Whole Awareness – Look at Tibet Issue From All Angles

Tibet Awareness – Look at Tibet Issue From All Angles

We look at Tibet issue from all angles to openly declare that Red China is an Evil Power, a Tyrant, an Aggressor, a Neocolonialist, an Expansionist, an Oppressor, and a Subjugator of Tibet.

Mercedes-Benz Apologizes to China Over Dalai Lama Post

Mercedes-Benz has become the latest major global brand to offer a public apology after upsetting the Chinese government on a sensitive subject.

Clipped from: http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/technology/mercedes-benz-tibet-china-apology/index.html

The carmaker apologized Tuesday for hurting “the feelings” of Chinese people by quoting the Dalai Lama in a post on its Instagram account. The move comes just weeks after Marriott, Delta Air Lines and other big names found themselves in trouble with Beijing over how they described politically sensitive places like Taiwan and Tibet.

The Chinese government has launched frequent attacks on the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, calling him a “traitor” and a separatist. Beijing considers Tibet to be part of its territory and comes down hard on any suggestions to the contrary.

Mercedes, which is owned by Daimler, (DDAIF) ran afoul of China’s stance when it paired a quote attributed to the Dalai Lama with a photo of one of its luxury sedans on Instagram — a social media platform that is banned in China.

“Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open,” the quote read.

The ad was posted on Monday and garnered nearly 90,000 likes before Mercedes deleted it the following day, according to a screenshot posted by Chinese state media.

The Global Times, a state-run newspaper that often strikes a nationalistic tone, criticized Mercedes, saying the company was quick to respond to the incident but shouldn’t make such mistakes in the first place.

Mercedes issued a statement in Chinese about the incident on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter (TWTR), offering a “sincere apology” three separate times.

“We fully understand how it has hurt the feelings of people in the country, including our colleagues working in China, we sincerely apologize for this,” Mercedes said, adding that the post contained “extremely erroneous information.”

With its rising middle class and growing economic might, China is a key market for many global brands. Mercedes is no exception.

Of the nearly 2.4 million vehicles it sold worldwide last year, more than a quarter were snapped up by Chinese buyers.

A growing number of international companies have recently found themselves in hot water in China over politically sensitive issues.

Authorities last month blocked Marriott’s websites and apps for a week in China after it listed Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as separate countries in its emails and apps. Marriott (MAR) apologized profusely, saying it respects and supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China.

Shortly after that, Delta (DAL) came under fire for similarly listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries. It said it was “an inadvertent error with no business or political intention” in its apology.

At the same time, the owner of European clothing brand Zara was chastised by regulators for listing Taiwan as a country and ordered to rectify the situation.

China and Taiwan — officially the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China — separated in 1949 following the Communist victory on the mainland after a civil war.

They have been governed separately since, though a shared cultural and linguistic heritage mostly endures, with Mandarin spoken as the official language in both places. The government in Beijing has always maintained that Taiwan is a renegade province that is part of its sovereign territory.

Communist China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to enforce its claim on the region and has controlled it since 1951 — though the central government in Beijing has faced repeated bouts of unrest from ethnic Tibetans unhappy over its rule.

— Nanlin Fang contributed to this report.

CNNMoney (Hong Kong) First published February 7, 2018: 2:43 AM ET

CHINESE ‘STRING OF PEARLS’ TIGHTENS NOOSE AROUND SRI LANKAN NECK

CHINESE’ STRING OF PEARLS’ TIGHTENS NOOSE AROUND SRI LANKAN NECK

China’s Neocolonialism is tightening the noose around necks of cash-strapped economies of countries in Asia and Africa while the United States watches helplessly as a silent spectator.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

WITH SRI LANKAN PORT ACQUISITION, CHINA ADDS ANOTHER ‘PEARL’ TO ITS ‘STRING’ – CNN

Clipped from: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/03/asia/china-sri-lanka-string-of-pearls-intl/index.html

The Hambantota port facility, 2015

(CNN)When Sri Lanka’s government first looked to develop a port on its southern coast that faced the Indian Ocean, it went not to China, but to its neighbor, India.

The venture was considered economically unviable and indeed, in the years that followed, the port sat empty and neglected, and Sri Lanka’s debt ballooned.

But India’s economic foresight might have cost it in terms of strategic geopolitics, since the debt incurred on the port and the surrounding infrastructure undertakings now belong to its great rival.

China’s official licensing of the port in December last year gives it yet another point of access over a key shipping route, and the prospect of providing it with a sizeable presence in India’s immediate backyard and traditional sphere of influence, bringing China closer to India’s shores than New Delhi might like.

Sri Lankan dancers perform at the site of the Hambantota port during a ceremony marking the first phase of construction, August 15, 2010.

Moreover, Sri Lanka’s decision to sign a 99-year lease with a Chinese state-owned company for the Hambantota port to service some of the billions it owes to Beijing has some observers concerned other developing nations doing business with China as part of China’s One Belt One Road initiative might fall into similar financial straits.

A trap, they warn, that may well have them owing more than just money to Beijing.

“China is, in many cases, the only party with the interest and the capital to deliver on these projects,” said Jeff Smith, a research fellow on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC. “The relevant question for everyone is: at what cost?”

‘A determined strategy by China’

China has for decades invested in Sri Lanka, particularly during moments in recent history when much of the international community held off.

As the European Union sought to punish Sri Lanka over human rights abuses during the decades-long civil war between government forces and the Tamil Tigers, China acted on its behalf diplomatically at the United Nations. It also supplied the Rajapaksa government with military aid and it promised to spend to rebuild the country’s damaged infrastructure. India had also sent in military help, but nowhere near the levels Beijing dispatched.

The civil war ended in 2009. Between 2005 and 2017, China spent nearly $15 billion in Sri Lanka. By comparison, the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank group, says that between 1956 and 2016, it invested over $1 billion.

Jeff Smith points out that along with the Hambantota port investments, Beijing loaned Sri Lanka $200 million in 2010 for a second international airport and a year later a further $810 million for the “second phase of the port project.”

There was more. $272 million for a railway in 2013 and more than $1 billion for the Colombo Port City project, ventures that hired mostly Chinese workers (one Sri Lankan report put the number of Chinese workers dedicated to projects in 2009 at 25,000), and all with money Sri Lanka could barely afford to repay.

By 2015, Sri Lanka owed China $8 billion, and Sri Lankan government officials predicted that accumulated foreign debt — both owed to China and other countries — would eat up 94% of the country’s GDP.

After an equity swap, an IMF bailout and more control over the projects ceded to Beijing, the terms of the debt were restructured, giving Sri Lanka some breathing space.

In 2017, however, the Hambantota port proved too costly for Sri Lanka to sustain.

“They (the Chinese) called in the debt, and the debt has been paid by Sri Lanka giving them the (Hambantota) port. That port then gives them not only a strategic access point into India’s sphere of influence through which China can deploy its naval forces, but it also gives China an advantageous position to export its goods into India’s economic sphere, so it’s achieved a number of strategic aims in that regard,” said Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Sydney.

“This is part of a determined strategy by China to extend its influence across the Indian Ocean at the expense of India and it’s using Sri Lanka to achieve it,” he said.

Details of the new agreement between China and Sri Lanka have not been made public.

The port is an “important project aimed at spurring local economic growth based on equality and mutual benefits,” according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It declined to answer further when asked by reporters.

Construction workers operate heavy equipment at the base of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port August 1, 2010. Some 350 Chinese staff helped in the first phase of construction.

