By Godfree Roberts – selected from his extensive weekly newsletter : Here Comes China plus editorial notes.
You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
The Biggest News
Xi declares ‘complete victory’ in eradicating absolute poverty in China
The final 99 million poor rural Chinese are free of poverty, along with 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages. China met the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development goal 10 years ahead of schedule.
(Ed…) Xi Jingping took much credit for this and some internal commentators are already calling him a glory hog. It was the complete Chinese nation that was involved and they say he should leave some of the joy to the rest of the Chinese society who all worked hard at this.
Of course, the empire cannot accept this as a truimph. According to the Indian commentator, Maitreya Bhakal, empire is in the five stages of grief.
Western media’s five stages of grief at China’s poverty eradication success
Editorial comment 1: At the Saker Blog, we’ve noticed and have been discussing in various articles, Russia’s new hard line diplomacy vis a vis Europe, as well as the US. We see the same trajectory from China, yet it is different. Here are two examples of the discernable new language from China. This seems to be a language that is changing on a basis of reciprocity. If China is accused of human rights violations, they reciprocate exactly. In example one, they are writing a report on US human rights violations. In example two, they tweet examples of human rights violations.
Example 1 : China’s upcoming report on US human rights violations shows 2020 ‘a declining point’ of American democracy
Example 2 –
This is shocking. What a poor couple. What a poor girl. The US is staging a humanitarian disaster. Officials should go to jail for such a tragedy. It’s a national humiliation for the US to allow this happen. pic.twitter.com/OZ7A9lKnmL
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) March 2, 2021
Editorial comment 2 – The Taiwanese Pineapple Fight.
On this issue, we see an iron fist from China, very directly aimed at the western influenced Taiwanese agitators. Taiwan grows pineapples, very many pineapples, tons of them. And they of course sell them to China. China quarantined Taiwanese pineapple imports into mainland China and gently told them to eat their own pineapples. This is equal to what they did with Australian wines and now the South African winemakers have taken over this market niche.
These are small steps and in two tiny market segments, but it does look like the time that anyone could dismiss and insult China, may be brought to an end.
This is a early trend that we should take notice of, where countries and parties are going to have to take real responsibility for their very own words and actions. Very similar to Russia’s latest stance, no?
Back to the Here Comes China Newsletter:
We have a fascinating article that is titled: “Jack Ma is not the problem“, from the Qiau Collective.
Chinese blogger Li Xuran offers a compelling analysis of the role of capital in modern China. The halting of Ant’s bombshell IPO in November 2020, Li argues, must be seen in the context of the socialist state’s role in restraining the “wild beast” of capital for the sake of socialist development and the public good.
Read it here: https://www.qiaocollective.com/en/articles/jack-ma-is-not-the-problem
More than taking note of this one very nuanced article, it is worth looking at the other writings on the Qiau Collective, which calls itself: “Qiao Collective is a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging U.S. aggression on China. ”
From western questioners, the general view on China is that everyone is walking around in fear that their next words are going to put them at odds with the censor and that everyone is being controlled. Take a look at this magazine, and the specific link is interesting. Did you know that China has New Age Hippies?
This is but a fraction of what I gleaned from the Here Comes China newsletter. If you want to learn about the Chinese world, get Godfree’s newsletter here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
Editorial comment 1: “… We see the same trajectory from China, yet it is different. Here are two examples of the discernable new language from China. This seems to be a language that is changing on a basis of reciprocity. ”
To say that as “reciprocity” is giving too much credits to the West. Most of the West criticism are just pure lies and fabrications, whereas China’s counter arguments are almost always factual based. That is the difference – crucial difference.
But I agree that China’s (and Russia’s) tone are changing. And that is a good thing. It exposes the blatant hypocrisy and bankruptcy of the Western media and political classes.
Russia, China and Venezuela all turned towards their infrastructure and social programs. The Chinese are eradicating poverty, as are the Russians and Venezuelans. Why were Chavez and Maduro so unpopular in the West ? Because they used Venezuela’s oil revenues to boost infrastructure and social reforms, which is a bad example for the elites in the EU and US, especially in the US. The US tried a coup d’etat against Maduro, and it failed, as the vast majority of people in Venezuela cannot forget the pre-Chavez years, when the oil was looted. This is the reason why “interim President” Guaido never stood a chance in overthrowing Maduro. Same thing in Russia. The people cannot forget the Yeltsin years and the looting of Russia. Political puppets like Sobchak and Navalny never stood a chance in overthrowing Putin, yet both the EU and US introduced sanctions against Russia for that false flag with Navalny. Both think that instigating color revolutions and coup d’etats applied in banana republics can work in Russia. It cannot. The globalists still have to grasp that we are entering new times.
