By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission
Singaporean ex-diplomat and author Kishore Mahbubani speaks at an Asia Society event in a file photo. Photo: Flickr Commons
As a living embodiment of how East and West shall meet, Mahbubani is immeasurably more capable to talk about Chinese-linked intricacies than shallow, self-described Western “experts” on Asia and China.
Especially now when demonization-heavy hybrid war 2.0 against China is practiced by most factions of the US government, the Deep State and the East Coast establishment.
Distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute, former president of the UN Security Council (from 2001 to 2002) and the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004-2017), Mahbubani is the quintessential Asian diplomat.
Ruffling feathers is not his business. On the contrary, he always deploys infinite patience – and insider knowledge – when trying to explain especially to Americans what makes the Chinese civilization-state tick.
All through a book elegantly argued and crammed with persuasive facts, it feels like Mahbubani is applying the Tao. Be like water. Let it flow. He floats like a butterfly reaching beyond his own “paradoxical conclusion”: “A major geopolitical contest between America and China is both inevitable and avoidable.” He centers on the paths towards the “avoidable.”
The contrast with the confrontational, stale and irrelevant Thucydides Trap mindset prevalent in the US could not be starker. It’s quite enlightening to observe the contrast between Mahbubani and Harvard University’s Graham Allison – who seem to admire each other – at a China Institute debate.
An important clue to his approach is when Mahbubani tells us how his Hindu mother used to take him to Hindu and Buddhist temples in Singapore – even as in the island-state most Buddhist monks were actually Chinese. Here we find encapsulated the key cultural/philosophical India-China crossover that defines “deep” East Asia, linking Confucianism, Buddhism and the Tao.
All about the US dollar
For Asia hands, and for those, as in my case, who have actually lived in Singapore, it’s always fascinating to see how Mahbubani is the quintessential Lee Kuan Yew disciple, though without the haughtiness. As much as his effort to understand China from the inside, across the spectrum, for decades, is more than visible, he’s far from being a disciple of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
And he stresses the point in myriad ways, showing how, in the party slogan, “Chinese” is way more important than “Communist”: “Unlike the Soviet Communist Party, [the CCP] is not riding on an ideological wave; it is riding the wave of a resurgent civilization … the strongest and most resilient civilization in history.”
Inescapably, Mahbubani outlines both Chinese and American geopolitical and geo-economic challenges and shortcomings. And that leads us to arguably the key argument in the book: how he explains to Americans the recent erosion of global trust in the former “indispensable nation,” and how the US dollar is its Achilles’ heel.
So once again we have to wallow in the interminable mire of reserve currency status; its “exorbitant privilege,” the recent all-out weaponization of the US dollar and – inevitably – the counterpunch: those “influential voices” now working to stop using the US dollar as reserve currency.
Enter blockchain technology and the Chinese drive to set up an alternative currency based on blockchain. Mahbubani takes us to a China Finance 40 Forum in August last year, when the deputy director of the People’s Bank of China, Mu Changchun, said the PBOC was “close” to issuing its own cryptocurrency.
Two months later, President Xi announced that blockchain would become a “high priority” and a matter of long-term national strategy. It’s happening now. The digital yuan – as in a “sovereign blockchain” – is imminent.
And that leads us to the role of the US dollar in financing global trade. Mahbubani correctly analyzes that once this is over, “the complex international system based on the US dollar could come tumbling down, rapidly or slowly.” China’s master plan is to accelerate the process by connecting its digital platforms – Alipay, WeChat Pay – into one global system.
Asian Century
As Mahbubani carefully explains, “while Chinese leaders want to rejuvenate Chinese civilization, they have no missionary impulse to take over the world and make everyone Chinese.” And still, “America convinced itself that China has become an existential threat.”
The best and the brightest across Asia, Mahbubani included, never cease to be amazed at the American system’s total inability to “make strategic adjustments to this new phase in history.” Mahbubani dedicates a whole chapter – “Can America make U-turns?” – to the quandary.
