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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat May 27, 2023 3:21 pm

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“Peak China” – a new low in Western attempts to persuade China to commit suicide
By John Ross (Posted May 23, 2023)

One of the latest covers of the magazine The Economist carries a headline “Peak China”. This, as its name suggests, is a claim that while during the last seven decades China’s has enjoyed a peaceful “rise”, specifically in relation to the U.S., this has now ended:

Whereas a decade ago forecasters predicted that China’s GDP would zoom past America’s during the mid-21st century (at market exchange rates) and retain a commanding lead, now a much less dramatic shift is in the offing, resulting in something closer to economic parity… One view is that Chinese power will fall relative to that of its rivals… The Peak China thesis rests on the… observation that certain tailwinds are turning to headwinds… All of this is dampening long-run forecasts of China’s economic potential. Twelve years ago Goldman Sachs thought China’s GDP would overtake America’s… and become over 50% larger by mid-century. Last year it revised that prediction, saying China would… peak at less than 15% bigger. Others are more gloomy. Capital Economics, a research firm, argues that the country’s economy will never become top dog, instead peaking at 90% of America’s size in 2035… the most plausible ones [of these projections] seem to agree that China and America will approach economic parity in the next decade or so—and remain locked in this position for decades to come.

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The first reaction, was really to literally laugh at what, as will be seen, was the latest of decades long wildly inaccurate predictions by The Economist regarding China. Indeed, the record shows that probably a good working guide to what will happen in China is to take what The Economist says and assume that the opposite will occur! Second, to reflect on what are the deep reasons for such a combination of ignorance and arrogance that it leads to a refusal to make any balance sheet of entirely wrong analyses repeated for these decades but when it still claims to be taken seriously on an issue on which it has such a provenly lamentable record. As the latter applies not only to The Economist but to many other Western publications that make similar claims it will be returned to at the end of this article.

The Economist on China and the Asian Financial Crisis
First, however, in order to avoid any suggestion that we are misrepresenting The Economist, let us factually establish its prolonged inaccuracies on China. Similarly, to avoid any suggestion of seizing on incidental or secondary remarks, taken out of context, which do not represent the central views of the publication, only front pages, and special supplements, that is the journal’s most important publications, on China will be used.

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A suitably distant starting point is to go back 25 years to The Economist’s analysis of China and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98. The Economist’s front page on 24 October 1998, referring to this, was “Will China be next?” Inside it posed the question: “whether China’s growth is slowing or even grinding to a halt… yes”. It then posed the question:

whether the resulting unemployment will prompt political unrest, or a power struggle among the leadership… yes.

In fact, as is well known, China was fundamentally economically stable during the Asian financial crisis. There was no unemployment leading to political unrest, let alone a “power struggle”. In short, The Economist was completely inaccurate.

The Economist “out of puff”
Moving ahead four years, on 15 June 2002 The Economist published a special supplement on China. This had the title “A Dragon Out of Puff”—a self-explanatory analysis. Its conclusion on China was the following:

the economy still relies primarily on domestic engines of growth, which are sputtering. Growth over the last five years has relied heavily on massive government spending. As a result, the government’s debt is rising fast. Coupled with the banks’ bad loans and the state’s huge pension liabilities, this is a financial crisis in the making… In the coming decade, therefore, China seems set to become more unstable. It will face growing unrest as unemployment mounts. And if growth were to slow significantly, public confidence could collapse, triggering a run on banks.

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Turning from The Economist’s analysis to reality, what actually happened in the decade that followed was simple. China’s economy from 2002-2012 expanded by a total of 173% or an annual average of 10.5%. For comparison, in the same decade world GDP grew by a total 37%, or an annual average 3.2%. The U.S. grew by 21% or an annual average of 1.9%. In summary, China’s GDP grew 4.7 time as much as the world average and 8.4 times as time as much as the U.S.

And this is supposed to be China “out of puff”? It is just known as The Economist being hilariously wrong.

The Economist wrong on China and India
Let us now turn to another major sortie of The Economist into analysing China. Its front cover headline of 2 October 2010 was “How India’s Growth Will Outpace China’s”—also self-explanatory. The analysis this headline referred to stated: “Chetan Ahya and Tanvee Gupta of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, predict that India’s growth will start to outpace China’s within three to five years… For the next 20-25 years, India will grow faster than any other large country, they expect. Other long-range forecasters paint a similar picture.” The Economist approvingly quoted that India would “outpace” China because socialist “China’s growth has been largely state-directed. India’s, by contrast, is driven by 45m entrepreneurs.”

Once more, turning from a comparison of what The Economist predicted to what happened, the reality was clear and is shown in Figure 1. Taking the data from the Economist’s prediction in 2010 up to the present, that is to the end of 2022, China’s economy grew by 116.0% and India’s by 94.6%. Far from India “outpacing” China, China’s total economic growth in this period was 23% greater than India’s. China’s annual average GDP growth was 6.6% compared to India’s 5.7%.

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Regarding the supposedly negative features of China’s socialist “largely state-directed” economy even more striking, because it is an index of overall economic efficiency, was the result in terms of per capita GDP growth. From 2010-2022 China experienced an average annual population increase of 0.4% and India of 1.2%. So, China’s more rapid growth of total GDP than India was despite the fact that India had significantly more rapid population increase.

In terms of per capita GDP, as Figure 2 shows, China’s total growth from 2010 to 2022 was 105% and India’s 69.6%. That is, China’s per capita GDP growth was 51% higher than India. China’s annual average per capita GDP growth was 6.2% compared to India’s 4.5%. It turns out that China’s socialist “state directed growth” was far more effective at producing per capita GDP growth than India’s “45 million entrepreneurs”. Once more The Economist was not wrong on details but got the entire course of events wrong.

The significance of population trends in China’s economic growth will be considered in more detail below.

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The current claims by The Economist
Having established the successive previous errors of The Economist on China let us now turn to its claims in its most recent issue. This, as already noted, is summarised in the front cover issue with the headline “Peak China?”—that is the claim that China’s rise has stopped. Regarding the details of this inside we read supposedly regarding the “certain tailwinds are turning to headwinds” that:

The first big gust comes from demography. China’s working-age population has been declining for about a decade. Last year its population as a whole peaked… Wave goodbye to the masses of young workers who once filled ‘the world’s factory’.

The Economist then goes on to claim: “China has this year liberated its economy from the lockdowns, quarantines and other strictures of its ‘zero-covid’ regime. But it has not freed itself from longer-term worries about its growth prospects. Its population is shrinking. Its epic housing boom is over.” Supposedly China has problems from “a regulatory crackdown on e-commerce firms.” Regarding comparison with the U.S.: “Some ask how much longer China’s economy can grow faster than America’s.” Quoting works which it considers notable, and which coined the “peak” claim:

Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, two American political scientists, argue that China’s rise is already coming to a halt. The age of ‘peak China’, as they call it, is upon us.

As already noted, The Economist justifies these claims in particular with reference to population trends—the bogus claim, promoted for several years, that “China will grow old before it grows rich.” More precisely: “What accounts for the lower expectations for China’s economy?… Start with population. China’s workforce has already peaked, according to official statistics. It has 4.5 times as many 15- to 64-year-olds as America. By mid-century it will have only 3.4 times as many, according to the UN’s ‘median’ forecast.” It then goes on to discuss issues such as productivity—which are analysed below.

The Economist then goes on to conclude:

It also seems safe to say that China and America will remain in a position of near-parity for decades. In Goldman Sachs’s scenario, China maintains a small but persistent lead over America for more than 40 years… in Capital Economics’s projection, China’s GDP will… be over 80% of America’s as late as 2050…. if China’s peak is more Table Mountain [a flat-topped mountain in South Africa only slightly over 1,000 metres high] than K2 [Qogir Feng, the world’s second highest mountain at 8,611 metres] its leaders will have little incentive to rush to confrontation before decline sets in.

Leaving aside that China’s leaders have not shown any desire whatever to “rush to confrontation” let us dissect this evaluation of The Economist.

Elementary reality checks
Because no angle should be ignored in dealing with this analysis by The Economist, we will discuss below its assertions using technical methods of economic “growth accounting”. But actually, elementary reality checks and calculations, which can be understood by almost anyone (apparently apart from The Economist’s writers), shows their falsity.

Start with the question of population, on which The Economist lays such emphasis. China’s average annual population growth from 1978-2022, that is since the start of “Reform and Opening Up” is 0.9%. China’s annual average GDP growth in the same period is 9.0%. So, 8.1% a year GDP increase, that is 90% of the growth, could not possibly be accounted for by population changes. In summary, even before doing detailed growth accounting, it is clear that population growth could have played only a very small role in China’s economic development. This will be fully confirmed by the growth accounting data.

Turn to the second feature. According to The Economist we ae entering “the coming age of superpower parity”. What this means in GDP terms is that China and the U.S.’s economies will be roughly the same size—one possible a little bit bigger than the other. Let us analyse the implications of this claim.

Of course, no one doubts that after the “century of humiliation” China’s economic starting point was far behind the U.S. In 1950, in purchasing power parities (PPPs), on the calculations of Angus Maddison, who was the world’s leading expert on long term economic growth, China’s per capita GDP was slightly under 5% of the U.S.. By 2022, measured in PPPs by the IMF, China’s per capita GDP was 28% of the U.S.. That is, since the creation of the People’s Republic in 1949, China has improved its per capita GDP position relative to the U.S. by more than five times.

What is the overall implication of this? In 2022 Mainland China’s population was 4.24 times that of the U.S.—put in other terms, the U.S. population was less than 24%, approximately a quarter, that of China. That means, in turn, that for China to remain having the same, or a smaller, GDP than the U.S. its per capita GDP would have to remain less than one quarter of the U.S..

Why should China be incapable of reaching anything more than one quarter the per capita GDP, with therefore roughly one quarter the living standards, of the U.S.? Is it some xenophobic illusion that the average Chinese person is only one quarter as smart, or only works one quarter as hard, or cannot work out a way to achieve more than a quarter of the living standard of an average American? Or to put it the other way round, that the average American works more than four times as hard, or is four time as smart, or can work out a way to remain living more than four times as well as the average Chinese person?

That type of thinking is delusional and is also leaving the U.S. open to a terrible shock not only in regard to China but a second one later in this century when it finds out that the average member of the more than 1.4 billion Indian people is just as smart, just as hard working and just as capable of working out how their country can develop as the average American.

In fact, China’s development has come from successful policies by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and work by the Chinese people—not from economic “miracles”. China is perfectly aware that, given its extremely low economic starting point after a century of foreign intervention in 1949, it has set its goal of becoming a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country” to be achieved only by 2049. In the more immediate term, at the 20th Party Congress, its goal was stated as reaching the level of a “medium-developed country by 2035”. Slightly earlier, in 2020’s discussion around the 14th Five Year plan, it was concluded that by 2035 for China: “It is entirely possible to double the total or per capita income”. These two goals are essentially the same. This target requires an average annual growth of GDP of at least 4.6% a year by 2035. That this target can be achieved will be shown in detail below.

But the size of China’s population, and the speed of its economic development, does have an inevitable consequence. Those who believe that China will never significantly exceed one quarter of the per capita GDP of the U.S. and therefore that China’s GDP will never become significantly greater than the U.S., are deluding themselves. It is only necessary to be able to multiply by four to know what will be the final result.

Growth accounting
So far only issues that can be understood by anyone, whether or not they are an economist, regarding the elementary errors of the thesis of “peak China” have been dealt with—that is, the facts that the very slow growth of China’s population compared to its GDP growth shows that increase in labour supply plays only a very small role in its economic growth, and the consequences of the fact that China has over four times the population of the U.S. Actually, these are quite sufficient to understand why the theory of “peak China” is false. The fact that these false arguments can ignore such elementary realities shows how blinded people can be by their own propaganda. But nevertheless, it is also useful to analyse more detailed issues of economics—it should not be thought that any questions are being avoided. Therefore, more detailed issues of economic growth will now be examined. Analysing these, furthermore, does cast a light on important questions and further clarifies the fundamental errors of the theory of “peak China”—and what lies behind it.

Turning from the most fundamental trends to detailed growth accounting the most recent data will be examined in order to avoid any accusations that what is really being analysed is the effects of the period immediately after 1978—which almost no one would dispute brought gains but which some claim have now disappeared. Figure 3 therefore shows the latest 10 years, 2011-2021, for which detailed growth accounting data exists—it is not yet available for 2022.

Changes in labour inputs in China
As labour is the aspect most concentrated on in the theory of “peak China” it will be dealt with first. Initially, to get these out of the way, some elementary conceptual mistakes of the “peak China” brigade will be dealt with and then their most fundamental fallacy will be shown.

The detailed data on labour inputs in Figure 3 immediately shows one of the first elementary arithmetical fallacies of the old “China will get old before it gets rich” argument—which is essentially the same as that of “peak China”. This is that this fails to distinguish between the “quality” of labour inputs (that this their level of education, training etc) and the “quantity” of labour inputs—that is simply the number of hours worked.

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This fallacy can be easily illustrated for non-specialists in economics. Take an hour of labour in South Korea—this country is chosen because today it has one of the highest levels of higher education in the world. In 1945 85% of South Korea’s population lived in rural areas and Illiteracy was 88%. Today 85% of South Korea’s population lives in urban areas and enrolment in tertiary education is equivalent to the entire population of the relevant age groups. China’s is passing through the same historical process from its own extremely rural past—with urbanisation reaching 65% by 2021, and enrolment in higher education reaching 60% by 2022.

The value produced by an hour’s labour by someone with a university degree in Korea, very possibly a PhD in engineering or computing, in 2022 is obviously far higher than that of a peasant who was illiterate in 1945. Similarly, as China’s population becomes more and more highly educated and trained the inputs of “labour quality” (to use the technical economic term) will rise even if “labour quantity” (the total number of workers and therefore the number of hours worked) goes down.

This is precisely what occurred in China from 2011-2021. As Figure 3 shows, the total number of hours worked (labour quantity) fell, reducing GDP growth by 0.4%. But the contribution of labour quality, that is better training and education, increased GDP growth by 0.4%. Therefore, the actual change in total labour inputs was zero. (As a side note for technical economists, calculating labour inputs simply by hours worked, without taking into account labour quality, was an error in Solow’s original formulation of growth accounting which has been replaced in modern growth accounting. For non-technical economists the difference between the value created by an hour of labour by someone who is illiterate with someone who has an engineering PhD makes the point clear).

But even leaving aside this basic distinction, actually regarding labour quantity itself China’s position is not remotely as bad as claimed by “peak China”. For example, approximately a quarter of China’s working population is still in the countryside—the passing of a substantial part of this into urban areas, as will occur over the coming decades, will increase productivity, China’s current retirement age, of 60 for men and 50-55 for women, is extremely low by international standards and is bound to gradually increase given China’s great increase in life expectancy—which will produce an increase in available labour quantity compared to if the retirement age had not been raised .

In short, because they make the elementary mistake of failing to distinguish between labour quantity and labour quality, because they do not take into account the consequences of shift of labour from the countryside to urban areas, and because they do not note that China’s very low retirement age is bound to gradually increase with growing life expectancy, claims about the reduction of labour inputs in the theory of “peak China” are greatly exaggerated even in their own terms.

The small role of increases in labour inputs in China
But actually, even all the above issues are secondary to the main one which was already analysed in fundamental terms above—the point that China’s average annual population growth from 1978-2022 is 0.9% and China’s annual average GDP growth in the same period is 9.0%. Therefore, 8.1% a year GDP increase, that is 90% of the growth, could not possibly be accounted for by population changes. What this shows is that the increase in labour inputs has played a very small role in China’s economic growth.

Turning to analyse this in detail, it was already noted that in 2011-2021 the contribution of labour inputs to GDP growth was zero—a 0.4% annual increase in GDP due to improvements in labour quality, offset by a 0.4% of GDP fall caused by a reduction in labour quantity (hours worked). Even if the longer period from 1990-2021 is taken, the contribution of labour inputs to GDP growth was only 0.7% a year out of an average of 8.7% annual GDP growth—that is 92% of GDP growth was due to factors other than increase in labour inputs.

The reason that a slowdown in labour inputs will not produce a very sharp fall in China’s economic growth is therefore very simple. Because the detailed growth accounting data naturally confirms what was already obvious from the most fundamental facts on China’ population and GDP changes since 1978. That population and labour input changes have only played a very small role in China’s economic growth!

The fundamental factors which really do affect China’s economic growth, and their consequences, will be analysed below.

The reasons for China’s rapid economic growth
Turning from what has not made a large contribution to China’s economic growth, labour inputs, to those which have made a big difference, again the latest period 2011-2021 will be taken. China’s annual average GDP growth in that period was 6.7%. The detailed contributions to growth of the different inputs are shown in Figure 4. This chart is simply a different way of presenting the facts given in Figure 3—which showed the relative weight of different inputs into China’s economy. Figure 4 is merely more convenient for present purposes because by showing how much of China’s GDP growth is due to different inputs it makes it easy to see which changes would, and which changes would not, seriously affect China’s economic growth. That is, what would, and what would not, create a real situation of “peak China”. It also allows an easy calculation of whether China can or cannot achieve the 4.6% annual average economic growth necessary to achieve its target of doubling per capita GDP by 2035.

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The role of labour inputs
The first reality from these facts which is obvious, as already noted, is the relatively small effect that changes in labour supply will make. Assume that no changes are made to offset the decline in labour quantity, for example there is no increase in the retirement age, and this continues to deduct 0.4% a year from GDP growth. Assume also that the increase in the beneficial effect of increases in labour quality is eliminated and therefore this deducts the 0.4% a year from GDP growth due to this factor—there is no justification for making such an assumption as China’s education and training growth will continue, but it is hypothetically assumed here just to analyse a “worst case” scenario. What then happens? It means that China’s GDP growth would fall from 6.7% a year to 6.3%—easily enough to surpass the 4.6% a year growth required to achieve the doubling of per capita GDP by 2035.

The role of Total Factor Productivity
Now consider productivity, more precisely Total Factor Productivity (TFP)—for non-economists, TFP measures all processes raising the output of the economy which are not due to increases in capital or labour (for example, improvements in technology, the benefits of larger scale of production, improvements in management techniques, scientific discoveries, benefits of increased specialisation in production etc). Assume a catastrophic case that China’s rate of TFP increase fell to zero—once again there is no justification for such an assumption and China’s rate of TFP growth is one of the fastest in the world, but it is analysed here just to demonstrate the effects of the most extreme negative assumptions. What then happens is that China’s GDP growth would fall by 1.5% a year—from 6.7% to 5.2% a year. China would then still achieve the 4.6% a year target to double per capita GDP by 2035.

Even if the ludicrous assumption is made both that China achieved no increase in labour quality, deducting 0.4% of GDP growth a year, and that its rate of TFP growth collapsed to zero, deducting 1.5% a year from GDP growth, then the combined slowdown of 1.9% a year would still leave China growing at 4.8% a year—enough to achieve its 2035 target.

These negative assumptions are of course themselves ridiculous—there is no reason China’s improvement in labour quality will fall to zero, on the contrary it is pouring resources into education and training, and there is equally no reason why its TFP growth will fall to zero. But these extremely unrealistic assumptions have the benefit that even with them the thesis of “peak China” will not work.

Cutting China’s investment
It is factually clear that only one assumption would justify the argument of “peak China”—i.e. that a drastic slowdown in China’s economy will occur. This is that there is a huge fall in China’s level of investment in GDP—that is, in technical terms, in capital inputs into the economy (it should be understood that by “capital” in this sense is simply meant fixed investment—it is irrelevant whether this investment is carried out by the state, private capitalists, or any other form of ownership). This is, indeed, an inevitable result of the fact that 78% of China’s economic growth is due to capital/investment inputs—or in other terms that these account for 5.2% annual GDP growth out of a total of 6.7% growth. China’s dependence on capital inputs for economic growth is furthermore fairly standard, the average percentage contribution of capital inputs to economic growth of the world’s 20 largest economies in 2011-2021 being 81%. This is indeed why reductions in the level of investment in GDP do produce very large slowdowns in economic growth. This was analysed in the earlier article 它曾成功“谋杀”了德国、日本、四小龙,现在想要劝中国“经济自杀” and is dealt with in detail below.

In reality, although they spend large amounts of space discussing other issues which would have no great effect even if true, the statistics of those arguing for the theory of “peak China” show that they arrive at their claims because they assume that China will drastically cut the percentage of its economy devoted to investment. The reasons this claim is made will be analysed below, but first, to clarify the issue, the arithmetic of those who present serious quantified justifications for the “peak China” arguments will be examined—although, it is striking, that some who makes such claims don’t even bother to attempt to quantify them.

Taking first, among those studied by The Economist, an analysis by Roland Rajah and Alyssa Leng for the Lowy Institute with the self-explanatory title “Revising down the rise of China”. This concludes regarding China that: “our projections suggest growth will slow sharply to roughly 3% a year by 2030”. This analysis precisely assumes a huge fall in the percentage of China’s economy devoted to fixed investment/capital inputs:

total investment falls from the current 43% of GDP to 33% of GDP on average over the coming decades.

The same assumption is made by Goldman Sachs, which projects that China’s GDP growth will fall from an annual average 6.0% in 2013-2022 to 3.4% in 2023-2032—that is a decline of 2.6%. The reason for this alleged slowdown is because of the overwhelming effect of a single fact that the annual increase in GDP growth created by capital investment is projected to fall by 2.4%—from 4.8% to 2.4%. As this fall in capital investment accounts for 92% of the decline in the GDP growth rate, only 8% of the decline the Goldman Sachs report projects, or 0.2% GDP growth a year, is attributable to factors other than the decline in investment. Without the investment decline, the Goldman Sachs report’s data shows that China’s annual GDP growth would only fall from 6.0% to 5.8%—a level which would easily allow China to exceed its own targets for 2035. In short, Goldman Sachs shows that only the decline in investment makes a decisive difference to China’s growth rate, and therefore, to use The Economist’s terms, accounts for “peak China”.

Of course, these calls for, or predictions that, China will cut the level of investment in its economy are put forward in a concealed way. They are presented as calls for China to increase the percentage of consumption in its economy. But as consumption and capital creation/investment combined necessarily add up to 100% of China’s economy the call for China to increase the percentage of consumption in its economy is necessarily to call for it to reduce its level of investment. This would indeed, of course, for the reasons already given, lead to a drastic slowdown in China’s economy—to “peak China”. But it would simply be a case of China deciding to commit economic suicide.

While the studies published by the Lowy Institute and Goldman Sachs at least have the virtue of being clear, others don’t—so these will be examined below.

A leader is certainly different
There is no doubt that from the facts already given that if China drastically cuts its level of investment its rate of economic growth would indeed substantially fall—as capital inputs account for 78% of China’s economic growth that is inevitable. But why should China make such a drastic cut in its level of investment in GDP?

The alleged reason for this is because China is different from other “Western” economies. For example Capital Economics, which unlike the Lowy Institute or Goldman Sachs studies, does not even properly quantify its findings, but is nevertheless cited by The Economist as a source, argues: “we expect China’s trend rate of economic growth to fall to around 2% by 2030.” It notes:

China… has an unusually large capital stock…. If China’s capital stock to GDP ratio were to continue to rise at the rapid pace of the past decade, it would soon be much higher than in other major economies.

Similarly, Goldman Sachs argues that China’s level of investment in its economy will fall sharply: “Investment as a share of GDP is forecast to decline from 42% in 2022 to 35% by 2032.” The reason that this will happen is apparently because China is at present an upper middle-income economy, although approaching the level of a high-income economy by World Bank standards, and:

Investment as a share of GDP in upper-middle-income countries is 34%.

Well certainly China is different from other economies. Why? For the simple reason that its economy is growing much more rapidly than they are! Therefore, it is producing a more rapid increase in average living standards than they are, it has produced a more rapid reduction in poverty than they have etc. Naturally the leader is different to those who are further behind£ The economy with the most rapid economic development is different to the countries with slower economic development.

Why should the more rapidly developing copy the less rapidly developing
But then it is a completely bizarre logic that says that the economy which is most rapidly developing should change to become like the less successful ones! What would a client of Goldman Sachs, or any other bank or consultancy, say if it argued “We notice that you are developing more rapidly than your competitors—so you need to stop that and reduce yourself to their level.” Or if they said to a company: “We notice that in this field one company is developing much more rapidly than the others. Therefore, you should ignore that company and copy the less successful ones. Incidentally we are advising this most successful company to abandon its advantages and instead accept the approach of its less successful competitors.” Anyone who made such a proposal would be laughed at—in the few seconds before the contract with them was immediately terminated.

But that is exactly what those who are arguing the case for “peak China! are doing. They are saying: “We note that China’s economy is developing more rapidly than others. Therefore, it should abandon the reasons for this success and adopt the methods of the less rapidly developing.” Instead, of course, what any sensible person would argue is: “China is different because it is the most rapidly developing. Therefore, other countries should learn from the reasons for China’s success (which is not, of course, to pursue the impossible course of mechanically copying it).” This entirely logical argument is, of course, what other countries are doing. It explains the increasing international interest in China’s socialist development strategy.

Instead, what those arguing the case for “peak China” propose is that China should voluntarily commit economic suicide. That it should abandon the methods that have made it the most rapidly developing economy in the world and adopt the methods of the less successful. If China decides to commit economic “suicide” then that certainly would produce “peak China”—if someone decides to commit suicide they will undoubtedly be dead. But it would be very bizarre for China and the CPC to adopt such a logic! Why, having brought China from almost the poorest country in the world in 1949, after a century of foreign intervention, to achieve the most sustained rapid economic growth of any major country in world history should the CPC decide to adopt a less successful approach? Gorbachev may have decided that the USSR should commit suicide, bringing ruin to his country, by adopting Western approaches, but the CPC has shown no similar inclination.

The reasons for blind arrogance
Turning from these specific economic points to more general considerations, these factual issues are so obvious to anyone who thinks about them seriously, that it takes us back to a point made before the discussion of detailed analysis of growth accounting. That is, what is the explanation of the blindness to reality, to facts, that is created by unconscious arrogance?

The Economist, Goldman Sachs etc note that China’s economy differs from their capitalist ones. But instead of drawing from the more rapid development of China’s economy than theirs the conclusion that China’s system shows its superiority, they conclude that necessarily China must be wrong—and that they are right! The reason is because to accept the facts would be to overturn their, conscious or unconscious, arrogant way of looking at the world. It is worth looking at just a few of these implications to understand the reasons for the blindness.

The first is the role of CPC. It is the CPC, no other political force, which created the socialist market economy, an economic system which had never before existed in history, which has created the most rapid economic growth of any major country in human history, which has produced the most rapid increase in living standards or any country, which has produced the greatest reduction in poverty in any country in human history, and which overall has produced the most rapid sustained improvement in the living standards of any country in human history. The idea that such gigantic achievements could occur by “accident”, that is without thought or theory leading it, is laughable. What it means is that the CPC not only produced better practical results for its people than any other political force but that the CPC out thought every other political force.

Second, it means that China has achieved what every country that was once dominated by imperialism dreams of—that China, and China alone, will decide its destiny. This is indeed the greatest of all the CPC’s national achievements. That after a “century of humiliation”, in which China was simply trampled on by other states, only China will now decide its own fate. If China takes wise decisions it will prosper. If China takes foolish decisions it will suffer. But no one else will decide the outcome. In a fundamental sense that is precisely the basis of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”..

Third, China’s success, brought by the CPC, brings to an end an entire centuries long epoch in human history—perhaps this is particularly to be commented on by someone from Europe? During approximately the last 500 years, “white” European countries, and their offshoots, became the most powerful in the world. That 500 years is certainly a short period in the approximately 5,000-year history of human civilization. For most of that time it was Asia’s people—China, India, West Asia/parts of North Africa (falsely labelled the “Middle East” in Eurocentric worldviews) who were the most advanced. But, of course, 500 years is far longer than the life of anyone alive today. And during that 500 years these “white” countries built into the foundations of their capitalist system the vile dregs of racism—this is a point particularly emphasised in recent material produced by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research which should be regarded as of fundamental importance. Slavery, the treatment of non-“white” people as not equal in order to justify colonialism, were built into the foundations of that European originated capitalist system.

