Most certainly known to President Trump and the Wall Street
Journal, along with investors who “share a
sentiment that the return of their money is more important than the return on
their money”, this report continues, are the facts contained in
the just released economic article “‘Terrorist’ Economy: Washington Is Prepared To Create A New
Financial Disaster For The Whole World”, wherein it
warningly observed:
There is a mantra that has
essentially become axiomatic: the US Treasury market is the deepest and most
liquid in the world.And a corollary to
that is: US Treasury bonds are ‘risk free’.
These once-taken-for-granted pillars of eternal
truth are looking awfully shaky.
The tectonic plates of the
US-led global financial system have been rustling ever more frequently in
recent years but the quivers are now coming more frequently.At the heart of this increasingly brittle and
dysfunctional system is the US Treasury market.
Everyone has noticed the
sharp rise in yields in recent months.In early October, the US
10-years hit a yield of nearly 5%, the highest level in 16 years.This is, of course, entirely understandable:
rate hikes by the Federal Reserve have pushed bond yields higher.But what we have been seeing is more than a
manifestation of the vicissitudes of finicky markets.
As foreign buyers of US Treasuries dry up and the US government
continues to run astronomical deficits at a time of high interest rates, the
Treasury market is coming under increasing strain and showing ever more signs
of dysfunction.The implications of this
are hard to overstate.
Some form of outright yield
curve control is coming and probably sooner rather than later.It is already creeping into the realm of
mainstream speculation.But this time it
will hardly resemble a temporary war-time policy; rather it will be a move of desperation far down the road toward
outright dysfunction of a market at the very heart of the global financial
system.
And this will spawn a banquet of
consequences.
A breakdown in the
functioning of the Treasury market will trigger the widespread epiphany that the United
States has turned itself into something akin
to the terrorist-rigged bus set to explode if it slows to below 50 mph in the
1994 Keanu Reeves film ‘Speed’.
Politically unable to
backtrack on its entitlements and military commitments but unable to afford
them, it will run into the fiscal wall of excessive interest expenses and
insufficient demand for its debt.
The Fed has become
uncannily adept at patching up markets and, to quote Luke Gromen,
employing its standard technique of “extend and pretend… then inflate” and it may continue to find ever
more ingenious ways to keep the tottering edifice upright for some time.
But the rot at the very heart of the global
financial system is becoming increasingly apparent for those with the eyes to
see it.
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.
I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been
attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and
political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries' internal
affairs abound. In the name of "promoting democracy," the United States practiced a "Neo-Monroe
Doctrine" in Latin America, instigated "color revolutions" in
Eurasia, and orchestrated the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many
countries.
In 1823, the United States
announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an "America for the Americans," what it truly
wanted was an "America
for the United States."
Since then, the policies of
successive U.S. governments
toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region
have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime
subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende
government of Chile, U.S. policy on
this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those
who resist shall perish.
The year 2003 marked the
beginning of a succession of "color revolutions" -- the "Rose
Revolution" in Georgia,
the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine
and the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of
State openly admitted playing a "central role" in these "regime
changes." The United States
also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President
Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the
so-called "People Power Revolutions."
In January 2023, former
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch:
Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The
plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the
opposition, deprive Venezuela
of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure
on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules.
Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from
international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above
international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it
would cut off all U.S.
funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the
organization "supports, or participates in the management of a programme
of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The United States
quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris
Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human
Rights Council, citing the organization's "bias" against Israel and
failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States
announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to
seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling
out of the Treaty on Open Skies.
The United States
has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing
negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention
(BWC) and impeding international verification of countries' activities relating
to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons
stockpile, the United States
has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained
reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to
realizing "a world free of chemical weapons."
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through
its alliance system. It has been forcing an "Indo-Pacific Strategy"
onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes,
the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such
practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke
confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries,
and fabricates a false narrative of "democracy versus
authoritarianism" to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and
confrontation. In December 2021, the United
States hosted the first "Summit for Democracy," which drew
criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit
of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another "Summit for
Democracy," which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force
The history of the United States
is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in
1776, the United States has
constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and
annexed Hawaii.
After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States
included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War
in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its
military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years,
the U.S.
average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars,
accounting for 40 percent of the world's total, more than the 15 countries
behind it combined. The United
States has about 800 overseas military
bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
According to the book
America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost
Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily
involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations
with only three exceptions. The three countries were "spared" because
the United States
did not find them on the map.
◆As former U.S. President Jimmy
Carter put it, the United
States is undoubtedly the most warlike
nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report,
"Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S.
Military Interventions, 1776-2019," the United States undertook nearly 400
military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were
in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14
percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe.
Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and
sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
Alex Lo, a South China
Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely
distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew
democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th
century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today,
in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria, Pakistan
and Yemen, the United States
is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
◆U.S.
military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and
military operations launched by the United States in the name of
fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them
civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War
resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000
directly killed by the U.S.
military, and left more than a million homeless.
