美国-世界上的恶霸 — America – The World’s Bully
作者:拉里·罗曼诺夫 /By Larry Romanoff
目录/Contents
伊朗石油与美国银行体系/Iranian Oil & The US Banking System
瑞士银行体系/The Swiss Banking System
日元与广场协议/The Japanese Yen and The Plaza Accord
人民币汇率/The RMB Exchange Rate
国际融资/International Financing
金融评级机构/The Financial Rating Agencies
银行卡支付系统/Bank Card Payment Systems
俄罗斯艺术/Russian Art
欧洲伽利略全球定位系统/Europe’s Galileo GPS System
你的是我的/What’s Yours is Mine
加拿大软木木材工业/Canada’s Softwood Lumber Industry
加拿大西北通道/Canada’s Northwest Passage
美国式大米营销/Rice Marketing, American Style
冲绳美军基地/US Military Bases in Okinawa
我可以起诉你,但你不能起诉我/I Can Sue You, But You Can’t Sue Me
会计准则和程序/Accounting Standards and Procedures
法国驻贝尔格莱德大使馆/French Embassy in Belgrade
航空公司乘客信息/Airline passenger information
美英引渡条约/US-UK Extradition Treaty
如果你不和我们在一起,你就反对我们/If You’re Not With us, You’re Against us
治外法权/Extra-territorialism
美国-世界上的恶霸 /America – The World’s Bully
In an article in the Dallas Morning News, Robert Jensen wrote, “In the debate about US war, the question often pops up: Should the United States be the world’s policeman? This is a case where the answer doesn’t matter, because it is the wrong question. The United States isn’t offering to be the world’s cop; US officials are acting as the world’s bully. The role of police is to uphold the law, but police don’t boast that they will respect only those laws they decide to respect. All this talk about being the world’s policeman helps obscure a simple reality: US policy-makers routinely ignore international law and act as rogues”.
罗伯特·詹森(Robert Jensen)在《达拉斯晨报》(Dallas Morning News)的一篇文章中写道,“在关于美国战争的辩论中,经常会出现这样一个问题:美国应该成为世界警察吗?在这种情况下,答案并不重要,因为这是一个错误的问题。美国没有提出要成为世界警察;美国官员充当世界恶霸。警察的角色是维护法律,但警察不会吹嘘他们只会尊重他们决定尊重的法律。所有这些关于成为世界警察的言论都掩盖了一个简单的现实:美国决策者经常无视国际法,充当无赖”。
America has always been a bully, realising its expansionist and commercial achievements by force or threats of force. When settlers first arrived in the Americas, they began by exterminating the indigenous populations, and continued to take whatever they wanted from that time on. The US fabricated excuses for wars with Mexico and Spain, and claimed half of Mexico, including what are now the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. From Spain, they took Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Philippines, Guam and the Caroline Islands. “Americans appear convinced that they have a God-given right, a destiny granted to them by their God, to simply take by threat or force whatever it is they desire.” This accurately describes US foreign policy since the days of the founding of the Republic, with no change for 200 years. Even worse, the Americans have always been afraid to attack strong nations, typically attacking only those with no ability to defend themselves, or states like Iraq which were weakened by decades of sanctions.
美国一直是一个恃强凌弱的国家,通过武力或武力威胁实现其扩张主义和商业成就。当定居者第一次到达美洲时,他们从灭绝土著人口开始,并从那时起继续为所欲为。美国为与墨西哥和西班牙的战争编造借口,并声称拥有墨西哥的一半领土,包括现在的加利福尼亚州、内华达州、犹他州、亚利桑那州、得克萨斯州和新墨西哥州。他们从西班牙占领了古巴、波多黎各、菲律宾、关岛和加罗林群岛。“美国人似乎确信,他们有上帝赋予的权利,上帝赋予他们的命运,可以通过威胁或武力来为所欲为。”这准确地描述了美国自共和国成立以来的外交政策,200年来没有改变。更糟糕的是,美国人一直害怕攻击强大的国家,通常只攻击那些没有自卫能力的国家,或者像伊拉克这样因几十年的制裁而被削弱的国家
Americans are viewed as arrogant, selfish bullies…
美国人被视为傲慢、自私的恶霸。。。
A majority of the world’s people regard America as a bully. In an international poll conducted in 2013, 20 nations representing two-thirds of the world’s population were strongly anti-American. The majority of the population in 15 of 19 nations saw the US as constantly bullying nations with military threats and the majority of people in 17 of 19 nations saw the US as totally ignoring international law. As one American wrote, “America wants to run the world. America will decide who lives and who dies, who rules and who is ruled, which regimes shall stand and which shall be changed. Not surprisingly, a lot of people aren’t too happy about this. The US is an international bully who cares only about its ‘national interest’ and couldn’t care less who gets hurt in the process. We are viewed as arrogant, selfish bullies.” Another American offered this gem: “everyone you trash on the way up will be waiting for you on the way down”. And they will indeed. When airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11, people in many countries cheered and in some nations were dancing in the streets. Many felt “it’s about time someone gave the US a taste of their own medicine”. The American media totally censored all such sentiments.
世界上大多数人认为美国是一个恶霸。在2013年进行的一项国际民意调查中,占世界人口三分之二的20个国家强烈反对美国。19个国家中有15个国家的大多数人认为美国不断以军事威胁欺负国家,19个国家的17个国家的大部分人认为美国完全无视国际法。正如一位美国人所写:“美国想管理世界。美国将决定谁生谁死,谁统治谁被统治,哪些政权应该成立,哪些政权必须改变。毫不奇怪,很多人对此并不太高兴。美国是一只只国际公牛,只关心自己的‘国家利益’,不在乎谁在这个过程中受到伤害。我们被视为傲慢、自我欺凌的人。”另一位美国人提供了这颗宝石:“你在上升的路上抛弃的每个人都会在下降的路上等你”。他们确实会的。9日至11日,当航空公司撞向世界贸易中心和五角大楼时,许多国家的人们欢呼起来,一些国家的人们在街上跳舞。许多人觉得“是时候让美国尝一尝自己的药了”。美国媒体彻底审查了所有这些情绪。
News reporters claim it is not unusual today for Americans to be booed at conferences of many kinds. In a major international conference in Australia, China’s President Xi Jinping was heavily applauded while US President Obama received only loud boos and jeering. A journalist with the state TV network in South Africa spoke for many when he said of the US: “I think a lot of people just see a greedy bully”. When ABC News consulted journalists around the world about the way the United States is perceived, the theme repeatedly stated was that the US is concerned only by its own narrow interests and has no consideration for other nations. US State Department officials were sufficiently concerned about growing anti-American sentiment worldwide that they held a private conference to discuss the topic, but it was clear the Americans wanted only to manage public perception, with no intention of changing their underlying behavior.
新闻记者声称,今天美国人在各种会议上遭到嘘声并不罕见。在澳大利亚举行的一次重要国际会议上,中国习近平主席受到了热烈的掌声,而美国总统奥巴马只受到了响亮的嘘声和嘲笑。南非国家电视网的一名记者在谈到美国时说:“我认为很多人只是看到了贪婪的恶霸”。当美国广播公司新闻就人们对美国的看法咨询世界各地的记者时,主题一再表明,美国只关心自己的狭隘利益,不考虑其他国家。美国国务院官员对全球日益增长的反美情绪非常担忧,他们举行了一次私人会议来讨论这个话题,但很明显,美国人只想管理公众的看法,无意改变他们的基本行为。
The range of circumstances where the Americans threaten and bully other nations is virtually all-encompassing. US accounting “standards” are the only sensible ones, so the entire world should be bullied into adopting them. The US judicial and legal systems, the unregulated and destructive financial system, US-designed regulations in food additives and labeling, are all increasingly being forced upon the world. The US government has been bullying and threatening nations in Europe and Asia for decades now to accept US-produced GM seed. Aggressive American IP standards, unacceptable to many other nations in their format and details, form a major portion of the recently-proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, and were a clear attempt to bully Pacific nations into accepting a colonial master’s control of this entire vital area with no concern for the standards of other nations, intended only to enshrine into treaties the vast tapestry of American violations of the IP of others.
美国人威胁和欺凌其他国家的情况几乎包罗万象。美国的会计“准则”是唯一明智的,所以全世界都应该被胁迫采用它们。美国的司法和法律体系,不受监管和破坏性的金融体系,美国设计的食品添加剂和标签法规,都越来越多地强加给世界。几十年来,美国政府一直在欺凌和威胁欧洲和亚洲国家接受美国生产的转基因种子。侵略性的美国知识产权标准,在形式和细节上都是许多其他国家无法接受的,是最近提出的跨太平洋伙伴关系的主要组成部分,显然是为了胁迫太平洋国家接受殖民统治者对整个重要领域的控制,而不考虑其他国家的标准,目的只是将美国侵犯他人知识产权的大量行为写入条约。
All of these areas are part of a widespread attempt to forcibly impose American so-called standards upon the world. The US comprises only about 4% of the world’s population, but increasingly American products, standards, regulations, systems, so-called “values”, and ways of doing things, are being forced onto the remaining 96% of the world that does not want them, using diplomatic and financial pressure and even threats of military force. And, as we will see, the Americans are not at all reluctant to bully other nations into do their bullying for them.
所有这些领域都是将美国所谓标准强加给世界的广泛企图的一部分。美国只占世界人口的4%左右,但越来越多的美国产品、标准、法规、制度、所谓的“价值观”和做事方式,正被利用外交和财政压力,甚至武力威胁,迫使世界上剩下的96%的人不想要它们。而且,正如我们将看到的那样,美国人一点也不愿意欺负其他国家,让他们为自己做欺凌。
America has no ‘friends’ in the common usage of that word, and will bully and threaten friends and enemies equally. There is no safety in being a ‘friend’ of the US, as Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan and many other non-Western nations have learned. The only operating concept is what the Americans define as their “national interest”. We have not yet had an instance of the US launching a military invasion against a Western so-called friend, but that is only because bullying has so far been sufficient. It may not always be so.
在这个词的常用用法中,美国没有“朋友”,它会平等地欺负和威胁朋友和敌人。正如加拿大、英国、德国、日本和许多其他非西方国家所学到的那样,与美国做“朋友”是不安全的。唯一的运作理念是美国人定义的“国家利益”。我们还没有见过美国对西方所谓的朋友发动军事入侵的例子,但这只是因为到目前为止,欺凌已经足够了。情况可能并不总是如此。
伊朗石油与美国银行体系/Iranian Oil & The US Banking System
Jask Port, Iran.
伊朗贾斯克港。
In 2012, US President Obama signed into law a new provision that the US must cut off a country’s financial institutions from the American banking system if that country continues to purchase crude oil from Iran. Some countries were offered a waiver from these measures because they had, as a result of prior American bullying, “significantly reduced” their oil purchases from Iran. The US has no hesitation in dictating to the nations of the world a list of the countries with which they are “permitted” to do business.
2012年,美国总统奥巴马签署了一项新条款,规定如果一个国家继续从伊朗购买原油,美国必须切断该国金融机构与美国银行系统的联系。一些国家被要求放弃这些措施,因为由于之前美国的欺凌,它们“大幅减少”了从伊朗的石油采购。美国毫不犹豫地向世界各国公布了一份“允许”与之做生意的国家名单。
One recent example relates to the sudden frenzied attacks in 2013 and 2014 by the US Justice Department on foreign banks operating in the US, on the pretext of financing terrorism or encouraging “tax evasion”. These banks may or may not have assisted American citizens in avoiding tax but there was absolutely no evidence of involvement in financing terrorism. The truth was rather different and, while the US media refused to touch the issue, it was only foreign banks that were being targeted while Citibank and Goldman Sachs were outstandingly conspicuous by their absence in this frenzy, and indeed many politicians and others questioned the peculiar selection of banking victims. The truth emerged, though again the US government and media totally censored the facts, when documents were discovered to prove that US officials, working through the New York prosecutor’s office, had begun moves to cancel Standard Chartered’s US business license, an act which would have been potentially fatal to the bank’s survival. The reason was Iran, specifically that the US government, following its instructions from Israel and the Jewish lobby, wanted to financially isolate and bankrupt Iran in preparation for another US-sponsored revolution, an agenda some foreign banks, including Standard Chartered, did not share.
最近的一个例子涉及美国司法部在2013年和2014年以资助恐怖主义或鼓励“逃税”为借口,对在美国经营的外国银行进行的突然疯狂袭击。这些银行可能帮助美国公民避税,也可能没有,但绝对没有证据表明它们参与资助恐怖主义。事实大不相同,尽管美国媒体拒绝提及这一问题,但只有外国银行成为攻击目标,而花旗银行和高盛因其缺席这场狂热而引人注目,事实上,许多政客和其他人对银行业受害者的具体选择提出了质疑。真相浮出水面,尽管美国政府和媒体再次对事实进行了彻底审查,当时发现了文件,证明美国官员通过纽约检察官办公室开始取消渣打银行的美国营业执照,这一行为可能会对渣打银行的生存造成致命影响。原因是伊朗,特别是美国政府听从以色列和犹太游说团体的指示,希望在经济上孤立伊朗并使其破产,为美国支持的另一场革命做准备,而包括渣打银行在内的一些外国银行并不认同这一议程。
To give you an appreciation of how reporters spin events and the media create history that never existed, both parties covering up government crimes in the process, we can consider the article The Financial Times’ Andrew Hill wrote on the Standard Chartered issue. At the time, he was writing on the apology given by Apple’s Tim Cook to China for violating laws and cheating customers, acts Hill dismissed as a clever non-apology. Hill began his commentary with this statement:
为了让你了解记者如何编造事件和媒体如何创造从未存在过的历史,双方都在这个过程中掩盖政府罪行,我们可以看看《金融时报》的安德鲁·希尔在渣打银行问题上写的文章。当时,他正在写苹果公司的蒂姆·库克因违反法律和欺骗客户而向中国道歉的文章,希尔认为这是一种巧妙的不道歉行为。希尔在评论开始时说:
“For a better example of contrition in the face of government pressure, take a look at the abject statement of apology the Chairman of Standard Chartered had to write after making remarks relating to the bank’s breaches of US sanctions rules that he admitted were “both legally and factually incorrect”.
为了更好地说明面对政府压力时的忏悔,看看渣打银行董事长在就该行违反美国制裁规定发表言论后不得不写的卑鄙的道歉声明,他承认这些言论“在法律和事实上都是不正确的”。
Hill then printed the abject apology in full, in which the bank official admitted to willfully avoiding US financial sanctions on Iran. The conclusion we are to draw from Hill’s article is that the Chairman of Standard Chartered sincerely apologised for deliberate great wrongs of the bank while Tim Cook apologised insincerely for no wrongs committed by Apple. However, the truth was rather different. Tim Cook did indeed apologise insincerely for genuine wrongs and illegal acts committed by Apple, while the bank apologised very sincerely (and fearfully, I would add) for having done nothing wrong. Why would the bank do that? Well, here is the story behind the story, the part the Financial Times and Andrew Hill did not want to tell you:
希尔随后完整地发表了这份卑鄙的道歉,这位银行官员在道歉中承认故意避免美国对伊朗的金融制裁。我们从希尔的文章中得出的结论是,渣打银行董事长为该行故意犯下的重大错误真诚道歉,而蒂姆·库克则为苹果公司没有犯下的错误真诚道歉。然而,事实却大不相同。蒂姆·库克确实为苹果公司犯下的真正错误和非法行为真诚道歉,而该银行则为没有做错任何事而非常真诚地道歉(我补充说,这是非常可怕的)。银行为什么要这么做?好吧,以下是故事背后的故事,英国《金融时报》和安德鲁·希尔不想告诉你的部分:
Benjamin Lawsky. Source
本杰明·劳斯基。来源
Benjamin Lawsky, the Jew at the head of America’s New York Financial Services division claimed that when warned to cease dealings with Iran, a Standard Chartered executive replied: “You f—ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians.” That was when Lawsky decided, entirely outside the law, to revoke the bank’s business license, and it was only from extensive pleadings at the highest government levels that the bank was saved. And, of course, by the “abject apology” issued by the bank’s Chairman. This is a perfect example of how freely the Americans will bully anyone, with no regard whatever for law or justice, or even reason. But it is also a perfect example of how the public are duped by the media, with government crimes, atrocities, bullying, all manner of illegal acts buried in articles containing false statements or false impressions while omitting the crucial details. And, in so many cases, blaming the victim. According to Hill and the Financial Times, Apple was angelic while Standard Chartered was bad, but the truth was entirely the opposite of the spin. And I would repeat yet again that the only value in freedom of speech depends on having control of the microphone.
