REFLECTIONS ON wHITE IMPERIALIST REACTION TO CHINESE LEADERSHIP CHANGE

President Hu Jintao at Communist Party Congress 2012

How will China confront next ten years of white imperialist onslaught?

Sukant Chandan
Sons of Malcolm
14 Nov 2012

Here below we can see an overview of the Chinese Communist and State leadership handover by one of the more thinking but right-wing media outlets of the british white power structure.

The west in general on the one hand is not happy at all with outgoing President Hu Jintao leaving the leadership with a clear left-ward rhetoric and strategy:

In a valedictory state of the nation address after a decade in power - called "Firmly march on the path of Socialism" and delivered beneath a huge hammer and sickle - he insisted that "public ownership is the mainstay of the economic system" and warned that the party must "resolutely not follow Western political systems".

The language was peppered with anti-reform code words and pointed references to "Mao Zedong Thought", as well as a warning not to fall into "wicked ways".

And speculates as to the 'reformers' - meaning those who seek to take China in a direction of liberal and western style capitalist reforms (let's call it 'white capitalism', which is very different from East Asian capitalist countries mainly in the role of the state towards the economy) - are being sidelined:


Mr Hu’s speech reflects a complex power-struggle behind the scenes as hardliners - some linked to former leader Jiang Zemin - reassert control, forcing the outgoing leader to change his message.

The ideological manouvering have profound implications as 70pc of top cadres in the party and the Chinese military retire, the most sweeping hand-over of power since the revolution in 1949.

Reformers have been left in deep confusion. The incoming premier Li Keqiang - a Hu protegee - was a key sponsor of the World Bank/DRC report. He offered his "unwavering support" for the findings at the time. It is unclear where he now stands.

As delegates scrutinised the seating arrangements, they spotted at once that leading reformer Wang Yang had been banished to the margins.



President Hu Jintao at the Congress address makes it clear that western-style reforms will create fundamental dangers to anti-imperialist and socialist China. These are quite clear and forthright words from Hu on this issue, which is interesting, however it is far from decided which way the party and state leadership will take China, as the white capitalist oriented leaders have been getting a lot of space in the leadership with the world bank/China development research council, which called for further white capitalist reforms, getting air time in the leadership.

However, to a large extent whatever happens internally to China is not the business of anyone apart from the people of China. From an anti-imperialist internationalist point of view however, China turning towards white capitalism will and does endanger the very nature of he Chinese anti-imperialist state, and China falling in a Arab spring type white imperialist operation would be a major blow to the world struggle for independence against imperialism on a massive historic level.

This again is reported in this article and quotes President Hu on this regard:

Mr Hu - a self-effacing, austere figure known for his theme of "social harmony" - said the growing gap between rich and poor is leading to social contraditions" and warned than unchecked corruption had become a mortal threat.


"If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state. We must thus make unremitting efforts to combat corruption."


Plain words there.

President Hu has also stated previously and correctly that the offensive of white imperialist cultural attack on China is a major and fundamental arena of defending Chinese socialism and anti-imperialism:

"We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond,"

China and allied countries who are under the same onslaught, an onslaught which is probably the most important issue for our peoples to confront, resist and defeat, could easily launch an international campaign and smash this genocidal cultural offensive of white imperialism. But there is no sign whatsoever of this, and one can only but be confused as to why the Chinese leadership would state such a correct thing as Hu has, but seems to do nothing and its own Chinese independence is whittled away every hour and every second by white imperialist cultural offensives.

Interestingly there is very little in terms of China's internationalist strategy apart from importantly quoting Hu in developing China's maritime capability to face white imperialism's "pivot to Asia" which is a military containment police against China:


For geo-strategists, the bombshell was his call to "build China into a maritime power" to match its economic clout. Even clearer was Wu Xiaoguang, a delegate at the congress and the chief designer of China’s first aricraft carrier the Liaoning.

"The number of aircraft carriers a country has is linked with the pursuit of its national interests. What I can tell you is that the Liaoning is only just the beginning," he said.


Hardly a "bomb shell", just a very basic and simple approach to national self defence against the most vicious and violent white imperialist world presence, especially with the usa armed bases developing around the world, nato, etc.

While China is gradually building up its defences, anti-imperialist internationalism is not raised much in the reporting on the Congress, and although China has finally taken elemental steps of anti-imperialism by blocking white imperialism at the united nations on Zimbabwe and now Syria, China along with the rest of the GlobalSouth seems to lack the political will to lead a en effective and victory oriented anti--imperialist approach. The nato operation on Libya and the subsequent brits, yanks, and french recolonisation drive on Africa, as as such the whole GlobalSouth, in indicative of the absence of anti-imperialist political leadership in China and in the general GlobalSouth.

But all in all, China remains perhaps the most important anti-imperialist as well as socialist country for internationalists to support, as not only is it an example of a former colonised country 'standing up' and a marvel to the whole world, but is also the most important, despite its limitations, anti-imperialist country and bulwark in the world.

All in all I would agree with the summation of this Congress and President Hu's leadership of the last ten years with the world of an old brother of mine:

Farewell to Hu Jintao. His decade as premier has seen the People's Republic grow beyond expectations, lives transformed, millions lifted from poverty and a rate of growth and modernisation that has astounded the world and confounded critics. But also many old problems persisted, some deepened, and new ones have developed.

The next generation of leaders have much to live up to, and many deep problems and contradictions of development still to resolve. But China continues of its forward march and Hu will be remembered in balance as a good leader who did good things and helped not only keep Chairman Mao's declaration on the founding of the PRC, that "The Chinese people have stood up" but overseen the Chinese people charging forward with confidence and pride.

And finally, of President Hu himself who said on thurs 08 Nov 2012:

"The Scientific Outlook on Development was proposed by the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2003, against the backdrop of rapid economic growth and a series of problems including excessive consumption of resources, serious environmental pollution and a widening gap between the rich and poor.

The concept has championed people's interests and advocated comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. At the Party' s 17th National Congress, the concept was written into the CPC Constitution.

Over the past ten years, China's economy has risen from the sixth to the second place in the world. Its economic, scientific and technological strength have increased considerably. Its overall national strength and international competitiveness and influence have also been enhanced substantially.

Hu said these historic successes are attributable to the correct guidance of the Party's basic theory, line, program and experience.

The Scientific Outlook on Development was created by integrating Marxism with the reality of contemporary China and with the underlying features of our times, and it fully embodies the Marxist worldview on and methodology for development, he said."


Long live socialist and anti-imperialist China.

For China to play a more assertive socialist and anti-imperialist internationalist role in our world struggle.


related links:
Huey Newton on China
Malcolm X on China
Friends of China

THE RISE OF A NON-eMPIRE EURASIA - THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION

China summit seen as counterpunch to US moves

[source]

BEIJING – Will an international summit hosted by China that includes major “movers and shakers” in Asia, including Iran, Russia, India and Afghanistan, lead to an eastern version of NATO?

