 And we are having a webinar today and with Jodi Evans live from China. So everyone tell her hello and thank you for staying up so late for us. I wanna just first of all invite or welcome the people from the local area. We've really been reaching out to the LA area. My fellow activists in many areas, we all know each other. And to recognize that we might not all agree with what is being said today, but it's important that we're here or that people might not even agree with what we're doing out at the harbor. And I'd like to share with you the kind of the idea of why we are doing those things. So we have been out there at the LA harbor and confronting what we see as real militarization of our harbor. It's a commercial harbor, LA harbor, 40% of all of the imported goods from around the world that we consume in the United States comes through the LA harbor. And for the last eight years, they have been taking it over with the military. It has been a giant recruitment tool for the military. And we saw on channel five news even recently on I think Thursday or Friday, they were of course covering it and promoting it. And the woman who was the soldier there talking to the reporter said, oh, it's a great military recruiting tool. So I would just like to, for the record, whether people are here or not, help people understand who are of politically progressive, who would be against military recruiting of youth but are down there at fleet week right now in any capacity or just enjoying the party that they really understand that the military's intention of this is to not only recruit children, one soften the general population to a friendliness towards war and militarism and have us pretend that we're still in World War II, a lot of the pictures that are shown, and I don't have the capacity to kind of talk and show all these pictures, but a lot of the pictures that are shown are of women dressed in 1940s outfits. And so it's really fun and they play swing music as if our foreign policy is still anti-fascist. And our foreign policy is definitely anything but anti-fascist since World War II, it has become fascist. And so just be aware of what we are supporting out there. And also to say that we have seen because we've been out here eight years and we have been doing peace week for as long as fleet week has been happening and which has been eight years. And I am from this town, it's my hometown and my dear departed grandfather who was a lifelong progressive in this town, I know would be proud of what I'm doing and what we're all doing here. Thank you, Anne. So he sits on my shoulder, John Galt presently. And we have noticed in the past two years that the increase in Asian-Americans who are in line to go onto the Iowa. And so we saw that right away and knew that people are being groomed and promoted to and all of this for just general military buildup in Asia but also potential war against China. So we found it very important to have this webinar today. And I wanna thank you all for being on this panel. And I think we are you first up or is Joni? I think it's me but I wanna start framing the campaign. But also just to note that I think it's so interesting that we have Wei here with us because she comes from a port city in China that's just like San Pedro. It serves the larger city of Beijing and it's a giant port. So I'm looking at you, Rachel and Wei and you both come from the ports of your country. And so I'm just super appreciating that we're having this conversation. I'm coming in from China and I'm the person who started this campaign. China is not our enemy three and a half years ago. And I started it because I noticed that the propaganda hate around China was exactly like what was driving the war to Iraq. I was like, oh my God, this is a rock all over again because you can see the story played the same way across every mainstream media. It was the same story, it said the same thing. There wasn't anything different and it was just like, oh, here we go, warmongering all over again. And it also, what was different for me about this was that it was weaponizing the hearts and minds of progressives to be the vanguard of the war on China. It was using language and manufacturing stories that they could use the hearts and minds of progressives. So the whole idea of this campaign was how do we educate people in an area where they're super uneducated? I mean, I thought it was bad about Iraq but it's kind of doubly bad around China because Iraq, nobody even knew where it was on the map. China, it's everyone has a Western manufactured idea of what China is. And so here we are like pushing a war on China with no clue who China is. And as we know, the US makes enemies out of whoever they wanna go to war on sells the US public on the fact that they're an enemy so that they can go to war on them. And we saw that we've seen that throughout history, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria. So here we go, we've got another enemy. Now, a lot of the stories we've told have been debunking the propaganda that has been pushed by the Pentagon. But since I'm here, I wanna tell some stories from here that really speak to the port story. And I was just talking with a friend who had just come back from Shenzhen. He's got a company there. And he said that, I said, well, what about the slavery and the growing of cotton? And so he said there's no slavery in the growing of cotton, except in the South and the United States where the slaves out of the jails in the South to do the cotton picking in the South. The entire picking and combing of cotton that happens in Shenzhen has been by machines for many, many years. And he described what it looked like, which is pretty amazing. And that it's also the place that grows the most high-end cotton in the world. But now because of sanctions, because there's slavery, growing cotton in Shenzhen, it's been shut down to Western markets. So what does that look like? What does it look like to consumers? It looks like higher prices for cotton. What does it look like for manufacturers? It looks like a shortage of cotton. What does it look like to all the people that were in that world? It's like it's closed down. So the story has had a false effect, but a real effect on the markets of cotton globally. And I think that's the same thing that we look at around being in a port and the conversation about trade is that all these conversations in Washington are happening not in relationship to what's happening in the world. We've seen that effect with Ukraine. We've seen the effects of starvation in Russia, the effects of what people are going through in Germany and France and in the EU countries in the effect of with energy and also with trade. And so the calling China an enemy, because what is China done to the United States? It's a story. But the thing that the US does is they name an enemy. And what we know is that the people of the world are beautiful no matter what country they're from, the people are beautiful, they're people. And it's leadership that drives wars, mostly leadership in the United States. 60% of the weapons in the world, the expenditure and the weapons in the world are under controlled by the United States. 60%, just think of that. 4% of the people, 60% of the violence because I think owning weapons is determining that you believe in violence. So I've been kind of walking around talking to people that I can get to talk to me here in China and especially Westerners or people that speak English so because I don't speak Chinese. And I've been asking what did they think about what the US is doing and the growing war on China? I loved the response of a French guy who's been here for 12 years, married a Chinese woman, runs the coffee shop where I go. And he says, well, I hate to say this to you because you're from the US, but I mean, I worry about the US, not China. So which is with other people's responses of just like, really, there are other people's responses were is the US that crazy? So I've been deeply worried about the anxiety that it causes in China. I'm less worried because I was in Iraq when Colin Powell held up the little fake vial of weapons of mass destruction story. And it did traumatize the Iraqis. And I watched that happen right after 9-11 when the United States had been traumatized by a terrorist attack. And I always felt like if you've been traumatized by something, why would you inflict trauma on another? But I think what people don't understand about China