VT Foreign Policy

The European Union is introducing tariffs on the import of Chinese electric cars because, as seen with the imposition of the boomeranged US-led sanctions against Russia, the bloc fully follows the policy of Washington, which is satisfied with the trade war against China. However, just like the sanctions against Russia, an economic war against China will only leave the EU weaker. Following Washington’s introduction of a 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars, Brussels decided to introduce different tariff rates depending on the car model and manufacturer. The EU had a customs duty of 10% but is now massively increasing them, in some […] #Asia #Europe #Government Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/06/eu-again-shooting-itself-in-the-foot-by-joining-us-trade-war-against-china/?feed_id=12747

Washington policymakers have coined the acronym “CRINK” to represent the alliance of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, expressing significant concern and often labeling it as an “Axis of Evils”. This term echoes the language used by President George W. Bush, who described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea similarly decades ago. This fear is not limited to the United States; many Western capitals view this alliance as a new and formidable challenge. Each of these nations boasts a strong military, and Iran and North Korea are making significant advancements in nuclear weapons development, military hardware, and missile technology. In response, […] #Government #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/06/america-expresses-extreme-fear-about-alliance-of-crink-nations/?feed_id=12375

Serbia’s geopolitical position is quite complex, perhaps among the most complicated in the world. The country is in an almost identical strategic situation as during the Second World War, when Nazi Germany and its vassals ruled most of Europe. Virtually the same allies of the Third Reich are now firmly in NATO, demonstrating the former’s continuity through the latter. And to prove that, one just needs to look at the map of the Axis powers in 1941 and the map of NATO members and satellite states nowadays. Thus, Serbia is forced to communicate with the belligerent alliance, particularly as the latter keeps escalating its pressure […] #Asia #Europe #Featured #Government Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/05/serbias-close-ties-with-china-show-its-future-lies-in-brics/?feed_id=12103

Back in mid-February, the mainstream propaganda machine bombarded us with a slew of reports about “big bad Russian space nukes“, claiming that Moscow is using its technological prowess to build strategic space-based weapons. And while it’s true the Eurasian giant is a cosmic superpower and that it certainly has the know-how to accomplish such a feat, the mainstream propaganda machine conveniently “forgot” to explain why the Kremlin would make the decision to expand its space capabilities. Namely, Russia is indeed planning to deploy a nuclear-powered anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), but there’s a massive difference between having thermonuclear warheads pointed at Earth […] #Featured #Government #Military #WarZone Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/05/new-report-to-congress-shows-us-determined-to-militarize-space/?feed_id=12083

The $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, was hailed as a game-changer for the South Asian country’s ailing economy. However, nearly a decade since its inception, the multi-billion-dollar investment has become a nightmare for both countries, marred by incessant attacks on Chinese nationals, Pakistan’s inability to utilise the investments, and a deepening economic quagmire, which exposes the country to the IMF. A suicide bombing that killed five Chinese engineers near the Dasu dam project in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on March 26 is the latest in a series of deadly […] #Asia #Government Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/05/pakistans-cpec-nightmare/?feed_id=12019

The history of thalassocracies has always been one of sea dominance, as the name itself implies. However, whenever they become too powerful, they all seem to make one persistent mistake – trying to go against tellurocracies or land powers on their home turf. Even then, thalassocracies usually realize just how hopelessly outclassed they are in such a fight, so they resort to cunning strategies of pushing one tellurocracy against another, an approach that sometimes results in conflicts of global proportions, with devastating consequences for anyone but the sea powers themselves. So far, land powers have been the most unfortunate in […] #Asia #Featured #Government #Military Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/05/how-chinas-naval-strategy-exposes-decades-of-americas-sinophobic-lies/?feed_id=11903

On April 24, US State Secretary Antony Blinken landed in China and officially started his (hopefully) diplomatic visit. The relationship between the two countries has worsened significantly. Beijing’s peaceful overtures have been met with nothing but hostility in Washington DC. The United States is simply terrified of the prospect that China will overtake it. However, this has already happened in many ways. When not murdering millions around the world, America is still trying to figure out whether public toilets should be “mixed-gender”, while China is busy building not just itself, but the world, too. Most of the planet is perfectly aware of this disparity and […] #Asia #Featured #Government Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/is-china-supposed-to-fear-feeble-threats-of-top-ranking-us-officials-visiting-beijing/?feed_id=11519

