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China has its eyes on a post-coronavirus world. Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

China turns on the charm and angers Trump as it eyes a global opportunity in coronavirus crisis

April 20, 2020

Klaus W. Larres, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

https://theconversation.com/china-turns ... sis-136132

A new “red scare” is developing in the U.S.

While Beijing is busy with a global propaganda crusade https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/opin ... ganda.html following the spread of the coronavirus from China to around the world, foreign policy hawks in Washington are seething.

Donald Trump lashes out at Beijing’s response https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03 ... y-is-clear to the crisis at daily press conferences amid growing reports of anti-Chinese sentiment https://qz.com/1823608/how-anti-china-s ... ial-media/ among Americans. As a scholar of international affairs https://history.unc.edu/faculty-members/klaus-w-larres/ and former policy advisor to the German Embassy in Beijing, it is clear to me that China is turning the crisis into an opportunity. It is touting its role in the world and praising its governmental system and enormous countrywide surveillance network for successfully battling the coronavirus. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/wor ... 938374001/

Yet, this is the nature of international relationships. The U.S. or any other great power would be tempted to do the same. China is exploiting the situation while the U.S. and the Western world are occupied with their own problems and have little time for anything else.

Trading insults

During most of Trump’s years in office, relations between China and the U.S. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... residency/ have been tense. Much of this has centered on the huge American trade deficit https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres ... 2018-03-23 with China which Trump strongly criticized even before he became president.

In the 2016 election campaign, Trump accused Beijing of “raping” the U.S. https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/01/politics ... index.html and talked about

the greatest theft [of American jobs] in the history of the world.

While referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a good friend, Trump has accused China of intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices and lack of market access for U.S. companies.

In late 2018, the U.S. president unleashed a painful trade war https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45899310 with sharply escalating tariffs, but it did little to resolve Trump’s grievances. Neither the U.S. nor China could win this harmful conflict and a provisional trade deal was signed https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/busi ... -deal.html on Jan. 15, 2020.

The truce lasted exactly two weeks. On Jan. 31, Trump announced a travel ban https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/c ... tions.html on visitors from China.

Conspiracy theories

In his many remarks on the crisis since, Trump has not hesitated to resort to language criticized as xenophobic and anti-Chinese, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/p ... virus.html such as referring to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus.” https://theconversation.com/calling-cov ... bal-134307

Meanwhile, the administration has done little to discourage a conspiracy theory that has the virus originating from a Chinese research laboratory near Wuhan and not from a live animal market in the city – which most scientists believe. On April 15, Trump said the U.S. was investigating the lab claim https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics ... index.html and ratcheted up the rhetoric further a few days later by suggesting that China would face consequences https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... me=topNews if it was “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic. Meanwhile Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said China needs to “come clean” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/ ... 36676.html over the emergence of the virus and how it spread. https://theconversation.com/the-new-cor ... -it-133333

Certainly there are many questions that need to be answered over the true extent of the disease in China – on April 17 Beijing revised the number of fatalities in Wuhan up by 50% https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/worl ... -toll.html – but the rhetoric from the White House may be contributing to anti-Chinese sentiment directed not at the government in Beijing, but at people in China and of Chinese descent.

On the ground in U.S. cities and towns, Asian Americans are reporting being subjected to verbal and even physical abuse. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/c ... tacks.html

Tíť-for-tat measures

The Chinese government isn’t blameless when it comes to conspiracy theories. With the likely nod of Beijing’s all-powerful seven-member Standing Committee of the Politbureau, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian speculated wildly on Twitter https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/asia/chi ... index.html that it might well have been the U.S. army which brought the virus to Wuhan.

There have also been plenty of reports that foreigners, in particular Africans who live in China, have faced severe discrimination and abuse since the coronavirus crisis broke. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52309414 They are unfairly accused of having imported the virus to China.

Meanwhile, both Washington and Beijing have put in place [deleted]-for-tat restrictions on each others’ media outlets, https://www.usnews.com/news/business/ar ... -its-media severely limiting the number of journalists who are allowed to work in their respective countries.

It accompanied growing reports in the western media about China’s slow initial response https://www.ft.com/content/6996d92a-3ce ... e547046735 to the virus and the silencing of the late Dr. Li Wenliang

and other doctors who had attempted to alert Chinese authorities about the looming pandemic as early as December 2019.

