Peter Myers Digest: After Trump: China vs USA rivalry will intensify; and America's culture war will intensify

(1) China vs USA rivalry will intensify after Trump: 'in the next 10 years, there will be no global leader'(2) America's culture wars will intensify after Trump - The Economist(3) Reforming America's police is a necessary but painful process - The Economist(4) Fight over gun control will move from the White House to the courts - The Economist(5) Asian people admire Trump in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and also China(6) Taiwan survived Covid without Lockdown - The Economist(7) China's economic espionage - John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence(8) Barr appoints John Durham as a Special Counsel on the origins of the Russia probe(9) Chinese scientists have built a hypersonic engine that could power a hypersonic plane(10) "Quantum Supremacy" - China's New Supercomputer "10 Billion Times Faster" Than Google's(11) Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple, suppporters of BLM, lobbying against a US ban on products produced by Uighur slave labor(12) New World Order - Masonic or Jewish?(13) Nasdaq orders listed companies to appoint women & LGBT or other 'diverse' directors to BoardToday's prognosis for 2021 comes from The Economist. Might as well get it from the horse's mouth. - Peter M.(1) China vs USA rivalry will intensify after Trump: 'in the next 10 years, there will be no global leader'https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3112336/china-must-stop-wishful-thinking-rivalry-us-will-end-bidenChina must stop ‘wishful thinking’ that rivalry with US will end with BidenChinese foreign relations expert Yan Xuetong predicts decade of uneasy peace as competition continues between two powersClearly defining competitive relationship would give Beijing and Washington common ground to avoid escalation, he saysLiu Zhen in BeijingPublished: 1:02pm, 3 Dec, 2020The incoming administration of US president-elect Joe Biden will not mean an end to tensions with China, according to a foreign relations expert in Beijing.China must stop "wishful thinking" about the incoming Biden administration and clearly define the nature of its relationship with the US as a competition, according to a leading Chinese foreign relations expert.Yan Xuetong, Dean of the Institute of International Relations at Beijing’s Tsinghua University said there would be an "uneasy peace" in the decade ahead, featuring an increasingly fierce rivalry between the two great powers, and hedging policy moves from smaller parties."Unpredictability, uncertainty will still be the basic characteristic of the coming years," Yan said on Wednesday at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, China’s top international platform for dialogue on defence and security issues. "The world will definitely become more chaotic."Yan said he was not optimistic about president-elect Joe Biden’s China policy, which he predicted would shift from the trade war into frictions in the political realm, without lowering the scale and intensity of clashes between the two countries."Biden will take a multilateral approach and the pressure on China will increase rather than decrease," he said, adding that human rights and other ideological values were part of the policy goals pursued by Biden and the Democrats, compared to Donald Trump and Republicans who saw them more as geopolitical tools."He will take a harder line and invest more resources in these issues, resulting in more serious conflicts," Yan said.But he said some in China were reluctant to accept that tensions would continue and were talking too much about cooperation with the US. "I think many people wishfully believe that by denying the competition it will disappear," he said.Yan said China should reach a consensus with the US that competition was at the core of their relationship, which would give the two powers a common ground for pragmatic discussions on how to manage and prevent it from escalating into war."When you can’t manage competition, talking about cooperation is meaningless," he said.The China-US rivalry differed from the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union and would make the world even less safe, despite the possibility that nuclear deterrence may still effectively prevent a major war. "Because in the next 10 years, there will be no global leader," Yan said.While the US and USSR had each provided leadership to their own blocs – and had jointly led the world on some issues – neither China nor the US  could dominate the Asia-Pacific region, and neither had the resources or capability of maintaining the current order, he said."The US cannot accept China as its equal, but China demands it, so something like the Franco-Germany joint leadership in Europe is also impossible."Yan said under such a bipolar configuration, third parties would tend to hedge strategically between the two, dramatically increasing uncertainty and challenging trust among many traditional allies. "International norms will be violated, a lot," he said.(2) America's culture wars will intensify after Trump - The Economisthttps://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2020/11/17/americas-culture-wars-will-intensifyAmerica's culture wars will intensifyThe defeat of Donald Trump will not helpThe World AheadNov 17th 2020BY JON FASMAN: WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ECONOMISTWASHINGTON, DCBERNIE SANDERS and Elizabeth Warren had more passionate fans. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg were more poised speakers. But Joe Biden had something other Democratic candidates lacked: faith that he could bring Democrats and Republicans together. Many considered this naive and unrealistic. But it appealed to enough voters to propel him past his more strident challengers in the primary, and then to defeat the most divisive president in modern history.It is not hard to see why. The past four years—and to a lesser extent, the eight before that, under Barack Obama—have been a period of intense cultural and political polarisation in America. Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans do not just hold different views on, say, gay marriage and tax rates. They inhabit different universes and increasingly distrust each other.Two months before the 2020 election, a poll showed that over 40% of Americans of both parties believed violence would be justified if the other side's candidate won the election. Most presidents, including Mr Obama, saw such deep antipathy as damaging, both to national unity and to their political prospects. At least rhetorically, virtually all presidents have tried to broaden their appeal once in office.Mr Trump never did. He exploited and inflamed division, like the reality-television star he was before entering office, rather than trying to heal it. Small wonder that over 75m Americans rallied to Mr Biden's plea for unity. Ordinarily such appeals would be routine for an American politician. But these were not ordinary times. With Mr Trump appealing to his base, and the woke left appealing to theirs, the vast American middle found its tribune in Mr Biden, an ageing career politician who ably met his moment.Even so, he will be unable to deliver the unity he promised. That is not his fault: nobody could. Partisanship and division sell. Rush Limbaugh and "The Daily Show" are not going away just because Mr Trump lost and Mr Biden prefers unity. Social media lets Americans have their political views constantly confirmed rather than challenged.Gone are the days of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans regularly crossing the aisle. Today political parties are almost wholly aligned along cultural and ideological fault-lines. Most senators and representatives hold safe seats where they have more to fear from a more radical primary challenger within their own party than an opposition candidate.Even if Mr Biden had won the landslide that the left hoped for, America would have remained deeply divided; he might just have had an easier time getting legislation through Congress. Soon after taking office on January 20th, he will urge all Americans to wear masks; adherence to that suggestion will almost certainly be greater in Democratic- than Republican-leaning areas. Several cases in the Supreme Court's pipeline may severely restrict abortion rights without directly outlawing it. The battles over those cases will be no less intense just because Mr Biden sits in the White House. No politician can force Americans to end their country's culture wars. They must decide to do that themselves.Jon Fasman: Washington correspondent, The Economist ?This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World in 2021 under the headline "Long division"(3) Reforming America's police is a necessary but painful process - The EconomistReforming America's police is a necessary but painful processMany proposed reforms are sensible but implementing them won't be easyThe World AheadNov 17th 2020BY JON FASMAN: WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ECONOMISTNEW YORKON AUGUST 9TH 2014 Michael Brown, a young unarmed black man, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri. The circumstances of Brown's death remain disputed. Some claim he had his hands raised in surrender; Mr Wilson said that Brown punched him, charged at him, tried to grab his gun and reached towards his waistband, as if to pull out a gun of his own. Weeks of protests in Ferguson followed. And although a Justice Department investigation cleared Mr Wilson, police officers were all required to adopt body-worn cameras (bodycams).On May 25th 2020 Derek Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis, knelt on the neck of George Floyd—an unarmed, handcuffed black man—for nearly nine minutes, asphyxiating him. The footage of Floyd's death sparked weeks of protests, and shifted national opinion on police reform. Protestors urged politicians to "defund the police" and, though those calls have died down, some Democratic governors and legislators have enacted policies to increase police oversight and transparency. The coming year will determine how widespread change will be.Only a few of America's 18,000 law-enforcement agencies are federal; most are governed by states, cities and counties. But the federal government can do two things to advance police reform. First, it can change federal law. A bill that passed the Democratic-led House in June, for instance, made using chokeholds a civil-rights violation, and withheld federal grant funds from jurisdictions that do not ban them. It also eroded personal-liability protections for police officers, and conditioned federal funding on departments banning racial profiling. Joe Biden's progressive criminal-justice platform contains many of these measures, but his ability to enact them will depend partly on whether Democrats control the Senate, which will not be determined until after two run-off elections in Georgia on January 5th.Second, the Justice Department can investigate police forces accused of persistent misconduct that contravenes citizens' constitutional rights. If it finds such a pattern, it usually enters into a "consent decree" with that force—an agreement that lays out a detailed plan for reform, overseen by a federal judge. Barack Obama's administration used consent decrees to encourage police reform in at least 20 jurisdictions. Donald Trump curtailed the practice. Joe Biden has pledged to revive it.Some governors and state legislators have already sprung into action. Probably more than half of America's law-enforcement agencies equip some officers with bodycams, and at least six states have passed statewide laws; New York joined their ranks in June. New York also banned chokeholds like the one that killed Floyd, created an independent office to investigate misconduct allegations, required officers to report gun firings within six hours and repealed a law that kept police disciplinary records secret. The state required courts to collect and publish demographic data on low-level offences, so the public can determine, say, whether police departments stop a disproportionate number of non-white drivers. Colorado has also expanded reporting requirements. New Jersey has ordered departments to identify officers punished for misconduct. Other examples abound, particularly in Democratic-controlled states and cities.To many activists, this is only the beginning. For all the ink spilled over inchoate demands to "abolish" or "defund" the police, many proposals are more concrete. Campaign Zero, a push for reform that grew out of the tragic events in Ferguson, advocates eight policy changes which it claims could reduce police violence by nearly three-quarters. The list includes banning chokeholds and shooting at moving vehicles, requiring de-escalation and warnings before opening fire, and mandating that police stop fellow officers they see using excessive force and report every time they threaten or use force.These are common-sense reforms, but bitterly opposed by many police departments. The chances of such changes being implemented are far greater in places under Democratic rather than Republican control.Jon Fasman: Washington correspondent, The Economist ?This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World in 2021 under the headline "Police on the line"(4) Fight over gun control will move from the White House to the courts - The Economisthttps://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2020/11/17/attempts-at-tighter-gun-control-laws-will-make-headlinesAttempts at tighter gun control laws will make headlinesThe fight will move from the White House to the courtsThe World AheadNov 17th 2020BY ALEXANDRA SUICH BASS: SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY, THE