Anti War: Thread

[grarpamp]

Escalatories don't seem to be stopping...


China Is Preparing To Go To War

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/08/china-is-preparing-to-go-to-war/

Last month, a Chinese entrepreneur making medical equipment for
consumers told me that local officials had demanded he convert his
production lines in China so that they could turn out items for the
military. Communist Party cadres, he said, were issuing similar orders
to other manufacturers.

Moreover, Chinese academics privately say the ongoing expulsion of
foreign colleagues from China’s universities appears to be a
preparation for hostilities.

The People’s Republic of China is preparing to go to war, and it is
not trying to hide its efforts. Amendments to the National Defense
Law, effective the first day of last year, transfer powers from
civilian to military officials.

In general, the amendments reduce the role of the central government’s
State Council by shifting power to the CMC, the Communist Party’s
Central Military Commission. Specifically, the State Council will no
longer supervise the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army.

As Zeng Zhiping of Soochow University told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post,

    “The CMC is now formally in charge of making national defense
policy and principles, while the State Council becomes a mere
implementing agency to provide support for the military.”

In one sense, these amendments were window dressing. “Recent changes
to China’s National Defense Law that diminish the power of the State
Council are largely political posturing,” Richard Fisher of the
Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me
soon after the amendments went into effect. “The Chinese Communist
Party and particularly its subordinate CMC have always held supreme
power over decisions regarding war and peace.”

Why then do we care about the National Defense Law amendments?

The amendments, Fisher tells us, “point to China’s ambition to achieve
‘whole nation’ levels of military mobilization to fight wars and give
the CMC formal power to control the future Chinese capabilities for
global military intervention.”

    “The revised National Defense Law also embodies the concept that
everyone should be involved in national defense,” reports the
Communist Party’s Global Times, summarizing the words of an unnamed
CMC official. “All national organizations, armed forces, political
parties, civil groups, enterprises, social organizations, and other
organizations should support and take part in the development of
national defense, fulfill national defense duties, and carry out
national defense missions according to the law.”

As Fisher told 19FortyFive this month, “For the past 40 years, China’s
Communist Party has been preparing for brutal war, and now the ruling
organization is accelerating its plans.”

The Party, as it readies itself for combat, is leaving nothing to
chance. In March, its Central Organization Department issued an
internal directive prohibiting the spouses and children of
ministerial-level officials from owning foreign real estate or shares
registered offshore. The ban also appears to apply to such officials
themselves as there are reports of their selling foreign assets.
Moreover, such officials and immediate families are not, except in
limited circumstances, allowed to open accounts overseas with
financial institutions.

The directive, issued soon after the imposition of sanctions on
Russian officials for the “special military operation” in Ukraine,
appears designed to sanction-proof Chinese officials.

J-10 Fighter.

Moreover, the central government is trying to sanctions-proof itself.
On April 22, officials from the finance ministry and central bank met
with representatives of dozens of banks, including HSBC, to discuss
what Beijing could do in the event of the imposition of punitive
measures on China.

The holding of the “emergency meeting,” reported by the Financial
Times, is ominous.

    “The officials and attendees did not mention specific scenarios,
but one possible trigger for such sanctions is thought to be a Chinese
invasion of Taiwan,” the FT noted.

The fact that Chinese officials held the meeting is a clear indication
that Beijing is planning belligerent acts.

“Be ready for battle.” That’s how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post
summarized Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s first order to the military of
2019. In January of that year, he gave a major speech to the CMC on
making preparations for war, and the address was then broadcast
nationwide.

Foreign analysts debate whether China is going to war anytime soon.
The Chinese political system has become less transparent over time, so
it is not clear what senior leaders are thinking.

Image of J-20 fighter. Image Credit: Chinese Internet.

Yet it is clear what senior leaders are in fact doing. They are
getting troops ready for another advance below the Line of Actual
Control in Ladakh, preparing to seize more Indian territory in the
Himalayas. They renewed, in November of last year and this June,
attempts to block the resupply of a Philippine outpost at Second
Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea. They ordered four vessels to
enter Japan’s sovereign water around the disputed but
Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in late
July. They are directing continual provocations around Taiwan,
including a violation of the island’s sovereign airspace in early
February.

And there is something else that is unmistakable: Xi and senior
leaders are getting China’s citizens ready for war.