aoth-logoaoth-logoaoth-logoaoth-logo
  • Articles
    • Medical –
      • Addiction –
      • CBD –
      • Health –
      • Wellness –
    • Metals –
      • Battery Metals –
      • Critical Metals –
      • Energy Metals –
      • Industrial Metals –
      • Precious Metals –
    • Energy –
      • Nuclear –
      • Oil & Gas –
      • Renewable –
    • Environment –
      • Clean Energy –
      • Global Warming –
        • Decarbonization –
        • Electrification –
      • Pollution –
    • Markets –
      • Bitcoin –
      • Bonds –
      • Commodities –
      • cryptocurrency –
      • Currency –
      • Digital Currency –
      • Inflation –
      • Interest Rates –
    • Technology –
      • 3D Printing –
      • 5G –
      • Artificial Intelligence (AI) –
      • Blockchain –
      • Imaging –
    • Politics –
    • Education –
  • 文章
  • Company Profiles
  • News
  • Media
Home | Disclaimer | 免责声明 | Newsletter Subscribe | RSS Subscribe

China Is Preparing To Go To War

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Uncategorized
  • China Is Preparing To Go To War
August 21, 2022

By Gordon Chang

2022.08.21

Last month, a Chinese entrepreneur making medical equipment for consumers told me that local officials had demanded he convert his production lines in China so that they could turn out items for the military. Communist Party cadres, he said, were issuing similar orders to other manufacturers.

Moreover, Chinese academics privately say the ongoing expulsion of foreign colleagues from China’s universities appears to be a preparation for hostilities.

The People’s Republic of China is preparing to go to war, and it is not trying to hide its efforts. Amendments to the National Defense Law, effective the first day of last year, transfer powers from civilian to military officials.

In general, the amendments reduce the role of the central government’s State Council by shifting power to the CMC, the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. Specifically, the State Council will no longer supervise the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army.

As Zeng Zhiping of Soochow University told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post,

“The CMC is now formally in charge of making national defense policy and principles, while the State Council becomes a mere implementing agency to provide support for the military.”

In one sense, these amendments were window dressing. “Recent changes to China’s National Defense Law that diminish the power of the State Council are largely political posturing,” Richard Fisher of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me soon after the amendments went into effect. “The Chinese Communist Party and particularly its subordinate CMC have always held supreme power over decisions regarding war and peace.”

Why then do we care about the National Defense Law amendments?

The amendments, Fisher tells us, “point to China’s ambition to achieve ‘whole nation’ levels of military mobilization to fight wars and give the CMC formal power to control the future Chinese capabilities for global military intervention.”

“The revised National Defense Law also embodies the concept that everyone should be involved in national defense,” reports the Communist Party’s Global Times, summarizing the words of an unnamed CMC official. “All national organizations, armed forces, political parties, civil groups, enterprises, social organizations, and other organizations should support and take part in the development of national defense, fulfill national defense duties, and carry out national defense missions according to the law.”

As Fisher told 19FortyFive this month, “For the past 40 years, China’s Communist Party has been preparing for brutal war, and now the ruling organization is accelerating its plans.”

The Party, as it readies itself for combat, is leaving nothing to chance. In March, its Central Organization Department issued an internal directive prohibiting the spouses and children of ministerial-level officials from owning foreign real estate or shares registered offshore. The ban also appears to apply to such officials themselves as there are reports of their selling foreign assets. Moreover, such officials and immediate families are not, except in limited circumstances, allowed to open accounts overseas with financial institutions.

The directive, issued soon after the imposition of sanctions on Russian officials for the “special military operation” in Ukraine, appears designed to sanction-proof Chinese officials.

Moreover, the central government is trying to sanctions-proof itself. On April 22, officials from the finance ministry and central bank met with representatives of dozens of banks, including HSBC, to discuss what Beijing could do in the event of the imposition of punitive measures on China.

The holding of the “emergency meeting,” reported by the Financial Times, is ominous. “The officials and attendees did not mention specific scenarios, but one possible trigger for such sanctions is thought to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan,” the FT noted. The fact that Chinese officials held the meeting is a clear indication that Beijing is planning belligerent acts.

“Be ready for battle.” That’s how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post summarized Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s first order to the military of 2019. In January of that year, he gave a major speech to the CMC on making preparations for war, and the address was then broadcast nationwide.

Foreign analysts debate whether China is going to war anytime soon. The Chinese political system has become less transparent over time, so it is not clear what senior leaders are thinking.

Yet it is clear what senior leaders are in fact doing. They are getting troops ready for another advance below the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, preparing to seize more Indian territory in the Himalayas. They renewed, in November of last year and this June, attempts to block the resupply of a Philippine outpost at Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea. They ordered four vessels to enter Japan’s sovereign water around the disputed but Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in late July. They are directing continual provocations around Taiwan, including a violation of the island’s sovereign airspace in early February.

And there is something else that is unmistakable: Xi and senior leaders are getting China’s citizens ready for war.

A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War. 

Share

Related posts

November 30, 2023

Real Interest Rates


Read more
October 13, 2023

Gold Stocks Clawing Back


Read more
September 20, 2023

Where are we in the debt cycle? – Richard Mills


Read more
September 15, 2023

What Electricity Sources Power the World?


