Re: China
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:28 pm
Fred Goldstein’s analysis of capitalism, imperialism, and China resonates today
April 11, 20
Photo: Liz Green
Fred Goldstein, a prominent Marxist thinker, revolutionary socialist, and author who contributed significantly to the international communist movement, died a year ago on April 11, 2023. His enduring legacy lies in his significant contributions to the international communist movement, notably his unwavering defense of socialist China.
As the Palestinian people in Gaza face the brutality of the U.S.-armed Zionist entity, Palestinian liberation leader Leila Khaled recently emphasized the imperialist forces’ preparations to attack China. “We know that they speak about terrorism, but they are the heroes of terrorism. The imperialist force everywhere in the world, in Iraq, in Syria, in different countries. Now they are preparing to attack China,” Khaled said
In his work “The New Cold War Against China,” Goldstein wrote:
“The conflict between imperialist capitalism, headed by Washington, Wall Street and the Pentagon, and the Chinese socialist economic system, with state-owned industry at its core and planned economic guidance, is becoming much sharper, and imperialism is growing more openly hostile.”
Goldstein’s steadfast belief in the importance of revolutionary Marxism shines through in his document, “Reviving Marx and Lenin.” He argued that understanding the struggle for socialism, including the achievements and challenges faced by the USSR, is crucial for contemporary struggles. This document serves as essential reading for revolutionary socialists, particularly in the United States, given the U.S. role as the primary instigator of war and oppression as the bulwark of world capitalism.
Goldstein authored two influential books, “Low-Wage Capitalism: Colossus with Feet of Clay” (2008) and “Capitalism at a Dead End: Job destruction, overproduction, and crisis in the high-tech era” (2012), which analyzed the impact of technology on the global working class and the restructuring of capitalism in the post-Soviet era.
To explore Goldstein’s extensive work, visit the Marxists Internet Archive.
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... tes-today/
China’s unfair ‘overcapacity’
April 11, 2024 Michael Roberts
Assembly line at Chinese all-electric car company Nio.
The recent nonsense issued by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “The so-called threat of China’s ‘industrial overcapacity’ is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run less fast because he can’t keep up.”
Indeed, let me quote Bertrand’s rebuttal of Yellen’s claims of ‘overcapacity’: “Let’s start with capacity utilization rates. It’s crystal clear they’ve been pretty much constant in China for the past 10 years, standing at roughly 76% right now, which is in the same ballpark as America’s own utilization rates, at about 78%. So, there’s no issue there.”
Bertrand goes on: “Despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double-digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”
China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China, you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023, it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined, and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this, too, has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”
Europe’s leaders have been echoing Yellen’s claims. After meeting Xi in Beijing last December, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen noted the EU’s trade deficit with China had ballooned to €400bn from €40bn 20 years ago, as she highlighted a series of complaints, including China’s industrial ‘overcapacity,’ she said: “European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition.”
But let’s get this right: the EU trade deficit with China has risen from $40bn to $400bn in 20 years! Not two years, not five years, not ten years, but throughout this century. First, that makes the rise in the deficit not so large per year, say about $10-15bn, and throughout that period, we heard little complaint from the EU that China was adopting unfair trade practices. Suddenly, after the debacle of rising energy costs after cutting off Russian energy imports and a virtual two-year recession in the major EU countries, von der Leyen now blames China. Indeed, most of the increase in the ‘China deficit’ has come in the post-pandemic period.
As for the U.S., currently, the bilateral trade deficit between the U.S. and China relative to the size of the U.S. economy, is the lowest it’s been since 2002. As Bertrand says, “So it’s an odd time to complain so vociferously about trade imbalance with China since, from America’s standpoint, the trade imbalance is the lowest it’s been in over 20 years.”
Nevertheless, the Keynesian/China experts promote and parrot Yellen’s message. Here is a quote from a Western media source: “Against the backdrop of rising international concern, experts believe the manufacturing strategy will not deliver on Beijing’s growth targets. Exports already account for a fifth of GDP, and China’s share of global manufacturing stands at 31 percent. Absent an explosion of demand, they say it is unlikely the rest of the world could soak up China’s exports without shrinking its own manufacturing.”
Who are these great experts? The usual suspects.
