The IISS Shangri-la Dialogue is Asia's premier defence summit. It’s a unique meeting where ministers debate the region’s most pressing security challenges, engage in important bilateral talks and come up with fresh approaches together. The 2023 event took place in Singapore on 2–4 June. Here is a brandnew report from the meeting by China's People's Daily 人民日报 :
People's Daily, June 5, 2023 – Yesterday, June 4, State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu delivered a speech at the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue on the topic of "China's New Security Initiative".
Li Shangfu stressed: Taiwan is China's Taiwan, and how to resolve the Taiwan issue is the Chinese people's own affair, and no outside forces should be allowed to interfere. The DPP [i.e. Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party] authorities' "coercion of foreigners to seek independence" and external forces "using Taiwan to contain China" are the biggest troublemakers in changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. If anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will not hesitate in the slightest, will not be afraid of any opponent, and will resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity no matter what the cost.
This comes shortly after a new incident in the Taiwan Strait when a US navy ship was blocked by some Chinese warship and which led to a dangerous encounter between both vessels.
After the incident, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin surprisingly approached China's Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the Shangri-la meeting and shook hands with him. However, there was no subsequent discussion of the naval incident between both sides.
To begin with the essential facts. Here is what everybody should know about the BRICS Alliance :
The BRICS countries are a cooperation mechanism composed of China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. These five countries have 25.24% of the global GDP, 42% of the foreign exchange reserves, 26.46% of the total territory, and nearly 42% of the population. One of their projected purposes is to replace the incumbent US$ currency standard by an adequate alternative, thus reducing economic dependencies of developing nations from the USA. While Russia is being occupied with waging war on Ukraine and struggling with Western sanctions, China seems to be the true global power behind BRICS and which is pulling the strings by now.
As the BRICS countries begin to play an increasingly important role on the international stage, capacity expansion has become a hot topic among the five BRICS countries. According to South African officials, currently 13 countries have formally submitted applications for membership, and 6 countries have informally expressed their intention to join. That process of expansion, however, is going to be tedious and time-consuming.
Here is what Tencent Network 腾讯网 wrote today (June 3) about expected development and basic intentions of the BRICS Alliance, as seen from a Chinese point of view :
Faced with the rapid development of the BRICS countries, some countries began to panic. According to Japan's "Mainichi Shimbun", 19 countries line up to join the BRICS countries. The BRICS countries will absorb more and more developing countries to join, and gradually gain the strength to compete with the Group of Seven (G7).
Japanese media lamented that for developed countries, the BRICS countries may become a "difficult existence" in the future. Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey and other countries were invited to participate in the Hiroshima G7 summit not long ago, but now they all intend to become a member of the BRICS.
The United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other oil-producing countries have also applied to join the BRICS countries, which means that the BRICS countries will control more than half of the world's natural gas and oil. The BRICS mechanism will play an increasingly important role in the global energy sector.
Moreover, the BRICS countries will likely absorb many Asian, African and Latin American countries that have been marginalized by the Western world. Brazil has always wanted South American countries to join the BRICS. Brazilian President Lula met with Venezuelan President Maduro a few days ago and made it clear that he would support Venezuela in becoming a member of the BRICS.
In addition, Brazil regards Argentina, the second largest country in South America, as a "strategic neighbor" and pushes it to join the BRICS. If Argentina and other South American countries become members of the BRICS, other countries in the region will also have the idea of joining the BRICS.
India - A Swaggering Candidate ....
India seems to have some difficulties with BRICS expansion. It fears a loss of importance in the presence of other developing nations owing a similar potential.
Bloomberg reported that India hopes to reach an agreement on the BRICS expansion process, so as to obtain assurances that China and its allies will not "squeeze" India to a secondary position.
In fact, our country [i.e. China] has always sought to carry out practical cooperation with other countries, and has never excluded any country. However, if India will only delay the formation of decision-making in the BRICS mechanism and interfere with the cooperation of other countries, more and more countries will take the initiative to put India aside.