Saving face

Despite a sluggish start which contributed to the initial spread of the virus, China has since trumpeted the success of its policy of locking down entire cities https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -effective and provinces. The country has now been able to open up for business again.

Beijing is also praising itself as a benign global hero by donating and selling huge amounts https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/04/china-i ... fight.html of much-needed face masks, ventilators and other protective gear to countries round the world, including the U.S.

In so doing, China is subtly using the opportunity to expand its global influence, not least its soft power appeal. Beijing has embarked on a global “charm offensive.”

While this may be regrettable from a Western perspective, would any other big country behave differently? If the roles were reversed, I believe the U.S. would also be tempted to exploit its position for political advantage.

It seems this is the instinctive reaction of any great power. But there is no reason for panic about this. Without doubt, relations between China and many of the countries it is helping have become closer. But they still need to be cemented in the long run – this may or may not happen.

Ruling the world?

China, like many great powers, has a track record of not following through with its promises of financial help.

Just ask the countries who have signed up to Beijing’s huge and creative Belt and Road initiative https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepar ... 33a5721990 that seeks to pump Chinese money into infrastructure projects around the world, or the 17+1 China-Central Eastern Europe initiative https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diploma ... eport-says linking China with governments in central and eastern Europe, including many EU countries. There is much disappointment about broken or semi-fulfilled financial promises and agreements.

And some of the face masks and other gear donated to European countries have proven faulty or of inferior quality.

For the time being, the world should be pleased that China is able and willing to help out with much needed equipment as well as doctors and nurses to help fight the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. and elsewhere.

It does not mean that once the crisis is over, China will be able to run the world. In fact, the U.S. should build on Beijing and Washington’s haphazard and sporadic cooperation during the current crisis to improve relations with China in a more lasting way.

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So, the despicable tinpot Mussolinis (deBlasio+ Cuomo & Co.) of New York want to condition us & make snitching on your neighbors the "new normal." I'm glad none of the interviewed New Yorkers in this YT video from Brooklyn, supported snitching. The spirit of resistance against Fascism, is alive & well.

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Picture: Shutterstock

The Gates Foundation's Vaccination Activism

In the corona crisis, billionaire Bill Gates makes a high-profile appearance as a vaccination activist. The essence: a vaccine is the solution, it is only a matter of implementation. According to Gates, the G20 should now "address the logistics of a global immunisation project". There seems to be little interest in further discussions and the consideration of alternatives. Time is pressing and people are relying on Gates, who had identified the danger of a pandemic early on and would therefore know what to do. How justified is this trust?

ERIC WAGNER

https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/t ... n-activism

16. April 2020

The foundation of former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" (BMGF), is controlled https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We- ... rship-Team by its three trustees: Bill and Melinda Gates and hedge fund manager Warren Buffett. The foundation holds assets worth about $50 billion – about half of which originates https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We- ... -Factsheet from Buffett – and finances a large number of charitable projects.

Second only to the USA, the BMGF is one of the largest donors to the World Health Organization (WHO) and paid https://www.who.int/about/finances-acco ... NF5-en.pdf it more than $200 million in 2018 – more than Germany, France and Sweden combined in the same period. But this is not the only way in which the WHO is financed by Gates. GAVI, formerly known as the "Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation", provided the WHO with an additional $150 million in 2018. One of GAVI's main donors https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/file ... Report.pdf is again the BMGF, with $1.5 billion https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... OPP1131658 in 2016, for example.

It can therefore be said that the BMGF and thus the Gates family and Warren Buffett are the main source of income for the WHO through direct and indirect channels, which raises questions

about its independence from these sources of finance. In addition, the BMGF also provided funding https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... OPP1180343 for the establishment of the "Coalition for Epidemic Prevention Innovation" (CEPI), which is concerned with the research and development of vaccines, amounting to around $100 million in 2017. In addition, the Foundation regularly supports non-governmental organisations such as PATH, which are involved in the development of vaccination technologies, with millions of dollars in funding. The list of BMGF's beneficiaries also includes https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... s-Database the largest global pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Aventis. The comprehensive influence of the BMGF in the vaccination sector is therefore obvious.

