Craig Murray: Why Would China Be An Enemy?

To react to Beijing’s growing economic power by increasing Western military power is hopeless. It is harder to think of a more stupid example of lashing out in blind anger.

British Prime Minister Rishi Surnak and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin greeting at the AUKUS bilateral meeting in San Diego, March 13, 2023. (DoD/Chad J. McNeeley)

By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk

I am completely at a loss as to why the U.K. should seek to join in with the U.S. in considering China an enemy, and in looking to build up military forces in the Pacific to oppose China.

In what sense are Chinese interests opposed to British interests? I am not sure when I last bought something which wasn’t manufactured in China. To my astonishment that even applies to our second-hand Volvo and it also applies to this laptop.

I have stated this before but it is worth restating:

I cannot readily think of any example in history, of a state which achieved the level of economic dominance China has now achieved, that did not seek to use its economic muscle to finance military acquisition of territory to increase its economic resources. In that respect China is vastly more pacific than the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain or any other formerly prominent power.

Ask yourself this simple question. How many overseas military bases does the U.S. have? And how many overseas military bases does China have? Depending on what you count, the United States has between 750 and 1100 overseas military bases. China has between 6 and 9.

The last military aggression by China was its takeover of Tibet in 1951 and 1959. Since that date, we have seen the United States invade with massive destruction Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. 

The United States has also been involved in sponsoring numerous military coups, including military support to the overthrow of literally dozens of governments, many of them democratically elected. It has destroyed numerous countries by proxy, Libya being the most recent example.

Feb. 27, 2011: A Libyan refugee at a transit camp in Choucha Ras Djir, near the Tunisian border. (U.N. Photo/UNHCR/Alexis Duclos)

China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries. 

The anti-Chinese military posture adopted by the leaders of U.S., U.K. and Australia as they pour astonishing amounts of public money into the corrupt military industrial complex to build pointless nuclear submarines, appears a deliberate attempt to create military tension with China.

[Related: Caitlin Johnstone: Australia’s Real Fear Isn’t China

Rishi Sunak, the U.K.’s prime minister, recited the tired neoliberal roll call of enemies, condemning: “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, China’s growing assertiveness, and destabilising behaviour of Iran and North Korea.”. 

What precisely are Iran and China doing, that makes them our enemy? 

This article is not about Iran, but plainly Western sanctions have held back the economic and societal development of that highly talented nation and have simply entrenched its theological regime. Their purpose is not to improve Iran but to maintain a situation where Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran does not. If accompanied by an effort to disarm the rogue state of Israel, they might make more sense.

On China, in what does its “assertiveness” consist that makes it necessary to view it as a military enemy?

[Related: Joe LauriaA Sane Voice Amidst the Madness]

Maritime Jurisdiction Disputes

China has constructed some military bases by artificially extending small islands. That is perfectly legal behaviour. The territory is Chinese. As the United States has numerous bases in the region on other people’s territory, I truly struggle to see where the objection lies to Chinese bases on Chinese territory. 

China has made claims which are controversial for maritime jurisdiction around these artificial islands — and I would argue wrong under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. But they are no more controversial than a great many other UNCLOS claims, for example the U.K.’s behaviour over Rockall. 

An Irish naval vessel at Rockall conducting routine maritime security patrols 230 nmi, or 430 km, off the north-west coast of Ireland, 2012. (Irish Defence Forces, Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

China has made, for example, no attempt to militarily enforce a 200-mile exclusive economic zone arising from its artificial islands, whatever it has said. Its claim to a 12-mile territorial sea is I think valid.

Similarly, the United States has objected to pronouncements from China that appear contrary to UNCLOS on passage through straits, but again this is no different from a variety of such disputes worldwide. The United States and others have repeatedly asserted, and practised, their right of free passage, and met no military resistance from China.

So is that it? Is that what Chinese “aggression” amounts to, some UNCLOS disputes?

Aah, we are told, but what about Taiwan? 

Unresolved Civil War 

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in Chongqing in 1945. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

To which the only reply is, what about Taiwan? Taiwan is a part of China which separated off under the nationalist government after the Civil War. Taiwan does not claim not to be Chinese territory.

In fact – and this is far too little understood in the West because our media does not tell you – the government of Taiwan still claims to be the legitimate government of all of China. The government of Taiwan supports reunification just as much as the government of China, the only difference being who would be in charge.

The dispute with Taiwan is therefore an unresolved Chinese civil war, not an independent state menaced by China. As a civil war the entire world away from us, it is very hard to understand why we have an interest in supporting one side rather than the other. 