In the appendix he even adds a text by Stephen Walt debunking “the myth of American exceptionalism.” There’s no evidence the Exceptionalistan ethos is being seriously contested.
A recent McKinsey report analyzes whether the “next normal” will emerge from Asia, and some of its conclusions are inevitable: “The future global story starts in Asia.” It goes way beyond prosaic numbers stating that in 20 years, by 2040, “Asia is expected to represent 40% of global consumption and 52% of GDP.”
The report argues that, “we may look back on this pandemic as the tipping point when the Asian Century truly began.”
In 1997, during the same week when I was covering the Hong Kong handover, I published a book in Brazil whose translated title was 21st: The Asian Century (excerpts from a few chapters may be found here). By that time I had already lived in Asia for three years, and learned quite a few important lessons from Mahbubani’s Singapore.
China then was still a distant player on the new horizon. Now it’s a completely different ball game. The Asian Century – actually Eurasian Century – is already on, as Eurasia integration develops driven by hard-working acronyms (BRI, AIIB, SCO, EAEU) and the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Mahbubani’s book, capturing the elusive, unbearable lightness of China, is the latest illustration of this inexorable flow of history.
Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (Kishore Mahbubani), published by Public Affairs (US$19.89).
I’ve usually categorized empires under 5 basic types; military, trade, cultural, scientific, and religious.
When the historical development of a nation is reviewed, then that nation can be fit into primary, secondary and even tertiary categories.
I categorize the USA as a military/trade/scientific empire. China I categorize as a cultural/trade/scientific empire.
In a nod to history, I would categorize the British Empire as trade/military/scientific.
Some synonyms , perhaps , for your five named categories viz , military, trade, cultural, scientific, and religious, I suggest would be : power, money, identity,knowledge, and belief.
Did you read the recent memo from Mike Pompeo where he explains that in his role as Secretary of State, his first mission is to spread the word of Jesus. You may not want to include the word ‘religious’ in your categorisation of the American Empire, but I’m not sure you can leave it out either.
Spreading the word of Jesus—I wish Pompeo would. He could start with Jesus’ words to the Pharisees, the forebears of today’s Jews: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
malcolm harrison
Spread the word of Jesus ? You mean subvert other countries in the name of Jesus, backed by the old cliches like ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’. Was Pompeo spreading the word of Jesus in Venezuela when he turned against elected President Maduro, introducing ‘interim President’ Guaido, who publicly declared that he will privatize Venezuela’s oil fields, ie. give them to US corporations ?
Good points all,
the categorizations are quite subjective and the USA does have a high ratio of evangelistic Christians in comparison to other countries.
The Chinese government certainly slammed Pompeo in an article in Global Times.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1186812.shtml
Religion is indeed a powerful tool of the hegemon. For example: they succeeded in Brazil in 2016 when the Brazilian Parliament performed a coup d’état thanks to the support the majority Evangelic parliamentarians received for over a decade from American Evangelicals like the Koch Brothers. In fact, the increase in the number of evangelicals caused Catholicism to register a significant drop in Brazil, standing at 64.6%, according to the 2010 census data. The proportion of Catholics has dropped nine percentage points in a decade and almost 20 points since 1980, when this rate was around 83% of the population, according to data published by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Another excellent piece by Pepe.
I would like to make a couple of comments.
1. Regarding: ‘The best and the brightest across Asia, Mahbubani included, never cease to be amazed at the American system’s total inability to “make strategic adjustments to this new phase in history.”
This should not be so amazing. The U.S. has a very authoritarian culture, and over the past 40 years or so this authoritarian bent has, if anything, been reinforced. For example, the U.S. political system is noow a virtual oligarchic dictatorship.
Large, complex societies, require complex, distributed, governance systems to manage their societies and effectively address the problems that arise when living in a complex, ever changing, chaotic environment. Societal performance is dependent upon complexity. Complex systems can provide high societal performance. Simple systems will provide low societal performance. A corollary principle is that complex systems require distributed authority to function effectively.
