On February 11, Melbourne hosted the fourth meeting of foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Quad, which consists of the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Since the creation of this alliance in 2019, Washington (together with Tokyo and Canberra) attempted, firstly, to expand the scope of activity beyond the framework of an “interest club” (mainly humanitarian), and, secondly, to tightly involve Delhi in the entire “expanded” range of Quad’s activities.

Such expectations could be seen, in particular, in an article published the day before by the hostess of the upcoming event, that is, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia, Marise Payne. And, judging by the final “Joint Statement”, these expectations were not unfounded.

The key message of the entire paper is expression by the event’s participants of their “commitment to supporting Indo Pacific countries’ efforts to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific – a region which is inclusive and resilient, and in which states strive to protect the interests of their people, free from coercion.”

This has been a well-established mantra in recent years, incorporating a very topical political content, which de facto is in the focus of the escalating struggle between the United States and the duo of its now main geopolitical opponents, that is, China and Russia. Incidentally, a week before the event under discussion, the leaders of these two signed a “Joint Statement,” quite significant in modern world politics. The very fact of its appearance, undoubtedly, cast its shadow on the course and results of the work of the Quad foreign ministers in Melbourne.

Although the text of the document they adopted does not explicitly mention China and Russia as sources of threats to the “freedom and openness” of the ITR, nor does it mention any cases of “coercion”, both of these powers are easily recognized from its very content. In addition, they were directly pointed out by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the final press conference.

Naturally, Western commentators of the Melbourne meeting do not hesitate to point fingers at Beijing and Moscow. In this context, Taiwan, Ukraine, Lithuania and Australia are most often mentioned as the latest examples of “victims” of the Chinese-Russian “coercion.” The appeal by the EU leadership to the WTO with a complaint against China, which took some “painful steps towards Lithuania in the field of trade” (due to the latter’s reckless intervention in the Taiwan problem, an extremely sensitive issue for Beijing), was supported by the so-called “G7.”

As for the euphemisms used by the participants of the Melbourne meeting in their Joint Statement, even Tokyo – for now – avoids directly singling out China (or Russia) as the main source of its foreign policy problems. Naturally, so does Delhi. This is especially peculiar, given that without first involving India in its sphere of influence, Washington would not have ventured to even initiate the so-called Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, IPEC.

Meanwhile, its development was announced in late October 2021 at some regional event by US President Joe Biden. IPEC is undoubtedly supposed to play the role of an American alternative to China’s key global project, the Belt and Road Initiative, which is the main instrument for spreading China’s political influence in the world. But so far, the only thing known about IPEC is that this project is still under development, even though from time to time there appear information leaks regarding its supposed content.

To reiterate, Washington assigns a key role to involving India in the general process of shifting its foreign policy focus towards the IPR, as well as the implementation of the (future) IPEC project. Therefore, it would be extremely imprudent on the part of the US leadership to embarrass Delhi in its already difficult relations with Beijing.

The reason for a new hiccup in said relations was the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The flag of Team China was carried by the former commander of the group of Chinese border guards who directly took part in the clashes with Indian border guards in the summer of 2020, in the Galwan river valley in Ladakh. Although (seemingly) no shot was fired, there still were casualties on both sides. The numbers are still not entirely clarified, and in India this issue remains one of the topics of internal political struggle. Some of the players outside of this conflict are providing their own data on the losses on both sides of the Galwan conflict of two years ago. Indeed, why not pour salt on other people’s wounds that have not healed so far?

How painful they remain is evidenced by the demarche of the Indian Ambassador to China, caused by the fact that the flag of the host country of the Olympics (an event whose main slogan is O Sport, You Are Peace!) was carried by the commander of those same Chinese border guards. He simply fulfilled his military duty to his Motherland two years ago, which resulted – as is almost always the case in such conflicts – in death of people. Again, on both sides.

It is not for the author to judge the correctness or fallacy of the decision of the PRC leadership to select him as the national flag bearer during an international sporting event, at whose opening (amidst a “diplomatic boycott” by Beijing’s geopolitical opponents) the Indian ambassador nevertheless appeared. However, he soon left the guest podium. This new unpleasant incident in relations between the two Asian giants occurred, again, exactly one week before the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting, which clearly had an anti-Chinese orientation. It is hardly in the interests of Beijing to accelerate the drift of Delhi towards Washington, China’s main geopolitical opponent.

