TFF Blog

Peter Peverelli November 22, 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. Gordon DumoulinEchoes Of Volatile And Delusive Memory: Challenging Historical Interpretations Introduction ”Should the West see China as a threat or as an opportunity, a friend or an enemy? Are we heading for a third world war? Does the seemingly inexorable rise of China spell the doom of many values in which we have long believed? Might some form of communism prevail after all? Are China’s motives sinister? Is it trying to subvert us? Is it plotting mischief? Given the very bad press China has been getting in Western media, one might certainly think so. But the word ‘sinister’ has an interesting derivation. Its original meaning has nothing to do with wily orientalism. It means simply left-handed. Most of us...

Why it is essential to travel and see for yourself and then build networks and promote dialogues in the world’s likely most serious conflict. PART II PART I I recommend you read Part I before reading this second part. A dynamic melting pot You may ask where Xinjiang’s immense cultural diversity comes from. While I have not studied its history, I have learned that it has always been one big meeting place, dating back to the first Silk Roads, where people travelled, traded, explored, and migrated. Crisscrossing also borders with eight neighbours so that over time, it became a melting pot. There is a lot of diversity; each national group or ethnicity seems to have preserved vital elements of its own culture, language, aesthetics, way of living, dancing, etc. and also become part of the unity called Xinjiang and China. A woman I met told me that each nationality’s way of dancing could be...

For the last time, I am stating my views on the West’s genocide accusation and why I refuse to let the US/NATO/EU Cold War policy set the agenda and discourse about China in general and Xinjiang in particular. Jan Oberg November 19, 2024 PART I Part II A daring prediction I shall be surprised if, in about 10-15 years, Xinjiang – the North-Western province of China, its largest province three times larger than France – has not become a world-leading cultural and economic hub in humanity’s multipolar/nodal future world. It exhibits a tremendous cultural variety that seems to be moving towards unity in an amazing diversity. It has a vast natural resource potential. It interacts with eight very important neighbouring countries. It’s the crossroads of past, present and future. Xinjiang is the sine qua non of the new Silk Roads, also called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves...

November 16, 2024 I. Introduction The initiative for the “Nordic Delegation to China, September 7-15, 2024” was taken from the Norwegian side. Journalist and former editor Arild Vollan wanted to investigate claims in the media about an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in the autonomous region of Xinjiang in western China. Vollan selected an independent, cross-disciplinary and cross-political delegation group consisting of people who have worked with China and who wanted to get personal impressions of the conditions described in the previous section. The delegation consisted of: • Remi Strand, lawyer. • Thore Vestby, a former member of parliament (H) and former mayor of Frogn. • Arild Vollan (head of delegation), journalist and former editor. • Jan Øberg, PhD sociology, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Lund, Sweden. (1) The delegation itself developed the project’s mandate. Following an excursion to Xinjiang province, the delegation’s...

Article by TFF Board member Professor Biljana Vankovska presented to the Russian Valdai Discussion Club Biljana Vankovska November 12, 2024 Here is the paper as published by the prestigious Valdai Discussion Club

It has great potentials and needs global citizens’ – your – support. Amid global conflicts escalating, why has the United Nations, tasked with maintaining peace, seemingly failed to fulfill its role? Why is a ceasefire agreement in Gaza proving elusive, and why does a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine remain distant? Professor Jan Oberg delves into the underlying reasons why achieving world peace is such a challenging endeavour. This video was produced by The China Academy in Shanghai, more about it here. You may also see it on YouTube and read the interesting comments on it.

Street music in Urumqi @ Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Oberg November 4, 2024 This video was produced by the China Academy in Shanghai and uploaded by Global Times. The original version and comments under it are here. Please also check TFF’s analysis of the accusations made by US/Western media and think tanks concerning Xinjiang here.

“No Extermination without Representation,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024 Farhang Jahanpour TFF Associate & former Board member November 3, 2024 On November 5, the American people go to the polls in one of the most consequential elections for the United States and the world. Normally, outsiders should not interfere in other countries’ elections, although the United States has a habit of interfering in other countries’ elections, often overtly and sometimes with the use of coups, plots, subversion, etc. However, as the Americans chanted “no taxation without representation” when they were fighting for their independence and tried to shake off the yoke of a foreign power over their lives, it is now appropriate for the people of the world to say “no extermination without representation.” If the rest of the world cannot have representation in US elections, at least we are entitled to express a view about it, especially when it...

“War Collage – La Paix Quand?” © Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Øberg October 31, 2024 Throughout modern world history, great powers, empires and civilisations have succeeded each other. No one has stayed on top indefinitely – there is a birth, the new thing grows creatively and materially until it reaches a peak and perhaps begins to relax, and then sooner or later it goes downhill – in relation to new powers that emerge – only to lose the leadership role completely and become one among many in a new world order. This is the natural law of global society – of humanity – and it is quite inexorable. The downturn can have many (combinations) of causes, here are some of the classic ones in macro-history: weakening innovation and economic growth; over-militarisation and lost wars; wanting to rule the whole world but lacking the necessary leadership capacity; declining legitimacy in the...

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...

Swanson is the founding director of World Beyond War and a TFF Associate. Fredrik Heffermehl (1938-2023) established the prize, which Lay Down Your Arms awards. This is the public announcement about the November 10, 2024, ceremony in Oslo. You are hereby cordially invited! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMSThe Real Nobel Peace Prize for 2024IS AWARDED THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF “WORLD BEYOND WAR”David Swanson WHO WILL RECEIVE THE PRIZE IN A PUBLIC CEREMONY ATLITTERATURHUSET IN OSLO, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2024.Participating Jannik Bonnevie (poetry), Xiangtian Liu (grand piano), Marie Flognfeldt Jones (song), Jakob Rekdal Jones (guitar). After lunch, David Swanson will introduce a roundtable on “How can we stop today’s militarization?” with among others Glenn Diesen, Ingeborg Breines, Jan Oberg, Thore Vestby, Mariell Leraand, Ola Friholt, Tomas Magnusson and Ola TunanderFree entry The Real Nobel Peace Prize is established by Fredrik Heffermehl (see below). Art work “Gaza” by Mai-Bente Bonnevie More about David...

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...