Read more
September 6, 2023

Graphite’s dominance of anode market likely to continue in the mid-term – report


Read more
Why are central banks buying gold and dumping dollars?
August 26, 2023

Efforts to Protect US Intensify Amid Global Shift From Dollar


Read more
July 19, 2023

Max Resource finds opportunity in underexplored copper & gold regions of South America – Richard Mills


Read more
July 19, 2023

Max Resource 在南美洲未开发的铜金矿区发现机遇


Read more
June 16, 2023

The inevitability of rising food prices, global famine – Richard Mills


Read more
May 23, 2023

Renforth 在 Surimeau 钻探发现了岩浆矿床中常见的可见网状硫化物


Read more
May 12, 2023

Copper Road exploring two large-scale, near-surface mineralized zones in Ontario’s famed district – Richard Mills


Read more
May 11, 2023

Net Zero grid batteries alone would bankrupt America


Read more
April 29, 2023

Renforth 准备在锂行业的大重组中进行伟晶岩勘探


Read more
April 25, 2023

Chile’s lithium nationalization puts the squeeze on EV makers and shines a spotlight on North American juniors – Richard Mills


Read more
April 19, 2023

The Six Major Types of Lithium-ion Batteries: A Visual Comparison


Read more
April 15, 2023

The tug-of-war between Glencore and Teck


Read more
April 13, 2023

Fed’s “Mild Recession” Prediction Will Be As Accurate As Their “Transitory Inflation” One


Read more
April 2, 2023

Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Tyranny Worse Than Prison


Read more
March 31, 2023

CHART: Demand is soaring, but global mining is not expanding


Read more
March 24, 2023

Victory Battery 在 Smokey Lithium 开始第 2 阶段钻探,旨在扩大矿化


Read more
March 22, 2023

Mapped: U.S. Mineral Production Value by State in 2022


Read more
March 2, 2023

BHP seeks to tighten grip on South America’s copper sector


Read more
February 1, 2023

Getchell Gold Corp. Files Technical Report for the Mineral Resource Estimate at Fondaway Canyon, NV


Read more
January 19, 2023

Getchell Gold: eliminating country risk by mining in Nevada – Richard Mills


Read more
January 16, 2023

China Dominates the Rare Earth Market


Read more
January 16, 2023

Ticking Time Bomb: Rising Consumer Debt and Rising Interest Rates


Read more
January 16, 2023

Visualizing $65 Trillion in Hidden Dollar Debt


Read more
RSS Subscribe
Subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our most recent articles directly to your favourite RSS Reader application.

Article Archives

Article Categories

  • Education (159)
  • Energy (139)
    • Nuclear (27)
    • Oil & Gas (23)
    • Re-newable (50)
  • Environment (433)
    • Clean Energy (68)
    • Global Warming (283)
      • Decarbonization (66)
      • Electrification (178)
    • Pollution (72)
  • Markets (407)
    • Bitcoin (2)
    • Bonds (20)
    • Commodities (142)
    • cryptocurrency (8)
    • Currency (99)
    • Digital Currency (6)
    • Inflation (84)
    • Interest Rates (61)
  • Medical (126)
    • Addiction (8)
    • CBD (4)
    • Health (121)
    • Wellness (58)
  • Metals (1,009)
    • Battery Metals (282)
    • Critical Metals (134)
    • Energy Metals (48)
    • Industrial Metals (220)
    • Precious Metals (531)
  • Politics (285)
  • Technology (54)
    • 3D Printing (3)
    • 5G (26)
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI) (16)
    • Blockchain (6)
    • Imaging (3)
  • Uncategorized (378)

AOTH Portfolio

  • Articles
  • 文章
  • Company Profiles
  • Company News Releases
  • Media
  • AOTHs-six-for-22
  • Disclaimer

Recent Articles

  • $7.6 trillion of US government debt will mature in the next year, adding pressure on rates November 30, 2023
  • US Trade deficit 2024 November 30, 2023
  • As the US Treasury Runs Out of Creditors, Its Options Dwindle November 30, 2023
  • Marc Faber: Inflation Is Here to Stay November 30, 2023
  • Real Interest Rates November 30, 2023
  • Hard landings Recession predictions wrong – Richard Mills November 29, 2023
  • The Panama Canal Is So Backed Up Ships Are Rerouting Through the Suez November 29, 2023
  • Gold surges, dollar declines on Fed official’s remark & geopolitical unrest November 29, 2023

Ahead of the Herd

Enjoy hundreds of top-notch, thoroughly-researched articles on commodities and the junior resource companies that search for deposits of them.

Newsletter Subscribe

Subscribe to our free newsletter so we can start telling you things everyone else doesn't already know!

Recent Articles

  • $7.6 trillion of US government debt will mature in the next year, adding pressure on rates
  • US Trade deficit 2024
  • As the US Treasury Runs Out of Creditors, Its Options Dwindle

Explore

  • Articles
  • 文章
  • Company Profiles
  • Company News Releases
  • Media
  • AOTHs-six-for-22
  • Disclaimer
© 2020 Ahead of the Herd. All Rights Reserved