Among other noteworthy theses of the “Joint Statement” adopted at the end of the meeting in Melbourne, were the support of the claims of the ASEAN member countries for the central role of this Association in all aspects of the situation in the Southeast Asia, the condemnation of the military coup a year ago in Myanmar, as well as Pyongyang’s more frequent testing of the latest types of missile weapons in recent months. Moreover, according to Western commentators, the North is demonstrating achievements in the field of hypersonic missiles, the fight against which raises the entire problem of missile defense to a whole new level of complexity.

From Melbourne, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after an intermediate stop in Fiji (countering the spread of China’s influence in the Pacific is also becoming one of Washington’s main foreign policy concerns), went to Hawaii, where the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral ministerial meeting took place.

This event turned out to be yet another attempt to turn this configuration into a full-fledged tripartite military-political alliance. These attempts have been made over the past twenty years with almost no results. For the sole reason of (hardly fixable) problems in relations between Washington’s two main regional allies, Tokyo and Seoul.

The stated reason for holding the Hawaiian meeting was the aforementioned North Korean missile tests. However, in the speech of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the final press conference equal attention was paid to the situation in Ukraine. Blinken repeated the same accusations Washington has leveled against Moscow in recent months, as the Ukrainian crisis has escalated.

It is worthy noting, however, that this topic was only briefly and in neutral terms touched upon in the speech of the South Korean foreign minister and was completely left out from the speech of his Japanese counterpart. The topic of Ukraine is also nowhere to be found in the Associated Press editorial on the results of the tripartite ministerial meeting in Hawaii.

Overall, this last meeting, as well as the previous event in Melbourne in the Quad format, are another evidence of Washington’s ongoing attempts to build something similar to an anti-Chinese front comprising its closest allies and partners in the region.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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Well you’ll be shocked to learn that, while the Ukraine invasion we’ve been told for weeks was happening any day now still has not occurred, the US and UK have declared that Russia attacked Ukraine in an invisible and unverifiable way for which the evidence is secret.

“The White House blamed Russia on Friday for this week’s cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks and warned of the potential for more significant disruptions in the days ahead,” AP reports. “Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said the U.S. had rapidly linked Tuesday’s attacks to Russian military intelligence officers.”

“Technical information analysis shows the GRU was almost certainly involved in disruptive DDoS attacks,” adds a statement from the UK Foreign Office.

No evidence for this claim has been provided beyond the assertive tone with which American and British officials have uttered it, but that likely won’t stop arguments from western narrative managers that this “attack” justifies immediate economic sanctions.

President Joe Biden says Russia President Putin is going to invade Ukraine. Reporter asks, "What reason do you have to believe he's considering that option at all?" Biden replies, "We have significant intelligence capability." Again, no evidence. Just trust us. pic.twitter.com/C9wwFE8w4p

— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 18, 2022

You’ve probably also heard by now that President Biden announced at a press briefing that Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine and violently topple Kyiv “in the coming days,” citing only “intelligence”.

“What reason do you believe he’s considering that option at all?” a reporter asked Biden after his speech.

“We have a significant intelligence capability, thank you very much,” the president answered, and made his exit.

[Gusnote: the same "intelligence" that made up "Saddam has WMDs"]

As we were reminded earlier this month in an interesting exchange between State Department spinmeister Ned Price and AP’s Matt Lee, US officials firmly believe that simply placing assertions next to the word “intelligence” should be considered rock solid proof that those assertions are true, and the press are expected to play along with this.

And indeed, a large percentage of the political/media class is responding to Biden’s unevidenced claim that Putin has decided to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Ukraine as though that invasion is actually happening.

It is beyond belief that in 2022, as we face challenges like covid & climate change, any national leader would start a war that could kill thousands & create millions of refugees. There is a diplomatic solution to this crisis. It is tragic that Putin seems intent to reject it.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 18, 2022

[Gusnote: Bernie is bullshitting: Putin has not rejected THE DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION WHICH IS THE MINSK AGREEMENT. The West/US arseholes have been rejecting all of Putin's decent proposals.]

Two critical statements by Biden just now:

1. US has intelligence that Putin has made the decision to further invade Ukraine.

2. The invasion will go all the way to Kyiv, a city of 2.9m people.

Europe—the world—won’t be the same if Biden is right.

— Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) February 18, 2022

It is not even a tiny bit rare for US presidents to make incendiary claims about governments they don't like without solid intel. https://t.co/5wp4CBrlvX

— Caitlin Johnstone  (@caitoz) February 19, 2022

There are also accusations of false flags amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine and numerous other claims about what Russia is doing as it prepares for this invasion it’s supposed to launch, and it’s all just being blindly accepted as objectively true in mainstream political discourse. Nowhere is it questioned. Nowhere is the fault of the US and NATO in creating these tensions between Russia and Ukraine ever reported, nor are the geostrategic benefits the US hegemon stands to reap from this standoff. Few even bother trying to articulate what Moscow would gain from invading Ukraine, except the occasional infantile “they hate us for our freedom”-style think piece about how Putin just can’t stand democracy.

If online you question the veracity of any of these claims in light of the extensive history these institutions have of lying to us about just this sort of thing, it’s treated as a freakish and bizarre interjection that is at best misguided and at worst proof that you’re an agent of the Kremlin. I haven’t received so many notifications from people calling me a Russian operative since 2018, which to me is funny because everything I was saying about western Russia narratives in 2018 has since been completely vindicated.

And I think it’s important while this all unfolds to take a moment to remind ourselves that the burden of proof is always on the party making the claim. This is a basic principle we all hold true in matters of logic and debate and in the legal system, and really anywhere that disputed claims are scrutinized, and it doesn’t magically stop being the case just because a claim is spoken in an assertive tone by powerful people about a country they don’t like. If you make a claim in an irrelevant time-wasting Twitter argument you’ll immediately be asked for proof that it’s true, but if the most powerful government in the world makes an incendiary claim of potentially world-shaping consequence we’re all just expected to accept it, even though that government has a proven track record of making false claims.

Amazing interview with of the former MI6 chief with the Atlantic Council's @B_judah (the whole gang present) where the intel goon *admits* that many western "intel leaks" media outlets are dutifully conveying aren't real leaks but propaganda messages designed to undercut Putin. pic.twitter.com/UOzBxG5F5H

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 17, 2022

The onus is not on anyone else to prove that the US and UK governments are lying when they make these claims, the onus is on the US and UK governments to prove that they are telling the truth. At some point after Donald Trump’s election it became a mainstream liberal doctrine that you can say whatever you want about Russia no matter how outrageous and suffer no professional consequences if it proved completely false, and nobody’s really been pushing back on that. So many people built entire careers out of suggesting for years on end that the entire Trump family was going to be dragged out of the White House in chains for Kremlin collusion, and when this failed to prove true everyone just acted like it was fine and continued on with their careers.

But it’s not fine. It’s not okay that this bizarre cold war hysteria environment has melted everyone’s brain over the last five years. It’s not okay that the most basic standards of logic and evidence have been flushed down the toilet. It’s not okay that we now have MI6 spooks and CIA mouthpieces openly acknowledging that the government is using the western press to wage an information war geared at undermining Russia when both the government and the press are supposed to be simply telling us the truth.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Ukraine. What I do know is that it would be good to drag the Overton window of acceptable debate kicking and screaming back to the point where the burden of proof needs to be met even, and especially, by the world’s most powerful people. And where, if that burden is not met, their claims are treated with all the disdain they deserve.

_____________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 

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Peace to all... See also: 

Canberra alleges that its P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft was targeted by a laser from a Chinese navy vessel in the Arafura Sea on 17 February. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that the lasing incident "endangered" the lives of Australian defence personnel.

The Chinese Defence Ministry has slammed Canberra for making “false accusations” against the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLA-N), as it accused the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) aircraft of laying "sonar buoys" around the Chinese naval vessels while they were passing through the Arafura Sea off Australia's northern coast.

Defence ministry spokesperson Colonel Tan Kefei said during a media briefing on Monday that the Australian surveillance plane had come very close to the Chinese vessels and was only four kilometres away from the ships at one point.

“In the whole process of encountering the Australian military aircraft, the Chinese ships have always maintained safe, standardized and professional operations, in line with relevant international law and practice,” he said, while responding to a question on the encounter that took place off Australia’s northern waters on 17 February.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220221/china-accuses-australian-aircraft-of-harassing-pla-navy-vessels--dropping-sonar-around-them--1093235576.html

Message to DirtyMo: talk to the Chinese before trying to dunk them in the soup...

