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Today's Topics:
1. Korean presidential hopeful vows big foreign policy shifts
(Chas Freeman)
2. Iran-Syria ties under spotlight amid UAE diplomatic outreach
(Chas Freeman)
3. Wall Street Is Not Only Rigging Markets, It?s Also Rigging
the Outcome of its Private Trials (Chas Freeman)
4. Trump-Branded China Hawks Look to Take Over Congress
(Chas Freeman)
5. Director of CCP Policy Research Office Jiang Jinquan Calls
US-Led Democracy Summit 'a Huge Irony' (Chas Freeman)
6. Re: NRA Members (Chas Freeman)
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 17:48:41 -0500
Subject: [Salon] Korean presidential hopeful vows big foreign policy shiftshttps://asiatimes.com/2021/11/korean-presidential-hopeful-vows-big-foreign-policy-shifts/Korean presidential hopeful vows big foreign policy shifts
Yoon Seok-yeol puts forth bold new thinking on policy toward Pyongyang and better relations with Tokyo
by Andrew Salmon November 12, 2021Right wing presidential hopeful Yoon Seok-yeol speaks to foreign reporters in Seoul. Photo: Andrew Salmon/Asia Times
SEOUL – Conservative presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol put forth a new initiative on Friday (November 12) to bring the two Koreas and United States together under one roof, while delivering withering criticism of the current South Korean administration’s Japan policy.
Yoon, standing for the opposition People Power Party, was speaking to foreign reporters in Seoul as the campaign for South Korea’s presidency heats up. The former prosecutor-general is running against ex-human rights lawyer, former provincial governor and wealth-distribution firebrand Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea in the race for the presidential Blue House.
That race will climax with an election on March 9. Current President Moon Jae-in is constitutionally restricted to a single term.
Given the shortness of Yoon’s political career – which essentially kicked off after he resigned as chief of the prosecution service in March – major questions hang over his foreign policy chops.
Still, as one attendee noted, “any former prosecutor-general is very, very smart” and Yoon appeared well-briefed and on-form as he discussed wide-ranging geopolitical and geoeconomic issues.
In a swipe at the policy of the Moon administration – which right-wingers accuse of being overly eager or even deferential toward Pyongyang – he said North-South relations had “degenerated into a relationship between subordinates and superiors.”
He said he would rebalance matters by promoting the construction of a sustainable trilateral diplomatic office with representatives of both Koreas and the US. He suggested the DMZ truce village of Panmunjom or Washington DC as potential locations for the body and its headquarters.
Currently, neither Seoul nor Washington has formal diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. That means that – officially, at least – the key communications channels between the parties are cross-border hotlines at Panmunjom and other points on the DMZ, as well as the North Korean diplomatic mission to the United Nations in New York.
A more permanent trilateral arrangement would allow the parties to meet more often rather than “from time to time, as a one-off event, as we have done so far,” Yoon said.
He suggested keeping talks at the three-party level rather than expanding them to the four-party level – including China – or the prior six-party format – including Japan and Russia.
“Once the three parties agree on effective denuclearization we can have extended talks with four parties or six parties,” he said. “It would be only a matter of getting international endorsement on our progress.”
Perhaps so, but the existing truce village of Panmunjom itself is arguably emblematic of Yoon’s proposal. Moreover, Pyongyang hardly has a positive history toward joint sites. US troops were killed at Panmunjom in 1976, and North Korea blew up a North-South liaison office in 2020.
Cooperation is in the economic sphere is also troubled. High-profile joint Korean commercial projects – an industrial park at Kaesong and a related resort complex at Mount Kumgang, both established inside North Korea with South Korean capital – were closed under prior conservative administrations in Seoul.
Despite his predecessor’s policies, Yoon appeared to favor such projects.
“I will push forward the ‘Inter-Korean Joint Economic Development Plan’ to prepare for the post-denuclearization era,” Yoon said. However, he had a pre-condition: It would require a “bold decision” by Pyongyang on denuclearization.
