The crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, containing the famous Kohinoor diamond, pictured on April 19, 1994.Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
An Indian model shows a replica of the famous Indian diamond Kohinoor during a press meeting in Calcutta, 29 January 2002.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1568572941448941568
Shortly after British monarch Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Sept. 8, the word “Kohinoor” began trending on Indian Twitter.
It was a reference to one of the world’s most famous gems. The Kohinoor diamond is just one of 2,800 stones set in the crown made for Elizabeth’s mother, known as the Queen Mother—but the 105-carat oval-shaped brilliant is the proverbial jewel in the crown.
In India, it is notorious for the way in which it was acquired by the British.
The history of the Kohinoor
When it was mined in what is now modern-day Andhra Pradesh, during the Kakatiyan dynasty of the 12th-14th centuries, it was believed to have been 793 carats uncut. The earliest record of its possession puts it in the hands of Moguls in the 16th century. Then the Persians seized it, and then the Afghans.
The Sikh Maharajah, Ranjit Singh, brought it back to India after taking it from Afghan leader Shah Shujah Durrani. It was then acquired by the British during the annexation of Punjab. The East India Company got hold of the stone in the late 1840s, after forcing the 10-year-old Dunjeep Singh to surrender his lands and possessions.
The company then presented the gem to Queen Victoria. Prince Albert, her consort, asked for it to be recut and it was set in the crowns of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary before being placed in the Queen Mother’s crown in 1937.
The Queen Mother wore part of the crown at her daughter’s coronation in 1953. The Kohinoor has been among the British crown jewels since then, but governments in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India have all laid claim to the diamond.
Britain’s controversial possession of the Kohinoor diamond
While no plans for the future of the gem have been disclosed, the prospect of it remaining in the U.K. has prompted many Twitter users in India to demand its return.
“If the King is not going to wear Kohinoor, give it back,” wrote oneAnother said the diamond “was stolen” by the British, who “created wealth” from “death,” “famine” and “looting.”
It is not the first time that the diamond’s return has been sought. Upon India’s independence in 1947, the government asked for the diamond back. India made another demand in the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. These demands fell on deaf ears, with the U.K. arguing that there areno legal grounds for the Kohinoor’s restitution to India.
British-Indian author and political commentator Saurav Dutt says the chances of the U.K. returning the jewel are slim.
True, the British recently facilitated the return of the Benin Bronzes—72 artifacts looted by British soldiers in the 19th century—to the Nigerian government. But Dutt says the British royal establishment is still “married to this romantic version of empire, even though it is long dead, and has lost its power.” The Kohinoor is a symbol of that power, Dutt argues, and in turning it over, he believes the Royals “would essentially be eviscerating themselves.”
At the very least, King Charles III must acknowledge the “black history” of the Kohinoor diamond, Dutt says.
“A recognition of the fact that it was obtained through stealth and deception would be a significant step at this stage, that lays the groundwork for the next generation to be able to give it back,” he tells TIME.
Many Indians may not have that patience. In the wake of the Queen’s death, there is one demand on Indian Twitter: “Now can we get our #Kohinoor back?”
This book argues for computer-aided collaborative country research
based on the science of complex and dynamic systems. It provides an in-depth discussion of systems and computer science, concluding that
proper understanding of a country is only possible if a genuinely interdisciplinary and truly international approach is taken; one that is
based on complexity science and supported by computer science. Country studies should be carefully designed and collaboratively carried out,
and a new generation of country students should pay more attention to the fast growing potential of digitized and electronically connected
libraries. In this frenzied age of globalization, foreign policy makers may – to the benefit of a better world – profit from the radically new
country studies pleaded for in the book. Its author emphasizes that reductionism and holism are not antagonistic but complementary, arguing
that parts are always parts of a whole and a whole has always parts.
Comprehending the complexity of countries is a monumental contribution to deep thinking about countries as complex and dynamic systems.
GEOPOLITICS is the game of strategists figuring out how countries behave. The Ukraine war has shown how assumptions about countries or the behaviour of their leaders are wrong, plunging the world into what Henry Kissinger has called a “totally new era”.