Peaceful resolution is of course preferable. But it is not our conflict. 

There is no evidence whatsoever that China has any intention of invading anywhere else in the China Seas or the Pacific. Not Singapore, not Japan and least of all Australia. That is almost as fantastic as the ludicrous idea that the U.K. must be defended from Russian invasion.

If China wanted, it could simply buy 100 percent of every public listed company in Australia, without even noticing a dent in China’s dollar reserves.

Which of course brings us to the real dispute, which is economic and about soft power. China has massively increased its influence abroad, by trade, investment, loans and manufacture. China is now the dominant economic power, and it can only be a matter of time before the dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency.

China has chosen this method of economic expansion and prosperity over territorial acquisition or military control of resources. 

That may be to do with Confucian versus Western thought. Or it may just be the government in Beijing is smarter than Western governments. But growing Chinese economic dominance does not appear to me a reversible process in the coming century.

To react to China’s growing economic power by increasing Western military power is hopeless. It is harder to think of a more stupid example of lashing out in blind anger. It is like peeing on your carpet because the neighbours are too noisy.

Aah, but you ask. What about human rights? What about the Uighurs?

I have a large amount of sympathy. China was an imperial power in the great age of formal imperialism, and the Uighurs were colonised by China. Unfortunately the Chinese have followed the West’s “War on Terror” playbook in exploiting Islamophobia to clamp down on Uighur culture and autonomy. I very much hope that this reduces, and that freedom of speech improves in general across China.

[Related: Brian Berletic — The Hidden Proxy War Washington Wages against China]

But let nobody claim that human rights genuinely has any part to play in who the Western military industrial complex treats as an enemy and who it treats as an ally. I know it does not, because that is the precise issue on which I was sacked as an ambassador. 

The abominable suffering of the children of Yemen and Palestine also cries out against any pretence that Western policy, and above all choice of ally, is human rights based.

China is treated as an enemy because the United States has been forced to contemplate the mortality of its economic dominance. China is treated as an enemy because that is a chance for the political and capitalist classes to make yet more super profits from the military industrial complex.

But China is not our enemy. Only atavism and xenophobia make it so.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

49 comments for “Craig Murray: Why Would China Be An Enemy?

  1. AF
    March 27, 2023 at 06:27

    The article states, “I am completely at a loss as to why the U.K. should seek to join in with the U.S. in considering China an enemy, and in looking to build up military forces in the Pacific to oppose China.”

    I can.

    It is for the same reason why the Australian government has involved itself in the Ukrainian war by giving away approximately AUD700 million in funds, supplies and equipment

    It is to prove fealty and allegiance to the US government, regardless of the damage to their respective economies and citizens.

  2. Kien in Kuala Lumpur
    March 25, 2023 at 06:41

    I think there is much more evidence of human rights abuse by the US, Canada and Australia (in relation to their indigeneous peoples) than the alleged human rights abuse by China in relation to the Uighurs. If anyone wants to pontificate about human rights, they would be more credible if they had a track record of holding the US, Canada and Australia to account for past (and ongoing) violations of the human rights of their indigenous populations.

    Don’t tell me that there are no ongoing violations of the human rights of Australian Aborigines and North American aborigines. It’s a fact that there are more aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia (as a percentage of population) than non-aboriginal deaths in custody. How is this not a violation of human rights?

    Unfounded criticism of China’s human right violations wouldn’t matter so much except that it goes towards “manufacturing consent” for a future war/conflict with China. So please think about this before unthinkingly pontificating about China’s alleged human rights violations.

    • Jennie
      March 25, 2023 at 09:31

      A point well brought out. The Uighur issue is too often quoted unthinkingly and allows far too many questions to be side stepped.

    • vinnieoh
      March 25, 2023 at 13:21

      There’s even larger wildlife in the room: first, with the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine and its periodic evolution (or updating its usefulness for the times?); and then finally the US assumption of the role of supreme western colonizer with the destruction of Europe after two world wars, the indigenous peoples of Central and South America still suffer under the bondage of 500 plus years of colonization, and at the hands of the US.

      Chavez and his cadre repatriated some of the Venezuelan lands claimed by absentee colonialist owners to indigenous Venezuelan farmers and families willing to homestead. The absentee owners hired assassins and brigands to burn them out, chase them off, or murder them.

      I continue to fear that if the US is forced to slink away from Eurasia that the wounded beast will exact its bitterness once again on the indigenous of Central and South America.

