News & views …

In late November Debs is dead and I wrote about the ruthless vaccine competition. The cause were the ambiguous results of the non-profit AstraZeneca vaccine trials which led to delighted criticism from those who prefer commercial vaccine suppliers.

The good news today is that cooperation between vaccine developers is still possible and can lead to better results.

As Debs had opined:

In the real world that means if the AstraZeneca vaccine is more than 60% efficacious (which is better than any flu vaccine – 95% is new big pharma BS IMO) and has no major side effects (one case of MS tells us nothing for the reason I outlined above), then it will be that or nothing for a sizeable slab of the world’s population.

If everyone falls for big pharma’s transparent attempt to stop this possible vaccine in its tracks, prior to testing completion, then that will mean no vaccine for billions of our fellow humans, so rather than joining in the big pharma sabotage, it makes better sense to consider that vaccine more objectively than de Noli, that Harvard minion of corporations seems to do.

I agreed with that and discussed the most likely reason why the AstraZeneca vaccine did not create a higher efficacy:

The AstraZeneca vaccine uses an adenovirus as ‘vector’ to deliver a DNA sequence that human cells then use to create one specific (but harmless) SARS-CoV-2 protein. The immune system will then learn to attack that protein. Afterwards it should be able to protect against SARS-CoV-2 infections.
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In order to safeguard against cases where an already existing immunity to human adenoviruses may impede inoculation AstraZeneca is using a chimpanzee-originated version of an adenovirus as a vector. The Russian Sputnik V vaccine, hyped by Prof. de Noli on RT,  uses two doses with different human adenoviruses (Ad-26, Ad-5) as vectors to increase the chance of inoculation. Other vaccine developers, CanSino Biologics and Johnson & Johnson, are also using adenovirus vectors. Sinopharm’s vaccine uses an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus.

AstraZeneca found by chance that its vaccine works best when the first dose is smaller than the second one. Vector immunity can explain why this is the case.

A first high dose will create some immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also some immunity against the vector virus, the chimpanzee-originated adenovirus. When a first high dose has trained the immune system to fight the vector virus the second ‘booster’ vaccine dose using the same vector will become inefficient. A lower first dose can make sure that the second higher dose is not prematurely defeated by vector immunity but can still do its work.

Unbeknownst to me the Russian developers of the Sputnik V vaccine had come to the same conclusion:

Cont. reading: Russian Cooperation Saves British Vaccine

During his 2016 campaign Donald Trump seemed to argue for better relations with Russia. After he was elected as president a slew of negative stories about Russia and its alleged relation with Trump came about. The onslaught continued throughout Trump's presidency. The desired effect was to prevent Trump from realizing his campaign promise. Under constant pressure to prove that he was not 'Putin's puppet' he ended up worsening the already bad relations with Russia.

During his 2020 campaign Joe Biden argued for less hostile relations with China than implemented under the Trump administration. He will likely follow the relatively dovish policy recommendations of the Brookings Institution. The tariffs Trump imposed will now come under review. Allies will be asked to form a common strategy. But the main China focus will not be on hostilities in Asia but on domestic policies:

Biden has said he will focus on ending China’s coercive economic tactics, including intellectual property theft and aggressive government subsidies for Chinese corporations. He also has called for an ambitious industrial policy in the United States that would invest in American infrastructure, energy, biotech and other sectors to compete with China from a position of strength at home.

“The most decisive factor in the economic competition with China is U.S. domestic policy,” Kurt Campbell, a top State Department official during the Obama administration, and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s incoming national security adviser, wrote in a 2019 article in Foreign Affairs magazine. They said that the notion of a new “Sputnik moment” may be overstating the point, but that the United States must compete with China by investing in American economic and technological leadership at home.

Biden's nomination of retired general Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense points to less friction with China. That is why the China hawks immediately attacked it.

Ashley Townshend @ashleytownshend – 21:37 UTC · Dec 8, 2020

With all due respect for the critical issues raised in this letter, Biden’s failure to mention China or the Indo-Pacific strategic landscape in his justification of SECDEF pick Austin will be viewed with great concern by allies and partners in the region.

Why I Chose Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense

His selection of Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative also ensures that relations with China will be more level:

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to select Katherine Tai, the chief trade lawyer for the House Ways and Means Committee, as the United States trade representative, a key post that will bear responsibility for enforcing America’s trade rules and negotiating new trading terms with China and other countries, according to people familiar with the plans.

