The Biden family scion and current American President, Joe Biden, is headed to Southeast Asia in November to meet with the leader of the country, China, which made the family wealthy and powerful today.
President Biden is likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in person in November — the first such meeting since Biden took office, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Biden’s family has had extensive and possibly continuing business relationships with companies linked to China’s government, and he faces political pressure to take a more aggressive posture toward Xi — including on fentanyl exports and transparency about the origins of COVID-19.
The visit reportedly will occur somewhere in Southeast Asia. Xi is expected to attend international summits that month in Bangkok, Thailand, and Bali, Indonesia.
Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed that Ukraine will reconquer territories it has lost to Russia during the current war.
In an emotional and defiant speech, Ukraine’s President said the Donbas was “almost destroyed” but that “dignity” for the people of the region would return.
He said: “Now Donbas is almost destroyed by Russian strikes, devastated.
“Proud and glorious Ukrainian Donetsk is humiliated by Russian occupation, robbed. But Ukraine will return.
One of the oft overlooked aspects of the military in general are the small items that form part of a soldier’s kit. While the vast majority of these items are very mundane, indeed, occasionally an item appears which offers a sea-change in its sphere.
While mass produced, purpose-designed combat first aid dressings date back to the early 1920’s with the advent of the “Carlisle Dressing“, developed at the US Army’s Carlisle Barracks, in the aftermath of World War One, surprisingly little further development occurred until PerSys Medical’s design came along. The Carlisle Bandage was a simple affair, simply a sterile dressing on one side, backed by a gauze, later cotton, cloth backing used to secure it in place. (Indeed, Bar-Natan attributes his drive to invent the bandage with being issued Carlisle bandages manufactured in 1938, during his time as an IDF medic.)
While the Carlisle and its successors were useful, and certainly saved lives on the battlefield, they were far from perfect solutions. The dressings frequently came loose, and the design allowed for a great deal of contamination to enter the wound area, even if tightly secured in place. The only way to effectively protect the wound from post-trauma infection was to apply an ace-type elastic wrap after applying the battle wound dressing. Obviously, this was rarely done, as medics tended to use the space and weight of the ace wrap to carry extra bandages, instead.
Variants of the Carlisle were used all the way into the 1990’s, two being included in the first-aid kit of the day, until the deployment of the modern IFAK, which includes the “Emergency Dressing”, as it is termed by the US Military.
Bar-Natan’s design abandoned the simplicity of the Carlisle, in favor of a significantly improved version which, although somewhat more complex to use, provides far better care for an injury victim. The Emergency Bandage comes already attached to an ace-type wrap, which is integral to the dressing’s function. After removal, the sterile side of the dressing is applied as direct pressure to the wound area, and the elastic wrap is wound one turn around the extremity (or the torso or head), until it meets the second essential part of the design.
U.S. Military First Aid Kit. US Department of Defense photo.
The Emergency Bandage’s patented “pressure bar” is a stirrup-shaped device mounted directly with the elastic wrap. Slipping the wrap through the stirrup of the pressure bar, then reversing the direction of the wrap, causes the pressure bar to exert a mild tourniquet-type force against the wound. This results in the creation of an additional barrier to external media contaminating the injury. The wrap is then secured in place by the bandage’s closure bar, which hooks into the bandage in much the same way as a ballpoint pen clipping to a shirt pocket.
US Military-issue IFAK, 2012. US Army photo.
Additionally, the Emergency Bandage can in many instances be self-applied one-handed, something extremely difficult, if not impossible, with the Carlisle-model dressing family.
Mated to QuikClot-impregnated gauze, this provides a very powerful field dressing that is practical, easy to use and easy to train on. Indeed, the Emergency Bandage has been credited with saving many of the victims of the notorious 2011 shooting in Tucson, AZ, in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded.
The Emergency Bandage – the “Israeli Bandage” to many US troops – has saved, and continues to save, lives in combat theaters and disaster emergencies, around the world.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
When the United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) Commandant, General David H. Berger, announced his radical visionin 2019 of “reinventing” the Marine Corps to perform duties on a basis more in line with the guidance from then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, his program proved to be highly controversial, not least, in light of recent events in Ukraine and Russia. This vision radically restructures the Marine Corps, removing main battle tanks entirely, and significantly reducing both “bayonet strength” in infantry battalions, as well as heavily cutting back on conventional artillery and tactical air transport, all in an attempt to fight the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
It is bewildering – to say the least – as to how these ideas could work verses a major-war opponent may be an open question. Primarily, the controversy revolves around the significantly reduced capacity in fire support.
