Ken Livingstone 与中国的冷战突然到来

与中国的冷战突然到来

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/no-new-cold-war-china

2023 年 4 月 8 日

在短短几年内，我们已经从庆祝与中国的联系转变为撕毁重要关系并为军事冲突铺平道路——我们现在必须反对奥库斯和新的核军备竞赛，肯·利文斯通写道

2015 年，习近平和前首相戴维·卡梅伦在一家酒吧

作为一个经历过针对苏联及其盟国的第一次冷战的人，并且在政治上的一些重要方面受到了冷战的影响——包括我数十年来对核武器的反对——我非常清楚地看到了令人沮丧的迹象 美国、英国和其他少数国家煽动针对中国的新冷战。

在英国，我们看到：

● 与中国电信巨头华为的蓬勃发展关系因美国的坚持而破裂，导致5G基础设施被从我们的网络中剔除，增加了财政部的成本，并使我们陷入宽带慢车道。

● 禁止政府设备上广受欢迎的 TikTok 应用程序。

● 攻击和威胁关闭孔子学院，孔子学院在减少中国语言和文化教学方面的教育赤字方面发挥着不可估量的作用。

● 以可疑的国家安全为由实施制裁并拒绝中国公司投资，导致美国失去就业、市场和技术提升。

● 在伊恩·邓肯·史密斯等右翼分子的煽动下，禁止中国大使踏足威斯敏斯特宫。

毫不奇怪，这一切，再加上唐纳德·特朗普及其国际盟友试图将新冠疫情归咎于中国，导致针对华人和亚裔社区成员的种族主义攻击激增。

去年的保守党领袖竞选变成了一场毫无教益的逐底竞赛，里希·苏纳克被利兹·特拉斯拖入其中。 如果特拉斯没有在创纪录的时间内被可耻地赶下台，她将正式宣布中国为我国的敌人。 目前，苏纳克声称中国“是一个与我们价值观根本不同的国家，它对世界秩序构成了挑战”。

中国的崛起是我一生中世界历史上最伟大的事件之一。 我出生时，中国的预期寿命不到40岁。大约90%的人口是文盲。 这个国家因一个世纪以来的外国侵略、入侵、军阀割据和内战而四分五裂。 每年有数百万人死于洪水和饥荒。

这与今天的中国形成鲜明对比，中国即将超越美国成为世界上最大的经济体 — — 这是一个多世纪以来从未见过的变化。 中国的预期寿命已经超过美国。

根据世界银行的数据，中国已使约8亿人摆脱了贫困。

这种经济转型是所有正直的人都应该欢迎的。

当前针对中国的新冷战与几年前形成了鲜明对比。 随着2015年习近平主席的国事访问，英国首相戴维·卡梅伦和财政大臣乔治·奥斯本宣布我们的关系进入了“黄金时代”。 如今，即使是稍微附和他们的话，也被视为实际上的叛国行为。

20年前，当我2000年当选伦敦市长时，我就坚定了伦敦与中国发展积极关系的决心。 无论是作为世界领先的金融中心，还是欧洲最大的华人社区的所在地，这对我来说都是一个必要且自然的行动方针。

通过访问中国，我们的同行显然同样致力于发展繁荣互利的关系。 当然，我的政策已在保守党媒体上公布，但我们坚持不懈。

我们在伦敦、北京和上海设立了办事处，鼓励在证券交易所上市，将一年一度的中国新年庆祝活动带到了特拉法加广场，并扩大了时尚、设计和创意产业等各个领域的合作。

《每日邮报》可能不喜欢它，但我们得到了从伦敦金融城董事会到唐人街餐馆的支持，它给每个伦敦人带来了好处。

这些是今天需要的政策。 和平与繁荣的政策。 这些政策得到了最多元化的工党领袖的广泛支持，从托尼·布莱尔到戈登·布朗、埃德·米利班德到杰里米·科尔宾。

可悲的是，他们现在几乎没有得到基尔·斯塔默和他的影子外交大臣大卫·拉米的回应。 他们的政治视野似乎仅限于试图超越保守党，看看谁可以成为最好战的冷战战士。

正是这种新的政治共识导致了鲁莽的冒险，比如我们与澳大利亚和美国加入的奥库斯协议。

这项协议将让澳大利亚装备核动力潜艇，耗资数十亿美元，藐视核不扩散条约（NPT），

并增加了与核国家中国发生灾难性战争的危险。

所有这一切都是在我们面临生活成本危机的时候发生的，越来越多的人不再被迫在取暖和吃饭之间做出选择，因为他们买不起。

护士和小学教师是越来越依赖食品银行的关键工作人员，而食品银行又发现越来越难以满足对他们日益增长的需求。

然而，政府致力于大幅增加军费开支，这一水平已经是世界上最高的。

在经济面临巨大困难的情况下，我们竟然放弃中国市场提供的巨大机遇，而在核武器上浪费巨额资金，以煽动潜在的冲突，这简直就是一场淫秽的闹剧。 会杀死数百万人，完全没有必要，而且我们不可能赢得胜利。