is, I have a, is China's own understanding of their own resilience, their own strength, their own capacity to bend and not break. And their confidence of 3,000 years of not being conquered that I didn't understand. I think until I came here this last time because I've been asking everybody that keeps them from being traumatized. I think they worry, I think they know there will be problems, but there's a confidence that I wasn't aware of until all my question asked, asking this time. And then, you know, the other thing is, I ran a couple of presidential campaigns for Jerry Brown and one of our slogans in the presidential campaign was to serve the people. And it's, I never thought about it until being here and really witnessing what sort of the people looks like. And so I went to a place called Dali where it's part of the poverty alleviation project. It was where there was the greatest poverty towards the edges of the country is where the greatest poverty is away from the big cities. And there's a whole program of like not, you know, like we see in other countries where all the poverty comes to the big city, it's how to take development out to the rural areas. So it's not just in the big cities. And being in a place where in 10 years it had gone from absolute, you know, utmost poverty, a lake that had been so polluted that it was toxic. And no, there was no, nothing happening. It was really just toxic and poor. And 10 years to this vibrant, robust, cared for community. My husband got a sty while we were there and he went to the eye hospital and it was just like everybody's at the hospital, everybody got dealt with. There wasn't like the anxiety. He recognized there wasn't the anxiety or nervousness. It was just like everybody shows up, it's taken care of and leaves in a very organized fashion. But what I felt and really experienced in a way that I just recently in the last two days was able to articulate was that, I mean, I've traveled 110 countries in the world. You always go to a beautiful place where there's people selling wares and they're begging and you have kids coming up to you to be somewhere, especially because I live in the United States, where there are no one housed and where the people selling could really care less whether you buy or not. They're kind of hanging out. They've got their wares out there, but they're just hanging out. I mean, I went someplace where the girl was lying on a couch having a cigarette and a coffee. Didn't even get up when I walked in where it's just chill. And I realized it's, I'd never been in a place that lacked codependency that where it was, there was a way I literally felt liberated and at ease in this community. The bi women that I talked to about like how their lives changed, their income has increased by six times in 10 years, which probably has a lot to do with how joyous everybody was and the joy, the comfort, the curiosity, the engagement and beauty, it was kind of profound. So when we say China is not our enemy, why don't we be curious about what this place is, China, that has been so demonized and one would be curious about, why do you have to spend billions of dollars affecting what people think about a place instead of understanding it for ourselves? And maybe better, we should understand the costs in dollars, in lives, in the militarization of the world and our own communities and the hatred that is built when we separate from each other instead of when we are collectivized and that's the United States driving that hate where we see China coming up with peace plans and plans for diplomacy and actually a plan for peace in the Ukraine and actually having those conversations and creating a peace plan between the Sunni and the Shiite that everyone thought was impossible. So that's what our campaign is about, China is not our enemy. Bravo, bravo, thank you. So I see we have Michael Wong here. Wei, are you gonna have, are we gonna have Michael and then you? I'd like to say a couple of things beforehand. Thank you so much, Jodi and I'm sitting here thinking, I'm so glad this is being recorded because I can't necessarily triple invite people right now but when we have the link to this recording, I definitely will. I would like to say a couple of things as I pass it over to Michael is that is that here in the LA port and one of the reasons we're doing this and Wei, I did not know you were from a port town too. So looking forward again to working with you more is that labor here at the port and I come from a labor background from teacher labor but a lot of my friends are in ILWU and so there's so much benefit not only to people who work at the docs and all of the work that they get and their income but we here in Southern California so much is connected to trade and to peaceful relations with China and one of the not only labor but businesses, consumers and not one of the and so that's one of the kind of the reasons we're doing this also. You had mentioned, Jodi, about 60% of all the weapons in the world are either owned or controlled by the United States and that is definitely one of the messages we have out at peace week is stop glorifying guns. Last year when we were out at Fleet Week in front of the USS Iowa and anyone here today in LA you are welcome, pleased to come. We will be there between two and eight PM today Memorial Day and was we made a giant banner that said stop glorifying guns and it was four days after Uval day and that line of thousands and thousands of people waiting to get in to what is basically a military fairgrounds that were there four days after and so we were just super impressioning upon them that you cannot expect peace at home and be a violent nation abroad that all of this is glorifying guns and I think we're seeing a couple of links in the chat and I don't know if it's possible at all to get any links of that China's not our enemy up there especially the also the plan, the 12 point plan for peace with Ukraine that Jodi had alluded to and just one last thing before we turn it over to Michael is that Jodi you mentioned the rural urban or the rural development in China that you see a lot of my background is in Latin America in rural Latin America and so I have seen the poverty and just the racism against people in rural areas and the in Latin America and just the neglect as well as just the sacudir you could say the robbery of the resources of their areas and then they're just left out of all development and of course I did not see that in Cuba. So what you're describing in China to me is the Cuban plan where there was a plan to help engage rural America and it's beautiful like you're describing thank you for bringing that up with China and I would like to just say one before really turn it over to Michael don't we need that here in America? Isn't that one of the issues with the rage in America is America's heartland has been forgotten and they look to the West Coast and the more East Coast and the more quote unquote developed or whatever urbanized and that isn't coming to them when the itty bit of healthcare that was gonna come through Obamacare started to open up thousands and thousands of healthcare jobs in rural America until their politicians shut it down. So definitely I think that this rural urban divide needs to be talked about here in the United States not only because rural America and urban America of course need help but because that would help us come together perhaps politically in cooperation. So without further ado I would love to turn it over to Michael now Wei if you would. Hi, I'm Michael Wong and I'm the National Vice President of Veterans for Peace. I'm also the co-chair of the Veterans for Peace China Working Group and a co-founder of Pivot to Peace. Let me just say a few things about why we're having this Cold War on China before I go into more details about China specifically. As most of us know the United States has been out to dominate the world to be the person who makes the rules the nation who makes the rules and the nation who orders other people to obey our rules. That's our version of the rules based international order. We've had wars from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to various covert wars in Asia, in Latin America, in Africa and of course we're having a proxy war right now in Ukraine. All of this is to dominate the world. The United States is against China because China has become by some measures the world's largest economy and the United States fears that with