Sleepwalking into Washington's Next Regime Change Crisis: Myanmar

April 27, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - The crisis in Southeast Asia's Myanmar continues to grow following the February 2021 military-led ousting of US-backed Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. 

Violence between US-backed opposition groups joined with US-armed and trained ethnic rebels and the central government has become the focus of the Western media as well as Western government themselves. 

Just as was the case in Libya in 2011, the US government, the Western media, and a global network of US-funded fronts posing as rights groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are attempting to make the case for intervening in Myanmar - first through sanctions and then eventually through the recognition of and providing direct support to a US-backed parallel government and the armed groups fighting on its behalf.  

The goal of destabilizing Myanmar mirrors similar campaigns of propaganda, violence, and instability in China's Xinjiang region, Balochistan in Pakistan, and virtually everywhere else China's One Belt, One Road development project is active - to encircle China with chaos and contain China's rise upon the international stage. 

To sell yet another episode of US-engineered regime change around the world, the Western media is using 3 key talking points to pressure nations around the world and particularly in Southeast Asia - to aid in advancing US foreign policy objectives versus Myanmar. 

1. "The Violence Must End" 

Of course the violence should end. But the US government, Western media, and Western-backed fronts are referring only to violence carried out by Myanmar's military and police. 

No mention at all is made of opposition violence. 

Just as the US and the Western media did during the "Arab Spring" in 2011, the 2014 US-backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government, or the more recent US-backed riots in Hong Kong - no mention at all is made of opposition violence. 

Even as outlets like CNN admit in articles like, "Myanmar's military is waging war on its citizens. Some say it's time to fight back," that the opposition is coming into possession of war weapons - the violence is still being depicted as "one-sided." 

This talking point is being repeated even by media, politicians, and diplomats across ASEAN. 

However, if a problem is to be fully solved, it must be fully understood. 

Condemning and stopping only half the violence amid an ongoing armed conflict is the same recipe for disaster used to destroy Libya, nearly destroy Syria, destabilize Ukraine, and leave nations like Yemen festering as massive and ongoing humanitarian crises for years to come. 

2. "Democracy Must Return to Myanmar" 

While Myanmar did indeed have elections which resulted in Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD taking power - these are not elections that could - by any stretch of the imagination - be deemed "fair and free." 

The US and British governments have for decades poured money and political support into Aung San Suu Kyi's political machine - both by directly backing the NLD as well as creating a massive nationwide network of fronts posing as NGOs to support the NLD before, during, and after elections. 

The US government's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) alone lists over 80 programs (that are admitted to) that form the core organizations making up Aung San Suu Kyi's political base, interfering in areas ranging from media and lawmaking, to education and infrastructure, to political campaigning and polling, to economic affairs and resource management. 

Aung San Suu Kyi herself has travelled to Washington DC specifically to meet with the US NED. 

US Seeks South China Sea Conflict

April 21, 2021 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Despite hopes by some that with a new incoming US president, new US foreign policy will follow - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed Washington's committment to seeking conflict in the South China Sea under the guise of "standing with Southeast Asian claimants." 

Reuters in their article, "U.S. stands with SE Asian countries against China pressure, Blinken says,"  would claim: 

“Secretary Blinken pledged to stand with Southeast Asian claimants in the face of PRC pressure,” it said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, which is also a major trade route. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims.

The United States has accused China of taking advantage of the distraction of the coronavirus pandemic to advance its presence in the South China Sea.

The US announcement confirms that a confrontational posture toward China will continue regardless of who occupies the White House - as US tensions with China are rooted in unelected  Western special interests and their desire to remove China as a competitor and potential usurper in what US policy papers themselves call "US primacy in Asia." 

US Primacy in Asia

One such paper titled, "Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China," published by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2015 not only spelled out the US desire to maintain that primacy in Asia vis-a-vis China, but also how it would use overlapping claims in the South China Sea as a pretext to justify a continued - or even expanded military presence in the region and as a common cause to pressure China's neighbors into a united front against Beijing. 

The paper would note specific US goals of militarizing Southeast Asia and integrating the region into a common US-led defense architecture against China. 

It is a policy built upon the US "pivot to Asia" unveiled as early as 2011 and a policy that has been built upon in turn during the last four years under the Trump administration - demonstrating the continuity of agenda that permeates US foreign policy. 

Turning Disputes into Conflict 

Maritime disputes are common throughout the world - even in the West.

Australia's Self-Inflicted Economic Woes Continue

April 15, 2021 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Australia had until recently been enjoying economic growth alongside the rise of China. This all changed when Canberra began following Washington's lead, antagonising China, and in what would snowball into a costly, self-inflicted economic crisis. 