与中国的冷战不符合英国人民的利益，新的核武器扩散也是如此。

劳工运动中的进步人士需要反对他们，并建立尽可能广泛的联盟来扭转灾难的局面。

您可以在 Twitter @Ken4London 和 Facebook @KenLivingstoneOfficial 上关注 Ken。

The sudden arrival of a cold war with China

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/no-new-cold-war-china

APRIL 8, 2023

Within a few short years we have gone from celebrating links with China to ripping up essential relationships and paving the ground for military conflict — we must now oppose Aukus and a new nuclear arms race, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

Xi Jinping and former PM David Cameron in a pub in 2015

AS SOMEONE who lived through the first cold war against the Soviet Union and its allies, and who was in some important respects politically shaped by it — including in terms of my decades-long opposition to nuclear weapons — I recognise all too well the depressing signs of a new cold war against China, being fomented by the US, Britain and a handful of other countries.

Here in Britain, we've seen:

● A thriving relationship with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei scuppered at US insistence, leaving 5G infrastructure to be ripped out of our networks, increasing costs to the Treasury and leaving us in the broadband slow lane.

● A ban on the massively popular TikTok app on government devices.

● Attacks and threats to close Confucius Institutes, which play an invaluable role in lessening our educational deficit in the teaching of Chinese language and culture.

● Sanctions and refusal of investment from Chinese companies on dubious national security grounds, costing us jobs, markets and technical upskilling.

● A ban on the Chinese ambassador setting foot in the Palace of Westminster, instigated by a vociferous gang of right-wingers like Iain Duncan Smith.

Not surprisingly, all this, along with the attempts to blame China for the Covid pandemic from Donald Trump and his allies internationally, has led to an upsurge in racist attacks on members of Chinese and Asian communities.

Last year’s Conservative Party leadership contest became an unedifying race to the bottom, to which Rishi Sunak was dragged by Liz Truss. Had she not been ignominiously booted out of office in record time, Truss was set to formally declare China as an enemy of our country. For now, Sunak claims that China “is a country with fundamentally different values to ours and it represents a challenge to the world order.”

The rise of China is one of the greatest events in world history in my lifetime. When I was born, life expectancy in China was under 40. Around 90 per cent of the population was illiterate. The country had been torn apart by a century of foreign aggression, invasion, warlordism and civil wars. Millions died every year from floods and famine.

What a contrast to today’s China, which is on the cusp of overtaking the US as the world’s greatest economy – a change unseen in over a century. China’s life expectancy has already overtaken that of the US.

Going on World Bank figures, China has lifted some 800 million people out of poverty.

This economic transformation is one that all decent people should welcome.

The present new cold war against China stands in stark contrast to the situation just a few years ago. With the 2015 state visit of President Xi Jinping, PM David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne declared that our relations had entered a “golden era.” Today, to even remotely echo their words is regarded as practically treasonous.

Twenty years ago, when I was elected London mayor in 2000, I was determined that London would develop positive relations with China. Whether as the world’s leading financial centre or as home to Europe’s largest Chinese community, this was a necessary and natural course of action for me.

Visiting China, it was clear that our counterparts there were equally invested in a thriving and mutually beneficial relationship. Of course, my policies were slated in the Tory press, but we pressed on.

We opened offices for London in Beijing and Shanghai, encouraged Stock Exchange listings, brought the annual celebration of Chinese New Year to Trafalgar Square, and expanded co-operation in a whole range of sectors, such as fashion, design and the creative industries.

The Daily Mail may not have liked it, but we were supported from the boardrooms of the City to the restaurants of Chinatown, and it brought benefits to every Londoner.

These are the policies that are needed today. Policies for peace and prosperity. Policies that were broadly supported by the most diverse range of Labour leaders, from Tony Blair through Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband to Jeremy Corbyn.

Sadly, they now find little or no echo from Keir Starmer and his shadow foreign secretary David Lammy. Their political horizons seem confined to attempting to outdo the Tories as to who can be the most bellicose cold warrior.

It is this new establishment political consensus that is leading to reckless adventures like the Aukus deal we have joined with Australia and the US.

This agreement, which will see Australia equipped with nuclear-powered submarines, will cost billions, flouts the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and heightens the danger of a catastrophic war with China, a nuclear power.

All this at a time when we face a cost-of-living crisis where an increasing number of people aren’t being forced to choose between heating and eating because they can’t afford either.

Where nurses and primary school teachers are among key workers increasingly reliant on food banks, which in turn are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the ever-growing demands placed on them.

Yet the government is committed to a massive increase in military spending levels that are already amongst the highest in the world.

And it is simply an obscene farce that, in this situation of huge economic difficulties, we should turn our backs on the huge opportunities offered by the Chinese market, in favour of squandering immense sums on nuclear arms, as part of stoking a potential conflict that would kill millions, would be utterly unnecessary, and which we couldn’t possibly win.

A cold war with China is against the interests of the British people, as is a new nuclear arms proliferation.

Progressives in the labour movement need to stand against them — and build the broadest possible alliance to reverse the slide to disaster.

You can follow Ken on Twitter @Ken4London and Facebook @KenLivingstoneOfficial.