China, the Clown State

Our Bangkok correspondent H. Numan reports on the latest geopolitical news from the Far East.

China, the clown state

by H. Numan

You’re not going to believe me. Recently new corruption scandals have rocked the People’s Republic of China. The commander of the Chinese Rocket Forces disappeared. A bunch of army, navy and air force top commanders also vanished in Nacht und Nebel. That happened a couple of months ago, but now they are all officially charged with corruption. Not just a bit of corruption. Corruption on a scale that baffles even Russians. China is very busy trying to become a superpower. They have the biggest army in the world, the biggest navy in the Pacific… but… it’s of little or no use. It is all falling apart.

Thailand

Before I continue, two related stories from Thailand. The new Srettha government was planning to allow Chinese police stations in tourist areas. Real People’s Police offices with semi-diplomatic status, where Thai officials would be welcome only on invitation. All to accommodate and support Chinese tourists, of course. What else?

A part of the soft power of China is tourism. Thailand relies heavily — as do many other nations in the region —on Chinese tourists. About one-third of all foreign tourists used to be Chinese. They vanished during and because of the Covid pandemic. Now the pandemic is over, Thailand wants them back. Apparently, at all costs.

That gave the Chinese government a nice opportunity. China is, as we all know, a communist dictatorship. Its citizens cannot freely travel, not in China itself (you need internal passports) and certainly not abroad. Percentage-wise, not that many Chinese can afford to travel abroad, but with +1 billion you have a lot of tourists who can. Most Chinese travel in groups. That’s a pretty common way to travel in Asia anyway, but in China there is another reason. A group is much easier to control than individual travelers. And China can control who gets this pot of gold. Provided they are nice to the Chinese government, that is. For example, micro states in the Pacific who acknowledge Taiwan suddenly didn’t get any tourists. Until they cut formal relations with Taiwan. Then, all of a sudden all ‘problems’ were solved and the flood of tourists came back.

People’s Police stations in Thailand

The Chinese government wanted real Chinese People’s Police stations in Thailand. Once that happened, all restrictions would be lifted. To manage Chinese tourists? Of course! What else? To control Thailand? The very idea! Thailand is an independent country, and proud about it. This created so much of a nationwide outcry that PM Srettha hastily withdrew those plans.

The Kra Canal

We’re not done yet, because China is big. They have more irons in the fire. The next one is ongoing, with a (small) possibility of succeeding. The Kra canal. You all know the most famous canals of the world, being the Panama and Suez canals. Another maritime choke point is the Strait of Malacca. At the moment maritime traffic is at a maximum. Large ships have to make reservations in order to cross it. For China it is of vital importance. All oil and most commerce to and from China has to pass the strait. It’s very easy to block by just about anyone. India, for example, is fortifying the Andaman Isles just to be able to do that. A canal through the narrow part of Thailand in the deep south might solve that problem for China, and give them another route. Which could just as easily be blocked, but now you have two passages to control.

That would be the Kra Canal. That’s a centuries-old dream of Thailand/Siam/Ayutthaya. They always wanted such a canal. However, it’s far more difficult to construct than the Panama canal, so nothing ever happened. Many projects were initiated, but no shovel ever hit the dirt. As long as I have been in Thailand (30 years!) rumors about reviving the Kra canal came and went.

This time the Chinese government is putting a lot of pressure on Thailand to construct one. Money is not an issue. Engineering can be done by the Chinese. We finance it too, on (for China) excellent conditions. Just allow us to build the damn thing!

I doubt very much whether it will ever happen. Singapore isn’t exactly thrilled to see half of their maritime trade sail away. A small state, to be sure, but with a lot of commercial power. America won’t be overjoyed either. Biden or Trump doesn’t matter. A Kra canal is not in the interests of America.

Another problem that will rear its ugly head: the revolting southern muslim provinces. They are located exactly on the other side of the proposed canal. The first problem will be unruly muslims milking the project for all they can. The second problem is that once the canal is there, independence is no longer a pipe dream. Rather something that almost certainly will happen when those provinces are separated by a huge canal from the mainland. A lot of water will flow through the Chao Phraya before it will happen. If at all.

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Mass Shooting in Bangkok

As reported in the news feed, there was a deadly mass shooting at an upscale mall in Thailand earlier this week. Our Bangkok correspondent H. Numan has the report.

Mass shooting in Bangkok

by H. Numan

We had a mass shooting in Bangkok. It happened in Siam Paragon, an upscale shopping mall, on Monday afternoon. The worst is the perpetrator: a boy of fourteen years! Two people were killed; one of them was a Chinese tourist. Five people were severely injured. No religious involvement here.

