Caitlin Johnstone

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Absurd Guardian Article Declares China World’s Only Imperialist Power

Another cartoonishly ridiculous anti-China propaganda piece has been published in the western mass media, this time by The Guardian, which at this point could arguably be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda in the western world. It is authored by Simon Tisdall, who could most certainly be labeled the single most destructive…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Another cartoonishly ridiculous anti-China propaganda piece has been published in the western mass media, this time by The Guardian, which at this point could arguably be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda in the western world. It is authored by Simon Tisdall, who could most certainly be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda at The Guardian.

The article is titled “In China’s new age of imperialism, Xi Jinping gives thumbs down to democracy” and subtitled “Beijing is aiming for global ascendancy – but its leader’s vision of world dominion is centralised, oppressive and totalitarian.” None of these claims are substantiated in the text which follows.

It’s pretty cute how the only time you’ll ever see the word “imperialism” used in The Guardian (without scare quotes) is when it wants to criticize a nation the world’s actual imperialist dominator, the United States, doesn’t like. You will never see that word used to refer to the behavior of the cluster of US-aligned nations which functions as a single empire on foreign policy, nor to the government which has circled the planet with hundreds of military bases and works to kill, starve and subvert any population who refuses to be commanded, controlled, exploited or plundered.

In fact, Tisdall goes so far as to promote the hilarious idea that the days of any western power having imperialist inclinations are long gone.

“Imperialism, in all its awful forms, still poses a threat,” Tisdall writes. “But it is no longer the imperialism of the west, rightly execrated and self-condemned. Today’s threat emanates from the east. Just as objectionable, and potentially more dangerous, it’s the prospect of a totalitarian 21st-century Chinese global empire.”

Well cool. The western world at some point in history apparently renounced imperialism, and now the east is the only direction from whence that threat emanates. Not sure when that happened, but Tisdall appears quite certain that imperialism has been completely stomped out everywhere west of Xinjiang, including in the United States government.

“[N]ascent empires establish an (often delusional) narrative, or ‘mission statement’, to justify their activities,” Tisdall writes. “British imperialists claimed to be a civilising force, bringing law and Christianity to the great unwashed. The postwar American empire was, supposedly, all about championing democracy.”

“Was”. The postwar American empire, back in the days when it existed, “was” supposedly about championing democracy. You know, back when it would exert force upon nations on the basis that they were insufficiently democratic. Again, Tisdall does not say on what precise date this ended, or name the point in history when the entire US empire blipped out of existence.

This would be the same United States that is currently constructing long-range missile systems on a chain of islands near China’s coast for the explicit purpose of threatening China. One need only imagine what would happen if China began building long-range missile systems off a US coastline to understand who is the real imperialist aggressor between these two nations.

There exist all kinds of arguments that can be made about whether or not the Chinese government is imperialist and if so to what extent. What absolutely do not exist are arguments that China is more imperialist than the United States and its tight cluster of allies, or anywhere remotely close. The government which continually uses its military and economic might to bully and manipulate the world into aligning with its geostrategic interests is indisputably the more imperialist force, by a massive, massive margin.

 

As evidence for his pants-on-head gibbering lunatic position that China has completely supplanted all western powers as an imperialist force in our world and is trying to become a globe-dominating empire, Tisdall cites three points: (1) that China engages in trade, (2) that China has a single military base in Djibouti, and (3) that the US intelligence cartel has asserted that China plans on building a second military base in Equatorial Guinea, with perhaps more to follow.

“The first phase of China’s new imperial age is already in train. Xi’s ambitious belt and road investment and infrastructure initiative (BRI) touches 60 countries,” Tisdall writes. “China is the world’s largest trading nation and largest exporter, with $2.6tn worth of exports in 2019.”

So, trade. That’s trade. The idea that an investment and infrastructure plan rises to anywhere near the level of US wars which have killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century is risible.

“The CCP’s focus is meanwhile shifting to empire phase two: military bases,” says Tisdall. “US media reported last week that the port city of Bata in Equatorial Guinea could become China’s first Atlantic seaboard naval base – potentially putting warships and submarines within striking distance of America’s east coast.”

