A webinar originating in the UK, with participants from 49 countries worldwide with an array of panelists, including Medea Benjamin, Ajama Baraka, Max Blumenthal and Vijay Prashad.
Note that this is a two-hour video, but can be viewed or listened to in parts.
Organising Statement:
A New Cold War against China is against the interests of humanity
We note the increasingly aggressive statements and actions being taken by the US government in regard to China. These constitute a threat to world peace and are an obstacle to humanity successfully dealing with extremely serious common issues which confront it such as climate change, control of pandemics, racist discrimination and economic development.
We therefore believe that any New Cold War would run entirely counter to the interests of humanity. Instead we stand in favour of maximum global cooperation in order to tackle the enormous challenges we face as a species.
We therefore call upon the US to step back from this threat of a Cold War and also from other dangerous threats to world peace it is engaged in including: withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement; withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Accords; and its increasing disengagement from UN bodies. The US should also stop pressuring other countries to adopt such dangerous positions.
We support China and the US basing their relations on mutual dialogue and centring on the common issues which unite humanity.
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
- Medea Benjamin (Co-founder, CODEPINK)
- Wang Wen (Executive Dean, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China)
- Martin Jacques (Author: ‘When China Rules the World’)
- Vijay Prashad (Executive Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)
- Carlos Ron (Vice-Minister for North America, Venezuela’s Ministry for Foreign Relations)
- Qiao Collective
- Yury Tavrovksy (Author: ‘America Against China: Cold War in Times of Coronavirus’)
- Yang Hanyi (Senior editor, Guancha.cn)
- Ajamu Baraka (Black Agenda Report)
- Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report)
- Max Blumental (Editor-in-chief, The Grayzone)
- Anya Parampil (Journalist and presenter, The Grayzone)
- Kate Hudson (General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament)
- Radhika Desai (Professor, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba)
- John Ross (Senior Fellow, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China)
- Elias Jabbour (Associate Professor, Rio de Janeiro State University)
- Jenny Clegg (Author: ‘China’s Global Strategy: Toward a Multipolar World’)
nocoldwar.org
Article from the Morning Star:
International meeting calls for opposition to the ‘new cold war’ against China
AN international cast of speakers came together on Saturday to oppose a new cold war on China, which they say is “against the interests of humanity.”
The chair, author and academic Jenny Clegg, welcomed a “truly global gathering” with people from 49 countries attending the Zoom webinar, which others were able to follow on Facebook and YouTube.
Introducing the event, author Carlos Martinez said that the US was ramping up pressure on all countries to pick a side in its confrontation with China.
US activist Medea Benjamin of the Code Pink peace campaign called for a “pivot to peace, not a pivot to Asia.”
She said that she suspected an ulterior motive when US politicians “talk free speech while shooting rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators.
“It’s hard to take them seriously [over allegations of persecution of Muslims] when both parties hae supported a two-decade war on Muslims throughout the world, torturing them at Abu Ghraib, throwing them into prisons in Guantanamo.”
US news site Black Agenda Report editor Margaret Kimberley warned: “We’re told that a million Uighurs are in prison when there is quite literally no evidence of any such thing,” cautioning listeners to remember previous scare stories about “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and babies taken from incubators in Kuwait.”
“When the US talks of human rights, remember it has more of its population incarcerated than any other nation, that its police force kills 1,000 people a year and that its military budget is bigger than the next 10 countries combined.”
The US talked “as if China were US property not a sovereign country, but that is what results from white supremacism extended to the field of foreign relations.”
And she savaged the “vassals and lackeys known as US allies that follow the lead of the gangster state.”
Academic John Ross said it was essential to resist a US administration that was “tearing up treaties,” had walked out of the Paris agreement on climate change and was trying to “force its policies on the world.”
Other speakers included The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research director Vijay Prashad, Renmin University executive dean Wang Wen and more.
The meeting can be watched on YouTube at mstar.link/NewColdWar.
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