This boy is upper-crust Thai. I’m definitely not a socialist, as regular readers know. But these kinds of events would turn me into one. He’ll spend at most a couple of weeks in a juvenile prison, if that. More likely in an expensive asylum. The kid had mental issues. He said voices in his head told him to do it. His parents have already asked the court to move him to such an institution, but the court denied it. So far. For how long is a different story.

Something you probably don’t know is how Thais raise their children. It’s different. Small children are given much more leeway than in the West. For example, if a family with a toddler visits someone, and the toddler soils the carpet, most people here won’t make a fuss about it. It happens. What can you expect from a toddler? Going to bed on time is also relative. It’s very common here to see little children up and about until very late in the evening. But when they are no longer little children that stops. Somewhere around the age of ten. By then they are expected to know how to behave properly, and to behave well.

Unless those kids are upper crust. They have and know no limits. I could write a book about misbehaving children among the Thai elites. Here’s a nice article. Chalerm Yubamrung was a highly corrupt police captain who used his wealth and influence in politics. He became vice premier. His youngest son shot a police sergeant in cold blood in a bar. Fled the country to Singapore. Was returned to Thailand accompanied by the Thai ambassador personally. Received a hero’s welcome organized by his father. Acquitted in court; there were no witnesses. People saw nothing, just portraits of the king (‘money’) everywhere. Long live the king! He wasn’t cashiered from the army, but resigned later on to join the police in Bangkok, where he serves right now. Imagine that: Hunter Biden shoots a FBI agent because he can, and later becomes an FBI officer himself. Kind of difficult.

Another case: Vorayuth Yoovidhya. The inheritor of the Red Bull fortune. He flattened a police officer with his Ferrari. Fled the scene. Fled the country. Had his lawyers find every loophole in the book. Returned to Thailand. Wasn’t arrested. Fled again, “police just missed him.” That case is still pending, and currently in the news because the crime is about to expire. All he has to do is stay outside of Thailand and wait. Not too difficult for a billionaire.

Back to the shooting. This boy was attending a very prestigious school, where pupils are groomed to become leaders of the country. Even though this boy seriously hurt tourism, he might very well become one. Time heals all wounds.

This mall is very popular among tourists, especially rich Chinese tourists. Asian tourists are notoriously careful. I recall a cancellation of a Thai group’s visit to Rio de Janeiro because there was turmoil in… Peru! About 1,500 miles down the road, but they cancelled anyway. Chinese are no different. The mall is open, but with far fewer visitors. That’s especially poignant as the Thai government waived visa fees for the Chinese to boost tourism, just days ago. It’s too soon to tell, but it will probably have an effect on Chinese tourism.

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The Ascendancy of the Neocons

Karl-Olov Arnstberg is a Swedish writer, ethnologist, and retired university professor. His essays are posted at his blog, Invandring och mörkläggning. Below is today’s installment of his “Sunday Chronicle”. Many thanks to our Swedish correspondent LN for the translation:

Sunday chronicle: America’s neocons

by Professor Emeritus Karl-Olov Arnstberg
July 9, 2023

NATO’s mission, just after the organization was created in 1949, was summarized by Secretary General Lord Ismay in a three-line sentence:

Keep the Russians out
The Americans in
and the Germans down

Keep the Russians out referred to the spread of communism. The US was far more concerned about communism than it ever was about Nazism. The Americans in also had a specific meaning, namely that the Americans would remain in Europe and keep the two Western power blocs on either side of the North Atlantic together. The United States absolutely could not turn its back to Europe, as it did with its isolationist policy after the First World War.

And the Germans down meant that Russia and Germany could not unite under any circumstances, because it would mean a new superpower to challenge the US. This was the main reason why the US admitted West Germany to NATO in 1955, the idea being that the country would be so embedded in the Western sphere, that an alliance with the Soviet Union would be impossible. In 1959, Eisenhower even advocated providing West Germany with nuclear weapons.

With reference to Lord Ismay’s three lines, a related expression has been coined in neoconservative circles:

Keep Russia down,
The US in,
and China out

Here the interpretation is more problematic. What does Keep Russia down mean? That it should be defeated in the Ukrainian war? Or perhaps — which was an idea that flourished among neoconservatives in the 1980s — that the huge country should be divided into small states that mostly fight with each other and thus become completely harmless in world politics? And what does The US in mean? The situation today is completely different from that after the First World War. With all its military bases, the US is already inside large parts of the world. In practical terms, there is no possibility for them to withdraw.

Perhaps And China out is clearer? The risk of China joining forces with Russia is greater than the risk of Russia and Germany joining forces after the end of World War II. However, neither Russia nor China allows itself be affected or controlled in any way by the US.