  3. March 24, 2023 at 19:03

    Craig, it is so very very good to see your comments! Please keep writing, we truly need your common sense and your knowledge. Thank you for this, I hope it gets wide readership not only at CN but elsewhere. I laughed out loud at your peeing on the carpet example. Please dear god let the idiots who are running our international affairs read that.
    And please CN keep publishing Craig Murray!

    • Frank Lambert
      March 24, 2023 at 22:04

      I second that, Ranney! Craig Murray is a principled man and has courage and integrity, unlike most politicians.

  4. CaseyG
    March 24, 2023 at 17:01

    Maybe America’s belief system comes from the ending of WW 2. Europe was bombed to smithereens, but compared to the rest of the war, America survived more easily due to that Roosevelt government. and America was farther away than the cites in Europe . America was lucky in a geographic way. Sadly Truman decide to play bomb master—even though the war was over. I guess humans forget that the world changes—and since the 1930s the US really has changed, but so has much of the world too.

    America was the last standing after WW 2, but so much has changed—like America having thousands of military bases all over the world. And too, a lot of America is still living on past glories while the rest of the world has caught up and moved on. Maybe the military needs to spend more time reading about world history and how many powerful nations have come and gone over time. I look at reality and see that America’s time has diminished—and China’s is rising. Thousands of nations have risen and fallen over Earth time—–And that is the way of the world.

  5. Jeffrey Blankfort
    March 24, 2023 at 17:00

    I have very much admired Craig Murray for some time as a person of principle and courage and still do. But I would point out one error in his text and one point of disagreement. The error, I suspect, is one shared with most of the anti-imperialist US left, that “China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries.” Murray has apparently forgotten China’s invasion of the north of Vietnam in 1978, apparently in support of Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia the army of which had been attacking the western part of Vietnam and in turn, led to the Vietnamese, victors over the US war machine, to invade Cambodia and put an end to the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge (for which the US and the West have never given them credit). They also turned back the forces of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Pol Pot’s allies.
    ,
    The point of disagreement is one that has long required the attention of anti-imperialists, particularly those who consider themselves Marxists and that is the rights of people vs. the states that rule over them. To consider Taiwan which, at another period of time, was a part of China, but not physically connected to it, to still be Chinese territory after a century long break, without consideration of the wishes of the people of that island nation, is, I would argue, a reactionary position and one that the Left has too long ignored. Otherwise, the belief in “self-determination” of people becomes little more than another political slogan.

    • Consortiumnews.com
      March 24, 2023 at 21:32

      Except a majority of Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo and do not favor independence. Those are the “wishes of the people of that island nation,” that do not want to be an independent “island nation.”

      1979 was a border war in which China entered Vietnamese territory on Feb. 17 and withdrew 17 days later on March 6.

    • vinnieoh
      March 25, 2023 at 11:56

      “Otherwise, the belief in “self-determination” of people becomes little more than another political slogan.”

      Ho Chi Mihn tried to convey that message to Wilson and the French delegation in Paris in 1918 while the Treaty of Versailles was being hammered out; he came to the conclusion after being ignored that, “The Wilsonian Doctrine” did not apply to non-whites.

      Your argument should be considered also when judging the claim of validity based on prior “ownership” of the Ashkenazi to Palestine. Two wrongs don’t make a right, even when it takes centuries to reveal the entanglement.

  6. RomfordRob
    March 24, 2023 at 16:48

    It’s a beautiful, childlike question, is it not? Why is China our enemy? Or Cuba? Or Iran? Or for that matter, Russia?? I live in the US, and I suspect if you asked anyone on the street these questions, even the neoconservative right wingers would be unable to come up with an answer that made any sense at all. I was brought up in Britain. I hoped to age into a wise old man. In the west nowadays, the young have the most rational, critical outlook. Why? My theory is that they have not been subjected to decades of stupid destructive propaganda.

  7. DocHollywood
    March 24, 2023 at 16:21

    “The last military aggression by China was its takeover of Tibet in 1951 and 1959. . . China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries.”

    That’s not entirely correct. China invaded Vietnam in 1979 shortly after Vietnam invaded Kampuchea (Cambodia) and deposed the Khmer Rouge government. Though it only lasted about a month, thousands, including many Vietnamese civilians, died during the Sino-Vietnamese war.

  8. vinnieoh
    March 24, 2023 at 16:18

    Sort of serendipity that this piece is posted now. I was just thinking this morning about a premise of mine that the most powerful tool the US believes it possesses is the ability to control the globe’s access to energy. The US does not need to own all of it, nor operate all of it, merely control access to all of it. It works nicely with the concept of hybrid warfare: sometimes sanctions and embargoes will do the trick, sometimes military aggression is “what’s needed” and sometimes regime change will solve a multitude of “problems.”