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By Paul Bongiorno AM

Scott Morrison’s ramping up of a scare campaign against Labor’s Anthony Albanese has shone a laser-like focus on just how defenceless Australia is against any military threat China might pose.

To listen to the Prime Minister, you would think it is in Australia’s power to force an explanation from China about an alleged laser attack on a RAAF surveillance aircraft in the Arafura Sea to our immediate north on Thursday.

Three days later, Beijing has rejected Australia’s claims, demanding Canberra stop its “groundless accusations” against them.

It doesn’t surprise defence and strategic expert Hugh White.

The former senior defence bureaucrat has raised doubts about the nature of the attack and says the government should supply more details, including whether our aircraft was itself behaving according to the rules of engagement.

On Monday the Prime Minister was walking back his more bellicose tones of Sunday after the incident was disclosed in time to feature heavily in the weekend papers.

Morrison admitted the Chinese vessels “had every right to be there”, just as our navy has every right to sail through the international waters of the South China Sea.

But he said their action was completely indefensible and “we have demanded there be an investigation of what occurred”.

It is unusual for such incidents to be reported publicly so quickly, suggesting our defence department was acting under instructions from its political masters.

The precedent of the ‘Children Overboard’ affair in the 2001 election campaign comes readily to mind.

Then prime minister John Howard, similar to Morrison today, was running a “khaki” election campaign, charging his Labor opponents with being weak on border security and dreadful people who, according to alleged navy reports, were throwing their children overboard to force their rescue.

Doubts were raised at the time about the blackguarding of innocent refugees, but Howard had won the election by the time the claims were shown to be false.

Twenty one years ago, the Howard scare campaign was able to play into the powerful emotion of voters’ fears because the attacks in Washington and New York were carried out by Islamic terrorists from the same part of the world as the boatloads of asylum seekers.

The conflation of these hapless people with an invasion was always reprehensible, but at least there was a feather to fly with.

Twenty one years later there is no invasion, the enemy is our biggest trading partner and a superpower vying with the United States to be the dominant power in the Asia Pacific.

Professor White believes neither side of politics in Australia has come to terms with this reality, nor accepted that America is in decline and itself is yet to work out a way of co-existence with China going forward.

It’s a problem made all the more difficult by the fact the Asian giant is enmeshed in both our economies.

He believes both the Liberals and Labor are responsible for what looks like wilful neglect.

Long-time foreign editor at The Australian Greg Sheridan says, “the scandalous truth is that for all the billions of dollars we have committed to defence, we have done almost nothing to increase our ability to defend ourselves, much less to strike an enemy or keep one at bay”.

If it weren’t so serious it would be laughable that the Prime Minister of a Coalition that has been in power for almost a decade is accusing the Labor opposition of being “weak appeasers” of China, when on their watch our armed forces have been left too weak to defend the nation.

The only explanation is incompetence in the hope no one notices.

Morrison trumpets the AUKUS pact as his great strategic contribution, but this arrangement with the US and the United Kingdom has left us with a meagre ageing fleet of six submarines for the next 20 years.

Cancelled at an undisclosed cost going into the hundreds of millions was the purchase of 12 conventional submarines from the French.

These submarines, Malcolm Turnbull reminded us, would have been much more suitable for the near defence of Australia.

The laser incident last week involved Chinese ships that Morrison said on Monday probably could have been seen from the Australian mainland – thankfully they weren’t on a belligerent mission.

The shambles goes to expensive helicopters that couldn’t fly combat missions, frigates whose hull design means they can’t float with all the equipment we want to load on to them.

The saga is endless, including $30 billion for tanks that would only be useful to defend our cities from an invader who had landed. And that would be because we haven’t purchased the missiles and drones that would deliver us a realistic forward defence.

Morrison boasts that unlike Labor, he has prioritised defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP. Albanese is committed to matching it and is reluctant to join the argument.

But voters have every right to hear assurances from the alternative government in the lead up to the election that it will replace bluster and fearmongering with the hard work of genuine strategic policy development and wiser spending of taxpayers’ money.

Our current emperor has no clothes.

Beijing knows it and will take no notice of arm waving and shouting, nor will it be inclined to do us any favours by restoring billions of dollars in lost exports, and that includes the 1.5 million tourists they used to send our way every year.

Paul Bongiorno AM is a veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery, with 40 years’ experience covering Australian politics

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