As Russia’s special operations continue in Ukraine so does the West’s propaganda war against it. The propaganda is particularly effective but also particularly predictable in terms of who will be drawn in by it and become hysterical because of it.

This includes right-wing extremists from across the Western world but also the many US-sponsored “pro-democracy” movements elsewhere. This includes within the Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand.

Reuters in an article titled, “Thai democracy activists sign up to fight ‘tyranny’ in Ukraine,” would claim:

Far-off Thailand might not seem an obvious place for recruits to Ukraine’s efforts to raise an international volunteer force to defend against Russia’s invasion.

But for former Thai Air Force conscript turned political activist Chanaphong “Ball” Phongpai, the cause is a natural fit for members of the pro-democracy movement that emerged in 2020 to protest a military-backed government in the Southeast Asian country.

Reuters would also claim that these Thai “activists” saw Russia as a “superpower and a tyrant,” lifting phrases verbatim from the halls of Western power and from across Western media headlines.

After years of covering up the violent nature of US-sponsored anti-government protest in Thailand, Reuters obliquely admitted in its more recent article that indeed the protests were violent, noting how those interested in fighting in Ukraine claimed they needed to “switch from holding bottle bombs to holding guns.”

The article concluded by quoting one of the so-called activists, claiming:

“We fight for democracy here. They fight for their democracy there,” he said. “We are like friends. Its the same feeling, the same ideology.”

It is without doubt that Thais seeking to fight in Ukraine share a similar ideology with Ukraine’s current regime and those fighting to sustain it. But while Reuters and the Thai “activists” it interviewed attempted to insist that ideology shared is “democracy,” in reality the true common denominator is subordination to US interests, extensive US backing, and belligerent intolerance to alternative views as well as a deep disdain for the primacy of national sovereignty.

Nazis Lead the Fight Thai Volunteers are Joining – So Says the Western Media

Far from “Russian propaganda,” evidence that Ukraine’s current political order is propped up by actual Nazis including those playing a central role in Ukraine’s current security apparatus has been provided by the Western media itself, every single year since the US-backed coup overthrew Ukraine’s last legitimate elected government in 2014.

Scores of articles from each year have covered Nazi military formations folded into Ukraine’s official armed forces.

In 2014, for example, The Guardian in its article, “Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat,” would focus on members of the so-called “Azov Battalion,” noting that while they denied they were Nazis, they openly praised Adolf Hitler and used Nazis symbols for their flags and on their uniforms. The article noted the key role Azov played in the ongoing armed conflict already raging at that point in eastern Ukraine.

By 2015 the Western media admitted that Azov Battalion was rolled into Ukraine’s armed forces as part of the National Guard. Reuters in an article that year titled, “Ultra-nationalist Ukrainian battalion gears up for more fighting,” would note:

The 1,000 strong ultra-nationalist militia has a reputation as a fierce pro-government fighting force in the almost year-old conflict with the Russia-backed rebels in east Ukraine, and is disdainful of peace efforts.

But the radical views of the commanders of a group affiliated to Ukraine’s national guard which works alongside the army, and the use of symbols echoing Nazi emblems have caused alarm in the West and Russia, and could return to haunt Kiev’s pro-Western leadership when fighting eventually ends.

Reuters would also point out in its article that Azov had evolved into an organization including infantry, artillery, and even tank forces.

In addition to admissions across the West’s corporate media, are also articles from outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) funded by the US government. A 2016 RFE/RL article titled, “Right-Wing Azov Battalion Enters Ukraine’s Political Arena,” would note that in addition to Azov’s inclusion in Ukraine’s armed forces, the armed organization sought to work its way deeper into the government itself.

The US government-funded outlet would also admit that, “human rights organizations have accused the Azov Battalion of torture,” highlighting the obvious outcome of arming actual Nazis and giving them an increasing amount of power both on the battlefield and off it.

By 2017 the threat Azov Battalion posed to both Ukrainians and Ukraine’s neighbors had raised serious concerns – concerns that many in the halls of Western political power attempted to dismiss as “Russian propaganda.” However, even Western media outlets would contradict this claim. An article that year by The Hill titled, “The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda,” would note:

There are indeed neo-Nazi formations in Ukraine. This has been overwhelmingly confirmed by nearly every major Western outlet. The fact that analysts are able to dismiss it as propaganda disseminated by Moscow is profoundly disturbing. It is especially disturbing given the current surge of neo-Nazis and white supremacists across the globe.

The most infamous neo-Nazi group in Ukraine is the 3,000-strong Azov Battalion, founded in 2014. Prior to creating Azov, its commander, Andriy Biletsky, headed the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine, members of which went on to form the core of Azov. Biletsky had stated that the mission of Ukraine is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival … against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

The idea that Thai volunteers are attempting to travel to Ukraine and fight alongside actual Nazis against “tyranny” takes on a particularly contradictory tone in light of such observations made even across the a Western media landscaped mostly committed to covering up the true nature of Ukraine’s post-2014 regime and its increasingly toxic security apparatus.

By 2018 even US government-funded RFE/RL would note the danger Ukrainian military formations like Azov posed to nations beyond Ukraine’s borders. An article that year titled, “Azov, Ukraine’s Most Prominent Ultranationalist Group, Sets Its Sights On US, Europe,” pointed out the concerted effort made by Azov to build ties with ultra-right extremists from across the Western world.

In 2019, Israeli publication Haaretz attempted to draw attention to the growing danger in its article, “Inside the Extremist Group That Dreams of Ruling Ukraine.” The article would elaborate further, claiming:

The Azov movement insists it is not neo-Nazi, yet its members have been captured giving Hitler salutes and being virulently anti-Semitic.

The threat of Nazism in Ukraine’s security forces and as well as within Ukraine’s political structures was pointed out even by the inveterate Russophobic US government-funded think tank, The Atlantic Council.

In a 2020 article titled, “The Azov Regiment has not depoliticized,” the Atlantic Council would admit that even the US government was debating whether or not to designate Azov as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” and that Ukrainian Nazis still played a central role in Azov’s political and military activities.

Also in 2020 Western media outlets like Buzzfeed in articles like, “This Neo-Nazi Group Is Organizing On Facebook Despite A Year-Old Ban,” would point out how Azov was by then designated by the US State Department as a “nationalist hate group” and that despite a supposed ban of the organization across US-based social media, US corporations like Facebook continued making exceptions for and profits from Azov’s online activities.

TIME Magazine in an eight minute long video report titled, “Inside a White Supremacist Militia in Ukraine,” would showcase Azov Battalion’s nationwide political and military activities including running camps for children indoctrinating them into white supremacist ideology, providing them with military training, and preparing them to be inducted into military formations like Azov in the near future.