    From what I’ve read there is a wealth of energy beneath the waves of the South China Sea. When Rex Tillerson was SoS Exxon was signing joint development agreements with Russian and other gas and oil interests and the South China Sea was one of the areas ripe for development. There has already been much jostling in SE Asia concerning drilling/extracting in the SCS.

    For all of China’s vast holdings, China proper seems to be energy poor when it comes to gas and oil. Controlling China’s access to oil and gas, by whatever means are most effective, is why China must be an enemy. Conversely, gaining fair access to gas and oil so close to their mainland must be important and obvious to the Chinese. I am not sure the relative importance of all this, but I suspect it is much.

    btw: While Rex was SoS Exxon and affiliates were signing many joint development agreements with Gazprom and others for projects in the North Sea, SE Asia, pipelines from Russia to China. Also, during his tenure there was much reporting of possible large exploitable gas and oil deposits in the westers Stans of Asia, centered E and NE of the Caspian Sea. I found an industry accounting of that time that listed the majority (by percentage breakdown) of investors and speculators that showed majority dollar amounts being Americans or of US origin.

    I do believe the US (and GB remains the staunch ally and enabler of the US) will attempt to maintain its grip as global hegemon through the control of access to energy – in this context it is access to oil and gas, the fuels that makes things that go, go.

    • Piotr Berman
      March 25, 2023 at 09:12

      ” the most powerful tool the US believes it possesses is the ability to control the globe’s access to energy. The US does not need to own all of it…”

      As you noted yourself, what American elite wants is global control, and “access to energy” is but a tool. Access to computer chips is another tool etc. Military, deep state abilities, financial abilities etc. are other tools. Effectively, control allows to “extract rents”, and is enormously important for the egos. After all, what is a difference between being a billionaire and multi-billionaire? In both cases you can have more properties for personal use that you can use, but a multi-billionaire has more power, more importance, more deference.

      So one can delineate a difference between national interests as reflected in lives of the population, and elite interest. While the national interests of American diverge from Chinese interests, it is hard to see how the elite policies advance the national interest. E.g. forcing some manufacturing production to move from China to Vietnam and Malaysia. A very tangential national benefit, nixed by the diverting national attention from the misallocation of national American resources (in part, by shifting manufacturing abroad).

  9. lester
    March 24, 2023 at 15:46

    Lee Kwan-yew, long term prime minister of Singapore, in his last interview, said that while he hoped the US would not conflict with PR China, he thought conflict likely because British and American people did not like to see Chinese people being prosperous.

  10. Susan Siens
    March 24, 2023 at 15:06

    First, when you read Whitney Webb’s One Nation Under Blackmail, you will realize that the UK has a lot more to do with the US military-industrial / surveillance state than what is normally presented. The ties among the CIA, MI6, and Israeli intelligence are extremely incestuous.

    Second, Australia is a puppet state of the US and does what it is told. I’m guessing the US intends to use Australian military as PROXIES in a war against China which is why all the warmongering in the Australian press. As Caitlin Johnstone points out, Australians have followed the US into every US war, but this time the plan is for them to be cannon fodder with maybe a few American “advisors.”

    • John Earls
      March 24, 2023 at 18:19

      Too right. The set-up is just too obvious. Maybe if Oz refuses to make war on China the US will blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge – to show just who’s the boss Down-Under…

      • Valerie
        March 25, 2023 at 03:52

        “Down under” reminded me of this great song from “men at work”

        hxxps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s

        Enjoy.

  11. Oregoncharles
    March 24, 2023 at 14:57

    While I agree completely with Murray’s main point, that there is no reason to treat China as a military enemy and that goes double for Britain, I still have some significant quibbles with his account of the history and the “maritime disputes.”

    First of all, I appreciate his reminding us of Tibet. It is easy to forget in the recent context – but it is a STANDING Chinese aggression. Besides that, I think he’s forgotten the Chinese attack on N. Viet Nam; granted, not full force, since they were defeated. There are similar border disputes, including past aggression, with India. I also take the (literally) Imperial claims on the S. China Sea much more seriously, since they have led to persistent bullying of the other nations bordering that sea. That claim is based on a map that goes back to the Empire, and has been rejected by UNCLOS, so it’s illegal by any standard. The occasional US excursions there are a rare example of justified US imperial behavior; no one else can do it, and only India might have a reason.