China’s rise, that of almost one fifth of humanity, which it should be remembered is more than the population of all “advanced” economies in the world put together today, not only creates a socialist society but completely destroys the entire cultural basis and assumptions of that 500-year-old epoch in human history. A long time Afro-Caribbean friend of mine, knowing I followed China as closely as I could, once said to me “but what does China’s rise mean for the rest of us?” I said: “Well among other things it destroys the myth of the ‘superiority’ of the white race”. To which their reply was “well that’s a victory for everyone.”

Indeed, in terms of the entire moral dignity of humanity, China’s success is playing an indispensable role in putting an end to the shameful traits of an entire period of human history. It is in large part because of that entire 500 year history that those proclaiming “peak China” can continue to write views that are so completely out of touch with the facts and with reality and why they refuse to draw any lessons even when they are repeatedly shown to be wrong—as was shown with the test case of The Economist at the beginning of this article (and many more examples could be taken). The stubborn blindness of the refusal of Western reporters and analysts to face the fact they have repeatedly been proven entirely wrong reflects not only bad journalism or a love of capitalism. It reflects the blindness to reality produced by 500 years of an unconscious cultural arrogance produced by a system which is fortunately now progressively disintegrating.

Xi Jinping noted carefully at his first press conference after becoming General Secretary of the CPC that China directly sees its own national rejuvenation as a part of the overall progress of humanity:

Throughout 5,000 years of development, the Chinese nation has made significant contributions to the progress of human civilization… Our responsibility is… to pursue the goal of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, so that China can stand firmer and stronger among the world’s nations, and make new and greater contributions to mankind.

This is not simply a goal for the future. This is a process that is underway today. It is a part of China’s great achievement, brought about by the extraordinary struggle of its people for national rejuvenation, that the rest of humanity benefits from it. That certainly involves economics. But it goes far beyond it.

[This article was originally published in Chinese at Guancha.cn.]

https://mronline.org/2023/05/23/peak-ch ... t-suicide/

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Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 26, 2023
Pepe Escobar

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President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland.

Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi solidified the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Western China in Xinjiang to its western neighbors and then all the way to Iran, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Xi in Xian particularly stressed the complementing aspects between BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), once again showing that all five Central Asian “stans”, acting together, should counter-act the proverbial external interference via “terrorism, separatism and extremism”.

The message was stark: these hybrid war strategies are all integrated with the attempt by the Hegemon to continue fostering serial color revolutions. The purveyors of the “rules-based international order”, Xi implied, will go no holds barred to prevent ongoing Heartland integration.

The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing. Yet this is something Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector diplomacy”, coined way back in the Nazarbayev years, would never allow.

What Beijing is developing, instead, is an integrated approach via a C+C5 secretariat with no less than 19 separate channels of communication.

The heart of the matter is to turbo-charge Heartland connectivity via the BRI’s Middle Corridor.

And that, crucially, includes technology transfer. As it stands, there are dozens of industrial transfer programs with Kazakhstan, a dozen in Uzbekistan, and several in discussion with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are extolled by Beijing as part of “harmonious Silk Roads”.

Xi himself, as a post-modern pilgrim, detailed the connectivity in his keynote speech in Xian: “The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.”

The Revival of the Heartland “Belt”

Xi’s China is once again mirroring lessons from History. What’s happening now brings us back to the first half of the first millennium B.C., when the Persian Achaemenid empire established itself as the largest to date, stretching from India in the east and Central Asia in the northeast to Greece in the west and Egypt in the southwest.

For the first time in history, territories that spanned Asia, Africa and Europe were brought together; and that led to a boom in trade, culture and ethnic interactions (what BRI defines today as “people to people exchanges”).

That’s how we had the Hellenistic world first getting in touch with India and Central Asia – as they set up the first Greek settlements in Bactria (in today’s Afghanistan).

By the end of the first millennium B.C. all the way to the first millennium A.D. an immense area from the Pacific to the Atlantic – encompassing the Han Chinese empire, the Kushan kingdom, the Parthians and the Roman empire, among others – formed “a continuous belt of civilizations, states and cultures”, as Prof. Edvard Rtveladze of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan defined it.

This, in a nutshell, is at heart of the Chinese concept of “belt” and “road”: the “belt” refers to the Heartland, the “road” refers to the Maritime Silk Road.

So slightly less than 2,000 years ago, that was the first time in human history that the borders of several states and kingdoms were immediately adjacent to each other along no less than 11,400 km, from east to west. No wonder the fabled Ancient Silk Road – actually a maze of roads -, the first transcontinental thoroughfare, emerged at the time.

That was a direct consequence of a series of political, economic and cultural whirlwinds involving the peoples of Eurasia. History, in the high acceleration 21st century, is now retracing these steps.

Geography, after all, is destiny. Central Asia was traversed by countless migrations of Near Eastern, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Turkic peoples; was the focus of serious intercultural interaction (Iranian, Indian, Turkic, Chinese, Hellenistic cultures); and criss-crossed virtually all major religions (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Islam).

The Organization of Turkic States, led by Turkiye, is even engaged in rebuilding the Turkic identity overtones of the Heartland – a vector that will be developing in parallel to the influence of China and Russia.

That Greater Eurasia Partnership

Russia is evolving its own path. A key debate was held аt a recent Valdai Club session on the Greater Eurasian Partnership when it comes to the interaction between Russia and the Heartland and neighbors China, India and Iran.

Moscow regards the concept of a Greater Eurasian Partnership as the key framework for achieving much desired “political cohesion” in the post-Soviet space – under the imperative of indivisibility of regional security.

This means, once again, maximum attention towards serial attempts of provoking color revolutions across the Heartland.

As much as in Beijing, there are no illusions in Moscow that the collective West will take no prisoners in regimenting Central Asia to the Russophobic drive. For over a year now Washington for all practical purposes already addresses the Heartland in terms of threats of secondary sanctions and crude ultimatums.

So Central Asia matters only in terms of the evolving hybrid war – and otherwise – against the Russia-China strategic partnership. No fabulous trade and connectivity prospects under the New Silk Roads; no Greater Eurasia Partnership; no security arrangements under the CSTO; no mechanism of economic cooperation like the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

Either you’re a “partner” in the sanctions dementia and/or a secondary front in the war against Russia, or there will be a price to pay.

The “price”, set by the proverbial Straussian neocon psychos currently in charge of US foreign policy, is always the same: proxy war via terror, to be provided by ISIS-Khorasan*, whose black cells are ready to be awakened in selected backwoods of Afghanistan and the Ferghana valley.

Moscow is very much aware of the high stakes. For instance, for a year and a half virtually every month a Russian delegation arrives in Tajikistan to implement, in practice, the “pivot to the East”, developing projects in agriculture, health care, education, science and tourism.

Central Asia should have a leading role in BRICS+ expansion – something supported by both BRICS leaders Russia and China. The idea of a BRICS + Central Asia is being seriously floated from Tashkent to Almaty.

That would imply establishing a strategic continuum from Russia and China to Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa and Latin America – spanning the logistics of connectivity trade, energy, manufacture production, investment, technological breakthroughs and cultural interaction.

Beijing and Moscow, each in their own way, and with their own formulations, are already setting the framework for this ambitious geoeconomic project to be viable: the Heartland back in action as a protagonist in the forefront of History, just like those kingdoms, merchants and pilgrims of nearly 2,000 years ago.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... -the-west/

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Chinese Foreign Ministry: the G7 is undermining peace and development
On Saturday May 20, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded promptly to the anti-China remarks emanating from the Hiroshima Summit of the G7 imperialist bloc.

The spokesperson noted that the communique and other documents adopted at the summit contain comments on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and accusations regarding the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and China’s nuclear power, professed G7 opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and claims about “economic coercion” that allude to China.

The spokesperson added that while the G7 claims to be “promoting a peaceful, stable and prosperous world,” it is actually, “hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development.”

The statement stressed that resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese. The one-China principle is the solid anchor for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

On “economic coercion”, the spokesperson said the massive unilateral sanctions and acts of “decoupling” and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the US the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations, urging the G7 not to become an accomplice in economic coercion.

Noting that China has always pledged itself to ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always kept its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security, it noted that the people’s republic was the only one among the five recognized nuclear powers to have made such pledges.

Pointing out that the international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world, the statement concludes:

“We urge G7 members to catch up with the trend of the times, focus on addressing the various issues they have at home, stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs, stop containing and bludgeoning other countries, stop creating and stoking bloc confrontation and get back to the right path of dialogue and cooperation.”

The following article was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Saturday made remarks on G7 Hiroshima Summit’s hyping up of China-related issues, urging the countries to stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs.

According to reports, the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communique and other documents adopted at the G7 Hiroshima Summit contain comments on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and accusations regarding the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and China’s nuclear power, professed G7 opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and claims about “economic coercion” that allude to China.

The spokesperson said the G7 makes high-sounding claims about “promoting a peaceful, stable and prosperous world,” but what it does is hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development. That simply shows how little international credibility means to the G7.

Despite China’s serious concerns, the G7 used issues concerning China to smear and attack China and brazenly interfere in China’s internal affairs. China strongly deplores and firmly opposes this and has made serious demarches to the summit’s host Japan and other parties concerned, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson stressed that resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese. The one-China principle is the solid anchor for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Noting that the G7 keeps emphasizing cross-Strait peace, and yet says nothing about the need to oppose “Taiwan independence,” the spokesperson said this in effect constitutes connivance and support for “Taiwan independence” forces, and will only result in having a serious impact on cross-Strait peace and stability.

Affairs related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are purely China’s internal affairs, the spokesperson said, stressing that China firmly opposes interference by any external force in those affairs under the pretext of human rights.

China is a firm defender and contributor to international maritime rule of law, the spokesperson said, adding that the East China Sea and the South China Sea have remained overall stable. Relevant countries need to respect regional countries’ efforts to uphold peace and stability and stop using maritime issues to drive a wedge between regional countries and incite bloc confrontation.

On “economic coercion”, the spokesperson said the massive unilateral sanctions and acts of “decoupling” and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the U.S. the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations, urging the G7 not to become an accomplice in economic coercion.

Noting that China is firmly committed to a defensive nuclear strategy, the spokesperson said China has honored its pledge to “no first use” of nuclear weapons and always kept its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.

China is the only one among the five nuclear weapon states to have made those pledges. China’s position is above board and should not be distorted or denigrated, the spokesperson added.

The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values, still less will it succumb to the rules of exclusive small blocs designed to serve “America-first” and the vested interests of the few, the spokesperson said, urging G7 to reflect on its behavior and change course.

“We urge G7 members to catch up with the trend of the times, focus on addressing the various issues they have at home, stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs, stop containing and bludgeoning other countries, stop creating and stoking bloc confrontation and get back to the right path of dialogue and cooperation,” said the spokesperson.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/05/22/c ... velopment/

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Interview with Roland Boer on the nature of Chinese socialism
In this very interesting and detailed discussion, Roland Boer and Ben Norton delve into a number of the key issues from Roland’s book Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. The core of the discussion is around answering the left critique of China’s post-1978 economic reforms: that these constitute a return to capitalism; that Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues were capitalist roaders who sought to overturn socialism via the introduction of market mechanisms.

Roland points out that markets go back thousands of years, long pre-dating capitalism. As such, there’s no equals sign between capitalism and markets; markets existed before capitalism and they can exist after capitalism. The question for socialists is how to use markets within a socialist context; how to use market mechanisms within a framework of an overall planned economy which is directed at meeting the immediate and long-term needs of the people, and preparing the ground for an eventual transition to a classless society.

Roland makes an important distinction between two key aspects of socialism: that of common ownership of the means of production, and liberation of the productive forces. The two do not necessarily always advance in neat and predictable correlation. This is something that is understood by all existing socialist societies – in China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and the DPRK. Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues understood very well that a high level of the productive forces was a material prerequisite for China’s development of an advanced socialism and ultimately for communism. The whole purpose of the reform process has been to develop China’s productive forces whilst simultaneously pursuing the fundamental socialist objective of improving people’s lives. On both counts, the process has been phenomenally successful.

Ben contrasts the level of development and living standards in India and China, noting that hundreds of millions in India continue to face devastating poverty, while China is responsible for at least 70 percent of all poverty alleviation in the last four decades. He points out that this disparity is primarily a manifestation of the two countries having different social systems.

The two take on a number of other key questions, including the nature of socialist democracy, the treatment of migrant workers, the household responsibility system, corruption, and the consolidation of Marxism in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

The video was first posted on Ben’s Geopolitical Economy Report channel.


https://socialistchina.org/2023/05/22/i ... socialism/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed May 31, 2023 2:23 pm

Egg In Their Face - Two Anti-China Claims The Wall Street Journal Made Last Weeks Were Fake

On May 26 Amnesty International published one of its usual aggressive accusations against a government the U.S. is hostile to.

Hong Kong: Government must reveal whereabouts of Uyghur student detained at airport (archived)

Hong Kong authorities must reveal the whereabouts and fate of a Uyghur student who has been missing since he arrived in the city from South Korea earlier this month, amid fears he has been unlawfully extradited to mainland China without due process and is at risk of arbitrary detention and torture, Amnesty International said today.
Abuduwaili Abudureheman has not been heard from since he sent a text message to a friend on 10 May. In the message, Abudureheman said he was being interrogated by Chinese police after arriving at Hong Kong airport.
“The unknown fate of Abuduwaili Abudureheman is deeply worrying, given the background of crimes against humanity committed against Uyghurs by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, and its ongoing pursuit of Uyghurs who have travelled overseas,” said Alkan Akad, Amnesty International’s China Researcher.


The accusations seem to be based on claims made by a single anonymous source:

On 10 May 2023, Abuduwaili travelled to Hong Kong to visit a friend, but he has been missing since his text message that evening, saying that he was being questioned at the airport by Chinese police. The friend has made Abuduwaili’s disappearance public after becoming increasingly concerned for his safety.
Amnesty International understands that Abuduwaili was on a Chinese government “watch list” of Uyghurs and other Muslims from the Xinjiang region, based on the fact that he had a history of overseas travel. Amnesty International has documented numerous instances of the Chinese government targeting Uyghurs both at home and abroad with arbitrary incommunicado detention, lengthy imprisonment and torture purely based on the fact that they had travelled outside of China.


In 2021 Amnesty closed its Hong Kong office. One wonders then how it communicated with the relevant "friend"?

The Wall Street Journal and others published China bashing pieces based solely on Amnesty's claims.

The authorities Hong Kong were pretty pissed about the allegations as the man is question had never been there:

Hong Kong on Saturday criticized rights group Amnesty International’s accusation that a Uyghur student disappeared after being interrogated at the airport, and said that government records showed that he had not entered or been refused entry to the city.

The Korean Yonhap news agency made efforts to actually contact the man. It tuned out that he is still in Korea and has no plans to go anywhere else (machine translation):

(New York = Yonhap News) Correspondent Koh Il-hwan = Abduwali Abu Dureheman (38), an international student from Xinjiang, China, who Amnesty International said was missing in Hong Kong, is staying in Korea, his advisor said.
In a phone call with Yonhap News on the 29th, Jo Wook-yeon, head of the physical education department at Kookmin University, who is Abu Durehman's advisor, said, "Amnesty's announcement is not true."

Dean Cho said, "Abu Dureheman has not departed from Hong Kong, and is staying in Korea safely."

Dean Cho repeatedly confirmed that he had been in contact with Abu Durehman on a daily basis for guidance for his doctoral degree, and that "it is true that he is in Korea."

"I don't know why Amnesty announced that Abu Dureheman in South Korea was missing in Hong Kong," he said.[/b]

We don't know either but it aptly shows what standards Amnesty International and other such propaganda outlets have when making their sensational claims. None. A claim by one person based on a text message that may not even exist and made for whatever reason is trumpeted into the world even before any effort is made to verify it.

And why do the Wall Street Journal and others, who should have higher standards, publish Amnesty's accusation without ever fact checking them?

That is a question that one that can be reliably answered. The U.S. is hostile to China. Therefore U.S. mainstream media must bash China whenever they can.

Here is a case from another recent WSJ attempt to do just that:

On the day that Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui visited Moscow on the last leg of his European trip, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ran an article that completely contradicted the facts and even fabricated stories. Such behavior that attempted to impose its own views and practices on others is in fact obstructing the peaceful resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Facts have proven that blindly fueling the fire can only escalate the conflict and cause more harm to people.
The article began by stating that the Chinese envoy carried a clear message that "US allies in Europe should assert their autonomy and urge an immediate cease-fire, leaving Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbor that it now occupies," accusing China of trying to split the West.

However, what the WSJ received was a denial from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. On May 27, Kuleba said in a video message that after the article appeared, he immediately contacted his colleagues in the European capitals visited by Li. None of them confirmed that negotiations about what the WSJ suggested were held.

In response to this, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning stated on Monday that she noted that the Foreign Minister of Ukraine publicly said that he contacted other parties and no country said Li made the remarks reported by the WSJ.


That is some egg in the face of the WSJ editors. China bashing in the opinion sections is fine. But fake news, twice in one week, to make some editorial point, is not something that readers are willing to pay for.

Posted by b on May 29, 2023 at 17:09 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/e ... -fake.html

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The G7, Economic Coercion and the Art of Projection
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 29, 2023

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In this article for the Morning Star, Carlos Martinez addresses the “stunning hubris and hypocrisy of the imperialist powers” in accusing China of economic coercion. He points out that G7 states are all involved in multiple forms of economic coercion, and that the US is the world’s sanctions superpower, imposing unilateral economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries, affecting literally billions of people.

When it comes to economic coercion, China is not a perpetrator but a victim. Carlos writes: “What is the Trump-Biden trade war against China other than an attempt to use tariffs, sanctions, threats and penalties in order to contain China’s development; in order to force China’s government and companies to change their behaviour in order to better serve the interests of US capitalism rather than the Chinese people?”

The article also addresses the accusations about Chinese “debt traps” in Africa, citing numerous sources debunking this slanderous claim.

– Friends of Socialist China


The stunning hubris and hypocrisy of the imperialist powers was on full display in Hiroshima last weekend, with the G7 condemning China for a “disturbing rise” in its “weaponisation of economic vulnerabilities.”

Coercion is, after all, at the heart of what unites the countries of the G7 — a for-us-by-us club of rich nations with a collective interest in maintaining their place at the top of the geopolitical pyramid.

Each member state built its wealth to a significant degree on the basis of colonialism and the exploitation of the land, labour, resources and markets of the global South.

That the G7’s role in global affairs is to bolster the US-led so-called “international rules-based order” is amply confirmed by the 2014 exclusion of Russia following its intervention in Crimea.

Why wasn’t such an extraordinary measure taken in response to the illegal and genocidal war on Iraq? Or in response to the war of regime change against Muammar Gadaffi, during which Nato countries bombed Libya into the stone age?

Any thinking person can understand the basis of this double standard: that G7 membership is predicated on an acceptance of the US-led imperialist system.

The US is the global champion of economic coercion

The G7 states are all involved in multiple forms of economic coercion, and thus to accuse China of doing so is hypocritical in the extreme.

All G7 member states are currently imposing illegal, unilateral sanctions on Russia and Belarus. The US is applying unilateral sanctions against China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Eritrea, Zimbabwe and many other countries.

It is a sanctions superpower, “by far the world’s biggest deployer of unilateral coercive measures,” in the words of Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs.

According to the US Department of the Treasury’s 2021 Sanctions Review, sanctions designations have increased by a factor of 10 in the period from 2000.

The US imposes unilateral economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries, affecting literally billions of people.

Extraterritoriality and long-arm jurisdiction are used liberally by the US in order to inflict punishment on Iran, Venezuela, Russia and others.

It would be difficult to imagine a more flagrant example of economic coercion than the Helms-Burton Act, under which the US can penalise any company or country that doesn’t comply with its inhumane blockade of Cuba.

These sanctions have no legitimate basis in international law; they are only enforceable to the extent that the US has sufficient economic and military strength to enforce them. That is to say, the US is an international bully and a rogue state.

Furthermore, Western banks and Western-dominated multilateral lending institutions have a long history of issuing predatory loans, with conditions of privatisation and brutal austerity.

China a victim of economic coercion

China is not a perpetrator but a victim of economic coercion. What is the Trump-Biden trade war against China other than an attempt to use tariffs, sanctions, threats and penalties in order to contain China’s development; in order to force China’s government and companies to change their behaviour in order to better serve the interests of US capitalism rather than the Chinese people?

In an attempt to maintain a stranglehold on advanced semi-conductor technology, the Biden administration is implementing a full-spectrum strategy to prevent China from accessing chips made in the US or incorporating US intellectual property.

British economist Michael Roberts described the CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by Biden in August 2022, as “the next stage in a series of measures to weaken China’s tech capabilities and global influence,” to “crush China’s tech advancement.”

Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times that the aim of the chip war “is clearly to slow China’s economic development” and that the CHIPS and Science Act is an “act of economic warfare.”

A notable absurdity here is that Taiwan, a region of China, is forced to comply with the US sanctions regime, and therefore Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) — the world’s biggest semi-conductor manufacturer — has been forced to stop its exports to the companies on the US Entity List, including Huawei.

Meanwhile, disgruntled at China’s lead in the renewable energy sector, and under the pretext of slander about human rights abuses, the Biden administration has imposed sweeping sanctions on Chinese-manufactured solar energy materials.

This is peak capitalist dystopia, combining economic coercion, propaganda war and ecocide.

Debt trap debunked

It has become fashionable in recent years for Western politicians to accuse China of luring African and Latin American countries into a “debt trap.”

Such accusations are another part of a broader anti-China vilification campaign and have been easily disproved.

Even the most recent edition of the Economist noted that “this criticism is largely unfair” and that in fact “China has financed roads, ports, railways and other needed infrastructure, when private lenders and other countries were often unwilling to do so.”

Tim Jones, head of policy at the charity Debt Justice, said recently: “Western leaders blame China for debt crises in Africa, but this is a distraction. The truth is their own banks, asset managers and oil traders are far more responsible but the G7 are letting them off the hook. China took part in the G20’s debt suspension scheme during the pandemic, private lenders did not.”

China is a major source of finance to developing world countries, but unlike the West, China does not impose loan conditions of austerity and privatisation; its interest rates are typically around half those of Western banks; and it tends to be far more flexible in relation to renegotiation, restructuring and debt relief.

What’s more, the bulk of China’s loans are used to address the infrastructure gap in the developing world. Writing about Chinese lending to Africa, Johns Hopkins University researcher Deborah Brautigam has noted that Chinese loans are “performing a useful service: financing Africa’s serious infrastructure gap.

“On a continent where over 600 million Africans have no access to electricity, 40 per cent of the Chinese loans paid for power generation and transmission. Another 30 per cent went to modernising Africa’s crumbling transport infrastructure.”

Economic coercion this is not.

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” The G7 would do well to address its own shocking record of economic coercion before pointing fingers at China.

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:07 pm

MAY 31, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
China takes leadership role in Central Asia

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The First China-Central Asia Summit took place in the Chinese city of Xi’an, hosted by President Xi Jinping, May 18-19, 2023

One of the pleasures of the post-Cold War strategic discourses is that geopolitics is back with a bang. Earlier, the former Soviet Union and Communist China used to be in denial mode, as geopolitics didn’t fit into their Marxist-Leninist lens — although, arguably, Marx might have adapted himself a long time ago already.

The China-Central Asia Summit, which took place recently in Xi’an on May 18-19 was every bit a geopolitical event as much as the G7 summit in Hiroshima that it overlapped. The symbolism was profound. China and Russia were the elephants in the room for both summits but the Xi’an summit distinguished itself as an inclusive affair, whereas, the G7 event was, regrettably, an exclusive gathering of wealthy countries of the western world dripping with cold war-era animosities, and it didn’t hide its intentions even in its choice of “special invitees” — one ASEAN country; two BRICS countries; one tiny African state; a Pacific island etc. — borne out of the old colonial mindset of “divide and rule.”

The biggest difference was that the Xi’an summit was substantive and focused on a positive agenda that is quantifiable, while the Hiroshima summit was largely prescriptive and partly declarative and only marginally tangible. This was because the China-Central Asia summit took place on native soil while the G7 has no habitation and name in Asia except that one of the seven member countries is of Asian origin and the summit itself was a thinly-veiled attempt to insert the alien Western agenda into the Asian setting. In fact, the criterion for selecting the special invitees was itself based on the credentials of those chosen few to perform potentially as a fifth column for western interests in an Asian Century.

The China-Central Asia Summit was motivated by the growing realisation that the countries of the Eurasian region must play a proactive role in the common task of pushing back the United States, the driving force of the G7, which they perceive to be attempting to destabilise the common neighbourhood of Russia and China in Central Asia. Simply put, the Xi’an summit tacitly signalled that Russia and China are unitedly circling the wagons for a common purpose — to borrow an idiom which was employed by the Americans in the 19th century to describe a defensive manoeuvre.

From a historical perspective, it is for the first time ever that Russia and China are explicitly joining hands to stabilise the Central Asian region — a momentous happening by itself — with Beijing assuming a leadership role, given Russia’s preoccupations in Ukraine. This paradigm shift belies the western propaganda that Russian and Chinese interests collide in the Central Asian region. There is a strategic convergence between Moscow and Beijing that stability in Central Asian region, which is vital for both capitals in their own interests, is best achieved through ensuring security, boosting economic development or international political backing.

A well-known Russian think tanker at the Kremlin-funded Valdai Club in Moscow, Timofei Bordachev wrote in Global Times in the run-up to the Xi’an summit: “China and Russia are equally interested in the stability of Central Asia simply because they are directly neighbouring most of the states located in this part of Eurasia. It is as simple as the fact that you would not put on fire your neighbor’s house in order to hurt another neighbor. But if a certain power is located thousands of miles away from the common neighbourhood of Russia and China in Central Asia, it may well be betting on destabilising that region.

“The common task of China and Russia is to prevent this and make their friends and neighbours in Central Asia stable and relatively prosperous in today’s turbulent times… Whoever says that China’s and Russia’s interests in Central Asia may conflict with each other is not a friend of China, Russia or the countries of the region themselves.”

Equally, there is a consensus among the five Central Asian states to work together in a “5+1” format, which means that all crucial decisions and initiatives will be coordinated with all Central Asian states at the same time. On their part, the Central Asian partners recognise that the overall economic development of their region could get better if they strengthen their cooperation with China. Russia has played a key role here to encourage the Central Asian states to move in such a direction and play a proactive role. This itself is a marked departure as the five “Stans” have not always been able to work together, opting instead to engage with the biggest global players individually.

The participants of the Xi’an summit, which Chinese President Xi Jinping who hosted the event called a “new era” in his country’s relations with the region, agreed to create a mechanism for communication between the heads of post-Soviet states of Central Asia and China. The meetings will be held alternately every two years in the format of Central Asia – China. The next meeting of the six leaders is scheduled for 2025 in Kazakhstan. The Xi’an Declaration released after the summit includes 15 points, divided into several blocks of issues: security, logistics, trade and economic cooperation, humanitarian cooperation and ecology.

What emerges is that Beijing’s interest lies primarily in security considerations against the backdrop of the activities of extremist groups such as the Islamic State (which continues to get covert support from the US) that are operating out of Afghanistan. China’s thesis is that security is best strengthened through economic development and for that reason, therefore, the region is important from the point of view of economic cooperation and regional development — although in aggregate terms, Central Asian economic resources are nowhere near sufficient for meeting China’s needs.

