Dynamics
|
|
Generational Dynamics |
| Modern Generational Theory | |
| HOME WEB LOG COUNTRY STUDIES COMMENT FORUM | |
| DOWNLOADS FOURTH TURNING ARCHIVE ABOUT | |
The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian (2003)
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
I've always been skeptical of the most extreme explanations of the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19). For a long time, I was willing to accept the explanation that it jumped to humans from an animal in a so-called "wet market" or, if it came from the Wuhan Virology Lab, that it escaped from the lab accidentally, for example by accidentally infecting one of the lab workers. The last possibility has been supported by numerous reports of sloppy security practices at the lab.
In particular, I've never believed that the Chinese Communists purposely unleashed the virus on the world. Whatever happened, I've always felt, must have been mostly caused by accidents, stupidity and incompetence. I've frequently criticized the Chinese Communists for policies that were extremely stupid, but surely the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as stupid as they are, would not be so stupid as to purposely spread a novel virus across the world.
My opinion has changed 180 degrees. I now believe that the CCP is easily stupid enough to have purposely spread the virus across the world. In fact, I now believe that's exactly what happened.
What's changed my mind is a document from 2003, The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian (2003).
General Chi Haotian was born in 1929, and was one of the last hardline military men that led Mao Zedong's army to victory, forming the People's Republic of China in 1949. If you'dlike to compare him to an American general, then select a hardline general who was born in the 1920s.
The 2003 document is a large, complex strategy document, describing how China would defeat America diplomatically and militarily. It was written 18 years ago, almost the length of an entire generation. Chi's hardline war survivor generation is now gone, replaced by younger generations who may not agree with everything that Chi says.
But as I analyzed this document, it was clear to me that this document is not out of date, except in a few irrelevant details. The plans and motivations of the Chinese Communists, and the methods for achieving their objectives, have not changed substantively since 2003.
I had wanted to provide a summary of the main points, but this document is so large and complex that a summary would be almost as long as the original document. So I'll just provide a narrative of points most relevant to this article, and suggest that you read Chi's entire speech for yourself.
So the following sections contain some of the main points of Chi's speech. As you read them, you'll think that they're highly delusional, to the point of insanity, and I agree. But they're also the policies of the entire CCP, which have frequently been shown to be delusional to the point of insanity. It's also worth pointing out that these policies and views are not new. They're deeply embedded in Chinese culture, dating back millennia to the Analects of Confucius (551-479 BC) and The Art of War (500 BC) by Sun Tzu.
The core belief of Chi Haotian, the CCP, and the entire Chinese culture is that the Chinese people are a unique race, superior to all other races. I've sometimes described this as believing that all other races have no other purpose than to serve the Chinese, in the same way that a donkey has no other purpose than to serve a farmer. I've been using that analogy for years, and I'm not aware of any example of Chinese behavior that contradicts the donkey analogy. This is the Chinese culture. This is how the Chinese think of us, and this is how it has been for millennia.
Chi Haotian carries this to the next level by claiming that Chinese DNA is so unique that the Chinese people did not originate in Africa like everyone else. Chi repeats a claim, based on archaelogical discoveries of "Peking Man" in the 1920s, that the Chinese people evolved completely independently of the other races on earth. This claim was debunked by Chinese scholars in the 1980s, but was still believed by Chi, and is probably still believed by many in the CCP.
Chi is describing the strategy for "the great revitalization of the Chinese nation," which, of course, "is not limited to the land we have now but also includes the whole world." Chi claims that the Chinese nation would not exist without the Communist Party. The Communist Party must exist for this great revitalization of the Chinese nation.
Chi sees the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre as an existential crisis for the Communist Party. If a reformist faction (led by Zhao Ziyang) had succeeded in resolving the riots peacefully, then there would have been a "peaceful transition," ending the power of the Communist Party. Fortunately (he believes), Zhao Ziyang was removed at a crucial movement, and the 1989 riots were crushed.
Chi sees this as a generational issue. He says that Communism ended in the Soviet Union when the "pioneering senior comrades" (i.e., the generals who had served in WW II) passed away, Gorbachev came along, and the power of the Communist Party was taken away by peaceful evolution. This peaceful transition must not happen to the Chinese Communist Party!!! "If we, the CCP, are finished, China will be finished, and the world will be finished."
This is the justification for all the insanity. It's not to improve China's economy. It's not to defend China from a war. It's not even to prevent an internal civil war. The justification for all the insanity is to prevent a peaceful transition in China that ends the power of the Communist Party. And this is breathtakingly insane, but we can see the consequences.
So, for example, every religion must be brutally crushed. Here is the justification:
"Maybe you have now come to understand why we recently decided to further promulgate atheism. If we let theology from the West into China and empty us from the inside, if we let all Chinese people listen to God and follow God, who will obediently listen to us and follow us? If the common people don’t believe Comrade Hu Jintao is a qualified leader, question his authority, and want to monitor him, if the religious followers in our society question why we are leaving God in churches, can our Party continue to rule China?"
So that's why any religious worship is an existential threat to Communism. That's the justification for brutally crushing Buddhists and Christians, and for beating, raping, torturing, and enslaving two million Muslim Uighurs. Praying to God is like declaring war on the Communist Party.
And I want to emphasize the insanity of this. In America or any other country, religious prayer exists alongside the government without a conflict. But in China, "listening to God and following God" is an existential threat to the Communist Party, because the Communist leaders' authority will be questioned, and they will lose their power. I don't know what this looks like to you, Dear Reader, but to me it looks like total madness.
Chi Haotian complains bitterly that China has the world's largest population, including Chinese in China and overseas, but too little per-capita living space for Chinese people.
According to Chi: "China’s great economic expansion will inevitably come with significant development in our military forces, creating conditions for our expansion overseas."
