Shakedown Timeline of America’s 21stC war on China

“Slowly at first and then all at once.”

With its entry into the WTO in 2001, China’s relations with the USA were assumed to be home and dry. However, less than a decade later, they started to unravel — and today they threaten to spin out of control and drag us into World War Three.

Shakedown is an epic contemporaneous timeline by Anna Chen charting more than twenty years of insights into the relationship between China and the West. Unique live commentary and analysis of US and UK-China political relations from within the belly of the beast.

Documenting events as they happened, in articles and radio broadcasts strung on a historical through-line, Shakedown makes visible what’s lurking beneath the surface, and tracks the political development of a British-born writer and national broadcaster of Chinese heritage.

Page 4: (THIS PAGE) Shakedown Timeline 2024 to the Present. President Trump’s 2nd term turmoil

Page 3: Shakedown Timeline 2019 to 2024. Joe Biden’s presidency, Covid and Ukraine to the rise of BRICS and Trump’s 2nd term

Page 2: Shakedown Timeline 2010-2020. Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia to Donald Trump’s first presidency

Page 1: Shakedown Timeline 1997-2010. Hong Kong Handover and WTO entry to Barack Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia

***To get the full chronological picture of the West’s growing hostility towards a developing China, start from Page 1 and read the extracts from the bottom to the top. This online publication features extracts of Anna’s BBC programmes and published articles (indented) with links. A pdf or eBook with full articles will shortly be available for download.

“Nip troubles in the bud. Sow the great in the small. Difficult things of the world can only be tackled when they are easy. Big things of the world can only be achieved by attending to their small beginnings. … Tackle things before they have appeared. Cultivate peace and order before confusion and disorder have set in. … A journey of a thousand leagues starts from where your feet stand” 
Tao Te Ching

Monday, 14 July 2025, TRUMP TO SEND ARMS TO UKRAINE IN PEACEMAKER U-TURN – STATEMENT LATER TODAY
Just as Russia is winning with huge advances, President Trump caves in to deep state neocon demands to prolong a hot war and promises Patriot missile defence systems to Ukraine. Disregarding his talks with Putin aimed at ending the conflict, and abandoning his anti-neocon MAGA base, he gets with the imperial programme. CIA chief John Ratcliff is visibly overjoyed. Neocon Lindsey Graham’s “bone-crunching sledgehammer” $500b sanctions against Russia is on the cards, plus tariffs against all countries trading with it. Russia is unlikely to see its confiscated assets returned. Trump continues the Obama/Biden era policy of taking nuclear NATO right up to Russia’s borders, reneging on Jim Baker’s 1990 pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev: not one in eastward.
However, America is running out of weapons, having opened several fronts with Israel’s attacks on Iran and war on China in the pipeline. It can’t keep pace with Russia’s production rates even though Europe is told to pay 100% of costs. Germany’s Blackrock Chancellor Mertz enthusiastically seeks a rerun of their WWII confrontation and we all know how that ended. President Macron spins a fabulist narrative around Putin’s designs on Europe and rewrites EU borders incorporating the Caucasus. Keir Starmer wants a Churchillian role and is making the poorest who capitalism left behind pick up the bill for his game of soldiers. NATO’s Mark Rutte can’t contain his glee and flies to the US for a meeting with “Daddy”.
China’s Wang Yi already pointed out that they can’t allow Russia to fall as China is next on the West’s menu.

