The coronavirus pandemic is a 9/11 moment. Al Qaida had been at war with the West for years before the destruction of the twin towers. But it took that barbarism to galvanise its largely supine prey into action.

Now we have Covid-19. Unlike 9/11 we have seen no evidence so far that China deliberately unleashed this virus on the world. There is certainly evidence, however, that it resulted from the policies of the Chinese Communist Party and that Beijing’s habitually duplicitous and criminally irresponsible actions allowed it to spread around the globe, leading to tens of thousands of deaths that could have been avoided.

Commentators and politicians today worry that the current situation might trigger a new cold war with China. They fail to understand that, in a similar but much more far-reaching pattern to the jihadist conflict, China has been fighting a cold war against the West for decades, while we have refused to recognise what is going on. The reality, in Beijing’s book, is that the cold war between China and the West, which began with the communist seizure of China in 1949, never ended. Despite the Sino-Soviet split and subsequent US-China rapprochement in the early 1970s, for the Chinese leadership the US was still the implacable enemy.

Like 9/11, Covid-19 must now force the West to wake up and fight back.

China today is by far the greatest threat to Western values, freedom, economy, industry, communications and technology. It threatens our very way of life. China’s objective is to push back against the US and become the dominant world power by 2049, a century after the creation of the People’s Republic. Dictator for life Xi Jinping has no intention of doing this through military conflict. His war is not fought on the battlefield but in the boardroom, the markets, the press, universities, cyberspace and in the darkest shadows.

Those who argue China’s right to compete with the West in free markets and on a level playing field seem not to comprehend that Beijing has no free market and no intention of playing on a level field. The world’s leading executioner, China is an incomparably ruthless dictatorship that tortures, disappears and imprisons its people at will and controls its massive population through a techno-surveillance infrastructure that it’s busy exporting around the world to extend its political and economic control to us.

For decades, China has been working on its three-pronged strategy: building its economy and fighting capability, including intelligence, technology, cyber and space as well as hard military power; developing global influence to exploit resources and secure control; thrusting back and dividing the US and its capitalist allies.

China has built its economy on Western money and at Western expense, by industrial-scale theft of intellectual property and technology, copyright violation, illicit data mining, cyberwar, deceit, duplicity, enslavement and uncompromising state control of industry and commerce. It continues to expand its already immense influence through a Belt and Road Initiative that marches across the globe; massive investment in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australasia and north and south America; and direct aggression in the Pacific including the South China Sea (where Beijing’s artificial island programme has created one of the greatest ecological disasters in history).

All of this is supported by a multi-million dollar propaganda operation, in President Xi’s words: “to tell China’s story well” — in other words: to advance the ideology of the CCP everywhere. This includes buying support or silence from global media outlets, threats and coercion. Just one high profile example of this influence occurred last year when the US National Basketball Association was forced to make a grovelling public apology after the Houston Rockets’ general manager tweeted in support of pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong.

Although military conflict is not China’s preferred strategic instrument, Beijing has not neglected fighting capabilities, spending an estimated $230 billion annually, second only to the US. Xi has been rebuilding his forces on an unprecedented scale, with particular emphasis on a naval war with America. Planned military contingency options also include moves against Taiwan and other territories it intends to control directly. China has also now become the second biggest arms seller in the world, including to countries subject to UN sanctions such as North Korea and Iran. This month, 15 armoured vehicles were delivered to Nigeria, including VT-4 main battle tanks, already in service with the Royal Thai Army and, like most of China’s defence equipment, incorporating technology stolen from the West. China’s arms exports are not motivated primarily by revenue generation, but as a means to impose influence and control, create proxies and challenge the US.

Chinese investment penetrates every corner of the United Kingdom, giving unparalleled influence here as in so many countries. Plans to allow Chinese investment and technology into our nuclear power programme and 5G network will build vulnerability into our critical national infrastructure of an order not seen in any other Western nation. Even the BBC, which receives funding from China, has produced and promoted a propaganda video supporting Huawei, to the alarm of some of its own journalists. All this despite MI5’s repeated warnings that Chinese intelligence continues to work against British interests at home and abroad.

