US Fingerprints on Terrorism Aimed At China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

July 23, 2021 (Brian Berletic – NEO) – In April of this year and then again in July, two attacks in Pakistan, west of the Indus River, appear to have targeted Beijing’s partnership with Islamabad.

In April a terrorist bombing targeted a hotel in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province hosting China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Nong Rong. Ambassador Nong Rong was not at the hotel at the time of the bombing, but the attack still ended up killing 4 and wounding several more.

In July an explosion targeted a bus carrying Chinese engineers working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of China’s wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This attack killed 13 including 9 of the Chinese engineers.

Such attacks are not new. They are merely the most recent acts of violence amid a long-standing effort by the US and armed militants it has openly supported for years to thwart China’s partnership with Pakistan and to sabotage the BRI.

While US President Joe Biden had unveiled his “Build Back Better World” (B3W) initiative at the February 2021 G7 meeting as America’s answer to China’s BRI, it was clearly a smokescreen behind which the US would continue a campaign of global destabilization and militancy aimed at nations cooperating with Beijing and hosting various BRI projects.

Pakistan is among many nations now facing America’s true answer to the BRI – state-sponsored terrorism, militancy, and political subversion. Joining Pakistan is also Southeast Asian nations like Thailand and Myanmar which have both suffered from US-sponsored anti-government protests in recent years – the latter of the two having protests transform into now ongoing armed conflict.

The US has also targeted China internally, focusing its efforts on radicalizing Uyghur separatists in China’s western Xinjiang region, then undermining Beijing’s efforts to contain the resulting terrorism. Xinjiang serves, without coincidence, as a critical juncture for several BRI routes.

More than Mere Speculation: America’s “Free Baluchistan” Campaign

Much of Washington’s efforts to “free Baluchistan” have been copied and pasted from both US efforts to carve up the Middle East through granting the region’s Kurds defacto autonomous territory, or the US-backed push for a “free East Turkestan” in China’s Xinjiang region. This latter effort is reflected on the US National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) own official website which lists its programs for Xinjiang, China as “Xinjiang/East Turkestan (China),” deliberately including the name given to the region by separatists.

If US Can’t Have Myanmar, No One Will

July 21, 2021 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - A South China Morning Post (SCMP) article citing US corporate and government institution “associates” inadvertently gave away the entire game unfolding in Southeast Asia’s Myanmar.

It is a conflict where US-backed armed opposition groups (previously depicted by the Western media as “peaceful” “pro-democracy” activists) are fighting Myanmar’s central government, police and military for control of the country. 

The conflict clearly threatens both existing Chinese investments and the future of further investment and development projects. The resulting violence benefits neither China nor Myanmar, but most certainly benefits China’s chief rival, the United States. 

Background of Myanmar’s Current Crisis 

In February of this year Myanmar’s military ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party. While the West depicts this as a coup against a democratically elected government, Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD were created by and for Western special interests with virtually every aspect of the party funded and supported by US and British government money and with Suu Kyi herself maintaining a entourage of foreign advisors. 

The purpose of installing a US client regime in power in Myanmar was part of a much wider long-standing effort to encircle and contain China. Myanmar shares a border with China and counts China as its largest and most important trade partner. For Beijing, Myanmar is a crucial partner in extending its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with pipelines, ports, and roads all aready in use or under construction. 

Belt & Road: The China-Laos-Thailand Corridor

July 14, 2021 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reaches out in all directions, across Central Asia into Europe, up into Russia, through the seas and oceans of Asia, out to Africa and of course, deep into Southeast Asia. 

The Southeast Asian leg of BRI consists primarily of a now-under-construction high-speed rail (HSR) line connecting China’s Yunnan Province with Laos, Thailand and perhaps eventually Malaysia and Singapore. 

A large number of adjacent projects also are in the making and will complement other infrastructure projects recently constructed over the past decade or under construction now. 

This includes various expressways, particularly through mountainous Laos which have already cut trips by road from days to just a day from China’s border with Laos in the north to the nation’s capital of Vientiane near the Laotian-Thai border. Additional expressways are under construction to facilitate more traffic within and through Laos. 

Another expressway is currently proposed that will connect northern Thailand to southern China via Laos, cutting travel time between the two nations to just 2 hours. 

Bangkok Post’s article, “Laos surveys new expressway linking Thailand, China,” would note: 

The new road will connect with Chiang Khong district of Chiang Rai via the existing bridge over the Mekong River.

The 180-kilometre highway would allow vehicles to travel at 80 kilometres per hour and a drive from Thailand to China through Laos would take less than two hours.