Ms. Tai has garnered strong support from colleagues in Congress, who credit her with helping to wrangle an unruly collection of politicians and interest groups in negotiations to pass the revised North American Free Trade Agreement.
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Supporters say Ms. Tai is also uniquely positioned to address economic challenges from China, regarded as America’s biggest source of competition in the trade sphere.

In addition to litigating trade disputes against China at the World Trade Organization over issues including subsidies and export restraints, Ms. Tai worked on China-related issues during her time in the House, including strategies to reshore American supply chains and legislation to bar imports made with forced labor from Uighurs and other minorities in China.

Ms. Tai has a background in China, having served as a teaching fellow there in the late 1990s and speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese.

But just like Trump was boxed in on Russia there seem to be efforts underway to limit the extend to which Biden can work with China.

In early November Peter Lee reported of a clumsy attempt to attack Biden for his previous China policies:

Cont. reading: How The China Hawks Try To Counter Biden’s ‘Dovish’ Policies

Will the president-elect Joe Biden increase the hostility with China or will he stick to the usual U.S. policy of messing up the Middle East?

His selection of the new Defense Secretary provides an answer.

It confirms the worst fears of the China hawks who have already worked behind the scene to sabotage Biden.

Michèle Flournoy was predicted to become Secretary of Defense in a Joe Biden administration. Flournoy is a China hawk:

In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs in June, Flournoy said that as Washington's ability and resolve to counter Beijing's military assertiveness in the region declined, the US needed a solid deterrence to reduce the risk of "miscalculation" by China's leadership.

"For example, if the US military had the capability to credibly threaten to sink all of China's military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours, Chinese leaders might think twice before, say, launching a blockade or invasion of Taiwan; they would have to wonder whether it was worth putting their entire fleet at risk," Flournoy said.

Defence and diplomatic observers said that realising that idea would come at huge cost but appointing its advocate would signal that the US would keep piling military pressure on China.

Luckily Biden decided against Flournoy and nominated retired general Lloyd Austin for the job:

In picking Austin, Biden has chosen a barrier-breaking former four-star officer who was the first Black general to command an Army division in combat and the first to oversee an entire theater of operations. Austin’s announcement could come as soon as Tuesday morning, people familiar with the plans said Monday.

Austin, who also ran U.S. Central Command before retiring in 2016, emerged as a top-tier candidate in recent days after initially being viewed as a longshot for the job. Michèle Flournoy, Obama’s former Pentagon policy chief, was initially viewed as the frontrunner, but her name was notably absent from Biden’s rollout of key members of his national security team two weeks ago.

As Secretary of Defense Flournoy would have been quite independent. She is known for countering White House policies she does not like:

When Biden pushed to draw down troops from Iraq while vice president, Flournoy, then Pentagon policy chief, and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen opposed the idea. Austin did not.

Austin is in contrast a team player:

Cont. reading: China Hawks Outraged About Biden’s Defense Nominee

Imperial propaganda often depicts a perceived enemy as 'weak and dangerous'.  Supposedly the enemy is simultaneously strong (we must be wary of it) and weak (we can beat it).

It does not make sense.

A similar dysfunctional logic is often used with regards to sanctions. Iran is weak and will implode any minute now. We need to sanction it more to foster that process. Iran is dangerous and will lash out any minute now. We need to sanction it more to preempt that.

The nonsense is used again and again:

Iraq:

• A Weak Iraq Could Be As Dangerous As a Strong Iraq – Baltimore Sun, Jan 20 1991

Russia:

• Russia Is Dangerous But Weak – WSJ, Aug 26 2008
• Weak Russia, Dangerous Russia – Atlantic Council, Aug 10 2009
• A Weak Russia Is A Dangerous Russia For BP – Forbes, Oct 22 2012

Iranl:

• Ros-Lehtinen to Grill Kerry on 'Weak and Dangerous' Iran Deal – Newsmax Jul 25 2015
• Senate Threatens New Sanctions Ahead of ‘Weak and Dangerous’ Deal with Iran – Washington Free Bacon, Nov 20 2014
• Senators Blast Obama's 'Weak and Dangerous' Deal with Iran – Newsmax, Nov 20 2014

China:

• China’s Deceptively Weak (and Dangerous) Military – Diplomat, Jan 13 2014
• China Is Both Weak and Dangerous – Foreign Policy, Dec 7 2020

It is somewhat funny that the same stupid stereotype is used internally:

Obama:

• Romney casts Obama's foreign policy as weak, dangerous – Reuters, Oct 11 2012

Trump:

