As the World's New Number One Bully, Is China Paving the Way to World War

Nancy Pelosi makes a private -- which is to say non-official -- visit to Taiwan, and China has gone ape. China has surrounded Taiwan with warships engaged in live-fire exercises, while sending warplanes to invade Taiwan's airspace. 

Could any country have a more ridiculous excuse for such outrageous behavior?

Yet Western media and many pundits are wittering on about Nancy Pelosi endangering world peace.

No, it is China that is endangering world peace. 

China has offered precisely zero reason to believe that Pelosi's Taiwan trip, in her capacity as a private citizen, constituted a threat to Chinese national security. In the absence of such a threat, China's reaction amounts to a threat of an unprovoked invasion of an independent nation, the ultimate war crime.

But perhaps Pelosi's visit was instigated as a US-devised trap for a paranoid China. If China acts on its threat to invade Taiwan, then NATO will have the justification it may want for war on China.

Which raises the question: why would the West, meaning the United States and its most sycophantic NATO allies such as Britain and Germany, want war with China. 

For two reasons. 

First, while China is rising in industrial output, scientific and technological capacity, military might, and national self-confidence, the West declines, meaning that war now is better than war later. 

Second, war with China could reverse the trends in social development not only in the West but in China too. 

How could war with China, hurt China while being the cure for Western decline? 

Through an inevitable ban on trade with China, as a result of which:

1. China loses much of its huge export market for manufactured goods, this resulting in widespread unemployment and social unrest in an economy already suffering from an imploding real estate bubble. 

2. The US and other post-industrial states experience widespread shortages and huge increases in the cost of manufactured goods. The unavailability of cheap Chinese products reverses many detrimental social changes of recent decades. The resulting boom in domestic manufacturing will create millions of decently paid jobs, which together with a huge increase in the cost of living, while raising the incentive for working people to acquire useful job skills as a prerequisite to decently paid employment. 

Whether these changes would sufficiently tip the balance in war to the advantage of the West, is impossible to know. However, without a restoration of its industrial base, the West is surely doomed to both economic and military eclipse by China. 

There is, obviously, no logical reason why reform in the West should be contingent on war with China. But there are powerful social forces that, short of some catalyzing event such as a major war, will continue to resist rational economic and social development in the West. These malevolent influences include:

1. Great Western corporations that have profited massively by offshoring labor services from the West to China and other developing nations. These include a remarkably large proportion of the best known Western manufacturing names. For example, Ford, GM, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Boeing, and many, many more. Even famous craft industries have been off-shored, Ireland's Waterford Glass to Indonesia being among them, along with England's Wedgewood pottery. 

2. Expansion of so-called higher education to accommodate a substantial fraction of the population including, inevitably, many of below average academic potential. Along with this reduction in the average intellectual competence of the academy's student intake has occurred a massive dilution in the competence of the teaching staff. Today, instead of a small group of low paid and dedicated professionals, universities are largely staffed by second-, third-, and fourth-rate, overpaid, alleged scholars whose research pursuits amount in a vast number of cases to little more than piffle, often degenerating into anti-intellectual politically correct or woke rubbish with which to poison the minds of youth. 

3. The growth of public services, such as Britain's grotesque National Health Service with over a million employees, which serve less the public than its employees and administrators at the expense of the public. 

4. The adaptation of political party platforms in Western democracies to attract the public service vote, with the consequence that employees of Western governments have a political stranglehold that prevents any reform is of what are mostly bloated, unproductive and often socially harmful bureaucratic establishments. 

So what do you want? More Bido-, Trudo-, or BoJo-led pseudo-democracy or, Heaven forbid, some monster like Trump who might shake up and pare down our great parasitic bureaucracies and corrupt educational establishments, while punishing unpatriotic industrial corporations once synonymous with Western industrial greatness. 

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As China Rises, Russia Turns to the West

By Vladimir Putin

via Die Zeit:

On June 22, 1941, exactly 80 years ago, the Nazis, having conquered practically the whole of Europe, attacked the USSR. For the Soviet people the Great Patriotic War – the bloodiest one in the history of our country – began. Tens of millions of people lost their lives, the economic potential of the country and its cultural property were severely damaged.

