• The US has doubled down on its China position.
• It’s now threatened sanctions if the Chinese help Russians with war materiel.
• In turn, the Chinese government published a damning “pamphlet” on its website.

Happy Friday!

We made it. Grab your cup of coffee and sit down for this one.

I had thought of doing a light Rude as it’s a Friday.

But China tossed me a grapefruit I had to swing at.

It’s staggering from a diplomatic standpoint.

Extra! Extra! The Chinese government isn’t taking America’s shit anymore.

And China has made its displeasure known publicly and loudly, something they’re not known for.

Oh, and they did it in English.

That’s what blew me away.

Before I continue, please understand I’m in no way a proponent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Or any other damn commies, for that matter.

Truth be told, a far more accurate way to describe China’s governmental system is totalitarian fascism. That is, the state and business work together and suffer no opposition.

Whatever they call their system, the Chinese people aren’t free. To be fair, they don’t complain much about that, either.

Let me tell you what happened.

Byron King Writes

Yesterday, I wrote about how China and Russia went public.

In that piece, I wrote the following:

There’s one playbook everyone needs to have read before dealing with the Chinese.

It’s The Art of War.

I’ll summarize it in one word: Lie.

Here are a few more: Subterfuge. Deception. Misdirection.

That’s how they do things.

This straightforward stuff is a Western invention they want no part of.

Because as a Western diplomat scolds a Chinese one, you can rest assured that the Chinese diplomat is working out how to screw his opposite number behind his smile.

</blockquote

Now, I love nothing more than getting an email from my good friend and colleague Byron King. As a former US Naval aviator, geologist, and lawyer, Byron may be the best guy in the world to bounce ideas off of.

Byron wrote me this:

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What were you saying about doing diplomacy w China???

Something about Sun Tzu and lying? About not placing them in a position to lose face?

You mean like this? Threats of more sanctions???

And he sent me a link to this Epoch Times article:

Credit: The Epoch Times

I saw the headline and shook my head, once again.

The usual bluster started off the piece.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said:

We have been clear with the PRC that consequences would befall them if they were to provide lethal assistance.

We have been clear. We will not hesitate to target Chinese companies or individuals who violate sanctions.

The usual blah blah.

But then the spokesman unintentionally steered into comedy.

Rules-Based International Order

In its purest sense, the term “rules-based international order” refers to the post-WW2 world and is centered around the UN.

Cynically speaking, you now hear the term all the time because the US and the EU are trying to maintain a facade that doesn’t exist.

And every time the Chinese hear the term, they probably visualize something like this:

The reason is that the US bends, fractures, and outright breaks those rules whenever it damn well pleases.

And the Chinese must have been shocked when Price said of them and the Russians:

We are concerned because these two countries share a vision, they share an intent. It is not a vision of a rules-based order, of a liberal order of democracies living peacefully side by side. It is a vision that hearkens back to a previous era. An era in which big countries could bully small countries, borders could be redrawn by force. An era in which might could make right.

Reports indicate Price said this with a straight face. Reports also noted Price failed to mention Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen.

That’s ok, because the CCP didn’t forget to mention them at all.

The Chinese Response

Again, please don’t mistake my giddiness for a love of the CCP.

But this is the biggest guffaw-inducing bird-flipping in the history of diplomacy.

Credit: USAmbChina

The Chinese had had enough of the US’s impoliteness a few days ago.

So they published an online pamphlet titled “US Hegemony and Its Perils.”

Here is its table of contents:

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force 

III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

And here’s the thing: it’s in English…. grammatically perfect English.

That means they put a lot of effort into the document.

It’s a clean, short, and easy read.

Here’s the Introduction in full:

Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain, and abuse hegemony, advance subversion, and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom, and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls, and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a "rules-based international order."

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological, and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

Here’s what the report had to say about the War in Afghanistan:

The two-decade-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the "Kabul debacle" in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as "pure looting."

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Here’s what it says about USD hegemony:

The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon's secretary of the treasury, John Connally, once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, "the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."

There are many more nuggets in the report. I highly recommend you read it. You can easily do it in one sitting.

Wrap Up

This kind of diplomatic rebuke is staggering.

Again, this isn’t a country the US can just throw over. It must deal with China.

But the Chinese have, in the strongest possible terms, told the US it’s no longer taking its bad behavior.

Have a wonderful weekend!