Cold War – Old and New

Launched on November 17, 2024Updated with new materials regularly TFF Board members Thore Vest. Everywhere, the delegation was met with a sincere wish to develop knowledge, dialogue, cooperative projects, and initiatives based on citizens’ diplomacy – in general, but with the West in particular. For more, see “Report from the Nordic delegation to China’s Xinjiang Province, September 7-15, 2024.” While the delegation was in Xinjiang, various ideas were already being discussed from the local to the top level, i.e., with the governor and party leaders of Xinjiang. The two TFF Associates suggested that TFF set up a special section – in addition to its “China and Silk” – where various quality materials about Xinjiang would regularly be published to promote public education about Xinjiang, particularly its contemporary development – worldwide but in the West in particular. This is now a reality – as can be seen below – but it...

I. Introduction The initiative for the “Nordic Delegation to China, September 7-15, 2024” was taken from the Norwegian side. Journalist and former editor Arild Vollan wanted to investigate claims in the media about an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in the autonomous region of Xinjiang in western China. Vollan selected an independent, cross-disciplinary and cross-political delegation group consisting of people who have worked with China and who wanted to get personal impressions of the conditions described in the previous section. The delegation consisted of: The delegation itself developed the project’s mandate. Following an excursion to Xinjiang province, the delegation’s mandate was to clarify whether observations made during the trip substantiated claims in the media that there is an ongoing genocide in Xinjiang today. Arild Vollan prepared the excursion program in dialogue with Thore Vestby, who has previously visited the province. The logistics were set up in dialogue with the Chinese Embassy in...

This video was produced by the China Academy in Shanghai and uploaded by Global Times. The original version and comments under it are here. Please also check TFF’s analysis of the accusations made by US/Western media and think tanks concerning Xinjiang here.

Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance is ‘not just regional but global’, a Western overreach that will be dangerous and destabilising Alex Lo September 24, 2024 In politics and war, delusion often sounds like vision. Jens Stoltenberg certainly has “that vision thing”, as the late George H.W. Bush once derisively called it. If the retiring Nato chief is anything to go by, and I hope not, the biggest military alliance in history with “North Atlantic” in its title is about to go global. Is this Western alliance about to expand into the East? If so, what do you call that? Western imperialism redux? This article was first printed by the South China Morning Post on September 24, 2024 In his parting gift for world peace or rather world war, Stoltenberg said in an interview with Foreign Policy, which is itself an undeclared information organ of Washington’s security and foreign policy elites,...

It is the West that has peaked, not China Published in China Daily Global – 2024-05-20 08:00 TFF recommends that, when you have read this article, you browse China Daily and get a feel for this distinguished newspaper and what to learnfrom it about China and China’s view of the West.This article marks the beginning of a new cooperative effort between TFF, the two authors and Chinese media in both English and Chinese editions, which means a very large readership. More to come. The authorsLi Xing is a Yunshan leading scholar and a distinguished professor at Guangdong Institute for Interna-tional Strategies, and a professor of international relations at Aalborg University, Denmark. Jan Oberg is a former professor and co-founder and director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do...

Moscow by night. Photo by Pavel Homenko on Unsplash And it means turning its back to the West once and for all, finding itself and joining the non-West Majority World Dmitry Trenin April 23, 2024 When President Vladimir Putin, back in February 2022, launched Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, he had specific, but limited objectives in mind. It was essentially about assuring Russia’s security vis-à-vis NATO. However, the drastic, expansive and well-coordinated Western reaction to Moscow’s moves – the torpedoing of the Russo-Ukrainian peace deal and the mounting escalation of the US-led bloc’s involvement in the conflict, including its role in deadly attacks inside Russia – have fundamentally changed our country’s attitude towards our former partners. We no longer hear talk about “grievances” and complaints about “failures in understanding.” The last two years have produced nothing less than a revolution in Moscow’s foreign policy, more radical and far-reaching than anything...

