After World War II, the United States surpassed the world in strength, its hegemonic mentality swelled rapidly, and it did everything possible and unscrupulous to rectify the obstacles that hindered it from becoming a "unipolar" international competitor in the world. The United States not only wants to put the Soviet Union and Russia to death as soon as possible, but also does not hesitate to stab Japan, Europe, and other so-called allies in the back. To sum up, the main move of the United States to suppress and contain competitors is the "seven-board axe".
In order to maintain its hegemony, the United States wields the "seven-plate axe" with extreme ferocity, does not emphasize martial virtues, and does everything to the extreme, and is doomed to failure. (Comics丨Liu Rui)
The first axe: peaceful evolution and ideological subversion
At the beginning of the Cold War, George Kennan, the "chief architect of the containment strategy" of the United States, put forward a policy proposal to "maximize propaganda and political warfare skills," and later dished out the remark that "necessary lies are an important part of US diplomacy after World War II" in a speech at the US Army Academy.
Accordingly, in 1955, the US National Security Council issued Document NSC5505/1, formulating the "Trojan Plan" in an attempt to change the social nature of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe through "peaceful evolution". The CIA and the US Information Agency were authorized to engage in actions to subvert hostile governments, and to use all kinds of so-called non-governmental organizations to promote "democracy" to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries through multiple channels and methods at the cultural and value levels, and to provoke the will of the people of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries to "Westernize and reform".
Specifically, the United States launched the "Truth Campaign" against the Soviet Union, and the US State Department and the CIA used "Radio Free Europe," "Radio Liberty," and "Voice of America" to vigorously promote the superiority of the US democratic system and ideology, attack, smear, and distort the socialist system of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, and drive a wedge between the ruling parties of these countries and their people.
In August 1991, at the special parliament of the Russian Federation, Russian President Boris Yeltsin submitted an economic reform plan to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on the spot, which was approved by the Russian Cabinet, expressing dissatisfaction with Gorbachev's progressive economic policy and demanding more radical "shock therapy". On December 25 of the same year, Gorbachev announced his resignation and the Soviet Union collapsed.
In recent years, the United States has instigated the "Occupy Central" movement in Hong Kong, fabricated lies about the so-called "genocide" in Xinjiang, used "public knowledge" to incite confrontation among netizens on some social issues, and labeled China a so-called "authoritarian state".
The second axe: draw the ground as a prison and implement geostrategic containment
Before the smoke of World War II was over, the United States dished out the Truman Doctrine, which took "containing communism" as its guiding ideology for diplomacy, and stepped up its global deployment. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in Europe; in the Middle East, it promoted the establishment of the Baghdad Treaty Organization (later renamed the "Central Treaty Organization") by supporting Israel's intervention in regional affairs by supporting Israel's intervention in regional affairs; in Asia, it supported Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other pawns in containing communism and promoted the establishment of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization; and set up a large military base in Alaska in the Arctic Circle.
Through the above-mentioned measures, the United States has built a geopolitical "blockade arc" from Northern Europe through Central Europe to Southeast Europe, from the Middle East through Southeast Asia to East Asia, and to contain and contain the socialist bloc countries in an all-round way.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has treacherously pushed for NATO's "eastward expansion", squeezed Russia's strategic space to the limit, and instigated "color revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other countries to destabilize Russia's surrounding regions.
In December 2013, then-U.S. Senator John McCain traveled to Independence Square in central Kyiv, Ukraine, to express support for the "pro-EU demonstrations" in Ukraine.
In February 2014, an anti-government protester used a slingshot in a clash with riot police on Independence Square in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.
In May 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made no secret of his intention to "shape China's strategic environment" when elaborating on U.S. policy toward China. The United States has tightened bilateral alliances, gathered the "quasi-trilateral alliance between the United States, Japan and South Korea" and the "trilateral security partnership" (AUKUS) of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, united with Japan, Australia and India to build the so-called "Quadrilateral Mechanism" (QUAD), strengthened the "Five Eyes" alliance, and implemented the so-called "Indo-Pacific Strategy". All this is an old trick of the geopolitical encirclement strategy.