    Finally, Taiwan. It’s true that historically, the claims are mutual, although the Taiwan independence movement is increasingly strong. That’s because Taiwan is, de facto, an independent nation, and has been for SEVENTY THREE YEARS – about as long as Murray has been alive; 3 generations, plus. That’s a lot of de facto. Personally, I believe in self-determination, and by that standard Taiwan is and should be independent. The facto that everybody’s been pretending for most of that time strikes me as irrelevant, especially given the prospect of a long, bloody war if China quits blustering and acts. In this case, bluster is much to be preferred.

    Historically, China is and has been an empire, for several thousand years; far longer than the US. For reasons of its own, it’s been a geographically contained empire; the US, once consolidated, has become a maritime empire, scattered around the world on the prior British model. But imperial culture is even more deeply ingrained in China.

    It is rather difficult for empires to co-exist; nukes should provide the motivation. They can hardly help but be rivals; lets hope it stays at that level – but recent military jockeying is not a good sign.

    • Piotr Berman
      March 25, 2023 at 08:49

      About Tibet, note that China and India have a territorial dispute based on different interpretations of the legal border between imperial India (under English vice-roy) and imperial China that possessed Tibet. At the time, the lands in dispute were worthless to respective authorities, so the precise boundary was not the top concern. BTW, Tibet and East Turkestan was conquered by Beijing rulers not as independent states but as lands under control of western Mongols, these were territories, not states.

      • HelenB
        March 26, 2023 at 20:45

        I agree, Piotr. The time in history that an article cites as the beginning of history is never the beginning! Go back more in time and an entirely different picture emerges.
        Look at the languages of countries around China. Japan uses Chinese characters for the roots of most of their words, just as English, French, Spanish and Italian use Latin. The reason is that the Romans once ruled all these lands and were more literate.
        Vietnam did similarly with Chinese until recently. South Korea also did this until recently.

        China once had people in the governments assisting or actually ruling many of their neighboring lands. The Chinese language itself is one script, but not not not at all one spoken language. Every region has a different way to pronounce the written characters! As in often totally unintelligible to other prvinces
        Nowadays Beijing is attempting to move the whole country to Beijinghua. Not easy. Guangdonghua, the spoken language in Guangdong and Hong Kong, is totally unintelligible to Beijingers. Shanghai Hua is also difficult for most outside Shanghai to understand.

        Xinjiang has been a blend of many Muslims immigrants, such as Kazaks, Russians, Uzbeks, as well as the native Uighurs. These people do not write their language in Chinese characters. They use an Arabic or Turkic script, I’m not sure which.
        When I was in Urumqi last, 2009, every business had two signs, one in Chinse and one in Uighur. Most of China uses just one sign.
        I’m not sure what the other western Chinese provinces do since they all have many Muslim tongues.

  12. Jeff Harrison
    March 24, 2023 at 14:35

    “Unfortunately the Chinese have followed the West’s “War on Terror” playbook in exploiting Islamophobia to clamp down on Uighur culture and autonomy.”

    I don’t really think so Mr. Murray. The whole tale of Uyghur suppression comes from one man: Adrian Zenz who is employed by The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation which is an American anti-communist think tank. Right up front, that makes it suspect. Chinese sources do talk about Uyghur terror attacks on the police and villagers and China’s suppression of that kind of violence which could be the result of any number of causes. As far as I know, none of China’s Muslim neighbors are complaining about China’s reaction to what China calls Uyghur terrorism. And I’d be very careful about throwing around the term autonomy. Most of the Uyghurs are located in the Chinese province of Xinjiang which is part of China.

  13. HelenB
    March 24, 2023 at 13:43

    The one on the left in the picture is Mao.

  14. shmutzoid
    March 24, 2023 at 13:20

    Can anyone imagine this piece by Murray appearing in the NY Times or any other mainstream corporate outlet?? ha ha. ….not in a million years. …….. Propaganda is pounded in to the populace 24/7. By now it’s simply an article of faith that China is “our enemy”.
    And, why? ….. only for having the temerity to build up its economy to such an extent. ……. Full Spectrum Dominance is the USA’s guiding light. It will NOT countenance ANY challenge to its global dominance in ANY area —–> militarily——-economically——-diplomatically——-cyber. From the ocean floor to the stratosphere, it’s FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE for US imperial managers.
    ———- It’s simply only China’s success that has made them “our enemy” to the US imperium.
    China has managed to lift 800 million people up from abject poverty. This, too, is something US ruling elite would prefer to keep a secret from the public. It sets a bad example!

    Is it ANY wonder why the rest of the world is gravitating to China for leadership? Hundreds of billions of dollars in trade/infrastructure deals have been negotiated by China with countries throughout Eurasia and the Global South. Through BRICS, BRI and SCO this has been accomplished in a spirit of mutual respect, trust and cooperation. Turns out this is much more preferred than the bullying ways of mafia-style US foreign policy. THIS is what makes China, er, “our enemy”.

