• "Law of the Jungle" or "China Is Running Scared

    From digimaus@618:618/1 to All on Wed Mar 12 16:22:31 2025
    From: https://shorturl.at/wDAFw (thegatewaypundit.com)

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    Chinese Foreign Minister: Trump is "Reverting to the Law of the Jungle"

    by Assistant Editor Mar. 9, 2025 8:40 pm

    China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi blasted American President Donald J.
    Trump by inference when answering a question about the Trump tariffs,
    which are overhauling the US-China $300 billion trade imbalance.

    The Trump Administration has imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods.

    The U.S. exported $143.5 billion worth of goods to China in 2024, while
    importing $438.9 billion worth of goods from China.

    Experts generally cite several negative economic outcomes that can result
    from a persistent trade imbalance, particularly a trade deficit (where a
    country imports more than it exports). The eight main concerns experts
    express about persistent trade imbalances include:

    1. Currency Depreciation & Inflation
    2. Job Losses in Domestic Industries
    3. Increased Debt & Foreign Ownership
    4. Industrial Decline & Hollowing Out
    5. Economic Volatility & Dependency
    6. Weakened National Security
    7. Structural Unemployment & Wage Stagnation
    8. Interest Rate & Monetary Policy Constraints

    Instead of these rational concerns being a motivation for Trump's actions,
    the Chinese Foreign Minister has reverted to name-calling and suggesting
    that Trump is a tariff madman.

    "There are more than 190 countries in the world," the Chinese diplomat
    said at a news conference in Beijing, the nation's capital city. "Should
    everyone stress `my country first' and obsess over a position of strength,
    the law of the jungle would reign again, smaller and weaker countries
    would bear the brunt first, and international norms and order would take a
    body blow," he added.

    Yet China has historically used tariffs to advance both its political and
    economic agenda.

    China's use of tariffs is calculated and often tied to its broader
    economic and geopolitical strategy, helping it maintain an advantage in
    global trade while protecting domestic interests. For example, in 2020,
    China imposed an 80.5% tariff on Australian barley, crippling the
    country's barley exports in retaliation for Australia's call for a
    COVID-19 origins investigation.

    Similarly, in 2018, China levied 25% tariffs on U.S. soybeans, severely
    impacting American farmers, as part of its response to Trump-era trade
    policies. Another instance occurred in 2021, when China raised tariffs on
    Lithuanian goods after Lithuania strengthened diplomatic ties with Taiwan,
    using economic pressure to discourage other nations from challenging
    Beijing's "One China" policy.

    China is regularly accused of abusing its position of power in Asia, with
    long-running conflicts with India, Bhutan, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and
    countries in the South China Sea. The Chinese are wantonly violating
    international law and claiming the Spratly Islands, for example, because
    of their potential to have oil reserves and their strategic placement in
    shipping lanes.

    China has historically also had past border disputes with Kazakhstan,
    Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar/Burma, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan,
    Russia, and Tajikistan, nearly every single one of its neighbors.

    CNN further quoted Yi as adding, "No country should fantasize that it can
    suppress China on the one hand and develop good relations with China on
    the other."

    "This `two-faced' approach is not only not conducive to the stability of
    bilateral relations, but also unable to establish mutual trust."

    One way the Chinese use two-faced diplomacy globally, is through its use
    of international loans and finance to put developing nations in great
    deals of debt.

    The Chinese policy of extending high-interest or strategically leveraged
    loans to developing nations is commonly referred to as "Debt-Trap
    Diplomacy." This term is often used to describe how China provides
    large-scale infrastructure loans to developing countries-primarily through
    the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-that can lead to unsustainable debt
    burdens. When nations struggle to repay, China can gain strategic
    leverage, such as control over key infrastructure (e.g., ports, railways,
    and energy assets).

    Yi continued, "A big country should honor its international obligations
    and fulfill its due responsibilities. It should not put selfish interests
    before principles, still less should it wield the power to bully the
    weak," Wang said, adding China "resolutely opposes power politics and
    hegemony."

    One prominent example of China's recent selfishness related to the Belt
    and Road Initiative is Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port, where unsustainable
    Chinese loans forced the country to lease the port to China for 99 years,
    effectively ceding a critical asset to Beijing.