美国纽约金融服务部门负责人、犹太人本杰明·劳斯基(Benjamin Lawsky)声称,当被警告停止与伊朗的交易时,渣打银行的一名高管回答说:“你们这些美国人。你们是谁告诉我们,世界其他地方,我们不会与伊朗人打交道。” 就在那时,劳斯基完全在法律之外决定吊销该银行的营业执照,只有在政府最高级别的广泛恳求下,该银行才得以挽救。当然,还有该银行董事长发表的“卑鄙的道歉”。这是一个完美的例子,表明美国人会多么自由地欺负任何人,而不考虑法律、正义,甚至理由。但这也是一个完美的例子,说明公众是如何被媒体欺骗的,政府犯罪、暴行、欺凌,以及各种非法行为都隐藏在包含虚假陈述或虚假印象的文章中,而忽略了关键细节。而且,在很多情况下,指责受害者。根据希尔和英国《金融时报》的报道,苹果是天使般的,而渣打银行则是糟糕的,但事实恰恰相反。我要再次重申,言论自由的唯一价值取决于对麦克风的控制。
One happy postscript to these events resulted from a UK courtroom. The Americans weren’t satisfied with their own leverage in bullying Iran with financial sanctions, but bullied the UK government to adopt the same illegal tactics. In the event, the Iranians sued the UK government in the European Court of Justice, claiming that sanctions employed against them by the UK were ‘wrongly imposed‘, and the court agreed, leaving the UK facing a potential bill of $4bn in damages for being the Americans’ poodle once too often. A few more of these, and the British might learn their lesson and begin ignoring the Americans – who absolutely will not pay their court bill for them. But then the Americans had to pay their own damages for this one illegality since Iran also sued the US government. In the Autumn of 2016, it was revealed that Iran had succeeded in its lawsuit against the US for the illegal confiscation and freezing of Iranian bank assets in the US, with reports that planeloads of cash totaling nearly $2 billion had been flown to Iran from the US in settlement of Iran’s claims. Officials of the Treasury Department attempted to put the best light on these refunds, stating they were “necessitated by the effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions regimes over the last several years in isolating Iran from the international financial system“. In other words, our great success in stealing your money made it necessary for us to return it. Does that make sense to you? No, me neither, but then this is America and things are different here. However, the real issue was that Obama and other White House officials admitted they were on the verge of losing the lawsuit and would have been liable for as much as $10 billion to Iran because of accrued interest, so they panicked and filled airplanes with cash in the hopes of appeasing Iran.
英国的一个法庭为这些事件写了一段愉快的附言。美国人不满足于他们自己用金融制裁来欺负伊朗,而是欺负英国政府采取同样的非法策略。在这起事件中,伊朗人在欧洲法院起诉英国政府,声称英国对他们实施的制裁是“错误的”,法院同意了这一说法,使英国因经常成为美国人的贵宾犬而面临40亿美元的潜在损害赔偿。再多一些,英国人可能会吸取教训,开始忽视美国人——他们绝对不会为他们支付法庭费用。但由于伊朗也起诉了美国政府,美国人不得不为这一非法行为支付自己的赔偿金。2016年秋天,据透露,伊朗成功起诉美国非法没收和冻结伊朗在美国的银行资产,有报道称,为解决伊朗的索赔,从美国向伊朗空运了总额近20亿美元的现金。财政部官员试图对这些退款给予最好的说明,称这些退款是“过去几年美国和国际制裁制度在将伊朗与国际金融体系隔离方面的有效性所必需的”。换言之,我们成功地偷走了你的钱,所以我们有必要归还它。这对你有意义吗?不,我也不,但这是美国,这里的情况不同。然而,真正的问题是,奥巴马和其他白宫官员承认,他们即将输掉诉讼,由于应计利息,他们将向伊朗承担高达100亿美元的赔偿责任,因此他们惊慌失措,在飞机上装满现金,希望能安抚伊朗。
The US also applied so-called “sanctions” against Iran for blocking seditious US broadcasts into the country, freezing or confiscating all of Iran’s assets in Western countries, obviously with the compliance of its Western allies. But in their vindictiveness the Americans extend a much longer reach that includes any nations, persons or corporations dealing with Iran. The US threatened to apply financial sanctions against China for purchasing Iranian oil, including cutting off access to the US financial system by the Chinese government and all Chinese corporations, and levied fines against a Chinese bank for having transactions with Iran. Any corporations anywhere in the world that do business with Iran are automatically targeted for “punishment”, as are their respective governments. If an African firm engages in commerce with Iran, the US will attempt to seize that firm’s assets anywhere in the world, in complete violation of all laws, and will threaten economic sanctions against that firm’s government as well. If any of these firms have operations, staff or assets in the US, the Americans will simply seize the assets and file criminal charges against the staff on some fabricated basis of ‘trading with the enemy’. If assets exist in other Western nations, the US will bully those countries to freeze or seize all assets, simply on the basis that the US wants to starve Iran into submission and expects compliant assistance from the rest of the world.
美国还对伊朗实施了所谓的“制裁”,因为伊朗屏蔽了美国对该国的煽动性广播,冻结或没收了伊朗在西方国家的所有资产,这显然符合其西方盟友的要求。但在他们的报复中,美国人的报复范围要长得多,包括与伊朗打交道的任何国家、个人或公司。美国威胁要对购买伊朗石油的中国实施金融制裁,包括切断中国政府和所有中国公司进入美国金融系统的渠道,并对一家与伊朗有交易的中国银行处以罚款。世界上任何地方与伊朗做生意的公司都会自动成为“惩罚”的目标,他们各自的政府也是如此。如果一家非洲公司与伊朗进行贸易,美国将试图在世界任何地方扣押该公司的资产,这完全违反了所有法律,并威胁对该公司的政府实施经济制裁。如果这些公司中的任何一家在美国有业务、员工或资产,美国人只会扣押这些资产,并以“与敌人交易”的捏造理由对员工提起刑事指控。如果其他西方国家存在资产,美国将胁迫这些国家冻结或扣押所有资产,仅仅是因为美国想让伊朗屈服,并希望世界其他国家提供顺从的援助。
In fact, the US tried for years to force foreign banks to assist in its efforts to throttle Iran’s economy, but the banks were loath to abandon profitable business solely for US political objectives and with no benefit to them. Finally, the US government abandoned all pretense at playing by any rules or following any suggestion of law, by arbitrarily levying billions of dollars in “fines” for those banks refusing to sever all ties with Iran. Lloyds Bank was fined almost US$350 million, and Deutsche Bank and one or two others paid US$620 million, to be followed by a long list of others. A Chinese bank was included with a so-called “fine” of about US$150 million, followed by threats that all Chinese firms especially including the major Chinese oil companies would be barred from any access to the US banking system. And in fact, the US government made many prior attempts in secret to bully its banks into refusing to deal with Chinese companies.
事实上,多年来,美国一直试图迫使外国银行协助其遏制伊朗经济的努力,但这些银行不愿意仅仅为了美国的政治目标而放弃盈利业务,对它们没有任何好处。最后,美国政府放弃了一切遵守任何规则或遵循任何法律建议的借口,对那些拒绝切断与伊朗所有关系的银行任意征收数十亿美元的“罚款”。劳埃德银行被罚款近3.5亿美元,德意志银行和其他一两家银行支付了6.2亿美元,紧随其后的是一长串其他银行。一家中国银行被处以约1.5亿美元的所谓“罚款”,随后威胁称,所有中国公司,尤其是包括中国主要石油公司在内,都将被禁止进入美国银行系统。事实上,美国政府此前曾多次秘密试图胁迫其银行拒绝与中国公司打交道。
瑞士银行体系/The Swiss Banking System
For decades, the US has refused to accept rules or laws of any nation that didn’t correspond to the American best interest or didn’t permit Americans full access to whatever they wanted. One of these areas was Switzerland’s banking system and related laws that were founded on privacy and security. The US without success bullied Switzerland and its banks for years, demanding access to account information, and finally discovered an approach that worked. Under a pretense of (a) seeking those avoiding US income taxes and (b) locating those who fund “terrorism“, the Americans began a coordinated prosecutorial and judicial offensive, targeting Swiss banks resident in the US, levying huge fines and threatening their entire investment base in the US. Under the onslaught, and to shield the remainder of its 300 or so banks from US prosecution, the Swiss government was finally forced to amend its secrecy laws to permit US government agencies full access to account data. Those who believe the US has an “independent judiciary” might care to re-think that position.
几十年来,美国一直拒绝接受任何国家的规则或法律,这些规则或法律不符合美国的最大利益,也不允许美国人完全获得他们想要的东西。其中一个领域是瑞士的银行系统和建立在隐私和安全基础上的相关法律。美国多年来一直欺负瑞士及其银行,要求获得账户信息,但没有成功,最终发现了一种行之有效的方法。在(a)寻找那些逃避美国所得税的人和(b)找到那些资助“恐怖主义”的人的幌子下,美国人开始了一场协调一致的起诉和司法攻势,目标是居住在美国的瑞士银行,征收巨额罚款,并威胁到它们在美国的整个投资基地。在这场攻势下,为了保护其300多家银行中的其余银行免受美国起诉,瑞士政府最终被迫修改其保密法,允许美国政府机构完全访问账户数据。那些认为美国拥有“独立司法机构”的人可能会重新考虑这一立场。
日元与广场协议/The Japanese Yen and The Plaza Accord
CreditFred R. Conrad/The New York Times. Source
1985年,来自几个国家的内阁级财政官员制定了《广场协议》,以缓和货币波动。左起为西德的格哈德·斯托尔滕贝格、法国的皮埃尔·贝雷戈沃伊、美国的詹姆斯·A·贝克、英国的奈杰尔·劳森和日本的竹下伸男。信贷弗雷德·R·康拉德/《纽约时报》。来源
By the 1980s, Japan had become a severe concern to US commerce, having entered most US industrial sectors with higher quality, better design and engineering and often more attractive prices. Many major US corporations were losing market share and hemorrhaging red ink with no sign of relief, and the US was running high trade deficits as well. After years of exerting mostly unsuccessful bullying pressure on Japan for export restraints, the US turned its attention to prying open what it viewed as a closed Japanese market. Largely failing here as well, the US then directed its focus on forcing Japan to renovate its economy on a macro level, including extortionate attempts to affect Japanese domestic savings and investment balances. Failing in these efforts as well, the US eventually found an ideal solution: The Americans forced Japan to accept a revaluation of the Japanese Yen – the famous “Plaza Accord” – as a result of which the Yen nearly tripled in only a few years, crippling Japan’s economy – a condition from which it has never recovered.
到20世纪80年代,日本已经成为美国商业的一个严重关切,以更高的质量、更好的设计和工程以及通常更具吸引力的价格进入了美国的大多数工业部门。许多美国大公司正在失去市场份额,大量亏损,没有缓解的迹象,美国也出现了高贸易赤字。多年来,美国对日本施加了几乎没有成功的出口限制欺凌压力,之后,美国将注意力转向了窥探其认为封闭的日本市场。在很大程度上,美国也失败了,然后将重点放在迫使日本在宏观层面上振兴经济上,包括敲诈性地试图影响日本国内储蓄和投资平衡。这些努力也失败了,美国最终找到了一个理想的解决方案:美国人迫使日本接受日元的重估,即著名的“广场协议”,结果日元在短短几年内几乎翻了两番,重创了日本经济,日本经济从此一蹶不振。
人民币汇率/The RMB Exchange Rate
As with Japan, when the US found itself hopelessly outclassed by China’s manufacturing efficiency and prices and, experiencing increasing trade deficits with China, it mounted an almost overwhelming campaign of pressure and propaganda in attempts to force China to revalue the RMB upward, by at least 25% to 40%. US politicians and officials from the President and State Department to the US Embassies and MNCs, AmCham and many other American groups all jumped onto this same wagon and rode it for years. The US media continued an incessant onslaught of carping criticism of China’s currency policies, noting in detail all manner of economic and political threats the US government held in hand to force China to effectively commit economic suicide in order to preserve US economic supremacy. The volume and strength of the pressure was truly astonishing, as was its consistency and duration. It continued without letup for years, with a concerted and coordinated effort by all US newspapers, columnists, reporters and others, all working to pressure China into relenting. Possibly the worst of this emanated from the Jew Paul Krugman, the fake Nobel Economics prize winner, the NYT’s “Renminbi Rambo”. Among his many flagrantly dishonest articles, Krugman claimed at one point that China was executing “the greatest currency manipulation in history”, or words to that effect – while the US was engaged in its QE1, 2 and 3, which was in reality “the greatest currency manipulation in history”.
与日本一样,当美国发现自己被中国的制造业效率和价格远远超过,并经历了与中国日益增加的贸易赤字时,它发起了一场几乎压倒性的压力和宣传运动,试图迫使中国将人民币升值至少25%至40%。从总统、国务院到美国大使馆、跨国公司、美国商会和许多其他美国团体的美国政客和官员都跳上了这辆马车,并在车上行驶了多年。美国媒体继续不断抨击中国的货币政策,详细报道了美国政府为维护美国经济霸权而采取的各种经济和政治威胁,迫使中国实际上进行经济自杀。压力的大小和强度真的令人震惊,它的一致性和持续时间也是如此。多年来,在所有美国报纸、专栏作家、记者和其他人的协调一致的努力下,这种情况一直没有停止,所有人都在努力向中国施压,迫使其让步。其中最糟糕的可能来自犹太人保罗·克鲁格曼,他是伪造的诺贝尔经济学奖得主,《纽约时报》的“人民币兰博”。克鲁格曼在其众多公然不诚实的文章中曾一度声称,中国正在实施“历史上最大的货币操纵”,或类似的言论,而美国正在实施其QE1、QE2和QE3,这实际上是“历史上最伟大的货币操纵。”。
It is a great tribute to the strength and maturity of China’s Central Government that it did not capitulate to the Americans in this years-long dishonest and repugnant bullying crusade to derail China’s economy and development. And in the end, the Americans were forced by circumstances to admit that China’s RMB had never been substantially over-valued. A continued effort would have served only to further discredit US politicians and officials as it did so many American economists like Krugman – one of the more foolishly vocal proponents of this insane policy.
这是对中国中央政府的力量和成熟的极大赞扬,它在这场长达数年的不诚实和令人反感的欺凌运动中没有向美国人投降,以破坏中国的经济和发展。最终,美国人迫于形势不得不承认,中国的人民币从未被大幅高估。继续努力只会进一步抹黑美国政客和官员,就像许多像克鲁格曼这样的美国经济学家一样——克鲁格曼是这一疯狂政策的更愚蠢的支持者之一。
国际融资/International Financing
In 2016, Russia planned to issue about $3 billion in foreign bonds, its first international issue in several years, and invited a flock of European and Chinese banks to bid on the bonds. But at the time, the Jews controlling the White House were irritated at Russia for frustrating their recent attempts to take over the government of the Ukraine and Russia’s Crimean military base. Therefore, the State Department servants went immediately to work, warning American banks against participating in Russia’s “politically risky” bond deal, with implied threats that failure to comply could be dangerous to their health. But the commissions on $3 billion are much more than nothing, and the American banks were reported to be “weighing their options” in spite of the threats. Of course, the US attempted to put pressure on the European banks as well, with the same veiled threats to their financial health in the US market if they dared disobey the Imperial Master. The State Department also issued an additional warning of “reputational“ risks to any bank daring to return “to business as usual with Russia”.
2016年,俄罗斯计划发行约30亿美元的外国债券,这是几年来的首次国际发行,并邀请了一群欧洲和中国银行对这些债券进行投标。但当时,控制白宫的犹太人对俄罗斯感到愤怒,因为俄罗斯挫败了他们最近接管乌克兰政府和俄罗斯克里米亚军事基地的企图。因此,国务院的公务员立即上班,警告美国银行不要参与俄罗斯的“政治风险”债券交易,并暗示不遵守协议可能会危及他们的健康。但30亿美元的佣金远不止于零,据报道,尽管面临威胁,美国银行仍在“权衡选择”。当然,美国也试图向欧洲银行施加压力,如果它们胆敢违抗帝国大师的命令,就会对它们在美国市场的财务健康构成同样的隐性威胁。国务院还对任何敢于“与俄罗斯恢复正常业务”的银行发出了“声誉”风险的额外警告。
A bit earlier, in 2014, all foreign banks were ordered! to cooperate with the US Treasury department – in any way demanded, even if that cooperation were against the laws of their own country – to help identify foreigners with large amounts of cash. The pretense was that some of these individuals might owe taxes to the US, but there was no documentation to support that claim, nor would such evidence be presented due to concerns of “privacy and national security”. The US Treasury was simply on a fishing trip, for reasons unclear at the time. For the foreign banks, failure to comply – with actions that were in most cases clearly illegal – would result in an arbitrary 30% withholding tax on all their banking profits in the US. A French official said, “That’s shocking, how can they do that?” One foreign banker said, “There is no reciprocity, it’s a one-way street. It really is financial imperialism on the part of the USA”. The US simply passed a law stating that about 100,000 foreign financial institutions in more than 100 countries were “required to report” to the US Treasury whatever information was requested. But of course, as with virtually all actions by the Americans, this one is also a one-way street; the US has very firm laws that prohibit US banks from providing any information to foreign governments, even on their own foreign citizens.