economic power China will have the leverage to project diplomatic power, military power, et cetera and replace the United States as the world dominant power. China has said that's not its goal that China's vision for the world is a multipolar world in which all nations can thrive and live in peace and be equal under international law to each other. China has not built bases around the world they have one base in Djibouti and why do they have that one base? They have that one base because the United States asked China among other nations to participate in antipiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. China agreed and that's what the Djibouti base is used for to support those operations. A lot of lies and a lot of propaganda has been directed at China just as it got directed at Vietnam, Iraq, other nations that we're going against Ukraine currently. Let me just debunk quickly the lies about one specific part of China which is Xinjiang. The United States has accused China of committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Xinjiang orders five Muslim countries when the United States says that the Uyghurs are being prosecuted because they're Muslims you have to ask why if U.S. claims that up to one million Uyghurs were put in concentration camps were being genocide it, if that was true why are there no flood of refugees to these five Muslim countries that borders Xinjiang? Why is it that thousands of tourists and business people visit Xinjiang on a regular basis, it's an open area they can visit it just like they can and visit other places in China. So that's just a very quick debunking of the Xinjiang myth that the United States has been promoting. I wanna talk also about Taiwan. Taiwan has been a province of China since ancient times. The government on Taiwan consisted of two parties, the Chinese Nationalists and a new party called the DPP, which is and there's some smaller parties as well. But that government at one time rude all of China the official name of the government on Taiwan is the Republic of China. Their constitution says they are the government of all of China and it says that because at one time they were the government of China. They overthrew the last imperial emperor started a new form of democratic government. Fought World War II along with the Communists and after World War II there was a civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. The Communist one, the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan and for a long time they continued to be recognized as the official government of China at the United Nations and by the United States. When Nixon went to visit China 50 years ago, that changed. United States recognized the People's Republic of China the Communist government as the official legitimate government of China and they took the seat of China at the UN replacing the former Nationalist government. So this is not a separate country. It is not an independent country. Both governments recognize Taiwan as a province of China officially in the law in their constitutions. The flag that they fly on Taiwan is the same flag under which they once rude all of China. When Nixon made peace with China and created the opening to China 50 years ago an agreement was made with the United States that the question of Taiwan would be settled by the Chinese themselves that this was an internal question and unresolved civil war. And that there was only one China and that the government in Beijing is the official government of China and the United States would only have unofficial relations with the current government in Taiwan. What we've been doing recently is pushing up against that red line. China has said that it wants peaceful eventual reunification with Taiwan. They prefer not to use force and they strongly prefer that. They consider the people in Taiwan to be Chinese and they don't want Chinese to kill Chinese. China has been very clear that the only way that they would consider military action against Taiwan would be if the government on Taiwan declared independence. The agreement that Nixon made and that has been the official stance of the United States and China ever since is that there's one China the United States will not have official relations with the government on Taiwan. Any communication or interactions or trade will be done unofficially. Recently with Pelosi and other people from the United States government of Congress visiting China that breaks that rule and that pushes up against China's red line on Taiwan. The other thing that's happened is that the United States has designed this strategy called the porcupine strategy in which we arm Taiwan to the teeth to fight China and create a proxy war just like you see in Ukraine. This is a very dangerous situation. It pushes up inch by inch against China's red line and could spark an actual shooting war in the foreseeable future like the next couple of years possibly. The United States is also organizing with NATO, with Japan, with South Korea, with Australia. They're trying to drag New Zealand in, they're trying to drag India in, they're trying to drag the Philippines in. They're trying to line up all these countries to go against China. And they want to use them like proxies where they take the first hits, they do the main, the most fighting, they suffer the most just like Ukraine. And what that will do is if there was such a war it would do severe damage not only to China but to all of America's Asian allies. All of those countries have been progressing economically. The United States doesn't want other countries to become stronger than us. This is a way of manipulating different countries playing them against each other to bring them all down. It's called divide and conquer and it's a classic strategy that dates back to the colonial period. So this is the game that the United States is playing and I just want to articulate that so that everybody understands that game. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Michael, for bringing all of that into play. This is the graphic that we're using this year for Peace Week as we are countering Fleet Week here at the LA Harbor. And when we show people this graphic and we say this is China and this is the US military surrounding China they have different reactions. If they're Filipino, they point right to their islands and they say, that's my home. They know exactly and they have a problem with it. Most people are saying, I never knew. They have no idea what we're doing. And again, we're here at the LA Harbor. Peaceful trade with China is so much on the radar that people, they have no idea. And I said, that's why we're out here. The complete surrounding. One of the points we made and you can hear all about Peace Week this year. Last Thursday on KPFK, we were on at 6pm if you want to go back to that recording and hear all about why we are here. But one of the things I mentioned was right here, Australia, I do a lot of environmental and climate work and I work with young people who love animals. And as we all did when we were little before our hearts hardened and a year and a half ago, bless them. Australia was on fire. That fire that lasted several weeks, we all remember kind of right before the new war with Ukraine and Russia, a billion animals died. And within months, they were not talking about that. They were talking about nuclear submarines and this war with China and all the people who when we know just like in the United States people care, people want solutions, people need solutions. There must be so many millions of people in Australia right now who are just heartbroken and so frustrated as we are in the United States that they are talking about militarism and building up instead of the vital needs of their country which is combating climate change and all of the suffering human and animal that is going on right now in Australia. And speaking of climate change, I can also mention if you look at Al Gore's many of his comments about China for years, again, I teach environmental and climate issues. For years, he has really been lauding China and their work on climate change. And so, once again, proving that cooperation and peace is possible. So without further ado, thank you, Michael and Wei, we will have you up next and then we're gonna open it up. We've invited a couple of our participants to make a couple of comments and we open up for discussion also. Thank you, Wei. All right, thank you so much, Rachel and I really appreciate