Suffice to say, terrorist threats emanating from the region, posing threat to Xinjiang, are China’s main concern and Beijing is willing to openly invest its resources in the security of the region and take part in the training of the anti–terrorist forces of the Central Asian states. Geographically, three out of the five Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, share borders with China. As for Russia, it has long regarded the region as its traditional sphere of influence and a strategic buffer zone, and thus prioritised the security of its southern border. Therefore, a safe and secure Central Asia aligns with China and Russia’s respective national interests.

In the context of the Ukraine crisis, Central Asia has emerged as a frontline for the US strategy to contain and weaken Russia. However, although Central Asian countries have adopted a neutral stance on the Ukraine situation, Russia’s influence in the region remains strong and is unlikely to be largely disrupted. Three key factors are at work here. First, Russia is seen as the provider of security and Russia’s defence capabilities continue to play a crucial role in maintaining stability in the region. Second, Central Asian states heavily depend on Russia in regard of labor migration, market access, transportation, and energy resources, and no other outside power foots the bill. Third, do not underestimate that the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union continues to systematically build up regional economic integration.

The Xi’an Declaration talks about resisting religious extremism and attempts by external forces to impose their own rules on the region. President Xi said at the summit that Beijing is ready to help strengthen the capacity of law enforcement agencies and armed forces of the regional states, and promised to “support their independent efforts to ensure regional security and fight terrorism, as well as work with them to strengthen cybersecurity.” In addition, he said Beijing is working on the creation of a regional anti-terrorist centre in China to train the security forces of the Central Asian republics.

(A second part will follow.)

https://www.indianpunchline.com/china-t ... tral-asia/

JUNE 2, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
An “Axis of Seven” to supplement SCO

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Opening of Year of Culture and Art of the Peoples of China and Central Asia at the China-Central Asia Summit, Xi’an, May 18, 2023

The Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta carried a report on the eve of the China-Central Asia summit at Xi’an titled “China is changing the format of cooperation with Central Asia.” It anticipated that the six heads of state gathering in Xi’an on May 18-19 would be discussing the “creation of a new mechanism for cooperation in various fields and sign important political documents.”

The report recalled that the Xi’an summit ought to be viewed in the context of a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and the five heads of Central Asian States in Moscow on May 9 (Russia’s Victory Day.) The daily flagged the expert opinion that “a new ‘5+2’ axis is being formed (Central Asia plus China and Russia).” Evidently, although Putin was not present at the event in Xi’an, Russia’s interests have been taken into account.

The new “5 Plus 2 axis” being formed will have its own mechanisms and projections, which differ from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) or the Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union community. The Xi’an summit considered the possibility of institutionalising the Central Asia-China format through a Secretariat “in order to comprehensively promote cooperation… and the functioning of the relevant mechanisms.” Of course, given the top-down decision making characteristic of the Central Asian states, the mechanism of the Consultative Meetings of the Heads of State of the China-Central Asia format (to be held in alternate years) will be a key factor in ensuring security, stability and sustainable development of the region.

It is entirely conceivable that at a time when the SCO has tended to become more and more “abstract” after the induction of India into the grouping, and began meandering aimlessly, it stands to reason that China and the Central Asian states and Russia felt the need to create more effective mechanisms and plans in their common space so as to impart a new quality of cooperation, and supplement the SCO if need arises.

An element of rivalry has crept into the SCO’s functioning. India, in particular, needs to do some soul-searching here. Certainly, this was not what China and Russia had in mind in 2005 when they put together the Shanghai Five in 2005 (which later morphed into the SCO.) Consensus in decision-making was adopted as a core principle in the SCO’s functioning but lately, a competitive spirit to settle scores stemming out of bilateral differences and disputes crept in. The SCO foreign ministers meeting in Delhi recently witnessed an acrimonious India-Pakistan standoff that vitiated the “Shanghai Spirit,” even as the Central Asian states and Russia and China mutely watched.

There is the tragic example of SAARC which suffered a similar trauma during the recent decade that eventually rendered it a comatose ready for burial. But Russia and China cannot afford such a tragic fate visiting the SCO. The US’ double containment strategy toward Russia and China and the NATO’s imminent expansion to Asia make it critically important that a cohesive, motivated and well-coordinated regional cooperation process is available in their common space in Inner Asia.

So far, Russia was engaged in strengthening political integration, while China systematically and powerfully interacted with the governments of Central Asian countries for the development of energy and infrastructure projects within the framework of a full-fledged economic expansion. That division of labour worked rather well, but then, the regional security environment changed dramatically of late.

For example, it has become vital for Moscow in the context of the rupture of Russia’s energy ties with Europe to divert its oil and gas exports to the Chinese market, and that requires Central Asian infrastructure in transit mode — a novel idea altogether. Suffice to say, a high level of harmonisation and synchronisation of the national plans of the Central Asian countries is needed. Currently, there are no agreed common strategies in the Central Asian region, which has a population of 75 million. The Belt and Road project does not adequately take into account the interests of Russia and the interface with the Eurasian Economic Union projects cannot provide a sufficient level of interaction either, due to systemic weaknesses.

To be sure, in the run-up to the Xi’an summit, the heads of Central Asian countries carefully prepared for the event and have presented a significant package of proposals. Thus, the construction work on the highly strategic China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which will connect Xinjiang and Central Asia with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran is now poised to begin after a delay of some 20 years due to a squabble over the measurement of the width of rail tracks!

Unsurprisingly, aside regional security, the issue of connectivity was the one topic that received the greatest attention at the Xi’an summit, which involves improving the transport infrastructure along the China–Central Asia and China–Europe routes through Central Asia, as well as increasing the capacity of border checkpoints, all of which aim to create conditions for increasing cargo and passenger traffic.

A positive factor is that Kazakhstan’s engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is deepening. China and Kazakhstan are effectively implementing a list of 52 BRI investment projects with a total amount of more than $21 billion, covering transportation and logistics, industry and agriculture, energy, tourism and other fields. Two of the six BRI corridors pass through Kazakhstan connecting China respectively to Europe and to Iran and West Asia. These BRI corridors are important for most of the Central Asian economies for whom China offers the closest sea port. That in turn makes Kazakhstan a potential hub for accessing Central Asia.

The summit at Xi’an also noted the importance of launching the Kazakh-Chinese railway Ayaguz – Tacheng and called for the accelerated construction of the fourth line of the Turkmenistan–China gas pipeline. There are many kinds of mineral resources and large reserves in Tacheng area — coal, granite, gold, copper, iron ore and other mineral resources in the area where the railway under construction crosses.

On the sideline of the Xi’an summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping held meetings with each of the five leaders of the Central Asian region. On the eve of the summit in Xi’an, Chinese media called Central Asia the “gateway” for the Belt and Road project, which Xi had originally unveiled from Kazakhstan in 2013. There has been a great deal of scare mongering over Belt and Road by the US and India in the information sphere but that doesn’t seem to have affected the Central Asian states. It is symbolic that Beijing took the initiative to hold the first China-Central Asia Summit on the 10th anniversary of Belt and Road Initiative.

Equally, China hopes to link Pakistan and Afghanistan with the BRI infrastructure projects in Central Asia. As a first step, China and Pakistan recently agreed to extend the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan. This has been the main achievement of the Pakistan-Afghanistan-China ministerial held in Islamabad on May 5, a fortnight before the China-Central Asia Summit in Xi’an. Quite obviously, the momentum of the China-Central Asia format will not be optimal unless China also doubles down on its engagement with the Taliban government in Kabul.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/an-axis ... ement-sco/

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China’s modernization is directed toward common prosperity for all
In the following article, originally written in early February 2023, our co-editor Keith Bennett argues that whilst modernization is a common aspiration of humanity, China’s course of socialist modernization, which will more than double the number of people living in modernized societies, offers a fundamentally different paradigm to that of the global minority who led the first wave of modernization beginning with the industrial revolution. China’s modernization, Keith argues, “represents something fundamentally new – something that moreover will come to be seen as a trail blazer for the only modernization that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable.”

China’s modernization aims to achieve common prosperity for all whereas, in the developed capitalist countries, “even after hundreds of years, not only does the gap between rich and poor remain, does the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer persist, they are once again being exacerbated and becoming acute.”

And whilst the capitalist countries laid the basis for their development through what Xi Jinping has described as the, “brutal and blood-stained path of enrichment at the expense of others”, a process graphically described by Marx in Volume One of Capital, China is sharing the lessons and opportunities of its socialist modernization through programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative.

An abbreviated version of the article was published in the People’s Daily on May 29, 2023.
The process of modernization, as it is generally understood today, essentially began with the development of first Great Britain, and then some other countries in Western Europe, as well as the United States, in the nineteenth century with the industrial revolution. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan became the first non-white nation to join this historical process.

In the contemporary world, the realization of modernization has become a universal aspiration of humanity. Yet it remains a goal attained by just a minority of the world’s population. It is in this context that we must begin to see the significance of Xi Jinping’s statement, in his report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last October that, “from this day forward, the central task” would be to lead the people towards the Second Centenary Goal of “building China into a great modern socialist in all respects”. He explained that this central task entailed:

The modernization of a huge population.
The modernization of common prosperity for all.
The modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement.
The modernization of harmony between humanity and nature.
The modernization of peaceful development.

From this five-point summary, one can see that, whilst modernization is a global process and a universal aspiration, it can take and assume radically different forms. So, whilst China’s socialist modernization shares some characteristics with the path trod by western capitalist nations, it has more differences than similarities. It represents something fundamentally new – something that moreover will come to be seen as a trail blazer for the only modernization that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable. The Chinese leader’s thesis on modernization is a significant component of Xi Jinping Thought and as such even a cursory study of its significance will highlight both that it is thoroughly grounded in the scientific socialist tradition and also that it constitutes Marxism for the 21st century.

As already mentioned, so far modernization has only been achieved by a minority of, overwhelmingly white, nations. In terms of scale alone, therefore, China’s modernization will more than double the percentage of the world’s population living in modernized societies. As such, it will profoundly change, and indeed revolutionize, global society and economy, and hence the prospects and possibilities for those nations and peoples still facing existential questions of development. Already, China’s elimination of extreme poverty represents by far the greatest contribution to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG). As Xi Jinping put it in his report to the 19th Party Congress in 2017, socialism with Chinese characteristics “offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence.”

The comprehensive and unique character of China’s socialist modernization is further illustrated in Xi’s second point – that it is modernization of common prosperity for all.

As Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping made clear, common prosperity is an intrinsic requirement and essential feature of developed socialism. In the first stage of China’s reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping elucidated that some people should be allowed to get rich first. The overall effect was to very substantially raise the standard of living and quality of life for the overwhelming majority of the population. However, the inequalities generated went too far and in some instances became quite egregious. This generated problems not simply across the nation as a whole, but also, for example in terms of sometimes glaring regional disparities. Nevertheless, Deng himself was always crystal clear that the purpose of allowing some to get rich first was solely as a step towards the long-term goal of realizing common prosperity for all. And, as complex and tough as that process undoubtedly is, China is now making steady progress in that direction.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the urban-rural wealth gap has kept narrowing ever since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012. In 2021, disposable income in urban areas was 2.5 times that in rural areas, compared with 2.88 times in 2012. This progress was registered after China successfully pulled the remaining 100 million rural residents out of the World Bank’s definition of absolute poverty over the decade since 2012. China has also managed to create the world’s largest social safety net, even if a great deal remains to be done to improve and perfect it. The basic old age insurance program, China’s pension fund system, has expanded since 2012 to cover 1.04 billion people. The coverage of unemployment benefits and work injury insurance also soared, reaching 230 million and 290 million people respectively.

On a world-wide scale, the fact that China’s modernization is modernization of peaceful development is the most fundamental point of all and provides the starkest contrast with the capitalist road to modernization. The basis for this latter was poignantly and succinctly summarized by the founder of scientific socialism in the nineteenth century. In Chapter 31 of Volume One of his most seminal work, Capital, Karl Marx wrote:

“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.”

Addressing the Oxford Union in 2015, the Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor noted: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23%. By the time the British left it was down to 4%. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. In fact, Britain’s industrial revolution was actually premised on the deindustrialization of India.”

It is this law of capitalist development uncovered by Marx that led Lenin to define as an essential feature of capitalist society the division of the world into a small handful of oppressor nations on the one hand and a great mass of oppressed nations on the other. It is precisely as a result of this division that the majority of humanity has still to achieve modernization.

Yet, the fact that the key developed nations to a great extent built their modernization on the blood and bones of the global majority does not mean that they have been able to achieve common prosperity for all at home. Even after hundreds of years, not only does the gap between rich and poor remain, does the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer persist, they are once again being exacerbated and becoming acute. That is why Britain is currently experiencing a wave of strikes, unprecedented in recent decades, as workers from the most diverse sectors often demand not pay increases in real terms but simply amelioration of the decline in their real wage levels as a result of years of austerity culminating in record inflation. Meanwhile, multimillionaire ministers in the Conservative government are forced to resign when their avoidance of millions of pounds in tax obligations are exposed to the light of day.

Outlining China’s line of march to modernization at the 20th Party Congress, Xi Jinping stressed: “In pursuing modernization, China will not tread the old path of war, colonization, and plunder taken by some countries. That brutal and blood-stained path of enrichment at the expense of others caused great suffering for the people of developing countries. We will stand firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress.”

China’s realization of common prosperity for all, its more than doubling of the number of people living in modernized societies, and its contributions to global modernization through such means as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative constitute the path to the realization of humanity’s community of shared future. It is a fundamentally different paradigm for modernization.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/05/31/c ... y-for-all/

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US outcry over Micron ban is hypocritical in the extreme
In the following article, which originally appeared on RT, Timur Fomenko points to the obscene hypocrisy of the US in its trade relationship with China. Washington affords itself the right to impose sanctions on companies such as Huawei and Tiktok, and to prevent the export of the most advanced semiconductor technology to China; however, when China takes a reciprocal action – albeit in a much smaller scale – by banning Micron chips from key infrastructure projects, this is labelled as an outrageous violation of the principles of free trade and fair play.

The author notes that the US’s willingness to trade with China is predicated on the latter playing by Washington’s rules. “The US, of course, loves the idea of trade with China and its markets, as long as such trade is conducted entirely according to Washington’s preferences.” But the century of humiliation is long over, and the Chinese people are not willing to be subjected to a position of subservience vis-a-vis US imperialism.
China recently restricted chips made by US semiconductor firm Micron from being used in its national infrastructure, branding them a “national security threat”.

The language and rationale of such a move should sound familiar, because it’s precisely what the US has been doing over the past few years in blacklisting Chinese technology companies and pushing allies to do the same. “You can’t trust having Huawei in your 5G infrastructure” was the general line used by Washington officials. According to them, and to Western media repeating this line, all kinds of Chinese technology constitutes an “espionage risk,” from TikTok to balloons to fridges.

So based on this treatment of Chinese companies by the US, it was only a matter of time before Beijing struck back. And one might think that if Washington was willing to use “national security” as a pretext for market exclusion, it would be acceptable for China to the same. Only fair, right?

Apparently not. Despite the brutal restrictions the US has placed on Chinese technology, which have also included blacklisting its entire semiconductor industry and forcing third-party countries to follow suit, the US reacted with outrage to Beijing’s announcement and accused it of “having no basis in fact.” Not only that, but Washington then further claimed that the move was evidence that China’s regulatory environment was “unreliable” and that the country was no longer committed to “reform and opening up.”

The US can somehow say this with a straight face. Washington is entitled to restrict Chinese firms on an industrial scale, but when Beijing does the same, even on a marginal level, then it’s evidence that China is not reliable for investment. Even as microchip firms point out the damage that disastrous policies of the US are causing, Washington seems to have either no self-awareness, or an extreme sense of self-entitlement, which, as has been discussed many times, gives it the almost divine right to impose on others rules it doesn’t feel obliged to follow itself.

This is an indication of how the US sees its right to exploit China’s own markets. American ties with China have always been conditional, on the premise that Beijing would gradually transform its political system and economy to fall in line with US preferences. In the 1980s and 1990s, during China’s era of “reform and opening up,” the US believed – due to its ideological overconfidence after its victory in the Cold War – that China was changing and was destined to reform.

In this light, free market economics was seen as an evangelically transformative force which, with the onset of capitalism, naturally led to liberal democracy. Thus, there was never a premise of “engaging” China on its own terms, it always had to “lead” to something. By the 2010s, it became clear that this was not going to happen. Not only did China’s political system not change, but its economic trajectory and industries continued to grow in a way which threatened the foundations of American hegemony. US foreign policy subsequently shifted to now trying to “force” China to change and containing it.

The US, of course, loves the idea of trade with China and its markets, as long as such trade is conducted entirely according to Washington’s preferences. That is, to have China’s market to exploit as a subordinate to the US, and to prevent China from having its own world-leading industries. This mindset has created a visible contradiction in political rhetoric: that China “must” open up its markets more for Western goods, but at the same time must be locked out of Western markets in certain areas. China’s resistance to this is decried as so-called “unfair” economic practices.

Because of this, the only kind of “engagement” the US wants with China is that which is completely one-sided, such as being forced to order $200 billion in US farm goods per annum (as Trump envisioned), but being banned from the US semiconductor market. This is also why the US demands that even as its own companies lose market share in China, other countries, like South Korea, should have no right to take up that lost share.

The US is not interested in compromise, only capitulation. Thus, trade with China is really only conditional on either ideological transformation, or if that fails, a surrender to total exploitation, turning China into a neoliberal state which is completely open and gutted of industries, possibly complete with a small clique of very wealthy pro-Western oligarchs who sell out the country.

The US-China economic relationship is directed, on Washington’s side, by a sense of ideological entitlement. We can blacklist your companies and even coercively ban third countries from using any Chinese technology, but don’t even think about limiting one of our own firms. Or else.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/06/01/u ... e-extreme/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:15 pm

evolution and counterrevolution: Remembering Tiananmen 34 years later
Amanda YeeJune 3, 2023

This June 4 marks the 34th anniversary of what is known in the United States as the Tiananmen “massacre.”

The story we are typically told in the West is that young student activists had gathered in Tiananmen Square, uniting around the liberal demands of democracy and freedom, bravely defying the repressive Chinese government. After weeks of these ongoing protests, the Communist Party of China had had enough and cracked down on the peaceful protesters. As the story goes, in the early morning hours of June 4, 1989, People’s Liberation Army tanks rolled into the square. They were said to be indiscriminately shooting and mowing down innocent, unarmed protesters, killing thousands.

To put it simply, this particular understanding of a “massacre” of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4 is a fabrication, the mythology of which has been exploited by the West for over 30 years as evidence of the ruthless, authoritarian nature of the CPC to justify imperialist aggression against China.

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The iconic “tank man”

Even the story of the “tank man”— the most iconic image to come out of the event and has become a metonym for the Tiananmen massacre itself—has been deliberately manipulated by the U.S. media machine in the service of its anti-China propaganda effort. For one, the photo was taken on the morning of June 5, not June 4, so the military tanks were actually leaving the square. And second, the man in the photo was not run over by the tanks as implied by the image. The full video shows that after a few seconds of the stand-off, the tank attempts several times to swerve around the man, but he manages to keep stepping in its way blocking its path. Finally, the man climbs on top of the tank, looks to speak to the driver for a few minutes, before finally climbing off and eventually jumping in front of the tank’s path again. The standoff continues for another few seconds, before the man is finally pulled away by a group of civilians.

The truth of the 1989 Tiananmen protests is far more complex than the simple rendering of an authoritarian Chinese government cracking down unprovoked on pro-democracy protesters—it’s a story of societal divisions unresolved from the Cultural Revolution which bled into the “reform and opening up” policy implemented under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, finally erupting into the the seven-week long occupation of Tiananmen Square. It is also a story of the internal and external contradictions the Communist Party of China found itself navigating as it embarked on economic development.

1966-1976: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

To fully understand the Tiananmen protests, we need to lay out the economic conditions and emerging ideological undercurrents which laid the foundations for them. In 1966, Mao along with close allies in the leadership of the Communist Party like Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan (known as the Gang of Four), launched what is known in China as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This triggered a decade long struggle within the CPC between their faction—which sought to prevent China and the international communist movement from going down the path of what they saw as Soviet revisionism that strayed from the revolutionary principles of Marxism—and who they called the “capitalist roaders” led by Deng Xiaoping.

It’s important to note here that both factions of the CPC feared counterrevolution and recognized the necessity of economic development in order to overcome the legacy of its century of domination by colonial powers, but differed in their assessment of how to achieve it. Mao favored the continuation of a fully planned economy. He feared a new local bourgeoisie would develop as a result of opening up China to the global capitalist economy, and that it would bring with it counterrevolution. Deng, on the other hand, recognized these risks but was willing to take the gamble—by granting access to its domestic market and cheap labor pool, China would in exchange receive access to Western technology, allowing it to develop the productive capacity of its economy. Deng saw no other option but to walk that tightrope to achieve modernization.

Mao saw the Cultural Revolution as a continuation of the class struggle. The ten-year campaign not only targeted those seen as revisionists and counterrevolutionaries both inside and outside the party, but also attempted to bridge the divide between the rural and urban populations. The political tumultuousness and social upheaval of the period is well known, but less acknowledged are its achievements, particularly in education reform and expansion of medical care into the rural sectors of society. At the time, 80% of the Chinese population lived in the rural areas, and most of them were illiterate. The Cultural Revolution saw expansion of primary school education and development of railways and other infrastructure to these areas. During this period, college entrance exams were suspended, and instead, high school graduates were sent to the countryside to do work and learn from local populations.

Despite these achievements, the rural-urban class divide still remained, and these antagonisms would intensify in the lead-up to, and during, the Tiananmen protests.

1976-1978: Death of Mao and path to reform

After a decade, the Cultural Revolution ended with Mao’s death in 1976. In December of 1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, the CPC met and adopted the “Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People’s Republic of China” to reckon with and correct what they saw as the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution, and to officially set the party on the path to reform. Recognizing the Cultural Revolution as a “severe setback,” this resolution placed the responsibility for its excesses on Mao, but did not repudiate him. It argued Mao made grave mistakes during the later years of his life, but what he contributed to China and the CPC far outweighed whatever missteps he took.

With this resolution came a reevaluation of the priorities of the revolution. Whereas Mao had previously identified the class struggle — of which the Cultural Revolution was the culmination — as the principal contradiction, the CPC now contended that China had advanced past this stage, as the “exploiters have been eliminated as classes.” While elements of class struggle still remained, the principal contradiction was now of backward social productivity versus people’s material needs. This resolution concluded:

After socialist transformation was fundamentally completed, the principal contradiction our country has had to resolve is that between the growing material and cultural needs of the people and the backwardness of social production. It was imperative that the focus of Party and government work be shifted to socialist modernization centering on economic construction and that the people’s material and cultural life be gradually improved by means of an immense expansion of the productive forces. In the final analysis, the mistake we made in the past was that we failed to persevere in making this strategic shift. What is more, the preposterous view opposing the so-called “theory of the unique importance of productive forces,” a view diametrically opposed to historical materialism, was put forward during the “cultural revolution”… All our Party work must be subordinated to and serve this central task — economic construction. All our Party cadres, and particularly those in economic departments, must diligently study economic theory and economic practice as well as science and technology.

Thus, the CPC embarked on the road to combine its planned economy with a market-based one in order to, in Deng’s words, “liberate the productive forces and speed up economic growth,” so that the people of China would one day achieve common prosperity.

1980-1989: Reform and Opening-Up era

Under Deng’s leadership, the CPC officially launched its “Reform and Opening-Up” program in 1980 to reboost an economy devastated by the Cultural Revolution and speed up modernization to build its productive forces. During this period, China integrated itself into the world economy abroad, while scaling back social welfare programs and implementing economic liberalization policies domestically.

The “reforms” included domestic policies to boost economic productivity. The government’s “iron rice bowl” safety net was gradually chipped away, jobs were no longer guaranteed by the government, and the centrally planned economy was transformed into more of a market-oriented one, while retaining some level of state control. In the rural areas, communes were decollectivized, with the collective farming system converted into a “household responsibility system” which “allowed households to contract land, machinery, and other facilities from collective organizations.” The households could make independent operating decisions within the confines of their contract, which allowed farmers to financially benefit from their crops. Farmer incomes and agricultural prices were raised to encourage consumption in the rural areas and help further close the rural-urban income gap. Crop yields increased significantly during this period, adding another major boon for farmers. Urban reforms included decentralizing state industrial management and reforming state-owned enterprises to grant them some level of business independence and autonomy, and the lifting of price controls on staple foods and agricultural commodities.

The “opening up” included the implementation of Deng’s “Open Door Policy,” which allowed for foreign business investment into the country in exchange for access to China’s cheap labor pool and the promise of super-profits. A degree of risk was always present in the pursuit of these economic policies. They opened up China to foreign investment and foreign technology transfer to allow it to overcome its poverty and underdevelopment but, as predicted, a capitalist class emerged. Along with that came a new bourgeois ideology, producing social forces hostile to socialism. Now a segment of society, particularly students and intellectuals, increasingly looked westward to the United States and its institutions as an aspirational political model.

Liu Xiaobo — one of the most vocal activists during the Tiananmen protests who later won the Nobel Peace Prize — relayed such pro-colonialist aspirations in a 1988 interview when he firmly stated, “To choose Westernization is to choose to be human.” In another 1988 statement Liu similarly asserted, “It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China, certainly it would need 300 years of colonization for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough.”

Of this political shift among China’s intellectuals, Li Minqi, a Chinese political economist who also participated in the Tiananmen protests as a student, wrote, “[A]mong the intellectuals, there was a sharp turn to the right … Many regarded Mao Zedong himself as an ignorant, backward Chinese peasant who turned into a cruel, power-hungry despot who had been responsible for the killing of tens of millions. The politically active intellectuals no longer borrowed discourse from Marxism. Instead, western classical liberalism and neoliberal economics, as represented by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, had become the new, fashionable ideology.”

For his part, Deng anticipated and warned of these kinds of bourgeois ideological undercurrents, which would later feature so prominently among the student protesters at the 1989 Tiananmen protests. In 1985, he stated matter-of-factly, “Since the downfall of the Gang of Four an ideological trend has appeared that we call bourgeois liberalization. Its exponents worship the ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ of the Western capitalist countries and reject socialism. This cannot be allowed. China must modernize; it must absolutely not liberalize or take the capitalist road, as countries of the West have done.”

Though Deng saw the necessity of employing “the mechanisms of the marketplace to develop its productive economy” for the time being, the goal of socialism remained. Deng argues that the development of production would, in time, lead to common prosperity for the people.

1989: The Tiananmen Square protests

It was these legacies of the Cultural Revolution and the economic liberalization reforms which would provide the social basis for the Tiananmen protests. On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang, former General Secretary of the CPC and one of the more radical advocates of the free market program, suffered a heart attack and died suddenly. Hu was one of the leaders of the “Boluan Fanzheng” (translated as “to eliminate chaos, and return to normality”) campaign which reversed many policies of the Cultural Revolution. It was the Boluan Fanzheng policy which saw the reopening of universities closed during that ten-year period, as well as the reopening of college entrance exams, granting students a pathway to higher education again. He also exonerated a number of intellectuals persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. For these reasons, Hu was a beloved figure among students and intellectuals.

Over the next few days, university students mourned Hu’s death and held rallies in his honor, marching to Tiananmen Square to place flowers for him at the Monument to the People’s Heroes. These rallies then evolved into protests for further economic and political reform, turning into an occupation of the square which lasted seven weeks until June 4, in what we now know as the Tiananmen protests.

The demands in the beginning of the protests were mostly related to the lifting of price controls, inflation, and labor market competition. The lifting of price controls led to price hikes on staple foods and commodities for those in urban areas. This was a boon to rural businesses and farmers, but in the cities this intensified an existing inflation and cost of living crisis. Urban workers’ wages were not keeping pace with this inflation, which had reached a staggering 18% by 1989. It was for these reasons that a significant number of workers eventually joined the students in the protests in Tiananmen.