However, times change, and technology changes apace.
Okinawa, April – June 1945: An American rocket ship fires a salvo of rockets during the bombardment of Okinawa. US Navy photo.
Case in point: As technology and high-tech industry has expanded throughout the world, more and more nations are developing energetic and dynamic design firms. Recently unveiled by Indonesian shipbuilder PT Ludin, the Atasena-class X-18 ATC (Armored Troop Carrier) – originally called, for obvious reasons, the “Tank Boat” – may look like something out of a “GI Joe” movie, but it is definitely an innovative development of preexisting concepts.
Name of Indonesia islands greater than 1000 km2 in area.
Comprised of over 18,000 separate islands, and being on the front lines of both insurgency, piracy and general world unrest, Indonesia has a definite need for an inshore fire support vessel with a heavy punch. In this, the X-18 “Tank Boat” certainly delivers.
Designed by PT Ludin, the X-18 ATC is to be built by the veteran small craft yards of North Sea Boats. The current production unit that has undergoing testing by the Indonesian Army is armed with the Cockerill C1030 MK44S 30mm cannon unmanned turret. A mock-up vessel, shown at international arms shows when the details of the X-18 were released mounted a mock-up of a planned Cockerill 105mm cannon with an automatic loading system in a small, 2-person turret, with a 360° traverse and a pair of .50cal/12.7x99mm heavy machine guns as secondary weapons, with other secondary weapons possible. In either configuration, the X-18 can also carry up to 60 troops, up to 5 tons of cargo, or a variety of small, rigid-hulled inflatables. This would allow the deployment of conventional boarding or landing parties, as well as special operations teams — who could potentially have 105mm artillery support within a 10km arc from the craft. Another planned version would mount some form of dedicated anti-ship, and possibly anti-submarine, missiles.
CONCLUSION
With a reported draft of only 0.8 meters and a reported 600nm range (the distance from Washington, D.C. to Miami, FL) at 9 knots (but able to cruise at 40 knots, with a 50 knot maximum speed), the twin-hulled catamaran design would certainly have long legs. The design is impressive enough – in theory – to have reportedly garnered an early order from the United Arab Emirates, with India, Greece and the Philippines expressing serious interest.
A U.S. riverboat (Zippo monitor) deploying napalm during the Vietnam War. US Navy photo.
While its armor (NATO Stanag 4569) may be rather unimpressive, proof only against small arms and shell fragments at a distance, in the inshore environment, the ability to swiftly bring large numbers of troops, backed up by significant firepower, to bear on an enemy’s rear areas is a major advancement in firepower.
This is something that the USMC, struggling with shrinking procurement budgets and a general drop-off in enlistments, should seriously consider adding to its arsenal, not least because of a projected purchase price of under US$20million each.
Not every bright idea comes out of the US defense establishment.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Originally, this article was going to be considerably different, until research suddenly swerved in a different direction. That direction is to reinforce a fundamental military truth:
Artillery was, is, remains and will remain, the “King of Battle.”
While retaining the “Dragon Fire II” vehicle-mounted 120mm mortar, the reading on the rationale behind these decisions stands testament to an unacceptable failure by the military establishment in the United States to focus on reality.
Since combat operations commenced in Afghanistan in 2001, the US military in general has drilled down to a focus almost exclusively on “counterinsurgency operations” (COIN). Although pointedly left unsaid in public, this is a reaction to the fact that the US military establishment essentially abandoned COIN operations in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, to focus exclusively on the perceived threat of a Soviet invasion to Western Europe, and the assumed nuclear exchanges that would follow. In the aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan deteriorating into guerilla conflicts, the US military swung the pendulum 180° in the opposite direction from the 1980’s.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Francis Fukuyama foolishly proclaiming the “End of History”, although rarely spoken out loud, military forces were seen as almost redundant anachronisms in many quarters, and should be reduced both in scale and capabilities, rendering them as something like heavily-armed police forces, with the occasional, movie-ready SWAT teams for hostage rescue. Combat operations like the first Persian Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom were seen as aberrations, large operations against technologically inferior despot forces with lots of heavy (if antiquated) weapons and gear, and lots of troops, who – if not very well-trained or motivated – at least had plenty of simple weapons, and who would require somewhat more force than the international equivalent of a beat cop holding up their hand and saying “HALT!” in a loud voice.
Enter Russia.
While we are not going to delve too deeply, here, into the politics of this year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia is currently – by their own counts (which should, of course, always be taken with a large grain of salt) – running an average of c.580 fire missions per day. Assuming that these missions are run according to Russian military doctrine, each of these missions are a “battery shoot” involving a battery of four to six weapons. Roughly 30% of these would be rocket artillery, mostly from BM-21 ‘Grad’ type rocket systems, with the remainder fired by conventional “tube” artillery [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery]. Using the most conservatively realistic figures, this equals approximately 7,000 conventional artillery rounds being fired.
Per day.
This come out to over 200,000 rounds in a 30-day period.
In contrast, the Western democracies have “bet the farm” on weapon accuracy, developing “precision everything” in mortar, rocket and conventional artillery rounds. They chose this route, because the conventional news media is ecstatic over images of dead civilians, which is much more likely when using “dumb” weapons. Needless to say, such casualty-limiting precision comes at a price: the M982 “Excalibur” 155mm precision-guided artillery round costs anywhere from US$68,000 to $175,000 per round (depending on who is counting).
In the West, conventional “dumb” artillery rounds cost between US$300 and $1,000 each. This, of course, begs the question: is “smart” better than “dumb“?
Certainly – if you can afford it. Can the West?
Currently, following the defense budget cuts in FY2022 by the Biden administration, artillery ammunition procurement is being cutby some 36%. In the very best case scenario, this means that the United States currently produces enough ammunition in a calendar year for anywhere between ten days and three weeks of combat firing, based – again – on the mostconservative take on Russian claims of artillery fire missions and estimated rates of ammunition expenditure in Ukraine. And the United States is sending ammunition to Ukraine to go along with the 155mm howitzers and other weapons we are already supplying.
And the US is not alone. In 2021, the British Army conducted a large-scale, “main force” wargame where they completely exhausted national stocks of critical ammunition – at the national level – in eight days. Similarly, only about 2,100 units of the vaunted Javelin missile are produced each year – and the Ukrainians are claiming to fire “hundreds” of Javelins daily, leaving the US defense industry scrambling to bring new production streams online. The FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile is in a similar situation.
Worse still, Russia is known to have fired over 1,000 “cruise missiles” since invading the Ukraine proper in February of 2022. Even given the highly questionable reports of those firings’ performance, it is clear that the Russian industrial base is still more than capable of supplying the weapons and ammunition to the firing lines (the logistical aspects of this are an entirely different subjects).
It is vital to keep in mind, again, that the technical accuracy and reliability of the Russian arsenal is not the question, here. The fact is that they are able to maintain production and consumption rates of comparatively “dumb” systems – and firing something at the enemy is better than firing nothing, because you’re waiting on resupply.
The conclusion here is clear: the West is functionally trying to counter Russian aggression from a hospital bed, while ignorant children are playing with its life support equipment.
This is not 1939, and the West is no longer the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Ukraine is paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for trusting the modern-day Western states…and unless something is done quickly, the people of the West may well pay that price, as well – assuming that we do not pay an even heavier price.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
As First-World States Amp Up Their High Tech, The Opposition Sticks To Basics
An F-35 Lightning II prepares to take off, Luke Air Force Base, AZ – USAF photo by Sr Airman Devante Williams; Public Domain
Over the last hundred years or so, uncountable amounts of money have been spent by various countries, to develop ever more sophisticated weapons and vehicles, many times, almost literally reinventing the wheel. The latest gargantuan expenditures that come to mind are the M1 Abrams tank, the Zumwalt destroyer and the F-35b airplane.
