 Hello, welcome and good morning. This is the third episode of Eat NATO for Breakfast. I'm currently physically in Berlin. I'm Francesca greeting you this morning. But in my heart, I'm of course with my comrades in Italy who are demonstrating against the NATO base near Naples. We have a call that they put out. It's in Italian. We put it in the chat. And of course you should go and join them if you're near Naples anyways. And you can watch this stream later because their protest is beginning at 11. So if you are near, go to Naples protest together with the Italian comrades against NATO. Last week, we spoke with Kate about NATO's history and its role in the Cold War. We learned that the founding myth of this being an organization dedicated to defend Western values of democracy and peace against the threat of communism is of course actually born in blood and war and destruction. And in case you thought this was all ancient history, well it isn't because today we are speaking about a new Cold War, the New Cold War. And I have some really awesome early riser guests here, Ajit, who's joining us from Canada where it's so early that we won't even tell anyone how early it is. And Fiona, where it is an hour earlier, so she's hopefully having some breakfast tea. Ajit, how are you doing? Oh, you're still mute? I'm doing great. I've got my coffee here. And I mean, anytime you have a coffee in hand, you can have breakfast, I think. That's very good. Thank you. Fiona, how are you doing? Yeah, really good. I'm really happy to join you and I'm on the tee. Less hard stuff over here in London, but it still keeps me awake, hopefully. But all of you are aware, have like these white cups, what's with you? Can you not, you know, get with the program, get with the no-to-nato program, get a funky mug and join us on that adventure. We get started in a second. Ajit and Fiona are both from No Cold War, an information and action platform dedicated to, well, keeping the peace and informing people on what's going on in the world. You can see their website. We will also put that in the chat and you can find all sorts of information on there and also learn about who else is part of that platform. I'll really quickly go through the general information and then we get started. So Eat Native for Breakfast is part of the efforts around the Peace Summit in Madrid in 2022, where we will again, the website in the link, check it out. This is where the peace movement and many allied organizations will try to make themselves heard and protest the Native Summit, which will be happening in June in Madrid this year. We hope to see many of you there and please follow us and join us in our efforts around the Peace Summit. Our next open plenary meeting is March 19. You can join it on the, you can join and register for it on the website. Let's get started. Today we'll do things a little differently. So we will not, we will not make it so easy, easy on our guests that they just need to speak. We prepared questions. We have a whole bunch, maybe like, I don't know, 100, 200, 300, 400, we won't tell anyone how many there are, but we have 30 minutes to answer them. And I will ask you in turn, like always, one Fiona, one Ajit and back and forth and back and forth about this Cold War on China, because I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of un-clarity and confusion around this. And so we felt that in this case it would be good to go with direct questions rather than allow for, I don't know, longer statements so that you really get to the bottom of it quickly and make it easy for people to understand. So you have the difficult, difficult task to explain some complex questions in short, in short words and short answers. Yeah. Oh, one last disclaimer. There's a storm going on in Berlin. If you have, if you hear me background noise, I will try to mute myself, but if there is like crazy background noise, many, many apologies. It's the weather. Let's get started. Section one first question for Ajit. Is there a new Cold War against China? Yeah, I mean, I guess to answer that question, we have to give a bit of an answer of what is a Cold War. And I think if we think of a Cold War in terms of a sort of more or less permanent state of affairs of hostility and division between powers. I think increasingly we can see the United States pursuing a strategy of division and hostility directed towards China, along with other countries, but China is really at the heart of it. We see this beginning in our contemporary period in the Obama era with the military pivot to Asia, and it's only deepened in subsequent administrations and some of the main features of it are this military aspect and different unilateral as opposed to multilateral and internationally through the UN system, military, different alliances. Most recently the Alka Steel, we see the trade war that was initiated by the Trump administration. We see different diplomatic initiatives like the attempted diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Olympics. And then a cultural or media aspect of hostility which constantly portrays China as a 21st century Nazi Germany type threat that needs to be confronted by the West. So Fiona, is this just history repeating itself? Well, I think in a certain sense, yes, there's obviously differences, but I think we had a Cold War in the 20th century and we've got a new Cold War in the 21st century. And I think the main protagonist in the situation is the United States again. And just with the situation with the USSR, the US is, as Ajit was explaining, attempting to use aggression, false accusations in order to create artificial international tension, divisions. And