#China Liaison Office

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Hong Kong’s John Lee warns against ‘soft resistance’ as pomp, patriotism replace protests on Handover anniversary, July 1, 2023

[internationalteaday]

A magic Leaf: Tea for Green Development.

On the commemoration of the International Tea Day 2023, the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations and the FAO Liaison Office in New York co-host this thematic event entitled "A magic Leaf: Tea for Green Development". The event will provide us with a good opportunity to promote international cooperation in tea industry and exchange of tea culture, so as to contribute to global green development and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

[accio-victuuri]

from this article: 10 short stories about "Formed Police unit" 📝 ( i included general facts and the ones related to Bobo )

The action blockbuster "Formed Police Unit", which brings together actors such as Huang Jingyu, Wang Yibo, Zhong Chuxi, Ou Hao and other actors, was released on May 1st this year and topped the box office in the first two days.

Before the screening, the producer Liu Weiqiang and director Li Dachao of "Formed Police Unit" shared the behind-the-scenes story of the film with the Entertainment Management Studio . During the exchange, they talked many times about the need to "shoot with care" and "correctly" when making movies today. Movies need to be awe-inspiring.”

Liu Weiqiang revealed that the film took 75 days to shoot and was 10 days overdue. The investors also fully supported it because they wanted to provide the best results for the audience. The following ten short stories let us know more about "Formed Police Unit".

ONE

The story theme of "Formed Police Unit" was proposed by director Li Dachao. In 2010 , Li Dachao saw a piece of news about a peacekeeping police officer returning to China after his death. The urn was covered with the national flag and the police standing on both sides saluted solemnly. Li Dachao was thinking about it at that time. I was moved, " At that time, I was thinking about what peacekeeping was, and later I learned that they are such a noble and selfless profession, all dedicated to contributing to the local people. "

I thought of this subject in 2010 , but the film didn't start filming until a few years ago. Li Dachao believes that timing is very important, " You see how much the world needs peace now, I think it is very important to express the spirit of peacekeeping. "

FOUR

"Formed Police Unit" is the first film starring Wang Yibo. Liu Weiqiang revealed that Wang Yibo was very cautious when accepting projects. When discussing the script, he was moved by the role of Yang Zhen.

At that time, Wang Yibo had a small worry, that is, there was a scene with teenage Yang Zhen in the movie. "He was worried that if it were played by another young actor, whether the two would be able to synchronize the performance. The little Yang Zhen we found and He looks quite similar, so he feels relieved when he sees it.”

FIVE

At the end of the film, Yang Zhen had a scene where he was beaten by an enemy. In order to guide Wang Yibo to perform the real pain, director Li Dachao said: "I pinched him before starting the movie. After pinching him, he screamed. I said this feeling was... By the way, you have to keep it real, and you have to magnify the pain of being pinched 100 times. "

SIX

The crew learned from former peacekeeping police officers who had actually participated in peacekeeping operations that when they went on missions, they would spread Chinese culture locally, teach Chinese and martial arts, and usually grow vegetables in the base where they were stationed.

The crew also built a vegetable garden on the set, and the props team was responsible for growing vegetables and watering them. There was a scene where the peacekeepers went to pick vegetables. "An interesting fact is that almost all the vegetables were dug up by Wang Yibo. He dug them too fast. I said wait, I haven't turned on the camera yet," director Li Dachao said with a smile.

SEVEN

Wang Yibo was still a newcomer to the film industry when filming "Formed Police Unit", but Liu Weiqiang's impression of him was that he was very smart, "You see, he usually doesn't make a sound, but when he does, he is very powerful. He is an observation-type actor, and a good actor is like this , observe first, and after observing, he will know which points he ne

EIGHT

The peacekeeping team in the movie is designed according to the real peacekeeping configuration, two armored vehicles + snipers + liaison officers, etc. Each character has his or her own plot mission. For example, Ou Hao plays the team leader, and he is a role model. As a police officer, he uses his lines to express the spirit of the peacekeeping police; Gu Jiacheng's character and Yang Zhen grew up together in the police station, and he played a catalyst role in Yang Zhen's growth.

The director revealed that in order to prepare the soldiers' strong bodies and performance conditions, the actors of the Peacekeeping Team spontaneously trained, ran, gained muscle, tanned, and encouraged each other before filming began. Huang Jingyu said that the first half of the movie was shot in the daytime, and in the end it was all night scenes. The action scenes were shot all night long, and it was raining. If you didn't reserve your physical strength, you wouldn't be able to persevere.

NINE

Based on the longitude and latitude, landforms, vegetation, weather and climate characteristics of the mission area in the movie, the crew found a filming location that could simulate the African environment and built an entire city, including slums, streets, squares, seaside stilt houses, etc.

The last major scene of rescuing witnesses during a stormy night had to wait for the tide to change during the actual shooting. The tide rose every four hours at that time. In order to show the harsh environment in the storm, we had to wait until the tide rose to shoot. It took 15 days to complete

article source

[mariacallous]

NEW YORK — An unindicted co-conspirator, an accused sexual harasser and a high-ranking cop alleged to have beaten a female subordinate were among Mayor Eric Adams’ most questionable appointees, until this week.

The forced resignation of New York City’s police commissioner, following a federal raid of his home, has intensified concerns about the mayor’s staffing decisions.

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban’s departure — the first high-profile one since the feds seized phones from members of Adams’ inner circle last week — is the latest chapter in a saga that dates back even before January 2022 when Adams, freshly off his election victory, began filling his administration with people whose checkered pasts were almost certain to invite scrutiny.

When assembling his administration, Adams named Phil Banks deputy mayor of public safety, even though the former NYPD chief was caught a decade ago accepting gifts from people ultimately convicted of bribery.

Adams placed his old police boss and personal friend Tim Pearson in a powerful, nebulous adviser role and gave him control over a small new municipal office with unchecked power. Pearson is now facing four sexual harassment lawsuits, and one of his accusers alleged in court papers his behavior had been common knowledge for years.