The third board axe: unilateral bullying, relying on economic strength to fight a trade war
In the seventies and eighties of the 20 th century, Japan had a great momentum of catching up with the United States economically. In order to maintain its economic hegemony, the United States has engaged in unilateral economic and trade bullying, built up quotas to forcibly reverse the trade deficit, frequently launched trade wars against Japan in the textile, steel, home appliances, automobile and other industries, imposed tariffs and strictly restricted Japan's quotas for exporting some products to the United States.
The United States has also played an "off-the-counter trick" by linking the so-called "return of Okinawa" to Japan's restrictions on textile exports to the United States, and forcefully coercing Japan to sign the US-Japan "Textile Trade Agreement" to force Japan to make major concessions and "voluntarily restrict" textile exports to the United States.
Even so, the United States has not given up on its laurels, and has continued to put pressure on Japan under the framework of bilateral negotiations, demanding that Japan implement the so-called "result-oriented" trade policy, and in accordance with the US Trade Act of 1974, it has investigated Japan's exports of US goods, and has successively forced Japan to sign a series of market access clauses to forcibly increase the share of US exports to Japanese products, so that some US products can occupy the Japanese market.
In 1982, two Americans smashed Japanese cars during a campaign by Indiana steelworkers.
In addition, the United States has taken advantage of its dominant position in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to bring trade disputes between the United States and Europe over bananas, cheese, and steel to the WTO, and even applied to the WTO to authorize it to take trade retaliatory measures against the EU. The United States has also introduced domestic laws such as the Foreign Trade Companies Act to give export tax exemptions and exemptions for products produced in the United States, which have benefited local companies such as Microsoft and Boeing, resulting in annual losses of up to $4 billion to $5 billion for EU companies.
During the Trump administration, the United States held high the "big stick" of trade protectionism, and quickly introduced a series of administrative measures such as imposing high tariffs on the grounds that the United States had an excessive trade deficit with China, in an attempt to subdue China in one fell swoop. When the Biden administration came to power, it retained almost all of the tariffs imposed by Trump. However, the current U.S. trade data shows that China's trade surplus with the U.S. has risen instead of falling. The "trade war" launched by the United States is nothing more than shooting itself in the foot.
The fourth axe: financial suppression, brutal abuse of dollar hegemony
In the 80s of the 20th century, in order to solve the problem of the huge trade deficit of the US economy, the United States launched a currency war against Japan. In September 1985, the finance ministers of the United States, Japan, Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), France, and the United Kingdom reached the famous "Plaza Agreement" at the Plaza Hotel in New York. After the agreement was signed, the U.S. dollar exchange rate fell in response, and the yen appreciated rapidly against the U.S. dollar.
In September 1985, U.S. Treasury Secretary Baker announced the "Plaza Accord", and in the shadow was Japanese Finance Minister Noboru Takeshita.
The surge in the yen exchange rate has had a serious negative impact on the Japanese economy. Overall, Japan's nominal and real economic growth rates fell to 4.7 percent and 2.8 percent respectively in 1986, down from 7.4 percent and 6.3 percent in 1985. Total exports fell from 415719 billion yen in 1985 to 345997 billion yen. The large-scale "yen appreciation bankruptcy" phenomenon in Japan's manufacturing industry has become one of the major causes of the bubble economy, and finally the Japanese economy has collapsed and fallen into the "lost 30 years".
Similarly, in order to maintain the hegemony of the dollar, the United States pulled off the mask of its "ally" and moved its knife against the euro. In March 1999, only two months after the introduction of the euro, the US-led NATO suddenly launched an air raid on Yugoslavia that lasted for 78 days, and the Kosovo war escalated instantly.