the motivation behind this Cold War and the last Cold War is also the same. The United States has an ambition to dominate the globe. And when we really break that down, it uses the phrases of, you know, we need a democratic world order and our values and our democracy. But what does it really mean is a country in the United States with less than 5% of world population attempting to dictate to the rest of us 95% of humanity. So it's intrinsically undemocratic this new Cold War. So I would say that, yeah, history in a certain sense is repeating itself. We're in a very dangerous situation. The military buildup against China is huge. There's lots of increase in military spending from the United States and the US is creating these new military packs against China. There are differences though with the last Cold War, I would say the world is much more interconnected now and China is really at the heart of the global economy. And as a major trading partner for many countries, including the United States. And so this Cold War and this economic Cold War that Ajit was just talking about, the trade war, the sanctions. This actually hurts the population of the United States. It hurts any country that goes along with it. So I think we're in a different scenario, but the situation of the US aggression and creating these false accusations is very similar to the 20th century. So I think the framing of a Cold War is very apt. Ajit, Fiona just mentioned that the US seems to be leading this charge. Do you feel that the US is leading the charge against China in this case? Yeah, I don't think there's any other way to view it. The United States militarily, for example, since the late 2000s, the relocation of the majority of its naval assets to the Asia Pacific to ring China through leading various military cliques of countries to form different alliances that are explicitly targeted towards China through these diplomatic initiatives like with the Olympics and otherwise in the trade war. The United States is playing the protagonist role in this new Cold War. And increasingly, like if we were to look at one country from which the most heated rhetoric and alarming rhetoric on the topic, it's the United States. It also isn't alone and there are certain differences within its allies on the question as Fiona and we will get to later in this discussion. But some of its closest partners in this are countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Japan. We see this through different bodies that they formed like the Quad, which involves India, Japan, Australia, and the United States and the Alkis sort of grouping, which is Australia, the UK, and the United States. So the United States isn't alone, but it's definitely at the head of this effort. Why Fiona, what's to gain? Well, I mean, I think if you look particularly the last 40 years, what's really changed in the world is the spectacular rise of China economically and technologically. So, you know, China is the second biggest economy is on track to overtake the United States. It's on track to become an advanced economy, which is a tremendous change. I mean, China is one of the poorest countries in the world when 1949. So this is a dramatic shift, particularly over the last 40 years, 850 million people have been brought out of poverty. And this has been done peacefully. China hasn't invaded other countries. It hasn't enslaved people. And so the United States response to this is to see this as a threat, which is very concerning because the development of another country is seen as a threat to the United States. China has no ambition to have any war with China, with the United States at all, does not want a cold war, does not want a hot war, does not want a nuclear war. Just wants to have a multi-polar world where all countries can develop and determine their own affairs. But the United States sees China becoming a very large power in the world as a threat to its ambition to dominate global affairs. So it wants to stop this. It wants to stop the economic rise of China, the technological rise of China. It wants to stop China having interactions with countries all over the world. Ajit, you alluded to it that there's allies. So how does NATO fit into all of this? Why do we need to consider NATO in this cold war? NATO is the largest, not entirely international, but multinational grouping of military forces under the leadership, primarily of the United States. It emerged in the first cold war, and despite it being a self-proclaimed Atlanticist organization, it's developed an increasingly Pacific orientation in rhetoric and deeds in the past decades as the new cold war against China has heated up. We see statements by Jens Stoltenberg and other NATO leading figures that talk about the need for NATO to defend or unite or confront the systemic quote-unquote challenge posed by China and the global security challenges that it poses. So I think, yeah, like how NATO will precisely figure into this new cold war is to be seen, and I think it will take shape in the coming years, but there seems to have been a clear sort of reorientation and announcing of this reorientation by NATO leaders in recent years and increasingly so. We like to point out contradictions. So within NATO, I'm sure members have different interests that was already alluded to, like China is a trading partner, et cetera, et cetera, to quite a few of the countries that are NATO members. So in this cold war in China, what's the contradictions within NATO? Are members in agreement overall? Where do we see this alliance cracking a little? I think we have to take the view that this is a U.S. initiative, the Cold War, and