“Absolutely not,” Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told NBC News.

Cheng was speaking at a media event as some 16 heads of state and top officials, representing more than half of the world’s population, have gathered as members, observers and dialogue partners of the innocuous-sounding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an economic and anti-terrorist security bloc initiated by China and Russia in 2001.

The meeting comes as China’s rising profile has raised questions about a possible power struggle between the U.S. and Beijing, with the recent Asia tour of U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta highlighting America’s effort to strengthen military alliances and partnerships in the region.

And as a sign of efforts to dilute U.S. influence, the summit granted observer status to Afghanistan on Thursday, a move should position China and the bloc to cultivate ties and play a greater role in the impoverished war-torn country even before NATO ends its military mission by 2014.

Already, Chinese firms have moved into Afghanistan, with designs on the country’s untapped trillion-dollar mineral and energy resources.

Granting observer status and inviting Afghan President Hamid Karzai will help to strengthen “political, economic and civilian cooperation between the SCO states and Afghanistan,” said Cheng at the media event.


“No military alliance” but…

When NBC News asked Cheng if the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would become an “eastern NATO” or a military alliance in the future, he very firmly downplayed the possibility.

“The main purpose is politics, economics and security and under no circumstances will the SCO become a military organization,” he said..

“But I personally think that, as the international environment becomes more complex, the SCO should enhance its cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), for the sake of peace and stability in Central Asia,” he added.

It’s extremely rare for Chinese senior diplomats to offer their personal views to foreign media, and Cheng’s pronouncements may be China’s trial-balloon for new security thinking.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which China is not a member, is a defense alliance formed in 1992 by Russia and former Soviet Republics, which Russia has been trying to reinvigorate in recent years, with stronger military contingents to counter the “eastward expansion of NATO,” among other threats.

By using the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a vehicle to coordinate closely with the Collective Security Treaty Organization, China may be hoping to benefit from stronger military ties with Russia, while avoiding the pitfalls of a formal military alignment.

“It is my personal view,” Vice-Minister Cheng emphasized to NBC News, “but I will try to push for it."

“The peace and stability of Central Asia is related to China’s core interests, we will not allow the unrest in West Asia and North Africa to spread to Central Asia,” he said, referring to the threat of Arab-style upheavals.


America should not worry

“I don’t think America should worry about China’s Central Asia strategy,” said Professor Shi Yinhong, a leading international affairs expert at Renmin University, one of China’s top research institutions.

“There is no possibility for SCO to become a formal military alliance like NATO, but there can be greater security cooperation among SCO’s member-countries,” he told NBC News.

Nonetheless, Shi conceded there are “some elements" of counter-balancing strategy in China’s latest moves.

“China has neither the stomach nor the power to confront America’s strategic advantage in East
Asia, but China has the capability to improve cooperation in Central Asia,” he said.

“China’s difficulty in East Asia is a motivation for China to do good diplomacy in Central Asia, otherwise things will become very difficult for China,” he explained.

CHINESE CHEAP GOODS GOING TO AFRICA?

Sino-African trade develops, 'west losing out'

Sukant Chandan,
Friends of China

It has been a long standing complain of some that China is dumping its cheap consumer goods into other nations of the Global South, including Africa, and in so doing it is negatively impacting those economies. What perhaps those who make these criticisms may not understand is that China is itself a young modern nation, only since 1949 has it become independent from colonialism and feudalism, and only really since the late 1970s has it had a stable internal economic situation so as to be able to focus on developing the country.

However much the west especially want to treat China like a 'developed country' so as to push it into situations where the west think then they can trip up and slap China down. China resists this pressure, and likes to remind people that it remains a country that is still at least three decades away from achieving a standard of living approaching anything to western levels.

If China was importing cheap goods and there was a massive problem with that, then it is primarily the duty of those recipient governments and consumers to decide otherwise. China has not broken any laws in exporting its cheap goods, and any country in a similar position would do the same. The days of cheap Chinese goods is developing into something else gradually, and China's trade relationship with Africa is also changing as the article from the paper of the British financial elites makes clear below, and changing in a win-win direction for both China and Africa.

Some western media is trying to educate some of its people that China is not at all only a producer of cheap counterfeited consumer goods, although this aspect is still there. China is fast becoming a exporter of affordable electronic goods, vehicles and machinery. The improving and developing trade between China and Africa is also in tandem with improving political relations: "Low prices undoubtedly help, but improvements in product quality and better co-operation between Chinese and African companies in tandem with political ties have also been crucial."

The west of course are the big losers. While the monpolised much of the economic relations with Africa for over a century in this period it ensured that Africa was the most exploited region in the world, and the west's continued policy to Africa is to do all that it can to ensure the continent cannot stand on its own two feet economically and militarily. Keeping Africa weak and divided was one of the main aims of nato's war on Libya, knocking out one of the pioneering nations in Africa that was contributing more than any other to a Pan-African economic political, economic and military strategy. The war saw China's investments and 130,000 Chinese workers flee Libya from nato attack. Ever since, China and Russia have said many a time that they were tricked over Libya, and that they wont fall for it again. For the sake of the whole Global South, one really hopes this is the case.

The article below states that it is countries like Britain, Spain, Germany and Italy who are the losers from China's improving trade and political ties to Africa. The west has tried to ensure that Africa remains without a industrial base, without basic national and continental infrastructure. Sino-Africa relations is revolutionising this situation and Africa can see a future where it will achieve a basic level of industry and growth to enable it to stand up for itself.

Africa's development is in mortal danger from the west who have stepped up their destabilisation strategies such as those in central Africa and in the Sahel, recolonisation (as in the case of Libya and sending troops to Uganda) and continued white supremacist media campaign, most infamously recently with the Kony2012 campaign.

South Africa, DRC, Zimbabwe, Algeria are some of the states which are priorities for the west to conduct regime change on, and all of these countries know it very well. Will Africa manage to accomplish a minimum level of development for its people and defend itself from western sabotage in the process? This depends in the final analysis of the level of unity and political will of Africa and its allies in Asia and Latin America. In the meantime, China is providing the pole of attraction if Africa wants to be treated with mutual respect; unlike the west, China provided a incomparable relationship of respect, China will not destabilise African nations, will not put sanctions on Africa, will not got to war with Africa, rather China is the facilitator to Africa standing up.






China moves up value chain in Africa

Financial Times

28 March 2012

When cheap Chinese goods started flowing in big numbers to Africa a decade ago, consumers benefited from lower prices, but local producers such as textile mills saw their businesses suffer.

