It’s Time To Slay the Dragon
By: Mark Timberlake
Tags: Diplomacy, Human Rights, International Relations, Politics, China

Credit: Pixabay

This article provides an overview of why China’s relationship with the world and its own minorities is a growing global concern.

Chinese Aggressive Territorial Expansion, Hegemony:

A vast number of news and scholarly articles have been published in recent years regarding Chinese activities building towards taking control of the entire South-China Seas. These efforts have involved dredging coral reefs to build massive artificial islands, on which they have built military bases, and runways.

China’s continuous encroachment and intention to control the South China Sea led to the Philippines lodging a suit against them in 2013. They stated that China was in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On 12th June 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China stating that they had no historical, and no legal basis for its nine-dash line, which the country used to demarcate its claims in the South China Sea.

China also claims the Senkaku islands located north of Taiwan, but under Japanese administration. The Senkaku islands were incorporated into Japanese territory in 1895. The islands briefly came under American occupation in 1945, but were returned to Japan in 1972. Before 1971, neither China nor Taiwan made any claims to the “territorial sovereignty” of the Islands and neither government expressed any objection to Japanese sovereignty over the islands. In the late 1960s, the Bangkok-based Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) surveyed the waters around the Senkaku and suggested potentially rich oil deposits beneath the seabed. After the ECAFE released its findings in 1971, Taiwan made its first territorial claim to the islands. Months later China followed suit.

China’s navy and airforce are deliberately, and belligerently penetrating the territorial waters and airspace of Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Phillipines.

In the Himalayas, China is attempting to seize the Indian states of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh in the east, and is harassing Bhutan. It had already invaded and seized the territory of Aksai Chin, part of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. China’s military activity on the Tibetan border with India has been extremely belligerent.

New York Times (27th Nov 2020); China has built a settlement inside Bhutan nearby the Doklam Plateau where China had previously started building roads inside Bhutan.

The intention of these actions is to encroach upon, and ultimately block, the Siliguri Corridor, a narrow strip of land connecting peninsular India with its northeast states including Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh which China is trying to seize.

This follows similar activities in neighbouring Nepal where China has built a settlement inside Nepal’s territorial borders. And not by invitation!

China has also opened another front on the east border of Bhutan where it now is trying to claim 300 sq. miles of the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary.

Following the breakup of the former Soviet Union, China made territorial claims on Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and, at one point, the entire land mass of Kyrgyzstan. In order to diffuse the situation, these Central Asian countries ceded 16,000 square kilometres to China.

In earlier years, China has had multiple border wars with Russia, and India over territory.

China has repeatedly attacked and sunk Philippine, Vietnamese, and Indonesian fishing vessels operating in their own territorial waters.

China has repeatedly moved its oil exploration platform into Vietnamese territorial waters, and its navy has belligerently confronted Vietnamese Coast Guard trying to intervene.

China threatened a Spanish exploration platform operating in Vietnamese territorial waters causing Vietnam to request the Spanish exploration company to cease exploration.

China has built a military base inside Tajikistan’s territorial border.

And Chinese police patrol Serbian streets!

Recent Events In Inner Mongolia, and the Possibility of China Annexing The Republic of Mongolia:

There are 4 reasons why China would consider annexing Mongolia.

First, is a legal/historical claim. Second, the Republic is resource rich; China represents 50% of Mongolian FDI, most of which is resource related.

Third, in March 2020, the Republic legislated to replace the Cyrillic script with the native Mongolian script in the school curriculum. This move would further fuel Mongol identity/nationalism in Inner Mongolia. China has twice before attempted to replace Mongol as the medium of education; however stiff Mongol opposition resisted those efforts. The renewed effort to displace Mongol language education could be in response the new language policy in the Republic. The Republic acts as a beacon of freedom for all ethnic groups in China. If China annexes the Republic it can demoralise all ethnic hopes for independence.