as Ajit said, NATO is made up of North American powers and European powers. And so the difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden isn't that they're both on board with the Cold War, but Joe Biden's got an approach to trying to recruit allies in the global north to join in with the attack on China because, plus the U.S. is very, very strong. Biden doesn't feel like the United States is stronger to take China on the low, so they want to have allies. So that's where NATO comes in. And I would suggest that the situation is the United States is trying to advance an agenda within NATO to get more against China. But there is a struggle taking place here. It's not a foregone conclusion. So far, the EU has refused to fully participate in this Cold War in China, but there is a U.S. agenda here that is advancing. So the country I'm in Britain is a full Cold War country now totally on board with the U.S. approach in a junior partner role. We have seen, as Ajit mentioned, the most recent NATO summit last June, there was a new characterization of China's rise. This was described as a systemic challenge. And there's even the idea that China is a security threat to the West. China has no military presence in Europe or in the United States. There is no threat militarily at all from China to the United States or European powers here. So that's the U.S. pushing that agenda within NATO. And we are seeing some political gestures here from major powers in Europe. So last year, Britain, France and Germany all sent warships to the South China Sea. And that was a politically provocative gesture of support for the U.S. military buildup against China, which is absolutely massive. We're talking 400 military bases here. And there's also been the Orcist military pact between Britain, the United States and Australia, which is trying to furnish Australia with nuclear power submarines. And it's a military pact against China in the Pacific region. That was consternation within France because they were out of this deal and they've lost lots of money for a bit through this. So there are tensions and divisions within Europe. There's a big struggle. China is a major training partner for most of a lot of countries in Europe. So there is that economic interest. However, so there's a bit of a struggle taking place with the U.S. is trying to get European countries more on board with this Cold War. And NATO is one of the key mechanisms which they're trying to do this through. Yeah. Well, let's just for just for the sake of argument, let's look at is China a threat? Let's discuss whether, you know, where what does that look like all from the other side. So, Ajit, does China actually pose a threat to NATO Alliance countries? Well, it depends on what we mean. What NATO has identified is that China poses a challenge to the ambitions of the leading NATO countries like the United States to be the world's policeman because of its economic rise and its consequent political rise. So does China pose a challenge to the ambitions of the U.S. and other leading NATO powers to impose their will undemocratically on other nations of the world? That could be argued. Does China pose a threat in the way that NATO countries are suggesting that we should all be afraid of, you know, the Chinese boogeyman or monster coming after us or invading our countries or imposing foreign political and economic systems on the people of NATO countries? No, we don't have evidence of this. We have a lot of fear mongering about this. It's a really preposterous notion if we take into account the global reality, which is that a country like the United States at the head of NATO has about 800 military bases that we know of. There might be many more that we don't know of. In comparison, China has one. China has one military base outside of its borders. The United States has about 800. China has fewer military bases abroad than a country like India. We don't see Chinese warships off the coast of New York. We see regularly U.S. and Allied warships off the coast of China in the South China Sea. I think that's an important comparison for people in NATO member countries to think about. Can you imagine? Look at the media frenzy that's been whipped up over the past four or five years about Russian social media hacking and Russiagate and all this. Could you imagine the frenzy that would take place if Chinese warships were in the Gulf of Mexico or off the coast of New York City or off the coast of Spain or London? There would be a huge freakout. This is not the case. I think we have to be grounded in reality and not be swayed by specters of the possible threat of China and look at the actual concrete conditions that we're facing. The primary military force that threatens other countries and historically has demonstrated itself to do so is the United States and is NATO. It's not China. We have to be grounded in the reality of our world and not fear-mongering and potential ghosts that we need to be afraid of. What about the pandemic, Fiona? Is that just like a threat by other means? Well, yeah. I mean, you've had this whole conspiracy theories basically coming from Trump and the Republican right, which have become pretty mainstream in the United States around blaming China for the pandemic. I mean, I'm not a scientist, but infectious disease is going to emerge anywhere in the world and I think the issue is how you respond to it. So I think what we've got is a blame game against China, which is all about distraction. This is a real key Cold War propaganda line, China's to blame for the pandemic. And this propaganda line actually mainly hurts people in the West where this propaganda