President Donald Trump is holding a news conference at the Rose Garden of the White House on China and other matters. Anticipated start time 2:00pm ET. Links below.
UPDATE: Video Added
WH Livestream Link – PBS Livestream Link – RSBN Livestream Link
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China Proposes A Law Allowing Citizens To Sue US For Starting Coronavirus Pandemic which is entirely understandable after the US Congress proposed Americans can sue China in US courts for the same reason. So lawsuits will be filed, each country will decide against the other, and the people will be entitled to confiscate each other’s assets in their country. Ya – that should be great for the economy!
Of course, what the Congress proposed was a violation of international law. They can no more waive sovereign immunity of another country than the USA would be subject to suit in China. But law no longer matters. This is all just politics now on both sides.
What is going on is really absurd. The US threatens sanction if Beijing passes the new laws on Hong Kong which GUARANTEES that they they then MUST do so. I do not know if we have the dumbest politicians in history right now, but it certainly seems to be. You cannot threaten sanctions against a major power be it Russia of China and actually expect that they will back down. All this does is build the cold war with higher walls that lead to war.
Of course, I get the typical hate mail that twist it to say I just “love” China. They are the typical cowards like Dick Cheney who have no problem sending other people’s children off to war to die so they can cheer while watching it on CNN as some video game completely detached from reality or human responsibility. I would love to send such people to the front lines in a war and they should be the first to die for their childish nonsense. I lost 50% of my high school friends to Vietnam. What die the die for? Strip clubs in Vietnam? Communism fell all by itself because Marxism is unsustainable no matter how many times these people try.
These people who are cheering war will, unfortunately, get their way. They will be sitting drinking their beer and watching CNN as if this is a sports game and their team will smash the other. They are total idiots who have no idea what unfolds in war. Nevertheless, they will cheer it like the sick individuals they really are. I am sure they just party on Memorial Day and have never for one second thought about all the people who have died fighting wars that have never been about what the politicians claim.
China is signaling they will drop the panda illusion and take a full frontal dragon approach toward Hong Kong. Chairman Xi Jinping is deploying, some say he has already deployed, the Ministry of State Security – China’s leading intelligence agency – into Hong Kong to begin formal control through national security laws.
The move appears to be a direct signal that communist Beijing will not longer accept or allow Hong Kong’s current autonomous status as a free democracy. Beijing signaling “enough is enough”, and Hong Kongers are rightly concerned. If Xi follows through, we can expect to see even more protests and confrontations; and the possibility President Trump will remove the “special trade status” the U.S. gives to Hong Kong.
Right now Hong Kong is exempt from U.S. tariffs and other economic measures the U.S. has deployed against China. If Beijing takes full control, that could quickly change.
(Reuters) – Beijing appears determined to stamp out any renewed rebellion against the Communist Party’s authority over the former British colony. China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, is preparing to circumvent the city’s lawmaking body, the Legislative Council, in drafting the new laws.
The fear among many in Hong Kong is that China intends to criminalize existing freedoms, including criticism of the central government and its policies. It is the latest and biggest step in a concerted effort by Beijing to assert control over Hong Kong and its 7.4 million people.
In recent weeks there had been widespread speculation here that Beijing was planning this move, described by some local commentators as the “nuclear option.” Thursday’s announcement by China nonetheless stunned pro-democracy lawmakers, business leaders and lawyers in the city. It was, they said, a historic turning point – the end of “one country, two systems,” the formula Beijing had promised would allow Hong Kong to retain its way of life and freedom for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
“This represents a real demolition of the one country, two systems idea and also the idea of Hong Kong’s autonomy,” said barrister Wilson Leung, a member of the Progressive Lawyers Group. Leung said extremely harsh sentences had been imposed on dissidents, journalists and lawyers on the mainland under vaguely expressed but draconian laws. “These same vague concepts are now being introduced to Hong Kong,” he said.
Many details of the new laws and exactly how they will be absorbed into Hong Kong’s existing statutes remain unclear. But Beijing has openly expressed its intentions in recent months. It wants to end the cycle of mass protests that have thwarted successive post-colonial administrations each time they have moved to more closely align the city with China’s political and legal system.
[…] Hong Kong is a vital cog in China’s economy. While China still has extensive capital controls and often intervenes in its financial markets and banking system, Hong Kong is one of the most open economies in the world and one of the biggest markets for equity and debt financing.
