in Afghanistan, according to Secretary Pompeo. He said that while there still is back-and-forth movement, and the Taliban are posturing in the media, it does understand the US commitment to intra-Afghan negotiations. He pointed out that America will deliver on its commitment to reduce its forces in accordance with the agreement on the conditions that are set out in those agreements.

Pompeo pointed out that he doesn’t think there’s any “ambiguity with respect to how all of the parties understand what America’s continued role will be if they execute this peace and reconciliation process properly, appropriately, efficiently… It’s time for these folks to get on with building out a peaceful, reconciled Afghanistan with a real political leadership that can lead the country forward and take down the levels of violence.  We’re monitoring that, we are still providing support for the Afghan National Security Forces, and we continue to work to get this process moving forward.”

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RUSSIA

Since 2015 the world has seen a surge in white supremacist terrorism around the globe. Countering this threat is a top priority for the Trump administration. The State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan Sales, briefed the media on recent developments related to the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). He said “the State Department is designating the Russian Imperial Movement – also known as RIM – as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, or SDGT” along with several of its top leaders. 

Last month was the first anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He said the US is not immune to this threat. This administration, according to Sales, “isn’t just talking the talk.  We’re also walking the walk.  We’re taking decisive actions to counter this threat.”

These designations are unprecedented. This is the first time the United States has ever designated foreign white supremacist terrorists.  The Trump Administration is taking actions that no previous administration has taken to counter this threat.

RIM is a terrorist group that provides paramilitary-style training to neo-Nazis and white supremacists, according to the State Department. Ambassador Sales noted that these historic designations are just one part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to counter white supremacist terrorism abroad. “We’re bringing all of our counterterrorism tools to this fight – information sharing, counter messaging, combatting terrorist travel, engaging with tech companies, and building partner capacity to protect soft targets like synagogues and mosques.”

 

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay


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Demography May Be China’s Worst Enemy

Demography may not sound like a sexy science to those outside the field, but its numbers have a way of exposing the raw truth about governments and their populations. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authoritarian leadership depends heavily on creating and presenting its own economic narrative to the world. The linkage of that narrative to reality varies according to how well it supports the CCP’s goals. In 2000 when the United States granted China permanent, Most Favored Nation status, President Jiang Zemin cashed in the country’s “demographic dividend” early and used it as a tool to quickly build and modernize the economy. For several decades the CCP has exploited China’s large population of low-cost rural labor in its quest to capture global markets without concern for the long-term implications to the nation. It worked for while, as the country experienced double-digit economic growth, modernized its military, and arguably improved the country’s international image as a global power. President Xi Jinping continues the short-term, but eroding advantage it provided today.

The human cost to China, however, is likely to dramatically impact future generations. The population is aging fast with the percentage of seniors much greater than that found in other countries due to the CCP’s ill-conceived, 37-year long “One Child Policy.” Its hukou (household registration) system, which is essentially a social control tool to enforce restrictions on internal migration, has expanded the rural-urban economic gap during this period, making it one of the largest in the world. The Covid-19 virus may be the final blow to the country’s already fragile and failing, long-term economic future.

China lacks a strong social welfare system to care for its aging population. The cost of medical care and other requirements for its seniors will likely overwhelm the country within the coming decade. Add to that a smaller number in the younger age group who must take on the physical burden of the older generation, as well as provide additional economic support for it. Without sufficient cheap labor and a lack of a growing consumer base the national economy faces a bleak future. 

To quell increasing social unrest the CCP promised in 2013 to begin reforming the immense economic and educational inequalities in the hukou system that effectively created the world’s largest underclass. That work is left incomplete. China has a critical need for educated workers to fill jobs in its high-tech economy. Yet there is no end in sight for the hukou system. The rural poor continue to be left out of potential solution scenarios. It festers as a breeding ground for future social instability as those originally from rural areas earn on average only 50% of urban-born worker salaries. In 2018 many major urban areas began a program of forcing rural-born workers out of the cities claiming they were a public safety hazard, restricting their business permits, and closing the local schools their children attended as a response to possible unrest. 