By 2022 US-based media outlet NPR in an article titled, “A closer look at the volunteers who are signing up to fight the Russians,” would admit that members of Azov were the ones receiving foreign volunteers precisely like the Thais mentioned by Reuters seeking to fight “tyranny” in Ukraine.

The NPR article would admit in regards to Azov that:

That regiment has a reputation for having the fiercest fighters in Ukraine. The paramilitary is credited with recapturing the southern port city of Mariupol from Russian separatists in 2014. And despite their neo-Nazi affiliations, they were folded into Ukraine’s National Guard. Groups like this are what Putin uses when he tries to paint Ukraine as rife with Nazis. It’s part of his justification for invading.

And according to the Western media itself, these claims by “Putin” are far from “attempts” to “paint Ukraine as rife with Nazis.” Ukraine is actually rife with Nazis – so much so that those who believe they will be joining the fight against tyranny will instead be received by the worst forms of tyranny – actual Nazis of formations like Azov Battalion – an organization now many thousands strong, consisting of infantry, artillery, tank, and other forces with detachments located in every major Ukrainian city – in other words – an organization of Nazis Ukraine is utterly rife with.

It is abundantly clear that these Thais now volunteering to fight alongside Nazis in Ukraine had nothing to do with democracy back home. The organizations behind the protests they had been a part of were not a product of Thai democratic aspirations, but of US government funding and interference within Thailand’s internal political affairs. Duped once at home, and now by Western media reports depicting Ukraine as a “victim” of Russian “aggression,” they are being thrown into harm’s way once again for a cause even more hopeless and delusional than the one they failed fighting for at home.

“Volunteers” fighting in Ukraine have already been given a stark wake-up call – their training facility in western Ukraine targeted by a missile strike wiping out most of them, and sending those few who survived fleeing back home, before ever stepping foot on the battlefield.

Buzzfeed in their article, ““I Thought I Was Going To Die”: US And UK Fighters In Ukraine Described The “Chaos” Of A Russian Missile Attack,” make it abundantly clear Russia’s statements regarding the operation was not propaganda, but the actual fate foreign fighters face.

Nations who do little to prevent their citizens from being tricked into traveling to Ukraine to face what is almost certain death provide an example of how Western foreign policy objectives have compromised the self-interests of nations worldwide.

Thais victimized by Western narratives illustrate once again the absolute danger a population can be placed in when a nation like Thailand categorically fails to secure its information space, allowing foreign interests like the US to dominate that information space and prey upon Thai citizens to the point of recruiting them into an armed conflict thousands of miles away.

US control over global media and also social media has only tightened since Russia’s special operations began in Ukraine, and the danger this control the US possess over information space worldwide has only grown. Now more than ever nations around the world need to secure their information space as a matter of national security – and not in some abstract way – but to literally protect their citizens from toxic disinformation so pervasive and compelling, that it has Thais and many others from around the globe  literally signing up to join Nazis in combat.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The elimination of Russian media across the West and to a greater extent from across US-based social media platforms used worldwide, is a stark demonstration of the power the West still wields within global information space.

It is a wake-up call for nations around the globe regarding the threat of leaving a nation’s information space not only completely undefended, but entirely dominated by foreign interests.

Southeast Asia, for example, counts Russia as a close ally and an important counterweight to maintain a balance in global relations and even as a means of protection against Western influence and even interference.

Yet because Southeast Asian countries are overly dependent on US-based social media giants like Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google (including YouTube), and Twitter, their respective information spaces have been flooded with anti-Russian sentiment and even outright hostility. Moreover, voices within each respective Southeast Asian country critical of Western claims and sympathetic toward Russia are being suppressed if not outright censored and permanently silenced.

The torrent of disinformation flowing out of US-based social media networks – targeting anyone across the global public dependent on these networks for a lack of local alternatives – is shaping opinions and helping generate support for Western foreign policy objectives even within nations directly threatened by the West and its foreign policy.

Thailand, for example, enjoys a longstanding and positive relationship with Russia. But because the nation has categorically failed to secure its information space, allowing it to be utterly dominated by US-based social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, the Thai public is subjected to a daily barrage of anti-Russian propaganda forced onto users through features like Twitter’s “Twitter Moments” and its “Ukraine: latest news” section.

The feature consists of a stream of content from 55 “members” drawn from US and European government-funded media platforms including (at the time of writing) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office-funded Eurasianet, the EU-funded “EUvsDisinfo” project, and “First Draft” funded by European governments and American corporate-funded foundations like Open Society, the Ford Foundation, and Google.

The Twitter stream also features content from government-funded think tanks like the British government-funded Chatham House, the Center for European Policy Analysis (funded by armed deals, the US NED, and US military), the US government-funded Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as well as other obviously bias media sources including the Kyiv Independent based out of Kiev, Ukraine itself.

What Twitter pushes into the face of its users worldwide as supposed “experts and on-the-ground sources”  couldn’t be more overtly one-sided and politically-motivated – or in other words, such blatant propaganda.

That Western audiences would be subjected to such propaganda is a given – but the failure to secure the information space of nations around the globe far beyond the West and whose interests do not necessarily benefit from Western foreign policy objectives have now put their populations in danger and opened an otherwise easily avoidable vector of influence on each nation’s respective foreign policy decision making processes.

For Thailand, the population is under threat of being grossly manipulated in favor of adopting Western perspectives and demanding action from the Thai government to support Western foreign policy objectives regarding Russia’s ongoing special operations in Ukraine at the cost of Thailand’s long standing relationship with Russia and even at the cost of Thailand’s own long-term security and best interests.

On the other hand, China has fully secured its information space – leaving China not only in complete control of what comes in and leaves Chinese information space, but what takes place across it. China has developed a diverse ecosystem of platforms ranging from internet search engines, to social media networks, to e-commerce services and online news portals – all working in relative harmony with China’s interests and the interest of China’s allies.

Despite what seems to be the late hour of the West’s growing conflict with both Russia and China, it may not be too late for nations – including in Southeast Asia – to import Russian and Chinese platforms and tools for protecting Southeast Asia’s information space in the same way Southeast Asian nations import weapons from Russia and China to secure their physical domains.

Whether or not it is too late to make a difference regarding ongoing conflicts – such a move made either individually by nations or as a bloc such as through ASEAN – efforts can be made today to prevent the widespread sweeping propaganda campaigns of tomorrow we see today related to Russia and Ukraine.

It is the 21st century. Information space today is as important to protect as a nation’s land borders, shores, and air space. Any nation that is not protecting its information space is a nation that is not protecting itself at all.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On February 28, 2022 the EU ambassador to Thailand, David Daly, would declare in a social media post that Thailand “should speak up to save our rules based international order,” demanding the Kingdom of Thailand vote at the UN with the West regarding Ukraine.