Michael Pettis tells us that if China goes on expanding its manufacturing exports, it will have to be “accommodated by the rest of the world.” And the rest of the world is unlikely to do that. Really? It seems that China has no problem selling its exports to the rest of the world’s consumers and manufacturers, who are eager to buy.
Another expert is Brad Setser. Setser tells us that “China’s domestic EV market was created via industrial policy; it didn’t appear out of thin air. A critical point, and one that is often now forgotten. Same is true of HSR and wind, and China is trying in other sectors as well.” Shock, horror; it was not achieved through market forces but through state-led investment. He goes on, “The reality that many of China’s export success stories now didn’t originate with the magic of the market no doubt complicates global trade, as adjusting to accommodate China’s successes doesn’t “feel” like a true market adjustment.“ In other words, the U.S. and Europe and Japan cannot compete. So what to do? Setser says, “I think the U.S. should make a real effort to offset China’s economic coercion here. It will take a bit of sacrifice but I at least am willing to step up.” So competition is now called ‘coercion,’ and the U.S. must respond with coercion itself, with Setser ready to help Yellen on that.
The rationality of this nonsense is found in the Western mainstream view that China is stuck in an old model of investment-led export manufacturing and needs to ‘rebalance’ towards a consumer-led domestic economy where the private sector has free rein. China’s weak consumer sector is forcing it to try to export manufacturing ‘over capacity’.
But the evidence for this is not there. According to a recent study by Richard Baldwin, he finds that the export-led model did operate up to 2006, but since then, domestic sales have boomed so that the exports to GDP ratio has actually fallen. “Chinese consumption of Chinese manufactured goods has grown faster than Chinese production for almost two decades. Far from being unable to absorb the production, Chinese domestic consumption of made-in-China goods has grown MUCH faster than the output of China’s manufacturing sector.”
Chinese manufacturers remain highly competitive in world markets, despite all the efforts of the West to impose tariffs and other protectionist measures. China is doing particularly well in electric vehicle production, solar energy and other green technologies. But as Baldwin points out, this export success does not mean that China depends on exports for growth. China is growing mainly because of production for the home economy, like the U.S.
But there is a more worrying feature of this ‘overcapacity’ nonsense. It has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by economists in the Chinese banking sector, who were mainly trained in Western universities. Take the recent speech by the chief economist at the China Bank, Zu Gao. His speech was highly praised by the likes of Pettis and Setser. Xu argued that “the significantly lower consumption-to-GDP ratio in China, compared to the global average, is the fundamental cause of the country’s lackluster domestic demand and economic slowdown.”
Xu explains that “weak domestic demand, compounded by lackluster external demand or export volumes, results in insufficient total demand, thereby stifling economic growth. In that sense, the long-term growth constraints on the Chinese economy lie not in the supply but in demand.” Really? China’s relative growth slowdown in the past decade has been due to the slowing expansion of its labor force with economic growth then depending primarily on raising the productivity of labor. And that depends on investment in productivity-boosting technology, not consumption, which is a deduction from resources for investment. Moreover, which countries have achieved faster growth in the last few years: the consumer-led West or low-consumption China?
Xu follows up his classic crude Keynesian theory by saying that “the objective of economic growth is to fulfill the people’s expectation for a better life, which is primarily manifested through their expectation for enhanced consumption—better quality food, clothing, and leisure activities. When a country’s consumption constitutes a small fraction of its GDP, it indicates a misalignment between the aggregate economic growth (as depicted by GDP) and the lived experiences of its people.”
But this is just not true. A low consumption-to-GDP ratio does not necessarily mean low consumption growth. And China’s consumption growth has been way faster than the consumer-led economies of the West.
Then we get to the real purpose of Xu’s speech: “The extensive presence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China, whose profits and dividends primarily flow to the state rather than households, diminishes the wealth effect that might otherwise stimulate household consumption.” You see, it’s China’s state-led economy that’s the problem: it is stopping “an efficient market mechanism” from working.
So what to do? “Of course, SOEs in China are technically owned by the people, yet their equity is predominantly held by the state. Consequently, the dividends from SOEs primarily flow to the state rather than the households; the profits retained post-dividend distribution from SOEs are not directly connected to the balance sheets of households, making it difficult to contribute to household wealth. So says Xu, “We need to distribute all SOE stocks to citizens,” i.e., privatise the state-owned companies.
