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Both Venezuela and Greenland are part of the Great US-China Game

January 20, 2026

I have been amazed at the stupidity of the European response to Trump’s rhetoric about Greenland. They seem to have no clue as to the game that is being played. While Trump is negotiating they are reacting to tactics and red herrings and have no idea what the end goal is and even which game is being played. It is not that Trump is conferring idiocy upon the clueless European leaders – they have been self-harming themselves!

For the US (Trump) the motive in both regions is not personal pique or detest for Maduro. It is not either about resources for just their own sake.  This is part of the Great Game between the US and China for the coming 100 years. It is about strategic leverage against China’s growing global footprint. That is the thread tying them together. In another century it was the Great Britain and Russia. The US and China are taking the Great Game to new regions. The serious geo-political analysts see it. I am afraid that the European leaders get bogged down and utterly distracted by Trump’s injection of red herrings which they just cannot discern.

Venezuela – Yes oil but not only oil

Venezuela’s primary strategic value is its natural resources, above all oil. It has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The recent U.S. intervention and pressure campaign explicitly cites oil access and disruption of adversarial influence as motives.

  1. China has deep financial and commercial ties with Venezuela, long providing loans and buying Venezuelan energy and commodities.
  2. Venezuelan rare earths and critical minerals are potential future assets — but currently underdeveloped, lacking infrastructure and clear exploitation plans.

The U.S. objectives are no secret and have been discussed so openly that I wonder why reporters of the lower kind and one-note politicians so easily forget.

  1. Deny China Easy Access to Resources
    Even if Venezuela isn’t a top rare-earth producer today, Washington sees value in preventing Beijing from locking up any potential resources or influence that could reduce U.S. leverage. This jibes with official U.S. rhetoric about countering “non-hemispheric competitors.”
  2. Break China’s Growing Footprint in the Region
    Latin America isn’t neutral territory anymore. China is a major trading partner across many states, and U.S. strategy now frames this as a geostrategic threat – something that could give Beijing leverage deep in the Western Hemisphere.
  3. Strategic Oil Supply and Energy Security
    Oil still matters as base strategic power: controlling Venezuelan oil limits Beijing’s access to energy markets, which could constrain China’s industrial or military trajectory in a crisis.
  4. Supply Chain & Rare Earth Sentiment
    Some U.S. policy thinkers argue the future of tech and defence depends on diversifying supply chains away from China – and Venezuela’s minerals could play into that if infrastructure and political stability were achieved.

My assessment is that the U.S. wants to disrupt Chinese access. This fits with how Washington/Rubio/Trump are now framing their moves. This is a long-term geo-political play about material resources and influence. A not insignificant part is the rare earths  potential in Venezuela even if they are not yet a fully realized asset.

Greenland: Raw Materials and Strategic Geography

Greenland doesn’t fit exactly the same profile as Venezuela, but it does fit the same pattern. It is about access to strategic resources and a denial of geo-political access to China. Greenland hosts some of the richest deposits of rare earth elements outside China. U.S. strategic planners see this as a way — someday — to dilute China’s dominance in critical raw materials that power everything from electric vehicles to missiles. Besides minerals, Greenland is a gateway to the Arctic — territory increasingly contested by Russia and China. U.S. military interest there reflects broader strategic positioning. Rather than wait for China (or Russia) to embed itself economically or militarily, the U.S. has pushed aggressive diplomacy, investment deals, and even territorial rhetoric, explicitly meant to keep rival influence out.

Extracting rare earths in Greenland is currently expensive, technically difficult, and far from market scale. Greenland’s harsh climate and lack of infrastructure make mining a long-term project. But from a strategic viewpoint, that doesn’t matter much — the U.S. wants to lock in preferential access and preclude China from doing so first.

The Great Game: supply chain security 

Both cases tie into a bigger story about critical minerals, supply chains, and great-power competition:

  1. China still controls a vast share of refining and processing for rare earths and other minerals, not just mining.

  2. The U.S. has made securing alternative sources, both domestic and allied, a declared priority, often written and described in the language of national security.

  3. Latin America and the Arctic are the competitive regions for the next century where access to resources and influence matters as much as traditional military positioning.