Iranian soldiers with a BGM-71 TOW missile during the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988
Why this should be so, is of great discomfort to both defense companies and armies, around the world. The reason defense companies are worried is that the civilian Toyota vehicles are “good enough” for most combat vehicle applications. They are simple, rugged, durable, easy to understand and operate, and – most importantly – cheap.
Roll-on/roll-off ferry terminal at Queenscliff, Victoria, 1993.
On the military side, these are also concerns, but the military – by necessity – goes deeper: the very ubiquitous nature of the vehicles (driven by market, not military forces), in addition to their built-in ruggedness, makes it supremely difficult to both identify and attrit an asymmetric enemy’s mobile infrastructure without attacking civilian targets at the same time.
Mongol horseman, 14th Century
It has long been known that light vehicles equate to light cavalry. Unfortunately, historically, conventional militaries have always had a distinctly difficult time dealing with forces that can master the techniques of light cavalry campaigns.
U.S. Marines and guide in search of bandits. Haiti, circa 1919.
Similarly, it has long been recognized that simple, robust weapons systems give unconventional forces near-parity of effectiveness at the “boots on the ground” level of combat. As long ago as 1940, in the US Marine Corps – in its “Small Wars Manual” – recognized that as technology developed, and lightweight, fully automatic weapons spread, the tactics the manual outlined would be rendered obsolete.
AK-74 assault rifle
Modern small arms development has essentially hit a plateau in the years since 1946. Once the move to self-loading rifles was complete, what remained were alterations to ergonomics and attachments. The weapons could be massed produced with a very high degree of mechanical simplicity built in…This, of course, resulted in the development of the near-universal AK-series of assault rifles in the hands of both urban and rural guerrilla forces, as well as the later tribal militias, to say nothing of its continued use by regular armed forces throughout the world.
Adding to the difficulty for conventional armies is the widespread deployment of highly effective, yet almost laughable uncomplicated, heavy support weapons at the squad level, primarily the RPG-7 and the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG).
An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier fires an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 20, 2013. USMC photo.
The RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, while becoming less capable against frontline combat vehicle armor, is still more than capable against light vehicles, light or hasty fortifications, and even some aircraft. A robust and simple design, the RPG-7 is a valuable weapon in any force’s arsenal, and is widely available.
PKM Machine Gun
Likewise, the Soviet-designed PKM GPMG is another simple, robust and highly capable weapon system, easily a match for anything produced by the West.
Of course, except for the Toyota pickup trucks, the two things that the above weapons all have in common is that they are both products of Cold War-era Soviet Army design bureaus, and were handed out in vast numbers to many armies and guerrilla groups as the Cold War ground on.
And yet, their effects remain.
Adding to the problem is the impact of remotely piloted drone technology, especially drones modified to drop small munitions on target. Coupled to cheap and reliable internet access and radio technology, as well as the wide dissemination of both automated and manual secure encryption methods, armies trying to chase down irregular, terrorist and/or guerrilla forces today have issues far outside the scope of previous generations.
The challenge for both conventional forces, defense companies, and perhaps especially the political leadership of First World powers, frankly, is to find a way to equip the large security forces necessary to ensure a counterbalance to terrorist groups that operate like multinational corporations, while not cutting off their noses to spite their faces, by bankrupting the countries they are trying to sell their products to.
In general, people tend like good things. This should be self-evident: good food, good sex, good booze (in no particular order), so…anything ‘good’ should be, well, “good” – right? Like – peace, for instance.
Right?
I mean, war is all about violence, blood, horror, terror, crippling and debilitating injuries and very tragic and untimely death, all of which are really bad things…So…Less war must be good.
Right?
Today, we will examine a tiny sliver of that question.
Paris Street in Rainy Weather, 1877, Gustave Caillebotte.
In 1856, in an attempt to “limit the scourge of war”, a collection of European nations’ representatives gathered in Paris, France and signed a convention, the “Paris Declaration“, that eliminated the practice of “privateering“, or “legalized piracy in time of war.”
Letter of marque given to Robert Sutton de Clonard for the privateer Comte d’Artois, 1780.
The mechanism of this decision was simple: the Admiralty court system that adjudicated the “condemnation” and auctioning of “prizes of war” were disestablished, more or less overnight, removing the purpose of issuing “Letters of Marque and Reprisal“…and freeing – it was hoped – merchant shipping from the scourge of “legalized plunder“…
…But what was the real effect of this declaration?