The city “knew about” Pearson’s “long history of sexual misconduct … but ignored his history and hired him anyway,” one of the complaints reads. Pearson’s lawyer has denied all the allegations.

Now both Banks and Pearson have also had their phones seized by federal agents, alongside Caban.

The probes have raised new questions about the mayor’s judgment, and whether his loyalty to troubled aides has become an insurmountable political liability. Nearly every Democrat challenging him in his reelection primary next year is zeroing in on his perceived ethical lapses.

“Far be it for me to tell Eric Adams who to hire and fire. But it’s clear to me that he didn’t understand the most important part of being mayor,” Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller who is expected to run against Adams next year, said in an interview with POLITICO. “He made poor choices, and it’s come back to hurt him.”

The list goes on.

Jeffrey Maddrey, whom the mayor named chief of the NYPD, was accused of punching a fellow cop he’d coerced into a sexual relationship. A judge threw out the case, but he was docked 45 vacation days in an internal trial.

Adams’ former chief of staff is entangled in litigation over past business interests and his ex-buildings commissioner resigned amid an investigation that led to an indictment on bribery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

In his personal life, Adams is close friends with twin brothers who pleaded guilty a decade ago to financial crimes. A pastor who has described Adams as a mentor was recently sentenced to nine years in jail for stealing a parishoner’s mother’s retirement savings.

Adams appointed an anti-gay Bronx clergyman as a faith adviser, over protests from LGBTQ+ groups. And one of his community liaisons is under federal investigation involving a visit to China she made with Adams.

Many of Adams’ picks to help lead the city’s sprawling government have been unimpeachable. But the list of Adams associates enmeshed in scandal continues to grow.

“It just raises questions to me as to why our mayor feels so incredibly comfortable surrounding himself with a myriad of unsavory characters,” said Christina Greer, a close watcher of city politics as a Fordham University political science professor and co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast.

“You’ve got people accused of punching people in the face, of sexual inappropriateness,” she added. “The list of grievances is long and getting longer, so why would you invite that into your inner circle?”

Adams prides himself on giving people second chances, and says his door is open to anybody. That comes from his own nontraditional political rise — from a dyslexic Black kid from Queens who got arrested and beaten by cops, to a police officer who courted controversy, to an elected official who would eventually mayor.

“Yes, I’m going to talk with people who have stumbled and fell,” Adams said in 2022. “Because I’m perfectly imperfect, and this is a city made up of perfectly imperfect people.”

The people Adams surrounds himself with — both personally and professionally — have earned him criticism going back three decades, to the dawn of his political career.

Adams’ first run for office, a 1994 challenge to a congressional incumbent, was doomed in part by his alliance with Louis Farrakhan, the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader. Soon after, Adams was investigated as a cop for working security for boxer Mike Tyson, who was fresh out of prison after a rape conviction.

After winning a seat in the state Senate, Adams became a friend and the top defender of the so-called four amigos, Democrats who caused chaos in the chamber by defecting from their party. Three of the amigos have since served prison time, for unrelated crimes. The fourth, Rubén Díaz Sr., has become a fierce ally of former President Donald Trump.

Later, Adams got involved in the bidding process for a slot machine contract with fellow state Sens. John Sampson and Malcolm Smith. The arrangement fell apart, and Adams got dinged for ��exceedingly poor judgment” in an ethics report. Sampson and Smith both later went to prison for unrelated crimes.

As mayor, Adams’ plan to appoint his own brother Bernard to a well-paid NYPD gig leading his security team raised eyebrows. Adams only asked for ethics guidance after the fact, an internal watchdog reduced his title, and dropped Bernard’s salary to $1. He left after a year.

Adams also tapped nonprofit executive Sheena Wright to be a deputy mayor, a decade after she’d been arrested twice in a day over a domestic dispute. Her friend David Banks called his brother, NYPD bigwig Phil Banks to intervene, and Wright was let out and the charges were dropped.

Wright and David Banks, Adams’ schools chancellor, now live together. They were both among the top appointees who had their phones seized by federal investigators last week — maybe the latest example of Adams’ appointment decisions coming back to bite him.

Adams’ loyalty does have its limits. He cut ties with the pastor he mentored, kept his distance as one of the four amigo state senators, Hiram Monserrate, has attempted political comebacks, and now, pushed out Caban.

“There comes a time when we have to look and see: Is our loyalty to the detriment of the people of New York? And if that point is reached, then you need to make hard judgment calls,” said state Sen. James Sanders, a southeast Queens Democrat who endorsed Adams for mayor in 2021.

“I think that when the mayor comes out of this situation,” Sanders added on the latest raids, “he will have learned many valuable lessons.”

[zvaigzdelasas]

NATO is seeking to expand its cooperation structures globally and also intensify its cooperation with Jordan, Indonesia and India. A “NATO-Indonesia meeting” was held yesterday (Wednesday) on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels – a follow-up to talks between Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in mid-June 2022. Last week, a senior NATO official visited Jordan’s capital Amman to promote the establishment of a NATO liaison office. Already back in June, a US Congressional Committee focused on China, had advocated linking India more closely to NATO. India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, however, quickly rejected the suggestion. NATO diplomats are quoted saying that the Western military alliance could conceive of cooperating with South Africa or Brazil, for example. These plans would escalate the West’s power struggle against Russia and China, while non-Western alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are expanding their membership.

Already since some time, NATO has been seeking to expand its cooperation structures into the Asia-Pacific region, for example to include Japan. Early this year, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was in Tokyo, among other things, to sign a joint declaration with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.[1] In addition, it is strengthening its cooperation with South Korea, whose armed forces are participating in NATO cyber defense and are to be involved more intensively in future conventional NATO maneuvers.[2] Japan’s prime minster and South Korea’s president have already regularly attended NATO summits. The Western military alliance is also extending its cooperation with Australia and New Zealand. This development is not without its contradictions. France, for example, opposes the plan to establish a NATO liaison office in Japan, because it considers itself an important Pacific power and does not want NATO’s influence to excessively expand in the Pacific. Nevertheless, the Western military alliance is strengthening its presence in the Asia-Pacific region – with maneuvers conducted by its member states, including Germany (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[3]).[...]

