Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Important article: What if the Shanghai lockdown isn't about COVID at all?
Link to tweet
The not-so-obvious fallout of the Putin-Xi deal:"Is the Shanghai lockdown really about COVID? Russia & China laid out the parameters for a new world order in Feb & their subsequent actions have brought the economies of the western powers to a grinding halt"
In the article below the author explains that China says Shanghai is locked down to attain “zero-COVID”, but it does NOT make sense. Please read the short article for details. Here are some snips.
Is the Shanghai lockdown really about COVID?
... snip
Let me quote from James o’Neill’s report in Near Eastern Outlook of 14 February 2022:
On fourth of February 2022 an important meeting took place in Beijing., China between the leader of China Xi Jin Ping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Putin was in China at Xi’s invitation to attend the opening of the Winter Olympics. The reason for his visit however, went far beyond celebrating the opening of a major sporting occasion. The two men signed a series of economic and political agreements that strengthened the already close ties between the two Asian neighbours.
One of the most important agreements signed that day was for a 30-year deal with which Russia agreed to supply China with gas, to be delivered via a new pipeline built for the occasion. In one of the most important signals in the signing of the deal, the two men agreed that China would pay for the gas in Euros. It signalled another break from the United States dollar whose importance in international trade has been steadily declining.
Following the meeting, the Chinese and Russian governments issued a joint statement that ran to more than 5000 words in length. The statement declared a “new era” under which the two men proposed a new international political model, one that was designed to leave behind the United States dominated unipolar world.
“The world is going through momentous changes and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation” the joint statement declared. In this “new era” China and Russia and their allies in the global South were determined to build a different system from that which the United States and its Western allies had dominated for so long.
Russia and China made it abundantly clear that they foresaw a new world order. The alternative they were proposing “condemned the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other states for geopolitical purposes.” Instead, the two countries sought to establish “a just multipolar system of international relations.” They called on NATO to “abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, and to respect the sovereignty, security and interest of other countries.”
Two weeks later, Russia moved on Ukraine. NATO responded with sanctions. The impact of those sanctions on the economies of NATO countries has been devastating. Inflation is rampant throughout these countries and GDP growth projections show drops of up to 4 percentage points .
A further two weeks after Russia’s forces moved into Ukraine, China locked down Shanghai.
Let me hit you with some bullet points:
*More than 800 multinational corporations have regional headquarters in Shanghai . Among them, 121 are Fortune Global 500 companies, including Apple, Qualcomm, General Motors, Pepsico.
*More than 70 000 foreign companies have offices in Shanghai. More than 24 000 of these are Japanese.
*The shutdown of Tesla’s operation in Shanghai because of the lockdown has set the company back with lost production of 40 000 units of electric vehicles. That’s just one car company. Volkswagen and General Motors both have factories in Shanghai.
*Ford has a global design center in Shanghai.
*Let’s talk about Apple: iPhone supplier Pegatron has its major factory in Shanghai and another in nearby Kunshan. Both have been shut by the lockdown.
*TSMC , the world’s most valuable manufacturer of semiconductors, has a major production facility in Shanghai. (TSMC makes 7-nanometre and 5-nanometre chips used by the Apple A14 and M1 SoC .)
*Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has a global R&D centre in Shanghai.
*To top this off, Shanghai is the world’s biggest container port moving more than 47 million shipping containers per year. Shutting down the city for more than a month means 4 million of those have potentially been impacted.
As can be seen, the simple act of shutting down Shanghai has delivered a body blow to global giants in the US sphere of influence at a time when they are already scrambling to reset their economies after their disastrous sanctions against Russia.
More: https://kanthanpillay.com/blog-entry/shanghai-lockdown-really-about-covid
... snip
Let me quote from James o’Neill’s report in Near Eastern Outlook of 14 February 2022:
On fourth of February 2022 an important meeting took place in Beijing., China between the leader of China Xi Jin Ping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Putin was in China at Xi’s invitation to attend the opening of the Winter Olympics. The reason for his visit however, went far beyond celebrating the opening of a major sporting occasion. The two men signed a series of economic and political agreements that strengthened the already close ties between the two Asian neighbours.
One of the most important agreements signed that day was for a 30-year deal with which Russia agreed to supply China with gas, to be delivered via a new pipeline built for the occasion. In one of the most important signals in the signing of the deal, the two men agreed that China would pay for the gas in Euros. It signalled another break from the United States dollar whose importance in international trade has been steadily declining.
Following the meeting, the Chinese and Russian governments issued a joint statement that ran to more than 5000 words in length. The statement declared a “new era” under which the two men proposed a new international political model, one that was designed to leave behind the United States dominated unipolar world.
“The world is going through momentous changes and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation” the joint statement declared. In this “new era” China and Russia and their allies in the global South were determined to build a different system from that which the United States and its Western allies had dominated for so long.
Russia and China made it abundantly clear that they foresaw a new world order. The alternative they were proposing “condemned the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other states for geopolitical purposes.” Instead, the two countries sought to establish “a just multipolar system of international relations.” They called on NATO to “abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, and to respect the sovereignty, security and interest of other countries.”
Two weeks later, Russia moved on Ukraine. NATO responded with sanctions. The impact of those sanctions on the economies of NATO countries has been devastating. Inflation is rampant throughout these countries and GDP growth projections show drops of up to 4 percentage points .
A further two weeks after Russia’s forces moved into Ukraine, China locked down Shanghai.
Let me hit you with some bullet points:
*More than 800 multinational corporations have regional headquarters in Shanghai . Among them, 121 are Fortune Global 500 companies, including Apple, Qualcomm, General Motors, Pepsico.
*More than 70 000 foreign companies have offices in Shanghai. More than 24 000 of these are Japanese.
*The shutdown of Tesla’s operation in Shanghai because of the lockdown has set the company back with lost production of 40 000 units of electric vehicles. That’s just one car company. Volkswagen and General Motors both have factories in Shanghai.
*Ford has a global design center in Shanghai.
*Let’s talk about Apple: iPhone supplier Pegatron has its major factory in Shanghai and another in nearby Kunshan. Both have been shut by the lockdown.
*TSMC , the world’s most valuable manufacturer of semiconductors, has a major production facility in Shanghai. (TSMC makes 7-nanometre and 5-nanometre chips used by the Apple A14 and M1 SoC .)
*Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has a global R&D centre in Shanghai.
*To top this off, Shanghai is the world’s biggest container port moving more than 47 million shipping containers per year. Shutting down the city for more than a month means 4 million of those have potentially been impacted.
As can be seen, the simple act of shutting down Shanghai has delivered a body blow to global giants in the US sphere of influence at a time when they are already scrambling to reset their economies after their disastrous sanctions against Russia.
More: https://kanthanpillay.com/blog-entry/shanghai-lockdown-really-about-covid
About the author:
Prof Blaxland, via his work at ANU & collating and writing the official history for ASIO, is very connected to Canberra's intelligence & defence community & holds a current security clearance. If he is posting an article like this, best to listen 
)
)
Link to tweet
19 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