Hans Kuijper, a retired Dutch diplomat and exceptional Sinologist, has written an indispensable guide to understanding where country studies have gone wrong, and how we can use systems thinking and computers (ICT) to unravel the quagmire of flawed country studies.
His book is a tour de force into the philosophy of social science, drawing on his incredible reading of ancient Chinese and Western philosophy, science and current country studies.
The thesis of this book is quite simple: country studies have an explanandum (something, i.e. a country to be explained), but so-called country experts do not have an explanans, a tested or testable theory that not only explains, but stands out from other scientific theories in different disciplines such as geography, demography, ecology, politics, economics, sociology, linguistics, or anthropology.
Thus, “China experts” unjustifiably claim to explain China, even when basing their writings on a single discipline, as if they are knowledgeable about everything concerning the country. As the saying goes, “No ant can see the pattern of the whole carpet.”
Kuijper has identified a fundamental gap in conventional country studies. If you study a country (part) without taking a crude look at the world (whole) and not considering how interaction affects simultaneously the parts and the whole, that is to say, only making conjectures without a testable theory, you are only practicing pseudo-science, not science. For science is more than expressing opinions.
Comprehending the complexity of countries is a monumental contribution to deep thinking about countries as complex and dynamic systems.
In chapters one to seven, the author methodically and relentlessly exposes the enduring confusion, building step-by-step his thesis, examining theories and models, clarifying the concept of country (as distinct form area), showing how cities and countries have much in common, and exploring the scientific and technical feasibility of collaborative country studies.
The author moves essentially from a multi-disciplinary to an inter-disciplinary approach, to the higher order of a trans-disciplinary way of thinking about the development of countries as adaptive complex dynamic systems.
He examines how countries comprise both spontaneous and man-made systems, interacting both exogenously and endogenously (chapter six).
The ancient Chinese recognised that empires rise and fall from both “external invasions and internal corrosion”. Chapter seven delves deeply into the issue how modern scientific tools such as artificial intelligence, big data analysis and computer simulation could aid country studies.
Science fiction assumes that if we put all available information about one subject into a supercomputer, the subject would be replicated as a hologram, thus helping us predict its behavior.
Whether we have sufficient information and computing power is only a matter of political will and imagination.
Kuijper uses the example of networked digital libraries to substantiate his view that the study of a country could be greatly improved by deploying electronically available information about countries and regions.
Having conceptualised the model for studying countries, Kuijper examines its profound implications for higher education, arguing for “connecting the dots” (chapter eight).
He is most original when he argues that ancient Greek and Chinese thought are alike in thinking about the organic whole, whereas the specialisation of Western science caused the divergence between Western and Chinese ways of research.
The modern university, originally created to truly educate (bring up children) and spiritually elevate, became more and more specialised in less and less, making graduates complexity-illiterate.
Students do not learn to connect the dots, to see the whole. The author argues for tearing down intellectual walls and mental silos to see the grand order of man and nature.
Since each and every country has emergent properties irreducible to the properties of its constituent parts, we have to make use of the science of complex (not: complicated) and dynamic (not: linearly changing) systems in order to really comprehend the country.
An example of not connecting the dots is the fact that it took years for development economists to realise that lifting a country out of poverty involves more than economic factors.
Similarly, ecologists took decades to realise that more scientific data on global warming is not going to change policy when economists (influencing the policymakers) habitually assume that markets can solve the problem of global warming in total defiance of the fact that it will take a combination of state and market to change human behaviour.
I consider Kuijper’s discussion of reductionism versus holism (Chapter nine) a huge contribution to moving beyond the quagmire of Western exclusive and antithetical versus Chinese inclusive and correlative thinking.
The reduction to atomistic parts of free individuals creates blinkers. Western scientists draw ever more distinctions, but tend to miss the whole (from which they are apart and of which they are a part) and how the whole changes with the parts.
The whole is not a matter of either – or but of both – and, meaning that reductionism and holism are complementary rather than contradictory to each other.