The HSR line itself will include both passenger and freight services and across Laos, a network of “landports” to facilitate regional logistical operations. 

The entire network is already under construction with Bangkok’s new Bang Sue Grand Station completed and ready to open this year, hosting Thailand’s high-speed trains in coming years, and the Laotian leg nearing completion with train services possibly coming online by the end of 2021 or early 2022. 

Western Derision & Hopes to Undermine 

Criticism for the network of transportation projects stretching into Southeast Asia, like criticism of the BRI itself, stem mainly from Western ambitions to prevent the rise of China and with it, the rise of the rest of Asia. 

US media sources like the US State Department’s Voice of America repeatedly floats accusations of Beijing employing “debt-trap diplomacy” while also admitting that Laos, until these projects began, was landlocked, isolating it from regional markets and preventing economic growth.  

China's Rise: From Humiliated Colony to Global Power

July 9, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - As China celebrated 100 years of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) it was also celebrating the nation’s rise from a humiliated colony subjugated by Western imperialism to a global power. 

In just the last 21 years of the 21st century, China has transformed from a developing nation, to rivaling the United States, to now being poised to surpass the US and the West in general. 

China’s rise has also meant the rise of Asia and beyond as it builds an alternative to the so-called “rules-based international order” created by and exclusively for the US and its Western allies. 

Chinese President Xii Jinping’s speech commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the CPC was devoid of self-proclaimed “global leadership” and instead focused on strengthening China internally while constructively contributing to the world abroad, mentioning its massive infrastructure building spree - the One Belt, One Road - by name. 

President Xi Jinping also noted China’s transformation from, “a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist market economy.” 

Indeed, China today is not the China of Mao Zedong, nor the China of 100 years ago, though the Western media has worked hard to convince global audiences otherwise - attempting to reinforce not only the most negative prejudices held toward China, but also the most inaccurate ones. 

China’s Rise, A Difficult Pill for Western Hegemons to Swallow 

President Xi Jinping’s speech and related activities to the 100 year anniversary of the CPC covered a wide range of topics. Celebrations and performances noted China’s progress in everything from manufacturing, energy production, and infrastructure, to space exploration, poverty reduction, and the development of China’s armed forces.

Indeed, China has accomplished for its 1.4 billion citizens as well as for its friends and allies abroad feats in the realm of development, peace, and stability unrivaled by the West. 

Yet Western media coverage appeared fixated on a single sentence taken from an over 5,000 word speech.

The BBC in its article, “CCP 100: Xi warns China will not be 'oppressed' in anniversary speech,” would begin by stating: 

China's President Xi Jinping has warned that foreign powers will "get their heads bashed" if they attempt to bully or influence the country.  

The quote was meant to provoke Western audiences, many of whom are guided by their respective media outlets of choice to adopt a sense of superiority and to feel threatened by China’s successes. It was also meant to couple with a massive disinformation campaign depicting China as a threat to global peace and stability, leading audiences to see the quote as threatening to “bash” the heads of anyone who now tries to hold China accountable. 

Myanmar’s Crisis Follows Predictable ‘Libya Model’ Pattern

July 6, 2021 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - All too predictably, the crisis in Myanmar has rapidly spiralled out of control with what we were told were “peaceful” “pro-democracy” protesters transforming into heavily armed militants fighting Myanmar's central government, its police force and its armed forces with war weapons. 

Of course, the protests were never peaceful. The Western media only claimed as much to then depict subsequent security operations against what were in fact very violent protests and a nascent militancy as “brutal repression” and as a means to justify more direct Western intervention in a political crisis already driven by decades of Western interference. 

But just as was the case in similarly US-engineered conflicts in Libya and Syria in 2011, the ability to cover up the violence of the opposition, their use of war weapons and terrorism, as well as their carrying out of atrocities has become impossible to conceal. 

A June 2, 2021 Reuters article titled, “Boycott and bombings mar Myanmar's new school year,” would note that growing armed attacks from the opposition prompted security forces to stand guard at schools and bring students “under armed escort from their homes.” 

The article noted that teachers were also in fear for their safety, going to school in “normal clothing” and then changing into their government uniforms “only inside the school.” 

Despite admitting to a “a series of bombings” targeting educational institutions across Myanmar, Reuters deliberately attempts to downplay the terrorism and add ambiguity when attributing who is carrying out the terrorism.

However, opposition media inside Myanmar including US government-funded ‘Myanmar Now,’ have quoted leaders of armed opposition groups admitting to their terror campaign against schools and other public facilities.