Antiwar’s Daniel Larison has a great article out mocking and debunking the foam-brained hysterical shrieking about how the completely unsubstantiated US intelligence claim that Beijing is trying to establish a military base in Equatorial Guinea “some six thousand nautical miles away from the US mainland” poses any threat to the United States.

“The US faces very few serious threats from other states, and the United States is extraordinarily secure from physical attack,” Larison writes. “To make other states seem remotely threatening to US security, the government and cooperative media outlets have to exaggerate the power of other states and inflate their ability to threaten Americans. Because of the huge mismatch between the demands of propaganda and the less alarming reality, this often creates absurd results.”

Absurd results indeed.

“China already has a naval base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa,” Tisdall writes. “It is said to be considering an island airbase in Kiribati that could in theory threaten Hawaii. Meanwhile, it continues to militarise atolls in the South China Sea. A Pentagon report last month predicted China will build a string of military bases girdling the world, including in the Arctic. CCP ‘target’ countries include Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya and Angola, it said.”

So, one single foreign military base in the whole entire world, plus a bunch of imagination and conjecture by military and intelligence operatives. This compared to the 750 military bases that the US actually, physically has around the world. Some “empire” you’ve got there, Xi.

Not only is it laughable to claim that the US is no longer imperialist, there’s not even any evidence that China seeks to replace it as the unipolar global hegemon. Western spinmeisters have been churning out think pieces for years claiming that China is trying to rule the world, but if you actually examine the basis for those claims all you’ll find is evidence that China wants a multipolar world of multiple powers as opposed to a unipolar one where the world is dominated by the US or any other nation.

As we discussed previously, it’s not like the floundering US empire has been making the business of planetary domination look sexy. The idea that every nation wants to dominate the world the way the US does is just a dopey projection by propaganda-addled western minds who’ve been programmed to believe the game of unipolar conquest is normal and desirable.

Tisdall also inserts the obligatory accusation of “genocide” that every western propagandist is required to bleat whenever the Chinese government is under discussion, which has been thoroughly discredited by many people and even the western media have been forced to walk back from as tourism surges in Xinjiang.

Tisdall also cites a quote by Xi Jinping saying that China will defend itself from those who try to bully, oppress or subjugate it as evidence that the leader has “combative ideas” and believes “imperial might makes right”:

“We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token we will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate [China],” he said. “Anyone who tries will find themselves on a collision course with a steel wall forged by 1.4 billion people.”

It is very revealing how many empire propagandists keep interpreting a warning that China will defend itself from aggressors as a menacing and aggressive act. Almost like they believe it is their right to bully, oppress and subjugate all nations without opposition or resistance.

Agreeing with Simon Tisdall on any foreign policy issue is nature’s way of telling you to revise your media consumption habits.

The mass media have been growing astonishingly forceful in their efforts to manipulate the world into being so terrified of China that they’ll consent to any agenda no matter how insane and dangerous. The more forceful they become with their manipulations, the more important it is to counter their lies.

We’re being shoved in a very bad direction at an increasingly frenetic pace. This is being done for a reason. Be alert.

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28 responses to “Absurd Guardian Article Declares China World’s Only Imperialist Power”

  1. John V. Doe Avatar
    John V. Doe

    In French, since Audiard invent it, we use to say “Les cons ça ose tout, c’est même à ça qu’on les reconnait” wich translates like “The idiots it dares all, it is even with that that one recognizes them”. But the word “con” is far more powerful than the simple “idiot”. Audouard even wrote a book about it. Fortunatelly, from now on, we can simply explain the word “con” to the english speaking guys: “you know, “con” is the word that perfectly describes Simon Tisdall”.

  2. Republicofscotland Avatar
    Republicofscotland

    The Guardian lost any credibility years ago, this website used to keep an eye its articles.

    https://off-guardian.org/

  3. Em Avatar
    Em

    Isn’t strange how Britain’s sudden removal of “all 11 countries” that had been on its “travel red list” are in Africa: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
    Pretty telling of its colonial racist past that they are still terrified that the African hordes are going to overrun them, now contaminated further by a lethal virus.
    Racism is the ineradicable virus and Britain is still the carrier.

  4. BB Benderhaus Avatar
    BB Benderhaus

    Define happy.