We are proud of the courage and steadfastness of the heroes of the Red Army and home front workers who not only defended the independence and dignity of our homeland, but also saved Europe and the world from enslavement. Despite attempts to rewrite the pages of the past that are being made today, the truth is that Soviet soldiers came to Germany not to take revenge on the Germans, but with a noble and great mission of liberation. We hold sacred the memory of the heroes who fought against Nazism. We remember with gratitude our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, participants in the Resistance movement, and German anti-fascists who brought our common victory closer.

Having lived through the horrors of the world war, the peoples of Europe were nevertheless able to overcome alienation and restore mutual trust and respect. They set a course for integration in order to draw a final line under the European tragedies of the first half of the last century. And I would like to emphasize that the historical reconciliation of our people with the Germans living both in the east and the west of modern united Germany played a huge role in the formation of such Europe.

I would also like to remind that it was German entrepreneurs who became ”pioneers“ of cooperation with our country in the post-war years. In 1970, the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany concluded a ”deal of the century“ on long-term natural gas supplies to Europe that laid the foundation for constructive interdependence and initiated many future grand projects, including the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

We hoped that the end of the Cold War would be a common victory for Europe. It seemed that just a little more effort was needed to make Charles de Gaulle’s dream of a single continent – not even geographically ”from the Atlantic to the Urals“, but culturally and civilizationally ”from Lisbon to Vladivostok“ – become a reality.

It is exactly with this logic in mind – the logic of building a Greater Europe united by common values and interests – that Russia has sought to develop its relations with the Europeans. Both Russia and the EU have done a lot on this path.

But a different approach has prevailed. It was based on the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance which was itself a relic of the Cold War. After all, it was specifically created for the confrontation of that era.

It was the bloc’s movement eastwards – which, by the way, began when the Soviet leadership was actually persuaded to accept the united Germany’s accession to NATO – that turned into the main reason for the rapid increase in mutual mistrust in Europe. Verbal promises made in that time such as ”this is not directed against you“ or ”the bloc’s borders will not get closer to you“ were quickly forgotten. But a precedent was set.

And since 1999, five more “waves” of NATO expansion have followed. Fourteen new countries, including the former Soviet Union republics, joined the organization, effectively dashing hopes for a continent without dividing lines. Interestingly, this was warned about in the mid-1980s by Egon Bahr, one of the SPD leaders, who proposed a radical restructuring of the entire European security system after German unification, involving both the USSR and the United States. But no one in the USSR, the USA or Europe was willing to listen to him at the time.

Moreover, many countries were put before the artificial choice of being either with the collective West or with Russia. In fact, it was an ultimatum. The Ukrainian tragedy of 2014 is an example of the consequences that this aggressive policy has led to. Europe actively supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine. This was where it all started. Why was it necessary to do this? Then incumbent president Yanukovych had already accepted all the demands of the opposition. Why did the USA organize the coup and the European countries weak-heartedly support it, provoking a split within Ukraine and the withdrawal of Crimea?

The whole system of European security has now degraded significantly. Tensions are rising and the risks of a new arms race are becoming real. We are missing out on the tremendous opportunities that cooperation offers – all the more important now that we are all facing common challenges, such as the pandemic and its dire social and economic consequences.

Why does this happen? And most importantly, what conclusions should we draw together? What lessons of history should we recall? I think, first and foremost, that the entire post-war history of Greater Europe confirms that prosperity and security of our common continent is only possible through the joint efforts of all countries, including Russia. Because Russia is one of the largest countries in Europe. And we are aware of our inseparable cultural and historical connection to Europe.

We are open to honest and constructive interaction. This is confirmed by our idea of creating a common space of cooperation and security from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean which would comprise various integration formats, including the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.

I reiterate that Russia is in favour of restoring a comprehensive partnership with Europe. We have many topics of mutual interest. These include security and strategic stability, healthcare and education, digitalization, energy, culture, science and technology, resolution of climate and environmental issues.

The world is a dynamic place, facing new challenges and threats. We simply cannot afford to carry the burden of past misunderstandings, hard feelings, conflicts, and mistakes. It is a burden that will prevent us from concentrating on the challenges at hand. We are convinced that we all should recognize these mistakes and correct them. Our common and indisputable goal is to ensure security on the continent without dividing lines, a common space for equitable cooperation and inclusive development for the prosperity of Europe and the world as a whole.

