They say that “nothing succeeds like success”. And by this yardstick, who’d argue that China has proven this beyond any shadow of a doubt in the last half-century? From being the poster child for poverty in the sixties it’s poised to overtake the US as the largest economy!! And also capable of space exploration; delivering atomic missiles across continents; and creating its own new “silk routes” to Europe, Africa and the rest of the world to deliver its services and manufactured goods!! While stiffing the West’s insistence on democratic governance yet accepted in the “comity of nations”. Imagine that!!
After WWII, the US figured that with the sun having set on the British Empire, as the inheritor, the threat was the USSR and their “ungodly” communism! Even though Communist China had challenged them during the 1950 Korean War, they single-mindedly worked to bring down the USSR – by 1989. Meanwhile, during the 60s and 70s, Mao had exhausted China after his communist party takeover followed by his cultural revolution and “great leap forward” – which ended as a “great fall backwards!” His successors, led by Deng Xiaoping, reversed course from the blind ideological communist dogma with the aphorism: “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, once it catches the mice”!! And so, the “capitalist” cat was accepted to catch the development mice!!
You gotta do what you gotta do to deliver what you’re looking for – in this case, a modern economy and higher standards of living! Your Eyewitness had always wondered why the Russians (and Burnham) never heeded Marx’s insistence that you gotta produce first BEFORE you start distributing!! With Capitalism being the most efficient method to increase production, the Chinese followed the logic.
That logic insisted that you produce goods where it’s cheapest. The US business class accepted the new, pragmatic China as an inexhaustible reservoir of cheap labour where their profits would skyrocket!! China became America’s – and then Europe’s – factory; churning out trillions of dollars of manufactured goods to stock their pantries of the West’s insatiable consumers. Never mind the new Rust Belts!! Producing the world’s currency, all America had to do was print greenbacks that flowed to China as debt- whether as T-Bills or whatever. Soon China had over US$ 1 trillion and Euro1trillion in debt – which it uses to finance its new Silk Road – the Belt and Road Initiative!!
So now China’s poised to challenge the US for global hegemony – they’re in both BRICS+ and G-20!! – since “two-man crab cyaan live in the same hole”! The latter, however, for whatever reason – historical inertia? – has decided to take out Russia in Ukraine.
For a later mano-a-mano with China?? Let’s get out the popcorn!!
…Haiti
Poor Haiti. Caricom still hasn’t stepped up to the crease on the latest upsurge of gang violence being inflicted on its citizenry for the umpteenth time in that unfortunate country!! Ironically, (or cynically) those same Caricom countries never fail to hail the seminal role Haiti played in fighting against our common Caribbean history of slavery and its enduring structural effects. Haiti was the first and only slave society that fought the European colonial power on the battlefield and freed itself.
Only to see that freedom turn to a bitter poison through the interventions of the US and the old power France. Haiti suffered from “neo-colonialism” even when the old colonialism was still going strong!! Anyhow, beleaguered by gangs with greater control of the country than the government, the US just bolstered the official forces with additional Kenyan police. But nothing like the US$1trillion worth of arms to Ukraine!! Meanwhile, Caricom has dithered rather than committed troops.
We just can’t cry for Haiti!! We must stand shoulder to shoulder right now!!
…love and war
In democracies, the goal of political parties is to garner as many votes as they can. Incumbents always have an advantage because they can initiate policies (honeytraps?) to attract such votes.
All is fair in love and politics!!
