Can the US beat China in a “trade war”?
Or will this be the end of turbo-capitalism?
Andre Vltchek
Illustration by Henry Wong
It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?
In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one should just look at the map of the globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents of natural resources, holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as ‘forced labor’, often bordering on slavery.
Under such conditions, it was very easy to be ‘number one’, to reign without competition, and to toss around huge amounts of cash, for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and overseas ‘subjects’ on topics such as the ‘glory’ of capitalism, colonialism (open and hidden), and Western-style ‘democracy’.
It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and that included the ‘economic system) used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods. One only needs recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and famines. Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France, later against the United States.
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Times changed. But Western tactics haven’t.
There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some Communist, others socialist or even populist, are ready to defend their citizens, and to use the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.
No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using its well-established propaganda machinery. First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to directly liquidate them.
As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is punishable by death.
Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. It was constructed on fear, oppression and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly been a monopoly.
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Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to survive, defending they own cultures, and advancing their philosophies.
To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.
With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily productive society. Its scientific research is now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia, China excels in many essential fields.
That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.
For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any major country, which would set up its own set of rules and goals.
China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient, ideologically, politically, economically and intellectually. Where it is not fully self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly, located outside the Western sphere.
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Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.
It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its socialist motherland (applying “socialism with the Chinese characteristics” model). It is trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of its history (BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the “New Silk Road”).
Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is producing, at a higher pace and often at higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.
This is where the ‘problem’ arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to a country that creates things for the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian, African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce, where and for how much to sell the produce. Or else!
Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its corporations) desired. It was forcing countries all over the world, to buy its products. If they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway) overthrown.
The most ‘terrible’ thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China, and for its citizens.
That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!
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In the process, China ‘competes’. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well. The same can be said about Russia.
These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy of the entire West, within a week.
But they don’t even think about it.
However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance scientific research, and use the gains to improve the lives of ordinary people (they will be no extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and Washington.
Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply better, than those which are reigning in the West and its colonies. And because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.
And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake up and see the reality. Which is actually already happening: slowly but surely.
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To portray China as an evil country, is essential for the hegemony of the West. There is nothing so terrifying to London and Washington as the combination of these words: “Socialism/ Communism, Asian, success”. The West invents new and newer ‘opposition movements’, it then supports them and finances them, just in order to then point fingers and bark: “China is fighting back, and it is violating human rights”, when it defends itself and its citizens. This tactic is clear, right now, in both the northwest of the country, and in Honk Kong.
Not everything that China builds is excellent. Europe is still producing better cars, shoes and fragrances, and the United States, better airplanes. But the progress that China has registered during the last two decades, is remarkable. were it to be football, it is China 2: West1.
Most likely, unless there is real war, that in ten years, China will catch up in many fields; catch up, and surpass the West. Side by side with Russia.
It could have been excellent news for the entire world. China is sharing its achievements, even with the poorest of the poor countries in Africa, or with Laos in Asia.
The only problem is, that the West feels that it has to rule. It is unrepentant, observing the world from a clearly fundamentalist view. It cannot help it: it is absolutely, religiously convinced that it has to give orders to every man and woman, in every corner of the globe.
It is a tick, fanatical. Lately, anyone who travels to Europe or the United States will testify: what is taking place there is not good, even for the ordinary citizens. Western governments and corporations are now robbing even their own citizens. The standard of living is nose-diving.
China, with just a fraction of the wealth, is building a much more egalitarian society, although you would never guess so, if you exclusively relied on Western statistics.
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So, “trade war” slogans are an attempt to convince the local and global public that “China is unfair”, that it is “taking advantage” of the West. President Trump is “defending” the United States against the Chinese ‘Commies’. But the more he “defends them”, the poorer they get. Strange, isn’t it?
While the Chinese people, Russian people, even Laotian people, are, ‘miraculously’, getting richer and richer. They are getting more and more optimistic.
For decades, the West used to preach ‘free trade’, and competition. That is, when it was in charge, or let’s say, ‘the only kid on the block’.
In the name of competition and free trade, dozens of governments got overthrown, and millions of people killed.
And now?
What is China suppose to do? Frankly, what?
Should it curb its production, or perhaps close scientific labs? Should it consult the US President or perhaps British Prime Minister, before it makes any essential economic decision? Should it control the exchange rate of RMB, in accordance with the wishes of the economic tsars in Washington? That would be thoroughly ridiculous, considering that (socialist/Communist) China will soon become the biggest economy in the world, or maybe it already is.
There is all that abstract talk, but nothing concrete suggested. Or is it like that on purpose?
Could it be that the West does not want to improve relations with Beijing?
On September 7, 2019, AP reported:
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the U.S. standoff with Russia during the Cold War…
“The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it,” he said.
Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with Russia. He noted that he worked in the Reagan administration: “I remember President Reagan waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union.”
Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other means).
Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it.
But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world.