稍早一点,2014年,所有外资银行都被勒令了!与美国财政部合作——以任何要求的方式,即使这种合作违反了本国法律——帮助识别持有大量现金的外国人。借口是这些人中的一些人可能欠美国税,但没有文件支持这一说法,出于“隐私和国家安全”的考虑,也不会提供此类证据。由于当时不清楚的原因,美国财政部只是在钓鱼。对于外国银行来说,不遵守规定-在大多数情况下这些行为显然是非法的-将导致他们在美国的所有银行利润被任意征收30%的预扣税。一名法国官员表示,“这太令人震惊了,他们怎么能这么做?”一名外国银行家表示,“没有互惠,这是单行道。这确实是美国的金融帝国主义”。美国只是通过了一项法律,规定100多个国家的约10万家外国金融机构“必须向美国财政部报告”所需的任何信息。但当然,就像美国人几乎所有的行动一样,这也是一条单行道;美国有非常严格的法律,禁止美国银行向外国政府提供任何信息,即使是关于本国外国公民的信息。
Perhaps the best example was in 2015 when Britain (and almost everybody else) rushed to sign up as founding members of the new China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In the event, every country of consequence signed up – except for the Americans, who would self-immolate before joining anything where China was leading, leaving the US out in the cold. The Americans, in a public statement that must surely have had thousands of government officials all over the world rolling on the floor in laughter, raised concerns about whether this China-led body “would meet the standards of the World Bank”. From the UK Guardian: “The US administration made clear in no uncertain terms its displeasure about Osborne’s decision to join the AIIB. A US official told the Financial Times: “We are wary about a trend toward constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power.” Naturally, the American way of dealing with “a rising power” is to attempt to destroy it, but here are the British eager to join the club. The US also fretted that China might have some control over the bank’s activities, a reasonable assumption since China was making by far the largest investment, but the Americans failed to mention the control stranglehold they have on the World Bank. For those who don’t know, the World Bank’s regulations require an 85% majority to permit changes, but the US holds a 17% stake, meaning it has an absolute veto and full control, in spite of the fact that its financial contribution is limited. The Americans did launch a frantic worldwide campaign (that included veiled threats) to discourage all countries from participating, but to no avail. In the end, the best they could do was make pathetic, miffed noises about how this new institution should “incorporate the high standards of the World Bank“, a vain hope since the World Bank’s only standard is the bleeding of underdeveloped countries.
也许最好的例子是2015年,英国(以及几乎所有其他国家)争相注册成为中国赞助的新的亚洲基础设施投资银行(AIIB)的创始成员。在这次活动中,每个重要国家都报名了——除了美国人,他们在加入任何中国领导的国家之前都会自焚,把美国冷落在外。在一份公开声明中,美国人对这个由中国领导的机构是否“符合世界银行的标准”表示担忧,这肯定会让全世界数千名政府官员笑得滚在地板上。来自英国《卫报》:“美国政府明确表示了对奥斯本加入亚投行决定的不满。一名美国官员告诉英国《金融时报》:“我们对不断向中国妥协的趋势持谨慎态度,这不是与一个崛起的大国打交道的最佳方式。”。“当然,美国对付“一个正在崛起的大国”的方式是试图摧毁它,但英国人渴望加入这个俱乐部。美国也担心中国可能对世界银行的活动有一定的控制权,这是一个合理的假设,因为中国是迄今为止最大的投资,但美国人没有提到他们对世界银行控制权的束缚。对于那些不知道的人来说,世界银行的规定要求85%的多数票才能允许改变,但美国持有17%的股份,这意味着它有绝对的否决权和完全的控制权——尽管它的财政贡献是有限的。美国人确实发起了一场疯狂的全球运动(包括含蓄的威胁),以阻止所有国家最终,他们所能做的就是对这个新机构应该如何运作发出可悲而愤怒的声音。”纳入世界银行的高标准”,这是徒劳的希望,因为世界银行的唯一标准是欠发达国家的流血。
金融评级机构/The Financial Rating Agencies
Another favorite US method of bullying nations financially to ensure compliance with the Imperial Prerogative is by using the American securities rating agencies like Moody’s as tools of extortion, to the point where these rating agencies have lost all reliability in their field and are seen primarily as extortion tools of the US State Department to ensure American political domination. Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor, most often coordinate their activities, often to the chagrin of weaker nations. One of their methods, whenever a country – friend or foe – dares disobey the imperial hegemon – that country will suddenly discover its securities have suddenly fallen several categories in the financial rankings, and downgraded from positive or stable to negative, thereby increasing their financing costs – often from US banks, by significant margins. Since these three firms control about 95% of the international ratings markets, their influence is substantial, even though their methods and ethics have become increasingly questionable.
美国最喜欢的另一种在财政上欺凌国家以确保遵守帝国特权的方法是将穆迪等美国证券评级机构作为勒索工具,以至于这些评级机构在其领域失去了所有可靠性,主要被视为美国国务院确保美国政治统治的勒索工具。穆迪(Moody’s)、惠誉(Fitch)和标准普尔(Standard&Poor)经常协调他们的活动,这常常让较弱的国家感到懊恼。他们的一种方法是,每当一个国家——无论是朋友还是敌人——胆敢违抗帝国霸主的命令时,该国就会突然发现其证券在金融排名中突然下降了好几个类别,并从正或稳定降级为负,从而增加了其融资成本——通常是来自美国银行的融资成本,幅度很大。由于这三家公司控制着约95%的国际评级市场,尽管它们的方法和道德越来越令人怀疑,但它们的影响力是巨大的。
To say these firms operate with a double standard is to badly underestimate the frauds involved. When Enron and other US firms were only days from bankruptcy, their ratings were still high, serving only to eviscerate all the trusting small investors who believed what they were told. Prior to the 2008 financial collapse, Moody’s rated the weakest and most dangerous American firms and securities at the highest levels, maintaining those ratings right through the collapse. More recently, Moody’s rated Greece at a level that was truly laughable, given that Greece was a financial basket case, at the time possibly only weeks from bankruptcy and an exit from the Euro. Yet in early 2016, Moody’s suddenly downgraded China’s debt ratings while reducing its category from stable to negative – at the same time having done precisely the opposite for Greece, apparently claiming that country’s economy was much more stable and reliable than was China’s. However, in this case, Moody’s wasted their time. China’s Finance Minister shrugged off both Moody’s and their ratings, stating that “We don’t care much about the ratings”, and noting that both the international and domestic financial markets ignored Moody’s completely. The impetus for the change in rankings was the insistence of the Jews controlling the White House to force China to carry out huge economic reforms that would both benefit American (and Jewish) firms and destroy China’s economy, such measures including the disposition of the assets of all Chinese state-owned companies to US firms, and a permanent closure of much of China’s development infrastructure including steel mills, aluminum smelters and more. When China once again refused to commit economic suicide to please the Americans, they employed Moody’s as a tool in the hope of damaging China’s international financial reputation and greatly increasing China’s financing costs. Fortunately, they failed.
说这些公司以双重标准运作,就是严重低估了所涉及的欺诈行为。当安然和其他美国公司距离破产只有几天的时候,它们的评级仍然很高,只会让所有相信他们所知的信任的小投资者黯然失色。在2008年金融崩溃之前,穆迪对最弱、最危险的美国公司和证券进行了最高级别的评级,并在整个崩溃期间保持了这些评级。最近,穆迪对希腊的评级真的很可笑,因为希腊是一个金融篮子,当时可能离破产和退出欧元只有几周的时间。然而,在2016年初,穆迪突然下调了中国的债务评级,同时将其类别从稳定下调至负面,同时对希腊采取了恰恰相反的做法,显然声称该国经济比中国经济稳定可靠得多。然而,在这种情况下,穆迪浪费了时间。中国财政部长对穆迪及其评级不屑一顾,表示“我们不太关心评级”,并指出国际和国内金融市场完全无视穆迪。排名变化的动力是控制白宫的犹太人坚持要求中国进行大规模的经济改革,这既有利于美国(和犹太)企业,也有损中国经济,这些措施包括将所有中国国有企业的资产处置给美国企业,以及永久关闭中国的大部分发展基础设施,包括钢铁厂、铝冶炼厂等。当中国再次拒绝为取悦美国人而进行经济自杀时,他们利用穆迪作为工具,希望损害中国的国际金融声誉,大幅增加中国的融资成本。幸运的是,他们失败了。
Moody’s is also not beyond serious criminal extortion, accompanied by the full protection of the US State Department. At one point, according to an article in Huanqiu, “Moody’s once bullied a German insurance giant, Hannover Re, by offering free rating services and seeking future paid services. When Hannover Re refused, Moody’s rated the company anyway and kept the rating very low for two years in a row. As Hannover Re continued refusing to pay, Moody’s suddenly downgraded Hannover Re to the lowest rating, causing a massive stock dump and forcing the company to sign a contract with Moody’s and accept its rating services.”
在美国国务院的全力保护下,穆迪也没有超越严重的刑事勒索。据《环球时报》的一篇文章称,“穆迪曾通过提供免费评级服务和寻求未来的付费服务来欺负德国保险巨头汉诺威再保险。当汉诺威再保险拒绝时,穆迪对该公司进行了评级,并连续两年将评级保持在很低的水平。由于汉诺威再保险继续拒绝付款,穆迪突然将汉诺威再保险下调至最低评级,引发了大规模的股票抛售,迫使该公司与穆迪签订合同并接受其评级服务。”
银行卡支付系统/Bank Card Payment Systems
The issue here is that China has developed a national system to facilitate the use of bank-issued debit and credit cards, unsurprisingly a system designed to reflect China’s standards. Also unsurprisingly, China’s UnionPay network was designed to operate according to these national requirements. These standards govern the methods and the electronic language by which these cards function, including the encryption methods and proprietary standards as well as the rapid development of chip-enhanced smart cards which are much safer for consumers than are the magnetic-strip cards used in the US. Naturally, the Americans are displeased that China should be so bold as to dare to define the standards to be used within its own banking system, and are demanding that China “open up” its clearing service market to American banks, meaning that China should abandon its clearing systems in their entirety and adopt the American version.
这里的问题是,中国已经建立了一个全国性的系统,为银行发行的借记卡和信用卡的使用提供便利,这一系统旨在反映中国的标准,这不足为奇。同样不足为奇的是,中国银联网络的设计是按照这些国家要求运行的。这些标准规范了这些卡的使用方法和电子语言,包括加密方法和专有标准,以及芯片增强型智能卡的快速发展,这些智能卡对消费者来说比美国使用的磁条卡安全得多。自然,美国人对中国如此大胆,敢于定义自己银行系统中使用的标准感到不满,并要求中国向美国银行“开放”其清算服务市场,这意味着中国应该放弃其整个清算系统,采用美国版本。
In an article in late 2014, Caixin, the China mouthpiece of the US Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), wrote a long article ostensibly by staff reporters Li Xiaoxiao and Zhang Yuzhe, indirectly condemning China for this apparent anti-world progress attitude and gleefully suggesting China might experience “the sting of a legal slap from the WTO“. Caixin whines that while China’s standards are used by UnionPay, they are “incompatible” with those of VISA and MasterCard, which is of course contrary to the will of God and therefore an abomination. According to Caixin, “Critics of the standards have accused the government of using the standards as technical barriers designed to protect UnionPay’s market position”, quietly forgetting that precisely the same environment exists in the US where American standards are in fact “technical barriers” that function primarily to protect US businesses from competition.
在2014年末的一篇文章中,美国商会(AmCham)的中国喉舌财新(Caixin)写了一篇长文,表面上是由工作人员记者李潇潇和张玉哲撰写的,间接谴责中国这种明显的反世界进步态度,并兴高采烈地暗示中国可能会经历“WTO法律耳光的刺痛”。财新抱怨说,虽然银联使用中国的标准,但它们与VISA和万事达卡的标准“不兼容”,这当然违背了上帝的意愿,因此令人憎恶。据财新网报道,“这些标准的批评者指责政府将这些标准作为技术壁垒,旨在保护银联的市场地位”,悄悄地忘记了美国也存在着同样的环境,美国标准实际上是“技术壁垒”,主要起到保护美国企业免受竞争的作用。
One (probably non-existent) “VISA technician” who naturally “asked to remain anonymous“, said “Ideally there should be one unified standard“, without noting that this ‘standard’ should of course be the American one, the systems of all other nations being replaced with the American system to facilitate their financial colonisation. Another (probably fictitious) source, this one at MasterCard, apparently said “When various interests have different interests, the government needs to find a balance“, again without noting that this ‘balance‘ would be the adoption of the US system. According to Caixin, “another source at MasterCard who also asked not to be named, said industry standards in every country should treat all companies with impartiality“. Caixin tells us that “MasterCard officials have no problem with the Chinese government’s interest in developing standards of its own“, but what isn’t fair is that the Chinese standards match what UnionPay uses instead of what VISA and MasterCard use. Therefore, by using its own standards and systems, China is “giving Chinese competitors a clear advantage“, and of course this isn’t “fair“. Unspoken in all of this is of course the clear fact that any foreign company wanting to enter the US must entirely adopt the American systems. The US would never consider revamping its banking or any other systems or regulations to ease the entry of foreign firms. None of these media commenters care to point out that if you want to do business in the US, you do it their way or not at all, but this rule is apparently automatically voided when the Americans want to come to your country.
一位(可能不存在)“VISA技术人员”自然“要求匿名”,他说“理想情况下应该有一个统一的标准”,但没有指出这个“标准”应该是美国的标准,所有其他国家的系统都被美国系统取代,以利其金融殖民化。另一个(可能是虚构的)消息来源,万事达卡的这个消息来源,显然说“当各种利益有不同的利益时,政府需要找到平衡”,但再次没有指出这种“平衡”将是采用美国的制度。据财新网报道,“万事达卡的另一位不愿透露姓名的消息人士表示,每个国家的行业标准都应该对待所有不兼容的公司”。财新告诉我们,“万事达卡官员对中国政府制定自己的标准的兴趣没有问题”,但不公平的是,中国的标准与银联使用的标准相匹配,而不是VISA和万事达卡使用的标准。因此,中国使用自己的标准和制度,是在“给中国竞争对手明显的优势”,当然这是不“公平”的。当然,所有这一切中都有一个明确的事实,即任何想进入美国的外国公司都必须完全采用美国的制度。美国永远不会考虑修改其银行业或任何其他系统或法规,以方便外国公司进入。这些媒体评论都不想指出,如果你想在美国做生意,你可以按照他们的方式做,或者根本不做,但当美国人想来你的国家时,这条规则显然会自动失效。
In real life, there is nothing either sinister or unfair about China’s actions with respect to bank cards, nor are preference or protection being given to either UnionPay or other Chinese firms. Li Xiaofeng, a central bank official, said “Any company that issues bank cards denominated in yuan should be required to follow China’s standards for the industry. Opening up the clearing service market does not mean we have to give up self-developed, proprietary standards or cater to foreign bank card companies by using their standards. All foreign and domestic card organizations will be treated the same (in China). There will be no separate standards for foreign companies“. An official at China’s central bank said, “Every country has its own clearing system, and China should have its own. It does not have to follow the standards of Visa and MasterCard.” But according to our AmCham apologist Caixin, “non-Chinese bank card companies are hitting bumps” while trying to expand their international reach into China, because they must adapt to China’s systems and base their clearing facilities inside the country – the same requirements as exist in the US, though we don’t hear Caixin sobbing for the fate of Chinese companies trying to operate in America. It would be appropriate to wonder why not. And in fact, UnionPay has been treated unfairly outside China. In one case, Visa ordered all merchants using its POS card machines outside China to stop routing transactions through UnionPay, meaning that all Visa and MasterCard cards issued in China must be cleared in US dollars rather than yuan.
在现实生活中,中国在银行卡方面的行为既没有险恶之处,也没有对银联或其他中国公司给予优惠或保护。中国央行官员李晓峰表示:“任何发行人民币银行卡的公司都应该被要求遵循中国的行业标准。开放清算服务市场并不意味着我们必须放弃自主开发的标准,也不意味着我们要用它们的标准来迎合外国银行卡公司。所有外国和国内的卡组织都将受到同等待遇。外国公司将没有单独的标准”。中国央行的一位官员表示,“每个国家都有自己的清算系统,中国也应该有自己的系统。它不必遵循Visa和MasterCard的标准。”但据我们的美国商会辩护人财新表示,“非中国银行卡公司在试图将其国际业务扩展到中国时遇到了困难”,因为它们必须适应中国的系统,并将清算设施设在国内——这与美国的要求相同,尽管我们没有听到财新为试图在美国运营的中国公司的命运哭泣。想知道为什么不这样做是恰当的。事实上,银联在中国境外受到了不公平的待遇。在一个案例中,Visa要求所有在中国境外使用其POS卡机的商户停止通过银联进行交易,这意味着所有在中国发行的Visa和MasterCard卡都必须以美元而非人民币结算。
欧洲伽利略全球定位系统/Europe’s Galileo GPS System
Another key feature is a service allowing rescuers to locate people lost at sea or in the mountains much faster than before. Currently, satnav technology can take up to three hours to track a person to within a 10-kilometre (six-mile) range. “With Galileo’s Search and Rescue Service, the detection time is reduced to 10 minutes and the localisation is reduced to less than five kilometres,” Caudet told AFP. Source
另一个关键功能是,救援人员可以比以前更快地找到在海上或山区失踪的人。目前,卫星导航技术可能需要长达三个小时的时间来追踪10公里(6英里)范围内的人。Caudet告诉法新社:“通过伽利略的搜救服务,探测时间减少到10分钟,定位时间减少到不到5公里。”。来源
GPS was very much a war-based technology. The original US GPS was designed as a two-tier military system that would provide high-precision location signals to US military users, and be made available at a degraded capacity for civilian and foreign military use. It was designed with the capability to limit signal strength or completely block transmission while still supplying precise signals to the US military, and also with a clever feature whereby GPS position information could be made significantly inaccurate at will, thereby eliminating its value to anyone but the US military. Therefore, in 1999, the European Union devised plans for an independent European system – Galileo – a new generation of technology, far more precise and accurate than the American technology and that would be not be subject to the vagaries of US military and political control. The EU’s position was that Galileo was a neutral technology, not military, and would be made available equally to all nations and users. EU officials fought hard against American demands to change their original plans for the system.