line is very popular. First of all, blaming China for the pandemic has led to a real increase in racist hate crimes against people of Chinese and East and South East Asian heritage in the West. A horrific rise in racism and violent racism since the pandemic began. And it also stops people in the West from paying attention to and actually learning from China and what they've done on the pandemic and learning from China's zero COVID strategy. And let's be clear, like that different approach could have saved millions of lives. China has had less than 5000 deaths to date from the pandemic. Where I'm living in Britain, it's 160,000 deaths so far. In Britain, in the United States, we're approaching almost a million. I mean, I just looked at the latest figures and I mean, it depends where you look, but it's over 900,000 deaths. I mean, just to put that into context, you know, China's got four times the population of the United States. So if the U.S. had pursued a zero COVID approach, we'd be talking about a thousand deaths, around a thousand deaths, around a million. So this is a huge issue on human rights and this whole attempt to just shut down any discussion or dialogue or debate with China on the coronavirus. And they've had a completely different strategy, which has not been later ripped, not allow the virus to spread, but to clamp down on and have an elimination strategy. You know, at the very least, this Cold War has stopped us from having a real look at the facts and what's actually happening in China, and where people would potentially learn from this different system that's taking place. What about climate change, Ajit? Yeah, I think similarly to the pandemic and notions of military threats. China's often portrayed, and we saw this at COP26 as the chief sort of criminal behind the climate crisis. You know, it's often pointed as it's China's fault. And China and other large developing countries like India, but this is totally not in accord with the science and the historical record. Since 1750, in the contemporary modern period, we can't just start it in the past 10 years. The story of climate change is centuries old. It's related and intertwined with the rise of capitalism. And in this modern period, the United States is the largest CO2 emitter than any other country to date. And the United States, Europe and Canada are responsible for a majority of CO2 emissions in the contemporary period, far more than China. And these countries at the same time have far smaller populations, but they have such an oversized carbon footprint because their per capita emissions are through the roof, way larger than countries like India and China. And if the starting point for climate justice and environmentally harmonious transition that we so urgently need is that all people have an equal right to an equitable sort of sharing of our resources and our footprint. And if we believe in that principle of equality, then there has to be a per capita sort of analysis of who's responsible for the carbon footprint. Otherwise, we're just enshrining the right of an energy apartheid where a certain, a small minority of privileged countries are allowed to engage in egregious per capita carbon footprint. And countries like China and India, because they have larger populations are forced into using far, far less carbon. And that's just an arrangement which is completely unfair. So historically, China's absolutely not the main carbon emitter. It's the United States and the West. And in the contemporary period still per capita emissions are way larger in in the Western countries. And it's not just populations, it's institutions like the Pentagon, which is the world's largest institutional emitter of CO2. It has a greater carbon footprint than over 140 countries. If the Pentagon was a country in and of itself, it would be around 40 in the world, number 40 in terms of carbon emissions. So China's absolutely not been leading the climate crisis. But of course, China like every country has a responsibility to resolving the crisis. But in order to resolve it, we need to work together, not point fingers and say this is your fault or this is your fault because that's not really going to get us anywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. Fiona, you've been looking at China for a long time. You've been looking at, you've been, you know, keeping an eye on China. So give us your, give us the impression. Is China trying to take over the world and become the new global hegemon? Well, you know, I mean, you know, the United States is the global hegemon. And let's look at how it got there. Genocide, slavery, wars, the only country in the world to drop atomic bombs. Military coups, hybrid warfare, economic warfare, you know, the list goes on. The United States describes a whole continent called South America as its own backyard. Although recently, Biden liked to upgrade it to the front yard, which is obviously just all equally disgusting. That's how the US got to where it's got. How did China, China's rise is very interesting in that they've not got there through enslaving people, through wars. I mean, the war that there was was a war against colonialism in China. So the rise of China has been peaceful since its revolution. And they have no ambition, first of all, to dominate the world. I think we have to take not just the rhetoric of China, which is they say they want to share the future of humanity, but look at the actions they aren't invading other countries. They haven't waged a war on terror, which has killed millions of people. They aren't they aren't pursuing military coups to remove other governments and put in puppet governments