Now, with Chinese companies moving up the value chain, that trade-off is changing. African consumers are still lapping up Chinese products, but these are more sophisticated. From smartphones to farm threshers, they are elbowing aside foreign, not local, competitors.

Chinese exporters have more than tripled their market share in Africa since 2002, supplying 16.8 per cent of the continent’s total imports last year, according to a report published this month by Standard Bank. Over the past four years Chinese companies recorded their biggest gains in selling machinery, vehicles and electronics.

European and Japanese companies have been the losers. African imports from Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain and Japan were all lower last year than they were in 2008. Meanwhile, imports from China surged 38 per cent over that same period.

This data “confirm some of the mature economy fears” that they are losing ground to Chinese exporters in Africa, Standard Bank economists Simon Freemantle and Jeremy Stevens say.

The success of Chinese companies is about more than being cheap. Low prices undoubtedly help, but improvements in product quality and better co-operation between Chinese and African companies in tandem with political ties have also been crucial.

The Ideos phone from Chinese electronics group Huawei is a prime example. Already billed as the world’s most affordable smartphone running Google’s Android system, it is subsidised in Kenya by Safaricom, a mobile network operator, to improve internet penetration.

At 8,000 Kenyan shillings – less than $100 – it is seven times cheaper than other similar smartphones.
“The features sell the phone,” says Martin Muraya, who owns a mobile phone stand in a chemist and has sold all his Ideos stock.

The Ideos was launched in 2010 and had a 45 per cent share of Kenya’s smartphone market less than a year later.

Shipments of Chinese goods to Africa have followed a path ploughed by Chinese money. Chinese companies have invested about $13bn in Africa, most since 2000, according to Standard Bank.
“It complements the competitiveness of Chinese firms in Africa,” the report says.

Zhenjiang Shenglong Machinery Manufacturing, a medium-sized maker of farming equipment in China’s Jiangsu province, gained exposure to Africa by contributing to aid missions.

“We were doing well in the Chinese market, but we realised that our products would die out domestically eventually. We had to break into other under-developed countries,” Luo Min, chairman of Zhenjiang Shenglong, says.

His company made about $3m in sales to Africa last year. For big purchases, Zhenjiang Shenglong sends trainers to teach farmers how to use and maintain the machines.

“Our competitors, some of which make better equipment, offer no training. No matter how good the machine is, without farmers knowing how to use it, it’s nothing but a waste,” Mr Luo says.

But even as Chinese companies fight to move up the value chain, the old guard of the country’s exporters – those making cheap and often shoddy goods – still cast a long shadow.

In Nairobi, Chinese-made goods fill market stands and shop shelves, but many are counterfeits, such as “Nokla” and “Sumsang” phones. So prolific are the imported fakes, locals give them the catch-all tag, “China phones”.

In One World Networks, an electronics shop in central Nairobi, staff say customers regularly return Chinese-made laptops and printers. Yet sales assistant Eunice says they have no choice but to keep buying them.

“The African market is Chinese. They help us because it’s the only one we can afford,” she says. “But they fail more. It works two days and fails the third.”

MORE ON THE INTERNAL CHALLENGES FOR CHINESE SOCIALISM

The struggle in China: Capitalist crisis versus planning


[source]


The following is Part 2 of a series on the leadership struggle in China.

As contradictions mount in the global capitalist economy, they are reflected in China. The factional struggle in the Chinese leadership can only be understood as a struggle over which way to go forward and how to contain and resolve the mounting economic and social contradictions arising out of capitalist development.

The Chinese economy has been growing on a dual basis. First, it is based on centrally planned guidance designed to develop the productive forces and the material foundations for a society encompassing 1.3 billion people. However, since the victory of Deng Xiaoping and the “capitalist road” faction in 1978, planning has been increasingly based on the central government fostering and attempting to manage capitalism and the capitalist market as the means for national development.

The central government, through control of interest rates, credit, taxation and vast state-owned enterprises, both guides the economy toward broad economic and social goals and fosters capitalist development. The latter means class exploitation, inequality and corruption. The present political struggle is over which side of this contradiction to strengthen.

This complex subject will be discussed at length in subsequent articles. But suffice it to say that the so-called “reform” groupings in China — with the enthusiastic support of world imperialism and global finance capital — want to move away from state intervention, planning and central guidance and go further toward turning the fate of China over to the capitalist market, both internally and externally.

In our last article we covered the fact that Bo Xilai was summarily ousted from his post as Chinese Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing. This was a blow against the growing forces in the CCP and throughout China who want to combine the use of the capitalist market with social and economic planning and state intervention in order to deal with growing inequality and who emphasize the needs of the masses. In Bo’s case, this economic orientation was combined with a popular attempt to revive Maoist culture and socialist values.

In China today, the concept of planned guidance of the broad direction of the economy and its various sectors is a drastic modification from the direct economic planning initiated after the triumph of the great Chinese Revolution in 1949. At the same time, it is an attempt to retain the planning principle as the fundamental framework guiding the overall development of the Chinese economy.

Consider just some of the goals and objectives outlined by the 12th Five Year Plan for 2011-2015, and the antagonism between planning and the anarchy of the capitalist market becomes utterly transparent. This plan was developed beginning in October 2010 and was approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2011.

The government is planning to devote 4 trillion renminbi ($158.7 billion) to the development of seven Strategic Emerging Industries: biotechnology, new energy, high-end manufacturing equipment, energy conservation and environmental protection, clean-energy vehicles and next-generation internet technology. (APCO worldwide, Dec. 10, 2010)

An article in the March 4, 2011, New York Times detailed the plan’s goals, including:

* A 19.1 percent cut in the amount of energy used per unit of economic growth and a rapid expansion of the service economy.

* Building a national nanotechnology research center, 50 engineering centers, 32 national engineering laboratories and 56 other labs focusing on technologies like digital television and high-speed internet.

* Laying 621,000 miles of new fiber-optic cable and adding 35 million new broadband ports for a total of 223 million.

* A cap on total energy use, especially limiting the burning of coal.

* The development of well-equipped statistical and monitoring systems to gauge greenhouse gas emissions.

* Accelerated construction of sewage treatment plants, the retrofitting of coal-fired power plants with pollution controls, and the continuation of a pilot project to develop low-carbon cities.

In the previous period the state had opened 3,100 miles of new railroads and 74,600 miles of highways, completed 230,000 sports and fitness projects for rural residents, and built or renovated 891 hospitals and 1,228 health clinics.

In the realm of social welfare, the broad goals are to increase consumption from 35 percent of the gross domestic product to between 50 percent and 55 percent by increasing minimum wages, health care services and social welfare payments of various kinds.