GPS在很大程度上是一种基于战争的技术。最初的美国GPS是作为一个双层军事系统设计的,它将向美国军事用户提供高精度的定位信号,并以降级的容量提供给民用和外国军事用途。它的设计能够限制信号强度或完全阻断传输,同时仍能向美军提供精确的信号,还具有一个巧妙的功能,即GPS位置信息可以随意变得非常不准确,从而消除其对除美军以外的任何人的价值。因此,1999年,欧盟制定了一个独立的欧洲系统伽利略的计划,这是一种新一代技术,远比美国技术更精确,不受美国军事和政治控制的影响。欧盟的立场是,伽利略是一种中立的技术,而不是军事技术,将平等地向所有国家和用户提供。欧盟官员极力反对美国要求他们改变最初的体制计划。
The Americans’ prime concern was to maintain GPS capability while denying it to other nations but Galileo would have rendered this impossible. It would not only have been better than the US system in all respects, but the US would have lost not only global dominance but the invaluable battlefield advantage of denying GPS signals to the enemy. Being determined to “level the playing field” by having sole military control of all GPS signals in the world, and faced with European refusal to budge, the Americans informed the EU that if they launched any GPS satellites under the Galileo system, the US would shoot them all down. And, the Europeans, cowardly and unwilling to call the bully’s bluff, capitulated, and agreed to a different modulation and frequency that would permit the US total control over both systems. It will forever be a shameful blot on the European escutcheon that they so weakly submitted to the Americans and killed one of the most socially useful projects of the century, solely to maintain American military supremacy. When completed, Galileo was two generations old and essentially useless. Not long after the EU capitulation to Washington, China severed its relationship with Galileo and decided to build its own Beidou GPS system which the Americans cannot control.
俄罗斯有一批古代犹太宗教文献,这些文献曾经属于一位现已去世的拉比,没有继承人,俄罗斯拥有这些文献已有100多年。但美国一个无关的犹太组织想要这批藏品,并就其所有权向美国法院提起诉讼。美国法院很乐意履行这一义务,发布了一项判决,命令俄罗斯立即交出这些文献,并进一步命令俄罗斯每天向这个犹太组织支付5万美元,直到在美国收到这些藏品。俄罗斯没有遵守,这当然为美国人以每天5万美元的相同速度“合法”扣押俄罗斯在美国的资产提供了理由。
俄罗斯艺术/Russian Art
Russia has a collection of ancient Jewish religious literature that once belonged to a now-deceased rabbi with no heirs, and that has been in Russia’s possession for more than 100 years. But an unrelated Jewish organisation in the US wanted this collection and filed suit in a US court for its possession. The American court was happy to oblige, issuing a judgment that ordered Russia to surrender the literature forthwith, and further ordering Russia to pay this Jewish organisation $50,000 a day until the collection is received in the US. Russia has failed to comply, this failure of course providing justification for the Americans to ‘legally’ seize Russian assets in the US at the same rate of $50,000 a day.
俄罗斯有一批古代犹太宗教文献,这些文献曾经属于一位现已去世的拉比,没有继承人,俄罗斯拥有这些文献已有100多年。但美国一个无关的犹太组织想要这批藏品,并就其所有权向美国法院提起诉讼。美国法院很乐意履行这一义务,发布了一项判决,命令俄罗斯立即交出这些文献,并进一步命令俄罗斯每天向这个犹太组织支付5万美元,直到在美国收到这些藏品。俄罗斯没有遵守,这当然为美国人以每天5万美元的相同速度“合法”扣押俄罗斯在美国的资产提供了理由。
Of course, the US has no legal jurisdiction whatever over Russia, but laws have never been of much concern to the Americans. The Magnitsky Act passed by Congress authorised US authorities to arrest and seize the assets of any Russian they place on a “We Don’t Like Him” list, without recourse to a court or indeed any law at all.
当然,美国对俄罗斯没有任何法律管辖权,但法律从来都不是美国人关心的问题。国会通过的《马格尼茨基法案》授权美国当局逮捕并扣押他们列入“我们不喜欢他”名单的任何俄罗斯人的资产,而无需诉诸法院或任何法律。
塞浦路斯银行存款/Bank Deposits in Cyprus
St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox church in Limassol. The Cypriot city is home to about 50,000 Russian speakers.
利马索尔的圣尼古拉俄罗斯东正教教堂。塞浦路斯城市居住着大约50000名讲俄语的人。图片:Kostas Pikoulas/NurPhoto通过盖蒂图片社。来源
One example of this supra-national arrogance was in evidence during the financial crisis in Cyprus, where the international Jewish bankers seized billions in assets owned by the Russian state and Russian citizens, on a flimsy and illegal basis and without recourse. Cyprus was a favorite country for Russians to hold bank deposits, for various reasons, and this was one of the most astonishing asset seizures in history. The Cyprus government was indebted to a level where it was simply unable to repay its loans but instead of negotiating a compromise, the Jewish bankers, determined to obtain their pound of flesh, forced the government of Cyprus to cover its debt by raiding the personal bank accounts of its citizens, depleting them in amounts ranging from 30% to 80%. The bankers then used that agreement to further push the Cyprus government to raid all the bank accounts held in Cyprus by the Russian state and by Russian citizens, illegally seizing billions of dollars of Russian funds, and without recourse.
这种超国家傲慢的一个例子是在塞浦路斯金融危机期间,国际犹太银行家以脆弱和非法的基础,在没有追索权的情况下,扣押了俄罗斯政府和俄罗斯公民拥有的数十亿资产。出于各种原因,塞浦路斯是俄罗斯人最喜欢持有银行存款的国家,这是历史上最令人震惊的资产扣押之一。塞浦路斯政府的债务已经到了根本无法偿还贷款的地步,但犹太银行家们非但没有达成妥协,反而决心获得他们的一磅肉,迫使塞浦路斯政府通过突袭其公民的个人银行账户来偿还债务,消耗掉30%至80%不等的资金。银行家们随后利用该协议进一步推动塞浦路斯政府突袭俄罗斯政府和俄罗斯公民在塞浦路斯持有的所有银行账户,非法扣押了数十亿美元的俄罗斯资金,而且没有追索权。
你的是我的/What’s Yours is Mine
In a surprising number of situations, the US government will simply ignore applicable law and seize any assets as either a negotiating tool or as extra-judicial punishment where it has no legal basis to resort to the courts. Several branches of the US government commonly resort to this seizure action to force cooperation, which is often successful since after the seizure, a defendant has no available assets to pay for legal counsel and risks total loss and imprisonment. Perhaps more damning, and certainly dirtier, the US government will often attempt to escape direct liability for its criminal activity by forcing American banks and foreign banks in the US to do their dirty work of this illegal sequestration or seizure. Many banks have complained of extortionate threats by various elements of the White House, compelling them to freeze or seize foreign-owned assets under the pretense of unspecified commercial justification. One might expect these actions would occasionally place the banks in a vulnerable legal position, but things are different in America: for one, no lawyers will accept these cases, especially not after receiving visits from either the Treasury Department or the FBI, and in any case the ‘independent‘ US judiciary will almost inevitably refuse to hear any cases involving seizures of foreign assets. This is called ‘rule of law’ in America.
在数量惊人的情况下,美国政府会无视适用法律,没收任何资产,将其作为谈判工具,或在没有法律依据诉诸法院的情况下作为法外惩罚。美国政府的几个部门通常会采取这种扣押行动来迫使合作,这通常是成功的,因为扣押后,辩护人没有可用的资产来支付法律顾问的费用,并面临完全损失和印象的风险。也许更致命,当然也更肮脏的是,美国政府经常试图通过迫使美国银行和在美外国银行从事这种非法扣押或扣押的肮脏工作来逃避其犯罪活动的直接责任。许多银行抱怨白宫各部门的过度威胁,迫使它们以未指明的商业理由为借口冻结或扣押外资资产。人们可能会认为,这些行动偶尔会使银行处于弱势的法律地位,但美国的情况不同:首先,没有律师会接受这些案件,尤其是在接受财政部或联邦调查局的访问后,而且在任何情况下,“独立”的美国司法机构几乎无形地拒绝审理任何涉及扣押外国资产的案件。这在美国被称为“法治”。
One bullying tactic the US government increasingly displays in frightening amount is the extra-judicial seizure of the US assets of any company or nation it doesn’t like, without resort to criminal or civil judgments where such asset seizures might be legal. The US increasingly uses this pre-emptive illegal negotiating tool, (euphemistically called “sanctions”), often claiming with no substantiating evidence that the owner supports terrorism or “illegally” does business with countries the US doesn’t like. The US also bullies other nations into doing the same. When targeting a nation for regime change, the US will seize all that government’s assets in the US (and anywhere else) and provide them to the nation’s US-supported “insurgent group” which it magically recognises as “the real government“. Venezuela was one recent example where the US simply seized all that nation’s reserves on deposit, and other national assets, and pretended to give them to their choice of Venezuela’s fake “President”, a man not elected and not accepted by his own country. According to the US State Department, the effort to locate and freeze these assets is done with the intention of “draining the financial lifeblood” of individuals, companies or small nations that meet with Imperial disapproval. Many countries, like Canada and the UK, have been bullied into US-drafted legislation that directs them to freeze assets “upon the request of a foreign state” (read US). Both Canada and the UK tell us that “for reasons of privacy and commercial confidentiality“, they cannot provide details.
美国政府越来越多地表现出一种令人恐惧的欺凌策略,即对其不喜欢的任何公司或国家的美国资产进行法外扣押,而不诉诸刑事或民事判决,因为此类资产扣押可能是合法的。美国越来越多地使用这种先发制人的非法谈判工具(委婉地称为“制裁”),经常在没有确凿证据的情况下声称所有者支持恐怖主义或“非法”与美国不喜欢的国家做生意。美国还胁迫其他国家也这样做。当针对一个国家进行政权更迭时,美国将没收该国政府在美国(以及其他任何地方)的所有资产,并将其提供给美国支持的“叛乱组织”,美国神奇地将其视为“真正的政府”。委内瑞拉是最近的一个例子,美国只是没收了该国所有的存款准备金和其他国家资产,并假装将其交给他们选择的委内瑞拉假“总统”,一个没有当选也不被本国接受的人。根据美国国务院的说法,定位和冻结这些资产的目的是“耗尽”遭到帝国反对的个人、公司或小国的金融命脉。许多国家,如加拿大和英国,被胁迫通过美国起草的立法,指示它们“应外国请求”冻结资产(阅读美国)。加拿大和英国都告诉我们,“出于隐私和商业机密的原因”,他们无法提供详细信息。
This is actually a much larger issue than appears above. The American Empire may be lacking in scruples, but certainly not in imagination or shame. In one recent case, the UK Guardian was compelled to sadly report that “A ‘Deeply concerned’ Obama imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials” – by ordering the seizure of all assets in the US and anywhere else of a list of officials and legislators in Venezuela. Their sin? Officials of the Venezuelan government, with open defiance, were frustrating American attempts to destabilise and overthrow their government. They brazenly arrested US-sponsored agents and CIA operatives who were causing violence and political unrest. Even more recklessly, Venezuela dared to reveal the names of those individuals and document publicly their connections to the CIA and the State Department. Since most of this extraterritorial criminality and offense of sovereignty operated out of the US Embassy in Caracas on diplomatic passports, Venezuela also demanded the US reduce its diplomatic staff in the country by more than 80%, and gave the Americans only two weeks to comply. That was brave of them. In retaliation, the US State Department immediately (1) issued a travel ban on all officials of the government of Venezuela, forbidding them even to travel to the US to appear at UN meetings which are normally sacrosanct and protected from such cheap political interference; (2) Ordered the seizure of all assets held in the US – and elsewhere – by any and all officials and members of the government of Venezuela, whether personal, corporate or government. The official reason issued from the White House through Jacob Lew, Obama’s Jewish treasury secretary, was that Venezuela was “squandering financial resources by chasing American criminals“, wasting money “that could be invested in the Venezuelan people“. More than this, these actions of Venezuelan officials “undermine public trust in democratic institutions” and were of course “a violation of the human rights to which Venezuelan citizens are entitled“. No idea how, since Venezuela was ‘violating‘ only Americans. If you need a translation, this means the US has a right to freely interfere in the internal governmental and political affairs of any nation, to the extent of inciting violence and overthrowing the government, and any such victim government frustrating this Imperial interference is, at least according to the Americans, violating the human rights of its own citizens. And the Americans, protectors of the Venezuelan people by divine appointment, were compelled to take action by illegally seizing the total personal assets of every person in the Venezuelan government and preventing them from purchasing a ticket on any airline anywhere in the world. American rule of law at its finest.
这实际上是一个比上面看起来更大的问题。美利坚帝国可能缺乏顾忌,但肯定没有想象力或羞耻感。在最近的一个案例中,英国《卫报》不得不悲伤地报道称,“‘深切关注’的奥巴马对委内瑞拉官员实施了制裁”,下令扣押委内瑞拉官员和立法者名单中在美国和其他任何地方的所有资产。他们的罪?委内瑞拉政府的官员公然反抗,挫败了美国破坏和推翻其政府的企图。他们明目张胆地逮捕了造成暴力和政治动荡的美国资助的特工和中央情报局特工。更为鲁莽的是,委内瑞拉敢于透露这些人的姓名,并公开记录他们与中央情报局和国务院的关系。由于大多数域外犯罪和主权侵犯行为都是在美国驻加拉加斯大使馆使用外交护照进行的,委内瑞拉还要求美国将其在该国的外交人员减少80%以上,并只给美国人两周的时间来遵守。他们真勇敢。作为报复,美国国务院立即(1)对委内瑞拉政府的所有官员发布了旅行禁令,甚至禁止他们前往美国出席联合国会议,这些会议通常是神圣不可侵犯的,受到保护,不受这种廉价政治干预;(2) 下令扣押委内瑞拉政府的任何官员和成员在美国和其他地方持有的所有资产,无论是个人、公司还是政府。白宫通过奥巴马的犹太财政部长雅各布·卢发布的官方理由是,委内瑞拉“通过追捕美国罪犯来浪费财政资源”,浪费了“可以投资于委内瑞拉人民的钱”。除此之外,委内瑞拉官员的这些行为“破坏了公众对民主机构的信任”,当然也是“侵犯委内瑞拉公民应有的人权”。不知道是怎么回事,因为委内瑞拉只“侵犯”了美国人。如果你需要翻译,这意味着美国有权自由干涉任何国家的政府内部和政治事务,甚至煽动暴力和推翻政府,而任何挫败帝国干涉的受害者政府,至少在美国人看来,都侵犯了本国公民的人权。美国人是委内瑞拉人民的神圣保护者,他们被迫采取行动,非法扣押委内瑞拉政府中每个人的全部个人资产,并阻止他们在世界任何地方购买任何航空公司的机票。美国最完善的法治。
Following from the above, the US frequently resorts to rather childish and petty obstruction in the cause of its Imperial majesty. It will often refuse entry to the US for individuals travelling from disfavored nations to attend sessions of the United Nations or other such international obligations. The US frequently bullies many other nations to refuse travel visas for foreign officials from nations that transgress Imperial Directives, in all cases attempting to create a worldwide net of punishment. This is not a minor point. The State Department will use the facilities of the CIA to identify not only government officials but the members of their families, all relatives, and even personal friends, subjecting all to the same travel bans as well as credit card, banking, and other restrictions. The US media are generally aware of these practices but the topic is heavily censored and will appear nowhere. This is one of the prime sources of content for the Americans’ “no-fly” list, and why they refuse to release any information of the names on that list; the international political fallout would be fatal. Americans (and others) seem to believe the no-fly list contains only the names of American citizens who are potential terrorists presenting a danger to the flying public. You needn’t be very smart to realise this cannot possibly be true. Credible reports suggest that list contains more than one million names – rather more than the number of terrorists in the US, who probably number between three and five on any given day, and all of which are resident in the White House.
除此之外,美国在其帝国威严的事业上经常诉诸于相当幼稚和琐碎的阻挠。它通常会拒绝来自不受欢迎国家的个人前往美国参加联合国会议或其他此类国际义务。美国经常胁迫许多其他国家拒绝来自违反帝国指令国家的外国官员的旅行签证,在所有情况下都试图在全球范围内建立惩罚网。这不是小事。国务院将利用中央情报局的设施不仅识别政府官员的身份,还识别他们的家人、所有亲属,甚至私人朋友的身份,并对所有人实施同样的旅行禁令以及信用卡、银行和其他限制。美国媒体普遍知道这些做法,但该话题受到严格审查,不会出现在任何地方。这是美国人“禁飞”名单的主要内容来源之一,也是他们拒绝公布该名单上姓名的任何信息的原因;国际政治后果将是致命的。美国人(和其他人)似乎认为禁飞名单只包含对飞行公众构成危险的潜在恐怖分子美国公民的姓名。你不必非常聪明地意识到这不可能是真的。可靠的报告表明,这份名单上有100多万人,比美国的恐怖分子人数还要多,在任何一天,恐怖分子的人数可能在3到5人之间,而且他们都住在白宫。
The US has bullied many countries into refusing to host websites that are politically disagreeable to American ideology or that disclose embarrassing information. It bullied companies in all Western nations to refuse payment mechanisms that fund these websites, and pressured financial firms like PayPal, VISA and Mastercard to refuse to process payments.