Demands also revolved around ending corruption within the CPC, as some party members used their political leverage to become the earliest capitalists, enriching themselves. The student protesters especially resented those in the party who with the right connections were able to attain the few higher level jobs that existed. While the 1980s saw an expansion of higher education, most jobs at that time were still in low-end manufacturing, which didn’t appeal to university students.

But sharp class divisions were evident among those in the square, and tensions existed between student and worker protesters. Though they were eager to grow their numbers and enlist support, the student protesters shunned and looked down upon the urban workers, and the two segments were often segregated at Tiananmen. Student leaders insisted that the workers stay off the main part of the square, in order to keep the democracy movement, in their eyes, “pure.”

The student leaders of the protests were not shy in voicing their contempt for the workers. In an interview for The New York Times, Wang Dan, a 20-year-old history student at Beijing University who was one of the most prominent student leaders in the square, stated bluntly that the movement was not yet ready for worker participation. According to him, “Democracy must first be absorbed by students and intellectuals before they can be spread to others.”

Li Minqi similarly wrote of these elitist attitudes felt among the students in his later reflection of the protests:

As the student demonstrations grew, workers in Beijing began to pour onto the streets in support of the students, who were, of course, delighted. However, being an economics student, I could not help experiencing a deep sense of irony. On the one hand, these workers were the people that we considered to be passive, obedient, ignorant, lazy, and stupid. Yet now they were coming out to support us. On the other hand, just weeks before, we were enthusiastically advocating “reform” programs that would shut down all state factories and leave the workers unemployed. I asked myself: do these workers really know who they are supporting?

Indeed, the demands put forth by the protests overall were often diverse and, at times, at odds with one another. Workers were critical of Deng’s economic liberalization policies, as they bore the brunt of their negative impacts. Inspired by the emerging capitalist class in China, the students demanded an acceleration of these reforms, yet were also protesting the very consequences these reforms brought — corruption, inflation, and skyrocketing cost of living. And of course, the vague demands of “democracy” adopted by the students and intellectuals reflected the nascent “bourgeois liberalization” political orientation that Deng had previously warned of.

And while worker participation in the protests was certainly not insignificant, it should be noted that the political character of a movement is not determined by the individual ideologies of the participants — it is determined by the movement’s leadership. It was the student protesters with their pro-Western orientation, signs written in English and cries for bourgeois democracy that received the most international media attention and the most resources. They refused to cede or even share leadership with urban workers.

Over time due to this media amplification, it was the student leaders’ demands that became synonymous with the movement itself. Reporters from NBC, BBC, ABC, and Voice of America had a consistent presence throughout the protests and covered them extensively. The U.S.-funded propaganda arm VOA, in particular, had an especially heavy presence in Tiananmen, with one correspondent recalling, “VOA was extremely popular on the square, with students holding up radios so crowds could hear our Mandarin-language newscasts. Others transcribed our stories and posted them on electrical poles around the city.”

As time passed, the actions, along with the demands, began to escalate as student leaders became more and more hardline and radicalized. In mid-May, the student leaders organized mass hunger strikes to coincide with the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, then-leader of the Soviet Union. The hunger strikes prevented the Chinese government from welcoming Gorbachev in Tiananmen Square. The protests paralyzed the city and alarmingly created fissures and power struggles within the CPC. Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang openly expressed sympathy toward the student protesters, even visiting them in the square as a show of support. Premier Li Peng finally declared martial law on May 20, further radicalizing the students.

Many protesters defied martial law and chose to remain in the square. In late May, to further pander to Western sympathies, the students built and erected a 30-foot “Goddess of Democracy” statue, bearing a striking resemblance to the Statue of Liberty, attracting international attention.

There was undoubtedly CIA involvement in the protests, but the full extent remains unclear to this day. According to a Vancouver Sun article from September 17, 1992, the CIA had sources among protesters and within Chinese intelligence services, and it was assisting students in organizing the anti-government movement by providing support in the form of typewriters and other equipment. Chinese officials at the time also accused U.S. diplomats and CIA agents of “collecting intelligence aggressively” during the protests, and Zhao was later arrested and charged as having connections to U.S. intelligence.

Given what we do know about CIA involvement in other socialist countries during the Cold War, however, we can safely assume there was some level of U.S. intelligence at least attempting to steer the direction of the student demonstrations. Soon, what were demands to control inflation turned into calls to overthrow the CPC entirely, with some leaders even going so far as calling for bloodshed.

In a now infamous tearful interview, 23-year-old student protest leader Chai Ling, who was considered “commander-in-chief” of the square, tells a BBC reporter:

The students keep asking, “What should we do next? What can we accomplish?” I feel so sad, because how can I tell them that what we are actually hoping for is bloodshed, for the moment when the government has no choice but to brazenly butcher the people. Only when the square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes. Only then will they really be united.

It’s worth noting here that by the time of this interview, Chai had already secured a visa to the U.S. as part of the CIA’s Operation Yellowbird mission, which secretly smuggled hundreds of student dissidents out of China. She would not even be around for the bloodshed she was calling for. After their arrival into the States, student leaders like Chai would then be thrust into the media spotlight, meeting with politicians and used as propaganda tools to cement the mythology around the so-called June 4th massacre.

Up until that point, the response to the demonstrations on the part of the CPC had been remarkably restrained throughout. But It was clear that without decisive action, the protests had the potential to escalate even further, bringing about the very real threat of civil war or even toppling the Chinese government.

June 4, 1989: myth vs. reality

As the story goes, the protesters continue to defy martial law, and finally, having had enough, the CPC orders the People’s Liberation Army to clear Tiananmen. According to this story, in the early morning hours of June 4, PLA tanks roll into the square, indiscriminately mowing down peaceful, unarmed demonstrators in a bloody crackdown. The “massacre” narrative is as sensationalist as it is incontestable: supposed eyewitness accounts tell tales of student protesters linking arms only to be run over repeatedly by military vehicles, remains of protesters incinerated and then washed down drains, of students begging for their lives only to be bayoneted by soldiers. Some Western reports estimate as many as 10,000 killed.

But there was no such massacre in Tiananmen Square. By that time, most of the protesters had left the square, and the ones who remained left peacefully after negotiating with the army.

A leaked diplomatic U.S. cable sent around that time confirms there was no such bloodshed in the square. “They [student protesters] were able to enter and leave the square several times and were not harassed by troops,” the cable reads. “Remaining with students by the Monument to the People’s Heroes until the final withdrawal, the diplomat said there were no mass shootings of students in the square or at the monument.”

Other eyewitness accounts from on-the-ground journalists corroborate this. CBS News correspondent Richard Roth, who covered the protests, later wrote, “There were some tanks and armored personnel carriers. But we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a ‘massacre’ had recently occurred in that place.”

Likewise, Jay Matthews, who traveled to Beijing to cover the protests for The Washington Post, wrote in 1998, “The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square. A few people may have been killed by random shooting on streets near the square, but all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully.”

Reporter Nicholas Kristoff, then-Beijing correspondent for The New York Times, similarly disputed the account, printed in the Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po, of PLA troops attacking students in Tiananmen:

The central theme of the Wen Wei Po article was that troops subsequently beat and machine-gunned students in the area around the monument [Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen] and that a line of armored vehicles cut off their retreat. But the witnesses say that armored vehicles did not surround the monument — they stayed at the north end of the square — and that troops did not attack students clustered around the monument. Several other foreign journalists were near the monument that night as well and none are known to have reported that students were attacked around the monument.

Street fighting on the night of June 3

While these journalists refute the narrative of a Tiananmen “massacre,” most of them do acknowledge that street fighting had occurred the night of June 3 in other parts of Beijing, albeit under different circumstances. This is consistent with Chinese government accounts of the events.

On June 2, the CPC decided to clear Tiananmen Square. On the night of June 3, PLA tanks pushed into Beijing, with clashes occurring in the neighborhoods of Muxidi, Gongzhufen, and along Chang’an Avenue. These clashes occurred outside of Tiananmen, so while there were some students involved, they were relatively few in number. Armed with Molotov cocktails, workers and civilians stopped and attacked trucks of soldiers, seizing weapons to use against the soldiers. Tanks were set ablaze by the rioters with soldiers still inside. Some soldiers were even lynched.

A Wall Street Journal article from June 5, 1989 recounts, “As columns of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers approached Tiananmen, many troops were set on by angry mobs who screamed, ‘Fascists.’ Dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten and left for dead. At an intersection west of the square, the body of a young soldier, who had been beaten to death, was stripped naked and hung from the side of a bus. Another soldier’s corpse was strung up at an intersection east of the square.”

Journalist David Aikman recalls, “In some places, soldiers were stripped almost naked, chased or struck by angry citizens. Other injured troops had difficulty getting to hospitals as mobs deflated or slashed the tires of military ambulances.”

According to official Chinese government figures, the number of people killed in these clashes totaled 241, a figure which includes PLA soldiers.

June 3 reveals historical legacies of Chinese socialist path

One might ask why these details matter. After all, people were killed during that time — what is the significance of the exact location, or how many?

The details matter because they present a narrative not so easily co-optable by Western press in the service of its imperialist aims. For one, the reality of the street fighting disrupts the popular understanding of the military attacking “non-violent” protesters — it is this characterization of “nonviolence” which is crucial to evoking Western sympathy. The workers involved in these protests and clashes came from factories, steel mills, railway yards and construction companies, and they did not have the level of higher education that the student protesters did. They did not draw the same level of attention from Western press as the highly educated, pro-Western student leaders, who their university-educated counterparts in the U.S. could identify with and see themselves in. It is this status of untainted victimhood which mobilizes support for foreign intervention.

The details also present a story of what were, at the time, the contemporary realities and historical legacies of the Chinese socialist path. The night of June 3 saw an eruption of class antagonisms and deep societal divisions from the Cultural Revolution never fully resolved — and in fact, heightened — by the policies of the Reform and Opening-Up era. PLA soldiers, for instance, were mainly recruited from the countryside where the CPC drew a large base of support and where there were many beneficiaries of Cultural Revolution and reform policies. Many urban workers and middle class students and intellectuals suffered many negative impacts of these policies (albeit unevenly) — such as inflation, job precarity and high cost of living. These clashes, then, can be understood as spontaneous expressions of these long-standing divisions.

These deaths are a tragedy, and are understood in China as such. But they should be recognized as part of the tragic complexities of a nation attempting to overthrow the yoke of a century of underdevelopment and subjugation, and to assert its own sovereignty. That the West manipulates the details and fabricates its own mythology around what happened only speaks to its own self-serving imperialist ambitions.

The Tiananmen protests as a counterrevolutionary force

Again, the class character of a movement is determined not by the individual make-up of its participants, but by its leadership. Workers may have been active during the demonstrations, but the student leadership had a bourgeois, pro-capitalist orientation. It’s clear from the students’ contempt for and behavior toward the workers at Tiananmen alone that their goals did not lie in advancing the interests of the broad masses of people.

For Western imperialists, Deng’s reforms were not enough — they wanted unfettered access to China’s markets and resources so that the country became a neocolony of the United States. Around the same time as the Tiananmen protests, anti-communist and counterrevolutionary revolts were spreading across Eastern Europe. One only needs to look toward the collapse of the Soviet Union just a few years later to understand the stakes of Tiananmen in 1989. If these anti-government forces had succeeded, China would have been thrust back decades in its economic and socialist development. An overthrow of the CPC would have resulted in the kind of “shock therapy” capitalist reforms that devastated the former USSR applied to China’s 1.1 billion people. The ensuing poverty, disease and starvation would have been massive.

It was at Tiananmen that the unresolved contradictions from the Cultural Revolution and the Reform and Opening-Up period were unleashed — this much is true. But in the end, the final confrontation was between revolution and counterrevolution, and the outcome has had profound consequences that continue to shape the world today.

https://www.liberationnews.org/revoluti ... rationnews

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China's reunification is 'overriding historical trend'
By Jiang Chenglong | China Daily | Updated: 2023-06-05 07:12

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State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu delivers a speech on Sunday at the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. VINCENT THIAN/AP

The root causes of tensions across the Taiwan Strait lie with some external forces and "Taiwan independence" separatist forces, both of which are exploiting each other, State Councilor and Defense Minister Li Shangfu said on Sunday, as he warned that the Chinese military will not hesitate if anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China.

"Who is undermining stability across the Taiwan Strait? The answer is known to all," Li said at a plenary session of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, attended by delegations from more than 40 countries.

People around the world can see clearly that the root causes of tensions across the Strait are the island's Democratic Progressive Party authorities soliciting foreign support for "independence", and some foreign forces' attempting to use Taiwan to contain China and interfering in China's internal affairs, Li said.

He said that DPP authorities deny the 1992 Consensus and have continuously pushed for incremental "Taiwan independence", adding that they have tried hard to erase the Chinese identity of Taiwan, and manipulated and hijacked public opinion.

Meanwhile, "some big power "has repeatedly sold arms to Taiwan, provided military training assistance and upgraded official exchanges, said the defense chief, noting that such moves greatly violate its own promises.

On Saturday, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in his speech at the forum that the US opposes unilateral changes to the status quo of the Taiwan Strait.

On the same day, the US destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Montreal passed through the Taiwan Strait. They were followed and monitored by the Chinese military, which responded in accordance with the law and regulations, according to a military spokesman.

Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesman for the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command, in a statement criticized the two countries for "deliberately stirring up trouble and risks" in the Taiwan Strait, maliciously undermining regional peace and stability, and sending wrong signals to "Taiwan independence" forces.

Defense Minister Li said in his speech delivered to the forum that the Taiwan question is the "core of China's core interests", and the country's reunification is an overriding historical trend and an unstoppable course.

Any act to obscure or hollow out the one-China principle is "both absurd and dangerous", Li said, stressing that over 180 countries have established diplomatic ties with China with the political commitment of abiding by the one-China principle, which has become a universally recognized basic norm governing international relations.

"The more rampant the separatist activities for 'Taiwan independence' are, the more resolute our countermeasures will be. All foreign interference is doomed to end up in failure," the defense minister said.

Li said that China will strive for peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and the greatest efforts, but will make no promise to renounce the use of force.

"If anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will not hesitate for a second," he said, underlining that the PLA will fear no opponents and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity regardless of the cost.

Sino-US ties

Li also elaborated on China's attitude toward Sino-US relations, which he said has a bearing on global strategic stability.

"A severe conflict or confrontation between China and the US will be an unbearable disaster for the world," he said.

The minister pointed to the "right way" for China and the US to get along by following the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.

A day earlier, US Defense Secretary Austin said in his speech to the forum that he was deeply concerned by the lack of military communication with China.

Li said that China has been seeking to develop a new type of major-country relationship with the US, emphasizing that the US needs to act with sincerity, match its words with deeds and take concrete action to stabilize China-US relations and prevent them from deteriorating.

Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng, deputy chief of the Central Military Commission's Joint Staff Department, said that a series of wrong words and deeds by the US had failed to create the conditions and atmosphere for communication and exchanges between the two militaries.

"Communication should be sound and based on mutual respect," Jing said. It is "unjustifiable" for the US to call for communication and crisis management while stirring up provocations, flexing its muscles and undermining China's interests and concerns, he added.

Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo, a researcher at the PLA Academy of Military Science, said the US' recent claims and actions display the "might is right" logic of the country, which regards China as its main strategic competitor.

"The communication and dialogue that the US is calling for with China are actually based on a big picture that the US has formed a series of security alliances, such as AUKUS and Quad, with its allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region to contain China," he said.

From this perspective, the US has no regard for China's core interests and major concerns, Zhao said.

Li Yan, executive director of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations' Institute of World Political Studies, said that the US has shown no respect for China, because it calls for dialogue while its sanctions imposed on China's defense minister remain.

jiangchenglong@chinadaily.com.cn

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... ba53d.html

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JUNE 4, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Russia, China take holistic view of the Pamirs and Hindu Kush
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A trilateral foreign minister level meeting agreed to extend China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan, Islamabad, May 5, 2023

The Xi’an Declaration, issued after the First China-Central Asia Summit at Xi’an on May 18-19, takes a direct hit at the West’s interference in the region, scattering the notion in Washington and Brussels that Russia and China’s dominance on the Central Asian steppe is not sustainable as Russia is “overstretched” in the Ukraine conflict.

As events turned out, Russia has not only not been “defeated” in Ukraine but turned the table around in the proxy war. The US is now pleading with Europeans that Moscow should not be allowed to garner victory in the battlefields. What a fallback position!

To be sure, China’s decision in the context of the Ukraine crisis to assume a leadership role in Central Asia as provider of security is a paradigm shift that profoundly undercuts the very essence of the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy to isolate and contain China. Look at the map to comprehend why the West’s talk of encirclement of Russia and China will remain a pipe dream so long as Inner Asia remains out of bounds.

The US is working like a spider to create a web of states in southeast Asia to split and atomise the ASEAN and repeat the “regime change” in Thailand all across the Greater Mekong Region. In such a volatile setting aimed at surrounding China with a ring of unstable states, Central Asia assumes critical importance for both Russian and Chinese strategies as a region that is beyond the reach of US influence.

The relevant paragraph of the Xi’an Declaration says: “The parties are unanimous that ensuring state security, political stability and constitutional order is of key importance, and resolutely oppose attempts to discredit legitimate state power and provoke ‘colour revolutions’, as well as interference in the internal affairs of other countries in any of its forms and under any pretext. The Parties emphasise that democracy is the common aspiration and value of humanity. The independent choice of the development path and management model concerns the sovereignty of each country and is not subject to intervention.”

It must be noted carefully that within a week of the Xi’an Summit, Russia received a top security official from Beijing who came on an unprecedented week-long visit to Moscow for consultations — Chen Wenqing, Member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, who is the counterpart of Nikolay Patrushev, head of Russia’s Security Council, the highest ranking security official in the Kremlin.

Receiving Chen and his delegation in Moscow, Patrushev said: “Expanding and deepening relations with friendly China are Russia’s strategic course. Our country prioritises the development of mutually beneficial cooperation with People’s Republic of China in all areas, provision of mutual assistance and boosting coordination in the foreign arena for ensuring security, stability, sustainable development at the global and regional levels both in Eurasia and other parts of the world.”

In concluding remarks at the end of Chen’s visit to Moscow, Patrushev noted: “Not only Russia is one of the centres of the multipolar world. So is China. They (Western countries) think they can cope with Russia and as soon as they have done that, they hope, their next target will be China. They find it difficult to deal with both in parallel. What they have been doing now on the border of China, with Taiwan, we also know well enough. In general, it is difficult to disagree with their (Chinese side’s) position.”

Clearly, the Russia-China security talks in Moscow at the highest level are expected to give the necessary underpinnings to the joint efforts to forge regional security and stability in their common space, against the backdrop of the growing security risks they jointly face in Eurasia and the return of terrorism in Central Asia. This strategic congruence is already evident in the close similarity in the Russian and Chinese approaches to the stabilisation of Afghanistan, which is already having a positive impact despite all incipient western attempts since the Taliban takeover to keep the Hindu Kush in a state of turmoil and civil war.

The Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang who attended the Pakistan-Afghanistan-China trilateral meeting in Islamabad on May 5 left three messages to his Pakistani hosts — China is ready to help Pakistan revive its economy; Beijing is also ready to work with Pakistan to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, accelerate the development of the CPEC, and deepen cooperation; and, above all, China is ready to work with Pakistan to “strengthen communication and coordination on the Afghan issue, promote peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan, and help maintain regional stability and development.”

Importantly, Qin Gang called for the the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan so as to “increase good-neighbourliness and mutual trust among the three countries in the spirit of mutual respect, candidness and friendship, mutual benefit and win-win results.” Qin Gang conveyed to his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts that China is ready to strengthen counter-terrorism and security cooperation and “join efforts to firmly combat terrorist forces including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, so as to defend regional security and stability.”

Interestingly, Qin Gang assured Acting Foreign Minister of the Afghan Interim Government Amir Khan Muttaqi at a bilateral meeting that Beijing intends to “deepen China-Afghanistan cooperation in various fields, and help Afghanistan realise self-reliance, peace, stability, development and prosperity at an early date.”

A leading Chinese regional expert Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University, told the Global Times that “Over the past few years, Pakistan and Afghanistan had severe conflicts and disputes over the borderlines, and the trilateral meeting itself was a rare opportunity to promote peace and talks.”

Zhu said Kabul and Islamabad have differences on the recognition of terrorism, “especially under external interference when countries like the US and India hold double standards in the matter”, therefore, China has released a signal that could be seen as “a step forward in coordinating the stances of Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Besides, the Chinese expert noted that both Afghanistan and Pakistan being neighbours of China and sharing good political relations with China, are also aware of China’s role in not only mediating between Saudi Arabia and Iran but also on the Ukraine crisis, so both would have expectations for China, and the trilateral meeting in Islamabad “signalled their enhanced confidence in China’s diplomatic role.”

Evidently, just short of according formal recognition of the Taliban government, Moscow and Beijing have stepped up their dealings with Kabul. This increases the comfort level in the Central Asian capitals. Russia, Central Asian states and China share an existential threat perception from terrorism and religious extremism, which is a time-tested element in the US toolbox. Thus, there is an understanding amongst them to deny the US any basing facilities in the region or to allow the “Afghan Resistance” of Panjshiris to use Central Asia as sanctuary to fuel another civil war.

China and Russia have contributed significantly to the stabilisation of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Basically, they appreciate that the Taliban rulers, under extremely difficult conditions have nonetheless acquitted themselves relatively well. This is also the perception in the Central Asian capitals.

Therefore, from a regional perspective, the extension of the CPEC to Afghanistan and its inevitable integration with Central Asia’s intensifying BRI project is to be viewed as the most tangible spin-off from the China-Central Asia format. These processes will strengthen the SCO — and, hopefully, would also bring India on board at some point.

READ MORE:

1.China takes leadership role in Central Asia, Indian Punchline, May 31, 2023
2.An “Axis of Seven” to supplement SCO, Indian Punchline, June 2, 2023

https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia- ... indu-kush/

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China Places Country Dangerously Close To US Warship

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The US military has released video footage of a Chinese navy ship cutting across the path of an American Destroyer in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend, reportedly forcing the US vessel to slow down to avoid a collision.

A statement on the incident from US Indo-Pacific Command says the Chinese ship “executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner” in the presence of US and Canadian warships during a “routine south to north Taiwan Strait transit” by the naval forces of those nations, coming as close as 150 yards from the American vessel.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: what is a Chinese navy vessel doing in the Taiwan Strait, right where US and Canadian warships are peacefully conducting routine navigation exercises?

Well I don’t know if this news will be as shocking to you as it is to me, but it turns out that China has somehow managed to place its country immediately adjacent to the Taiwan Strait, and is now only 100 miles from Taiwan itself. This narrow channel of water was the only space the US and Canadian navies were given to travel through, placing them dangerously close to Chinese warships, and to the country of China.

China has yet to issue a formal apology for menacing the US navy with the unsafe maneuverings of both its battleship and its geographical location.

Noting in its statement that it was acting “in accordance with international law” at the time of the incident, US Indo-Pacific Command says that its transit “demonstrates the combined U.S.-Canadian commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” adding that the US military “flies, sails, and operates safely and responsibly anywhere international law allows.”

Which is of course true. These are international waters after all, and the Chinese navy should therefore stay out of the way of US military vessels traveling through them, just as the US navy would stay out of the way of Chinese military forces traveling a few miles off the coast of California or transiting between the islands of Hawaii. The US is only asking for the same freedom of navigation it would afford anyone else.

We saw another incident of China’s aggressive and dangerous terrestrial placement on the 26th of May, when a US spy plane was buzzed by a Chinese fighter jet during peaceful surveillance operations over the South China Sea. A statement by US Indo-Pacific Command called the incident “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” which interrupted the “safe and routine operations” of the spy plane.


What the hell is going on here? What is a Chinese fighter jet doing all the way over in the South China Sea?

Obviously Chinese fighter jets have no business operating in that region, especially when their movements endanger the US spy planes who are flying their peaceful missions there. But as with the Taiwan Strait, the imperialist aggressions of the Chinese Communist Party have been so expansionist in nature that the South China Sea now sits immediately adjacent to mainland China.

Here’s hoping that China stops with its brazen aggressions against the US military forces who are minding their own business in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, stops endangering poor defenseless warships and spy planes by moving through waters and airspace they have no business entering in the first place, and starts respecting the rules-based global sovereignty of the United States of America.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/06/05 ... s-warship/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:13 pm

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Why China’s socialist economy is more efficient than capitalism
By John Ross (Posted Jun 06, 2023)

The difficulty the U.S. faces in its current attempts to damage China’s economy was analysed in detail in the article “The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide”. Reduced to essentials, the U.S. problem is that it possesses no external economic levers powerful enough to derail China’s economy. The U.S. has attempted tariffs, technology sanctions, political provocations over Taiwan, the actual or threatened banning of companies such as Huawei and Tik Tok etc. But, as always, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Taking the latest period, during the three years following the beginning of the Covid pandemic, China’s economy has grown two and a half times as fast as the U.S. and six times as fast as the E.U..

Therefore, as the previous article put it, in the economy the U.S. cannot “murder” China—even although it can create short term problems. Furthermore, unlike with Gorbachev, whose illusions in the U.S. led to a centralised political collapse of the CPSU, the disintegration of the USSR, and an historical national catastrophe for Russia, the policies of Xi Jinping and the CPC are centrally protecting China and socialism. As the U.S. cannot pursue a course of “murder”, therefore it is forced to attempt an indirect route to get China to commit “suicide”—that is, to try to persuade China to adopt policies which will damage it.

Given that economic development underlies China’s success, one of the most central of all U.S. goals is to attempt to persuade China to adopt self-damaging economic policies. Enormous resources are therefore poured into spreading factually false propaganda regarding China’s economy. This also has the secondary goal of internationally attempting to persuade others not to learn from China’s economic success—because an understanding of the reality that China’s socialist economy is more efficient and successful than capitalism would be a devastating ideological blow to the U.S..

A crucial part of this false propaganda is to try to get accepted as “truth” claims about China’s economy which are entirely false—as basing policies on “facts” which are untrue would naturally lead to wrong policies. One of the most important of these false claims is that China’s socialist economy is “inefficient” compared to capitalism—or, more specifically, that investment in socialist China is inefficient in creating economic growth compared to capitalist America or in general compared to capitalist countries.

Naturally, socialism’s goal is not abstract economic efficiency, it is people’s well-being. But an inefficient economy, in the long term, would be incapable of maintaining the maximum well-being of the people. Therefore, how efficient an economy is constitutes an important issue in economic development. Claims that capitalism is more economically efficient than capitalism, usually put in the form of U.S. claims of the “inefficiency of socialism”, consequently has at least two purposes.

First, most immediately, to attempt to persuade China that as its investment is allegedly “inefficient” it should be reduced. As discussed in the earlier article, “The U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide”, a key U.S. goal to get China to reduce its level of investment in GDP. This is because that same policy was successfully used earlier by the U.S. to derail its competitor economies of Germany, Japan and the Asian Tigers.

Second, more generally and ideologically, this claim that China’s investment is inefficient, and capitalism’s is efficient, is an attempt to undermine and discredit socialism and promote capitalism.

In summary, such propaganda is an attempt to spread two interrelated falsifications.

First, that China’s investment is inefficient in promoting economic growth.
Second that this “inefficiency”, which doesn’t actually exist, is due to socialism as opposed capitalism.
As will be systematically factually shown below, the exact reverse of these claims are true. Socialist China’s investment is much more efficient in creating growth than in capitalist countries such as the U.S.. As will be shown, this efficiency of China is integrally linked to the socialist character of its economy.