Prior to 1856 – for roughly 400 years, in a formal sense – Western nations had deliberately evolved the system of prize-capture to avoid the cost of keeping excessively large (and very expensive) fleets manned when there was no war going on. Since merchant ships were generally alone in dangerous waters anyway, it only made sense to build cargo ships that carried weapons comparable to warships, and by extension, to utilize those same ships in time of war.
Thus, as an adjunct to the very common practice on land of hiring part-time professional soldiers – i.e., mercenaries – to flesh out an army, armed merchantmen were offered commissions to supplement regular navies, until those navies could get their actual warships fully crewed. After ferrying troops and supplies, many of these armed merchantmen struck out at the merchant ships of the enemy, striking targets of opportunity, capturing enemy vessels, hauling them to friendly (or even neutral), to sell off the cargoes and the ships themselves (sometimes at a staggering profit), as well as ransoming the prisoners.
The Ranger, Private Ship of War, with her Prizes. By Nicholas Pocock, 1780
After 1856, this all changed.
As the United States (which did not sign the Paris Declaration) was to discover to its horror, the dismantling of the prize system removed any incentive to capturing ships intact — where shipping companies (previously, at least) had the chance of buying their captured vessels back, once there was no possibility of easily selling off a captured prize, there was no reason to not strip the surrendered ships of useful supplies and destroy them after capture. The crews were either abandoned on remote islands to uncertain (and very unpleasant) fates, or tossed ashore in the first non-hostile port the ship came to, with nothing but the clothes on their backs…if they were that lucky.
Four years after the Declaration, the various States that formed the Confederacy attempted to leave the Federal Union, sparking the four-year long American Civil War. Among its many disadvantages, the Southern Confederacy did not really have a maritime tradition, as their northern opponents did. As a result, lacking hard currency or deep economic capital internally, their few attempts at issuing Letters of Marque were dismal failures, as limited cash in a bottled market could not chase what should have been lucrative captures.
“The Alabama destroying the Texan Star, or Martaban, in the Malacca Straits – The Kwan-Tung, Chinese War-Steamer, in the distance. From a sketch by Commander Allen Young, Royal Navy.” London Illustrated News, April 2, 1864, p. 320. Public Domain
In a series of brutal cruises, Confederate Navy corsairs slashed and burned their way through the United States’ merchant fleets; the US Pacific whaling fleet (supplying vital supplies of whale oil in a pre-petroleum society) was almost completely destroyed. Indeed, by 1864 most US-flagged merchant ships were laid up in US ports, as crews flatly refused to leave port under US colors, because of the danger of prowling rebel raiders; not even ruinous insurance rates could entice crews to sea. To remain solvent, many American merchant investors had to sell their vessels to foreign companies in a buyers market, just to maintain some form of capitol flow. The US merchant fleet would not fully recover its position in the world’s shipping arena until after World War 2.
Other countries – and their navies – noticed.
A battleship squadron of the German High Seas Fleet; the far right vessel is the battlecruiser SMS Von der Tann, 1917.
The basic requirements of naval warfare had not changed, the future writings of US Navy Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan notwithstanding: an enemy nation’s merchant marine still had to be neutralized. This meant larger navies, with many more fighting ships in commission, at all times, since merchant ships could no longer, by about 1890, be easily converted into viable warships (since they could no longer be used as warships, there was no reason to design them with warship guns and armor). But, because technology was also expanding — both the fight between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (the former USS Merrimack) in 1862, as well as the Austro-Italian Battle of Lissa in 1866 marking the first engagements between “armored” (or, “ironclad”) naval warships and fleets — this began a race to develop ever-bigger guns, better armor, faster and more fuel-efficient engines…and the armies, jealous of the navies’ lavish funding, also took note. But, with few major wars (only one, really) between industrial states taking place between 1875 and 1914, no one really paid attention…except, of course, the builders of naval artillery and warships.
Photograph of U-111, a German Submarine.
Come the end 1914, with the land war in Western Europe lurching into a blood-soaked, trench-bound stalemate, enforced by machine guns and more field artillery than anyone had ever seen before, Imperial Germany turned to widely deploying previously experimental or unseen weapons – specifically, the submarine and poison gas.