Of course, it goes without saying that under a genuinely socialist government, workers would have their fundamental economic rights guaranteed as political rights. But those rights were largely overturned by the reforms that developed in China after 1978. Instead, in the environment of the capitalist market — with its mountains of corruption of government and party officials — the welfare of the workers and peasants has to be built up slowly and painfully through an uphill battle, which happens only through the intervention of the state. (More on this in future articles.)

Whether or not the government achieves the precise goals set out is not the issue. The point is that such sweeping social and economic goals could not possibly be handed over to profit-driven capitalists and the anarchy of the commodity market. The bosses would seek the highest rate of profit. They would never voluntarily raise wages, improve working conditions, build hospitals, clinics, rural fitness centers or anything that did not bring a profit.

China’s response to 2008-09 world capitalist crisis

To grasp the seriousness of the proposals to further limit planning and intervention by the state, it is only necessary to consider what happened during the world capitalist financial and economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, when the global crisis of capitalist overproduction and the financial collapse invaded China.

More than 20 million workers lost their jobs, mainly in manufacturing and predominantly in coastal provinces such as Guangdong, where special economic zones had been set up so imperialist corporations, companies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, and other exploiters could take advantage of low-wage migrant labor flooding in from the rural interior.

During this period production of world capitalism dropped more than it had in 70 years. Tens of millions of workers worldwide were thrown onto unemployment lines. Most of them are still there. Bankruptcy followed bankruptcy, and the capitalist system has still not recovered.

What happened in China? When the crisis hit, China’s central planners went into motion. Plans drafted as far back as 2003 to go into effect in future years were pushed forward and implemented.

Nicholas Lardy, a bourgeois China expert from the prestigious Peterson Institute for International Economics, describes how consumption in China actually grew during the crisis of 2008-09, wages went up, and the government created enough jobs to compensate for the layoffs caused by the global crisis:

“In a year in which GDP expansion [in China] was the slowest in almost a decade, how could consumption growth in 2009 have been so strong in relative terms? How could this happen at a time when employment in export-oriented industries was collapsing, with a survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture reporting the loss of 20 million jobs in export manufacturing centers along the southeast coast, notably in Guangdong Province? The relatively strong growth of consumption in 2009 is explained by several factors. First, the boom in investment, particularly in construction activities, appears to have generated additional employment sufficient to offset a very large portion of the job losses in the export sector. For the year as a whole the Chinese economy created 11.02 million jobs in urban areas, very nearly matching the 11.13 million urban jobs created in 2008.

“Second, while the growth of employment slowed slightly, wages continued to rise. In nominal terms wages in the formal sector rose 12 percent, a few percentage points below the average of the previous five years (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2010f, 131). In real terms the increase was almost 13 percent. Third, the government continued its programs of increasing payments to those drawing pensions and raising transfer payments to China's lowest-income residents. Monthly pension payments for enterprise retirees increased by RMB120, or 10 percent, in January 2009, substantially more than the 5.9 percent increase in consumer prices in 2008. This raised the total payments to retirees by about RMB75 billion. The Ministry of Civil Affairs raised transfer payments to about 70 million of China's lowest-income citizens by a third, for an increase of RMB20 billion in 2009 (Ministry of Civil Affairs 2010).” (“Sustaining China's Economic Growth after the Global Financial Crisis,” Kindle Locations 664-666, Peterson Institute for International Economics)

The Ministry of Railroads introduced eight specific plans, to be completed in 2020, to be implemented in the crisis. The World Bank called it “perhaps the biggest single planned program of passenger rail investment there has ever been in one country.” In addition, ultra-high-voltage grid projects were undertaken, among other advances.

The lesson is that while the anarchy of production of world capitalism invaded China, the rational and meticulously developed plans drawn up for social use overcame the anarchy of the capitalist market. This not only protected the masses from a protracted, massive unemployment crisis, but it actually continued the process of raising the standard of living during a time when hundreds of millions of workers throughout the entire capitalist world were left helpless and traumatized by the crisis of capitalist overproduction.

In Marxist terms the principle of planning, established by the Chinese socialist revolution of 1949 — even though it has been watered down to the practice of “guidance” — overcame what Marx called the law of labor value, the very law that governs the operation of capitalism itself. The Chinese leaders were compelled, and had the capability, to use rational planning based on satisfying human need to overcome the disaster brought about by their own policy of relying on the world capitalist market.

To be continued.

Goldstein is the author of “Low-Wage Capitalism” (2008) and “Capitalism at a Dead End” (2012) published by World View Forum. Both books as well as his articles and speeches can be found at lowwagecapitalism.com.

bRIT NEWSPAPER RELUCTANTLY ADMITS CHINA MAJOR FACTOR IN MOZABIQUE (AFRICAN) RENAISSANCE

'Chinese loans are funding many of the infrastructure projects changing the face of the continent'

This is an article from the left-liberal Guardian newspaper in Britain. It is an article about the economic developments in Mozambique, and is quite lengthy, I have produced just a clip of it below. For some reason the word 'basket-case' is often used by the west when they are talking about African states.

It's just a shame that writers like this don't also admit that the negative aspects of African states are in overwhelming large part to do with how the west has ensured that Africa does not unite, and does not develop itself for its people, and the most violent and obvious example of this attitude is their destruction through last year of the African state which has the highest human development index - Libya.

The writer sees rather reluctant to state in the article that it is thanks to the nature of relations with China that has resulted in Mozambique seeing some positive indicators to its economic development. What the article doesn't explore is the issue that if it is relations with China that is giving Africa a massive boost, why hasn't the same been the case with Africa's relations with the west? Going into that just wouldn't wash with the white man's burden types who run the newspaper.

A uniting and economically rising Africa is what the west fears, and the west will and is doing all it can to ensure this does not happen, and it is definitely alarmed that this is developing with a increasingly close partnership with China.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrkhan said in his latest speech that the usa is planning a war with China, but is already involved in a war on China, and cited the case of nato's war on Libya being also a war on China with the resultant departure of Chinese involvement in Libya and the 130,000 Chinese workers there.

Sukant Chandan, Friends of China



Boom time for Mozambique, once the basket case of Africa

The shells of stylish colonial-era buildings, like shipwrecks on the ocean floor, still give Maputo a distinct character. But the capital of Mozambique no longer feels like an urban museum. Amid the crumbling grandeur rumble cranes and mechanical diggers, carving out a different skyline.

A construction boom is under way here, concrete proof of the economic revolution in Mozambique. Growth hit 7.1% last year, accelerating to 8.1% in the final quarter. The country, riven by civil war for 15 years, is poised to become the world's biggest coal exporter within the next decade, while the recent discovery of two massive gas fields in its waters has turned the region into an energy hotspot, promising a £250bn bonanza.