The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars establishing Confucius Institutes around the world, mainly at universities. There are over 500 globally, including 29 in the UK and over 70 in the US. Ostensibly aimed at promoting Chinese culture, these bodies are used to infiltrate universities and high schools to indoctrinate students in communist ideology, as well as for espionage activities. More than 100,000 Chinese are studying in the UK. Last year, MI5 and GCHQ warned universities their research and computer systems are under threat from Chinese intelligence assets among these students. The Director of the FBI , Christopher Wray, said recently that China was aggressively exploiting US academic openness to steal technology, using “campus proxies” and establishing “institutes on our campuses.” More broadly he concluded that “no country poses a greater threat to the US than Communist China.”

A senior CCP official unguardedly admitted the Confucius Institutes are “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up”. Increasingly reliant on foreign funding, Western universities have been pressured by Chinese officials to censor debate on politically explosive issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square.

Few in the West fully recognise the threat to our own economies, security and liberty. Many who do refuse to speak out for four reasons. First, fear of coming into China’s crosshairs, provoking economic harm or character assassination. Second, fear of accusations of racism, a concern readily exploited by the Chinese state whose own egregious racism is only too obvious. Third, belief that our liberal values can change those that oppose us. The hope that Chinese exposure to free trade, including entry into the WTO in 2001, would have this effect has proven woefully misguided and served only to strengthen Beijing’s oppressive regime. Fourth, many political leaders, businessmen, academics and journalists have been bought and paid for by Beijing whether by financial incentive or blackmail.

How can the West fight back? Although still militarily and economically inferior to the US, China is a formidable and growing economic power, interwoven with Western economies to an unprecedented degree. We must begin to divest from and sanction China, repatriate and use alternative sources of manufacturing and technology, restrict capital investment there and curb Chinese investment here, especially in our infrastructure.

We must re-invigorate and develop our own technology, much long abandoned to the Chinese juggernaut. We must enforce the norms of international trade and act vigorously to prevent and penalise China’s orgy of industrial theft that has gone largely unchallenged for decades. We must push back globally against Beijing’s imperialism and propaganda wherever it occurs. We must also prepare for military conflict, with an emphasis on deterring Chinese aggression.

America will have to lead the fightback as it did previously in the cold war, but success will require Europe and our allies around the world to stand with them for the long term. This is not a party political issue, but must become a fundamental element of enduring Western grand strategies. This is the task of decades and will be high-risk and costly. The alternative is to remain on the hook and in hock to the Chinese communist state and let future generations suffer the incalculable consequences of our continued purblind inaction.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15915/coronavirus-west-911-moment

Unsurprisingly egged on by the hysterical media, authorities have taken the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to impose unprecedented tyranny. Were these extremes necessary? John Stossel doubts it:

Meanwhile, it becomes increasingly apparent that the danger of COVID-19 was significantlyoverstated.

moonbattery.com/john-stossel-on-coronavirus-overreach/

Most people who were not born in Sweden will never be economically self-sufficient, with Middle Eastern and African migrants scoring the lowest in a new study conducted by economists Johan Eklund and Johan P. Larsson at the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum.

The study, which examined self-sufficiency among Swedish immigrants, found that the gap in employment rate between native Swedes and immigrants is one of the widest in Europe.

The study further noted that in 2016, the lowest self-sufficiency level was among migrants from Africa and the Middle East, with only 38 percent and 36 percent of them determined to be self-sufficient, respectively. Conversely, Swedish-born residents and immigrants from other Nordic countries had self-sufficiency rates of 73 percent and 89 percent, which were twice as high.

At the moment, about 20 percent of Sweden’s population consists of migrants.

On average, about 50 percent of migrants have reached basic self-sufficiency by earning €1,200 or more 12 to 13 years after they came to Sweden. However, most immigrants remained dependent on government funding, with approximately 600,000 foreign-born residents in the country of 10 million failing to be self-sufficient, which the study deemed as all citizens who earn 12,600 Swedish crowns (€1,200) per month.

The level of self-sufficiency also differs in some cities. While in Stockholm, migrants showed a high level of self-sufficiency compared to Sweden’s average, in Malmö migrants were the least self-sufficient.

