EU Today’s Post

It is curious where Mr. Assange has been acquitted by a US Court, but not in one of its 50 States. The trial was held in the Mariana Islands, an archipelago in the Pacific, formerly a Spanish dominion and a belligerent scenario during WWII. Now, it seems the perfect place to retire and live your golden years. The Mariana Islands are a US territory with a particular administrative status. Their citizens are Americans but cannot vote in the presidential elections. It is a sort of neo-colonialism without the marks of the violent colonialism of the 20th century but still keeps the reminiscences of imperialism and past times. Not only does the US have dominion over this kind of territory. The UK, Russia, Denmark, Norway, China, France, etc., have control or attempt to have control under a sui generis political status in archipelagos or peninsulas in different coordinates to develop monetary or strategic interests. And that struggle for exploring and conquering goes farther and beyond, as new disciplines of study and work are deployed into the field, such as the Space Economy, which now offers some academic institutions. https://lnkd.in/ddsz2i99

Prince Andrew was not special. China sends government officials and Communist Party officials – almost always one in the same – to the UK to meet with a whole range of people in business, politics and culture. It’s not a secret. It’s transparent, mostly. (*I’ll come back to this in a bit). They want access, on occasion influence, but more than anything they are trying to understand. Understand more about our society, the way our government works and how our media and other institutions interact. Crucially they are trying to also understand more about how their country, their government, their people are perceived abroad. These visits have resumed for the time since the pandemic. I was involved, for an afternoon, at one gathering earlier this year at a university in London. I talked about trust and openness when it comes to decision making. The group I was with were polite and respectful. Then some complained about elements of my reporting from China when I was based there for the BBC. All par for the course. I knew who was in the room. I knew why I was there. There was a necessary transparency. (*Although you should always be thoughtful about what information and views you impart to a room full of China provincial government propaganda experts, some of whom may have ‘additional’ roles.) But the United Front Work Department is not so. It’s not an out and out clandestine service, but it is opaque in its workings. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee described it as an ‘intelligence-gathering organisation’ in its 2023 report: ‘one of the most important departments of the Chinese Communist Party’.  Let that sink in. This is a crucial part of the Party apparatus. Its role is to maintain primacy for China’s communist rulers. Many in the west fail to grasp that distinction. This isn’t just about government or diplomacy or terms of trade, this is about influence, control, co-option and interference to protect the interests of the Party. Mostly aimed at Chinese communities and individuals abroad, it is an organisation that China’s leader Xi Jinping has expanded and attached increased importance too. It’s at the forefront of advancing China’s interests and it has considerable resources. Quelling dissident voices is on its radar. So is influencing elites. Prince Andrew, whom I watched alongside Xi Jinping at a trade expo in pre-Covid Shanghai, brought kudos and access. The latter was key. (Search New York Times + John Chan for an even more staggering story). Journalists, or should I say ‘journalists’, were another way to try to achieve the same thing. An American government official once told me they knew some of the Chinese state media employees given journalist visas to work in the US were not real journalists. Engaging in intelligence gathering and trying to win influence over elites are nothing new. They’re a bedrock of statecraft. Prince Andrew has helped highlight how China’s UFWD has been doing this, out in the open, for years.

President #mattarella, in his statements to the press yesterday on the occasion of the visit of the Spanish royals, shared his thoughts on the future of the EU in common with King Felipe: that the European institutions (particularly those democratically legitimised as the European Parliament and indirectly the European Commission) have the arduous task of building a comprehensive reform of the EU. As the latest resolution voted by the UEF Federal Committee stated, the governments of Italy and Spain should have similar stance as their heads of state and openly choose to side with the political strengthening of the EU.   ‘In our talks, we looked at Europe. We shared a reflection on the future of our Union in an increasingly treacherous global context.   The new legislature and the new Commission are called upon to undertake a task, in the Union, that is both demanding and unavoidable, for a comprehensive reform of the Union, concerning decision-making methods, the revival of competitiveness, first and foremost through the completion of the single market and the financial system.   Reform that moves with determination towards a true common European defence.   Of course, also emphasising two other central issues for the life of the Union: enlargement, a geostrategic priority for the Union, as well as for the candidate states, and the full implementation of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum’.