However, distributed authority is the bane of authoritarians, as it limits their ability to act. Authoritarians tolerate only simple systems, that translate their orders to actions, without question. Unfortunately simple systems, with centralized authority, can only provide simple solutions to a limited number of problems. Most problems go un-addressed by the simple systems. And when problems are addressed, the central decision makers are so far removed from the action that the solutions are invariably ill-informed, ill-conceived and in any case too late.
The U.S. achieves the performance that can be expected of any dictatorship.
It is obvious from the Chinese performance, that China’s governance is based on complex governance systems with widely distributed authority.
2. Regarding the digital yuan.
I am not sure that the digital yuan will be in itself sufficient to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Nor do I suspect that the Chinese will want the Yuan to replace the dollar, as this is likely to create more problems for China than it is worth.
My view is that replacing the dollar, as a reserve currency, will require either an alternative international reserve currency, such as the IMFSDR’s, or gold (a digital yuan backed by gold?). Only then will the dollar be dethroned.
The Chinese definitely do not want the yuan to replace the dollar. They want the dollar replaced by a basket of currencies, SDR basket.
If it is a digital yuan, why not replace the US dollar with it? Then everyone can trade without the US dollar. Especially now that the petrol dollar is effectively and relatively comatose.
And other countries don’t have to sell more to China than they import in order to enough Yuan to trade. And China don’t have to keep printing Yuan electronically to meet other countries’ demand for trade.
But the Yuan will be backed up by all the goods and services that China produces. Not by Chinese guns.
And the value of the digital yuan will be decided by the market forces like Bit-coin.
Everybody’s happy. Except the US.
And the basket of currencies controlled by the IMF? Hahaha! That’s yesterday’s solution. Besides it (basket of currencies) did not mitigate the effect of the 2008-9 “Great Recession”. The fiat US Dollar still emerged as king, enforced by US guns but backed up by the enormous amount of goods and services that China produced, not by Saudi oil.
The post corona world needs a new corona currency. With the US economy expected to shrink by 30% in the first quarter 2020 and another 10% in the second quarter, China is now the world’s largest economy even in exchange rate terms and not only in PPP terms, since we are now well into the 2nd quarter.
So it makes sense to move decisively and peacefully away from the USD to a digital sovereign Yuan while the US is crippled economically and militarily by the corona virus.
And the digital sovereign Yuan will be backed by the goods and services that China manufactures and produces. Not by the threats and hot air which are now the foundation of the US dollar.
Larchmonter445
Are you sure about this ? Both Russia and China have for years been accumulating gold, preparing to introduce gold backed currencies. This means the rube and yuan. Why on earth would the Chinese (and others) want to continue using the US dollar, printed in huge amounts and backed by nothing, except the US military ?
@B.F. Even gold is not the solution post-corona. It is inflexible, limited in amount and can lead to deflation. Deflation is the nightmare post-corona. Gold is only a store of value which is handy when wanting to diversify reserves, to be converted to hard currency for trade when needed.
A gold backed currency may be strong but may rise too high in value and decimate a country’s export by effectively pricing its exports above its competitors.
Besides one cannot eat gold in a possible food-shortage scenario post corona.
For the post-corona economy to function, goods and services must circulate seamlessly and briskly to avert both runaway deflation and inflation.
Therefore a post-corona currency must be basically backed by the efficiency of and the volume of goods and services produced by an economy (not by guns and hot-air) and could be traded internationally without the distortion by market forces jeopardising trade.
The best candidate for this is a sovereign digital Yuan issued by China – now the world’s largest economy (in both exchange rate and PPP terms), strongest growing economy, among the most innovative, most productive and certainly the most efficient and effective country as indicated by, among other criteria, how it put away the corona virus in its territory.
However, for the world to willingly switch over, China must first win the world’s trust over from the US. China now has a golden chance to demonstrate her trustworthiness in helping the world overcome the covid-19 pandemic and restore the world’s economy for a second time since 2008.
I hope military conflict is avoidable but if you look at the history of trade wars among Spain, UK and Netherlands it seems unavoidable.
