Why are so many countries all of a sudden turning to the yuan to buy their essential commodities?

Why is the world de-dollarizing so quickly?

Simple — the Russian sanctions.

Russia is the biggest single commodity producer in the world — they have oil AND gas AND agro AND minerals AND anything else.

But because of the sanctions, Russia CANNOT take dollars (or euros) for sales of their commodities.

First, the sanctions disconnected Russia from SWIFT, meaning Russians can’t pay for things they would want to buy with dollars.

So why would Russia take dollars for their commodities — if they can’t buy stuff with those dollars.

Plus their dollar assets get confiscated in the West. So why hold dollars, and dollar assets to park them in, if they will be stolen?

So because of sanctions, Russia has been FORCED to de-dollarize.

Russia didn’t want to de-dollarize — they were obliged.

By the West.

Continue reading “Why are so many countries all of a sudden turning to the yuan to buy their essential commodities?”

‘We are all Chinese’, former Taiwan president says while visiting China

“People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese people, and are both descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors,” Ma said, in comments provided by his office.

Ma used wording in Chinese meaning people of Chinese ethnicity, rather than referring to their nationality. Descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors is an expression referring to a common ancestor for Chinese people.

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This is good reporting and I am surprised to see it. This what Chinese pretty much always mean when they speak about China/ Chinese—they mean the Chinese race. Westerners have very weak racial ties and only somewhat stronger ethnic ties (nation, province, region, etc). Traditional Chinese, as described by Sun Yat-sen, also had weak racial ties, which is how he characterized them. Part of his Three Principles of the [Chinese] People emphasizes the importance of the racial bond among Chinese. Sun thought this was of central importance because it was only through racial unification that China would be able to become great, he believed. I mention this because it is key to understanding China and Chinese people. All Chinese are taught this in detail as children in school.

For Westerners, this is also key to understanding most of the world since people almost everywhere think the way Sun did then and Ma does today. I am not advocating for strengthening white racial identity except in the sense that it is important to understand that this is how almost everyone else in the world thinks. Anti-white ideologies and emotions should not surprise anyone who has studied China or any other non-white society. If I were a white Sun Yat-sen of today, I would say white people very much need to understand the above and also develop a defensive awareness of the racial/ ethnic origins of white/ Western civilization. If not, you will be overrun by peoples who do not even know of any other way to think. ABN

End of unipolarity w/ Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Predictable surface generalities only. Mercouris joins Sachs in wondering why neocons simply cannot understand that a mutually cooperating multipolar world is what’s really best for them. I do not know enough about Sachs but suspect he is spending time cleaning up his reputation as he sees it appearing in history books sometime in the future. My sense is Mercouris knows there is more going on with neocons than insularity and failure to adapt. I encourage him to at least hint at the violent ideology that actually enlivens them. ABN

The EU’s censorship regime is about to go global

November 16, 2022 was the day that freedom of speech died on the internet. This was the day the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into law. Under the DSA, very large online platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45million monthly active users – like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – will have to swiftly remove illegal content, hate speech and so-called disinformation from their platforms. Or they will face fines of up to six per cent of their annual global revenue. Larger platforms must be DSA compliant by this summer, while smaller platforms will be obliged to tackle this content from 2024 onwards.

The ramifications of this are immense. Not only will the DSA now enforce the regulation of content on the internet for the first time, but it is also set to become a global standard, not just a European one.

In recent years, the EU has largely realised its ambition to become a global regulatory superpower. The EU can dictate how any company worldwide must behave if it wants to operate in Europe, the world’s second-largest market. As a result, its strict regulatory standards often end up being adopted worldwide by both firms and other regulators, in what is known as the ‘Brussels effect’. 

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Xi Jinping warns China is ready to ‘stand guard over world order’ as he holds four-hour Kremlin talks with ‘dear friend’ Putin who says he is ‘open to negotiations’ over Ukraine

Xi Jinping said he was ready to ‘stand guard over a world order based on international law’ as he met Vladimir Putin in Moscow today.

In his first state visit to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese leader spent more than four hours in talks with his ‘dear friend‘ Putin, discussing proposals to end the war previously outlined in a 12-point peace plan.

‘We are always open to negotiations,’ the Russian leader said, welcoming China’s plan to settle his ‘acute crisis’ in Ukraine. 

Xi meanwhile hailed his ‘close ties’ with Russia as Putin said the two countries had ‘plenty of common objectives and tasks’. 

Presented as a ‘journey of friendship, cooperation and peace’, the summit marks the deepening of ties between China and an increasingly isolated Russia, who have relied on Beijing to soften the impact of western sanctions by buying Russian energy and commodities.