The national currency was the best performing in the world against the dollar. Investment is pouring in on an unprecedented scale; as if to prove that history has a sense of irony, Portuguese feeling Europe's economic pain are flocking back to the former colony, scenting better prospects than at home. Increasingly this is the rule, not the exception in Africa, which has boasted six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies in the past decade. The first oil discovery in Kenya was confirmed on Monday, while the British firm BG Group announced that one of its gas fields off the Tanzanian coast was bigger than expected and could lead to billions of pounds of investment. Bankers, analysts and politicians have never been so bullish about the continent, which barely 10 years ago was regarded as a basket case.

From Cape Town to Cairo, there are signs of a continent on the move: giant infrastructure projects, an expanding middle class, foreign equity scrambling for opportunities in telecoms, financial services and products aimed at a billion consumers. Growth is no magic bullet for reducing inequality or fostering democracy, but the stubborn truth that it is still the world's poorest continent has done little to dull the confidence and hype about the African renaissance.

Africa has 16 billionaires, topped by Nigerian cement tycoon Aliko Dangote with an estimated fortune of $10.1bn (£6.5bn), according to Forbes magazine. Economic growth across the continent will be 5.3% this year and 5.6% in 2013, the World Bank predicts, with some countries hitting double digits. "Africa could be on the brink of an economic take-off, much like China was 30 years ago and India 20 years ago," the bank says. Many of the African lions are already outpacing the Asian tigers.

Africa exports its natural resources with the price and demand for them determined by growth in China, whose bilateral trade with Africa has grown tenfold in a decade, eclipsing that of the United States.

In return, Chinese loans are funding many of the infrastructure projects changing the face of the continent.

There are an estimated 1 million Chinese in Africa: trading, investing, building, labouring, running micro-businesses and, critics say, exploiting its wealth of natural resources.

On a recent afternoon at the Southern Sun hotel in Maputo, overlooking the Indian Ocean, the arrival of a delegation of Chinese businessmen in smart suits surprised no one. Mozambique is now an immensely attractive prospect as it emerges from a traumatic past of colonialism and civil war.

[...]

GHANA HAILS SINO-AFRICAN STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

[Ghanaian and African revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah with Chinese revolutionary, Mao]

Interview: Ghanaian official hail Africa-China relations

ACCRA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A senior Ghanaian official has hailed the friendship between African countries and China, saying that the relations had brought benefit to the whole African continent.

In an interview with Xinhua here on Monday, Martha Pobee, Director for Information and Public Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, said that the huge headquarters of the African Union (AU), donated by the Chinese government, showed that the ties between Ghana and China since the west African nation attained independence in 1957 had inured to the benefit of, not only Ghana, but the whole continent.

"China's role in African development today is not coincidental, nor is it coincidental that they have built the AU building with the bust of Kwame Nkrumah (the first president of independent Ghana) in the foreground, but a relationship that has been nurtured over a long time," Pobee explained.

Pobee and many other high profile Ghanaians have expressed joy for the AU to honor Ghana's founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, with a bust at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

African leaders, including Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills and the chairman of the AU Commission Jean Ping, unveiled a huge bronze bust of Nkrumah at the courtyard of the magnificent AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital last Saturday.

It was extremely welcome news for the country, Pobee said, adding that "Ghana, and for that matter Nkrumah, championed the decolonization of Africa and also fought hard for continental unity, and our first president linked Ghana's independence to the total liberation of Africa and so the honor being done to him today is well in place".

SCOTLAND's INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT BUILDS CLOSER LINKS TO CHINA

Vice-Premier Li Keqiang meets visiting Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond in Beijing on Dec 5

Scottish Nationalists growing close relationship to Communist China is unsurprising for a political movement in Scotland which has control of the Scottish national Assembly, and one which seeks independence from the oldest colonial entity on the planet - the 'United Kingdom'. 


For any progressive nationalist movement in the world, developing good relations with the powerful nations of the Global South, especially China, is a necessity in a post-western-hegemonic world, as the west sees its finance-capitalist system descend into growing crises in the coming period. 


The Nepalese Maoists, who are now politically leading Nepal, are another example of a small nation that cannot do without good relations with China, this is especially interesting as the Nepalese Maoists had until in recent years a hostile and dogmatic attitude to China. 


Due to China's socialist state, China will continue to see development for its nation and people in a smoother trajectory than many other countries in the world, although there are definitely challenges that confront it, but like the recent Wukan case, China is able to traverse these challenges in the interest of people-centred development.


China will continue to be the most important component part of the rising Global South economically, politically and gradually militarily, and as a developing anti-imperialist country China is a sure partner for other nations wanting mutually beneficial relationship in economic development in a growing multi-polar world. 


Sons of Malcolm wishes the Scottish people the very best in their struggle for independence from English colonialism, and for developing South-South relations in the world, Scottish moves for closer ties with China again shows that the national struggles of the Scots, Welsh and Irish are part of the struggle of the Global South for independence and social justice.


Sukant Chanda - Sons of Malcolm/Friends of China






Leader sees China links key to Scotland's future



[source]

"My third visit to China as first minister was an important one," says Salmond, Scotland's first minister since 2007.

Salmond's Scottish National Party's landslide victory at the Scottish elections in May has made the prospect of a referendum on full independence a very real possibility. It is of little surprise that he should be looking to strengthen Scottish ties elsewhere at this time.

"While our relations with China have strengthened in recent years I realize that, like any friendship, we must show continuing commitment," Salmond says.

Salmond also spoke at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing, a rare privilege for foreign politicians.

By laying the groundwork now, Salmond is ensuring that should Scotland split from the UK, the country will have established independent relations with global superpowers such as China upon which to build.


These benefits were just one of several areas Salmond discussed with Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, in hope that Scotland and China can forge closer ties. It is hoped that the meeting will pave the way not only for major Chinese investment in Scotland, but also for an expansion of Scottish technical expertise into China.

"I was very pleased to meet Vice-Premier Li Keqiang again, to discuss areas for further Sino-Scot collaboration in areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. I also had a very positive discussion about major infrastructure projects in Scotland with the China Investment Corporation, which we will welcome to Scotland next year."

Infrastructure was central to the discussions, with hopes of developing a direct air link between Scotland and China in the coming years as a way of increasing bilateral exchanges.

"I am looking forward to the arrival of a senior Chinese aviation industry delegation in 2012 to explore a direct air link," Salmond says. "Our entire delegation - 'Team Scotland' - was warmly welcomed by all of our hosts and I can promise our visitors from China a very warm Scottish welcome in the coming months and years."

Of course it is not inconceivable that Salmond might be welcoming these Chinese visitors not only as head of the Scottish government, but as head of an independent Scotland a few years down the line.

By laying the groundwork now, Salmond is ensuring that should Scotland split from the UK, the country will have established independent relations with global superpowers such as China upon which to build.