The chief economist of China Bank seems to reckon that the only answer to the perceived ‘lack of demand’ and ‘overcapacity’ in China is to restore the dominance of the ‘efficient market mechanism”.
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... rcapacity/
Meh, China's bankers can say this and that but the tail does not wag the dog and the Party rules and is indeed tightening up a bit on the capitalists who put themselves and the market before the people.
Green Berets ‘permanently’ stationed in Taiwan near China’s mainland coast
April 11, 2024 Chris Fry
Green Berets are now permanently stationed on Quemoy, within sight of the Chinese mainland coast.
On May 6, 2016, the New York Times published an obituary for Donald W. Duncan, a former Green Beret master sergeant and later an outspoken critic of the U.S. war against Vietnam. Duncan wrote articles and a memoir and spoke at many anti-war rallies.
The Green Berets, a “special operation” military unit, was first sent into Vietnam in 1957, not long after Ho Chi Minh and the liberation forces drove the French colonial forces out of Indochina. They were tasked with training soldiers for the newly formed U.S.-created “South” Vietnam puppet regime.
Duncan told the radical journal Ramparts about his special forces training, which “…included ‘methods of torture to extract information,’ including ‘the delicate operation of lowering a man’s testicles into a jeweler’s vise.’ He said he later witnessed the use of such techniques in Vietnam.”
Mr. Duncan also testified that year [1967] at an unofficial “war crimes tribunal” organized by the philosopher Bertrand Russell in Denmark, and at a South Carolina court-martial, where he spoke in defense of Capt. Howard R. Levy, a Green Beret who had also turned against the war. Captain Levy was convicted of disobeying orders and attempting to incite disloyalty, and eventually served 26 months in prison.
Duncan’s testimony about the military and the war industry is just as true now as it was then:
I also know that we have allowed the creation of a military monster that will lie to our elected officials, and that both of them will lie to the American people.
After the U.S. was driven out of Vietnam in 1973, the Green Berets were sent by President Ronald Reagan to guide the secret illegal war to support the “Contras” in Nicaragua and their murderous campaign against the Sandinista government. The contras were responsible for killing thousands of civilians, including many members of the clergy.
In 2001, the Green Berets were the first shock troops sent into Afghanistan when the U.S. began its 20-year occupation of that country, and in 2003, they were then sent into Iraq to overturn the government there, resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 people, mostly civilians.
Biden sends Green Berets to Taiwan to set up ‘live fire’ exercises.
On March 20, Newsweek reported that:
“Taiwan has confirmed there are U.S. troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait on a permanent basis, including an island just over a mile off China’s southeast coast.
“The [U.S.] National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 paved the way for their arrival to conduct training programs for troops on Taiwan’s front line.”
The Green Berets are now permanently stationed on Quemoy, also called Kinmen, within sight of the Chinese mainland coast, as well as Penghu, some 70 miles away.
Of course, “training” is actually down the list of duties for these soldiers. More importantly, they act as a “tripwire” for U.S. imperialism as it attempts to provoke China into open war.
The South China Morning Post reported that Taiwan’s quasi-regime will conduct 20 days of “live fire drills” on Quemoy, which the Pentagon says the Green Berets will participate in:
A military source said various guns and cannons, including M60A3 main battle tanks, 20mm cannons, 120mm mortars, and high-explosive 155mm and 105mm Howitzers, will be used during the exercises that will simulate defending against attacks from the People’s Liberation Army.
On March 7, the Eurasian Times website reported that Taiwan and the U.S. will test the Israeli-made Spyder air defense missile system as it makes its debut during these “fire drills.”
An opinion piece by Alex Lo in the South China Morning Post on March 19 puts this all into perspective:
Now imagine how Washington would react if China had permanently stationed some of its most elite troops a couple of kilometers from Hawaii, Guam or worse, the continental United States. The Pentagon would probably deploy more than a few coastguard vessels as a response.
Taiwan residents are not eager to be Washington’s proxies in war with the PRC.
The Global Affairs website published a March 2022 article about two polls conducted in Taiwan with questions about how willing the residents were to fight off an invasion by mainland China.