Related:

ZH: EU Must Establish 'Direct Contact' With Putin: Germany's Merkel

Sputnik News: Germany, France, Austria Back Idea of Russia-EU Summit, Say 'Direct' Dialogue is Needed

DM: EU leaders round on Merkel and Macron and reject their plan to resume meetings with Putin, comparing it to 'trying to talk a bear out of stealing honey'

Meantime:

DM: UK's Stupid, Servile UK Administration pander to US hegemonists by taunting Russia

Oh Come on: who's scared of starting WW3. Not, evidently, Jolly Boris who, as UK Foreign Secretary, did such a fine job hyping the nonsensical anti-Russian Skripal poisoning BS. 

Sputnik News: Moscow Warns of Dire Consequences in Event of Provocations Similar to HMS Defender Incident

Peter Hitchens: Our Navy's Black Sea antics were stupid

The Origin of Covid: An Interesting Observation

Here's a comment from a discussion over at Unz.com:

Antibeast: Phylogenetic analyses have shown that the Wuhan ‘L’ strain is NOT ancestral to the Italian ‘G’ strain which has the D614G mutation in its spike S protein, causing the latter to become more infectious over time. The Wuhan ‘L’ strain does NOT have the D614G mutation in its spike S protein which explains its low rate of infectiousness thus leading to a lower number of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, as compared to Italy. The attribution of Wuhan-1 arising inside of China is quite likely true, however the attribution of progenitor Covid is not needed to originate inside of China, that is only an inference that has not been established. The Wuhan ‘L’ strain is attributed to have originated in Wuhan while the Italian ‘G’ strain is attributed to have originated in Italy. Both share a common ancestral strain which has yet to be attributed to its place of origin. Here’s an article discussing the significance of the D614G mutation in the Italian ‘G’ strain which caused the global Covid-19 pandemic: https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/EVOLUTION/yxmpjqkdzvr/ G strains are now dominant around the world. One specific mutation, D614G, has become the most common variant. It is so named because one amino acid is changed from a D (aspartate) to a G (glycine) at the 614th position on the viral spike proteins, the structure that gives the virus its crown-like appearance. The rise of the G strains coincided with spikes in outbreaks of the virus around the world, with a clutch of new cases allowing the strains to invade new areas. The dominance of the G strains is illustrated by the data for Australia, Japan and Thailand. During Australia’s second wave of infections, G strains were present in almost all samples, indicating the country had effectively eliminated transmission of the earlier L and S strains through a series of social distancing measures. All of Australia’s second wave clusters were sparked by people who had returned from overseas and breaches in quarantine. The dominance of the G-strains becomes even more evident when looking at some countries with the most infections. The United States is leading the overall number of infections and deaths by far. The majority of infections and first, second, and third waves all coincide with the increase in samples showing three G strains. In India, a similar pattern can be observed as the constant increase in infections from June to September seemed to follow the curve of the G strain samples. Empirical evidence suggests that travel bans and containment measures adopted against travelers from China during Jan-Feb 2020 helped stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus as evidenced by the low number of Covid-19 cases involving the Wuhan ‘L’ strain outside of China. Scientific evidence has now proven that the Italian ‘G’ strain spread rapidly throughout the Western World during the same period precisely due to its D614G mutation which caused the global Covid-19 pandemic. As both the Wuhan ‘L’ strain and the Italian ‘G’ strain were known to have been discovered in December 2019, the question as to the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus must perforce address the global spread of the ancestral strain prior to December 2019. This inquiry should not be limited to Wuhan but also expanded to Italy and elsewhere.

That the SARS-COV2 viral outbreak in China in late 2019 was of the less infectious L Strain, not the G Strain that afflicted the rest of the world, would explain several otherwise curious facts; namely, 

(1) that China contained the initial outbreak quickly and with very few deaths; and 

(2) that China is currently resorting to lockdowns to limit new outbreaks of SARS-COV2 that are, presumably of the more infectious and virulent G Strain that originated outside of China.

As the author of the comment quoted above notes, that the global pandemic began with more than one viral strain raises new questions about the origin and global spread of SARS-COV2.

Will China Win the Race to Mars?

China Poised to Bring Home Moon Samples

With the impending success of a Lunar sample-return mission, it's worth asking: Does China now lead in the space race? 

In particular, how much more difficult than a Lunar sample-return mission is a Mars sample-return mission? Not much I would guess. So what's to stop China from bringing home samples of Martian soil, possibly with microbial life included, before anyone else? Nothing except a geriatric US space agency that lacks a sharp focus on the conquest of space, and couple of American billionaires. True, Musk and Bezos are extremely rich, but can they compete with the Government of China in a race that depends on the availability of a large amounts of brilliant engineering talent and unrestrained expenditure. 

