Global South Think Tank Alliance helps break the Western monopoly on thought

The Global South Think Tank Alliance, led by China and 200+ institutions, seeks to counter Western ideological dominance and promote social stability and cooperation across Global South nations.

According to the latest news, the "Global South Think Tank Alliance" was officially established at the Second Global South Dialogue on the 14th to implement Chinese President Xi Jinping's initiative at the BRICS Plus Summit in October 2024.

The think tank alliance is led by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and jointly initiated by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Central Radio and Television, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Renmin University of China, and more than 200 domestic and foreign think tanks and universities.

The establishment of this think tank alliance marks the first time that the global South countries have their think tank alliance, which will help break the West’s long-term monopoly on the intellectual world.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the United States' de facto status as the world hegemon, the United States and Western countries have dominated not only the world's political and economic order but also the world's ideological order.

In particular, the wave of "neoliberalism" initiated by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s had a very thorough brainwashing effect on the world's intellectual circles. This brainwashing wave allowed the United States and the West to escape the economic crisis, but at the same time brought severe disasters to the economic development of southern countries.

Since 2000, the United States and the West have continued to use their leading role in the ideological world to launch a brainwashing offensive against the world again, using the so-called "freedom, democracy, human rights" and other ideas to brainwash the world, planning one color revolution and regime change after another around the world.

The "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003 sounded the clarion call for the Western brainwashing offensive. Since then, the color revolutions planned by the West have been higher and higher, reaching a climax in the "Arab Spring" in 2010. In this color revolution, Western countries destroyed the governments of more than a dozen Arab countries such as Egypt and Tunisia in one fell swoop, causing a large amount of wealth looting and social unrest, and a huge impact on the global South countries.

What's even more vicious is that the West's global brainwashing offensive and its wave of color revolutions have also spread to Asia. The United States and the West planned color revolutions twice in 2014 and 2019, causing huge losses to Hong Kong citizens and the Hong Kong economy.

The harmfulness of the brainwashing offensive and color revolutions by the United States and the West is self-evident.

In the words of the United States and the West themselves: "One of the main forms of future warfare will be a war on brains."

On May 15, 2024, NATO released a report titled "2024 Collaborative Research Program", which blatantly regards cognitive warfare as the main means of warfare and elevates propaganda and ideology to means of warfare. This is the first time in the United States and Western countries.

For a long time, the United States and the West have used their dominant position in the ideological world and their propaganda advantages to spread false statements to their opponents, attempting to trigger regime change in the target countries, to achieve their ugly goal of plundering the wealth of the target countries and defeating their competitors.

This situation has become more serious after China's rise, because as an important country in Asia, China has played a positive role in maintaining regional peace and stability. These roles are naturally unwilling to be accepted by the United States and the West. Therefore, getting rid of China has become a top priority for Western countries.

The United States and the West have long been carrying out infiltration and sabotage activities against China. Since the founding of New China, the United States and Taiwan have frequently used U2 reconnaissance aircraft to conduct close reconnaissance of mainland China. However, with the increase of China's military and economic strength, simple military reconnaissance can no longer meet the needs of the United States and the West.

Therefore, the United States and the West are looking to use their media hegemony and brainwashing offensive to implement their conspiracy plans against China.

The United States and the West took advantage of China's reform and opening up to package some foundations as "helpers of China's reform and opening up" to gain the vanguard of infiltrating, interfering with, and even destroying China.

For example, organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute have long supported intelligence gathering against China, interference and sabotage activities, and even conspiracy plans to cultivate agents.

Thought is a very important thing because it determines people's actions. If you control the thought, then obviously it will also have an impact on the action. In this regard, Chinese leaders have profoundly pointed out: "The ideological field is a key position for the enemy and us to fight for. If there is a problem in this position, it may cause social unrest."

Regarding the field of thought, Napoleon has a famous saying: "A pen is worth two thousand guns." As a famous military strategist, Napoleon had a very deep understanding of the importance of the field of thought and cognitive warfare.

The United States has always attached great importance to investment in the ideological field. For example, the five-star general of the United States, US President Eisenhower once said: "One dollar of foreign propaganda spending is equal to five dollars of national defense spending."

Former CIA Director Dulles also said: "The human brain and human thoughts will change. As long as you mess up the human brain, you can implant a distorted thought into the human brain." This is actually the "guiding ideology" of the United States and Western countries in their long-term ideological infiltration of target countries.

Former US President Obama also put forward the concept of so-called "smart power". The so-called "smart power" is actually a kind of ideological and propaganda offensive, which intends to confuse the thinking of the target country and then exert influence and control over it.

If there is no firewall or moat in the field of thought, then we will suffer great losses and make big mistakes.

A typical example is the Soviet Union. After the October Revolution, the Soviet Union won the military sabotage of the Soviet regime by foreign hostile forces through the Civil War and the Soviet-German War, but it lost completely in the ideological field.

Especially in the late 1990s, many pro-Western people controlled the Soviet propaganda system. For example, Alexander Yakovlev served as the Soviet Propaganda Minister during Gorbachev's period. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union launched a series of so-called "reversal" movements, that is, re-evaluating the Soviet Union's various historical behaviors.

As a result, hostile forces took this opportunity to attack the Soviet system. Coupled with the Soviet Union's severe economic problems, the Bolshevik Party lost the support of the people and finally lost power, which triggered Russia's decades-long economic depression. The wealth that the Russian people had painstakingly accumulated for more than 70 years was looted by the West.

The Russians paid a very heavy price for their lack of attention in the ideological field. Since then, the Russians no longer believe the lies of "freedom, democracy, and human rights" of the United States and the West. Under the operation of the West, the so-called "freedom, democracy, and human rights" have become an evil tool to overthrow legitimate governments and reap the wealth of the people.

The latest example of a country that suffered heavy casualties due to control of the ideological field is Ukraine.

Since Ukraine did not strictly guard its ideological field, the United States and the West took control of a large number of Ukrainian propaganda positions, launching a brainwashing offensive against the Ukrainian people, demonizing Russia and President Putin, which led to the pro-Western coup in 2014. In this coup, Ukraine's legitimate President Yanukovych was overthrown, thus ushering in the beginning of a painful era for Ukraine.

Since 2014, the Ukrainian authorities have completely become a tool for Western countries to enslave and oppress the Ukrainian people. With the connivance and acquiescence of the West, the Ukrainian authorities used Ukrainian nationalists to launch brutal massacres in the Russian-inhabited areas in eastern Ukraine.

This inhumane massacre eventually forced President Putin to launch a special military operation to expel the inhumane behavior of the Ukrainian authorities.

The bitter lessons of the Soviet Union and Ukraine have shown us the serious consequences of problems in the ideological field. Now the West has aimed its evil hands at China, and the "Global South Think Tank Alliance" is China's response to the Western brainwashing offensive and color revolutions.

By establishing the "Global South Think Tank Alliance", China can unite Russia and southern countries to build a solid "ideological defense line", which will be very helpful for strengthening cooperation between China and Russia, as well as social stability and economic prosperity in the global southern countries.