like the United States has done. Because that hasn't got a history of doing any of that. But the second point is the China doesn't have the means to do that either. China is very much an economic rising power and they want to have trade and investment with countries all over the world. But the Chinese military is nowhere near the size of the United States. They spend nowhere near as much as the United States on the military. China does have a policy of defending itself and etc. But it does not have a policy of increasing its military to go and invade other countries. So I don't think China has either the ambition or the means to become the new global hegemon. It's not as foreign policy. It wants a multi-polar world. It respects all countries to decide their own path. And it doesn't want a Cold War with the United States. It doesn't want to out-compete the United States. It wants a cooperation. So I think that's the reality of the situation. And obviously that's not the picture that's painted in the mainstream Western media. There's this whole idea China is trying to take over the world. And it's just absolute nonsense. Thank you. Let's move to the confrontation again and talk about the Cold War. I know we're approaching 30 minutes, but I think we're just going to keep going for a little while longer. If you can still answer some more questions, if you're not exhausted already. Ajit, can you indicate three consequences of this new Cold War, of how it actually affects people who might usually consider themselves outside of politics and if they just wonder about their lives and don't feel that they are part of a global new Cold War. But there may or are in fact feeling negative consequences due to this dynamic that they may not even be aware of in their everyday lives. That's a great question. I think one of the main manifestations of the new Cold War is that it has a chilling effect on the domestic political and economic discourse and policies that are available or deemed to be available to countries that are pursuing the Cold War. So for example, in the United States and its closest allies. And what does this mean? It means that instead of pursuing a policy of creating a universal health care system or forgiving student debt or creating free education policies, you have that's completely put off the table for the necessities of military expenditures or the supposed necessities. Like this is the situation that the United States, that people in the United States are facing right now. There's extreme popular support for a universal health care system, for forgiving student debt, for creating free education for people, for fixing the deteriorating infrastructure in the so-called world's greatest country, for building robust, affordable public transit and high-speed rail. But all of these things which require investment and productive policies are put off the table in the name of, well, we need to use all of these resources, all of our wealth towards building up our military capacity, towards confronting China, towards defending ourselves against this supposed threat. And it's really ordinary people that all sorts of aspects of their life are shortchanged in this sort of calculus. Another way that we see is in the cultural sphere. So we're seeing the increasing rise of racism towards Asian diaspora communities throughout the West and other parts of the world, in particular Chinese-descended communities. We've seen this a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic where these diaspora communities are scapegoated and racistly abused and subjected to racist hate crimes and violence in an extremely dangerous and disturbing threaten. That's because you can't pursue a policy of demonizing a country and not have it relate with and foment and support and uphold racist, hateful ideology against those people. There's no way to separate that. So I think through the main ways that the New Cold War affects ordinary people is through the domestic chilling on political choices and political discourse in the name of pushing everyone towards a militarist Cold War prioritization and through this cultural sphere where we see increasing hostility and hateful ideas gaining ground. Fiona, should we be worried about this Cold War actually turning hot? Well, I think so. I mean, obviously the last Cold War, there were hot wars in the 20th century as part of this overall Cold War conflict that took place. And I think the approach that the United States is pursuing of a trade war, trying to boycott the diplomatically boycott the Olympics, all the different initiatives that the United States have been pursuing under the category of a Cold War. They're not working. The United States is failing. The trade is increasing. The tariffs have actually hurt the US population more than China. So on all these different counts, the diplomatic boycott, there were lots of heads of states at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Lots of US athletes have been on social media saying how great the games have been, including the COVID protocols and stuff. So I think in many ways, the more that the United States fails, the more it's going to go on to the terrain which it's stronger on, which is the military. The United States has overwhelming military power, nuclear weapons to destroy us all several times over. So that's a very dangerous situation. And they are really focusing on upgrading their military capacity surrounding China. You've got the 400 military bases that are upgrading the weapons systems. They're increasing the military spending. And they're trying to stoke tensions in the South China Sea. They're creating new