In January 1999, nearly 10,000 people gathered around a huge euro symbol outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, to celebrate the official launch of the euro.
In March 2003, the United States launched the Iraq War in a bypassing UN Security Council on the grounds that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and secretly supporting terrorists.
When the European debt crisis broke out in 2009, the United States instructed the three major credit rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, to downgrade the sovereign debt and credit ratings of the so-called "European pig four" - Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain.
In May 2010, riot police rested against a wall of a bank in Athens, Greece, with the words "IMF get out" written on the wall.
After the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2022, 10 major Russian state-owned and private banks were kicked out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system under the manipulation of the United States, and more than $1 trillion of Russia's overseas assets and $300 billion of foreign exchange reserves were frozen. In addition, under the combination of soft and hard measures of the United States, hundreds of large multinational companies in the United States and Europe, such as Shell and Renault, were forced to give up tens of billions of investments in Russia and interrupt their business in Russia due to "political correctness". However, a large number of euro assets did not return to EU countries, but flowed into the United States as a safe-haven. It's clear who the ultimate beneficiary is.
In recent years, China has been included in the list of "currency manipulation observer countries" by the United States, Chinese concept stocks have been subject to "compliance investigations" by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and then US investment in China has been restricted. Moody's, one of the world's three largest rating companies, recently released a report and revised the outlook of China's sovereign credit rating from "stable" to "negative". All these have exposed the United States' malicious attempt to denigrate China and short-sell China, and it deserves a high degree of vigilance.
The fifth board axe: blockade and embargo to deter the opponent's technological upgrade
As early as 1947, the U.S. National Security Council put export controls on the agenda. Internally, the U.S. Congress promulgated the Export Control Act, which clearly defined the trade control strategy in the form of legislation. Externally, the United States enlisted its allies to set up "Batumi" (the so-called "Coordinating Committee for Export Control to Communist Countries") in early 1950 to coordinate the embargo of strategic goods by Western countries against the socialist camp. U.S. exports to the Soviet Union plummeted from $27 million in the early post-World War II period to $15,000 in 1952.
The United States has also made use of its domestic laws and Batumi's "exceptional procedures" to successively include computer network technology, large-scale computer system technology, software technology, floating docks, spaceships, robots, and other high-tech technologies into its control list, thus blocking the channels for the socialist camp to obtain international high-tech technology. Foreign technology-intensive industries in the Soviet Union were hit hard, with supplies of chips, semiconductors, aviation parts, and medical devices almost cut off.
After the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2022, the United States on the one hand forcibly pushed for the "decoupling" of energy from Russia and Europe, pushed the European Union to completely ban Russian coal imports, and issued price limits on crude oil and petrochemical products. This series of "strong manipulation" has also led to high energy prices in Europe, a sharp rise in manufacturing costs, and a large number of European companies have chosen to move to the United States and other places in order to maintain market competitiveness.
In September 2022, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko chopped wood in front of the camera to satirize the energy crisis caused by European sanctions against Russia.
In November 2022, in Saint-Arvalde, eastern France, Chief Operating Officer George David stands next to a compressor at a coal-fired power plant. The plant was supposed to be permanently closed in late winter 2021, but the government resumed production due to the energy crisis.
The United States has built a "small courtyard and high wall" in high-tech fields such as semiconductors, and has continuously increased its "science and technology war" against China. Recently, senior U.S. government officials have put pressure on the Netherlands to force Dutch lithography giant ASML to cancel orders for deep ultraviolet lithography machines that were originally licensed to Chinese companies before export controls to China take full effect in January 2024. The United States' vain attempt to replicate the old routine of the technological blockade and embargo on China and block the pace of China's scientific and technological innovation and industrial upgrading is undoubtedly underestimating China's ability and determination to achieve scientific and technological independence.