First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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One side cannot dominate the other –
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3037870/kissinger-warns-us-and-china-their-conflicts-will-be
He opened Western doors to China and vice-versa in 1971: did he create this US deep state counter balance consciously or inadvertently? Probably the latter.
A very thought-provoking, interesting read that everyone in the West should spend time reading to flush out decades-old propaganda against China and discover some hard truths about the history of the West!
Actually Lincoln gave Americans a test in his Gettysburg Address. He did not say they government of the people by the people for the people, and that it will long endure. He questioned whether of the government not for the people would long endure.
Russia and then China stepped up to the plate, as you say “because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.” America? The rest of the west?
Put it this way. Trade imbalance between US and China? USA should stop buying from China what it does not need our can otherwise afford. Nobody is forcing them.
Remember Uncle $cam’s trade war against Russia, the one that was going to drive the ruble into the ground? Still ongoing but with result that Russia is now stronger, wealthier and more diversified. The one against China will turn out even more humiliating for Uncle.
“Who is my best friend? My enemy, the one who keeps me up to the mark”. — GBS, Revolutionist’s Handbook.
Mr Vitchek makes some valid points, but there’s yet more CCP flag waiving guff that’s only going to raise his social credit rating with his CCP pals even higher. Should be good for his retirement planning there.
even “flag waving”!
Critical mass, where a minority can influence the rest is from 10 %. Rumblings at 8%, more vocal rumblings from 8 to 12%, demands after that.
America has 4.5 % of global population. While they still punch above their weight, especially in printing money and selling arms, resulting in an economy between 20 to 25% p.a. they will not prevail unless people start enjoying obedience. Something will happen that gives them a big kick in the backside, even though we cannot see now what that might be.
Trade war is just one more war that is a nothing burger as the war on drugs, on terror, on truth, on trade. People refocus away from the US.
Smoot-Hawley Act was responsible for extension of the duration that the Great Depression foisted upon all. Tariff Man’s replication of the same tired old worn out tactic has ushered in the same replicated depression era defaults in homes & businesses across-the-board Western empire.
Trump is Functionally Retarded and cannot maintain his attention span enough to read a paragraph let alone a book that contains a train of thought. Trump is a worldwide business embarrassment that showcases Americans as uneducated fools when it comes to macroeconomics.
Any imperial nation that thinks it can owe $22 trillion in debt without an inkling of ever paying it back in full is completely lacking in knowledge of modern Finance and bound to evidence Chapter 11 insolvency somewhere along a timeline of fiscal failure. With the USA we merely evidence debt ceiling raises every year.
Americans have no intention of ever paying their bills or debts. Their slight of hand is measured in terms of generational debt heaped upon unwitting masses of serfs that were once distracted enough to be bamboozled by central banks & bankster slimedouchery.
Today, that slimedouchery is attempting to bamboozle again via election & impeachment as props of distraction away from the fact that the central banks cannot balance their books or double sets of books.
The United States of America is a defunct Ponzi that is imploding as we reflect here.
MOU
The Chinese are adopting the “War Games” (movie) strategy — the best way to win is not to play. Sure, they can set up counter-sanctions that are targeted at particular areas of Trump’s base but overall their strategy seems to be just to carry on doing what they’re doing. In fact I get the feeling that they’re taking a rather perverse delight in increasing the quantity and quality of their exports, its their way of playfully giving us the finger.
As an American I find our trade policies short sighted and likely to cause immense damage to our reputation and economy, if they haven’t already done so. Weaponizing the dollar and the global financial network might win us a battle or two but its guaranteed to lose us the war. Messing with trade flows hurts our suppliers more than their manufacturers (someone forgot to tell Trump et al that exports to the US, while considerable, are actually quite a small part of the overall Chinese economy). Then there’s the idea that whatever happens, the Chinese will never lose. They had a vibrant international trade in manufactured goods before the modern colonial era and the trade imbalance this caused led to the first Opium War and subsequent partition and enslavement of China by colonial powers. The Chinese refer to this part of their history as a “century of humiliation”, something that’s behind them and they’re never going to allow to happen to them again. (If anyone doubts their national resolve look up WW2 era newsreels on youTube of them building mountain roads and airfields using nothing more than bare hands in many cases — sure, they like a somewhat more affluent lifestyle like the rest of us but if push comes to shove 100,000 will turn out to make an airstrip in a week.)
We need to grow up. They’re formidable competitors and we need to up our game to stay competitive and above all stop pretending its still the 1950s.
From a trade point of view, the western world has always needed China more than vice versa.
For thousands of years, China exported luxury goods westwards. Silks, spices, quality ceramics, later tea.
But the western world had very little to offer in return.
It paid for its imports with silver bullion.
There was about 10,000 tons of silver bullion in the Roman Empire.
This had declined to about 4,000 tons in medieval Europe.
All the silver went to China, which didn’t want anything Europe produced.