What's more, being overtaken in the space race by a Third World country that graduates ten times as many engineers as the US is somethings that intelligent Americans must expect, particularly at a time when white privilege, transgenderism, and shuttering the economy to protect an obesity-prone population habituated to the toxic products of the American fast-food and food-processing industries from the consequences of a novel corona (i.e., common cold type) virus have become leading national preoccupations. 

Yes, it looks like an end to the technological supremacy of the American Empire and a time for the Communists again to terrorize the world. 

Related: 

ZH: China's New Supercomputer "10 Billion Times Faster" Than Google's

How China Ended the Corona Virus Epidemic -- If It Has Ended

Infectious diseases cause epidemics when infected individuals infect, on average, more than one other person, causing the total number of infections to grow despite recovery or death of those previously infected. The number of individuals infected by each infected person is call the Reproduction number (R0).

Epidemics end when R0 falls below one. The COVID19 epidemic in China went exponential in January, with an R0 peaking at almost 4.0, and then tailed off throughout late January and February.

Why did it tail off?

Simple: quarantines and sequestrations.

Quarantine means restricting people's movement. This may mean restricting or prohibiting travel from one city to another, often referred to as a "lock-down,"or it may mean closing schools, universities, and places of business, thereby keeping people largely confined to their homes, rather than crowding together in the streets, on trains and buses, and in all places of assembly where those who are infected but asymptomatic can pass on the infection.

Quarantines may extend to ordering people to stay home, or even physically barring them from leaving their homes.

Sequestration means keeping the infected out of contact with the uninfected, including their own family or others with whom they share accommodation. In Wuhan, that was achieved by the creation of many thousands of beds in isolation facilities. These facilities are not primarily treatment facilities, they are simply places where sick people are put together out of contact with healthy members of their family and community.

The effectiveness of sequestration can be greatly enhanced if infected and infectious, but asymptomatic, individuals can be identified. Simple and rapid COVID19 tests have been developed, although control of the epidemic in China seems to have been achieved prior to widespread use of testing.

China's success in controlling COVID19 is proof of the effectiveness of China's authoritarian form of government in handling a crisis of the kind that would be experienced in the event of a biological WMD attack. As the virus spreads around the world, we will learn whether Western governments are can achieve by gentler means, China's remarkable success in containing this novel Corona virus.

But China's success remains to be confirmed. As reported here, some in China say the victory over the bat flu is FAKE.

Related:
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Zero Hedge: WHO Declares Covid-19 A Pandemic, Deeply Concerned At "Alarming Level Of Inaction"
WSJ: Italy, With Aging Population, Has World’s Highest Daily Deaths From Virus (Corona virus has killed 5% of known cases in Italy)

The novel Corona Virus Is Going Global and If You're Retired, It May Just Have Been Targeted On You

Over at the Unz Review, multiple articles and lame arguments have been presented for the notion that Covid19 is an American biowarfare agent aimed at China, intended to disrupt China's economy.

Problem is there's virtually no way of knowing if that is true, and if it were true it would indicate that the US Government is inept beyond belief, since such an act of sabotage would almost certainly come back on America and cause devastation at least equal to that wrought in China.

In any case, debate about the source of the novel corona virus, whether it derives from a Chinese biowarfare lab or from an American biowarfare lab, or maybe from Israel, and who, if anyone, is responsible for launching it upon the world, is futile.

There is no way of knowing how this pandemic started, short of total incompetence or confession on the part of those responsible.

To launch a plague undetected is the easiest thing in the world.

The responsible party, whether acting with deliberation or by inadvertence, will almost certainly never be identified.

But one thing's for certain. There's no need for 300 American soldiers in Wuhan to do the job, to mention a theory to which Ron Unz repeatedly alludes.

Just one person with a pair of contaminated gloves will do it:  visit the supermarket, touch this, touch that, smear the shopping cart handle, then drop the gloves where someone is likely to pick them up and contaminate themselves and others, then stand back and watch as the magic of exponential growth takes over.

Next thing you know the newspaper front page announces in 256 point type:

CONTAINMENT IS FUTILE

Followed by, in slightly smaller type:

In Canada, local transmission “is going to be widespread, it’s going to be severe”.