The book is the amazing achievement of an independent, determined scholar reading thoroughly in depth to find out that we need complexity thinking to understand complex phenomena, resisting the ingrained habit of simplistic reductionism, the default way of human understanding.
It took at least four centuries to convince doctors to give up the idea of blood-letting as a solution to sickness.
So, it is not surprising that pseudo-scientists still think that they can pass as country experts without the help of many collaborating disciplinary-experts, using big data analytical tools.
Kuijper helps us navigate this complex subject by using a short abstract for each chapter, backed by key references. General conclusions are drawn in chapter 10. He then draws his very practical and very useful recommendations with the last chapter distilling his key insights.
This is a wonderful book, not just for sinologists, but for all who consider themselves to be country experts. It gives insight into the question of how we have got ourselves in a terrible mess over the current geopolitical path to conflict.
This book speaks truth to power, but whether those in power will listen, is the big and urgent question to which there seems to be no simple, straight answer.
Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
China’s search for technological mastery will succeed because it is essentially replicating the actual history of the economics and policies that led the United States to technological dominance, rather than the ideological history of what many Americans believe lies behind their success
For years, American policymakers and pundits have believed China’s search for technological mastery or supremacy is doomed to fail or at least be consigned forever to mediocrity and also-ran status. This belief lies behind the strategy, first put forward by the Donald Trump administration, and now followed by Joe Biden’s White House, to restrict or ban the transfer of crucial technologies, notably the most advanced semiconductors and their production methods.
And yet, paradoxically, China is bound to succeed, despite the inevitable hiccups and setbacks, because it is essentially replicating the actual history of the economics and policies that led the United States to technological dominance, rather than the ideological history of what many Americans believe lies behind their success.
They have applied their own ideological models to predict China’s supposedly “inevitable” failure, instead of using their own actual history of American technology and science, and economic policy, to analyse China’s development and acquisition of key technologies in the 21st century.
This is perhaps not surprising. Rich, powerful and successful people usually tell a different story about how they get to where they are to what actually happened to them. It’s human nature.
China’s Great Firewall
It’s generally believed that free enterprise is the necessary and sufficient condition for hi-tech industries. This means: the free flow of information and talent; open market; no or minimal government intervention, also called deregulation; and intellectual property rights protection. It’s believed only the market can choose winners and eliminate the losers, and that any state attempt to choose “national champions” is bound to fail and to be wasteful.
China’s so-called Great Firewall of the internet stands as both an actual barrier and a potent symbol that is antithetical to all those fundamental neoliberal assumptions, which, granted, are being increasingly challenged and even undermined, even among some US professional economists and historians. However, if you believe in all those assumptions, you of course will logically argue that China is bound to fail. But is it?
Let’s consider the historical reference: the Great Wall of China. It has been alternately argued that it was built to resist foreign invaders, and/or to keep in the domestic population. Either way, it was too porous to be truly effective.
A piece of Web3 tech helps banned books through the Great Firewall’s cracks
16 Apr 2022
The same argument has often been made about the ineffectiveness and absurdity of the Great Firewall. Many Chinese households can just get a VPN and then can pretty much access whatever they want from outside China. Yet, as it turns out, porousness or partial online filter and censorship, has been a godsend for Beijing’s industrial policy for hi-tech development. This is no doubt an unintended consequence, but once it has been realised, its value is deeply appreciated by the authorities. Incidentally, that’s why officials tolerate the widespread use of VPNs, despite occasional and ineffective crackdowns.
In China, for people who have the know-how, education or mere curiosity, they can easily bypass the Great Firewall for information to start a business, launch a research project or steal a foreign design. These are the people you need to be in hi-tech industries. Yet, for the vast majority of Chinese, access to contents outside China is still restricted.
China also restricts foreign business and informational access. It has banned such companies as Google, Facebook and Twitter. But of course, it welcomes companies such as Apple, Starbucks and Wall Street banks.