The article stated that the results differed sharply depending on who sponsored the poll, whether it was by the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or a more non-aligned conductor:
One organization’s [DPP] poll had 62 percent of respondents say yes and 27 percent say no, while the other survey, with a slight difference in its wording asking whether “you or your family” would be willing to fight, found only 40 percent said yes and 51 percent said no.
In January of this year, elections were held in Taiwan. The DPP candidate won the presidency with only 40 percent of the vote, while the combined opposition vote was close to 60 percent. The opposition parties also took control of Taiwan’s “legislature.”
The aptly named Institute for the Study of War, whose board is made up of retired Pentagon generals, former neo-con officials, and Wall Street bankers and hedge fund operators, published a March 22 “China-Taiwan Weekly Update.”
While Washington frequently boasts that Taiwan is “democratic,” this article complains that the DPP war preparations are being hampered by the opposition parties in the legislature:
The Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are pursuing political reforms that threaten to undermine the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) governance by expanding legislative oversight of the executive branch.
The opposition’s plan to impose checks and balances on the DPP could significantly hamper the government’s ability to pass policy by miring it in defensive actions against accusations of overstepping authority or corruption.
For these well-heeled gentlemen, imperialist war to crush socialist China is far too important to be stopped by the people that would bear the consequences of it, whether in Taiwan, mainland China, or the U.S..
Meanwhile, on April 1, former Taiwan “president” Ma Ying-jeou traveled from Taiwan to mainland China for an 11-day trip. He is expected to meet with PRC President Xi Jinping.
“This is a trip of peace as well as of friendship,” Ma told reporters in brief remarks at the airport in Taiwan before flying to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province.
Ma added that he hoped to convey a message that Taiwan’s people love peace and hope to avoid war.
As U.S. imperialism faces setback after setback in its proxy wars in Ukraine, in Gaza, and in Yemen, as it faces more and more opposition in the streets here and abroad for its devastating drumbeat for war while fundamental people’s rights are under attack, the anti-war movement must be vigilant and ready to mobilize against this threat to People’s China!
There is one China!
Taiwan belongs to all the Chinese people!
U.S., hands off Taiwan! Remove the Green Berets now!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... and-coast/
April 11, 20
Photo: Liz Green
Fred Goldstein, a prominent Marxist thinker, revolutionary socialist, and author who contributed significantly to the international communist movement, died a year ago on April 11, 2023. His enduring legacy lies in his significant contributions to the international communist movement, notably his unwavering defense of socialist China.
As the Palestinian people in Gaza face the brutality of the U.S.-armed Zionist entity, Palestinian liberation leader Leila Khaled recently emphasized the imperialist forces’ preparations to attack China. “We know that they speak about terrorism, but they are the heroes of terrorism. The imperialist force everywhere in the world, in Iraq, in Syria, in different countries. Now they are preparing to attack China,” Khaled said
In his work “The New Cold War Against China,” Goldstein wrote:
“The conflict between imperialist capitalism, headed by Washington, Wall Street and the Pentagon, and the Chinese socialist economic system, with state-owned industry at its core and planned economic guidance, is becoming much sharper, and imperialism is growing more openly hostile.”
Goldstein’s steadfast belief in the importance of revolutionary Marxism shines through in his document, “Reviving Marx and Lenin.” He argued that understanding the struggle for socialism, including the achievements and challenges faced by the USSR, is crucial for contemporary struggles. This document serves as essential reading for revolutionary socialists, particularly in the United States, given the U.S. role as the primary instigator of war and oppression as the bulwark of world capitalism.
Goldstein authored two influential books, “Low-Wage Capitalism: Colossus with Feet of Clay” (2008) and “Capitalism at a Dead End: Job destruction, overproduction, and crisis in the high-tech era” (2012), which analyzed the impact of technology on the global working class and the restructuring of capitalism in the post-Soviet era.
To explore Goldstein’s extensive work, visit the Marxists Internet Archive.
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... tes-today/
China’s unfair ‘overcapacity’
April 11, 2024 Michael Roberts
Assembly line at Chinese all-electric car company Nio.
The recent nonsense issued by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “The so-called threat of China’s ‘industrial overcapacity’ is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run less fast because he can’t keep up.”