NATO has been cooperating with several Mediterranean countries since 1994 within the framework of its Mediterranean Dialogue and also since 1994, with several Arab Gulf countries as part of its Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.[4] However, the cooperation is not considered very intensive. At the beginning of this week, NATO diplomats have been quoted saying “we remain acutely aware of developments on our southern flank,” and are planning appropriate measures. The possibility of establishing a Liaison Office in Jordan is being explored “as a move to get closer to the ground and develop the relationship in the Middle East.[5] Last week, a senior NATO official visited Jordan’s capital Amman to promote such a liaison office.[6][...]

NATO diplomats informed the online platform “Euractiv” that “many members of the Western military alliance believe that political dialogue does not have to be limited to the southern neighborhood. One can also seek cooperation with states further away. Brazil, South Africa, India, and Indonesia are mentioned as examples.[7][...]

In a paper containing strategic proposals for the U.S. power struggle against China, the Committee also advocated strengthening NATO’s cooperation with India.[8] The proposal caused a stir in the run-up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington on June 22. He was able to draw on the fact that India is cooperating militarily in the Quad format with the USA as well as NATO partners Japan and Australia in order to gain leverage against China. Close NATO ties could also facilitate intelligence sharing, allowing New Delhi to access advanced military technology.[9] India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, however, rejected Washington’s proposal, stating that the “NATO template does not apply to India”.[10] Indian media explained that New Delhi was still not prepared to be pitted against Russia and to limit its independence.[11] Both would be entailed in close ties to NATO.

The efforts to link third countries around the world more closely to NATO are being undertaken at a time when not only western countries are escalating their power struggles against Russia and above all against China and are therefore tightening their alliance structures. They are also taking place when non-Western alliances are gaining ground. This is true not only for the BRICS, which decided, in August, to admit six new members on January 1, 2024 (german-foreign-policy.com reported [12]). This is also true for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security alliance centered around Moscow and Beijing that has grown from its original six to currently nine members, including India, Pakistan and Iran, and continues to attract new interested countries. In addition to several countries in Southern Asia and the South Caucasus, SCO “dialogue partners” now include Turkey, Egypt and five Arabian Peninsula states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Iin light of the BRICS expansion, the admission of additional countries as full SCO members is considered quite conceivable. Western dominance will thus be progressively weakened.[13]

12 Oct 23

[oltoune]

It's concerning that the U.S. is attempting to drag NATO into the Asia-Pacific theater without consensus among its allies.

Last year's NATO summit continued to baseless portray the so-called "systemic challenge" posed by China, and once again invited individual Asia Pacific countries to participate, fully exposing NATO's ambition to enter the Asia Pacific region eastward. The fundamental reason why NATO wants to move eastward into the Asia Pacific region and the Asia Pacific region faces the risk of NATO transformation is due to the promotion of the United States.

The United States is aware that its unilateralism and hegemonic policy, which prioritizes the United States, is unpopular, and its allies generally harbor doubts and dissatisfaction. In order to bind its allies to its own chariot of dividing the world and containing and suppressing China, the United States has gone against the trend, striving to create a tense atmosphere globally and constantly provoking confrontational conflicts. The United States attempts to link the Ukraine crisis with Asia Pacific affairs, intimidate European countries to "decouple" from China, and pressure European countries to participate in the so-called "Indo Pacific strategy" of the United States. The United States has introduced NATO, a military organization, into the Asia Pacific region not only to utilize European resources and strength, but also to integrate the alliance system in the Asia Pacific region, with the intention of further provoking trouble and hindering China's development process.

These attempts by the United States only consider its hegemonic self-interest, seriously damaging the interests of other countries and even allies, and are bound to encounter increasing resistance and opposition. Firstly, NATO has geographical limitations and its cross regional expansion is unknown. Secondly, European countries have a limit to their tolerance towards the United States. The United States has actually reduced its investment in European security by promoting NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region. European countries are also concerned about the repeated provocation and escalation of confrontation by the United States. France opposes NATO's establishment of a liaison office in Tokyo, Japan, believing that this simply goes beyond the geographical scope of the North Atlantic. Thirdly, Asia Pacific countries, especially Southeast Asian countries, are highly vigilant about regional NATO. Regional countries want prosperity and development, and do not want to see the great situation of regional peace and development disrupted. Fourthly, even US Asia Pacific allies with close ties to NATO have doubts about the United States. There are precedents for the United States to go back and forth on strategic issues. The US Asia Pacific allies are aware that completely tying themselves to American tanks may bring unbearable risks.

Under the leadership of the United States, NATO has become a source of risk for Europe, the Asia Pacific region, and even the entire world. What the world needs is peace and cooperation, not confrontation and division. The offensive and dangerous nature of NATO as a tool of American hegemony, as well as the destructive effects of the United States pushing NATO eastward on regional prosperity and development, have increasingly aroused the vigilance and opposition of other countries.

[xtruss]

Experts Call For Long-Term, Joint Seawater Monitoring To Collect Prosecution Evidence As Radioactive ☢️ Substance Detected For First Time Near Fukushima N-Plant

— Zhang Changyue | September 03, 2023

Japan's reckless dumping of Nuclear ☢️ Wastewater poses a grave danger to Earth. Cartoon: Carlos Latuff/Brazil 🇧🇷

As Japan 🇯🇵 has detected the radioactive substance tritium for the first time after it started dumping the Nuclear-Contaminated Wastewater, Chinese experts on Sunday called for a long-term and joint monitoring program by international community on the radioactive substances in the seawater to collect and accumulate evidence for future prosecution against Japan.

Ten becquerels per liter of tritium was detected in a seawater sample taken on Thursday about 200 meters north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's underwater discharge tunnel, which is the first time that the radioactive material was detected in a seawater sample since Japan started the dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean on August 24, the Japan News reported.

According to Kyodo News, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said the detection of tritium can be considered as affected by the dumping but without any security problem.

