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China expert Gordon Chang makes the case that China is preparing for armed conflict – and could happen quite soon.
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Last month, a Chinese entrepreneur making medical equipment for consumers told me that local officials had demanded he convert his production lines in China so that they could turn out items for the military. Communist Party cadres, he said, were issuing similar orders to other manufacturers.
Moreover, Chinese academics privately say the ongoing expulsion of foreign colleagues from China’s universities appears to be a preparation for hostilities.
The People’s Republic of China is preparing to go to war, and it is not trying to hide its efforts. Amendments to the National Defense Law, effective the first day of last year, transfer powers from civilian to military officials.
In general, the amendments reduce the role of the central government’s State Council by shifting power to the CMC, the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. Specifically, the State Council will no longer supervise the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army.
As Zeng Zhiping of Soochow University told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post,
“The CMC is now formally in charge of making national defense policy and principles, while the State Council becomes a mere implementing agency to provide support for the military.”
In one sense, these amendments were window dressing. “Recent changes to China’s National Defense Law that diminish the power of the State Council are largely political posturing,” Richard Fisher of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me soon after the amendments went into effect. “The Chinese Communist Party and particularly its subordinate CMC have always held supreme power over decisions regarding war and peace.”
Why then do we care about the National Defense Law amendments?
The amendments, Fisher tells us, “point to China’s ambition to achieve ‘whole nation’ levels of military mobilization to fight wars and give the CMC formal power to control the future Chinese capabilities for global military intervention.”
“The revised National Defense Law also embodies the concept that everyone should be involved in national defense,” reports the Communist Party’s Global Times, summarizing the words of an unnamed CMC official. “All national organizations, armed forces, political parties, civil groups, enterprises, social organizations, and other organizations should support and take part in the development of national defense, fulfill national defense duties, and carry out national defense missions according to the law.”
As Fisher told 19FortyFive this month, “For the past 40 years, China’s Communist Party has been preparing for brutal war, and now the ruling organization is accelerating its plans.”
The Party, as it readies itself for combat, is leaving nothing to chance. In March, its Central Organization Department issued an internal directive prohibiting the spouses and children of ministerial-level officials from owning foreign real estate or shares registered offshore. The ban also appears to apply to such officials themselves as there are reports of their selling foreign assets. Moreover, such officials and immediate families are not, except in limited circumstances, allowed to open accounts overseas with financial institutions.
The directive, issued soon after the imposition of sanctions on Russian officials for the “special military operation” in Ukraine, appears designed to sanction-proof Chinese officials.
J-10 Fighter
Moreover, the central government is trying to sanctions-proof itself. On April 22, officials from the finance ministry and central bank met with representatives of dozens of banks, including HSBC, to discuss what Beijing could do in the event of the imposition of punitive measures on China.
The holding of the “emergency meeting,” reported by the Financial Times, is ominous. “The officials and attendees did not mention specific scenarios, but one possible trigger for such sanctions is thought to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan,” the FT noted. The fact that Chinese officials held the meeting is a clear indication that Beijing is planning belligerent acts.
“Be ready for battle.” That’s how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post summarized Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s first order to the military of 2019. In January of that year, he gave a major speech to the CMC on making preparations for war, and the address was then broadcast nationwide.
Foreign analysts debate whether China is going to war anytime soon. The Chinese political system has become less transparent over time, so it is not clear what senior leaders are thinking.
Image of J-20 fighter. Image Credit: Chinese Internet.
Yet it is clear what senior leaders are in fact doing. They are getting troops ready for another advance below the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, preparing to seize more Indian territory in the Himalayas. They renewed, in November of last year and this June, attempts to block the resupply of a Philippine outpost at Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea. They ordered four vessels to enter Japan’s sovereign water around the disputed but Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in late July. They are directing continual provocations around Taiwan, including a violation of the island’s sovereign airspace in early February.
And there is something else that is unmistakable: Xi and senior leaders are getting China’s citizens ready for war.
A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.
What he says about foreigners at times, leaving the country helter-skelter is correct. The measures described are such as of an emergency; whether internal or external remains to be seen. A global NWO/OWO would perhaps see a war with China as necessary. It’s perfectly possible China is preparing for a war. Because it’s not accepting US hegemony. Because it wants to be ready if the champions of democracy, the country that invades all over the globe, that destroys countries and peoples all over the globe, the country that coup d’états its ‘backyeard’. the country that has been at continuously at war for decades, the country that sends its carrier fleet into the Chinese sea is finally crazy enough to start a war with China. The alternative would be to obey the hegemon and basically self-destruct, as e.g. Germany (rather its politicians) and some other EU countries do right now.
taliban treated my lgbt military to special sperm mcburgers—china no need to defeat us —we international joke
Since the end of the Cold War, and during it, many have been convinced WW III will not happen. They ignore history, how everybody eventually gets the war they are trying to avoid – their own defeat. Just because nobody wants nuclear Armageddon, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
I really blame a lot of this on the USA. USA is trying to act as the world police, lucky they can’t really do this as well in USA because of the constitution, but in the world I guess they can do as they want.