"Crisis-related" funding

In the Corona crisis, it is striking that institutions that currently play an important role are likewise supported by the BMGF. For example, Johns Hopkins University which maintains the worldwide corona statistics that are disseminated in all media, regularly receives large donations. In the last ten years only, more than $200 million have been transferred https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... ort=amount to the university by the Gates Foundation. The purpose of the donations was family planning programs.

In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute as the responsible national epidemiological agency received $250,000 in November 2019. The Charité in Berlin (employer of Prof. Christian Drosten, one of the most important government advisors during the crisis) received a total of more than $300,000 in 2019 and 2020. As with the WHO, the presumption of a conflict of interest is obvious if these institutions or their employees make policy recommendations that have an impact on companies that the Foundation sponsors or in which it invests https://sif.gatesfoundation.org/portfolio/ for financial purposes.

In the meantime, the German website "Frag den Staat" ("Ask the State") has been used to enquire about contacts and financial connections between the Federal Ministry of Health https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/kontakt ... -stiftung/ or the Charité and the BMGF, https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/spenden ... te-berlin/ the results of which could be revealing.

The Foundation's activities in Germany are not limited to health aspects. It also provides financial support to established media. For example, Germany´s leading news magazine DER SPIEGEL received $2.5 million https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... OPP1203082 in December 2018 and the leading weekly newspaper Die ZEIT received $300,000 https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... INV-003042 in December 2019. One may assume that this is not happening for nothing and that as a result critical research by these media regarding the activities of the Gates Foundation is not necessarily more likely.

Furthermore, the Foundation is one of the organisers of the pandemic simulation known as "Event 201", https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/ which took place in October 2019 shortly before the outbreak of the corona crisis. Other participants were – again – Johns Hopkins University and the World Economic Forum.

Given the many financial connections to influential institutions in the health care industry and the media, the BMGF and its associated institutions should be given special attention. This applies in particular to the prominent role that Bill Gates wants to assume in crisis management and which he is also offered without any critical consideration.

Why the vaccination activism?

On the question of the aim of Gates' vaccination activism, it is worth listening to Gates himself. At a TED talk in 2010 he stated

the following regarding the CO2 problem and a possible part of its solution:

The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.

He thus says that vaccinations and reproductive health services can contribute to a reduction in population, which in turn helps solving the climate problem, even if only to a small extent. Now there are probably various viewpoints on this statement, which we shall not discuss further here. However, one could agree that such steps should only be taken in cooperation with the people involved and with their explicit consent. This includes, above all, complete information about the consequences and risks of such interventions. That this is not the case with the projects of the BMGF and the institutions financed by it is illustrated by the following case.

Vaccination abuse in Kenya

In October 2014, the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya raised accusations https://www.kccb.or.ke/home/news-2/press-statement-5/ in the context of the tetanus vaccinations carried out by WHO and UNICEF. This was done because there were differences compared to previous vaccination campaigns which seemed peculiar to the people in charge. For example, the Catholic Church, as the provider of many medical facilities, was not involved in the campaign, and publicity was very limited, unlike previous polio vaccination campaigns. Furthermore, the tetanus vaccinations were administered without any particular health necessity and only to women between the ages of 14 and 49, which gave rise to the suspicion that they might be covert vaccinations for birth control. These are related to human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cho ... nadotropin the hormone responsible for the onset and maintenance of a pregnancy.

In February 2015, the gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Wahome Ngare, on behalf of the Kenyan Catholic Medical Association, published http://www.cmq.org.uk/CMQ/2015/Feb/keny ... ement.html an article in the Catholic Medical Quarterly of the Catholic Medical Society of Great Britain, in which he explained the accusations. According to his article, the vaccine was deliberately imported and had a different batch number for designation than usual tetanus vaccines. In addition, five rounds of vaccination were planned, each with intervals of six months, which is unusual for tetanus but normal for hCG vaccines to prevent pregnancy.

He also referred to such "hidden" and methodologically similar sterilization measures in Mexico in 1993 and in Nicaragua and the Philippines in 1994, where girls and women were unknowingly sterilized. He described how the Catholic Church complained to the Kenyan Ministry of Health after the accusations became public and demanded a test of the vaccine, which was rejected. In the further course of the case, the Catholic representatives then succeeded in gaining access to some doses of vaccine and having them tested by an independent party.