China uses Hong Kong’s currency, equity and debt markets to attract foreign funds, while international companies use Hong Kong as a launchpad to expand into mainland China. The bulk of foreign direct investment in China continues to be channeled through the city. And many of China’s biggest firms have listed in Hong Kong, often as a springboard to global expansion. (read more)
Prior to the Wuhan virus President Trump was positioning the confrontation between the U.S. and China based on economics and trade. Within that dynamic Beijing had a weak hand and President Trump exploited their vulnerabilities with a geopolitical strategy to dismantle China’s one-belt/one-road expansion plan.
President Trump used access to the strong U.S. market to leverage multinational companies away from Chinese manufacturing. Trump’s tariffs against China were extremely effective; and led to Beijing’s initial acquiescence. However, it was soon evident that China would not accept their diminished economic outcome.
If Xi moves on Hong Kong, there’s a very strong likelihood President Trump will remove the HK special trade status which will have an immediate impact.
With an increased awareness of how some U.S. politicians appear to be reacting to the COVID-19 challenges; and with a new American perspective toward the way media outlets, some businesses and many politicians appear to be influenced by China; it’s worth revisiting a recent speech by Secretary of State Pompeo that might have been overlooked.
Pompeo’s remarks were made to the National Governors Association (NGA) Feb 8, 2020; and there’s an interesting segment where Pompeo reveals his awareness of a list of U.S. governors compiled by China’s communist party; and their alignment with China’s interests. A transcript of the key excerpt from his speech is provided. WATCH:
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[Transcript at 01:45] […] “Last year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, quote, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,” end of quote.”
“Deal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a former governor.
I was being invited to the U.S.-China Governors’ Collaboration Summit.
It was an event co-hosted by the National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Sounds pretty harmless.
What the invitation did not say is that the group – the group I just mentioned – is the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department.
Now, I was lucky. I was familiar with that organization from my time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But it got me thinking.
How many of you made the link between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?
What if you made a new friend while you were at that event?
What if your new friend asked you for introductions to other politically connected and powerful people?
What if your new friend offered to invest big money in your state, perhaps in your pension, in industries sensitive to our national security?
These aren’t hypotheticals. These scenarios are all too true, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.
Indeed, last year, a Chinese Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that assessed all 50 of America’s governors on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of you “friendly,” “hardline,” or “ambiguous.”
I’ll let you decide where you think you belong. Someone in China already has. Many of you, indeed, in that report are referenced by name.
So here’s the lesson: The lesson is that competition with China is not just a federal issue. It’s why I wanted to be here today, Governor Hogan. It’s happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you.
And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the CCP as friendly or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working the team around you.
Competition with China is happening inside of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America’s vital national security functions.” (Keep Reading)
It sure sounds to me like Secretary Pompeo and President Trump have that list of China-friendly governors…. Oh my. Very interesting.
UPDATE: Axios had an article earlier this year and included the Chinese Communist Party Report [Cloud pdf Here]
It will be interesting to see how and when each of these governors responds to the re-opening of their economy post COVID-19 peak. Will there be a correlation to their CCP assigned alignment?
We’ll keep watching…
Re Posted from The Canada Free Press By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist —— Bio and Archives—March 7, 2020
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo met on March 6th with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at UN headquarters in New York. The offices of the spokespersons for both the State Department and the Secretary General issued their own readouts of the meeting. One would think from reading them that the readouts were reporting on two different meetings.The UN readout portrayed the meeting as a kumbaya moment. “The Secretary-General expressed appreciation for the continued engagement of the United States in the United Nation,” the UN statement said. It ticked off as topics of discussion “a range of situations around the world, including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, the Sahel and the questions related to the implementation of the host country agreement.” The reference to the host country agreement implementation may have alluded to a dispute over the denial or delay of visas issued by the U.S. to UN diplomats from certain countries, principally Russia and Iran, seeking to attend UN meetings in New York. However, the statement completely sidestepped the substance of the issue. Nothing was even hinted regarding any other differences between the United States and the United Nations.
The State Department readout did not hold back, however. Half of the readout was devoted to the UN’s highly biased pro-Palestinian decision to release its blacklist of companies doing business with Israeli firms operating in disputed areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which includes several U.S. companies. It said that Secretary Pompeo “reiterated his outrage at the decision by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to publish a database of companies operating in Israeli-controlled territories.” The U.S. statement added that Secretary Pompeo “made clear that the United States will continue to engage UN officials and member states on this matter, will not tolerate the reckless mistreatment of U.S. companies, and will respond to actions harmful to our business community.”