‘Creating demand for Chinese goods’

China’s claiming of controlling stakes in strategic ports along critical shipping lanes — what analysts have taken to referring to as its “string of pearls” — beginning at the Straits of Malacca and dotting the Indian Ocean, should signal Beijing’s ultimate ambitions, said Davis.

“There’s a bigger picture here, that the more you invest in the Belt and Road initiative, the more the Chinese are in a position to force your country to align politically in terms of policy,” Davis told CNN.

“So you become dependent on their investment and their largesse, and you’re less likely to be critical of them and you’re more likely to accommodate their interests strategically.”

China launched its ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) development strategy in 2013, investing in projects that include thousands of miles of highways in Pakistan, an international airport in Nepal and a rail link between China and Laos. The initiative would come to span more than 68 countries and encompass 4.4 billion people and up to 40% of global GDP. Consisting of two distinct parts, the Silk Road Economic Belt would stretch from China to Europe and include a host of trade and infrastructure projects, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road would be a sea-based network of shipping lanes and port developments throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Beijing’s other potential partners are finding difficulty with some of their own joint projects.

Last November the government in Nepal scrapped a $2.5 billion deal with a Chinese company to build the biggest hydropower plant in the Himalayan country because of “irregularities” in the award process. The current Nepalese government, which had replaced the cabinet that had approved the earlier deal, announced the contract would instead go to a state-owned Nepali company.

In Myanmar, a $3.6 billion dam project has stalled. The then-military backed government suspended work on the Myitsone dam in the north of the country in 2011, with talks regarding its future ongoing.

Pakistan withdrew from a $14 billion agreement with China for a dam last November because the conditions of the deal included China taking ownership of the project and were “not doable and against our interests,” Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority chairman Muzammil Hussain was quoted as saying. Like Nepal, Pakistan has since indicated it would also look to shoulder the cost of the dam rather than go to an outside investor.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed to be unaware of this when asked about the situation by reporters in Beijing in December. The country’s top economic planning agency later said that the two countries were discussing cooperating on the dam project but that there’d been no discussion of proposals to move it forward. The agency said “Pakistan media’s reporting on this project has been inaccurate, or only represented the views of certain officials.”

But China is still spending in Pakistan. It is building a hydroelectric power station in the Rawalpindi district, and it is developing the port of Gwadar, strategically located on the Arabian Sea.

In Malaysia, China is spending $7.2 billion on a new deep sea port in the Straits of Malacca and working on infrastructure projects on the country’s eastern seaboard.

China’s trade deal with the Maldives government included investments in developing the international airport and a bridge, but the Maldives in return has taken on a significant number of controversial loan obligations.

Last July, former President Mohamed Nasheed said the loan interest the traditionally Indian ally pays to service its foreign debt to China is more than 20% of the country’s budget. He said that part of the deal included China’s receipt of 16 “strategically located islands” in navigation sea-lanes.

A Sri Lankan soldier walks past a billboard bearing portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, ahead of Xi’s visit to the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, September 15, 2014.

Dean Cheng, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, said that the initial wave of Chinese investments in the Indian Ocean, the so-called string of pearls, was largely driven by economic considerations. The investments, he said, “would facilitate economic growth, which would benefit Chinese companies. Moreover, the construction projects would entail Chinese workers (a feature of most Chinese projects abroad, bringing their own work force), and create a demand base for Chinese goods.”

At the same time, he said the Chinese are clearly intent on creating a friendly political network of states. “There’s nothing inherently dangerous about political considerations in economic investments,” he told CNN. “It would be foolish to think that any state is wholly driven by economic considerations.”

Leaders attend China’s Belt and Road Forum

Whither India?

The ever-encroaching Chinese presence into India’s sphere of political and economic influence has been noted, but so far, says Manoj Joshi, New Delhi purports to be unruffled, as long as Hambantota remains a commercial port, and no Chinese naval vessels suddenly appear in the vicinity.

“In 2014 a Chinese submarine was spotted in Colombo harbor and that was the first time we saw that and the Indian side was a bit concerned,” said Joshi, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. At the time Indian defense officials expressed “serious concern” to their Sri Lankan counterpart, and naval chiefs from both countries met to discuss the incidents. Then-Defense Minister Arun Jaitley said the government “keeps a constant watch on all developments concerning our national security and economic interests and takes necessary measures to safeguard them.”

A Chinese submarine and a Chinese warship were allowed to dock at the Colombo port in November 2014, just under two months after another Chinese submarine called into the same port. At the time both China and Sri Lanka dismissed New Delhi’s concerns, saying the vessels were on refueling stops during anti-piracy missions. Colombo port regularly hosts ships from numerous navies, including the US. But as China’s own navy becomes more ‘blue water’ [as in, able to move in open oceans around the world and not just in its own surrounding waters] these appearances will be more commonplace.

A Sri Lankan commando stands guard on the Hambantota construction site, November 18, 2010.

“It’s geopolitical competition and India sees itself as the foremost nation in Asia and with the Chinese building a port, building and airport, building roads in Sri Lanka, they’ve emerged as big investors there and the Indians are obviously feeling somewhat nervous because India doesn’t have those kind of resources to compete with,” Joshi told CNN.

“What we worry about is, we already have a border problem with China and now that competition goes to the Indian Ocean region. That could be against our interests.”

India and China share a 2,500 mile-long border, and have regularly faced off over perceived intrusions on each other’s terrain as well as activity in uninhabited territory claimed by China and Bhutan, an Indian ally.

“Everybody talks about China and India being major rivals, I think China doesn’t see India as a genuine long-term rival, I think it looks at India and sees a classic case of democracy gone wrong,” said Yvonne Chiu, assistant professor in the politics department at the University of Hong Kong.

“India is incredibly corrupt, its infrastructure is terrible, and it is riddled with religious and demographic problems,” she told CNN. “Except it is very large. It does have a big population as well and it’s on the border. So it’s a regional rival, but I don’t think they take India seriously as a global rival.”

Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, center, flanked by his eldest son and parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, right, and Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne, left, tour the Hambantota construction site, November 18, 2010.

For its part, India is now taking an active interest in Hambantota. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reported to be in talks with Sri Lanka about taking over the airport near the port, which was built using Chinese funds that Beijing itself wants to manage and is pushing for control with the Sri Lankan government. During a media briefing last November, Raveesh Kumar, an official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, would only say that New Delhi has “a lot of developmental projects” going on in Sri Lanka and declined to elaborate further. Colombo has yet to make a decision involving the airport.

And New Delhi continues to actively participate in large-scale naval exercises in regional waters alongside allies Japan, and the US, and into the future, possibly Australia too, all to Beijing’s continued consternation.

Last year’s Malabar exercises in the Bay of Bengal involving the US, Japan and India were the largest the region has seen in more than two decades.

“India, of course, remains highly influential in Sri Lanka, and would not look kindly on any effort to pressure the government on matters related to defense and national security,” said Jeff Smith. “Nor would the Sri Lankan military, which values its exchanges with the US.”

Modi will be in Singapore in June, attending the Shangri-La dialogue, an annual meeting of defense ministers, military chiefs and defense officials from the Asia-Pacific. His keynote address will be carefully watched for words on China’s maritime expansion.

A White House unable to compete with China

South Asia’s problems are not on Washington’s radar right now, says Hong Kong University professor Chiu. The White House has much of its focus — along with a substantial naval presence — directed towards the Korean Peninsula and the ongoing crisis there. And while the US is distracted, China is slowly and incrementally changing the seascape in the Asia Pacific. China claims disputed islands in the South China Sea as part of its territory and has been militarizing some of those islands, reclaiming land on others and turning sandbars into islands to assert sovereignty over the area.