The leaders are set to meet again tomorrow for more formal talks. 

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More consequences of wrong-headed and aggressive US foreign policy with domestic affairs just as bad or worse. Sanctions and NATO/ neocon aggression in Ukraine has succeeded in pushing China and Russia closer together. This is a disaster especially when compared to what might have been if USA & Europe had formed an alliance with Russia, which properly is a major part of the West, or was. ABN

Disaster in Ukraine; 100,000 of Ukraine’s best troops dead

Without saying it, the two Alexes describe an ongoing genocidal massacre, a deliberate policy of denuding Ukraine of Ukrainians. I wonder: 1) does someone plan to take the land Russia does not want and/or 2) are we witnessing the runup for what is being planned for all of Europe? The MO is simple: provoke Russia to fight, then let both sides kill each other, then take even more land. ABN

UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH FULLY EXPELLED FROM KIEV CAVES LAVRA BY END OF MARCH

According to a letter from the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and the Kiev Caves Lavra National Reserve, the UOC has until March 29 to entirely leave the premises of the Holy Dormition-Kiev Caves Lavra—the holiest site in all of Ukraine, where the UOC has prayed and ascetically struggled for 1,000 years.

The Ukrainian government inherited ownership of the Kiev Caves Lavra from the Soviet Union, and the “National Reserve,” as the state calls is, is divided into the Upper and Lower Lavra. The Church was already kicked out of the Upper Lavra, which includes the Holy Dormition Cathedral and the Sts. Anthony and Theodosius Trapeza Church, at the end of last year.

The Orthodox Church held its last service in the Upper Lavra on New Year’s Eve. Despite the persecution, the faithful people of Kiev maintained their faith, joyfully singing “Christ is Risen!” the last service.

The brotherhood has pled with the state to stop the persecution of the monastery and the UOC, but to no avail.

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Many signs point to Zelensky’s policies as being acts of de-Ukrainianization of Ukraine, including massacring Ukrainian men by sending them into hopeless battles while also causing much of the rest of the country to flee. Zelensky, who is not a Ukrainian, does not act like a Ukrainian but rather as a puppet of NATO/neocons who seem to be bent on seizing depopulated Ukrainian territory for reasons not yet fully known. ABN

Plausible explanation for blaming Ukrainian group for Nord Stream pipeline bombing

Within 12 hours, both @nytimes & @washingtonpost published long articles claiming that a Ukrainian group blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

German media picked it up.

Now the German defense minister is threatening to withdraw support for Kiev.

We now know what’s the plan.

1/6

The Germans are going to use the terrorist attack against their infrastructure as the excuse to pull out of the Ukraine project.

Olaf Scholtz went to the US to tell Biden: Either YOU blame Ukraine so we can pull our support for Ukraine—or WE blame YOU and pull out of NATO.

Continue reading “Plausible explanation for blaming Ukrainian group for Nord Stream pipeline bombing”

China leading US in technology race in all but a few fields, thinktank finds

The United States and other western countries are losing the race with China to develop advanced technologies and retain talent, with Beijing potentially establishing a monopoly in some areas, a new report has said.

China leads in 37 of 44 technologies tracked in a year-long project by thinktank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The fields include electric batteries, hypersonics and advanced radio-frequency communications such as 5G and 6G.

The report, published on Thursday, said the US was the leader in just the remaining seven technologies such as vaccines, quantum computing and space launch systems.

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A tech friend’s comment on this article and the study: “I went to their source and it is a stupid metric. They do not define any of it by working systems. They define it by people working in industry and research papers published. The US doesn’t publish research on it’s cutting edge. There is no metric for working systems. ChatGPT is a great example. Everyone kept saying China is far far ahead in AI – and yet It is ChatGPT that actually works and has a use to do something other than spy on people. All China is like that – they manipulate the metrics. They have some smart people but they have no leadership or independent structures to build great things.” ABN

Belarus President Lukashenko Visits Chairman Xi, Affirms Support for China’s Ukraine Peace Plan

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was in Beijing for a state visit with Chairman Xi.  Belarus is not a member of NATO and borders both Ukraine and Russia. Together both leaders, Xi and Lukashenko, affirmed their support for a peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine.

You would think that Lukashenko violated a war commandment from NATO, the World Economic Forum and the Western alliance when you read the apoplexy from the media describing how he stood next to Chairman Xi during his Chinese leader’s first comments in public about China’s peace proposal.

When you look at the big picture, you realize how strongly the western alliance needs to maintain a NATO expanded war with Russia as the only possible path forward.  Anyone like Viktor Orban (Hungary) or Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus) who propose anything, except expanded war with Russia, are immediately attacked by the entire apparatus of western media.

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