Archive for August 2017

  An extremely striking chart of surveys of South Korean public opinion on relations with North Korea has been published by The Market Mogul. It should throw a clear and sobering light on present discussions about North Korea. South Koreans, by massive margins, see North Korea show they believe North Korea is ‘a country to work with’…

  ​There is an international discussion about the question of ‘human rights’ and I was asked to do an interview on this. So, this post, based on the interview, explains the real situation of why the West’s attempted definition of human rights is an absurd fraud – a mere propaganda distortion. ​*    *    * ​I want…

  I was asked to give a lecture to young people in China on what China’s national rejuvenation and socialist system meant not only for their country but for the whole world. This is the video of the lecture – it has been watched over one million times. It explains why, without exaggeration, China’s national rejuvenation is…

  Two articles by the distinguished US historian Bruce Cumings have been published in the Guardian newspaper in London and the London Review of Books, dealing with the history of US policy in Korea and its attacks on North Korea. These articles, ‘A Murderous History of Korea’, in the London Review of Books, and ‘Americans…

  American politicians relentlessly claim that theirs is the ‘greatest country’ and the ‘American way’ is the best way. But if so it poses a puzzling question – ‘why do American’s die so young’. This can be seen by looking at the facts. ​Life expectancy is the most sensitive of all indicators of overall social well…

  The violent movement by US fascists, seen in the death and violence in Charlottesville, is immediately due to the encouragement to them given by the policies of the Trump administration and its links with the alt-Right. But behind that lies the destabilisation of US politics by economic neo-liberalism ever since Reagan. ​To understand the…

  A scary insight into how propaganda for war is spread in the US.

  The leading US magazine Foreign Policy ​published an important article showing conclusively that it was the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific War that was the decisive event that caused Japan to surrender, not the atomic bomb. ​This fact has been known for a long time to serious historians. But its publication in a…

  The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has forecast a dramatic slowdown in China’s economy: ‘Growth will slow to 4.8% a year on average in 2018-19.’ This is despite the higher growth projections in China’s current Five Year Plan, President Xi Jinping saying growth should average at least 6.5% until 2020, and even the IMF projecting 6.1%…

  On 7 August the Financial Times carried an accurate front page headline ‘Beijing hails success in battle against capital flight’. The article noted: ‘Data released on Monday indicate that Beijing’s support for the renminbi and a crackdown on foreign dealmaking and other outflow channels have largely succeeded in curtailing capital flight…. At the same time, forex reserves rose for a sixth…