This bullion flow accelerated when Spain looted the New World, with 2 billion ounces of silver extracted from Potosi alone.
This was traded to Chinese and Japanese merchants in the Philippines in return for Chinese exports.
Hence the opium wars and the long, sordid record of western aggression and imperialism in China.
We now see China diversifying its reserves into gold bullion and away from toilet paper US assets like treasury bills.
US national debt is approaching $23 trillion, but the overall level of debt is around $260 trillion.
There is a current budget deficit of over $1,260 billion, over 25% of the annual budget, and a trade deficit of $900 billion.
And a current military budget of $1,134 billion.
All that is happening with Trump’s trade wars against China, Russia, the EU, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan, and Uncle Tom Cobley and All, is that the US Regime is trying to solve its intractable fiscal, economic and financial problems at the expense of the rest of the world, friend and foe alike.
This is what empires do, like glorified protection rackets. They extract tribute from satellites and weaker countries. It has never worked in the past in the long run, and it will not work now.
America is going down, and the collapse may come a lot sooner than anybody realises.
There were signs that the Chinese have recognized that their historical trading pattern was unsustainable — you can’t run a ‘winner takes all’ society for long before you run the world out of silver and have to deal with the consequences. This is what I believe is behind the “Belt and Road” initiative, it develops markets by helping others to develop — there’s no point in having customers who can’t afford to buy what you sell.
The debacle with companies like Huawei was caused by having a society that’s run by financiers, people who only understand power in terms of money and are relatively clueless about anything else. (Its true they can purchase expertise but when it contradicts their preconceived notions they tend to ignore it.) Before interfering with the trade flows Huawei purchased globally partly to ensure a reliable supply chain and partly because it made good business sense (silver, again). By shutting down the US part of this trade flow — and causing problems in companies like Xilinx — the Administration has done lasting damage to the US because once that trade flow is replaced there’s no incentive to reinstate it. Without the manufacturing base to absorb the production from companies like Xilinx they risk damaging the company (who will probably want to offshore more of its R&D and production to hedge against further interference in its business in the future). (What the US government should have done is noticed that there doesn’t appear to be any US telco infrastructure companies left, there’s basically three out there and one’s not doing so great. This “oh s**t” moment should have been a signal that there’s something wrong deep down in US industry that needs rectifying. But then they’re only interested in the numbers…..)
What Andre does not take into account was the fact that transnational capital in conjunction with a small group within the Chinese communist party kickstarted and financed the Chinese “ wunder wirtchaft” economic miracle. In 1971 Rockefeller invited the leading 300 CEO’s of USA corporations to his penthouse in NY to discuss the investment opportunities in China. These USA companies are by in large owned by transnational finance. The notion that they give a flying f… about the USA country, economy or people belies the fact of what their intentions are. Moreover, the financing of a large part of, for example the new Silk Road, comes from transnational finance. The belief that China and Russia will make the world a better place will I hope not be misplaced. He who pays the piper calls the tune!
Indeed Kissinger’s trips to China in 1971, 1972 and 1979 seem to be forgotten by the Off Guardian crowd – inconvenient truths. Those opened Western markets up to Chinese goods to the greatest advantage of both the Western and Chinese 1%. Lifting millions of Chinese out of material poverty was just a by product, as was leading millions of Western industry workers into wage stagnation or job loss.
Yes it did. Moreover, transnational capital has allegiance to neither China nor the West. It has no allegiance to Chinese or Western ideology. Indeed in many respects it is both capitalistic and socialistic in nature. Its aims have been well expressed by Professors Carol Quigley, Antony C Sutton and Guido Preparata in their books.
Dear Andre,
Some other non western countries have more practical and serious issues with China. i.e China’s need for territorial expansion. China brazenly flouts international borders and claims lands in foreign nations by aggression. Vietnam, India, Philippines are prime examples of this. This has got nothing to do with ideological preferences. This is illegal encroachment. Building and taking over ports in foreign nations (Sri Lanka) using Chinese prison labor is a serious problem. Don’t you think so?
When a country decides that South China Sea is part of its territory because it has the name “China” in it, there is a real problem there!!
However, you may continue your rant on this platform if it makes you feel better while China creeps into every nation on the planet taking over our institutions by bribing politicians and corporations to muzzle whatever is left of free speech.
Don’t be too harsh on the Chinese, they learnt such tactics from the colonial British and Americans and other Europeans.
Protima, I think you are talking about the USA aren’t you?
Our American friends like to think they hold all the cards and China is “desperate for a deal.”
But exports account for only 20% of the Chinese economy.
30% of that 20% (6%) is made up of US exports.
So all you’re looking at is a small amount of icing on the cake.
And China is not going to surrender its sovereignty for that 6%.
I tend to agree, but that 6% can collapse an economy that’s massively indebted to the extent that China is.
Whenever I raise the issue of debt, people on these pages reassure me that your debt is somebody else’s asset, so it doesn’t matter.
