Conflict

Citizens dancing on a Friday afternoon at the Grand Bazaar Square in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China – Photo Jan Oberg 2024 This is just a brief reflection on my second visit to China. Still tired from the long journey, I’m slowly adjusting to our time zone and trying to focus on the tasks waiting for me. But a flood of impressions keeps swirling in my mind, making it impossible to rest—especially after realizing how much Western propaganda had shaped my expectations. I thought I was heading to a brutal and backward corner of China, only to find myself utterly enchanted by what I encountered. What intrigued me the most was the fact that I was about to visit what is often portrayed as China’s “most notorious” region. This is the province at the centre of ongoing accusations against China—claims of massive human rights abuses and even genocide, particularly targeting the Uyghur...

Making sense of China by snapshot is impossible without watching the film Gordon Dumoulin October 17, 2024 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Peter PeverelliEnemy or Mirror Image? ‘Scholars once thought secularisation is an irreversible trend in the age of modernity,’ a note by Chinese sociologist Zhao Dingxin (赵鼎新), Professor in Sociology at Zheijiang University (Hangzhou) and the University of Chicago when explaining the Daoist perspective that history does not progress toward some teleological terminus that can “lay claim to universal or eternal truths … because the significance and function of any causal forces invariably change with different contexts.” The Daoist perspective stands in stark contrast with the essay “The End of History” written by American political scientist Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama in 1989. Fukuyama mentioned that the triumph of the...

Veteran Singapore envoy on what the West gets wrong about China, Asean as a bellwether region and why the US should prepare for No. 2 status Dewey Sim of the South China Morning Post talks with Kishore Mahbubani on October 7, 2024 Seasoned former diplomat Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute and author of nine books, including “Has China Won?” This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. You’ve predicted that the geopolitical contest between the US and China is set to intensify and stretch beyond the next decade. However, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan just visited China and a call between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden is expected soon. Are these exchanges a signal that things are looking up? I would say the best compliment that I can pay...

Sustainable peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of development, justice and harmony The three authors were published today by China Watch & China Daily’s English edition. It will also be published in Chinese and thereby reach a very large audience. The article also represents the first cooperative effort between Guangdong Institute for International Strategies and TFF. Li Xing who is a Yunshan leading scholar and a distinguished professor at Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, and professor of international relations at Aalborg University, Denmark. Jan Oberg is a former professor and co-founder and director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden. Li Qing is professor and executive president at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. Now head over to China Daily > >

And its positive attitude to the West Jan Oberg Shanghai, China, September 16, 2024 When travelling around China, one of many things to note is that the Chinese are very positive toward the West, make use of Western inspirations, and know much more about the West than Westerners know about China.This is quite remarkable because, historically, China has been the object of ruthless Western colonialism and warfare as well as racism—e.g. the ”yellow fewer/danger” syndrome—while China has done nothing similar to the West. Here are some examples, big and small, of the mentioned knowledge and fascination of the West: • Many young Chinese have chosen to have a Western name, like, say, Alison or Kevin. They say it is difficult for us in the West to remember and pronounce Chinese names. • The Chinese know all the Western brands and gladly call their products something related to the West. They...

Contemporary reports of the birth of the United Nations in June 1945 in San Francisco warmly welcomed the news of its establishment and congratulated the United States for conceiving and delivering the new international organisation. President Truman’s remarks at the closing ceremony – “what a great day this can be in history” – were widely shared. There were enormous expectations that, in contrast to the discredited League of Nations, there was now a strong institution that would keep the peace and promote international cooperation. The momentum of San Francisco was maintained in the later months of 1945 in London where with the new Labour government and decisive leadership from the Foreign Office, the necessary practical measures were taken very quickly to put in place the principal organs, especially the Security Council, the General Assembly and the secretariat. A major deficiency of the Charter – the absence of provisions on human...

John J. Mearsheimer Aug 05, 2024 The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The answer to this question matters enormously because the war has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has lost a substantial amount of its territory and is likely to lose more, its economy is in tatters, huge numbers of Ukrainians are internally displaced or have fled the country, and it has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Of course, Russia has paid a significant blood price as well. On the strategic level, relations between Russia and Europe, not to mention Russia and Ukraine, have been poisoned for the foreseeable future, which means that the threat of a major war in Europe will be with...

July 4, 2024 “Each of us has had our own experience of the cascading failures of process, leadership, and decision-making that have characterized this Administration’s intransigent response to this continuing calamity. Taken together, these paint a picture of an overlapping and systemic set of problems in this Administration’s policy approach, and a series of warnings that have gone unheeded…” Read the entire – extraordinarily important – statement here. It is a significant example of civil disobedience and personal ethics. It all began with Josh Paul when he resigned from the State Department last year. See also the video below. This is the way to go. May thousands upon thousands feel inspired and resign, too – and not only in the U.S. but in all Western countries that facilitate and support the genocide in Gaza and the barbaric policies in the Middle East.

Richard FalkAnd TFF Associate and dear friend since 1986. June 5, 2024 An intriguing sideshow during the seven months of savage genocidal violence against the entrapped Palestinian population of an estimated 2.3 million has been the attention given to international law and to international procedures available for its interpretation and enforcement. To begin with, many concerned persons wonder about why there are two distinct tribunals: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Beyond this, for many never exposed to a sophisticated explanation of the process by which international law is judicially implemented the distinction between these two tribunals, both located in The Hague, is far from transparent. This short essay is a simplified introduction to the ICJ and ICC, both indispensable judicial resources of a functionally effective and equitable international legal order. Their positive contributions to law and justice are diminished to the extent that...

When he first took office, the Russian president was trying to integrate with the West, now the whole ball game has changed Fyodor Lukyanov May 30, 2024 The question of how Russia’s foreign policy will be managed during President Vladimir Putin’s new term seems redundant, if not irrelevant. The head of state is a man who has led the country in one form or another for almost a quarter of a century. He is known for his conservatism – not only in the ideological sense, but also in his aversion to sharp turns. Moreover, Russia is engaged in an intensive military campaign against an international coalition, and there is little point in making plans until it is over, and while its prospects are still unclear. The successful completion of this campaign remains a task of incomparable importance. Nevertheless, it is necessary to reflect on this issue. Firstly, all of the...

A major publishing event in the field of security studies A unique and very thorough 11-part analysis of the US National Security Strategy from October 2022. Christman began publishing it at the beginning of May 2023. If you want to know what the United States is up to in terms of its ‘national security’ and what the costs and risks will likely be – to itself and to the world – this is where you begin. Kristin Christman’s eleven articles were originally published by Countercurrents. Note that they were not published by a leading American magazine or the weekend edition of a large daily; they were not in any mainstream media in the US or Europe. And we know why. TFF is proud to follow up and give her genuinely independent and tremendously knowledgeable research a further boost. All her texts are also published on Christman’s YouTube Channel. The links to the following ten...

With the superego dissolved, there is no felt obligation to judge oneself in reference to any external or abstract standard. Narcissistic tendencies flourish. A similar psychology removes the requisite for experiencing shame. Is there now a moral void at the heart of Western societies?  That question haunts us as governments in the United States and Europe act as accomplices in Israel’s atrocious crimes against the Palestinians. The Jewish state’s conduct meets the standard of genocide as stated in the United Nations Convention on Genocide, of which they all are signatories. Confirmation is likely to come soon in a conclusive determination by the International Court of Justice. The ICJ already in January recognized a prime facie case for genocide. The UN’s top court ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ICJ found it did have jurisdiction on the matter, and decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention. At...