you being the organizer for Peace Week for the past eight years and then I'm just happy to be here to support. Hi everyone, my name is Wei. I am the China is not our enemy campaign coordinator at Code Pink. Jodi mentioned this just earlier. I was born in China and I actually grew up in a port city called Tianjin which is just off the coast, well, it's a port city. So right between the city of Beijing, which is the capital and the Pacific Ocean, basically that little area is where I grew up. And the city itself, we say it's a very young city but it's like in China's term, it was established like 600 years ago, so not very long in the massive history of China and we have to begin to settle there because it's by the coast and we have this saying to He Xia Shou to describe a city which means that it's at the entrance to the ocean, nine rivers all merge in the city to enter the Pacific Ocean. So people begin to settle there because it's so close to the rivers and people will just travel from all over the country to send people, send goods for trade and communication, communicating culture. So the city itself is just kind of like emerging of like all of these interactions through trade, through culture, through communications and it's just very beautiful and that's what ports of cities are supposed to be, to be this hub for communication, for exchange but then as Rachel pointed out, nowadays we see the LA Harbor being used for military and also the promotion and normalization of war. Just very scary. And I want to just share my experience with you and I hope the message you can take home is that just people don't want war because I grew up in China again and I sort of became politicalized during, when pivot to Asia during the Obama administration first began. So that's just during the Obama administration pivot to Asia. The argument was that the United States has neglected Asia for a very long time and they needed to pivot back but that just meant that there's a scary escalation of these military prisons by the U.S. or just different provocations whether in Taiwan and South China Sea. I was just like 10, 11 years old. I was just finishing up. Like I was in fifth grade or sixth grade and then I remember seeing all of these to be reports about like U.S. sending its worship to the South China Sea to challenge China essentially and it's going back to this peace week that we are having in L.A. Harbor is literally the U.S. as Iowa. These worships are being sent all the way across the ocean to the other side of the earth to challenge another country. And that was just really scary for me to see on TV as a child. Jody mentioned that Chinese people have the resilience. I was 10 years old. I didn't know. I just thought a war was starting. And now I'm with Code Pink. It's because I remember this experience and I don't want any other kids to feel as scared as I was. And it's not just kids in China like I was. We also see like Rachel is sharing on the screen right now this militarization of the entire Asia Pacific by the U.S. military. That's just harding people's home and people's lives. We know the oil spill in Red Hill in Hawaii and the building of new military bases in places like Okinawa and also Guam and the Mariana Islands. Military complexes, these training complexes are being built on people's ancestral burial grounds on critical habitats of endangered species. In Guam specifically, for example, they're building this live firing training complex that's going to fire hundreds of millions of bullets over the only source of drinking water on the island. They're conducting military exercises on the Pacific Ocean right above this humback whale nursery too. So it's really hurting people, hurting the environment. And we have activists all over the Asia Pacific from Guam to Philippines to Japan all saying that we don't want U.S. imperialism in our homes. Even going back to Taiwan, Michael earlier very eloquently explained the history of Taiwan and how we got to where we are today. And even nowadays, we know that the people of Taiwan also don't want to draft into war. We know that Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year when she was the Speaker of the House. And this year, Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen came to the U.S. to meet now Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. And as a result of that, Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen and her party are actually losing elections and losing popularities among voters because people say we want our politicians to care about our local issues, not starting a war. We're not courting the U.S. to further their expansion of their military on our home. So with that, I want to share with you a petition that we have currently is to tell U.S. Congress to stop war-mongering China with Taiwan. And I have too many tabs open on my laptop. And okay, there it is. Okay, one second. All right, so in the chat right now, so if we could all just click on the link. The picture right here is from the protest that when Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen met with McCarthy in California because they knew this is not a popular move. When Pelosi went to Taiwan last year and after Tsai met with McCarthy and she landed in Taiwan, they were met with protest by the people of Taiwan. They know this is not a popular move. So they came all the way to U.S. to make this meeting possible. But then again, people showed up because they don't want war. And we were there to promote peace. And also shout out to our partners from Pivot to Peace which Michael is a co-founder for. And you can see we already have almost 2000 signatures. Once we gather a lot of signatures, we're going to make sure to deliver this to our members of Congress in person. So I think we'll give a couple of minutes for people to do that. And yeah, again, thank you, Rachel for organizing Peace Week. And I'm so looking forward to finally meeting you in person this afternoon by the USS Iowa. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, it's going to be a very good day again if anyone is in the LA area. Come down and let other people know, bring other people. We're going to be down in front of the USS Iowa again today as we have pretty much all week. And between two and eight, about 6.30 when it starts to get dark, we're going to start a candlelight vigil for World Peace and for the victims of war, all victims of war. And, but we'll be down there starting around two o'clock leafleting. And thank you, Code Pink for providing all the wonderful literature that we are going to be mostly giving out today. Also, Veterans for Peace has put together and Military Family Speak Out has put together a very good pamphlet on specifically about Memorial Day and memorializing the victims of war. We have, everyone is wonderful on this webinar today, on this call, but we have a couple of particular people who we've invited to say a couple of words in particular to some of the issues we're trying to bring up. The first person I'd like to just have a brief comment, my dear friend, Vivian Price, and I will let her kind of speak for herself, but let's see, Vivian, I think all you have to do is unmute, is that right way? Are you there, Vivian? Okay, great, yeah. Yeah, I'll just say a couple of words first of all, thank you so much and it was my honor to participate in the anti-fleet wheat in prior years and I've moved away from the area, but I still watch what's going on. And I think that there is this very strange disconnect between what we know as our own interests, as workers, as people who want peace, and I would say in general most people feel that way, and the narratives that we hear, trying to push us to be, in this case, anti-China. And I particularly remember, not only this pivot to peace that Wei mentioned, but also the whole way that the former occupant of the White House tried to smear China as being the culprit for the COVID, and I think there's a lot of anti-Asian sentiment that's really wrapped up in a labor movement and in the country in general, that we really have to face. It's a form of racism and it's also a way to dehumanize another country and prepare us to think that it's legitimate to summon our resources and fight against them. I just participated in a study with defense workers who, and then the research question was, it was a UK-US study on how do defense workers think about a just transition away from high-carbon military, but also