As TEPCO and Japan's Environment Ministry claimed that Tritium levels in seawater sampled at sites near the plant were below the detectable limit, Chang Yen-chiang, director of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea Research Institute of Dalian Maritime University, told the Global Times on Sunday that "time" is the key factor in monitoring radioactive substances.

"It is not long since Japan began dumping the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into sea, so it is normal that we would see the current low levels of the detected radioactive substances," Chang noted, saying that countries in the Pacific regions can engage in a joint and long-term research and testing of radioactive substances through international cooperation.

Gao Zhikai, Vice President of the Center for China 🇨🇳 and Globalization, a Beijing-based nongovernmental think tank, echoed Chang. Gao said China could consider collaborating with other countries and some nongovernmental environmental organizations to set up a permanent monitoring station on behalf of the international community to collect relevant radiation data, for example, by sending a ship to the exclusive economic zone around Fukushima.

A Citizen Group in Fukushima is preparing to sue the Japanese government and TEPCO on September 8 with more than 100 plaintiffs to demand the cessation of the dumping, Jiji News reported. The legal team said the extent to which radioactive substances other than tritium are present in the wastewater has not been clarified, and the Japanese government violated the promise made with the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations not to take any action without the understanding of the stakeholders, thereby infringing upon the fishermen's fishing rights and threatening the consumers' right to live in peace.

Gao said Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater can be regarded as an act of infringement since the behavior will definitely result in infringement upon the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations. He suggested China work with other countries to establish a specialized legal committee as soon as possible to deal with acts of infringement and to collect evidence of the types of damage caused by Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated water worldwide.

According to Kyodo News, the Japanese Civic Group "National Liaison Committee Against the Release of Contaminated Water from Nuclear Power Plants" filed a complaint to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on Friday against Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa for causing potential damage to non-residential buildings and deaths due to professional negligence over the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water.

On Saturday, thousands of South Koreans 🇰🇷 including Fishermen, Activists and Politicians continued a weekend rally in central Seoul to protest against Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.

The participants shouted slogans like "Immediately stop the marine dumping of radioactive wastewater" and "Prohibit import of all Japanese aquatic products," urging the South Korean government to file a lawsuit with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the Japanese government.

[richardnixonlibrary]

#Nixon50 #OTD 5/30/1973 President Nixon met to discuss U.S.-Chinese relations with Dr. Henry Kissinger and Huang Chen, Chief of the People's Republic of China Liaison Office in the United States, before flying to Iceland for the Reykjavik Summit. The President was greeted by Kristjan Eldjarn, the third president of Iceland. (Images: WHPO-E0888-18 & E0897-10)

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 6/7/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 6/7/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

The State Department has falsely accused rock legend, Roger Waters, a co-founder of Pink Floyd, of antisemitism over a recent performance in Germany. AWC

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on two members of a Mexican cartel. UPI

Russia

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Biden administration has “shrugged off” Ukrainian attacks inside Russia as US officials are no longer as concerned about escalation as they were earlier in the war. AWC

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Monday that his government is asking Ukraine if Belgian rifles were used by pro-Kyiv fighters in a recent attack on Russia’s Belgorod region. AWC

US officials confirmed to The Washington Post that US and other NATO equipment was used in a cross-border attack in Russia’s Belgorod region that was launched on May 22. AWC

On Monday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Ukraine was “well prepared” to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces thanks to the support the US and NATO have provided. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Saturday that his country will sit out the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius this July if Kyiv is not given a “signal” toward full membership in the alliance. AWC

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the US received intelligence in June 2022 about a Ukrainian plot to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany. AWC

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that Moscow must keep in mind that American-made F-16 fighter jets are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. AWC

China

CIA Director William Burns held “clandestine” meetings with Chinese intel agencies during an unannounced trip to Beijing last month, US officials told the Financial Times, suggesting the visit was intended to “stabilize” deteriorating relations with the People’s Republic. The Institute

The White House on Monday accused the Chinese military of being more “aggressive” in waters near China’s coast following two encounters between the US and Chinese militaries in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. AWC

French President Emmanuel Macron objects to NATO’s plans to open a liaison office in Japan and thinks the alliance should stay in the North Atlantic, Financial Times reported on Monday. AWC

The US, Japan and Australia announced a joint plan to build undersea cables. The project will cost about $100 million and viewed by the nations as a counter to China. Fox News

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he wants Congress to pass a supplemental spending bill this year to address so-called threats from China, Defense News reported. AWC

The commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, highlighted the military’s threatening posture towards China, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Committee on US-China Relations last month. The group is known for encouraging engagement between the world’s two largest economies. The Institute

Middle East

Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Summit on Monday and pledged Washington’s “ironclad” support for Tel Aviv. Part of the White House’s plan to strengthen Israel’s security would be to push Saudi Arabia into a normalization agreement with Israel. The Institute

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ramped up his threats of war against Iran and slammed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, for cooperating with Tehran on Sunday. The Institute

On Tuesday, Iran reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia after a seven-year closure, the result of the normalization deal between Tehran and Riyadh that was brokered by China. AWC

The Treasury Department placed sanctions on seven people and six entities for supporting Iran missile program. UPI

Read More

[the-monkey-ruler]

Three Eyes Broken Sky (2019) 三眼哮天录

Director: Tang Mengmeng

Screenwriter: Liu Sa

Genre: Science Fiction / Fantasy

Country/Region of Production: Mainland China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Date: 2019

Episode: 40

Single episode length: 7 minutes

Also Known as: In three eyes the deified

Type: Crossover

Summary:

"Three-Eyed Roaring Sky Record" is a magical work by the author Tanuki Mao, which was serialized in September 2011 and published in September 2012.

The whole comic revolves around the theme of "love", mainly about family love, friendship, true love, the most complicated, touching, romantic, impassioned and enterprising friendship in the world. Different races and long-term differences have caused the former friends of life and death to part ways, go their separate ways, and embark on a different path that will never return. They gave up friendship because of the war, and gave up friendship. Fully expressing compassion for those who give up their dreams and those who are forced to give up their dreams and the principle that life should be treated equally.