North Korea is always a core policy issue for South Korean presidential candidates. Here, paramilitary and public security forces march to celebrate the 73rd founding anniversary of North Korea at Kim Il Sung Square. Photo: AFP / KCNA / KNSYoon also dangled a carrot, proposing to revive currently frozen humanitarian exchanges, “…so North Korea can come back to the denuclearization negotiating table.”
While admitting that US administrations have never made North Korea a top priority, he also slammed past South Korean governments for their inconsistency. He would be a more responsible curator of inter-Korean relations, he insisted.
“If I become president, I will present a clear roadmap for denuclearizing North Korea,” Yoon said. “We need to convince our allies the US and Japan that the North Korean issue can be resolved.”
That reference to Japan as an ally was highly unusual for a South Korean politician. But Yoon spent a considerable portion of his time discussing improving ties with South Korea’s democratic neighbor while slamming Seoul’s recent antagonistic policies toward Tokyo.
A gentler stance toward Japan…
“I believe the current administration has almost zero diplomacy toward Japan,” he stormed. “Communications with Japan’s foreign ministry are almost non-existent.”
Modern Korean relations with Japan have consistently fallen afoul of disputes over Japan’s colonization of the peninsula and resultant legacies. In the last five years, ties have deteriorated to what are widely considered their nadir since diplomatic relations were normalized in 1965.
Under Moon, Seoul first overturned a prior bilateral agreement and related Japanese compensation package for surviving “comfort women.” Subsequently, Korean courts have seized Japanese corporate assets to compensate colonial-era forced laborers.
Tokyo, already seething over the comfort women issue, insisted that the latter step breached a 1965 agreement and compensation package, and withdrew trade privileges South Korea had enjoyed. Seoul swiftly retaliated in kind.
Yoon accused Moon of leveraging simmering anti-Japanese sentiment – an ever-present force in South Korea’s body politic – for domestic gain.
“Diplomacy should be well managed to create benefits for both parties but as of now, Japanese relations and diplomacy are used for Korean political purposes,” he said. “The current administration has been almost ruined relations with Japan.”
In fact, over the last year, Moon has publicly reached out to Japanese leaders in an apparent attempt to initiate a reset. However, Tokyo’s position is that Seoul must first resolve the court impasse.
South Korean sentiment toward Japan could not be described as amicable. South Korean protesters tear a huge Japanese flag during a rally near the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 2019. Photo: AFP / Jung Yeon-jeYoon suggested a broad-based policy. “I will seek a comprehensive solution with Japan over past history issues, economic cooperation and security cooperation,” he said.
Security cooperation with Japan could raise eyebrows in South Korea’s other neighbor: China.
Policy toward China is an increasingly ticklish matter for South Korea. On the one hand, the country relies on the United States for security, while relying heavily on China, its leading trade partner, in the economic sphere. At a time when Beijing-Washington relations are tense, Seoul is increasingly pulled in both directions.
Yoon leaned toward Washington in his remarks, citing a famous – or infamous – promise made by Moon to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The ‘3 Nos’ policy of the Moon administration, I believe, is not a formal agreement, it is not an official promise, it is the current administration’s position,” he said.
Under the so-called “3 Nos,” Moon said South Korea would not join a security alliance with Japan; would not join a US missile-defense program; and would not extend the US deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile units on the peninsula.
A THAAD unit was ostensibly deployed to defend against North Korean missiles before Moon entered office, but China angrily insisted that the unit’s radars can snoop on its own strategic assets. Resultant economic retaliation cost South Korea billions in boycotts of its products and companies in China, as well as via a drying up of Chinese tourists to South Korea.
The emplacement of a US THAAD missile battery led to Beijing launching economic retaliation against Seoul. Photo: AFP / Missile Defense AgencySouth Korea’s foreign policy focus has traditionally been largely limited to familiar horizons: North Korea, China, Japan and the US.
At a time when Indo-Pacific security issues are generating greater attention across the region, Yoon seemed to follow in that policy groove, which may give some comfort to Beijing.
He was lukewarm on the possibility of joining the US-led “Quad” alliance and its “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing network. He also suggested that South Korea did not need the kind of nuclear submarine technologies that the US is transferring to Australia under the “AUKUS” framework.