military packs, as Ajit mentioned, with orcas, the Quad. And they're trying to create tensions around places like Taiwan. So I think there are, when you have that much military equipment in a very sensitive geopolitical regions, mistakes can happen, miscalculations can happen. And obviously the idea of a hot war between the United States and China, both nuclear-armed states, it just could spell the end of humanity to be frank. It could produce a nuclear winter. But also less existential threats of other hot wars that could be just as horrific, not just as horrific, but very horrific like the war on terror, not necessarily destroy all of humanity, but kill millions of people, create regional chaos, destroy people's livelihoods, etc. So I think there is a threat of a hot war developing, or even a hot war between nuclear-armed states, because that's where the United States has its strength and its Cold War approach attacking militarily, sorry, attacking economically, attacking diplomatically. It's not actually succeeding at the moment. So I think that makes the situation more dangerous because what the US has got overwhelming strength militarily. If I could just briefly add on to what Fiona shared there, it's not even just that of course there's the threat of a direct conflict between the US and China, but also conflicts being pursued or justified in the name of combating China and the threat of China, in the same way that a number of conflicts were justified in third countries, especially throughout the Global South, in the name of combating Soviet influence or the Communist threat. And so if we accept and don't fight this sort of rationale and culture of China is some great threat, eventually it will become used as a justification to pursue regime change policies in other countries in the name of combating the so-called Chinese threat or the Huawei threat or something like this. So it's something that affects all countries, not just the United States and China. Well, in light of your statements, both your statements, it feels that my next question seems almost a little bit naive and maybe too hopeful. What are the prospects that this Cold War might end in the short or the medium term? That people will just get along? Ajit. I don't think there's a prospect for ending it in the sense that in the short or medium term, unfortunately, because it appears to be the strongest bipartisan consensus within the United States political establishment, like the Republicans and Democrats, although they have unique characteristics and differences between them. One of the issues which brings them together with the greatest enthusiasm is issues of foreign policy and intervention and so-called confronting countries like China and pursuing this new Cold War against China. So I don't think there really appears to be any sort of strong prospect of a transformation within the U.S. sort of political establishment away from this trend. At the same time, as Fiona's mentioned, just because the United States is pursuing its course doesn't mean that it's always going to be successful in whatever policies it pursues. We can see, for example, that it's a sort of boycott effort with respect to Beijing 22 completely flopped. It hasn't really gone anywhere substantially and most countries of the world haven't really paid it any attention. So I think there are prospects for countries and peoples who don't want to be brought into this sort of zero-sum Cold War International Division project to pursue other courses regardless of what the United States wants and pursue them successfully. But of course, you still have to be in mind of the challenges that are going to be opposed by this sort of Cold War stance by the world's preeminent military power being the United States. And if I could just add to what Ajit was saying, I mean, I totally agree with what Ajit just said. And in addition, if you look at the dynamics in the United States, you have a situation where the Republican might, I would say, are on the offensive and there's a radicalisation as well. And I think the prospect of not to depress everyone on this Saturday morning, but the prospect of a Trump Mark II, which is even worse than the first one, who are more willing to engage in hot wars and military interventionism across the world. Not as Ajit said, not just necessarily directly with China, but in other regions of the world, but in order to quote-unquote confront the China threat, the imaginary China threat. I think that is more on the agenda. And I think so, regardless of who is the next president of the United States, we will see a continuation of the Cold War, but it could get worse, as I think, because analysing the political trends in the United States, things are going more to the right at the moment. That inevitably leads to the next question, which has already been alluded to by Ajit earlier. Is this confrontation or this new Cold War, is this actually stopping humanity from tackling some of the other major, major, major issues that we should be engaging with, that we should be working on, Fiona? Absolutely. I mean, look at the amount of money that's being spent on the military. I mean, literally, in my country, they're in Britain, they're increasing military spending to the tune of billions. We've got a pandemic raging. As Ajit mentioned, there is a responsibility on the global north countries that have caused the climate crisis to get on with decarbonizing the economy. And instead, they're implementing new fossil fuel projects. They're investing in fossil fuels. This is really dangerous, so we need a massive green transition and the money that's being spent against China