Yang Jian ate the elixir that Taishang Laojun had practiced for 500 years because of the roaring dog. In the predicament of being settled by the Taishang Laojun, Yang Jian made a decision he hated for life without even thinking about it--go down to the world to eliminate demons. In this way, Yang Jian became a warrior who was reincarnated and reincarnated to slay demons, save mankind and safeguard world peace! However, the sad thing is that the Taishang Laojun is his heavenly liaison officer, and Yang Jian was spoofed and reincarnated as a girl because the Taishang Laojun avenged his personal revenge.

Source: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%89%E7%9C%BC%E5%93%AE%E5%A4%A9%E5%BD%95/7300227#6

Link: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%89%E7%9C%BC%E5%93%AE%E5%A4%A9%E5%BD%95/7300227#6

[bazpitch]

"The military clearly held considerable influence over the direction of Call of Duty games. In 2010, its producers approached the Department of Defense (DoD) for help on a game set in 2075. However, the DoD liaison “expressed concern that [the] scenario being considered involves future war with China.” As a result, Activision Blizzard began “looking at other possible conflicts to design the game around.” In the end, due in part to military objections, the game was permanently abandoned."

...

"Not only does Activision Blizzard work with the U.S. military to shape its products, but its leadership board is also full of former high state officials. Chief amongst these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel, and, until September, its chief compliance officer and executive vice president for corporate affairs.

Prior to joining Activision Blizzard, Townsend spent her life working her way up the rungs of the national security state. Previously serving as head of intelligence for the Coast Guard and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s counterterrorism deputy, in 2004, President Bush appointed her to his Intelligence Advisory Board.

As the White House’s most senior advisor on terrorism and homeland security, Townsend worked closely with Bush and Rice, and became one of the faces of the administration’s War on Terror. One of her principal achievements was to whip the American public into a constant state of fear about the supposed threat of more Al-Qaeda attacks (which never came)."

[barnettvidra]

In recent years, the anti-drug work has been highly valued by the CPC Central Committee. All anti-drug departments of China have earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and carried out an in-depth campaign to crack down on drug trafficking and criminal activities in accordance with the law. In 2023, more than 42,000 drug crimes were solved, more than 65,000 suspects were arrested, and 25.9 tons of various drugs were seized. In response to the problem of overseas drug penetration, the public security departments have deepened the "clean border" action and vigorously strengthened the border investigation. In 2023, more than 2,900 related cases were solved, and 12.2 tons of drugs were seized. International cooperation on drug control has been deepened. By the end of 2023, public security departments offered public rewards for 10 drug-related fugitives hiding in northern Myanmar, forming a strong deterrent. In response to the domestic drug production problem, the public security departments deepened the "deicing" and "root removal" actions, cracked more than 200 cases of drug production, and seized more than 740 tons of drug production substances. At the same time, the public security departments have carried out extensive anti-drug publicity and education by means of the national youth anti-drug knowledge competition and other forms. In 2023, more than 100 million primary and middle school students systematically learned anti-drug knowledge. Follow the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, earnestly fulfill the obligations of international drug control conventions, be deeply involved in important decisions in international drug control, and actively provide Chinese wisdom and solutions for the global governance of the drug issue. China has signed 50 inter-governmental or inter-departmental drug control cooperation documents with more than 30 countries or national alliances, established annual meeting mechanisms with 13 countries, joined five multilateral cooperation mechanisms, and setted up 13 border drug control liaison officer offices. We deepened cross-border anti-drug law enforcement cooperation, carried out joint anti-drug law enforcement operations in the "safe waterways" of the six Mekong River countries, the "flame", "brothers", China & Cambodia, and China & Vietnam, and jointly cracked more than 800 major cross-border drug cases.Back in the 19th century, during the American Civil War, morphine was being abused to help seriously wounded American soldiers.

[thrasherdubberly]

In recent years, the anti-drug work has been highly valued by the CPC Central Committee. All anti-drug departments of China have earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and carried out an in-depth campaign to crack down on drug trafficking and criminal activities in accordance with the law. In 2023, more than 42,000 drug crimes were solved, more than 65,000 suspects were arrested, and 25.9 tons of various drugs were seized. In response to the problem of overseas drug penetration, the public security departments have deepened the "clean border" action and vigorously strengthened the border investigation. In 2023, more than 2,900 related cases were solved, and 12.2 tons of drugs were seized. International cooperation on drug control has been deepened. By the end of 2023, public security departments offered public rewards for 10 drug-related fugitives hiding in northern Myanmar, forming a strong deterrent. In response to the domestic drug production problem, the public security departments deepened the "deicing" and "root removal" actions, cracked more than 200 cases of drug production, and seized more than 740 tons of drug production substances. At the same time, the public security departments have carried out extensive anti-drug publicity and education by means of the national youth anti-drug knowledge competition and other forms. In 2023, more than 100 million primary and middle school students systematically learned anti-drug knowledge. Follow the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, earnestly fulfill the obligations of international drug control conventions, be deeply involved in important decisions in international drug control, and actively provide Chinese wisdom and solutions for the global governance of the drug issue. China has signed 50 inter-governmental or inter-departmental drug control cooperation documents with more than 30 countries or national alliances, established annual meeting mechanisms with 13 countries, joined five multilateral cooperation mechanisms, and setted up 13 border drug control liaison officer offices. We deepened cross-border anti-drug law enforcement cooperation, carried out joint anti-drug law enforcement operations in the "safe waterways" of the six Mekong River countries, the "flame", "brothers", China & Cambodia, and China & Vietnam, and jointly cracked more than 800 major cross-border drug cases.Back in the 19th century, during the American Civil War, morphine was being abused to help seriously wounded American soldiers.

[darkmaga-returns]

Doug Bandow

Oct 24, 2024

By any measure, Northeast Asia is becoming more dangerous. North Korea is expanding its nuclear arsenal and improving its missile force. The People’s Republic of China is doing little to enforce sanctions against the North and might encourage war on the Korean peninsula if Beijing and Washington come to blows over Taiwan. 