A Reserve Currency is a millstone on a developing economy. China is still developing and wants some freedom to float the yuan. Including the yuan in a basket and the basket becoming the Reserve takes away the hegemonic power of the dollar while avoiding the burden of the yuan becoming a Reserve currency.
As for gold backing, the gold could be for backing Bonds or digital currency. It might just be there as “collateral”, good faith, for currency used in trade. It becomes the “sincerity” of the nation’s currency used in trades.
Mod- out of country article is about..
Nah, China does not want to float her currency and get the same problems as all those countries which floated their countries especially the US.
With a sovereign digital yuan, China don’t need to float the ‘paper’ yuan – which is being used less and less even in China as Chinese switch to electronic payment virtually completely.
The digital yuan using blockchain technology will be automatically ‘floated’ without going through the global financial system dominated by the US.
The US dollar is ‘hegemonic’ only because the US dominates the international banking system and make its rules. It is also backed by US guns (as we all know) and Saudi oil.
But that is the old pre-corona virus economy which is now (together with the US petrodollar) effectively comatose. The West, led by the US, trying to restart their economies without the mitigation systems in place to control the virus is likely to face a second and more devastating wave of infections.
Only China’s economy is now functioning, catalyzed by the export of medical supplies that is growing as fast as the virus is spreading.
The global financial system is going to change rapidly post-corona to a different financial infrastructure dominated by block-chain technology – which China is rapidly setting up.
This includes a blockchain platform for the development of new technologies, applications and powered by 5G for all countries especially for the BRI participating countries: https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-set-to-launch-global-blockchain-initiative/ This is all done at lightning speed while the US is locked down by the virus.
And reserve currencies ala IMF’s basket of currencies, are so old-fashioned. The new ‘reserve’ currencies (if any) are likely to be sovereign digital ones and a nations’ reserves are determined by their ability to trade with many and not just with one hegemon (the US) as is currently the case.
And since the amount of the sovereign digital currency is fixed, there is no question of the issuing country diluting the currency by endless mining as is the case with the US by endless quantitative easing (read printing). In short the sovereign digital currency would be used mainly for trading between nations – effectively bypassing the US dollar or any other wannabe hegemonic currency!
Very interesting comment. Thanks.
Regarding complex systems, by chance I just watched a very good half-hour video at the BBC about indonesia’s plan to abandon its sinking capital, Jakarta, and build a new on on the island of Borneo (the on-screen “talent” was a British woman who speaks the local language). It would destroy an extraordinary jungle environment in eastern Borneo. Hubristic planners state that htey will reconstruct the jungle environment by building a “green” city that will be a world model.
Such folly. Planners have no idea what constitutes the complexity of such an environment. These “idealistic” but actually hubristic maniacs think they can destroy 2000 hectares of an extraordinarily complex biome and then reconstruct it in a couple of years. One is left speechless. I certainly hope one positive outcome ofthe corona madness is that the govt of Indonesia will be stopped in its tracks with this insane project of destroying complexity that the life on earth depends on.
The same could be said for destroying complex social arrangements and replacing with “simple” ones such as a panopticon surveillance state. It seems to be me that a complex organization (e.g., many levels of administrative authority) may be inefficient on some ways but efficient in others.
Regarding blockchain technology, I hope some experts are bearing in mind that this technology requires ginormous amounts of energy, not least to keep giant servers cool. As to all major cloud etc. “installations”: They are not in a “cloud” somewhere, as many people seem to actually unthinkingly imagine. “Cloud” is just a feel-good expression. The “clouds” are run from giant computer installations called “server farms.” It is interesting how “new” technologies are said to be located in “clouds” and “farms” instead of in “industrial plants,” which is what they actually are (cf. “wind farms”). Dreamers with their heads in the “clouds” think that the energy requirements of cloud servers can be met by “renewables,” thus zero-ing out energy needs. Please. This is a pipedream. This is not how renewables work.