  4. Within the next century new off-Earth regions of supply chain competition and security will be opening up with the moon (China present and US playing catch-up) and Mars (US first) already included within strategic planning

This not about gestures and virtue signalling and personal pique. It is plain and simple geopolitics.

Who is going to have control of critical raw materials and whose military or economic reach will have dominance in key regions?

That is the game being played not whether the Peace Prize can be legally shared or not!!

Afterword

U.S. actions in Venezuela and Greenland are partly about denying China access to strategic resources and partly about securing their own access:

  • Venezuela: important for oil access and preventing Chinese economic dominance in the hemisphere; rare earths are a secondary but growing part of that calculus.

  • Greenland: a long-range bet on critical materials, strategic geography, and preemptive advantage over China and Russia.

This is part of the Great Game between the US and China for the coming 100 years. It is about strategic leverage against China’s growing global footprint. That is the thread tying Venezuela and Greenland together.

Strategic Importance of Greenland | SOF News

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Sanctions will not deter China from taking Taiwan

June 14, 2022

China is not Russia and Taiwan is not Ukraine but it is a foregone conclusion that China will take over Taiwan before too long.

It is only a matter of when. Chinese honour is already hurt by the fact that Taiwan has lasted for 110 years. Almost certainly by 2030. There is a small probability that it could happen in 2024. The two key questions are

  1. whether Chinese military superiority is sufficient to prevail in a conflict lasting less than 12 months, and
  2. whether the US will have the stomach to get involved militarily.

The likelihood of any other countries entering the fray is already very low and is zero if the US does no more than levy “stringent” sanctions which half the world will ignore. As a military presence the EU is of no significance. The most the EU can do is provide support (in material resources) for the US. 

The first question is probably what engages Chinese strategists the most. Taiwan’s military strength cannot be underestimated and judging the superiority of Chinese military capabilities for a mainly sea borne operation is quite chancy. The rapid neutralisation of the Taiwanese air force will be a critical requirement. In any event, the Chinese capability for accepting and absorbing losses is very much greater than Taiwan’s. However, even in a campaign of attrition the Chinese will probably be looking for the take-over to be completed within 12 months. It is known that this take-over is one of the strategic goals for equipment procurement and the current expansion of the Chinese military. Their provocative sea exercises are nearly all geared to testing the responses of potential opponents and training for Invasion Day.

The second critical question, whether the US will act or just rely on sanctions, will also be exercising the Chinese strategists. They will be studying the US rhetoric and its lack of response in the Russia/Ukraine story very closely. The Chinese probably believe that Invasion Day will occur only when a Democratic President is in the White House and during the second half of a Presidential term. The chances of the US making a lot of noise but doing little else is then very high. China is even less susceptible to US sanctions than Russia (and half the world is even now ignoring the US sanctions against Russia). The Chinese will also be looking for a period which is relatively quiet in US domestic politics to make their move. Turbulent politics at home could even lead to a reckless Democratic President. Action abroad may be seen by a weak President as a way of currying domestic favour.  

There is a small probability that the Chinese assessment of the current US administration’s fear of risks and their paralysis of action, is that timing is unlikely to be better (from their point of view) in the next decade. That creates the possibility – though small – that 2024 as the last year of the Biden administration is seen as a window of opportunity.

 

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Chinese population could crash to half by 2100

December 13, 2021

I wonder how long it will take for the politically correct to acknowledge that it is population decline that is the  challenge and not population explosion. It was only about 10 -15 years ago that I realised that my perceptions of the existential threat posed by population explosion were largely the result of brain-washing by the politically correct. 

https://ktwop.com/tag/population-implosion/

But I note that the reality of population decline is beginning to enter mainstream journalism. The Lancet now recognises that there is a risk that Chinese population could halve by 2100.

https://www.thelancet.com/infographics/population-forecast

Population increase will still be an issue in Africa for the next 100 years but it will decline even there. But there is little doubt that the colour of the world population is changing irreversibly.

The changing colours of the world’s population

The success of a species is ultimately dependent upon survival of populations. For the human species, population implosion is more of an existential threat than population explosion ever was.

 

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The man-made Chinese virus – more a cover-up than any conspiracy theory

May 31, 2021

My post from a month ago was not so fanciful after all:

Covid 19 : A Chinese biological weapons test gone wrong?