The Great Firewall serves as the online market barrier to foreign entry, or the internet moat to protect infant industries from foreign competition or business invasion; again, one of two functions of the ancient Great Wall.
Intellectual property theft
No one would argue intellectual property theft or industrial espionage is essential to the economic development of a country. However, many economic historians have pointed out that whether it was the rise of Elizabethan England, 19th century America, modern Japan and South Korea, or contemporary China, intellectual property theft and/or industrial espionage played a key role in their economic rise; and state industrial policy as well.
But a successful country doesn’t steal forever. Once it reaches a certain critical stage of hi-tech development, when it has amassed the talent, resources and facilities, it starts to innovate. Then, it starts developing and protecting its own intellectual property regime to prevent others from stealing -and of course, to complain about theft.
That’s the stage China is entering. According to the China National Intellectual Property Administration last month, 696,000 invention patents were authorised in 2021, an average of 7.5 of high-value patents per 10,000, or nearly double the ratio for 2017. Whether those patents were really as useful or original as they claimed is not the issue here, but rather that they show Chinese authorities are committed to intellectual property protection and building up a viable patent regime.
But, besides the obvious racism about the lack of Asian originality, the neoliberal set of assumptions that I referred to above tend to reinforce the idea that China’s political and economic systems can’t innovate and so must go on stealing. That is also related to what American historian Richard Hofstadter has called “the paranoid style” in US politics. Its most infamous manifestation was the anti-communist McCarthyism. Its most recent example is the FBI’s China Initiative, which targeted ethnic Chinese researchers, especially those in US universities.
China’s chip output shrinks as Covid-19 lockdowns paralyse industries
16 May 2022
The Silicon Valley folklore is that of a lone maverick who has a great idea and pushes it to fruition, and in the process, creates a multibillion-dollar industry. That cannot be further from the assumption behind Japanese-Korean-Chinese state industrial policy, according to which innovation is a collective enterprise, not one of individual genius or charisma. It’s all about the sustained commitment of public resources and collective talent between the state and the private sector.
It’s a common criticism that such a policy is wasteful; it often backs the wrong technologies and industries. That’s true. However, the Silicon Valley model is also prone to periodic market euphoria, mania, panic and crashes, from the dotcom implosion to the current ongoing crypto-crashes. I will leave it to economic historians and econometricians to determine whether the state or non-state model is more wasteful or destructive.
Conclusions
Belatedly, the Biden administration is slowly realising that whether it’s containment against China or competition with it, the horse has bolted out of the barn already. That is why despite its hostile rhetoric, it has no coherent policy on how to deter or delay China’s technological drive for mastery or supremacy. This conflict cuts to the very ideological self-beliefs of the two countries. Only time will tell how it will turn out.
However, restricting or banning technological transfer will not work. The great British historian Arnold Toynbee famously wrote that it was usually countries or civilisations confronted with great or even mortal challenges that prevailed and prospered in history, not those that were well-endowed with rich resources. Denying China access to vital technologies at this late stage will simply force it to develop its own domestic capabilities. That won’t make it weaker, only stronger and more self-reliant.
For years, American policymakers and pundits have believed China’s search for technological mastery or supremacy is doomed to fail or at least be consigned forever to mediocrity and also-ran status. This belief lies behind the strategy, first put forward by the Donald Trump administration, and now followed by Joe Biden’s White House, to restrict or ban the transfer of crucial technologies, notably the most advanced semiconductors and their production methods.
And yet, paradoxically, China is bound to succeed, despite the inevitable hiccups and setbacks, because it is essentially replicating the actual history of the economics and policies that led the United States to technological dominance, rather than the ideological history of what many Americans believe lies behind their success.
They have applied their own ideological models to predict China’s supposedly “inevitable” failure, instead of using their own actual history of American technology and science, and economic policy, to analyse China’s development and acquisition of key technologies in the 21st century.
Alex
Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.
