Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Ashokk · Post by **Ashokk** » 29 Jan 2021 01:33

Hot Summer On The LAC? Looking Ahead At India-China Relations

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 29 Jan 2021 02:22

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... back-japan
US takes aim at China territorial claims as Biden vows to back Japan
US president smooths over Trump-era complaints to deepen Japan security alliance as new secretary of state rejects Beijing’s South China Sea claims
Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Wed 27 Jan 2021
Joe Biden has vowed to strengthen the US’s alliance with Japan to counter growing Chinese military activity in the volatile Asia-Pacific region, including a commitment to defend the Senkakus, a group of islands in the East China sea administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.
The US president and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga agreed during a phone call that their countries’ security alliance was “the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
Biden’s vow to strengthen security arrangements in the region contrasted with the approach taken by Donald Trump, who publicly mulled withdrawing troops from Japan and South Korea, both key US allies.
Trump also complained that Tokyo and Seoul were not paying enough towards their own security and called on them to buy more US-made defence equipment.
“We managed to have substantial exchanges,” Suga said after his 30-minute call with Biden. “We agreed to strengthen our alliance firmly by having more phone calls like this.” Biden reaffirmed the US commitment to provide “extended deterrence” to Japan, a reference to the US nuclear umbrella, the White House said in a statement.They also agreed on the need for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, as speculation mounts over how Biden intends to engage with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, over his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
.....
Gautam

SRajesh · Post by **SRajesh** » 29 Jan 2021 18:44

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/a- ... -dhp-feeds
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 94173.html
Here we go: China will now lay claim to whole of Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Myanmar the Nanzhao Empire, basically with everybody in the south-east Asia where they have territorial dispute.
Very Handy to find such archaeological remains!!!
At this rate they lay claim to whole of India because of Hueng Tsang or Fahain!!

durairaaj · Post by **durairaaj** » 29 Jan 2021 20:00

yensoy wrote:... He is a seasoned diplomat who knows how to apply increasing levels of pressure as required using all tools at his disposal.

I hope you have come across the following msg in SM.
Tweet of what EAM S.Jaishankar mentioned as China's follies
I dont know how many levels of increasing pressure, the external affairs minister has applied so far. But, reading the above tweet, if its true, his pressure tools don't work or not deployed yet. Stapled visas are a decade old problem. It seems it has not been solved yet. Even with all these they continue to import so many stuffs from China.

Have you ever come across any other country advertising in public, how the other country is causing hurt? Reading the above appears like EAM is whining, expressing hurt and dissatisfaction and venting in public.

The only pressure level for which China responded was deployed by the valiant heros of Galwan. We don't seem to respect that adequately too. The major awards and recognition should have gone to the CO of the 3rd Punjab, who initiated the attack and the people who lost their lives during the couner attack. But the award has gone to the CO who lost his life during ambush. What sort of rewarding methodology we follow, I don't understand. I am not discrediting the sacrifice of lives of people in the ambush. But, the major awards and recognition should go to the units that took the initative and mounted the counter attack and gave Chinese, a bloody nose.

yensoy wrote: ... Regarding using Taiwan for geopolitical purposes - please keep in mind that Taiwan itself wants to stay under the radar in a state of ambiguous independence because it has the most to lose if China is provoked. We can certainly cement business relations with Taiwan but guess what PRC-Taiwan business connections are way deeper than ours will ever be.

Taiwan relationship is for improving our industrial ecosystem. Neither India nor Taiwan are in a position to help each other geo-politically or militarily. But Taiwan is in a very good position to invest and improve India's technology ecosystem. With that understanding, GoI should be running behind them for investment. But, the entire Govt. including politicians are not even responding to public social media messages to avoid antogonizing China. Not only Taiwan, GoI is not responding to Australia's overtures too.

nam · Post by **nam** » 29 Jan 2021 21:05

It doesn't matter what EAM says or PM says or don't say. What matter is we are forward deployed, carry out counter salami and trade sanction Chinese exports & companies to India.