美国胁迫许多国家拒绝托管在政治上不符合美国意识形态或披露尴尬信息的网站。它胁迫所有西方国家的公司拒绝为这些网站提供资金的支付机制,并迫使PayPal、VISA和Mastercard等金融公司拒绝处理付款。
The Americans bullied the UK government into demanding the Guardian newspaper destroy all its hard drives containing information leaked by Edward Snowden, and delivered open political and military threats to all nations likely to consider granting him asylum. In an almost surreal demonstration of aggressive stupidity, authoritative sources documented that US Vice-President Kerry issued a threat to Central and South American nations that if any of them did grant Snowden asylum, the US federal courts would file charges of drug trafficking against that nation’s consular officials in the US, and further that all petroleum deliveries to their nation would be halted. It bullied the Austrian government to force the emergency landing of a diplomatic aircraft in which it believed Snowden to be a passenger, in a blatant violation of all international law. In March of 2015, Glenn Greenwald wrote of the then-continuing saga of Edward Snowden, relating that at the time Germany’s Vice-Chancellor was asked publicly why Germany didn’t permit Snowden (who is dearly loved in Germany for revealing the extensive NSA espionage in their country) to obtain political asylum in Germany. According to international law, the act of granting asylum would automatically negate Snowden’s status as a fugitive from US justice, leaving him safe. But the Vice-Chancellor replied that the US had threatened Germany with various retaliations if they dared do such a thing. Germany backed down. The US has done this many times, mostly to nations that are seen as friends.
美国人胁迫英国政府要求《卫报》销毁其所有包含爱德华·斯诺登泄露信息的硬盘,并向所有可能考虑给予他庇护的国家发出公开的政治和军事威胁。权威消息人士记录称,美国副总统克里向中美洲和南美洲国家发出威胁,如果其中任何国家真的给予斯诺登庇护,美国联邦法院将对该国驻美领事官员提起贩毒指控,并进一步停止向其国家运送所有石油。它胁迫奥地利政府强迫一架外交飞机紧急降落,并认为斯诺登是该飞机的乘客,这公然违反了所有国际法。2015年3月,格伦·格林沃尔德(Glenn Greenwald)写到了爱德华·斯诺登(Edward Snowden)当时仍在继续的传奇故事,称当时德国副总理被公开问及为什么德国不允许斯诺登(因揭露了美国国家安全局在德国的广泛间谍活动而深受德国爱戴)在德国获得政治庇护。根据国际法,给予庇护的行为将自动否定斯诺登作为美国司法逃犯的身份,使他安全无虞。但副总理回答说,如果德国胆敢这样做,美国已经威胁要进行各种报复。德国让步了。美国已经多次这样做,主要是针对被视为朋友的国家。
加拿大软木木材工业/Canada’s Softwood Lumber Industry
There is another, and rather more disturbing, category of US bullying, that consists of deliberately attacking a nation’s companies to punish their government for refusing to comply with American colonial demands on virtually any issue. We have read of the US-engineered financial devastation of Canada’s softwood lumber industry, where the real issue was government-levied charges for timber rights. When offering lumber harvesting rights to an area of forest, the US government operates an auction where lumber companies bid for those rights. Canada follows a different pattern and levies an independently-decided flat fee. Because of this, the US charges are higher than those in Canada, raising US lumber costs and rendering the US lumber industry less competitive. When the US failed in its attempts to force Canada to adopt the American auction system, the Americans arbitrarily levied the massive and illegal “import duties” against the Canadian lumber firms, in fact punishing the firms for their government’s refusal to comply with American political demands. Moreover, the duties were paid not to the US government but to the American lumber companies, in fact and reality to “reimburse” them for their loss of profits “caused” by Canada having a different lumber fee system. Of course, all these actions were illegal as determined by the WTO and other trade organisations, and the WTO ruled that the US must refund to Canada more than $5 billion in fees. But the Americans refused, stating they would “negotiate” the refund with Canada. The Americans simply ignore any law that proves inconvenient.
还有另一类更令人不安的美国欺凌行为,包括故意攻击一个国家的公司,以惩罚其政府在几乎任何问题上拒绝遵守美国殖民要求。我们已经读到美国策划的对加拿大软木木材行业的金融破坏,真正的问题是政府对木材权利征收的费用。当向一片森林提供木材采伐权时,美国政府会进行拍卖,木材公司会竞标这些权利。加拿大采取了不同的模式,征收独立决定的统一费用。正因为如此,美国的收费高于加拿大,提高了美国木材成本,降低了美国木材行业的竞争力。当美国试图迫使加拿大采用美国拍卖制度失败时,美国人任意向加拿大木材公司征收巨额非法“进口税”,事实上是对这些公司的政府拒绝遵守美国政治要求的惩罚。此外,关税不是支付给美国政府,而是支付给美国木材公司,事实上,也是为了“补偿”他们因加拿大采用不同的木材费制度而“造成”的利润损失。当然,根据世贸组织和其他贸易组织的认定,所有这些行为都是非法的,世贸组织裁定美国必须向加拿大退还超过50亿美元的费用。但美国人拒绝了,表示他们将与加拿大“协商”退款。美国人根本无视任何被证明不方便的法律。
加拿大西北通道/Canada’s Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along the northern coast of Canada through internal waterways among Canadian Arctic islands. Transit through this passage could save thousands of miles of travel for ships that are too large to transit the Panama Canal and must travel around the Southern tip of South America. The Canadian government, and all other nations, have always considered this passage and its waterways and islands as part of Canada’s internal waters, but the US has recently refused to accept Canada’s position, claiming the passage is an international waterway. A few years ago, Canada was outraged to discover that the US had sent its nuclear submarines through Canada’s Northern waters, even being so bold as to publish photos of the USS Charlotte surfaced at the North Pole. The American version of events is that Canada’s claims can be ignored unless Canada is prepared to invest heavily to defend its waters with military hardware. If you need a translation, this means “Our warships will continue to violate your territory and sovereignty at will, unless and until you can build up a military infrastructure powerful enough to stop us.” With friends like this, Canada doesn’t need enemies.
西北航道是一条穿过北冰洋的海路,通过加拿大北极岛屿之间的内部水道连接加拿大北部海岸的大西洋和太平洋。通过这条通道过境可以为那些太大而无法通过巴拿马运河且必须绕过南美洲南端的船只节省数千英里的行程。加拿大政府和所有其他国家一直认为这条通道及其水道和岛屿是加拿大内水的一部分,但美国最近拒绝接受加拿大的立场,声称这条通道是国际水道。几年前,加拿大愤怒地发现美国派遣核潜艇穿过加拿大北部水域,甚至大胆发布了夏洛特号航空母舰在北极浮出水面的照片。美国版本的事件是,除非加拿大准备投入巨资用军事装备保卫其水域,否则加拿大的主张可以被忽视。如果你需要翻译,这意味着“我们的军舰将继续随意侵犯你的领土和主权,除非你能建立起足够强大的军事基础设施来阻止我们。”有了这样的朋友,加拿大不需要敌人。
美国式大米营销/Rice Marketing, American Style
I once saw part of an agreement presented to Japan by the US government for the purchase of 100,000 tons of American rice. In itself, this might not be unusual, but the contract had a provision prohibiting Japan from re-selling this rice on the open market. You didn’t need much of an imagination to connect the dots. The Japanese do not like American rice. They don’t care for the smell and they don’t like the taste. They won’t buy it, and they won’t eat it. On a prior occasion the US bullied Japan into purchasing a similar amount of American rice and, since it was worthless to the Japanese, they just quietly sold it off on the world markets – effectively competing with the US on their own product. This time the Americans were a bit smarter, inserting the prohibition against resale. Since the Japanese wouldn’t eat it, they could toss it into the ocean or feed it to the pigs, but the Americans would have their sale. State-sponsored marketing at its finest.
我曾经看到美国政府向日本提交的购买10万吨美国大米的协议的一部分。这本身可能并不罕见,但合同中有一项条款禁止日本在公开市场上转售这种大米。你不需要太多的想象力就能把这些点联系起来。日本人不喜欢美国大米。他们不在乎味道,也不喜欢味道。他们不会买,也不会吃。之前有一次,美国胁迫日本购买了类似数量的美国大米,由于这些大米对日本人来说毫无价值,他们只是悄悄地在世界市场上出售,实际上是在自己的产品上与美国竞争。这一次,美国人更聪明了,加入了禁止转售的条款。既然日本人不吃,他们可以把它扔到海里或喂猪,但美国人会把它卖掉。最好的国家赞助营销。
I have seen literally hundreds of examples of US trade bullying that cover most of the spectrum of human existence, many involving American-style marketing, but most of which fail to reach the eyes and ears of the media. The rice is actually a minor item compared to most. The US has bullied Japan on everything from aircraft purchases to banking – and not only Japan; the US bullies every nation. Without these gangster tactics, American exports might well fall to zero.
我看到了数百个美国贸易欺凌的例子,这些例子涵盖了人类生存的大部分领域,其中许多涉及美国式的营销,但大多数都没有进入媒体的耳目。与大多数大米相比,大米实际上只是一种小玩意。从飞机采购到银行业务,美国在所有方面都欺负日本——不仅是日本;美国欺负每一个国家。如果没有这些黑帮策略,美国的出口很可能会降至零。
冲绳美军基地/US Military Bases in Okinawa
Japan has been bullied into accepting 50 military bases and about 50,000 US troops on Okinawa, which have been a constant source of friction for decades. Okinawa has threatened to secede more than once, because of the devastation to the islands. The residents also deeply resent the high crime rate of US troops and their immunity to local laws. More than one Japanese Prime Minister has come to power with a promise to mitigate the situation and remove some of the US bases, but in each case, he discovered himself quietly removed from power a short time later. Bullying at its finest, with little apparent concern for ‘democracy‘ or the will of the people, either.
日本一直被胁迫接受冲绳岛上的50个军事基地和约5万名美军,几十年来,这些基地一直是摩擦的根源。冲绳曾不止一次威胁要脱离联邦,因为这些岛屿遭到破坏。居民们还对美军的高犯罪率及其对当地法律的豁免深感不满。不止一位日本首相上台时承诺缓和局势并拆除一些美国基地,但在每一次事件中,他都发现自己在短时间后悄然下台。在最好的情况下进行欺凌,几乎不关心“民主”或人民的意愿。
The Japanese government has for years faced bitter complaints from the residents of the destructive effect of these bases to their environment and way of life. The problems have involved extreme noise pollution, contamination, huge areas littered with unexploded munitions from years of live-fire artillery practice, and the many complaints of rapes and murders by American servicemen. The problems are exacerbated by the base agreement that renders Americans immune to local laws, which means effective police action is almost never taken and that Okinawa officials have no more power to affect these matters than does the Japanese government itself.
多年来,日本政府一直面临着居民对这些基地对环境和生活方式的破坏性影响的强烈抱怨。这些问题涉及极端的噪音污染、污染、多年实弹射击练习中散落的大片未爆炸弹药,以及许多关于美国军人强奸和谋杀的投诉。基地协议使美国人不受当地法律的约束,这加剧了问题,这意味着几乎从未采取有效的警察行动,冲绳官员没有比日本政府本身更大的权力来影响这些事情。
我可以起诉你,但你不能起诉我/I Can Sue You, But You Can’t Sue Me
At the time of writing, the European Union was negotiating an understanding with the US about the NSA’s surveillance, in part about stopping the spying but in part about the US complying with EU law and enabling legal redress in the US courts for Europeans whose rights may have been infringed. Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice and rights commissioner stressed that US concessions on legal redress were central to Brussels’ demands because Americans can go to the European courts if they feel their rights are infringed, but Europeans cannot do this in America. “For two years I have asked for reciprocity,” said Reding. “I couldn’t get that. It needs a change of US legislation and the administration has always told me they couldn’t get that through.” The US has bullied all European nations to permit American citizens to use European courts for redress against European companies or governments, but has steadfastly refused to grant European citizens the right to sue American firms or the US government in America. Once again, as President Obama so clearly stated, “So long as the playing field is level, America will always win.“
在撰写本文时,欧盟正在与美国谈判一项关于美国国家安全局监视的谅解,部分是关于停止间谍活动,但部分是关于美国遵守欧盟法律,并使权利可能受到侵犯的欧洲人能够在美国法院获得法律补救。欧盟司法和权利专员维维安·雷丁强调,美国在法律补救方面的让步是布鲁塞尔要求的核心,因为如果美国人觉得自己的权利受到侵犯,他们可以诉诸欧洲法院,但欧洲人不能在美国这样做。雷丁说:“两年来,我一直要求互惠互利。”。“我无法理解。这需要修改美国立法,而政府一直告诉我,他们无法通过。”美国一直欺负所有欧洲国家,允许美国公民利用欧洲法院对欧洲公司或政府进行赔偿,但一直拒绝授予欧洲公民起诉美国公司或美国政府的权利。正如奥巴马总统再次明确指出的那样,“只要竞争环境是公平的,美国将永远获胜。”
会计准则和程序/Accounting Standards and Procedures
China has had a long-running dispute with the US over access to audit documents, where US regulators have been looking to forcibly export their accounting standards and regulations worldwide, the temperature escalating considerably in early 2014 when a US judge ruled that the Chinese sections of the Big Four accounting firms should be suspended from practicing in the United States, as punishment for lack of cooperation. In effect, the judge is bullying the Chinese accounting firms into compliance by threatening to remove their ability to sign off US audit reports, thereby eliminating their value to their clients and imposing potentially destructive losses of income, with the added pressure of causing grave difficulty for clients.
中国与美国在获取审计文件方面存在长期争端,美国监管机构一直在寻求在全球范围内强制出口其会计准则和法规。2014年初,一名美国法官裁定,四大会计师事务所的中国部分应暂停在美执业,以惩罚其缺乏合作。事实上,法官威胁要取消中国会计师事务所签署美国审计报告的能力,从而消除它们对客户的价值,并造成潜在的破坏性收入损失,从而增加了给客户带来严重困难的压力。
It is true that several Chinese companies listed on US stock exchanges have been embroiled in accounting scandals, and we cannot fault the SEC for wanting to delist troubled firms, but nations can have widely divergent laws and accounting regulations which require diplomatic rather than legal solutions. What is standard in one country may be unacceptable in another and, while the Americans are the leaders in vocal protestations about openness and transparency when it pleases them, they are also the leaders in invoking privacy or national security concerns in limiting precisely such transparency when it becomes inconvenient. It is absolutely true that if China demanded these documents whose release were illegal in the US, the Americans would tell China to go fly a kite. In particular with this accounting dispute is the SECs demand for working papers that are confidential under Chinese law, and with good reason. The information contained in those working papers involves rather more than supporting lists of numbers; full access to this content could be virtually priceless to a competitor and, hypocritical protestations notwithstanding, this book contains ample evidence that the US government has never held itself above such cheap tricks to aid the commercial success of its large firms. The SEC didn’t disclose the names of the firms in which it had an interest, but court documents revealed the nature of the businesses involved which, for example, included a Chinese solar panel manufacturer. The US government has made no secret of its intention to never yield solar cell supremacy to China, and access to the full range of audit work papers from Chinese manufacturers would be invaluable to an American firm.
诚然,在美国证券交易所上市的几家中国公司都卷入了会计丑闻,我们不能责怪美国证券交易委员会想要将陷入困境的公司摘牌,但各国的法律和会计法规可能大相径庭,需要外交而非法律解决方案。一个国家的标准在另一个国家可能是不可接受的,尽管美国人是在他们高兴的时候公开抗议公开和透明的领导人,但他们也是在不方便的时候援引隐私或国家安全问题来限制这种透明度的领导人。毫无疑问,如果中国要求这些在美国被非法释放的文件,美国人会告诉中国去放风筝。特别是在这场会计纠纷中,SECs要求提供根据中国法律保密的工作文件,这是有充分理由的。这些工作文件所载的资料所涉及的不仅仅是支持性的数字清单;对竞争对手来说,完全访问这些内容几乎是无价的。尽管有虚伪的抗议,但这本书包含了充分的证据,证明美国政府从未凌驾于如此廉价的伎俩之上,帮助其大公司取得商业成功。美国证券交易委员会没有披露其感兴趣的公司的名称,但法庭文件揭示了相关业务的性质,例如,其中包括一家中国太阳能电池板制造商。美国政府毫不掩饰其永远不会将太阳能电池的霸主地位让给中国的意图,而获得中国制造商的全方位审计工作文件对一家美国公司来说将是非常宝贵的。
Paul Gillis, yet another unbiased American Professor at Peking University, wrote “Ultimately, the only way this gets settled is if China agrees that companies that list in the US are subject to all US securities laws”. Maybe, but the question is not about US-listed companies being subject to all US laws, but about the US forcing their standards on other nations without regard for their position. And it must be said that this process should work in reverse; all US companies listed in or operating in China must then be subject to all Chinese law, but unfortunately they often decline, citing their primary obligation to American law. Gillis added, “For those companies that are too sensitive for that, like some large SOEs, China should pull their US listings”. In this case, I concur. Chinese firms should resist the temptation to list on US exchanges so long as Imperial Obeisance is part of the listing fee. There is no advantage to China to be bullied into colonisation. Why go where you’re not wanted?