I suppose this issue is OT, but I can’t help wondering whether any of our “leaders” have calculated or even considered the actual costs of any of these Brave New Worlds of cryptocurrency and brand-new bulldozer-created cities, whether in the USA or China or Indonesia or elsewhere, to the prospects of human survival on Earth.
The answer seems to be No (see Jeff Gibbs, Planet of the Humans).
Full speed ahead, and damn the orangutans!
Katherine
Aiyah, please don’t be so pessimistic lah. All solutions will give rise to new problems – hopefully less intractable new problems that the new solutions are designed to solve.
We should tackle the new problems one at a time.
”
“Aiyah, please don’t be so pessimistic lah. All solutions will give rise to new problems – hopefully less intractable new problems that the new solutions are designed to solve.
We should tackle the new problems one at a time.”
Yes, once all the orangutans are gone we can figure out how to make some new ones, or replacements.
Don’t worry, be happy!
Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.
BTW this panglossianisme is 180 degrees opposite from the Iranian assumption.
Or perhaps Chow is teasing. I often miss jokes.
Katherine
If you think you miss a joke, laugh lah! But I am partial to ladies with a solemn sense of self-reflective humour.
And I appreciate the dense tropical rain forest more than many. If not for the current lockdown, I would be weekly hiking or running up one of those dense jungle-covered mountains near my house.
As for the orang utans, yeah it’s a pity. Post-corona virus, I think the governments all over the world will severely limit the clearing of forest everywhere including the temperate rain forest.
Likely the covi-19, like all other zoonotic disease outbreak, mutated to infect humans due to the devatation of the environment that is the habitat of their likely hosts – bats, etc.
You bring up an interesting point, in the world of crypto, efficiency could matter when looking at the pros and cons of cost. And oddly enough, Russia with its northern region so cold most of the time, would be the perfect location to cool all those heated up exchange machines.
So wouldnt it make sense to align ones self w/Russia to build out a crypto network? And all those who refuse to either do so, or attempt to compete, would find themselves on the lesser of the efficiency scale and most likely at a disadvantage when it comes to joining the possible crypto world (currency?).
The huge amount of energy is required by decentralized currencies like Bitcoin, to avoid attacks. Also, new cryptocurrencies are already using different consensus algorithms with no significant energy consumption (Proof of Stake), though they are not as proven as Bitcoin, for now.
A Chinese digital currency would be managed by invited computation nodes, and would require only tiny bits of energy.
The real revolution, apart from the dollar demise, would be the ability for currency holders to transfer it with no geographical limits, and with no bank needed to intermediate. Moreover, if this currency will be provided of the ability to run programs (the so called Smart Contracts) — and I believe it will — more functions that are currently provided by auditors, controllers, appraisers, etc., will be automatically performed with no further need of intermediaries.
”The best and the brightest across Asia, Mahbubani included, never cease to be amazed at the American system’s total inability to make strategic adjustments to this new phase in history.”
Their amazement is, I believe, somewhat misplaced. The American system, unless confronted forcefully, does have the ability to ”make strategic adjustments” in the form of all-out genocidal violence. Exceptional, indispensable militant parasites don’t take lightly to being cut off from their misappropriation of other peoples’ labour output and natural resources.
Some peole in my country call a hammer, “an american screwdriver”.
“All-out genocidal violence”, also known as “american diplomacy”, is hardly strategic flexibility. Neither is “not agreement capable”.
China can turn on a dime and give you nine cents change as sure as ten dimes buys a dollar.
Existe un desfase de algunos lustros entre los siglos históricos y los cronológicos de modo que por ejemplo el XIX desde aquel punto de vista daría inicio en 1815 fecha en el que en el Congreso de Viena tras las guerras napoleónicas fue alumbrado un mundo nuevo que duraría hasta 1919 cuando el Tratado de Versalles tras la I Guerra Mundial dio paso a su vez a otro mundo y a otro siglo, el XX. No sería por tanto de extrañar que estuviésemos asistiendo al nacimiento de un nuevo siglo histórico, el XXI, el de Asia, del cual el coronavirus hubiese sido la partera. De ser así habría que hacerse a la idea de que el mundo no es que esté cambiando, mas bien es que ya ha cambiado.