Why is USA so involved in Taiwan and Ukraine? Its obvious these are places where a huge military power borders and has interest in. Its not just another country with a different culture, these places were historically part of the Russia and China.
The other fact is Americans are not going to fight and die in a war with Russia or China, imagine trying to have a draft in USA right now?
The US and UK seem to think that the 21st century warfare doctrine is now cyber warfare + their hired proxy killers. Cyber warfare may well satisfy most of their own dull subjects with the delusion of, ” We we are Winning because we SAY we are ” , BUT the countries in the sights of US and UK propaganda fully realise that Western wars of plunder are the sole intention of the US and UK in particular.
Slava Russiya
Depopulation agenda 2030 full steam ahead all wars are rich man’s wars this as been on the cards since the beginning of the concept of the NWO or now called agenda 2030 where the worlds population will be kept at 500 million so that means 90% of us useless eaters have been marked with an X.
China won’t go to war. They have learnt from russians thta you cannot go to a war hat you cannot win. They will wait the USA to decline before going to a war. They are smarter than Mr Putin.
yes we lgbt already defeated by master Putin—hurry to clinic for taliban sperm vaccine—to prevent more dementia
If China is preparing for war, they should come out as good allies to Russia and speak up about it. Once war starts for China, they will likely be dependent on overland supplies of oil and natural gas. It would be smart of them to start helping Russia so Russia will return the favor and be there for them.
There is chance that China hits Russia’s ”weak belly” hard for some land grab for its huge population. Russia is now in a weak position because of the war in Ukraine.
stupid turd (turk) brain—Russia 10,000 advanced nukes; China 350….turks inferior sub intelligent species
Nonsense. Chinese will not go to war because they are not as stupid as the dictator Putin.
little Karen upset master Putin humiliate monkey pox amerikannot
This is surely a US/UK punk and can only boast of good English and not any command of international politics let alone China. for Instance, what does the “island’s sovereign airspace “? Taiwan is not a country so it has NO sovereign airspace .
The best way for China to keep Taiowan’s protectors busy is to quickly and fully help Putin go to the Polish border and force the pro-psionist alliance to keep the bulk of their forces around there.
China will eventualy attack Russia from it’s ‘weak belly”. China needs to more land , Lebensraum , for its massive population.
and be nuked into the stone-age; only amerikan this stupid
And rightly so
inferior amerikan monkey pox lgbt soldier belong gay bar in porkland—-we demolished the stinky inferior in 1953….now they so pathetic taliban advanced Air Force humiliated them
I sense a lot of repressed gay desires coming from you. It is quite common when you are always rejected by beautiful sexy European/American girls . Cheer up, it’s not your fault you were born oriental, chubby and suffering from halitosis.
when we want to integrate Taiwan we will —no inferior racist anglo reptile species lgbt monkey poxed moron decides —stupid childish amerikunt provocations amuse–we will move when the imbeciles are all in gay bars injecting themselves w sperm
There was never a reason to dismantle the Soviet Union. Obviously China handled the transition to free enterprise much better then the Soviets.
Jeff Nyquist give an interview earlier this year to an independent Western media outlet where he said that China would go to war before the 1st of November this year! I watched the video twice and now after seeing this report it may be that the pieces are starting to fall into place.
Blah blah blah. China is not going to war. Especially not against the U.S..
Gordon Chang? Seriously South Front. This guy is a useless tit; didn’t bother reading this article once I saw his name. His outlandish predictions of China on Fox News over the years have made him a laughing stock. He’s probably on another book tour.
China is getting ready to the Zio USSA to attack China or to occupy Taiwan with USSA forces.
China will do what china plans in their way at their time. Nothing not Putin not the USA nothing else is important for them. China is an empire that exists for thousands of years. They probably look at Russians and Americans as some kind of wild tribe next to them.
Ukraine pushing out Russians out of Ukraine and charging at Moskow would not even change the chinese Plans a single bit. They just do not care.
If Putin has coordinated his plans with them they may fit together unless china descides that it fits into their plans to let him and the west burn through some of their arsenals before they engage then they might have just fooled him to believe they will do something when it suits his plans.