Full integration of the poor, rural working class in urban areas is unlikely under the current regime of President Xi Jingping. This is further reinforced at the local level in the poorer provinces as only municipal governments are permitted to sell farmland for commercial purposes. Local officials are allowed to retain the sale money as revenue for their own use. Farmers typically don’t own their own homes, or the farmland in China, as it is “collectively owned.” They can’t sell their family homes for a profit as can urbanites. Municipal governments are unlikely to relinquish this regular revenue source and Beijing is unlikely to press the issue as it would have to replace the local funding source.

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The gap between rich and poor, urbanites and nongmingren, and the educated and under-educated classes, has resulted in a growing economic and social chasm. The proportion of total wealth held by the richest 1% in China has increased from holding just over 15% in 1995 to 30% today. When examining historic demographic data from other nations there is one comparison, in particular, worth noting. Oligarchic Russia saw the doubling of wealth among the top 1% over the length of time to 43% of the total. China wealthiest 10% today hold 67% of the nation’s total wealth. If history repeats itself in China in the coming decade it doesn’t bode well for the CCP. 

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo: Pixabay

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Bad Journalism, Worse Politics in Covid Crisis

Some elected officials have used the desperation of Americans for funds, while their businesses are closed and their jobs are suspended, for partisan purposes. This has been largely ignored by the media. Similarly, the culpability of some politicians in allowing the pandemic to spread in the regions they manage has not been adequately discussed.

There has not been ample coverage of the actions by Speaker Pelosi, who threatened the urgently needed CARES act by attempting to include measures that would have the practical effect of encouraging voter fraud and increase her party’s chances of winning the 2020 election.  Nor has there been sufficient analysis of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s absurd bid to include illegal aliens in the distribution of stimulus checks.

Largely absent from the unctuous comments by television journalists is the role played by irresponsible electeds and pundits who vehemently criticized President Trump in January when he closed off travel to the United States from China. They have not acknowledged their mistake in calling him “xenophobic” and “racist” for taking a stand that they irrationally proclaimed, at the time, to be unnecessary.

New York City has indeed been the epicenter of America’s Covid infection.  It is time for a blunt and honest discussion why.  The astounding irresponsibility of statements made by New York City officials earlier this year urging large-scale participation in crowd-heavy events such as the Chinese Lunar New Year, and to use the subways to travel to them, has been conveniently forgotten by media moguls.

While some localities logically, prudently and timely closed their school systems in the face of the pandemic, NYC Mayor de Blasio insisted on keeping them open. He only relented when forced to do so in the face of a threatened law suit by teachers, and the increasing trend of parents to wisely keep their offspring home. Mayor de Blasio’s hometown newspaper, the New York Post  reports that “A pregnant teacher who was hospitalized for Covid-19 says the city refused to close her Brooklyn school — even after she turned over positive lab results — while five colleagues also fell ill from the virus… ‘I had a lab report and a letter from my doctor. It still wasn’t good enough,’ the fourth-grade special-ed teacher told The Post.”

The Post  also noted that as late as March 13, de Blasio urged city residents to “carry on with their normal lives.”

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While inexcusably slow to take necessary steps to contain the disease’s progress, de Blasio, Pelosi and others moved swiftly to ram their wholly unrelated agendas down the throats of Americans who have repeatedly rejected them.

Particularly notable is their anti-law enforcement agenda. Long before the Covid crisis, de Blasio and a number of left wing officials across the nation pushed the radical notion of releasing many offenders from jail.  They seek to do so in order to shift spending from incarceration to the large-scale government programs they favor. While eagerly releasing thugs and predators from correctional facilities, the same leftist politicians seek to diminish the ability of honest citizens to protect themselves by exercising their Second Amendment Rights.

The ultimate responsibility for the plague rests with China’s governing Communist Party, which intentionally hid the outbreak, resulting in a planetary pandemic. Instead of delving into that reality at presidential press conferences, the White House press corps instead levies charges of racism against Trump for correctly calling the contagion the “Chinese Virus,” in the same way that MERS, (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) is named after the region in which it originated.  

“Never waste a good crisis” preached Obama adviser Rahm Emmanuel. The medical and financial agony of Americans apparently was just too good a crisis for the left to not use for their partisan goals.