ECONOMISTDALLASACCORDING TO THE Chinese zodiac, 2020 was the year of the rat. In America it was the year of the gun. More guns were sold in 2020 than in any previous year. Amid widespread anxiety about the coronavirus and social unrest, 5m more guns were sold than otherwise would have been, according to Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight, professors at Wellesley College. In the first nine months of the year 29m federal background-checks were submitted for firearms, 84% more than in the same period five years earlier. (Not all background checks correspond to a sale.) First-time gun-buyers waited in queues more reminiscent of rock concerts than retail. On one Saturday in July, the wait to enter the gun show being held at a Dallas convention centre was more than two hours.America already has the highest per-person rate of gun ownership in the world. It has more guns than people and more mass shootings than any other rich country. But if 2020 was the year of the gun, 2021 will be the year that gun control gets more attention. There are four places to watch.First is the White House. As president, Donald Trump played to his pro-gun supporters and unwound existing restrictions where he could. Joe Biden, by contrast, will set his sights on gun control. As a senator in the 1990s, Mr Biden helped enact the current federal background-check system, and the assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004. As president, he has promised to pursue another such ban, although it would be politically contentious. He is more likely to expand universal background-checks by closing loopholes for gun sales and transfers.Second, pay attention to the Supreme Court. The newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, could second-guess many long-standing gun-control laws, predicts Adam Winkler, author of "Gun Fight" and a professor at UCLA Law School. For example, she may call into question state laws that ban felons from owning firearms and that remove guns from people who are mentally ill. This is bad news for supporters of gun control. Historically the Supreme Court has been loth to take up new Second Amendment cases—in the spring of 2020 alone it turned down ten—but this will change with Ms Barrett on the bench.Third, watch the states. Blue states, like California, will push for more restrictive laws, while red states will try to expand people's ability to carry guns without a permit. Americans' views on guns have shifted after so many mass shootings, and this is evident in the unprecedented attention politicians at the state and federal level are giving gun control, says Joseph Sakran, a surgeon and activist.Fourth, keep an eye on on the National Rifle Association (NRA). A powerful force in American politics, the non-profit group has attacked gun-control efforts in the past but will be under attack itself in 2021. New York's attorney-general has sued the organisation and is trying to shut it down, and the Internal Revenue Service is reportedly investigating the NRA's president for possible tax fraud. This will reverberate in the fight over gun-control policy. No longer does a weaker NRA seem like a long shot.Alexandra Suich Bass: senior correspondent, politics, technology and society, The Economist ?This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World in 2021 under the headline "Block, stock and barrel"(5) Asian people admire Trump in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and also Chinahttps://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-so-many-in-asia-support-trump-by-ian-buruma-2020-12Who Still Loves Trump?Dec 2, 2020IAN BURUMAMost Europeans and a majority of Americans are overjoyed that they will soon see the back of US President Donald Trump. But Trump retains an allure to many in Asia not only for standing up to China, but also for his boorish political incorrectness, which is viewed as both refreshing and principled.NEW YORK – Apart from 74 million voters in the United States, who still approves of President Donald Trump? Most Europeans are overjoyed to see the back of him. But he has been popular with a number of right-wing strongmen and demagogues, and many of their followers. His admiration for autocrats, his disdain for immigrants, racial minorities, and Muslims (except for a few Saudi princes), and his contempt for liberal democratic norms boosted authoritarian governments in Hungary, Poland, Brazil, India, and the Philippines. His esteem for Russian President Vladimir Putin was never in doubt.Trump's election defeat is a setback for the global populist right. While many of its leaders will survive him, an already-rampant anti-liberal movement probably would have grown even stronger with a triumphant champion of its cause in the White House.Trump also found support among a majority of the population in two democratic countries, Israel and Taiwan, where he was seen as the most powerful enemy of their enemies, Iran and the People's Republic of China, respectively.Israel's right-wing prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, got everything he wanted from the Trump administration. The Palestinians got nothing. Israel's most fanatical supporters in the US are also, by and large, Trump's supporters; not American Jews, who mostly voted for Joe Biden, but evangelical Christians, who believe that God gave the Holy Land to the Chosen People, at least until the second coming of Christ, after which Jews will have to become Christians.But it is in East Asia where Trump's popularity is most interesting, especially because many of his supporters are neither right wing nor anti-liberal – often quite the opposite. True, some people in China share Trump's fear of Muslims, but that is not the main reason for pro-Trump sentiment.Earlier this year, I spoke to pro-democracy activists and politicians in Hong Kong and Taiwan, who saw Trump as a coarse but powerful leader of the free world against communist tyranny. The US flag was rarely absent from public demonstrations in Hong Kong and election rallies for the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan.Here, too, the influence of Christianity plays a part. One of the bravest democracy activists in Hong Kong is the entrepreneur and newspaper tycoon Jimmy Lai. Ever since the handover of the former British colony to China in 1997, Lai has been at the forefront of the struggle for greater civic freedom. He is also a fervent Catholic convert who believes that the battle between democracy and Chinese communist dictatorship is a clash of civilizations between the Christian free world and an atavistic, despotic China.Quite a few Christian Chinese dissidents share Lai's view. They believe that liberal democracy is a product of Western civilization, which is true. Their view that democracy would not have been possible without the Christian faith (ancient Greece is