    Similarly, under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Pakistan has
    taken on massive Chinese debt for infrastructure projects that
    disproportionately benefit Chinese companies, raising concerns about
    long-term economic dependency and strategic leverage.

    In Africa, nations such as Djibouti and Kenya have also been cited as
    being financially bullied by Beijing; Djibouti has accrued substantial
    debt financing key infrastructure, while Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway
    project has sparked debates about high costs and questionable returns,
    potentially compromising national sovereignty. These cases exemplify how
    the Belt and Road Initiative can lead to scenarios where borrowing
    countries face significant strategic and economic constraints.

    The Communist Chinese government enjoyed good relations with the
    administration of Joe Biden and his degenerate criminal son, Hunter Biden.
    The Biden family were the recipients of major trade deals with the Chinese
    government. The U.S. House Oversight Committee claims the Chinese were
    laundering money to the Bidens. The Chinese were paying for access to the
    Biden Influence Machine, giving over $8 million to the Biden family.

    According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), China is the main
    provider of illegal fentanyl and other derivative compounds into the
    United States. An estimated 70% of the 100,000 who die in America each
    year from overdoses do so from Fentanyl. For context, this is roughly
    twice the number of people who die from automobile accidents every year,
    and approximately 49,000 die each year from suicide.

    China produces fentanyl primarily through its vast and loosely regulated
    pharmaceutical and chemical industries, which manufacture both legal and
    illicit synthetic opioids. Chinese companies legally produce precursor
    chemicals used in fentanyl synthesis, often exporting them to Mexico,
    where cartels complete the manufacturing process.

    However, many Chinese labs also produce fentanyl directly and ship
    it-sometimes mislabeled as research chemicals or painkillers-through
    international mail, dark web markets, or intermediary countries to evade
    detection.

    While the Chinese government has imposed regulations on fentanyl-class
    substances, enforcement is inconsistent, and many producers exploit legal
    loopholes by slightly altering chemical structures to create unregulated
    analogs that have similar effects. This ability to rapidly adapt and
    circumvent regulations makes China a key global source of fentanyl and its
    precursors, fueling the opioid crisis in the U.S. and beyond.

    The Chinese are also widely suspected of being involved in the 2020
    election fraud, where Eugene Yu of the Konnech company was found giving
    election data to the Communist Chinese by illegally storing the data of at
    least 240,000 election day workers on Chinese servers.

    The Chinese are also some of the world's most heinous human rights
    abusers, which U.S. reports claim is only getting worse with time.

    China was also caught in 2023 operating at least nine illegal `police
    stations' across the United States.

    China is also a country that still practices what Wikipedia refers to as
    "open defecation" or, in other words, pooping in public.

    An estimated 0.1% of the Chinese population openly poops in public.

    The United States has played a longtime role in supporting and financing
    the Communist Chinese due to subversive far-left agendas, which President
    Trump has been ending after 75 years.

    The China Hands-a group of U.S. diplomats, journalists, and scholars
    specializing in Chinese affairs-played a controversial role in the fall of
    China to communism in 1949. Many of them, including John Service, John
    Paton Davies, and Owen Lattimore, were sympathetic to the Chinese
    Communist Party (CCP) or, at the very least, deeply skeptical of Chiang
    Kai-shek and the Nationalist government (Kuomintang, or KMT). Their
    reports and influence in Washington shaped U.S. policy in ways that
    undermined support for the Nationalists, weakening their ability through
    false reports and lies to policymakers, in order to aid the Communist
    takeover.

    During World War II, the China Hands downplayed the Communist Party's
    radical ideology, instead portraying Mao Zedong's forces as agrarian
    reformers with strong popular support. They simultaneously painted Chiang
    Kai-shek's government as corrupt and ineffective, advocating for a
    reduction in U.S. military and financial aid. Their influence led to
    hesitation in Washington when the Nationalists were struggling in the
    Chinese Civil War, leaving them underfunded and undersupplied. Meanwhile,
    Soviet support for the CCP remained strong, tipping the balance in favor
    of the Communists.

    After Mao Zedong's victory in 1949, critics-most notably Senator Joseph
    McCarthy and the China Lobby-accused the China Hands of deliberately
    sabotaging U.S. policy and paving the way for Communist control.
    ===

    -- Sean

    --- MultiMail/Linux
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (618:618/1)