Latest news and announcements

Webinar: Urgent Medical Crisis in Gaza

On Tuesday 21 November 2023 No Cold War, Viva Salud and the People’s Health Movement invite you to an important international webinar on the ‘Urgent Medical Crisis in Gaza.’

15:00 Brussels | 17:00 Jordan | 09:00 EST

Join us on zoom by clicking here.
Webinar ID: 810 6280 1821

Speakers:...

November 18, 2023

Briefing: The US and NATO Militarise Northeast Asia

The New Cold War is rapidly heating up, with severe consequences for people around the world. Our series, Briefings, provides the key facts on these matters of global concern.

On 22 October, the United States, Japan, and South Korea held their first-ever joint aerial drill. The military exercise took place after US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol gathered at Camp David in August ‘to inaugurate a new era of trilateral partnership’. Although North Korea has frequently been invoked as a regional bogeyman to justify militarisation, the formation of a trilateral alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea is a key element of Washington’s efforts to contain China. The militarisation of Northeast Asia threatens to divide the region into antagonistic blocs, undermining decades of mutually beneficial economic cooperation, and raises the likelihood of a conflict breaking out, in particular over Taiwan, entangling neighbouring countries through a web of alliances.

The Remilitarisation of Japan...

November 06, 2023

Statement: Israel’s murderous war on Gaza – fully sustained by the West

For over two weeks the Israeli military has been pummelling the Palestinians in Gaza, killing over six thousand people including more than 2,000 children. Israel’s bombing has been indiscriminate. Homes, hospitals, schools and vital infrastructure have been destroyed. Whole neighbourhoods have been flattened and entire families wiped out.    

The 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a terrible humanitarian catastrophe as a result of what Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has described as “a complete siege on Gaza…” in which “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas” is allowed to enter. 

Israel’s siege on Gaza has been widely condemned across the world, including by the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people in contravention with international humanitarian law. A tiny number of trucks have been allowed into Gaza in recent days which the World Health Organisation has described as “a drop in the ocean of need right now.”

Many millions of people around the world have marched to end this slaughter by Israel – in a clear indication that world public opinion is in solidarity with the Palestinians. ...

October 25, 2023

Briefing: The BRICS at a Historic Crossroads

The New Cold War is rapidly heating up, with severe consequences for people around the world. Our series, Briefings, provides the key facts on these matters of global concern.

The upcoming fifteenth BRICS Summit (22–24 August) in Johannesburg, South Africa, has the potential to make history. The heads of state of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will gather for their first face-to-face meeting since the 2019 summit in Brasilia, Brazil. The meeting will take place eighteen months since the beginning of military conflict in Ukraine, which has not only raised tensions between the US-led Western powers and Russia to a level unseen since the Cold War but also sharpened differences between the Global North and South.

There are growing cracks in the unipolar international order imposed by Washington and Brussels on the rest of the world through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the international financial system, the control of information flows (in both traditional and social media networks), and the indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions against an increasing number of countries. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently put it, ‘the post-Cold War period is over. A transition is under way to a new global order’....

August 17, 2023

Briefing: Europe Needs an Independent Foreign Policy

The New Cold War is rapidly heating up, with severe consequences for people around the world. Our series, Briefings, provides the key facts on these matters of global concern.

The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a strengthening of the US’s grip and influence on Europe. An important supply of Russian gas was replaced by US shale gas. European Union (EU) programmes originally designed to fortify Europe’s industrial base now serve the acquisition of US-made weapons. Under US pressure, many European countries have contributed to escalating war in Ukraine instead of pushing for a political solution to bring about peace.

At the same time, the US wants Europe to decouple from China, which would further reduce Europe’s global role and run counter to its own interests. Instead of following the US’s confrontational and damaging New Cold War agenda, it is in the interests of Europe’s people for their countries to establish an independent foreign policy that embraces global cooperation and a diverse set of international relations.

Europe’s Growing Dependence on the US...

June 22, 2023

Statement: At G7 Summit, Hiroshima Once Again Used for Cold War Agenda

The 49th Group of Seven (G7) summit took place this past weekend in Hiroshima, Japan, from 19-21 May. Leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered to discuss and coordinate their global strategies, with China and Russia at the top of the agenda. 

The summit took place at the very site where, on 6 August 1945, the US dropped a nuclear bomb, killing approximately 70,000 people instantly (the death toll rose to roughly 140,000 by the end of the year). That horrific act of violence – intended to send a warning to the Soviet Union – ushered in the Cold War; it is a disturbing historical parallel that, 78 years later, the US and its allies returned to Hiroshima to ramp up a New Cold War against China and Russia....