"As Vice-Premier Li Keqiang remarked when I welcomed him to Edinburgh Castle in January, Scotland is a land of invention. Of course, so too is the great nation of China and it is by working together in areas of common advantage, experience and innovation that our two nations can most effectively provide solutions to wider global challenges.

"Of course, with such challenges, come opportunities and I am determined that Scotland, working with China, seizes those opportunities."




[source]

Edinburgh's engagement with Beijing, spanning educational and economic links, pays off.

Back in 2006, the Scottish government released a paper setting out a plan of action to ensure that Scotland responded to China's emergence on the global stage by strengthening ties to the mutual benefit of both nations.

Entitled "Scotland's strategy for stronger engagement with China", the blueprint highlighted key areas, including educational, economic and cultural links, to build bilateral relationships.

"The rise of China is changing the world," wrote Tom McCabe, then a member of the Scottish parliament, in the foreword to the document. "How we, in Scotland, respond to the opportunities and challenges that flow from this will be critical for our country's future."

PRO-EMPIRE TYPES DISCUSS WAR WITH CHINA

WIKILEAKS: WEST WANT TO CRUSH CHINA BY WAR, BUT CANNOT DO IT DUE TO CHINA'S STRENGTH; WEST ARE NO LONGER WORLD'S OVERLORDS

WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton's question: how can we stand up to Beijing?

Australia's ex-PM Kevin Rudd advised US secretary of state to welcome Beijing onto world stage but keep force as a last resort

"China's relatively strong economic position in the wake of the global financial crisis has intensified that trend. As has Chinese hubris that it can call the shots and determine the playbook under which it operates without disclosing the same to foreign firms.

"We may want to consider ways to toughen up our talking points and enhance the use – or perception of likely use – of other real 'sticks' in order to achieve market-opening, job-creating objectives. This will require some consideration of just how much disruption in our economic relations we are willing to countenance if we must carry through on threats."

The Guardian

4 Dec, 2010

Hillary Clinton revealed America's deep anxiety over China's growing economic power and hold on US finances by asking Australia's then prime minister: "How do you deal toughly with your banker?"

The question, at a lunch with Kevin Rudd last March and reported in a US Department of State cable, underscores the evolving and often difficult relationship between the world's superpower and an increasingly mighty China. It is the largest holder of US treasury bonds, with around $870bn. Tensions are also highlighted in an economic dispatch, written by the US ambassador to Beijing last January, warning of a "rough" year for relations between the two countries and accusing China of hubris.

His remarks presaged increasing tensions between the two countries over their currencies and fears of protectionism. The United States is pushing China to allow significant appreciation of the yuan, which it says is substantially undervalued, while Beijing is unhappy at the US Federal Reserve's loosening of monetary policy through quantitative easing.

Another cable from last year quotes a senior Chinese official predicting that the midterm elections in America would increase pressure for protectionism in the US and expressing fears about the Fed "printing lots of money".

According to the note of Clinton's lunch with Rudd in Washington: "The secretary affirmed the US desire for a successful China, with a rising standard of living and improving democracy at a pace Chinese leaders could tolerate… The secretary also noted the challenges posed by China's economic rise, asking: 'How do you deal toughly with your banker?'"

Rudd responded by calling himself "a brutal realist on China", arguing for a policy of "integrating China effectively into the international community and allowing it to demonstrate greater responsibility, all while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong". He described Chinese leaders as "subrational and deeply emotional" on Taiwan, a frequent source of tension with the US.

In the January memo, Jon Huntsman, the US ambassador to China, argued: "Whereas 2009 was a year to build the US-China relationship, 2010 will be a year that tests it.

"Ten per cent US unemployment coupled with our huge trade deficit with China, China's increasing use of industrial policies to restrict market access, and an undervalued RMB [yuan], will bring greater tension to bilateral ties. The Google case adds fuel to the fire."

Clinton made a speech about internet freedom shortly after Google announced it would no longer censor results in China, to the anger of Chinese leaders. Officials said the speech was planned before the Google case emerged.

Huntsman said: "The Chinese continue to signal intense displeasure with US positions on issues from the Dalai Lama to Taiwan arms sales and internet freedom, which they then cite as reasons why they may not co-operate with the US on other issues."

The ambassador stressed that China's economic growth offered "enormous" opportunities for the US to create growth and jobs and talked of possible options for increased co-operation.

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy and Huntsman noted that this offered a huge potential market for US goods and services. He listed possible "carrots" to dangle in front of Beijing, including a re-examination of export controls.

Set beside that, he warned: "USG [US government] complaints about discriminatory policies – absent a credible threat of retaliatory action or other leverage – are falling on increasingly deaf Chinese ears.

"China's relatively strong economic position in the wake of the global financial crisis has intensified that trend. As has Chinese hubris that it can call the shots and determine the playbook under which it operates without disclosing the same to foreign firms.

"We may want to consider ways to toughen up our talking points and enhance the use – or perception of likely use – of other real 'sticks' in order to achieve market-opening, job-creating objectives. This will require some consideration of just how much disruption in our economic relations we are willing to countenance if we must carry through on threats."

Despite tit-for-tat tariff impositions, both countries have been cautious about damaging an economic relationship valuable to both sides. Huntsman suggested highlighting possible congressional action on "hot button issues" like the valuation of the yuan and carbon tariffs on Chinese imports. Last month the US House of Representatives passed by an overwhelming majority a bill calling for tariffs to be imposed on countries with artificially low currencies.

The US treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, has postponed his report on whether China is a currency manipulator, due last month. Geithner has since said that he believes that Beijing is committed to allowing the yuan to increase in value.

The dispatches also show Chinese concerns that domestic politics in the US could derail the economic relationship this year.

In a meeting last November, vice-minister Liu He "described the trade conflicts as 'terrible', with the small number of disputes having huge political and social impact in both countries.

"He believed that American labour unions and the upcoming midterm [2010] US congressional elections both increase pressure for trade protectionism in the US."

Liu also told Robert Hormats, the state department's under-secretary for economics, energy and agricultural affairs, that he was "a little worried" about the US economy and the Federal Reserve "printing lots of money". The concern about quantitative easing has since returned to the forefront of economic discussions.

Another official at the meeting expressed concern that future inflation could erode the value of China's dollar holdings.

CHINA AND LATIN AMERICA - PARTNERSHIP FOR A NEW WORLD

Brazil's huge new port highlights China's drive

into South America

Investments guarantee Chinese access to soy, oil and other badly

needed resources

The Guardian

Wednesday 15 September 2010

The 'super port' in Sao Joao da Barra is the largest port investment

in Brazil and will have capacity for the largest ships in the world.