In the meantime, we get allied to US and get companies out of China in to India.

The worst the Chinese can do is go to war. They still have to guard the 3500KM border after the war.

We will never run out of men to guard the LAC nor for a fight.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 31 Jan 2021 08:39

Chinese biotech firm offered to build COVID labs in US, likely to try to collect Americans' DNA: report
https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-b ... ricans-dna
....
BGI Group, touted as the largest biotech firm in the world, offered to build and run testing labs in Washington, New York and California, among other states.

The offer raised suspicions and led Bill Evanina, then-director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, to warn the states against the offer.
....

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 31 Jan 2021 09:44

Very important to delink China in every aspect, every nation

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 01 Feb 2021 01:23

The economic survey reports information on trade balances with major partners for the year up to November 2020.
Economic Survey 2020-21
Table 3 shows the impact of Indian constrictions on Chinese goods - the trade deficit with China for April-November is down by over $10 billion. Temporarily, there's likely to remain significant imports from China where capital goods are imported as part of moving manufacturing over, but losing $10 billion in business is a big deal. Hopefully the full year figure is closer to -$20 billion for them - a good valuation as to the cost to them from their Galwan misadventure.

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 01 Feb 2021 01:35

Suraj wrote:The economic survey reports information on trade balances with major partners for the year up to November 2020.
Economic Survey 2020-21
Table 3 shows the impact of Indian constrictions on Chinese goods - the trade deficit with China for April-November is down by over $10 billion. Temporarily, there's likely to remain significant imports from China where capital goods are imported as part of moving manufacturing over, but losing $10 billion in business is a big deal. Hopefully the full year figure is closer to -$20 billion for them - a good valuation as to the cost to them from their Galwan misadventure.

Isn't India's overall imports down? What's China's share of all Indian imports like? I think that would tell a fuller story.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 01 Feb 2021 01:37

By all means, use the document to make whatever conclusions suit you better.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 01 Feb 2021 09:49

China may seek to close nuclear gap after US and Russia agree to extend New START treaty - South China Morning Post

The extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia to 2026 may not only prevent an out-of-control arms race but also gives China an additional five-year buffer period.

Chinese military experts and sources said the extension, announced by the White House on Tuesday, means the gap between China and the two nuclear giants, which own 90 per cent of the world’s warheads, will not widen and Beijing can spend the next five years catching up.

In the 1980s, the US and former Soviet Union each possessed more than 10,000 warheads, but these stockpiles have been cut to between 5,000 to 6,500 under the New START, which aims to reduce the total to just 1,550 as the ultimate goal.

China has not disclosed how many warheads it has, but an assessment by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put the number at 320.

However, a source close to the Chinese military said that its stockpile of nuclear warheads had risen to 1,000 in recent years, but less than 100 of them are active. {By 'active', they mean 'mated' and ready-to-fire. There are six Type-094 SSBNs each with 12 tubes for JL-2 SLBMs. Some of the SLBMs are MIRVd.}

“Both the US and Russia have competed with each other to upgrade their nuclear arms over the past few years, especially their intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs], submarine-launched and airborne missiles, as well as other new weapons to upgrade their nuclear triad capability,” the source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, said.

“Since [late leader] Deng Xiaoping’s era, the Beijing leadership has believed that the country doesn’t need so many expensive weapons, because the exorbitant maintenance costs would drag down China’s economic development,” the source said.

The source said China has a strict nuclear arms control mechanism which means only the chairman of the Central Military Commission – now President Xi Jinping – has the right to decide the deployment of nuclear warheads.

“Nuclear warheads would be distributed to the rocket force only when a war is likely to happen,” the source said.

Hong Kong-based military affairs commentator and former PLA instructor Song Zhongping said Beijing might use the five-year period to narrow the nuclear modernisation gap with the US and Russia.

“Based on the fact that China currently has only about 100 nuclear warheads in active service, it is not enough to completely destroy all major cities in the US,” Song said.