    To shore up its waning economic and diplomatic influence, the US turns increasingly to militarism. Hopefully, the US will meet its imperial hubris over its proxy war against Russia being waged in Ukraine.

  15. Eric Foor
    March 24, 2023 at 13:02

    Thank you Mr. Murray for your insightful article, especially your observations regarding China and Taiwan. From my humble and remote perspective it appears the conflict between the East and the West may have it’s root cause in the International Central Banking System (Est. approx. 1800) that has quietly, secretly and relentlessly moved to dominate the world.

    Recently two Banks in Northern California failed and the speed of light with which “the government” moved to cover their losses was instantaneous. As in 2008, the “super government” moved to operate the hidden levers of power to “save the public” (no!…to save their asses) while at the same time, for years, applying a constant pressure to remove the fundamental safety backstops of commercial banking. In 2020 the reserve % of deposits that a bank was required to keep on hand was finally reduced to ZERO! To a layman (myself) that appears to be a reckless and unsound practice. It implies the “money supply” has gone to infinity!.. and our entire banking system is teetering on nothingness!

    Countries outside the Western sphere have observed the inherent unfairness and weakness of an International Central Banking System and have rejected it…without directly pointing to the root instigators of that system. That is why the West is angry at them and beating the drums of war…while waving deflecting propaganda slogans proclaiming “Freedom” and “Democracy”.

    I conclude that unless we reform our money system and propose a fair international trade system to the rest of the world we (in the West) are bound to reduce our living standard, our status in the world….and potentially spark a nuclear confrontation…all for the benefit of a few extremely selfish individuals. Go watch “It’s a Wonderful Life”…it’s more than a Christmas tale.

  16. castello
    March 24, 2023 at 12:21

    The war on Tic Toc is lost already ;)

    This helps stoke the fire. “Has everyone forgotten about the fake increase in “Asian hate crimes” that just so happened to coincide with the nonsense about the lab leak theory being racist? The NBC article literally says “corrected FBI numbers show” ??. So ridiculous”
    hxxps://twitter.com/503I7/status/1630804544933199876/photo/1

  17. mgr
    March 24, 2023 at 12:17

    Thank you. The heart of the problem is that America and its coalition can no longer compete on a level playing field. That is simply due to its wealthy elite which insist on scooping out and grabbing ever larger pieces of the available pie for themselves.

    America has lost its “made in America” and competitive advantage to the simple greed and stupidity of its political and corporate leaders. Instead it invests in marketing hot air. The Western coalition is following American down this same path.

    So what is there to do? The West is losing the ability to compete by making itself better. There seems to be zero interest in self-reflection and self-improvement. America and the West also seem to have lost the understanding and ability to produce anything of actual value, like peace and prosperity, for example. So it opts for undermining, constraining and disparaging others using military power and malign behind the scenes influence to make up for its own lack of ability. Unfortunately, no matter how much it tries to undermine others, America and the West sink only lower themselves. The West is a coalition of vast potential squandered that has been incredibly, poorly led for quite some time now.

    I understand that America and its allies are even now importing large quantities of urine to make up for domestic shortfalls. Noisy neighbors, after all…

  18. Vesa Sainio
    March 24, 2023 at 12:14

    This is a good article with one strange claim. Murray surprisingly take western propaganda about uighurs with face value. This issue has far more context and i think it has been adequately proofed that the western genocide talk is pure BS.

  19. gwb
    March 24, 2023 at 11:38

    China is the leading economic power because U.S. corporations and Wall Street gave away the store in the name of wage arbitrage and cost-cutting.

    • SH
      March 24, 2023 at 20:32

      Thank you! I have thought for some time that those trade deals in the 90’s were about breaking the back of US labor – prior to that time, with tariffs and quotas in place – if US corps wanted make their stuff, and keep the American market, they had to make it with American labor – so American labor/ unions had leverage in making their demands on the corps – the Corps needed them

      Enter NAFTA, WTO, etc all trade deals orchestrated and entered into by our Gov’t – which had/has been bought by the Big Corps – so with the removal of tariffs, quotas etc. the Corps were free to pick up and take off to places with cheap labor and basically no environmental or health and safety regs – then sell their products in the US, with much higher profit margins, didn’t need US labor any more (remember Perot’s “giant sucking sound”?) But we were told – that’s OK, 1)”retrain” this at a time when the tech boom was taking off before it crashed (the first time) and 2) we can sell our “better stuff” in China – meanwhile our trade balance kept getting more and more Neg and our ability to buy cheaper goods from China deteriorated as labor power and with it good paying jobs disappeared. (Now, with companies “returning” as transportation costs go up, they are replacing labor with automation – and that is something we the people are, once again, late in dealing with …)