towards socially useful production of using the facilities and the finances of the military. And it was really astounding to see how many of the people I interviewed and that my colleagues interviewed felt very much that they would much prefer to be in different kinds of industries, that they would like to see their defense industry change because what we produce is useless. We think that this is going to protect us. In fact, it puts us in more harm's way, but we face these narratives and I think promoting that study is also a way for us in the labor movement to think about how the kind of education we need around climate change, around facing the real problems that we need to tackle rather than supporting US hegemony in the world. Thank you so much for this webinar. And Vivian, thank you. And I wanna ask you a specific question if you would. I miss you, first of all, you'd be in an LA, but being in the labor movement, if you feel comfortable talking about this that the point that was made earlier is that what is the role potentially of the local labor, whether any kind, whether it's port related labor or anyone in saying, wait a second, we are benefiting from a positive relation with China. We have actually good experiences with China. We're kind of confused about all this China hate. Is there a role of the local labor union in that? Definitely. I mean, I think that labor tends to be very shy about getting into issues beyond, raising wages and protecting benefits because of the division within the membership. But I think without promoting awareness of what people's real interests are, noting that anti-China rhetoric is a contradiction from the business that's going on in the port. Whether you, I mean, there can be some deeper analysis of what that business really is. But in terms of this question of China, yeah, I think it's very important. And particularly if the port unions to talk about how this is something that will threaten members' own interests too in the future. So I think it's a great idea to have, maybe have a speaker come to some of the events and the labor at meetings to talk about these questions. Just as climate change and health and safety of workers are discussed within the union meetings, these are important questions to put front and center. Wonderful. We need courage to do that. Yeah. Right. And so, and thank you Vivian and I'd love to, if you could pass me some specific ideas on how to do that one. One idea is the Harbor Commission here. Those might not know, I think there's five or seven people who are Harbor commissioners and they help run the LA Harbor. And there are, I think, weekly meetings and I'll let all of our participants know because I think they've gone online now because of COVID or maybe it's always a better way, but definitely I'm gonna start approaching them in their meetings. And if it is online, I'll let all of you know and you can participate too, because they are not aware. One of the things we did, and I'd also like to just reach out to LA and then I'm gonna bring Anne right on, is in Los Angeles we have, I think it's 92 neighborhood councils. And I think maybe a really good organizing tool could be to go to our neighborhood councils with just this picture again, I think is so powerful of us surrounding China with our military and having that, something like that, maybe be a beginning of a conversation because then we can have, and we actually have a model in Central San Pedro neighborhood council, we did get at a lower level in the port committee passed a resolution saying that we support peaceful trade with China and that the United States needs to, ratchet down the aggressive language. So we actually have a template for that for a petition and we would like to pass that around. So again, those of you in the LA area, let's start organizing around that and thinking of that, okay. So Anne Wright is probably in Hawaii right now and we'd love to hear from you, thank you. Well, thank you, Rachael, and it's a pleasure to be with everyone. It's, I am in Hawaii, so it's not as early as it is in China for Jodi, but I'm here in Honolulu, which is the headquarters of the Indo-Pacific command, the US military command for all of the waters from the west coast of California all the way to India. And it's at the Indo-Pacific command in Honolulu, where all of these US military exercises, some 500 a year that the US conducts with the countries of Western Pacific and Asia, I mentioned in the chat that in July is the massive land exercise called Talisman Sabre and over 30,000 US military and Australian military and bits and pieces of other militaries will be doing land exercises in Australia, Northern Australia, along with a component of air power, sea power and things like that. I also mentioned that as you all, Rachael, as you had mentioned, and the Australia being a focal point of the United States in terms of trying to get the Australian government to keep moving more and more toward hating its biggest trading partner, which is China. Australia ships more dirty coal to China that they use in their plants, I mean, that is their main exporter is to China. So the US is going after them on trying to stop exports becoming much more militarized and this Talisman Sabre exercise is one of the many that will be going on. The US is now permanently stationing military in Australia before it had been on a rotational duty, but now they're going to be permanently stationing and the US has constructed fuel storage tanks to hold 60 million gallons of fuel. And part of that's because of the horrific toxic pollution that the Navy did into the water supply of Honolulu last two years ago, which contaminated the water of 93,000 people. So now we're shipping the US will be shipping that fuel the 104 million gallons that are still in these tanks in Honolulu. They're going to be de-fueling those and then shipping the fuel out to various places. Singapore is another place they'll be shipping it. They have big storage tanks already in Okinawa. So the US in its push to really put pressure on China, you know, we have thought the agreement of the Philippine government that we'll have now nine bases in the Philippines. Most of them are co-joint or joint bases with Filipino military, but the, not the Duarte, but the Marcos regime has really opened up the Philippines to the US. And then in South Korea, we have the largest air exercises that we've had in seven years, better called, I mean, the military really picks some accurate names. Sometimes this, you know, in a couple of years ago, they had what was called decapitation war games. And this year it's called annihilation, firing, and they're firing right along the DMZ. So the potential for a misstake, a misstep is really, really high in the Western Pacific. Poro Guam is getting typhoons and of course, more and more military. The Commonwealth of Northern Marianas, Saipan, Rototinian are all being built up with the military. So it's not a good scene that we have out here. And with NATO now becoming North Atlantic Pacific treaty organization with sending ships and personnel out to the Pacific, it's another worldwide reach of war. Thank you. Man, that's so tough. And I'm just about to put in a little hashtag that I made up. And I'm a high school teacher, you know, if the children knew, you know, it just, this is just so anti-human. And young people would not go for this at all, which makes, and maybe as the next person who talks, which makes what's going on down at the port, just all the more egregious because it's just being promoted and promoted and promoted to these kids. And I want to again, because some people are kind of new on this webinar to show that picture. So we're going to have, oh, Jodi, did you get off yet? Or could you come back and just say goodbye? I'm here. Yeah, I know you have to go. It's very late for her, but thank you so much for spearheading this. So one of the things I just want to say is that we're going to be coming together in DC in about three weeks. We're planning for a teach-in in the halls of Congress because, you know, right now, they've just said to Taiwan that it's going to go under the US nuclear cover, which basically means that we're agreeing to a nuclear war with China that we're provoking. And that is also being provoked by a committee that's never existed in Congress before, a literal committee against a country. It's the congressional committee on China's competition. And that committee just released 10 