In 2018, China disclosed that its air-launched CJ-20 cruise missiles, with a range of 2,000km (1,200 miles), were able to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, indicating it had finally caught up with the US and Russia’s preliminary strategic technology.

“But that means the PLA just completed the initial requirement of the nuclear triad’s second-strike capability in recent years, but the US and Russia completed most of the nuclear triad in the early 1960s during the Cold War,” said Zhou Chenming, a researcher from Yuan Wang, a Beijing-based military science and technology institute.

Zhou said the extension of New START gave China more time to reconsider its future security policy, including biochemical weapons as well as nuclear.

“If China is going to join the New-START in the future, Beijing needs to adjust its strategic weapons development direction, for example, no more long-range strategic bombers and ICBMs, which may be cut,” he said, referring to calls from Washington that the treaty should also include Beijing

However, the Chinese military source and observers said even though Beijing may benefit from the extension of the treaty, it is worried that the US would exert more pressure on it to join.

In an article published by the Washington-based news website The Hill, Rose Gottemoeller, who served as the State Department’s top arms control official during the Obama administration, said Joe Biden’s administration should try to bring China to the negotiating table.

“We also need to draw China into talks, to focus on constraining the intermediate range missiles at the heart of its force structure – the ‘carrier killers’ that are dangerous to our naval operations in the Pacific,” Gottemoeller wrote.

She was referring to the PLA’s DF-21 and DF-26 dual-capability intermediate-range ballistic missiles, a type of weapon banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the US and Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War.

Gottemoeller said urgent discussions were needed on whether the hypersonic glide vehicles and other new weapons with nuclear strike capabilities should be defined as strategic weapons and covered by the treaty.

David Santoro, vice-president and director of nuclear policy at the Pacific Forum, a Honolulu-based affiliate of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said that if Washington and Moscow wanted to bring China to the negotiating table, the pair may also have to include nuclear states like India, Pakistan and North Korea.

“It’s possible to imagine realistic trilateral (US-Russia-China) arms control bargains. By and large, however, multilateralising arms control is more likely to be successful if it includes all or most nuclear-armed states,” Santoro said.

But he stressed that the three powers faced another challenge to reaching an agreement because both the US and Russia have large strategic nuclear arsenals, but lack intermediate-range forces, which China has fully developed. {That's the gap that Russia was clandestinely trying to bridge with its Iskander-M that ultimately led to collapse of the INF}

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 03 Feb 2021 03:29

It's okay to say chinese now. As always Russians confirmed irrespective of the facts and chinese suspected irrespective of the facts.

Exclusive: Suspected Chinese hackers used SolarWinds bug to spy on U.S. payroll agency - sources
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cybe ... SKBN2A22K8
....
Security researchers have previously said a second group of hackers was abusing SolarWinds’ software at the same time as the alleged Russian hack, but the suspected connection to China and ensuing U.S. government breach have not been previously reported.

Reuters was not able to establish how many organizations were compromised by the suspected Chinese operation. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations, said the attackers used computer infrastructure and hacking tools previously deployed by state-backed Chinese cyberspies.
....

m_saini · Post by **m_saini** » 04 Feb 2021 01:43

'Their goal is to destroy everyone': Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape

The men always wore masks, Tursunay Ziawudun said, even though there was no pandemic then.

They wore suits, she said, not police uniforms.

Sometime after midnight, they came to the cells to select the women they wanted and took them down the corridor to a "black room", where there were no surveillance cameras.

Several nights, Ziawudun said, they took her.

"Perhaps this is the most unforgettable scar on me forever," she said.

Perhaps we can donate a few chawanees to Rihanna and to khalifa's onlyfans to speak out against the actual genocide here

S_Madhukar · Post by **S_Madhukar** » 04 Feb 2021 01:46

Money didn’t help us in Cashmere we just need Dandneeti

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 05 Feb 2021 04:53

Neuter this!

China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

A notice from China's education ministry has caused a stir after it suggested young Chinese men had become too "feminine".

the country's most popular male role models are no longer strong, athletic figures like "army heroes".

