2024 - The Year Of Wars And Rumors Of Wars
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog December 23, 2023
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One of the biggest bombshells of the entire year just dropped, but now it has almost entirely disappeared from the news cycle. NBC News is reporting that during their recent summit meeting in San Francisco, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Joe Biden to his face that a decision has been made to "reunify Taiwan with China" one way or the other.
Normally the Chinese keep their cards very close to the vest, and so this was a very unusual move. My guess is that the Chinese wanted to see how Biden would respond to such a direct statement. Xi Jinping expressed his desire to take over Taiwan peacefully if possible, but we all know that isn't going to happen. So war is coming, and the only thing that needs to be decided now is the timing...
Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials.
Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China's preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said.
The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions by U.S. military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027, telling Biden that they were wrong because he has not set a time frame, according to the two current and one former official briefed on the meeting.
I kind of expected the White House to deny that this exchange took place, but that did not happen...
The White House didn't deny the exchange, which occurred during a Nov. 15 summit outside San Francisco that was attended by a dozen US and Chinese officials.
"I'm not gonna get into the specifics of the discussion between the two leaders," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One en route to Milwaukee.
Wow.
So why isn't everyone in America talking about this?
Why has this almost entirely disappeared from the news cycle already?
This is one of the biggest stories of the year.
War with China is coming, and the Chinese have been feverishly preparing for it.
For example, the Chinese just imposed export controls on rare earth processing technology...
Following the meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation event in San Francisco last month, the hopes for de-escalation in Sino-US relations seem to have fallen apart after China announced export controls on rare-earths technologies.
China is the world's top processor of rare earths and has placed an export ban on technology to extract and separate rare-earth metals, according to Bloomberg, citing a document from the Ministry of Commerce.
The move comes as Washington and its allies try to reduce reliance on China's stranglehold of the global rare earths market. There are 17 rare earth metals, and Beijing controls about 85% of the global refining capacity. These metals are found in everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines to military hardware.
Expect to see more dramatic economic moves by the Chinese in the months ahead.
China has also been working on a whole host of new weapons systems.
Reportedly, this also includes weapons that employ "advanced brain warfare technology"...
China is working on advanced brain warfare technology which is said to include devices that can send enemies to sleep and control their thoughts, according to an uncovered report.
Researchers have found two recent studies by China's People's Liberation Army that show the military is increasing its 'hard power' weapons with new technology to win wars without conventional weapons.
The biological weapons are designed to induce sleep, impair cognition and alertness as well as impact decision making, The Washington Times reports.
The Chinese military is building sophisticated biological weapons and small-scale electronic tools made with nanotechnology that could be used in covert warfare, a major study warns.
"China's invisible arsenals encompass a range of advanced weaponry that are distinctly focused on providing the Chinese Communist Party with a range of asymmetric warfare options, including the delivery of biological, biochemical and neurobiological weapons on target populations," according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts.
The People's Liberation Army, or PLA, is developing nanoweapons using highly sophisticated microscopic materials that enhance the effects of biological weapons, according to the report, titled "In the Shadows of Science: Unravelling China's Invisible Arsenals of Nanoweapons." It was made public earlier this month.
In addition, Chinese hackers have been feverishly hacking into "critical U.S. infrastructure" in anticipation of the coming conflict...
President Joe Biden's administration warned that Chinese hackers have been positioning themselves inside critical U.S. infrastructure to cause "societal chaos" from within should war break out.
According to reports, the Communist Party of China's military has burrowed into more than 20 major utilities suppliers in the last year including a water utility in Hawaii, a major West Coast port and at least one oil and gas pipeline. They reportedly also bypassed elaborate cyber security systems by intercepting passwords and log-ins unguarded by junior employees.
This project they are conducting amid growing tension over Taiwan was codenamed Volt Typhoon. Analysts commented this could unplug U.S. efforts to protect its interests in the South China Sea. "It is very clear that Chinese attempts to compromise critical infrastructure are in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict," said Brandon Wales of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
China's military has been working on creating autonomous AI-driven nano-weapons capable of making real-time decisions and executing cyber-attacks with unparalleled sophistication and unpredictability.
Meanwhile, it appears that the war in the Middle East could soon go to the next level.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the "buffer zone has moved south of the border, and the IDF faces daily mortar attacks from Hezbollah."
And Newsweek is telling us that "Israel has edged closer to an all-out war with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement"...
Israel has edged closer to an all-out war with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement amid a worsening round of hostilities playing out as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is already engaged in its most intensive conflict to date in the Gaza Strip, an IDF official has said.
IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters Monday that Hezbollah has fired "more than 1,000 different types of ammunition, rockets, missiles, drones, mortars and others toward Israel" since October 8, the day after the Palestinian Hamas movement led an unprecedented surprise attack against Israel from Gaza.
Conricus warned that "Hezbollah, who as everybody knows is a proxy of Iran, is dangerously dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war that could have potential devastating consequences for the state of Lebanon and for the people of Lebanon.
The Israeli government has decided to push Hezbollah beyond the Litani River, and Hezbollah will not ever allow that to happen willingly...
Israel is planning to invade Lebanon to push Hezbollah back from its northern border, according to reports, amid a barrage of rocket attacks since the war in Gaza broke out and fears that the terror group is 'worse than Hamas'.
After weeks of exchanging cross-border fire, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are said to be keen to launch a ground offensive into southern Lebanon which would aim to push the terror group north past the Litani River.
Elsewhere, the Russians are attacking on "six fronts" in Ukraine, and Kim Jong Un just threatened the United States with nuclear war...
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Pyongyang will not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack on the US if 'provoked with nukes', state media said Thursday.
Kim's warning follows a meeting between South Korea and the United States last week in Washington, where they discussed nuclear deterrence in the event of conflict with the North.
Without a doubt, we are living at a time of wars and rumors of wars, and I fully expect 2024 to be a year of war.
The Israeli Defense Forces have even declared 2024 'The Year Of War' and have warned it was unclear when reservists would be able to return to their homes.
So I would encourage all of you to get prepared for the chaos that is ahead, because global events will soon spiral completely out of control.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog - reposted with permission.