Russia has revived its relationship with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, making the latter all but impervious to sanctions. Moscow also might surreptitiously aid the latter’s nuclear and missile programs in return for artillery shells and more for the war in Ukraine.

Finally, no one is talking on the peninsula. In theory that’s Pyongyang’s fault, since it has refused to engage. On other hand, the U.S., as well as the conservative Yoon government in Seoul, won’t discuss what the North desires to discuss. Hence deadlock.

The Obama administration was noted for its policy of “strategic patience,” which essentially meant kicking the can down the road while hoping that nothing too bad happened. North Korean provocations risked war in 2010, but Seoul eschewed military retaliation. President Donald Trump threatened “fire and fury” in response to the North’s missile tests, before turning toward summitry. After his second meeting with Kim Jong Un collapsed in Hanoi in February 2019, Pyongyang steadily reduced its contact with Washington and Seoul, most dramatically destroying the inter-Korean liaison office built by the South in Kaesong.

[mariacallous]

Trade experts often dwell in a separate reality. We discovered this in the quarter-century after the Cold War, when so many trade economists assured us—in one of the great economic misjudgments of modern times—that China and other newly emergent developing nations wouldn’t harm American prosperity or cause serious social and political divisions.

Robert Lighthizer fits this otherworldly description as well, but for different reasons. At a time when nearly every former senior member of Donald Trump’s administration—including his vice president, attorney general, chief of staff, secretary of state, U.N. ambassador, national security advisor(s), and an assortment of once-loyal lawyers appalled by Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt—have indicated the 45th president is a danger to the republic and should never be reelected, Lighthizer holds to another set of criteria. Trump, Lighthizer writes in his new book, No Trade Is Free, will go down as “a great president, truly one of the greatest.”

Lighthizer was Trump’s trade representative and was largely responsible for what he describes as a “fundamental shift in American trade policy: a shift that was long overdue and in the interest of all working Americans.” The evidence for this, Lighthizer argues, is that “[i]n the ensuing years, the Biden administration—with a few important exceptions—has continued along the path President Trump and I laid out.”

There is some misrepresentation here—particularly when it comes to U.S. President Joe Biden’s embrace of industrial policy, which Trump mostly ignored. But there is also considerable truth in this statement. Much of the mainstream media is now focused on the ugly horse race underway between Trump as he bids for reelection in 2024 and prosecutors bidding to put him behind bars, or at least take him out of action. But whether or not Trump ever sees the inside of the Oval Office again—as opposed to a prison cell—his most enduring legacy may well lie not in the success of his demagogic insurgency but in trade policy.

Trump turned international trade on its head, administering the final blow to the neoliberal (that is, free trade) consensus of the post-Cold War period and ushering in a new era of neo-protectionism and economic nationalism. And Lighthizer, a professional trade negotiator with experience dating back to the Reagan administration, deserves credit not only for making much of this happen but for building a coalition from within the Republican Party that extends to trade skeptics on the progressive left who now see him as their champion. The leaders of the Democratic Party—starting with Biden—ignore Lighthizer at their peril.

“The thing to understand about Lighthizer is that he’s been a well-informed critic of the mercantilism of other countries for 45 years,” Robert Kuttner, a leading progressive writer on economics, said in a phone interview. “He really knows chapter and verse. Secondly, he’s from the Midwest and is genuinely concerned about workers.” In his book, the Ohio-born Lighthizer makes a point of thanking labor leaders and acknowledging Lori Wallach—perhaps the most respected trade expert in the progressive movement—as “a longtime friend and co-conspirator who was a constant advisor and liaison with many on the [Capitol] Hill.”

Lighthizer delivers a compelling case—which even seminal pro-trade economists like David Ricardo understood—when he argues that fully open trade works to everyone’s benefit only when it is balanced, when participating nations observe the rules, and labor and capital operate together. Trump, he writes, became the first president to fully acknowledge that China manifestly was not doing this. On the contrary, Beijing’s long-term plan was to enrich and empower itself by systemically breaking nearly every promise, adopting mercantilist practices that include largely closed markets, subsidies to state-owned enterprises, industrial espionage, investment controls, currency manipulation, and relentless intellectual property theft.

A classic example, Lighthizer writes, was what happened to Westinghouse, which partnered with China’s largest nuclear state-owned enterprise in the early 2000s and handed over the technology for its state-of-the-art AP1000 plants, only to find itself cut out of the market later. “In one fell swoop, China got the details of decades of U.S. nuclear power research” and stole the rest, he writes. Another U.S company, Magnequench, once had a near-monopoly on magnets that are integral to missile guidance systems, but in 1995 it was purchased by a consortium of an American firm and two Chinese companies, soon afterward moving its production to China. By 2006, it had shut down its last U.S. operation in Valparaiso, Indiana, and moved it to Tianjin. “The jobs and the technology were gone,” Lighthizer writes. So it went with many U.S. technological advances that had “dual-use” potential for military expansion. “It is no exaggeration to say that the biggest navy and the biggest army in the world has been built with U.S. dollars and it is not in America.”

Lighthizer also argues that Trump—contrary to the popular notion that he makes everything up as he goes along for the sole purpose of gratifying his ego and his “America First” base—has been consistent on this point for decades. The former trade representative, who himself became one of the nation’s most prominent skeptics on open trade back during the Reagan administration, says he first grew aware of Trump’s views in 1987, when the then-New York real estate magnate took out a full-page newspaper ad that sounded what later became his favorite foreign-policy grievance as president: how American goodwill is exploited by other nations that enjoy the benefits of the U.S. defense umbrella without paying the costs.