points last week that basically are made up out of thin air and lies. And then it's like, and then we're just gonna, we recommend that the United States goes to our way China in a committee in Congress that knows nothing. By the way, none of these Congress people have been to China. And I think we should understand that this is a committee that's very similar to McCarthy's committee back in the 50s. It's very anti-communist, it's very hateful, and it's not based on facts or anything. It's just a hate committee. And so we're gonna be meeting in DC to be doing a teach-in about what's wrong with what this committee is saying and what they're doing and what the cost of the world could be. So if anyone wants to join me in DC, they can just let way know because we'll be putting something together. But it's quite frightening. I mean, if you're inside the United States, it's quite frightening. And to understand that the United States, the people in power in the United States think they can win a nuclear war is what this is about because you're not going to war on China except that you believe you can win a nuclear war. And I think we need to kind of swallow that and think about it and then figure out what we do about it because that's insanity and that's real insanity. So thank you, Rachel, for having me on. Thanks everybody for being peacekeepers and peacemakers and- Jodi, can I hold you for two? We have Lauren Steiner who is a great political activist, has her great show. She actually has a question for you if she can ask that. Thank you. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Jodi. This is a great webinar. I became aware of this pivot to Asia about 10, 11 years ago through my work fighting the TPP. My friend Arnie Psyche basically told me that it was all a cover for what we were planning to do. And I did several shows maybe about four years ago with Arnie and Tobita Chao and Sarah Flounders and Ellen Brown. Hold on, I'm just telling you gotta go to the left, James. We're just getting off the freeway as I'm coming on here about China being the new boogeyman and basically refuting some of these myths as you have done so well. But one thing that I wanna ask Jodi since she's over there, and because I'm always looking for arguments, rebuttals to the arguments that as she mentions progressives are now making. So one of them is the Uighurs and I think I've got some good rebuttal material about that. There's something called, and if I'm pronouncing this wrong, the QIAUO Collective has a great website with all these rebuttals to what's really going on there. But the other thing is the political prisoners and the persecution of dissidents and not allowing free speech and civil liberties. I remember literally 45 years ago reading about Cuba and studying revolutions where I learned that when you have a thriving middle class, you can afford to have civil liberties, free speech, free press, free expression. But when you're trying to have a revolution from when you just have peasants like in China and Russia, you often have to sacrifice some of those things in order to bring everybody's standard of living up. And in relation to Cuba, I don't know if I can talk about, you know... Just Lauren, if you would just ask your question because Jodi has to go, ask the question. Yeah, my question is, okay, so we say democracy versus authoritarianism. That's the central question. Okay, so can we just start? Thank you, thank you. I should kind of pull over here. Okay, can we just start? Thank you, Lauren. In the same way, Lauren, in the same way, there is no democracy in the United States. In that same way, there's no authoritarianism in China. So, I mean, it's like capitalism is it's own authoritarian regime that we live inside of and China has direct democracy. So let's just, you know, these words that we use, authoritarian regime, I want to tell you that when I was in Dali, the one hit I had was that, oh my God, I know what oppression looks like. How one of these people is oppressed. Harvard has done a study. Harvard says that 95% of the people in China, country of 1.5 billion people are happy. So, I mean, who are we, 4% of the world to determine what is true about 20% of the world? And I think, you know, we get caught up in all these words and I encourage everybody to watch in way if you could please share the movie about how China took everyone out of poverty. Now, in the 70s, like, oh, even when I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, we had to eat everything on our plate because a kid was starving in China. So to know that in the 70s, China was one of the poorest five countries in the world. And now it has a DP that is equal to the United States. But I also want you to think about what does the country work that's a billion and a half people, which is fascinating, by the way. And I hope to do a show about that for China's not our enemy in a couple of weeks because I've been learning and had a whole lecture on it. You see the direct democracy and the movie about taking people out of poverty. But I just was meeting with a professor here a few hours for dinner. And she had just come back from a Muslim city that had been so poor. I mean, the description of how poor. It's actually a 20-part series documentary here in China that just finished, which is why she went there. So it was so poor that there was only one pair of pants in the family and only one person could go out at a time. I mean, it was poor on a level that we can't imagine. So back in the 90s, she was a local organizer in this district and he went and he figured out how to get them out of poverty. And now it's not only out of poverty, but everybody has moved to a new place. And the whole story, why is this famous story that's on television in China is because it's an expression of the bigger China picture. And what happened was what they say like in Dalai, what they say is like Beijing sends the infrastructure money and then the people make it happen. So it's also kind of fascinating to be in a place where the people know they made it happen. The government offered the infrastructure, but the people made it happen. And that's what I heard in Dalai and that's what I heard from this professor tonight about what happened in this community, a Muslim community at which she brought out of poverty and all these like out of poverty is let's say majority, I mean, first of all, all the Muslims were in poverty because they're on the outskirts, they live in the rural areas, has been a major push of this getting out of poverty. And I think that the Uyghur story is so complicated, but one thing for sure is nobody in the United States knows the truth. So if there are 4,000 terrorist attacks in a state, in the United States by radicalized Muslims, what would the United States do? And I think what we heard from Michael is like, why aren't they going to all these other Muslim countries that surround? Why aren't the refugees running across the border? Jodi, I know all this, I've done shows about this. When I'm asking you, I got cut off, I was trying to ask you about political prisoners because we always say, and all this is what about ism. And every time I say what I say, I get accused of what about ism. I know all this, we always say that there's more political prisoners in the US than only, except for China. So can you talk a little bit about, you just alluded to it. Are you saying that these are terrorists? These are legitimate terrorists who are the political prisoners? I mean, I'm talking about the way that, which is way different than the political prisoners. So I'll let Michael address it. Yeah, I know a lot of people in the Chinese community across the political spectrum from people who are very anti-Chinese government to people who are very pro-Chinese government. I have a couple of friends who were among the students who marched at Tiananmen Square in 1989. And both of them have actually made peace with the Chinese government. The Chinese government knows who they are, but they go back and forth between the United States and China whenever they want. One of them spends a few months every year in China. And China protects itself against subversion just like any country does. And they do it in a way that's more systematic, which has its pros and cons. In the United States, if you're a black person, you get shot and killed just walking down the street. On the other hand, if you're a white person, you can open carry and get away with it. In China, it's