Cold War

John Menadue March 6, 2024 Pearls and Irritations has posted an outstanding series of articles by Percy Allan on the so-called ‘China Threat‘. He highlighted that America is deeply divided and that promoting the China threat helps unite Americans; that unlike the UK and the US, China has no imperial legacy; that unlike the Soviet Union, China is not exporting ideology; that China is concerned about managing its large ethnic and religious minorities; and that surrounded by scores of US bases, China’s military is defensive. Most important of all, Percy Allan emphasises that China’s focus is economic. Initially published by Pearls and Irritations. John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal here Western media, including in Australia, has become quite unhinged about the China threat. Our political ‘leadership’ slavishly follows Washington propaganda conducted mainly through the help of security agencies and the Five Eyes. The China threat agencies are unwilling to stand back...

This extremely dangerous man, back then, also revealed that the real purpose of arming Ukraine was to weaken Russia. The video below may give you a more than two-hour hearing. Please click on this to see only the two minutes mentioned with his shocking statement. Dear Reader Archive this less than 2-minute video so you will remember who presented this perverse eschatological – end-times – vision first. Austin here reveals how the real NATO is is anything but what you are told: it’s offensive, pursues out-of-area operations(e.g. Yugoslavia), willing to fight an opponent we are told is a huge threat and NATO is inferior to. And, thus, it has operated in complete violation of its treaty’s peaceful, defensive provisions. He did not say that NATO will fight if Russia attacks a NATO country. He says NATO will fight Russia if Ukraine falls. Ukraine is a non-NATO country (which NATO should...

Jan Oberg February 28, 2024 Jeffrey D. Sachs has recently written a short and highly informative article about the decades-long, disgustingly destructive activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, in every corner of the world. Below, we bring you here the first part of that and then direct your attention to a very well-researched article by investigative reporters of the New York Times that documents how the CIA has been playing its dirty games in Ukraine the last ten years since the US-orchestrated and -financed regime change – which is when the present NATO-Russia conflict and the war in Ukraine can be said to have started (although it can also be seen as having much older roots. There are facts that, generally speaking, most people have probably heard very little of. One must appreciate that both authors below are Americans. That this type of activity can continue virtually without attention...

February 24, 2024, marks the second anniversary of the tragic Russia-Ukraine war – with its underlying conflict between NATO and its reckless expansion on the one hand and Russia on the other. In this video produced by The China Academy in Shanghai, I talk about the four basic chapters of that drama and why, as it seems, none of the parties has learned any lessons yet. See this 8.02-minute video, which the important Global Times has re-posted on its YouTube Channel. And take a look at the comments, too. I have also been asked to comment, in 100 words, on this anniversary by the Chinese national news agency, Xinhua. Here is what I wrote: “Both the EU and NATO keep denying that the conflict was caused by NATO’s unnecessary expansion; they focus conveniently on the Ukraine war that Rusland caused. That serves only the Military-Industrial-Media Complex, MIMAC. The US/European ill-considered response to Russia was...

, I had the great pleasure of being Ania K’s guest on her YouTube Channel. Here is a link to it – and I want you to use the link to access it on YouTube and not here. The amusing thing is that it’s been viewed by 11,000 people in a few days, and less than a week later, there are 160 comments, 99,99 % positive about the whole thing. I note a frequent comment from Ania’s viewers: Where have you been hiding, Jan? How come I did not hear about him before and that sort of “we never heard about him…” comments. This is striking after having been the co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation since 1986 – and quite active in doing research, on-the-ground conflict mitigation work and having written thousands of articles, book chapters and comments. But I’ve heard it before and here are some reasons: One,...

Interview on CGTN’s “First Voice.” CGTN is China’s main global TV network. At present, CGTN Digital has over 150 million followers across the globe. Instead of embedding the video here, we offer the direct link so you can see the comments that it elicited and also comment yourself if you like. And when there, browse CGTN as an absolutely leading global news outlet. And then… Please support TFF, which continues to deliver truthful, pro-peace public education based on decades of research. So press that red button for peace!