• Trump’s Approach To Russia Is Weak And Dangerous – Jewish Press, Aug 11 2016
• 'Weak and dangerous': Schumer and Pelosi condemn Trump remarks and church 'photo-op' – Washington Examiner, Jun 1 2020

Impeachment:

• Dems' Trump impeachment case 'weak’ and dangerous, House Judiciary Republicans argue as report is released – Fox News, Dec 16 2019
• Pelosi Blows Off Impeachment Critics, Says It’s ‘Weak,’ ‘Dangerous’ To Let Election Decide – Daily Caller, Nov 18 2019

Biden:

• Tom Cotton: Joe Biden would return America to a weak and dangerous past – Fox News, Aug 28 2020

Is such propaganda really having an effect? Who is the audience?

h/t Mark Ames

The Boeing 737 MAX, grounded in March 2019 after two MAX accidents killed 346 people, will soon fly again in commercial traffic.

Gol Airlines, a Brazilian carrier, said it planned to start flights aboard the Boeing 737 Max on Wednesday, making it the first airline to fly passengers on the plane since it was grounded worldwide almost two years ago.

The first flights will be on domestic routes to and from Gol’s hub in São Paulo, with the company expecting all seven of the Max planes in its fleet to be updated and cleared to fly by the end of the month. A Gol spokeswoman declined to provide further details.
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In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration last month became the first regulator to allow the plane to fly again, after required modifications are made. The agency was recently joined by regulators in Brazil, while the European aviation authority has suggested that it plans to lift its ban within weeks. Relatives of those killed in the crashes criticized the decision to allow the plane to fly again, arguing that it remains unsafe.

Flight safety is always relative. Less than one potential accident in a billion flight hours is the usual design criteria for flight critical systems. The original MCAS trim system that caused the two crashes was designed to a much lower level of safety even though it was a critical system.

As the plane has now been scrutinized by several international safety agencies and has received significant updates I see no reason why the 737 MAX should still be regarded as less safe than any other plane. But that is the rational approach. For many people flying is an emotional issues and those who can avoid to fly on a MAX will probably do so.

The once glorious company Boeing, the creator of the majestic 747, has been ruined by a management that neglected safety and quality to maximize shareholder value.

Boeing has decisively lost its leading rank as biggest global airplane manufacturer. Following the MAX grounding and the bankruptcy of many airlines due to the pandemic orders for and deliveries of new Boeing planes have fallen off a cliff:

Cont. reading: Boeing’s 737 MAX Is Back In The Air But Anti-Chinese White House Action Could Still Endanger The Company

Alastair Crooke has written another concise summary of the U.S. foreign policy problem with regards to Iran:

Biden’s Iran Deal Faces Iran’s ‘Red Pill’

Biden says he wants – through diplomacy – to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran – i.e. a JCPOA ‘Plus + Plus’. The Europeans desperately concur with this aspiration. But the ‘deal protocols’ that his ‘A-Team’ inherits from the Obama era have always contained seeds to failure.

The Iran question is not about nuclear missiles. These are impractical weapons and Iran has no interest in gaining them. The nuclear issue is simply used as a lever to press on Iran.

The real issues is Iran's role in the region. The Shia are a majority around the Persian Gulf and the various Sunni Arab dictatorships see them as a danger to their rule. Israel exaggerates the Iran issue to press the U.S. for weapons free of charge and additional subsidies.

What the Biden administration and the European poodles want Iran to have is less influence in its region and less missiles to defend its country from attacks.

Iran will of course not agree to restrictions on either. And why should it?

After four years of tight sanctions from the Trump administration, which were greatly supported by the Europeans, Iran has changed its economic structure and orientation. Oil revenues now play a much smaller role in the government budget than they did before the sanctions. The economy has adapted by concentrating on business with non-western countries. Iran is looking east.

Further sanctions will thereby not modify Iran's position or behavior. At some point the Biden administration will have to concede that fact.

That then leaves war as the only option to reach the expressed desire of the 'west'. But the 'red pill' of Iran's military posture prevents that.

In September 2019 Iranian made missiles and drones took out half of Saudi Arabia's oil production.

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In January 2020 Iran took revenge for the U.S. murder of Major General Qassem Soleimani with a precise missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.