much more consistent. If you speak out and advocate overthrowing the government or anything like that, and it becomes a problem, usually the first thing that happens is the government, well, delete your social media posts that say that. If you persist, they may talk to you and give you a warning. If you still persist at some point, they will say, okay, if you keep on, we will charge you with something. And eventually they charge you with something. And if you back down, they will usually leave it there. And then there's kind of an escalating series of consequences depending on how far you go, whether you actually do something physical that threatens people or damages people or that kind of thing. So there's a very kind of consistent escalating response, but that also means it's more predictable. So it's not like, you can get gunned down and just walking down the street because some cop doesn't like it. It's more like you know what the parameters are and you could choose whether how far you want to go and what the consequences are going to be. So it's more predictable in that sense. I remember when I was at Tibet, what I saw and what I heard was that because of past events, because of past rioting and demonstrations, there was more of a police presence there, but I saw no guns. Neither the police or the army had any guns. So it assured that nobody's going to get shot down just walking down the street. One of the things that occurred to me was that, you know, if I had a choice between being born a young black man in America or a young Tibetan man in Tibet, I would certainly choose Tibet because since my chances of survival would be better. And let me give you one other example. In Hong Kong in 19, or sorry, in 2019, there were riots that went on for a year. The rioters were calling for independence from China for Hong Kong. They were carrying American and British flags. They were calling for Donald Trump to send in the Marines to quote, liberate Hong Kong, unquote. They were throwing fire bombs. They were burning down stores that they felt was to pro-China in their political views. They were beating up people who argued with the protesters. They were doing things like setting fires in subway stations when passengers were there. They were throwing bricks. They were using bows and arrows. They set one man in fire and it's poured gasoline on one man and set him on fire. They killed a senior citizen who was cleaning up the bricks that they were throwing in the streets. And this went on for a year. They thrashed the government legislative building. And the average penalty that most of those who were caught got was between six months and six years. If you think about what happened in Washington on January 6th, that was one day of rioting. They did not use fire bombs. They did not use bows and arrows. They did not throw bricks. They were not using iron rods or clubs. And that one guy just got 18 years. So in terms of how harsh China is on dissidents, they do come down on dissidents if dissidents go too far. But compared to America, they're actually not as harsh. So that's my view. In Xinjiang, there was a, what do you call it, an insurgery. The United States, through some radicals, started an independence movement in Xinjiang. And they committed a bunch of terrorist acts. They were going around, because guns are illegal in China. They were going around with long machete-like knives, attacking people in train stations and other public places, hacking people to death. And so there was a big crackdown on that. And they were going throughout China and doing it too. There was one event at Tiananmen Square where somebody got in a car and was driving around, running over people actually injured in American tourists who happened to be there. So there was a crackdown on that. There was some hardcore insurgents in mountain caves, similar to Tuorobora, that the Chinese army actually had to go in and fight pitch battles with. And then they wanted to do something about all the sympathizers and supporters. So they found those, they put them in what they call re-education programs, which were basically involved in political re-education, job training. And they found that a lot of the supporters were very poor people who thought they had no future inside it with the radicals. Those people were given job training and then these programs lasted usually six months to a year. And at the end of that time, they would then be placed in jobs and they would be given aid in terms of making sure they succeeded their jobs and they become economically viable and stable. And since then, that program has pretty much ended at this point. And most of the people have just carried on with their lives. Yeah, that's really important that you talked about re-education because that's what I figured is the worst thing that's happening to the Uyghurs is this political education. But when I mentioned that to people, people say, oh, that's indoctrination, which of course my reply is, how is that any different from our vast education system, marketing system, PR system, media system? Can you just speak to one more thing and then I'll shut up. What about, this is another critique I get and I just got this the other day, the whole concept of social credits. Can you describe what you know about that and how that is used to manipulate people if in fact it is? Sorry, were you asking me? I didn't quite get that question. Could somebody rephrase it? The idea of social credits. And I don't know, whoever wants to speak about that can speak about that. And then we are gonna move on. Okay, do you know what she's referring to, social credits? Okay, all right. Please, Lauren, because we're gonna move on, put any thoughts in the chat or a link to what you're talking about. So we are, thank you so much everybody. And Tsukuro is a local activist and he has been very involved and I hope you can make it down possibly to LA Peace Week and see us here today, Tsukuro, but we have opened the space for him to make some comments. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Hi, everyone. And I just wanna first thank you for Rachel and San Pedro Cold Pink to host this webinar and everyone who showed up this morning. Yeah, so yeah, it's been really, I've been, I'm very, very grateful. It's been very interesting and very informative. So I was just actually telling Rachel, I don't know if I can add anything, but I'll try my best. I was kind of thinking about, because I have nothing prepared, but I was kind of thinking about based on what's being spoken, if I can add anything. And so anyway, and I apologize in advance that like four points that I'm bringing up will be kind of disjointed because these are like four things that I kind of quickly dropped down to say something. So one is, it's been, other speakers have spoken about the really further militarization of the Asia Pacific region by the US military. But I just kind of wanted to highlight the development in Australia with regards to the AUKUS, US, UK, Australia trilateral defense agreement and their move to install a submarine, nuclear submarine base in Australia. So on May 6th, the townspeople of Canberra, Australia, which was one of the three sites candidates for this nuclear submarine base, they actually called for a worldwide protest. It was a day of action on May 6th, so that we can raise our voices together worldwide against this construction of nuclear submarine base. So city of Canberra, Australia is a commercial port. And the town, the people of the town have been actually planning to develop climate, green energy industry in Canberra, Australia. And it's been in the works. So if this thing, this construction of submarine, nuclear submarine base in Canberra, if that passes, the plan for developing green industry in Canberra, Australia is essentially will be killed. So that's why people protesting in Canberra, Australia, besides the fact that they don't want nuclear submarine base, that's kind of no brainer, but they want to, they don't want nuclear, I mean military base, they want to develop this green industry in their town so that they can thrive, right? So it was really actually interesting to listen to a, it was Vivian, I think, fully referred to climate because I was actually at the, another webinar, not about the military actually, but I've been a nuclear, anti-nuclear activist because I grew up in Hiroshima partially and went to school where 350 students were, their lives were decimated on