In 2003, China was about 20 years into the "One Child Policy," that caused the government to kill children and forcibly abort women when a family might have more than one child. Chi does not mention the One Child Policy, but I can well believe that he hates it, and sees it as an additional reason for expansion overseas.
Colonization of foreign lands is a crucial part of Chi's strategy for the revitalization of the Chinese nation, and Chi looks to the experience of Hitler and the Nazis for lessons on how to proceed.
In America and the West, we generally think of Hitler and the Nazis as a uniquely evil world development that will never happen again. However, that's not how the Chinese view him. In my book, "War between China and Japan," I mentioned that Chiang Kai-shek admired Hitler, but I didn't carry it farther.
But Chi Haotian and the CCP do not consider Hitler and the Nazis to be a uniquely evil development. They admire Hitler and his attempt to rule the world, and want to learn lessons from his "humiliating" defeat so that the Chinese Communists won't repeat them.
Chi says, "Our Chinese people are wiser than the Germans because, fundamentally, our race is superior to theirs." An important difference between the German Nazis and the Chinese Communists is that "we are complete atheists, while Germany was primarily a Catholic and Protestant country. ... Although Hitler also believed that ordinary citizens had low intelligence, and that leaders should therefore make decisions, and although German people worshipped Hitler back then, Germany did not have the tradition of worshipping sages on a broad basis."
So that's why Hitler made mistakes, and why there are three lessons that the CCP must learn from Hitler's failure.
Chi explains the Issue of America as follows:
"Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? First, if the United States is firm in blocking us, it is hard for us to do anything significant to Taiwan, Vietnam, India, or even Japan, [so] how much more living space can we get? Very trivial! Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization. Therefore, solving the “issue of America” is the key to solving all other issues."
This explains a lot of things for me, things that I've described as insanity in the past.
First, it explains the obsession with Taiwan. Yes of course the Chinese may legitimately wish Taiwan to be part of China, but what's insane is that the CCP is willing to pursue total war to make Taiwan a province of China. Britain gave up the entire British Empire without going to war to keep each colony. Going to war for that reason can legitimately be called insane.
In August 2006, I transcribed a BBC interview with Sha Zukang, China's ambassador to the United Nations. What was remarkable was that the ambassador was screaming angrily at the top of his lungs. He was asked about Taiwan's independence, and he screamed as follows:
"The moment that Taiwan declares independence, supported by whomever, China will have no choice but to [use] whatever means available to my government. Nobody should have any illusions on that. ...It's not a matter of how big Taiwan is, but for China, one INCH of the territory is more valuable than the LIVES of our people."
[With regard to the U.S.'s constant criticism of China's rapid militarization:] It's better for the U.S. to shut up, keep quiet. That's much, much better. China's population is 6 times or 5 times the United States. Why blame China? No. forget it. It's high time to shut up. It's a nation's sovereign right to do what is good for them. But don't tell us what's good for China. Thank you very much."
This followed a 2005 warning given by top-level Chinese army officer General Zhu Chenghu if America interfered with Taiwan: "If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond. We ... will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian [a city in central China]. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."
And that's not all. China has 21 active border disputes with neighboring countries. Once again, Dear Reader, I call that insanity. But it's become a Chinese Communist obsession to colonize other lands, and not give up even one inch of land.
This gets to the heart of Chi Haotian's "Issue of America." Chi said that America will block any attempt by China to colonize Taiwan, Vietnam, India or Japan. Therefore, America must be defeated.
According to Chi, the reason that Chinese talk loudly about the "Taiwan issue" is that they want to hide their real objective, the "American issue."
Chi says that once America is conquered, it will be necessary to use biological weapons to "clean up" America:
"To resolve the issue of America we must be able to transcend conventions and restrictions. In history, when a country defeated another country or occupied another country, it could not kill all the people in the conquered land because back then you could not kill people effectively with sabers or long spears, or even with rifles or machine guns. Therefore, it was impossible to gain a stretch of land without keeping the people on that land. However, if we conquered America in this fashion, we would not be able to make many people migrate there.Only by using special means to “clean up” America will we be able to lead the Chinese people there. This is the only choice left for us. This is not a matter of whether we are willing to do it or not. What kind of special means is there available for us to “clean up America”? ...
Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio-weapons have been invented one after another. Of course, we have not been idle, in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of “cleaning up” America all of a sudden."
So Chi Haotian concludes that the way to solve the "Issue of America" is to conquer America, and then "clean up America" by unleashing biological weapons.
Chi doesn't say how America would be conquered, but today's CCP has been stockpiling nuclear weapons and building silos, implying that they plan a massive nuclear missile attack where military targets and American cities are all fired upon at the same time, to knock out America quickly.
Having completed my analysis of Chi Haotian's 2003 speech, you can see why I've done a U-turn, and I now believe that China's release of Covid-19 on the entire world was intentional, and was actually a kind of "beta test" for a full bio-chemical attack in the future.
Here's what we know:
For me, the logic is as follows: So many of the things that the CCP has done for years that I consider insane are explained by Chi Haotian's 2003 speech, and if I were to try to devise a way to "beta test" using a biological weapon in the world, I would probably have done it the way the CCP spread Covid-19 around the world.
If you take a virus and turn it into a bioweapon, the type of research is named "gain-of-function." The enhanced virus may be more lethal, may spread more easily, or may target only certain kinds of entities. For example, in 2000 Dutch researchers genetically engineered the spike protein of a mouse coronavirus so that it would attack only cats, but not rodents.
The nightmare scenario for the world is that Chinese scientists might similarly engineer a virus that attacks all humans, excluding all those with Chinese DNA. This would be entirely expected from Chi Haotian's glorification of the unique Chinese DNA.
However, if this was some kind of "beta test," then many lessons have been learned all around. Scientists and politicians in the United States have learned a lot about handling virus outbreaks, and those lessons would be applied to a biological weapon.