conveniently forgotten) is more debatable. The notion that Asians can't be true democrats if they aren't Christians is demonstrably false.But there is more to the Chinese infatuation with Trump. As Ian Johnson recently wrote in the New York Times, some liberal dissidents in China are disturbed by the culture wars in the US. They view zealotry on the American left through the lens of their own far more violent history. When they see people hounded for ideological impurity, they see the ghosts of Mao's Red Guards. To them, Trump's boorish political incorrectness is a refreshing counterblast.Still, the main reason why people admire Trump in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and also China, is fear of the Chinese regime. Despite his sporadic fawning over Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump is seen as the man who stood up to China. This is his most important legacy in the eyes of those who believe the world is divided between two great powers, one still democratic, and the other nominally communist.Of course, in certain countries, China's power has been feared for many centuries, irrespective of who happens to be in power, emperors or communists. Many Vietnamese praise Trump, but not because they are ruled by autocratic communists themselves. Although the US devastated much of Vietnam in the last century, China is the traditional enemy.South Korean and Japanese attitudes to the US are more ambivalent. Trump has his supporters in those countries, but, unlike in Taiwan, not among the majority of people. While Chinese power is often felt as a threat in both countries, dependence on the US for security has both been a necessity and an irritant. A swaggering bully in the White House raises the level of irritation. President-elect Joe Biden will almost certainly be a more popular bearer of the American burden in East Asia.Biden's relations with China will also likely be less erratic and more diplomatic. But the basic tensions between a democratic superpower and an autocratic one will remain – and worsen if China sustains its economic success. In an age of rising disillusion with democratic government, China is a seductive model to many people. Just compare Chinese trains, airports, and other modern conveniences to America's run-down infrastructure.Whether the trains run on time is of course not the only, or perhaps even the best, yardstick for good government. Mussolini's trains famously (if apocryphally) ran on time as well. At least the US has shown the world that the rascal in power can still be voted out. But if America is to be held up as a model to counter the Chinese system, then its last president has done everything in his power to make it look like the less attractive one.(6) Taiwan survived Covid without Lockdown - The Economisthttps://www.economist.com/asia/2020/12/02/covid-19-has-ravaged-economies-all-over-the-world-but-not-taiwanshttps://nodebe4.github.io/waimei/2020-12-02/Covid-19-has-ravaged-economies-all-over-the-worldCovid-19 has ravaged economies all over the world—but not Taiwan'sIt has fended off an epidemic and is welcoming back firms that had decamped to ChinaDec 2nd 2020TAOYUANTHREE YEARS ago a prominent scholar declared that Taiwan's economy was "on the brink of death". The wording was extreme but the sentiment was widely shared. Taiwan faced a litany of seemingly intractable problems. Many of its best companies had moved to China; wages were stagnant; growth was grinding ever lower and the population was ageing rapidly. Its glory days as an Asian tiger—celebrated for its rapid development—seemed firmly in the past.Yet in 2020 Taiwan has turned the clock back: it is, again, one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Granted, its GDP is projected to expand by only about 2% this year. But it is in rare company, with fewer than a dozen economies expected to grow at all, thanks to the coronavirus. For the first time in decades, Taiwan's economy is likely to grow faster than China's. The question is whether Taiwan's surprising strength marks a new departure, or whether it is simply a brief deviation from continued descent.Two factors tied to the pandemic help account for Taiwan's relative success this year. First, it was the only country to contain covid-19 without sweeping closures of schools, offices and shops. Its government, alert to new diseases in China, started screening visitors from Wuhan at the end of 2019, as soon as reports emerged of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak. Thanks to fine-grained contact-tracing and near-universal mask-wearing, life has carried on more or less as normal. Since July revenues for retailers and restaurants alike have increased compared with a year earlier.Second, Taiwan's manufacturers have been well-positioned to cater to global demand, such as it is. From tiny semiconductors to giant computer servers, electronics account for a third of Taiwan's exports. With so many people suddenly forced to work from home, sales of products such as tablet computers and headphones have been strong. So while global trade this year will shrink by about 10%, Taiwan's exports are up by nearly 5%.Both these sources of out-performance will presumably fade when the pandemic ebbs. Taiwan has also, however, been a beneficiary of tensions between China and America. Taiwanese firms that had previously invested in China have shifted some of their operations back home, in order to avoid American tariffs. Those returning include Giant, a bicycle producer, Long Chen, a paper company, and Compal, a computer manufacturer. Investments in factories and other fixed assets in Taiwan reached an all-time high last year at NT$4.3trn ($150bn), and are on track for a new record this year (see chart).The clanging reverberating through Hwa Ya Technology Park in Taoyuan, a big city in the north of the island, is evidence of the construction boom. Quanta Computer, one of the world's biggest electronics manufacturers, is stepping up domestic production of sophisticated servers that it once made in China. And workers are tearing down blue plastic scaffolding covering an even larger server factory being built for NT$15bn ($525m). "It will be ready quickly," a helmeted worker says cheerfully.Some in Taiwan worry that this momentum, catalysed by Donald Trump's trade policies, will fizzle out when Joe Biden enters the White House. Although Mr Biden has pledged to take a hard line on China, he may be willing to roll back tariffs. But Gordon Sun of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research thinks Taiwanese companies will continue to diversify away from China. "They cannot afford to get caught in another trade war, even if the possibility is low," he says.The return to Taiwan, if sustained, would partly address one of the concerns hanging over its future: the relentless migration of good companies and good jobs to China. Some 