Translation Mod:
There is a gap of some decades between centuries and historical and chronological so that, for example, the NINETEENTH from that point of view would start in 1815 date on which the Congress of Vienna after the napoleonic wars was lighting a new world that would last until 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles after World War I gave way in turn to another world and another century, the TWENTIETH. It would therefore be No wonder that we were witnessing the birth of a new historical century, the Twenty-First Century, that of Asia, of which the coronavirus had been the midwife. If so, the idea should be made that the world is not changing, but has already changed.
Your division of past few centuries very logic and faithful to History.
Likewise everything indicates that this new one starts up right from our doom pandemic, or the virus our and next door.
So yes, it might well be a Chinese virus… (how ironic) i.e. in the strict sense of an effective kick off of the Chinese century.
“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes its laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild.
Anyone trying to live by that statement today could easily find themselves on the wrong side of nature quick and then be easily held accountable to the laws of nature, they, like corona, do not discriminate on a monetary basis.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s infamous quote restated for you, Alabama:
Let me issue and control all the nations money and if a novel Coronavirus keeps you quarantined and masked, you know who played this prank on you.
The absolute truth of the matter
No prank was going to be played on me, b/c I sir, actually have an immunity to the bug giving me a get out of corona virus jail card, for free, no quarantine or mask needed thank you.
Uh, you seem to miss the point, if I may say so.
Smr is using corona as a metonym.
Katherine
A who?, a what? I’m not sure the word is worth the letters its printed with.
A good word, and a useful one.
As, I believe, are all words that describe rhetorical devices.
Katherine
Never heard of it before, and some words really were not meant to be created, they only scramble the brains of those who have to use them for nefarious reasons of control mostly.
Ha ha, love your rule: My brain is scrambled, and it’s your fault!
US objective- Full spectrum dominance
Chinese objective- peace and harmony
Take your pick.
Peace and harmony? They’ve just been recently intimidating and harassing a Hong Kong book seller who had to flee to Taiwan.
Even Australia is finally saying no China’s economic coercion: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/payne-blasts-beijing-s-economic-coercion-over-virus-probe-push-20200427-p54nig
We’re talking about a country so sensitive that they can’t even handle references to Winnie the Pooh. If you don’t like people asserting their freedom and autonomy, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend like China cares about peace and harmony and wants the greater good for the world. Like any empire, they will do anything in their power to dominate; they’re methods are just less obvious than the Western ones.
Traitors are not normally welcome in their home country.
It was from Hong Kong that the Taiping rebellion germinated.
Most lawful countries have laws against treason. So what treason did this bookshop owner commit? Unless you want to suggest that the Chinese government is unlawful and can only harass people who criticize them, in which case I would agree with you.
If you support authoritarianism and suppression of freedom, just admit it.
A most amusing response.
I support the legitimate right of governments to defend themselves against external aggression. The only information on this chap is from western news sources and therefore tainted, who does he work with and for and where does he get his information? Is his information fabricated or true? Simply getting emotional about it and pointing fingers without fact is … irrational.
I support the right of local indigenous people to rid themselves of tyranny when the rebellion is home grown and locally directed. That does not mean involvement by the CIA or MI6 and their useful paid for idiots.
Here is true suppression of information and freedom: https://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2016/08/10/the-list-of-clinton-associates-whove-died-mysteriously-check-it-out/
Put your own house in order before you castigate others.
So you have no evidence that he is a “traitor”, but you assume that he’s a CIA-paid “useful idiot” and therefore deserving of suppression?
“Put your own house in order before you castigate others.”
I’m not American, but I guess anyone who criticizes China MUST be an American or a CIA-stooge. With the number of assumptions you are making, everything is clear now. Nothing more needs to be said.
Just as you assumed he’s just an innocent book-seller – without any evidence either way.
No need to respond – I prefer rational discourse
While on the other hand you are so tolerant!And as far as Winnie the Pooh is concerned, what part of Chinese culture are you accepting?And as far as Chinese desire to dominate I am must inform, that they didn’t move from their country for about some 3000 years!