Today, Australia not only faces mounting barriers to trade erected by China in response to Australia's systematic antagonism, but now is seeing what had been temporary trade disputes transform slowly into a Beijing strategy to permanently eliminate dependency on Australian imports. 

Once set into place, the ability for Australia to return to previous levels of lucrative trade with China will be unlikely. 

Australia's Self-Inflicted Economic Ruination 

In 2018, Australia buckled under US pressure to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from nationwide 5G infrastructure contracts citing still unfounded "national security concerns."

The BBC in an article titled, "Huawei and ZTE handed 5G network ban in Australia," would claim: 

"...the Australian government said national security regulations that were typically applied to telecoms firms would be extended to equipment suppliers.

Companies that were "likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government" could present a security risk, it said.

Even the BBC and the Australian government were clear to use the word, "could present," versus the demonstrated security risk US-made hardware poses as revealed by the Western media itself in articles like MIT Technology Review's, "NSA’s Own Hardware Backdoors May Still Be a “Problem from Hell”," which would note: 

In 2011, General Michael Hayden, who had earlier been director of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, described the idea of computer hardware with hidden “backdoors” planted by an enemy as “the problem from hell.” This month, news reports based on leaked documents said that the NSA itself has used that tactic, working with U.S. companies to insert secret backdoors into chips and other hardware to aid its surveillance efforts.

Quite clearly then, the threat of compromised hardware is not the real reason this ban has been leveled against Chinese companies since similar bans have not been used to target US-made hardware. Instead, the most likely motivation fits in with Washington's wider strategy of encircling and containing China, including the blunting of its economic rise as a whole, and the sabotage of individual Chinese companies poised to overtake their Western rivals. 

West’s Propaganda War vs. China Continues

April 10, 2021 (Brian Berletic - LD) - The West continues a malicious propaganda war against China, but China is pushing back.   

In the latest row, the BBC’s John Sudworth fled mainland China to Taiwan as Xinjiang locals began organizing legal action against his campaign of slander aimed at justifying economic sanctions and boycotts - ruining the lives of the very people the West claims it cares about. 

A look at John Sudworth's work for the BBC reveals a transparent propaganda campaign based on disinformation spread by US government-founded "foundations" based in Washington DC with admissions throughout BBC articles that none of their claims can ultimately be proven. 

References:

RT - Beijing accuses BBC of spreading fake news and blasts reporter for ‘running’ from China as Xinjiang citizens plot legal action:
https://www.rt.com/news/519704-china-bbc-reporter-sudworth-xinjiang/
BBC - BBC China correspondent John Sudworth moves to Taiwan after threats:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56586655
BBC - China’s ‘tainted’ cotton:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-cotton
Adrian Zenz - Coercive Labor in Xinjiang: Labor Transfer and the Mobilization of Ethnic Minorities to Pick Cotton (PDF):
http://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/20201214-PB-China-Cotton-NISAP-2.pdf
The Grayzone - Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal:
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media/

Brian Berletic, formally known under the pen name "Tony Cartalucci" is a geopolitical researcher, writer, and video producer (YouTube here, Odysee here, and BitChute here) based in Bangkok, Thailand. He is a regular contributor to New Eastern Outlook and more recently, 21st Century Wire. You can support his work via Patreon here. 

America's Predictable Betrayal of the 'Iran Nuclear Deal'

April 10, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - Despite campaign promises made by now US President Joe Biden to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal - Washington's return to the deal has predictably stalled. 

In February 2021, AP would report in its article, "Biden repudiates Trump on Iran, ready for talks on nuke deal," that: 

The Biden administration says it’s ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, in a sharp repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” that sought to isolate the Islamic Republic.

The US had unilaterally withdrawn from the 2015-2016 deal brokered under the Obama-Biden administration in 2018 under US President Donald Trump. The deal was deemed "defective" and much more stringent conditions were demanded by the US with crushing economic sanctions under a policy of "maximum pressure" imposed until Iran capitulated. 

Despite Biden's attempts to distinguish his administration from Trump's, his promise to return to the deal was conditional, requiring Iran to recommit to the deal's conditions before the US lifts sanctions - and only after additional conditions are discussed - and until then, sanctions and other mechanisms of political pressure will be applied to Tehran. 

In other words - Biden's policy is exactly the same policy pursued by the Trump administration. 

Desire to Overturn "Trump's Policy" an Admission it was the Wrong Policy 

Biden's apparent desire to return to the table with Iran is in itself an admission that the Trump administration's decision to leave the deal was a mistake. 

The US - as self-proclaimed leader of the international community - would be expected to demonstrate good leadership by not only admitting to its mistakes, but assuming responsibility for them - returning to the Iran Nuclear Deal unconditionally and approaching additional concerns only after the original terms of the deal were back in place - with Iran in full compliance, and US sanctions lifted as promised under the original agreement.