Thirteen days have passed since Israel launched its bombardment offensive against the besieged Gaza Strip, following a deadly attack on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The conflict had killed more than 3,700 Palestinians, including more than 1,500 children, and about 1,400 Israelis as of Thursday, according t
The Global Times will publish a series of in-depth reports on the "Past and Present of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," exploring the historical, religious, and cultural clashes, delving into the various wars and internal struggles between Israelis and Palestinians, and analyzing the power struggles triggered by external influences from Europe and the US, in an attempt to clarify how the past has influenced the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
China And America Had A Talk In Zurich, Will There Still Be A Cold War?
https://youtu.be/KBOXR-HFX8w
China does not make principled concessions and insists on doing its own thing well. This fundamental strategy is getting results: Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin #HuSays
https://youtu.be/hhY5J0iUa_s
'Constructive' China-U.S. Talks: An Icebreaker?
Yang Jiechi (1st right), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met Wednesday with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (1st left) (Photo: Xinhua)
On Wednesday, Yang Jiechi, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan for six hours of talks in Zurich, Switzerland. The press releases issued by both sides were more positive in their respective contexts. This suggests that the meeting was productive.
Both sides have talked about implementing the spirit of the phone call between Chinese and US heads of state on September 10. There were no negative descriptions and accusations against the other side in both public press releases. There was only more subtle language about the differences between the two countries. US officials told the media that the two sides also discussed the possibility of a video meeting between the two heads of state by the end of this year.
However, if we compare the press releases from both sides, there are serious differences between the two countries that can still been seen. Yang stressed that China opposes defining China-US relations as "competitive." He advocated that the US side should have a deep understanding of the mutually beneficial nature of the bilateral relations and correctly understand China's domestic and foreign policies and strategic intentions. However, Washington's press release mentioned "competition" twice in the US' usual context. It has also used the wording of "responsible competition" as in the US' several recent statements and emphasized managing risks.
It is obvious that Washington's strategic definition of the China-US relations and the basic thinking behind their policy toward Beijing remains the same. The State Department's press release emphasized that it will continue to invest in US national strength and work closely with allies and partners. This is the same as the US' oft-repeated theme of speaking "from a position of strength" and strengthening the alliance system to compete fiercely with China.
However, the US side has recently talked less about "confrontation" along with competition and cooperation. It has been repeatedly emphasizing that it does not want to see a "new Cold War." It wants to prevent competition from escalating into confrontation. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai also said that the US does not pursue decoupling, but is willing to a "recoupling" on a new basis. In addition, it is also obvious that the US side's attitude toward China has been adjusted. Examples include the release of Meng Wanzhou and Washington getting ready to restart the China-US economic and trade consultations and other actions and positive statements.
China's fundamental strategy of not making principled concessions and insisting on doing its own thing is taking effect. The US side always says it wants to speak "from a position of strength," but its strength is far from sufficient to achieve its ambitions to contain China's development. The US has been hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic, which has killed more than 700,000 people so far. It has not only plunged the US economy deeper into abusing stimulus mode, but also exposed the fundamental weaknesses of the US system and weakened its global influence.
By strengthening its alliance system, the US has mainly roped in Australia and Japan. In the past, Canberra and Tokyo used Washington's power to intimidate other countries. But now, it seems to be the other way around. The US' comprehensive offensive against China has quickly shown signs of fatigue.
To some extent, the reality has taught Washington a crisp lesson. The US has to alleviate some conflicts with China which are out of its ability. It also adjusted the pace of its China policy. At a time when anti-China public opinion is rampant in the US, the room for such adjustments is limited. Public announcements will be particularly restricted by domestic US politics. Therefore, Chinese people should not have illusions about the Biden administration's change of course. We should use our own solid actions to increase our firm leading power in China-US relations.
It must be noted that we have strong endurance in sticking to the current path toward the US. The US strategy toward China is very imaginative, but it cannot be supported by its ability. While the US is repeatedly discussing infrastructure construction, China's infrastructure construction has taken another step forward. The US' alliance system is becoming more and more complicated. For example, Paris, its traditional ally, is angry with Washington. Berlin is still going against Washington's will on the Nord Stream 2 deal. The US' failure in Afghanistan has made all of Washington's allies bitterly disappointed.
The US cannot achieve these deeds effortlessly. However, China can accumulate strategic initiatives by doing its own things well. China follows a pragmatic and reliable path.