Fourth, China is actively pursuing territorial claims against most of its neighbours: the Ladakh region; Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh states of India; claims against Bhutan; it claims the entire Pamir region of Tajikistan; this year, it revived claims to Vladivostok.

It would be naive to think that the Republic is exempt from Chinese claims.

Aggressive Chinese Interference into the Politics and Discourse of Other Countries:

China is actively using its diaspora to aggressively influence politics in other countries; Australia is a prime example.

Over the past 12 months, in Australia and New Zealand, China’s active interference in the political process, disinformation, and attempts to bribe officials, and intimidate critics has been widely reported. And it has been actively manipulating its diaspora in Australia.

China is also actively threatening Uyghurs in Australia, and France. China has demanded that Uyghurs in France, including French nationals, surrender all personal details with threats to their families in China if they do not comply.

China has also actively cultivated business leaders and Academics to act as de-facto China apologists and propagandists.

During 2020, Human Rights Watch Australia director and UNSW adjunct lecturer Elaine Pearson posted comments critical of the situation in Hong Kong.

The university was then hit with critical social media posts and emails from Chinese nationals that said Ms Pearson’s article was ignorant, biased, discriminatory, had “severely offended” Chinese students, and amounted to interference in China’s internal affairs.

In response the UNSW deleted the posts from its website.

Stuff New Zealand (9th Oct 2020); New Zealand Professor Anne-Marie Brady has published research on China’s efforts to influence Western democracies. She is now under investigation by the University of Canterbury (NZ) regarding her research. She has exposed some academics and their links to China, and has previously been subject to intimidation; there is suggestion that China is manipulating events.

The BRI And Trade Weaponisation:

China has indebted Kyrgyzstan to the amount of $2 Billion; a massive debt for a country with a GDP of $7 Billion. Numerous reports cite Chinese efforts to fuel corruption in Kyrgyzstan so as to favour Chinese companies for contracts. There are reports of social unrest in response to the growing influx of Chinese that follow contracts awarded to Chinese companies.

Laos is the latest BRI debt trap victim: it has handed control of its electricity grid to China. Pakistan has given China control of its Gwadar port, next to which China plans to build a naval base. Sri Lanka surrendered/leased the Hambantota port to China plus 6,000 hectares of land. Tajikistan has ceded over 1,100 sq. km. of it own territory and a silver mine to China to pay off part of its debt. And China is after more: it is working up a claim to the entire Pamir region of Tajikistan. In Africa, the infrastructure projects buy influence at the UN, and allow China access to mineral and forest resources. BRI loans represent a significant % of the GDP of many recipient countries. China is opportunistic when it comes to acquiring assets/territory in exchange for debt. Many of the BRI projects are of questionable strategic value, e.g. the Balkans — road projects that go nowhere; however, they have bought influence at the UN and in EU decisions.

There is significant systemic risk associated with global supply chains centred on China. China is the largest trade partner for 120 countries, and exports 42% of manufactured products.

China has repeatedly demonstrated that it will leverage its grip over global supply chains and weaponise trade with any and all countries.

China has unilaterally defined a series of red-lines; examples of these red-lines include the illegal seizure of most of the South China Seas; opportunistic, hostile encroachments along the border with India and Bhutan; criticisms of human rights abuses; and even Australia’s call for a pandemic enquiry.

Without exception, countries are warned not to cross these red-lines. Concerns and objections China declares are due to wrong thinking, cold war mentality, or some other defect that the aggrieved country needs to rectify so as to maintain harmonious relations with China.

However, what China means by harmonious is subservience to its belligerence, industrial espionage, IP theft, human right’s abuses, and unconscionable behaviour.

“The impacts of coercive diplomacy are exacerbated by the growing dependency of countries on the Chinese market. The economic, business and security risks of that dependency are likely to increase.”, conclude the authors of the ASPI report; ‘The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy’, Sept. 2020.