The Proposal to Prevent the Feminisation of Male Adolescents called on schools to fully reform their offerings on physical education and strengthen their recruitment of teachers.

Last May, a delegate of China's top advisory body, Si Zefu, said that many of China's young males had become "weak, timid, and self-abasing".

Si Zefu said the home environment was partly to blame, with most Chinese boys being raised by their mothers or grandmothers.

Haraam link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55926248

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 05 Feb 2021 09:23

No let up in pressure on the Red Panda.

Biden Commerce Pick Sees ‘No Reason’ to Lift Huawei Curbs

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -blacklist

rajpa · Post by **rajpa** » 05 Feb 2021 10:24

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content ... -telegram/

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/tr ... have-read/

American strategy emerges to contain China.. starting with Xi Jumping. Similar to thoughts echoed here on BRF....

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 05 Feb 2021 23:19

UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ournalists

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 06 Feb 2021 04:57

The challenge of FONOPS

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 07 Feb 2021 22:38

China lashes out after U.K. media regulator strips TV license from Chinese state broadcaster

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china ... eid=yhoof2

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 07 Feb 2021 23:35

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ ... 774108.ece

India has transgressed LAC more often than China: V.K. Singh

No surprise at all.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 08 Feb 2021 04:30

Double post

yensoy · Post by **yensoy** » 08 Feb 2021 06:33

sanjaykumar wrote:https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ ... 774108.ece
India has transgressed LAC more often than China: V.K. Singh
No surprise at all.

Sorry this quote is going to do more harm than good. Hope it gets forgotten soon.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 08 Feb 2021 07:40

Let’s stop being apologetic for crushing china’s toes.

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 08 Feb 2021 11:19

Pathetic. This is the 21st century's Neville Chamberlain.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/0 ... ing-466761

Biden won’t deal with Xi or China like Trump did
"We need not have a conflict," the president said.

Adrija · Post by **Adrija** » 08 Feb 2021 12:55

Post by rajpa » 05 Feb 2021 04:54 am

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content ... -telegram/

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/tr ... have-read/

American strategy emerges to contain China.. starting with Xi Jumping. Similar to thoughts echoed here on BRF....

read the entire "Longer Telegram" over the weekend........ a big step forward but still flawed, IMVVVHO- they are looking as if Xi is an aberration in the Chinese system, without accepting (or wanting to accept) that the entire Han nation is bent on domination and toppling US from its perch, and not just Xi as an individual....IOW, replace Xi and someone equally like minded will take his place...

it IS a big step forward, but the danger is that they will relax and let Cheen revert back to normal trade (and subversion) as soon as Xi is/ if replaced........ without realizing that they would have won just one small perhaps insignificant battle and the war would be still going on... perhaps even more fiercely

Still, as I said, at least a step forward

ArjunPandit · Post by **ArjunPandit** » 08 Feb 2021 21:30

yensoy wrote:
sanjaykumar wrote:https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ ... 774108.ece
India has transgressed LAC more often than China: V.K. Singh
No surprise at all.
Sorry this quote is going to do more harm than good. Hope it gets forgotten soon.

looking at headline only, i would say nothing bad in that..we have stepped on the tail of lizard (even if monitor) and dared it. We should be absolutely unafraid and unashamed of it. Eff diplomacy!
We will do what suits indian interests than anything else.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 08 Feb 2021 23:05

DavidD wrote:
Suraj wrote:The economic survey reports information on trade balances with major partners for the year up to November 2020.
Economic Survey 2020-21
Table 3 shows the impact of Indian constrictions on Chinese goods - the trade deficit with China for April-November is down by over $10 billion. Temporarily, there's likely to remain significant imports from China where capital goods are imported as part of moving manufacturing over, but losing $10 billion in business is a big deal. Hopefully the full year figure is closer to -$20 billion for them - a good valuation as to the cost to them from their Galwan misadventure.
Isn't India's overall imports down? What's China's share of all Indian imports like? I think that would tell a fuller story.