As usual the method will be used to use the wise Chinese dictum to “seek truth from facts”. The first section of the article will establish the facts showing the greater efficiency of China’s investment. The second section will demonstrate that the reasons for this lie in the socialist character of China’s economy.

Section 1—the high international efficiency of China’s capital investment
Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR)
As an opening aside it may be noted that the present author was taught at an early age that when a theory and the facts, the real world, do not coincide there are only two things that can be done. A sensible person, following the scientific method, abandons the theory: a dangerous one abandons the real world, that is the facts. But as will be seen there is a variant of this second position—that is simply to invent “facts” which are quite untrue!. A typical case can be taken from Business Week, where it was claimed:

It takes $5 to $7 of investment to generate a dollar’s worth of gross domestic product in China, versus $1 to $2 in developed regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe.1

Similarly Western economic analyst Charles Dumas claims:

China is incredibly good at wasting savings through misallocating investment.2

It is in fact very easy to factually test these claims and show they are false. How much must be invested to generate a dollar’s worth of GDP is a perfectly standard and well-known economic measure—the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR). ICOR is defined as the percentage of GDP which must be invested to generate one percent GDP growth. Therefore, the lower the ICOR—provided it is a positive number, representing economic expansion and not contraction, the more efficient investment is in generating growth. The results of such standard measurements of ICOR are unequivocal. China has to invest significantly less than the U.S., Japan or Western Europe to generate a “dollars’ worth” of GDP—i.e. China’s investment is more efficient in generating economic growth than the Western economies.

Starting with the most recent results, the factual situation regarding efficiency of fixed investment in generating economic growth is shown in Table 1—which gives ICORs for the world’s 20 largest economies. These together account for 80.4% of world GDP. If the Eurozone as a whole is included, and also South Africa, so as to include all BRICS countries, then the Table shows the ICORs for countries and economic regions accounting for 83.9% of world GDP—i.e. for all economies which have a major impact on world growth.

Taking a five-year average, to avoid the effects of purely short-term shifts in the business cycle, China had to invest 7.1% of GDP to generate 1% of annual GDP growth. It may immediately be seen that China’s investment was characterised by its extremely low ICOR in terms of international comparisons—i.e. its extremely high efficiency in generating economic growth. China was the second best out of the world’s 20 largest economies. In particular, China’s ICOR of 7.1 was more efficient than the US’s 10.0, the Eurozone’s 22.4, Germany’s 30.3, the U.K.’s 70.1—not to speak of Japan’s ICOR which was a negative number, showing that its economy contracted despite its investment.

Therefore, the claim that China’s investment is inefficient in producing economic development is simply a lie. There is nothing secret about the data from which this can be calculated, it is perfectly publicly available. Anyone who spreads falsifications that China’s investment is inefficient is consequently simply engaged in propaganda, not in serous economics.

The implications of this fact that China’s investment is extremely efficient by international standards will be considered below after the facts are further explored.

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Table 1

Trends in China’s ICOR
Turning from current international comparisons to historical developments, Figure 1 shows China’s ICOR since 1966, again taking a five-year average for both GDP growth and the percentage of fixed investment in GDP in order to remove inevitable purely short-term fluctuations caused by business cycles. The starting date is taken as 1966 because that is after the end of the period of disruptions caused by the Great Leap forward.

The trends are clear.

*From 1966-76 China’s ICOR rose sharply from 2.0 to 6.5. This was a serious negative development, a more than tripling of ICOR in a 10-year period, meaning China would have had to invest more than three times as high a percentage of GDP to maintain the same economic growth rate—or that if the level of fixed investment in GDP had remained constant China’s economic growth would have fallen to only one third of its previous level. The damaging economic consequences accompanying the political events of this period in the Cultural Revolution is therefore obvious.
*After 1976 China’s ICOR began to improve—it had reached 5.1 by 1978. Following the systematic introduction of Reform and Opening Up in that year a prolonged improvement began and China’s ICOR fell to 2.5 by 1988. This showed the great improvement made by Reform and Opening up to China’s economic efficiency—international comparisons during this entire period are analysed below. This huge rise in the efficiency of investment following Reform and Opening Up launched the beginning of China’s “economic miracle” after 1978.
*China’s ICOR then remained very low for two decades, rising only to 3.3 by 2007. Given the increasing level of China’s economic development in this period, the transition from a low-income economy first to a low-middle income economy and then to an upper middle-income economy, this was an extremely good performance. The reason for this is that, as analysed in detail below, it would be expected that as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR will increase—this is predicted by Marx’s analysis of the rising organic composition of capital. Consequently, an increase in ICOR from 2.5 to 3.3 over a 19-year period, during which China underwent huge economic development, was extremely impressive—as international comparisons analysed below demonstrate. Furthermore, China’s average growth rate did not fall significantly during this period as its percentage of fixed investment in GDP was also increasing, from 31.1% of GDP in 1988 to 37.9% of GDP in 2007. This offset a rising ICOR so China’s GDP growth rate remained essentially the same. This illustrates a simple but crucial point: because as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR will increases it will inevitably slow down if its percentage of fixed investment in GDP remains constant. But this economic slowing is not inevitable as is sometimes argued—if the percentage of fixed investment in GDP rises at least as fast as ICOR then an economy will not significantly slow as it becomes more developed. This is exactly what occurred with China from 1988 to 2007. The slowing of an economy as it becomes more advanced is therefore not inevitable, it is a choice which is determined by a decision not to raise the percentage of fixed investment in GDP in line with the increasing ICOR which occurs with economic development.
*From 2007 China’s ICOR rose sharply to reach 7.4 in 2020. It is this trend that those who claim China’s investment is inefficient by international standards sometimes point to. But unfortunately, they make two fundamental factual errors. First, they fail to make international comparisons—it will be seen that the ICOR of other countries was also rising rapidly after 2007, in most cases by far more than China. That is, China’s worsening ICOR after 2007 was not some specific deterioration in China but a part of a process occurring internationally—one clearly created, given the dates involved, by the international financial crisis which started after 2007 and during which China actually performed better than almost every other major economy. Second, they fail to note the historical dynamic that as an economy becomes more developed its ICOR rises—and China is now approaching a “high income country” level by World Bank standards.

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Figure 1

Rising ICOR with economic development
Analysing first the rising ICOR which occurs with economic development, then in the founding work of modern economics, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith had already analysed that with increasing economic development fixed investment would play a greater role in economic growth—and that the percentage of fixed investment in the economy would rise. This was repeated by Ricardo. It was made a foundation of Marx’s economics in his analysis of the rising organic composition of capital. It was reiterated by Keynes. Milton Friedman attempted to claim this claim was not accurate, but he made an elementary factual error in analysing only the U.S. economy and not international trends.

One of the manifestations of this increasing capital intensity of production with economic development is that ICOR rises as an economy becomes more developed. Thus Figure 2 shows the historical reality that the ICOR of developed/high income economies is higher than the ICOR of developing economies—to take the latest data, for the five years up to 2021, the average ICOR of developing countries was 8.2 but the average ICOR of high-income economies was 15.3.

This, of course, has clear consequences for China as it undergoes economic development. It means that as China makes the transition to a high-income economy its ICOR should be expected to rise—such a rise would not reflect inefficiency but simply the effects of economic development. Whether China’s fixed investment was inefficient could, therefore, not be established by showing that its ICOR had risen with time—as such a process would naturally occur with economic development. Inefficiency could only be established by a comparison to current economies at a similar stage of economic development—the comparisons, to be valid, would have to be with current economies, and not with historical cases of economies, due to the overall international rise of ICOR which has taken place particularly since 2007 and which is analysed below. This rise in ICOR is the first trend which affects China with economic development and shows why analyses which do not make international comparisons are invalid.


Comparison of China to other developing economies
Given this trend that ICOR will rise with economic development the relevant question is whether China has maintained its advantage in efficiency of investment compared to other countries? Figure 3 shows that the answer to this is clearly yes. Not only is the ICOR of developing countries lower than that for high income economies but China’s ICOR is lower than that for the average of developing countries. For all periods, except for the five years leading to 1976, China’s ICOR was lower than the average for developing countries. Taking the latest data, for 2021, the average ICOR of developing countries is 8.2 and for China 7.1. As China is by now one of the most highly developed of developing countries, and will in only a few years become a high income economy by World Bank standards, this shows the strong efficiency of China’s investment.

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Figure 2

The impact of the period since the international financial crisis
While the increasing level of economic development of China would by itself have led to an increase in China’s ICOR a second international process has been taking place since the international financial crisis which has been negative for all countries—in particular high-income economies. Figure 3 shows this clearly. As can be seen the ICOR for both high income and developing economies, and therefore the international average, has worsened since 2007.

ICOR for high income economies rose from 8.0 in 2007 to 15.3 in 2021.
The world average ICOR rose from 5.8 in 2007 to 10.9 in 2021.
China’s ICOR rose from 3.3 in 2007 to 7.1 in 2021.
Therefore, the worsening of China’s ICOR from 2007 to 2021 was not some process specific to China, representing part of a specific inefficient process within China, but was part of an overall international process in which ICOR rose globally. However, within this overall deterioration, China’s efficiency of investment in generating growth remained better than the average even for developing countries—whose efficiency of investment in generating growth itself remained better than that for high income economies. Regarding major economies, as noted at the beginning, China’s efficiency of investment in generating growth was ranked second out the world’s 20 largest economies.

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Figure 3

Comparison with the U.S.
Because comparisons are frequently most specifically made between China and the U.S., the ICORs for the two countries are shown in Figure 4. As may be seen China outperforms the U.S. in the efficiency of investment in generating growth in all periods. Figure 3 and Figure 4 show clearly that claims such as that by Business Week quoted at the beginning, “It takes $5 to $7 of investment to generate a dollar’s worth of gross domestic product in China, versus $1 to $2 in developed regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe,” are simply fraudulent—“fake news”. China has to invest less dollars to generate a unit of growth than the U.S.—as well as Europe or Japan.

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Figure 4

Explanation of China’s ICOR worsening
Putting these trends together it can be clearly seen why China’s ICOR would have increased since 2007 and why it is entirely misleading not to make international comparisons. Two macro-economic processes were occurring.

China is making the transition from a developing to a high-income economy, that is to more capital-intensive production, therefore its ICOR will go up.
There has been a general global worsening of ICOR under the impact of the international financial crisis and China is part of that trend—China cannot completely escape the consequences of the overall international economic situation.
Therefore, a rise in China’s ICOR after 2007 is entirely to be expected. The relevant measure is therefore the international one—that is, how has China’s efficiency of investment in producing economic growth changed relative to other current economies at a similar stage of development. The factual answer is clear. China’s efficiency of investment is in terms of international comparisons extremely high—in particular superior to the U.S. Europe and Japan, as well as compared to other developing countries. What is factually striking is not that China’s investment is inefficient in generating economic growth, that is a propaganda falsification which serious economists should not be taken in by, but how highly efficient China’s economy is in terms of international comparisons.

Having established the facts, as opposed to the myths, the question is then obviously why is China’s investment so efficient?

Section 2—Socialism is why China’s investment is so efficient
Explanation of the facts
Turning from establishing the fact of the high efficiency of China’s investment, in terms of international comparisons, to explaining it, it will become clear that the overwhelming reason for China’s very high efficiency of investment is due to the socialist character of its economy. In particular, it results from China’s extremely strong anti-crisis macro-economic strength which flows from possessing a socialist economy compared to capitalist ones. To clarify this, given that the most frequent international comparison made for China is with the U.S., this will be concentrated on. Furthermore, this automatically deals with the other cases of high-income economies—as, while the U.S.’s efficiency of investment in creating growth is less than China’s, it is superior to the other major capitalist economies such as the EU and Japan.

The fundamental process which is involved, and which particularly creates China’s advantage compared to the U.S. in ICOR, can be seen from Figure 5. This shows that the worsening of U.S. ICOR, that is the efficiency of its investment, was not at all a smooth process. It was characterized by two specific periods of huge deterioration which were so severe that they affected average efficiency of investment over the entire period. These were a more than doubling of ICOR to 26.8 in the period leading to 2011, that is following the international financial crisis, and a rise to 16.8 in the period leading to 2020 in association with the Covid induced recession. In short, economic crises led to a sharp worsening of U.S. ICOR, to a severe fall in the average efficiency of U.S. fixed capital investment.

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Figure 5

To illustrate clearly the long-term cumulative effects of such crises, and to smooth out the extreme short-term spikes, Figure 6 shows a longer term, 10-year, average for U.S. and China’s ICOR. The long-term cumulative worsening of U.S. ICOR under the impact of its successive economic crises is clear. In short, the fall in the efficiency of U.S. capital investment was particularly associated with crises in the U.S. economy.

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Figure 6

Economic slowdown and rising ICOR
Regarding the more precise explanation of this worsening of U.S. ICOR, it should be recalled that the latter is by definition GDP growth divided by the percentage of fixed investment in GDP. If ICOR has risen therefore one of two processes must have occurred—or both.

The first is that the rate of GDP growth has slowed.
The second is that the percentage of fixed investment in GDP has increased.
But while in principle either could have taken place factual examination shows that the worsening of U.S. ICOR since 2007 is entirely due to its economy slowing and none of it is due to an increase in the percentage of fixed investment in GDP. U.S. gross domestic fixed capital formation was 22.3% of GDP in 2007, remained slightly below that level in the entire period after 2007, and was to 21.4% of GDP by 2021. Therefore, zero percent of the worsening of U.S. ICOR after 2007 was due to an increase in the percentage of fixed investment in GDP, and the entire worsening of ICOR was due to the slowdown in the average annual growth of the U.S. economy.

This process of economic slowing is shown in Figure 7. The U.S. went through two sharp recessions with negative growth—economic contraction of 2.6% in 2009 and of 2.8% in 2020. The contraction of the U.S. economy in crisis years sharply slowed its average growth rate and therefore raised its ICOR.

In contrast, while China’s economy slowed since the beginning of the international financial crisis, that is it could not entirely escape the negative consequences of the post-2007 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, despite these international crises China never experienced in this period a year of economic contraction—unlike the U.S.. Consequently, the U.S.’s much weaker anti-crisis macro-economic capacity than China explains the superiority of China in efficiency of investment compared to the U.S. and is the primary explanation for the deterioration of U.S. ICOR—that is for the worsening of the efficiency of U.S. investment.

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Figure 7

The fall in investment
Turning to what explains the much greater weakness of the U.S. than China in anti-crisis capacity it is crucial to understand factually what actually occurs in a major recession and the different behaviours of investment and consumption during it.

Consumption is a much higher percentage of GDP than fixed investment in the U.S.—in 2007, on the eve of the international financial crisis, consumption was 82.5% of U.S. GDP compared to 22.3% for fixed investment. This therefore sometimes leads to the false assumption, formed by not studying the facts, that it is falls in consumption which primarily creates recessions. But this commits a simple arithmetical error. The fluctuations in investment in the U.S. economy are so much more violent than the fluctuations in consumption that, despite the fact that investment is a much smaller percentage of GDP than consumption, it is fluctuations in investment which actually primarily control the U.S. business cycle—and in particular which create its recessions. This may easily be seen by looking at the facts.

Between 2007 and 2009, the latter being the worse year of the U.S. recession created by the international financial crisis, then overall U.S. GDP declined by 2.5% adjusting for inflation. The inflation adjusted fall in U.S. household consumption, which accounts for 82% of total U.S. consumption, was 1.5%. But the inflation adjusted fall in U.S. private fixed investment, which accounts for 82% of U.S. fixed investment, was 27.6%—almost twenty times as severe as the fall in consumption.

Figure 8 shows that, in current prices, between 2007 and 2009 U.S. household consumption rose by $145 billion and U.S. government consumption by $235 billion—a total rise in consumption of $380 billion. But this entire increase in consumption was more than offset by $508 billion fall in gross fixed capital formation. That is, the post-international financial crisis recession was overwhelmingly created by the fall in investment, not in consumption.

Moreover, depreciation of fixed capital during this period was $119 billion. Consequently, the fall in U.S. net fixed investment was even worse than that of gross fixed investment—a decline of $626 billion. Therefore by 2009, the U.S. capital stock was lower than in 2007, lowering U.S. potential for long term growth. In summary, the U.S. recession after 2007, and therefore the worsening in U.S. ICOR, was due to the fall in U.S. fixed investment during the international financial crisis after 2007.

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Figure 8

The reason the U.S. was unable to control this fall in investment is equally clear. The U.S. is a capitalist economy. That means, by definition, its dynamic is determined by decisions of private capitalists. If these capitalists decide not to invest the economy goes into recession—which, in turn produces an increase in ICOR. There is no U.S. state sector sufficient to offset this. Private ownership of all the main means of production therefore produces weakness in the U.S. macro-economic crisis mechanisms.

China’s socialist anti-crisis macro-economic mechanisms
In contrast to the U.S. Figure 9 shows what occurred in China in 2007-09, faced with the international financial crisis. In 2007 to 2009 China’s GDP, in inflation adjusted terms, rose by 20.0%. Looking at current prices, it may immediately be seen that there was no fall in fixed investment of the U.S. type. On the contrary, in current prices, China’s gross fixed capital investment rose more rapidly than any other major component of GDP—increasing by $890 billion. compared to $511 billion for household consumption and $233 billion for government consumption. China’s fixed capital depreciation in this period was $356 billion. Therefore, China’s net fixed investment rose by $534 billion. China’s capital stock was significantly greater in 2009 than in 2007, increasing its potential for long term growth—in sharp contrast to the U.S. trend.

The reason that, unlike the U.S., China’s fixed investment did not fall is also quite clear. China is a socialist economy with a large state sector and state-owned banks which entirely dominate its financial system. Following 2007 state investment, and financing of private investment by state owned banks, could be and was used to prevent a fall in fixed investment. In contrast, the private capitalist U.S. economy had no such anti-crisis mechanism. In summary, China’s large state-owned sector gave it much stronger macro-economic anti-crisis mechanisms than the U.S. The fact that China suffered no decline in output in any year during the international financial crisis, in turn, limited its rise in ICOR. So, it was the strength of China’s state sector, by preventing a fall in investment, which prevented recession and ensured China’s superior ICOR to the U.S. The macro-economic strength given to China by its state sector thereby ensured the high overall efficiency of China’s investment in generating growth.

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Figure 9

Economic trends during the Covid pandemic crisis
Turning now to what occurred in economies during the Covid pandemic, not all national accounts data is yet available, but the overall pattern is clear. First, Figure 10 shows that China’s economy far outperformed the U.S. during the pandemic period. In the three years 2019-2022 China’s GDP grew by 13.3% compared to the U.S.’s 5.2%. That is, during the pandemic China’s economy grew by more than two and a half times as fast at the U.S..

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Figure 10

Regarding the internal structure of the U.S. economy during this period the changes in current prices in the main domestic components of GDP are shown in Figure 11. As in 2007-2009 there was a substantial increase in household consumption, of $2,970 billion. Government consumption also rose by $581 billion. Gross fixed capital formation also rose, by $838 billion, but this was insufficient to offset fixed capital depreciation of $848 billion. Therefore, U.S. net fixed capital formation fell by $10 billion—given the margin of error, and the small measured contraction, it is probably best to state that the rise in U.S. net fixed capital formation during this period was approximately zero. Clearly there was no significant addition to U.S. capital stock during 2019-2020—and there may have been no addition at all, or even a marginal fall.

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Figure 11

Turning to China, complete internationally comparable national accounts data is not yet available for the entire pandemic period. Nevertheless, comprehensive national accounts data is available for part of this period, and the more limited data until the end of 2022 leaves no doubt as to the overall pattern. The fundamental contrast in pattern with the U.S. is the same as in the post 2007 recession.

Starting with the comprehensive national accounts data which is available for China for 2019-2021, Figure 12 shows that once again increase in gross domestic fixed capital formation was the single biggest contributor to China’s GDP growth in this period at $1,311 billion—as compared to $1,200 billion for household consumption and $428 billion for government consumption. This contrasts sharply with the U.S. pattern where, in 2019-2021, household consumption rose by $1,510 billion and gross fixed capital formation by $458 billion. Internationally comparable data for depreciation is not available for China after 2020 but given the fact that in 2020 fixed capital depreciation was $333 billion, and there is no reason to suppose it remotely reached almost $1,000 billion in 2021, it is clear that China’s net fixed capital investment was positive in the period 2019-2021.

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Figure 12

Turning to 2022, internationally comparable national accounts data for China is not yet published. But it is clear from the data which has been released by the National Bureau of Statistics that the same pattern continued. This shows that in 2022 total consumption accounted for 1.0% of the increase in GDP, gross investment for 1.5%, and net exports for 0.5%. As inventories are only a small part of that figure for total investment, this clearly shows that the contribution of fixed investment to GDP growth remained the leading contributor to China’s GDP growth in 2022 and therefore also for the period 2019-2022 as a whole. This is the exact opposite of the U.S. pattern in which household consumption was the leading contributor and fixed investment low.

The stabilizing role of China’s state investment
The reason for the high contribution of fixed investment to China’s GDP growth during the pandemic period is also clear. Figure 13 shows the way in which China’s state investment, during a crisis, could be used to offset the decline in private investment. As the Wall Street Journal noted regarding China’s system of a socialist market economy, without understanding the significance of what it was saying in terms of the superiority of China’s socialist system:

Most economies can pull two levers to bolster growth: fiscal and monetary. China has a third option. The National Development and Reform Commission can accelerate the flow of investment projects.3

Examining the detailed pattern during the pandemic in China, in both the peak Covid crisis year of 2020 and during the economic slowdown of 2022, the increase in private investment fell to very low levels—1.0% in and 0.9% in 2022. But overall fixed investment remained significantly higher—2.9% in 2020 and by 5.1% in 2022. The reason for this was that in those years China’s state investment could be and was significantly increased—a rise of 5.3% in 2020 and 10.1% in 2022. This produced a strong anti-cyclical effect in preventing a more severe decline in investment. In contrast, during 2021, when the economy was recovering and private investment was rising relatively strongly, the rate of growth of state investment was reined back to 2.9%.

The reason that China’s overall investment could remain high was only due to the large size of China’s state sector. To be precise in making a comparison to the U.S., in 2022 only 16%, less than one sixth, of U.S. fixed investment was in the state sector, accounting for only 3.4% of GDP. Given this extremely small size of the U.S. state sector even a very high percentage increase in U.S. state investment would be unable to prevent overall U.S. fixed investment from falling—to offset a 10% fall in private investment U.S. state investment would have to rise by 50%.

In contrast, China’s large state sector, means it is possible to stabilize China’s investment level with much lower increases in state investment. In short, China’s large state sector is an extremely powerful anti-crisis mechanism. This, in turn, because it sustains economic growth, prevents the type of severe crisis increases in ICOR seen in capitalist economies such as the U.S.. China’s large state sector, therefore, has a powerful effect in keeping China’s ICOR down and maintaining a high level of investment efficiency.

Seek truth from facts or abandon the real world?
Finally, what are the conclusions that follow from these facts? And why are entirely false claims made that China’s investment is inefficient in generating economic growth which are in fact are the complete opposite of the truth?

This comes back to the point made at the beginning of this article of what happens if the real world, the facts, and a theory do not coincide? According to the theory of those who believe Western capitalism is a superior economic system, a capitalist system must be more efficient than a socialist one. But as the facts contradict this theory then science would demand that the theory be changed or abandoned. But that would lead to a conclusion that was against capitalist ideology—it would have to be accepted that China’s, a socialist country’s, investment was more efficient in producing economic growth than the U.S., Europe, and Japan. That is, it would have to be accepted that China’s socialist system was much more efficient in its investment than the Western capitalists—which is clearly an evidently unacceptable conclusion! Therefore, instead of abandoning the theory the real world has to be abandoned—instead of following “seek truth from facts” Western propaganda has to invent facts and abandon the real world!

[The Chinese version of this article was published at Guancha.cn.]

Notes:
1.↩ Bremner, B. (2007). ‘The Great Bank Overhaul’. In P. Engardio (Ed.), Chindia (pp. 204-210). New York, US: McGraw Hill.
2.↩ Dumas, C., & Choyleva, D. (2011). The American Phoenix. London: Profile Books.
3.↩ Orlik, T. (2012, May 29). Show Me The China Stimulus Money. Retrieved February 11, 2014, from Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 3683515828

https://mronline.org/2023/06/06/why-chi ... apitalism/

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What “Security Threat” Does China Pose?
By Chris Wright - June 4, 2023 1

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[Source: chinadailyasia.com]

If U.S. leaders were really interested in Americans security, they would upgrade public health and housing rather than upgrading the military and thereby encouraging a dangerous arms race with China.

Everyone who abhors war, detests imperialism, and favors cooperation between nations on global warming, poverty reduction, protection of biodiversity, international disarmament, implementation of international law, and other left-wing priorities ought to be appalled by the escalating tensions between the U.S. and China and actively organizing against them.

The new Cold War between “East” (including Russia) and “West” is more dangerous than the first one, not only in having already provoked a proxy war between great powers in Europe itself, and not only in undermining any progress toward goals that are urgent for all of humanity, but also in preparing the conditions for a horrific large-scale war that might well end in nuclear winter.

The coming years will determine, to a substantial degree, the future of civilization, which puts a tremendous burden on all decent people to struggle to end the madness.

“Both sides,” of course, bear responsibility for the new Cold War, just as all great powers share most of the responsibility for failing to act decisively on global warming.

Given the disproportionate power and imperialistic history of the United States, however, it is this country that bears most of the blame in both cases. So it is, first and foremost, this country’s policies that we have to change.

Even were this not the case, though, the principle that Noam Chomsky has enunciated would apply: it is the dangers presented by their own states, not enemy states, that citizens have a duty to organize against. Westerners should, primarily, criticize their own governments, which they can hope to influence. They can’t meaningfully influence China or Russia.

The question arises, then, as to how best to steer America from a course of aggression to one of cooperation and conciliation. That is, how can we build an anti-war movement? A crucial task, evidently, is to delegitimize the direction of policy vis-à-vis China that began under Trump and has continued under Biden, the pursuit of military provocation and economic warfare. This entails a relentless focus on refuting the reasons Washington gives to justify its aggressive posture.

Americans are inundated with the message that China is a “threat” and that, for this reason, it must be confronted. They hear it from every major media outlet—CBS, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.

This message reflects the attitude of Washington, which obviously views China as a major threat—to American “security,” “national security” (as stated for example in the 2022 National Defense Strategy). Two questions pose themselves: First, is China indeed a threat and, if so, to what, precisely? Second, is confrontation the best means to deal with whatever threat China poses?

The concept of “national security” has been thrown around promiscuously for generations, not only in politics and the popular media but even the international relations scholarship. Rarely is it noticed that the term, unless clarified, is meaningless, or that its meaning varies by context.

Was George W. Bush protecting America’s “security” by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, thereby massively increasing terror, and terrorist recruiting, across the Middle East? Is the government protecting Americans’ present and future security by subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, thus accelerating global warming?

Prima facie, the most obvious meaning of security is something like Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of religious belief, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. But this kind of security for the average person—is this a high priority of the U.S. government? Is it what is meant by the mantra that China is a security threat? Is China responsible for the economic insecurity of most Americans, or their housing insecurity, or their fear of mass shootings, or their fear of getting sick because they will not be able to pay medical bills?

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[Source: reddit.com]

“Security,” therefore, apparently does not mean the security of Americans, at least not of the vast majority. The government could invest $800 billion in, say, upgrading infrastructures of public health and housing—you know, actual security infrastructures—rather than upgrading the military and thereby encouraging a dangerous arms race with China.

