TFF global posts 2024

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...

Foreword The Board of The Transnational Foundation in Sweden has decided to publish an easy-to-read, scholarly anthology that addresses one of the most important – and potentially dangerous – issues of our time: Why are the political, economic, and medialised Western images of China so consistently negative – and what can you do to understand China better? These images may be expressions of a political will to present only various shades of grey and black with the aim of building a consciousness about China as an enemy and not a partner. They may also be seen as a sort of world-dominating ethos of ignorance based upon the assumption that “we’ve-got-nothing-to-learn-from-others,’ we are the teacher. Another possibility is that the West, deep down, feels that it is getting relatively weaker from a macro-historical perspective and comforts itself with denial and accusations against “the other” of being the reason for its manifest...

) My friend and solidarity colleague, Biljana Vankovska, has been dismissed as director of the Center of the Global Changes Center where she is a full Professor at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, in a chilling encroachment on academic freedom. The Center was conceived and brought to life by Biljana a year and a half ago and had already built a reputation for academic excellence mainly on the basis of a stimulating conference devoted to “the emerging cooperative multipolar system” and due to her ability to attract world-class scholars to join the Center’s Board and take part in this inaugural event. As the eloquent explanatory essay below indicates, this action by an educational administrator in her university was based on trumped-up charges. Biljana’s explanation that this punitive action in response to a development that undoubtedly enhanced the academic reputation of this Macedonian rings true—namely, that the government...

Talk at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, September 2010 Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen It is a great honor to be on a panel with the Director of CPC-CC Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, the Editor-in-chief of China Daily, the Dean of the National Office of Chinese Language, the Deputy Commander of the People’s Liberation Army.  I express my gratitude to the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the American Friends Service Committee for having brought me to this tenth visit to China since 1973, and to Beijing Foreign Studies University for inviting me to this Forum on Public Diplomacy and China’s International Image. I define public diplomacy as diplomacy for the people and by the people. The purpose is neither public relations nor propaganda, but to bring the peoples of the world together by making them understandable to each other.  Like languages have their own logic,...

TFF is also your go-to source for understanding the Syria catastrophe in the making from now on. Introduction: The colonialist mentality Few things should surprise us anymore regarding the un-principled nature of the contemporary Western world. One day it sees a genocide and keeps supporting its ongoing barbarism. The next day – actually December 8 in the early morning – it fully supports terrorism, which, allegedly, it has been fighting since September 11, 2001. NATO countries such as the US and Turkey are the main supporters of the terrorist movements that have now occupied the cultured country, Syria, home to 25 million extremely mixed people. As far as I have looked into it, no Western leader has pointed out that taking over an entire country and sending its leadership fleeing is a violation of international law; Russia did not even plan to do so in Ukraine, but its invasion was...

The collective cynicism is ugly. The innocent Syrian people are now doomed. The author hopes that his predictions shall soon be proven wrong… This article was published at 02:36, about 4 hours before the HTS terrorists occupied Damascus. • Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen reports tonight, December 8, 2024, that Russia, Iran, Turkey call for immediate end to hostilities in Syria. My cynical interpretation of this – beyond pathetic – “call” is the following: Turkey knew and did/does all it can – again – to destroy Syria. Russia and Iran were surprised or act surprised; they can do nothing given their own malaise. Or their “intelligence” services failed miserably? Their common statement is devoid of constructive steps in this uniquely urgent situation. It does not even mention the Syrian government or its President. They “call for” terrorists who are approaching the outskirts of Damascus and have declared long ago that they want to...

A report from the Valdai Discussion Club event in November 2024 Professor and director of the Global Changes Centre in Skopje, Macedonia and TFF Board member The intelligence services have probably noted this meticulously, but let me publicly share my experience of attending, for the first time, the annual conference of the renowned Valdai Discussion Club in Russia. For 20 years now, it has convened near Sochi, nestled among the stunning mountain peaks of the Russian Caucasus. Personally, this year stands out for many reasons. My first visits to China, and now to Russia, are undoubtedly among the most significant. Due to the format of the conference, I can’t describe Russia to you in the same way I recounted my experience in China. Over four days, around 130 participants (professors, analysts, strategists, diplomats, former generals, journalists—mostly from foreign countries, with fewer from Russia) representing over 50 nations engaged in discussions...

This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Introduction ”Should the West see China as a threat or as an opportunity, a friend or an enemy? Are we heading for a third world war? Does the seemingly inexorable rise of China spell the doom of many values in which we have long believed? Might some form of communism prevail after all? Are China’s motives sinister? Is it trying to subvert us? Is it plotting mischief? Given the very bad press China has been getting in Western media, one might certainly think so. But the word ‘sinister’ has an interesting derivation. Its original meaning has nothing to do with wily orientalism. It means simply left-handed. Most of us are right-handed, using our dominant left-brain hemispheres which are wired to the right side of our bodies. But a few of us are...

For the last time, I am stating my views on the West’s genocide accusation and why I refuse to let the US/NATO/EU Cold War policy set the agenda and discourse about China in general and Xinjiang in particular. PART I Part II A daring prediction I shall be surprised if, in about 10-15 years, Xinjiang – the North-Western province of China, its largest province three times larger than France – has not become a world-leading cultural and economic hub in humanity’s multipolar/nodal future world. It exhibits a tremendous cultural variety that seems to be moving towards unity in an amazing diversity. It has a vast natural resource potential. It interacts with eight very important neighbouring countries. It’s the crossroads of past, present and future. Xinjiang is the sine qua non of the new Silk Roads, also called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves over 140 countries worldwide and...

Why it is essential to travel and see for yourself and then build networks and promote dialogues in the world’s likely most serious conflict. PART II PART I I recommend you read Part I before reading this second part. A dynamic melting pot You may ask where Xinjiang’s immense cultural diversity comes from. While I have not studied its history, I have learned that it has always been one big meeting place, dating back to the first Silk Roads, where people travelled, traded, explored, and migrated. Crisscrossing also borders with eight neighbours so that over time, it became a melting pot. There is a lot of diversity; each national group or ethnicity seems to have preserved vital elements of its own culture, language, aesthetics, way of living, dancing, etc. and also become part of the unity called Xinjiang and China. A woman I met told me that each nationality’s way of dancing could be...

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...

Here is the paper as published by the prestigious Valdai Discussion Club