“Everything that they do, like building these islands (in the South China Sea) and stuff that is illegal internationally, but nobody wants to get into a conflict over, it adds up and you have a new status quo and it’s too late to do anything about it,” Chiu said.

“China can’t afford to go to war over anything … it would most likely lose against a major power … but these kind of small incremental things, people will let them get away with. As long as they’re patient, it could have the same effect as going to war.”

Even as China has taken the long view, Dean Cheng argues it’s never too late for the US and its allies to do something to counter Beijing’s ambitions.

“The US, in cooperation with India, Japan and possibly the European Union, could offer alternative financing,” Cheng said. “They could help train local officials, lawyers, etc., to become better negotiators. They can push for transparency, especially in Chinese-sponsored institutions to make clear the terms of the loans, payback processes, as well as how contracts are rewarded.”

Sri Lankan police stand guard during a protest in Colombo against the lease of the loss-making Hambantota port to China, February 1, 2017.

Last October US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave a speech on the US relationship with India. Tillerson said it was up to New Delhi and Washington to “do a better job leveraging our collective expertise to meet common challenges while seeking even more avenues of cooperation.”

“We must also recognize that many Indo-Pacific nations have limited alternatives when it comes to infrastructure investment programs and financing schemes, which often fail to promote jobs or prosperity for the people they claim to help,” Tillerson said. “It’s time to expand transparent, high-standard regional lending mechanisms, tools that will actually help nations instead of saddle them with mounting debt.”

Tillerson told reporters that during the East Asia ministerial summit in August that the US had started “a quiet conversation with others about what they were experiencing, what they need.”

However, he also admitted Washington’s constraints. “We will not be able to compete with the kind of terms that China offers,” said Tillerson. “But countries have to decide, what are they willing to pay to secure their sovereignty and their future control of their economies? And we’ve had those discussions with them as well.”

China’s resources are nowhere near as limited as the US and its allies, says Yvonne Chiu from the University of Hong Kong.

“Right now, it can play on multiple fronts at once,” Chiu notes. “And they take a very long view. If you’re a power like the US, you’re really far away. That distance is going to limit how much attention you can pay to the region. The US has to pick and choose and it’s chosen East Asia. So, unless something really major happens, that’s probably where their attention is going to stay.”

A Chinese worker at the construction site of a Chinese-funded $1.4 billion reclamation project in Colombo, Sri Lanka in October 2017.

As 2017 wrapped up, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua published a dispatch from Colombo, describing how the Hambantota port was “now racing along a developmental fast-track.”

Chinese and Sri Lankan workers were building a highway north of the port, along with a bridge, and the Chinese Harbor Engineering Company is negotiating with the Sri Lankan government to develop a Logistics Zone that will include a natural gas power plant and refineries, the agency reported.

On the first day of the new year, the Chinese flag flew beside Sri Lanka’s at the port for the first time ever.

The Chinese Harbor Engineering Company began 2018 with a $1 billion investment to build three 60-story office towers in Colombo.

Rather than resist getting into further debt, Sri Lanka’s government appears to be making more deals with China that it will may yet struggle to pay back.

Whole Trouble – The Decline of American Century

The Rise of Evil Red Empire – The Cold War in Asia

In my analysis, Nixon-Kissinger Vietnam Treason caused the ‘Decline of American Century’ and the ‘Rise of Evil Red Empire’. I ask my readers to remember July 15, 1971 as “Black Day to Freedom” , the Day on which US President Nixon publicly announced his decision to befriend Communist China while Americans were bleeding and dying in Vietnam to combat the spread of Communism in Asia.

Nixon-Kissinger Vietnam Treason initiated Doomed American China Fantasy in 1972. Since that time, USA as a global power is on steady decline, while Red China remains in hot pursuit of her doctrine of Expansionism, a State Policy of using Military and Economic Power to subjugate people and control natural resources in weaker nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

President Nixon met Communist China’s Prime Minister Chou Enlai. Did this act of friendship help the US Army in the Vietnam War? Could it stop Communist North Vietnam from launching its major invasion of South Vietnam during March 1972? Using this friendship, both President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger tried their best to stop India from Liberating Bangladesh during 1971. This Nixon and Chou Enlai friendship did not stop the Liberation of Bangladesh which India initiated with Operation Eagle 1971 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – UNDYING HOPE FOR FREEDOM. US PRESIDENT NIXON’S VISIT TO COMMUNIST CHINA IS BLACK DAY TO FREEDOM.**

REMEMBERING CHINESE PRIME MINISTER ZHOU ENLAI ON JANUARY 08, 2017, HIS 41st DEATH ANNIVERSARY. I KEEP ZHOU ENLAI, MAO ZEDONG, RICHARD NIXON ALIVE IN MY THOUGHTS FOR TIBET REMAINS UNDER MILITARY OCCUPATION.

Military & Defense

China held a massive military parade showing off its might – and it could surpass the US by 2030

Alex Lockie

China’s president, Xi Jinping, presiding over the country’s massive military parade in inner Mongolia. CCTV

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday presided over a massive military parade from an open-topped jeep, declaring, “The world is not peaceful, and peace needs to be defended.”

And as China’s show of force demonstrates, Beijing may have the will and the strength to replace the US as the world’s defender of peace.

“Our heroic military has the confidence and capabilities to preserve national sovereignty, security, and interests … and to contribute more to maintaining world peace,” Xi said at the parade, one day after US President Donald Trump lashed out at Beijing for its inaction regarding North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

China’s massive military modernization and increasing assertiveness have irked many of its neighbors in the region, and even as the US attempts to reassure its allies that US power still rules the day, that military edge is eroding.

China showed off new, mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles that it says can reach the US in 30 minutes, along with its J-20 stealth interceptor jets. And Xi inspected thousands of troops drawn from the 2 million-strong People’s Liberation Army’s on its 90th anniversary.

The historian Alfred McCoy estimates that by 2030, China, a nation of 1.3 billion, will surpass the US in both economic and military strength, essentially ending the American empire and Pax Americana the world has known since the close of World War II.

Soldiers marching to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of China’s People’s Liberation Army. Xinhua

But China could achieve this goal patiently and without a violent struggle. China has employed a “salami-slicing” method of slowly but surely militarizing the South China Sea in incremental steps that have not prompted a strong military response from the US. However, the result is China’s de facto control over a shipping lane that sees $5 trillion in annual traffic.

“The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, may already be tattered and fading by 2025 and, except for the finger pointing, could be over by 2030,” McCoy wrote in his new book, “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.”

China unveiled its J-20 stealth fighter at an air show in November. China Daily/via REUTERS

China’s J-20 jet also most likely borrows from stealth secrets stolen from the US through a sophisticated hacking regime. Though China hasn’t mastered stealth technology in the way the US has, the jet still poses a real threat to US forces.

Meanwhile, the US is stretched thin. It has had been at war in Afghanistan for 16 years and in Iraq for 14, and it has been scrambling to curtail Iranian and Russian influence in Syria while reassuring its Baltic NATO allies that it’s committed to their protection against an aggressive Russia.

Under Xi, who pushes an ambitious foreign policy, China’s eventual supremacy over the US seems inevitable.

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Inserted from <http://www.businessinsider.com/china-military-parade-superior-to-us-by-2030-2017-7>

RED CHINA’S DOCTRINE OF NEOCOLONIALISM

RED CHINA’S DOCTRINE OF NEOCOLONIALISM

Red China signed a deal with Sri Lanka to use Hambantota Port in pursuit of her doctrine of Neocolonialism. World must pay attention to China’s aggression in Tibet if it wants to resist, contain, engage, oppose, and confront China’s Neocolonialism threatening Freedom, Democracy, Peace, and Harmony in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

DOOM DOOMA DOOMSAYER

SRI LANKA SIGNS HAMBANTOTA PORT DEAL WITH CHINA

Clipped from: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/sri-lanka-signs-hambantota-port-deal-china-170729073859204.html

Billion-dollar agreement reached despite trade union opposition and protests over security fears, including from India.