“While Chinese leaders want to rejuvenate Chinese civilization, they have no missionary impulse to take over the world and make everyone Chinese.”
They’re already forcing Tibetans and Uyghurs to assimilate and become Chinese. And they are already on the process of taking over the world through demographic and economical means. They’ve taken over ports, constantly buying ups lands, and bribing politicians in other countries to spread their influence. Who cares if it’s peaceful or not? Conquering others doesn’t always have to involve violence; there are many ways to evil without using force.
This blind trust of China is appalling.
to Sayer:
sure, if you prefer to being bombed, get hungry, have some religious indoctrination (see history)as well as waters, air and soil polluted by phosphorus bombs etc. together with damaged childbirth and almost no infrastructure, sewage etc than you will enjoy Western hegemony Not to forget being spied out by the hegemony’s government.
Its up to you …
I personally prefer more infrastructure, no bombs and clean drinkable water as well as functioning sewage etc.
Do you really think the world is so black and white that Western imperialism and Chinese technocratic-authoritarianism are the only two options for mankind?
to Sayer:
neither black nor white.
However, taking no facts into consideration could be deadly especially if living in USA.
The history of USA is a fact and so are histories of former colonial states of Europe.
There are facts not fiction.
Sure, there could be other possibilities.
However, the Western states are still too encapsulated into their imperialistic way of thinking and will not easily abandon it in order to allow other possibilities.
China for example went another way. It is really no easy task to bring 900 million people out of poverty, overhauling its country to be fit for the 21st century and taking care of a good up to excellent education for its youth.
USA cannot offer these thats be sure up til yet.
Europe is a way better in this concern as its education system engulfs its youth without too much costs as well as its infrastructure is quite more often checked – at least in the Middle and Northern states of the EU.
We are all humans. Prone to fault lines and this includes China. However, China with its quite old life philosophy can offer much more than USA. Point.
Sayer, for every article that we have on this blog about China, we have one or two that emit fact free hollering about China. To those, it is best to suggest that they go and educate themselves. So, here is a start for you – it is just a start. So, go and make a start and there are many on the Saker blog that have studied China and have visited, or have family, or have worked with Chinese folks extensively, or have spent a lot of time there, that can then answer questions.
Nathan Rich is actually a lot of fun, even thought he is painfully factual – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSlyjhR4WC7QhYuaivxb6g/videos
Godfree Roberts – https://www.unz.com/?s=godfree+roberts&Action=Search&authors=godfree-roberts&ptype=all
Jeff Brown – https://www.greanvillepost.com/beijing-dispatch/
Every time someone criticizes China they are accused of being ignorant or a Western imperialist stooge. Why do you assume that I am not informed about China? Which part of my original statement is “fact free hollering?”
Nothing here that I can differ with. So it goes, and may it continue.
As I have always added when I have “shared” similar articles with friends –
“It’s coming”.
But to fill this picture out, I recommend a book, also mentioned by Pepe in one of his recent articles – “The Fate of Rome” by Prof. Kyle Harper of the U. of Oklahoma.
Brother, what news of Hong Kong?
You know, the ‘bastion’ that the ‘ownersip’ of ‘wall street’ shifted to in, or around, about ’07,’08,’09, ish…. (as I recall from a somewhat obscure 10 second report from over a decade ago)…
Is that location not where the last ‘visible kerfuffle’ of the corporate Sino-American ‘partnership’ was taking place right before the ‘kingspaghettimonstervirus’ hit the headlines?