According to Ngare, the vaccine contained the suspected pregnancy hormone, which in his opinion proves the leading role of the WHO in deliberate mass sterilizations for birth control. Before the secret vaccine analyses were made public, the World Health Organization expressed https://web.archive.org/web/20170803221 ... 15665.html its "deep concern" about the "misinformation" of the Catholic Church, for which there would be no evidence. After the results were published, it agreed to submit the vaccine to a joint commission for re-analysis.

Confirmed by scientific work

A scientific paper published in October 2017 by the Universities of Louisiana (USA) and British Columbia (Canada), together with Dr. Wahome Ngare, confirmed https://www.scirp.org/html/81838_81838.htm the allegations made. The planned five vaccinations instead of the usual procedure for tetanus were identical to those for population control and the exclusive composition of the target group of girls and women of childbearing age could not be convincingly justified.

Moreover, the campaign was coordinated from a hotel rather than a medical facility, and the delivery and collection of the vaccine was carried out under police protection. The work of the nurses was also monitored by WHO and police. Pregnancy hormones were detected in the secretly tested vaccine doses, while the vaccine doses delivered later by the WHO tested consistently negative, the scientists said. The suspicion of an attempted manipulation by swapping the vaccine is therefore obvious and would also explain the extensive and unusual safety measures taken when handling the original vaccine. The essential role of the WHO in covert measures of forced sterilization and thus population control could therefore be proven for Kenya.

Planning for population control in the WHO since 1972

In this context, the scientists also looked at the history of population control measures https://www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft/bildung ... 1.18072764 within WHO, which has been operating under the euphemistic name of "family planning" since the organization was founded in 1945. The WHO research programme on vaccine development for population control started https://www.scirp.org/html/81838_81838.htm in 1972 and a study was published https://www.pnas.org/content/73/1/218 in 1976. According to the scientists, the WHO "services" of sterilization without the consent of those affected have been known since the 1970s, while the cases mentioned by Dr. Ngare also caused outrage in Mexico, Nicaragua and the Philippines in the 1990s.

The Gates Foundation, originally established in 1994 by Gates' father William Gates Sr., still funds family planning activities today. As mentioned above, Johns Hopkins University has received https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We- ... ort=amount more than $200 million for this purpose in the last ten years. In addition, the BMGF also funds the Planned Parenthood organization, which was led http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html by Bill Gates' father when the younger Gates was a teenager, and which originally emerged from the American Birth Control League. The funding of the WHO and the vaccination activism of the Gates Foundation, also in the name of population control, seem to be the continuation of a family tradition.

Vaccination abuse not an isolated incident?

A direct involvement of the BMGF in vaccine abuse was not proven. However, questions remain open, as a case from India in 2009 shows. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/in ... 280050.cms There, the Foundation-financed organization PATH conducted a study of 16,000 girls between the ages of 9 and 15 with a vaccine against cervical cancer. Afterwards, many of the girls fell ill and five died, while elsewhere, out of 14,000 children, two did not survive the consequences of the vaccination. PATH and the BMGF were accused of not having informed the children's parents, most of whom were not literate, about the vaccine, its risks and its objectives.

The lawyer and vaccination critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lists https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news ... ccination/ in an article a whole series of abuses in projects supported by Gates. His organization "Children's Health Defense" urgently warns https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news ... -the-risk/ against a Gates vaccine in the context of the corona crisis.

ID 2020 – the digital identity

With regard to other projects financed by Gates, an even more extensive misuse of vaccination is conceivable.

The "Digital Identity Alliance", or "ID 2020", says https://id2020.org/digital-identity#approach it is concerned with the creation of a digital identity that will enable people to identify themselves across borders while retaining control over their personal data. The founding partners https://id2020.org/alliance of the project are Gates' company Microsoft, the Gates-sponsored vaccination alliance GAVI, the management consultancy Accenture and the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the oldest and wealthiest foundations in the USA.

Since September 2019, https://www.biometricupdate.com/201909/ ... h-vaccines the "Digital Identity Alliance" has been cooperating with the government of Bangladesh to introduce digital identities. This involves combining vaccinations with the recording of biometric data, such as fingerprints, to enable https://www.biometricupdate.com/201906/ ... biometrics digital identification of the respective person.

