My Take | A militarised belt and road? The West’s threat inflation is ridiculous
- Western military fabulists now warn that China may be expanding naval bases around the world faster than you can count aloud
As Joseph Goebbels famously said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” You know another manufactured anti-China narrative is coming your way whenever supposedly independent Western media suddenly all swarm on the same dubious story with flimsy evidence and ridiculous premises.
So it was the lie universally told that more than a million Uygurs are being ethnically cleansed in Chinese concentration camps amounting to genocide. And the Covid-19 pandemic originated from the leak of a genetically altered, or much worse, weaponised, variant from a Wuhan lab. And then, there is the Pentagon’s warning that China wants to increase its nuclear weapons fivefold to 1,500. Compared to the current US arsenal of 5,200-plus warheads? Minus Russia, America has more warheads than all the other nuclear-armed states combined and then some; and many of them are US-friendly.
The latest inflated China threat? Dozens if not more than 100 potential sites for Chinese military bases may be set up around the world – starting from the current and only one, in Djibouti. So China is expanding military bases faster than you can count aloud!
Before we get into details, let’s ask some basic questions. How many countries will be needed to host those bases for the Chinese? And where will Beijing find so many “allies” who are willing to paint a big target on themselves for the weapon practice of Uncle Sam’s mighty military, and no doubt economic sanctions long before that?
After all, we are constantly told China has no allies, unlike beneficent America.
The latest piece came courtesy of The New York Times, titled “China’s military is going global”. The author is a fellow from the Washington-based Foundation for the Defence of Democracies. With almost no evidence, his readers are told the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is being militarised.
“China is utilising the groundwork already laid by its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative,” he wrote. “Once-commercial projects are now being retrofitted with military assets.”
It’s true the BRI has projects in many countries involving ports, cargo logistics and other maritime facilities – to promote and expand global trade, perhaps?