In his annual address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 29, 2024, President Vladimir Putin emphasized the need for a new framework of equal and integral security in Eurasia. #Featured #UkraineWar #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/is-neutering-nato-the-next-russia-china-project/?feed_id=11287

Back in November last year, the US military was in the process of deploying new medium-range missile systems to the increasingly contested Asia-Pacific region. At the time, General Charles A. Flynn, a four-star commanding officer of the US Army Pacific (USARPAC), stated that the deployment was officially slated for 2024 and that their purpose was to “deter China from invading Taiwan”. More importantly, Flynn revealed that the US Army would deploy a missile launcher that will be able to fire the land-based version of the medium-range “Tomahawk” missile. Still, he refused to disclose where exactly the systems would be deployed, leaving […] #Asia #Europe #Featured #Government #Military #WarZone #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/us-moves-previously-banned-missiles-closer-to-china-and-russia/?feed_id=11227

by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio VERSIONE IN ITALIANO «When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence (of SARS-Cov-2 – ed), with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus». This is what Dr. David Baltimore, a renowned US virologist and co-discoverer of reverse transcriptase, said in support of the thesis (now much more than a theory) of the artificial origin of the pathogen of the pandemic which, to summarize it in a simple way, hooks up to human cells and becomes lethal thanks to that […] #COVID #Featured #HealthWellness #Investigations #ScienceResearch #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/the-smoking-gun-of-manmade-sars-cov-2/?feed_id=10903

One month after the signing of the agreement between China and Bolivia to optimise cooperation between the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Banco Unión de Bolivia and trade directly in their currencies of origin, Chinese yuan and Bolivian pesos, the first positive repercussions on the Bolivian economy are already being observed – a 30% reduction in demand for US dollars in foreign trade. The prospects are to expand the exchange, as well as to include other international currencies. In recent months, the Bolivian government has implemented several strategies to mitigate the lack of dollars in the local […] #Asia #Government #SouthAmerica Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/bolivias-demand-for-us-dollars/?feed_id=10859

In a bombshell revelation, a former US official, shrouded in anonymity, has blown the lid off a clandestine operation orchestrated by then-US President Donald Trump. According to a report by Reuters on March 14, 2024, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was purportedly greenlit to engage in covert activities targeting Chinese social media platforms. The objective: to sway public opinion within China against its government. This disclosure, while alarming, sheds light on the murky world of geopolitical machinations and covert interventions that often fly under the radar of public scrutiny. The reported authorization by President Trump, if true, underscores a disturbing […] #Asia #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/whistleblower-exposes-donald-trumps-secret-plot-against-china/?feed_id=10271

The Pakistan Navy inducted its first research vessel, or spy ship, in an attempt to counter the strengthening of the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean. This is a demonstration of deepening Pakistani-Chinese relations, which have been important for Beijing’s interests and power projections since the 1950s. INS Dhruv was inducted by the Indian Navy in 2021 and can track nuclear missiles and gather intelligence, which is crucial in modern-day naval warfare. Responding to India’s development, China supplied PNS Rizwan and allowed Pakistan to join a small group of countries that operate such ships, including Russia, India, France, the US, […] #Life Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/china-provides-pakistan-with-its-first-spy-ship-in-show-of-bolstered-strategic-alliance/?feed_id=10219

Antagonizing the vast majority of the world has become NATO’s standard practice. Its never-ending encroachment on Russia’s borders is breaking world records, as it keeps deploying various missile systems and nuclear-capable fighter jets around it. However, trying to provoke a reaction of “only” one global superpower is obviously not enough, so the political West is also going after the other – China.  Its breakaway island province of Taiwan is once again the primary target of a crawling aggression by the United States. Namely, last week, Taipei’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng confirmed the presence of US Army Special Forces in Kinmen, a group of […] #Asia #Featured #Government #Military #WarZone Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/what-are-us-green-berets-doing-less-than-10-km-away-from-mainland-chinas-coast/?feed_id=10155