北京大学另一位不偏不倚的美国教授保罗·吉利斯写道:“最终,解决这一问题的唯一途径是,中国同意在美国上市的公司必须遵守所有美国证券法”。也许吧,但问题不在于美国上市公司受所有美国法律的约束,而在于美国不顾其他国家的立场,将其标准强加给其他国家。必须指出的是,这一过程应该反过来进行;所有在中国上市或在中国经营的美国公司都必须遵守所有中国法律,但不幸的是,它们经常拒绝,理由是它们对美国法律负有主要义务。Gillis补充道,“对于那些对此过于敏感的公司,比如一些大型国有企业,中国应该取消在美国的上市”。在这种情况下,我同意。只要帝国礼遇是上市费用的一部分,中国公司就应该抵制在美国交易所上市的诱惑。被胁迫去殖民对中国没有好处。为什么要去不需要你的地方?
中国驻贝尔格莱德大使馆/Chinese Embassy in Belgrade
When President Reagan launched his 1986 bombing raid on Libya, France refused the use of its airspace to what was clearly an unjustified aggression, and forced the Americans to take a much longer route from airfields in the UK. When the US planes reached Libya, they made a point of dropping bombs so close to the French Embassy that the building was damaged, all windows blown out and all communications disabled. Just a friendly reminder. The US did the same with the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade as punishment for a lack of enthusiasm for the destruction of Yugoslavia.
当里根总统1986年对利比亚发动轰炸时,法国拒绝使用其领空,这显然是一种不合理的侵略,并迫使美国人从英国的机场走更长的路线。当美国飞机抵达利比亚时,他们特意在离法国大使馆如此近的地方投掷炸弹,导致大楼受损,所有窗户都被炸飞,所有通信都被切断。只是一个友好的提醒。美国对中国驻贝尔格莱德大使馆也采取了同样的行动,作为对破坏南斯拉夫缺乏热情的惩罚。
航空公司乘客信息/Airline passenger information
In its bid to own and control all information about every living person on earth, and under the pretense of looking for terrorists, the US demanded that all European nations provide data about passengers on flights originating in the European Union – which was against all European and international law. After a decade of bullying and refusals, the European Union finally relented and passed new laws to permit this invasion of privacy of their citizens. The US now receives 19 pieces of information on each passenger, including name, citizenship, passport, contact information, payment details, credit-card numbers, travel agency, itinerary and baggage information, and can retain them for up to 15 years.
为了拥有和控制地球上每一个人的所有信息,并以寻找恐怖分子为借口,美国要求所有欧洲国家提供源自欧盟的航班乘客的数据,这违反了所有欧洲和国际法。经过十年的欺凌和拒绝,欧盟终于让步了,通过了新的法律,允许侵犯其公民的隐私。美国现在收到每位乘客的19条信息,包括姓名、公民身份、护照、联系方式、付款详细信息、信用卡号码、旅行社、行程和行李信息,并可以保存长达15年。
And there’s more. Any airline flight passing over – or near – the US, even if not destined for America, must still hand over that same volume of information on every passenger or be refused transit through US-controlled airspace. It is also a certainty that compliant nations like Canada and Australia already provide this information without the knowledge of their citizens. The US is in the process of solidifying a database containing all details of all passengers flying every day on every airline in the world – and coordinating it with all data otherwise collected by the NSA, the CIA, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, mobile phones and more.
还有更多。任何经过美国或靠近美国的航空公司航班,即使不是飞往美国,也必须向每位乘客提供相同数量的信息,否则将被拒绝通过美国控制的空域。同样可以肯定的是,加拿大和澳大利亚等合规国家已经在其公民不知情的情况下提供了这些信息。美国正在巩固一个数据库,该数据库包含世界上每一家航空公司每天飞行的所有乘客的所有详细信息,并将其与美国国家安全局、中央情报局、谷歌、脸书、推特、微软、手机等收集的所有数据进行协调。
Even worse for some nations with servile Right-Wing governments like Canada and the UK, the US will have the power to determine the status of purely domestic passengers as well. This infringement on their sovereignty gives the United States unprecedented power about who can board planes, through a program that was never even discussed with, much less approved, by the Canadian or UK governments and which transfers the authority of screening passengers from domestic airlines directly to the US Department of Homeland Security. Canadian airlines were already checking their flight manifests against the US no-fly list, but now transfer all travelers’ personal information to US Homeland Security 72 hours before takeoff. The no-fly list is compiled by the FBI and contains the names of unknown hundreds of thousands of people the US government says should be denied flight privileges, in almost no cases due to concerns of terrorism. The US refuses to disclose either the names or the causes for inclusion on this list, as always claiming reasons of “national security.” The danger now is that unknown persons in the DHS or other US agencies can maliciously place on their list anyone from any country, and prevent that person from ever boarding an airline again, even to fly within or leave his own country. In practice, it has proven virtually impossible to get one’s name removed from that list even in cases of simple error.
更糟糕的是,对于加拿大和英国等右翼政府卑躬屈膝的国家来说,美国也将有权决定纯国内乘客的身份。这种对其主权的侵犯赋予了美国前所未有的权力,决定谁可以登机,通过一项从未与加拿大或英国政府讨论过、更不用说批准过的计划,该计划将对国内航空公司乘客进行筛查的权力直接移交给美国国土安全部。加拿大航空公司已经根据美国禁飞名单检查了他们的航班清单,但现在在起飞前72小时将所有旅客的个人信息转移到美国国土安全部。禁飞名单由美国联邦调查局编制,其中包含数十万未知人员的姓名。美国政府表示,在几乎所有情况下,由于担心恐怖主义,这些人都应该被剥夺飞行特权。美国拒绝透露名单上的姓名或原因,一如既往地声称是出于“国家安全”的原因。现在的危险是,国土安全部或其他美国机构中的不明身份者可能会恶意将任何国家的任何人列入名单,并阻止该人再次登上航空公司,甚至在自己的国家境内飞行或离开自己的国家。事实证明,即使在出现简单错误的情况下,也几乎不可能将自己的名字从名单中删除。
美英引渡条约/US-UK Extradition Treaty
Demonstrators marked five years since the arrest of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, last month outside Belmarsh Prison in London.Credit…David Cliff/Associated Press. Source
示威者纪念维基解密创始人朱利安·阿桑奇上个月在伦敦贝尔马什监狱外被捕五周年。信用David Cliff/美联社。来源
In the recent past, the UK was bullied by the Americans into executing an extradition treaty in which it agreed to extradite anyone from that country simply on the request of the US, with no evidence or documentation necessary, an agreement which had the direct effect of extending US legal jurisdiction into the UK. However, extradition in the reverse direction was much more complicated, requiring documented evidence of crimes. It seems that American lawyers drafted the agreement and simply forced their UK poodles to sign it. The UK is now experiencing deep regrets over the treaty, and wants to renege; the US objects. This will increasingly involve all nations, with or without extradition agreements which in any case are increasingly ignored. It is not comforting that US Justice Department’s Richard Downing recently warned that desired individuals (he claimed “international cyber-criminals”) are becoming more difficult to grab, claiming that “extradition difficulties and evidence-gathering are obstacles” to stopping them, “particularly in less technically-advanced countries“. What that means, is that the US will soon openly ignore all international rule of law and simply send in agents to surreptitiously kidnap and export anyone in any nation. All the signs point in this direction, and the US has no reputation for backing off such policies once implemented.
最近,美国胁迫英国签署了一项引渡条约,在该条约中,英国同意仅应美国的要求,在没有必要证据或文件的情况下,从该国引渡任何人,该协议具有将美国法律管辖权扩大到英国的直接效果。然而,反向引渡要复杂得多,需要有犯罪证据的文件。看来,美国律师起草了该协议,只是强迫他们的英国贵宾犬签署。英国现在对该条约深感遗憾,并想食言;美国反对。这将越来越多地涉及所有国家,无论是否有引渡协议,这些协议在任何情况下都越来越被忽视。令人不安的是,美国司法部的理查德·唐宁最近警告称,想要抓住的个人(他声称是“国际网络罪犯”)越来越难,并声称“引渡困难和证据收集是阻止他们的障碍”,“尤其是在技术不太先进的国家”。这意味着,美国很快将公开无视所有国际法治,只是派遣特工秘密绑架和出口任何国家的任何人。所有迹象都指向这个方向,而美国一旦实施此类政策,就没有退缩的名声。
如果你不和我们在一起,你就反对我们/If You’re Not With us, You’re Against us
When the US doesn’t like someone, you aren’t permitted to like them either. When the US put Iran onto its list of countries slated for “regime change“, nobody was permitted to do business with Iran. Nobody. American firms and citizens of course would be fined and imprisoned since they were within easy reach. US firms operating outside the US were subject to the same restrictions. But the US also bullied European nations and corporations into avoiding Iran, threatening to seize their assets in the US and to file criminal charges against their US subsidiaries or preventing access to the US market for their products. With China, the US went an extra step and threatened to shut down all Chinese banks operating in the US and deny access to any part of the US financial system if China continued to buy oil from Iran. Of course, all these actions violate international law, but US legislators gave themselves permission to do so.
当美国不喜欢某人时,你也不允许喜欢他们。当美国将伊朗列入“政权更迭”国家名单时,没有人被允许与伊朗做生意。没有人美国公司和公民当然会被罚款和监禁,因为他们触手可及。在美国境外经营的美国公司也受到同样的限制。但美国也胁迫欧洲国家和公司避开伊朗,威胁要扣押其在美国的资产,并对其美国子公司提起刑事指控,或阻止其产品进入美国市场。对于中国,美国更进一步,威胁称,如果中国继续从伊朗购买石油,将关闭所有在美经营的中国银行,并拒绝进入美国金融系统的任何部分。当然,所有这些行为都违反了国际法,但美国立法者允许他们这样做。
The US also imposed “sanctions” against several energy companies, including a Chinese firm, for selling refined petroleum products to Iran, and brought a criminal action against Chinese firm ZTE for selling telecom hardware to Iran. Even more, US government officials bullied an American law firm for defending ZTE in the US court, claiming the US firm valued money more than the “legitimate security concerns of the US government“, and demanded the law firm drop ZTE as a client, leaving us with a position where rapists, murderers, bank robbers and even US bankers and politicians are entitled to legal representation when charged with an offense, but Chinese firms have no such right. Of course, the US has no direct jurisdiction over Chinese companies, but will exploit any possible weakness to bully the firms into submission. And in practice, the more seriously the American government violates the legal rights of foreign companies or governments, the more intense the pressure they will place on lawyers to refrain from defending these cases. And, it appears, the more intense the pressures on the judges and courts to refuse to hear the cases. We can think back to Citibank’s gold robbery in China, and the concerted efforts by the White House, the Treasury, the US FED, and the courts, to ensure Citibank would never be called to account for its crimes. This is the same quality of fascist fear that existed during the McCarthy era, with a helpless public subjected to lawlessness, intimidation and extortion.
美国还对包括一家中国公司在内的几家能源公司实施了“制裁”,因为它们向伊朗出售精炼石油产品,并对中国中兴通讯公司向伊朗出售电信硬件提起刑事诉讼。更重要的是,美国政府官员在美国法庭上欺负一家为中兴通讯辩护的美国律师事务所,声称这家美国律师事务所看重的是金钱,而不是“美国政府的合法安全问题”,并要求该律师事务所放弃中兴通讯的客户身份,这让我们陷入了强奸犯、杀人犯、银行劫匪,甚至美国银行家和政客在被指控犯罪时都有权获得法律代表的境地,但中国公司没有这样的权利。当然,美国对中国公司没有直接管辖权,但会利用任何可能的弱点迫使这些公司屈服。在实践中,美国政府侵犯外国公司或政府合法权利的情况越严重,他们就会对律师施加越大的压力,要求他们不要为这些案件辩护。而且,法官和法院拒绝审理这些案件的压力似乎越大。我们可以回顾花旗银行在中国的黄金抢劫案,以及白宫、财政部、美联储和法院的共同努力,以确保花旗银行永远不会被要求为其罪行负责。这与麦卡锡时代存在的法西斯恐惧如出一辙,无助的公众受到无法无天、恐吓和勒索。
The Americans are notorious for gathering the support of allies in their constant petty political squabbles with other nations and also to support their bullying efforts against other nations. From a fear that China was taking over the world of communications and internet infrastructure, the US government, largely through Gary Locke, who was US Commerce Minister before being sent to China as US Ambassador, bullied the American Internet firms and ISPs to do no business with Huawei and ZTE. The American government also bullied Australia into rejecting Huawei’s participation in the country’s new Internet infrastructure, and exerted extreme political pressure on South Korea to avoid Huawei. The US bullied the European Union in the same way, threatening various reprisals if the Europeans disobeyed. When the US government banned all products from Chinese electronics firm Huawei, the Australian government concurrently announced a ban on Huawei participating in its proposed $36 billion high-speed Internet network, claiming a responsibility to “protect its integrity” from Chinese cyber-attacks. Australia reported considerable US political pressure to make this decision, as did many European nations. But they don’t stop there. When the Americans cannot compete with China, which today is almost all of the time, they turn their attention to spitefully damaging China’s international position and commercial products in any nation where they can exert diplomatic or military pressure to bully the local government. In Europe in 2016, the US bullied local governments and paid labor unions to conduct an anti-China street protest, hoping to have 5,000 people demonstrating against Chinese steel simply because Chinese firms can produce at lower cost.
美国人因在与其他国家不断的小政治争吵中获得盟友的支持,并支持他们对其他国家的欺凌行为而臭名昭著。由于担心中国正在接管世界的通信和互联网基础设施,美国政府主要通过骆家辉(Gary Locke)胁迫美国互联网公司和互联网服务提供商不与华为和中兴做生意。骆家辉在被派往中国担任美国大使之前曾任美国商务部长。美国政府还胁迫澳大利亚拒绝华为参与该国新的互联网基础设施建设,并向韩国施加极端政治压力,要求其避开华为。美国以同样的方式欺负欧盟,威胁如果欧洲人不服从,将进行各种报复。当美国政府禁止中国电子公司华为的所有产品时,澳大利亚政府同时宣布禁止华为参与其拟议的360亿美元高速互联网网络,声称有责任“保护其完整性”免受中国网络攻击。澳大利亚和许多欧洲国家一样,报告称美国施加了巨大的政治压力,要求做出这一决定。但它们并不止于此。当美国人无法与中国竞争时(今天几乎所有时候都是这样),他们会将注意力转向恶意损害中国在任何国家的国际地位和商业产品,在这些国家,他们可以施加外交或军事压力来欺负当地政府。2016年,在欧洲,美国欺负地方政府,并付钱给工会进行反华街头抗议,希望有5000人示威反对中国钢铁,因为中国公司可以以更低的成本生产。
They did the same with solar (photo-voltaic) panels, bullying all US firms to reject Chinese products and levying punitive tariffs on imports, then proceeded to bully the Europeans into doing the same, again threatening reprisals if the Europeans failed to obey, in a pathetic and juvenile attempt to damage China’s worldwide supremacy in solar energy. The US levied enormous and unconscionable duties of nearly 350% on Chinese solar panels, in clear violation of all international rules, then bullied the EU and other Western nations to do the same. Almost inevitably the Americans will attempt to bully all the Western countries, and many undeveloped nations as well, to initiate similar tariffs, in clearly deliberate attempts to completely destroy industries in other nations that are more efficient than American firms. They have done the same for decades in attempting to control the exports to China of any technology by any country in the world. Exports to China of even simple PC micro-processors were banned for many years. The products or materials needn’t be for military use in China, the Americans have simply been determined to keep China in the high-tech dark by any means possible. US restrictions on high-tech exports to China are “strict and extensive“, and have exacerbated trade imbalances between China and the US. They also damage China’s trade relations with other nations because the US State Department exerts substantial diplomatic and even military pressure (or threats) on the Europeans and other nations to follow the US lead.