I must try that one the next time the debt collectors come calling.
That used to be in the “good old days” Mark, before fractional reserve banking and derivatives, ie, when the Gold Standard still applied.
Now, the banks can literally create new money out of thin air, simply by leveraging it to even higher, astronomical levels of multiples compared with the original, tiny, diminishing “asset”.
So, when the debt collector come calling, and they take your assets, they are actually wining on the deal. If they do not collect, then they lose a tiny fraction compared to the original asset…and move on to the next victim to such their blood.
Yep, it’s an f’ing con, but somehow it’s legal.
…and move on to the next victim to suck their blood.
The only way capitalism will end is when capitalist decide to end it
As for China its totally dependent upon the capitalist system to grow its economy, its currently losing manufacturing and Western investors to its next door neighbour s such as Vietnam,who even though they were at the receiving end of Western imperial war have turned to America for investment, infact America will be Vietnam’s biggaest investor within the next few years!
By definition capitalists cannot end capitalism. It isn’t a matter of personal choice – as if deciding on pizza rather than curry. Capitalists must follow the profit maximization program. Capitalism will end either by revolution or by global annihilation, neither of which bother the capitalists because they only care about the aforementioned profit maximisation program.
Ergo they and only they can end it!
Ergo no – unless you mean unwittingly.
The first part of this paragraph is a linguistic masterpiece. It’s when the writing excites, that the mind cares to spend some time with it.
“Man does not live on bread alone.” ‘Hard Work’ = Deep Idiocy. There is no reason to elevate the fact that people have to work to make a ‘living’, by attributing it with ‘hard’. It is also reflective of the religion, that rules the Western hemisphere. “But, the West has of course not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only…” is a superb understatement. Leaving out the religious dogma of ‘hard’ work, there are excellence and creativity – exactly where?
Sadly though, it appears that all this “what’s wrong with a good society” is overlooking that, if one is to accept the Western society as a ‘bad’ one – one without Philosophy, the cultivation of thought limited to the thought of forceful profit generation – one would accept responsibility. War follows the profits before the profits follow war. In a society as terminally ill as the Western, any consideration given to the real reasons has to be suppressed by all means available – if they are not available, make them available. The world view that accepts, tolerates, or demands militarism in any way, shape or form, is the first problem to turn to. For so many reasons. The trade war in a time of hightened instability speaks of people being in control of the sytem that don’t play with a full deck. They play with a few extra cards. Therefore, their banks will always win.
The so called ‘trade war’ extracts more money from an already grasping working class. All that will happen, will be the I Ching like adoption by China to anything that is thrown at it simply for being a big China with lots of people. Ever wondered how China, or what China would be if the Vatican would be in Beijing? Or the Tear of Allah? A Hindu shrine?
A most important question is, “with the U.S. formally dissolved into its most origine states”, what will replace the Western violence, the government overthrows, the ABC warfare for profits? Could it be, that peace and prosperity are possible behind the corner that reads U.S./IL? The U.S. people will be the biggest losers in this Coup d’Estate – the overthrow of primitive democracy for private for-profit-governance, surveillance, law enforcement and crowd control.
I too noticed that “Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. ” I thought I was reading some kinda corporate pep talk.
Andre, you may think that because you recognise the projections of evil as a need of the ‘US’ regional globalism that you can still use the good-evil narrative device with impunity.
It is noticeable to me that some of the best quotes come from those who don’t live by them – but being the one who can seem to reveal “you are being lied to!” – becomes accredited as truth-telling that is not necessarily so.
Globalism is a much more complex movement than goodies and baddies – but those who align in it as domination rather than restoring communication learn to nurture, capture, manipulate and target narrative identities – that are always some personification of the good/evil archetypal programming.
Moral blame and shame is always associated with others – as a sort of reshuffle of psychic energies that redistributes blame and penalty (who pays) away from self.
I am not suggesting you are ‘to blame’ but that you are teaching and learning blame as if you or anyone could possible win the game of judgement.
As if the winner is thus above judgement.
There is a Good – that is Resonant recognition – and integrity of communication and coherence – but to fix that in structure of image and form is to be taken offline by a false flagged sense of power in possession that invokes control…. which then renders powerless in fear of lack and loss of its precious.
Is addictive obsession an evil? Yes in terms of its pain – but is the evil in the addict or the ‘substitute for Life?’ – or is the evil part of the nature of the freedom to make choices and learn by them?
I see all of your posts as the appeal to join in moral judgement under the presumption of caring. I am not suggesting that you do not care – but that an identity set against an evil is not freedom from it at all!
Though such a slavery is bitterly fought for and defended.
US is a complex – with only two letters left – perhaps because its does not limit itself to America.
But its front end is hardly the reality when it is so clearly being used by all manner of proxies.