400,000 Taiwanese, about 2% of its population, now live across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese businesses speak with trepidation about the emergence of a "red supply chain" in China that will soon challenge the likes of Foxconn, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer which makes most of Apple's iPhones. Competition from China has also contributed to anemic wage-growth in Taiwan. Adjusted for inflation, salaries have been flat since 2000, averaging just under $20,000 a year.Yet the surge in investment in Taiwan has clear limits. President Tsai Ing-wen often refers to the country's "five shortages", shorthand for its finite supply of land, water, power, workers and talent. Only so much can be done on a small island that is committed to phasing out nuclear power and that has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Taiwan's population officially started shrinking this year, and the government forecasts that it will drop from 24m today to 16m in 2070.Added to these chronic woes are the hard realities of Taiwan's reliance on China. Nearly 40% of Taiwan's exports go to China and Hong Kong. "Taiwan can't just get rid of China's economy and search for other growth engines," says Chen Chien-liang, an economist who served under Ms Tsai's predecessor, who tried to draw closer to China.The saving grace for Taiwan is that China needs Taiwanese products as much as Taiwanese firms need the Chinese market. Chinese firms are still far from matching the wizardry of TSMC, the Taiwanese company that churns out the world's most advanced semiconductors. China has done nothing worse to the Taiwanese economy this year than limit the flow of tourists from the mainland (ironically, this may have helped insulate Taiwan from covid-19). America may in fact do more damage if it promulgates new rules that prevent tsmc from working with Chinese customers such as Huawei, a telecoms giant.For Liang Kuo-yuan of the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute the economic prescription for Taiwan is simple, if tough to pull off. The island must make itself as indispensable in industries such as medical devices and batteries, he says, as it has in semiconductors. Such high-value niches will help protect Taiwan from Chinese pressure, and will also fit with Taiwan's limited resources and falling population.A single year of impressive growth does not move Taiwan closer to that objective. Mr Liang, for one, frets that China is outdoing Taiwan in its long-term economic planning. But stellar performance in this most challenging year has at least given many in Taiwan a shot of confidence, after years of gloom. Across the road from the Hwa Ya Technology Park in Taoyuan, Chris Liang runs a small restaurant. Among his customers from tech firms, the change in sentiment has been almost palpable, he says. "Our epidemic control has changed people's attitudes about the economy. People are more optimistic."(7) China's economic espionage - John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligencehttps://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-national-security-threat-no-1-11607019599https://den.social/l/redpills/NeVm4qu3rf/china-is-national-security-threat-no-1-archiving-this/China Is National Security Threat No. 1Resisting Beijing's attempt to reshape and dominate the world is the challenge of our generation.By John RatcliffeMr. Ratcliffe is U.S. director of national intelligence.Dec. 3, 2020 1:20 pm ETAs Director of National Intelligence, I am entrusted with access to more intelligence than any member of the U.S. government other than the president. I oversee the intelligence agencies, and my office produces the President's Daily Brief detailing the threats facing the country. If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the People's Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China's major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.I call its approach of economic espionage "rob, replicate and replace." China robs U.S. companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology, and then replaces the U.S. firms in the global marketplace.Take Sinovel. In 2018 a federal jury found the Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer guilty of stealing trade secrets from American Superconductor . Penalties were imposed but the damage was done. The theft resulted in the U.S. company losing more than $1 billion in shareholder value and cutting 700 jobs. Today Sinovel sells wind turbines world-wide as if it built a legitimate business through ingenuity and hard work rather than theft.The FBI frequently arrests Chinese nationals for stealing research-and-development secrets. Until the head of Harvard's Chemistry Department was arrested earlier this year, China was allegedly paying him $50,000 a month as part of a plan to attract top scientists and reward them for stealing information. The professor has pleaded not guilty to making false statements to U.S. authorities. Three scientists were ousted in 2019 from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston over concerns about China's theft of cancer research. The U.S. government estimates that China's intellectual-property theft costs America as much as $500 billion a year, or between $4,000 and $6,000 per U.S. household.China also steals sensitive U.S. defense technology to fuel President Xi Jinping's aggressive plan to make China the world's foremost military power. [...]We shouldn't assume that Beijing's efforts to drag the world back into the dark will fail just because the forces of good have triumphed before in modern times. China believes that a global order without it at the top is a historical aberration. It aims to change that and reverse the spread of liberty around the world.Beijing is preparing for an open-ended period of confrontation with the U.S. Washington should also be prepared. Leaders must work across partisan divides to understand the threat, speak about it openly, and take action to address it.This is our once-in-a-generation challenge. Americans have always risen to the moment, from defeating the scourge of fascism to bringing down the Iron Curtain. This generation will be judged by its response to China's effort to reshape the world in its own image and replace America as the dominant superpower. The intelligence is clear. Our response must be as well.