Neoconservatives, or neocons for short, are a political grouping that emerged in the United States in the 1950s, partly as Democrats and partly as a right-wing faction of the Socialist Party of America and its successor, the Social Democrats. They hated spineless politicians, military weakness and American isolationism. Above all, they wanted to destroy the communist and the totalitarian Soviet Union. To them, communism represented a monstrous evil. Their motto: The United States is the greatest force for good among the nations of the earth.

Leo Strauss

There are two persons that the US neocons have been deeply influenced by, although neither called themselves neoconservatives. One is the “father of neoconservatism”, the German-Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1972), who received a Rockefeller grant in the early 1930s and who emigrated from Berlin to the United States. Leo Strauss was a philosopher, but also a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Critics say that based on Plato’s The State, he turned his students into both elitists and imperialists. One of them, Nicholas Xenos, said that:

“Strauss wanted to return to an older pre-liberal age of blood and glory, of imperialist domination and authoritarian rule, that is, of pure fascism.”

The Wolfowitz Doctrine

One of Strauss’ students at the University of Chicago, Paul Wolfowitz, later Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Bush Jr. administration and then head of the World Bank, wrote the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine. A first draft was leaked to the New York Times in March 1992. The imperialist tone led to a public outcry. It said, among other things:

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What’s That? A Teapot.

Prompted by Jocelynn Cordes’ recent essay, Michael Copeland sends this paean to tea, which makes for a fitting companion.

What’s That? A Teapot.

by Michael Copeland

“What’s that?”

“A teapot.”

“What’s it for?”

“Tea.”

“Well, don’t you just put a bag in a mug?”

That was the exchange recently between a student and the uncle and aunt with whom she had come to stay. It expresses one of those inexorable changes in usage from one generation to the next, with each remaining loyal to what it knows. Tea is such an everyday item that we barely give it a thought, but its story is a fascinating and rich one of enterprise, inventiveness, fashion and change.

It is a little hard to imagine now, but at one time, around the 1690s, tea was very, very expensive. Shipped under canvas all the way from China, it had its Chinese name, Tchai, or Tcha, that gave rise to the English “cup o’ char”. The expression “not for all the tea in China” denoted an unimaginably huge sum of money. Its customers, in the richer stratum of society, liked it, and were prepared to pay. It was, in two senses, a matter of good taste. Desirable, partly because of being delicious and refreshing, and partly because it was costly and associated with persons of elevated rank, it gave rise to a considerable industry, beginning in the tea houses and coffee houses, such as Lloyd’s, where merchants and magnates met in a club-like setting.

A delicious drink that is expensive provides a motivating occasion for a ladies’ social gathering at home. Polite company could be invited to join in this refreshment, over which much important talking, chatting, and plotting could take place. Of course, the best houses had proper Chinese teapots, and approved China ware cups — little bowls with no handles — all fashionably brought over from China. In case the staff might allow any of the costly leaves to ‘go missing’, m’Lady remained in charge of them herself: they were kept locked up. Enterprising suppliers of fashionable accessories designed elegant lockable tea caddies for drawing room use, befitting m’Lady’s degree, to enhance the occasion. The keeping of the precious leaves ever under the hostess’s watchful eye resulted in a need for the boiling water to be provided in the drawing room itself. Silversmiths obliged Georgian society by producing fine ornamental kettles on stands with spirit-flame heater below. The kettle, the tea and the teapot were the hostess’s domain. Watching the performance and anticipating its agreeable result were part of the shared enjoyment of this event.

The ritual of tea-making inevitably became a vehicle for show, impressing the company with its fine trappings. British potters joined the act. Earthenware being insufficiently fine, they earnestly strove to copy the fine Chinese porcelain, and made their own teapots, jugs and bowls modelled on the Chinese. They competed with each other to make beautifully decorated tea sets, now much valued as antiques. Josiah Spode in the 1790s successfully produced his bone china, the word ‘china’, by this time, being used to refer to porcelain. Tea certainly tastes well from a bone china cup. Customers, they found, came to prefer cups with handles, so they provided them, and larger than the tiny China bowls, so they provided those, too.

The tea itself contained certain extra plant matter amongst its leaves, which floated on the surface in the cup. This was strained off with a special shallow-bowled pierced ‘mote skimmer’. Enterprising silversmiths offered handsome silver skimmers with pretty patterns of piercing. At first the traditional Chinese porcelain spoon, on its own tray, would be handed round to be used for stirring. This was found to be rather cumbersome, so the teaspoon was created, around the 1790s, so that each drinker could have an individual stirrer. Once more the silversmith’s art came into its own with a choice of pretty designs. The teaspoon has ever since held its own as a useful innovation, and is now a standard item. Strainers, also produced in variety, enabled the hostess to prevent leaves from entering the cup; with their special bowls to rest on they joined the essentials on the tray, gradually displacing the mote skimmers.