Speaking more broadly, Yoon argued for a rebalancing of Korea’s global relations along two separate axes: a Japan-South Korea-US axis and a China-Japan-South Korea axis.
And he was at pains to assure his audience that he is no dunce when it comes to foreign policy.
“As a prosecutor, I was interested in many different areas, not just indicting criminal cases. I dealt with cases on the economy and international issues,” Yoon said. “I read a lot of books…my knowledge and interest is broader than you think.”
He said that if he wins the presidency, he would extend Seoul’s global affairs outreach into advanced technologies, space development and climate change, while expanding its current overseas development aid programs.
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 17:51:24 -0500
Subject: [Salon] Iran-Syria ties under spotlight amid UAE diplomatic outreachhttps://www.tehrantimes.com/news/466963/Iran-Syria-ties-under-spotlight-amid-UAE-diplomatic-outreachIran-Syria ties under spotlight amid UAE diplomatic outreach
November 12, 2021TEHRAN – After long years of antagonism, some Arab states are trying out a new approach toward Syria in a bid to revive what came to be known as the Arab role in the war-torn country.
The United Arab Emirates and Jordan are leading the new Arab approach in tandem with others who, for now, prefer to wait and see if the UAE-led efforts would bear fruit.
On Tuesday, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed landed in the Syrian capital Damascus to meet Syrian President Bashar Assad, the most senior Emirati visit to the war-scarred country in a decade.
The latest developments in the West Asia region and Syria, in addition to a number of regional and international issues of common interest featured high during the meeting, according to a statement by the UAE foreign ministry. “The two sides also reviewed the prospects of enhancing bilateral relations between the two sisterly nations,” the statement said, adding, “The Syrian president reciprocated the greetings and underlined the strong bonds between the two fraternal nations. He also commended the objective positions adopted by the UAE.”
After Damascus, the top Emirati diplomat immediately traveled to Jordan, where he met with Jordanian King Abdullah II, an indication that regional issues were on the agenda of Emirati-Jordanian talks.
The Emirati foreign ministry’s statement on the meeting didn’t point to any regional issues being discussed by the two sides. It put the meeting in the broader context of the two countries' bilateral relations.
But Shiekh Abdullah did discuss regional issues with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi. “The two ministers talked about several regional issues of mutual concern and highlighted the importance of continuing their related coordination and cooperation to overcome common challenges and achieve security and stability in the Arab region,” a separate UAE foreign ministry statement said.
Although Sheikh Abdullah did not point to any regional implications for his Syria visit, Saudi and Emirati media and commentators widely highlighted the visit as a counterbalance effort aimed at curtailing Iran's influence in Syria while rehabilitating the Syrian government.The crux of their argument is that the UAE should return Syria to the Arab fold given the impossibility of regime change in Damascus. And such a return should come at the expense of Iran’s interests.
Sheikh Abdullah was in Damascus to achieve a number of “lofty goals,” Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, an influential Emirati academic who is believed to be close to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed, said on Twitter. Contributing to the return of 10 million Syrian refugees, reducing the Iranian presence in Syria, working to end the Turkish occupation, organizing the Arab house, and increasing the Arab presence in Syria were among these goals, according to the Emirati academic.
Furthermore, the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat claimed that it has seen a Jordanian-drafted document outlining a quid pro quo process under which Arab states would normalize ties with Syria in exchange for concessions from the war-torn country.
The Arab Normalization Document lays out a step-by-step process that would begin with “reducing Iran’s influence in certain parts of Syria,” according to the Saudi newspaper.
Again, the normalization of ties between Syria and other Arab states is being seen through the prism of countering Iran.
This is while Iran has already supported the so-called process of returning Syria to the Arab fold. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has recently spoken over the phone with Sheikh Abdullah and Safadi as well as Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra.
In his conversation with Lamamra, which took place after Sheikh Abdullah’s visit to Damascus, Amir Abdollahian expressed hope that the upcoming meeting of the Arab League will have important benefits for the Islamic ummah, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.
The next summit of the Arab League in Algeria is widely expected to usher in Syria’s return to the organization which suspended Syria’s membership during the Syrian civil war. Therefore, Amir Abdollahian apparently hoped that the Algeria meeting would approve of Syria’s return to the Arab League.