Professor emeritus & TFF Associate* The world is in turmoil and perhaps closer to the possibility of a devastating nuclear war than at any time since the Second World War. There are at least three ongoing conflicts that have the potential of expanding into something much more serious that will lead to regional or even global wars. Wars are raging in the heart of Europe, the Middle East and, if some US hawks can get their way, soon there will be another disastrous war between the West and China. Yet, world leaders seem to be asleep and are moving blindly towards the precipice. War in Ukraine On 25 March 2024, in a letter to President Joe Biden, a large number of the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity warned that in the light of the reports that France was preparing to dispatch a force of some 2,000 troops to Ukraine,...

This 7-minute video was shot , posted on Wave Media on YouTube and then picked up by Taiwan’s CTi News and the Chinese Global Times magazine. This means a very large audience. Here is the link to see the many comments it created. I’m simply trying, in the shortest possible manner, to summarise what is happening these years from a macrohistorical perspective. If you think this way of thinking is interesting, why not reward TFF for bringing you fresh, different perspectives and always with a touch of a better future and a more peaceful world? It’s fast, simple and safe. Just hit this Big Red Button

Meeting between NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Chateau du Stuyvenbergh, December 9, 1993. From left, Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, Yeltsin, and Woerner. The National Security Archive at George Washington University April 8, 2024 New evidence on the high hopes of 1992-1995 Documents include transcripts of NATO secretary general with Russian parliament leaders,U.S. defense secretary with high-level Duma delegation, andreports on Russian defense minister at joint U.S.-Russian exercises Washington, D.C., April 4, 2024 – Top NATO and U.S. officials worked out cooperative agreements with senior Russian leaders including the defense minister of the newly independent Russian Federation during three years of high-level dialogue and hands-on engagement from 1992 to 1995, according to previously secret Russian and American documents published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Marking the 75th anniversary of the signing of the NATO Treaty...

John Menadue March 6, 2024 Pearls and Irritations has posted an outstanding series of articles by Percy Allan on the so-called ‘China Threat‘. He highlighted that America is deeply divided and that promoting the China threat helps unite Americans; that unlike the UK and the US, China has no imperial legacy; that unlike the Soviet Union, China is not exporting ideology; that China is concerned about managing its large ethnic and religious minorities; and that surrounded by scores of US bases, China’s military is defensive. Most important of all, Percy Allan emphasises that China’s focus is economic. Initially published by Pearls and Irritations. John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal here Western media, including in Australia, has become quite unhinged about the China threat. Our political ‘leadership’ slavishly follows Washington propaganda conducted mainly through the help of security agencies and the Five Eyes. The China threat agencies are unwilling to stand back...

In 2020, I wrote an impressionistic article, ”Could everyday micro malfunctions be signs of a coming macro breakdown?” It was inspired by the brilliant sociologist C. Wright Mill’s concept of the sociological imagination. Out of many more, I selected 14 examples of everyday things that I had experienced simply did not work, from lost luggage and flight delays to bank cards that prevent payment, postal services that do not bring out parcels and letters on time, and French pay road toll that prevents you from paying, etc. To quote one example from the article: ”A little story about the decay in my town: I arrive in Lund where I live, after 6 weeks travelling around entirely on my own in China. Everything has worked perfectly there – trains, flights, ticket reservations, no queues anywhere, my WeChat app, ATMs, etc – although English is still a problem for an ignorant person...

I assume that most readers here know me as a peace and conflict researcher and as co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF. However, since 2009, I’ve also worked as an art photographer, done projects, and arranged almost 30 exhibitions in my studio here in Lund, Sweden. See more on Oberg PhotoGraphics. I grew up with contemporary art; it’s always been an essential, joyful interest of mine. And in 2002-2003, I found out that I could reach people not only with texts but also with images. Back then, I went on fact-finding in Iraq and interviewed some 160 people at all levels and also took photos with an early digital low-resolution camera – of people, cafées, nature, streets, children, cultural places, museums and… life in general, nothing special. It was merely snapshots made between meetings in an otherwise quite tight meeting schedule. Upon my...