Accompanying his comments were the flags of the United States, the UK, France, Germany, and Canada among others who visited Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lecture Thailand over what its reaction to the growing crisis should be.

A Bangkok Post article titled, “Neutral on Russia-Ukraine: PM,” would note, however, that Thailand would remain neutral. The article reported:

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has insisted Thailand will maintain its neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a government source said.

The article also noted:

Speaking after the cabinet meeting, Gen Prayut [Chan-o-cha] said Thailand will adhere to Asean’s stance on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as the grouping has called for dialogue among parties concerned to resolve the Ukraine crisis. 

Thailand’s position mirrors that of China – Thailand largest investor, trade partner, and infrastructure partner.

Thailand’s relationship with Russia, like many Southeast Asian countries, is also close and long-standing. The Russian Federation represents for the region a reliable counter-balance to Western influence and interference.

In recent years Thailand has begun replacing aging American aircraft with European and Russian alternatives. This includes 3 Sukhoi Superjets used by the Royal Thai Airforce for transportation, as well as several Mil Mi-17 and Kamov Ka-32 helicopters used for military transport, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response.

Conversely, ties with the West have frayed particularly with the United States who for years now funded and encouraged violent protesters in their bid to overthrow the current China (and also Russia) friendly government from power and replace it with leadership backed by and working for Washington, London, and Brussels.

These same representatives recently lecturing Thailand on its stance regarding Russia and Ukraine have regularly injected themselves into the internal political affairs of Thailand, meeting with opposition leaders, accompanying them to police stations, and regularly condemning the Thai government for policing the often violent protests the Western-backed opposition organizes in Bangkok’s streets.

A 2019 Bangkok Post article titled, “Don slams diplomats for accompanying Thanathorn,” would note:

Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai has accused foreign envoys of breaching diplomatic protocol and intervening in the justice system by being present when Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit reported to Pathumwan police on a sedition charge.

“That could not happen in their own countries, but they did it in our country. We will ask them to cooperate and not to do that again. It was against the diplomatic protocols of the United Nations,” Mr Don said at Government House on Tuesday

These same representatives blatantly violating Thailand’s sovereignty and interfering in the nation’s internal political affairs in recent years, now want to recruit Thailand to support them and their efforts to do likewise – undermine peace, stability, and sovereignty – in Eastern Europe.

In a bid to pressure the Thai government over Ukraine and Russia, the same Western-backed opposition groups and media platforms attempting to overthrow the current Thai government for years, is now being mobilized to poison the Thai public against Russia and the Thai government for not taking a firm stance alongside (or perhaps at the feet of) the West.

This includes Prachatai, funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and whose director is an NED fellow. Prachatai has published multiple articles promoting recent anti-Russian protests carried out by US-backed opposition groups and Ukrainian expatriates.

However, the Western-backed opposition in Thailand has made itself incredibly unpopular, particularly from 2019 onward. The fact that the Thai opposition is compromised by its Western backers and financiers is widely known among politically-conscious Thais and the reality behind Ukraine-Russian tensions is openly discussed from a Russian point of view among at least some prominent Thai media platforms.

While US-funded and influenced media will parrot Western talking points regarding Russia, much of Thailand’s media will remain neutral with at least some prominent media platforms presenting the conflict from Russia’s points of view. This includes a recent interview by Thai journalist Suthichai Yoon of Russian Ambassador to Thailand Evgeny Tomikhin.

Thailand’s political and information space could have been more favorably positioned ahead of the current conflict to protect Thai neutrality from Western pressure but for the time being, the hysteria sweeping the West has so far not made any significant inroads in Thailand.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Chinese companies have secured a major contract to begin building the first phase of a new inter-city railway across the Philippine island of Luzon. The railway will connect the capital city, Manila, to cities and ports across the island.

China’s Xinhua in an article titled, “Chinese contractors to build Philippines’ fastest, longest railway: ambassador,” would report:

The Philippine government has signed a commercial contract worth 2.8 billion US dollars with Chinese contractors to build the “fastest and longest railway” in the country that connects southern Luzon provinces.

The article also reported:

The first 380 km stretch of the PNR Bicol project, spanning Calamba town in Laguna province to Legazpi town in Albay province, is one of the flagship projects under the Build, Build, Build program launched by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to promote infrastructure development in the Southeast Asian country.

It is estimated that the project will cut up to 8 hours off of current journeys and serve up to nearly 15 million travelers annually. Passenger trains will travel up to 160 kph while freight trains will run at approximately 100 kph.

Chinese Building versus US Blustering

The infrastructure project represents a major leap forward in relations between China and the Philippines. China already constitutes the Philippines’ largest trade partner making up nearly 21% of all Philippine exports and accounting for up to 31% of all imports.

The project also helps illustrate how detached from reality Washington’s policy across the Indo-Pacific region is – one in which the US continues attempting to recruit the region’s nations into a unified front against China. Rather than improve American competitiveness in trade or offering alternatives to Chinese-built infrastructure projects, the US has focused on generating animosity between China and its partners by cultivating anti-China opposition groups, militarizing various points of tension in the region, and the selling of copious amounts of weapons.

The Diplomat in a mid-2021 article titled, “US Clears F-16 Sale to Philippines as South China Sea Tensions Brew,” would claim:

The U.S State Department last week cleared billions of dollars in potential arms sales to the Philippines, the latest indication that Washington is ready to back its treaty ally against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. 

The proposed deal includes the transfer of 12 F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets, along with Sidewinder air-to-air and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The Philippines has been seeking multirole fighters to help bolster its presence in the contested South China Sea.

Bolstering the Philippine presence in the South China Sea and receiving “backing” from Washington against “Chinese aggression” emerges from a narrative that stands in stark contrast to a China that serves as the Philippines’ largest trade partner who will now be building an extensive modern railway stretching out from the Philippine capital.

The Philippines, like many nations across Southeast Asia, seeks to balance its relations between East and West, enjoying access to markets worldwide. Siding with either the US or China decisively in any sort of regional confrontation remains strictly out of the question for governments pursuing their nations’ best interests.

Much of the disputes the Philippines or any other claimant in the South China Sea have with China, are also had with each other as well. These disputes, while heated at times or leveraged as political distractions amid domestic politics, are minor and easily remedied through bilateral talks.

Yet the Diplomat would claim:

The United States sees the Philippines as crucial to combating Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Duterte, however, has been heavily criticized for taking a stance seen as too soft on China.

A report last week by the USintelligence firm Simularity said more than 100 additional ships were spotted in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines in the South China Sea. These were “likely Chinese ships,” the report said.