And that's a key fact you have to understand if you want a plausible theory of the origin of this plague. The thing's a boomerang. It hits those who launch it as hard as those they launched it against, assuming, that is, that this plague is is the result of deliberate human action, unlike all the other plagues that have emerged from China without human intent, from the Black Death in the 14th Century, to the Asian flu of 1958, the swine flu the chicken flu, etc. 

Another key fact about this novel Corona virus, whether it is man-made or naturally occuring, is that it kills the old, not the young.

So who benefits?

Both China and America: each with rapidly aging populations and a problem financing the maintenance of the elderly.

What's a government to do? Kill off the useless eaters with this handy virus, obviously.

So no, pretty certainly, China didn't do this to America and America did not do this to China. But it could be a joint operation using a virus modified by scientists of both countries, working, as we know, in collaboration on means to enhance the pathogenicity, or achieve gain-of-function, as the techies of doom like to say, of bat flu viruses.

Related: 

Zero Hedge: Italy Reports 2nd Straight 1,000+ Jump In Cases As Mortality Rate Hits 5%
Zero Hedge: "This Is The Most Frightening Disease I've Ever Encountered In My Career" Says Architect Of National Pandemic Strategy

Trump Organizing 2020 Landslide

Washington Post:  U.S. signs peace deal with Taliban agreeing to full withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan

New York Times:  U.S. Strikes Deal With Taliban to Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan

And this:

Tass: Trump ready to meet with leaders of Russia, China, Britain, France to discuss arms control

And if he were to add reform of the banking system, Trump would truly set the US on course to renewed greatness.

A Word to the Beautiful and the Rich

Ricky Gervais, at the Golden Globes Award Ceremony So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a political platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything, you know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So, if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your God and fuck off. OK? ....Apple roared into the TV game with The Morning Show, a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. Well, you say you're woke but the companies you work for in China — unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service you'd call your agent, wouldn't you?

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Trump's Tariffs: Why Such a Half-Baked Policy?

The problem with Trump is an incapacity to act to any effect. He hasn't even built the goddam wall, or stopped the flood of illegal immigrants by other means.

Now Trump is imposing tariffs on China to punish China for stealing American industrial and military secrets, which obviously, won't stop China stealing American industrial and military secrets.

Why not?

Because the US is in an informational, technological and economic war with China for global supremacy. China ain't gonna give up just because Trump bans Huiwei phone gear, or sticks a tariff on imports of Chinese-made Christmas tree lights.

The only consequence of Trump's anti-China tariffs, if they stay, is to force global corporations in search of cheap labor, to move off-shore production from China to Bangladesh, Vietnam or a dozen other places. Meantime, the Chinese will have more Christmas tree lights for their own consumption. So who cares? What difference does it make?

If Trump actually wanted to rebuild America's industrial base, he should impose a tariff wall against every one, with the exception of Canada, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America: the condition being, of course, that those countries free to export to America tariff-free enter the same tariff ring-fence as America.

That way, US labor would be competing not with billions of low wage workers, but a manageable 400 million Latin Americans. Moreover, those Latin American competitors would have an incentive to purchase high-tech gear tariff-free from the US, rather than China or elsewhere beyond the tariff ring fence. A further benefit would be to raise the prosperity of Latin America, thereby reducing the inclination of millions of Latin Americans to migrate to North America.

Two other requirements for a sound US industrial policy are:

1. Anti-monopoly legislation that creates fierce competition within the protected Western Hemisphere market;

2. Negotiation with other high wage countries, including Japan, S. Korea, Australia, and the European nations, to bring them within the tariff protected trade zone.

None of this will get done, obviously. Instead, it looks as though we may be about to see the Mother-of-all wars for global hegemony against Iran.

China Is Overtaking America in the Technology Race. Does It Matter?

Over at the Unz Review, Fred Reed writes of the astonishing technological rise of China from primitive, war-torn disaster area of forty years ago to the World's largest and most dynamic economy. 

Typically, Unz Review commenters attribute the speed with which China has eclipsed the US in so many ways to: (a) bad American Jews, (b) superior Chinese IQ, and (c) China's racial homogeneity. 

But such explanations may be entirely misconceived. All presuppose that America must do better. But the question that needs to be asked is: do those with the power to make the necessary changes care?