From the top of the PRC:
President Xi stated in speech last week that the US is China’s biggest threat.
The Chinese are not mincing words.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/xi-jinping-calls-out-us-biggest-threat-chinas-development-security
Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210226222555/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.qiliannews.com%2Fsystem%2F2021%2F02%2F25%2F013341147.shtml
both russia and china understand this and are preparing their respective nation state ARKS to come through the other side as intact and cohesive as possible…for the west the 2030’s are going to make the yeltsin years seem grand, prosperous and peaceful.
the comment below from another forum and re-posted it here because it profoundly sums up the west and its future.
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/youth-wishing-sometimes-on-violence/#comment-4478434
comment 52
A third post on the Texas energy fiasco: Texas was seconds and minutes away from a complete disaster.
If you read the article, the point made therein is that the grid operators decided to sacrifice a few million people for the “greater good” of covering up their own incompetence, because the grid was about to fail catastrophically. You may notice a common theme here with many other current events that seem to be coming to a head right about now. Let’s take a look at some.
1. Remember the “flatten the curve” nonsense, when it was decided that lockdowns and social distancing were necessary to save the healthcare system, so people were not allowed to get their necessary checkups and treatments? It is supposed to be the job of the healthcare system to help the people, not the other way around.
2. Observe how the Robinhooders just got fleeced when they tried to short-squeeze Gamestop. I wrote what happened to be a timely commentary upon this, even though it was in reference to something else: When the SHTF, they will not let you sell your stock. They will lock up your money and take it.
3. The crowning example of this ensemble is, I believe, the $18 trillion of negative-yielding debt sloshing about in the global bond markets. This is a monetary bizarro world where no rules apply and anything is possible, because standards have been turned upside down.
These separate phenomena all share the same Platonic form: It is the form of the elites literally sacrificing the proles to protect the system. It is an inversion of justice in a society that no longer serves the needs of its own members. It is like Roman proconsuls sacking their own provinces to gain the wherewithal for their political machinations back in the imperial city.
This is why the world is stuck in an irreversible decline of ever expanding debt loads, ever eroding capital base, ever diminishing social cohesion, and population collapse. The decline will not be symmetrical with the ascent. The ascent was a slow, organic growth that compounded the gains of many centuries. But at the apex everything becomes entangled in petty economic problems, the factions split off, and the heads of the hydra start biting each other. Great masses of now superfluous humanity are simply discarded or used up in pointless intrigues that even future historians won’t understand. This is the endgame, the West’s final blow-off top. As unit472 said, there will be no building back better after this.
ahh the REPO fiasco. the true sign of recession/collapsing fiat. in my opinion heralded the fake flu fiasco. all a pathetic but dangerous to humanity cover up of the failings of the controllers. it hasnt gone away. pumping trillions then shutting the world economy. still cant hide the negative yields on T-bonds. nor its historical implications. the uk usa and others have published data that normal flu has magically dissapeared. cured perhaps, without a single media statement or government minister touting flu vaccines as the elixer . strange to some but not others with functioning faculties. soon we will be in lockdowns because us humans are bad for the environment and its the only way to save it. while john kerry and his ilk can still fly private jets to environmental summits we will be given soylant green and bill gates gmo fake cow burgers
I thought that “Jack Ma Is Not The Problem” was a great article! One of my favorite parts:
“Capital is like genetic code, whose sole purpose is to populate, duplicate, and grow. In the natural world, a creature without a predator will surely overpopulate, like the Asian carp in the United States. Capital without competition and regulation will lead to large-scale monopoly in all areas.
Liu Cixin, in his sci-fi novel The Wages of Humanity, imagines the ultimate stage of capitalism in which a “final producer” monopolizes all the planet’s resources, including land, air and water. People pay taxes just to breathe. This speculation is based on the recognition of reality.
Isn’t the reoccurring financial recession in capitalist society, at its core, the result of capital expanding to the extreme, while suppressing labor cost to extreme, leading to production capacity far exceeding social need?”
Hence the need for taxpayers to bail out the TBTF transnational corporations time and time again.
For a number of years I’ve said that westerners don’t really live in The Matrix, but they certainly DO live in a real-life version of the game of Monopoly. Who’s going to be the one big winner who owns everything — Jeff, Bill, Warren, Elon……?
It seems that China is going, if not in exactly the right direction, in a pretty good one with capitalism, while “the West” is going in exactly the wrong direction.