It is dishonest to frame the issue as a US China rivalry. China’s attempt to seize the South China Seas, its global campaigns of industrial espionage, IP theft, trade weaponisation, hostage diplomacy, and hacking are affecting all countries. And reports of genocide in Xinjiang, and forced organ harvesting are global moral issues.

China’s Flagrant Theft of Western IP:

There have been numerous published articles that describe Chinese efforts to take over international companies of strategic value in their industries, for their IP; and to steal that IP if it can not be bought.

China has successfully encouraged global manufacturing to move to China, and now it is trying to dominate 5G, AI and other advanced technologies. To achieve this it has mounted a global campaign of hacking, IP theft, and espionage.

The PLA has dedicated units actively involved in hacking foreign governments and corporations.

There have been numerous published articles of China’s use of Huawei to steal data, IP, and conduct spying. For detailed comments

The two arguments often cited to justify allowing Huawei to participate in 5G reflect either deliberate bias in favour of Huawei, or a total failure to understand risk management.

The argument that there has been no previous evidence of spying by Huawei, or that such a move would be corporate suicide is total nonsense.

Again, there are many published reports of International companies that planned to do business in China only to be forced to transfer their IP to Chinese control.

A typical practice is where China encourages JV partnerships, then they force technology transfer to the China partner. Later when a domestic capability has been developed they block foreign companies from supplying those technologies.

Most countries have engaged in spying since the second world war; but, with the possible exception of Russia, they have not demonstrated the aggressive, systematic, and global threat that China presents today. Ultimately the superficial chant that everyone else does it is just a denial of the potential risk, and a denial of recent history (1930s Germany)

China has successfully engaged researchers from 115 US universities in research engagements with the seven Chinese universities listed below which have a long history of supporting the PRC’s military programs. The PRC’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has administered the universities since 2008 and refers to them as the “Seven Sons of National Defense” (国防七子)

The group includes the following:

1. Beijing Institute of Technology (北京理工大学)

2. Beihang University (a.k.a. Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, 北京航空航天大学)

3. Harbin Institute of Technology (哈尔滨工业大学)

4. Harbin Engineering University (哈尔滨工程大学)

5. Northwestern Polytechnical University (西北工业大学)

6. Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (南京航空航天大学)

7. Nanjing University of Science and Technology (南京理工大学)

Likewise, forty-five Japanese universities — both state-funded and private — had known links with China’s Beihang University, the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, the Harbin Institute of Technology, and the Harbin Engineering University, among other PLA-linked institutions. Radio Free Asia (30th Nov 2020)

Genocide in Tibet and West China, and Crimes Against Humanity Against Religious Groups:

China invaded Tibet in 1949. Since that time, over 1.2 million, 1 out of 6 Tibetans have been killed, over 6,000 monasteries have been destroyed, and thousands of Tibetans have been imprisoned.

Ethan Gutmann estimates that 64,000 Falun Gong prisoners have been killed for their organs between the years 2000 and 2008.

Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic groups groups, together with Christians, and Falun Gong are being murdered at the rate of 60,000 to 100,000 per year for their organs. Since, the organ harvesting program started 1.5 million of these people have been butchered for their organs.

Ethan reports that forced organ harvesting started in the 1990s with the Uyghurs, and from 2,000 included the Falun Gong. During this period Tibetans and Christians were also targeted. The programme has now swung back to the Uyghurs.

Ethan; “ The Nazis never figured out what to do with Jewish bodies. They tried making soap….”. “In China the hair products market has gone up 400%. Where are they getting all that hair from — captured Uyghur women…”

Ethan estimates that a Uyghur’ s harvested organs are worth $500,000. The preferred age of the victims is 28 yrs.; they disappear from the camps at night, at the rate of 25,000 each year.

In 2016, Gutmann updated to the estimate showing that the number of organ transplants conducted in China is much higher than previously believed, and that the death from illicit organ harvesting could be as high as 1,500,000

Radio Free Asia (18th Nov 2020); a hospital for infectious diseases in Aksu, Xinjiang has been turned into an internment camp as part of what some experts believe could be a system for harvesting organs from detainees. Located within a kilometre is a crematorium.