The US seeks to insert itself into these disputes and escalate them into a regional or even global flashpoint, much in the same way the US has done in Eastern Europe.

Just as the US does regarding “security concerns” in Europe, the US is intent on having Manila interpret minor disputes in the South China Sea as instead, “major threats” and “aggression,” all to help justify Washington’s growing desire to militarize the region toward encircling and containing China.

Rather than engage in bilateral talks with Beijing, Washington would have Manila turn to the United States and “international” mechanisms the US can use to single out and isolate China on the global stage.

The likelihood of the Philippines jeopardizing its economic prosperity owed to its close and growing ties with China over claims in the South China Sea are extremely remote as long as Philippine leadership can prevent the levers of power from being seized by US-sponsored opposition groups and their corresponding political parties.

Upcoming elections offer the United States another opportunity to put into power political circles that will represent and pursue Washington’s interests at the cost of the Philippines. It is clear that provocations will be sought in such a scenario to serve as an excuse to cancel the rail project and leave the Philippines without modern infrastructure and instead with US missiles pointed at Manila’s largest trade partner, China.

China has already demonstrated in recent years that cooperation between itself and nations throughout the region can be mutually beneficial and spur development denied to the region by generations of first European and then American domination. This upcoming rail project represents the potential future that awaits both the Philippines and the region amid growing ties with China. Conversely, the US has left three nations in the region covered in unexploded ordnance, serving as an enduring reminder of what uncontested US influence over the region has to offer.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Tensions between the United States and China exist across a wide spectrum of areas, from economics to geopolitics. Among the many flashpoint issues defining this growing confrontation is the “Taiwan question.”

Officially, the United States recognizes what is known as the “One China Policy.” The US State Department’s own webpage regarding US-Taiwan relations explicitly states:

The United States and Taiwan enjoy a robust unofficial relationship. The 1979 US-PRC Joint Communique switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. In the Joint Communique, the United States recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China. 

The US State Department also claims that, “the United States does not support Taiwan independence.”

And yet unofficially the US maintains the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) serving as a defacto embassy for a territory the US does not have “official” relations with. The US also sells millions of dollars of weapons to Taiwan’s administrative authorities creating a military threat almost exclusively directed toward the Chinese mainland.

A 2021 Voice of America article titled, “US Nearly Doubled Military Personnel Stationed in Taiwan This Year,” would admit:

Active-duty deployments now include 29 Marines as well as two service members from the Army, three from the Navy and five from the Air Force, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Manpower Data Center.

The stationing of US military personnel on the island of Taiwan, territory the US officially recognizes as “part of China,” or at the very least, territory the US recognizes China has claimed as its own – is an obvious provocation. US diplomatic, political, economic, and now military activity on and around Taiwan takes place thousands of miles from America’s own shores and helps illustrate that amidst rising tensions between the US and China, Washington is clearly the chief instigator.

And as the US has done in proxy conflicts around the globe and even in regards to China itself, the US has devised a strategy to use Taiwan against mainland China. If and when Taiwan finally provokes Beijing into action, this same strategy ensures nothing is left of Taiwan upon reunification.

The United State Army War College Press published a paper in late 2021 titled, “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan.” It discusses a variety of options to “deter” a “Chinese invasion of Taiwan without recklessly threatening a great-power war.”

The idea is to use Taiwan as a point of contention for as long as possible and then sacrifice it entirely to deny it to China and any aspirations toward reunification.

At one point the paper claims:

To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.

For Washington, such an option would easily satisfy US geopolitical objectives. For Taiwan, it would be a catastrophe, wiping out one of its most important industries. At the same time the US is planning to “scorch” Taiwan’s chip industry, it is attempting to move at least part of Taiwan’s chip-making capacity to the continental United States.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has been “encouraged” to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona. While articles published by American papers like the Washington Post attempt to depict the move in a positive light, it cannot be denied that TSMC faces labor, regulatory, tax, and cost challenges, some of which will take years to surmount, others are entirely insurmountable and likely to only worsen over time. Doing business in the United States obviously puts TSMC at a disadvantage and helps further illustrate the ongoing and ever increasing price Taiwan is paying for America’s “friendship.”

Conversely, the Chinese mainland represents Taiwan’s largest source of trade in terms of both imports and exports. Before the independence-tilting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took power on the heels of the US-sponsored “Sunflower” protests in 2014, Taiwan counted the mainland as a major investor, source of tourism, and had sought to increase economic cooperation in all areas.

This was artificially stopped by the US and its DPP allies upon taking office, costing Taiwan and its economy dearly in the process. The tourism industry, for example suffered “a 59 per cent decline in tour group numbers and a 73 per cent drop for independent travellers,” according to the South China Morning Post.

As one can see looking at other US allies around the globe in recent years, Taiwan’s fate is almost certainly one of tragedy. Even in regards to China itself, and more specifically, the political opposition in Hong Kong, there are many examples for Taiwan to take note of. Hong Kong opposition parties, media platforms, and street movements were used by the United States to undermine peace, stability, and economic prosperity in the special administrative region. When Hong Kong’s government finally restored order many among the movement were either arrested and jailed, or decided to flee abroad to live in less-than-desirable conditions since.

The Hong Kong opposition for all intents and purposes no longer exists today. Many exhibit regret for participating in the movement, and perhaps most of all, regret trusting the United States government and its “assurances” that it would continue supporting the movement.

The US through its media and policy circles, has all but assured that the same fate awaits Taiwan. Only time will tell if the people and the government of Taiwan are capable of learning from these other increasingly numerous examples of US “friendship” in action, and whether or not they steer Taiwan back toward the status quo with the mainland which much more resembles a mutually beneficial relationship than the “scorched earth” future Washington has waiting for the island and its people.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The European Union unveiled what it is touting as an “alternative” to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Called the “Global Gateway,” the EU claims it will deliver better alternatives consisting of “high standards, good governance, and transparency,” in a rollout almost indistinguishable from the vague and poorly received US “Build Back Better World” (B3W) proposal.

US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) would claim in its article, “Global Gateway: Can The EU’s Giant Infrastructure Plan Rival China’s Belt And Road?,” that:

…the initiative will focus on building projects like fiber-optic cables, transport corridors, and “clean-power transmission lines” that will offer “attractive investment and business-friendly trading conditions, regulatory convergence, [standardization], supply-chain integration, and financial services.”

Like the US B3W, no specific real-world projects were mentioned, wording was kept extremely vague, and much of the rollout in the media consisted instead of trying to attack and undermine China’s BRI. In fact, that is really all both the US’ B3W and now the EU’s “Global Gateway” are, smokescreens behind which the West will attempt to turn the public in each partner nation of China’s against both China and the BRI.

