A Conversation with John Pilger On His New Documentary, "The Coming War on China"

HOST: Jerry Robinson (Economist/Author)
GUEST: John Pilger (Author, Filmmaker, Journalist)
SHOW DATE: 4/13/2017

In this interview, economist and founder of Followthemoney.com, Jerry Robinson, discusses the potential threat of nuclear war between East and West. In his latest film, The Coming War on China, John Pilger reveals that the United States and China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. The film is both a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.

With over 60 titles to his credit, award-winning journalist and documentary film maker John Pilger joins Jerry for a discussion of his latest documentary, “The Coming War on China”, in which he reveals that the United States and China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. Key points include:

- The true origin of “Bikini”
- The helpless, unsuspecting victims in the Marshall Islands
- The depth of willful ignorance on the part of the U.S. elites
- The true issues on the Korean Peninsula
- The lost art of diplomacy
- Is the war in Asia inevitable?
- Is war real to this generation of Americans?

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ABOUT THE FILM

A nuclear war between the United States and China is not only imaginable but a current ‘contingency’, says the Pentagon. Filmed over two years across five potential flashpoints in Asia and the Pacific, THE COMING WAR ON CHINA reveals the build-up to war on more than 400 US military bases that encircle China in a ‘perfect noose’.

Using rare archive and remarkable interviews with witnesses, Pilger’s film discloses America’s secret history in the region – the destruction wrought by the equivalent of one Hiroshima every day for 12 years, and the top secret ‘Project 4.1′ that made guinea pigs of the population of the Marshall Islands.

In key interviews from Pentagon war planners to members of China’s confident new political class, who rarely feature in Western reports, Pilger’s film challenges the notion and propaganda of China as a new ‘enemy’.

THE COMING WAR ON CHINA is also a film about the human spirit and the rise of an extraordinary resistance in faraway places. On the island of Okinawa, home to 32 US bases, the population is challenging the greatest military power in the world. On the Korean island of Jeju, villagers block the entrance to a new nuclear naval base, with its missiles aimed at China.

Directed by John Pilger
Produced by Dartmouth Films
Editor: Joe Frost
Line Producer: Sandra Leeming
Executive Producer: Christopher Hird
Assistant Director: Bruno Sorrentino
Camera: Rupert Binsley, Owen Scurfield, Bruno Sorrentino, Joseph Zafar
Original Music: Joe Frost
Produced in association with SBS-TV Australia

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About John Pilger

John Pilger, war correspondent, film-maker and author, is only one of two to win British journalism’s highest award twice. For his documentary films, he has won an Emmy, a BAFTA, a Grierson, a Royal Television Society award and numerous other awards.

His epic 1979 Cambodia Year Zero is ranked by the British Film Institute as one of the ten most important documentaries of the 20th century. His Death of a Nation, filmed secretly in East Timor, had a similar worldwide impact and is credited with helping to bring freedom to East Timor in 1994. His numerous documentaries on Australia, notably The Secret Country (1983), the Bicentenary trilogy The Last Dream (1988), Welcome to Australia (1999) and
Utopia (2013) all celebrated and revealed much of his own country’s ‘forgotten past’, especially its indigenous past and present.

His books include Heroes, Distant Voices, Hidden Agendas, The New Rulers of the World and Freedom Next Time. He is a recipient of the United Nations Association Media Peace Prize and Australia’s international human rights award, the Sydney Peace Prize, “for “enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard” and “for fearless challenges to censorship in any form”.

“John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is” –Harold Pinter