Realist scholars like John Mearsheimer propose an alternative definition: Security in the technical sense means the state’s very survival in an anarchic system of international relations. Potential rivals exist everywhere, so states have to be prepared for military confrontations. Their need to survive, therefore, has a corollary: “Great powers [seek] to maximize their relative power,” Mearsheimer writes, “because that is the optimal way to maximize their security. In other words, survival mandates aggressive behavior,” so that the state can defend itself against a potential aggressive rival. The ultimate goal in this dog-eat-dog security competition is to be a regional hegemon that can trounce any opponent, and then to prevent any other country from becoming a rival hegemon.

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John Mearsheimer [Source: chartwellspeakers.com]

This “realist” reasoning might sound plausible, although one can see right away that it tends to rationalize and legitimize militarism (as shown by Mearsheimer’s judgment that the brutal expansionism of Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s was quite rational, for they were only trying to survive!). Can it really be maintained, however, that contemporary China threatens the very survival of the United States? Only through its arsenal of nuclear weapons can China even conceivably threaten the U.S., which means that the most rational American policy is not to provoke a nuclear arms race but to try to phase out all nuclear weapons worldwide. This would certainly increase America’s security. Since the new Cold War only exacerbates the nuclear threat, the U.S. government’s motivation for it, contra Mearsheimer, cannot be to ensure its own survival. So, if “security” concerns are, as is often said, what motivate America’s confrontational policies, we need another definition of that perplexing word.

The work of earlier realists such as Hans Morgenthau, as well as Marxists, provides the answer: In the absence of genuine military threats to a country (like the very fortunate United States since 1812), security is nothing but a euphemism for state power and prestige. The struggle for power as an end in itself is what motivates all ruling elites and governments.

Economic, military, geopolitical, ideological, cultural power—even a hegemon will insatiably strive for more power, total power, crushing all dissent everywhere to the extent possible. “A political policy,” says Morgenthau, “seeks either to keep power, to increase power, or to demonstrate power.” Whether this is because of human nature, as Morgenthau argues, or the inevitable dynamics of powerful institutions, or the fact that only power-hungry people rise to the top, it is a general principle.

Since Americans rarely look favorably on government as such, opponents of the new Cold War would do well to constantly emphasize that its primary purpose is to defend and assert the hegemonic power (i.e., “national security”) of the U.S. government, together with certain segments of the business community—for example, defense contractors—that are closely interlinked with government. Constant exposure of the belligerence of U.S. policy, as contrasted with China’s relative restraint, would undermine public support for confrontation. When U.S. officials, in characteristic fits of mind-boggling hypocrisy, charge that China is threatening global peace and stability, one might quote Kishore Mahbubani, a professor at the National University of Singapore, who wrote an article in Harper’s Magazine entitled “What China Threat? How the United States and China can avoid war”:

Quite remarkably, of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom), China is the only one among them that has not fired a single military shot across its border in thirty years, since a brief naval battle between China and Vietnam in 1988. By contrast, even during the relatively peaceful Obama Administration, the American military dropped twenty-six thousand bombs on seven countries in a single year. Evidently, the Chinese understand well the art of strategic restraint.

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Kishore Mahbubani [Source: scmp.com]

China is indeed a threat—to the dominance of a small American elite, centered in finance, government and tech, over world politics and the world economy.

As Deborah Veneziale explains in Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2023), much of the hostility of America’s capitalist class (or particular sectors of it) to China results from the difficulty of accessing the Chinese market. “U.S. tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook have virtually no market in China, while companies like Apple and Microsoft face increasing difficulties… [These companies] yearn for a change to the political system in China that would open the door to the country’s massive market, and major actors in this sector are actively working to advance Washington’s hostile foreign policy.”

Finance, likewise, is unhappy with China’s capital controls, which restrict capital flows into and out of the country. George Soros expressed the frustration of many financiers when he tweeted in January 2022 that “Xi Jinping is the greatest threat that open societies face today.”

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[Source: monthlyreview.org]

Aside from grievances due to China’s state capitalist character (it has a mixed market economy and strong state sector), a significant reason for Washington’s strategy of aggressive confrontation is simply that expansion of U.S. military capacity is an end in itself, for which pretexts have to be sought.

As the famed international relations scholar Hans Morgenthau might say, such a policy demonstrates (and can help keep) power, which is the whole point of being a government.

It is also the kind of thing that companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems will benefit from and lobby for. It is hardly a secret that there is a revolving door between the Pentagon and private military contractors: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was on the board of directors of companies like Raytheon before Biden appointed him. Cold wars are in the interest of very wealthy corporations and very powerful government bureaucracies, which can use them to justify larger congressional appropriations and expansions of their power.

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Eisenhower’s warning has clearly gone unheeded. [Source: progressivehub.net].

Returning to “security” risks—risks to the security of the global dominance (“leadership” is the preferred term) of U.S. elites—it is true that, as China’s economy grows, its geopolitical power will almost necessarily grow as well, thus challenging U.S. “leadership.” There is some sense, therefore, if not much justice, in Biden’s attempts to slow China’s economic growth by restricting exports of cutting-edge semiconductor chips and other high-tech equipment.

Whether such restrictions are in the interest of American consumers, or of humanity as a whole, is more debatable. In any event, to partially delegitimize the trade wars that the U.S. is escalating, and which may well become quite harmful to Americans, it suffices for dissenters to note at every opportunity that these wars’ entire purpose is to hurt China’s economy so it will have more trouble challenging the global dominance of America’s tech industry and the U.S. government. Most Americans are smart enough to know that their interests and those of the government do not usually coincide.

Indeed, that is the crucial question to keep asking in public forums: Why should we hate and fear China so much? It makes a lot more sense to hate and fear our own government, together with the corporate sector with which it is fused.

China caused none of the vast human suffering, the desolation of hundreds of millions of lives over two generations, that has brought American society to its knees; it merely benefited from the decisions by corporate executives to relocate factories abroad, where it was easier to exploit labor at a higher rate. The fight of working Americans is not with China.

But what about China’s theft of intellectual property? What about its military threat to Taiwan? What about that horrible balloon that floated into U.S. air space? Surely all this justifies a new Cold War that could last a generation or more!

Well, these charges obscure that a) it was the U.S. which has long waged an economic war on China and has tried to undermine its economy in numerous ways;[1] b) Taiwan is recognized by most UN member states, including the U.S., to be part of China; and c) the balloon’s danger was greatly overhyped.

The right way generally to deal with whatever malign intentions China might have vis-à-vis the U.S. is to pursue diplomacy, preferably through one of the multilateral institutions that exist for precisely such cases as these, including the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

When the U.S. rejects the obvious path of diplomacy in favor of military escalation and overblown rhetoric, it is clear that it is merely seizing on real or imagined provocations as pretexts for pursuing some other goal it prefers not to publicize. This was clear when the Bush administration flailed around for excuses to invade Iraq—from weapons of mass destruction to ousting Saddam Hussein to building a wondrous new democracy—and it is clear now, as the Biden administration orchestrates the wholly unnecessary military and economic containment of China.

In fairness, it is perfectly natural for a hegemonic government, used to getting its way and running rampant over most of the world, to try to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor. As Marco Rubio said plaintively in a moment of refreshing candor some weeks ago, “Brazil cut a trade deal with China. They’re now going to do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They’re creating a secondary economy in the world, totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”

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Lula in China: a nightmare for Washington. [Source: patrialatina.com]

From a superpower’s point of view, these are major crimes, the worst crimes possible. To constrain the ability to bully and browbeat that the U.S. has enjoyed since the late 1940s is totally unforgivable.

But the American people should question whether such a threat to their government’s power is also a threat to them. Maybe a forced reining in of the U.S. empire would be good for Americans.

Whatever constrains the power of the elite is likely to expand the power of the majority. Those who favor peace, in any case, should welcome the emergence of a new superpower that can challenge the policies of the most warmongering country on earth, such as by brokering peace agreements the United States refuses to do. However authoritarian China is internally, its role in the world might end up being relatively constructive—and has been to some extent as seen in the One Belt One Road initiative which has helped lift millions out of poverty.

This is especially the case given that, in its search for support among other countries and peoples, it cannot appeal to any democratic ideology it supposedly represents, as the U.S. at least rhetorically can. To win moral authority, China has to actually deliver rather than merely preach.

In the end, then, China’s rise poses a straightforward security threat: It threatens the security of the old order, the Washington-directed, neo-liberal, war-as-a-first-resort order. It threatens to bring about a more multilateral world, with less impunity for America’s crimes and more recourses to which victims can turn. People everywhere—except the West’s power centers—should cheer this fact.


See F. William Engdahl, Target China: How Washington and Wall Street Plan to Cage the Asian Dragon (Palm Desert, CA: Progressive Press, 2014). ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... hina-pose/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:59 pm

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Venezuelan ambassador: China shows that socialism is not a failed system
We are very grateful that Venezuela’s ambassador to the UK, Rocío del Valle Maneiro González, spoke at the book launch for Carlos Martinez’s book The East is Still Red on Tuesday 6 June 2023. Rocío was Venezuela’s ambassador to China from 2004 until 2013, and accompanied Hugo Chávez during several of his presidential trips to China.

Rocío described living through a period in which the international balance of power shifted from West to East, principally due to the multipolar strategy promoted by China. Speaking as a representative of Venezuela – a country which continues to suffer due to the sanctions, destabilisation and coercion applied by the Western powers – Rocío stated that China’s international policy is based on equality, on win-win relations, on peaceful cooperation and a collective vision of a prosperous future for humanity. She concluded that, after reading The East is Still Red, “it is almost impossible to describe socialism as a failed political system.”

During the discussion, which can be viewed in the stream of the event (embedded below the article), Rocío intervened in response to a question about women’s equality in China. She observed that, while women are not well represented among the top political leadership of the country, women in China are nonetheless very well represented in the workplace at every level – including as business leaders, engineers, lawyers and academics, as well as having strong social and equal rights. She stated forcefully: “Chinese women are the equal of men; they are the free women of Asia.”
Good evening, first of all, allow me to express my gratitude to Carlos Martínez for inviting me to say a few words on the occasion of the launch of his book “The East is Still Red”. This is an honour for me, even more so as it is held here, at the Carl Marx library, giving it a special historical transcendence.

This is a relevant book and I will explain why. When China decided to open up to the western world, a step it took, in my opinion, in this century, because what China did in the XX century, was to peek through “the window” and start planning a route. Well, when China decided to open up to the world, a number of sinologists, China specialists, showed up in the West, trying to explain China’s complexity with western theories and principles. I read at least 5 of those books published by scholars; I remember one of them having more than 400 pages. Those were the days when I was preparing for the task given to me by President Chavez: I was to become the ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the People ́s Republic of China.

When I arrived in China in 2004, nothing of what I had read was of any use to me. Only the books relating to Chinese culture, those great particularities of a civilization that goes back 3 to 5 thousand years, and is still alive. Apart from that, the rest was totally useless, mainly because it had little to do with the facts, with what I was seeing and experiencing.

Carlos’ book has the relevance, the value, to present a different hypothesis to explain what China means to the world today. It is a book that equates with what I lived during those 9 years I

spent as Ambassador in Beijing, from 2004 to 2013. I had the privilege, as did all my colleague ambassadors, to witness how the international balance of power shifted from West to East, due to force applied by China.

From those years of hard work and learning, if one thing became clear to me, it was that China’s greatness is rooted in two main factors: discipline, which comes from the teachings of Confucius and a collective purpose, which is at the heart of Communism. The union of these two factors is, in my opinion, the most objective, rigorous and real starting point to approach to the truth of China. A nation which was reborn and liberated in 1949, a nation which defeated hunger with an enormous effort considered today as a true political and socio-economic miracle of universal history. A nation which today plays a protagonist role as an international player in every field. A nation, and to me this is the most important, which designed an international policy based on equality, a win-win formula, to teach imperialism how to move forward in creating a new world in peace, not with armed intervention but with diplomacy and negotiation guided by a collective purpose.

I congratulate Carlos, because he dares to approach such a complex subject, opposing the position of western experts, and does so based on concrete facts. After reading his book it is almost impossible to affirm that Socialism as a political system is a failure.

Thank you.



https://socialistchina.org/2023/06/09/v ... ed-system/

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Xi calls for further tackling desertification
By XU WEI | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-06-07 00:14

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General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, presides over a symposium on strengthening the comprehensive prevention and control of desertification and promoting the construction of crucial ecological projects, including the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, and delivers an important speech in Bayannur, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, June 6, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping has highlighted the significance of strengthening desertification control and prevention to develop an even stronger green shield in the nation's northern regions and secure greater outcomes in building a beautiful China.

Speaking during a meeting with officials on Tuesday in Bayannuur in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for sustained efforts to create new miracles in tackling desertification.

The strengthening of efforts to fight desertification and move forward with key ecological projects such as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program is a matter related to China's ecological security, the building of a strong nation and the sustained development of the Chinese nation, he said.

Xi spoke after hearing from Wang Guanghua, minister of natural resources, Sun Shaocheng, Party secretary of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Hu Changsheng, Party secretary of Gansu province, and Liang Yanshun, Party secretary of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Xi emphasized that China has attained tremendous outcomes in its anti-desertification efforts over the past four decades through the launching of the Three-North program, the Grain for Green program and a project to tackle sandstorms in Beijing and Tianjin.

However, he pointed out that desertification remains a major global ecological problem threatening the very survival and development of mankind, with China among the hardest-hit countries in the world.

The majority of China's desertification took place in North, Northwest and Northeast China, and in less-developed areas and regions populated by ethnic minority groups, Xi said.

While recognizing the positive momentum in tackling desertification and land degradation in recent years, Xi stressed that China is still faced with a large area, wide geographical distribution and high level of desertification.

The frequency of sandstorms in northern China has increased in recent years due to climate change, he added.

The president highlighted the period from 2021 to 2030, the sixth phase of the Three-North program, as the key phase for consolidating and expanding achievements in fighting desertification.

He reiterated the need to adopt a holistic approach to conserving mountains, rivers, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands and desert, and to prioritize the prevention and control of desertification, as part of broader steps to build up the shield for ecological security in northern China.

He set out a target to develop the Three-North program, which was launched in 1978 to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert, into an unbreakable green "Great Wall" within a time span of 10 years.

Xi emphasized the need to prioritize key areas and launch three major landmark anti-desertification initiatives, calling for an intensified fight against desertification in the middle reaches of the Yellow River and in regions such as the Maowusu Desert, the Kubuqi Desert and the Helan Mountains.

He also laid out a plan to tackle the Horqin and Hunshandake deserts, both in Inner Mongolia. The protection of natural forests and grasslands in the Qilian, Tianshan, Altay, Helan and Liupan mountains must be strengthened across the board, including steps to restore degraded forests and grasslands, to prevent desertification, he said.

The president also called for a scientific approach in tackling desertification and highlighted the need to ensure the proper use of water resources, which he said should serve as a decisive factor in planning greening efforts, the population of regions and production.

He called for extensive international exchanges and cooperation in fulfilling China's commitments to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

The nation will actively participate in global desertification and environmental governance efforts and strengthen cooperation with neighboring countries, supporting desertification control initiatives under the Belt and Road Initiative, he said, adding that Beijing aims to lead policy dialogues and information sharing among nations to jointly respond to sandstorms.

The meeting was held after a fact-finding trip by the president to Bayannuur on Monday and Tuesday, a visit that took him to a nature reserve, a forest farm and a water resources monitoring center.

China has created the world's largest planted forests after intense afforestation efforts over the past decades, with its forest coverage rate more than doubling from 12 percent in the early 1980s to 24.02 percent last year.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... bac91.html

Projects show China's green gains
By Wang Xiaodong in Nairobi, Kenya | China Daily | Updated: 2023-06-08 09:18


Rural revitalization model could help achieve net-zero goals, report finds

Net-zero carbon emission is achievable in the development of rural areas, according to research released at the second session of the United Nations Habitat Assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Tuesday.

The research, conducted in island villages in East China, could offer useful experiences for similar areas in the world to achieve low-carbon growth while developing rural areas, said researchers from Shanghai's Tongji University and UN-Habitat, who jointly released the report on Tuesday.

The report summarizes the method, process and progress of rural revitalization — a grand national strategy in China — with the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions in Zhoushan city's Dinghai district in Zhejiang province.

Working with the local government, researchers from Tongji University conducted industrial surveys in 79 villages and formulated low-carbon development strategies in these rural areas, including developing low-carbon industries such as tourism and organic farming, better tapping into energy and resources, and promoting a low-carbon lifestyle. A total of 30 major projects featuring net-zero carbon emissions have been completed over the past three years.

"The construction of a net-zero carbon rural area in Dinghai is in line with its natural resource endowment, industrial structure characteristics and future development goals, while also reflecting China's determination to promote green transformation," Wu Jiang, president of the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development at Tongji University and lead researcher of the report, said.

"The exploration and practice of a net-zero carbon development path have important reference and learning values for similar island regions around the world."

In recent years, low-carbon transformation in cities has gained much progress globally. But in many developing countries where rural areas are still home to large numbers of people, reducing carbon emissions to cope with climate change is still a big challenge, Wu said.

Low-carbon upgrade

In one of the net-zero emission projects listed in the report, the owner of a low-carbon farm in Dinghai took multiple measures to give the farm a green upgrade. These include applying double-layered insulated greenhouses, organic fertilizer composition that reduces the use of synthetic fertilizers, wastewater treatment and recycling, and using new energy transport vehicles.

Overall, these measures helped to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 85 metric tons a year, helping the farm to reach net-zero carbon emissions, said Wang Xin, deputy president of the UNEP-Tongji institute.

Li Zhe, deputy director-general of the Department of Planning, Financing and Foreign Affairs at China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said the urban and rural development in China is facing a comprehensive green transformation against the backdrop of climate change.

"In rural revitalization, efforts must also be made to accelerate the transformation and development toward green and low-carbon development," Li said, adding that the low-carbon transformation in Dinghai reflects China's determination to achieve green development goals in urban and rural areas.

Climate change is a global issue and mitigation efforts require the participation of all humanity. The cooperation with UN-Habitat has provided Dinghai an opportunity to realize the net-zero carbon target with a broader international domain, Li said.

wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... bb167.html

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China Inaugurates Embassy in Honduras
JUNE 9, 2023

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Yu Bo (L), charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in Honduras, and Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina inaugurate the opening of the Chinese embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, June 5, 2023. Photo: Xinhua.

The People’s Republic of China officially inaugurated its embassy in the Republic of Honduras on Monday after the establishment of diplomatic ties between them on March 26.

Yu Bo, charge d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Honduras, said at the inauguration ceremony that Honduras seized the historic opportunity to make the important decision to recognize the one-China principle.

With this decision, Honduras became the 182nd country to establish diplomatic relations with China, which China highly appreciates, Yu said.

“The one-China principle is a universal consensus of the international community and a widely recognized norm of international relations,” he said.

Less than three months after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Honduras, the two countries have accelerated coordination and cooperation in fields such as economy, trade, agriculture, science and technology, culture, education and media, Yu said.

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Officials from China and Honduras and representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations in Honduras attend the inauguration ceremony of the Chinese embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, June 5, 2023. /Xinhua

The Chinese embassy will do its best to fulfill the responsibility of being the window that opens relations between the two countries, the bridge that deepens bilateral cooperation and the link that connects the two peoples, he said.

Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina, who jointly inaugurated the embassy, emphasized that the decision to establish diplomatic relations with China was an independent choice made by Honduras. He said the decision diversifies Honduras’ international relations, aligning it with most countries that recognize the one-China principle.

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Firmly abiding by the one-China principle, Honduras looks forward to jointly promoting trade cooperation with China to improve infrastructure, contribute to the well-being of the Honduran people and foster social prosperity, said Reina.

Nearly 200 people attended the inauguration ceremony, including Honduran Second Vice President Doris Gutierrez, other Honduran government officials and parliamentary representatives, representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations in Honduras, as well as representatives from Chinese institutions, companies and communities in the Central American country.

https://orinocotribune.com/china-inaugu ... -honduras/

West Asia Says Goodbye to US and Hello to China
JUNE 9, 2023

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) is welcomed by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (right) at Al Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 8, 2022. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/File photo.

As the countries of West Asia have been turning more and more frequently to China for geopolitical concerns, the United States has been losing its foothold of influence in the region; a loss which is felt to be its own problem and responsibility by many.

“In an attempt to salvage his country’s waning influence in the Middle East, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will embark this week on a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia,” said Al Jazeera’s senior US political analyst Marwan Bishara in a post this Tuesday, June 6, while arguing that advancing “strategic cooperation” with his Saudi and Gulf counterparts may prove to be an uphill battle.

According to Bishara, the US has been systematically withdrawing from the area, which contradicts Joe Biden’s so-called promise when he attended the Gulf Cooperation Council summit last year, in which he claimed, “America will not walk away and leave a vacuum for China, Russia, or Iran to fill.”

However, it is precisely those countries that are taking the place of the US in the geopolitical influences of the region. An example of this is that relations between Beijing and Tehran have been consistently improving alongside a maintenance of strong ties with Moscow, despite constant reproaches from Washington.

According to analysts, the retreat of West Asian countries from the US began two decades ago, when the United States began ramping up oil and gas production. While China’s influence has been growing in the form of mutual relations—such as bilateral ties, diplomatic agreements like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and infrastructural development such as the well-known Belt and Road Initiative—the US has been dwindling in influence and in business ties with the Gulf countries, clinging to punitive measures in an attempt to assert its hegemony through its so-called “rules-based order.”

Even without a direct presence, Washington does not want to give up space to other emerging powers. The Biden administration has recently been increasing the pressure on some West Asian states, warning them not to help Russia evade the so-called “sanctions” of the Western bloc, or else face the wrath of the US and its G7 vassals. According to many analysts, such a move is in vain.

https://orinocotribune.com/west-asia-sa ... -to-china/

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JUNE 10, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Palestine is ripe for Chinese mediation

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) with the visiting Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, Beijing, 18th July, 2017

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken drew a blank in Riyadh in his mission to coax Saudi Arabia to grant diplomatic recognition to Israel and resuscitate the moribund Abraham Accord. The Saudi stance is unwavering: a two-state solution to Palestine problem first; normalisation with Israel can only come after that.

The Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at his joint press conference with Biden on Thursday that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people, without addressing that challenge, any normalisation will have limited benefits. And therefore, I think we should continue to focus on finding a pathway towards a two-state solution, on finding a pathway towards giving the Palestinians dignity and justice. And I think the US has a similar view, that it’s important to continue on those efforts.”

Blinken later called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to brief him. The state department readout mentioned that they “discussed areas of mutual interest, including expanding and deepening Israel’s integration into the Middle East through normalisation with countries in the region.”

After the Saudi snub to the US, Beijing announced on Friday that at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will pay a state visit to China from June 13 to 16. On the same day, at the daily press briefing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin effusively spoke of Abbas and “the high-level friendly relations between China and Palestine.” Wang reiterated Beijing’s intention to mediate between Palestine and Israel and mentioned President Xi’s hands-on role.

To quote Wang, “The Palestinian question is at the heart of the Middle East issue and matters to the region’s peace and stability and global equity and justice. China has all along firmly supported the Palestinian people’s just cause of restoring their legitimate national rights. For ten consecutive years, President Xi Jinping has sent congratulatory messages to the special commemorative meeting in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. More than once he put forward China’s proposals for resolving the Palestinian question, stressing the need to resolutely advance a political settlement based on the two-state solution and intensify international efforts for peace. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will continue to work with the international community for a comprehensive, just and enduring solution to the Palestinian question at an early date.”

In the Chinese political system, the foreign ministry rarely invokes the name of Xi Jinping. At the very least, Abbas’s visit to China and China’s public diplomacy track on the whole would suggest that Beijing may have sounded Israel and other important stakeholders — Saudi Arabia, in particular — and found that the early signs are encouraging.

With Abraham Accord turning into a pipe dream, Israel has nowhere to go and nothing more to lose as it emerges that the US is struggling to shore up its regional influence.

Without doubt, Palestine problem is at the core of the Middle East crisis. For the past four decades, the US and Israel deflected attention by whipping up paranoia about Shia Iran’s threat to the Sunni Arab regimes but with the Saudi-Iranian normalisation, it appears Washington and Tel Aviv hoisted their own petard.

Last Thursday, the prominent Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that “reconciliation between Tehran and Riyadh is in full swing.” It quoted the commander of Iranian Navy, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani disclosing that a number of countries in the region, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, are going to form a “new maritime coalition for actions in the northern waters of the Indian Ocean.”

Interestingly, the UAE recently decided to withdraw from the US-led maritime security coalition operating in the Middle East, explaining that the decision came “after a lengthy assessment of the effectiveness of security cooperation with all partners.”

Now, Tehran is proposing a regional coalition instead. According to the Qatari news portal Al-Jadid, the navvies of Gulf states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, will form a coalition together with China.

By the way, Prince Faisal underscored at Thursday’s press conference with Biden: “China is an important partner for the kingdom and most countries in the region, and I think that partnership has given us and China significant benefits. And that cooperation is likely to grow just because China’s economic impact in the region and beyond is likely to grow as its economy continues to grow.”

The expert opinion in Moscow is that a regional coalition will be “a positive course of events, because the stabilisation of the situation in this territory will have an appropriate impact on neighbouring regions: Central Asia, and potentially Transcaucasia… a geopolitical confrontation had been imposed on Riyadh and Tehran for a long time, not only in the physical space of the region, but also at the ideological and value level… Iran and Saudi Arabia have finally figured out that they have a common interest… You can call it a breakthrough. Most of the experts and analysts expected this in the medium term.”

The prominent Kremlin politician Alexei Pushkov has written in his Telegram channel that all these trends are “a demonstration of the new independence of the countries of the non-Western world, which are developing relations among themselves without much regard for the United States.”

But rhetoric aside, it was left to Prince Faisal in a revealing remark at the press conference, in Biden’s presence, to frame the profound winds of change sweeping across the Middle East:

“I think we are all capable of having multiple partnerships and multiple engagements, and the U.S. does the same in many instances. So I am not caught up in this really negative view of this. I think we can – we can actually build a partnership that crosses these borders. I think I’ve heard statements also from the US about a desire to find pathways to better cooperation, even with China. So I think we can only encourage that, because we see the future in cooperation, we see the future in collaboration, and that means between everybody.”

This is also where Recep Erdogan’s victory in the Turkish election becomes a tipping point, as it has a multiplier effect on the regional yearnings for a new dawn that were eloquently framed by Prince Faisal. Indeed, the mediation on the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement lends credibility to Beijing’s initiative on the Palestine issue. Russia whole-heartedly backs the initiative. (Moscow is also navigating Saudi Arabia’s membership of BRICS for an early decision.)

That said, Palestine issue has proved to be intractable so far. But then, the crux of the matter is that Washington was lacking in dedication and sincerity of purpose and US domestic politics played havoc. The US had all the advantages but it looked at any Palestinian settlement primarily through the geopolitical prism with a view to preserve its regional hegemony, control the oil market, punish Iran and use the Iran bogey to promote arms sales, exclude Russia from the region, and above all, pin down the regional states to the petrodollar phenomenon which sustains dollar’s status as reserve currency.

Enter China with a clean slate. China has excellent relations with Israel. Evidently, Israel is brooding about a dark future. The old swagger has vanished. Netanyahu looks tired and old. Whereas, from the full height of its regional prestige today, China is well-placed to offer to Israel a new creative pathway backed by all regional states which even the non-state actors of the so-called “axis of resistance” will not dare to undermine.

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:25 pm

China’s LGBT Community Doesn’t Need Western ‘Gay Pride’
JUNE 16, 2023

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A Beijing-based choir comprising members of the LGBT community prepares backstage before a concert during Shanghai’s Pride celebrations in June 2018. Photo: Simon Song.

By Cyril Ip – Jun 13, 2023

For LGBT people in China, sexuality is part, not all, of who they are as their familial role and national identity take precedence. What they want most is love and acceptance, not pride parades

For years before my recent trip to Chengdu, friends from the mainland had told me that the Sichuan capital was also known colloquially as China’s “gay capital”.