The sixth board axe: strong inference chain, malicious manipulation of the international market
In the later part of the Cold War, in view of the Soviet Union's heavy dependence on oil exports, the Reagan administration implemented the "Saudi Action" plan for the sake of "drawing wages from the bottom of the kettle", using Saudi Arabia's increased oil production to short oil prices in the international market, seriously damaging the important pillar of the Soviet Union's foreign exchange earnings, causing it to lose tens of billions of dollars. At the same time, the fall in oil prices also reduced the revenues of Middle Eastern countries, which in turn reduced defense procurement spending on the Soviet Union, which indirectly hit the Soviet arms sales. The lack of foreign exchange prevented the Soviet Union from importing Western equipment, industrial materials and agricultural products, and large-scale projects were forced to stop due to lack of funds. It can be said that the depletion of foreign exchange was the last straw that crushed the Soviet economy.
Since the 80s of the 20th century, with the rapid development of Japanese semiconductor technology and its leading position in the global market, the United States has concocted fallacies such as "Japanese companies steal American technology" and "Japanese semiconductor industry threatens US national security", and continued to create a Japanese technology threat theory, so as to launch a "301 investigation" and force Sony and other major chip companies in the world to provide confidential data.
On the one hand, the United States has frantically suppressed Japan's semiconductor industry by signing bilateral agreements and anti-dumping investigations, and on the other hand, it has supported the semiconductor industry in South Korea, the Netherlands and other countries, and forcibly promoted the reshaping of the global semiconductor industry chain, breaking Japan's dream of reaching the top in key high-tech fields in one fell swoop.
In June 1987, five members of the U.S. Congress smashed a Toshiba radio in front of the Capitol to demand a ban on the import of Toshiba products from the United States.
Nowadays, under the banner of "national security", the United States is promoting "near-shore outsourcing" and "friendly shore outsourcing", and forcibly promoting the "de-risking" of the industrial chain.
Seventh Axe: Arms Race, Instigating Proxy Wars
After the Truman administration, the Eisenhower administration pursued a "strategy of massive retaliation" in an attempt to curb the so-called "communist expansion" by developing nuclear weapons and establishing a military alliance manipulated by the United States around the Soviet Union. The number of nuclear weapons in the United States soared from 50 in 1948 to 23,000 in 1961.
In the 80s of the 20 th century, in view of the fact that the United States and the Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear warheads to destroy the earth dozens of times, in order to divert the space for competition and expand its superiority, the Reagan administration put forward a space strategic defense plan, which induced the Soviet Union to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in a large-scale arms race.
The picture shows the cover of Time magazine in April 1983, which shows President Reagan and his proposal for the US-Soviet space "Star Wars Program".
The United States also actively instigated proxy wars, using the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war to drag the Soviet Union into the quagmire of war, exhausting the last vestige of the Soviet Union's national strength.
To this day, the United States is still trying to hollow out the one-China principle step by step, violating the provisions of the three Sino-US joint communiques, especially the "17 August" communique, speeding up the "arming of Taiwan" and supporting Taiwan's development of the so-called "porcupine strategy." Some people have even clamored for the "Ukrainization of the Taiwan issue" in an attempt to use Taiwan as a pawn to contain China's reunification and development.
In order to maintain its hegemony, the United States has wielded the "seven-plate axe" with extreme ferocity, and not only does not emphasize martial virtues, but also uses everything to the extreme. At present, the United States regards China as a stumbling block to maintaining its hegemony and is attempting to "strike at China halfway," which has reached the level of "opposing China whenever it encounters it."
But after all, the times have changed, and the United States keeps preaching equality for all, but it is engaged in America-supremacy and Anglo-Sasa racism in the world. China is not the Soviet Union, Japan, or the European Union, nor is it the late Qing Dynasty 120 years ago. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we defeated "more steel and less gas" with "less steel and more gas". If the United States today still wants to launch the wrong suppression at the wrong time and against the wrong target, it will only fail again in the face of the iron will of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese.
【Author】
[Source] Southern Press Media Group Southern + client