However, it is important to note that the study distinguished between being self-sufficient and being employed, as in Sweden, anyone who works at least one hour per week is considered to be employed.

In this respect, although 55 percent of migrants are employed within five years after coming to Sweden, only 30 percent of migrants become self-sufficient in this timeframe.

Data from 1990 to 2016 revealed that most of the migrants in productive age did not become self-sufficient in this period, with 600,000 migrants not being economically self-sufficient in 2016.

In 2018, the number was even higher, with about 772,000 migrants dependent on government funding and social benefits.

According to the study, the coronavirus pandemic could lead to an even higher numbers of migrants that are not self-sufficient.

Sweden has also faced other issues with its increasingly multicultural society, including an increase in sexual crimes against teen girls. Although migrants make up a fraction of the population of Sweden, statistics show they have a disproportionate role in sexual offenses.

rmx.news/article/article/majority-of-migrants-in-sweden-will-never-be-self-sufficient-study

Two men in the UK were arrested on charges of racially aggravated offenses after they posted stickers related to the coronavirus outbreak which said “pubs closed, borders open.”

The stickers, another of which said “open border, virus disorder,” were posted on lamp posts, bins, bus stop signs and bollards around areas of Sheffield. They are believed to be the work of the Hundred-Handers group, described as “far right” by the BBC.

Police said two men, aged 20 and 22, were held on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences and have now been released while investigations continue.

Local councillor Miskell said the stickers were an affront to diversity.

“This is absolutely disgusting and comes at a time where our diverse community is busy working together to tackle the virus,” he said. “This sort of behaviour can damage community cohesion and relationships across the city. We’re all working together to try to combat the virus.”

SImilar stickers have also been posted in other northern cities, including Leeds, York and Hull.

The stickers were deemed “racist” despite the fact that early border controls are what saved some countries from the worst of the coronavirus.

U.S. President Donald Trump also announced last night that America would be temporarily closing its borders to all immigration in order to fight COVID-19.

summit.news/2020/04/21/uk-two-men-arrested-for-posting-pubs-closed-borders-open-stickers/

Yesterday, Monday, a physical confrontation between five people occurred in the afternoon hours in Mühlhäuser Street in Eisenach. Four pedestrians (17 years old, from Iran and 18, 19, 21 years old, from Syria) hit a cyclist (32 years old, of German origin) in the argument. The 32-year-old was injured and had to be taken to hospital for further treatment. The four perpetrators were arrested at the scene of the crime. Police investigations into the circumstances of the crime have begun.

presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/126721/4575842

Anti-Israel activists disrupted a Zoom meeting by the Israeli Embassy in Berlin commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day by posting pictures of Hitler and shouting antisemitic slogans, according to Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff.The event, which hosted Holocaust survivor Zvi Herschel, was suspended and reconvened shortly afterwards without the activists.

Zoom meetings by Jewish organizations have been targeted by antisemites and white supremacists multiple times since the coronavirus outbreak began in incidents referred to as “Zoombombing.””While some of these reported Zoombombing incidents can be attributed to Internet trolls without particularly malicious intentions, there is concern that extremists could exploit the increasing reliance on video conferencing technology to target certain groups or advance their hateful messages,” said the ADL in a blog post concerning Zoombombing.

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Anti-Israel-activists-disrupt-Holocaust-Remembrance-Day-memorial-in-Berlin-625331

As so often, a homicide from Offenburg with Islamic motives is pushed back into the psychiatric corner. Muslim Ali. M, a “refugee” from Somalia, had shouted the traditional Islamic battle cry “Allahu Akbar”, while on May 16, 2019, he stepped on the 76-year-old pensioner Detlef J., who was lying defenceless on the ground, and hit him dozens of times. Shortly before this attack, the federal police arrested him at the train station in Offenburg, after he had “loudly expressed his opinion about Islam” and hammered on the window pane of a train station bar. While driving in a cab, he became aggressive, grabbed the driver’s steering wheel and punched him in the face. Ali M. was then arrested by the police and began to “pray aloud” on the way to the police station.

