China, February 15: Seniors in the northwest port city of Dalian protest cutbacks in government medical benefits. The protests started in Wuhan, where retired steelworkers confronted police and sang the Internationale. The specter of communism is haunting the Chinese capitalists!
Shooting Down UFOs: Distraction from “First Battle in Next War”
February 12— The US media are making a big deal about how US F-22s shot down four (by now, maybe more) Unidentified Flying Objects in US and Canadian airspace in little over a week. One was clearly a Chinese spy balloon. Possibly the others were surveillance devices, too.
But wait: Is anyone surprised that imperialist powers spy on each other? Doesn’t the US spy on China too? Of course!
Let’s not be distracted by these shiny objects. What we should be looking at instead is the escalating US-China imperialist conflict in Asia-Pacific. The US media are grooming us to pay, fight, and die for US imperialism in a war that seems increasingly close.
“The first battle of the next war” is what the US imperialist Center for International and Strategic Studies called its recent war-gaming exercise for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In most of their twenty-four test-runs, the invasion failed – at a huge cost to the US, China, and Taiwan in ships, aircraft, and lives.
“The high losses damaged the US global position for many years,” it reported. “The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.”
Perhaps shooting down shiny objects is meant as deterrence?
The US-Philippine agreement includes reopening another four US military bases on Luzon (under 750 miles or 1200 km from Taiwan). This is clearly preparation for the next Pacific war.
So is Japan’s recently announced plan for rearmament, which will make it the world’s third-largest military spender (behind only the US and China).
And South Korea’s announcement (also in January) that it will consider building nuclear weapons or asking the US to redeploy them on its territory as North Korea’s nuclear arsenal grows.
But Chinese imperialism is busy too. In November, Indonesia repeated its support of the “one-China policy,” meaning China’s claim to Taiwan. The rulers of the two countries agreed to stronger economic and trade relationships despite continuing tensions over the South China Sea.
As with China’s other “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) partners, its state capitalist enterprises export capital to Indonesia (a hallmark of imperialism).
Western analysts don’t like to compare BRI with the US Marshall Plan which opened the post-World War II “American Century.” But they admit that “both reveal a need for global superpowers to fund infrastructure abroad for domestic and geopolitical reasons.”
On its southwestern border, China’s intensification of its border conflict with India is putting pressure on fascist Modi’s government. India and Indonesia have had long-standing ties and recent joint naval exercises. It remains to be seen how these contradictions will sharpen and resolve.
Chinese imperialism is playing a long game, while US imperialism is on the defensive. China’s Chairman Xi declared that modernization of its People’s Liberation Army is to be completed by August 2029 to assure the “rejuvenation of the nation.”
Back in early 2001, the US blue-ribbon Hart-Rudman Commission predicted that the US would face a massive terrorist attack on its own soil and that it should prepare to fight China within 25 years. The dust and rubble of the World Trade Center sadly vindicated the first prediction and obscured the second. But here we are.
The US media furor over shooting down UFOs is meant to distract workers in the US and elsewhere:
From our increasing economic hardship.
From the deadly racism and xenophobia that divide our class. From the intensifying sexism of the US Christian right that rivals that of the Taliban. From corporate and government espionage on our own lives.
From the toll that coming wars will take on our lives.
It’s meant to divert us from class-consciousness and anger to patriotism and fear.
You can’t fool all the people all the time. More of us are realizing that the only way out of imperialist war and exploitation is communist revolution for working-class power.
Imperialists are already starting their war. We will finish it, and their whole rotten system too.
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