August 6th, 1945. So I was actually at the webinar to talk about the Fukushima Radioactive Waste Water Release issue. And one of the panelists was from Mariana Islands. So what she was saying, after the event, we were chatting about half an hour, like how we can cooperate, collaborate on really like, not only like anti-nuclear in the nuclear power industry but anti-military is in front. And what she said was, where she is based, even though she really, she is an active, very, very active activist in anti-nuclear and anti-military base in her hometown, but where she is, kind of as Rachel was referring to, it's on the nuclear, I mean, I'm sorry, military recruitment for young people is very, very robust and virtually not a lot of industries exist in the part of the world. So the major industry, a major employer in the town is military. So it's very challenging to speak about anti-militarism in her hometown because a lot of people are employed by the military. So that kind of really made me think that it's very, very important for us to come up with alternatives and really like, things like climate industry, green industry and talk to young people about these jobs and create opportunities for them to seek the source of income other than military, right? So that kind of like, made me really think a lot about how to approach this or how we should approach it. So Kuro, and we have about two more minutes. Sure, okay. And then we're gonna wrap it up. Of course, okay. So another thing I wanted to say, so as you guys know in Hiroshima, Japan recently, there was a G7 meeting and really, really made me very outraged because it was essentially the United States building consensus amongst the G7 for another nuclear war against China. So that was really outrageous. And of course, Japan, Japanese government is complicit in that. So as a person who has ties with, ties to both the United States and the activist community in Japan, I just recognize my responsibility to appeal to the Japanese people and government to steer away from being in a nuclear umbrella of the United States. Oh, so last thing I wanna say, Rachel, I know we are cutting close, but, so I, besides being anti-nuclear activist, I play a lot in like a lot of other activism space, including healthcare justice and trans rights activism. And the thing is though, I've heard recently in the meeting that I was in, kind of organizing meeting for this March in other issues other than anti-war. So one of the people said, anti-war is very controversial right now. It's a controversial subject. And he said, we should not put anti-war message because it'll alienate some people. And I think it's very important to pay attention to that. And I am really kind of infuriated by her comment, but it is true that anti-war is being controversial and some people staying away from messaging that, but we have to fight that because, we are really talking about this intersectional issue. And we should not, we know that because we are anti-war activists, but if we go, when we go into other space, I think we strongly have to advocate for anti-war because war really is never the answer. And we really have to educate people that this anti-war issue is not separate from other issues like healthcare justice that we are fighting. So that's what I wanted to say. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We are going to turn it over. This has been wonderful. And I'm putting in the chat right now. And I think we were gonna, you're gonna save the chat too, right? And again, we'll have the recording and it will be sent out to everyone who registered for this webinar and I'll send it out also. Is that, so the idea of development, I think we're seeing a need to globally transition. The world wants to, and will very quickly is becoming necessary for us to deal with the ecological crisis, including the climate crisis and that people's jobs need to just transition into saving themselves and the planet. But that a principle of development as well as a spiritual principle of oneself is to focus on yourself. Be the change we wanna see in the world. Whatever the issues of whatever country around the world is the answer war or is it to work on ourselves? Should we work on our prisoners? The fact that we are 5% of the world's population and yet one out of every four prisoners on planet earth is in the United States. So we have five times more prisoners per capita than any country in the world. Should we not be dealing with that? And if we want to be a model and we think we are a model, then be the change we wanna see in the world. And so again, the answer, what is the answer to criticism around, one could have of whatever around the world. And with that said way, my new friend, would you please take us out on this webinar and we'll be seeing you later. And remember we're two to eight today, our last day of countering fleet week with peace week. All right, thank you, Rachel. I just want to mention a couple of upcoming cooking related events as we're closing out this webinar. So one of the things that we mentioned during this webinar was these increase of, as Rachel observed Asian Americans being present at these events that's promoting militarism to our home basically. So we have a webinar actually tomorrow at 7 PM Pacific time and 10 PM Eastern time because we're also trying to make this and in person as well. So sorry, I'm just juggling all of these different, there it is, okay. All of the tabs on my computer. So we have a teaching called Navigating Chinese American Politics. And it's actually going to be hosted by an advocate. So not me, just a peace activist that wants to talk about this. Hongyu Zhou, who is a Chinese American, he also grew up seeing a lot of these or mongering narrative towards China. And he felt that as Rachel observed the Chinese American community being used to justify this ongoing war on China. So we are going to have a teaching on this topic. It's going to be in person if you're in LA it's going to be in at midnight books in Whittier. And if not, feel free to click on a link in RSVP. So we can send you the Zoom link that you can join us online. Additionally, we are going to have another webinar with Jodi to report back on her trip to China. And that's going to be a week from today. So on the Monday at 4 p.m. Pacific time and 7 p.m. Eastern time. So we hope to see you there. Additionally, we also have the Taiwan the No. 1 Taiwan petition that we shared earlier that we are continuing to collect signatures. And finally, something that Jodi alluded to about this documentary about China's war on poverty which was created by these American filmmakers who were just trying to raise awareness about what's really going on in China because we hear so much on war propaganda, war mongering here in the US. So they made this documentary about how China's poverty alleviation program lifted 800 million people out of poverty. And it was actually made for PBS but then PBS ended up taking it down due to pressures from conservative legislatures saying that it's too friendly to talk about China because it's not okay to say any truth about China anymore. You mentioned something about like political decents in different countries. And then we talk about like free speech, whatever but really it's the United States that's shutting out free speech, shutting out truth about China. So we have this organizing opportunity for you to host a screening of this documentary in your local community. We recently did one in LA and it's just very, very easy to do if you are concerned about putting in too much effort. Really you just need a projector or anything to show a film and people will come because as we see, we just, there's so much that, so much truth about China that we are denied of because we live in the US. So everyone wants to learn and we all have so many questions and this is just a very exciting opportunity to get engaged. And that's it from me, Rachel. Do you have any final remarks? No, just it's been very good. And I look forward, most of you on this call that are LA based know me. And so let's keep on local organizing. And I love kind of one idea that came out of this was to definitely reach out to people in LA our labor organizations and let them know, what's going on. It's not about criticize whatever it's like, what's going on in our self-interest of avoiding any type of war with China. So thank you very much and wonderful to see you here. We'll see you down at the Iowa. Peace.