Macron rejects ‘confrontation’ as he relaunches Asia strategy

Macron rejects ‘confrontation’ as he relaunches Asia strategy

“We don’t believe in hegemony, we don’t believe in confrontation, we believe in stability,” Macron said.

Macron said a coordinated response was needed to tackle the overlapping crises facing the international community — from climate change to economic turmoil triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment,” he said.

“How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers.”

The Indo-Pacific Strategy doesn’t sound as innocent as Macron makes it out to be:

The new US Indo-Pacific Strategy document released in February has two interesting components, one overt and one covert. The document overtly declares the US is an “Indo-Pacific power.” Covertly, its aim is to “tighten the noose around China.” Arguably, minus the military might, China’s nearly a decade-long “Belt and Road Initiative” cannot be perceived as a grand national strategy aimed at controlling Eurasia or the Asia Pacific or any region for that matter. Yet the BRI is mythologized into such a geostrategic game-changer that it has rattled the US and its allies in the Asia Pacific. The BRI, at best, is nothing more than a mere geopolitical overland and maritime “chessboard” based on trade and investment.

BRI and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ Strategy: Geopolitical vs. Geostrategic

Attorney General Knudsen Calls On YouTube To Stop Censoring Firearms-Related Speech

HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen today called on YouTube to stop censoring legal firearm-related content on its platform, restore videos it removed which were all related to legal products and activities, and to “start acting like the platform it claims to be, instead of the publisher that it wishes it was.”

In a letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Attorney General Knudsen explained that the company recently removed a video from The Rogue Banshee’s channel, a Montana-based content creator, that provided instructions on how to finish construction of an “80% lower.” Even though incomplete lower receivers are not regulated as firearms by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and are legal, five Democrat U.S. Senators wrote a letter to YouTube asking them to censor and remove about a dozen videos related to them. YouTube complied.

Attorney General Knudsen Calls On YouTube To Stop Censoring Firearms-Related Speech

10/22/22 Patrick MacFarlane on the Populist Right’s Taiwan Hypocrisy

Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Ms. Cat’s Chronicles.

Scott is joined by Patrick MacFarlane, the Justin Raimondo Fellow at the Libertarian Institute, to discuss an article he wrote recently as well as the new direction he’s taking his podcast Vital Dissent. Scott and MacFarlane first dig into the growing tension between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan’s sovereignty. MacFarlane points out that some of the best opposition to both the policies that provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s subsequent response is from populist right-wingers. But those very same people throw all their logic out the window when the topic turns from Russia to China.

Discussed on the show:

Nothing But Welfare Queens: American Aid to Zelensky and Tsai Ing-wen

Vital Dissent

10/22/22 Patrick MacFarlane on the Populist Right’s Taiwan Hypocrisy

Taiwan bill looms, and it could pose ‘direct challenge’ for US-China ties

•Tensions are high, and the White House has tried to delay the Taiwan Policy Act that aims to upgrade ties with the island by designating it as a major non-Nato ally

•Observers say the bill ‘would overturn Sino-US relations’ and could prompt a stronger response from Beijing than House Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taipei

Taiwan bill looms, and it could pose ‘direct challenge’ for US-China ties

On The ‘Woke’ Flight To Taiwan + More

On The ‘Woke’ Flight To Taiwan

That too old ‘woke’ lady with the massive freezer full of very expensive ice-cream let it know through Taiwanese media that she wants to arrive in Taipei tomorrow, August 2, at 22:30 local time (14:30 UTC) and stay over night.

There is also this thought, by Cynthia Chung, which might become relevant:

In October 2019, Jake Sullivan, who became U.S. National Security Advisor in 2021, stated in an interview that the U.S. needed a clear threat to rally the world and play the role of saviour of mankind and that China could be that organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy. In the 2019 interview, he acknowledges that the problem was that people were not going to believe that China is a global threat, that their view of China is too positive and that the United States would need a “Pearl Harbour moment,” a real focusing event to change their minds, something he calmly stated that “would scare the hell out of the American people.”

She correctly traces such ‘Pearl Harbour moment’ thinking back to neo-conservative movement. Chung closes with this:

Thus, when Jake Sullivan observes that there is not enough anti-China sentiment to bolster an image of the United States as a “saviour of mankind” against China and that America is in need of a “Pearl Harbour moment” I would be very wary.

The circus around Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in the coming days, and evident glee that is coming forth from many of these neocons frothing at the mouth over this prospect is a clear sign that something incredibly reckless and stupid is about to happen.

Pelosi’s airplane might indeed be shot down on her completely irrelevant and unnecessary trip to Taiwan, and if it is, don’t be surprised if it was the Americans themselves who are behind it, who have shown they are willing to do anything for that “Pearl Harbour moment.”

Related:

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Nancy Pelosi’s husband buys millions worth of Nvidia stock ahead of chip-manufacturing bill vote + Newly sworn-in SEC commissioner is former Pelosi aide

Nancy Pelosi’s husband buys millions worth of Nvidia stock ahead of chip-manufacturing bill vote

It’s worth noting that Nvidia designs their owns chips, but hires other companies to manufacture them and likely would not directly receive benefits from subsidies related to this congressional bill.

Related:

Newly sworn-in SEC commissioner is former Pelosi aide

Chips and Dip: Congressional Trading in the Semiconductor Industry since 2020

The whale had to separate Speak Pelosi and Rep. Kim Schrier’s huge AAPL sell offs, as they make their House colleagues’ trades look like peanuts.