Religious destination in Venkannaguda, IndiaThe
Statue of Equality, also referred to as the Ramanuja statue, is a statue of the 11th-century vaishnavaite Ramanuja, located on the premises of the Chinna Jeeyar Trust at Muchintal, Hyderabad. It is the second tallest sitting statue in the world.Wikipedia
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Compiled by JUNAID IBRAHIM, JAROD LIM and R. ARAVINTHAN` `
INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under fire after claims emerged that the 10-billion-rupee (RM556mil) Ramanujacharya statue officially unveiled recently was built by a China-based company, Malaysia Nanban reported.` `
The 66m-tall Statue of Equality in Hyderabad, Telangana, was built to commemorate the 11th century Indian saint and is expected to become a tourist and pilgrimage destination.` `
Opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that the statue was not built locally and berated Modi in a Twitter post with a swipe at the New India often touted by the PM, writing “New India is China Dependent”.` `
The “aimpon” or “panchaloha” statue made of five metals – gold, silver, copper, brass and zinc – is said to be one of the tallest in the world.` `
It is located in a 14ha compound which features a temple, meditation hall and a smaller gold statue.` `
> The Taiping Gurukulam Sevai Maiyam received some much-needed help to continue serving underprivileged children of Indian descent, Makkal Osai reported.` `
Recently, the Sri Navaneetha Krishna Temple, which houses the residential school and children’s home in Kampung Boyan, received a donation of RM21,001 from elected representatives.` `
Datuk Dr Jegathisan, who runs the Gurukulam, said the funds will go towards additional classes and tuition for the Children.`
`The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
CNY in space: Three taikonauts will enter the Lunar New Year in China’s space station, which will continue orbital construction in the year. —
AP
In 2012, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, visited the exhibition "The Road of Rejuvenation." He described it as a retrospective on the Chinese nation, a celebration of its present and a declaration on its future. #XiJinping
The things taking place in China these days would have been unimaginable a century ago.
In 2022, Beijing, where invading imperialists wreaked havoc more than 100 years ago, will host the Olympic Games for a second time, a chance for the world to stand stronger and together in solidarity.
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In space, three Chinese taikonauts will enter the Lunar New Year in China’s space station, which will continue orbital construction in the year.
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China’s journey to national rejuvenation is one of Chinese Communists leading 1.4 billion Chinese people in an unyielding struggle against all obstacles and challenges.
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The Communist Party of China (CPC) in July last year celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, and this year it will convene its 20th national congress.
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It is necessary to maintain a stable and healthy economic environment, a secure and safe social environment, and a clean and righteous political environment.
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Last year marks the critical juncture where the time-frame of China’s two centenary goals converge – to complete building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the CPC celebrates its centenary, and to start building a great modern socialist country in all respects by the time the People’s Republic of China celebrates its centenary in 2049.
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On the new journey, Xi Jinping, general-secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, is undoubtedly the core figure in charting the course of history.
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“We must always keep a long-term perspective, remain mindful of potential risks, maintain strategic focus and determination, and ‘attend to the broad and great while addressing the delicate and minute’,” Xi said in his 2022 New Year address on Friday.
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Xi paid tributes to the Chinese people who have been hard at work and looked back at the extraordinary journey travelled by the CPC.
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“I sincerely hope all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation will join forces to create a brighter future for our nation,” he said.
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China is walking on a model of modernisation characterised by innovative, coordinated, green and open development path that is for everyone. It is a model leading socialist China out of a development trap reliant on extensive and inefficient growth at the cost of ecological damage, shifting the country to high-quality development, and avoiding situations where the rich become richer and the poor poorer.
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China’s economy is estimated by some international organisations to have grown 8% last year to reach 110 trillion yuan (RM72 trillion).
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How to “divide the pie” is a world challenge and also one that China is committed to tackling.
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Nationwide, measures have been taken to prevent runaway expansion of capital, maintain order in the market, galvanise market entities of all types, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises, and protect the rights and interests of workers and consumers.
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China’s “common prosperity” initiative “is meant to end monopolies, increase innovation and competition, and give fairer opportunities, so now is the best time to invest in China’s hinterland”, said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm.