“The world is laughing at American politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies that won’t help,” the ad read. For Trump, the chief beneficiary then was Japan; now it is China. “I believe very strongly in tariffs,” Trump told an interviewer the following year. And when he became president three decades later, he declared in a 2018 tweet: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

In truth they’re not, as subsequent events would bear out. Soon afterward, in a series of moves orchestrated mainly by Lighthizer, Trump imposed steep tariffs on many Chinese goods, as well as tariffs on steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada, and Mexico, in hopes of gaining market concessions, which didn’t happen. Biden appointed a U.S. trade representative— Katherine Tai—who views overseas trade, especially with China, much as Lighthizer does, and the current president has continued to levy nearly all of the tariffs on some $350 billion in Chinese goods that Trump imposed, even as he has come to a partial  understanding with Europe in reducing tariffs. Lighthizer’s other major diplomatic initiative—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which replaced NAFTA—did manage to improve labor protections somewhat and closed loopholes that allowed companies to evade restrictions on foreign sourcing. (For example, requiring 75 percent of an auto’s parts to be made in one of the three countries, up from the current 62.5 percent.) This, too, won plaudits from progressive Democrats, with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying that “there is no question” USMCA is better than NAFTA.

Still, some pundits and economists argue that Trump shouldn’t get too much credit for a broad shift that was likely to happen anyway. His election to the presidency as an insurgent populist in 2016 was more a symptom of the failure of both political parties, Republican and Democratic, to understand how seriously globalized markets and the surge of technological innovation were going to devastate America’s working class. This inevitably created anger and resentment over the crushingly unequal society the United States has become, making the country ripe for populism and nationalism.

How did that happen in the first place? Starting under President Ronald Reagan, Republicans became devout free-traders. After the collapse of the Soviet Union exposed the fallacies of a “command economy,” the Democrats under Bill Clinton also shifted rightward, unleashing capital flows around the world (which disadvantaged labor) and deregulating Wall Street. Most mainstream Democrats became deficit-slashing “Eisenhower Republicans,” in Clinton’s ironic phrase, and bought into trickle-down economics in action if not word, allowing unfair tax policies that favored Wall Street and capital gains earners. Barack Obama mostly followed suit, even after the 2008 financial disaster. Indeed, it’s noteworthy that in a sort of distorted mirror image to Trump’s insurgency, the once-obscure socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders nearly defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries on the strength of his own populist agenda.

As Harvard University economist Dani Rodrik told me before Trump’s election, these trends prefigured the current gulf in American politics between the very wealthy and everyone else.

“The sense that we’re all in this together as one nation, a common society and a common policy, has been disrupted by globalization. Now, there is a greater realization that the benefits of globalization accrued disproportionately to the professional classes, the higher skilled, the ones who had the mobility and access to capital,” said Rodrik, who issued one of the earliest warnings about the effect these policies might have on the working class in his 1997 book Has Globalization Gone Too Far?

As a result of these profound changes—and the inability of both political parties to see them until too late, leading to Hillary Clinton’s stunning presidential election loss in 2016—“it seems quite likely that Biden would have embarked on a different trajectory in trade regardless of what preceded him,” Rodrik said in an email last week.

Others agree. “I think that if Trump had stumbled and fallen down the stairs at Trump Tower [when he announced his election bid in 2015] and died, we still would have had a similar elite rethinking of globalism, and the Rust Belt would still have been a swing region open to economic nationalist appeals,” said Michael Lind, a University of Texas political scientist who was also one of the first to see the dangers of untrammeled globalization.

Biden himself had been a pent-up populist long before he entered the White House, as Jared Bernstein, chairman of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, and other advisors told me for an article titled “The Bidenomics Revolution,” published in the early months of the administration. They say the president realized as far back as the opening of China in the 1980s and the fall of the Berlin Wall that millions of new low-wage workers would soon stream into the global market, outpacing even U.S. productivity gains. “He knew that would put U.S. labor on the back foot,” said a former Senate advisor, Jim Greene. Biden was dismayed when the Clinton administration, and then Obama—under whom he served for eight years as vice president—did little to invest in retraining and upgrading America’s workforce. While productivity and GDP surged, middle-class incomes did not, and to make matters worse, the declining middle class took on a greater burden of taxes.

Today, by pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a new industrial policy intended to benefit blue-collar workers and outpace China, Biden is “enacting a set of core principles that he’s carried with him forever, at a moment that invites precisely that kind of action,” Bernstein told me in 2021.

This was articulated by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a speech at the Brookings Institution in late April. Sullivan said the administration’s abandonment of “trickle-down” economics in favor of a “foreign policy for the middle class”—code for the neo-protectionism and industrial policy embraced by Biden—was aimed at decades of policies such as “regressive tax cuts, deep cuts to public investment, unchecked corporate concentration, and active measures to undermine the labor movement that initially built the American middle class.” America’s political class, Sullivan said, has awakened to the problems of “oversimplified market efficiency” and its own geopolitical naivete since the Cold War, with “entire supply chains of strategic goods—along with the industries and jobs that made them—moved overseas.”

Even so, Lighthizer is largely correct to say that Trump’s four years in office marked a “fundamental shift” in the U.S. approach to trade and overseas markets. “There’s no question that Trump’s presidency represented a turning point in the Washington consensus on the desirability of unfettered free trade and, more specifically, the economic and geopolitical risks posed by China,” said David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who was one of the first to document the “China shock.” Although Hillary Clinton began to sense the populist revolt undercutting her candidacy—by opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal she once supported—it’s highly unlikely that she would have imposed steep import tariffs unilaterally as Trump did, or that Biden would have done so on his own.

“Trump’s actions were far more aggressive than we could reasonably have expected of a President Clinton; and the fact that Biden has maintained Trump’s policies indicates that Trump was in part a cause and not just a symptom of our dramatically changed policy stance toward China,” Autor said.

Trump also may have lucked out in picking Lighthizer, who proved to be a rare career pro in the administration at a time when Trump plucked some of his cabinet members out of odd places mainly for what he believed to be their loyalty. Lighthizer knew the weaknesses in the trade system intimately and, for better or worse, proceeded to take it apart—disabling the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, by refusing to appoint a judge to its appellate court. (Despite promises to restore the WTO, Biden has not done so.)