In addition, Iran has welcomed the improvement of relations between Damascus and other Arab capitals. But this Iranian openness seems to have fallen on deaf ears in Abu Dhabi.Iran’s influence in Syria has never been directed against the UAE and its Arab allies. So, it’s difficult to see why the Emiratis make efforts to undermine Tehran’s interests in Syria.
The UAE push could backfire against it as the Syrian government is unlikely to turn its back on those who helped it during times of crisis. At the end of the day, the UAE was part of the group of countries that worked over the last decade to topple the Syrian government. That they failed to achieve a regime change in Damascus doesn’t mean that they became allies of Syria overnight.
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 17:56:02 -0500
Subject: [Salon] Wall Street Is Not Only Rigging Markets, It’s Also Rigging the Outcome of its Private TrialsWall Street Is Not Only Rigging Markets, It’s Also Rigging the Outcome of its Private Trials
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 12, 2021 ~
When it comes to sycophants, Wall Street has no shortage of them willing to shill for its egregious private justice system called mandatory arbitration – a system which systematically guts the guarantee of a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Think about that carefully, the industry that is serially charged with rigging markets and other felonious acts, is allowed by Congress to run its own privatized justice system. This is something one would expect to find in a banana republic, not in a country that lectures the rest of the world on democratic principles.
Wall Street’s private justice system effectively locks the nation’s courthouse doors to both its workers and customers, sending the claims before conflicted arbitrators who do not have to follow legal precedent, case law or write legally-reasoned decisions.
One of Wall Street’s serial toadies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was quick to release a statement on March 8 when it learned that the House of Representatives was likely to vote on and pass H.R. 963, the “Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act.” (Last week the House Judiciary Committee voted favorably to move the bill out of Committee and on to the full House for a vote. The bill currently has 201 co-sponsors.)
Neil Bradley, Executive Vice President of the Chamber, had this to say in March:
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly opposes H.R. 963 / S. 505, the ‘Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act’… Members who do not cosponsor this legislation will receive credit for the Leadership component of their ‘How They Voted’ rating.’ ”
If that sounds to you like a threat to members of Congress that they will lose corporate campaign funding if they vote for passage of the bill, you’re thinking along the right lines.
Bradley added this preposterously bogus statement: “Arbitration is a fair, effective, and less expensive means of resolving disputes compared with going to court.”
The speciousness of that last statement by Bradley has now been revealed by a study released by the American Association for Justice on October 27. The study found the following:
“In years past, consumers were more likely to be struck by lightning than win a monetary award in forced arbitration. In 2020, that win rate dropped even further. Just 577 Americans won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020, a win rate of 4.1% — below the five-year-average win rate of 5.3%. For employees forced into arbitration, the likelihood of winning was even lower. Despite roughly 60 million workers being subject to forced arbitration provisions at their place of employment, just 82 employees won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020.”
Wall Street is the only industry in America that has for decades contractually banned both its customers and its employees from utilizing the nation’s courts for claims against the Wall Street firm as a condition of opening an account or getting a job there.
Instead of being able to go to court with a claim of fraud if you’re a customer, or a claim for labor law violations, like failure to pay overtime or sexual harassment if you’re an employee, Wall Street makes its customers and employees sign an agreement to take all such claims into an industry-run or privately-run arbitration system. The above graphic from the study by the American Association for Justice shows how claimants faired in mandatory arbitration forums run by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and JAMS. The findings cover a broad range of industries, not just Wall Street.
These private justice systems are certainly not fair, and on Wall Street, they are far from cheap. Fees to claimants can run into tens of thousands of dollars as opposed to a few hundred dollars to file in court. Study after study has found that arbitrators most often rule in favor of the corporate interest over the consumer because the arbitrators are financially dependent on repeat business from these corporations.
What Wall Street and its army of lawyers like most about this private justice system is its darkness. Unlike a public courtroom, the press and the public are not allowed to attend the hearings. There are no publicly available transcripts of the hearings as there would be in court. It is next to impossible to bring a court appeal of an arbitration ruling because Wall Street’s biggest law firms have spent decades convincing the courts that these arbitration decisions must be permanently binding.