The United States
has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of
Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584
civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings,
including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and
children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018
that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa
alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.
The two-decades-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."
In September 2022, Turkish
Interior Minister SuleymanSoylu
commented at a rally that the United States
has waged a proxy war in Syria,
turned Afghanistan into an
opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan
into turmoil, and left Libya
in incessant civil unrest. The United
States does whatever it takes to rob and
enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has
also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan
and the Iraq War, the United
States used massive quantities of chemical
and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs
and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities,
countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States
led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the
international monetary system centered around the U.S.
dollar. In addition, the United
States has also established institutional
hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the
weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations
including "approval by 85 percent majority," and its domestic trade
laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar's status as the major
international reserve currency, the United States
is basically collecting "seigniorage" from
around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it
coerces other countries into serving America's political and economic
strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help
of "seigniorage." It costs only about 17
cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar
of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a
century ago, that the United
States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and
deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note
to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆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,
that "the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."
◆With its control over
international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional
conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles
to U.S. capital inflow and
speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial
liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies
would fall in line with America's
strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along
with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member
countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions
had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with
economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in
service of America's
strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial
power against Japan,
and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was
pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The
Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy,
leaving Japan
to what was later called "three lost decades."
◆America's
economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down
on unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdiction," the United States
has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability
Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries Through
Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific
countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions
against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump
administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three
sanctions per day. So far, the United States
had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world,
including Cuba, China, Russia,
the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela,
affecting nearly half of the world's population. "The United States of America"
has turned itself into "the United States of Sanctions." And
"long-arm jurisdiction" has been reduced to nothing but a tool for
the United States
to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere
in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the
principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other
countries' scientific, technological and economic development by wielding
monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech
fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the
name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries,
especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the
institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive
profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS),
forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property
protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain
the development of Japan's semiconductor industry, the United States launched
the "301" investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral
negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as
conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign
the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor
enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their
market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support
of the U.S. government, a
large number of U.S.
semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes,weaponizes technological issues and uses them as
ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress
and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products
into the U.S.
market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other
countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even
talked Canada
into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei's CFO MengWanzhou for nearly three
years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses
to clamp down on China's
high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000
Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on
biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies,
reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed
Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan
to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States
has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related
technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers,
since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring
in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where
Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs
and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation
on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in
the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as
the "chips alliance" and "clean network," the United States
has put "democracy" and "human rights" labels on
high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological
issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other
countries. In May 2019, the United States
enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security
Conference in the Czech Republic
and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China's 5G
products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the
"5G clean path," a plan designed to build technological alliance in the
5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the
need to protect "cyber security." The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts
to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by
carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been
notorious as an "empire of hackers," blamed for its rampant acts of
cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive
cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to
access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating
cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All
can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of
allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several
French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States
such as "Prism," "Dirtbox,"
"Irritant Horn" and "Telescreen
Operation" are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its
allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already
caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website
that has exposed U.S.
surveillance programs, said that "do not expect a global surveillance
superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no
rules."
V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of
American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States
has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the
world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products
such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a
tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and
programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus
shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and
maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World,
John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real
weapons in U.S. cultural
expansion: the Hollywood,
the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel
Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles
the United States
uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now
occupy more than 70 percent of the world's market share. The United Statesskilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to
various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies
descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in
"direct intervention," but also in "media infiltration" and
as "a trumpet for the world." U.S.-dominated Western media has a
particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling
in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government
strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media
platforms work with the U.S.
government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in
the United States
is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks.
Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense
manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S.
investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command
official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter's public
policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he
sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to
justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks
were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler's directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language
accounts on a "white list" to amplify certain messages.
◆The United
States practices double standards on the
freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other
countries by various means. The United States
and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such
as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia.
Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from
their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on
Russia-related contents.
◆The United
States abuses its cultural hegemony to
instigate "peaceful evolution" in socialist countries. It sets up
news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours
staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their
ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in
dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States
uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial
chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and
peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly
limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its
champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The
hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate
the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum
games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development,
cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding
truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These
unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing,
intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect
each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a
manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of
state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation
or alliance. China
opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics,
and rejects interference in other countries' internal affairs. The United States
must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has
done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic,
domineering and bullying practices.
[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in
quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian
words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
[Note:
Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the
information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens aboutthe many catastrophic Earth changes and
events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal
strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human being’s right to
know the truth. Due to our mission’s conflicts with that of those governments, the
responses of their ‘agents’ has been a longstanding
misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like
us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.]
[Note:
The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and
donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American
computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to
counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003
invasion of Iraq.]
[Note:
The word Kremlin (fortress inside a city) as used in
this report refers to Russian citadels, including in Moscow, having cathedrals wherein female
Schema monks (Orthodox nuns) reside, many of whom are devoted to the mission of
the Sisters of Sorcha Faal.]