In 2020, I wrote an impressionistic article, ”Could everyday micro malfunctions be signs of a coming macro breakdown?” It was inspired by the brilliant sociologist C. Wright Mill’s concept of the sociological imagination. Out of many more, I selected 14 examples of everyday things that I had experienced simply did not work, from lost luggage and flight delays to bank cards that prevent payment, postal services that do not bring out parcels and letters on time, and French pay road toll that prevents you from paying, etc. To quote one example from the article: ”A little story about the decay in my town: I arrive in Lund where I live, after 6 weeks travelling around entirely on my own in China. Everything has worked perfectly there – trains, flights, ticket reservations, no queues anywhere, my WeChat app, ATMs, etc – although English is still a problem for an ignorant person...

“Mops And More” © Jan Oberg 2023 Jan Oberg October 20, 2023 I assume that most readers here know me as a peace and conflict researcher and as co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF. However, since 2009, I’ve also worked as an art photographer, done projects, and arranged almost 30 exhibitions in my studio here in Lund, Sweden. See more on Oberg PhotoGraphics. I grew up with contemporary art; it’s always been an essential, joyful interest of mine. And in 2002-2003, I found out that I could reach people not only with texts but also with images. Back then, I went on fact-finding in Iraq and interviewed some 160 people at all levels and also took photos with an early digital low-resolution camera – of people, cafées, nature, streets, children, cultural places, museums and… life in general, nothing special. It was merely snapshots...

Illustration: Craig Stephens The US isn’t serious about detente or any form of reconciliation. Instead it has been laying the foundation for a cold war or worse, and fabricating a moral high ground Josef Gregory Mahoney October 2, 2023 American efforts to foster detente with China have failed: it’s time to acknowledge this and move on. This argument has emerged in recent weeks in several important publications, including The Washington Post and Foreign Affairs, expressed by key opinion leaders considered close to the Biden administration and those representing more conservative positions. These views have not been endorsed officially by the administration but suggest a consensus coalescing on both sides of the American political spectrum. They seem to express the next chapter of a dark narrative arc established when Joe Biden took office. The arc points especially to the Xi-Biden meeting on the sidelines of last year’s G20 summit and the...

Jan Oberg Originally published by Global Times, Beijing, on September 5, 2023 September 28, 2023 A couple of years ago, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Sweden, of which I am the director, published ”Behind The Smokescreen. An Analysis of the West’s Destructive China Cold War Agenda And Why It Must Stop” (130 pages). Among several perspectives of the U.S./Western accusation industry, we looked into the medialised stories about genocide in Xinjiang, forced labour, and Taiwan and nine mainstream media manipulation methods that aim to manufacture a systematically negative image of China in the Western mind. We found that the Cold War happens by attempts to influence the ’free’ press – also the Western state press – through three main mechanisms: a) Fake or fabricated stories, b) Omission – for instance, of every positive aspect of China’s developments, and c) Source Ignorance: using the same few...

© Jan Oberg “Biking Mom in Xian” Collage – 2023 Certainly, China has evolved continually and progressively, step by step. My expectations were high when I visited this autumn, my first trip post-pandemic. Between 2015 and 2020, I had visited this vast country almost 20 times. Each visit revealed positive changes and swift progress. Allow me to share some observations from my daily experiences there. Firstly, what remains unchanged is their absence of cheese (!). This tradition stems from their historical lack of cattle farming, prioritizing crops and vegetables. However, cows are now present, particularly in Hebei province’s highlands. They’ve even adapted to the sound of wind windmills, unlike the reindeer in Norway’s Sami-land. Another crucial observation is the deep integration of mobile phones into daily life. You can hardly catch a taxi without a mobile app, and ordering coffee from the highly successful chain, Luckin Coffee, also necessitates an...

A collection of relevant articles brought to you by The Transnational Foundation. When will the investigative reports come, if not after one year? Jan Oberg September 26, 2023 The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines had neither a photogenic character nor a death toll comparable with 9/11, 2001. It also did not provoke a German or Russian response in the vicinity of the totally out-of-proportion US Global War on Terror that has cost millions of innocent lives. That said, one could hypothesise that, as a destructive event and over time, this gigantic infrastructure destruction will have consequences for the international order as comprehensive as 9/11. Be this as it may, we’ve all noticed how this unique destruction disappeared very quickly from the media and has also not been mentioned in, say, statements from NATO, G7, G 20 or the EU. The world has also not heard anything from any formal...