During my five days in the city, I saw plenty of hand-holding gay couples out in public, more than I would in Hong Kong. They could have easily gone unnoticed, given the lack of stares in a locality that was refreshingly unbothered.

Unlike Britain’s own unofficial “gay capital” of Brighton, Chengdu does not boast extravagant displays of rainbow-themed decorations or an overblown above-ground gay scene. The locals are quite aware that their gay bars and clubs attract people from across the country, and those of different sexual preferences live their lives quite harmoniously without those matters being dramatised.

It might be difficult for their Western counterparts to see how a city without those typical indicators can be considered a “gay capital”. But such a lack of cultural and contextual awareness must not lead to assumptions that China’s gay community is living in misery and suppression.

This is not to say that sexual minorities in the country haven’t faced curbs and setbacks of late. In 2021, WeChat moderators shut down multiple student-run LGBT accounts without explanation. And, just last month, a leading advocacy group in Beijing closed after 15 years of service, citing “unpreventable circumstances”. Moreover, not all places in China are as gay-friendly as Chengdu.

Whenever the community suffers a blow, I see friends and acquaintances voice their concern and disappointment. However, what I have seen in real life has never matched the bleak portrayals in the mainstream Western media.


For many in China, sexuality is part of, not all of, who they are. Most often, their familial role and national identity take precedence. What they want most are a loving relationship and family acceptance, which won’t be determined by whether there are, for example, pride parades in the country.

Gay venues and activities on the mainland are unlike those in the West. In Chengdu, for example, tea-houses are a popular space where “out and proud” members of the LGBT community integrate with society at large.

While homosexuality existed throughout ancient China and has been recorded in the histories of many non-Western civilisations, “gay pride” is a modern American celebration so its lack of relevance here is nothing to be appalled about. In recent years, this celebration has featured consumerist and commercialised festivities, with brands and corporations updating their logos with rainbow designs for 30 days and high street stores promoting limited-edition rainbow-themed products.

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People attend the 2023 LA Pride Parade on June 11 in Hollywood, California. Photo: AFP

Using these as a metric for a society’s open-mindedness is very Western-centric and not applicable to China and most other Asian societies. China’s gay community wants to be free from the homophobic gaze, but I doubt they would be willing to swap that for an Orientalist gaze.

Some Western critics have accused Beijing of justifying crackdowns by linking LGBT culture to Western influence or interventionism. However, the West itself seeks to monopolise “gayness” by using specific language and suggesting that the East should aspire to embrace its approach, deeming other modes of social order oppressive.

Without diminishing the value of Pride Month to Americans, it is simply not among the greatest concerns of China’s gay youth. In fact, some Chinese who have lived abroad say pride parades are not culturally suited to their birthplace, which values collectivism over individualism.

Demanding that Asian gay rights policies become more Westernised actually reinforces the harmful narrative that homosexuality is an exclusively Western “lifestyle” – a view upheld by the uninformed or simply prejudiced.

Nonetheless, it is difficult to assess the well-being of mainland China’s gay community without access to official statistics. Its representation in mainstream media channels may be limited, but it has a vigorous presence in cyberspace. Advocacy groups are diminishing, yet informal surveying – mostly done by social media influencers – seems to show a tolerant public.

However, truly invested allies should seek to meet and better understand members of China’s gay community rather than assume they are oppressed based on a limiting framework that sees the West as “liberal” and the East as “conservative”.

Many in China’s gay community are strangers to Western LGBT cultures, and many Westerners are unfamiliar with their Chinese counterparts’ lifestyles. People should keep that in mind before deciding whether those on a different continent feel free or not, based on their own country’s traditions.

https://orinocotribune.com/chinas-lgbt- ... gay-pride/

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 20, 2023 3:06 pm

US-China War Risks Grow as Beijing Sees Little Point in Talking to Biden’s Team
JUNE 18, 2023

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US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (right) shake hands with China Defense Minister Li Shangfu (left) during the opening dinner for the 20th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s annual defense and security forum, in Singapore, Friday, June 2, 2023. Photo: AP/Vincent Thian.

By Lanxin Xiang – Jun 11, 2023

Beijing is no longer keen on holding high-level talks with the US government, because it has pretty much given up on the Biden administration, which is widely seen by China’s political elite as incompetent, ignorant about Chinese culture and history and extremely arrogant.

Instead, Beijing may well be betting on the next presidential election to produce anyone but Joe Biden. Even Donald Trump, it would appear, can be dealt with because the former president put his cards on the table, disliked military alliances and loathed war.

On the issues of Taiwan, economic competition and geopolitical rivalry, serious communication between the two sides has become all but impossible, never mind negotiations based on common ground.

The sudden US urge for high-level diplomacy is thus seen as being motivated by two factors: the desire to alleviate the fears of its allies that the lack of communication may lead to another war, and to promote a propaganda campaign that China is being unreasonable.

A fundamental lesson that policymakers on both sides must learn is in great power diplomacy one should never offer something the other side does not really need, or ask for anything the other side can never give. In other words, identifying and respecting each other’s vital interests, or red lines, is the only way to avoid war.

Not since the Cold War have we witnessed such a dangerous situation. It has now become normal that the two most powerful nations talk past each other most of the time.

In the first decade of the last century, Britain was preoccupied with its “German problem.” The two powers had no clearly defined conflicting interests. Yet Britain saw itself as the defender of the status quo and imperial Germany as the challenger. Both sides made strategic mistakes. Their diplomatic efforts were often confounded more by a mismatch of intentions and temperaments than by real national interests, which were, in many respects, parallel.

The Anglo-German alienation was not created by bad intentions and devious long-term designs. Germany tried hard to show Britain the value of its friendship through offering a kind of Teutonic alliance for avoiding war with each other. A vicious circle started, however, when Germany began to show displeasure over what it considered to be the illogical and uncooperative behavior of Britain for not seriously considering such an alliance.

In reality, Britain’s overriding concern was the challenge by France and Russia to its vast overseas empire, while Germany posed little threat. But London was often unable to get its message through. Berlin decided that expressions of anger would be more persuasive. The Kaiser considered Britain’s intransigence to have been caused by Germany’s show of weakness.

What started as a serious effort to identify mutual interests slowly degenerated into a conflict at all levels. Any analysis of US–China relations should focus on how to avoid a similar misreading of the other side’s intentions. As the war in Ukraine reminds us, misunderstanding and miscommunication can lead to war.

Similarly, Biden’s central premise is that China is trying to challenge the status quo. China is positioned as a rapidly rising power with a grudge against the liberal international order. The world must thus prepare for a struggle between democracy and autocracy, and there is no middle way.

But today, just who is defending the status quo, the United States or China? It is Washington that looks more like Wilhelmine Berlin. At the very moment of China’s decision to integrate fully into the existing international system, the US under Trump and Biden started to change the rules of the international order it created after World War II.

Just as China aspires to become a normal state, by which it means a self-sufficient great power which has had no urge for territorial expansion in its history, the criterion for “normal” is changing. As China has adopted multipolar diplomacy for maintaining peace in its foreign relations, the US has returned to a unipolar fantasy by building more military alliances for cold-war-style bloc politics.

In the security area, what the US offers China is peace in the Taiwan Strait, contingent on Beijing’s acceptance of there being two separate Chinese territorial entities: one China, one Taiwan. China can never accept this. In the economic area, the US offer is even less convincing. It recently adopted the European Union’s language, walking back on “decoupling” to embrace “de-risking”. This is meant as a gesture of goodwill towards China. But to Beijing, it makes little sense.

First of all, the Chinese leaders are psychologically prepared for decoupling and have begun to build various defensive systems, including through de-dollarisation of the international trade market. They are also aggressively promoting an autonomous hi-tech strategy. Secondly, China’s leaders are convinced that the overall US strategy is to contain China all round.

Third and most importantly, from the Chinese point of view, the biggest risk for both sides is the question of Taiwan, and the US side does not appear willing to do anything to “de-risk” the issue. Instead, it has heightened risks with such moves as high-level visits to the island.

As a result, Beijing is no longer so interested in communication. Exchanges between the two militaries have been kept minimal. The two most powerful nations have entered a perilous phase of miscommunication and mis-signalling – which usually occurs as a prelude to an unexpected war.

https://orinocotribune.com/us-china-war ... dens-team/

*************

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False witnesses and sinister plots
Originally published: MintPress News on June 16, 2023 by Kit Klarenberg (more by MintPress News) | (Posted Jun 20, 2023)

For months, mainstream media across the Western world—in particular English-language outlets based in the constituent members of the ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network—have been rabidly awash with terrifying news of secret “Chinese police stations” operating the world over.

It is claimed these “stations” are unofficial, covert Chinese Communist Party (CPC) security and intelligence cells concealed in private businesses run by Chinese émigrés, such as restaurants. From behind benign facades, they surveil and harass pro-democracy ex-pats, among other nefarious activities.

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This glass facade building in New York’s Chinatown was among hundreds around the world accused of housing secret Chinese spy bases by Safeguard Defenders. Bebeto Matthews | AP

By contrast, Beijing denies their existence, claiming purported examples to merely be anodyne initiatives constructed by regional public security bureaus during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are primarily said to offer Chinese citizens overseas administrative services, such as driving license renewal.

These denials have fallen on deaf ears, and the narrative of dastardly Communists operating cloak-and-dagger foreign spy bases in order to egregiously extend China’s authoritarian tendrils overseas has ever-gained in currency. In April, the FBI pounced upon a “Chinese police station” in Lower Manhattan, New York, based in the offices of a charitable organization established in 1998 to assist Chinese nationals from Changle, Fujian, a region of southeast China.

Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two of the organization’s leading members for “conspiring to act as agents of the PRC” and “obstruction of justice” after allegedly deleting encrypted chat records from their smartphones that indicated they were in direct, regular contact with Chinese officials. They face up to 25 years in prison each if convicted of the offenses.

“The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” the Justice Department’s National Security Division fulminated at the time.

The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.

Shocking stuff, one might think. But while an official press release on the raid repeatedly referred to the “clandestine” nature of the “secret police station,” in reality, it was openly and widely advertised as somewhere Chinese citizens in New York City could conveniently access administrative services remotely. Meanwhile, the indictment’s details make clear the only state apparatchiks with which the pair were in contact belonged to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Traffic Management Center.

Similarly, underwhelming results have been produced by official investigations in other countries into the alleged plague. On June 6, U.K. Security Minister Tom Tugendhat announced the results of police probes into three separate alleged CPC security outposts in London and Scotland:

Police have visited each of the locations…and carefully looked into these allegations to consider whether any laws have been broken and whether any further action should be taken. I can confirm that [police] have not, to date, identified any evidence of illegal activity on behalf of the Chinese state across these sites.

These findings were no doubt extremely disappointing for Safeguard Defenders, which alerted U.K. authorities to the “police stations”. Still, it is unlikely the organization will be deterred from its anti-China crusade or reconsider its position as a dependable false witness for Western governments. As we shall see, Safeguard Defenders—which is likely tied to a notorious CIA front—is the sole source of the “Chinese police station” hysteria that has engulfed Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Its founder has a highly dubious history of conducting U.S.-funded destabilization operations in China, and the organization is no stranger to slandering individuals and organizations as embroiled in sinister Communist plots to their immense personal, professional, and political detriment.

In the process, the lives of countless innocent Chinese citizens residing abroad have been made miserable, already surging levels of hatred for East Asians in the West gravely escalated, and further foundations for an all-out war between the U.S. Empire and Beijing dangerously laid.

“BATTLE FOR CONTROL”
The avowed origins of Safeguard Defenders date back to 2009 when self-styled Swedish “human rights activist” Peter Dahlin founded the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group (China Action) “to support China’s fledging lawyer community” conduct “legal interventions.” In service of these objectives, it established a nexus of pro bono legal aid centers in rural areas of China, serving the needs of local communities.

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Screenshots from the ‘About Us’ page of self-avowed human rights NGO, Safeguard Defenders

Because these cases “often concerned the rampant abuse and violation of laws by local police and government,” Safeguard Defenders assert, China Action was forcibly shuttered in 2016. Beijing “targeted it in a major crackdown,” which led to many of its staff being “detained, disappeared or imprisoned,” including Dahlin.

“The foundation” for Safeguard Defenders was laid that same year. It “inherited the mission of China Action, but with an expanded scope to support the survival and effectiveness of civil society and human rights defenders in some of Asia’s most hostile environments” and was publicly launched in 2017.

Absent from this romantic autobiography is any reference to the raid on China Action being precipitated by the organization receiving vast sums from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in secret over several years to promote and conduct destabilizing lawfare operations. In the process, limited local disputes over matters such as land rights were transformed into weapons against the CPC.

The NED’s own senior officials openly admit they do overtly what the CIA once did covertly, and their track record of financing lawfare in “enemy” countries is long and shameful.

For example, in September 2003, the Washington-based Center for Justice and International Law was granted over $80,000 by NED to encourage and train Venezuelans to launch legal actions against their government via the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an obscure but potent U.S. and Costa Rica-based legal nexus that claims jurisdiction over the entirety of the Americas.

This led to a dramatic increase in frivolous human rights claims brought against Caracas by right-wing opposition activists, all of which circumvented the country’s legal system and undermined its sovereignty, granting power of judgment to a hostile, foreign-run body.

In recent years, the NED has also bankrolled Ukrainian media, sponsored a coup attempt in Cuba, funneled money to the leaders of the Hong Kong protests and attempted to topple the Belarusian government.

Dahlin was temporarily transformed into an international human rights celebrity as a result of his 23-day-long incarceration, which culminated in him confessing on state TV—forcedly, he says—to having acted illegally and “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” before being deported back to Sweden, and banned from returning for 10 years. It is a story he has told many times since to Western media outlets.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/whbgVz4xKww[/img]

In January 2017, The Guardian reported that the “trauma” Dahlin experienced “behind bars” in a “secret prison” gave him a “firsthand taste of the harshness with which [Chinese President Xi Jingping’s] battle for control is being waged.” It was, however, noted he had lived in China for seven years “with the daily stress of concealing his work.” The obvious question of why this would be necessary if China Action’s activities were legal and proper was not explored.

More curiously still, Dahlin’s testimony strongly suggests his treatment by Chinese authorities was far more cordial than he could expect to receive were he to run a confidential Beijing-funded operation Stateside training lawyers to level legal actions against U.S. government agencies.

Dahlin was apparently able to refuse their demand that he labels three associates “criminals” in his televised confession without consequence, police took care to kennel his various cats at some expense during his imprisonment, and all of his confiscated property was eventually returned to him, save for some money they used to book him a first-class, one-way plane ticket home to Stockholm. Once seated on that flight, he was given a free glass of champagne.

‘BEHIND THE SCENES’
In a lengthy January 2017 interview with the Western-backed, anti-Communist Hong Kong Free Press, Dahlin downplayed the significance of NED’s financing of China Action, claiming it was “limited to a few hundred thousand dollars through the five years the program ran.”

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Wang Haijun speaks to the media after his restaurant in southern Seoul was accused of being a secret Chinese police station by Safeguard Defenders. Kim Jae-Hwan | Sipa via AP

Such sums, in a still-developing and, in some areas, extremely poor country, with a low cost of living and an approximate minimum wage of just $360 per month today, would go a very, very long way indeed. This is without factoring in European Union backing for China Action’s activities, which Dahlin revealed was his organization’s “largest donor.” Notably, the EU has a NED of its own, the European Endowment for Democracy, which is explicitly “inspired” by its American counterpart.

The police swoop on China Action came at a time when governments the world over, particularly those for which Washington reserves a particular animus, were beginning to take action to limit or outright ban NED’s activities within their borders for the first time. This followed a decade-and-a-half of the Endowment often boastfully fomenting “color revolutions” with total impunity across the former Yugoslavia and Soviet sphere, culminating in the violent, armed Maidan Coup in Ukraine in March 2014.

As Dahlin repeatedly underlined to the Hong Kong Free Press, his interrogators were overwhelmingly concerned with comprehending precisely what his organization was up to and how it operated. While one may quite reasonably condemn the heavy-handedness with which he was apparently targeted, it is understandable that Chinese authorities were intensely curious, particularly given that, as the website of Safeguard Defenders openly acknowledges, China Action “worked quietly behind the scenes” and deliberately kept a “low profile” throughout its existence.

By contrast, Safeguard Defenders is an extremely public outfit by design, although its funding is much more opaque. Beyond indeterminate PayPal donations, its income consists of “grants retained through competition in open calls [emphasis in original], from international institutions, foundations and governments’ development assistance programs.” The figures involved and from where they flow are not stated. Moreover,

for safety reasons, most staff and partners are kept anonymous.

Nonetheless, it may be notable that the organization has been promoted by NED’s “daily blog” DemDigest, as was well-remunerated Endowment grant recipient China Action previously. In a May 2022 post, the organ announced Safeguard Defenders had opened an office in Taiwan, “its first in Asia.” Taipei was said to be “an obvious choice because of its open society and geographic proximity.”

Taiwan may have also represented an ideal location for far darker reasons. Six months earlier, Bloomberg published a report in which nameless CIA officials bemoaned how surveillance measures and a crackdown on corruption by state officials in China had made it virtually impossible for the agency to meet with and/or bribe government informants. This very sadly produced “a lack of top-tier intelligence on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s inner circle.”

Consequently, the agency was “considering whether to deploy China specialists in locations outside China…in the hope that overseas destinations prove a more fertile recruitment environment than the closely surveilled streets of Beijing.” It is surely no coincidence that subsequently, several deep state-linked NGOs and ‘think tanks’ promptly set up shop in Taiwan, where NED-funded entities have for some time regularly convened events attended by Endowment-bankrolled, “pro-democracy” separatists from Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

‘VISIBLY DISTRESSED’
In the years since its founding, Safeguard Defenders has issued a steady stream of reports on alleged human rights abuses in China. However, it was not until September 2022, with the release of “110 Overseas—China’s Transnational Policing Gone Wild” that it gained serious public prominence due to the international media frenzy over “Chinese police stations” that immediately erupted thereafter.

Two months later, the organization bragged this report had spurred 14 separate countries to investigate “stations” operating on their soil: Austria, Canada, Chile, Czechia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, U.K., and the U.S. Buried at the bottom was the somewhat inconvenient fact 16 other governments were “yet to respond to the reports of PRC overseas police service centers on their territories.” In other words, they ignored the crazed pronouncements of Safeguard Defenders.

As we saw, the U.K. investigation came to absolutely nothing. Nonetheless, in the eight months between its instigation and lackluster conclusion, the life of at least one individual caught up in the imbroglio was made “hell.”

Ruiyou Lin is the founder of All Eat, a restaurant delivery app, one of the businesses tagged as a “police station” by Safeguard Defenders. Speaking to his local newspaper in May this year, he recounted how he feared for his family’s safety due to frequent accusations in the street of being “secret police,” constant stares from passersby, “maybe 20—30 people” per day endlessly ringing his office’s doorbell, and a journalist grilling his son en route to school about whether he was a spy.

The stress induced by his experiences has left Lin, who moved to the U.K. when aged 18 and professes to love his adopted homeland as much as his country of birth, unable to eat or sleep properly. He claims to have lost customers and an investor since the allegations against his enterprise emerged, and he was variously described by the newspaper as “visibly distressed” and “trembling at times with the effort required to keep his emotions in check.”

The impact on Chinese émigré communities of administrative centers upon which they frequently depend being stigmatized if not outright shut down due to the interventions of Safeguard Defenders is just as devastating, if not more so. In late April, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police claimed to have closed a network of “police stations” in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. One of the organizations affected, the Chinese Family Service, said the people they serve “have suffered enormously,” adding:

Community members have been unable to obtain life-saving services they need…This has placed vulnerable members of the Chinese community at risk, impacting our community’s livelihoods and quality of life. [Our] mandate is to help with the integration of new immigrants, to offer French courses, to get our seniors out of isolation, to help women victims violence and contribute to poverty reduction.

It is a perverse, twisted irony that Dahlin has repeatedly claimed his objective in establishing China Action was to improve the “rule of law” in Beijing and enhance legal protections for average citizens. Presumption of innocence, due process, and the right to a fair trial are all inalienable legal principles in any democracy worthy of the name. Yet, Safeguard Defenders eagerly encourage the gross contravention of these fundamental tenets in pursuit of demonizing Beijing in the eyes of Western citizens.

Western authorities are only too happy to collude, it seems. Ominously, U.K. Security Minister Tom Tugendhat attributed the inability of detectives to uncover criminal conduct at the sites they investigated as an indication “police and public scrutiny has had a suppressive impact on any administrative functions these sites may have had.” Clearly, in the New Cold War, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence when China is, one way or another, involved.

DIRE CONSEQUENCES
Gravely, we can expect alarmism over any and all things Chinese in Europe and North America to intensify significantly moving forward. The obvious utility of the “police station” psyop is that it provides Western war hawks plausible grounds to accuse Beijing of hostile meddling abroad at a time the CPC remains so doggedly committed to non-interference in other nations’ affairs they refuse to intervene overseas, even when governments ask them to, and their own Silk Road infrastructure is under attack.

As MintPress News has previously revealed, British intelligence for many years prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine ceaselessly spread black propaganda falsely linking the Kremlin to Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as President, and other adverse domestic political developments in the West. In the process, these events and phenomena were transformed into direct, deliberate attacks by Moscow, demanding a belligerent response from “target” governments.

Were it not for those machinations, that war might well have been avoided. With U.S. military chiefs now openly discussing all-out conflict against China with alarming regularity, the need to concoct a pretext for that horrific eventuality grows daily. “Chinese police stations” are just the latest salvo in an information war intended to place the U.S. empire and its international vassals on an inevitable, world-threatening trajectory.

Safeguard Defenders were approached for comment by MintPress News, but did not respond prior to publication.

https://mronline.org/2023/06/20/false-w ... ter-plots/
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blindpig
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:57 pm

And Then Biden Blew It ...

The talks Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had in China were somewhat useful. On his way out he at least used the right words on Taiwan:

'We do not support Taiwan independence,' America's top diplomat said in Beijing after meeting with Chinese president Xi Jingping.

The U.S. had practically begged for the meeting and that it took place is itself a small success:

To stabilise their relations, China and the United States must first arrest a downward spiral. That may turn out to be the achievement of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing. It was unrealistic to expect any more just now. The negative fundamentals of the relationship remain the same. Both sides described Blinken’s talks with Foreign Minister Qin Gang and top diplomat Wang Yi as “candid” – meaning very frank. But they paved the way for a meeting between Blinken and President Xi Jinping, which did no harm to hopes for a Xi- Joe Biden summit.
Along with Qin’s acceptance of an invitation to Washington, that suggests the two sides found some common ground – particularly the need for more stable ties and to reduce the risk of military conflict.


Then, within just 24 hours, President Biden blew it:

US President Joe Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator at a fundraising event in California.
His remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Mr Xi for talks in Beijing, which were aimed at easing tensions between the two superpowers.

Mr Biden also said Mr Xi was embarrassed after an alleged Chinese spy balloon was shot down by the US.
..
"The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn't know it was there," Mr Biden said at the event on Tuesday.

"That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened," he added.


The Chinese government was not amused:

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called Mr Biden's remarks "extremely absurd and irresponsible". Speaking at a regularly scheduled press conference on Wednesday, she said that the comments were "an open political provocation" that violated diplomatic etiquette.

The whole Biden remarks with regards to China from the White House website:

And so, things are changing. We put together in Southeast Asia — and, by the way, I promise you we’re going to — don’t worry about China. I mean, worry about China, but don’t worry about China. (Laughter.)
No, but I really mean it. China is real — has real economic difficulties. And the reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there. No, I’m serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it. When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there.

But the fo- — did — the very important point is he’s in a situation now where he wants to have a relationship again. Tony Blinken just went over there — our Secretary of State; did a good job. And it’s going to take time.

But what he was really upset about was that I insisted that we — we reunite the Qu- — so-called Quad. He called me and told me not to do that because it was putting him in a bind. I said, “All we’re doing — we’re not trying to surround you, we’re just trying to make sure the international rules with air and sea lanes remain open. And we’re not going to yield to that — on that.”


There are several issues in there that need some clarifying.

China has no real economic difficulties, just minor issues:

The Chinese economy this year is expected to grow faster than previously forecast and exceed the government's target of "around 5%," according to a survey of local economists.
A survey of 28 economists in March revealed that, on average, they expect the Chinese economy to grow 5.4% in 2023, up from 4.7% they forecast in December. The survey was jointly conducted by Nikkei and Nikkei Quick News.


The hope for China this year was 6% GDP growth. China's central bank just lowered a key interest rate by a small margin to achieve that.

Biden acknowledges that the weather balloon was 'blow off course' and thereby debunks previous claims that it was steerable. China had no intent to let the balloon cross Canada and the United States. And if there had really been 'two boxcars full of spy equipment' on the balloon why hasn't the U.S. shown any of it?

Why would or should a president of the U.S. or China know of some weather balloon floating somewhere?

Xi was embarrassed by the circus the U.S. made over that affair?

Xi is a dictator? The man came to his post by merits (scroll down) and through a complex representational election system. He can even be dismissed.

Xi denied that the balloon was where it was to whom? And the U.S. would know about that how?

Then comes the tale over the Quad. Biden claims that Xi called him over a quad meeting which is most likely a blatant lie. There are typically read-outs of phone calls between leaders at that level but I do not find any of a Xi-Biden call during the relevant months on the White House website. Nor was there any news of one.

The Biden talk, made official by posting it on the White House site, is an insult to China. Whatever Blinken has said or done to smooth the relations is no gone. It was already known that the U.S. can not be trusted with anything that it says. What counts is what the U.S. does and there it has so far shown no positive move towards China.

I am not sure that Biden intentionally talked about the balloon incident or was selective with his words on China. But even if it was somewhat accidentally it would not change anything. What matters is the effect. He has sabotaged the results of Blinken's talks in China and the U.S. will rightly be blamed for again worsening the relations.

As Yves Smith summarizes:

I wouldn’t bet on the minimal commitments from the meetings, like a return to pre-zero Covid levels of passenger flights, to be implemented.
The worst is that this insult does not simply demonstrate that the US is incapable of diplomacy. It shows we are so interested in dominance that we’ve lost sight of what our interests our. So institutionally, we are engaging in the same sort of self-destructive behavior that Trump practices personally. Perhaps that is the real reason Democrats hate him. Despite decorating in gold, the essence of his behavior is not all that different than theirs.


Posted by b on June 21, 2023 at 15:40 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/06/a ... .html#more

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CovertAction Bulletin – Debunking Media Lies: U.S. & Blinken Don’t Want Peace with China
By Rachel Hu and Chris Garaffa - June 21, 2023 0

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CLICK HERE to listen on podcast platforms worldwide https://linktr.ee/CovertActionBulletin
Support this broadcast: become a patreon!

We begin today’s show with a remembrance of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who passed on June 16 at the age of 92.

Then, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his recent trip to China with a 35-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 19th. Blinken had also met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and top diplomat Wang Yi over the weekend.

Despite the State Department and the media talking about opportunities for peace, the actions of the U.S. show that peace is the last thing it wants.

The trip comes just a few weeks after the U.S. military tried to stoke the flames of war against China once again by misrepresenting situations in which U.S. and Canadian war ships came into close contact with Chinese military ships in the Taiwan Strait. Further, the meeting had originally been scheduled for February, but was delayed after the Pentagon and U.S. media claimed that Chinese weather balloons were spying on the U.S.

To talk more about recent developments with China, we’re joined by Mika Nhondo Erskog, researcher at TriContinental Institute for Social Research and one of the hosts of The Crane, an Africa-China podcast by the Dongsheng Collective.


Listen to this episode and all CovertAction Bulletin episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and other podcast platforms. New episodes are distributed worldwide on all podcast platforms on Wednesdays at 9am EST.

