Four years ago award-winning left journalist John Pilger detected worrying political movements and made a documentary called The Coming War on China to sound the alarm about the direction the West was taking.
The film was made using crowdfunding money and given a single late night airing on TV. The BBC rarely broadcasts anything by lefty-Pilger and it was left to ITV to find a slot on a Tuesday in December.
At the time it was released Trump had started complaining online about the alleged bad deals made with China by former President Obama.
This led the the US imposing import duties on goods largely from China, and later these taxes were ramped up. All this happened with little response from China.
Much later the Whitehouse picked up on the ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong as a “freedom” cause it wanted to support. China was unhappy about what it saw as interference in its internal affairs.
All this time, in the background, there had been military rumblings and manoeuvrings in the South China Sea where the Chinese had laid claim to several uninhabited but disputed sandbars and islands where they built airfields and military posts.
This was disputed by Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, all wedded to the US. Trump decided to park an aircraft carrier and all its flotilla of support vessels in China’s backyard.
Australia joined in the verbal attacks on China and is now joining the US naval presence.
Under threat of a trade blacklisting, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has seen the error of his decision to defy Trump and use cheaper 5G equipment from Chinese company Huawei, the world’s telecommunications leader.
Over this time the UK media had been gradually turning up the volume on criticism of China and the UK government started to speak out.
The government eventually promised to loan the US its brand new aircraft carrier – when it’s finished – as we not yet have any planes that can use it.
So now seems the perfect time to take another look, or perhaps a first look, at The Coming War on China.
To see all Pilger’s documentaries go here.
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