Indeed, let me quote Bertrand’s rebuttal of Yellen’s claims of ‘overcapacity’: “Let’s start with capacity utilization rates. It’s crystal clear they’ve been pretty much constant in China for the past 10 years, standing at roughly 76% right now, which is in the same ballpark as America’s own utilization rates, at about 78%. So, there’s no issue there.”
Bertrand goes on: “Despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double-digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”
China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China, you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023, it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined, and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this, too, has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”
Europe’s leaders have been echoing Yellen’s claims. After meeting Xi in Beijing last December, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen noted the EU’s trade deficit with China had ballooned to €400bn from €40bn 20 years ago, as she highlighted a series of complaints, including China’s industrial ‘overcapacity,’ she said: “European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition.”
But let’s get this right: the EU trade deficit with China has risen from $40bn to $400bn in 20 years! Not two years, not five years, not ten years, but throughout this century. First, that makes the rise in the deficit not so large per year, say about $10-15bn, and throughout that period, we heard little complaint from the EU that China was adopting unfair trade practices. Suddenly, after the debacle of rising energy costs after cutting off Russian energy imports and a virtual two-year recession in the major EU countries, von der Leyen now blames China. Indeed, most of the increase in the ‘China deficit’ has come in the post-pandemic period.
As for the U.S., currently, the bilateral trade deficit between the U.S. and China relative to the size of the U.S. economy, is the lowest it’s been since 2002. As Bertrand says, “So it’s an odd time to complain so vociferously about trade imbalance with China since, from America’s standpoint, the trade imbalance is the lowest it’s been in over 20 years.”
Nevertheless, the Keynesian/China experts promote and parrot Yellen’s message. Here is a quote from a Western media source: “Against the backdrop of rising international concern, experts believe the manufacturing strategy will not deliver on Beijing’s growth targets. Exports already account for a fifth of GDP, and China’s share of global manufacturing stands at 31 percent. Absent an explosion of demand, they say it is unlikely the rest of the world could soak up China’s exports without shrinking its own manufacturing.”
Who are these great experts? The usual suspects.
Michael Pettis tells us that if China goes on expanding its manufacturing exports, it will have to be “accommodated by the rest of the world.” And the rest of the world is unlikely to do that. Really? It seems that China has no problem selling its exports to the rest of the world’s consumers and manufacturers, who are eager to buy.
Another expert is Brad Setser. Setser tells us that “China’s domestic EV market was created via industrial policy; it didn’t appear out of thin air. A critical point, and one that is often now forgotten. Same is true of HSR and wind, and China is trying in other sectors as well.” Shock, horror; it was not achieved through market forces but through state-led investment. He goes on, “The reality that many of China’s export success stories now didn’t originate with the magic of the market no doubt complicates global trade, as adjusting to accommodate China’s successes doesn’t “feel” like a true market adjustment.“ In other words, the U.S. and Europe and Japan cannot compete. So what to do? Setser says, “I think the U.S. should make a real effort to offset China’s economic coercion here. It will take a bit of sacrifice but I at least am willing to step up.” So competition is now called ‘coercion,’ and the U.S. must respond with coercion itself, with Setser ready to help Yellen on that.
The rationality of this nonsense is found in the Western mainstream view that China is stuck in an old model of investment-led export manufacturing and needs to ‘rebalance’ towards a consumer-led domestic economy where the private sector has free rein. China’s weak consumer sector is forcing it to try to export manufacturing ‘over capacity’.
But the evidence for this is not there. According to a recent study by Richard Baldwin, he finds that the export-led model did operate up to 2006, but since then, domestic sales have boomed so that the exports to GDP ratio has actually fallen. “Chinese consumption of Chinese manufactured goods has grown faster than Chinese production for almost two decades. Far from being unable to absorb the production, Chinese domestic consumption of made-in-China goods has grown MUCH faster than the output of China’s manufacturing sector.”
Chinese manufacturers remain highly competitive in world markets, despite all the efforts of the West to impose tariffs and other protectionist measures. China is doing particularly well in electric vehicle production, solar energy and other green technologies. But as Baldwin points out, this export success does not mean that China depends on exports for growth. China is growing mainly because of production for the home economy, like the U.S.