Cont. reading: Joe Biden’s JCPOA ‘Plus + Plus’ Deal With Iran Is Not A Realistic Option

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• November 30 – Brexit Promoters Lament Predictable Brexit Results
  Related:
  Brexit: The Barnier Cliff – Naked Capitalism

• December 1 – CNN's 'Blame China' Document Leak Shows China Did Nothing Wrong
  Related:
  Rapid Response to an Outbreak in Qingdao, China – NEJM

• December 2 – Iran's Parliament Is Helping Joe Biden To Rejoin The Nuclear Deal
  Related:
  A New Direction: A Foreign Policy Playbook on Military Restraint for the Biden Team – Quincy Institute<
  The Blob is Back and It’s Ready for War – American Conservative

• December 4 – DNI Ratcliff – China Is Copying U.S. Plan To Create 'Kill-proof' Soldiers
  Related:
  So We’re Already At The ‘Chinese Super Soldiers’ Part Of The Propaganda Campaign – Caitlin Johnstone

• December 5 – "Uighurs forced to eat pork" – Horror Stories Told By Chinese Defector Seem To Evolve
  Related:
  Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation – Quao Collective

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – Open Thread 2020-96

 Al Jazeerah, the propaganda outlet of Qatar, has published a remarkable anti-China propaganda piece which echos claims made by dubious CIA affiliated outlets:

Uighurs forced to eat pork as China expands Xinjiang pig farms
Former detainees claim that the forcible feeding of pork is most rampant in re-education camps and detention centres.

It has been more than two years since Sayragul Sautbay was released from a re-education camp in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang. Yet the mother of two still suffers from nightmares and flashbacks from the “humiliation and violence” she endured while she was detained.

Sautbay, a medical doctor and educator who now lives in Sweden, recently published a book in which she detailed her ordeal, including witnessing beatings, alleged sexual abuse and forced sterilisation.

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, she shed more light on other indignities to which the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities were subjected, including the consumption of pork, a meat that is strictly prohibited in Islam.

“Every Friday, we were forced to eat pork meat,” Sautbay said. “They have intentionally chosen a day that is holy for the Muslims. And if you reject it, you would get a harsh punishment.”

When I read the above I remembered that I had previously read about Sayragul Sautbay (or Sauytbay). But the story back than had sounded much different. The woman had moved from China under disputed circumstances but had never been a detainee. She had illegally entered Kazakhstan where she was put in front of a court but only got a mild sentence. Sautbay was then granted asylum in Sweden from where she propagandizes for an CIA affiliated Uighur exile group.

Over the years Sautbay has given several interviews. The details of her story continued to change in anti-Chinese directions.

• In early interviews Sautbay claimed to have been an instructor working in a re-education camp. In later interviews she claims to have been a detainee.
• In more recent interviews she claims that she had seen torture and violence in the camps. In earlier interviews she had refuted such claims.
• In one story she claims to have observed mass rape. In older interviews she insisted that she had observed no violence at all.
• While she now claims that detainees in the camp were forced to eat pork she had earlier claimed that no meat was served in the camps.

In July 2018 the U.S. government outlet RFE/RL reported from Sautbay's trial in Kazakhstan:

Cont. reading: “Uighurs forced to eat pork” – Horror Stories Told By Chinese Defector Seem To Evolve

The U.S. government likes to accuse adversaries of nefarious behavior or deeds.

It often turns out that such accusations have little base in reality except in that they describe stuff the U.S. is doing itself.

Here is a recent example:

China conducting biological tests to create super soldiers, US spy chief says

China has conducted testing on its army in the hope of creating biologically enhanced soldiers, according to the top intelligence official in the US.

John Ratcliffe, who has served as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence since May, made the claims in a newspaper editorial, where he warned that China “poses the greatest threat to America today”.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ratcliffe said: “The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Ratcliffe said China had gone to extraordinary lengths to achieve its goal.

“US intelligence shows that China has even conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” Ratcliffe wrote. “There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

Does that mean that any country which hopes to develop soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities intends to dominate the whole planet?

Then how about this:

“Kill-Proofing” the Soldier: Environmental Threats, Anticipation, and US Military Biomedical Armor Programs

Cont. reading: DNI Ratcliff – China Is Copying U.S. Plan To Create ‘Kill-proof’ Soldiers

News & views …

President elect Joe Biden plans to renew the U.S. participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran. Trump had left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which Iran and six other nations had signed. 