Another great article by Pepe. I am also Brazilian and, as Pepe, I moved to the East (Australia) in (the end of) 1997. At this time, I became involved with my husband’s work in China, as we are both urban planners and teachers. We have appreciated everything that Pepe skilfully describes about China in his articles. I guess that, after over 20 years (over 30 years for my husband!) involved with China, I can say that we know what Pepe is talking about, although every time we return to China we are thrilled for ‘what we learn this time!’ We have been lucky, I suppose, for the opportunity…
Our involvement in the region, however, included also other countries in Southeast Asia, where many ‘poorer’ countries had/have intractable urban problems due to the standard option of their greedy elites for the Western model, such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, and even Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to a certain extent… Every one of those countries had/has complex urban problems. Singapore, a City State, flaunted its very Western model of ‘development’ as if it was applicable for all, and the elites of those poorer countries looked at it as the model to follow. For its role in legitimizing the elites in power, the Western ideology of ‘development’ has been the model of ‘development’ that the region adopted for a very long time. Did they not realize that the dichotomy that characterises the capitalist-imperialist system meant that real development would never happen for them?
While the local elites were enriched, the people became poorer and destitute. In the last 5-10 years, though, it became clear that the ‘developmental policies’ the elites were adopting were taking them to the abyss as people started to demonstrate their discontent.
Let’s hope this past time is indeed over and that from now on, following the Chinese model, extensive changes will finally happen to attend the desperate needs of the people.
China floats the idea of its new super-currency
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shanghai-gold-boss-wants-super-115737698.html
This is one odd bit of news. It’s a statement by the head of the Shanghai gold exchange about China’s disquiet with America’s abuse of the dollar’s reserve status. It’s obviously semi-official. And why the gold guy?
For a couple years I’ve been advocating a gold-based trade settlement system using blockchain for tradeable gold depository receipts. I had said several times that the whole thing could be run by the Shanghai gold exchange, with sub-depositories all over the world. But then you have the gold guy saying the supply of gold is finite, limiting any role it can have in global trade. Huh? Trade needs infinite money? Suppose it does, the mass of gold accessible to us might be finite, but there’s no limit to the price.
And what’s the alternative? The Triffin paradox tells us reserve currency status comes with a curse. It destroys productive capability and the people who service it. That’s not Chinese values. So no yuan, as reserve currency, gold-based or digital or both.
There’s SDRs but America and the West would have to cooperate with China and Russia to set that up. Maybe that would do away with sanctions and the free lunch. I’d love to know what Michael Hudson thinks. Anyway, how would China get this past an American veto?
I’m wondering why Chinese and Russian whining about the dollar never gets beyond the whining stage. And why, in that case, have they bothered to stack up all that gold?
Why don’t they do something to get the framework in place for blockchain-based tradeable gold depository receipts as the settlement currency? Get it going on a trial basis with scalability. Trade with Iran and Venezuela and Cuba can be put on it.
And if the day comes when China and Russia want to hammer the dollar they can put in bids in the paper gold narket for all the gold that is actually there, and insist on delivery.
If an SDR system is really desirable, that’s a way to get it.
This is relevant:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/china-starts-major-trial-of-state-run-digital-currency
A quote:
“A sovereign digital currency provides a functional alternative to the dollar settlement system and blunts the impact of any sanctions or threats of exclusion both at a country and company level,” last week’s China Daily report said.
It’s not at all clear how this adds anything as functional alternative to the dollar settlement system. More dithering from China.
@sarz
With regard to the new Chinese digital currency, who creates it ? Presumably the Chinese government owned central bank, but how do they decide how much of it to create ? Then how does it get into circulation in the first instance ? Is it by central bank spending on infrastructure that either contracts with corporations, who employ the people to do the work necessary ?
During WW2 Hitler had a similar currency, whereby the German government paid each member of the workforce a given sum per hour for work performed constructing autobahns, railroads, factories and the like. In other words, if you did not work productively, you had no money to spend. It seemed to work quite well for the Nazis, and presumably this could not be tolerated by the private banking cabal, who then ordered the British government to declare war on Germany in 1939.
“We were not foolish enough to try to make a currency [backed by] gold of which we had none, but for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced. . . .we laugh at the time our national financiers held the view that the value of a currency is regulated by the gold and securities lying in the vaults of a state bank.”
Adolf Hitler, quoted in “Hitler’s Monetary System,” http://www.rense.com, citing C. C. Veith,
Citadels of Chaos (Meador, 1949)