As usual, the UN Secretary General tried to paper over significant objections to the UN’s moral failures with diplomatic niceties. Secretary Pompeo, representing the UN’s biggest financial contributor by far, was not willing to be a part of such play-acting. What Bachelet did, with the Secretary General’s evident concurrence, blatantly undermines real human rights. The UN blacklist promotes the agenda of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which discriminatorily singles out the Jewish State for economic punishment because of its “settlements” activities. Turkey, which illegally occupied Northern Cyprus in 1974, has since sent thousands of Turkish settlers and occupation troops to Northern Cyprus, without a whimper of objection by UN officials. Ironically, the livelihoods of Palestinians and their families will be jeopardized if Palestinians working for the affected businesses lose their jobs as a result of the boycott encouraged by the UN’s blacklist.
The true agenda of the BDS, with which the UN is complicit, is the total destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and its full takeover by Palestinian militants. “No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine,” said Omar Barghouti, BDS’s co-founder. The truth is that the BDS movement and its offshoot at the United Nations are a throwback to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.
Thus, the Trump administration correctly objects to the use of the American taxpayer-funded UN bureaucracy to promulgate a blacklist intended to intimidate U.S. businesses and others into complying with the BDS boycott. Secretary General Guterres should heed the message that Secretary Pompeo delivered to him during their face-to-face meeting on Friday or face the financial consequences from further cuts in U.S. contributions to the UN’s bloated budget.
We do not know for sure what was said during the meeting regarding implementation of the Agreement between the United Nations and the United States of America regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations – the so-called host country agreement. However, Secretary General Guterres has expressed concerns in the past over failures or delays by the Trump administration in issuing visas to foreign government officials seeking entry to the United States to attend UN meetings as well as the imposition of travel restrictions.
Hopefully, Secretary of State Pompeo made it clear to Secretary General Guterres that the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and her investigatory staff will not be welcome to the United States as long as they pursue their vendetta against American officials, soldiers, and intelligence agents for perfectly lawful actions taken against terrorists in Afghanistan.
A panel of judges from the ICC’s Appeals Chamber has just reversed an earlier ruling by an ICC panel of judges, which had blocked a probe into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. The Appeals Chamber judges decided unanimously on Thursday to allow the ICC prosecutor to investigate possible crimes on Afghan territory since May 2003 and other alleged crimes linked to the situation there since July 2002. The United States is not a party to the ICC Rome Statute and, moreover, has its own robust system of justice that the ICC has no valid jurisdiction to supplant or override.
The ICC prosecutor called the decision “an important day for the cause of justice in the situation of Afghanistan, for the Court, and for international criminal justice more broadly.” To the contrary, the decision was, in Secretary Pompeo’s words, a “breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution, masquerading as a legal body.” He added, “It is all the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, which is the best chance for peace in a generation. We’re going to take all the appropriate actions to ensure that American citizens are not hauled before this political body to settle political vendettas.”
The Trump administration can start by following through on Secretary Pompeo’s warning last year that the U.S. would deny or revoke visas for International Criminal Court staff. The U.S. has already revoked ICC Prosecutor Bensouda’s entry visa to the United States. She should continue to be barred entry, along with her investigators. They also must be barred from interviewing any past or present U.S. officials, soldiers or other government personnel anywhere in the world. Any attempt by the ICC to enforce a warrant against any U.S. citizens must be fought by all means necessary.
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At the same time Beijing is reportedly promising internal reforms to retain access to a vital and necessary U.S. market for Chinese goods, Beijing is threatening Germany if they block Huawei technology from their 5G network China will announce German autos are unsafe for import…. Chancellor Angela Merkel is in a pickle.
According to Bloomberg analysis, German automakers sold approximately seven million cars to China in 2018. The Chinese Ambassador to Germany said this weekend: ” “If Germany were to take a decision that leads to Huawei’s exclusion from the German market, there will be consequences. The Chinese government will not stand idly by.”
(SCMP) […] The Chinese ambassador in Berlin has stirred up a fresh controversy over the tech giant Huawei after he threatened “consequences” if it was excluded from Germany.
Wu Ken’s comments – in which he pointed to the importance of the Chinese market to Germany’s car industry – came amid an intense debate about the company’s role in building 5G networks, which the United States has warned poses a security threat.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has been widely accused of bowing to Chinese pressure after she ruled out banning Huawei from the country’s 5G network.
Lawmakers from her ruling coalition are seeking to override her decision with a bill that would impose a ban on “untrustworthy” 5G vendors without explicitly naming Huawei. (link)
With Brexit a virtual certainty as an outcome of the recent U.K. election; and with a WTO ruling giving U.S. President Trump a massive $7.5 billion tariff approval against the EU in the Boeing case; and with USTR Lighthizer completing a Section 301 investigation against France resulting in another $2.4 billion in U.S. tariff authority; and with Germany’s economy essentially at a standstill, this latest Chinese threat against Merkel is a perfect storm of negative economic issues.
