PHIL-CHINA WATCH
By Herman Tiu Laurel
For PBBM's consideration: Xi's Security and Dev't Initiatives
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The Doomsday Clock is today, Oct. 3, 2022 still set at 100 seconds to midnight. It should be readjusted to 50 seconds to midnight after the alleged sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 discovered last Sept. 28, 2022. I blame the US because it answers the question "cui bono" or who benefits. Now, Germany and Europe will have no choice but to buy US LNG at 5 times the price of Russian gas and losing the option of re-negotiating with Russia.
There is only one other slim possibility of who may have sabotaged the pipelines, and it is not Russia who never need to blow up the pipelines because it could simply have just turned off the spigot to stop LNG flow to Germany and the EU. Geopolitical/Financial analyst Tom Luongo on Zerohedge believes the World Economic Forum dark powers behind to destroy both the US and Russia simultaneously and consolidate the European states under it. Highly unlikely, I believe.
Filipinos are oblivious to what is actually going on in the very critical and dangerous zones of the world, and Ukraine and the events surrounding it are not the epicenters of the geopolitical tremors and earthquakes reverberating throughout the world. Ukraine is 9,000 km. away from the Philippines and the tremors are too slight while the domestic problems of food and grocery inflation, fuel and energy sky-high costs are numbing our countrymen out of their senses.
Asia seeks solutions led by China.
Meanwhile, Asia is seeking and proposing solutions to the war crises the Western world has been creating since the end of the last global war in World War II, and China is the Asian power that is of global weight and gravitas to be able to come up with proposed solutions and be taken seriously; but before that, we must take a moment to greet the most successful Asian nation in overcoming the 500 years of Western colonization and bringing its country to the top of the modern world.
I am one-week late in expressing my wholehearted jubilation for the 73rd National Day of China or the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PROC) on Oct. 1. It is an extremely historic date as it marked the rise of the nation and state that will deal the first blow to Western colonialism and imperialism in Asia in the 20th century. Remember that the PROC’s Volunteer Army defeated the US-instigated UN force in Korea in Korean War.
The PROC did not even have tanks and warplanes yet its Volunteer Army crossed down the Yalu River and into North Korea and stealthily crept up the US-UN forces and defeated them time and again pushing them back to the South despite bombs and cannon shells dropped on them exceeding the tonnage of the entire Second World War. Two decades later the North Vietnamese with China and Russia’s help defeated the US in Vietnam.
An even greater victory than the October 1 proclamation of the new Chinese People’s Republic brought was the elimination of 5,000 years of poverty in China in only 70 yes of its governance, a feat no nation or civilization ever achieved in the history of mankind. China has also achieved the distinction of being the largest economy in the world within that period of time in Power Purchase Parity (PPP) terms beating the US to the top since 2014 and the second largest in regular terms today.
Xi’s proposed twin initiatives
Now China seeks to share its good fortune and success with the world, especially the Third World countries, by communicating again and again the twin initiatives President Xi Jinping has reiterated since 2021 and 2022 in the wake of the pandemic, war and economic sanctions wars, and financial over-exuberance of major Western countries causing the massive global existential crisis today and in the foreseeable future.
The Global Times editorialized on its Sept. 26, 2022 edition, “... peace and development as the theme of the times has remained unchanged. The concept of community of a shared future for mankind continues to strike a deep chord in the hearts of people... The Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Security Initiative (GSI), proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2021 and 2022 respectively, constitute important practical support for the concept of a ‘community of shared future..’”
Development leads to prosperity, security leads to stability which leads to development and prosperity. There is scant chance of development if there is no security, and security must be based on “indivisible security” meaning the security of one country cannot overstep the security of another that can be ensured by the principle of "peaceful coexistence" and "non-interference in internal affairs." Massive development follows through such programs as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and BRICS.
In contrast, the US has created chaos upon chaos since 2001 in the self-inflicted World Trade Center terror attack to justify the "War on Terror" that terrorized innocent nations from Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya and so on for twenty years and at the cost of USD8 trillion, and the targeted countries even more trillions in destruction and millions of lives lost. Today the US continues its crusade of mayhem in Ukraine, and recently blew up Nord Stream 1 and 2 to deepen the European crisis even more.
Beyond Ukraine and the destruction of the EU economy, the US has also moved to light the fires of conflict in Asia with its “Taiwan independence” project and the Philippines’ "West Philippine Sea" claim, supplying the two with arms and motivation for tension and conflict. It is fortunate that the Philippines is merely paying lip service to the US plots though still confusing to its own people. The Philippines should instead unequivocally tell the US that it is against warmongering.
Proposition: the Philippines announce support of the twin initiatives
The Philippines should wholehearted, openly and loudly promote the twin initiatives of China and President Xi Jinping of Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Development Initiative (GDI) as practicable and implementable programs to do with the rest of ASEAN and the developing world of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. That way we ensure the future of the nation and our home -- Earth.
We in the media must give prominence to information about such positive initiatives for world peace and prosperity rather than highlighting the sensational news about war and conflict, help create the atmosphere for constructive and positive, cooperative efforts at building a better world. Philippine and ASEAN media must make an emphatic contribution to this.
To end this article for this week, let me reiterate (echoing our Vice President Sara Duterte in her Mandarin rendition of the celebratory message) our greetings to the Chinese nation on the occasion of China’s 73rd National Day and hail President Xi Jinping’s twin initiatives for the peace and prosperity of the World, the GDI and the GSI for a better world and end to Western hegemony’s war mongering and empire building.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the foregoing article are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the Philippine News Agency (PNA) or any other office under the Office of the Press Secretary.
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About the Columnist
Herman Tiu Laurel is a veteran journalist and founder of think tank PHILIPPINE-BRICS Strategic Studies.