We hope to see China-US relations find constructive changes. However, there are still many obstacles for the two sides to move closer in terms of their perceptions and expectations toward each other. The US has a deep hegemonic mindset, and it won't engage in reflection unless it fails. China must, by doing its own things well, make the US realize that ultimately it is impossible to contain China's development. By sticking to this approach and direction, US' China policy will gradually adapt to reality. The US will seek maximum interests by exploring coexistence and cooperation with China
China expresses grave
concern about the accident involving US submarine USS Connecticut
hitting an unknown object in the South China Sea, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Friday, urging the US to
clarify more details about the accident, its purpose of cruising in the
area, and whether it has caused a nuclear leak that has damaged the
local marine environment.
` ` MAN and nature are running out of time. That’s
the core message of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
...
Moral vacuum at the heart of modernity, now embodied in US laws!
` In short, historically it was the Church that gave the moral blessing
for colonisation, slavery and genocide during the Age of Globalisation.
The tragedy is that the Doctrine of Discovery is now embodied in US
laws.
Frequent outbreaks triggered by imported frozen products; reports suggesting traces of coronavirus found elsewhere earlier than Wuhan… so is COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan also result of imported cold-chain products? Check GT special investigative report…
Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported in November that a new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, indicating that the virus may have existed in Italy months before it was first detected in China.
The Italian researchers’ findings, published by the INT’s scientific magazine Tumori Journal, show 11.6 percent of 959 blood samples from healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed coronavirus antibodies well before February.
Peter Forster, a geneticist from Cambridge, also told the Global Times that he is not surprised that there might be cases earlier than China.
Foster suggests it is useful to think of three stages in the origins of the coronavirus: when and where did it cross the species barrier from bats to humans and when and where did it start spreading successfully among humans. “My dating suggests sometime between September and December 2019,” said the virologist, proposing finally to look at when the globally dominant infectious coronavirus subtype arose.
“Everyone agrees it was prominent in Northern Italy in February 2020. Some scientists said it came to Italy from China, but I am not so sure,” he said.
Evidence of both epidemiology and virology are needed to find out where the virus comes from, said the Beijing-based anonymous expert. If the pandemic originated from a certain place, there should be signs of an early outbreak. It is also possible that the virus already existed, but not seriously enough to cause an outbreak, he said, noting that there is only a small probability of the latter scenario, and no solid evidence to support it.
From a virology perspective, a full gene sequence of cases from that place should be obtained for observation and for determining when the virus was transmitted to this place via time and the virus’ variation point, said the expert.
“If we have doubts that the virus was originated from places other than Wuhan, we can compare its sequencing with the virus that was found in Wuhan. [We should] compare their homology and variability, to see if the virus found in other places is in its early stage, or it is evolved,” he said.
There are reports from several countries that early blood samples tested positive for the virus, but they can provide no evidence of the nucleic sequence, so the possibility of a false negative cannot be ruled out, said the anonymous expert.
He believes that if antibodies can be found in the blood serum, then the virus can also be found there. Even if the virus is not infectious anymore, it is easily detected, as its nucleic acid is protected by the coat of the virus and it is very stable and sensitive.
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province on November 22. Photo: Fan Lingzhi/GT
International cooperation urged
Although those virologists have pictured a clear route map to trace the origin of the virus, the real path to finding the origin is laden with difficulties.
The anonymous expert said that in terms of tracing the virus origin, the momentum for international scientists to cooperate has retrogressed compared with the pre-COVID-19 period.
“Scientists are reluctant to become involved in politics, they are eyeing international cooperation. Yet researchers from all over the world are acting with caution, avoiding troubles, and refusing casual communication. I don’t think it’s an ideal atmosphere for cooperation.”
This has drawn attention from international bodies. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries on November 30 not to politicize the hunt for the origins of the new coronavirus, saying that would only create barriers to learning the truth.
When talking to Tedros in September, director of China's National Health Commission Ma Xiaowei vowed to enhance cooperation with the WHO on virus prevention, origin tracing and vaccine development. China is pushing forward the work on the virus origin tracing, and is willing to strengthen cooperation and communication with the WHO, Ma said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on November 24 that while tracing the origin domestically, China has been earnestly implementing WHA resolutions.
"We are the first to invite WHO experts in for origin-tracing cooperation." Zhao said, adding that "We hope all relevant countries will adopt a positive attitude and cooperate with WHO like China does, making contributions to global origin-tracing and anti-epidemic cooperation."