US Decay Led to the Rise of BRICS
Instead of naming it a confrontation between the West and BRICS, the Chinese source is stressing that BRICS came into being as an alternative for nations on the rise to a Western dominated alliance, already weakened by US decay.
The American media saw the decline of the United States from the development and growth of the BRICS countries. Some American media believe that since so many countries want to join the BRICS mechanism, this may reflect a trend in the current international situation. Emerging economic forces are launching a "challenge" to the original economic forces.
According to a report released by Gallup, the international leadership of the United States is weakening, and China has surpassed the United States in many aspects. Moreover, from a long-term perspective, the world no longer trusts the United States, and does not expect the United States to regain the trust of other countries by changing its own image.
In this general environment, many countries have begun to seek broader resources, markets, and global governance solutions by joining cooperative organizations such as the BRICS mechanism. Therefore, the BRICS can strengthen leadership in regional and global governance through expansion.
Editor's Comment
US decay partly enabled the unprecedented economic and political rise of China, as well as Russia's imperialism in its regions of interest. In addition, US politics, namely under president Trump, fostered a dangerous development in Iran and North Korea. As a result, even long-standing partners in Europe are showing their disappointment of what is happening in the States now.
Seeing itself at the center of a democratic alliance, at times referred to as the "Community of Democracies" or a "Concert of Democracies", US leaders forgot the necessity to attract other countries by alternatives rather than exclude them by sanctions.
National interests, not ideology, should therefore be the guiding compass for US policy. Some US source I recently encountered put it like this: Instead of simply relying on an alliance of hand-picked democracies, there should be a coalition of open and resilient economies (CORE).
Looking at BRICS that's just what China and Russia have in mind as far as it concerns the unhampered economic development of BRICS member countries. The BRICS concept, however, wilfully excludes all those aspects related to democratic development and human rights. This could become the critical point of decision for developing nations as soon as Western alliances were able to realize the CORE concept. - Ulysses -
BREAKING NEWS on May 25: In today's evening news, the Arabic news center AL-Jazeera الجزيرة reported on a nuclear deal signed between Russia and Belarus. It's about the urgent transfer of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus. That transfer should have already been in progress.
This morning the Chinese news center ZaoBao 早报 in Singapore came up with their evaluation of the Belgorod incident. It can be seen as a warning to all those who believe in the success of border-crossing attacks on Russia's military by allegedly independent Russian militias and without direct involvement of the Ukrainian army.
Today, the United States seems to have made the judgment that "the nuclear threat is just a paper tiger". This can be seen from Biden's decision to quickly change his position at the G7 summit for more than a year and agree to help export fighter jets to Ukraine. The U.S. State Department has successively stated that "this is the decision of the Ukrainians" for Ukraine's attacks on the Russian border, and it seems to have given the green light to such attacks.
After the U.S. gave the looming green light, further cross-border attacks by Ukraine are expected to come one after another, and the scale will gradually escalate. If this is the case, people can probably only hope that this war can end as soon as possible before Ukraine activates the "paper tiger".
The stance "the nuclear threat is just a paper tiger" is referring to Mao ZeDong who in 1946 made fun of America's atomic bomb as a ’paper tiger’, because he originally saw China's struggle for security only in terms of conventional warfare. Much later he changed his mind, and China's first atomic bomb was one of the rare projects fully realized in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
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Путин был воспитан страхом, насилием и пропагандой.
Putin was raised by fear, violence and propaganda.
It was the experience of fear and violence, and the mendacious propaganda of
a totalitarian state that shaped Putin in the formation of his beliefs and goals.
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Warning: The following video link might include disturbing pictures of only indicated violence. Please protect your children anyway.
A branch of Russia's defense ministry released a pop song celebrating its vast nuclear arsenal, namely the power of the "Sarmat" missile, also known as the "Son of Satan". As its conventional invasion of Ukraine faltered, Russia has repeatedly stressed its nuclear power. In the video, it is Vladimir Putin who finally gives the order to launch Sarmat against an alleged agressor. - But in the end, it's only a bad joke.