Photograph: Douglas Engle/Australfoto Blades slicing through the

morning heat, the helicopter rose from the tarmac and swept into a

cobalt sky, high above Rio's Guanabara Bay.

It powered north-east over deserted beaches, dense Atlantic

rainforest and fishing boats that bobbed lazily in the ocean below.

Then finally, 80 minutes on, the destination came into view: a

gigantic concrete pier that juts nearly two miles out into the South

Atlantic and boasts an unusual nickname: the Highway to China.

Dotted with orange-clad construction workers and propped up by dozens

of 38-tonne pillars, this vast concrete structure is part of the

Superporto do Acu, a £1.6bn port and industrial complex that is being

erected on the Rio coastline, on an area equivalent to 12,000

football pitches.

Reputedly the largest industrial port complex of its type in the

world, Açu is also one of the most visible symbols of China's rapidly

accelerating drive into Brazil and South America as it looks to

guarantee access to much-needed natural resources and bolster its

support base in the developing world.

When Acu opens for business in 2012, its 10-berth pier will play host

to a globetrotting armada of cargo ships, among them the 380-metre

wide ChinaMax – the largest vessel of its type, capable of ferrying

400,000 tonnes of cargo.

Millions of tonnes of iron ore, grain, soy and millions of barrels of

oil are expected to pass along the "Highway" each year on their way

east, where they will alleviate China's seemingly unquenchable thirst

for natural resources.

"This project marks a new phase in relations between Brazil and

China," Rio's economic development secretary, Julio Bueno, said

during the recent visit of about 100 Chinese businessmen to the port

complex, which is being built by the Brazilian logistics company LLX

and should receive billions of dollars of Chinese investment.

This new phase of engagement with Brazil and South America, is part

of China's "going out strategy" – an economic and, some say,

diplomatic push for Chinese companies, many of them state-run, to

invest abroad, snapping up access to minerals, energy and food by

pouring the country's colossal foreign reserves into overseas

companies and projects.

China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's second largest

economy this year and may already be the world's greatest energy

consumer. Now it is set to become Brazil's top foreign investor, with

its companies plowing $20bn into the country in the first six months

of 2010, compared with $83m in 2009. A recent study by Deloitte

predicted that Chinese investments in Brazil could hit an average of

about $40bn a year between now and 2014, with companies throwing

money at sectors ranging from telecommunications, infrastructure and

farming, to oil, biofuels, natural gas, mining and steel

manufacturing.

"Relations with Brazil in all areas have entered a new era," Qiu

Xiaoqi, China's ambassador in Brazil, recently told the state news

agency Xinhua.

The surge in China's South American spending is not just a Brazilian

phenomenon. Ecuador has already signed around $5bn of bilateral deals

with China this year, including $1.7bn to help build a hydro-electric

dam and $1bn investments for oil exploration and infrastructure

projects. That compared with Chinese investment of just $56m in 2009.

Chinese companies have sunk $1.4bn into mining operations in Peru

this year, while in April Hugo Chávez announced that the Chinese,

already major sponsors of Venezuelan oil exploration, had agreed to

open a $20bn credit-line for the "Bolivarian revolution".

Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, a book

about the growing tussle for global resources, described today's

China as "the shopaholic of planet Earth".

"The Chinese authorities understand that to sustain the country's

continued growth, they will have to ensure that its industries are

provided with adequate supplies of energy, minerals, and other basic

raw materials," he said. But the "going out" strategy went far beyond

business transactions, he added.

"They seek to fashion a multipolar world in which no single power –

read the United States – plays an overwhelmingly dominant role. To

this end, they seek to bolster ties with rising regional powers like

Brazil and South Africa."

In Sao Joao da Barra, the city nearest to Acu and one of Rio state's

poorest regions, the Chinese presence is being felt even before

Brazil's Highway to China is complete.

Keen to impress, LLX staff at the Açu port lay on hot water and

Mandarin interpreters for visiting Chinese dignitaries. Sao Joao da

Barra's town hall, meanwhile, has started offering free Mandarin

lessons to locals interested in working with the wave of Chinese

guests that is anticipated.

"You should see a 10-year-old boy saying, 'I understand … the Chinese

are coming and when the Chinese industries come I want to work for

them and if I speak Mandarin I'll have a competitive advantage on the

others'," beamed Eike Batista, the billionaire entrepreneur behind

the superport and one of the most vocal cheerleaders for Chinese

advances into Brazil. "[It is] wonderful."

Leonardo Gadelha, LLX's CFO, said during a recent tour of the port:

"This is part of a Chinese strategy of going to the market more and

more. They are already a very considerable presence in Africa and we

are now going through this moment in Brazil."

The Highway to China lay "in the middle" of this blossoming

relationship with China, he said, adding: "We are betting that … this

will continue growing."

Not all Brazilians, or indeed western governments, share such

enthusiasm.

"There are many in Washington who worry about China's growing

presence in Africa and Latin America and claim that this poses a

threat to America's long-term strategic interests," said Klare,

noting, however, that the US' "fixation" with Afghanistan and the war

on terror meant there had been virtually no reaction.

In Brazil meanwhile China's arrival has prompted cries of

neo-colonialism. "The Chinese have bought Africa and now they are

trying to buy Brazil," the prominent economist Antônio Delfim Netto

complained in a recent interview with the Estado de Sao Paulo

newspaper, warning that it was a "grave mistake" to allow a foreign

state to buy "land, minerals [and] natural resources" from another

sovereign power.

Batista, Brazil's richest man, rejected such criticism, saying: "The

association between Brazil and China is a two-way highway." Chinese

companies such as Wuhan Iron and Steel had committed to helping build

a $5bn steel mill at the port complex, rather than always shipping

out primary resources to process at home, he pointed out. "You want

to get three tonnes of raw iron ore, [so] produce one tonne of steel

in Brazil," he said. "That philosophy is sinking in and is great for

both sides."

Neither would Chinese companies be allowed to flood the complex with

hordes of foreign workers as had happened in Africa, said Gadelha,

the CFO.

"If it was up to them they would bring lots of Chinese workers as

they are used to doing," he admitted. "[But] Brazil's legislation is

very strict in this sense."

Batista suggested that rather than complaining about China's

courtship of Brazil, western powers should urge their own companies

to pay more attention to the region themselves.

"In the last 15 years or so the [American and European] CEOs have

stopped coming here and that is why they are a little bit behind," he

said. "We are pushing European companies and saying: 'You're not

really understanding what is happening in Brazil'."

"Don't put Brazil in the same bag as our neighbours," he added. "We

are not Central America. We are not Venezuela. We are not Argentina."