Sunday, 22 June 2025
TRUMP BOMBS IRAN AGAINST ALL RATIONAL ARGUMENT
Iran strikes, by the US seek regime change. Iran gets whacked in the next leg of America’s 21st century war on China. The absence of nuclear weapons means nothing to the cosplaying President Trump whose foray into a direct war with a powerful nation may result in severe blowback and start another of America’s forever wars. Accused over 30 years of nuclear weapons capability within weeks, by Israel that actually does illegally possess nuclear weapons, Iran is bombed overnight.  This follows last week’s missile strikes by Israel, still carrying out their genocidal hits on starving Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, on the eve of supposed negotiations between Iran and US envoy Witkoff. And only weeks since China’s BRI railroad reached Iran, opening it up to Europe and India. Iran is one of China’s biggest sources of oil, so there’s that advantage if you’re a loser taking down your biggest rival because you don’t know how to cooperate. … continues
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Sunday, 1 June 2025
EMPEROR TRUMP IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S GLADIATOR ARENA
Is it Trump thumbs up or down for China? A frustrated Trump, seething from Taco insults and his incompetence on show, steps up scapegoating China. New game on – let’s kick over China’s sandcastles in The Twilight Zone. In the past few days Trump and his minions have raged at China for: 1) Not reining in North Korea from Ukraine, 2) Supposedly violating the tariff truce 3) Declining to hand over their rare earths, 4) Defending itself against aggressive, provocative American military arming of Taiwan, 5) Panama paranoia still present, 6) Lurid Covid claims continue … Neocon Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal and General Kellogg ratchet up pressure on “Peacemaker” Trump to extend the hot war on Russia in Ukraine. … Never forget how stable the world was in 2018 with the global economy emerging in sync from America’s devastating Great Crash of 2008.  … continues
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Friday, 23 May 2025
TRUMP TARIFFS INFLICTED ONCE MORE ON EU AND APPLE
Markets giddy as VIX tops 20. Our Orange Overlord goes slap-happy again with tariffs now that the markets enjoyed a temporary bear bounce and his mates need it dropped again to reload at the next bottom. … continues
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Wednesday, 19 February 2025
TRUMP’S COVFEFE TWEETS TOLD US EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PANDEMIC. Covid Timeline – 126 dates you need to remember
As the Pentagon and Elon Musk revive claims about China lab-leaks and biowarfare, it’s time to remember the build-up and the key events the media would have you forget in the most comprehensive chronology to date. CoV is the science shorthand for the coronavirus family: The COVID-19 virus is named SARS-CoV-2. …
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Friday, 14 February 2025, MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE SETS USA AGAINST EUROPE: All change as US Vice President JD Vance chastises Europe, threatens to leave Nato and reinforces the far right. Secretary of Defence Hegseth reiterates peace negotiations with Russia that leave Europe and Zelensky in the cold. German Chancellor Pistorius reacts furiously.
In March 2022, most 300 European delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels voted for war after Russia invaded Ukraine despite the Minsk peace plans being on the table. Nothing much has changed except that Ukraine is already beaten.
Cheap energy has ended. German industry is on its knees. And nearly a million people have died on both sides.
Europe brought this nosedive on themselves. They were onto a good thing, benefiting from China’s rise bringing prosperity to Eurasia through the Belt and Road Initiative. But by following Biden’s line in Washington, they trashed their relationship with China. Instead, they supported Biden’s Ukraine land-grab, set in motion by his attempted imposition of EU membership under oppressive IMF conditions in 2013/4, ending up in a war in the making since the Maidan coup in 2014.
Even the destruction of their vital Nordstream gas pipeline from Russia couldn’t get them to focus on the dangers to the Europe bloc.
US-Russia peace negotiations begin in Saudi Arabia.

Wednesday, 12 February 2025, TRUMP-PUTIN PHONE CALL REVERSES EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ON UKRAINE ALL AT ONCE: And with one much anticipated ninety-minute phone call between the two superpower heads of state, Project Ukraine is at an end. The call sets Ukraine on course for a peace settlement that sidelines Zelensky and excludes the EU and perfidious Albion.
Turns out negotiations for a ceasefire, conducted by Trump’s US Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogg, may have been a diversion from the true objective being hammered out: ending the war. The UK is particularly mistrusted for dirty tricks expertise including Boris Johnson’s trip to Kiev on 9 April 2022, scuppering the Minsk peace deal that was about to be concluded.
There’s also the matter of locating and reclaiming the $350 billion supposedly given to the Ukraine by the Biden administration, much of which has gone missing, lots of it in America.
Other issues up for horse-trading include ending sanctions on Russian energy, payments to continue in US dollars just as alternatives were being found, minerals, AI, Iran’s nuclear programme, Ukraine elections with maybe a federated government in Kiev (meaning no EU membership and no Nato), … and China. So far, a US-Russia anti-China alliance is “less certain” than anticipated in the media. But watch out for more games. More horse-trading to come.
Video overview of the state of Ukraine play.