Germany and France are very precariously positioned against the looming tariffs almost guaranteed by President Trump, and the USMCA content rules for the auto-sector are already going to cause a major supply chain reorientation for German autos sold in the U.S. Overlay the EU climate regulations the nations’ have regulated against their own industry and, well, it doesn’t take a economic analyst to see a future of severe consequence.
This is the background for Beijing’s threat. Essentially China knows Angela Merkel’s economic policies are all coming to bear at the same time the 5G tech issue has risen to the surface of the political debate. Germany has few options, they cannot lose the Chinese market for their auto exports.
Things are about to get very interesting in Europe.
It’s a hot mess worth keeping an eye on…
QUESTION: Marty; A friend of mine is an analyst at one of the major banks in New York. He said they are not allowed to forecast some things as you said. He used to work for a European bank and did say it was much worse. He said everyone who is anyone reads you. He also said that none of the mainstream media will ever report on Socrates because you will put all analysis out of business. Is this why you intend to go public?
Thanks so much for your insight in creating Socrates.
MH
ANSWER: Mainstream press in the USA has never been interested in really covering our analysis. They are not interested in reporting that a computer can actually write reports and forecast the entire world. You have to understand, we remain the best-kept secret. Even when Nigel Farage was our guest speaker in Rome, he said he had to come after we forecast BREXIT. Now, not a single British newspaper ever reported our forecast before or after. Nonetheless, those in power and in strategic institutions and corporations, all know what our forecasts were. So it is an interesting paradox. We are the best-read, but the most under-reported.
Nobody wants to report there is a computer that forecasts the world for it at the same time exposes the true trend of the economy and all the interconnections, including climate change. In the summer when the Inverted Yield Curve was taking place, all the newspapers were forecasting Trump would lose because the economy was headed into a recession. That was their typical biased war against Trump. Our model showed there would be a moderate decline in the expansion into the ECM for January, but that we did not see a major correction or a major recession.
These types of forecasts are not luck nor are they based upon what “I think” for we are all human and thus we are subject to making mistakes. We need a dispassionate analysis of a computer to provide an objective outlook. People keep trying to compete with me personally which is often quite funny to me.
Socrates will only be recognized when (1) we go public, and (2) after my death. That is just how things work. Even in the Bible, Jesus said that a prophet has no honor or is recognized in his own country’ (John 4:44). That is the way it has ALWAYS been in every field. Not exactly sure why it is that way. It just is! I have always been covered more by the press outside the USA than inside.
Steve Bannon is at his best when he explains how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) use their power in economics -against the capitalist view of profit- to erode the values of western companies and corporations. Good points made in this interview.
The protest in Hong Kong over remove all masks has a deeper concern which has sparked the most violent protests yet. China’s “social compliance ranking” is an AI system that is based on facial recognition software. The deep concern is that this new law is to identify who the people are and then arrest them quietly.
Two months ago in Vancouver, the local paper reported on what was going on with local Hong Kong protests. As many know, Vancouver has been the migration spot for Chinese after the British ceded HK. The Chinese-Canadians were traditionally pro-democracy. However, as China’s power has grown, so has a pro-homeland perspective among some expat Chinese.
Consequently, the pro-democracy protesters were met by the opposition who have been taking pictures of all the faces of the pro-democracy activists. This is what sparked the wearing of masks.
The five demands that the HK protesters had, may actually be eclipsed by the mask issue for that seems to be the real core of the concerns. Have governments gone too far is demanding to know what everyone says, does, and thinks?
As of December 1st, 2019, if you want a new phone number in China, you must submit to have your face scanned. Facial recognition is being used to identify every person.
Many are now saying that because privacy no longer exists, people will have to ban together and fight even harder. That’s an interesting take on the future. Are we watching a riot that is setting new standards that will emerge worldwide? The American Revolution set off a contagion of anti-monarchy. Even where monarchs retained the title, they lost the power as in Britain. Are we witnessing a contagion in the making?
Is the only solution that all governments must realize that privacy should be restored? Is this what the War Cycle is really forecasting with the sharp rise in civil unrest on a global scale which turned up in 2014? Just maybe the HK Anti-Mask uprising is hitting on something we all never considered – the other side of no privacy.
COMMENT: HONG KONG PROTESTS ERUPT OVER ANTI-MASK LAW
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Thank you for touching upon the HK Madness right now.
Would you kindly also share some tips/opinion of what average Hkers can do to protect themselves? Besides from holding USD?
Looking forward to Orlando.
Thank YOu.
B
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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