© REUTERS/ Kim Kyung-Hoon
Speaking at the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party last month, Xi Jinping delivered what Western analysts are calling an "incendiary speech" in which he called for a military union with Russia that would render NATO "powerless" and "put an end to the imperialist desires of the West."
The harsh statements come at a time when both Beijing and Moscow find themselves vulnerable to an increasingly hawkish US foreign policy that has resulted in a series of massive war games on both countries' doorstep and the placement of missile shields in strategic quadrants to limit the ability of both Russia and China to defend themselves if conflict were ever to ensue.
"The world is on the verge of radical change," said the increasingly frustrated Chinese President. "We see how the European Union is gradually collapsing, as is the US economy - it is all over for the new world order."
Comment: These attacks may look like actual blowback - 'real' Daesh nutjobs attacking Germans with no help from the Western security apparatus - until you consider that blowback deals with unintended consequences. The current climate of fear and terror is not unintended. While many in European police and intelligence are no doubt convinced it's their job to 'stop terrorism', those at the top of the food chain couldn't be happier about it. It's less work for them to simply sit back and watch as their decades-long labor takes fruit.
But even then, we have to ask: did the NSA just provide instruction on how to unlock the data? Or did they provide the data itself? If the latter, is it even accurate?