A “green corridor” was built at the same time for the expedited transport of human organs at nearby Aksu Airport, an Oct. 14, 2017 report from the China Civil Aviation Network noted. According to the report, Xinjiang Medical University’s organ transplant team was assigned to transport organs from the airport to the regional capital Urumqi on China Southern Airlines flight 6431 and completed seven trips in 2017, including to Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

The combination of facilities points to organ harvesting, said Ethan Gutmann.

Gutmann suggested that the building and maintaining of the camps in Aksu, as well as the existing hospital infrastructure and construction of the green corridor, together allowed local authorities the ability to create a steady source of organs to harvest from Uyghurs.

“To me, that looks like organ harvesting: a large cremation centre and a hospital that’s connected to the camp directly,” he said.

I have posted on LI several articles which include reports of Uyghurs and other minorities being killed on-demand as part of a Halal organ harvesting programme.

Crimes against humanity focuses on the systematic killing of large numbers of individuals. Genocide focuses not on the killing of individuals, but on the destruction of groups.

There is overwhelming evidence of the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs as an identifiable group. A submission regarding genocide has been lodged with the ICC naming 30 CCP members including Xi Jinping. For a recent detailed investigation refer to (part1 BuzzFeedNews 27th Aug 2020, part2 BuzzFeedNews 27th Aug 2020, part3 BuzzFeedNews 3rd Dec 2020)

The mass scale murders of Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong are well documented and should support prosecution of the CCP for Crimes against Humanity.

The Final report of the China Tribunal (17th June, 2019) concluded that commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond reasonable doubt by proof of one or more of the following, legally required component acts:

murder; extermination; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; rape or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; persecution on racial, national, ethnic, cultural or religious grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law; and enforced disappearance

in the course of a widespread and systematic attack or attacks against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs.

Foreign Policy; 15th July 2020; Between 2015 and 2018, population growth rates in the Uighur heartland plummeted by 84 percent.

In 2018, 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang despite accounting for a mere 1.8 percent of China’s population. These IUDs can be removed only by state-approved surgery — or else prison terms will follow. In Kashgar, only about 3 percent of married women of childbearing age gave birth in 2019.

The repeated government orders to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”; “round up everyone who should be rounded up”; and systematically prevent Uighur births demonstrate a clear intent to eradicate the Uighur people as a whole.

Government documents reveal a campaign of mass female sterilisation supported by state funding to carry out hundreds of thousands of sterilisations in 2019 and 2020.

The Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age. Once apprehended, these women have no choice but to undergo forced sterilisation to avoid being sent to an internment camp.

Foreign Affairs, 10th July 2020; An October 2017 recording released by the Xinjiang Communist Youth League took the medical analogy to chilling lengths, prescribing preventive measures for those “already infected by the disease” of “religious extremism”:

There is always a risk that the illness will manifest itself at any moment, which would cause serious harm to the public. That is why they must be admitted to a re-education hospital in time to treat and cleanse the virus from their brain and restore their normal mind. . . . going into a re-education hospital for treatment is not a way of forcibly arresting people and locking them up for punishment, it is an act that is part of a comprehensive rescue mission to save them.

…the regime…decides who could be “infected,” and those…susceptible have no say in whether they wish to be “rescued” or “treated.” This is the harsh logic of fangkong: it focuses on the danger of the disease, not the well-being of the patient, and elevates fears of public disorder above the protection of individual rights…the logic of “immunisation,”…dictates that security depends on targeting and “treating” citizens long before they have shown any symptoms of threatening behaviour. This leaves few limits on what the regime can do in the name of security.

