Attorney Breon Peace. Photo: Andrew Harnik AP.
By Margaret Kimberley – Apr 19, 2023
The U.S. can shoot down balloons, call names, and claim that China has “police stations” in New York City. It cannot stop the decline of its own making as it engages in war propaganda theater.
âRight now there are changes â the likes of which we havenât seen for 100 years â and we are the ones driving these changes together.â Xi Jinping to Vladimir Putin , March 22, 2023
President Lula da Silva of Brazil recently visited Chinaâs President Xi Jinping. French President Emmanuel Macron, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iranâs President Ebrahim Raisi and Spainâs prime minister Pedro Sanchez have all made the journey in recent months. Even Germanyâs amateurish Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock went, but her goal was to make sure that double talking Macron didnât stray far from the EUâs pro-U.S. orthodoxy.
The frequency of high level meetings is interesting when one considers Joe Biden’s bizarre rant in his State of the Union Speech. He blurted out, âName me a world leader who would trade places with Xi Jinping! Name me one!â Apparently the answer is all of them because they are making a collective beeline to Beijing. Because of his odd screed and shooting down a weather balloon, Biden canât get Xi to take his phone call. Nor can Secretary of State Blinken schedule a meeting with his Chinese counterparts that was planned before the balloon fiasco. China is âghostingâ the U.S., which responds in typical fashion.
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Like every small child does when frustrated about not getting their way, the U.S. ups the ante with a brand new tantrum. Balloons are so two months ago, as are demented questions about Tik Tok. Now the courts are tools of the futile effort to subjugate China. In New York City prosecutors charged two Chinese-Americans with failing to register as agents of a foreign government by setting up a âpolice stationâ under the control of Chinaâs government.
The trope of the Chinese police station has gone from a laughable war propaganda theory to war by other means. Federal prosecutors are charging the two men with obstruction, not espionage, and it appears they may not have been charged at all had they exercised their right not to talk to the FBI.
The charges are a prosecutorâs dream complete with press conferences where they can make outrageous claims against defendants. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace waxed particularly eloquently, âTodayâs charges are a crystal clear response to the P.R.C. that we are onto you, we know what youâre doing and we will stop it from happening in the United States of America. We donât need or want a secret police station in our great city.â
Of course the office was not a secret as it had been opened publicly. Nor is it anything resembling a police station. The term is a fiction, a creation of the state and their friends in the media meant to incite fear and hatred of China and to normalize the idea of armed conflict. These offices where Chinese citizens can get licenses renewed donât have lock-ups or armed officers and are definitely not police stations.
The charges filed against the two men are purely political and will not lead to any advantage for the United States. While camera-loving prosecutors make nonsensical statements, Chinaâs Defense Minister was in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin. China and Russia are now inextricably linked and are preparing to face the U.S. in whatever way it may choose to confront them.
In addition to the two New York men, the Justice Department indicted 34 people in China and charged them with conspiracy to transmit foreign threats but the complaint is a rehash of the old Russian troll farm stories. What was their crime? Among other things, â…an account controlled by the Group made numerous posts about George Floydâs death and accusing U.S. law enforcement institutions of racism.â Any accusation of racism in law enforcement is a fact and not a reason for an indictment of any kind, but facts are never the issue when the U.S. declares another nation an enemy.
In attempting to diminish Chinaâs economic prowess the U.S. has elevated its stature around the world. The ceasefire between Yemen and Saudi Arabia is the result of Chinese diplomacy as is the recent rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Ukraine obsession and failure to harm Russia with sanctions has instead demonstrated the need to minimize relations with the U.S. and move away from the use of the dollar as the world reserve currency. China is leading in this regard and the more the U.S. amateurishly tries to isolate Beijing, the more it isolates itself.
Chinaâs diplomatic success proves that the U.S. cannot be a peacemaker in the world. Its system depends upon domination and making what passes for friends through threats of force and interference. When another nation was able to bring persuasion to bear, the U.S. role as a hegemon and international aggressor was exposed for all to see.
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The U.S. can call names, create hysteria about Tik Tok, claim that China uses âspy balloonsâ and âpolice stationsâ or make up anything else it wants. One quote in the Department of Justice press release is particularly revealing. âThis case serves as a powerful reminder that the Peopleâs Republic of China will stop at nothing to bend people to their will and silence messages they donât want anyone to hear.â That statement is more accurately directed at the U.S.
The people of this country are the ultimate losers. Thanks to the corporate media repeating state talking points, they have no idea that China is moving up in the world and the U.S. is more and more isolated. They donât know that the long predicted process of dedollarization is beginning to take shape.
The U.S. should be engaging in peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world. But that isnât what the oligarchs and plutocrats here want. There would be no need for a military industrial complex if the U.S. wasnât constantly creating new enemies and undermining other countries. All it has is aggression and the spectacle of name calling and incompetent diplomacy. The descent is obvious to anyone paying attention.
Margaret Kimberley
Margaret Kimberleyâs Freedom Rider column appears weekly in Black Agenda Report, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and she regularly posts on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