  5. zbigniew dzwonkowski Avatar
    zbigniew dzwonkowski

    Really happy people never get angry or aggressive… Really happy people never make wars, both small and big ones… Really happy people do have compassion for others… CONCLUSION : … USA is the most unhappy country on Earth….

  6. USA-ma Bin Laden Avatar
    USA-ma Bin Laden

    Like his Guardian paymasters, Simon Tisdall is representative of British Imperialist “progressives,” who specialize in deploying Leftish sounding phrases like “anti-imperialism” as propaganda weapons against enemy nations of their own British imperialist nation.

    In other words, Tisdall is a prime example of the quintessential Anglo American tactic: Psychological Projection or accusing other nations of what your nation is massively guilty of, not only in the past but today.

    The British are guilty of participating in every imperialist war that America has been waging for a generation and more: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, well as aiding its many covert wars and drone bombings.

    And speaking of military bases, guess which ersatz “non-imperialist” nation has 145 military installations in 42 “sovereign” nations around the planet–including 5 military sites in nations around China no less?

    The United Kingdom.

    The Sun Never Set on the British Empire, which continues today.

    REVEALED: The UK military’s overseas base network involves 145 sites in 42 countries
    https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-24-revealed-the-uk-militarys-overseas-base-network-involves-145-sites-in-42-countries/

  7. Jack Oliver Avatar
    Jack Oliver

    The TRUTH about the Uyghurs !!

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-02/The-War-in-the-Shadows-Challenges-of-Fighting-Terrorism-in-Xinjiang-Z7pLLRzm1i/index.html

  8. Jack Oliver Avatar
    Jack Oliver

    Rothschilds owned MSM can never regain credibility ( if they ever had any) and they OWN the western monetary system as well !

    Actually – people have NO future in the WEST as long as these psychopaths are in control !

  9. Johnny Avatar
    Johnny

    They don’t look like us (white).
    They don’t speak like us (English).
    They don’t go to the same churches (White Christian).
    They don’t have our history (Empire building).
    They are evil communists (As opposed to caring Capitalists).
    They don’t have rock n roll.
    They don’t have Hollywood.
    They MUST be the enemy.

  10. tjrich Avatar
    tjrich

    HA HA HA – Tisdall must have been from the school of “He hit me back fist!”

  11. John Knox Avatar
    John Knox

    I bet it has something to do with money. I don’t know about the UK, but in America the end of the year is when congress decides where the money goes. The rest of the session is spent writing resolutions and laws, but it’s around November and December that the “ways and means” type committees finally settle on where they want the money to go next year. It’s always a huge fight. The stakes are high and there’s a lot of pressure from lobbyists, especially from companies that sell weapons to the government. They want more money for defense and less for healthcare and social spending, and have a lot of influence. I don’t know if the Guardian specifically wants more $ for Raytheon, but the media in general has been going nuts about China’s supposed imperialism, and China hasn’t invaded anybody.

    1. Johnny Avatar
      Johnny

      ‘I bet it has something to do with money’
      Fucking highlarious
      The understatement of the century from a congregation member of the High Church Of Big Pharma.

      1. John Knox Avatar
        John Knox

        Tucker Carlson, Qanon and Aaron Rodgers agree with you. Noam Chomsky, the Cuban government and Dr. Fauci agree with me, as do the worlds leading virologists. You right wingers would rather see us all die than admit the libruls are right.

        1. zbigniew dzwonkowski Avatar
          zbigniew dzwonkowski

          It looks like Cubans could take over the USA when most of their citizens could die of Covid-19.

    2. Newton E. Finn Avatar
      Newton E. Finn

      The farce is that the money they’re squabbling over is fiat money, similar in nature to the points on a scoreboard. No basketball team, for example, can ever make enough points to end the game because no points are left. The bastards in charge know this, which is why there’s never a protest raised in the U.S. over how we’ll pay for another (criminal) tax cut for the rich or the starting of a another (criminal) war. Fiat money automatically applies to such things, but when it comes to spending on–better yet, investing in–people and planet, the immediate cries are how are we going to pay for it, there isn’t enough money, there’s nothing else we can cut back, it will cause inflation, etc. That’s MMT in a nutshell, and the fact that the bastards in charge publicly disparage it should induce the rest of us to take a hard look at it. The best place to start is Stephanie Kelton’s YouTube video called “Angry Birds.”