“International communication on the virus origin should be frequent and open for all. But some countries weighed in and complicated the issue,” said Yang, who noted that the world has achieved great progress in fighting COVID-19 in the past year, including treatment of the disease and vaccine R&D.
Tracing the virus origin should not be a battle against each other; instead, an information, data sharing mechanism is helpful to bring the virus under control, Yang said.
'Barbarians' in UK media should learn manners from 5,000 years of Chinese history
While the rest of the world is discussing unguarded comments made by Queen Elizabeth II saying that Chinese officials were "very rude" during Xi Jinping's state visit last year, Chinese state media has only seen fit to author a single editorial on the subject.
Chinese-language editorial (see below) published earlier today, the Global Times said that "barbarians" in the British media had blown the incident out of proportion and they could stand to learn some manners from 5,000 years of Chinese culture, via SCMP:
“The West in modern times has risen to the top and created a brilliant civilization, but their media is full of reckless ‘gossip fiends’ who bare their fangs and brandish their claws and are very narcissistic, retaining the bad manners of ‘barbarians’,” it said in an editorial.
“As they experience constant exposure to the 5,000 years of continuous Eastern civilisation, we believe they will make progress” when it comes to manners, it added in the Chinese-language piece, which was not published in English.
For its part, the Global Times simply shrugged off the Queen's comments: “It is not surprising that there are off the record complaints. Chinese diplomats must have mocked British officials privately."
The Queen mocked Chinese officials in private comments that were made public during a garden party in Buckingham Palace. The 90-year-old monarch spoke candidly with the officer in charge of security during last year's state visit -- which was said to have kicked off the "Golden Era in UK-China relations" -- while a camera rolled nearby, picking up their conversation.
The video and the Queen's remarks have made headlines across the world. However, the official reaction in China has been very muted. When asked by reporters at a regular Q&A session yesterday if that "Golden Era" still continues today, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang opted to neither confirm nor deny.
Felicia Sonmez from The Wall Street Journal also asked if China thinks that the video was released on purpose. "I think you should refer your question to those who put the footage on the website," Lu replied, though that question was later deleted from the official transcript of the briefing.
Meanwhile, a report on the Queen's comments carried by BBC World News was blanked out in China.
Last October, both sides declared that the state visit was "very successful." The Queen herself said that it was “a milestone in the unprecedented year of co-operation and friendship between the United Kingdom and China.” Prime Minister David Cameron said that the trip had managed to drum up $58 billion in Chinese investment.
With those economic ties in mind, the Global Times sees the Queen's comments as very minor. “The Sino-UK relationship will not be influenced by this. The Golden Era is based on profound interests,” the editorial said.
Of course, the Queen wasn't the only one to make an epic political gaffe this week. While talking to Her Royal Majesty and the Archbishop of Canterbury at Buckingham Palace, David Cameron boasted about the quality of attendees he has arriving at an anti-corruption summit in London later in the week, seemingly unaware of the cameras that recorded him saying:
"We have got the Nigerians - actually we have got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain."
He went on: "Nigeria and Afghanistan - possibly two of the most corrupt countries in the world."
The Global Times editorial took a jab at these twin blunders, writing: "But among the Western countries, Britain is one of those that gets caught with its pants down and exposes itself most often.” It's hard to argue with that assessment, following Cameron's remarks, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari urged the UK to return assets stolen by corrupt officials. "I am not going to demand any apology from anybody. What I am demanding is the return of the assets," Buhari said at the anti-graft event.
Many have argued that while Cameron's comments may have just been foolish, the Queen's comments were publicized in order to cause chaos in improving UK-China relations, as an indirect attack against Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne. The Global Times was quick to reject this claim, saying that "if they had deliberately done so, that would have been truly crude and rude."
Meanwhile, others have pointed to Queen Elizabeth's umbrella as the true mastermind behind this whole fiasco, The Daily Telegraph reports:
Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the reason the Queen’s comments were audible on the TV footage was because her clear plastic umbrella, which she uses to allow people to see her while sheltering from the rain, had acted like the cone in a loudspeaker, amplifying her voice towards the microphone.
“If she had been holding an umbrella made of fabric, it wouldn’t have happened,” an insider said.
“But because it’s plastic, it reflects the sound like a satellite dish.” - SCMP