The official text for the above video:
Especially for the Day of the Strategic Missile Forces, Honored Artist of Russia Denis Maidanov and the company "Park Patriot Media" - general producer Sergey Bazhenov, prepared a gift - a video for the song "Sarmatushka" (music by D. Maidanov).
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On visitor statistics to blueprint news:
Maximum number of views that day (May 31) was 184, including 140 related to Singapore. The independent Chinese community of Singapore is an important hub in the submarine networks for connections from East Asia to South Asia, Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, and Europe regions, and vice versa. There are 7 cable landing stations on Singapore island. The South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system and provides the primary Internet backbone between these regions.
According to China's Net Ease 網易 news platform on May 23, Russia should have urgently removed nuclear weapons stored at a Belgorod facility. Belgorod (Белгород) is a Russian community near the border to Ukraine where anti-Russian insurgents from Ukraine have been reportedly beaten back according to official Russian media. Russia speaks of terrorism and has allegedly captured two armoured vehicles of US origin. => Latest: US distances itself from incursion into Russia. (BBC, 5 hours ago)
Andriy Yusov from the Ukrainian intelligence service said:
The Russians started removing nuclear warheads from a storage facility in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation.
"There's even more information about evacuation activities. The Belgorod-22 facility, a nuclear munitions storage facility, is being evacuated urgently; the Russians are also being evacuated from the area around Grevoron," he said.
Net Ease 網易 is registered with Guangdong Communications Administration 广东省通信管理局 and marks that article as "stored by user" which seems to be the usual procedure. The user quoted seems to be an elderly person from Guangxi province and describes him/herself as a "well-known NetEase creator in the military field".
The UPDATE of May 24, 2023, offers
a brandnew article by NET Ease 網易:
The Ukrainian side claimed that the attack was not initiated by the Ukrainian army, but by domestic forces in Russia that oppose Putin, such as the "Russian Idealists' Army [Russian Volunteer Corps]" and the "[Russian Freedom Legion]". Andrei Yusov, representative of the Ukrainian Intelligence Service, said that the Russian Army Unit 25624 stationed in the Grevoron District of the Belgorod Region is part of the Russian Federation's Strategic Missile Forces, which is actually the Russian Federation's central nuclear weapons storage base. Yusov believes that the recent surprise attack in Belgorod should be initiated by anti-Putin forces.
A semi-official German source described
these Russian insurgent groups as follows:
There has been awareness of the Freedom of Russia Legion since at least the beginning of April 2022. It was apparently formed by captured Russian soldiers who switched over to the Ukrainian side, but also of volunteers with Russian passports.
It is made up of about 500 men, according to Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of the Russian State Duma who represents the unit. He was the only Russian lawmaker to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and went into exile in 2016.
The Russian Volunteer Corps has existed since August 2022 but the number of men is not known. However, a fighter who goes by the name "Cardinal," whose military ID was presented to [the news service], said it had the same tasks as a company -- which can have 30 to 150 men.
One of the co-founders, Denis Kapustin, a businessman who is known as being part of Russia's far-right movement and uses the pseudonym Denis Nikitin, said late last year that the Russian Volunteer Corps had been working with the Ukrainian army since the fall.
On social networks, the Russian Volunteer Corps says that all its members hold right-wing conservative views. "Cardinal" sees Russia's future in a "true nation-state of Russians in the original Russian territories -- taking into account the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as neighboring countries."
On May 16/17 Chinese media reports [腾讯网] dealt with a scenario observed during Russia's bombing of a Ukrainian ammunition depot, followed by an unexpected increase in radioactive radiation in the Ukrainian region which is neighboring Poland.
What is particularly striking is that several videos have recently appeared on social media, showing a violent explosion at an ammunition depot west of the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytsky (Хмельницький), and a huge fireball rising from the suburbs of Khmelnytsky like that of an atomic bomb explosion.
In the aftermath, there has been an evaluation of what observers could describe as a 'nuclear explosion'. Photos taken before and after the explosion, however, are not necessarily showing more than what could be expected after a huge conventional explosion.