Codastory; 9th July 2020; China experts believe that detentions and forced labor are part of a deliberate strategy to destroy Uyghur life in Xinjiang. While language, architecture, religion and culture have all been attacked and suppressed during the government crackdown, the forced migration of thousands of Uyghurs can be viewed as an attempt to tear apart a whole community.

Recent video footage posted on social media shows Uyghurs being transported…far from home, they are put to work in tightly surveilled factory labor programs and often housed in dedicated labor compounds.

In the early months of the coronavirus outbreak, China locked down more than 50 million people in Hubei province and imposed strict stay-at-home measures in cities across the country. However, footage shared on social media suggests that, at the same time, a state-mandated mass migration of Uyghurs was taking place in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.

One advert, from April, offered “Xinjiang Uyghur workers, all female, 18–35 years old, proficient in Chinese, obey arrangements.” Another, from late March, stated that “the government assures security,” an apparent reference to the widespread perception of Uyghurs as dangerous extremists. The posts said workers could be paid as little as 13 yuan ($1.86) per hour.

BBC; 24th Nov 2019; reports that 15,000 people from southern Xinjiang were sent to the camps over the course of just one week in 2017.

BBC; 9th July 2020; Video footage, and satellite images show new barbed-wire ringed detention centres for 10,000 children forcibly removed from their parents, some as young as three years of age.

In Xinjiang, China has built 268 concentration camps that hold 1.8 million Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities. It is executing a program to exterminate the identity of Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongol, Hui, and other ethnic groups.

The internment camp at Dabancheng, Xinjiang is over 3km long, and houses over 40,000 ethnic minority prisoners; but, it is just one of 268 concentration camps located throughout Xinjiang.

Three internment camps in Aksu, Xinjiang may be holding nearly 10 percent of the county’s Uyghur residents.

In a systematic campaign to exterminate Uyghur identity, China has imprisoned, and murdered, hundreds of Uyghur academics, musicians, poets, teachers, authors, and other people central to Uyghur culture and identity.

From 2016 to 2020, China has imprisoned 343 Uyghur intellectuals, including: academics, doctors, teachers, journalists, editors, publishers, authors, scholars, lawyers, musicians, public identities, actors, artists, engineers….

The CCP has destroyed some 70 percent of the mosques across Xinjiang, China.

In addition to mosques, China has systematically destroyed Muslim cemeteries and other religious structures. An investigation carried out by Agency France-Presse (AFP) revealed that at least 45 cemeteries in the XUAR had been destroyed from 2014 to date. The sites were turned into parks or parking lots or remained empty lots.

Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) published a report titled “Demolishing Faith: The Destruction and Desecration of Uyghurs Mosques and Shrines,” which uses geolocation and other techniques to show that anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 mosques, shrines, and other religious sites in the region were destroyed between 2016 and 2019.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (1st March, 2020) has identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies whose China supply chains incorporate slave labour transfer programs of ethnic minorities from Xinjiang, China: Abercrombie & Fitch, Acer, Adidas, Alstom, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BAIC Motor, BMW, Bombardier, Bosch, BYD, Calvin Klein, Candy, Carter’s, Cerruti 1881, Changan Automobile, Cisco, CRRC, Dell, Electrolux, Fila, Founder Group, GAC Group (automobiles), Gap, Geely Auto, General Motors, Google, Goertek, H&M, Haier, Hart Schaffner Marx, Hisense, Hitachi, HP, HTC, Huawei, iFlyTek, Jack & Jones, Jaguar, Japan Display Inc., L.L.Bean, Lacoste, Land Rover, Lenovo, LG, Li-Ning, Marks & Spencer, Mayor, Meizu, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Nike, Nintendo, Nokia, The North Face, Oculus, Oppo, Panasonic, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Roewe, SAIC Motor, Samsung, SGMW, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, Sony, TDK, Tommy Hilfiger, Toshiba, Tsinghua Tongfang, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Volkswagen, Xiaomi, Zara, Zegna, ZTE. Some brands are linked with multiple factories.