Another fatal flaw for claimants in these private justice systems is that there is no jury selection from a large public pool of random citizens but rather a repeat-player pool of highly compensated arbitrators.
In September 2007, Public Citizen published a comprehensive 74-page study of mandatory arbitration with a central focus on the National Arbitration Forum. The report is titled “The Arbitration Trap.” Among its findings related to the National Arbitration Forum, Public Citizen found that in California between January 1, 2003 and March 31, 2007 “…a small cadre of arbitrators handled most of the cases that went to a decision. In total, 28 arbitrators handled 17,265 cases – accounting for a whopping 89.5 percent of cases in which an arbitrator was appointed – and ruled for the company nearly 95 percent of the time…Topping the list of the busiest arbitrators was Joseph Nardulli, who handled 1,332 arbitrations and ruled for the corporate claimant an overwhelming 97 percent of the time.”
In 2009, Lori Swanson, the Attorney General of Minnesota, charged the National Arbitration Forum with consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising. Swanson’s lawsuit revealed that the National Arbitration Forum was financially shackled to debt collection law firms representing major credit card companies. She provided a detailed roadmap of the financial ties. Less than a week after Swanson introduced her evidence into a court of law, the National Arbitration Forum settled the case by agreeing to stop hearing consumer arbitration cases.
Wall Street’s own industry-run arbitration system also makes good use of the repeat player advantage. On July 20, 2000 the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA) issued a press release accusing the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) of rigging its computerized system of selecting arbitrators. The statement read: “In direct and flagrant violation of federal law, the NASD systematically evaded the Securities and Exchange Commission approved ‘Neutral List Selection System’ arbitration rule requiring arbitrators to be selected on a rotating basis. Instead, the NASD secretly programmed its computers to select some arbitrators on a seniority basis – just what the rule was designed to prevent.”
PIABA had discovered the manipulation when a team of its attorneys demanded a test of the selection system at an NASD/PIABA meeting in Chicago on June 27, 2000. PIABA assessed the situation as follows:
“…this rule violation tainted hundreds or even thousands of compulsory securities arbitrations – many still ongoing. In every such instance, the substantive rights of public investors to a neutral panel have been cynically violated. Many public investors were thus twice cheated: first, by an NASD member firm that fraudulently conned them out of their life’s savings, and second by the NASD Arbitration Department’s rigged panels.”
The NASD-run system is now called the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or FINRA Dispute Resolution Services. For how that’s working out, see Susan Antilla’s 2015 article, “Indicted Lawyers, Peeping Toms Can Wind Up Judges in FINRA Arbitration,” published at TheStreet.com.
A provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 required that the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) study the use of mandatory arbitration. As part of the study, the CFPB asked for public comments. This is a sampling of what it heard from those not on the payroll (directly or indirectly) of Wall Street:
“I represent a lot of elderly consumers in elder financial abuse cases. I have numerous situations where arbitration is compelled because they signed an arbitration clause with a bank, agent or brokerage firm. They generally have no idea what they have signed and it is buried in the fine print. I can send you many complaints. These incidents of elder abuse should be litigated in a public place where other consumers can learn about the problems.” – Ingrid Evans, The Evans Law Firm, San Francisco, CA
“Mandatory arbitration has deprived consumers of justice in our country. The presence of the ever-expanding scope of forcing people to arbitrate when they have been tricked or defrauded has damaged our economy more than any other factor. All businesses, from banks to car dealers, that impose arbitration clauses on their customers are then undeterred in their conduct and we suffer. Arbitrators are paid by the companies they sit in judgment of and they are ALWAYS more concerned about whether the company they are judging will select (and pay) them for the next case than justice for the consumer. Please end the scourge of mandatory arbitration.” – Dave Angle, Columbia, MO
“In Public Justice’s experience, the most significant effect of mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer financial services is to dampen and suppress the bringing of claims by consumers. While the civil justice system brings injunctive relief (such as the end of deceptive and misleading practices, the elimination of improperly claimed debts, and the cleaning of credit reports, among other things) and monetary compensation to hundreds of thousands or millions of borrowers each year, only about 1,000 or so consumer cases against corporations of any kind were arbitrated in 2009 and 2010. For a variety of reasons set forth in these comments, the existing evidence that the use of arbitration by lenders suppresses claims – ensures that the vast majority of consumers who suffer legal wrongs will never even try to pursue their rights under federal and state consumer protection laws – is more than adequate for the Bureau to exercise its authority to ban the use of arbitration clauses by all entities within its jurisdiction. The broad data, as well as a number of potent evidentiary records in particular cases, confirms the obvious – that if consumers must each individually pursue their claims in arbitration, lenders will be immunized from liability for all but a tiny proportion of the legal wrongs they may commit.” – F. Paul Bland, Jr., Matthew Wessler, Leslie A. Bailey, Arthur H. Bryant, Amy Radon for the nonprofit organization, Public Justice.