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Zhejiang province, an economic powerhouse in east China, has drawn up detailed plans to achieve common prosperity, including labour remuneration will account for more than 50% of its GDP by 2025, and the ratio of residents per capita disposable income to per capita GDP will continue to increase during the period.
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Modernisation also reaches less developed regions such as the southwestern province of Guizhou, which has become the front-runner of China’s big data industry since being approved to build the country’s first national big data comprehensive pilot zone in 2016.
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Tech giants including Apple and Microsoft have established their cloud computing and big data centres and their regional headquarters in the province.
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Leveraging its accommodating climate, clean air and geography, Guizhou is now one of the regions with the highest number of mega-data centres in the world.
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The rejuvenation spans more than just material goods such as high-speed trains or an emerging fleet of new energy cars. By 2035, China is set to basically achieve socialist modernisation.
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China is also aiming to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. A top-level design document has been released towards the ambitious goal.
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The Party has established Xi’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and defined the guiding role of Xi’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
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This reflects the common will of the Party, the armed forces and Chinese people of all ethnic groups, and is of decisive significance for advancing the cause of the Party and the country in the new era.
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Today, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical process, but it will not be easy, as Xi said on Friday: It will not happen overnight.
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China’s economic development is facing pressure from demand contraction, supply shocks and weakening expectations, and the external environment is becoming increasingly complicated and uncertain.
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China also faces an ageing population.
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In deepening reform and opening up, certain deep-seated institutional problems and impediments from vested interests became increasingly evident.
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China’s reform thus entered a critical phase fraught with tough challenges.
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Some elements in the world still deem themselves superior and always want to impose their own will on others: They throw out arbitrary rules and use human rights and other high-sounding excuses to smear China and many other developing countries.
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State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China must not compromise or back down.
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“Instead, we must face them head-on, and pull together with most countries to defend fairness and justice,” Wang said on Thursday.
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In its continued engagement with the world, China upholds and practises true multilateralism, urging countries to resolutely uphold the authority and standing of the United Nations, jointly oppose division and confrontation, stand together against zero-sum games and make constant efforts for greater democracy in international relations.
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As Xi said on Friday, “Only through unity, solidarity and cooperation can countries around the world write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind.” — Xinhua
British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth Photo:VCG
I watched the new James Bond movie last night. It is well made. But the more I watched, the more it looked like comedy. In one scene when they are about to destroy a chemical manufacturing facility located on a disputed island between Russia and Japan, the MI6 official asks whether there are any Royal Navy warships nearby. It turns out there are, and then the missile is launched. Are the British sleepwalking? The Royal Navy is now relying heavily on the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, which has been leaking frequently, to scrape a battle group up. Yet HMS Queen Elizabeth did come to show in the Asia Pacific region recently. But if it is exploited as the basis for the story, it would be too embarrassing.
The UK is a declining empire. The novel coronavirus epidemic has gravely devastated the country, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Many residents of other countries are afraid of taking the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine produced by the UK. In the Taiwan island alone, hundreds of people died after receiving the vaccine. Ironically, this James Bond movie is about preventing biological weapons.
The British are really good at this. Although the country is in decline, it is still high-spirited. In the newly filmed 007 movie, the empire seems to be in full swing. But I believe that the Western blockbusters in which characters attempt to save the human race will gradually become ridiculous over time, as these blockbusters will lose the public's psychological foundation due to the relative decline in strengths of Western countries and the continuous disintegration of self-confidence.
In the movie, the disputed islands between Russia and Japan, which should be controlled by Russia, were bombed. If the UK dared to do this in reality, Russia wouldn't waste a minute to respond with hardline measures. A few months ago after Moscow said a patrol ship fired warning shots against British vessels, London declined that any warning shot had been fired.
But I have to praise James Bond movies. They never mess with China. Instead, they are friendly to China. Even when the ties between China and Britain is getting worse, some villains in the movie still "speak Russian." This is because the Chinese film market is huge. In a commercial promoting the James Bond movie, Daniel Craig said "Thank you" in Chinese, showing his appreciation. Chinese consumption power is the strength.