Illustration: Pixabay

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U.N., China Corruption and the Covid Crisis

China’s leadership is directly responsible for the Covd-19 pandemic through its willful refusal to timely inform the world of its original dangers within Wuhan, as well as its failure to take appropriate action to stem its spread.  Add to that its denials, as late as two months after the disease spread, to admit the extent of the crisis.

The reason for the coverup is clear.  It fears that any slowdown of its economy will bring to the surface those of its citizens who seek to oust the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial control.

China’s ruling Communist Party clearly is an evil entity. It runs concentration camps, allows no personal political freedoms, attacks religion, illegally occupies Tibet, threatens its neighbors, and destroys the economies of the nations it deals with.

Why, then, is a branch of the United Nations assisting its coverup of the Covid crisis?

 Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) has released a statement calling on Congress to hold a hearing and investigate the World Health Organization’s (WHO) role in helping Communist China cover up information regarding the threat of the Coronavirus. In February, Senator Scott called on the WHO to do its own in-depth analysis on the extent of the Coronavirus – which they haven’t done.

Additionally, Scott expressed concerned about China’s efforts to isolate Taiwan when it comes global health and the WHO’s continued refusal to include Taiwan in its membership, meetings, and information, especially in the face of the Coronavirus.

 According to the Florida Senator, “The mission of the WHO is to get public health information to the world so every country can make the best decisions to keep their citizens safe. When it comes to Coronavirus, the WHO failed. They need to be held accountable for their role in promoting misinformation and helping The vigor and stamina of making love cheap cialis 5mg to other is increasing. These emotions remain the main Continue to shop the cost of viagra victim of why a person feels difficulty falling and staying asleep at night. Your skin will thin from cheap viagra sales loss of collagen, and stretch from loss of elastin. In one episode a man addicted to heroin lost everything — family, friends, career, home — all to chase a high that has ruined his health and will generic cialis price inevitably kill him. Communist China cover up a global pandemic. We know Communist China is lying about how many cases and deaths they have, what they knew and when they knew it – and the WHO never bothered to investigate further. Their inaction cost lives. As soon as Congress is back in session, there should be a hearing, along with a full investigation, to review whether American taxpayers should continue to spend millions of dollars every year to fund an organization that willfully parroted propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party.

Examples of the WHO acting as pawn for Communist China include: Chinese state-run media continually using World Health Organization official Bruce Aylward’s comments for its propaganda; Praising China’s Coronavirus response and transparency, even as Chinese officials noted the issues with their own response to the Coronavirus; Refusing to answer basic questions about Taiwan, who they’ve refused to allow into the organization; [and] Willfully parroting propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party, spreading misinformation that puts families health at risk.”

Why is WHO protecting the Chinese Communist Party? It’s may not be for financial reasons. A Daily Signal analysis notes that “contributions from the U.S. government, American citizens, and U.S.-based charities make up 76% of all voluntary contributions to the organization. That amounted to $945.6 million from 2016 to 2017. Congress authorized about $123 million in taxpayer funding for WHO in the last fiscal year, and President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget request proposed to reduce funding to about $58 million. China’s contribution to the World Health Organization, by contrast, was $86 million total, according to WHO. The organization isn’t financially reliant on China, which gives less than 10% of what the United States gives.”

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) writing in National Review notes that “WHO’s current leadership, [has] a subservience to Beijing that comes at the expense of its stated commitment to public health…Examples that could prove fatal are rife. In December, the WHO refused to act on or publicize Taiwan’s warning that the new respiratory infection emerging in China…”

The InstituteMontaigne notes thatWHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “has shown an evident bias to accept Chinese declarations and denials at face value – this has created a delay in international responses.”

What is the source of Beijing’s hold on the WHO?

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) explains: “China was…an important ally of Tedros in the WHO’s Director General election in 2017. Months before the election, Tedros was invited to speak at Peking University where he called for stronger cooperation between China and the Global South on health issues. China’s support for Tedros paid off immediately. The day after his electoral victory, Tedros confirmed to Chinese state-media that he and the WHO will continue to support the ‘One China’ principle, which recognizes the government in Beijing as the legitimate Chinese government. Three years later, Tedros’ enduring support of China’s response to COVID-19 shows that their early support for him is still paying dividends.”

Photo: World Health Organization