  12. Alan Ross Avatar
    Alan Ross

    How can Tisdall write this insane stuff? It must be satire.

  13. Ishkabibble Avatar
    Ishkabibble

    “The government which continually uses its military and economic might to bully and manipulate the world into aligning with its geostrategic interests is indisputably the more imperialist force, by a massive, massive margin.”
     
    Yes, but just exactly WHAT are people supposed top do after they’re all woke up to the horror of US bipartisan foreign policy — pick up a gun?; guillotine some VIPs?; march hand in hand down Penn. Ave. forever and demand, demand, demand that the Elite behave better, or else (or else WHAT)?
     
    Here’s what you are eventually going to HAVE TO DO because
     
    there. is. no. other. way.
     
    If you do not want More Of The Same that you’ve gotten after every election in the past, do not vote for another R or D, ever, no matter what an R or D promises! Jimmy Dore explains EXACTLY why.

  14. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Western journalism is increasingly turning into an art form, a work of imagination. It’s probably a natural evolution, already rubberstamped by society: within a few months, both Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson were acquitted, in two different defamation lawsuits, by two different judges who both ruled that their audiences didn’t expect them to tell them facts but opinions – which are protected by the First Amendment.
    Before photography was invented, realistic painters, like Constable, Millet or Church tried to reproduce landscapes as faithfully as possible for people who had no means to know the world as we do.
    By the last decades of the XIXth century, you could take photos of this and realistic painters were no longer needed. Instead, we got painters who projected their fantasies on reality like Van Gogh and later distorted it altogether, like Picasso or Dali, to create entire new worlds.
    Simon Tisdall is obviously in that phase of his journalistic evolution. At a time when hundreds of millions of people have cameras on their phones and send pictures in real time on the net, legacy reporters are outdated. Those of us old enough can remember the time when a terrorist attack in a hotel in Amman, Jordan, was reported “live” from Beirut, Lebanon (300 kms away) by the radio station’s correspondent in the Middle East, who was learning of the attack as he was reading “live” the same press agency wires that every subscriber was receiving all over the world. The two main press agencies, Reuters and AP (American Propaganda) had correspondents everywhere (a friend of a friend of a friend) who could furnish some hearsay details around which a plausible narrative could be built – and later debunked, which made two news.
    Of course, this was not very professional but they wrapped the job up with a statement from “a source speaking on condition of anonymity because he’s not allowed to talk to the press” (a CIA or MI6 contact pushing some agenda or other), tear-jerking comments by friends of the victims and condemnations of the cravenly attack by local politicians.
    The press agencies were the first to bullshit because, after Black Rock and Vanguard, which are to Wall Street what the reindeer-pulled sleigh is to Father Christmas, became their main shareholders, they had an agenda to push, that of Wall Street, brought to them by the CIA – founded by Wall Street bankers and lawyers to serve their interests.
    A legacy journalist can only repeat this establishment message or contradict it – which is equivalent to wearing a target on his back with the caption “I hate the Sinaloa cartel” while travelling through north-west Mexico.
    Or, like the modern painters, he can improvise along those lines. He knows that projecting his own paranoia can only come handy to the folks who want military budget increases and it just happens that these dudes also have a say when it comes to deciding who’s gonna get a ribbon or be allowed to put “Sir” before their names. And the public, as above mentioned, prefers opinions – matching their own – to facts anyway. So what the hell?

  15. pretzelattack Avatar
    pretzelattack

    I’m remaining alert, but what can we do? the propaganda is working–I see it all the time on various comment threads. People in a frenzy talking about “we need to nuke (insert relevant country) back to the stone age!”, blissfully unaware that missiles fly both ways. Pretty soon I almost expect duck and cover drills when I go grocery shopping.