Chinese Mass Scale Surveillance and Social Control System:

Bitter Winter (26th Nov 2020); Enumerators of China’s 7th census (2020) are told to ascertain people’s religious status and notify the police about detected religious symbols and “suspicious” behaviour.

The census will collect people’s ID numbers, which raises serious privacy concerns. Survey respondents must also disclose the number of family members residing in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan or are foreign nationals.[so that China can use them as hostages when required]

Radio free Asia (27th Nov 2020); the CCP is deploying an online Facial/Biometric ID system. Applicants for the new online card will be required to supply biodata including facial scans and a fingerprint to police before they can access certain online services, according to recent state media reports.

Sydney Morning Herald (27th Nov 2020); China has released a digital currency. A digital currency is not about convenience, it is about centralised control over every individual in society; it is about the consolidation of power in the hands of governments, to enable persecution and surveillance and to reshape society.

CGTN (27th Nov 2020); China announced that it has started to mandate QR health codes for international travellers entering China.

Again, this is not about the coronavirus: China is attempting to extend its surveillance system internationally.

Digital currency and QR code/identification will be exported around the world, as authoritarian governments see the excuse to adopt these forms of control. China will add pressure in that direction by mandating that travellers to China, and businesses operating in China, or even just trading with China will need to comply.

China has already exported its facial/biometric surveillance and social control technology to Pakistan, Venezuela, and several African countries.

Chinese Theft of Global Primary Resources:

China’s coastguard aggressively escorts Chinese paramilitary fishing vessels into the territorial waters of Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and as far away as South America. YaleEnvironment360 (17th Aug 2020)

Published articles have outlined that Chinese over-fishing has decimated global fish stocks; global fish stocks have been depleted by up to 90%, primarily due to Chinese over-fishing.

Published articles have also uncovered that the Chinese are systematically stripping the entire Congo for timber.

China’s Contempt for The IRBO and International Agreements:

China does not abide by international agreements. China is a signatory to the UNCLOS; but, after the Arbitral Tribunal completely rejected their claims over the South China Seas, they rejected that ruling. China has no valid historical nor legal claim over the SCS.

In March 2014 a Panel established by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled that export controls on rare earth mineral put in place by China contravened the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT).

Since 2001, there have been forty-three cases against China involving the US, Canada, the European Union, and others.

Complaints against China include: illegal state subsidies to exporting companies; dumping; discrimination against foreign goods and suppliers; supply chain controls through quotas, supply restrictions, taxes; and forced technology transfer.

China has recently ignored its international agreement regarding Hong Kong and the maintenance of its special status.

China and the Coronavirus Pandemic:

The first case of someone in China with Covid-19, can be traced back to Nov 17, 2019, according to government data seen by the South China Morning Post.

As of Jan 2020, Chinese authorities have so far identified at least 266 people who were infected last year!

According to the Chinese government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on Nov 17, 2019.

From that date onwards, one to five new cases were reported each day. By Dec 15, the total number of infections was 27, and by December 20, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 60.

On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China’s health authorities that the disease was caused by a new coronavirus. By that date, more than 180 people had been infected.

Dec. 30: Ai Fen, a top director at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts information on WeChat about the new virus. She was reprimanded for doing so and told not to spread information about it.

Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang also shares information on WeChat about the new SARS-like virus. He is called in for questioning shortly afterward.

Wuhan health commission notifies hospitals of a “pneumonia of unclear cause” and orders them to report any related information.

Dec. 31: Wuhan health officials confirm 27 cases of illness and close a market they think is related to the virus’ spread. China tells the World Health Organisation’s China office about the cases of an unknown illness.

Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat.

An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples.

Jan. 2: Chinese researchers map the new coronavirus’ complete genetic information. This information is not made public until Jan. 9.

Jan. 7: Xi Jinping becomes involved in the response.

Jan. 9: China announces it has mapped the coronavirus genome.