A lesson that the Chinese may be learning is that viruses can mutate when they're out in the wild. As I'm writing this article, hundreds of people in China are suddenly being infected by a "delta variation" of the virus that they infected the world with. That's the danger of using a bioweapon -- you can't be sure that it won't turn against you, once you lose control of it.
 |
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99
Table of Contents
https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Between-Prepared-Generational/dp/1732738637/
Sources:
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational
Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)
(31-Jul-2021)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Japan says 'F--k you China, bring it on'
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The mutual hatred that the people of China and Japan feel for each other has always been bubbling below the surface, but in the last month or so, it has become far more public and open at the military and government levels.
The flash point is Taiwan. China has repeatedly declared the intention to invade Taiwan and annex it to China. Japan has said that China's annexation of Taiwan would be a security risk to Japan, and so Japan will join with Taiwan in a war with China. I discussed all of this in my article last month. ( "28-Jun-21 World View -- Japan's plans for defending Taiwan from an attack by China")
What's changed in the last month is that each side, China and Japan, has published something that indicates a harsh "fuck you" attitude toward the other side. In years past, Japan and China pretended to be nice to each other, but those days apparently are ending.
On July 12, the Chinese Communist military uploaded a video to a Chinese Military channel, "Military strategies." The video was taken down after two days, after it had been re-posted, with English subtitles, by Chinese-born human rights activist and author Jennifer Zeng.
Here are some of the main points of the Chinese military video as described by Jennifer Zeng:
There's so much of the above that's entirely delusional that it's hard to know what to start. The most obvious is that the continuous nuclear bombing will not cause Japan to declare unconditional surrender "for the second time." The Japanese will be infuriated and will fight to the last bullet.
The video implies the following Chinese delusional military strategy: The Chinese strategy would be a quick victory in Taiwan combined with a nuclear victory over Japan, to be executed before the United States could respond. When the dust cleared, there would be a new reality, with Taiwan part of China, and Japan colonized/controlled by China.
This is entirely delusional, but being delusional has never stopped the Chinese Communists till now.
There is a never-ending debate whether nuclear weapons will be used in the next war. But Jennifer Zeng's article explains why China MUST use nuclear weapons at the beginning of the war. In conventional warfare, Taiwan+Japan could defeat the Chinese. The Chinese know this, and the Japanese know this. That's why the Chinese are developing the "Japan Exception Theory," which means that Japan is the exception to the "promise" that China will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. Japan does not currently have nuclear weapons, so there will presumably be no danger of nuclear retaliation from Japan.
The Japan Exception Theory is just words, but China has also done a lot militarily in the last few weeks to increase its preparation for war with Taiwan.
The Chinese Communists have sent warplanes into Taiwan's airspace dozens of times in 2020, and hundreds of times so far in 2021. The media describes this as "sending a message," but how long will the increasingly nationalist Chinese public be satisfied with just "sending a message"?
In March, the Chinese military showed an aggressive new tactic: planning for a blockade. Ten Chinese warplanes invaded Taiwanese airspace to the island's south and west, while another two Chinese planes cut through its southern airspace to skirt Taiwan's eastern airspace. A Taiwanese official said that the move was designed to practice cutting Taiwan off from Japanese and American intervention if China carries through on its threats to invade Taiwan.
It's not known what a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would look like, and it's not clear that China has the capability to successfully invade Taiwan.
However a full blockade of Taiwan could be a much simpler strategy. The idea is that if Taiwan were cut off from the world, it could quickly run out of both military and non-military necessities, but once it did it would be forced to surrender. Once again, that's entirely delusional, but a blockade could be part of a larger strategy to weaken and isolate Taiwan first, in preparation for the actual invasion.
Once again, you have to step back here and look at the larger picture. What the hell is going on here? China has been "sending messages" for years, decades even. Now we have the Chinese military talking about a Japanese exception to allow a nuclear attack, and Chinese warplanes practicing for a blockade to prevent Japan or the US from defending Taiwan. We also know that the Chinese Communists have explicitly warned that they would invade Taiwan, and those warnings have become increasingly shrill.
As I've written many times, a war could start at any time, and it wouldn't even require an affirmative decision to do so. World War I was started by a twelve year old boy who decided to assassinate a Serbian archduke. World War II was started by a Japanese garrison near Beijing when a Japanese soldier needed to pee and got lost in the woods. The Japanese accused the Chinese of abducting the soldier, and they were at full-scale war within a month, with the Rape of Nanking occurring two months later.
Look closely at the pair of maps at the beginning of this article. They are the "Defense of Japan" white papers published, respectively, in 2020 and 2021. Both of these are maps of China, with the red arrow pointing to the island of Taiwan.
In 2020, Taiwan was shown in red, indicating that Taiwan is part of China. In 2021, Taiwan is shown in grey, meaning that Taiwan is NOT part of China.
I'm referring to this as a "Fuck you China, bring it on" message. There are no words that could be more insulting and more infuriating to the Chinese Communists than what is essentially a declaration by Japan's Ministry of Defense (MOD) that Taiwan is an independent country.
In the context of the current increasingly belligerent actions by the Chinese, and their declaration of the "Japan Exception Theory," Japan is saying that they're not intimidated.
The "Defense of Japan" white paper, this year for the first time, makes clear that Japan is concerned about a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan:
"Stabilizing the situation surrounding Taiwan is important for Japan’s security and the stability of the international community. Therefore, it is necessary that we pay close attention to the situation with a sense of crisis more than ever before."
What is significant about this statement is that Taiwan was never even mentioned in previous white papers.
Japan adopted a pacifist constitution after World War II, and later signed the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans it from developing nuclear weapons, more than 40 years ago.
However, Japan has been able to build nuclear weapons since it launched a plutonium breeader reactor and uranium enrichment plant in the 1980s. Since then, Japan has pursued a nuclear fuel recycling program that separates plutonium from the waste from its nuclear power plants.