Four weeks earlier, the 25-year-old Muslim had complained massively in a shisha bar about not observing Ramadan, the month of fasting. On the train, he harassed and pestered “infidels” travelling with him. All this is the behaviour of a deeply believing Muslim who has internalised the strict rules of Islam and the radical orders of the Koran to hate and fight against infidels, even to the point of killing them. Pensioner Detlef died on Monday after months of suffering in hospital. He had suffered several broken bones in his face due to the kicks and blows of the Muslim, went blind on his left eye and was in need of permanent care ever since. His condition had continued to worsen until the death. He had to be fed with a stomach tube and in the end he could no longer swallow at all. The pensioner’s twin sons not only had to witness the slow death of their father, who did not recognize them due to the severe brain injuries, but also had to pay for the high costs of treatment. Despite nursing care insurance and a pension, they were lacking about 1600 Euros per month.

Muslim Ali M. was, as so often, certified by an “expert witness” as having “paranoid schizophrenia” and referred to a psychiatric hospital. Because the Muslim suffers from a “persistent illness”, there is a danger of further crimes such as bodily injury or homicide if the accused remains “untreated”. Now the Muslim can pretend to have an ominous “mental illness”, is hospitalized, is considered lack of culpability and evades just punishment. Ali M. had come to Germany as a “refugee” from Somalia in 2015, his asylum application was rejected in 2017. Since then, he has been allowed to stay in our country as a tolerated refugee, like hundreds of thousands of other unauthorized asylum seekers. In addition, he praises Islam and commits crimes in the process. Despite having committed bodily injury before the fatal attack on the pensioner, he had been released. The victim, however, was suspected. His two sons were questioned by the police whether their father was “peace-loving”, “xenophobic” and “how much alcohol” he drank. But Detlef J. did not even have a beer in his fridge. He was not xenophobic either. He just came from playing games with his friends and wanted to go home when he ran into Muslim Ali. Now Detlef is dead. And his killer isn’t even on trial. Allahu Akbar.

pi-news.net/2020/04/der-tod-von-rentner-detlef-in-offenburg-ein-mord-aus-islamischen-motiven/

We’re in an era of firsts, a runaway virus from China comes to mind, but this announcement by President Trump is the very first time anyone has heard an American president make this pronouncement.

President Trump has announced that he’s “temporarily suspending immigration into the United States.”

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

The president made the announcement to stop bringing in new people because the U.S. and world economies are cratering. And a historic number of people are now without jobs because of the virus. Trump is going all-in with the American people on this announcement.

Well, this is one way that President Trump will get Nancy Pelosi back to Washington, D.C.

We’ll bet that somehow the Left will label this as racist.

Let them try.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/breaking-youve-never-heard-a-president-announce-what-trump-just-did-never/

Does Europe have any conservatives? That is, believers in individual responsibility, national independence, free markets, a single law for all, the traditional family, and maximum freedom of speech and religion.

Seemingly not. Politicians called conservative — such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacques Chirac of France, and Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden — are often in reality mild leftists, as are their parties. One might conclude that conservatism is defunct in its homeland.

One would be wrong. A substantial conservative movement exists and is growing in Europe. It is hiding in plain sight, obscured by being tarred as populists, nationalists, extreme-right, or even neo-Nazis. I call this group by another name: civilizationists, acknowledging that (1) they focus on preserving Western civilization and (2) they forward some distinctly un-conservative policies (such as increased welfare and pension payments).

Civilizationists’ top concern is not battling climate change, building the European Union, or staving off Russian and Chinese aggression; rather, they focus on preserving Europe’s historic civilization of the past two millennia. They worry about Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa. Already, indigenous Europeans complain of feeling like strangers in their hometowns, of pensioners too scared to leave their houses, and of a school’s few Christian and Jewish students beat up by immigrant bullies. Imagine how things will look as the proportions change.

The civilizationists’ anxiety contains four main elements: demography, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization (or DIMI, recalling the Arabic word dhimmi, the status of Jews and Christians who submit to the rule of Muslims).

DIMI’s quartet are closely related: Demographic failure creates a need for Immigration which encourages a Multiculturalism that prominently features Islamization.