29 Jul 2017 09:54 GMT

Sri Lanka is selling a 70 percent stake to China Merchants Ports Holdings for $1.12bn [Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP]

Sri Lanka has signed a $1.12bn agreement with a state-run Chinese firm to operate a port in the southeast of the country, despite security concerns and protests from trade unions.

According to the long-delayed deal reached in the capital Colombo on Saturday, Sri Lanka Ports Authority agreed to sell a 70 percent stake in the Hambantota port to China Merchants Ports Holdings.

The Chinese firm will run the workings of the newly constructed port over a 99-year lease.

The Cabinet approved the agreement on Tuesday, almost six months after the framework deal was signed.

Public anger and protests had delayed the signing.

Demonstrators rallied against the loss of land and concerns that the port could be used by the Chinese military.

Trade unions earlier in the week staged a strike against the deal, temporarily crippling fuel distribution on the island.

They fear the deal gives an advantage to China in the bunkering business, which provides fuel to ships, as the port is located on a key international shipping lane between Europe and Asia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the “One Belt, One Road” project in May, pledging tens of billions of dollars to build ports, highways and power grids in about 60 different countries, linking China to much of Asia, Europe and Africa.

Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, said the Hambantota port located in a strategic position.

“For China to be able to get its foot in, and essentially take over this port, is considered quite an important part of its plan particularly with the new Silk Road initiative,” she said.

Sri Lanka’s government has dismissed the unions’ concerns, saying that the agreement would prove profitable and will help repay loans taken on to build the port.

India voices concern

The government argues that the port has been underused since its opening in 2010. The construction cost more than $361m, with the Export-Import Bank of China providing a large chunk of financing.

Ports Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told journalists that Sri Lanka “cannot afford to continue to pay” back the loans without better returns at the port.

Only 44 ships have been handled by the Hambantota port since 2015, making it an unprofitable venture, DPA news agency reported.

Neighboring India has also voiced concerns that China could use the deep-sea port in the Indian Ocean to dock military vessels.

Sri Lanka has assured India that there are no security issues over the port, which it says will only be used for commercial purposes.

“No naval ship, including Chinese vessels, can call over at the Hambantota Port without our permission,” Samarasinghe said.

Al Jazeera’s Fernandez said: “The Sri Lankan government has sought to allay fears from both its neighbors and the people in the region that this is a commercial agreement which will help Sri Lanka on its road back to recovery from debt servicing.”

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Red China’s Doctrine of Neocolonialism describes its One Belt, One Road (OBOR), Silk Road Initiative.

Whole Trouble – Pakistan and China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering

Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan and China North Indus River Cascade is illegal Bartering

**Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan and China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering. Two thieves sharing stolen assets.**

The five dams forming the ‘North Indus River Cascade’ that Communist China plans to build in Pakistan-Occupied Indian territory represents Illegal Bartering. Firstly, Communist China’s Tibet Occupation is illegal for it violates Natural Law, Natural Balance, Natural Order, Natural Equilibrium, Natural Harmony, and Natural Tranquility that formulates connections between man and Nature. Tibet Equilibrium gives Indus River the ability to flow down to reach Arabian Sea.

China’s doctrine of Neocolonialism drives her capital investment projects to develop infrastructure and exploit natural resources to ensure her political, economic, and military domination of world. North Indus River Cascade in its essence represents the actions of two thieves sharing stolen assets. In my analysis, Communist China sponsored Indus River Projects bring no Joy, no Peace, no Harmony, and no Tranquility in the lives of people for Beijing is Doomed.

Pakistan’s Indus Cascade, a China Sponsored Himalayan Blunder

The Indus River in Diamer District of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan. (Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Joydeep Gupta

Updated: 22 May 2017 4:27 PM IST

The five dams forming the ‘North Indus River Cascade’ that China has just promised to finance and build in Pakistan – including Pakistan-administered Kashmir – has the potential to generate over 22,000 MW in an energy-starved country.
But the dams will also stop the flow of silt which is the lifeline of agriculture downstream. In non-monsoon months from October to June, they may also reduce the flow of water down the Indus to Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh provinces.

Climate change is making water flow along rivers more erratic – especially rivers like the Indus, that flow from the Himalayas.
Pakistan’s entire water supply for agriculture, factories, and homes is dependent on rivers in the Indus basin. Water availability is already below the 1,000 cubic meters per person per year level at which a country is described as water-scarce, according to the global norm followed by most UN agencies.
In this situation, it is critical to look at food, energy and water together, as a nexus. Instead, the planners of Pakistan appear to be looking at energy alone.

Money, CPEC, OBOR
China is providing Pakistan with US $50 billion for the Indus Cascade. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to this effect during the recent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – previously known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR) – conference in Beijing. China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) will oversee the funding.
China Three Gorges Corporation – which runs the world’s largest hydroelectricity project at the Three Gorges Dam – is the frontrunner to build the five dams that will form the cascade.
The MoU was signed by Pakistan’s Water and Power Secretary Yousuf Naseem Khokhar and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Sun Weidong in presence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
This is in addition to the US $57 billion China is providing to Pakistan for a series of infrastructure projects along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of the BRI. The infrastructure projects include the building of coal-fired power stations and the port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea

**Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan and China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering. Two thieves sharing stolen assets. Stealing assets originating in Tibet.**

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China (Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

The Indus Cascade
The cascade plans all the way down the Indus from Gilgit-Baltistan to the existing Tarbela dam near Islamabad. It will effectively turn this huge transboundary river into a series of lakes in the last part of its journey through the Hindu Kush Himalayas to the plains of South Asia.
The uppermost of the five dams is planned at Bunji near Skardu in Pakistan administered Kashmir. The former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, though both only control parts of it, with China also controlling some.
The 7,100 MW Bunji Hydropower Project has been described by Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) as a run-of-the-river (RoR) project. But the same promotional video (for the entire cascade) which provides this description also indicates that:
This project will have a reservoir that will spread along a 22-km stretch of the Indus and inundate a 12-km stretch of the road between Gilgit and Skardu – the two main towns of Gilgit-Baltistan. So, despite the description, this may not be an RoR project.

The next dam in the cascade is the big one – Diamer-Basha – with a planned live storage of 6.4 million-acre feet (MAF) of water and a hydropower generating potential of 4,500 MW.
From Diamer-Basha, the projects run along the Karakoram Highway, which China built in the 1960s through Pakistan administered Kashmir despite strenuous objections from India. The reservoir that will form behind the Diamer-Basha dam will submerge 104 km of the Karakoram Highway and displace about 30,000 people, according to WAPDA.
The Diamer-Basha dam is promoted by WAPDA as a sediment trap and therefore good for downstream hydropower projects. But the same sediment – mainly silt – rejuvenates the soil downstream every year and has been the main reason sustaining agriculture in the Indus valley for over a millennium.
Building the Diamer-Basha dam is estimated to cost US $15 billion. For years, Pakistan has been seeking the money from multilateral funding agencies. Experts at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have advised Pakistani planners to think of smaller dams instead. Now China has promised funding.
Just downstream of Diamer-Basha is the third dam in the cascade – the 4,320 MW Dasu Hydropower Project. This will have a reservoir that will stretch upstream for 74 km along the Indus, all the way to the Diamer-Basha dam, according to WAPDA. It will also submerge 52 km of the Karakoram Highway.
Some of the peripheral work for this project has started, and people have already been displaced, with WAPDA seeking contracts for resettlement and providing free transport to resettlement sites.
And immediately downstream of that, WAPDA has planned the 2,200 MW Patan Hydropower Project, with a 35-km long reservoir that goes up to the Dasu dam.