Today, Japan has 45.5 tons of separated plutonium — 8.9 tons at home, and 36.6 tons in Britain and France. The amount is enough to make about 6,000 atomic bombs. And Japan continues to produce more plutonium.
Analysts estimate that it would require about six months for Japan to develop an atomic weapon.
In fact, I would speculate further. I could well believe that the Japanese have manufactured the nuclear weapons, perhaps with technical help from the Americans or the Indians, but haven't yet inserted the plutonium. That way, they can claim that they still have no nuclear weapons, but they might be able to complete the manufacture within a few days, when the time comes.
I don't have any evidence of that. I'm just saying that it wouldn't surprise me.
Americans fought and won a war with the Nazis, and now, 75 years later, Americans like the Germans, are friends with the Germans, and Germany is an ally.
Americans fought and won a war with the Imperial Japanese, and now, 75 years later, Americans like the Japanese, are friends with the Japanese, and Japan is a very important ally.
Americans fought and won a war in support of the Chinese, and saved the Chinese from the Japanese. Since then, Americans always loved the Chinese, although attitudes changed with the Tiananmen Square massacre, the torture and enslavement of two million Muslim Uighurs, the smashing of democracy in Hong Kong, and the repeated threats and obvious plans to wage war to annex Taiwan.
Americans like the Chinese people, and have no desire for a war with them, but Americans are increasingly scared to death by the hateful belligerence of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese people like the American people, and have no desire for a war with them, but the Chinese Communists have decided that there must be a war because the United States military will defend Taiwan and Japan from a Chinese invasion.
The Chinese and the Japanese fought a war with each other, and now, 75 years later, each side has a deep, vitriolic hatred of the other. The Japanese performed unspeakable atrocities on the Chinese during World War II. The Chinese are craving revenge like nothing else. Given the chance, they will inflict the same kinds of enormous atrocities on the Japanese, and they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of the Japanese culture.
That's why the last actions by Japan's Ministry of Defense are interesting, which is why I describe them as "F--k you China, bring it on." There are no signs that the Japanese fear a war with the Chinese. It's possible that they fear war with China less than we do. The Japanese have a very powerful conventional armed forces, and they may have nuclear weapons, and they may believe that they can defeat the Chinese, in alliance with Taiwan. So I get the feeling that the Japanese would like another go at China, and are looking forward to it.
It's ironic that the crucible of the war between China and Japan will likely be an invasion of little old Taiwan. Taiwan was a colony of Japan in the early 1900s, and apparently consider that relationship to have been good enough for Taiwan to be on the side of Japan in fighting their common enemy, China.
But what about Korea? Which side will they be on?
Throughout Korea's history, they were either a colony of Japan or a vassal state of China. I'm not sure which is worse. So which side would Korea choose to fight against -- Japan or Korea? I get the feeling that they would rather be like Switzerland, and try to stay neutral as long as possible.
But of course it's much more complicated than that, because Korea isn't Korea any more. Korea is now South Korea, apparently aligned with the United States, and North Korea, apparently aligned with China. Each Korea wants the country to be reunited, but under its own government. So it seems likely that there will be a war between North and South Korea, while Japan is fighting China.
So what will happen to all those nuclear weapons that the North Koreans have been manufacturing? With they be launched toward America, toward Japan, toward China or toward South Korea? That's a very interesting question, and I think that the answer is far from obvious.
So I really don't know what the Koreans will do. Perhaps some of the Koreans who read my articles could write to me and enlighten me, or post their opinions anonymously in the Generational Dynamics forum.
There are people in the Generational Dynamics forum who criticize me for making imperfect predictions. "What good are your forecasts, Xenakis, if you can't tell the date when the war will break out?"
That's funny. All I can tell you today, with 100% certainty, is that China and Japan are headed for a full-scale war over Taiwan. I can't give you an exact date, but I can tell you that China is rapidly making preparations, Japan is rapidly making preparations, and Taiwan is rapidly making preparations. But I can keep track of events and hope for clarity.
|
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Between-Prepared-Generational/dp/1732738637/
Sources:
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational
Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)
(24-Jul-2021)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
World Bank: Lebanon among the worst economic disasters since 1857
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Lebanon continued its path to self-destruction on Thursday, when Saad al-Hariri, who had been designated to form the first government following the massive port explosion in Beirut on August 4 of last year, resigned.
He offered his resignation after meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun. According to Hariri, Hariri's attempts to form a government were thwarted by Aoun, who demanded that Hariri change his proposed slate of ministers so that Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would have a "blocking third," which means that Nasrallah could veto any proposal of any other sect of the government, giving Nasrallah effective dictatorial control of the government.
Hariri has been prime minister three times in the past, but resigned in 2019, complaining that massive corruption was destroying the country's economy. Shortly after the port blast, Hariri agreed to return if he were allowed to choose his government cabinet ministers. In his statement on Thursday, he said:
"I withdrew from forming the government. Aoun demanded some amendments, which he considered essential, and said we will not be able to reach an understanding with each other. ... And may God save this country.I resigned in 2019 because I wanted a government of experts, and if we formed Michel Aoun’s government then the country won’t be saved.
The main problem of this country is Michel Aoun, who is allied with Hezbollah, who in turn protects him. This is the equation in the country and if someone can’t see it then they’re blind."
Incredibly, a year has gone by since the port explosion, and the corrupt politicians running the country have done nothing except continue to line their own pockets.
The economy had been in free fall even before the explosion, with a crashing currency and an unemployment rate above 30%.
About 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been left unprotected, sitting in a storage warehouse since 2013, adjacent to a fireworks factory, in the midst of a densely packed residential area. Later investigations showed that Hezbollah had been using the ammonium nitrate fertilizer to build bombs to be used in Syria. When the explosion occurred, 300,000 people lost their homes from the explosion, hundreds were killed, and thousands were wounded. 85% of the country's grain storage was destroyed. Several hospitals were destroyed. The explosion was far larger than anyone had ever seen, and property was damaged and windows broken all across the city, and for miles around. The explosion could be heard as far away as Cyprus.