  • Just a naturally occurring mutation of a coronavirus? Unlikely.
  • An accidental virus crossover to humans from a Chinese wet market? Perhaps.
  • An accidental escape of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory? Possible. 
  • Were Chinese scientists considering the coronavirus as a biological weapon? Certainly. 
  • An accidental escape from a Chinese biological weapons program? Possible. 
  • An intentional release of the virus as a biological weapons test? Unlikely
  • Just another conspiracy theory? Hardly.

There have been a number of reports recently which make it even more likely that the pandemic was caused by the accidental escape of a man-made virus from a Wuhan laboratory which did have a section devoted to work for the military. The first is admittedly from the Daily Mail but is about a paper by reputable authors in a reputable – if not well known – scientific journal. Cambridge University Press – Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery. (The scientists have apparently had great difficulty in getting the attention of more well known Journals where a few influential establishment scientists have been reluctant to rock the boat).

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is qrb-discovery.jpg

COVID-19 ‘has NO credible natural ancestor’

  • DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery
  • The study showed there’s evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab 
  • Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans 
  • According to the paper, Chinese scientists took a natural coronavirus ‘backbone’ found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new ‘spike’, turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible COVID-19
  • The researchers, who concluded that COVID-19 ‘has no credible natural ancestor’, also believe scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to cover up their tracks
  • ‘We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created,’ Dalgleish told DailyMail.com. ‘They’ve changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.’
  • The study also points to ‘deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data’ in Chinese labs and notes that ‘scientists who wished to share their findings haven’t been able to do so or have disappeared’ 

This perhaps explains how the first Chinese vaccine was available so quickly.

Other reports include:

WSJ: Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory. 

Intelligence reports from the US and the UK report that a section of the Wuhan lab was answerable to the Chinese military but the Chinese have not been forthcoming about what activities this section was involved in.

Fox: Pompeo says Wuhan lab was engaged in military activity alongside civilian research

NBC News: Biden asks intelligence agencies to ‘redouble’ efforts to determine coronavirus origins

There may be a UK variant and a S African variant and an Indian variant but the virus is Chinese. This is looking more and more like a cover-up by the Chinese rather than any conspiracy theory.

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Covid 19 : A Chinese biological weapons test gone wrong?

May 9, 2021

Just a naturally occurring mutation of a coronavirus? Unlikely.

An accidental virus crossover to humans from a Chinese wet market? Perhaps.

An accidental escape of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory? Possible.

Were Chinese scientists considering the coronavirus as a biological weapon? Certainly.

An accidental escape from a Chinese biological weapons program? Possible.

An intentional release of the virus as a biological weapons test? Unlikely

Just another conspiracy theory? Hardly.

Chinese Scientists Discussed Weaponising Coronavirus In 2015

A Chinese scientific paper titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons” suggested that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons.

Beijing: A document written by Chinese scientists and health officials before the pandemic in 2015 states that SARS coronaviruses were a “new era of genetic weapons” that could be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed, reported Weekend Australian.
The paper titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons suggested that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons. The document revealed that Chinese military scientists were discussing the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report by Weekend Australian was published in news.com.au.

Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told news.com.au that the document is as close to a “smoking gun” as we’ve got. “I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed,” Jennings said. “It begins to firm up the possibility that what we have here is the accidental release of a pathogen for military use,” Jennings added.

He also said that the document may explain why China has been so reluctant for outside investigations into the origins of COVID-19.

…….. 

This is not a new theory.  By the criteria used for determining what makes a good biological weapon, Covid- 19 is not the best possible.

Forbes:

……. Overall, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has some “desirable” properties as a bioweapon, but probably not enough to make it a good choice for military purposes. Regardless, it has certainly reminded us of our vulnerabilities as a society to a new pathogen, and how crippling a pandemic can be, as we continue to watch the entire world grappling with how to contain it.  ………

Will China ever be held accountable? Hardly.

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All the Chinese viruses from the Spanish flu to the Wuhan coronavirus

July 10, 2020

This is the Wuhan virus and it did come from China. 

Trying to be politically correct is more misleading and probably the cause of more disinformation and self-delusion than any other. Political correctness applied to the scientific process is particularly destructive and gives us the burgeoning levels of fake science. Results are determined before the investigations have begun. For the WHO it is servility to Chinese interests which has prevented the Wuhan coronavirus from being named the Wuhan virus.