Jan. 11–17: Important prescheduled CCP meeting held in Wuhan. During that time, the Wuhan Health Commission insists there are no new cases.

Jan. 13: First coronavirus case reported in Thailand, the first known case outside China.

Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”

Jan. 15: The patient who becomes the first confirmed U.S. case leaves Wuhan and arrives in the U.S., carrying the coronavirus.

Jan. 18: The Wuhan Health Commission announces four new cases.

Annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet. Tens of thousands of people gathered for a potluck.

Jan. 19: Beijing sends epidemiologists to Wuhan.

Jan. 20: The first case announced in South Korea.

Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese doctor who is helping to coordinate the coronavirus response, announces the virus can be passed between people.

Jan. 21: The U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the first coronavirus case in the United States.

People’s Daily mentions the coronavirus epidemic and Xi’s actions to fight it for the first time.

Jan. 23: Wuhan and three other cities are put on lockdown. Right around this time, approximately 5 million people leave the city without being screened for the illness.

Jan. 24–30: China celebrates the Lunar New Year holiday. Hundreds of millions of people are in transit around the country as they visit relatives.

Jan. 24: China extends the lockdown to cover 36 million people and starts to rapidly build a new hospital in Wuhan. From this point, very strict measures continue to be implemented around the country for the rest of the epidemic.

March 11 2020, WHO declares a pandemic

China knew about the virus early Dec, and for 5 or 6 weeks, they frustrated the reporting of the clear dangers to the rest of the world, while thousands of Chinese citizens were flying around, seeding the world with the virus.

As COVID-19 infections began to spread across the globe in January and February, China imported more than 2.46billion pieces of medical items, including masks and PPE, between Jan 24 and Feb 29.

Chinese organisations operating in Australia sent bulk medical supplies to China at the height of the crisis.

Chinese-owned property developer Risland Australia had flown 80 tonnes of medical supplies on a corporate jet to Wuhan in late February.

Video shows boxes of surgical masks stacked up at Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 — when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

Chinese company, Greenland Group, re-tasked its employees to purchase face masks, hand sanitisers, antibacterial wipes, thermometers, Panadol and other medical items in bulk for shipment to China.

Greenland bought up three million surgical masks, 500,000 pairs of gloves and bulk supplies of sanitiser and antibacterial wipes in Australia and other countries.

Greenland Group told Chinese language media in Australia the company collected 3,000,000 protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of medical gloves during the global effort.

Australian hospitals are now struggling to cope with a shortage masks and other protective gear. Other countries face the same situation.

ANU College of Health and Medicine Professor Shane Thomas noted Australia did not have enough masks, gowns and eye shields.

The shortage was so dire the Australian Army has pitched in to make more face masks at the Med-Con factory.

With total disregard for the rest of the planet, for at least a month, Chinese carried covid-19 throughout the world. And while they were infecting the planet, China stripped the world of essential medical supplies.

Post Mortem analysis of the Covid-19 outbreak has suggested that if China had publicly declared the seriousness of the virus during a critical 6 day period then the world could have been spared the worst of the pandemic.

The central government were forced into action by the growing anger on social media in China, especially following the arrest and later death of Dr. Li Wenliang who raised the alarm about the virus.

At first, they were not open and transparent with the WHO until they realised the seriousness of the situation for which they were totally unprepared.

By this stage, significant social media anger directed at Xi Jinping prompted frantic efforts to shut down all social media commentary about the virus in China.

The WHO relied on official Chinese status reports. The official reports and statistics understated the seriousness of the virus infections and deaths, and overstated China’s control of the situation.

It was this manipulated reporting that influenced the WHO and its delay in declaring a pandemic.

In order to diffuse international criticism, gain control of the domestic Chinese narrative and deflect criticism from Xi Jinping, the CCP launched a massive domestic and international disinformation campaign that deliberately sowed doubt about the Chinese origins of the virus, promoted conspiracy theories that the virus came from the U.S. and even Europe (my own sources in China confirm that these disinformation efforts continue to the present).