Xinjiang’s top Communist Party official, Ma Xingrui, said on that the “Sinicisation” of Islam in the Muslim-majority region in northwestern China is “inevitable”. “Everyone knows that Islam in Xinjiang needs to be Sinicised, this is an inevitable trend,” regional party chief Ma Xingrui told reporters at a largely scripted briefing on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing. Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in Xinjiang, including denying Uyghurs full religious freedoms, allegations that Beijing vigorously denies. Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for […] #Asia Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/islam-in-xinjiang-needs-to-be-sinicised-says-regional-ccp-chief/?feed_id=9923

by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher China’s Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a visit to Budapest on February 19 and offered support on public security issues and expressed his hope that such efforts would be “a new highlight of bilateral relations” in areas such as combating terrorism and transnational crimes. However, even before the statements were made by Xiaohong, the US Ambassador to Budapest had already expressed his alarm about the growing Chinese-Hungarian ties. The commitment would strengthen security and law enforcement capacity under the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese minister was quoted […] #Asia #Europe #Featured #Government Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/us-ambassador-frustrated-with-hungary-for-building-security-ties-with-china/?feed_id=9271

Addressing the formidable challenge of terrorism, which transcends borders and threatens human rights, socioeconomic development, and global stability, China has been actively involved in eradicating terrorism through legal enhancements and international collaboration. This commitment is particularly evident in the face of threats posed by groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a banned organization by the United Nations Security Council, which has targeted China’s national security and territorial integrity through violent attacks, causing loss of lives and significant damage. China’s response to terrorism is comprehensive, emphasizing adherence to the principles of the UN Charter, respect for sovereignty, and […] #Asia #Featured Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/china-faces-threats-posed-by-east-turkestan-islamic-movement/?feed_id=9059

The lawless, secretive world of Gain of Function States engage in deadly arms races. Once a weapon is created by one state, a competing state develops a more advanced one, hoping to gain superiority. Today, drones are at the new cutting edge of military fighting. Meanwhile, secret laboratories around the world create viruses engineered for increased lethality.  These projects are described as having ‘dual-use’ military and civilian applications. The ‘dual-use’ distinction in emerging virus technology is impractical. As Justin Goodman of the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project, explains, ‘Creating deadly frankenviruses as “bioweapons” or for “biodefense” are two sides of […] #Featured #Government #HealthWellness #Investigations #ScienceResearch #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/01/sars-cov-2-covid-19-had-key-characteristics-of-a-bioweapon/?feed_id=7996

Earlier this month, China and the European Union concluded a bilateral summit, the first one since 2019. One usually wouldn’t expect that four years could change much, but that was precisely the case during the recent meeting. While the previous summit was largely focused on questions of economic cooperation and calls for the improvement of overall relations, this one was much more (geo)political, with the EU reiterating a near-carbon copy of American talking points. Although Brussels’ sovereignty and independence were always highly questionable, its subservience during this year’s meeting was more obvious than ever before. Beijing was faced with an implicitly hostile […] #Featured #Government #WarZone #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/12/latest-china-eu-summit-exposes-brussels-complete-lack-of-sovereignty/?feed_id=7604

As the mainstream propaganda machine was trying to present the supposed “new era of detente” between the United States and China (at least until President Joe Biden shot down their efforts with a single remark), the Pentagon was preparing for something completely different. Namely, the US military is in the process of deploying new medium-range missile systems to the increasingly contested Asia-Pacific region. According to General Charles A. Flynn, a four-star commanding officer of the US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the deployment is officially slated for next year and its purpose is to “deter China from invading Taiwan”. More importantly, Flynn revealed […] #Featured #WarZone #World Read Full Article: https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/11/china-in-crosshairs-as-us-deploys-land-based-medium-range-missiles-in-asia-pacific/?feed_id=6852