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Your Secret Decoder Ring

The following text by Vlad Tepes appeared in his links post last Wednesday in a slightly different form:

This one [video] might deserve a few words though. One of the issues that comes up now and again is the confusion people have with the notion that the left is somehow hypocritical. They are not. They are using Marxist dialectics to achieve a certain outcome. This isn’t hypocrisy because it isn’t a moral failing on their part (from their perspective), or a lack of vision.

A couple of recent examples of dialectics could be when Trudeau went to Japan and lectured Italy’s newly elected female Prime Minister on her quite rational policies concerning group rights for people with non-standard sexual practices. Trudeau publicly admonished her for failing to deconstruct and ultimately criminalize the values that made her country the source of Western Civilization in many ways. He did this in Japan. Probably the least diverse nation on Earth with policies of both systemic racism and racism by cultural norms. Not that I am judging that. Japan has a right to protect and enjoy its own culture, which clearly works for them as they have a staggeringly successful nation with low crime, massive trust, efficient operations, clean streets, low drug use and so on and so on and so on. But it is interesting that Trudeau did not attempt to lecture the Japanese leader on his failure to destroy his own country with Marxist policies of diversity, equity and inclusion, deciding to focus on Italy instead.

Also we have not heard Trudeau comment on the Chinese policy of not allowing effeminate men to appear on television. I think Canada should send the entire CBC to China. That’ll learn ‘em. If CBC can benefit China half as much as it benefits Canada, Canada won’t have to worry about Chinese influence anymore or Marxist manifest destiny, and China won’t be a threat to anyone much longer.

Another example is the designation of “oligarch” to a person as opposed to “philanthropist”. Bill Gates and George Soros are somehow philanthropists while any rich, powerful and connected person who uses his wealth for the counter-revolution is an oligarch. So this is dialectical. Not hypocrisy, because it is the weaponization of concepts and language through multiple means to create an outcome which always moves the culture and nation to the left. Always more state control. Islamophobia as a pejorative is usually used when someone says something true about Islam. It shuts people up and moves the focus of evil intent to the messenger. This is not hypocrisy. This is dialectics. Like “climate denial”, “transphobia” and many other devices intended to be destructive to every aspect of our civilization.

The host of this video may also be shy of the whole nature of his own point in his analysis of what Democrats mean when they say “democracy”. This is a dialectic term as well. They are using what Stephen Coughlin refers to as “initiate language”. They are using the term “democracy” as Lenin did when he named his party “The Socialist Democrat Party” in Russia. The US Democrats have a core that is called the DSA or Democratic Socialists of America. They know perfectly well what they mean when they use the term. They also know how we hear the term and what we think they mean.

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Thailand in Trouble

Our Bangkok correspondent H. Numan sends his report on the latest news from Thailand.

Thailand in trouble

by H. Numan

There is some news from Thailand, unfortunately not very good news. First, royal news. Not really important for you, but very important in Thailand. Before Christmas, Princess Bajrakitiyabha, the eldest daughter of King Rama X, collapsed during a function ‘up country’ due to a sudden heart attack. She was flown to Bangkok for medical treatment, but is still unconscious.

A couple of years ago, we had something similar in The Netherlands: Prince Friso went skiing, caused an avalanche, and had to be rescued. After three hours he was dug up, barely alive and unconscious. He died about three months later, never regaining consciousness.

I fear we’re close to a royal funeral. It’s important in Thailand, not only because she is royalty, but more because she is in the direct line of succession. The king has many children from many wives, but none of them are succession material. Thai succession laws are really complicated; let’s just keep it at that.

Now on to the news. This is so mindbogglingly stupid, that it’s hard to find words for it. Criminally insane is a good description. Thailand is busy reopening its borders for unvaccinated Chinese tourists. It’s not yet certain. Rules don’t change by the day; they change every frigging 10 minutes. At least that’s a sign that not everybody in the government is completely bonkers.

Let’s be clear about one thing: there are a lot of ‘anti-vax’ people here. I don’t agree with them. Please don’t respond with the usual slander, like doing my own research, not being a sheep, that sort of thing. I won’t respond, and it makes you look childish. Of course I’m not a doctor. Neither are you. So let us agree to disagree. What I’m writing about has nothing to do with vaccines, anyway, good or bad. It’s about consequences.

China opened the gates of hell — we call them departure lounges — on 8 January. All of sudden China stopped with their draconian lockdown policy. Why?