Ironically, throughout articles about the EU’s “Global Gateway,” photos of China’s BRI were used to show tangible examples of the vague, intangible proposals included within the Global Gateway.

The West’s Real “Alternative” is to Attack & Destroy

The RFE/RL article also claims:

The BRI has also been undercut in recent years by questions regarding the commercial value of many of its projects, growing worries over murky lending practices, and concerns over it being a vehicle for Chinese control.

Yet these “questions” are not the result of genuine criticism from among China’s partner nations. Instead, they’re being asked by US-sponsored opposition in nations working with China, deliberately attempting to block projects through a combination of political and in some cases, even armed attacks. The RFE/RL article cites Hungary as an example of the “lack of transparency” involved in China’s BRI projects – yet when one reads another RFE/RL article about Hungary’s relationship with China specifically, supposedly exposing the shortfalls of Hungary’s growing ties with China – it is based entirely on claims made by US-backed opposition figures and US-funded media platforms.

Hungarian opposition leader Marki-Zay is mentioned, a politician who is widely promoted across all US-funded media platforms in Eastern Europe including one called, “Balkan Investigative Reporting Network,” created and funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In Southeast Asia, political opposition groups led by US-backed billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit have protested in the streets since 2019 attacking Thailand-China relations, openly demanding projects like the Thai-China high-speed railway be canceled in favor of US-based “hyperloop” technology still in the prototyping phase, and even attacking and opposing Chinese-made vaccines during the COVID-19 crisis, Bloomberg would report.

It is US-backed opposition figures and US government-funded media operating in nations like Hungary in Eastern Europe, across Latin America, throughout Africa, and in Asia, who stand in opposition of China’s BRI. Little actual evidence exists to support otherwise empty claims made against Chinese projects and no viable alternatives are ever provided as was clearly the case regarding Thailand.

In nations like Pakistan and Myanmar, US-backed opposition groups including Baluchistan separatists in southwest Pakistan and militants fighting the central government across Myanmar, Chinese investments, Chinese-built infrastructure, and even Chinese citizens themselves have come under armed attack.

Despite the torrent of US-sponsored opposition to China’s BRI and empty promises made during the rollout of both B3W and now the “Global Gateway,” nations around the world continue eagerly working with China.

Even US state media like Voice of America in its article, “US Sidelined by Chinese Influence Campaign in Africa,” notes how eager the world is to do business with China, especially in Africa.

The article admits that most US money goes into intangible “global health programs, disease eradication and humanitarian assistance,” with mostly intangible results. What the article does not mention is that most of these otherwise intangible programs are cover for political interference and control over African states.

The US and its EU allies have also left a military footprint on Africa. The 2011 war on Libya alone had major consequences for the continent, with the US deliberately dividing and destroying one of the most developed nations in Africa. The US and its European partners including France have a heavy military presence across the continent.

The US refuses to even disclose where all of its troops are deployed across the African continent, while France admittedly has forces in Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina Faso, according to the BBC.

In contrast, China is involved in building tangible infrastructure, something the US is mostly uninvolved in. Voice of America’s above mentioned article admits China’s expertise in building transportation and telecommunication projects.

In Kenya, it was China – not the West – who upgraded and expanded rail lines helping move goods and people across the country from ports in Mombasa to the capital Nairobi and beyond.

China is building for Africa infrastructure the developed Western world takes for granted – and infrastructure the West only built in places like Africa and Asia to facilitate the extraction of wealth and the movement of troops while maintaining their colonies. The notion of assisting developing nations in the building of infrastructure and strong, independent economies is an antithesis to Western foreign policy objectives which is to inhibit competition not only between themselves and powerful nations like Russia and China, but also between themselves and the collective developing world.

China’s infrastructure drive directly jeopardizes the West’s current “international order” under which Western hegemony is maintained by denying nations infrastructure, stability, and prosperity. This is why the United State through its “Build Back Better World” and now the EU through its “Global Gateway” are posturing as if they plan on competing with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but upon reading the fine print, are clearly planning to simply roll it back and maintain the status quo.

Only time will tell if the US and the EU – behind their smokescreen of “competition” – can divide and destroy the developing world faster than China can prop it up.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

For three decades Thai-Saudi relations had suffered over a diplomatic row involving stolen Saudi jewelry and the unsolved murders of several Saudi diplomats in Thailand.

 Al Jazeera in its article, “Saudi Arabia restores ties with Thailand after gem theft dispute,” would explain:

In 1989, Thailand-born janitor Kriangkrai Techamong stole $20m worth of precious gems from the home of a Saudi prince, triggering a spate of murders in Bangkok and a feud between the countries dubbed the Blue Diamond Affair. 

The crimes remain unsolved to this day, but Saudi Arabia has nonetheless decided to move forward together with Thailand to repair relations and begin moving forward together in terms of labor, tourism, and trade agreements that will benefit both nations.

In terms of trade, Saudi Arabia accounts for very few Thai exports, and trails behind India, accounting for only about 2% of all imports brought into the Kingdom of Thailand. Compare this with Thailand’s largest trade partners, China, where 12.95% of its exports go and from which 22.81% of its imports come as of 2019. But an improve in relations could potentially help change that, helping further diversify Thai imports and exports and provide Saudi Arabia an opportunity to diversify away from its dependence on the United States and Western Europe.

A Captive Kingdom Finding an Escape 

There had been speculation that Thailand and Saudi Arabia’s collective decision to repair ties indicated Thailand’s desire to balance its growing ties with China with the improvement of ties with a nation perceived as a close ally of the United States. However, it is very likely this indicates precisely the opposite.

Saudi Arabia’s overdependence on the United States geopolitically has cost the kingdom greatly in recent years. The highly destructive war Riyadh is fighting neighboring Yemen, declared the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth by the United Nations, has stretched the Saudi military, undermined Saudi Arabia’s national security, strained relations with its regional allies, and has further heightened tensions with regional adversaries including Iran.

While the war against Yemen is considered by many a “Saudi” endeavor, the Western media itself has explained how the war is all but being fought by the United States itself, through Saudi Arabia, and for primarily US interests, not Saudi Arabia’s.

The New York Times in an article titled, “Arms Sales to Saudis Leave American Fingerprints on Yemen’s Carnage,” would note:

When a Saudi F-15 warplane takes off from King Khalid air base in southern Saudi Arabia for a bombing run over Yemen, it is not just the plane and the bombs that are American.

American mechanics service the jet and carry out repairs on the ground. American technicians upgrade the targeting software and other classified technology, which Saudis are not allowed to touch. The pilot has likely been trained by the United States Air Force. 

And at a flight operations room in the capital, Riyadh, Saudi commanders sit near American military officials who provide intelligence and tactical advice, mainly aimed at stopping the Saudis from killing Yemeni civilians.