Tuesday 4 February 2025: Chyna! Chyna! Chyna!
One key motivation behind Trump’s execrable and illegal announcement today to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinians and build a US powerhouse in its place, and maybe get his Trump Tower on Gaza beach, is to deprive China of influence in the region through Belt and Road and BRICS. That and swallow the large oil reserves off the coast.
He also cites China as the reason for menacing Panama over control of the canal which is run by Panama, not China. Two ports at the ends are privately owned by Chinese business.
Sanctions of 25 percent on Mexico and Canada were halted after Presidents Trudeau and Sheinbaum allowed Trump to save face by agreeing to border measures that had already been agreed last year.
Last week, Elon Musk — elected by no-one and not even an American citizen — sent in his youth squad of male hackers to government offices in the biggest data breach ever. Crashing the Office of Management and Disbursement in Washington, they froze all federal money using Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as a smokescreen. With no legal backing or legitimacy, Musk is cancelling agencies and deleting chunks of the federal budget.
On Friday, they took over the payment system of the Treasury Department, welcomed in by Trump’s new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant.
Veteran Services wages are among many sectors in danger of being cut off. Thousands of state workers and experts were sent emails telling them to resign. Two million more are targeted to be replaced with MAGA henchmen.
Immigration enforcement is run on a war footing. Trans people are erased.
The Inspectors General who check for corruption were sacked. That protection of the Constitution? Trump says, “The constitution is unconstitutional”.
One bright spot is the closure of the euphemistically named US Agency for International Development (USAID) which, far from simply eking out crumbs and bribes to deprived nations, runs the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA front, which notoriously funds colour revolutions and destabilisation in America’s imperial target nations: such as the Hong Kong protests in 2019 (yes, under Trump’s watch).
All those Uyghurs who’ve been made unemployable by unfounded forced labour claims by ASPI and various China Watch outfits might be able to return to earning a living in the greatest expanding economy of the era.

Monday, 27 January 2025
Americans Embrace Their Red Note Epiphany On China
The one positive and profoundly moving sight since Trump’s inauguration is the millions of Americans who saw behind the veil thanks to Red Note. Watching this explosion of raised consciousness feels like an enormous sea-change taking place. Even history in the making. 
TikTok refugees flooding to the Chinese Xiaohongshu Red Note app to beat the ban returned on the reopening with tales of marvels they never believed possible. These modern Marco Polos rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and raged. 
“We’re third world, they’re living in the future,” is one common refrain heard from people who never knew how badly they’ve been exploited. “We’ve been lied to,” is another. The abrupt realisation that needing two or three jobs just to survive, with no healthcare, their infrastructure and economy crumbling all around them in the world’s richest nation is neither normal not acceptable has stirred a collective sense of injustice. Monstering China’s model only benefits the elites, so that schtick may have lost its potency.
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Monday, 20 January 2025, DONALD J TRUMP INAUGURATED AS 47TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Capitol Rotunda sees Trump sworn in at 17:02GMT in a ceremony reminiscent of Cleopatra’s cinematic arrival in Rome. The Tech Bros bunch up on the platform on the left. Former presidents on the right.
A slice of the world shudders.
Trump says God saved him from the assassin’s bullet to Make America Great Again.
Hundreds of immigrants without the necessary paperwork have already been rounded up for deportation as he declares a state of national emergency at the southern border. “Millions and millions” more will be expelled with the end of the “catch and release” policy.
The US army is immediately being sent to the Mexican border. The cartels are now designated terrorist.
Declaring an energy emergency, he will “Drill, baby, drill.” America has the largest amount of gas and oil of any country on Earth and Trump will use it all over the world. He’ll end the Green New deal, revoking the Electric Vehicle mandate, focusing on US autoworkers to produce.
Will tariff and tax foreign countries to “enrich our citizens”. External Revenue Service will collect all the wealth pouring in from foreign countries. He will establish the Department of Government Efficiency (run by Elon Musk).
All government censorship will end and free speech brought back to America. Fair and equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. Law and order brought back to the cities. Race and gender considerations ditched in public and private life. Colour blind and merit-based society. Only two genders: male and female.
Service members expelled for defying vaccine mandates to be reinstated with full back pay. Armed forces to focus on defeating America’s enemies. Will build the strongest military the world has ever seen. Success measured by the battles won, wars ended and wars not begun. Legacy will be peacemaker and unifier.
Implies Israeli hostage return the day before he assumed office was his achievement (shades of Reagan and Iran). Biden and Kamala applaud and join the standing ovation bouncing up and down like a Mexican wave. Talking of which, he’ll be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Will take back Panama Canal, supposedly operated by China.
Will be disease-free, practise manifest destiny, plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars. Our Golden Age has just begun.
In other news, China’s Foreign office says it will allow ByteDance to make its own decisions regarding operations and acquisitions, reversing its previous decision to never sell.