Crude petroleum imports saw the biggest decline. Telecom equipment, electronics, and computer equipment/peripherals remained steady or small increases.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 09 Feb 2021 00:52

China is the only country on that list from which imports were explicitly targeted. The other poster asks for a causal relationship, implying that there's only a correlative one (imports from everywhere dropped, China just more so). But the reality is that China was the only one explicitly targeted, and that shows in the data. There's an indirect causal relationship in the drop in crude imports, since there was a drop in economic activity from the lockdown.

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 09 Feb 2021 01:43

Suraj wrote:China is the only country on that list from which imports were explicitly targeted. The other poster asks for a causal relationship, implying that there's only a correlative one (imports from everywhere dropped, China just more so). But the reality is that China was the only one explicitly targeted, and that shows in the data. There's an indirect causal relationship in the drop in crude imports, since there was a drop in economic activity from the lockdown.

How does it show in the data? The linked article states that imports from China dropped from $46.9 to 38.8 billion, about a 20% drop, whereas imports from other major trading partners e.g. US (25.1 to 16.3), SK (10.9 to 7.1) and of course the petrol nations dropped more percentage-wise.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 09 Feb 2021 01:47

chinese showing european invaders who's the boss.

Amidst call to boycott 2020 Beijing Winter Olympics, Canada says it would warn athletes against publicly criticising China
https://www.opindia.com/2021/02/canada- ... pics-2022/
As China gears up to host the 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing in February next year, the call to boycott the winter games being hosted by China next year has been growing. Amidst all this, the Canadian Olympic organisers have said that they would warn its athletes to refrain from openly criticising China ahead of the winter games. The decision was taken due to concerns that the Communist Party’s critics could be prosecuted under the draconian national security law
....

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 09 Feb 2021 02:05

You're interested in the import data. I'm interested in the trade balance. US and SoKo show a YoY drop in both imports and exports and a small improvement in trade balance. The gain in surplus against China is more than 2x the gain against anyone else who's not a source of hydrocarbons or gems/gold (e.g. Switzerland). The latter will naturally revert to the norm as the economy recovers.

The top 5 US import items to India (USTR data) are mineral fuels ($8.2 billion), precious metal and stone (diamonds) ($6.4 billion), aircraft ($2.8 billion), machinery ($2.4 billion), and organic chemicals ($1.9 billion). Indian exports to US were primarily precious metal and stone (diamonds) ($11 billion), pharmaceuticals ($7.6 billion), machinery ($3.7 billion), mineral fuels ($3.6 billion), and organic chemicals ($2.8 billion). The main items in both directions are impacted by Covid driven slowdowns, except for pharmaceuticals from India. There's no explicit policy in action here.

India's top 3 imports from China are electrical and electronic goods, machinery and organic chemicals. This is primarily concentrated in mobile phones and other gadgets. For example, Xiaomi went from 30% marketshare in Q2 to 23% within a single quarter, falling behind Samsung, while others (especially Apple with local manufacturing growing) picked up share. This is at a time when YoY smartphone sales are growing at double digits.

But yeah this could be better - more needs to be done to squeeze the Chinese companies out. Easier to ban apps than to find effective ways to ban products.

DavidD · Post by **DavidD** » 09 Feb 2021 02:11

Suraj wrote:You're interested in the import data. I'm interested in the trade balance. US and SoKo show a YoY drop in both imports and exports and a small improvement in trade balance. The gain in surplus against China is more than 2x the gain against anyone else who's not a source of hydrocarbons or gems/gold (e.g. Switzerland). The latter will naturally revert to the norm as the economy recovers.

The top 5 US import items to India (USTR data) are mineral fuels ($8.2 billion), precious metal and stone (diamonds) ($6.4 billion), aircraft ($2.8 billion), machinery ($2.4 billion), and organic chemicals ($1.9 billion). Indian exports to US were primarily precious metal and stone (diamonds) ($11 billion), pharmaceuticals ($7.6 billion), machinery ($3.7 billion), mineral fuels ($3.6 billion), and organic chemicals ($2.8 billion). The main items in both directions are impacted by Covid driven slowdowns, except for pharmaceuticals from India. There's no explicit policy in action here.