It now seems highly probable that even the Spanish flu of 1918 originated from China.

National Geographic:

 The deadly “Spanish flu” claimed more lives than World War I, which ended the same year the pandemic struck. Now, new research is placing the flu’s emergence in a forgotten episode of World War I: the shipment of Chinese laborers across Canada in sealed train cars.

Historian Mark Humphries of Canada’s Memorial University of Newfoundland says that newly unearthed records confirm that one of the side stories of the war—the mobilization of 96,000 Chinese laborers to work behind the British and French lines on World War I’s Western Front—may have been the source of the pandemic. …..

…. The 1918 flu pandemic struck in three waves across the globe, starting in the spring of that year, and is tied to a strain of H1N1 influenza ancestral to ones still virulent today.

There is little doubt that the current pandemic originated from Wuhan though, every so often, some journalist or “scientist” who is part of the China lobby will cast doubt on that. 

RealClearScience:

The Asian Flu in 1956 killed between one and four million people worldwide. SARS in 2002 infected 8,098 and killed 774 in seventeen counties. H7N9 emerged ten years later to strike at least 1,223 people and kill four out of every ten of them. Now, the milder, yet more infectious COVID-19 has sickened more than 70,000 across the globe, resulting in 1,771 deaths.
All of these outbreaks originated in China, but why? Why is China such a hotspot for novel diseases?

“It’s not a big mystery why this is happening… lots of concentrated population, with intimate contact with lots of species of animals that are potential reservoirs, and they don’t have great hygiene required. It’s a recipe for spitting out these kinds of viruses,” Dr. Steven Novella recently opined on an episode of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.

South Central China is a noted “mixing vessel” for viruses, Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, told PBS in 2016. There’s lots of livestock farming, particularly poultry and pigs, with limited sanitation and lax oversight. Farmers often bring their livestock to “wet markets” where they can come into contact with all sorts of exotic animals. The various birds, mammals, and reptiles host viruses that can jump species and rapidly mutate, even potentially infecting humans. Experts are pretty sure this is precisely what happened with the current COVID-19 coronavirus, which is why, on January 30th, China issued a temporary ban on the trade of wild animals. ………

….. China is also notorious for its misinformation, secrecy, and censorship, which raises the chances that new diseases will fester and spread. Back in early January, Chinese government officials told the public that the new infection’s spread had been effectively halted. This was not true. At the same time, the authoritarian regime bullied health experts who attempted to sound alarm. The young doctor Li Wenliang attempted to warn others about the new coronavirus. He was ‘rewarded’ with a threatening reprimand by police. Li subsequently caught COVID-19 and succumbed to the disease the first week of February.

It may be called the Covid-19 virus but it is the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic

 

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China WHO?

March 26, 2020

Maybe not politically correct to give the virus a nationality, ….

…… but China, aided and abetted by the WHO, certainly suppressed information which could have slowed its progress.

(original image from Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten)

 

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100 days and 4,000 deaths later in China ….

March 19, 2020

It is yet to be confirmed if this is just a quirk of numbers or whether the outbreak of coronavirus has truly been brought under control. Even if it has, China has used brutal and draconian measures to control the infection.

The question is whether Europe and the US are being smarter?

From the New York Times:

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) in its daily report said that no new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease were reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday. However, a total of 34 new COVID-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday, all of which were from those arriving from abroad, marking a sharp increase, it said. 

Of the 34 newly imported cases, 21 were reported in Beijing, nine in Guangdong Province, two in Shanghai, one in Heilongjiang Province and one in Zhejiang Province, the NHC said.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,928 by the end of Wednesday. This included 3,245 people who died of the disease 7,263 patients and 70,420 patients discharged after recovery.

The NHC said the number of imported cases in China rose to 189 with 34 confirmed cases from the people arriving from abroad.

China has reported a total of 80,928 confirmed cases of the COVID-19, of which 3,245 have died and 70,420 patients were discharged after treatment.