To support the Bulletin, consider becoming a patron for as little as $3 a month; give as little as you must, and as much as you can. It is your support that makes the Bulletin possible.

Visit CovertAction Bulletin at our patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/CovertActionMagazine and select a membership level. Becoming a patron gives you early access to the full episode as well as exclusive, supplemental content and interactive features with hosts and interviewees.

We also air a shorter version of CovertAction Bulletin weekly on Wednesdays at 9AM EST on WBAI 99.5FM in New York City, right after Democracy Now!

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... ith-china/

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Biden Crashes Down the Stairs of U.S.-China Reset

Finian Cunningham

June 21, 2023

Forked-tongued American politicians should be repudiated until Washington actually begins to behave as a law-abiding entity.

Joe Biden’s penchant for tripping over his feet – and verbally – couldn’t have happened at a most unfortunate moment. Mocking China’s president as a “dictator” just when his administration attempted a big reset in U.S.-China relations has to rank as one of Biden’s clumsiest gaffes.

A day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China in a high-profile attempt to mend frayed relations, Biden kicked those efforts in the teeth by telling a crowd in California that Chinese President Xi was a dictator.

Beijing responded furiously, denouncing the American president’s “extreme” disrespect and lack of etiquette. China’s anger is no doubt reinforced because it showed magnanimity in receiving Blinken and affording him a top-level diplomatic meeting with President Xi Jinping.

Biden’s latest gaffe is made all the more absurd because he was referring to the incident of a Chinese weather balloon that had strayed over U.S. territory in February, which Biden ordered an F-16 fighter jet to shoot down with a sidewinder missile. Biden is still claiming that it was a Chinese spy balloon even though the Washington Post had reported earlier that it was a meteorological aircraft blown off course whose errant trans-Pacific course was being monitored in real-time by the Americans.

That crass overreaction by Biden resorting to a military attack over a balloon sent U.S.-China relations into a further tailspin. Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing in February in what was a cheap protest stunt against an alleged Chinese breach of U.S. national security. His trip last weekend was meant to signal a new reset in relations. There was much talk during the U.S. diplomat’s visit about improving communications between Washington and Beijing to avoid a military confrontation.

Then there came the crash, bang, wallop from Biden’s strange outburst insulting his Chinese counterpart.

During the California fundraising foray this week, Biden claimed that Xi knew nothing about the “spy balloon”, implying that he was being kept in the dark by Chinese intelligence officials as befitting a hapless “dictator”.

In reality, it looks like Biden is the one who is hopelessly benighted. Ordering the shoot-down of an errant balloon with million-dollar air-to-air missiles and to continue insisting that it was a spy vehicle shows an abject lack of judgment. Could anyone trust a balloon-popping commander-in-chief who has access to grabbing the nuclear football? This is Doctor Strangelove’s twilight stuff. All the more frightening because it’s real life, not a movie.

But on top of that, Biden then goes on to gratuitously insult the Chinese leader.

Biden’s loose tongue and legs at this frail stage in his half-century political career are beyond parody. Falling on the stairs of Air Force One and tripping over podiums is an embarrassing routine spectacle for this president.

His congenital bad manners of referring to Russian and Chinese leaders as “thugs”, “killers” and “dictators” shows Biden’s low class as a person, as well as extreme hypocrisy for a politician who is responsible for causing millions of deaths from promoting U.S. criminal wars down through the decades.

One good thing, however, is the impeccable clarity that all this provides (if that were needed).

China – and Russia– by now know beyond doubt that Washington cannot be trusted in anything it says. Biden is just the decrepit embodiment of the treacherous and duplicitous politics inherent in Washington. It is blinded and stupefied, incapable of meaningful dialogue because of Washington’s insufferable delusions, its arrogance, hubris, and self-righteous propaganda. And its total addiction to war for fixing its corporate capitalist junkie economy.

Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken went on a mission to appease China with ostensible declarations of wanting to normalize relations, avoid confrontation and professing adherence to the One China policy with regard to abjuring Taiwan’s independence and recognizing the island territory as being under China’s sovereign control. In other words, respecting international law.

China’s leadership warily shook hands with Blinken and appeared to give him the benefit of doubt for a public reset in U.S. bilateral relations.

Biden’s subsequent rush to the brain and his rash, churlish words demonstrate that Washington is not capable of adhering to decorum, decency and diplomacy, or anything for that matter, apart from a handrail on a staircase. And even that’s unreliable.

After Blinken’s smarmy visit to China, one can bet the farm that in the coming weeks there will be more provocative U.S. naval maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait; there will be more provocative U.S. multi-billion-dollar arms sales to Taiwan; and there will be more provocative U.S. political delegations ostentatiously traveling to Taipei in order to foment instability and the offensive notion of independence from China.

Thus, it’s altogether better that Beijing does not waste time by engaging Washington with disingenuous diplomacy. Forget smarmy, florid rhetoric about improving relations, and smiley handshakes. The only proof needed is deeds and practical compliance with already established legal treaties.

Washington says it respects the One China policy and three legally binding treaties that it has signed with Beijing since 1979 on that. That should mean the United States ending all interference in China’s sovereignty. No more arms sales to Taiwan and no more “freedom of navigation” maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait by U.S. warships.

It’s a rather straightforward obligation that avoids ambiguity and equivocation. It’s almost incredible that this has to be spelled out which illustrates just how rogue the United States is.

Moscow can make the same arguments and conclusions with regard to the U.S.-led NATO expansion up to its borders and the infiltration of Ukraine with NeoNazi proxies.

But here’s the deplorable rub: the United States is agreement incapable, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has caustically noted. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also recently lamented the complete dearth of American political integrity, at least for the past few generations.

Joe Biden figuratively falling down the stairs of the U.S.-China reset attempts is the latest confirmation that forked-tongued American politicians should be repudiated until Washington actually begins to behave as a law-abiding entity.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023 ... ina-reset/

Was it a gaffe? Was baiting the Bear to the point of no return an oopsie?

Like the strategic deployment of Joe Machin to torpedo even the semblance of progressive legislation I don't think these accidental. He may indeed be senile but Biden knows what he is doing, as he always has. 'Gramps' is a slippery, evil bastard.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 26, 2023 1:45 pm

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Blinken’s visit and Biden’s true colors: imperialist arrogance toward China
In this informative discussion on Breakthrough News, Brian Becker and Ken Hammond address the latest developments in US-China relations, in particular Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing and Joe Biden’s labelling of Xi Jinping as a “dictator”.

The two note that there was some short-lived optimism following Blinken’s visit that there could genuinely be scope for improving US-China relations, which are currently at their lowest ebb in half a century. Blinken had a lengthy discussion with Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, as well as meeting separately with President Xi and Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reported that Wang Yi reiterated China’s baseline – and entirely reasonable – demands: “that the US stop playing up the so-called ‘China threat’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, stop suppressing China’s scientific and technological advances, and not wantonly interfere in China’s internal affairs.” Blinken meanwhile asserted that the US is committed to “managing differences responsibly and cooperating in areas of common interests.”

However, Biden’s foolish comments about the so-called spy balloon incident, in which he referred to Xi Jinping as a “dictator”, almost immediately wiped out any goodwill resulting from the Blinken visit. Ken observes that Biden’s comment betrays the US administration’s profound hostility towards China, and its fear of China’s rise. This fear, combined with the continued need of US capitalism to engage economically with China, leads to erratic and confused statements and policies.

Brian points to certain parallels between the McCarthyism of the Cold War era and the New McCarthyism of the New Cold War, including a nasty, racist and deeply antidemocratic witch-hunt. He points out, however, that China’s integration into the global economy means that attacks on China also cause significant harm to the West. Furthermore, import restrictions on Chinese products such as solar panels lead to inflated prices for US consumers and are impeding meaningful climate action. As such, the New Cold War is damaging for ordinary people in the West.

Ken and Brian describe the US as being addicted to war, and observe that the propaganda war against China is part of a broader war drive. They call for a determined struggle against this propaganda war.

Professor Hammond’s new book, China’s Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future, is available on 1804 Books.


https://socialistchina.org/2023/06/22/b ... ard-china/

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Reality in Xinjiang belies US propaganda
In the second article carried by the US newspaper Workers World regarding the recent visit by Workers World Party and International Action Center members to China as part of a delegation organised by the China/US Solidarity Network, Sara Flounders, who is also a member of our advisory group, reports on their visit to Xinjiang, where the group gathered footage for a forthcoming documentary that aims to show the reality of life in the autonomous region, which has been a major propaganda focus of the US-led new cold war on China.

Having visited the regional capital of Urumqi and the ancient city of Kashgar, as well as the countryside, small towns and villages, Sara writes: “Torrents of US media reports had told us to expect cities under martial law, military forces of occupation and heavily armed police on every corner…Coming from the New York City area, I expected a police force of at least equal size. The New York City police force is the world’s eighth-largest armed body. On our return, reports of ‘Stop and Frisk’ programs centered on Black and Brown youth dominated the media…

“What we saw in Xinjiang was vibrant cities…full of tens of thousands of tourists, along with the local population of many nationalities. Huge and colorful marketplaces and bazaars, almost all of them run by Uygur families, stretched for many blocks. Busy subway lines crossed the cities. Everywhere we saw food markets brimming with inexpensive produce. Restaurants, cafés, and street food stalls were packed with local people. In the evenings, the streets were full – not silent and ominous.”

Outlining the region’s social progress in health, education and other areas, Sara notes: “The illiteracy rate in Xinjiang has fallen to 2.66%, lower than the country’s impressive 2.85% national average. At the time of the 1949 Chinese Revolution, illiteracy was 80% throughout China and more than 90% in Tibet and Xinjiang. Today 97.51% of small children are in preschool programs. Some 98.82% of the youth are enrolled in senior high schools in Xinjiang.”

In Kashgar, she reports that the 15th century Idkah Mosque can house up to 20,000 worshippers. “It is only one of the numerous Islamic centers and mosques, which we saw while walking the city streets and in several villages. Tall, slender minarets and dome-shaped roofs seemed to be a part of every block.”

No wonder, therefore, that, in stark contrast to the harsh sanctions imposed by the US government: “No Arab or Muslim countries have joined in the US rewriting of history and its targeted attacks on China. This is because these countries know that the US government is responsible for 30 years of massively disruptive wars, sanctions, drone attacks and targeted assassinations in a series of Muslim countries, including Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan.”

Sara’s article is republished below.
U.S. propaganda is powerful. Responding to an increase in U.S. attacks on China, a delegation was organized by the China / U.S. Solidarity Network, which then visited China from May 11 to May 31.

One focus of the trip was a visit to Xinjiang (pronounced Shinjaang) province to gather video footage and interviews that give a more realistic picture of this vast and quickly modernizing, multiethnic region. Footage for the documentary, currently named “Voice of Xinjiang,” focuses on an area with 4,000 years of history, which is at the center of the ancient Silk Road that today is a major hub in China’s ambitious Belt and Road trade program.

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is a vast arid, mountainous and high-desert region in China’s far northwest. Xinjiang has significant oil and mineral reserves and is currently China’s largest natural gas-producing region. The province — although the largest in geographic area, covering one-sixth of China’s total land mass — is sparsely populated, having only 2% of China’s 1.4 billion population. Of Xinjiang’s population of 25 million, 60% belong to 13 ethnic minorities.

The two major cities we visited — Urumqi and Kashgar — are over 1,000 miles from one another. The surrounding fully mechanized farms were part of our visit.

These cities are part of the “Silk Road,” the great historic trade route that connects Eastern Asia to Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Xinjiang has vital and strategic international importance. It borders eight countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, the Republic of Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Within China, it shares borders with three autonomous province/regions: Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet.

Today the population is actively learning new high-tech skills, which play a pivotal role in Xinjiang’s industrial development and its expanded commercial networks of high-speed trains and communications, which reach countries throughout Asia and into Europe and Africa.

Vibrant communities, zero ‘slave labor’
Torrents of U.S. media reports had told us to expect cities under martial law, military forces of occupation and heavily armed police on every corner. The Indigenous population, especially the Uygur people, are described as an impoverished and isolated population, who are allegedly forced into slave labor and doing backbreaking work in the fields or being locked inside concentration camps.

Coming from the New York City area, I expected a police force of at least equal size. The New York City police force is the world’s eighth-largest armed body. On our return, reports of “Stop and Frisk” programs centered on Black and Brown youth dominated the media: “Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally, federal monitor says.” (abc7ny.com)

What we saw in Xinjiang was vibrant cities — Kashgar and Urumqi — full of tens of thousands of tourists, along with the local population of many nationalities. Huge and colorful marketplaces and bazaars, almost all of them run by Uygur families, stretched for many blocks. Busy subway lines crossed the cities. Everywhere we saw food markets brimming with inexpensive produce. Restaurants, cafes and street food stalls were packed with local people. In the evenings, the streets were full — not silent and ominous.

Our observations are backed up by numerous international studies that are ignored in the Western media.

The illiteracy rate in Xinjiang has fallen to 2.66%, lower than the country’s impressive 2.85% national average. At the time of the 1949 Chinese Revolution, illiteracy was 80% throughout China and more than 90% in Tibet and Xinjiang. Today 97.51% of small children are in preschool programs. Some 98.82% of the youth are enrolled in senior high schools in Xinjiang. (tinyurl.com/bdfyxn29)

A useful study of the area’s health and education achievements, as of 2022, can be found on the website of the South Asia Journal at “Excellent Xinjiang Health, Growth & Education Outcomes Contradict Sinophobic U.S. Lies.” (southasiajournal.net, Jan. 22, 2022)

Drives through the countryside revealed fully mechanized agriculture with tractors, planters, drone sprayers, irrigation canals and acres of plastic-topped greenhouses. We did not see any fields with workers doing hand labor of hoeing, picking and trimming. This is confirmed in numerous reports and many photos. The mechanization of cotton production is at 90%. (tinyurl.com/37s3e7e9)

In Kashgar, the 15th-century Idkah Mosque can house up to 20,000 worshipers. It is only one of the numerous Islamic centers and mosques, which we saw while walking the city streets and in several villages. Tall, slender minarets and dome-shaped roofs seemed to be a part of every block.

The narrative that China is destroying mosques and Islamic centers is continually pushed in the U.S. and Western media. It is regularly countered, however, by representatives from Muslim countries.

Arab and Muslim countries don’t agree with U.S. coverage
On April 27, 2021, the China Global Television Network English-language program “The Point with Liu Xin” interviewed ambassadors from Pakistan, Palestine and Syria, after they had made extensive visits to Xinjiang. They accused Western media of intentionally overlooking “the economic, social and cultural rights that Muslim Uygurs and other ethnic minorities enjoy in the region.”

Palestinian ambassador to China, Fariz Mehdawi said: “You know, the average of mosques, if you have to calculate it all, it’s something like 2,000 inhabitants for one mosque. This ratio, we don’t have it in our country. It’s not available anywhere.” (tinyurl.com/2w5mjdww)

The ambassadors praised the setting up of industries and advanced agriculture, poverty alleviation programs, a focus on education and health, and people-centered policies throughout Xinjiang. Their commentary aligns with what we saw on our visit.

No Arab or Muslim countries have joined in the U.S. rewriting of history and its targeted attacks on China. This is because these countries know that the U.S. government is responsible for 30 years of massively disruptive wars, sanctions, drone attacks and targeted assassinations in a series of Muslim countries, including Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan.

They know that more than 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S., the largest prison population in the world, and the history of systematic genocide of Indigenous nations in the U.S. is well-known around the world. The U.S. claim that it is a protector of the Muslim population of China’s Xinjiang province reeks of racist hypocrisy.

Just before the COVID-19 shutdown of world travel in 2019, the Council of Foreign Ministers under the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), with 57 member states one of the largest intergovernmental bodies in the world, had endorsed and commended China’s treatment of its Muslim citizens, following a fact-finding trip to the region. (hongkongfp.com, March 3, 2019)

A week after our trip to Xinjiang, a large delegation from the League of Arab States, including top official representatives from more than 16 Arab/Muslim countries, went to many of the same sites we had visited. Egypt, Bahrain, Algeria, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Oman, Comoros, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Palestine were represented, along with several departments of the Arab League and the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum.

Their June 1 press statement, released by the Embassy of China in Syria, described the top-level delegation’s findings. The statement said: “Through visits to Urumqi, Kashgar and other places, we saw social harmony, economic development, people of all ethnic groups living in harmony in Xinjiang and accelerated progress in various undertakings. We truly understood the truth about the development of Xinjiang and recognized the true purpose of some international forces to smear and even demonize Xinjiang.”

Charge of ‘genocide’ to justify U.S. sanctions
The U.S. corporate media, U.S. major think tanks and strategists have labeled this modernization of Xinjiang “genocide.” The schools, universities and vocational training centers are labeled “concentration camps.” Based on these fabricated charges, intense new sanctions have been rammed through the U.S. Congress against all products and goods coming from the Xinjiang region. U.S. sanctions will impact all of China’s cotton exports.

China is the world’s largest exporter of cotton, and before the sanctions legislation, the U.S. was the largest importer of China’s cotton. All commodities using lithium, nickel manganese, beryllium, copper and gold mined in Xinjiang will also be impacted by U.S. sanctions. These include the manufacture of solar panels, electric vehicles made by auto companies and other products from chip makers, electronics and energy firms.

The only support for the wild, unsubstantiated charges used to justify new rounds of U.S. sanctions has come from the G7 imperialist countries and their allies.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, NPR, Radio Free Asia and other U.S.-funded “human rights” and news organizations unanimously claim that the government of China has carried out “massive and systematic abuse” against Muslims living in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Their reports of “forced labor” and religious and cultural suppression are uncritically and widely circulated by the Western corporate media. These reports were preparation for new rounds of harsher sanctions against Chinese exports.

First signed by President Joe Biden in December 2021, the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” took effect June 23, 2022. Under this latest anti-China measure, all goods made in Xinjiang province are banned, unless the importer can demonstrate the imports were produced “free of forced labor.” (New York Times, April 8, 2022)

This latest U.S. anti-China propaganda campaign is based on unsubstantiated claims that Uygur people have been forced to take up new jobs in industries recently relocated to Xinjiang.

Welcome changes for farmers and herders
We visited Toltay Farm, outside of Kashgar, the home of an extended family, who had for generations been forced to constantly migrate with their herds of cattle, sheep and camels to find forage in an arid land. They are now able to live stable lives, due to new animal husbandry and farming techniques and government subsidies for new equipment.

They now use the crushed fodder that is extracted from a wide variety of farm products. It is grown on irrigated land, crisscrossed with a network of government-built canals. There are acres of greenhouses topped with plastic. The family proudly showed us their herds, now fattening in pens. With the assistance of technology, local herders can watch over their herds and monitor their health by checking their smart phones. (tinyurl.com/ydmyjzha)

At a local primary school, teachers explained that classes were held in Uygur and Mandarin.

The state farm has been divided into lots, with some families choosing to farm cotton, vegetables or wheat, while others focus on raising animals. We visited families who leased out their land while they trained in construction or as mechanics and equipment operators. Other families were working in new industries but still living in the villages. Very few had left the region, because their lives were now prosperous and stable.

We visited the home of a young veterinarian from a herding family. He described his free education and his care of the small herds belonging to 400 families. At each home we were offered plates of melons, yogurt and fresh bread.

In Urumqi on the side of a road, we visited a Kazak family with a small dairy operation. They buy milk from surrounding families’ herds. The daughter, Sembat, who had just graduated from the agricultural university, ran the store. She insisted we try at least a taste of each of their milk, yogurt and cheese products from horses, camels, goats, sheep and cows. Each taste was sharply different.

Her father described the government program that had opened this new life for them. They invited us into their home, where a traditional yurt, which was erected on its side, was full of beautifully woven pillows and carpets. The yurt is now reserved for family gatherings.

As U.S. imperialism’s hostility to China increases — with military threats, new rounds of sanctions and increasing efforts to inflame hostility against China with wild fabrications — it is crucial to hear first-person reports from people in the region who are proud of the reality of their changed lives.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/06/21/r ... ropaganda/

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CPC deepens ties with Central and Eastern European Marxist parties
On June 2, the delegation met with Liu Jianchao, Minister of the Communist Party of China’s International Department (IDCPC). Liu told the visitors that the CPC and the communist parties and left-wing parties from Central and Eastern European countries visiting China this time are all Marxist parties. Both sides should strengthen theoretical discussions and jointly tell the stories of Marxism in the 21st century and the communist parties in our respective countries. And both sides should deepen exchanges and mutual learning in the concept and experiences of party building and state governance, better assist each other in advancing the adaptation of Marxism to the local context and the needs of our times, and explore development paths for socialism. Both sides should also strengthen solidarity and cooperation on multilateral platforms, safeguard common interests, and push relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries as well as China-Europe relations more generally.

Leaders of the various parties said that their visit to China had allowed them to witness the tremendous achievements China has made in the economic, social, and cultural fields, fully demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system and indicating that socialism is not only viable but also represents the future of the world. China’s achievements have provided confidence and inspiration for other countries around the world, and more and more countries hope to strengthen cooperation with China, while more and more political parties hope to enhance exchanges and mutual learning with the CPC on state governance and administration.

The following article was originally carried on the website of the IDCPC.
Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, met here today with a delegation of political parties from Central and Eastern European countries led by Katerina Konecna, Chairwoman of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and Member of the European Parliament from the Czech Republic.

Liu said, China and Central and Eastern European countries have a long-standing traditional friendship, and bilateral cooperation has maintained good development momentum in recent years. Inter-party exchanges are an important support for the development of state-to-state relations. The CPC and the communist parties and left-wing parties from Central and Eastern European countries visiting China this time are all Marxist parties. Both sides should strengthen theoretical discussions and jointly tell the stories of Marxism in the 21st century and the communist parties in our respective countries. Both sides should deepen exchanges and mutual learning in the concept and experiences on party building and state governance, better assist each other in advancing the adaption of Marxism to the local context and the needs of our times, and explore development paths for socialism. Both sides should also strengthen solidarity and cooperation on multilateral platforms, safeguard common interests, and push relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries as well as China-Europe relations for further development.

Liu said, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core is currently leading the Chinese people in comprehensively implementing the important spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress, and is advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. China will adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and respect the development paths chosen by other countries. The CPC is willing to deepen exchanges and mutual learning with political parties from various countries, jointly explore paths to achieve modernization for mankind, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Leaders of political parties from Central And Eastern European countries, including Konecna, said, our visit to China allowed us to witness the tremendous achievements China has made in the economic, social, and cultural fields, fully demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system and indicating that socialism is not only viable but also represents the future of the world. China’s achievements have provided confidence and inspiration for other countries around the world, and more and more countries hope to strengthen cooperation with China, while more and more political parties hope to enhance exchanges and mutual learning with the CPC on state governance and administration. The delegation is willing to tell what we have seen and heard in China to our own people, and promote a better understanding of China and the CPC in Europe and the world at large.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/06/20/c ... t-parties/

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Australia Keeps Escalating Its Censorship And Propaganda Campaign

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There’s a frenzied rush by the Australian political/media class to both propagandise Australians as quickly as possible into supporting preparations for war with China, and to ram through legislation that facilitates the censorship of online speech.

Australia’s Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is set to release draft legislation imposing hefty fines on social media companies who fail to adequately block “misinformation” and “disinformation” from circulation in Australia, a frightening prospect which will likely have far-reaching consequences for political speech in the nation.


Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Under the proposed laws, the authority would be able to impose a new “code” on specific companies that repeatedly fail to combat misinformation and disinformation or an industry-wide “standard” to force digital platforms to remove harmful content.

The maximum penalty for systemic breaches of a registered code would be $2.75 million or 2 per cent of global turnover — whichever is higher.

The maximum penalty for breaching an industry standard would be $6.88 million, or 5 per cent of a company’s global turnover. In the case of Facebook’s owner, Meta, for example, the maximum penalty could amount to a fine of more than $8 billion.


Those are the kinds of numbers that change a company’s censorship protocols. We’re already seeing social media censorship of content in Australia that the Australian government has ruled unacceptable; here’s what the transphobic tweets embedded in a right-wing article about Twitter censorship looks like when you try to view them on Twitter from Australia, for example:

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These tweets were reportedly hidden from Australians on the platform at the behest of the Australian government. Australians could wind up seeing much more of this sort of Australia-specific censorship from social media platforms if this “misinformation” legislation goes through. Or they could just start censoring it for everyone.

The problem with laws against inaccurate information is of course that somebody needs to be making the determination what information is true and what is false, and those determinations will necessarily be informed by the biases and agendas of the person making them. I can substantiate my claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by NATO powers using an abundance of facts and evidence, for example, but there’s still a sizeable portion of the population which would consider such claims malignant disinformation with or without the supporting data.

When the government involves itself in the regulation of speech, it is necessarily incentivized to regulate speech in a way that benefits itself and its allies. Nobody who supports government regulation of online mis- and disinformation can articulate how such measures can be safeguarded in a surefire way against the abuses and agendas of the powerful.

Under a Totalitarian Regime, your government censors your speech if you say unauthorized things. Under a Free Democracy, your government orders corporations to censor your speech if you say unauthorized things.

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At the same time, Australian media have been hammering one remarkably uniform message into public consciousness with increasing aggression lately: there is a war with China coming, Australia will be involved, and Australia must do much more to prepare for this war as quickly as possible.

Australians are remarkably vulnerable to propaganda due to the fact that ownership of our nation’s media is the most concentrated in the western world, with a powerful duopoly of Nine Entertainment and Murdoch’s News Corp controlling most of the Australian press.

Both of these media conglomerates have been involved in the latest excuse to talk about how more military spending and militarisation is needed, this time taking the form of a war machine-funded think tanker publishing a book about how we all need to prepare for war with China.


Nine Entertainment’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have an article out titled “Military expert warns of ‘very serious risk’ of China war within five years” by the odious Matthew Knott, who is best known for being told to drum himself out of Australian journalism by former prime minister Paul Keating for his appalling war-with-China propaganda series published earlier this year by the same papers. Readers who follow Australian media would do well to remember Knott’s name, because he has become one of the most prolific war propagandists in the western press.

The “military expert” who warns of the need to prepare for an imminent war with China is a man named Ross Babbage, who as Knott notes is “a non-resident senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.” What Knott fails to disclose to his readers is that the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is funded by every war profiteer and war machine entity under the sun, the majority coming straight from the US Department of Defense itself.

As we’ve discussed many times previously, it is never, ever okay for the press to cite war machine-funded think tankers for expertise or analysis on matters of war and foreign policy, and it is doubly egregious for them to do so without at least disclosing their massive conflict of interest to their readers. This act of extreme journalistic malpractice has become the norm throughout the mainstream press, because it helps mass media reporters do their actual job: administering propaganda to an unsuspecting public.


The Murdoch press has also been using Babbage’s book release as an excuse to bang the drums of war, with multiple Sky News segments and articles with titles like “Military analyst Ross Babbage warns Australia of potential war with China in coming years,” “National security expert Ross Babbage warns ‘strong possibility’ of war with China in latest book,” and “‘Running out of time’: Xi may move on Taiwan in next few years.” Again, not one mention of Babbage’s conflict of interests.

All for a news story that (and I cannot stress this enough) is not a news story. A war machine-funded think tanker saying he wants more war is not a news story — it’s just a thing that happens when the war machine is allowed to pay people to be warmongers.

“War Machine-Funded Warmonger Wants More War.” That’s your headline. That’s the one and only headline this non-story could ever deserve, if any.

Propaganda and censorship are the two most important tools of imperial narrative control, and it’s very telling that Australia is ramping them both up as the nation is being transformed into a weapon for the US empire to use against China. Steps are being taken to ensure that the Australian populace will be on board with whatever agendas the empire has planned for us in the coming years, and judging from what we’re seeing right now, it isn’t going to be pretty.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/06/26 ... -campaign/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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