(8) Barr appoints John Durham as a Special Counsel on the origins of the Russia probehttps://www.zerohedge.com/political/barrs-appointment-special-counsel-leaves-biden-and-democrats-muddleBarr's Appointment Of Special Counsel Leaves Biden And Democrats In A MuddleFri, 12/04/2020 - 12:05Authored by Jonathan Turley.Attorney General Bill Barr made two important evidentiary decisions yesterday that delivered body blows to both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. First, Barr declared that the Justice Department has not found evidence of systemic fraud in the election. Second, he declared that there was sufficient evidence to appoint United States Attorney John Durham as a Special Counsel on the origins of the Russia probe. The move confirmed that, in a chaotic and spinning political galaxy, Bill Barr remains the one fixed and immovable object.By appointing Durham as a Special Counsel, Barr contradicted news reports before the election that Durham was frustrated and found nothing of significance despite Barr's pressure. Some of us expressed doubts over those reports since Durham asked for this investigation to be upgraded to a criminal matter, secured the criminal plea of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, and asked recently for over a thousand pages of classified intelligence material.Under the Justice Department regulations, Barr had to find (and Durham apparently agreed) that there is need for additional criminal investigation and "[t]hat investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances." He must also find the appointment in the public interest.Notably, the investigation of Clinesmith is effectively completed. So, what is the criminal investigation and what is the conflict?Developing conflictsPresumably, the conflict is not in the current administration since it would have required an earlier appointment. The conflict would seem to be found in the upcoming Biden administration.Some conflicts developing seem obvious as Biden turns to a host of former Obama officials for positions, including the possible selection of Sally Yates as Attorney General. Yates was directly involved in the Russian investigation and signed off on the controversial surveillance of Trump associate Carter Page. She now says that she would never have signed the application if she knew what she knows today.Durham is now authorized to investigate anyone who may have "violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III."The list of the names of people falling within that mandate is a who's who of Washington from Hillary Clinton to James Comey to . . . yes . . . Joe Biden.Bizarrely, reports have claimed that Trump was irate at the move as a "smokescreen" to delay the release of the report. That ignores not just the legal but political significance of the action. From a political perspective, the move is so elegantly lethal that it would make Machiavelli green with envy.Over the last few months, Democrats appeared to be laying the foundation to scuttle the Durham investigation as well as any investigation into the Hunter Biden influence peddling scheme. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) denounced the Durham investigation as "tainted" and "political." On the campaign trail, Biden himself dismissed the "investigation of the investigators." Over in the Senate, Democrats joined in the mantra with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and others denouncing the continued investigations.By converting Durham into a special counsel, Barr makes it harder to fire him. It is not uncommon for presidents to replace all U.S. Attorneys with political allies. Durham however is now a Special Counsel and his replacement or the termination of his investigation would be viewed as an obstructive act. Indeed, when Trump even suggested such a course of action, he was accused of obstruction by a host of Democratic politicians and legal experts.The appointment also makes a public report more likely. While Durham already secured a conviction, prosecutors do not ordinarily prepare reports. Special counsels do. Moreover, with the Mueller report, virtually every Democratic leader demanded that the report be released with no or few redactions. ...The Durham appointment will now force Democrats to answer why they do not support the same public release of the report so that voters can "draw our own conclusions."Complicating Sally Yates' nominationThe move also complicates the nomination of Sally Yates, who is widely cited as a front-runner for the position of Attorney General. Yates would be placed in an even more precarious position than Jeff Sessions who recused himself to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest at the state of the Trump administration. Yates has a clear and obvious conflict. She played a role in the earlier Russian investigation. That investigation was based in part on the "Steele dossier," a report by a former British spy which has been shown to be unreliable and flawed. American intelligence warned that Steele's main source was a likely Russian agent and the dossier may have been used for Russian disinformation. While the Clinton campaign repeatedly denied funding the dossier during the election, reporters later showed that it lied after finding a money trail through Clinton's campaign legal counsel. Most recently, it was disclosed that President Obama was briefed on an American intelligence report that Clinton had ordered the creation of a Russian collusion story to take pressure off her own scandal involving her private server. Yates testified recently that she has no recollection of these warnings and does not recall knowing about the funding of the Steele dossier.Yates would have no choice but to recuse herself in dealing with the Durham investigation. However, if the Biden administration used her designated deputy to scuttle the investigation or the report, the Biden administration will have done what Trump never actually did. All of those columns and speeches contorting the language of the obstruction statute would come back to haunt the Democrats.It is, to use the words of fired Special Agent Peter Strzok, the ultimate "insurance policy" that Durham will be allowed to complete and release the facts of his investigation. Worse yet, the Democrats themselves made the case for him to do so.(9) Chinese scientists have built a hypersonic engine that could power a hypersonic planeChinese Scientists Test "Revolutionary" Hypersonic Enginehttps://www.zerohedge.com/technology/around-world-two-hours-chinese-scientists-test-revolutionary-hypersonic-engineAround The World In Two Hours? Chinese Scientists Test "Revolutionary" Hypersonic Engineby Tyler Durden(10) "Quantum Supremacy" - China's New Supercomputer "10 Billion Times Faster" Than Google'shttps://www.zerohedge.com/technology/quantum-supremacy-chinas-new-supercomputer-10-billion-times-faster-googlesby Tyler DurdenFri, 12/04/2020 - 17:20(11) Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple, suppporters of BLM, lobbying against a US ban on products produced by Uighur slave laborhttps://summit.news/2020/12/03/woke-corporations-who-supported-blm-lobby-against-ban-on-chinese-slave-labor/Woke Corporations Who Supported BLM Lobby Against Ban on Chinese Slave LaborUyghur lives apparently don't matter.Published 1 day ago on 3 December, 2020Paul Joseph WatsonNike, Coca-Cola and Apple, three corporations that vehemently supported the Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd, are lobbying against a US ban on imports of products produced by Chinese slave labor.The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is awaiting a green light from the Senate, bans the import of goods produced in Xinjiang where companies cannot prove they were not made by slave labor.Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang face massive persecution at the hands of Chinese authorities, with many being held in de facto re-education camps in which they are forced to work and undergo draconian brainwashing programs.Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple have never missed an opportunity to assert their woke corporate values, with Apple CEO Tim Cook previously proclaiming, "To the Black community – we see you. You matter and your lives matter."In honor of BLM, Nike also released an amended version of their slogan that said, "For once, Don't Do It," while Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said, "Companies like ours must speak up as allies to the Black Lives Matter movement."Apparently, Uyghur lives don't matter because all three corporations are lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act."And yet, for all their performative moralising, these companies are now trying to water down action against the extreme oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China," reports Spiked.Nike, Coca-Cola and other major companies and business groups are lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang region. https://t.co/63B7LyKIAp— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 30, 2020"The New York Times reports that lobbyists seek changes such as the 'easing [of] disclosure requirements' that would be put in place by the act. Apple, it says, has proposed extended compliance deadlines, and is not keen on the idea of giving supply-chain information to the public, preferring to release this information to Congress instead."All three companies deny any role in incentivizing slave labor, but research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that "Apple and Nike were beneficiaries of 'abusive labour transfer programs' involving Uyghurs."Coca-Cola claims that it does not permit modern slavery in its supply chain and has made every effort to stamp it out."But disclosure documents are revealing," writes Spiked. Though not explicit about the ultimate aims of the expenditure, they show both Nike and Coca-Cola have paid for lobbying in relation to the Forced Labour Act, while Apple has also paid for lobbying on what the New York Times describes as 'Xinjiang-related legislation'."The sheer hypocrisy of these transnational corporations having repeatedly virtue signaled about the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously trying to uphold modern slavery for profit is beyond staggering.As we previously highlighted, the NBA has also stood behind the Black Lives Matter movement and all manner of other 'woke' causes while caving to Communist China, particularly during its brutal crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong.(12) New World Order - Masonic or Jewish?Gary H. Kah believes that the NWO is primarily Masonic. But his list of the banks which own the Fed is primarily Jewish . He names the banks (p. 13, below) but does not mention their Jewishness.One does not seem to find such lists in Left circles; I wonder why?Anyway, Kah's list of the banks which own the Fed is reliable, precisely because he is a Christian Fundamentalist. I would rather quote him than, say, a Nazi.Gary H. Kah writes in his book En Route to Global Occupation:{p. 6} During the early 1980s, I was on the fast track of a successful government career, which took me around the world dealing with American embassies, foreign government officials, international business leaders, and, at times, members of the press and media. It was in many respects the perfect job, the land that most people only dream of having. The last thing I ever thought I'd do was to research and write a book on the seemingly obscure subject of globalism and the occult. But I now realize that God had different plans.Through my travels and job-related contacts, I became aware of plans being laid worldwide for the establishment of a one-world government, most frequently referred to by insiders as the New World Order. Most of my insights were gained over a three year period as a result of several experiences. Had I learned about this information from someone on the streets, I probably would have dismissed it as nonsense. However, because of the circumstances surrounding my experiences and the caliber of people through whom I learned of these things, I had no choice but to take the information seriously. ...My investigation ultimately extended around the world, from Taiwan to Israel to the Soviet Union. In the meantime, I also became aware of preparations being made for the New World Order here in the United States. I soon realized that this movement was not only economic in nature, but also contained a political dimension, and indeed, a spiritual motivation, I found the inter-connections between the three to be extensive.Unless one is already aware of the far-reaching influence of occult societies in global politics and corporate boardrooms, one might find much of this information difficult to believe. However, more than ten thousand hours of research have led me to conclude that we are rapidly being pushed toward a one-world government by powerful Luciferic forces rooted in age-old secret societies. ...{p. 7} Although Bush, Gorbachev, De Cuellar, and various members of Congress have openly been talking about the "New World Order," none of these leaders has dared to explain the true meaning of the term. This is because the public would try to stop them if they understood what it really meant Secrecy has been crucial to the progress of the plan. By communicating in their own esoteric language, insiders hope to be able to further their plan with little resistance, to the point where it will soon be impossible to stop.I have chosen to release this message at this time because of my belief that the New World Order is drawing near, I have taken this stand at a considerable risk to myself and my family. It is my prayer that those reading this book would spread the message as quickly as possible while there is still lime to effectively expose this Satanic deception. ...{p. 13} Contrary to public belief, the Federal Reserve is not a government institution. It is a privately held corporation owned by stockholders. Until a few years ago, however, the names of those who owned the Federal Reserve was one of the best kept secrets of international finance due to a proviso on passage of the Federal Reserve Act agreeing that the identities of the Fed's Class A stockholders not be revealed. 