“Among the problems consumer advocates identify concerning the use of mandatory arbitration agreements is the imbalance of power between the drafters of the agreements (i.e., the businesses offering the products and services) and the consumer. This imbalance is particularly acute when mandatory arbitration agreements are included in contracts of adhesion and in transactions targeted at the low-income population.” – Ron Elwood, Legal Services Advocacy Project, St. Paul, MN
It’s long past the time for Congress to stop pretending that it’s studying this charade of a justice system and pass meaningful legislation to reopen the courthouse doors to all Americans.
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 19:07:59 -0500
Subject: [Salon] Trump-Branded China Hawks Look to Take Over CongressTrump-Branded China Hawks Look to Take Over Congress
Former Trump officials are grooming a new generation of Senate candidates to make the hard-line approach to China the GOP’s default.
By Jack Detsch, Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter.DISABLED You have opted out of receiving all news alerts. To begin receiving alerts and manage your settings, click here.
November 11, 2021On a crisp September night in Washington this fall, a who’s who of former President Donald Trump’s national security team gathered in a room at the Willard Hotel to clink glasses and raise money to help the Republican Party retake the Senate.
But it wasn’t your typical Washington political fundraiser. Trump’s last national security advisor, Robert O’Brien, was the special guest, and arrayed alongside him were veterans of the Pentagon and the National Security Council. It was a welcome, of sorts, into D.C.’s foreign-policy elite for a Trump-branded Republican candidate, one who the former officials hoped would help inject the more hawkish views on China that characterized the former president’s last years in office into the GOP’s political bloodstream. That candidate was J.D. Vance, who became a bestselling author for elegizing about his past life as a hillbilly, evolved into a public critic of Trump before embracing the former president, and is now running for Senate in Ohio.
If the China-focused Republicans, led by O’Brien, who has advised a handful of 2022 GOP Senate hopefuls such as Vance, manage to consolidate the party’s emerging stance on foreign policy, it could look like this: Fewer hearings on the wars in the Middle East that Trump chaotically abandoned, and a lot more focus on China, particularly the intensifying competition as seen through the lens of trade, manufacturing, and security.
The emerging counter-China establishment is a generation removed from the neoconservatives that surrounded former President George W. Bush, who hoped to refashion Iraq and Afghanistan in America’s image; the new crew, like Trump, is pushing for a halt to the United States’ foreign adventures and a return to what it sees as the central challenge. Vance, who has proposed a tax on companies that outsource jobs and opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership and most free trade agreements, might have been laughed out of the room at Republican Party cocktail parties in Washington five years ago, some of his backers in the national security community said. Now, they’re pinning their hopes on him and Blake Masters, a venture capitalist running for Senate in Arizona, to be the vanguard of the GOP’s emerging foreign-policy mainstream.
“These are not wackos and yahoos, right?” said one former U.S. official backing Vance, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak about internal party deliberations. “These are guys with millions of dollars in the bank from very wealthy people, and they’re all Ivy League-educated, and they’re all very successful.
“This is a serious movement within the party. I think what we’re going to see [when] these guys start showing up in Washington is that the tenor and the tone coming from the Hill on foreign policy that’s fed the neocon beast for the last 20 years … that’s going to stop.”