Feeding a mainstream reductionist narrative is diverting from the underlying issues – and that is perhaps the main purpose of narrative identity; successful evasion of issues we are unready or unwilling to face.
I apologise for the length and pedantry of this missive.
There aren’t ‘many new systems’ at all. There are just two: capitalist and post-capitalist. The capitalist system rests on a foundation of private property that’s been around since humanity emerged from the higher stage of barbarism.
The remaining post-capitalist countries (China, Viet Nam, Laos, Cuba and North Korea) are socialised economies characterised by economic planning, albeit bureaucratically implemented. They’re not subject to the periodic economic cycles and crises that afflict capitalist economies.
Marxists label these post-capitalist societies as ‘deformed workers states’. By no means are they ‘socialist’ because to Marxists a socialist society is one where: (i) classes and the state have disappeared; (ii) productivity is qualitatively higher than ever achieved by the most advanced capitalist country; and (iii) most of the earth is socialist, where there is an international division of labour and international economic planning.
And ‘communism’ is when socialism has been surpassed, when the compulsion to work has vanished, where the last remaining bourgeois vestigial ‘right’ of ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his work’ has been supplanted by ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his needs’. Of course there never has been a ‘communist’ society, despite the claims of both the Stalinists and the bourgeoisie.
The extant workers states have the same property forms and economic planning that are the prerequisites for socialism, which still doesn’t make them ‘socialist’. But capitalism has been overthrown in backward countries only, and needs to be overthrown in the advanced ones, all of them, before conditions (ii) & (iii) for socialism are achieved.
Nor are the existing workers states ‘state capitalist’, a sociological chimera created by social democrats under the heel of the Cold War, some of whom called themselves ‘Trotskyist’.
The above five countries each are a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, despite the workers not holding political power. Hence the adjective ‘deformed’. There is little or no workers democracy, for example based on soviets that elect representatives subject to recall at any time. They have a parasitic, corrupt bureaucratic caste sitting atop them whose politics are a direct descendent of Joseph Stalin: ‘building socialism in one country’ and appeasement of imperialism, ‘peaceful coexistence’. These politics ultimately led to the undoing of the USSR, the only successful workers revolution so far, when capitalism was restored in 1991-92.
To various degrees, the workers states have permitted capitalist inroads — from China, which allows large capitalist corporations from the imperialist centres to use China’s cheap labour to produce consumer goods (cell phones, laptops, etc), to North Korea where there is very little capitalist enterprise allowed. A political (not social) revolution is needed in these countries to implement workers political power. At the same time, Marxists defend them from imperialist attack or internal counterrevolution (eg, against the US-backed Hong Kong hooligans), but don’t defend them politically.
The capitalist countries clearly can be divided into imperialist countries: the US, UK, the dominant countries of Europe, and Japan; sub-imperialist countries: eg, Canada, Australia; regional powers like Russia, and to some extent India and Pakistan, etc; and all the rest which are quite diverse politically and at different levels of technical and social development, from West Papua to Chile or Venezuela, for example. The apparent and wide differences between them can mislead some into thinking they’re different ‘systems’, but they’re not.
Now, we know for the last 40 years or so that neoliberal economics of privatisation and austerity have been successfully imposed in the imperial and sub-imperial centres; and that the ‘globalisation’ ideology of the late 1990s early 2000s was nothing other than ‘globalising’ that neoliberal paradigm to the rest of the world. The attempts by some countries to resist the imposition have provoked the ire of the imperialists, particularly if they’re unfortunate enough to have a valuable resource like oil, natural gas or rare metals.
Those countries that have attempted to resist the neoliberal onslaught have created different political measures (not ‘systems’) to do so and to survive in general, often from fear of their own populations reacting to government-run education or medical systems being privatised. Yet they’re still capitalist countries, and to one extent or another are under the heel of the imperialists, militarily, economically, financially.
So yes Virginia, there is a Venezuelan bourgeoisie that, despite the ‘Bolivarian revolution’, still runs the economy, and private ownership of the means of production is still part of the Venezuelan constitution, still predominates, despite much grass-roots organisation attempting to break the binds of capitalism. Venezuela is not a dictatorship of the proletariat, let alone ‘socialist’. No social revolution that overthrew the capitalist class has occurred there.
The same applies to numerous other capitalist countries that like to call themselves ‘socialist’, especially in Third World settings where essential services have to be run by the state because their bourgeoisies are too weak to do so. Those countries (eg, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, etc), striving to resist imperialist diktats must be defended from such attacks, regardless of the political complexion of their governments.
Capitalism won’t be done away with without revolution. Alas, China won’t be in the vanguard of a socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism, unless a political revolution occurred there that installs a government with international socialist revolution on the agenda. But China’s planned economy and its rapid scientific, technological, economic and social advances are an example, and such an existential threat the imperialists fear and despise, that this can only be a good thing.
So it really is profoundly mistaken to claim ‘There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world’. There is just the capitalist system, the past, and the societies who’ve taken the first steps toward the socialist future, and the world is cleaved by these two systems until the nightmare of the past is over.