Because it was unaffordable. China doesn’t have a working vaccine. They developed Sinovac, which was the least effective vaccine when the pandemic began. Thailand and many other nations used it for want of anything better. It became quickly clear it was not effective, and lost whatever effectiveness it had against later variants. Nobody outside of China uses it today.

The only way China could keep the virus at bay was by instituting draconian — and extremely expensive — lockdowns. It worked, for a while. Lockdowns are expensive in two ways: first you have to test just about everyone twice or three times every week. Let’s say a test kit costs $5 each. That quickly adds up, if you have to test close to a billion people. They simply ran out of money.

The next part is what to do when one tests positive. That’s even worse. Everybody nearby will be put in quarantine. If you live in a large condo, and one occupant tests positive, the whole building goes into quarantine. In China quarantine is like going to prison, with a near certainty you’ll catch something there. If not Covid, something else. The Chinese health care system is rudimentary under the best of circumstances. Right now the circumstances aren’t the best. Quarantine means that entire mega-cities are ‘out of action’; they cost a lot of money and don’t produce anything. Such as Shanghai or Beijing, for example.

There is also the cost in human misery. Something the Chinese government rarely takes into consideration, communist or otherwise. Until they have to, which was at the end of November 2022. The people had had enough, and started to riot. Seriously riot; we’ve seen tanks deployed to counter it. Even so, brute force wasn’t enough. The government caved in. They promised to lessen restrictions and open the borders again.

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The East is Dead

H. Numan, who is based in Bangkok, sends this report on the current socio-political crisis in China.

The East is Red Dead

by H. Numan

Football is a sport. Sometimes a deadly sport. I’m talking of course about what Americans call soccer and the rest of the world football. It even caused a war in 1969. Right now, it’s causing massive uprisings in China. Something nobody, least of all Chinese censors, could foresee. Likely with deadly consequences for the entire world.

Football is hugely popular in China. The Qatar World Championships are shown live on Chinese TV. The censors clearly forgot that TV cameras will show not just the players, but also the crowds. Who are sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, without wearing masks. Chinese citizens are not stupid. They probably heard stories about the West being no longer in lockdown. Now they see those ‘wild conspiratorial rumors’ confirmed. By their own government.

At the same time an unfortunate accident happened in Xinjiang. A building caught fire while the city was under lockdown. The residents were welded inside their building. Literally. Municipal workers welded the doors and the locks shut. That happens a lot during Chinese lockdowns. The people had no way to escape the fire, and firemen couldn’t enter the building. Ten people lost their lives.

The news of the fire combined with the championships made the population explode in anger. Ordinary Chinese citizens could see with their own eyes, on state TV, that the outside world was okay after Covid. All their suffering and hardship was, and is, in vain.

This is by far the biggest crisis the Chinese Communist Party has faced since Tiananmen Square in 1989. It may very well grow into something much bigger, because the Tiananmen Square riots were not widespread. Only some students revolted, and only in Beijing and a few other large cities. With, at that time, nearly a billion people, ‘some’ students does quickly add up. Also, nobody outside university campuses knew about Tiananmen Square. It could be controlled. The current riots are all over the country, by enraged ordinary citizens.

There is no formal cadre or leadership in this outburst. People have simply had enough. All over China riots are flaring up. So far, nothing that the police can’t handle. Demonstrating in China is highly illegal. Any gathering of more than a few people is closely watched, and often dispersed quickly by the authorities. Even if it is a ‘long live Xi Jinping!‘ demonstration. With extreme violence, if that becomes necessary. That’s the situation the authorities face right now. How to handle it? Difficult to say. Normally the riot police would be sent in. That probably would make things far worse, causing more and much bigger riots.

They could give in, and ease the Covid lockdown regulations. However, that will very quickly cause more problems. You see, China isn’t a superpower. It is a lower income country with a huge population, some nukes and a very bad public health system. Under the most oppressive regime since Mao.

Xi Jinping, the present chairman just got his tenure extended. He is effectively president-for-life. Technology gave him much more of a grip on society than was possible under Mao or even in the DDR. With much Western support, by means of Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter, China was able to control its population to an extent few people in the West would think possible. Xi Jinping used it to build his own power base. Don’t believe a word of anti-corruption in China. It’s as hollow and meaningless as anti-corruption in Thailand. In Asia, notably China, corruption is endemic. Built into the system. Anti-corruption simply means replacing corrupt officials with your own cronies.

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“Completely Ignoring Science and Medicine”

A Japanese scientist named Masanori Fukushima, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University, recently caused a major controversy when he appeared on television and upbraided the country’s medical establishment for its dishonesty and negligence concerning the experimental mRNA treatment intended to mitigate the effects of infection with the Wuhan Coronavirus. He particularly excoriated them for ignoring the evidence of serious adverse side effects, including death, from the vax.