The Indus River from the Karakoram Highway (Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Once again, the fifth dam in the cascade is just a little downstream – the 4,000 MW Thakot Hydropower Project in which the plan is to divert the Indus waters through four headrace tunnels to generate electricity.
By the time the Indus emerges from the tunnels, it will be close to the existing dam at Tarbela, which has been in operation since 1976.

The Plan, the Effect
The electricity that will potentially be generated by the five new projects forming the Indus Cascade adds up to a little over 22,000 MW. Officials in Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power have been telling the domestic media that experts from the Chinese NEA conducted feasibility study of the entire cascade this February and satisfied about feasibility of the project.
The officials say that now, after the signing of the MoU, the Chinese experts will conduct a more detailed study for three months to finalize both financing and execution of the projects. In 2015, China Three Gorges Corporation had said it wanted to be part of a financing consortium with a US $50 billion fund to build hydroelectric power projects in Pakistan.
The corporation may be the frontrunner to build the dams, but it is not the only competitor. After the MoU was signed in Beijing, several Chinese power sector companies showed willingness to join the project. This will be the first large-scale private sector hydroelectricity project in Pakistan.
At the MoU signing ceremony, Nawaz Sharif spoke glowingly of cooperation between the two governments to overcome Pakistan’s energy crisis.
“Development of the Indus Cascade is a major focus of my government and the construction of Diamer-Basha Dam is the single most important initiative in this regard.” Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister, Pakistan
He also said, “Water and food security are of paramount importance for Pakistan, keeping in view the challenges posed by climate change.”
The Indus Cascade will reduce water and food security in Pakistan instead.
One proven effect of climate change is intensification of the water cycle. In lay terms, it means fewer rainy or snowy days but more intense rainfall or snowfall in those days. Pakistan is already suffering the effects.
For the first nine years in this century, the Indus failed to reach the sea. Then there was such a cloudburst in 2010 flooding a fifth of the country. The floods also brought down, and continue to bring down, huge sediment loads that reduce the working lives of dams. To build more large dams in this situation appears dangerously short-sighted.
A side effect of the cascade project will be the need to rebuild large parts of the Karakoram Highway. Building a road in the mountains always has a strong negative effect on the environment and increases the risk of landslides manifold.
India has already boycotted the BRI conference because many of the CPEC projects are in Kashmir. Addition of a project as big as the Indus Cascade to that list is likely to lead to more protests from India and to raise tension in the region.

(This article was originally published in ThirdPole.net)
First published: 22 May 2017 4:27 PM IST
2017 © Copyright TheQuint

Inserted from <https://www.thequint.com/world/2017/05/22/indus-river-dam-project-china>

**Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan, China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering. Two thieves sharing stolen assets. Indus River flows down Indian territory.**

**Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan, China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering. Two thieves sharing stolen assets**.

**Tibet Equilibrium – Pakistan, China North Indus River Cascade – Illegal Bartering. Two thieves sharing stolen assets. Indus River originates in Tibet and flows down India.**

Whole Evil – The Downfall of Mighty Red Empire

Beijing invites her Doom by Evil action in Tibet

Red China finds comfort and security in her military power and thinks that there is no power besides her own. Red China’s action of using military force to subjugate Tibet is Evil action. Beijing sealed her fate for she invited Doom by her own actions.

CHINA FLEXES ITS MILITARY MUSCLE IN TIBET, CLOSE TO BORDER DISPUTE WITH INDIA – SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Clipped from: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2102965/china-flexes-its-military-muscle-tibet-close-border

Armed forces take part in live ammunition drill that one observer says was intended as a clear warning to India

A fully staffed and equipped brigade engaged in various drills involving the rapid movement of troops, use of digital devices and combined attacks by multiple forces on the 5,000m high plateau, China Central Television said over the weekend.

How a road on China and India’s border led to the two powers’ worst stand-off in decades

In video clip shown on CCTV over the weekend, soldiers armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and mortars were seen launching an assault on an “enemy position”.

They used radar to target “enemy planes” with anti-aircraft guns and also employed anti-tank grenades, the report said. One brigade of soldiers was involved, which under the structure of the People’s Liberation Army, consists of between 4,000 and 7,000 soldiers.

A large amount of military hardware was on show during the exercise. Photo: Handout

“The 11-hour exercise covering a dozen elements was testimony to the PLA’s [Chinese military’s] combined strike capability,” it said.

Down on the border, simmering China-India stand-off raises fears for local lifeline

The report did not give precise details of where or when the exercise was held, though it came as Chinese and Indian troops remain locked in their worst stand-off in decades, on the tri-junction with Bhutan.

An observer said the drills were meant as a warning to India. Photo: Handout

One observer said the show of strength was likely intended as a warning to India.

“The PLA wanted to demonstrate it could easily overpower its Indian counterparts,” said Beijing-based military commentator Zhou Chenming.

China-India border dispute could hurt summit of five emerging economies, analysts warn

The Chinese force that took part in the drill is stationed in the Linzhi region of eastern Tibet, close to the stand-off. It is one of only two Chinese plateau mountain brigades in Tibet, the report said.

**Beijing invites doom by evil action in Tibet.**

A fully staffed and equipped brigade took part in the drills, which lasted 11 hours, CCTV reported. Photo: Handout

In comparison, India has nearly 200,000 troops stationed in the areas it disputes with China, outnumbering its neighbor’s forces by as much as 15 or 20 to one, it said.

Nonetheless, China has a clear advantage in terms of speed of movement, firepower, and logistics, Zhou said.

“[By staging] a small-scale drill, China wants to control the problem and lower the risk of shots being fired,” he said.

China and India fought a border war in 1962, partly because India’s then leader Jawaharlal Nehru took China’s dovish stance as a green light for him to advance without retaliation, said Wang Dehua, South Asia studies experts at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

“Showing an opponent that you are combat ready is more likely to prevent an actual battle,” he said, adding that broadcasting the drill on CCTV was also likely designed to keep the public happy.

“It could also reassure the Chinese people that a strong PLA force is there, capable and determined to defend Chinese territory,” Wang said.

**BEIJING DOOMED BY EVIL ACTION IN TIBET.**

Whole Trouble – Red China invents Border disputes to justify Occupation

Red China invents Border Disputes to perpetuate Tibet’s Occupation

**Red China invents these Border Disputes to legitimize illegal Occupation of Tibet**

The root cause of territorial disputes in Himalayan Plateau is an Unnatural event called ‘Occupation’ that shattered Tibet’s experience of Natural Balance, Natural Order, Natural Equilibrium, Natural Harmony, Natural Peace, and Natural Freedom. India and Bhutan must primarily focus upon return of Tibet to its Natural State or Condition, a condition that never threatened the existence of its immediate neighbors. Red China invents these Border Disputes to legitimize illegal Occupation of Tibet

Clipped from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-pushes-hard-in-border-dispute-with-india/2017/07/06/52adc41e-619b-11e7-80a2-8c226031ac3f_story.html?utm_term=.9bc54d806201

China pushes hard in border dispute with India

The Washington Post

This photo from 2008 shows a Chinese soldier, left, next to an Indian soldier at the Nathu La border crossing between India and China. (Diptendu Dutta/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

NEW DELHI — Their meeting is likely to be all smiles and polite handshakes, as world leaders look on. But as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping left for Friday’s Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, tensions between the rising Asian powers had escalated over a patch of disputed territory claimed by both China and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

Border scuffles between India and China have simmered in the past, but analysts from both sides said the latest spat has the potential to spiral into conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations. So far, the countries’ troops, who are usually unarmed to avoid provocation, have engaged in what is known as “jostling,” when soldiers attempt to physically push rivals back.

