Top Left Link Buttons
  • English
  • German

China

Category Archives

President Xi Talks With China Space Station Crew From Beijing Aerospace Center

President Xi Talks With the Space Station Crew From the Beijing Aerospace Center

June 22 – President Xi Jinping went to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center to speak with the three astronauts on the Tianhe module of the Chinese Space Station. “How are you doing?” he asked. “And is everybody healthy?” Major General Nie Haisheng, the 57-year old commander of the mission, replied that they were all doing well. “This is my third space mission. I work and live in Tianhe, and the conditions are getting better and better. Now we have a permanent home operating in orbit, and we are proud of our great Party and motherland,” said Nie.

Nie came from a poor family in the then drought-ridden portion of Hubei province. He had eight siblings and sometimes had to wear some of his sister’s flowery clothes to school, and took a terrible ribbing from his classmates for that. He was known, however, as the “king of mathematics” and although he almost had to leave middle school to go to work when his father died, one of his teachers saw to it that he could stay in school and that the tuition would be waived. Tang Hongbo, the youngest of the three was on his first venture in space, said that he was happy that he could have a video talk with his parents while at the station. “Our home in space is very cozy and comfortable, and we have full confidence in completing the upcoming tasks,” said Tang.

Xi said he was delighted to learn that the astronauts were in good condition and that their work was progressing smoothly. “The construction of the space station is a milestone in China’s space industry, which will make pioneering contributions to the peaceful use of space by humanity,” said Xi. You are the first astronauts stationed in the core module Tianhe and will stay in space for three months,” Xi said during the video call. “We all care about you very much.”


Russian Call for Four-Power Strategic Dialogue, U.S.-Russia-India-China

June 21 (EIRNS) — Andrey Shushentsov, Program Director of the Valdai Discussion Club and Director of the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO University, argues in a short essay published on the Valdai Club website that a strategic dialogue among the United States, Russia, China and India is necessary to prevent the current state of affairs from devolving into open conflict. However, Shushentsov limits himself to the necessity of preventing the geopolitical confrontations now in play from turning into military conflict without ever mentioning the positive potential of those four powers to create a new world credit system as defined by Lyndon LaRouche in 2009.

“In a chaotic environment, the leading powers seek to secure themselves a privileged position in the international system and limit the opportunities for their key competitors,” Shushentsov writes. He notes in the first part of the essay that these four countries are the most powerful nuclear powers and have four of the world’s six largest economies. He notes further the strategic competition between America and Russia, between America and China–including the U.S. effort to rope India into the “Quad” vs China, and the positive relations between Russia and India. “Unprovoked crises or spontaneous episodes of conflict in relations within the Big Four nuclear powers can disrupt progressive global economic processes,” he writes further. “In this regard, these four powers should be mutually attentive and prudent, channeling their rivalry into a non-military area.”

Therefore, Shushentsov writes, “It is the responsibility of the expert community of the four countries to carefully study the train of thought of their competing partners in order to exclude the sudden development of a conflict. In this regard, it seems reasonable to create a permanent format for consultation among the high-level experts of Russia, the USA, China and India. To ensure that mutual deterrence does not lead to strategic disruptions and war, it is necessary to manage relations, emphasizing an interest in cooperation with respect to common areas, such as climate, the ecology, digital development, space, mining, demography, migration and counteracting natural disasters. The purpose of the high-level consultations is to prevent a shift from strategic containment to impulsive attempts to break the emerging status quo,” 

He concludes. “The formation of a stable dialogue format for the four leading global powers in the 21st Century will make it possible to minimize the likelihood of an impulsive breakdown into open conflict, the potential for which remains a factor in global politics.”


NSA’s Jake Sullivan: Biden and Xi Jinping to Confer Soon

June 18 (EIRNS)–NSA Jake Sullivan was emphatic at his Thursday on-the-record call with reporters that Biden would follow up on his summit with Vladimir Putin, with a discussion with China’s Xi Jinping. The White House transcript stated, “[T]he notion that President Biden will engage in the coming month with President Xi in some way to take stock of where we are in the relationship and to ensure that we have that kind of direct communication that we found valuable with President Putin yesterday, we’re very much committed to that. It’s now just a question of when and how.”

The bulk of his press conference was to report how successful Biden had been on his European trip, basically, that he’s taken leadership of the West with his B3W–Build Back Better World, “a new infrastructure initiative… that will be a high-standards, transparent, climate-friendly alternative to the Belt Road Initiative.” He has NATO sold on “tackling China… for the first time, truly taking the security challenge posed by China seriously… and standing up to, countering and pushing back on China’s non-market economic practices…” With no irony intended, he described how governments supervising a deal between Airbus and Boeing (with agreements on investments and tariffs) so as to curtail China’s large passenger aircraft industry, is an example of the ending of “non-market economic practices.”

Sullivan described how pulling together such a Western alliance means that one can deal with Russia as a “principled engagement” – presumably, making our values clear to the opponent while identifying areas to work together. The question was posed: After Russia, does that mean “you can go on to a bilateral discussion with President XI and how’re you taking that on”?

Sullivan then elaborated: “[W]hat the President said, about there being no substitute for leader-level dialogue as a central part of why he held the summit with Putin yesterday, also applies to China and to President Xi Jinping. He will look for opportunities to engage with President XI going forward. We don’t have any particular plans at the moment, but I would note that both leaders are likely to be at the G20 in Italy in October…[W]e will sit down to work out the right modality for the two presidents to engage.” He referred to two modalities – possibly by phone or by a side-meeting at an international meeting – and then, or “something else.” Sullivan’s briefing remarks are here.

At a follow-up press conference on Thursday with the State Department’s Ned Price, Robert Delaney, the Washington DC reporter for the South China Morning Post, referred to Sullivan’s announcement and brought up the previous roadblocks (the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Wuhan lab and the coronavirus, and such). Price referred back to Sullivan’s explanation and then reaffirmed the “principled engagement” line.


Page 12 of 12First...101112
The Schiller Institute