In the previous FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Asia, our distinguished guest Dr James M Dorsey, an award-winning journalist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute, the National University of Singapore contends that the United States (and European Union) are the only two entities (vis-a-vis neo-totalitarian China and Russia), which dissidents and democrats feel they can turn to for any type of support and help.
Our host Dr Maung Zarni argues that neither the United States nor the rest of the west walk their talk of democracy or human rights, unless doing so suits their agenda (s), and they might not be the reliable allies in the freedom struggles, offering his own native Myanmar as an Exhibit A of the textbook hypocrisy of these liberal democratic regimes.
On Tuesday (14 December), the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expounded “a U.S. strategy to deepen its Asian treaty alliances, offering to boost defence and intelligence work with partners in an Indo-Pacific region increasingly concerned over China’s ‘aggressive actions’.” Blinken touts deeper U.S. engagement amid concern over ‘aggressive’ China | Reuters
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Putin’s Russia “says it may be forced to deploy mid-range nuclear missiles in Europe” because of NATO’s attempts to expand the US-led military bloc onto its doorsteps (for instance, Ukraine).
Watch the FORSEA Dialogue on the role of the United States in stabilizing or de-stabilizing what is billed as “the rule-based World Order”. Empirically, the global powers that built the post-World War II World Order typically bend or break any rule they deem inconvenient in their pursuit of respective imperialist agendas.
Banner: official State Department photo for Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, taken at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 2021. [State Department Photo by Ronny Przysucha/ Public Domain] https://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/50925278638/
