South East Asia

The 20-year-old Afghan republic comes to a crashing end

Marvin G. Weinbaum
Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies

After two years of failed diplomatic efforts, for a time it seemed there might be an agreement with the Taliban reached by the Ghani regime and its international backers, albeit one very different than a long-sought power-sharing arrangement. With Taliban forces bearing down on Kabul, discussions involving the entry of Taliban forces into the capital and the formation of an interim government were being conducted in Doha.

US steals billions in Afghan bank funds

In an action that combines brazen theft, imperialist brutality and unlimited hypocrisy, the Biden administration announced Friday that it will seize control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than return them to the Afghanistan central bank.

Bigotry Unbound: the U.S. Media’s Anti-China Propaganda Blitz

Hate crimes against Asian Americans mushroomed over the past two years. According to the Guardian, they jumped 567 percent in San Francisco since 2021, and you don’t have to look far to find out why. The main reason is, quite simply, incessant China-bashing in the mainstream media. This propaganda campaign was kicked off by Trump in his last year in office with absurd, dangerous and bombastic claims that China, perhaps deliberately, caused covid. The anti-China hysteria spread like measles. Now the American right-wing deploys Nazi tropes against the Chinese – a repulsive example was a January 25 Washington Times article headlined “Chinese Communist Party Termites Are Everywhere in the U.S.” With Nazi poison like this circulating through red-blooded American veins, can war fever be far behind?

America’s Real Adversaries are Its European and Other Allies

The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia

The Iron Curtain of the 1940s and ‘50s was ostensibly designed to isolate Russia from Western Europe – to keep out Communist ideology and military penetration. Today’s sanctions regime is aimed inward, to prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China. The aim is not so much to isolate Russia and China as to hold these allies firmly within America’s own economic orbit. Allies are to forego the benefits of importing Russian gas and Chinese products, buying much higher-priced U.S. LNG and other exports, capped by more U.S. arms.

The Events In Kazakhstan Prove That China And Russia Are Strange Bedfellows With A Different Agenda And A Fragile Relationship

Introduction

The rift between China and Russia has recently become clear in Kazakhstan. At the beginning of 2022, Kazakhstan, the largest and most politically stable country in Central Asia, had its biggest riots since it gained its independence in December 1991. On January 5, at the request of Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) decided to send peacekeepers (in effect, Russian troops) to stabilize the situation and assist in the crackdown.

China’s Careful Dance Around the Ukraine Crisis

Reports out of Washington suggest worry over a Russia-China partnership that would facilitate Vladimir Putin’s presumed ambition to absorb Ukraine and undermine the NATO-based European security system. So let’s examine that relationship to assess the US concern.