Biden is under pressure to attach preconditions for a U.S. return to the deal which Iran would not accept:

Biden and his team have been paying lip service to the notion of rejoining the JCPOA. However, the preconditions they have attached to such an action – Iran would have to return to full compliance first, and commit to immediate follow-on negotiations on a deal that would be more restrictive – were widely seen as a deal-breaker. The fact is, many of Biden’s closest advisers – including Secretary of State-designee Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor-designee Jake Sullivan – have indicated that Biden may have no choice but to continue the Trump policy of sanctions-based ‘maximum pressure’.

So far Biden himself had been somewhat ambivalent about the issue. But in a recent interview with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman he seems to reject the use of preconditions for a JCPOA return to get to a bigger deal:

The view of Biden and his national security team is that once the deal is restored by both sides, there will have to be, in very short order, a round of negotiations to seek to lengthen the duration of the restrictions on Iran’s production of fissile material that could be used to make a bomb — originally 15 years — as well as to address Iran’s malign regional activities, through its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Ideally, the Biden team would like to see that follow-on negotiation include not only the original signatories to the deal — Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union — but also Iran’s Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier this week, I wrote a column arguing that it would be unwise for the United States to give up the leverage of the Trump-imposed oil sanctions just to resume the nuclear deal where it left off. We should use that leverage to also get Iran to curb its exports of precision-guided missiles to its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where they threaten Israel and several Arab states. I still believe that.

Biden’s team is aware of that argument, and does not think it is crazy — but for now they insist that America’s overwhelming national interest is to get Iran’s nuclear program back under control and fully inspected.
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In their view, Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon poses a direct national security threat to the United States and to the global nuclear weapons control regime, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

“Look, there’s a lot of talk about precision missiles and all range of other things that are destabilizing the region,” Biden said. But the fact is, “the best way to achieve getting some stability in the region” is to deal “with the nuclear program.”
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Then, Biden said, “in consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile program.” The U.S. always has the option to snap back sanctions if need be, and Iran knows that, he added.

That is still a bit murky. Lift the sanctions that were put onto Iran by Trump to get back to the JCPOA but then introduce new sanctions on Iran for its non-nuclear missile program? That is NOT going to work.

Biden will have little time to make up his mind and to return to the deal. In response to the Israeli murder of Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fahrizade the Iranian parliament has taken steps to leave the limits of the nuclear deal unless the U.S. returns to it as soon as Biden is in office:

Cont. reading: Iran’s Parliament Is Helping Joe Biden To Rejoin The Nuclear Deal

The Trump administration has tried to blame China for the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

U.S. agencies have invested some efforts to obtain documents from China that might provide proof for that.

At least some of those documents were now leaked to CNN which has published them as The Wuhan Files.

But the documents do not show any malfeasance from China's side. They do show a health system and bureaucracy under stress while they have trouble to get an outbreak of a previously unknown infectious disease under control.

This is the most incriminating issue CNN could find in the papers:

In a report marked "internal document, please keep confidential," local health authorities in the province of Hubei, where the virus was first detected, list a total of 5,918 newly detected cases on February 10, more than double the official public number of confirmed cases, breaking down the total into a variety of subcategories. This larger figure was never fully revealed at that time, as China's accounting system seemed, in the tumult of the early weeks of the pandemic, to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
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The Chinese government has steadfastly rejected accusations made by the United States and other Western governments that it deliberately concealed information relating to the virus, maintaining that it has been upfront since the beginning of the outbreak. However, though the documents provide no evidence of a deliberate attempt to obfuscate findings, they do reveal numerous inconsistencies in what authorities believed to be happening and what was revealed to the public.

Further down in the piece it becomes clear that the differences in reporting case numbers and the 'numerous inconsistencies' were based on the use of multiple categories:

On February 10, when China reported 2,478 new confirmed cases nationwide, the documents show Hubei actually circulated a different total of 5,918 newly reported cases. The internal number is divided into subcategories, providing an insight into the full scope of Hubei's diagnosis methodology at the time.

"Confirmed cases" number 2,345, "clinically diagnosed cases" 1,772, and "suspected cases" 1,796.

So China's central health service reported 2,478 confirmed cases for all of China while Hubei province reported 2,345 confirmed cases. How is that supposed to be a significant difference?

In early February China still had problems to sufficiently test for Covid-19 infections. It took time to confirm new cases. The tests were also not yet reliable. The category 'clinical diagnosed cases' was for those who had tested negative with a still faulty test but showed signs of acute pneumonia – i.e. 'ground-glass opacity' on CT chest scans. After the testing problems were resolved the category was eliminated:

Cont. reading: CNN’s ‘Blame China’ Document Leak Shows China Did Nothing Wrong