on propaganda, on military, all the economic costs of pursuing this Cold War is actually making us poorer. All of that could just be scrapped and spent on attacking real issues like climate change. Thanks for that. Let's move to the last few questions. I know we're over time, but I just think it's actually quite interesting and it's actually really helpful to go through these different concerns and questions. Let's step into a... Like, let's wrap it up in some way. Why don't we, Ajit, can you think of a few facts about China that are generally underrepresented? Because I feel that there's, as we probably all agree, there's generally not so much knowledge about China, China, China as a country. We are now talking about whether it poses a threat, et cetera, et cetera. But it seems that there's not so much knowledge about China in the western world mainstream media. There is, of course, a huge language barrier which doesn't make things easier to look for sources, et cetera, et cetera. If you, because you too have been looking at China for a while now, if you had to give a few facts that are underrepresented, underreported, that sort of the western mainstream person should actually know about China, what would come to mind? I think it's a great question. I think, one, China's path of economic development and poverty alleviation is something that's quite unique as a country formerly semi-colonized and from the global south, it's something that you don't see. You can see sort of the alternative on China's border in a country like India which emerged from colonialism at about the same time in the mid-20th century as a similar population, a lot of similar challenges of underdevelopment that it faced. And China's a country that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, a fact that's recognized by international development institutions around the world. And that's one thing. Another thing might be that China's the leading renewable energy producer in the world in terms of different forms of renewable energy and technology. It has one of the largest, if not the largest high-speed rail network in the world, things that are commendable and that a lot of people in the west might like to have in their own countries. And another fact is that we are often told about, you know, China's going to be taking over the world or spreading its influence all over countries of the world or in the global south or in western Europe and in North America and undermine various countries. But the reality is, as we mentioned, China's one military base around the world. Less than a country like India. Do people sit and worry and fret every day about the invasion of India or the so-called threat of India taking over the world? No. What do they do about China? It's a constructive, geopolitically motivated narrative. And I think one fact that we should take into account is China's able to have constructive relations with countries that have a diverse range of ideologies and that pursue a diverse range of political economic programs. China's able to have constructive relations with, you know, neoliberal Serbia. China's able to have constructive relations with communist Cuba. China's able to have constructive relations with socialist Venezuela. You know, countries with a wide range of political economic programs that might not be the same as China itself. So, in contrast, countries that pursue imperial orientations, imperial policies, interventionist policies are completely unable to have constructive relations with any country that doesn't pursue a political economic program that it approves of. So, imperial policies of regime change, invasion, war, economic sanction, like imperialism doesn't hide itself and sneak in through the back door. It presents itself quite plainly. So, we should take into account China's constructive foreign relations. It's something that's really not talked about in western mainstream media. Following up on that, if we do want to, if one wanted to follow up on China, learn more, etc., etc., where would we go? Again, we know there is a, mainstream media does this and this and I don't know, we all learn about how there's social media channels that will lead us directly into conspiracy theories, etc., etc. What are some sources where you get information, what you would recommend for people interested in the topic and balancing out these views and figuring out where we are at and where to learn more about China. Should I go ahead on that one? Oh yeah, Fiona, you go. Sorry. Well, I mean, a really great place to start. Surprise, surprise. I'm from No-Cord War so I'm going to recommend that people go to www.no-core-war.org and if you go on to the tab that says statement, you'll find our founding statement which is available and I think it's 18 or 19 languages now. And we have a lot of people that have signed the statement we've got a lot of peace organizations, we have a lot of really leading people all over the world, politicians, journalists, intellectuals, campaigners. So first of all I would say is, go and look through that list and follow the people on the signatures list because a lot of these people have a lot of things to say about China from different angles, you've got the peace movement but you've also got journalists, intellectuals from China itself so I would recommend you check out the list, follow people like Li Jingjing, follow people like Zhang Weiwei, these are prominent people in China there's also Wang Wen and I think it's really important in this Cold War that there is a war, a propaganda war and part of that is to completely censor any views from China itself and to not hear the point of view