The standoff began at the end of June, while Modi was meeting President Trump, prompting some Indian analysts to wonder whether the timing had anything to do with China’s disdain for India’s increasingly close ties to the United States.

“The Chinese are making their unhappiness clear on India and America’s relationship,” said Sameer Patil, director at an India-based foreign policy think tank called Gateway House.

The dispute started after Chinese construction trucks, accompanied by soldiers, rolled south in the disputed region of Doklam to build a road. India and Bhutan consider the region to be Bhutanese territory; China claims the land as its own. The countries disagree on the exact location of the “tri-junction,” where the three borders meet.

The argument bears some of the hallmarks of China’s efforts to fortify islands in the disputed South China Sea, where it has riled the Philippines and Vietnam and risked confrontation with the U.S. Navy.

India and Bhutan have traditionally been close allies; India often provides the small country with financial and military assistance. It was the first country Modi visited after being elected.

Indian analysts say China’s move in Doklam threatens a narrow sliver of strategically important land, known as the “chicken’s neck,” which connects central India to its remote northeast. In response to what it believed was extraterritorial Chinese road-building, New Delhi sent reinforcements supporting Bhutan — according to ex-Indian army officials, at Bhutan’s request.

Chinese officials say India’s intervention amounted to a provocation, violating an 1890 treaty with Britain that appears to grant China access to the region. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, the pact was affirmed by Indian leaders after independence.

“As to the boundary negotiation between China and Bhutan,” he said Wednesday, “we have repeatedly stated that Doklam has always been part of China’s territory and under China’s effective jurisdiction without disputes.”

The government’s messages were bolstered by stern statements in China’s state-run media. The Global Times newspaper printed a furious editorial warning India of China’s military might. “The Indian military can choose to return to its territory with dignity, or be kicked out of the area by Chinese soldiers,” it said.

Wang Dehua, from the Shanghai Municipal Center for International Studies, said, “By continuing to increase deployment of troops at the border, India once again underestimates China’s capability and determination to safeguard its territory. It also fails to estimate the cost of confrontation.”

Hopes for a discussion between Modi and Xi on the Doklam dispute on the sidelines of the G-20 summit were scuppered after Indian media reported that the government had not requested a one-on-one meeting. Instead, Xi and Modi will meet among leaders from other G-20 countries to discuss international issues.

“China has taken a very stubborn attitude, and there is little appetite in India to accommodate China’s behavior,” Patil said.

Modi had come into office with high hopes of building Sino-
Indian relations; experts called him the most pro-China prime minister since the two countries’ 1962 border war. Xi met Modi in India in 2014 shortly after the latter was elected, in the first visit by a Chinese leader in eight years.

Instead, the two nations have become increasingly suspicious of one another. During Modi’s recent visit to the United States, a deal was struck to buy surveillance drones that could be used to monitor Chinese naval activity in the Indian Ocean. In April, China fulminated over the Dalai Lama’s tour of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India, known in China as south Tibet. China considers the Dalai Lama an opponent and a separatist whose power threatens its control over Tibet.

India also refused to join China’s “One Belt, One Road” program, a massive infrastructure project involving 70 countries aimed at reviving old Silk Road trade routes. Plans include an improved connection between China and Pakistan and would allow Pakistan access to other countries in Central Asia.

China, on the other hand, blocked efforts to designate a Pakistan-based militant outfit, Jaish-e-Muhammad, as a terrorist organization. It has also stood in the way of India’s bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an organization of countries that supply — and control — the export of nuclear materials, equipment and technology.

China has billions of dollars in investment deals with Sri Lanka and Nepal and this year took part in a joint military training exercise with Nepal. India considers both neighbors to be allies.

“I think the root cause is that the Chinese feel that their moment has arrived and that they do not need to accommodate Indian interests in any way, given the huge power differential in their favor,” said India expert Ashley Tellis, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Chinese suspicion that India was casting its lot entirely with the United States has only intensified Beijing’s determination to be even less accommodative towards New Delhi.”

Politically, neither Modi nor Xi can be seen to be giving in to the other’s demands. Modi’s nationalist government has insisted upon maintaining the integrity of Indian borders, banning maps and representations of disputed regions in the north. Xi, too, cannot be seen to be relenting on what the Global Times called “unruly provocations” from India, as he prepares to face a Chinese Communist Party conference in the fall.

Denyer reported from Beijing.

China demands India leave Himalayan plateau in rising spat

THE FUTURE OF RED CHINA’S EXPANSIONISM – BEIJING DOOMED

THE FUTURE OF RED CHINA’S EXPANSIONISM – BEIJING DOOMED

People’s Republic of China in 1949 embraced Communism as State Doctrine and lost no time to announce ambitious plan of Territorial, Maritime, Economic, and Political Expansionism. While others painfully reflect upon ‘The Future of the Tibetan Resistance Movement’, I express optimism by announcing Beijing’s Doom, sudden downfall, as consequence of her own evil actions. This predestined Disaster, Catastrophe, Cataclysm, Calamity, Apocalypse, Doom will bring Regime Change and The Evil Red Empire cannot ward it off by paying ransom.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

DOOM DOOMA DOOMSAYER

TIBETAN PROTEST MOVEMENT – THE NEWS LENS INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Friday, May 26, 2017

PODCAST: Tibet, Protest and China; The Future of the Tibetan Protest Movement

Photo Credit: Reuters

TNL Staff

These small acts have reverberations and impact way beyond what we can see through the media and numbers. – Tenzin Dorjee.

Earlier this month, Radio Free Asia reported that a Tibetan monk, Jamyang Losal, had died after setting himself on fire in China’s northwestern Qinghai province. Losal was the 150th Tibetan to self-immolate since 2009 when Tibetan monks started taking their own lives in protest of China’s rule. But it seems these desperate protests are having little impact on China as it continues to crack down on any signs of dissent in Tibet.

In this episode of The News Lens Radio, we are bringing you the views of three Tibetan leaders to discuss the efforts to keep the protest movement alive both inside and outside Tibet. They say not only is the Chinese government continuing to rule Tibet with an iron fist, it is also increasingly working beyond its own borders to shut down the movements calling for Tibetan autonomy or independence from China.

About today’s guests

Tenzing Jigme is the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, an international organization with about 30,000 members advocating for Tibetan independence.

Pema Yoko is the interim executive director of the New York-headquartered Students for a Free Tibet.

Tenzin (Tendor) Dorjee is a U.S.-based author and program director with the Tibet Action Institute. He is also the former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet.

This podcast is available via SoundCloud, Stitcher and iTunes apps.

Editor: Olivia Yang

2017/05/22

Cold Shoulder: Why Beijing Snubbed Singapore at the Belt and Road Summit

**The Future of Red China’s Expansionism. Beijing Doomed. Singapore was not invited to ‘Belt and Road’ event hosted by Beijing.**

ANGELA HAN

Angela Han is a Research Associate in the Polling Program. She holds a Masters in European and International Studies from the University of Trento and a Graduate Diploma in Transnational Governance from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. She has also spent six months abroad learning Mandarin at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. Prior to undertaking her Masters, Angela spent two years as a researcher of labor and economic policies in her home country of Singapore.