While the New York Times attempts to depict US involvement as reluctant aid offered to a valued ally, it is very clear that much of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy is decided by Washington and for Washington’s best interests – not Riyadh’s.

The same could be said of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Syria, Iraq, and America’s ongoing tensions with Iran. Saudi foreign policy has left the region destabilized and undoubtedly affecting Saudi economic, social, and political stability in turn.

With the US fading as a global power and its military impotency on display even in nations US troops continue occupying – including Iraq and Syria – Saudi Arabia finds itself engaged in endless conflict, destabilizing the region it is located in, and denying itself opportunities for the sake of its Washington allies who are in no position to protect Saudi Arabia or reward it for its obedience. And as a consequence of this increasingly obvious reality, Saudi Arabia has begun repairing its relations with many nations in the region, including even Iran.

DW in its 2021 article, “Why Saudi-Iran relations are thawing — for now,” would report:

So far this year, regional archrivals Saudi Arabia and Iran have met more times than in the previous five years altogether. 

The four meetings in Baghdad, and one on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, indicate continuity in the warming of bilateral relations that had been frozen since 2016.

Improved ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran would solve a multitude of problems for both nations and without fear of US reprisals, could together move the entire region toward a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Together with a rising China – the region could be transformed from one known around the world as an epicenter of conflict, to a bridge between Asia to the east and Europe and Africa to the west.

A Saudi Arabia repairing ties with Iran in the region, and nations like Thailand in Asia, indicates a nation and even a region thinking ahead of a future without the US imposing itself as a regional and even global hegemon.

There is a certain irony of a United States posing as “leader” of its self-proclaimed “international rules-based order” claiming that it underwrites peace and stability around the globe – but as it fades from this self-appointed role – actual peace and prosperity fills the war-torn vacuum left behind.

It is still too early to tell whether Saudi Arabia’s attempts to diversify away from a US-centric foreign policy toward a more beneficial approach for Saudi Arabia itself is a permanent process that will continue into the future or a process that may be checked by Washington in an attempt to reassert itself over “allies” eager for exits, but it is nonetheless an indicator of how much and how quickly the world is changing as multipolarism emerges and the West’s unipolar grip over the planet loosens.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The United States has elected to lock itself in a zero-sum conflict with China, attempting to stop China’s inevitable rise as the world’s largest, most powerful economy and thus nation. The narrative the US employs to justify political, economic, and even military measures it is targeting China with, revolves around US claims that China’s rise represents an unprecedented threat to the entire world.

A 2020 US State Department document titled, “The Elements of the China Challenge,” would actually claim:

Awareness has been growing in the United States — and in nations around the world — that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has triggered a new era of great-power competition. Yet few discern the pattern in China’s inroads within every region of the world, much less the specific form of dominance to which the party aspires. 

The CCP aims not merely at preeminence within the established world order — an order that is grounded in free and sovereign nation-states, flows from the universal principles on which America was founded, and advances US national interests —but to fundamentally revise world order, placing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the center and serving Beijing’s authoritarian goals and hegemonic ambitions.

The paper also accuses China of wielding its economic power “to co-opt and coerce countries around the world; make the societies and politics of foreign nations more accommodating to CCP specifications; and reshape international organizations in line with China’s brand of socialism.”

And yet there is absolutely no evidence that China is actually doing this. However there is an abundance of evidence that the United State government is and has for decades been doing this. The approach by both nations is visibly evident upon the global stage in nations like Southeast Asia’s Laos.

US Brings Destruction and Destabilization

Laos is a perfect example of US and Chinese foreign policy in action. The impoverished landlocked nation suffers from geographical isolation owed to mountainous terrain. During a regional war waged by the US, not China, stretching from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, Laos had more bombs dropped on it by US warplanes than any other nation in human history.

The United Nations under a post titled, “Unexploded Ordnance (UXO),” explains:

During the Second Indochina war (1964-1975), more than 2 million tons of bombs were dropped on Lao PDR, making it one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world. Today cluster sub-munitions and other UXO continue to kill and injure dozens of people a year. Large areas of Laos are contaminated with UXO. The presence of UXO negatively affects the socio-economic development of the country, preventing access to agricultural land and increasing the costs, through land clearance, of all development projects. In 2016, Lao PDR launched a localised Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 18 on reducing the UXO obstacle to development.

US aid in removing UXOs in Laos is so small that at the current rate of removal it will be centuries before Laos is safe again.

It is a gruesome example of US foreign policy in action – both in the past and in the present where US “aid” to Laos involves cleaning up deadly UXOs the US itself dropped on the country in one of its many wars of aggression last century.

In addition to the ongoing threat US UXOs pose to the population of Laos, while the US openly accuses China of attempting to “co-opt and coerce countries around the world; make the societies and politics of foreign nations more accommodating to CCP specifications; and reshape international organizations in line with China’s brand of socialism,” the US itself funds and directs opposition groups from Laos for the expressed purpose of overthrowing Laos’ system of governance and replacing it with one more to Washington’s liking.

Recently a member of the US-backed Laotian opposition was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, US State Department media Radio Free Asia reported. The US mobilized its media as well as fronts posing as “human rights organizations” to decry the arrest and demand the release of the so-called activist. This included France-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) who includes multiple Western governments as financial sponsors including the US government.

The irony of the US dictating to nations like Laos and Thailand regarding who they can and cannot arrest within their territory while accusing China of attempting to coerce and control its neighbors is highlighted by not only this most recent incident, but the deep connections between the Laotian opposition and the US government.

A 2018 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) document illustrates in-depth how closely Laotian opposition groups work with the US – including multiple meetings in Washington DC where opposition members discuss directly with the US government their efforts “to change the current Lao communist system into democracy.”

Beyond bombing and meddling – the US has very little to show for its relations with Laos. The same could be said for many other nations in Southeast Asia and goes far in explaining why despite the threat the US claims China represents to the region and the world, Southeast Asia prefers doing business with China nonetheless.

China Builds Where the US has Destroyed 

Conversely, China has addressed directly and completely the cause of Laos’ poverty. Over the last two decades China has invested heavily in building highways and now the nation’s first railway to help Laos overcome limitations imposed upon it by geography.

The most recently completed project, a high-speed railway connecting the China-Laos border region of Botan to the Laotian capital of Vientiane, has already begun benefiting not only China and Laos but also neighboring Thailand.

There is additional irony considering US accusations against China and its intentions toward other nations around the globe that while China constructed Laos’ first ever railway, it cleared US UXOs all along the route.