The biggest problem for the US is that it has a war-profit-based gangster economy and tens of millions of people/voters either directly or indirectly employed by the MIC — people who are NEVER going to vote for true peacenik candidates running for public office who, if elected, might very well make them unemployed. In other words, something that MUST happen is never going to happen.
The biggest problem for China (and Russia) to overcome will be the “overhang” (the burden) of privately owned inherited/accumulated wealth, LARGE-SCALE capital equipment and “investment” that looks anywhere for profit like a laser-guided cruise missile. And in order for there to be profit made on this accumulated wealth, etc., there must be perpetual growth in both population and in, for lack of a better expression, economic activity. Hence China’s vital systemic need for the BRI (AKA OBOR). How many billion more people and how much more economic activity will be enough?
The CCP might have lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty (for now),
But in a generation or two, they sentenced them to death when the resources gravy train hits its limits.
The next generations will be totally detached from sustainable village life, living in mega cities dependant on complex fragile systems.
Whatever happens during this US collapse, Chinese collapse, whenever it comes – be it 20-30 or 50 years, will be 10 times worse.
That is so much nonsense, sorry Anon. You don’t know the future and neither do I and your comment is based on nothing. But you start with the CCP and that tells me everything about mindset. The dire poverty alleviation is a Chinese effort, as a whole.
What I do know is that there is massive rural revitalization programs going on – and each of them must be sustainable in itself – and youngsters are being sent back to rural areas to both learn, and improve. Read the previous sitreps on ‘trial spots’. I’ll try and bring some of this to the fore for one of the next sitreps.
amarynth,
The comment includes a bogus notion, ‘sustainable village life’.
The last of the rural poor were the worst cases of subsistence, not a sustaining rural, agrarian life.
I’ve seen many documentaries over the last 16 years and the day to day diets, medical needs, educational deficits were harsh. Yes, people owned the spot they lived on, but it was almost always totally unsustainable.
It would keep them disconnected from all modern utilities and social services.
Amazingly, people resisted change for many years, but eventually, getting to a new home, job training, assistance creating an Internet business, and receiving health care and moral support as they transition into modernity, these millions of Chinese will have a better life.
One thing for certain, few lived in a village. Most were just in a spot on hillside or valley with bad water, bad soil and no future. This is what real rural poverty is all about. On the wrong side of the mountain, stuck in circumstances they had no ability to change. Government changed those lives. Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
amarynth says: “But you start with the CCP and that tells me everything about mindset.”
Exactly. Whatever CCP does, it will be a “bad” thing, for those China/Communist hater’s point of view.
I had a debate with someone in Unz a few weeks ago about China’s environment achievements – guess what the guy claimed: China’s reforestation effort was “bad” because it destroy desert ! Yes, it is “bad” to have too much green forest.
You really can’t debate with these people. If China would to find a cure for cancer tomorrow, they would claim it is “bad” to kill cancer cells.
”You really can’t debate with these people. If China would find a cure for cancer tomorrow, they would claim it is ’bad’ to kill cancer cells.”
Or, possibly, ”explaining” that
a) The Chinese ’cure’ is nothing but fakery. Pure government propaganda.
b) What good is it to cure cancer? Air pollution is considerably more lethal, especially in China.
c) The Chinese will be spreading cancer abroad deliberately to make themselves indispensable.
Stupid reactionaries are entertaining in a way. At least part of their sentiments are perfectly genuine.
@amarynth and evenone who cares to think outside the box
read thoroughly the following articles and understand their implications!
Why Collapse Occurs; Why It May Not Be Far Away
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/02/25/why-collapse-occurs-why-it-may-not-be-far-away/
The narrative problem after peak oil
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/11/06/the-narrative-problem-after-peak-oil/
A failure of complexity
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/02/15/a-failure-of-complexity/
London: the first global city to fail
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/02/09/london-the-first-global-city-to-fail/
then apply what you learned to China.
China made a colossal mistake to go for a more complex system, cutting off any
possibility to revert back to a more simpler one. Now the only way forward is
introduce more complexity or go bust.
China doesnt do BRI because they are benevolent and care for other nations, but because
they absolutely need it to keep their current system going without collapse.
Stop taking sides and put down those rose colored glasses. Nature and life itself have their
own laws and those apply to all, Russian, Chinese and Westerners alike.
Then read my previous comment again.
Anon, I don’t think the sky is falling – truly not. If you want to think that, of course, it is your prerogative.