Start with demographics: Each year, because of its low birth rate of about 1.5 children per woman, the indigenous population of Europe declines by more than one million persons, a number that steadily increases over time. To maintain the population requires an annual immigration of more than that number (few immigrants arrive in Europe as newborns).

The potential pool of immigrants vastly exceeds that number. To cite just two figures: A former Iranian minister of agriculture predicts that, due to water shortages, up to 70% of the country’s population, or 57 million Iranians, will emigrate. The population of Africa is expected to triple by the year 2100, leading to hundreds of millions seeking homes in Europe. One-quarter of the European Union’s population in thirty years will be of African origin, according to Stephen Smith.

Non-Western immigration brings a variety of practical difficulties: new diseases, linguistic incomprehension, a lack of necessary work skills, and high unemployment.

Multiculturalism results from a mix of immigrant assertiveness and European guilt and self-doubts. Multiculturalism assumes cultures to be morally equivalent and sees no reason to prefer European civilization over any other. Burqas are as valid ball gowns, burkinis as bikinis.

Finally, Islamization brings a number of hostile actions and superior attitudes incompatible with existing Western ways: compulsory headscarves, partial no-go zones, taharrush (sexual predation), förnedringsrån (humiliation robberies), rape gangs, slavery, first-cousin marriages, polygyny, honor killings, female genital mutilation, the Rushdie Rules, jihadi violence, imposing Islamic law on all, and a deep nihilism.

The Establishment, or what I call the “Six Ps” (police, politicians, press, priests, professors, and prosecutors) tends to respond smugly to the DIMI quartet. Focused on the negatives in Europe’s history, especially imperialism, fascism, and racism, the elite expresses a pervasive guilt and generally acquiesces to, or even encourages, a transformation of Europe away from its historic culture.

Civilizationists respond to this trend with conservative alarm and work to resist that transformation. They do not feel guilty; on the contrary, they appreciate national traditions, and they see Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa as a collapse of values and an as existential cultural threat.

The Establishment dismisses them as old-fashioned, weak, elderly, ignorant losers. Even analysts sympathetic to civilizationists, including distinguished writers such as Bat Ye’or, Oriana Fallaci and Mark Steyn, see the cause as lost, and see “Londonistan” and the Islamic Republic of France as inevitable.

But it is not. Civilizationists are already a powerful force, having advanced from a marginal position twenty years ago to a central role in many countries. They have been or are the main parliamentary opposition in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. They have been or are part of the government in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. They govern in a coalition in Poland and on their own in Hungary. Their failure is far from inevitable.

In this light, some predictions:

First, because no one says, “I used to worry about DIMI but no longer,” the number of civilizationists will continue to grow. Within 15 or at most 20 years they are likely to dominate Europe’s politics, with the possible major exception of the United Kingdom, where they are stalled. After a long and bitter struggle, this countermovement to restore traditional ways will ultimately prevail.

Second, the civilizationists have three paths to power: control of the government, as in Hungary and Poland; joining with nominal conservatives, as in Austria; or joining with the Left, as in Italy. Also, in limited ways, the Left itself can bring some conservative ideas to power, as in Denmark. Further new paths may yet appear.

Third, the former Warsaw Pact countries will lead the way toward this future. Watching the mistakes of NATO Europe, they resolve not to repeat them. This includes the Visegrád Four (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary) as well as eastern Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria. The eastern part of Europe has for a millennium lagged behind the western part, so this is a remarkable turnaround.

Fourth, civilizationists are hardly known for their intellectualism or principles, so seeing them as conservatives may come as a surprise. But they are moving erratically in that direction. What begins with instinct, raw populism, and crude majoritarianism is evolving into something more refined, as civilizationists move to the political center to win support. Experience modulates self-indulgence. Intellectuals are emerging; these include Douglas Murray (UK), Alejandro Macarón (Spain), Renaud Camus (France). Bat Ye’or (Switzerland), Thilo Sarrazin (Germany), Christian Zeitz (Austria), Viktor Orbán (Hungary), and Lars Hedegaard (Denmark).

Staving off the crisis created by demographics, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization means preserving the continent’s best features. Civilizationists represent the hope for conservatism and for the future of Europe.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15913/europe-conservatives