O’Brien, who pushed heavily for a massive naval buildup at the end of the Trump administration, has put himself at the forefront of nurturing the new vanguard. While headliners such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and one-time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wait in their former boss’s shadow to determine their presidential prospects for 2024, O’Brien has tried to paint himself as an Obi-Wan Kenobi of sorts for young Republicans. He briefed Republicans on Capitol Hill about the fallout from Afghanistan after an invitation from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and hosted a retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to zero in on China with five national security-oriented members of the House. And he’s been privately briefing candidates he’s endorsed, including Vance and Masters.
It’s a sign that being hawkish on China is more of a litmus test for Republicans than ever before. Several Republicans in Congress, led by China hawks such as Sens. Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio, have already helped spearhead legislation to root out Chinese espionage inside the United States, arm Taiwan, and sanction China for stifling COVID-19 investigations. But Vance’s election, if he’s able to prevail through a crowded primary field next May and cruise through the general election, would represent an important changing-of-the-guard. He would replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican who once served as U.S. trade representative during the George W. Bush administration—a sign that skeptical views of free trade, like Trump’s, are becoming more characteristic of the Republican Party as a whole.
“The GOP has always had tensions, between the Wall Street Journal editorial page and economic nationalism,” said Daniel Blumenthal, a senior fellow and director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “The free trade, free market wing won out in the 1990s and up to the 2016 election. And now because of China’s massive market distortions, it has had a huge effect on people’s views of trade inside the GOP—the feeling that it’s not a level playing field in terms of free markets, free trade.”
The former U.S. official said the new platform would focus on the nexus of trade, manufacturing, and the industrial base as a means to make the United States more competitive with China—and encourage consumers to buy American. At a campaign stop in the eastern Ohio city of Steubenville earlier this week, Vance honed in on U.S. dependency on pharmaceuticals from China. “If we made that stuff in America, we wouldn’t be depending on other regimes to ship it into our country right now,” he told onlookers at a meet-and-greet at a coffee house.
The new wave of Republicans is still consolidating its voice on security issues. O’Brien has publicly pushed for a strategy to deter China from attacking Taiwan by providing Taipei with large quantities of anti-ship missiles, sea mines, and Stinger missiles that could disrupt a People’s Liberation Army attack from the air and sea.
The more confrontational stance toward China isn’t without its risks. Trump’s tariffs and trade wars hurt American businesses, farmers, and consumers, and did virtually nothing to stem China’s trade abuses. The United States has never been good at developing a top-down industrial policy to compete with economies like China’s that have a laser-like focus on (and few scruples about) fostering key industries. Even a more hawkish stance in the security sphere is dicey in the short term, as Chinese naval and missile capabilities have surpassed the United States’ traditional dominance in the western Pacific, just as warnings grow of a looming confrontation with Beijing over Taiwan.
But for the GOP, the China challenge remains the most vital one—and it could well reshape the entire party.
“The bottom line is that ultimately China is bringing the GOP together,” Blumenthal said. “The new voices are understandably asking the question, ‘I am now hearing that we have fallen behind China in military and technological power; how did that happen?’ Some blame the war on terror; many blame business lobbies. The relationship of the GOP to big business is certainly changing because of China, among other reasons.”
The emerging economic plank points to a more traditional, mercantilist approach to U.S. trade policy that dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. And it’s an opportunity to clean up Trump’s scattershot rhetoric on trade. Vance also scored an endorsement from Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s former trade representative, suggesting the would-be senator would like to continue Trump’s full-on tariff war with China.
“This intellectualizes the Trump agenda,” the anonymous former U.S. official said. “What these guys are doing is they’re taking impulses, and they’re making the intellectual case for them, and they’re putting a respectable kind of gloss on it.”
But O’Brien and those like him are banking on the notion that the post-COVID-19 public opinion shift against China is permanent. A Chicago Council poll conducted last month showed that a majority of Americans—55 percent—saw the development of China as a world power as a threat to U.S. critical interests. And in industrial Ohio, where manufacturing jobs were eaten up by China, Republicans are confident the message will resonate.