May 22, 2023

Briefing: The US Tech War Against China

The New Cold War is rapidly heating up, with severe consequences for people around the world. Our series, Briefings, provides the key facts on these matters of global concern.

English | Español | Português

On 8 April, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul was asked to explain ‘why Americans… should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan’. His answer was telling: ‘TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] manufactures 90% of the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips’. The interviewer noted that McCaul’s reasoning ‘sounds like the case that [was] made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s of why America was spending so much money and military resources in the Middle East [when] oil was so important for the economy’ and then asked whether semiconductor chips are ‘the 21st century version’ of oil – that is, a key driver of US foreign policy towards China....

April 27, 2023

Declaración: La visita de Tsai a EE. UU. es una provocación en medio de la disminución del apoyo al separatismo taiwanés

Disponible en: English | Español

El 5 de abril, la líder taiwanesa Tsai Ing-wen se reunió con el presidente de la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos, Kevin McCarthy, en medio de su controvertida visita a dicho país. McCarthy es el funcionario de más alto rango que se reúne con un líder taiwanés en suelo estadounidense desde 1979, cuando Estados Unidos y China restablecieron relaciones diplomáticas. La reunión a puerta cerrada tuvo lugar pocos meses después de que la expresidenta de la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos, Nancy Pelosi, visitó la isla en agosto de 2022 y se llevó a cabo a pesar de las repetidas objeciones y advertencias presentadas por el gobierno chino. Esta es la última de una serie de serias provocaciones emprendidas por Washington hacia Beijing, destinadas a promover la noción de que Taiwán es un país separado e independiente de China, que han escalado las tensiones bilaterales a niveles sin precedentes....

April 13, 2023

Statement: Tsai’s US Visit is Provocation Amid Declining Support for Taiwanese Separatism

Available in: Español | English

On 5 April, Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen met with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, amid her controversial visit to the United States. McCarthy is the highest-ranking official to meet with a Taiwanese leader on US soil since 1979, when the United States and China re-established diplomatic relations. The closed-door meeting took place just months after former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August 2022 and was held despite repeated objections and warnings lodged by the Chinese government. This is the latest in a series of serious provocations undertaken by Washington towards Beijing, intended to promote the notion that Taiwan is a separate and independent country from China, which have escalated bilateral tensions to unprecedented levels. ...

April 11, 2023

Statement: Don’t Close Confucius Institutes in Britain – Defend Academic Freedom and Cultural Exchanges

No Cold War (Britain) has issued the following statement urging the British government to abandon its plans to shut down Confucius Institutes.

The British government is threatening to close down Confucius Institutes on university campuses across the UK in what would be a flagrant attack on academic freedom, cultural exchanges and free speech. The British people stand to lose important educational opportunities to learn about Chinese culture and acquire language skills if the government proceeds with its plans to shut down these Institutes at the behest of a New Cold War agenda promoted by the United States government.

Confucius Institutes are public educational and cultural programs funded and arranged by the Chinese International Education Foundation which is under the authority of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Education. There are hundreds of Institutes worldwide which the Chinese government spends approximately $10billion a year on.

Confucius Institutes play a similar role to other international organisations which promote language skills and cultural exchanges on behalf of countries. These include Britain’s British Council, Portugal’s Instituto Camões, France’s Alliance Française, Italy’s Società Dante Alighieri, Spain’s Instituto Cervantes and Germany’s Goethe-Institut.

The British government justifies its threat to close down Confucius Institutes on the grounds that these programs promote a positive image of China, forming part of China’s “external propaganda”, and therefore constitute a threat to British society and university life. This is clearly absurd....

February 14, 2023

No Cold War statement

Add your name to the statement

English

A New Cold War against China is against the interests of humanity

We note the increasingly aggressive statements and actions being taken by the US government in regard to China. These constitute a threat to world peace and are an obstacle to humanity successfully dealing with extremely serious common issues which confront it such as climate change, control of pandemics, racist discrimination and economic development.

We therefore believe that any New Cold War would run entirely counter to the interests of humanity. Instead we stand in favour of maximum global cooperation in order to tackle the enormous challenges we face as a species.

We therefore call upon the US to step back from this threat of a Cold War and also from other dangerous threats to world peace it is engaged in including: withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement; withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Accords; and its increasing disengagement from UN bodies. The US should also stop pressuring other countries to adopt such dangerous positions.

We support China and the US basing their relations on mutual dialogue and centring on the common issues which unite humanity.

Arabic

Chinese (simplified)

Chinese (traditional)

Dutch

Filipino

French

German

Greek

Hindi

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese

Persian

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Turkish