"Pilger has taken on the great theme of justice and injustice. He documents the official lies that we are told and that most people accept or don't bother to think about. He belongs to an old and unending worldwide company: the men and women of conscience." - Martha Gellhorn
An interesting documentary by renowned journalist John Pilger, "The Coming War on China" details growing attempts by the United States to exert economic, political and military pressure on China.
Unlike previous films by Pilger, "Coming's" tone is one of ridicule and contempt; his film ends with a nod to Stanley Kubrick (Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again") and is largely told via a condescending narrator. Such a tone is appropriate: "The Coming War on China" details the greatest American-led build up of forces since the Second World War, an insane bit of posturing in which Russia and China are encircled by a nearly unbroken necklace of warheads, fleets and military bases, all capable of strangling trade, cutting off oil networks and instigating outright Armageddon.
"The Coming War on China" largely preaches to the choir. It does contain, however, some revelations, like scenes which show contemporary life on the Marshall Islands. Pilger describes the "American apartheid" on these islands, in which displaced and exploited locals are shipped to American bases to do menial work, and then shipped out back to their island slums. Sometimes they're unwittingly used as test subjects for nuclear weapons.
Other segments detail Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama's massive increase in nuclear spending (after promising to limit the construction of nuclear weapons), as well as the West's "Asian Pivot", which sees 2/3rds of the US Naval fleet deployed around Asia. Other scenes detail past attempts by the United States to covertly and overtly dominate, subjugate and invade, as well as Franklin Roosevelt's (32nd US President) family's connection to drug runners. Elsewhere Pilger, a cynic, doesn't shy away from China's own abuses, its massacres, its historical relationship with Western powers, and the massive levels of poverty and exploitation bed-rocking the glitz and glamour of 21st century Chinese state-capitalism.
Where "The Coming War on China" fails is in its ability to offer an economic reading of the situation it sketches. The role of money, private arms businesses who exploit lucrative markets, debt, banks, the US economy's own need for war, for market expansion and control, as well as whole financial systems which remain held together by magic, lies and faith, are issues too complex and interlinked for Pilger to coherently chart. And so the US-China rivalry, a revival of the Great Game of the late 19th century, goes on, largely mysterious and unmapped.
8/10 – Worth one viewing.
An interesting documentary by renowned journalist John Pilger, "The Coming War on China" details growing attempts by the United States to exert economic, political and military pressure on China.
Unlike previous films by Pilger, "Coming's" tone is one of ridicule and contempt; his film ends with a nod to Stanley Kubrick (Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again") and is largely told via a condescending narrator. Such a tone is appropriate: "The Coming War on China" details the greatest American-led build up of forces since the Second World War, an insane bit of posturing in which Russia and China are encircled by a nearly unbroken necklace of warheads, fleets and military bases, all capable of strangling trade, cutting off oil networks and instigating outright Armageddon.
"The Coming War on China" largely preaches to the choir. It does contain, however, some revelations, like scenes which show contemporary life on the Marshall Islands. Pilger describes the "American apartheid" on these islands, in which displaced and exploited locals are shipped to American bases to do menial work, and then shipped out back to their island slums. Sometimes they're unwittingly used as test subjects for nuclear weapons.
Other segments detail Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama's massive increase in nuclear spending (after promising to limit the construction of nuclear weapons), as well as the West's "Asian Pivot", which sees 2/3rds of the US Naval fleet deployed around Asia. Other scenes detail past attempts by the United States to covertly and overtly dominate, subjugate and invade, as well as Franklin Roosevelt's (32nd US President) family's connection to drug runners. Elsewhere Pilger, a cynic, doesn't shy away from China's own abuses, its massacres, its historical relationship with Western powers, and the massive levels of poverty and exploitation bed-rocking the glitz and glamour of 21st century Chinese state-capitalism.
Where "The Coming War on China" fails is in its ability to offer an economic reading of the situation it sketches. The role of money, private arms businesses who exploit lucrative markets, debt, banks, the US economy's own need for war, for market expansion and control, as well as whole financial systems which remain held together by magic, lies and faith, are issues too complex and interlinked for Pilger to coherently chart. And so the US-China rivalry, a revival of the Great Game of the late 19th century, goes on, largely mysterious and unmapped.
8/10 – Worth one viewing.