The Chinese source is relating a subsequent increase in radiation to depleted uranium which is present in the material of bunker-breaking grenades, let alone dirty radioactive material eventually stored at this site. The Chinese are therefore using the expression of 'self-inflicted consequences 自食恶果'.
It is worth mentioning that the data published by the Ukrainian side show that after the explosion, the local radiation increased significantly. Russian experts said that the contaminated area may be comparable to the Chernobyl incident. Under normal circumstances, the gamma radiation dose of depleted uranium is very small, but under the influence of high temperature the situation has changed, and harmful substances in the contaminated area are spreading with the wind. Once inhaled, they will cause internal radiation, bringing more diseases.
Editor's Opinion:
There might be a dirty Russian bomb as well at the origin of the explosion. - Who knows ?
To find out the source of radioactivity, it needs to analyze the radiation with the help of a multichannel analyzer (2^12 or better). This would provide the spectrum of radioactive elements responsible for the radiation released. If there were any deposits of radioactive waste material already stored at the ammunition site or delivered by a 'dirty bomb', individual hints at the origin of such material might be found. Of course, this will not be easy, as most of the radioactive material present at the scene might turn out to be of Russian origin and/or dating back to Soviet times. However, such research could deliver interesting results. No matter if published or kept secret for some reason, the outcome will be an important data base for scientists. - Ulysses
Ukrainian air force already used 'Storm Shadow' cruise missiles to attack Luhansk (Lugansk) in the Russian-held Donbass region. There are two foreign press reports from Al-Jazeera الجزيرة (Qatar) and Hangzhou Network 杭州网 (China) coming in this morning. In the afternoon of May 14, the independent European newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ came with a more complete report of this weekend's military proceedings in Eastern Ukraine. Latest is a news video launched by Al-Jazeera and covering this weekend's political and military developments.
All interpretation of latest proceedings has to take into consideration the tense and confused situation in Eastern Ukraine and, as well, 'the need of the culprits to lie .....'
Al-Jazeera الجزيرة (Chinese language service):
....., the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday [May 13] that Ukrainian aircraft bombed two industrial sites in the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine using long-range 'Storm Shadow' cruise missiles acquired from the United Kingdom. .....
..... The Russian Ministry of Defense said that on Friday, the missiles hit a 'polymer materials production plant' and a 'processed meat factory' in Luhansk. .....
..... "The Storm Shadow air-to-[air?] missiles supplied by the UK to the Kiev regime were used in air strikes, contrary to London's statement that the weapons would not be used on civilian targets," the ministry added.
Hangzhou Network 杭州网:
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on May 13 that the Ukrainian Air Force used the 'Storm Shadow' cruise missiles provided by the United Kingdom to attack local civilian facilities in Luhansk on the 12th, causing civilian casualties including six children. This is contrary to the British side's previous statement that "[Ukraine] will not use the missile to attack civilian facilities". The Russian Ministry of Defense also stated that the Russian Air Force has shot down the Su-24 fighter jet and the MiG-29 fighter jet that provided cover for the Ukrainian air strike mission. .....
Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ:
A Black Weekend for Russia
On the unprecedented downing of four Russian military planes in the border area:
Most likely, the Ukrainians brought one of their anti-aircraft systems – possibly even a recently supplied Western Patriot battery – near the border without being detected and fired from there into Russian airspace. The crashes took place about 35 to 50 kilometers behind the border, so the Ukrainian air defense is likely to have taken up position somewhere in the Chernihiv area for a short time.
So far, there has been no official reaction from Moscow; there, too, they are apparently still struggling to find an explanation for this unprecedented attack. But the crashes are well documented by eyewitness videos. In addition to the two Sukhoi fighter jets of the types Su-34 and Su-35, a military helicopter of the type Mi-8 converted for electronic warfare is also said to have been destroyed, i.e. a particularly valuable, rare aircraft. All crews, a total of nine men, were killed, according to Russian media reports.