“What people like Vance are speaking to politically is the sense that actually ordinary people are feeling the China challenge much more acutely than the Blob,” said Elbridge Colby, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who helped craft Trump’s 2017 National Defense Strategy, using an idiomatic term to describe the Washington foreign-policy elite.
“The Blob, you know, Washington, D.C., has done great over the last generation. It’s grown. It’s got better restaurants. Everything works, relatively speaking. Meanwhile, if you’re living in the middle of the country, there’s been massive deindustrialization. There are a number of reasons, but a big one has been China. And I think people kind of know that in some basic sense at a gut level.”
Jack Detsch is Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter. Twitter: @JackDetsch
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 19:13:33 -0500
Subject: [Salon] Director of CCP Policy Research Office Jiang Jinquan Calls US-Led Democracy Summit 'a Huge Irony'US-led democracy summit ‘a huge irony’, Communist Party official says
- Jiang Jinquan says Western systems face mounting problems and democracy is not about rhetoric and election pledges
- He had been asked about ‘whole process democracy’, cited in a communique after the party plenum, attended by 300 officials
Jun Mai in BeijingPublished: 10:00pm, 12 Nov, 2021
Updated: 10:00pm, 12 Nov, 2021
Jiang Jinquan praised the party for rejecting concepts such as constitutional democracy, a multiparty system and separation of powers. Photo: Simon SongA senior ideology official with the Communist Party has taken a swipe at a forthcoming US-hosted democracy summit, saying it was ironic given that Western democracies faced “mounting problems”.
“The US will host a so-called democracy summit and seeks to revive Western democracy, and it’s a huge irony to host it against the mounting problems faced by Western democracy,” said Jiang Jinquan, director of the party’s Policy Research Office.
US President Joe Biden is expected to host the first of two Summits for Democracy in early December, bringing together leaders from governments and civil society. Media reports have suggested it is likely that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen will be invited, which would enrage the Chinese government.
Jiang, whose department is responsible for grand strategies and ideology research, cited an unspecified recent poll in the US in which 81 per cent of Americans said there was a “serious threat” to its democracy. That number matched a poll released by NPR/PBS News hour and Marist Poll two weeks ago.
He went on to cite polls conducted by US agencies and said that over 90 per cent of Chinese had said they were satisfied with their government.
Jiang did not specify which polls he was referring to, but Chinese officials have regularly cited research published in 2020 by Harvard’s Ash Centre, which showed that 93 per cent of Chinese respondents said in 2016 they were satisfied with their central government.
“Which is better and which is worse?” Jiang said. “Anyone with a clear eye can tell themselves.”
His remarks were made on Friday during a press conference in Beijing whose primary agenda was to explain the results of the sixth plenum, a closed-door high-level meeting of the Communist Party held over four days this week.
When he was asked about “whole process democracy”, referred to in the plenum communique published on Thursday, Jiang lashed out at the American system.
He argued that real democracy was not about rhetoric and pledges made on the election trail, saying: “Democracy is not an ornament or just for decoration. Democracy is for solving the people’s real problems.”
Those lines matched word for word President Xi Jinping’s comments in a speech made in late October, when he also argued that institutional competition was a “key aspect” of rivalry between nations, and could be a “key advantage for the country in gaining the strategic initiative”.
Jiang added that democracy was not real if the people had no say after voting for empty promises. He also praised the party for rejecting Western political concepts including constitutional democracy, a multiparty system and separation of powers.
During the plenum, about 300 party officials, led by Xi, passed a resolution that hailed the party’s achievements in the past century and especially under Xi’s leadership since 2012.
The document, whose full text has not yet been released, is aimed at showing the party’s solidarity and paving the way for Xi’s third term as leader, which is expected to be confirmed at next year’s party congress.
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Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 19:28:20 -0500
Subject: Re: [Salon] NRA MembersA secret tape made after Columbine shows the NRA's evolution on school shootings
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1049054141/a-secret-tape-made-after-columbine-shows-the-nras-evolution-on-school-shootings?utm_source=pocket-newtabSalon mailing listOn Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 5:41 PM Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com> wrote:
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