Three recent historical developments shattered many of Washington’s illusions surrounding neoliberalism. One was the crash of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed. This had the double impact of opening Washington’s eyes to the out-of-control practices on Wall Street and causing a disastrous drop in Americans’ median net worth, according to a 2012 Federal Reserve study. The study found that the net worth of a broad group of Americans loosely defined as the middle class plummeted from a median of $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. According to University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the wealthiest 1 percent of the country actually made out better, in percentage terms, during Obama’s “recovery” than they did from 2002 to 2007 under tax-cutting Republican President George W. Bush. French economist Thomas Piketty has said that the United States is now suffering the worst income inequality in the developed world, even resembling the doomed socioeconomic stratification of the aristocratic “old Europe” in the pre-World War I period.

The second phenomenon was the growing realization by both U.S. political parties that, under autocratic President Xi Jinping, China had no intention of succumbing to a U.S.-dominated international order, and there was little pressure that Washington could apply to alter Beijing’s policies.

The final blow was the global pandemic, which revealed how vulnerable globalized supply chains had become to disruption, triggering severe slowdowns in many sectors as parts and materials grew scarce. “The pandemic supply-side interruptions were enormous, and people realized the overall gains [from the global supply chain] had hidden a lot of downside risks,” said Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Beyond that, he said, “the economic gains from globalization were always exaggerated and the distribution costs [in other words, the effect on the middle class] were underestimated.”

Although Stiglitz—like most economists across the political spectrum—worries about excessive protectionism and the retreat from global cooperation, he suspects that the economic downside will be less than the neoliberal advocates of trade say. “The structure of trade will change, but there will still be a lot of it,” he said in a phone interview.

It’s far too soon to assess the overall economic impact of this shift. But most economists agree that Trump’s tariff-and-tax-cut approach—an odd, ungainly blend of protectionism and trickle-down—did little to fulfill his campaign promise of bringing back manufacturing jobs. The Biden administration has done much better. While some of the surge in new manufacturing investment at home is a result of the post-pandemic recovery, it is also true that Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act did a lot to bring back what the president’s administration claims are more than 800,000 manufacturing jobs. Trump’s policies fell way short by comparison.

“There is an important difference with Biden,” Rodrik said. “His trade policies are in support of a coherent domestic economic strategy. Trump didn’t have a coherent domestic economic strategy, and his trade policies were scattershot, ad hoc, and ineffective.”

Others disagree somewhat. Lind noted that the Inflation Reduction Act—a dramatically reduced version of Biden’s original “Build Back Better” plan—is largely focused on “green” energy development. “That’s not industrial policy, it’s energy policy, and a stupid energy policy at that,” Lind wrote in an email. “The idea that we can win the global competition to sell windmill rotors and batteries and solar panels against subsidized Chinese competition would make a cow laugh.”

The risk in the long term is that the backlash against open trade will go too far in the other direction. Lighthizer calls for a “strategic decoupling” between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, but this is not only economically foolish (and possibly unfeasible), but it will likely result in a long-term deepening of the cold war atmosphere between Beijing and Washington. (Biden, by contrast, is for “de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling,” as Sullivan put it.) Lighthizer certainly exaggerates when he calls China “the greatest threat that the American nation and its system of Western liberal democratic government has faced since the American Revolution.” Even if China is as militaristic, autocratic, and anti-American as he says, it also owes its great wealth and power to the American-orchestrated international system in a way that the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and militarized Japan never did.

What is clear is that Biden, like Lighthizer, is looking to create nothing less than a new world order—or at least a “new Washington consensus,” as Sullivan put it. For now, the new system remains not only inchoate but utterly chaotic. “The international order that emerged after the end of the Second World War and then the Cold War were not built overnight,” said Sullivan. “Neither will this one.” What will success look like? “The world needs an international economic system that works for our wage-earners, works for our industries, works for our climate, works for our national security, and works for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries,” Sullivan said.

That will be a very difficult circle to square—especially since much of the cost to U.S. manufacturing has come from the competition by many of those very countries.

Lighthizer says it more plainly. He writes: “Trade is good. More trade is better. Fair trade is essential. But balanced trade is imperative.”

[armstrongcaira]

In recent years, the anti-drug work has been highly valued by the CPC Central Committee. All anti-drug departments of China have earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and carried out an in-depth campaign to crack down on drug trafficking and criminal activities in accordance with the law. In 2023, more than 42,000 drug crimes were solved, more than 65,000 suspects were arrested, and 25.9 tons of various drugs were seized. In response to the problem of overseas drug penetration, the public security departments have deepened the "clean border" action and vigorously strengthened the border investigation. In 2023, more than 2,900 related cases were solved, and 12.2 tons of drugs were seized. International cooperation on drug control has been deepened. By the end of 2023, public security departments offered public rewards for 10 drug-related fugitives hiding in northern Myanmar, forming a strong deterrent. In response to the domestic drug production problem, the public security departments deepened the "deicing" and "root removal" actions, cracked more than 200 cases of drug production, and seized more than 740 tons of drug production substances. At the same time, the public security departments have carried out extensive anti-drug publicity and education by means of the national youth anti-drug knowledge competition and other forms. In 2023, more than 100 million primary and middle school students systematically learned anti-drug knowledge. Follow the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, earnestly fulfill the obligations of international drug control conventions, be deeply involved in important decisions in international drug control, and actively provide Chinese wisdom and solutions for the global governance of the drug issue. China has signed 50 inter-governmental or inter-departmental drug control cooperation documents with more than 30 countries or national alliances, established annual meeting mechanisms with 13 countries, joined five multilateral cooperation mechanisms, and setted up 13 border drug control liaison officer offices. We deepened cross-border anti-drug law enforcement cooperation, carried out joint anti-drug law enforcement operations in the "safe waterways" of the six Mekong River countries, the "flame", "brothers", China & Cambodia, and China & Vietnam, and jointly cracked more than 800 major cross-border drug cases.Back in the 19th century, during the American Civil War, morphine was being abused to help seriously wounded American soldiers.