On the guided missile attack on industrial facilities in Luhansk:
This time, confirmation came from Moscow where the Ministry of Defense presented debris from Storm Shadow guided missiles and made serious accusations against the British. However, the claim that civilian factories were hit is not very credible. The cruise missiles, equipped with a triple guidance system, are considered very precise, and Luhansk is known as the location of important command and logistics centers of the occupiers. President Vladimir Putin recently visited an underground facility there and held a council of war with his generals from the Donbass Front.
Chinese news release on Twitter (May 14) reporting Ukraine's downing of four Russian military planes: Asia Finance is comparing Putin to Saddam Hussein who lost Iraq to a US alliance in 2003. Their report is accompanied by what looks like the private video of a downed plane in flames. Some Chinese person who retweeted that information compared Putin even to Hitler.
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The original news report of May 13:
Yesterday, May 12, SOHU 搜狐 network reported: According to Reuters press agency, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace should have confirmed to parliament on May 11 that the United Kingdom has begun to supply Ukraine with 'Storm Shadow' cruise missiles with a range of more than 250 kilometers, making the United Kingdom the first country to supply long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine. .....
The same day, TENCENT 腾讯 network added:
据称，英国收到了乌克兰的保证，这些导弹只会在乌克兰领土内使用，不会在俄罗斯境内使用。暴风影导弹这种导弹售价约为220万英镑，可以打击硬化掩体和关键设施，并有超过155英里（250公里）的射程。
The UK is said to have received assurances from Ukraine that the missiles will only be used on Ukrainian territory and not on Russian territory. The Storm Shadow missile, which costs around £2.2 million, can hit hardened bunkers and key installations and has a range of more than 155 miles (250km).
Today, May 13, TENCENT quoted White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby:
白宫重申：美方不会提供远程导弹
White House is stressing: U.S. will not provide long-range missiles.
Maybe the US have not finally made up their minds up to now.
..... Now Putin denies the historical existence of Ukraine while ignoring the Ukrainian people's overwhelming patriotism and their firm will to fight for their country. It seems that territorial claims cannot be based on some interpretable historical context alone. Broad acceptance provided by a majority of the people affected is needed as well, unless much effort has to be made to subdue new enemies who will strike back at the first opportunity.
Arbitrary bombing of the enemy's civil installations and dwellings, together with the terror of a mercenary army committing war crimes in captured regions, have already led to an international condemnation of Putin's war policies under the false pretext of fighting a „Nazi regime“.
The Stalinist system of the former Soviet Union might have successfully overcome the invasion of Adolf Hitler's militant horde, however only with the generous help of its US ally and which was based on a sound US economy at that time. Not to speak of lots and lots of Russian soldiers and other Soviet nationalities who had to give their lifes because of Stalin's misjudgement and unpreparedness and indiscriminate purge of Russia's elites. - Putin should therefore watch out to avoid a similar fate like that of his predecessor.
Cameras by Hikvision and drones from DJI are being used to thoroughly survey most citizens of mainland China. But cameras and surveillance systems from Huawei and ZTE can be found outside China as well. Reportedly, there are still up to one hundred countries using Chinese equipment and software. Even after US president Trump announced his ban on Chinese technology, many rural communities in the USA are still relying on hardware from Huawei and which is the only way to guarantee their desperately needed highspeed broadband connection.
However there seems to be one poblem with the cameras and which has been recently discovered by experts: They are vulnerable to hacking which could enable illegal remote access to their video data. Reports came from Pakistan where lots of Hikvision cameras were being installed especially in the capital of Islamabad to make it a "safe city". It is not quite clear whether such vulnerability has been "overlooked" intentionally, even though Pakistan is being regarded as one of China's most important partners in the frame of some kind of alternative connection with Africa via sea cable from Pakistan to Djibouti (former French Somalia) where China maintains its only foreign naval base. Here is a video dealing with the problem:
By the way, there is a German song for children dating back to the years of my own childhood. It deals with three Chinese persons and their double bass sitting in the street and talking to each other, quite a strange scene at that time. Therefore police immediately rushed in to have a look. I gave the scene a fresh look when I transferred it to modern China where a security drone detected the group and advised them to comply with public behaviour by returning home as quickly as possible.
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