The 39 frozen to death allegedly ‘Chinese’ illegal immigrants have elicited hundreds of millions of Chinese in China to condemnation of the traffickers and Europeans for their tragic fate – that is the current modern and daily world hopping China.
Before anyone gets on a highhorse and starts blaming China for these poor dead people – i will point out that most Chinese with enough money for a package holiday go wherever they want to on vacation. Often they travel as groups but i’ve seen more in much smaller groups, friends or family. If they didn’t want to return ‘home’ it would be easy.
Knightsbridge is now reliant on Chinese tourists and shoppers and anyone fluent in Mandarin can pretty much wrote their own salary to serve cistomets in the high end shops and auction houses. These Chinese will never need to learn english to spend their money!
That is another reason why the bigoted Cantonese Hong Kongers have been easy to rile against these mainlanders they long considered inferior.
Mass accidental deaths of Chinese tourists is not uncommon and even if criminal doesn’t normally create such a reaction as this is.
This mass murder is a game changer as we will Xi.
The Essex police said they were Chinese: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/24/essex-lorry-deaths-mo-robinson-questioned-39-bodies/
Why would poor Chinese flee Andre’s Workers Paradise, the “socialism with the Chinese characteristics” ?
‘Essex police said..’ .. they looked chinese !
That’s forensic and confirmed then.
Sure they weren’t the current favs Uighers?
Lets wait for confirmation of who and where exactly shall we?
Or do you think all Chinese are the same? All Africans are the same? All Europeans are the same?
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one suspicious about the way these dead people have been portrayed as “illegal Chinese immigrants”. These days most if not all Chinese people who are illegal migrants are students and tourists who overstay visas or investors taking advantage of “wealthy investor schemes” in countries like Australia and Canada to evade their tax obligations to China. In nearly all cases they enter their destinations by air.
The possibility that these dead people are from other Asian countries or even Uyghurs who left Syria and made their way through Turkey and then continental Europe to reach Britain, given the current situation in Idlib province where the Syrian offensive against the jihadists there might be under way, should be considered. About 20,000 jihadists in Idlib province in 2017 were of Uyghur or Central Asian origins.
A third possibility is that these dead people are Hong Kong “pro-democracy” protesters who fled HK for fear of being arrested by police for committing acts of sabotage and vandalism.
They were Vietnamese. Though to the Telegraph and their readership, one gook is just like any other gook. They are all interchangeable Chinks and wogs. Why get technical about it and worry about their nationality?
at least some of these 39 who are dead are from Viet Nam! if not all, stay tuned.
https://fox59.com/2019/10/25/british-police-identify-39-people-found-dead-in-truck-as-chinese-nationals/
According to this recent UK government report on modern slavery China is the 4th most common country of origin for this, after Albania, Vietnam and Romania , p 45 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/840059/Modern_Slavery_Report_2019.pdf
They are all rank amateurs in that department compared to Kosherstan.
So?
Vietnamese. They are still leaving and working all over SE asia illegally and being used as cheap labour and sex slaves as are the burmese. Thailand wouldn’t be able to run without them for example.
As I said, Chinese go where they want because they can AFFORD to. They will have a middleclass bigger than all our combined Anglo empires population any year now. They only learn english on holiday to buy food & drink.
They have lives back at home and family and opportunity and SAFETY NET by government.
Thats’s why they don’t need to become migrants to the UK – unless they are execs sent by their companies.
They just cannot be Chinese according to some Europeans here: lets just call them “Asian”, like those in the “grooming” gangs busy the UK over decades.
Remember, even Israel, Siberia, Indonesia or Japan are in Asia too.
It turns out that the people were from Vietnam, apparently from Nghe An province south of Hanoi (source is current media, including Guardian). They may have been carrying forged Chinese documentation which is why the police originally thought they were from China.
In the process, China ‘competes’. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well.
Fake truth. China is dumping lots below market price, which it can do as lots of Chinese MNCs actually Mono National Companies with the Chinese state holding all kinds of ropes from finance, to laws, till judiciary. The quality of most Chinese stuff is good by the way – till now!
The Western 1% loves China as it gives them great profits; on this they are in sync with the CPC top. Non CPC Chinese rich prefer to move abroad. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/michael-bloomberg-apologist-for-tyranny
They are pleading with president Trump to go soft on enforcing fairer trade. Andre is in (a?) weird company.
Yes Andre Vltchek is in the weird company of those reporters who have actually visited China and spoken to people there, and who do not rely on US mainstream media sources obeying the Sinophobic agenda.
Visiting plus being a foreigner is never going to give you a true picture of any totally different country / culture. You’ll have to live their for decades amongst the “natives”.
And not in the capital city: those places a alien to the average native inhabitants too.