Beijing did not invite Singapore’s Prime Minister to attend the Belt and Road event in Beijing this week, signifying strain in Sino-Singapore relations.

Among the 29 Heads of State who converged on Beijing for the Belt and Road Summit earlier this week were leaders of seven of the ten ASEAN states. One leader was noticeably missing: Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Various observers have noted this absence, including Hugh White, who suggested it was no co-incidence that, like others – Japan, India, Australia and “most western countries” – who had not sent their national leaders to Beijing, Singapore was aligned with the U.S. and uneasy about China’s rise – “or perceived to be so.”

However, it has since emerged that Singapore was never given the choice. China had not invited Singapore’s prime minister in the first place.

This is surprising, especially as Singapore has been one of the biggest advocates of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While many other states were initially hesitant in signing up to BRI, including some of its ASEAN neighbors, Singapore’s support has been unequivocal from the beginning. Many high-level cooperation talks between China and Singapore on the subject have taken place, with both sides warmly welcoming cooperation on BRI.

In light of this past co-operation, Beijing’s snub is significant. It is fair to conclude that, if China continues to freeze out Singapore, there could be significant implications on at least three levels.

What it might mean for Sino-Singapore relations

First, this marks a low point in Sino-Singapore relations. Since its independence 50 years ago, managing the U.S.-China dichotomy has been a key tenet of Singapore’s foreign policy. Despite close defense partnerships with the U.S., China has referred to Singapore as an “important partner and a special friend of China.” This long-standing relationship has been fostered not only by historical and cultural linkages, but also the deep bond that existed between former leaders, Lee Kuan Yew and Deng Xiaoping. When Lee Kuan Yew died in 2015 there were video tributes on Chinese state media, and he was described as “an old friend of the Chinese people” by President Xi Jinping.

Of late, however, the bilateral relationship has been less than smooth, particularly since remarks made by the Singaporean prime minister at a White House state dinner in August last year. At that event, Lee Hsien Loong praised the U.S. rebalance and endorsed the arbitral tribunal ruling on the South China Sea. In a separate incident, a Chinese tabloid accused Singapore of bringing up the tribunal ruling at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, which led to a very public spat between the Global Times editor and Singapore’s Ambassador to China.

Singapore is not a claimant state but the fear that China might extend its reach in the South China Sea is nevertheless acute for the tiny island-state. Given its trade volumes are 3.5 times its GDP, any instability in the region would affect Singapore’s trade routes, and therefore its economy. When Singapore advocates for a rules-based order, it is not just values that it seeks to defend but its economic lifeblood.

Singapore’s stance on the South China Sea did not please China. In November nine of Singapore’s armored troop carriers were impounded in Hong Kong on their way back from Taiwan. At the time, many saw Beijing’s heavy hand at work behind the scenes and believed the incident reflected China’s displeasure with Singapore’s joint military exercises with Taiwan, even though these dates back decades.

In their usual quiet diplomatic style, Singapore diplomats worked hard behind the scenes to eventually secure the vehicles’ return after two months. This was then quickly followed up by a high-level bilateral cooperation forum, postponed the previous year due to strained ties. Yet, China still raises the South China Sea matter at bilateral forums.

Implications for other middle powers

China’s snub is yet another example of the narrowing diplomatic space that small states like Singapore have in which to maneuver. Relying on its hard-nosed pragmatism has, for half a decade, served Singapore well. But with most of its ASEAN neighbors increasingly willing to set aside the South China Sea disputes in return for a massive influx of Chinese investment, it is increasingly difficult for Singapore to both protect its national interest and maintain an independent foreign policy of not picking sides.

This has implications for other countries like Australia, which occupy a very similar position in the world. Like Singapore, Australia has strong historical, security and defense ties to the United States, while China is now far and away from its biggest trading partner. Perhaps one lesson from this incident is that it is becoming harder to compartmentalize politics and economics.

Implications for China’s role in the world

Finally, what does the incident say about the Belt and Road Initiative and more broadly, China’s role as architect of global initiatives? Although the BRI is as much about geoeconomics as geopolitics, it is undeniable that just on the basis of scale, access to and participation in Chinese initiatives have a tendency to draw lines in the sand; clearly distinguishing between who is a friend of China, and who is not.

The snub demonstrates Beijing now has another diplomatic tool in its arsenal. Such “sanctions with Chinese characteristics” are proving to be increasingly effective at asserting dominance and deterring actions counter to China’s interest. It is clear that China’s already considerable diplomatic and economic clout is increasing and its reach is becoming more pervasive. This too makes it more difficult for states that seek to steer a middle course.

This article originally appeared in the Lowy Interpreter. The News Lens has been authorized to republish this article.

TNL Editor: Edward White

NEWS WORTH KNOWING, VOICES WORTH SHARING

DOOMED AMERICAN CHINA FANTASY – ONE BELT, ONE ROAD TO OPPRESSION

DOOMED AMERICAN CHINA FANTASY – ONE BELT, ONE ROAD TO OPPRESSION

America’s participation in Red China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative accomplishes continued Occupation, Oppression, and Suppression in Tibet undermining American core values of Freedom, Peace, Democracy, and Natural Justice.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

http://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/oneindia-epaper-oneindia/us+u+turn+on+china+puts+india+in+a+fix-newsid-67592793?ss=twt&s=wi

US U-turn on China puts India in a fix

In a step which could see India put under tremendous pressure, the United States of America has decided to take a U-Turn from its initial position and is set to participate in China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, being organised in Beijing.

The event, is to showcase and build momentum for its new 21st-century silk route, both land and maritime, and other similar initiatives which would lead to increasing connectivity with Asian and European countries and solidify its place in the world as a major trading partner.
In India, along with concerns over its sovereignty, it is also seen as a continuation of Chinese strategy of ‘strings of pearls’ which China uses to flex its muscle in India’s neighbourhood.

The step of the US has put India in a dilemma as the change in its stance is early signal that the Trump administration is reframing the US-China relationship, according to Jagannath Panda, from the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, New Delhi.

India, which is still undecided on whether to send its representatives to the event to be held this Sunday and Monday, maintains that China has not built an environment of trust to carry out the belt and road projects.

The country’s concerns on the Chinese project stem from what it perceives to be a lack of regard shown to issues raised by it that projects which are part of OBOR impinge its sovereignty.

For example, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is a part of the larger project, by which China is set to link the Xinjiang province with the Gwadar port in Pakistan and is to be built-in Balochistan, passes through Gilgit-Baltistan region which India claims as its own.

Concerns such as these have led to the serious thoughts whether to send representatives to the event or not and if yes, officials of what level are to attend. Reports have claimed that the country may be represented by junior embassy level officials.
The thinking is that even if it does not attend, it may not lead to any immediate material loss to it as OBOR is not a membership-based organisation, and may even get India praise in certain quarters for taking a principled stand.

Other than officials, academics from India may be present at the meet which is to see representation from over 50 countries including organisations such the World Bank.

The US has now decided to send senior representation to the event, with an inter-agency delegation led by Matthew Pottinger, a top adviser to the Trump administration and National Security Council senior director for East Asia to take part.

But many see it to be a trade-off between the country and China after the latter’s commitment to buy American beef as part of the Donald Trump’s 100-day plan’ agreement, and in return, the US will not only attend the event but also allow Chinese banks to expand their operation in the US.

The decision seems to be a direct result of the meeting between Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping when the Chinese leader visited the US last month. Chinese vice-finance minister Zhu Guangyao is reported to have said, ‘We welcome all countries to attend. And we welcome the United States’ attendance as the world’s largest economy.’