By February 2020, 100 million digital identities had been created, as the responsible minister reported https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/ ... stand-out/ in an article for the World Economic Forum. This collection is marketed as "digital inclusion", supposedly to include disadvantaged people in the benefits of the modern world.

Traveling only with a "digital immunity proof"?

Also in Europe, the first approaches to establish the technology are emerging. Journalist Norbert Häring, for example, reports https://norberthaering.de/en/power-cont ... ktdi-2-en/ on an application within the framework of the "Known Traveller" program of the World Economic Forum, which provides for an initially voluntary data release for preferred handling in air travel. In the long term, however, a mandatory regulation also appears possible, once the system has been established. Gates explained

on 24 March in an interview with TED host Chris Anderson:

Eventually what we'll have to have is certificates of who is a recovered person, who is a vaccinated person, because you don’t want people moving around the world where you have some countries, that won’t have it under control, sadly. You don’t want to completely block off the ability for those people to go there and come back and move around. So eventually there will be sort of this digital immunity proof, that will help facilitate the global re-opening up [after the lockdown].

The last – very explosive – sentence was cut out

in the official TED version of the interview (minute 33:55). Norbert Häring comments https://norberthaering.de/die-regenten- ... d-19-ktdi/ on this:

Having the proof in digital form sounds practical because it's faster and easier. But if a digital proof for international travel is to be globally applicable, it needs a storage location for the receipts that is considered secure and generally accessible, a standard for data exchange that works everywhere, and a global standard for certifying the authenticity of such a proof. The Known Traveller Program, which is being driven by the US Homeland Security and the World Economic Forum, wants to develop and implement all of this. Bill Gates is one of the most influential members of the World Economic Forum, if not the most influential.

The current cooperation between Google and Apple https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ion-people in providing a unified corona app to identify possible Covid-19 infected individuals for the two all-dominant mobile phone operating systems Android and iOS could create the globally accessible storage location. (...) And already the Known Traveller program is ready with a first application. (...) Everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to travel and use the app, or whether they prefer to stay at home.

Since Google and Apple are working closely and trustfully with the security authorities and intelligence agencies anyway, it will not be a problem to add further application areas. First of all, the security authorities can check the box "may not travel" or "to be watched closely" if necessary. After that, the system could be further refined at will (...) Thanks to Covid-19, the Brave New World is approaching in giant strides.

In the long term, the measures allow for comprehensive control to which anyone who still wishes to participate in any way in life is to be exposed. The current crisis situation now appears to provide a suitable pretext for accelerating the implementation of such plans.

"We will give this vaccine to seven billion people"

Fittingly, the leading German TV news program "ARD Tagesthemen" offered Gates a platform on 12 April to present

his project to the German public. The host, Ingo Zamperoni, acted as Gates' assistant in a discussion which resembled more a press conference of the BMGF than a news programme interested in clarification. Fully in line with Gates, Zamperoni came to the conclusion that

despite all our efforts, we will only be able to control the pandemic if we develop a vaccine.

Gates agreed and stressed that we could only return to normality

when we have either found a miracle cure that works in 95 percent of cases or when we have developed a vaccine.

He also emphasized that "we" (!) will ultimately administer the vaccine to be developed "to seven billion people". The question arises as to who Gates is thinking of when he speaks of "we" in this context. One may assume that it is also the institutions supported by his foundation.

A more critical approach to the Gates Foundation and its activities as well as thorough information on the developments already underway, especially in the combination of vaccination activism, digital identity and far-reaching control and surveillance, seems urgently necessary.

Which measures have meanwhile become possible is demonstrated by the legal permission of forced testing, forced vaccination and forced treatment https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmar ... avirus-law in Denmark. The failure to make such measures and structures known to a wider public could, in the current crisis situation, result in a society sleepwalking into a police and surveillance state, about which it may not become fully aware until the digital handcuffs have already closed.

About the author: Eric Wagner, born in 1990, studied education, history and political science in Leipzig, followed by Southeast European studies in Belgrade and Ljubljana. He works as an educator at a free community school in Germany.

>> This article ist also available in German.
https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/d ... s-stiftung