The explosion was massive and destructive, but apparently not destructive enough to shake loose Iran-backed Hezbollah's control of Lebanon.
According to the World Bank in a report published in March, Lebanon's financial crisis is among the top ten, and possibly the top 3, in world history in the period since 1857 to the present. According to the report:
"In fact, Lebanon’s GDP plummeted from close to US$ 55 billion in 2018 to an estimated US$ 33 billion in 2020, with US$ GDP/ capita falling by around 40 percent. Such a brutal and rapid contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars. ... This illustrates the magnitude of the economic depression that the country is enduring, with sadly no clear turning point on the horizon, given the disastrous deliberate policy inaction.[In Fall 2020], the World Bank [termed] Lebanon’s economic crisis The Deliberate Depression. For over a year, Lebanese authorities countered an assailment of compounded crises -- namely, the country’s largest peace-time economic and financial crisis, COVID-19 and the Port of Beirut explosion -- with deliberately inadequate policy responses. The inadequacy is less due to knowledge gaps and quality advice and more the result of a combination of (i) a lack of political consensus over effective policy initiatives; and (ii) political consensus in defense of a bankrupt economic system, which benefited a few for so long. In the face of these challenges, Lebanon lacks a fully-functioning executive authority and is currently in the process of forming its third Government in a little over a year. This debilitating institutional void has lasted over 8 months so far."
In other words:
During the last year, nothing has changed. The year has simply been wasted by government officials, especially Aoun and Nasrallah, who don't want anything to change.
In August of last year, after the port explosion, France's president Emmanuel Macron led an international conference which pledged nearly $300 million in humanitarian assistance. However, the money was withheld until a reform government could be formed, because otherwise the $300 million would simply go into the pockets of the politicians and their cronies.
A month later, there was no movement to reform. Macron said at a news conference, "I’m ashamed of the Lebanese political leaders. Ashamed." He accused them of “collective betrayal” and choosing “to favor their partisan and individual interests to the general detriment of the country.”
The main stumbling block, then and today, was that the Shiite sect demanded complete control of the finance ministry, which means that Nasrallah would be able to use Lebanon's treasury for any purpose he wanted. What always happens in situations like these is that Nasrallah and Hezbollah don't dare to open the books of the finance ministry to scrutiny, since that would reveal years of robbery, embezzlement and corruption that had previously been hidden.
In the past few months I've become aware of the brilliance of the US Constitution and its ability to withstand these kinds of crises. This is because of its system of checks and balances among the three branches of government at the federal level, and the checks and balances between the federal governments and the state governments. I expect the US Constitutional form of government to withstand the current attack, especially as vote audits in Arizona, Georgia and other states are revealing what actually happened in the 2020 election. These audits could not be occurring except for the checks and balances in the US Constitution.
However, there are no checks and balances whatsoever in Lebanon's government, and that's why corruption is out of control and why the country is unable to form a government in the wake of the massive explosion that leveled much of Beirut -- an explosion that is the fault of incompetence and corruption in Lebanon's government.
Lebanon has a "dynastic confessional" system of government. Lebanon's "confessional" system of government is defined in its constitution, which requires that the three main government offices be occupied by specific sectarian groups:
So there are three "branches" of government in Lebanon, but there are no checks and balances, since the leader of each branch can do whatever he wants, including skimming money and paying his cronies to do things like beat up people in the opposition, and there is nothing to stop them. That's why each branch forms a kind of "dynasty."
As time goes on, each sect creates its own dynasty within the section of government that it controls. So one way to think of Lebanon's government is, not as a simple dictatorship, but as a triple dictatorship, which each dynastic sect have complete dictatorial control over one part of government, with complete power of embezzlement and corruption, and no controls, no checks, no balances.
This system of government was set up that way for a reason. The sects that I've mentioned -- the Sunni Muslims, the Shia Muslims, and the Syriac Maronite Catholics -- consider people in any but there own sect to be "scum of the earth." The different sects of Lebanon are not capable of simply getting along with each other. The level of mutual hatred between the sects runs extremely deep. This is standard fare after an ethnic civil war in any country.
Lebanon's last generational crisis war was the civil war of 1975-90, mainly between Muslims versus Christians, killing some 200,000 people. A major event occurred on September 15-16, 1982, when Maronite Christian militias massacred 2-3,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. This act has haunted Lebanon to this day.
That was 40 years ago. Most of the people today vividly remember the horror of that mass slaughter, and many are still traumatized by it. And they still hate each other for it. So the "confessional" form of government in Lebanon was designed to keep the three sects as separate as possible -- the complete opposite of mutual checks and balances. No sect will have any say over what the other sects do, even when it's corruption or other criminal activity.
If I understand correctly the reason given by al-Hariri for resigning from his appointment to form a government is that he was trying to break through this confessional blockade so that the government could actually function.
Even though the port explosion was massive and horrific, it wasn't bad enough to cause Hezbollah chief Nasrallah to give up any of his dictatorial power. Better to let the people starve.
Sources:
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational
Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)
(17-Jul-2021)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Cuba street protests at start of its generational Crisis era
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Communal violence is spreading in South Africa, led by members of the Zulu tribe. More than 70 people have been killed and more than 1,200 people have been arrested, as the violence continues into the eighth day.
Rioters have been looting shopping centers, stores and warehouses, possibly emulating the antifa-blm looters in Portland and Chicago. There are already pockets of hunger in South Africa, and it's feared that the looting will make shortages of food and fuel worse.
The rioting was triggered by the jailing of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma, a charismatic and popular Zulu leader who was ousted from his own ANC party over accusations of corruption and rape.
For several weeks, Zuma has been calling on his supporters to prevent his arrest by locking arms and blocking the police from arresting him. He has often been seen singing his favorite revolutionary song "Umshini Wami" (Bring me my machine gun), often accompanied by him swirling his hips and skillfully doing a traditional Zulu dance. He used that song frequently during his political campaigns.