 

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By responding to Trump, China blunders and ensures that “One China” is on the table

January 16, 2017

In the business world one of the first lessons we used to pound into our deal-makers (salesmen, contract negotiators, purchasers, …. ) was that it was “silence” that defined what was really “non-negotiable”. Bringing up such matters or even responding to any mention about what was “non-negotiable” was self-defeating and, in itself, put that matter on the table. Merely saying that something was “non-negotiable” was, in itself, sufficient for the opposing party to always try to keep it on the agenda.

Trump is bringing a business, deal-making approach to politics which even veteran diplomats are finding uncomfortable and incomprehensible. China’s Foreign Ministry has just declared that “One China” is “non negotiable”. That is a massive blunder by their conventional diplomats and bureaucrats. They have just ensured that in any future US/China talks, “One China” will always be present, even if only in pre-talk talks where China tries to keep it off the agenda.

By responding to Trump’s acceptance of a phone call from Taiwan’s president after his victory and a few tweets which followed his attacks on China’s economic “cheating” during the campaign, China has effectively just put “One China” on the table.

The Guardian: 

China has warned Donald Trump that he has no chance of striking a deal with Beijing involving Taiwan’s political status following the US president-elect’s latest controversial intervention on the subject.

The Chinese foreign ministry told Trump that the US’s longstanding “One China” policy, by which it does not challenge Beijing’s claim over the self-ruled island, was the political basis for all Sino-US relations.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Saturday Trump said all options were on the table as he considered how he might reshape Washington’s relations with China, a country he accused of deliberately devaluing its currency in order to hamstring US businesses.

“Everything is under negotiation, including ‘One China’,” Trump said, referring to the US’s longstanding diplomatic decision not to challenge Beijing’s claim that Taiwan, an independently and democratically-ruled island, is part of its territory.

China’s foreign ministry hit back in a statement advising Trump, a billionaire property tycoon who has claimed “deals are my art form”, that he would never be able to achieve such a deal.

“There is only one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable region of China, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing China,” spokesperson Lu Kang was quoted as saying.

“The ‘One China’ principle, which is the political foundation of the China-US relations, is non-negotiable.”

If this was a chess game, Trump’s tweets are giving him the first move with the white pieces. In chess parlance he has the “tempo”. So far, the Chinese – who are more conservative than is sometimes thought – have not quite caught onto the game that is being played. It is negotiation by tweets. They may well get the US to continue to accept “One China”. But it is going to cost them something else.

Trump has not even entered office and negotiations have started.

 

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A flying boat or a swimming aircraft? China rolls out the AG600

July 25, 2016

China unveils AG600 – Peoples Daily

AVIC TA-600, Flying boat
The AVIC TA-600, also known as AG-600, is a large amphibious flying boat that is being designed and built in China by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.  
Top speed: 570 km/h, Wingspan: 40 m, Length: 40 m Maximum take-off weight 51.5 t.
Manufacturer: Aviation Industry Corporation of China Wikipedia
AG600 - AVIC
China has just rolled out the world’s largest amphibious plane, AVIC’s TA600 designated the AG600.  The AG600 is intended
to fight forest fires and be used for maritime search and rescue (SAR) operations. Being able to land on water means that they can quickly pump in tons of water to fight forest fires. For SAR purposes, the ability of large seaplanes like the TA-600 to land directly near survivors means more rapid rescue responses compared to slower helicopters, which will be attractive to Chinese maritime enforcement agencies. Perhaps most important to current regional tensions, the TA-600 may also offer a new scale and means to rapidly deploy or resupply any current or new remote island garrisons in the South China Sea. A number of islets and reefs are too small to have runways to accommodate conventional transport planes like the Y-8, but sited so as to have strategic value.
It is not as large as the eight-engined Howard Hughes H-4 “Spruce Goose”, the largest seaplane ever built, which weighed 180 tons in full and had a wingspan of 97 meters. But the Spruce Goose only flew a short distance on its maiden flight in 1947 and never lifted again.
But more to the point, the AG 600 can carry 50 passengers whether people being rescued, or troops on the move to a South China Sea island. Certainly the AG600 adds significant strategic capability to the Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

Nov. 2, 1947: The Hughes Aircraft H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" during short flight in the Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor. This photo was published in the Nov. 3, 1947 LA Times.

Nov. 2, 1947: The Hughes Aircraft H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” during short flight in the Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor. This photo was published in the Nov. 3, 1947 LA Times.

 

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