If the American elites are for global governance, why would they be concerned about shit on the streets of San Francisco, American intellectual degeneration, or the progressive replacement of America’s founding European population by people of alien race, religion and culture?

Once a global system of control is established, the citizens of the US and every other country will no longer be of any account except insofar as they are needed as the technically expert Morlocks to serve a tiny population of New World Order Eloi. What we are witnessing, surely, is a prelude to the end of the age of the proletariat. Indeed, the end of the proletariat. 

What we have is a globalist elite that views the mass of mankind as non-productive, wealth-destroying, environment-damaging vermin to be eliminated either through state-managed reproductive failure — already underway throughout the developed parts of the world, or a more rapid means, for example through the release of a virus engineered for lethality and uncontrollable spread, the vaccine against which will be available only to certain persons.

Prototype of Theresa May's New UK Nuclear Plant Blows Up

ENENews reports that a "massive blast" ripped through the Flamanville nuclear plant currently under construction in France, and that “Smoke billowed from the building as an explosion led to massive fire.” The incident, an expert is quoted as saying, is“very serious” and that “a number of people have been left feeling unwell.” However,  according to Olivier Marmion, director of the prefect's office, the incident "does not constitute a nuclear accident."

One of thousands of barrels of nuclear waste strewn 
across the floor of  the English Channel. Image source.

The Flamanville plant is located on France's Cotentin Peninsula, which projects into the already quite radioactive  English Channel, just three miles from the island of Alderney, the nearest of the British Channel Islands.

Fishing is a popular sport on Alderney, though it's difficult to understand why, unless it's strictly catch and release.

Why US Oligarchs and the Democratic Party Are Attempting a Coup d'Etat Against Trump

The following was written in December 2016, immediately after the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, when it seemed possible to believe that Trump ("wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with the Russians")represented an alternative to the globalist scheme for world empire. Events have proved that on the contrary, Trump is simply a more militaristic replacement for the former frontmen for world empire, the Rapist-in-Chief, the Bush, the Shrubs and the wannabe Hillary. or as H.L. Mencken said of FDR, Trump, is simply "a fraud from snout to tail." That, however, does not invalidate the thrust of the following commentary, which deals with the plan for the take-down and dismemberment of Russia as a preliminary to a shoot-out with China.

In 1971, when the Soviet Union was at the height of its power, the fear in the West was of Soviet tanks rolling Westward to the Atlantic, leaving the United States with the choice of resolving the issue either by means of an all out nuclear war, or accepting Russian global hegemony.

To counter the threat, the US gave diplomatic recognition to Red China, the implication being: if Russia moved West, China, with US support, would move West also, to regain vast swaths of territory and the underlying energy and mineral resources lost to Russia under the, so-called, unequal treaties of the 19th Century.

Today Russia is weak, but China is strong and rapidly growing stronger. To the plutocratic class, both in America and China, Russia's weakness creates a golden opportunity: an opportunity to strip Putin's circle of crony capitalists of the vast resource wealth of Russia. Or as Canadian wannabe oligarch, Conrad Black wrote in the National Post:

China to combine nine great cities into one hideous metropolis

The Daily Mail reports:

China is set to flex its industrial muscles on a scale the world has never seen -- with a 'mega-city' twice as big as Wales and a population of 42million.

The project's senior consultant Ma Xiangming said: 'The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas.'

China seems to have been overtaken by development megalomania. The proposed city will pave over the entire Pearl River Delta to create a city with a population density of only 1000 per square kilometer, or one thirtieth the density of Mumbai, India, or one fourteenth the density of Shanghai. In other words, a catastrophic case of urban sprawl.

The idea that residents of this monstrous conurbation will enjoy the opportunity to "travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas," is truly bizarre. How few doctors or hospitals do they plan on having, that it will require people to "travel around" an area the size of Wales to obtain service?

All that this scheme will insure is a massive waste of energy and time as people are forced to commute long distances to obtain basic services that could be provided, and in a sane community would be provided, at the local level.

Well China does everything on a gigantic scale, including screw-up, apparently. The key to energy efficiency and the good life is to concentrate human dwellings on a small land base surrounded by parks and agricultural land, so that people have little distance to travel either to work, to shop or to find places for relaxation and recreation. That way urban areas can be rid of automobiles and the stink, noise, waste of energy and hazard to life and limb to which automobiles give rise.

See also:
Can England be once again a green and pleasant land