The two largest tribes in South Africa are the Zulu tribe and the Xhosa tribe. Between them, they make up a third of South Africa’s 55 million people.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the only political party that has won elections since South Africa's independence in 1994. Thus, the leader of the ANC always goes on to become the president. Up until recently, the Zulu and Xhosa tribes have dominated the ANC.
The ANC hero, Nelson Mandela, a Xhosa, became the first president of the ANC and of South Africa in 1994. He was followed by Mandela's hand-picked successor, Thabo Mbeki, another Xhosa. The ANC became sharply divided in Decenber 2007, when when Mbeki lost a bruising battle for ANC leadership with a Zulu, Jacob Zuma.
In 2008, xenophobic violence against immigrants from other African countries, originating in Alexandria, a suburb of the capital city Johannesburg, spread east into the Zulu heartland of Durban and west into Cape Town. The violence was spurred by a poor economy and a lack of jobs, with the accusations that other African immigrants were taking the good jobs.
Tens of thousands of immigrants were forced to flee for their lives from their homes and businesses, often with no time to collect their belongings before their homes and businesses were looted and destroyed. The violence and looting were generally perpetrated by young South Africans from the Zulu and Xhosa tribes. (See "South Africa will create 'temporary shelters' for migrants, not 'refugee camps' (31-May-2008)")
The xenophobic violence was repeated in 2015 when thousands of people, mostly foreigners from Zimbabwe and Malawi, fled for their lives, after mobs with machetes attacked them in the city of Durban. Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, which is the heartland of the Zulu tribe. The anti-immigrant violence spread to Johannesburg. It's believed that the attacks were triggered by remarks made by Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, who said in a public speech, "We are requesting those who come from outside to please go back to their countries." ( "17-Apr-15 World View -- South African xenophobic violence echoes 1820s Mfecane Zulu massacre")
Jacob Zuma was ousted from the party before his second term ended in 2018. He is facing 16 charges of corruption, fraud, graft and racketeering relating to a 1999 purchase of weapons and gear from European arms firms when he was deputy president. In 2006, he was in court for the alleged rape of a colleague's HIV-positive daughter. He was acquited of those charges, but not before bragging that he had unprotected sex with the woman, but avoided catching HIV by taking a shower after sex.
A surprise candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa, won the ANC leadership in 2017, in a close battle with the favored Zulu candidate. Ramaphosa is a member of the Venda tribe, a small tribe with fewer than 700,000 people, living near the border with Zimbabwe.
Ramaphosa became president in the hope that he could be relatively neutral between the Zulus and Xhosas, and could resolve the divisiveness between those two tribes. One businessman voter was quoted as saying,
"There are not enough Venda to hijack the country. When Thabo Mbeki was president [from 1999 to 2008], you had to be Xhosa to get anywhere. Under Zuma, the Zulus have led the way. I am hoping that Cyril as a Venda will have to involve all South Africans because his own people are so few."
There have been very divisive issues during Cyril Ramaphosa's term as president, and Ramaphosa has been successful in defusing most of them. The most explosive one was the proposal to confiscate the land of white farmers without compensation. Ramaphosa found a way to mitigate the land confiscation without compensation to make it less divisive.
However, probably the most explosive issue of all has been the jailing of Jacob Zuma for corruption, and that has led to the current tribal violence that appears to be increasing.
Human existence has forever been controlled by one major law: That the population always grows more quickly than the food supply. This is the reason why every society has to have an existential, genocidal war every 80 years or so. The purpose of the war is to kill off enough people so that the survivors have enough food to eat.
That appears to be what happened in southern Africa at the end of the 1700s. Population levels were increasing rapidly, and resources were increasingly scarce. The introduction of corn by the Europeans had the double effect of producing more food, but using more water to grow. Corn became a major staple, but there was massive disruption and suffering with declining rainfall at the end of the 1700s, followed by a calamitous ten-year drought that began about 1800. Presumably, this is the fault of "climate change."
Kingdoms that had existed side by side in peace for decades began to fight each other for resources. The result was a massive war called the Mfecane ("the crushing") that climaxed in 1828. The Mfecane gave rise to Shaka, considered to be possibly the greatest African warrior in history. Shaka introduced many new warfare techniques. One of the best known was to use short spears, which required close combat with the enemy, rather than long spears, which would be thrown but would not always be effective.
By the mid-1820s, Shaka ruled a kingdom of more than 100,000 people with a standing army of 40,000 men. The great Zulu Empire lasted for decades, until it was destroyed by the British in 1879 in the bloody Anglo-Zulu war. At the climax of that crisis war, the Zulus were dispersed, and the Zulu nation ended.
South Africa's last generational Crisis war was World War II. Since South Africa was part of the British Empire, it fought on the side of the allies, although some tribal factions wished to side with the Germans or stay neutral. The British colonists introduced Apartheid during the 1940s, but it was abolished in the generational Awakening era of the 1990s that led to South African independence, an Awakening era climax.
When I talk about the world in today's generational Crisis era, I talk about increasing nationalism and xenophobia in almost every nation. The same is true on a tribal basis in South Africa. The Zulus have become extremely nationalistic, and this is driving the current round of looting and rioting. But this time the violence is directed at membrs of other South African tribes, not just a "immigrants" from other African countries, as occurred in 2008 and 2015.
As the world approaches a new world war, South Africa can be expected to be involved in two different wars. One war will be as a participant in the world war on the side of either China or the West -- to be decided -- and the other will be an internal civil war, refighting the battles of the Mfecane.
Just as China blames all its failures on the 1840s Opium Wars, some South African historians are blaming all their failures on the Mfecane, and blaming the Mfecane on the Europeans.