But there is a more worrying feature of this ‘overcapacity’ nonsense. It has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by economists in the Chinese banking sector, who were mainly trained in Western universities. Take the recent speech by the chief economist at the China Bank, Zu Gao. His speech was highly praised by the likes of Pettis and Setser. Xu argued that “the significantly lower consumption-to-GDP ratio in China, compared to the global average, is the fundamental cause of the country’s lackluster domestic demand and economic slowdown.”
Xu explains that “weak domestic demand, compounded by lackluster external demand or export volumes, results in insufficient total demand, thereby stifling economic growth. In that sense, the long-term growth constraints on the Chinese economy lie not in the supply but in demand.” Really? China’s relative growth slowdown in the past decade has been due to the slowing expansion of its labor force with economic growth then depending primarily on raising the productivity of labor. And that depends on investment in productivity-boosting technology, not consumption, which is a deduction from resources for investment. Moreover, which countries have achieved faster growth in the last few years: the consumer-led West or low-consumption China?
Xu follows up his classic crude Keynesian theory by saying that “the objective of economic growth is to fulfill the people’s expectation for a better life, which is primarily manifested through their expectation for enhanced consumption—better quality food, clothing, and leisure activities. When a country’s consumption constitutes a small fraction of its GDP, it indicates a misalignment between the aggregate economic growth (as depicted by GDP) and the lived experiences of its people.”
But this is just not true. A low consumption-to-GDP ratio does not necessarily mean low consumption growth. And China’s consumption growth has been way faster than the consumer-led economies of the West.
Then we get to the real purpose of Xu’s speech: “The extensive presence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China, whose profits and dividends primarily flow to the state rather than households, diminishes the wealth effect that might otherwise stimulate household consumption.” You see, it’s China’s state-led economy that’s the problem: it is stopping “an efficient market mechanism” from working.
So what to do? “Of course, SOEs in China are technically owned by the people, yet their equity is predominantly held by the state. Consequently, the dividends from SOEs primarily flow to the state rather than the households; the profits retained post-dividend distribution from SOEs are not directly connected to the balance sheets of households, making it difficult to contribute to household wealth. So says Xu, “We need to distribute all SOE stocks to citizens,” i.e., privatise the state-owned companies.
The chief economist of China Bank seems to reckon that the only answer to the perceived ‘lack of demand’ and ‘overcapacity’ in China is to restore the dominance of the ‘efficient market mechanism”.
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... rcapacity/
Meh, China's bankers can say this and that but the tail does not wag the dog and the Party rules and is indeed tightening up a bit on the capitalists who put themselves and the market before the people.
Green Berets ‘permanently’ stationed in Taiwan near China’s mainland coast
April 11, 2024 Chris Fry
Green Berets are now permanently stationed on Quemoy, within sight of the Chinese mainland coast.
On May 6, 2016, the New York Times published an obituary for Donald W. Duncan, a former Green Beret master sergeant and later an outspoken critic of the U.S. war against Vietnam. Duncan wrote articles and a memoir and spoke at many anti-war rallies.
The Green Berets, a “special operation” military unit, was first sent into Vietnam in 1957, not long after Ho Chi Minh and the liberation forces drove the French colonial forces out of Indochina. They were tasked with training soldiers for the newly formed U.S.-created “South” Vietnam puppet regime.
Duncan told the radical journal Ramparts about his special forces training, which “…included ‘methods of torture to extract information,’ including ‘the delicate operation of lowering a man’s testicles into a jeweler’s vise.’ He said he later witnessed the use of such techniques in Vietnam.”
Mr. Duncan also testified that year [1967] at an unofficial “war crimes tribunal” organized by the philosopher Bertrand Russell in Denmark, and at a South Carolina court-martial, where he spoke in defense of Capt. Howard R. Levy, a Green Beret who had also turned against the war. Captain Levy was convicted of disobeying orders and attempting to incite disloyalty, and eventually served 26 months in prison.
Duncan’s testimony about the military and the war industry is just as true now as it was then:
I also know that we have allowed the creation of a military monster that will lie to our elected officials, and that both of them will lie to the American people.
After the U.S. was driven out of Vietnam in 1973, the Green Berets were sent by President Ronald Reagan to guide the secret illegal war to support the “Contras” in Nicaragua and their murderous campaign against the Sandinista government. The contras were responsible for killing thousands of civilians, including many members of the clergy.