While there had been a slow and steady development of submarines in the previous decades, few officers of the day took them seriously as anything but scouts for battle fleets. But, once the German High Seas Fleet’s inability to blockade Britain became clear, the Kaiser unleashed his U-Boat fleet.
British 55th (West Lancashire) Division troops blinded by gas, 10 April 1918.
The slaughter was tremendous, as merchant ship crews began dying in huge numbers, and mind-boggling amounts of ship tonnage was sent to the bottom. Britain was almost starved of war-making material, and actually began to experience food shortages. In the next round, in 1940, Britain very nearly did lose its war — and American and British merchant seamen died by the thousands…On land, the role of the machine gun and poison gas is better known. The never-ending quest to one-up to other guy was in full force.
“The battle between the Aisne and Marne: German ammunition column, teams and horses with gas masks when passing a gasified forest.”
On land, with the stalemate and slaughter of trench warfare enforced by machine guns, the German High Command was induced to take what for them was a radical (and, by their own admission, distasteful) action: allowing scientists, led by Fritz Haber, the chemist who perfected the extraction of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen, to develop what had been annoyingly dangerous byproducts of industrial chemical processes into deadly weapons that killed indiscriminately…and ultimately, led directly to the Zyklon-B of Hitler’s gas chambers.
Ultimately, the quest for “more is not only better, it is vital” led directly to the atomic bomb. Although its destructive force was not truly understood at first, even after its effects were understood in their full horror, their development continued apace, leading to the culmination of destruction: the “Tsar Bomba” of the Soviet Union.
However, nothing happens in a vacuum — while states, and the armies and navies that served them, raced frantically to find faster, broader and more efficient ways to kill each other, those nations’ populations paid attention…and learned the unintended lesson:
Life is cheap, fragile, and easily thrown away — and if governments don’t care about the lives of their individual citizens, why should the citizens care about the lives of an “enemy” people?
Kill ’em all – let God sort ’em out.
Right?
Right?
Terrorists, 2020
…..Welcome to the so-called Islamic Caliphate of the 21st Century – and why not? They are merely responding to the stimuli they have been presented and raised with. They don’t have naval fleets, or fleets of airplanes — but they do have knives and cameras, and fear and horror are ancient and basic weapons. Doubly so, when they pay their troops in loot and slaves…just like the “good ol’ days.” And, in an era where humans can be easily enticed to volunteer to function as “squishy cruise missiles“, the addition of real horror to simple terrorism follows a direct course from that origin point.
So…the next time someone cries “Peace! PEACE!“, it may be instructive to wonder whythere was no peace in the first place.
It is also instructive to remember that sometimes, “peace” is another word for “surrender“.
CHINA TRYING TO BUY SOLOMON ISLANDS PORT – A Chinese State-Owned Corporation is moving to purchase a deep-water port and World War Two airstrip from the Solomon Islands. The move is leaving people to challenge Australian companies to step in and purchase these assets to stop China’s incursion into the geo-strategic islands.
A Chinese state-owned company is negotiating to buy a deep-water port and World War II airstrip in Solomon Islands, as new documents detail how money from Beijing has helped keep the Pacific nation’s controversial leader in power.
As a battle for influence plays out in the region, an investigation by Four Corners has found China is aggressively pursuing economic opportunities across the Solomons to boost Beijing’s strategic interests.
One asset being targeted by China is a hardwood forestry plantation on the island of Kolombangara, which features a protected harbour, deep-water port and an airstrip.
CHINA CONTROLS UN SECURITY COUNCIL NOW – China assigned the President of the United Nations Security Council for the month of August. China’s Permanent member of the UN, Zhang Jun is the President for the month of August. The new President pledged to safeguard the international system, with the UN in the center.
China has taken over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council for the month of August. China will lead debates aimed at maintaining peace and security across the world, saying it will focus on dialogue and cooperation to build consensus among council members.
In a press briefing on China’s Security Council presidency for the month of August, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun said that one fundamental goal of China’s approach to international affairs is to safeguard the international system with the United Nations at the center, and to support its central role in international affairs.
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