Many thanks to El Inglés for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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The Dream of Greater Turkey

Lucine Kasbarian has published an article at WND News Center about Pan-Turkism. Some excerpts are below:

Pan-Turkism’s Aggressive Dreams of Empire — Yesterday and Today

by Lucine Kasbarian

Turkey’s imperial ambition of creating a Pan-Turkic empire, ruled from Ankara, is on display in today’s Caucasus and elsewhere.

This racist ideology envisions an empire that would include any country or region speaking a Turkic-type language regardless of how distant that language is from the language spoken in Turkey and regardless of whether the people in those regions approve of such an empire. This doctrine was and continues to be a key element of Turkish foreign policy.

A country standing in the way, Christian Armenia, is considered the Cradle of Civilization. In Biblical tradition, Noah’s Ark rested upon the peaks of Mt. Ararat — the historic symbol of Armenia. The Armenian language is considered to be one of the mothers (if not the mother) of all Indo-European languages.) Armenia is decidedly non-Turkic.

Read the rest at WND News Center.

Terra Australis Incognita


Terra Australis, world map by Rumold Mercator, 1587

From deepest antiquity until the early 19th century, it was widely believed that there was an enormous continent occupying most of the Southern Hemisphere. Known as Terra Australis, or Terra Australis Incognita (“Unknown Southern Land”), it was thought to be centered on the South Pole, and to extend far north into the temperate regions of the South Pacific and the southern Indian Ocean. The necessity of its existence was logically deduced from the fact that large landmasses were known to exist in the Northern Hemisphere, but not in the Southern. It was posited that there had to be a southern mass to balance out the globe, so a huge continent must exist in the far south.

At various times Tierra Del Fuego, the northern coast of Australia (then called New Holland), New Guinea, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, and miscellaneous large islands in Polynesia were identified as portions of the coastline of Terra Australis.

Later, as exploration of the far south continued and maps became more completely filled in, the possible dimensions of Terra Australis shrank, and Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, and eventually even Tasmania had to be identified as free-standing islands (or, in the case of Australia, a continent). Eventually the idea of Terra Australis had to be completely abandoned, and it joined spontaneous generation, the four humors, phlogiston, and the celestial spheres in the dusty attic of discredited scientific exotica.

For centuries the imagined continent had been referred to as Australia. When it became clear that it didn’t exist, New Holland (by then a British territory) was renamed Australia so that it could be identified without reference to either the English or the Dutch. Then, when the real Terra Australis was finally discovered, it had to be given the name Antarctica, since “Australia” was already taken. It turned out to be a cold, bleak, and unromantic place. The customs and practices of the indigenous penguins are nowhere near as interesting as those of the elaborate autochthons imagined by the devotees of Terra Australis.

The people who believed in the great southern continent weren’t wild-eyed zealots espousing a religious cult. They were explorers, scientists, geographers, cartographers, and their aristocratic patrons. The fact that they could hold such firm but erroneous beliefs shows how sober, rational, intelligent, educated men, proceeding carefully and methodically, can get a matter of such great significance completely and utterly wrong.

The elaborate maps and descriptions of Terra Australis arose out of a combination of small scholarly errors and a paucity of well-documented information on the southern reaches. With so little detailed first-hand observations available, a few slight inadvertent errors — mistaking “north” for “south”, the conflation of similar names, etc. — allowed the construction of the imagined continent, assisted by the powerful engine of wishful thinking. Even the habits, customs, and apparel of the natives were described in vivid accounts of the fabulous South.

The idea that there ought to be a landmass in the Southern Hemisphere to balance those in the North makes complete sense. Knowing what we know now, I could have told them: “Yes, there is an actual imbalance in the Earth’s landmasses because of the catastrophic collision that created the Moon and left a big hole on one side of the planet. The southern regions, especially in the Pacific area, comprise the remains of that hole, which is still being filled in by the extremely slow drifting of the Earth’s continents.”

But they had no way of knowing that back then. Their conjecture completely fit the facts, as they understood them.

There may be some lessons in there for us modern-day folk who think we understand everything about everything. Each epoch has embraced its share of “facts” that everyone knew to be true. They were well-understood, beyond discussion, and established by the consensus of the scholars. Yet they were eventually discredited, and now appear as historical footnotes or in anthologies of quaint archaic fancies.

Does anyone believe that our own time is exempt from such misguided fancies?

If not, what are our most significant delusions?

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Oliver Janich Arrested in the Philippines

In the past I’ve posted about the German journalist Oliver Janich, notably back in 2019 concerning the honey trap set for Austrian Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.

Mr. Janich has evidently become too much of a nuisance for the German government. He has been arrested in the Philippines and will be extradited to Germany.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Der Wochenblick. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

Arrest in the Philippines — background unclear

Before an interview about Freemasons: Courageous journalist Oliver Janich arrested

The powerful apparently want to get rid of their critics step by step. Only a few weeks after the arrest of Querdenken (“lateral thinking”) founder Michael Ballweg and the scandalous raid on Dr. Courage, Paul Brandenburg, the system is apparently targeting the next dissident. This time it hit the alternative journalist and author Oliver Janich. He was taken into custody in the Philippines. The background is unclear for the time being.

Arrest in the Philippines and deportation

The reason for this is said to be an extradition request from Germany. According to Janich’s circle, he was picked up by boat and then taken to Manila airport to be deported. This is also reported by AUF1 editor-in-chief Stefan Magnet on his Telegram channel. He was supposed to have a Zoom interview with Janich today.

It might be about new insights into Freemasonry and secret societies, which Janich had researched meticulously. Speaking of which: SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also said to be a Freemason, according to informed circles, and once invited their representatives to the City Hall as Mayor of Hamburg, and even prepared a Senate reception for them.

What exactly Janich is accused of is still completely unclear. It is therefore also uncertain whether he is accused of a private criminal offense, or of a “thought crime”. However, the chicane-raid and Ballweg’s arrest already showed that the transitions can be fluid. There, too, large parts of the critical public assumed that the accusation was fabricated. As Magnet later added, the German authorities are currently stonewalling about the background and are not disclosing any details.

Investigative journalist with a large fan base

The 53-year-old Janich is considered a veteran of alternative investigative journalism. Originally working in the mainstream as a financial journalist, he has regularly written for independent media such as Politically Incorrect or Compact over the past decade. He has always tried to look behind the scenes of the powerful, and has already made a name for himself for clarifying inconsistencies in the official 9/11 narrative.

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China Won’t Be Here for Long

Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends his observations about the Taiwan crisis, and the larger issues facing China.

China won’t be here for long

by H. Numan

For a few days China caught the full attention of the world. Will they start World War Three? That’s what usually happens, when you shoot down the Speaker of the House of another superpower. As I expected, it simply fizzled out. China didn’t shoot anyone down. Nor will they. It’s all just trying to impress. Pelosi was praised by Republicans and criticized by Democrats. Quite a change. And Brandon Biden? The poor old fool got egg on his face. Same for general Mark ‘Tranny’ Milley.

China can’t invade Taiwan, unless they want to better Operation Downfall. I’m not an expert, but casualties would be extremely high. A lot higher than back in 1945. Taiwan hasn’t been idle for the last 76 years. China won’t invade to save human lives. Far from it. Expect over a million casualties on the Chinese side alone. China is more than willing to expend that much human capital, they’ve got plenty of that. What they lack is expertise and capabilities. And the sure knowledge China would no longer exist if they do. That’s the sole reason they won’t invade.

Let’s start with that. China has grown massively the last couple of decades. From a Third World country into a Third World country with a large export based economy. Quite an achievement, to be honest. But with a catch: they rely almost entirely on imports for everything. Going to war would be the last war for the communist party. The boycott that hits Russia pretty hard would be deadly for China. China has to import most of its food and energy.

Unlike China, Russia is somewhat self sufficient. Sure, life will be hard. But when was life not hard in Russia? It’s not the end of the world for the Russians. Just another tough time. Russia doesn’t need a navy, as it doesn’t import or export a lot. Now look at China. Despite its big mouth, it utterly depends on the US Navy. If anything happens to Chinese maritime trade, it can do absolutely nothing about it. Apart from ships and crew, they lack everything. No experience. No logistics. It’s one thing to sail a ship from Shanghai to Alexandria; sailing a fleet or even a squadron is something else entirely. The Chinese navy can’t operate outside of mainland air cover. It won’t be able to do so for a long time to come.

Let’s say that Chinese salami slicing goes wrong. A missile goes off course and hits Taiwan. Don’t be surprised if right after that Somali pirates highjack a Chinese crude oil tanker, with Allied warships in the region looking the other way. “Out of respect for the sovereignty of the Chinese people.” After all, there is no real reason or need for the US Navy to protect what essentially is an enemy vessel.

What China is doing right now is extremely dangerous, mainly to itself. There is a reason for that. China needs to divert local attention elsewhere. If you have huge domestic problems, focus on a foreign enemy. It’s a tried and true method for all dictatorships. Sometimes it even works.