Many China scholars agree that China’s offers of medical assistance to Italy and other countries are part of their efforts to take control of the international and domestic Chinese narrative, and not acts of altruism.

China And Climate Change:

Approaching 2030, Climate change impacts are likely to determine the geopolitical landscape.

Recent analysis of China’s projected coal consumption shows that by 2030, China’s coal based power generation capacity will be at least 30% above the limit necessary to keep global warming increase below 2 degrees. Unless there is a dramatic reversal in this scenario, by 2030, China will generate more carbon emissions than the rest of the world combined, which would render all other countries climate change efforts futile, and basically hostage to China’s own actions.

Further, recent reports indicate that melting of Greenland’s glaciers may be approaching a point of no return. And, by 2030, the current rate of fires and land clearing in the Amazon would mean the conversion of the Amazon to open savannah.

These three outcomes would likely lead to catastrophic sea level rise, massive gigafires, stacked cyclones (as has recently appeared in the Atlantic), collapse in food production, and massive population displacements.

It Is Time To Slay The Dragon:

The CCP’s overriding concern is its own legitimacy and survival. It is time for the West to respond to the CCP’s survival fears. The CCP is a menace to the Chinese people, the ethnic minorities that it persecutes, to the countries around the South China Seas, and to all other countries that have been hacked by China, had their R&D stolen by China, and more.

The CCP’s coercive tactics can include economic measures (such as trade sanctions, investment restrictions, tourism bans and popular boycotts) and non-economic measures (such as arbitrary detention, restrictions on official travel and state-issued threats). These efforts seek to punish undesired behaviour and focus on issues including securing territorial claims, deploying Huawei’s 5G technology, suppressing minorities in Xinjiang, blocking the reception of the Dalai Lama and obscuring the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

China is the largest trading partner for nearly two-thirds of the world’s countries, and its global economic importance gives it significant leverage. The impacts of coercive diplomacy are exacerbated by the growing dependency of foreign governments and companies on the Chinese market. The economic, business and security risks of that dependency are likely to increase if the CCP can continue to successfully use this form of coercion.

The US and EU make up 42.1% of global GDP, China makes up 16.3%. The EU is China’s largest aggregate trade partner, the US is China’s largest bilateral trade partner. A united West can lead to greater coordinated leverage to push back against China.

The West should capitalise on the shared view of China as a systemic threat, and develop a co-ordinated approach to China.

The German example has made clear to China that Western principles can be bought. China leverages the BRI and Chinese FDI to create dependency, and subservience, and fracture any possibility of a united stand.

The decades long bowing and scraping in the blinkered, greed inflected hope that China will act ‘normally’, while China engages in deliberate global scale IP theft, espionage, trade weaponisation, border conflicts and encroachments, thuggery, and other forms low level warfare are over!

The West should mount unconventional, asymmetric warfare against China such as offering full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, or nationalising all Chinese assets, or inviting the Tibetan government in exile, and the equivalent government of East Turkestan to open diplomatic offices in each country.

All the evidence — already submitted to the ICC- relating to the Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols, and other minorities, and the determination of the China Tribunal in 2019, clearly indicates that the CCP is a genocidal regime.

I have posted hundreds of articles over the past three years all of which clearly show the CCP to be no different to the Nazis, not only in their treatment of minorities, but their hegemonic intent.

Europe bowed and scraped for a decade to appease Hitler only to allow Hitler time to arm and march across Europe.

To simply dismiss CCP behaviour as immature bullying that should be met with an ‘adult’ response is just an act denialism.

And to suggest that any country can have a mature relationship with China is unconscionable, because a relationship with China is a relationship with the CCP only.

It is easy to take a position of ‘mutual respect’ in relation to China because it is just coded language to in effect do nothing.

We need to realise that doing nothing is longer an option.

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