Out of the representatives of different countries, head of state’s of more than 29 countries are to be present for the programme. And now with the entry of the US into the fray, along with countries like Britain and Germany, China’s dominant position in the programme may be somewhat diluted.

Other countries that are taking part include Japan and South Korea, which have military differences with China, as well as other countries engaged in territorial disputes with China over the South China Sea issue, including Vietnam and Indonesia. Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka will also take part.

China may be put under pressure on the issue of transparency as other developed countries may ask for more details related to its plans, and whether it would follow internationally accepted standards on environment and labour in the projects which include six economic corridors but have not seen any reliable map made available.

According to reports, Tom Miller, author of a recent book, China’s Asian Dream, said, ‘What actually gets built will depend on what deals Chinese companies or the government make with other countries, abroad or on the deals that the Chinese government makes with other governments abroad, and no one knows exactly what those are going to be.’

OneIndia News

**Doomed American China Fantasy – One Belt, One Road to Oppression.** On tibettruth.com

**Doomed American China Fantasy – One Belt, One Road to Oppression.** **On forcechange.com**

Whole Colonialism – Red China’s Road to Conquest and Subjugation

The Evil Red Empire – The Road to Conquest and Subjugation

**Whole Colonialism – Red China’s Road to Conquest and Subjugation**

Red China, often recognized as ‘The Evil Red Empire’ is reshaping the world as per its doctrine of Neocolonialism. In the historical past, Colonial Powers of Europe conquered countries using military power to establish Colonies with intent to dominate Land, People and their economic resources. Red China’s Neocolonialism involves use of Economic Power to gain acceptance of other countries to its plan of Expansionism. Red China achieved this military and economic power after her successful military conquest of Tibet in 1950s. Red China’s ‘One Belt-One Road’ (OBOR) simply reflects the reality of Military Conquest and Political Subjugation of Tibet.

**The Evil Red Empire – The Road to Conquest and Subjugation**

Xi’s $500 billion push to reshape the World in China’s image

Clipped from: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/xis-dollar500-billion-push-to-reshape-the-world-in-chinas-image/ar-BBB26Nn?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

China is one of the few countries in the world today with money to spend, and Xi Jinping is ready to write some checks.

China’s president will host some 28 world leaders in Beijing on Sunday at the first Belt and Road Forum, the centerpiece of a soft-power push backed by hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects. More than 100 countries on five continents have signed up, showing the demand for global economic cooperation despite rising protectionism in the U.S. and Europe.

For Xi, the initiative is designed to solidify his image as one of the world’s leading advocates of globalization while U.S. President Donald Trump cuts overseas funds in the name of “America First.” The summit aims to ease concerns about China’s rise and boost Xi’s profile at home, where he’s become the most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping died in 1997.

The Belt and Road Initiative “will likely be Xi’s most lasting legacy,” said Trey McArver, the London-based director of China research for TS Lombard, an investment research company. “It has the potential to remake global — particularly Asian — trade and economic patterns.”

The strategy also carries risks. The initiative is so far little more than a marketing slogan that encompasses all sorts of projects that China had initiated overseas for years, and major world leaders like Trump, Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe are staying away. How Xi answers a range of outstanding questions will go a long way in determining its success.

Key to reducing uncertainty will be addressing the concerns of strategic rivals like India, Russia and the U.S., particularly as China’s growing military prowess lets it be more assertive over disputed territory. Chinese moves to spend more than $50 billion on an economic corridor in Pakistan, build a port in Djibouti and construct oil pipelines in central Asia are all creating infrastructure that could be used to challenge traditional powers.

“China needs to recognize that the way it perceives the Belt and Road Initiative is not necessarily the same way others will,” said Paul Haenle, a former China director on the U.S. National Security Council who now heads the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. For countries like the U.S., he said, “it’s impossible not to view the BRI through a geopolitical lens — a Chinese effort to build a sphere of influence.”

**Xi’s $500 billion push to reshape the World in China’s image**

Excess Capacity

In September 2013, when Xi first pitched the plan at an obscure Kazakhstan university, he focused on the Eurasia landmass. Since then, it has repeatedly changed names and expanded to include the entire world, with the main goal of rebuilding the ancient trading routes from China to Europe overland and by sea.

One key driver was economic: China wants to spur growth in underdeveloped hinterlands and find more markets for excess industrial capacity. With more than $3 trillion in international reserves — more than a quarter of the world’s total — China has more resources than developed economies struggling to hit budget targets.

The plan gained steam last year when populist movements spurred a backlash against trade and immigration in the U.S. and Europe. Brexit raised questions about the European Union’s viability, while Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership gutted the biggest U.S. push to shape global economic rules.

Trade Champion

“It was very disappointing, and it makes us feel that there is a big vacuum that Belt and Road can help to fill,” Cheah Cheng Hye, chairman and co-chief investment officer at the Hong Kong-based Value Partners Group. “So all of sudden, we begin to appreciate this Chinese initiative.”

Xi wasted no time filling the void. With exporting nations looking for a free-trade champion, he told the global elite in Davos, Switzerland, to resist protectionism and join China in boosting global commerce.

The U.S. and Europe “almost unwittingly” created space for Xi to push China’s interests, according to Peter Cai, research fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

“China is offering an alternative to the U.S. version of globalization,” Cai said. “In the Chinese case, it’s globalization paved by concrete: railways, highways, pipelines, ports.”

Related gallery: 33 giant Chinese infrastructure projects that are reshaping the world (provided by Business Insider)

33 giant Chinese infrastructure projects that are reshaping the world

Draft Communique

This year, five European countries — Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, France and Italy — openly voiced support for the initiative. On trips to China in February, Italian President Sergio Mattarella proposed plans for the ports of Genoa and Trieste, while French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve attended the arrival ceremony of a freight train from Lyon.

The summit will feature the likes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. The U.S. and most Western countries are expected to send lower-level representatives.

A draft communique circulated before the event combined a commitment to open markets with endorsements of China’s diplomatic goals, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the document. It also generated some controversy among Beijing-based diplomats who said they didn’t have enough time to vet the document, underscoring the initiative’s potential to cause conflict.

$500 Billion

China has invested more than $50 billion in Belt and Road countries since 2013, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Credit Suisse Group AG said this month that China could pour more than $500 billion into 62 countries over five years.

China’s state-run companies like China National Petroleum Corp. and China Mobile Ltd. — the world’s largest wireless carrier — are positioned to reap the rewards. Executives from six of China’s largest state-run firms sought to reassure the public this week that the risks were manageable.

China’s three development banks, its Silk Road Fund and China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank were involved in $143 billion of lending outside of the country last year, up more than 140 percent from 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Read More: Chinese Largesse Lures Countries to Its Belt and Road Initiative

Still, financial hurdles are starting to appear. China’s slowing economic growth has left fewer resources to spend overseas. Its international reserves have fallen about 6 percent over the past year, and China needs a healthy amount to defend the yuan.

Some previous Chinese ventures abroad have turned sour. While China’s no-strings-attached approach to investment is generally welcomed by developing countries, they often have poor credit ratings and questionable governance. China has struggled to recoup loans in Venezuela and Africa, and several projects in Central Asia have spurred protests. Announcements with big dollar signs often fail to materialize.

Nonetheless, Chinese scholars see the sum of Xi’s plan as bigger than any individual project. It represents a “profound change” in how China interacts with the world, according to Wang Yiwei, director of at Renmin University’s Institute of International Affairs in Beijing, who has written three books on the initiative.

“China has moved from a participant of globalization to a main leader,” he said. “It’s Globalization 2.0.”

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Ting Shi in Hong Kong at tshi31@bloomberg.net, Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Brendan Scott