of the Chinese people so I think it is important to have a real dialogue and to engage and the best way to do that is to seek out sources from China so I think a really good place to start are the people on the No Cold War website who we've engaged with a number of these people have spoken at our meetings and they're very prolific on Twitter and in the media like CGTN Global Times and stuff so I would recommend people at least look at those sources because there's a bit of a thing anything China says, anything a Chinese person says just discount it, they're just a stooge, it's just propaganda. Well you can't have an approach of the opinions of 1.4 billion people should just be dismissed out of the conversation you need to listen to all sides in the situation to avoid dangerous confrontations, to avoid miscalculations so even if you are skeptical about China just be willing to learn a bit more because we do need to be aware that part of the Cold War is to stop people being curious and to stop people learning and just to discount voices from China almost automatically and I think we've got to get out of that mindset. Yeah, thank you. Please check out the website, I think it's been posted in the public chat so you can find more information about China. I have one last question which is obviously inevitable, here you are sitting in the UK, sitting in Canada why are you engaged in this cause and why should others join in why should we be working on this and why are you working on this and this of course goes to both of you so whoever wants to start go. I can start I think not to repeat myself but because I want the same things that so many of our viewers probably want I want a world that is in harmony with nature and the environment and where we have sustainable economic and developmental systems in place that afford everyone on the planet a dignified and a dignified life where their needs are met and the biggest obstacle in so far as I can find towards pursuing that sort of that sort of program is this policy and orientation of war, division confrontation because at the end of the day the only way we're going to build a world and future for humanity in which we survive and thrive is through cooperation through coming together to solve these global challenges and so I think the biggest motivation for me is that I want to build that world and a necessary part of building that world is fighting for peace and fighting for coming together and fighting against the drive towards war and confrontation Yeah well I would I mean I think that's absolutely spot on I mean I think we're facing a really dangerous situation in the world and I think the Cold War and climate change are the two existential threats facing humanity and obviously the Cold War has the potential to become a nuclear confrontation so that's why I'm saying an existential threat so I think these two struggles are absolutely just decisive for all of humanity the Cold War it isn't it affects every single person on the planet we've all got an interest in this and so I would really urge everyone to check out the No Cold War website, sign the statement take the No Cold War pledge get your organization to sign up to it and join us because we need a really big coalition to oppose what's happening and I think as you said we want a better life and better climate change we want no more wars we want to end racism and I think the Cold War is staking up all of these issues in the opposite direction so I think this is the cause of our time to stand up for peace against this aggression from the United States Thank you thank you both for making such a passionate call for peace which again I can only extend this invitation to join us at the Peace Summit in Madrid and towards Madrid so that we can tell NATO clearly what we are thinking about the current state of affairs our time is more than up we went like super over time but I think it was really actually helpful and I want to thank you again I want to address two small points in the comments there was confusion or there was questions around the number of military bases US military bases around the world I just wanted to clarify that Fiona when she mentioned the number 400 she was specifically speaking to to the bases surrounding China or in the area vicinity of China while the number of 800 which Ajit gave as an answer to a different question refers to total military bases all over the world again I would assume that these numbers we can count the real statistics and find out whether this number is exact exact but these are the approximate this is where the different numbers came from in this program I also want to thank everyone who raised questions and commented and we will address some of those questions in the article we have now put an article it's already it's coming up in the chats I believe the link to it we will put an article about this program on people's dispatch so that we have a shorter version to read and answer the questions that have come up here to lead us on to more research and have all the links etc and all the information there we have done this for the last two programs now I believe the link the link is in the chat if you want to check it out or if you want to share it we are also translating this into different languages so make it hopefully even easier to share with different groups and people and organizations in different countries this is it next Saturday we will do same time same place February 26th 11 am for some of us for some of us it might be a lot earlier or a lot later until then learn about China bring friends fight NATO and I will see you all next Saturday thank you so much bye