1Mr. R.E. McMaster, the publisher of a financial newsletter called "The Reaper," was able to determine who the Fed's principal owners were through his Swiss and Saudi Arabian contacts. According to McMaster, the top eight stockholders are Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris; Israel Moses Self Banks of Italy; Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam; Lehman Brothers Bank of New York; Kuhn, Loeb Bank of New York; Chase Manhattan Bank of New York; and Goldman, Sachs Bank of New York. These interests own the Federal Reserve System through approximately three hundred stockholders, all of whom are known to each other and are sometimes related to one another.{endquote}I have two copies of this book. I bought the 2nd recently because I could not see the first in my bookshelves. Now I'm selling the 2nd one. It's in good condition, and unmarked. Price A$20 including postage in Australia and New Zealand. Pay by paypal.Peter(13) Nasdaq orders listed companies to appoint women & LGBT or other 'diverse' directors to Boardhttps://www.rt.com/usa/508359-nasdaq-diversity-quotas-lgbt-women/Nasdaq threatens 75% of listed companies with order to appoint women & LGBT or other 'diverse' directors to board – or else1 Dec, 2020 16:49US stock exchange Nasdaq has warned listed companies they must appoint at least two "diverse" directors to their board – a ‘self-identified' female and an "underrepresented minority" or LGBTQ person – or possibly face delisting.Nasdaq revealed its plan to turbocharge diversity on its exchange in a proposal filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday.Under the proposed new rules, not only will all listed US companies be required to "publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors," but "most" companies would have to either appoint "diverse" board members or explain why they hadn't done so in a letter.The mandatory addition of "one [director] who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+" appears to leave room for Rachel Dolezal-style "self-identification" as something other than white, male, or straight – a potential loophole for companies that prefer to keep their current boards. Non-US companies and small firms would be permitted to appoint two female directors instead.Listed companies would be required to publish their diversity stats within a year of the SEC adopting Nasdaq's proposal, and be required to have "one diverse director" within two years of implementation. Depending on company size, they would have four or five years to comply with the two-director requirement. Those who fall short can escape delisting only "if they provide a public explanation of their reasons for not meeting the objectives."Virtue Tokens, the new woke coin pic.twitter.com/xg2y7nmFdh— MSM=Propaganda (@zenblaster) December 1, 2020They forgot one disabled person, one felon, and an illegal alien— Edward James (@equity_trader13) December 1, 2020While the exchange's reasoning behind the proposal – to "enhance investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity in the context of selecting directors" – has already raised some eyebrows, Nasdaq insisted it had analyzed "over two dozen studies that found an association between diverse boards and better financial performance and corporate governance."However, with 75 percent of currently-listed Nasdaq companies falling short of the proposed requirements, according to the New York Times' financial blog DealBook, some have questioned how piling on new regulations is supposed to improve financial performance. While Nasdaq has hit record highs in recent days, much of the real economy is still in shambles from the Covid-19 economic shutdowns and in no shape to expend resources on the hunt for box-checking board candidates.To enforce the new quota system, Nasdaq has partnered with Equilar, a "leading provider of corporate leadership data solutions." As ZeroHedge pointed out, Equilar's own board of directors appears to lack any ethnic diversity."Nasdaq will also introduce a partnership with Equilar..." its PR says."Zero Hedge looked up Equilar's Board of Directors and found that out of its 5 members, there doesn't appear to be a person of color or openly LGBTQ member." https://t.co/wTmb8y1dru— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) December 1, 2020The proposal was widely panned, as social media users joked Nasdaq was "turning into [a] college admissions office" and argued that selecting directors based on their skin color, genitalia and sexual preference epitomized the bigotry most "diversity" measures claim to fight. "This delegitimizes women and POC," one user tweeted, pointing out that "people will think they achieved their position by quota and not talent."I love the way Nasdaq considers "minorities" to interchangeable with gay & sex-change people, lol!"Black, Hispanic, dick chopped off... it's all the same to us here at Nasdaq!"— Mark B. Spiegel (@markbspiegel) December 1, 2020NASDAQ just announced that it will seek SEC permission to require that boards of publicly listed Nasdaq companies have at least one woman and one minority board member.Categorizing people by gender, race, religion & color is a terrible way to categorize people.— Bruce Fenton (@brucefenton) December 1, 2020Others merely wondered how Nasdaq planned to enforce such a rule.CEO on COO to NASDAQ: "He's gay, trust me!"NASDAQ: "We're going to need actual proof he's boning dudes" https://t.co/n8dQyvKpyF— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 1, 2020It would be wise for jobseekers to begin "identifying" as members of these groups in order to increase their likelihood for a promotion.— J.Maxx (@Libertarian247) December 1, 2020Though some, inevitably, thought it didn't go far enough, insisting companies wouldn't benefit from diversity unless they had at least three women on their boards.INBOX: Credit Suisse introduces the "LGBT-350", a market-cap weighted basket of LGBT-inclusive companies.Top components: pic.twitter.com/xvuu8SV4bs— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) December 1, 2020At the same time as Nasdaq was hopping aboard the woke express, investment bank Credit Suisse unveiled its "LGBT-350" index on Tuesday to widespread groans. Many wondered about the need for such an index.seems "gimmicky." "companies either with openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender senior managers and/or are voted LGBT+ inclusive employers in leading surveys."— The Panic (@Gunntwitt) December 1, 2020pic.twitter.com/j7pKTGJ1bg— Financial Tailor (@Financialtailor) December 1, 2020The bank is by no means the only outfit obsessed with surface-level attributes – Goldman Sachs will no longer take a company public unless it has at least one "diverse" board member. Since September, the state of California has required companies headquartered there to have a minimum number of minority directors or face six-figure fines.