LUXON JUST DOESN'T GET IT! His reflection that he knows Māori are frustrated reveals his intrinsic comprehension that his policy and behaviour in re this Bill (and other Maori-stomping policy) is terminally racist bc it does in fact target Māori. "Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says his Government’s Treaty Principles Bill is a “disservice” to the Treaty and he gets the “immense frustration” among Māori." His loose inherent signalling to other non-Māori is that he still thinks only Māori are interested in or have an interest in te Tiriti - 'but we'll still rely on it as the source of sovereignty!' How wrong and misinformed he is. SO, HE STILL DOESN:T GET IT! Te Tiriti is for all of us. We are all allowed to embrace it. Even white people, like me. And white people like him. And we do embrace it! Does he not see this? We are allowed to think: te Tiriti is just; te Tiriti is fair for our nation, here in Aotearoa; or we are allowed to think and feel ‘we are in fact bound by it - let's explore it’. We don't have to remain in the white silence, or the white fragility - we don;t have to be dominated by those white voices who say the Treaty is only for Maori.... We have simply said that for too long. We have ecshewed responsibility and hidden away, and some who hid away, who shied away, now even say 'there's been no debate!' Does he not watch the news, do his advisors keep it from him? New Zealanders of all kinds are frustrated by his Prime Ministerial decisions which have led to this outcome. He cannot hide from his role in this. To offer a trite reflection on his commercial background: He is now the Chairman of the Big Board, and he has knowingly taken the Big Company down this path. It might be actually a great magic trick by Seymour. He has brought his agenda to the fore but he is not responsible for it getting to where it is. That responsibility lies squarely with the Chairman. Do not let the PM snake through the grass and distance himself from these cabinet actions that he controls.

242 years ago today is when American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and recognized the Thirteen Colonies, which had been part of colonial British America, to be free, sovereign and independent states. The treaty set the boundaries between British North America, later called Canada, and the United States, on lines the British labeled as "exceedingly generous", although exact boundary definitions in the far-northwest and to the south continued to be subject to some controversy. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war. This treaty and the separate peace treaties between Great Britain and the nations that supported the American cause, including France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic are known collectively as the Peace of Paris. Only Article 1 of the treaty, which acknowledges the United States' existence as free, sovereign, and independent states, remains in forcePeace negotiations began in Paris in April 1782, following the victory of George Washington and the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. The negotiations continued through the summer of 1782. Representing the United States were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and John Adams. Representing the Kingdom of Great Britain and King George III were David Hartley and Richard Oswald. Historians have often commented that the treaty was very generous to the United States in terms of greatly enlarged boundaries. Historians such as Alvord, Harlow, and Ritcheson have emphasized that British generosity was based on a statesmanlike vision of close economic ties between Britain and the United States. The concession of the vast trans-Appalachian region was designed to facilitate the growth of the American population and to create lucrative markets for British merchants without any military or administrative costs to Britain.

Dear American Civil Liberties Union Sir, This email was sent by: American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004, USA As you allowed me to raise my truthful voice of struggle of ex-Vietnamese American prisoners of war to talk out my opinion that I would solemnly like to appreciate you so much. Let me ask your American Civil Liberties Union some questions. My questions have asked the American Leaders within their United States Constitution that's belongs to the Vietnam War in order to protect American Democracy forever without having had animosity and discrimination against the national color, racism. 1, Why didn't the United States Department of Justice prosecute its President Kennedy because he violated criminals to the United States Constitution when President Kennedy assassinated President Ngo Dinh Diem? 2, No Articles of the United States Constitution allowed any American leaders who have contorted their Constitution, let them build invasion and subversion wars to the foreign nations like President Kennedy and Congress seized and sold the Republic of Vietnam to socialism. Why have they distorted their Constitution without having Department of Justice prosecuted them? 3. Why have the American leaders violated to Article Third of the United States Constitution while the American Leaders have been signed four multilateral and the thirty-seven bilateral treaties with their allies of the Republic of Vietnam without having carried out their international treaties? 4. Why hasn't the United States enforced the Hague Convention on July 29, 1899, for the Law and Customs of war on land to why had the United States played hands-off policy in the Vietnam War after sold and betrayed the Vietnam Armed Forces on 30 April 1975? By the way, I would like to share the experiences of my exact life with you-and here is: Mr. Putin is one of five great powerful nations when he has not only invaded and subverted the foreign nation but also seized the national lands of Ukraine. He calls for the ending war which is why he has the right to bully his national neighbor without having repay the lands of Mr. Putin has seized, so comparation, communism seized the foreign lands and genocide's humankind. Yet, capitalism has been built so many wars to freely kill innocent human beings without having compensated any pennies, and capitalism socialism have freely robbed the small and weak of foreign nations, let it sell to other powerful nation to letting it protect the core of national interests without having respected other foreign nations' interests. In contrast, the sea-robbers robbed the properties of the rich men and then, they shared it for the poor. Finally, the value of the robbers is higher than five great powerful countries of the world when the sea-robbers didn't have any constitution and a people's congress.  Respectfully yours Bright Quang