他们对太阳能(光伏)电池板也采取了同样的做法,胁迫所有美国公司拒绝中国产品,并对进口产品征收惩罚性关税,然后继续胁迫欧洲人也这样做,再次威胁如果欧洲人不服从,将进行报复,这是一种可悲而幼稚的企图,旨在损害中国在太阳能领域的全球霸主地位。美国对中国太阳能电池板征收了近350%的巨额且不合情理的关税,这显然违反了所有国际规则,然后胁迫欧盟和其他西方国家也这样做。几乎不可避免的是,美国人会试图欺负所有西方国家,以及许多不发达国家,以启动类似的关税,这显然是故意试图彻底摧毁其他国家比美国公司效率更高的行业。几十年来,他们一直在试图控制世界上任何国家对中国的任何技术出口。即使是简单的个人电脑微处理器也被禁止向中国出口多年。这些产品或材料不必在中国用于军事目的,美国人只是下定决心,尽一切可能让中国处于高科技的黑暗之中。美国对中国高科技出口的限制是“严格而广泛的”,加剧了中美之间的贸易失衡。这些限制还损害了中国与其他国家的贸易关系,因为美国国务院对欧洲和其他国家施加了巨大的外交甚至军事压力(或威胁),要求它们效仿美国。
In December of 2015, US President Obama publicly scolded Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for his government’s agreement to lease to a Chinese firm the usage of part of the Australian port of Darwin, without first obtaining permission from the US government! The Australian media were replete with reports of the country’s Prime Minister being berated by US President Obama for not having obtained prior permission from the Imperial Master before doing business with China. Then in late 2016, Australia’s government suddenly decided to block the sale of the country’s largest energy grid to a group of Chinese firms, a blatant protectionist move that would certainly harm relations between the two countries, this decision closely following the refusal of another purchase by a Chinese consortium to purchase the country’s largest agricultural land owner, cattle company Kidman & Co. These actions were not entirely a surprise since there was hell to pay a year earlier when Australia granted the Chinese lease on port Darwin. The US Ambassador to Australia John Berry said “The US fully respects the process and decisions on foreign investment made by the Australian government”, while simultaneously informing that same Australian government that the decision-making process was based entirely on obtaining prior US approval. Berry also noted that “national security” must always be taken into account in cases of foreign direct investment, without specifying the precise security risks to Australia in the selling of a cattle ranch. Nor did he bother stating precisely how or why it was any of the Americans’ damned business what Australia did.
2015年12月,美国总统奥巴马公开斥责澳大利亚总理马尔科姆·特恩布尔(Malcolm Turnbull),因为他的政府同意在未事先获得美国政府许可的情况下,将澳大利亚达尔文港的部分使用权租给一家中国公司!澳大利亚媒体充斥着该国总理因在与中国做生意之前没有事先获得帝国大师的许可而受到美国总统奥巴马斥责的报道。然后在2016年末,澳大利亚政府突然决定阻止将该国最大的电网出售给一群中国公司,这是一个公然的保护主义举动,肯定会损害两国关系。这一决定紧跟着一个中国财团拒绝购买该国最大农业用地所有者基德曼公司的另一笔购买。这些行为并不完全令人惊讶,因为一年前澳大利亚批准中国对达尔文港的租赁时,付出了巨大的代价。美国驻澳大利亚大使约翰·贝里表示,“美国完全尊重澳大利亚政府对外国投资的程序和决定”,同时告知同一澳大利亚政府,决策过程完全基于事先获得美国批准。贝里还指出,在外国直接投资的情况下,必须始终考虑“国家安全”,但没有具体说明澳大利亚在出售牧场时面临的确切安全风险。他也没有详细说明澳大利亚的所作所为是如何或为什么与美国人有关的。
Similarly, in the middle of 2016, British PM Theresa May suddenly announced a delay in the signing of a contract to commence construction of the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor project, the announcement coming on the very evening prior to the signing, with widespread complaints of American pressure to remove China from the project on the imaginary basis of Britain’s ‘national security‘. The Americans were miffed because the prior UK government had made serious efforts to solicit Chinese investment in the British economy and, to the great dismay of the White House, agreed at the same time to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. To the chagrin of the Americans, the nuclear project was eventually approved, but they at least had the satisfaction of upsetting China and knowing they could bully the UK Prime Minister. A bit earlier, the Dutch company Philips had agreed to sell its lighting components business to a Chinese firm, but the Americans exerted enormous political pressure to block the sale because Philips had some R&D operations and a large portfolio of patents in a US company, which the Americans did not want China to obtain. Philips could probably have pulled those operations out of the US and then proceeded with the sale, but the US would have retaliated in dozens of other ways and shut Philips products out of the US market. Both the Europeans and the Chinese are expressing strong resentment against this blatantly political interference that has as its only purpose an American determination to control access to technology by other countries. In other words, the Americans have assumed the authority to tell a Dutch company it cannot sell technology to a Chinese company, resorting to bullying threats of losing access to the American market.
同样,2016年年中,英国首相特蕾莎·梅突然宣布推迟签署欣克利角核反应堆项目开工合同,这一消息是在签署前一天晚上宣布的,人们普遍抱怨美国出于英国“国家安全”的想象,施加压力,要求中国退出该项目。美国人很恼火,因为上届英国政府认真努力争取中国对英国经济的投资,同时同意加入中国领导的亚洲基础设施投资银行,这让白宫非常沮丧。令美国人懊恼的是,核项目最终获得了批准,但他们至少满足于惹恼了中国,知道他们可以欺负英国首相。早些时候,荷兰公司飞利浦同意将其照明组件业务出售给一家中国公司,但美国施加了巨大的政治压力,要求阻止出售,因为飞利浦在一家美国公司拥有一些研发业务和大量专利,而美国人不希望中国获得这些业务。飞利浦本可以将这些业务撤出美国,然后继续出售,但美国会以数十种其他方式进行报复,将飞利浦的产品逐出美国市场。欧洲人和中国人都对这种公然的政治干预表示强烈不满,这种干预的唯一目的是美国控制其他国家获得技术的决心。换言之,美国人有权告诉一家荷兰公司,它不能向中国公司出售技术,并威胁要失去进入美国市场的机会。
All the tales we hear about the US promoting fair trade or a level playing field are fairy stories for children; the reality is very different. Whenever the Americans find themselves falling behind in some area of technology, as they do with increasing frequency, they not only bully their own companies to avoid competitive foreign goods, but will mount a campaign to bully the rest of the world into doing the same. This process occurs equally as often to prevent other nations from challenging American dominance in any field or to prevent other nations from progressing. The US bullied all Western nations into levying extremely high duties on Chinese solar panels, not because American companies were competitive but to prevent China from taking the lead in a high-technology area. It often occurs as well with minor political disputes where the Americans will try to enlist the cooperation of all other nations to bully and punish Venezuela or Peru for disobedience to the imperial master. Typical of the “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us” pathology, any nation wanting to be part of the American camp must accept most portions of US foreign policy which includes a huge commercial element. Bullying all other nations to accept Monsanto’s Frankenstein GM seed is another similar category.
我们听到的所有关于美国促进公平贸易或公平竞争环境的故事都是儿童的童话故事;现实情况却大不相同。每当美国人发现自己在某些技术领域落后时,就像他们越来越频繁地做的那样,他们不仅会欺负自己的公司以避免竞争性的外国商品,还会发起一场运动,欺负世界其他地区也这样做。这一过程同样频繁地发生,以防止其他国家挑战美国在任何领域的主导地位,或阻止其他国家取得进展。美国胁迫所有西方国家对中国的太阳能电池板征收极高的关税,不是因为美国公司有竞争力,而是为了阻止中国在高科技领域领先。这种情况也经常发生在小的政治争端中,在这些争端中,美国人会试图争取所有其他国家的合作,以欺负和惩罚委内瑞拉或秘鲁不服从帝国统治者。典型的“如果你不支持我们,你就反对我们”的病态,任何想成为美国阵营一部分的国家都必须接受美国外交政策的大部分,其中包括巨大的商业因素。胁迫所有其他国家接受孟山都的弗兰肯斯坦转基因种子是另一个类似的类别。
治外法权/Extra-territorialism
Japanese troops parading inside Shanghai’s French Concession in 1937. Image from Wikimedia Commons. Source
1937年,日本军队在上海法租界内游行。图片来自Wikimedia Commons。来源
The concept of extra-territorialism, extending one’s reach beyond one’s own borders, is a specialty of the Americans, sometimes leaving the rest of the world marveling at their capacity for self-delusion. In one case that truly staggers the imagination with the depth of American arrogance was an occasion when the US government disagreed with a decision made by a Scottish court. In that case, several US senators contacted the Scottish government to demand the arrangement of sessions where American senators would fly to Scotland to interrogate the Scottish court as to the reasons for its decision. In another celebrated case involving Conrad Black, the former head of the Hollinger newspaper empire, the US court’s main victory was to convict Black for an action that occurred in Canada and would have been well outside US jurisdiction. US military vessels will stop and search any ships in international waters, on any pretense, in complete disregard of international law and where they have no jurisdiction.
域外主义的概念,将一个人的触角延伸到自己的边界之外,是美国人的专长,有时会让世界其他地区惊叹于他们的自欺欺人能力。在一个案例中,美国政府不同意苏格兰法院的裁决,这一案例真正让人联想到美国的傲慢。在这种情况下,几名美国参议员联系了苏格兰政府,要求安排美国参议员飞往苏格兰的会议,询问苏格兰法院做出决定的原因。在另一起著名的案件中,涉及霍林格报业帝国前总裁康拉德·布莱克,美国法院的主要胜利是将布莱克在加拿大发生的一项远不在美国管辖范围内的行为定罪。美国军舰将以任何借口,完全无视国际法,在没有管辖权的情况下,在国际水域拦截和搜查任何船只。
A portrait of Ma Xiaohong, the founder and owner of Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development. Co., as published in a corporate publication. Photo: Chun Han Wong/The Wall Street Journal. Source
丹东鸿翔实业发展有限公司创始人兼所有者马晓红的肖像。公司出版的。照片:王/《华尔街日报》。来源
In another similar case, the US White House arranged to have a US court file criminal indictments against a Chinese businesswoman for allegedly doing business with and having financial ties to North Korea, as well as announcing “sanctions” against her and the trading company for doing business with a country the Americans have placed on their black list. The Chinese Foreign Ministry voiced its disapproval of the US attempting to use its domestic laws “to impose ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ over Chinese entities or individuals“, but the Americans pay no notice and do this with increasing regularity. In this case, the White House is experiencing difficulty in destroying North Korea without China’s assistance, these ‘long-arm’ actions intended to increase pressure on China to cooperate with US ambitions to destabilise North Korea, by attacking innocent Chinese citizens. In this case, the Americans claimed, with no evidence whatever, that this woman had “masked hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions” to help develop North Korea’s ballistic-missile capabilities. Of course, the greatest problem the US has with North Korea is in the fact that Pyongyang has working nuclear missiles that very effectively prevent their launching another Korean war, and they want China to pressure the North Koreans to surrender their missiles in exchange for nothing. Those missiles are the only thing that has prevented Korea from being obliterated, as Iraq and Libya discovered. Given that the Americans are cowards and will never attack a country that can defend itself, many more nations need nuclear missiles, and quickly.
在另一起类似案件中,美国白宫安排美国法院对一名中国女商人提起刑事诉讼,指控她与朝鲜做生意并与朝鲜有经济联系,并宣布对她和这家贸易公司实施“制裁”,因为她与美国列入黑名单的国家做生意。中国外交部表示不赞成美国试图利用其国内法“对中国实体或个人施加‘长臂管辖权’”,但美国人没有注意到,而且越来越频繁地这样做。在这种情况下,白宫在没有中国援助的情况下很难摧毁朝鲜,这些“长臂”行动旨在增加对中国的压力,迫使中国与美国合作,通过攻击无辜的中国公民来破坏朝鲜的稳定。在这种情况下,美国人声称,在没有任何证据的情况下,这名女子“掩盖了数亿美元的交易”,以帮助发展朝鲜的弹道导弹能力。当然,美国对朝鲜最大的问题在于,平壤拥有有效的核导弹,可以非常有效地防止他们发动另一场朝鲜战争,他们希望中国向朝鲜施压,要求他们交出导弹,而不换取任何东西。正如伊拉克和利比亚所发现的那样,这些导弹是唯一阻止朝鲜被毁灭的东西。考虑到美国人是懦夫,永远不会攻击一个能够自卫的国家,更多的国家需要快速的核导弹。
The US uses all its political, diplomatic and military muscle to browbeat other countries into accepting worldwide jurisdiction for all US laws. US lawyers have told me with gleeful approval that their government is rushing to set precedents for many moves of this kind in an attempt to establish US law as the prevailing jurisdictional force in all countries. Increasingly, US courts are affirming their jurisdiction over events and people outside the US, and the US government will then use its muscle to force extradition and to seize foreign assets in the US or force foreign government allies to do the same. There is no legal justification or precedent for most of these actions that appear based only on a disregard for any inconvenient law, domestic or foreign. It is simply an attitude of “if we want you, we’ll get you”. Through widespread bullying and an illegal assumption of powers, the US is extending worldwide not only its legal jurisdiction but the capriciousness of its civil courts and the virtually total lack of protection of rights due to the Patriot Act and other legislation. This is so true today that many parties resort to the US courts for claims totally unconnected with the US in any way but where US courts will claim jurisdiction and grant judgments in areas where they have no legal jurisdiction. All this is an attempt to forcibly export American laws and jurisdiction into all nations, to function as the world’s court and legal system.
美国利用其所有的政治、外交和军事力量,胁迫其他国家接受美国所有法律的全球管辖权。美国律师兴高采烈地告诉我,他们的政府正急于为许多此类举措开创先例,试图将美国法律确立为所有国家的主导司法力量。美国法院越来越多地确认其对美国境外事件和人员的管辖权,然后美国政府将动用其力量强制引渡和扣押在美国的外国资产,或迫使外国政府盟友也这样做。大多数此类行为似乎只是基于无视任何不方便的国内外法律,没有任何法律依据或先例。这只是一种“如果我们想要你,我们就会得到你”的态度。通过广泛的欺凌和非法掌权,美国不仅在全球范围内扩大其法律管辖权,而且在民事法院的反复无常,以及由于《爱国者法案》和其他立法而几乎完全缺乏对权利的保护。今天的情况如此真实,以至于许多当事方向美国法院提出与美国完全无关的索赔,但美国法院将在其没有法律管辖权的地区主张管辖权并作出判决。所有这些都是试图将美国的法律和管辖权强行输出到所有国家,以发挥世界法院和法律体系的作用。
As well, the US has a disturbing tendency to feel free to simply enter any sovereign nation to execute the forcible seizure any person of interest to them, without experiencing the inconveniences of local laws. In too many instances the Americans act as the bounty hunters did in their own land in the past, in a time when there were no laws and success was the only judge of propriety. In fact, more than 20 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was perfectly lawful for Americans to kidnap citizens on foreign soil and “deport” them anywhere, even in situations where the US had an extradition treaty. However, as the BBC pointed out, “the accepted route for bringing to court suspects who are living outside of the jurisdiction of the requesting state is extradition, not kidnapping“, a distinction the Americans appear not to appreciate. At the time of writing, court judgments are outstanding in Germany and Italy against many Americans, many of them employed by the CIA, for kidnapping and other crimes committed on European soil. The US of course refuses to extradite its own citizens to other nations, especially in circumstances where the crimes they committed were ordered and planned by the US government itself. If these actions don’t fit the definition of ‘rogue state’, I can’t imagine what would.
此外,美国有一种令人不安的倾向,即在不经历当地法律的不便的情况下,可以自由地进入任何主权国家,强行扣押他们感兴趣的任何人。在太多的情况下,美国人的行为就像过去赏金猎人在自己的土地上所做的那样,当时没有法律,成功是唯一的判断标准。事实上,20多年前,美国最高法院裁定,美国人在外国领土上绑架公民并将其“驱逐”到任何地方都是完全合法的,即使在美国有引渡条约的情况下也是如此。然而,正如英国广播公司指出的那样,“将居住在请求国管辖范围之外的嫌疑人送上法庭的公认途径是引渡,而不是绑架”,美国人似乎并不欣赏这一区别。在撰写本文时,德国和意大利的法院对许多美国人(其中许多人受雇于中央情报局)在欧洲领土上犯下的绑架和其他罪行的判决悬而未决。美国当然拒绝将本国公民引渡到其他国家,尤其是在他们所犯下的罪行是由美国政府自己下令和策划的情况下。如果这些行为不符合“流氓国家”的定义,我无法想象会发生什么。
The government seized majority control of the energy company YPF in 2012, claiming underinvestment. PHOTO: MATIAS BAGLIETTO/REUTERS.Source
政府在2012年夺取了能源公司YPF的多数控制权,声称投资不足。照片:MATIAS BAGLIETTO/路透社。来源
In March of 2014, US courts ordered the Government of Argentina to pay US$185 million to a British company, BG Group, for forgone profits arising from the country’s economic crisis in 2001. The Argentinian government changed the basis of its gas prices from US dollars to Argentinian pesos and froze gas prices during the crisis, in an attempt to bring stability to its economy. According to the Americans, no foreign government has the right to take any actions that might affect the profits of an American multinational company, regardless of circumstances. In this case, the US government has absolutely no jurisdiction over the actions of a foreign government, nor any responsibility for the losses of a foreign company, but the US courts simply assumed jurisdiction, claimed to have arbitrated the dispute according to Argentinian law, and left the matter with an American court to assess damages. If Argentina refuses to comply, the US will simply confiscate any of Argentina’s assets in the US. This issue was appealed to the US Supreme Court which determined that “the arbitrators’ determinations were lawful“.