      China was able, with all the money it made selling its stuff over here, to bring it’s people out of poverty – the Chinese got richer as we got poorer. I have often thought that the big mistake labor made was in using its bargaining power, when they had it, to get more “benefits” instead of getting more actual ownership of the companies themselves, and i don’t mean via stock “shares”, but actual decision making power at the Board of Directors level – so it could keep its companies from moving overseas – China didn’t “steal” our jobs, we gave them away because we weren’t paying attention ..

      And the second mistake was abandoning what was known as the American System – first outlined by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 in his Report on the Subject of Manufactures – designed to build up manufacturing in this country in it’s infancy – in which “protection” of nascent American manufacturing was understood as paramount to making us into a self sufficient country instead of a 3rd world commodities supplier, remaining, in essence, a “colony” of GB. I suggest folks read Christian Parenti’s book Radical Hamilton (Chap 13) – it was a blueprint for building American economic independence after we achieved political independence – Once we became a manufacturing powerhouse, we began the process of imposing a colonial status (“Pulling up the Ladder” Ha-Joon Chang) on other countries turning them into, or keeping them as, commodities providers for us – all our trade deals are engineered with that in mind – we don’t help other countries become more self sufficient, we want them as suppliers of “resources”, human and other wise … we use the military to accomplish that – and we the people, keep electing, over and over, the same folks who are selling us out- we haven’t seemed to have figured this out – as we keep our eyes glued to those little screens (made in China) and keep getting Apps, which seem to be about the only thing we make anymore (shucks, how secure can a country be that doesn’t even make its own underwear ..) so we can sign up for more Netflix and do selfies for Twitter

      China, on the other hand, is building infrastructure in these countries – it remains to be seen if their efforts will have the same salutary effects in the Silk Road countries – as they did domestically – while we do guns they do butter …

      And all this while the planet burns and drowns and blows away … And now, that we have pretty much trashed THIS planet – we are on our way to doing the same on – the Moon ..

    • Lois Gagnon
      March 24, 2023 at 21:49

      Exactly right.

  20. March 24, 2023 at 10:57

    I concur with WR Knight, all of this is about manufacturing enemies to justify the war spending. You don’t spend more than half your discretionary money on war and then just sit around doing nothing. In fact, if you want ever increasing budgets you go around the world harming and killing people to get them riled up against you, so that you can send in the war machine to deal with the pesky inhabitants. I have always said that our wars are just a sick form of job security for the war profiteers and merchants of death.

  21. Eddie S
    March 24, 2023 at 10:45

    EXACTLY CORRECT! It’s so ludicrous that the US (my lifelong home) is OPENLY fomenting a WAR with a virtually non-belligerent country, (Pax Romana anyone?) on top of whom (definitely not AI construction in that phrasing) is our biggest trading partner (that the US free-market conservatives created over the past 40+years)! WTF ?? Are we TRYING to intentionally disrupt our US economy? Look at the supply chain problems that happened during Covid — do we want to repeat that by several orders of magnitude??

    • Patrick Powers
      March 25, 2023 at 07:00

      Anything to avert the dire threats of peace and prosperity.

  22. March 24, 2023 at 10:42

    “As a civil war the entire world away from us, it is very hard to understand why we have an interest in supporting one side rather than the other.”

    The same question must be asked regarding our support of the government in Kiev vs the people of breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk after the revolutionary coup of 2014 (also supported by the US).

  23. Vera Gottlieb
    March 24, 2023 at 10:36

    Remember those years when so many jobs were transferred to China because cheap labour was to be had??? As I see it, the West contributed to China’s growth. Chinese are laborious people and took advantage of all the financial prospects. China isn’t any more a ‘dictatorship’ than the West is a ‘democracy’.

  24. Rick Bochner, M.D.
    March 24, 2023 at 10:34

    ‘The last military aggression by China was its takeover of Tibet in 1951 and 1959. . . China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries.”

    China invaded Vietnam in early 1979; the war lasted only about a month but left thousands dead.