But to confuse harsh non-sustainable grinding poverty with ‘the sky is falling’, perhaps you should go and learn what brutal poverty is. It is certainly not a simple system. We’re not talking about sweet sustainable simple village life here that was taken apart. In fact, where sustainability was found, that was built upon if you take care to read in depth this poverty eradication program. Were errors made? I’m sure. But this is like nothing we have ever seen in our lifetimes.
Will the sky fall tomorrow? I don’t think so. But I must say, I thought I’d heard all the Zone A complaints against China. But this one, they should not have eradicated their own brutal poverty of an aging peasant population and start with revitalizing their rural areas, because tomorrow or somewhere in the future we will have peak oil and then they will suffer. I cannot debate with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvy2iSVrHfw&t=48s
@Amarynth: “youngsters are being sent back to rural areas to both learn, and improve.”
Ramin Mazaheri wrote an article about this Cultural Revolution. It is a revolution in 20th century thinking; up till Mao, all “developed countries” were singing from the same hymn sheet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBAJtuWBCfU
A.Deplorable, we’re not talking about the historical cultural revolution but rather the new rural revitalization programs that seem to be taking over from the poverty eradication programs. The cultural revolution was around second half of 1960’s into early 1970.
But ‘two session’ has just started, so these new rural revitalization programs will be made policy – that is the expectation.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1217292.shtml
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-04/China-s-top-political-advisory-body-opens-annual-session-Ym5OWjQhmo/index.html
I heartily second the recommendation of Godfree Roberts’ newsletter. Edifying and indispensable. The Trivium China Tip Sheet is also excellent, but Roberts is the absolute best.
I don’t see any reason to complement China for boycotting Australian wine or Taiwanese pineapples. We live in a globalized world where countries depend on each other. By abusing that situation you show yourself an irresponsable world citizen – no matter whether you are China or the US.
The wine was an issue of dumping.
The pineapples is an issue of covid residue.
Both could have been negotiated. Take a look into coal as well as iron ore from Australia – all of these could have been negotiated given the political will.
These products are however not the real issue. The real issue is that China is not going to take any further abuse from trading partners or others. The message is simple – if you don’t respect us, we will withdraw our trade from you because there is nothing in a relationship of disrespect.
Australia is making it a matter of policy to abuse China from a Zone A perspective.
Taiwan has other problems besides not being a country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKf9LWA4Wo
The message is similar to the Russian one – that is the issue. Take a look at the comments by Larchmonter445.
“By abusing that situation you show yourself an irresponsable world citizen – no matter whether you are China or the US.”
OR whether you happen to be Australia.
Abuse cuts both ways.
Despite it’s highly favoured trading relationship with China, Australia has been kicking China in the nuts for years now, blocking legitimate Chinese investments, placing unwarranted tariffs on Chinese exports, excluding Chinese tech companies from bidding on Australian 5G for “national security” reasons, and on and on and on. The Australian Federal Government even passed a law specifically designed to block the Victorian state’s participation in China’s BRI – this in a supposed “democracy”.
China has been meticulously polite and reasonable through all of this, and even diplomatically communicated its grievances to the Australian political class.
The straw which broke the camel’s back was both the Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister publicly accusing China of being responsible for Corona Chan and calling for a kangaroo court to investigate and convict China in the international arena, precisely in conformance with the accusations made against China by the American Trump administration.
So now China has had enough, and isn’t turning the other cheek any more.
Bottom line – China doesn’t have to buy Australia’s shit!
Now the horse has bolted, and it’s not coming back.
Maybe that reality will eventually dawn on the terminally pig-headed Australian political class.
Maybe they’ll eventually start to wonder about the costs and benefits of being the USA’s most ardent bum-boys.
Regardless, whatever economic pain Australia is now feeling from lost Chinese trade has been a very long time coming, and IMO is richly deserved.
“Ultrafart the Brave” says: “China has been meticulously polite and reasonable through all of this, and even diplomatically communicated its grievances to the Australian political class.”
The same for Taiwan. China has been very patient, coming up with many policies that benefit Taiwanese: economic incentives, investments, scholarships, educational opportunities, and endless more. In turn, what did Tsai Ing Wen do? Ban Huawei, ban Wechat, ban investments, ban cultural exchanges, … and early last year when the Covid-19 first outbreak in Wuhan, even ban export of masks to China while even countries like Korea, Japan was donating masks to Wuhan! Further, Taiwan has tried to outdo Trump, keeps calling Covid-19 as Wuhan virus, China virus, and so on, and has been actively courting all the anti-China forces in the world.
So, what is China supposed to do? Continue trying to be nice to Taiwan?
People like “Wim” and others either does not know, refuses to “know”, or wouldn’t bother to know all these details. They are only interested in blaming China.