Monday 20 January 2025
Donald Trump Sworn In As 47th President Of The United States
You could smell the avarice in the company of wolves on the podium at the Capitol Rotunda today. I’m surprised the Tech Bros weren’t openly salivating. Glittery eyes anticipated a feast as Trump threw them bone, meat, fillet mignon: the whole carcass. 
A 20,000-strong audience watched the Don sworn in at 17:02GMT in a ceremony reminiscent of Cleopatra’s arrival in Rome. They listened to his MAGA speech like it was the Second Coming, rewarding him with non-stop standing ovations in the Adoration of the Ham. The Silicon Valley elite bunched up on the podium on the left. Former presidents fading away on the right. The Oligarchy had arrived. …
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Sunday 19 January 2025 TIKTOK BAN TO START TODAY: TikTok changed 170 million American lives for the better over five years. Not only does it provide income streams, pulling many out of poverty in the richest country on the planet where many need two or even three jobs to survive, it also opens up relatively free communication where information is rapidly exchanged.
This loses the state its control over narratives such as Gaza. Israeli politicians fear a generational difference in political perceptions, rather than left-right, and their allies in the US call for a ban on the app, using the excuse that it is supposedly owned by China and is therefore a national security threat. In fact, only 20 percent is owned by the two Chinese techs who founded it in 2017. Sixty percent is owned by foreign investors, 20 percent by TikTok workers (including 7,000 in the US) and the CEO, Shou Zi Chew, is Singaporean.
In his first term, President Trump threatens a ban unless this highly profitable app is sold to an American entity. A bill, led by Republican Mike Gallagher who leaves politics early to work for Palantir, is signed by Joe Biden in 2024. TikTok vigorously resists sale of its valuable algorithm.
In a sleight of hand, the app goes dark a day before the ban is due to kick in and returns less than 24 hours later, only a day before Trump’s inauguration, possibly with a changed algorithm. Dissenting creators and content have been wiped off in the Night of the Delete Button. The Singaporean CEO is no longer named on his TikTok account as the CEO.

Friday 13 December 2024
ATTACKING CHINA REBOUNDS ON AMERICA’S LITTLE HELPERS
The list of nations who did US bidding and are now in trouble looks alarming. Ganging up on China has its consequences. From the Master Race nations to Pacific Rimmers, what’s happened to the countries whose leaders who kissed the Trump ring?
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17 November 2024, LAME DUCK PRESIDENT BIDEN ALLOWS LONG-RANGE US MISSILES TO STRIKE DEEP INTO RUSSIA FROM UKRAINE IN HIS LAST WEEKS OF POWER: Days later, US ATACMS (190 mile range) strike Russia having already allowed use of HIMARS (50 mile range). 19 November, Putin changes Russian nuclear doctrine: an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will now be treated as a joint assault on Russia. Putin tests the powerful Oreshnik non-nuclear long-range hypersonic ballistic missiles on 21 November and warns of a widening conflict beyond Ukraine.

5 November 2024, DONALD TRUMP WINS THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: Trump defies media wishful thinking and wins a decisive victory across the board with every swing state and the public vote going to him. Despite this, his advantage in the House slips to the second lowest majority in history with Republicans on 220 seats to the Democrats’ 215. Trump holds the House, the Senate and the presidency.

Page 4: (THIS PAGE) Shakedown Timeline 2024 to the Present. President Trump’s 2nd term turmoil

Page 3: Shakedown Timeline 2019 to 2024. Joe Biden’s presidency, Covid and Ukraine to the rise of BRICS and Trump’s 2nd term

Page 2: Shakedown Timeline 2010-2020. Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia to Donald Trump’s first presidency

Page 1: Shakedown Timeline 1997-2010. Hong Kong Handover and WTO entry to Barack Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia