https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldenziel/2025/08/31/42-percent-of-the-world-is-buying-chinas-anti-us-narrative/

The most poetic concise takedown come from here. Thought I'd see what the thoughts are here.

Source

The free speech “truth seeking” warrior has, it turns out, been far from truthful about her credentials

On May 3, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs joined Member of the European Parliament Fidias Panayiotou for a live podcast event titled "The Global Order in Transition." During the discussion, Professor Sachs revealed that he is actively investigating the true origins of COVID-19 and stated that he is now 99% certain it was manufactured in the United States. The full transcript follows:

Jeffrey Sachs:

I’ll tell you a sad truth, also a little surprising, and I have to admit what I’m about to tell you is only 99% sure. But my view, based on very extensive work over the last four and a half years, is that COVID came from the University of North Carolina, which is the leading researcher on beta coronavirus viruses, working with the US government on a set of grant proposals that identified putting in the viral change that created SARS CoV 2.

It’s a grim truth; it’s ugly, it’s been hidden from view. The reason I mentioned it in this context is we don’t have any global governance that is effective right now to control the manipulation of dangerous pathogens, like the manipulation that created the pandemic.

When it happened—and officially it took 7 million deaths, but probably, if you count all of the deaths associated with COVID, it was probably closer to 20 million deaths—even when that happens, it’s never properly investigated; it’s covered up, it’s hidden from view.

Fidias Panayiotou:

This is a big claim, it’s the first time that I hear it. Can you tell us a bit more about this—how and why?

Jeffrey Sachs:

Yeah, and I didn’t want to divert, except to say we need global government to keep us alive. Don’t underestimate how much things can get screwed up by dangerous technologies that are not under proper control.

Just a word about this, because honestly, I’ve spent—I don’t know how much time over the last four and a half years—learning from others. I’m not a scientist; I’m a pretty assiduous researcher, but I depend on what the scientists have helped me to understand. But basically, COVID is caused by a virus. The virus is called SARS CoV 2. SARS was the original disease, and SARS CoV 2 is the scientific name of the virus that causes COVID 19 disease.

When you look at the virus, there’s something very odd about it. For two major reasons, it looks like it’s manipulated in the laboratory. Of course that’s not absolutely ironclad to prove—ironclad would be to get the emails, the lab experiments, and the lab notebooks and so forth, which we don’t have because they remain hidden from view—but you can tell from the genetic signature a lot. There are two main parts of the virus that show, “My god, someone was tampering with this kind of virus.”

One of them is four amino acids—and for those of you who remember your biochemistry, that means 12 nucleotides, each three codes for one amino acid. There are four amino acids that are inserted in this virus that don’t appear anywhere else in nature—in this kind, this family of viruses, which is a bat family.

In the research proposals for many years, scientists at the University of North Carolina and some other places had the idea of putting in that sequence to do certain experiments, because they knew that if that sequence is put in—it’s called a furin cleavage site—it makes the virus most likely much more transmissible and dangerous to people. So they were studying that. It was never seen in nature, but the idea was, “Ah, maybe if we put it in, it becomes very dangerous,” and you can find the documents explaining, “That’s the experiment we want to do.”

Now, there’s a lot more that can be said, but the point is, because of people who leaked information, because of the Freedom of Information Act, and because of people who talked, we now have a very good record of what most likely happened—not for sure, but most likely. And what most likely happened is that our government—the US government—funded research to put this furin cleavage site into this virus with the strange idea of creating a vaccine for bats.

What they wanted to do was to have something that could be put into the air in caves in Southeast Asia that the bats would inhale, and then make the bats immune to new infections by these beta coronaviruses. It sounds wild, and it is, but the idea was that American soldiers fight in Southeast Asia and they could get sick from these viruses transmitted by the bats, so we should create vaccines against bats.

Honestly, only the US Department of Defense could come up with this. I’m telling you—it’s not typical; it’s really how the government of the United States operates. So they did these experiments, most likely—again, I’m putting it at 99%—and then they tested it on the bats that the US has in captivity in the government laboratory in Montana.

The virus worked; it was transmitted in the bats. But there was only one problem: the kind of bat that the US has in captivity isn’t the kind of bat in Southeast Asia. In Montana, they’re called Egyptian fruit bats, but the bats in Southeast Asia are called horseshoe bats, or Rhinolophus sinicus—bats in particular in Yunnan Province, China.

Who has those bats in captivity? The Wuhan Institute of Virology. So how about taking this test virus and testing it in the bats in the Wuhan Institute of Virology? You just send it by mail. “Oops. What happened? Oh, did I stick myself? Did I breathe something I shouldn’t have breathed?” There was a lab accident in Wuhan, and the next thing we know, several years later, 20 million dead.

Fidias Panayiotou:

So you think the United States did it to harm China?

Jeffrey Sachs:

No, the United States did it most likely for the very reason it says in a proposal you can find online—by the way, if you’re really interested in this, it’s called the DEFUSE proposal, submitted to something called DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and you can find it online. It explains what they wanted to do: they wanted to make it safe for American fighters in Southeast Asia, not by harming China, but by protecting bats from infection. Okay, honestly, pretty weird—but when you’re rich, you can do a lot of weird things, and that’s one of the weird things the United States did.

Incidentally, when the virus appeared, the scientists said, “Oh shit, this looks not natural—something bad probably happened.” They said that on February 1st, 2020, in a private phone call of the top scientists that was then released by a Freedom of Information Act request. And you know what? Four days later, those same scientists wrote the first draft of a paper saying, “This came from nature.” That’s called a cover up. So this was the next step of this—you know, we got diverted.

Fidias Panayiotou:

So, out of stupidity this happened?

Jeffrey Sachs:

Oh my God, the world’s ruled by stupidity.

But by the way, in a very fascinating way, the science is genius, brilliant. The scientist who most likely made this is the world’s greatest scientist on beta coronaviruses; he’s a genius. You know what he can do? You know that a virus is a sequence of DNA or RNA material, so it’s like letters and so forth—30,000 of those base pairs. This guy is so smart that he figured out if you give him the list of 30,000 letters, he’ll turn the letters into a live virus. That’s genius. So in this sense, the world is ruled by genius—except not genius in what you do with this genius. Idiocy in what you do with it.

The same is true with nuclear weapons, by the way. To come up with the nuclear armaments required the greatest scientific genius of our time, the Los Alamos invention of the atomic bomb, led by twelve main but hundreds of the leading physicists in the world—brilliant, complete genius. But then it went to the US Army—a little different—to a general who said, “Well, why don’t we bomb the Soviets?” Because that’s a different matter; that’s not genius.

So we have a big problem in this world: the science is way ahead of us, way ahead of our governance. AI is genius, and it took basically from the 1950s till now—about seventy years—to bring about where we are right now in so many breakthroughs of science.

But who’s governing this stuff? Donald J. Trump! Good luck, that’s our problem.

https://thechinaacademy.org/jeffrey-sachs-covid-19-was-99-likely-from-the-us/

(allegedly)

China is closely monitoring the extent of Israeli intelligence (Mossad) penetration into Iran, especially after the events of 2025 and the Israeli strikes deep inside Iran, which revealed extensive security gaps.

To counter Israeli intelligence penetration within Iranian territory, Chinese technical cooperation with Iran has increased to uncover Israeli infiltrations within Iran. Reports in July 2025 indicated Iranian cooperation with China and Russia to investigate how Israel managed to penetrate the official Iranian database and government software, including civil registry and passport data. This cooperation aims to close the technical gaps that Mossad exploited to reach sensitive Iranian military and nuclear targets.

China is working to enhance Iran’s ability to counter this infiltration through the supply of surveillance satellites to Iran. Iran has sought advanced technology from leading Chinese companies, such as Chang Guang, to develop its remote monitoring and intelligence-gathering capabilities, enabling it to more accurately track Israeli movements.

Iran has also announced plans for a complete transition to the Chinese navigation system known as BeiDou as an alternative to the American and Western GPS systems. This move aims to reduce reliance on Western technology, which may be vulnerable to hacking or disruption.

In January 2026, China began implementing a strategy aimed at thwarting Mossad and the American Central Agency “CIA” by urging Iran to cease using software from American and Israeli companies and replace it with secure, closed Chinese systems that are difficult to penetrate.

Actually not everything is alleged...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/1mb7t41/irans_plan_to_abandon_gps_is_about_much_more_than/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/27/irans-plan-to-abandon-gps-is-about-much-more-than-technology

...and neither is it realistic that China and Russia can just step in and fix everything in a couple years.

I'm just still holding a grudge over the accusations of China 'not doing anything' to help. A) because it isn't true. B) Iran has openly stated many times it never requested military aid. C) The accusers aren't here with me keeping track or paying attention to anything relevant. But waste no time blurting out brainfarts to be edgy at any opportunity.

we Iranians know how to defend ourselves and have no need to beg foreigners for help

https://x.com/araghchi/status/2014554267323887785

Troll accusers will pretend this wasn't said openly by Iran's own foreign minister.