  25. Joseph Tracy
    March 24, 2023 at 10:29

    The most realistic, clearheaded discussion of the hypocritical bluster and absurd political and media paranoia about China I have read. I love the insistent question at the center asking why are so many willing to leave sound reason and historical realism behind to demonize a country that according to our own ideals is a model of honest market competition. The dangers of this mindless fear mongering are too dangerous to ponder, yet instead of steering toward peace within a more balanced world economy we steer toward the madness of world war, investing our grandchildren’s increasingly dubious earnings in the mad dreams of global dominance projected by the oil cartels and arms industries at the center of western power.

  26. Daryl Rush
    March 24, 2023 at 10:26

    The US is nothing without war and interfering with other countries, for gain, or just because we can, and that is what we do. Who we are.
    We claim to be free, We are not free from even our reflexive selves, no one is not even the Chinese, who mastered themselves several thousand years ago.
    In the late 40’s Mao was asked about the US revolution, his response
    It is too soon to tell.
    Seems our “success” haunts US and the world.
    Russia also was no bother to US also but we could not let them be, Ukraine proxy war to destroy them.
    But most lilely our own uncanny undooing.

    • Jeffrey Blankfort
      March 24, 2023 at 16:23

      Just to set the record straight, it was Chou-en-Lai who asked the question in 1968, “What do you think of the French Revolution,” who responded that “It’s too soon to tell,” an answer that I love, and still quote although it turned out he was referring to the events of May 1968 in Paris which some there and abroad were referring to as a revolution. Chou-en-Lai was right to withhold his judgment. As I discovered a year later when I went to Paris and began interviews with who had played important roles in the city’s streets, I learned that while important and exciting, it was far short of a revolution.

  27. March 24, 2023 at 10:23

    “Why would China be an enemy?” That’s a simple question. The U.S. war machine needs enemies to justify its ever increasing expansion.

    • Vera Gottlieb
      March 24, 2023 at 10:33

      And to maintain a very profitable war industry $$$$$

      • March 24, 2023 at 10:48

        “What’s the point of having this superb military you are always talking about if we can’t use it?” – Madeleine Albright to Colin Powell, 1992.

      • Morey
        March 25, 2023 at 01:38

        Thank you for such a pointed and enlightening article. I wished it could be published in NYT or Post. Perhaps it could make it a dent in educating people!

    • HelenB
      March 24, 2023 at 12:26

      Craig, I agree with everything you said in this article except your brief statement regarding Tibet.
      In China’s long history, many of its current provinces were manages as protectorate s. A tribute was paid to China, the Chinese army kept invaders out, trade took place, but otherwise China gave them self rule. Even today, there are provinces in China and parts of provinces with some extra degree of independence due to ethnic differences and historical tradition.

      Tibet was such an area inside China in the last century. The war in the fifties was called “The Secret CIA War”, up until the time that a more recent conflict was given that name. Interference in Tibet continues.

      • L. C. Ng
        March 25, 2023 at 23:25

        Hi, Helen, Tibet had been part of China longer than “the last century.” It was a tributary state during the Tang Dynasty. You’re right that like some other provinces Tibet had autonomous rule. During the Yuan dynasty, a precedent was established in that the spiritual ruler or Dalai Lama must first be approved by the central government. The present Dalai Lai was approved in an official ceremony by the Kuomintang (KMT) government in early 20th century.

        The “line-dash line” in the South China Sea was also drawn by the KMT before their defeat in 1949. The islands had been favorite fishing haunts for the southern Chinese. I believe some families in Guangdong still retain centuries-old maps and sketches of those islands. The coastlines of Guangdong, Guangxi, and of course Hainan island face the South China Sea. Vietnam used to name the groups of islands (Xisha and Nansha) as Chinese territories in their school texts until the end of the “American War” when they no longer needed Chinese help.

        The short border skirmish between China and Vietnam was allegedly due to the latter claiming not only the islands but also parts of their land boundaries. The two countries were at loggerheads when Vietnam supported the Soviet Union against China. Also, after the Nixon visit Beijing had angered Hanoi for pressuring them to agree to peace talks with Washington. Deng in turn also wanted to show the Americans how to tame the Vietnamese besides undoing the strong relationship Mao and Vietnam used to enjoy (Mao did more than giving food and sending PLA commanders to help the VietCong, but also told his nation to find a cure for malaria that was killing thousands of Vietnamese guerrillas. The scientist Du Youyou who discovered a cure was finally recognized in the 21th century and awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine.

  28. Unsuspecting Innocent Bystander
    March 24, 2023 at 10:07

    Craig Murray nails it yet again.

    • Frank Lambert
      March 24, 2023 at 12:01

      He does!

  29. Patrick Powers
    March 24, 2023 at 09:27

    “China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries. ”

    China attacked Vietnam in 1979.

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