A private Chinese business man tries to take out his competition in Guangxi: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50137450
“Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France…”
Andre’s remark confirms a prediction made in the 1940s by the great poet French poet Paul Valery, in “Regards sur le Monde Actuelle”: that the West was committing economic suicide by exporting its technology to “the more populous, the more industrious and the more socially cohesive portion of the globe”. Naturally the Indo-Chinese wanted to use French technology to benefit their own people: for this the French tried to genocide them; as the U$ tried to do to prevent Communist Vietnam and Communist China from benefitting their own people instead of Uncle $cam, and the Anglo-Zio-Capitalist West successfully did to Communist Indonesia (see Andre’s article on Indonesia in OffG).
Here in Australia we have a Neo Liberal, Christian fundamentalist as our PM.
Scott Morrison calls himself a Christian, while at the same time locking up refugees and their children on prison islands, growing the military budget and licking the arses of the Trump administration.
He also continues to warn Australians of the Chinese ‘threat’ with the full support of our National broadcaster, the ABC. and Murdoch’s maggots of course.
Just today, his government has admonished one state Premier for business ties with the Chinese government.
Hypocrisy lays like a fog of shit in Canberra.
Absolutely, Fair dinkum. And one could add that the ‘opposition’ Labor party in Canberra appears to have become the third party in the conservative coalition Morrison heads.
God save us from these Christians.
You only need save yourself from mistaking the form, image or presentation of a thing or a quality – for the actual or living truth of it. Else you can become cynically self justified in hating the truth that the fake hides in.
This kind of cynicism is convicted under a dead truth to try to pass off as valid in any and every kind of facade.
Characterizing a global Ponzi scheme such as the Western Fractional Reserve Banking System as a system that has brought billions out of poverty that should be copied by Functionally Retarded Chinese Communist system is merely analogous to advising human beings to behave like Lemmings or Jonestown Kool-Aid drinkers.
The USA is wholeheartedly bankrupt & insolvent at $22 trillion in debt that it can never pay back to international creditors like China & the Russian Federation.
China & the Russian Federation don’t dump US Treasuries on the market to sink the USA & Wall Street simply because they would be shooting themselves in the feet if they did. Putin & the pinko Commie Finance bastards all know where the market is and where the liquidity resides. Banks & bankers still fund the state largesse.
The USA is a defunct atrophied & complacent old superpower that cannot fix the global Ponzi that allowed them to dupe the whole world into believing that USD was the only game in town.
The USA cannot print their way back to balance.
They can probably still pull rabbits out of their arse but they cannot balance their balance sheets.
MOU
MOU: “International creditors China & the Russian Federation don’t dump US Treasuries on the market to sink the USA & Wall Street simply because they would be shooting themselves in the feet “.
It is said: if you owe the bank a little, the bank owns you; but if you owe the bank a lot, you own the bank. So how much does Uncle $cam owe China & Russia: a little or a lot? (on the international credit scale). Does Uncle $cam owe China & Russia enough to own them as you suggest? Or can Russia & China afford to dump the Almighty U$Dollar as a last resort in a tight corner? Or is China actually a partner in the Offshore EU$ as BigB reminded us on previous threads.
Brilliantly analytical synopsis, Vex. (Copy / pasted), for the record 😉
The problems of world trade are hugely more complex than the simplex binary analysis Andre applies. More complex than even seasoned analysts even allow for. If the world needed honest appraisal: MOU would be a billionaire …perhaps he is! 😉
What the world requires is confidence in a failed system that was never fit for purpose. Unless the purpose was to vastly over-inflate the asset and equity stocks of the overconsuming asset owning class …which is of course, at least partially true. But at the cost of the ‘real’ economy spells disaster for capitalism: which no one – NO ONE – knows how to avoid. Since the G8 Central Banks – including the PBoC – acted in *Collu$ion* to start unconventional open market policies [Nomi Prins] …it was game over for capitalism – and possibly civilisation – as we know it. Not that anyone would ever actually admit it.
Since 2008: we have entered a ‘Twighlight Zone’ of a ‘no-analog’ – no precedent – situation. To which nearly all analysis is useless. Policy makers; politicians; economists; and the chattering classes think the world economy is a monetary economy – which naturally falls into equilibrium with equitably distributed debt; employment; and wages ratios …in the otherworld imaginations of Central Bankers; policy makers; etc …and Andre.
As Steve Keen and other heterodox ‘econophysicists’ have spent entire academic careers showing …this is NOT how economies work. Economies are ‘exergy’ economies constrained by mass biophysical source to sink throughputs …that generate waste pollutions and are constrained by thermodynamics. These biophysical throughflows scale with a factor of one from inputs to outputs [‘Tad’ Patzek]. Energy and mass materials equals money – with very little other than localised ‘decoupling’ of the two …achievable by reverting to a consumer and service *import* economy …which is China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ policy (MIC 2025).