From China’s perspective, he will arrive on a far weaker footing than when he last met with President Xi Jinping in South Korea just six months ago. That’s because, for the second time since returning to power, the US president has tested his leverage against a major adversary and misjudged the response, with global economic consequences.

First, he tried to bulldoze Beijing with sky-high tariffs aimed at jolting its economic model. China fought back, restricting exports of rare earths and forcing the US into a trade war truce amid a global scramble for the tiny magnets needed to make everything from mobile phones to missiles.

Now Trump is confronting a far more volatile adversary. Responding to US-Israeli missile strikes, which killed much of the Islamic Republic’s political leadership, Iran has almost closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for oil and other commodities — causing the deepest disruption to global energy markets in history. The clerical regime has effectively turned a hot war into an economic war.

For Xi, who runs China’s economy on a near-wartime footing, the conflict vindicates his push for self-reliance and could improve the nation’s standing on the world stage. As countries seek to guard against future energy shocks, many are doubling down on renewables — a sector China dominates. The result is a shift in advantage: China so far is absorbing the fallout with relative stability, while the US faces mounting economic and strategic pain.

Amid the energy shocks from the Iran war, China has emerged as one of the best-prepared economies — no small feat for the world’s biggest importer of crude.

China has more installed solar capacity than any other country. Half of all new cars sold in the world’s No. 2 economy are electric, insulating consumers from higher fuel prices. Coal still generates about half of China’s power, and the nation avoids overreliance on any single energy supplier — last year, its largest oil sources were Russia (17.5%) and Saudi Arabia (15%). Overall energy self-sufficiency has reached about 80%.

Trump, by contrast, is facing immediate pressure to lower prices at the pump ahead of midterm elections in November. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week he’s optimistic that the cost of gasoline will drop to $3 a gallon again during the summer driving season starting in mid-June, down roughly 25% from current prices.

China passed its export control law in 2020, as Trump’s first term drew to a close. That was complemented by a series of legal measures mirroring the US toolkit for sanctions and blacklists. Weeks before Trump returned to office, Beijing widened the regime with a ban on selling some goods to the US that also applied to companies outside China. By the time the second trade war began, China was ready to impose a rare-earth licensing system capturing detailed data on where its magnets were headed, with particular scrutiny on military applications.

Just as China dominates rare earths, Iran has become the de facto gatekeeper for roughly a fifth of global oil and gas exports since the war started. Yet Tehran’s stranglehold appears less durable. Its maritime toll-taking is widely seen as illegitimate and likely unacceptable to countries that prioritize freedom of navigation. At the same time, Trump’s attempt to counter with a blockade has raised uncertainty over who ultimately controls the waterway.

First, welcome to /r/sino. Even if you're here from LIHKG or a brigading discord, welcome to the sub, and please participate in good faith. We don't want to shut you guys out - we want to hear your perspective as well, as long as you follow the rules of the subreddit and engage in meaningful discussion.

With that out of the way, you may be coming here with a set of preconceived notions around China or this subreddit due to the recent Hong Kong protests and follow-on social media manipulation efforts. If so, let me be clear: I am happy to engage, and most of the posters here would be too. No beliefs you come with will make me think less of you - on /r/sino, the only criterion we judge each other by is our ability or inability to gather the truth from facts.

Indeed, if you come in here hating the Chinese Communist Party because you read a skewed article from taiwannews or the Hong Kong Free Press, I want to engage with you, because you are a victim of propaganda. If you want to downvote everything positive about China or the Chinese government because you saw your friends or fellow citizens get tear gassed and shot with beanbag rounds, I want to engage even more, because you are a victim of political tension in Hong Kong caused by both the US and Chinese governments. These last few weeks have made us all angry, no doubt, but together, we can heal and find a better way forwards.

You may ask why I care. To me, this is personal.

My family originated out of four individuals that fought for China. Not all on the same side, mind you. The first repurposed the family factories to making bullets to fight the Japanese. The second returned home from studying engineering in the US to design machine tools and assembly lines for the war effort. A third played cat and mouse with Japanese and KMT death squads in Shanghai, setting up dozens of cells for the Communist Party and dodging three arrest attempts before she was finally smuggled to safety. The fourth, he fought for Chiang, carrying and bleeding upon the Blue Sky White Sun flag in desperate rearguard actions to win time for refugees fleeing the genocidal Imperial Japanese Army. And, tragically, when the Japanese surrendered, they fought each other. But in the end, they - and their siblings - all fought for their shared dream of a new China - as staff officers and scientists; financiers, industrialists, and politicians in both parties.

Afterwards, they ended up scattered between Singapore, the United States, Taiwan, and the mainland. Some of them were purged and imprisoned by the KMT or CCP. When they first met in the 80s, many of them hadn't seen each other for decades. That day, they didn't agree on much, except for three things: stay away from politics if you can, but if push comes to shove, China is always worth fighting for - and foreigners will always try to split China by taking advantage of those who care about China.

For most of my life, I have followed their first rule. I've stayed quiet. But in the last few years, predatory forces have gathered on the doorstep of China to rob the Chinese people of everything they have built over the last four decades - and the divisions and scars that mark the Chinese soul are the easiest way for them to do it. I now realize - on behalf of my grandparents who bled for this land - it is imperative to heal those scars. Because they were right on the second and third as well.

Because the China you live in - no matter whether you call it Beijing or Chongqing or Hong Kong or Taipei - is your home. It belongs to you, and you own it.

Because the China you see was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of the Chinese people - your mother, your father, your brothers, your sisters, and you. Your hard work made this possible. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Because how tragic it would be, if the foreign bastards made you spill blood against your own flesh and blood so that they could come in and loot it all.

Because how pitiful you would be, if you just sat back and let it happen, or even encouraged it with your own misbegotten anger.

China is worth fighting for, and we must protect China, together. And no matter how you think that ought to be accomplished - as long as you have the Chinese people in your heart, you are always welcome in mine, and welcome to this sub.

Welcome to /r/sino.

English subtitle

18 Aug, 2025 Written By Mark Tanner

It feels quite unbelievable that in 2025, global brands are still launching campaigns that will clearly offend non-white ethnicities, particularly Chinese consumers. Swatch is the latest brand to make such as gaffe. The Swiss watchmaker issued a bilingual apology on Saturday after using an ad image featuring a male model with exaggerated “slanted eyes.” The visuals were quickly condemned by Chinese consumers as offensive and stereotypical. Swatch swiftly deleted the campaign worldwide and apologised, but the damage was done.

A Long List of Lessons Unlearned

Swatch isn’t the first to offend Chinese consumers with depictions of excessively “narrow eyes”. Fashion and luxury have an unfortunate track record in China of creative missteps that strike directly at cultural sensitivities:

• Dior (2021): Dior faced intense criticism for a photo from a Chinese photographer in a Shanghai exhibition showing a model with deliberately narrowed eyes and dark makeup. Netizens accused the brand of using “uglified” and stereotypical depictions of Chinese women. The image went viral on Weibo, sparking boycotts and calls for apology.
• Mercedes-Benz (2021): A promotional video on social media featured a model with small, narrowed eyes. Although quickly deleted, screenshots circulated widely, with critics accusing the company of perpetuating discriminatory tropes.
• Dolce & Gabbana (2018): Although not specific about narrow eyes, D&G’s infamous “chopsticks ad,” showing a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks, was accused of patronizing Chinese culture. Arguably the biggest cultural gaffe by a foreign brand in China, the fallout was severe: e-commerce platforms pulled the brand, celebrities cut ties, and D&G has never fully recovered its image in China.

Brands like United Airlines, Burberry, Nike, Zara and Balenciaga have been accused of cultural insensitivities, but outside of D&G, they have been less overt than Swatch’s.

Offending Chinese consumers has larger repercussions than ever

These missteps come at a time when China is both critical and fragile for luxury brands. Swatch’s latest financials aren’t looking great: net sales for the first half of 2025 fell 7.1%, with net profit plunging 90%. The biggest drag? China, where wholesale sales dropped by over 30% and retail by around 15%. The ad is not going to help the situation.

Chinese consumers and the Chinese diaspora are quick to notice offensive brands anywhere, and amplify outrage swiftly across social media. Chinese consumers expect brands to not just avoid offending them but to demonstrate a genuine cultural understanding.

Why This Keeps Happening

Despite past scandals, three structural issues continue to surface with global brands:

1. Global creative silos: Campaigns are often developed in Europe or the US with insufficient input from local Chinese teams who understand nuance.
2. Speed over sensitivity: Brands rushing to produce “local” campaigns sometimes overlook deeper cultural resonance.
3. Tokenism vs. authenticity: Using superficial symbols (chopsticks, pandas, “slanted eyes”) instead of genuinely understanding consumer culture often backfires.

Often as Simple as a Quick Check

For foreign brands in China, cultural missteps are both embarrassing and strategically dangerous. Each gaffe chips away at trust and hands an advantage to nimble local competitors who better understand the local culture, nuances and mood.

Just like legal teams will evaluate campaigns before they go live, a quick check with staff, people or agencies who understand China before China-related campaigns are released can save a lot of grief down the line. It’s not rocket science.