China realized after the invasion of Ukraine that all her plans of the last forty years to invade Taiwan have failed. That hurts! Hence the hullabaloo. A big part of the Chinese plan was to drop airborne troops and take over the government quickly. That’s pretty risky. It sometimes works, but usually it doesn’t. To remind you, the Germans tried the same when they invaded The Netherlands. It failed. The Allies tried it at Arnhem (Operation Market Garden) and failed. Operation Varsity was successful, but losses were very high. Montgomery was heavily criticized for it. More recent, Russian airborne troops and Spetsnaz tried to take over the airfield near Kiev and completely failed. Those troops were combat veterans with lots of experience. China doesn’t have any combat veterans or experience. None whatsoever. An airborne operation is a bit more complicated than dropping a bunch of troops out of a few planes.

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A Flood of Migrants From Hong Kong

A reader in the UK sends this reminder of an immigration issue that is getting almost no public discussion:

This is a completely unreported issue in the UK. In addition to the ongoing flood of legal and illegal immigrants and the huge increase in overseas students (largely from China), the government is proposing to bring in 500,000 immigrants from Hong Kong. This is despite the fact that the most recent government stats (from 2019) show that 25% of working-age people in England, Scotland and Wales were economically inactive or seeking employment.

An article from CapX is totally in favour of this influx, and states that the people of the UK support it. The fact is that they know nothing about it because the MSM does not report on immigration — other than the odd Daily Mail article about illegal cross-channel entry. This is something that people here need to know about — not that there is much chance of stopping it, as all political parties are firmly in favour.

Excerpts from the CapX article:

As Hong Kong marked this weekend a quarter-century since the handover of from UK to China, the next chapter in this story of the end of empire — or perhaps transition between empires — is set much closer to home.

The arrival and settlement of Hongkongers will be a central British migration story of the 2020s. More than 125,000 Hongkongers have secured a British National (Overseas) visa since the programme was launched in January last year. It appears likely that between 250-500,000 Hongkongers could come to live in Britain over the next few years. Whatever the scale, new arrivals from Hong Kong will join the post-war Windrush generation, the Ugandan Asians of half a century ago and the Polish workers who came after 2004 among the iconic examples of Britain’s long history of migration and integration.

Welcoming this new wave of migration via the BN(O) visa route was a conscious choice, one of the first big immigration policy decisions as to what post-Brexit Britain would do with its new immigration controls. There was (and still is) a broad, cross-party, civic and public consensus that this was the right thing to do — given Britain’s historic responsibilities, China’s new security laws and indeed the positive contribution that Hongkongers could make to Britain.

The issue of immigration from Hong Kong is a reminder that not all cultural enrichment comes from Islamic countries or the Third World.

I suppose native Brits should console themselves with the thought that at least the new arrivals from Hong Kong won’t threaten to kill them if they don’t convert to Taoism…

Russia Retaliates for Sanctions

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Report24:

Chip makers groan as Russia limits noble gas exports

Bad news for manufacturers of semiconductor chips, among others. As a countermeasure to Western sanctions, Russia has imposed restrictions on the export of noble gases.

Moscow has repeatedly stated that it will react appropriately to increasing Western sanctions. The Russians are responding accordingly, with Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and Qualcomm exiting the Russian market after the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union imposed export controls on chips made or designed in the United States or Europe.

For the time being, until December 31 of this year, exports of noble gases require a special permit from the Russian government. “We believe that we will have the opportunity to make our voices heard in this global chain, and this will give us a competitive advantage when it is necessary to conduct mutually beneficial negotiations with our peers,” said Russia’s Deputy Trade Minister Vasily Shpak told Reuters on Thursday.

Given that Russia is responsible for around a third of global production of the noble gases neon, krypton and xenon, and the two Ukrainian noble gas producers Ingas and Cryoin in Donbass stopped production in March due to the war, global supply is becoming increasingly scarce. These produced around half of the global demand for neon. For example, neon is used in lasers during lithography, a part of the chip manufacturing process that burns patterns into silicon.

The Russian move promises to prolong the global semiconductor supply crisis, which is already wreaking havoc on a variety of industries that use the increasingly ubiquitous chips. Taiwan — the leading maker of chips in general and 92 percent of the most advanced chips — has also restricted its exports to Russia and can now expect to face severely curtailed noble gas supplies in return.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the sanctions against Russia are boomeranging back on Western economies. The bear was cornered and is now fighting back. With disastrous consequences for the people and businesses of Europe who are suffering under the sanctions imposed by their politicians.

Afterword from the translator:

Just look on the bright side: now they can’t push the chips into our bodies as easily any longer, and that is most likely the sole reason why they are miffed with the Russians. Their long march towards tyranny came to a chasm whose bridge they blew up themselves. Long live stupidity… oops, sorry, naturally I meant “solidarity”.