It’s hard to believe the No Cold War campaign has only been in existence for six months. In that time we’ve run some great online events, launched our campaign statement, and worked hard to raise awareness about the dangers of the US-led New Cold War against China. In total, No Cold War video events have received over 3.1 million hits, and we’ve been able to start building a systematic dialogue between anti-New Cold War forces from around the world. Our campaign statement has picked up support from organisations and individuals around the world, and has been translated into 18 languages.
With only a couple of weeks left in 2020, we wanted to take the opportunity to take stock of our progress so far, and to thank you for your involvement.
Our inaugural conference took place on Saturday 25 July, featuring some fantastic speakers from China, the US, Venezuela, India, Russia, Brazil, Canada and Britain. Over 350 people joined the Zoom call, and the livestream has had over 30,000 views. The event also received significant media coverage in China, with the report in Global Times receiving over 200 million hits. You can see all the videos in this YouTube playlist.
Our second webinar took place on 26 September: an international peace forum, bringing together peace movements from around the world (including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, CODEPINK, Black Alliance for Peace, Pivot to Peace and Vrede vzw) to analyse the dangerous deterioration in US-China relations and discuss what measures we can take to reverse the tide of war. You can watch the videos from this powerful event on YouTube, and you can also read a useful write-up on Invent the Future.
On 24 October, we were honoured to host a unique dialogue between Zhang Weiwei (professor of international relations at Fudan University, former interpreter to Deng Xiaoping, and author of several books including the best-selling The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State) and Jeffrey Sachs (a leading expert in sustainable development, former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and author of several books including the influential The End of Poverty). The online event was attended by over 400 people, with registrations from 62 countries. The wide-ranging and fascinating conversation ended with a clear consensus between the two professors: the world needs multilateralism and cooperation. Building constructive relations between the US and China is urgent and essential.
The livestream video on YouTube has had 23,000 streams so far, and its counterpart on Chinese video streaming site Bilibili is getting towards a million views. There is also a detailed write-up on Invent the Future.
On 7 November, just a few days after the US presidential election, we worked with the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, and Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China to organise a webinar with experts from the US, China, Britain, Bolivia, Canada and India analysing the consequences of the election for international relations in general and the US-China relationship specifically.
This was our first event with simultaneous translation and streaming in Mandarin. You can see the full event on YouTube.
Our last event of the year, held on 14 November, brought together an impressive range of analysts to discuss the connection between the New Cold War and the rise in racism. Speakers from around the world talked about the need to build unity between the anti-war and anti-racist movements, and join hands against all forms of national oppression. The full playlist for the event can be watched on YouTube, and once again there is a written summary on Invent the Future.