In 2001, the Green Berets were the first shock troops sent into Afghanistan when the U.S. began its 20-year occupation of that country, and in 2003, they were then sent into Iraq to overturn the government there, resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 people, mostly civilians.
Biden sends Green Berets to Taiwan to set up ‘live fire’ exercises.
On March 20, Newsweek reported that:
“Taiwan has confirmed there are U.S. troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait on a permanent basis, including an island just over a mile off China’s southeast coast.
“The [U.S.] National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 paved the way for their arrival to conduct training programs for troops on Taiwan’s front line.”
The Green Berets are now permanently stationed on Quemoy, also called Kinmen, within sight of the Chinese mainland coast, as well as Penghu, some 70 miles away.
Of course, “training” is actually down the list of duties for these soldiers. More importantly, they act as a “tripwire” for U.S. imperialism as it attempts to provoke China into open war.
The South China Morning Post reported that Taiwan’s quasi-regime will conduct 20 days of “live fire drills” on Quemoy, which the Pentagon says the Green Berets will participate in:
A military source said various guns and cannons, including M60A3 main battle tanks, 20mm cannons, 120mm mortars, and high-explosive 155mm and 105mm Howitzers, will be used during the exercises that will simulate defending against attacks from the People’s Liberation Army.
On March 7, the Eurasian Times website reported that Taiwan and the U.S. will test the Israeli-made Spyder air defense missile system as it makes its debut during these “fire drills.”
An opinion piece by Alex Lo in the South China Morning Post on March 19 puts this all into perspective:
Now imagine how Washington would react if China had permanently stationed some of its most elite troops a couple of kilometers from Hawaii, Guam or worse, the continental United States. The Pentagon would probably deploy more than a few coastguard vessels as a response.
Taiwan residents are not eager to be Washington’s proxies in war with the PRC.
The Global Affairs website published a March 2022 article about two polls conducted in Taiwan with questions about how willing the residents were to fight off an invasion by mainland China.
The article stated that the results differed sharply depending on who sponsored the poll, whether it was by the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or a more non-aligned conductor:
One organization’s [DPP] poll had 62 percent of respondents say yes and 27 percent say no, while the other survey, with a slight difference in its wording asking whether “you or your family” would be willing to fight, found only 40 percent said yes and 51 percent said no.
In January of this year, elections were held in Taiwan. The DPP candidate won the presidency with only 40 percent of the vote, while the combined opposition vote was close to 60 percent. The opposition parties also took control of Taiwan’s “legislature.”
The aptly named Institute for the Study of War, whose board is made up of retired Pentagon generals, former neo-con officials, and Wall Street bankers and hedge fund operators, published a March 22 “China-Taiwan Weekly Update.”
While Washington frequently boasts that Taiwan is “democratic,” this article complains that the DPP war preparations are being hampered by the opposition parties in the legislature:
The Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are pursuing political reforms that threaten to undermine the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) governance by expanding legislative oversight of the executive branch.
The opposition’s plan to impose checks and balances on the DPP could significantly hamper the government’s ability to pass policy by miring it in defensive actions against accusations of overstepping authority or corruption.
For these well-heeled gentlemen, imperialist war to crush socialist China is far too important to be stopped by the people that would bear the consequences of it, whether in Taiwan, mainland China, or the U.S..
Meanwhile, on April 1, former Taiwan “president” Ma Ying-jeou traveled from Taiwan to mainland China for an 11-day trip. He is expected to meet with PRC President Xi Jinping.
“This is a trip of peace as well as of friendship,” Ma told reporters in brief remarks at the airport in Taiwan before flying to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province.
Ma added that he hoped to convey a message that Taiwan’s people love peace and hope to avoid war.
As U.S. imperialism faces setback after setback in its proxy wars in Ukraine, in Gaza, and in Yemen, as it faces more and more opposition in the streets here and abroad for its devastating drumbeat for war while fundamental people’s rights are under attack, the anti-war movement must be vigilant and ready to mobilize against this threat to People’s China!
There is one China!
Taiwan belongs to all the Chinese people!
U.S., hands off Taiwan! Remove the Green Berets now!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... and-coast/