India's top 3 imports from China are electrical and electronic goods, machinery and organic chemicals. This is primarily concentrated in mobile phones and other gadgets. For example, Xiaomi went from 30% marketshare in Q2 to 23% within a single quarter, falling behind Samsung, while others (especially Apple with local manufacturing growing) picked up share. This is at a time when YoY smartphone sales are growing at double digits.

But yeah this could be better - more needs to be done to squeeze the Chinese companies out. Easier to ban apps than to find effective ways to ban products.

If India's actions were targeted against Chinese imports, wouldn't it make sense to look at just the imports? Wouldn't that be more likely to show a causal relationship?

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 09 Feb 2021 02:28

A drop in import of goods that were the target of a public boycott isn't causal ? Indian policy has long sought to address the trade balance and has seldom spent much time on absolute numbers of exports and imports. E.g.

Getting the deficit down to a five year low matters to policymakers, and the goal now is to keep it there and improve it further in India's favor, by continuing to use tariff and non-tariff barriers. In the short term, I think this will be slow since some machinery will be imported from China to accomplish this, after which imports of the corresponding finished goods will drop.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 09 Feb 2021 06:02

NRao wrote:The challenge of FONOPS

[img...]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtfxLbzXYAI ... name=large[/img]

So the US battleship did not cross the blue dashed line.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 10 Feb 2021 20:43

https://www.rediff.com/news/report/indi ... 210210.htm
Indian, Chinese troops begin disengagement in Ladakh: China
By K J M Varma, February 10, 2021
The frontline troops of China and India at the south and north banks of the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh started synchronised and organised disengagement from Wednesday, the Chinese defence ministry spokesperson announced in Beijing.
There was no comment from the Indian side on the statement made by the Chinese defence ministry spokesperson Colonel Wu Qian, and carried by China's official media.
According to the consensus reached by the 9th round of the Commander-level talks between China and India, the frontline units of the Chinese and Indian armed forces began organised disengagement from North and South banks of the Pangong Lake from February 10, Wu said in a brief press release.
......
Gautam
Also: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/ch ... r-BB1dzcRz
Got to see it before believing.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 10 Feb 2021 22:11

'Don't talk to me about having a baby': Chinese avoid the bedroom despite looming population crisis

Couples in China weren’t much in the mood to get busy in the bedroom during the country's various lockdowns last year, dashing the government’s hopes of a post-pandemic baby boom to stave off a looming population crisis.

Ten million births were registered in 2020, 15 per cent lower than the previous year, and hitting a new record low since the 1960s, when China was in the middle of a famine.

In recent years, Chinese couples have become less willing to have children due to the rising cost of housing, health care and education. Even Beijing’s 2016 decision to scrap a decades-long one-child policy had little impact.

“House prices [are] the best contraceptive pill,” one person posted online.

“There are many regulations on pandemic prevention and housing compounds always ask people to quarantine,” scoffed one person online. “That’s upsetting enough, don’t talk to me about having a baby.”

“It would be such a headache if one gets pregnant during the pandemic and has to go to the hospital,” said another.

“Locking men and women up at home could by no means increase birth rate, but the divorce rate would definitely spike,” said one online post.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 11 Feb 2021 00:40

If I'm not mistaken, Google US news feeds are in extremely positive mood for chinese arrival to Mars. UAE one is also there but that could be just piggybacking on Google's enthusiasm about china.

Not sure if that would have been the case if it was Indian or Russian one.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 11 Feb 2021 02:30

A vid based on an article in Financial Times published on Feb 1, 2021

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 11 Feb 2021 04:01

Biden: ‘I Will Never Politicize’ US Troops

.....

Biden also announced a new Pentagon-led review of the U.S. military strategy towards China, including operational concepts, force posture, and technology concerns. The task force is expected to work over the next several months to produce recommendations for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to guide his approach to China.

......