2014年3月,美国法院命令阿根廷政府向英国BG集团支付1.85亿美元,以补偿2001年该国经济危机造成的利润损失。阿根廷政府在危机期间将天然气价格的基础从美元改为阿根廷比索,并冻结了天然气价格,试图为其经济带来稳定。根据美国人的说法,任何外国政府都无权采取任何可能影响美国跨国公司利润的行动,无论情况如何。在这种情况下,美国政府对外国政府的行为绝对没有管辖权,也不对外国公司的损失承担任何责任,但美国法院只是承担了管辖权,声称已根据阿根廷法律对争端进行了仲裁,并将此事交由美国法院评估损害赔偿。如果阿根廷拒绝遵守,美国将简单地没收阿根廷在美国的任何资产。这一问题被上诉到美国最高法院,该法院认定“仲裁员的裁决是合法的”。
Rolls-Royce reaches £671m agreement to settle corruption probes. Source
罗尔斯·罗伊斯达成6.71亿英镑的协议以解决腐败调查。来源
In another case, the US Department of Justice launched an investigation of Rolls-Royce following allegations that its executives bribed officials in Indonesia to win aircraft engine contracts. Rolls-Royce is a foreign company, not an American one, and the US has no jurisdiction over that company’s actions that occurred entirely in another foreign country. These events or actions are entirely outside not only US jurisdiction, but outside of US concern; it is not America’s business to oversee or control what Rolls-Royce does in Indonesia, but the Americans disagree. According to US law, the paying of bribes to foreign officials is illegal, and the US Department of Justice will now investigate whether a British company is in violation of US law. Rolls-Royce will be forced to pay the entire costs of this probe and investigation and could potentially be fined many hundreds of millions of dollars by US courts, as well as other penalties, criminal prosecution, commercial litigation by GE, Boeing and other American aviation firms, and restrictions on future business contracts within the US. What better way to eliminate the main competitor for US manufacturers of aircraft engines? And of course, all US aviation companies are renowned for the bribes and other considerations they have paid for decades in precisely the same context. The only new development is that the US government now pays the bribes on behalf of these firms, sometimes disguised as military aid and sometimes not disguised at all.
在另一起案件中,美国司法部对罗尔斯·罗伊斯展开调查,此前有指控称其高管在印尼出色地赢得了飞机发动机合同。罗尔斯·罗伊斯是一家外国公司,而不是美国公司,美国对该公司完全发生在另一个外国的行为没有管辖权。这些事件或行动完全不在美国管辖范围内,但不在美国关注范围内;海外或控制劳斯莱斯在印尼的业务与美国无关,但美国人不同意。根据美国法律,向外国官员行贿是非法的,美国司法部将调查一家英国公司是否违反了美国法律。罗尔斯·罗伊斯将被迫支付此次调查和调查的全部费用,并可能获得美国法院数亿美元的赔偿,以及通用电气、波音和其他美国航空公司的其他处罚、刑事起诉、商业诉讼,以及对未来在美商业合同的限制。还有什么更好的方法来消除美国飞机发动机制造商的主要竞争对手?当然,所有美国航空公司都以几十年来在完全相同的背景下支付的贿赂和其他代价而闻名。唯一的新进展是,美国政府现在代表这些公司行贿,有时伪装成军事援助,有时根本不伪装。
The US is presuming to dictate to foreign governments the content of their commercial rules, laws and regulations, demanding they adopt US practices. Those nations refusing to comply with the Imperial Master, like the UK, will find their multinational corporations, like Rolls-Royce, financially crippled or bankrupt. Those nations – virtually all, in the case of banking – refusing to adopt US regulations and permit free US extraterritorial reach, will find their banks financially crippled or bankrupt. When Canada refused to adopt the US standard for forest leases, the US acted to financially cripple or bankrupt all Canadian forest industry firms. When China refused to cease its commerce with Iran, the US trumped up a charge to financially cripple a Chinese bank in the US. When China took action to stabilise its OTC vitamin market, the US immediately fabricated charges and levied outrageous and illegal fines intended to bankrupt a Chinese medical firm. When China refused a wholesale adoption of US accounting methods and standards, the US attacked the Big Four accounting firms, exposing them to financially crippling sanctions.
美国正试图向外国政府规定其商业规则、法律和法规的内容,要求它们采用美国的做法。那些拒绝遵守帝国大师的国家,比如英国,将发现他们的跨国公司,比如劳斯莱斯,财务瘫痪或破产。那些国家——就银行业而言,几乎所有国家——拒绝采用美国法规并允许美国自由行使域外管辖权,将发现其银行在财务上陷入瘫痪或破产。当加拿大拒绝采用美国的森林租赁标准时,美国采取行动,在财政上削弱或破产了所有加拿大林业公司。当中国拒绝停止与伊朗的贸易时,美国捏造了一项指控,在经济上削弱了一家中国在美银行。当中国采取行动稳定其非处方维生素市场时,美国立即捏造指控,并征收了离谱的非法罚款,意图使一家中国医疗公司破产。当中国拒绝全面采用美国的会计方法和标准时,美国攻击了四大会计师事务所,使它们面临严重的财政制裁。
These events are not isolated instances of inappropriate actions on the parts of the companies themselves, but of their national governments in refusing to be forcibly colonised by the US. All US extraterritorial actions are related and stem from the same cause – world domination and colonisation – a blatant attempt to forcibly impose US regulations on all the world’s nations and achieve the surrender of national sovereignty to the European Zionists behind the US. This is the case with all the rhetoric on IP protection, banking, accounting standards, takeover regulations, the TPP, and all examples listed above. There are hundreds more. It is a pattern that has been playing out for years and is becoming more viciously intense each year. Evidence is especially clear within China, with enormous pressure exerted by the US State Department, diplomatic staff, AmCham, US multinationals and many more players, in clear attempts to force China’s entire legal, commercial – and political – standards into the US mold.
这些事件并不是公司自身不当行为的孤立例子,而是其国家政府拒绝被美国强行殖民的孤立例子。美国的所有域外行动都是相关的,都源于同一个原因-世界统治和殖民-公然试图将美国的法规强加于世界所有国家,并将国家主权移交给美国背后的欧洲犹太复国主义者。所有关于知识产权保护、银行、会计准则、收购法规、TPP以及上述所有例子的言论都是如此。还有几百个。这种模式已经持续多年,而且每年都在变得更加激烈。证据在中国国内尤其明显,美国国务院、外交人员、美国商会、美国跨国公司和更多参与者施加了巨大压力,显然试图迫使中国的整个法律、商业和政治标准进入美国模式。
I could provide hundreds of examples of the US government attempting to universalise all of its commercial and legal practices, acting to forcibly impose them on other nations with scant regard for law or ethics. All the claims about the US playing fair, following a rule of law, wanting a level playing field, are fabricated propaganda without a shred of truth. The US government is in every sense the world’s bully, an essentially lawless organisation bent only on domination. In actions that are not only irrational but often illegal, American courts often presume imaginary jurisdiction in extending their reach to levy fines on companies in any nation, for actions that did not occur in the US and which were legal in the countries where they occurred.
我可以提供数百个例子,说明美国政府试图将其所有商业和法律实践普遍化,并在不尊重法律或道德的情况下强行将其强加给其他国家。所有关于美国公平竞争、遵循法治、想要一个公平竞争环境的说法,都是捏造的宣传,没有丝毫的真相。美国政府在任何意义上都是世界的恶霸,一个本质上无法无天的组织,一心想统治世界。在不仅不合理而且往往是非法的行为中,美国法院往往假定假想的管辖权,以扩大其对任何国家的公司征收罚款的范围,因为这些行为在美国没有发生,在发生地国家是合法的。
With Canada’s software lumber, what was being protected was the “right” of American firms to make a desired level of profit, and when Canada’s government refused to amend its domestic commercial policies to correspond, the US used its power to plunder the Canadian firms and forward the funds to the US lumber companies. In order to pretend to a “rule of law” in these situations, the US government often uses its courts to levy the “fines” or other political punishment, thereby claiming all was done according to the law. Unfortunately for many firms and governments, US financial awards are not only irrational but often illegal, the American courts presuming imaginary jurisdiction in extending their reach to levy fines on companies in any nation, for actions that did not occur in the US and which were legal in the countries where they occurred.
对于加拿大的软件木材,受到保护的是美国公司获得所需利润水平的“权利”,当加拿大政府拒绝修改其国内商业政策时,美国利用其权力掠夺加拿大公司,并将资金转交给美国木材公司。在这种情况下,为了假装“法治”,美国政府经常利用法院征收“罚款”或其他政治惩罚,从而声称一切都是依法进行的。不幸的是,对许多公司和政府来说,美国的金融裁决不仅不合理,而且往往是非法的,美国法院在扩大其管辖范围以对任何国家的公司征收罚款时,假定了想象中的管辖权,因为这些行为在美国没有发生,在发生地国家是合法的。
This is precisely the same pattern the US followed with its pressure program on international banking, done under the pretense of searching for American tax evaders. But tax evasion was never the issue; the real intent was to extend the extra-territorial reach of US financial legislation into all nations. After years of effort, the US finally broke Switzerland’s banking secrecy provisions and obtained “legal” right to all Swiss banking records by attacking Swiss banks with resident US operations and fining them hundreds of millions of dollars each on the fabricated pretense of their foreign branches or head offices conspiring to defraud the IRS. Since the foreign governments resisted to the end the US pressure to adopt American methods, laws and “rules of the game”, the US government extorted billions of dollars from their US operations disguised as legal penalties. The message was clear: either all nations adopt US financial regulations and permit an American reach directly into their financial system – over-riding each country’s national sovereignty – or the US government would bankrupt every foreign bank operating in the US.
这正是美国以寻找美国逃税者为借口,对国际银行业施加压力的模式。但逃税从来都不是问题所在;真正的意图是将美国金融立法的域外范围扩大到所有国家。经过多年的努力,美国最终打破了瑞士的银行秘密委员会,并通过攻击在美国有常驻业务的瑞士银行,并以其外国分行或总部合谋欺诈美国国税局为借口,对其处以数亿美元的罚款,从而获得了对所有瑞士银行记录的“合法”权利。由于外国政府最终顶住了美国采用美国方法、法律和“游戏规则”的压力,美国政府从其美国业务中勒索了数十亿美元,并将其作为法律惩罚。信息很明确:要么所有国家都采用美国的金融法规,允许美国人直接进入其金融体系。
Paul Craig Roberts, a former high-level US Treasury official and widely-read author, wrote an article stating that the US Government is the most complete criminal organization in human history. Listen to Dr. Roberts:
前美国财政部高级官员、博览群书的作者保罗·克雷格·罗伯茨写了一篇文章,称美国政府是人类历史上最完整的犯罪组织。听罗伯茨博士说:
“Unique among the countries on earth, the US government insists that its laws and dictates take precedence over the sovereignty of nations. Washington asserts the power of US courts over foreign nationals and claims extra-territorial jurisdiction of US courts over foreign activities of which Washington or American interest groups disapprove. Perhaps the worst results of Washington’s disregard for the sovereignty of countries are the power Washington has exercised over foreign nationals solely on the basis of terrorism charges devoid of any evidence.
“美国政府在世界上独一无二,坚持其法律和指令优先于国家主权。华盛顿主张美国法院对外国国民的权力,并声称美国法院对华盛顿或美国利益集团不赞成的外国活动拥有域外管辖权。也许华盛顿无视国家主权的最坏结果是,华盛顿完全基于没有任何证据的恐怖主义指控对外国国民行使权力。
Consider a few examples. Washington first forced the Swiss government to violate its own banking laws. Then Washington forced Switzerland to repeal its bank secrecy laws. Allegedly, Switzerland is a democracy, but the country’s laws are determined in Washington by people not elected by the Swiss to represent them. Consider the “soccer scandal” that Washington concocted, apparently for the purpose of embarrassing Russia. The soccer organization’s home is Switzerland, but this did not stop Washington from sending FBI agents into Switzerland to arrest Swiss citizens. Try to imagine Switzerland sending Swiss federal agents into the US to arrest Americans. Consider the $9 billion fine that Washington imposed on a French bank for failure to fully comply with Washington’s sanctions against Iran. This assertion of Washington’s control over a foreign financial institution is even more audaciously illegal in view of the fact that the sanctions Washington imposed on Iran and requires other sovereign countries to obey are themselves strictly illegal. Indeed, in this case we have a case of triple illegality as the sanctions were imposed on the basis of concocted and fabricated charges that were lies. Or consider that Washington asserted its authority over the contract between a French shipbuilder and the Russian government and forced the French company to violate a contract at the expense of billions of dollars to the French company and a large number of jobs to the French economy. This was a part of Washington teaching the Russians a lesson for not following Washington’s orders in Crimea.
考虑几个例子。华盛顿首先迫使瑞士政府违反自己的银行法。随后,华盛顿迫使瑞士废除其银行保密法。据称,瑞士是一个民主国家,但该国的法律是由非瑞士选举产生的代表他们的人在华盛顿决定的。想想华盛顿炮制的“足球丑闻”,显然是为了让俄罗斯难堪。该足球组织的总部在瑞士,但这并没有阻止华盛顿派遣联邦调查局特工进入瑞士逮捕瑞士公民。试着想象一下,瑞士派遣瑞士联邦特工进入美国逮捕美国人。想想华盛顿因一家法国银行未能完全遵守华盛顿对伊朗的制裁而对其处以的90亿美元罚款。鉴于华盛顿对伊朗实施并要求其他主权国家遵守的制裁本身就是严格非法的,这种声称华盛顿控制外国金融机构的说法甚至更加大胆地非法。事实上,在本案中,我们有一个三重非法的案例,因为制裁是基于捏造和捏造的谎言指控而实施的。或者考虑一下,华盛顿对一家法国造船厂与俄罗斯政府之间的合同行使了权力,并迫使这家法国公司违反了一项合同,代价是法国公司损失了数十亿美元,法国经济也失去了大量就业机会。这是华盛顿教训俄罗斯人在克里米亚不听从华盛顿命令的一部分。
Try to imagine a world in which every country asserted the extra-territoriality of its law. The planet would be in permanent chaos with world GDP expended in legal and military battles. Neo-conned Washington claims that as History chose America to exercise its hegemony over the world, no other law is relevant. Only Washington’s will counts. Law itself is not even needed as Washington often substitutes orders for laws as when Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State (an unelected position) told the President of Pakistan to do as he is told or “we will bomb you into the stone age.” [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5369198.stm]. Try to image the Presidents of Russia or China giving such an order to a sovereign nation. In fact, Washington did bomb large areas of Pakistan, murdering thousands of women, children, and village elders. Washington’s justification was the assertion of the extra-territoriality of US military actions in other countries with which Washington is not at war.”
试着想象一个世界,在这个世界里,每个国家都主张其法律的域外管辖权。随着世界GDP在法律和军事斗争中的支出,地球将永远处于混乱之中。新欺骗的华盛顿声称,由于历史选择了美国来行使其对世界的霸权,因此没有其他法律是相关的。只有华盛顿的意志才重要。法律本身甚至不需要,因为华盛顿经常用命令代替法律,就像副国务卿理查德·阿米蒂奇(一个未经选举的职位)告诉巴基斯坦总统按照他的指示行事,否则“我们会把你炸到石器时代。”[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5369198.stm]. 试着想象一下俄罗斯或中国的总统对一个主权国家下达这样的命令。事实上,华盛顿确实轰炸了巴基斯坦的大片地区,杀害了数千名妇女、儿童和村里的老人。华盛顿的理由是声称美国在其他国家的军事行动具有域外管辖权,而华盛顿并没有与之交战。”
Howard Zinn: Americans have no way of knowing what they don’t know. Source
霍华德·津恩:美国人没有办法知道他们不知道的事情。来源
I would add here the observation that Americans are almost never aware of these or any similar events. They have no access to this information because the US media are heavily censored for political content. Americans are subjected on a daily basis to a literal flood of fabricated stories and misinformation about nations the US government and its puppet-handlers want to disparage, but nowhere will we ever find the truths about the behavior of the US government, its agencies, and its MNCs in other countries. The censorship is virtually total on these matters and, to paraphrase Howard Zinn, if the media and history books delete all such events, Americans have no way of knowing what they don’t know.
我想在这里补充一点,美国人几乎从未意识到这些或任何类似的事件。他们无法获得这些信息,因为美国媒体的政治内容受到严格审查。美国人每天都会受到大量关于美国政府及其傀儡操纵者想要贬低的国家的捏造故事和错误信息的影响,但我们永远找不到关于美国政府、其机构和跨国公司在其他国家的行为的真相。审查制度实际上是对这些事情的全面审查,用霍华德·津恩的话来说,如果媒体和历史书删除了所有这些事件,美国人就无法知道他们不知道的事情。
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Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
罗曼诺夫的作品已被翻译成32种语言,他的文章发表在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站以及100多个英语平台上。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一位退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职务,并拥有一家国际进出口公司。他曾是上海复旦大学的客座教授,为高级EMBA课程讲授国际事务案例研究。罗曼诺夫先生居住在上海,目前正在写一系列十本与中国和西方有关的书。他是辛西娅·麦金尼新选集《当中国打喷嚏》的特约作者之一。(第二章——对付魔鬼)。
His full archive can be seen at
他的完整文章库可以在以下看到
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at:
他的联系方式:
2186604556@qq.com
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Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Blue Moon of Shanghai, Moon of Shanghai, 2023
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