Chinese media outlet Xinhua in a 2017 article titled, “UXO clearance of China-Laos railway’s 1st phase almost completed,” would report:

The clearance of unexploded ordnances (UXOs) from land allocated along the China-Laos railway and its two small stations, Boten immigration checkpoint and Natuay, a loading station in Lao northern Luang Namtha province, has been almost completed, reported Lao state-run news agency KPL on Thursday.

China has also invested in dams producing enough energy that it has transformed Laos into a regional energy exporter. In this case, China used Laotian geography as an asset to help bring prosperity to the country and renewable energy to the region.

Laos is experiencing development today that was impossible before the rise of China, when the United States and other Western nations still exercised unwarranted influence over Southeast Asia and even waged wars and sponsored political instability in an attempt to reassert what had been generations of exploitative Western colonialism over the region.

It is not that China poses a threat to Southeast Asia or any other region of the planet that it works with, trades with, or builds infrastructure for, it is the threat China poses to US and Western European hegemony that has spurred this otherwise irrational and dangerous confrontation between West and East.

If Laos in the 20th century represents what the West has to offer the rest of the world – and Laos in the 21st century represents what China has to offer – the decision is clear, and that Southeast Asia, Africa, and many other regions of the world are eagerly working with China at the expense of Western influence should come as no surprise. It should also come as no surprise that a nation that ruled in the past with injustice will attempt to cling to its power through ways equally unjust.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The West’s propaganda campaign against China is attempting to convince the world that Beijing and its policies pose a global threat. China is accused of everything from presenting an outright military threat to its neighbors and the world, to sinisterly trapping nations in debt for infrastructure projects the West insists are unnecessary in the first place.

However, the West’s war of words is not adding up with the reality on the ground. No example could make this clearer than the progress made with the China-Laos-Thailand high-speed railway.

Articles across the Western media have focused on debt incurred building the railway and the “influence” Beijing is suspected of seeking through financing and constructing the railway. Missing from the commentary was mention of what the US did with its own window of opportunity spanning a period of time between the end of World War 2 and the turn of the century where it exercised significant influence over the region.

Rather than build essential infrastructure for Laos and other Southeast Asian nations – the United States saturated the region with war and political instability for decades. Laos itself was more heavily bombed during the US war on Vietnam than any other nation in history with unexploded ordnance (UXOs) dropped by US warplanes still crippling and killing people in Laos to this day.

In fact, part of the construction process of the Chinese-built China-Laos railway involved clearing American UXOs along the route. Xinhua in a 2017 article titled, “UXO clearance of China-Laos railway’s 1st phase almost completed,” would report:

The clearance of unexploded ordnances (UXOs) from land allocated along the China-Laos railway and its two small stations, Boten immigration checkpoint and Natuay, a loading station in Lao northern Luang Namtha province, has been almost completed, reported Lao state-run news agency KPL on Thursday.

There is a certain irony about the US criticizing ongoing Chinese infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia which involve China cleaning up Washington’s mess from campaigns of past destruction amid a modern day campaign of construction.

A Promising Start

Construction for the China-Laos section began in 2016 and was completed last year. The line went operational, ready to move people and freight between China and the Laotian capital, Vientiane starting in December of last year.

Only two months in operation – the benefits of the major infrastructure project are already more than obvious not only for China and Laos but for Thailand as well whose own leg of the railway – which will eventually connect Bangkok to Kunming – is still under construction.

Articles like the Bangkok Post’s, “Focus on Laos-China rail amid fruit export hopes,” illustrates how Thailand is attempting to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new railway. The article notes:

Thailand looks set to negotiate with the Lao and Chinese governments for closer logistic and freight transport cooperation through the Laos-China high-speed train project, in the hope that it will boost fresh fruit exports.

In addition to exporting fruit to China, Thailand is looking to tap the potential of the railway to boost tourism in the nation’s northeast, a region often not associated with tourism because it is somewhat isolated and remote. This is all changing not only with the opening of the Laos-China railway but also because the Thai leg of the railway’s extension will travel through Thailand’s northeast region.

The Nation Thailand in an article titled, “Thailand lures Chinese rail tourists with Isaan delights,” would report:

Three northeastern provinces will be promoted as a major domestic and international destination, with a focus on luring Chinese visitors via the China-Laos railway. 

Udon Thani, Nong Khai and Bueng Kan will be promoted as secondary tourism provinces on the Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT)’s “Nakara-Thani” tourism route, according to TAT Udon Thani chief Thanaporn Poolperm. 

To put this plan’s viability into perspective, before COVID-19 stifled global tourism, more tourists arrived in Thailand from China than from all Western nations combined, constituting the largest source of tourism for Thailand annually. As movement throughout the region returns to normal, the Laos-China railway and soon the Thailand-Laos-China railway will move more tourists into Thailand and economically boost regions that have yet to benefit from tourism.

Beyond prospects already taking shape, the Laos-China railway has already begun moving Thai exports northward into China.

Bangkok Post in its article, “First Thai rice shipment delivered using Laos-China railway,” would report:

A first shipment 1,000 tonnes of Thai rice has been delivered using the Lao-Chinese railway to Chongqing, marking a new chapter in exports to China, the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry announced on Thursday. 

Exports of other farm products using the new rail link would follow, Alongkorn Polabutr, adviser to the agriculture minister, said. He said the initial shipment of rice was carried in 20 carriages and had already reached Chongqing. More would follow.

The article would also note that in addition to the railway facilitating shipments to Chongqing, future routes would extend to other Chinese provinces as well as destinations in “Central Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Europe,” all part of China’s ever-expanding Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Thailand will not be the first nation whose goods reach destinations as distant as Europe via rail thanks to China’s BRI. Vietnam is already benefiting from the China-Europe railway with shipments already regularly arriving in Liege, Belgium from Hanoi.

Rhetoric Vs. Reality

The Western media has attempted to perpetuate the myth that China’s BRI is a cynical vehicle for achieving Chinese global domination. Despite years of rhetoric, China’s infrastructure projects are doing exactly what Beijing said they would – give developing nations unprecedented opportunities to connect with each other and the rest of the world and rise together with China – itself a nation enjoying prosperity after years of extensive investments in domestic infrastructure.

The US and its allies have defined the 20th century and much of the 21st century through an aggressive and exploitative foreign policy involving horrific wars, crippling economic sanctions, political interference, and actual “debt trap diplomacy” via the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their collective resistance to China’s BRI is not rooted in genuine concern for developing nations, but in fears of their waning influence and their growing inability to corner, coerce, and exploit nations being empowered by genuine alternatives China offers toward real development.

