美学者:有人想在台海引发第三次世界大战
据中评社报导,美国哥伦比亚大学教授萨克斯(Jeffrey Sacks)批评美国新保守主义势力正在将北约东扩的剧本在台湾海峡上演,通过挑衅升高情势,要将台湾变成对付中国大陆的「豪猪」。他认为,这是比北约在欧洲东扩引发俄乌战争更危险的做法,有可能引发第三次世界大战。
萨克斯日前应邀在两个美国民间反战组织联合举办的线上会议中发表演讲。报导称,曾任三位联合国秘书长顾问的萨克斯表示,新保守主义者正试图将北约扩大到亚洲,「这是一种疯狂的想法」。这实际上在今年的北约峰会上得到了��现,他们邀请亚洲盟国领导人来讨论如何走这条「鲁莽的道路」,这确实是美国主导的军事联盟包围世界,包围中国,包围俄罗斯的新愿景。
萨克斯指出,现在美国有人想在台湾海峡挑起类似在乌克兰发生的冲突,这甚至更危险。这是一个非常相似的剧本。他说,美方在台湾问题升级上做出了「可怕的挑衅」。
「当中国人警告美国众议长不要访台时,众议长飞到台湾,升高了情势。然后解放军每天都有军事活动,美国有人说要把台湾武装到牙齿,把他们变成『豪猪岛』,让北京无法进攻。」
「你们在开玩笑吗?这是一个有2,300万人口的岛屿,但我想提醒大家,中国大陆有14亿人。」萨克斯质问,「我们在做什麽?我们真的希望两面作战吗?我们真的渴望第三次世界大战吗?这些白宫、国会和华盛顿智库的新保守主义者是怎麽想的?」(点击查看更多...)
美国国务院近日批准向台湾出售4.28亿美元的军机零部件,以协助台湾空军提升战备能力,因应近三年来频繁现身台海周围的解放军战机。对此,大陆外交部、国防部、国台办8日齐声表示反对。
大陆外交部发言人毛宁指责美国公然违反一个中国原则和中美三个联合公报,损害中国主权和安全利益,损害台海和平稳定,向台独分裂势力发出错误信号。中方对此表示强烈不满,坚决反对,将採取有力措施,坚定捍卫自身主权和安全利益。
大陆国防部新闻发言人谭克非指责美方此举公然置中方严正立场于不顾,再次粗暴干涉中国内政,中方对此强烈不满、坚决反对,已向美方提出严正交涉。他警告,倘若美国一再食言背信、执意妄为,纵容支持台独,势必加剧台海紧张局势,最终必将引火烧身。
大陆国台办发言人朱凤莲也表示,坚决反对美国向「中国台湾地区」出售武器。她并称,台独是绝路。「以武拒统」,勾连外部势力「谋独」挑衅,只会把台湾同胞推向火坑。
2022卡塔尔世界杯赛事最新资讯:F1459.com
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What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests
Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.
I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:
Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.
On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.
Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.
Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.
Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.
More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:
First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!
China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:
The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.
Other Issues at Play:
Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.
The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:
The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.
The Protests and Their Significance:
The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.
Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党 下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.
Looking Ahead:
Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.
Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.
What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.
Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.
Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".
Links:
BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles
ABC (Australia) analysis
South China Morning Post analysis
Experts & Journalists to Check Out:
Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine
Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund
Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC
M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT
New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)
If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.
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