  16. svay Avatar
    svay

    “It is very revealing how many empire propagandists keep interpreting a warning that China will defend itself from aggressors as a menacing and aggressive act. Almost like they believe it is their right to bully, oppress and subjugate all nations without opposition or resistance.”
    It makes perfect sense to empire propagandists and those who believe them. China is evil; defending evil is itself evil; therefore China has no right to defend itself. I know people who seem to think like this, even if they don’t come out and say it so explicitly. Point out to them, say, the USA’s hundreds of foreign military bases versus China’s one, with perhaps two or three in the pipeline, and all they can see is the threat from those one or two or three, and the need for more military force from the empire to counter them.
    .
    On a brighter note, some choice words for the US from Cambodia’s Prime Minister:
    “I take this opportunity to thank the US for its decision to ban the sale of weapons and military equipment to Cambodia. This demonstrates the wisdom of the decision I made in 1994 when I elected not to change our weapons systems over to US-models.

    “I’ve also issued an order to all units of the armed forces to immediately review the weapons and military equipment that Cambodia currently possesses and to put all US-made hardware, if any, into storage or simply smash it to pieces,” he said.
    And from the Minister of Defence:
    Minister of National Defence Tea Banh told The Post on December 12 that there are a moderate amount of US-made weapons in the Kingdom, but they were all imported by the Lon Nol regime in the early 1970’s or dropped onto Cambodian territory by former US President Richard Nixon in an illegal bombing campaign around that same time, which used more explosives on Cambodia than the Allied powers did during all of World War II and played a factor in his eventual impeachment and resignation.
    https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/kingdom-not-affected-us-arms-embargo

  17. Christian J. Chuba Avatar
    Christian J. Chuba

    Caitlin, it’s hard for me to read your columns because your headlines are so brilliant that I cannot recover my composure to read them.

  18. BeliTsari Avatar
    BeliTsari

    If we disbelieve, what we’re told we DO believe… we’re obviously RooskiBot, BLM, Antifa, BernieBro uppity essentials. We’ve ALWAYS been at was with EastAsia, an’at?

    https://pressgazette.co.uk/alan-rusbridger-falls-on-his-sword-rather-than-chair-scott-trust-opposed-by-editor-and-chief-executive/

    https://youtu.be/XUfmo80kAxI?t=210

    https://mronline.org/2021/12/13/ten-contradictions-that-plague-bidens-democracy-summit/

    https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/12/6/22821677/nyc-de-blasio-withheld-covid-neighborhood-death-data

  19. archeon Avatar
    archeon

    On one side of the ledger is the money a country earns from exports and the tax it collects.
    On the other side of the ledger is the money a country spends on imports and the expenses of its government.
    Because America and the Collective West live far beyond their means, they borrow and print money to make up the shortfall.
    America has the privilege of world reserve currency and partly pays for its imports with dollars printed out of thin air. The Euro and British Pound also debase their currency by printing with nothing but their reputation to back it up.
    This experiment has been tried and failed many times, this time is not different. These ponzi schemes will fail. These countries will have to pay their bills in a currency they can not print out of thin air.
    The flood of these currencies is causing inflation and the carnage is just getting started.
    The Empire is collapsing.
    America and the Collective West will be third place on the Global Pecking Order, and falling.
    This is why we dare to contemplate a war against China, Russia or Iran.
    Or all three together, for they will fight together to prevent being picked off one by one.
    It is insane, but the idea of treating Russia and China as equals is even worse.
    Treating them as our superior’s is beyond contemplation.
    War is coming.

    1. BB Benderhaus Avatar
      BB Benderhaus

      No better way to reduce world population and lessen the burden on the planet resources than with war. Also it gives the survivors something to do by rebuilding from the rubble. A truly sick agenda.

  20. Censored Avatar
    Censored

    Antony Blinken makes an official statement before the world: “We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token we will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate [the U.S.].” People all over the world drop to their knees in laughter. Then, after regaining their composure, begin struggling with dry heaves.
    https://seaclearly.com/2020/11/29/what-is-left-to-be-trusted

    1. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
      Carolyn L Zaremba

      Hear, hear. Where is my sick bag?

    2. pretzelattack Avatar
      pretzelattack

      I’m waiting to hear Wynken and Nod’s perspectives. They’re selling us bedtime stories, hoping we won’t wake up till millions of us can’t wake up anymore.

  21. Hillybilly Yogi Avatar
    Hillybilly Yogi

    Tisdall’s comment – straight out of the Democrat Party play book – blame the opposition for doing exactly what you are doing. All lies and propaganda designed to justify a disastrous and murderous war.

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