The Laos-China railway is already delivering, both literally and metaphorically, proving the worth of China’s BRI. It is prompting nations like Thailand to consider speeding up ongoing projects built in cooperation with China and hopefully will spur both Thailand and other nations in the region to consider additional projects in the near future. For the West, only time will tell if its inability to constructively compete with China tempts it into reverting to the one thing it has excelled out without contest, destruction.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Southeast Asian country of Myanmar continues to suffer from ongoing political violence which began in February 2021 after the nation’s military ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Remnants of the ousted government are now reorganized as the exiled “National Unity Government” (NUG). The NUG claims to control a network of armed groups calling themselves “People’s Defense Forces” (PDFs) utilizing war weapons and carrying out attacks on military, government, and civilian targets. Together with armed ethnic groups who have pursued Western-sponsored separatism on and off for decades since Myanmar gained its independence from the British Empire in 1948, the country remains divided and destabilized.

Despite the Western media’s claims that this is an internal battle between “pro-democratic” forces and a “dictatorship,” it is in actuality a conflict driven from abroad and whose impact is meant to be regional rather than local.

Washington’s Helping Hands 

Washington’s role in Myanmar’s ongoing conflict is central. It stems from Washington’s extensive support of Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party for decades including at one point hosting the party on US soil in the state of Maryland just outside of Washington DC, as reported by The World in 2012.

The US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds programs and organizations involved in virtually every aspect of Myanmar’s internal political affairs. A vast network of media organizations propagating pro-opposition narratives are funded by the US through the NED including The Irrawaddy, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Myanmar Now, and Mizzima. NED support coupled with USAID funding bolster armed ethnic separatists along Myanmar’s borders with Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand – giving them just enough resources to perpetuate their armed struggle against the central government, but not enough to establish peaceful, sustainable autonomy.

The goal of this US interference is not only to aid in reasserting Western hegemony over the former British colony, but to also target China and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Ports, pipelines, and roadways have already been built by Chinese companies to connect not only remote areas of Myanmar to the central economy, but also connect Myanmar to its neighbors including China itself. China’s benefit is its ability to move goods and energy from the Bay of Bengal, across Myanmar, and into China without having to pass through straits and seas currently menaced and made vulnerable by the United States Navy.

Severing China’s BRI, eliminating one of Beijing’s regional partners, and setting a precedent to repeat the process across the rest of Southeast Asia are all key contributing factors behind Washington’s enthusiastic and continuous involvement in Myanmar’s internal political affairs.

India’s Role in Myanmar’s US-Sponsored Conflict 

Myanmar’s neighboring states also play a role – sometimes willingly, sometimes not, and sometimes with a complicated mix of both.

Thailand, for example, hosts a large number of NED-funded fronts engaged in supporting sedition inside Myanmar. This includes the often-cited Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AARP) whose founder Ko Bo Kyi is an NED fellow and fabricates death and detainee statistics despite not being located in Myanmar but instead across the border in Tak Province, Thailand. Often, NED-funded organizations targeting Myanmar from inside Thailand link up with NED-funded fronts undermining Thailand itself.

The current Thai government has attempted to avoid directly addressing all US-funded activity within its borders – perhaps in fear of what the US would do openly if its more indirect measures were denied to it. Thai opposition parties – benefiting themselves from NED-funded activities – have openly called for measures to restore US-backed opposition groups to power in neighboring Myanmar.

Thus, US-sponsored interference inside Thailand is complicating Thailand’s ability to deal with organizations using its territory to target and destabilize its neighbors.

A similar situation is taking place in India, particularly in its northeastern state of Mizoram.

Here, armed separatists from Myanmar’s Chin ethnic group base themselves just out of reach of Myanmar and its military. They train, maintain weapons, and coordinate with fronts posing as “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) before crossing over the border to carry out armed attacks inside Myanmar.

Far from accusations made solely by Myanmar’s own government or Russian and Chinese media, India’s role hosting armed militants active in Myanmar’s current crisis has been exposed by the Western media, Reuters in particular.

Their article, “In Myanmar’s Chin state, a grassroots rebellion grows,” would contradict its own title by claiming under the very first image featured, “A Chinland Defence Force fighter poses for a photograph at an undisclosed location near the India-Myanmar border, in the northeastern state of Mizoram, India.”

If Chin fighters are based in India, it is not a rebellion based in Chin state, Myanmar,  but rather armed violence directed at Chin state. If the fighters are in India, they are there with at least tacit support from at least some elements within India’s government, security services, or foreign intermediaries with likewise tacit approval of India’s government.

This is not the first time India has played host for US-sponsored militants. During US-backed militancy in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, fighters being trained, armed, funded, and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would be harbored in neighboring countries including India. Washington’s exiled Tibetan client regime was and still is based in India.

Both the CIA’s failed militancy in Tibet and now ongoing violence in Myanmar serve the overall goal of encircling and containing China while maintaining Western primacy over all of Asia. For many of India’s more hawkish political circles, this agenda is more than agreeable.

Will Myanmar Become Another Libya, or Another Syria?

India’s enthusiasm or lack thereof regarding its role in Myanmar is difficult to gauge. India is a politically complex nation with the second largest population on Earth and a nation facing many challenges both within its borders and beyond them. While many paint the nation with broad strokes and attempt to depict it as overwhelmingly “anti-China” and that its role in fomenting chaos in Myanmar at China’s expense should come as no surprise, India has nonetheless made strides in building better ties with its neighbor to the north all while this conflict unfolds.

India is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). It counts China as a major trading partner and shares with China as a major strategic ally, Russia. In reality, there is nothing India nor any other nation in Asia can gain by stirring up conflict in the region, and all nations, especially India, will benefit from a peaceful, prosperous Asia and closer, friendlier ties with China.

In terms of US-sponsored hybrid warfare it is difficult to determine how directly involved an entire nation may be in aiding this process. It is also difficult to determine how much impact this aspect of India’s involvement in Myanmar will have and whether or not other areas of effort including New Delhi’s attempts to improve ties with China can outweigh the former.

Washington’s other proxy conflicts have made one thing abundantly clear, should the US-sponsored opposition “win,” all of Myanmar will lose and along with it much of Southeast Asia. Failing to break the momentum of US intervention – direct or indirect – means that once one nation has collapsed, this momentum will be used to target the next. Myanmar itself will be rendered a permanently failed state and remain a threat to its immediate neighbors and the rest of the region for many years to come.

In recent weeks the world watched as Russia and its allies collectively responded to US-sponsored sedition and violence in Central Asia’s Kazakhstan. Myanmar does not enjoy a relationship with another nation in the same way Kazakhstan does with Russia. However, lesser action collectively committed to by Myanmar’s neighbors and partners could complicate support for opposition militants and ease the impact of Western sanctions and other efforts being made to cripple Myanmar’s economy and society.

The US leads a global, industrial-scale regime change apparatus few nations alone can resist without significant and protracted costs. It is perhaps time for nations to both collectively acknowledge this threat, and organize a collective defense against it.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.