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3027939/where-are-chinese-tourists-going-if-theyre-giving-protest-hit
When we look at the global economy as a ‘global fossil amoeba’ – which is perhaps more pertinent than a simplex binary analysis …we get a very different picture to the one painted by Andre. China is very much dependent on the US: even to go 70% self-sufficient – MIC 2025. The issue is semiconductors – for which US technology vastly outpaces China’s. To assume that the fossil amoeba can split neatly and effectively in two is beyond naive. Let’s just leave that there in deference to Andre.
The problem in the global credit markets is not relative amounts: it is that they are priced in dollars (USD). Only one country can backstop the USD: the US Fed.. All other countries have to buy or trade USD, for local currency. The problem is not price – not for China – it is availability. This is where the unaccounted for Euro$ bond markets come in. Early in the business cycle: the international interbanking institutions overcreate Euro$ by factors of …? …by making virtual interbank loans. When trade contracts: investor’s scramble to what they consider the safe haven of dollar-denominated assets. Which creates a scramble for USDs offshore – which further contracts international trade.
Only there are not enough of them: as indicated by the Fed pumping $135bn a day into the overnight and term (14-day) repo-markets …mostly for foreign investment. This is a illiquidity crisis – preceding a credit crunch – is the EXACT rerun of 2007.
So will China just walk away from the nascent ongoing global crash and set up shop in a self-sufficient SE Asia? Not in any reality I can think of. Remember: China built it’s way out of the GFC …using some truly massive quantities of materials – exemplified by using 50% more cement than the US used in the entire 20th century …in TWO YEARS!
With the exponential debts situation a conservative four times greater than the the GFC – and with say 50 million apartments overbuilt (sitting as NPLs of Local Government Financing Vehicles off-account ‘Black Books’) …my open question still stands: can they find the materials and do it again? Or the finance?
What we have is a global fossil amoeba as large as the finite planet can possibly support – still trying to replicate exponentially. China’s growth rate is stalling around 6%. 6% is an exponential doubling of 12 years – during which the amount of mass biophysical throughputs have to be reproduced or found again …for each subsequent doubling. If this occurs: the amoeba will try to double again. How many more doublings can the earth system sustain? 2=>4=>8=>16 …?
The real answer is probably 0. Which the real crisis we face is a mass hallucinatory ‘reality denial’ crisis. Which we cannot solve because of the circularity and negative feedback dynamics leading to a ‘catastrophic bifurcation’ point between reality and fantasy.
“Yes, we exterminated life on Earth. But we had such imaginative visions of how it could have been. If only reality and the Laws of Nature had not intervened”.
If anyone thinks Andre’s imaginary econometrics are going to play out just because of their uncritical assimilation: I no longer know what to say. They are not even on the right planet …it is a ‘many worlds’ hypothesis where different physical laws are in play. On Earth – where I live …I am increasingly unsure of many of my fellow travelers – they are simply impossible. Let’s just leave it there.
Bear Stearns was murdered purposely & intentionally, BigB. The 08 GFC is the Macro-Finance equivalent of the World Trade Center #1 & #2, plus Building Seven. In brief, the GFC is replicated each & every business quarter [see Mandelbrot], and the Hegelian Death Spiral & decoupling away from Classical Equilibrium notions of mythical economies that Dr. Alan Greenspan had dancing in his head like sugar plums at Christmas were all delusions manufactured in the fantasy comic book hero era of Ayn Rand who was pandering to the Rand Corporation during her tenure.
Both Greenspan & Rand are synthetic philosophers ill equipped to understand Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Information Theory, Systems Theory, or Cybernetic Theory. In brief, there is only Econophysics & Behavioural Economics post-GFC.
Solution can be found if Rothschild Bank forks over a whole lot of bullion into my bank account in CANADA. If Rothschild refuses to pay the proprietary costs they will sink into the Finance abyss forever.
MOU
Actually that $22 trillion debt is only the Federal government’s debt. Factor in the private debt – student debt, auto debt, corporate debt, financial debt, household and personal debt, AND unfunded future liabilities such as medicare/medicaid, social security and US debt balloons up to 5 to 10 times the Federal government debt. How is this going to be repaid? Well it won’t be, it can’t be. The alternatives are 1. Default, or 2. Hyperinflation, that is to say, default by the back door. A massive reset is coming.
3. A world war should do it.
Nuclear Winter will do it.
MOU
Mark Carney told everyone at Davos 2019 that the reset is Climate Change which is the Davos elite plan for ‘economies of scale’ that will replace ‘Casino Capitalism’ with expectation being that it is a $23 trillion dollar USD new Ponzi that will foam the runway enough to extricate The City, Wall Street, and European Union from Secular Stagnation and usher in post-Glass-Steagall Act Repeal investment house betting with depository funds of government & the unwitting public that pays the freight.
Right now Powell is bailing out the Non-Banks & Commercial MBS that they are bet on in sideways deals gone south.
Complexity & debt destroyed the system.
MOU