In 1988, a historian named Julian Cobbing published a paper on "The Mfecane As Alibi." He argued that the Mfecane was caused by the European and Brazilian slave trade, and if it hadn't been for the Europeans, then the Mfecan would never have occurred.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is nonsense. As we said, there was overpopulation and a calamitous drought at the beginning of the 1800s, and this is exactly the formula for a generational crisis war, a war of extermination, whose purpose is to kill off enough people so that the survivors will have enough to eat. So the Mfecane would have occurred with or without the Europeans.
The same thing is happening today, around the world. A report earlier this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that "world hunger and malnutrition levels worsened dramatically last year, with most of the increase likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic." This continued and accelerated a trend that had already been occurring prior to the pandemic.
According to the report, "Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to expose weaknesses in our food systems, which threaten the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. No region of the world has been spared."
The increase in hunger and malnutrition means that there is less food per capita in the world. For populations living on the margin, this means that they will have to fight for enough food to feed themselves and their families. This usually translates into anti-government protests, such as the ones we see today in South Africa and Cuba, and leads to either civil wars or external wars.
Cuba's government is in turmoil in the face of large anti-government protests that started over the weekend.
Analysts are blaming three factors:
Analysts are comparing this to the 1994 student protests, which fizzled fairly quickly.
However, today's protests are different because this is the beginning of a generational Crisis era.
Cuba's last generational crisis war was Fidel Castro's revolution that climaxed in 1960. The new Crisis era began 58 years later, in 2018.
Prior to 2018, Cuba was in an Unraveling era, when many of the Communist policies imposed by Fidel Castro began to unravel. They moved hundreds of thousands of people from government employment to private sector employment, including self-employment. They abandoned the core principal of Marxist Socialism, "From each according to abilities, to each according to needs." Instead, workers in the private sector will be able to earn high salaries.
Today's new anti-government protests are larger and more widespread than the 1994 student protests. Since this is the beginning of a generational Crisis era, it's quite possible that it will spread, in the following weeks and months, into a re-fighting of Castro's revolution.
Sources:
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational
Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)
(15-Jul-2021)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Tajikistan mobilizes 20,000 military reservists to Afghan border
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Multiple analysts on TV have been echoing the reports that, as American and Nato troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban are taking control of the country far more rapidly than expected.
The Taliban are now in control of a third of the country. Many in the Afghan army, who are supposed to be fighting the Taliban without the aid of Nato, are apparently fleeing without a fight.
More than 1,000 Afghan security personnel fled across the border with Tajikistan, causing Tajikistan's president to call up 20,000 military reservists to guard the border. This follows a general warning to Tajikistan villagers who live along the border to be prepared "to take up arms." (See "3-May-21 World View -- US withdrawal from Afghanistan threatens Central Asia stability")
In May, a provincial governor announced:
"In coordination with the police and intelligence departments, we've registered all hunters who live in the border areas. They will have to take up arms to defend our country. In fact, all of us will have to take up weapons if the situation dictates."
As I wrote at the time, the withdrawal of American and Nato forces in Afghanistan threatens to destabilize the entire Central Asian region that includes Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Many analysts are pointing these events out, and it's not lost on any of them that after America and Nato have had forces in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, all the work that was done is now about to be lost in a period of a few months. In particular, there are already reports that the freedoms of women and girls are already being curtailed in newly-captured Taliban areas.
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are all members of Russia's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Russia operates one of its largest military bases abroad in Tajikistan, equipped with tanks, helicopters, drones and ground attack aircraft, and Russia is promising to stabilize the border with Afghanistan if needed.
In the 1980s, Russia had an ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (Russia's "Vietnam") fighting Islamic Pashtuns who later became the Taliban. Tajikistan and other Soviet Socialist republics, who were part of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, supported Russia's invasion. At that time, Osama bin Laden was a Sunni Muslim Saudi citizen whom the Saudis got rid of by encouraging him to travel to Afghanistan to fight against the Orthodox Christian Russian infidels. Since the Soviet Union was the West's major enemy at the time, America and other Western countries supported bin Laden and his fight with the Soviets.
After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the situation rapidly evolved. There was an extremely bloody Afghan civil war between 1992-96, pitting radicalized Pashtuns in the south against the Northern Alliance in the north, consisting of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks.
As I've written many times, this civil war, a generational Crisis war, is the controlling event today. Each side is bitterly angry at the atrocities, beatings, tortures and rapes perpetrated by the other side, and all many people want is revenge. That's always the nature of an ethnic civil war, and it's the reason why the Taliban will never fulfill their promises to give up violence. And that's why the remnants of the old Northern Alliance are now fleeing across the border into Tajikistan.
As I wrote at the time, the agreement between Donald Trump and the Taliban in March 2020 was entirely delusional, but was apparently driven by a desire to withdraw troops from Afghanistan no matter what the cost and no matter how humiliating to the US. Joe Biden fully endorsed the delusional agreement, and we're now seeing the results, predictable and predicted. And yes, 20 years of work is now going down the drain. ( "16-Feb-20 World View -- US and Taliban to sign laughable 'reduction in violence' agreement in Afghanistan")
So Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko says:
"The situation there is rather tense because according to some sources, up to 70% of the Tajik-Afghan border is now controlled by the Taliban."
So the Northern Alliance may be reincarnated under Russian leadership. Things are changing rapidly in Afghanistan, as the last American and Nato troops prepare to leave, and many analysts are foreseeing a catastrophe.
Sources:
Related Articles:
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational
Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)
(7-Jul-2021)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Web Log Summary - 2021
Web Log Summary - 2020
Web Log Summary - 2019
Web Log Summary - 2018
Web Log Summary - 2017
Web Log Summary - 2016
Web Log Summary - 2015
Web Log Summary - 2014
Web Log Summary - 2013
Web Log Summary - 2012
Web Log Summary - 2011
Web Log Summary - 2010
Web Log Summary - 2009
Web Log Summary - 2008
Web Log Summary - 2007
Web Log Summary - 2006
Web Log Summary - 2005
Web Log Summary - 2004
Web Log - December, 2021
Web Log - November, 2021
Web Log - October, 2021
Web Log - September, 2021
Web Log - August, 2021
Web Log - July, 2021
Web Log - June, 2021
Web Log - May, 2021
Web Log - April, 2021
Web Log - March, 2021
Web Log - February, 2021
Web Log - January, 2021
Web Log - December, 2020
Web Log - November, 2020
Web Log - October, 2020
Web Log - September, 2020
Web Log - August, 2020
Web Log - July, 2020
Web Log - June, 2020
Web Log - May, 2020
Web Log - April, 2020
Web Log - March, 2020
Web Log - February, 2020
Web Log - January, 2020
Web Log - December, 2019
Web Log - November, 2019
Web Log - October, 2019
Web Log - September, 2019
Web Log - August, 2019
Web Log - July, 2019
Web Log - June, 2019
Web Log - May, 2019
Web Log - April, 2019
Web Log - March, 2019
Web Log - February, 2019
Web Log - January, 2019
Web Log - December, 2018
Web Log - November, 2018
Web Log - October, 2018
Web Log - September, 2018
Web Log - August, 2018
Web Log - July, 2018
Web Log - June, 2018
Web Log - May, 2018
Web Log - April, 2018
Web Log - March, 2018
Web Log - February, 2018
Web Log - January, 2018
Web Log - December, 2017
Web Log - November, 2017
Web Log - October, 2017
Web Log - September, 2017
Web Log - August, 2017
Web Log - July, 2017
Web Log - June, 2017
Web Log - May, 2017
Web Log - April, 2017
Web Log - March, 2017
Web Log - February, 2017
Web Log - January, 2017
Web Log - December, 2016
Web Log - November, 2016
Web Log - October, 2016
Web Log - September, 2016
Web Log - August, 2016
Web Log - July, 2016
Web Log - June, 2016
Web Log - May, 2016
Web Log - April, 2016
Web Log - March, 2016
Web Log - February, 2016
Web Log - January, 2016
Web Log - December, 2015
Web Log - November, 2015
Web Log - October, 2015
Web Log - September, 2015
Web Log - August, 2015
Web Log - July, 2015
Web Log - June, 2015
Web Log - May, 2015
Web Log - April, 2015
Web Log - March, 2015
Web Log - February, 2015
Web Log - January, 2015
Web Log - December, 2014
Web Log - November, 2014
Web Log - October, 2014
Web Log - September, 2014
Web Log - August, 2014
Web Log - July, 2014
Web Log - June, 2014
Web Log - May, 2014
Web Log - April, 2014
Web Log - March, 2014
Web Log - February, 2014
Web Log - January, 2014
Web Log - December, 2013
Web Log - November, 2013
Web Log - October, 2013
Web Log - September, 2013
Web Log - August, 2013
Web Log - July, 2013
Web Log - June, 2013
Web Log - May, 2013
Web Log - April, 2013
Web Log - March, 2013
Web Log - February, 2013
Web Log - January, 2013
Web Log - December, 2012
Web Log - November, 2012
Web Log - October, 2012
Web Log - September, 2012
Web Log - August, 2012
Web Log - July, 2012
Web Log - June, 2012
Web Log - May, 2012
Web Log - April, 2012
Web Log - March, 2012
Web Log - February, 2012
Web Log - January, 2012
Web Log - December, 2011
Web Log - November, 2011
Web Log - October, 2011
Web Log - September, 2011
Web Log - August, 2011
Web Log - July, 2011
Web Log - June, 2011
Web Log - May, 2011
Web Log - April, 2011
Web Log - March, 2011
Web Log - February, 2011
Web Log - January, 2011
Web Log - December, 2010
Web Log - November, 2010
Web Log - October, 2010
Web Log - September, 2010
Web Log - August, 2010
Web Log - July, 2010
Web Log - June, 2010
Web Log - May, 2010
Web Log - April, 2010
Web Log - March, 2010
Web Log - February, 2010
Web Log - January, 2010
Web Log - December, 2009
Web Log - November, 2009
Web Log - October, 2009
Web Log - September, 2009
Web Log - August, 2009
Web Log - July, 2009
Web Log - June, 2009
Web Log - May, 2009
Web Log - April, 2009
Web Log - March, 2009
Web Log - February, 2009
Web Log - January, 2009
Web Log - December, 2008
Web Log - November, 2008
Web Log - October, 2008
Web Log - September, 2008
Web Log - August, 2008
Web Log - July, 2008
Web Log - June, 2008
Web Log - May, 2008
Web Log - April, 2008
Web Log - March, 2008
Web Log - February, 2008
Web Log - January, 2008
Web Log - December, 2007
Web Log - November, 2007
Web Log - October, 2007
Web Log - September, 2007
Web Log - August, 2007
Web Log - July, 2007
Web Log - June, 2007
Web Log - May, 2007
Web Log - April, 2007
Web Log - March, 2007
Web Log - February, 2007
Web Log - January, 2007
Web Log - December, 2006
Web Log - November, 2006
Web Log - October, 2006
Web Log - September, 2006
Web Log - August, 2006
Web Log - July, 2006
Web Log - June, 2006
Web Log - May, 2006
Web Log - April, 2006
Web Log - March, 2006
Web Log - February, 2006
Web Log - January, 2006
Web Log - December, 2005
Web Log - November, 2005
Web Log - October, 2005
Web Log - September, 2005
Web Log - August, 2005
Web Log - July, 2005
Web Log - June, 2005
Web Log - May, 2005
Web Log - April, 2005
Web Log - March, 2005
Web Log - February, 2005
Web Log - January, 2005
Web Log - December, 2004
Web Log - November, 2004
Web Log - October, 2004
Web Log - September, 2004
Web Log - August, 2004
Web Log - July, 2004
Web Log - June, 2004