But preserving good relations with America was more important https://econ.st/3LURRKs

There seems to exist a method in US President-elect Donald Trump’s madness when he talks about his desire to annex Canada and Greenland, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. The US has been interested in grabbing the vast territory of Canada ever since its creation under the British North America Act of 1867. Canada is a bijural country. The legal concepts are expressed in both English and French. The British Monarch, King Charles III, is the constitutional head of Canada. A continuous territorial expansion and acquisition form a part of the US geo-political history. World historians know how the US annexed the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming. Canada and Greenland could be the next. A constitutional architecture exists in the US to make it happen. There is both potential and precedent for the US to acquire territory through cession or subjugation. Even a forcible annexation of Canada is most unlikely to be opposed militarily by any other power. In the past, many militarily strong countries, including the US, Russia, China, India, the UK, France and Israel, have forcibly occupied or retained territories with little outside opposition. Nonconformist Communist China annexed the Islamic state of Xinjiang and the Buddhist territory of Tibet to become the world’s third largest country by total land area, after Russia and Canada. Xinjiang and Tibet together account for over 25 percent of China's present land mass. https://lnkd.in/dHJDBApq

Following the inauguration of William Lai as president of #Taiwan, the #PRC conducted large-scale military drills around the self-governing islands nation, to exert political pressure on the Taiwanese government, intimidate the Taiwanese populace, and signal its intolerance of 'separatist' sentiments. Charles Parton and I have written a brief piece exploring the likelihood of the #CCP launching a blockade or invasion against Taiwan. Our analysis? Not likely in the short term future. Either option would be an incredibly risky gamble for Xi Jinping which could crater an already plateauing Chinese economy and cause disastrous repercussions to global trade and economic health. However, many leaders have made irrational gambles before. To help prevent any escalation to full-scale conflict, free and open nations should support Taiwan through: 1. Assisting Taiwan in building-up its 'porcupine' defence strategy to deter aggression. 2. Educating populations about the importance of Taiwan’s democracy, global economic role, and regional security. 3. Pushing for Taiwan's inclusion in international bodies, such as the #WHO, and strengthening economic partnerships. 4. Clearly communicating to the CCP the global economic disaster that an invasion would bring and the certainty of severe retaliatory sanctions. 5. Consulting Taiwan on its wishes, to avoid escalating tensions between Beijing and Taipei. #TaiwanStrait #Geopolitics #SecurityAnalysis

Who is next? "Greenland’s elected leader said the gigantic Arctic island is not for sale after Donald Trump once again raised the issue of “ownership and control” of the vast territory that has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years. “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, said in a written comment. The US president-elect on Sunday announced that he had picked Ken Howery, a former envoy to Sweden, as his ambassador to Copenhagen, and commented on the status of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump, who takes office on 20 January, did not elaborate on the statement. For many observers Trump’s comment triggered a sense of deja vu. During his first term Trump suggested in 2019 that the US should buy Greenland – which is home to the strategically important Pituffik US space base. That idea was roundly rejected by Denmark as well as by the island’s own authorities before any formal discussions could take place. It also prompted widespread ridicule and became emblematic of the chaos that Trump brought to traditional global diplomacy – something now expected to happen again once Trump returns to the White House next month. The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in 2019 labelled Trump’s first offer as “absurd”, leading the then US president to describe her as “nasty” and to cancel a visit to the Danish capital of Copenhagen." #trumpgreenland https://lnkd.in/gYvF6bzW