============================

Beijing's deals

Brazil In November 2009 Brazilian energy giant Petrobras signed a

$10bn loan deal with China's Development Bank. As part of the deal

Petrobras will guarantee the supply of 200,000 barrels of oil per day

to China over the next 10 years. Chinese companies and state banks

pumped around $20bn into Brazil in the first half of this year

Venezuela Hugo Chávez, pictured, unveiled a $20bn credit line from

China's Development Bank to fund the "Bolivarian revolution" in April

Ecuador The country has already signed around $5bn of bilateral deals

with China this year, including $1.7bn to help build a hydro-electric

dam and $1bn investments for oil exploration and infrastructure

projects. In 2009 direct Chinese investment in the country was just

$56m

Peru Chinese companies invested $1.4bn in mining operations in Peru

during the first four months of this year, making China the country's

second largest trade partner

NOAM CHOMSKY SPEAKS AT PEKING UNIVERSITY

Chomsky: "What is challenging the US
is not China’s development, but its independence."

Global Voices Online

On 13 August, Noam Chomsky delivered a speech at the Peking University in Beijing. Chomsky, one of the leading public intellectuals of our age, is famous for his political activism and contributions to linguistic and philosophy. The talk, titled Contours of World Order: Continuities and Changes, was mostly about two dominant threats facing humanity: nuclear wars and environmental degradation.

While Chomsky has re-emphasized his criticisms on the United States, he has also expressed his opinions on China. In Chomsky’s view, emerging countries like China and India still have a long way to go to challenge the America. Of particular concern is the environmental cost of China’s development model, and the many internal and social problems that China has to tackle. This week, the Southern Metropolitan Daily publishes an interview with Chomsky. An excerpt of the interview is translated below.


SMD: Most Chinese have accepted globalization. In the past three decades, especially after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), many Chinese have benefited tremendously. But it seems that you see globalization in poor lights.

Chomsky: China’s economic achievement has little to do with globalization. It is related to trade and export. China has gradually become an export-oriented country. No one, myself included, is opposed to exports. But this is not globalization. In fact, China has become a factory in the Northeast Asian production system. If you look at the whole region, you will find it very dynamic. China’s export volume is enormous. But there is something we have overlooked. China’s export relies heavily on the exports of Japan, Korea and the US. These countries provide China with high-tech components and technologies. China is just doing the assembly, and labelling the final products as ‘Made in China.’

China has developed rapidly by following wise policies. But while millions of people were lifted out of poverty, costs such as environmental degradation are high. They are merely transferred to the next generation. Economists will not worry about them, but these are costs that someone needs to pay for ultimately. It may be your children or grandchildren. These have nothing to do with globalization and the WTO.


SMD: Do you think the rise of China will change the world order? Will China play the role that the US is playing now?

Chomsky: I don’t think so; neither do I hope so. Do you really hope to see a China with 800 overseas military bases, invading and overthrowing other governments, or committing terrorist acts? This is what the America is doing now. I think this will not, and cannot, happen on China. I do not wish it to happen neither. China is already changing the world. China and India together account for almost half of the world’s population. They are growing and developing. But relatively speaking, their wealth is only a small part of the world. Both countries still have long ways to go and face very serious domestic problems, which I hope will gradually be solved. It is meaningless to compare their global influences with those of rich countries. My hope is that they will exert some positive influences to the world, but this has to be watched carefully.

China should ask itself what role it wishes to take in the world. Fortunately, China is not assuming the role of an aggressor with a large military budget, etc. But China does have a role to play. It is am enormous consumer of resources, and there are pros and cons. For example, Brazil will benefit economically if it exports to China. On the other hand, its economy will also be damaged. For countries with abundant resources like Brazil and Peru, one problem is their reliance on exports of primary resources, which is not a good development model. To change their mode of development, they first need to solve their domestic problems and transform themselves into producers, not just exporting primary products to other producer countries.


SMD: Is the success of China a challenge to Western democracies?

Chomsky: Let’s make a historical comparison. Was the rise of the United States a threat to democratic Britain? The United States was founded on the slaughtering of indigenous population and the slave system. Is this model suitable for other countries? Do you want China to learn from this model? It is true that the US has developed into a democratic country which is strong in many respects, but its democracy is not developed from this model, which any rational person would not want to imitate.

China is developing, but there is no evidence to prove that its internal development is causing a threat to the West. What is challenging the US is not China’s development, but its independence. That is the real challenge.

You can tell from every day’s headlines that the current focus of US foreign policy is Iran. The year 2010 is called ‘The Year of Iran.’ Iran is portrayed as a threat to US foreign policy and the world order. The US has imposed harsh, unilateral sanctions, but China has not followed suit. China has never followed the US lead. Instead, it supports UN sanctions, which are too weak to matter. A few days before I left for China, the US States Department warned China in a very interesting way. It said China has to bear international responsibilities, i.e. follow US orders. This is China’s international responsibilities.

This is standard imperialism, which is that other countries have to act according to our requests. If not, they are irresponsible. I think officials from the Chinese Foreign Ministry must laugh when they hear this. But this is the standard logic of imperialism. In fact, Iran becomes a threat because it does not follow US instructions. China is a bigger threat, as it is a big problem when a major power refuses to obey orders. This is the challenge that the US faces.

ON THE USA's CONTINUING FEARS AND HOSTILITY TO CHINA

US anti-China rhetoric at danger level

By Benjamin A Shobert
Asia Time Online
22 June 2010

WASHINGTON - The US-China Congressional Committee (USCC)
this month held its most recent hearing on US-China
relations, specifically on "China’s Past and Future Role in
the World Trade Organization" (WTO). As Commissioner
Patrick Mulloy stated at the opening, "The purpose of
today’s hearing is not to second guess what Congress did 10
years ago. Its purpose is to look at the arguments made in
favor of China’s WTO entry by proponents and to consider
the results."

Considering the political environment in Washington, where
recent days have been marked by the most serious
bi-partisan efforts of the past decade to introduce
legislation that would impose new trade barriers on
Chinese-made goods, and increase pressure for

an upward revaluation of the yuan against the US dollar,
Mulloy’s comments are particularly meaningful.

The nature of politics in Washington can lull policymakers
to sleep: rhetoric over China's rise has been slowly
growing increasingly negative as a more specific set of
grievances over the past five years have coalesced. Most
advocates for economic integration with China have grown
used to (and perhaps even weary from) those who seem
fixated on the loss of opportunities related to China's
ascent.

But voices that were once easy to dismiss are now, in the
middle of an ongoing economic setback that at its best is
labeled a "jobless recovery", are becoming more politically
powerful, and insiders in Washington are beginning to sense
that this time it might actually have significant impact on
the economic relationship between the two countries.

During last week's USCC testimony, Senator Charles Schumer
(Democrat, New York) provided in written testimony a very
specific insight into the grievances of many Americans and,
as a consequence, the powerful politicians who represent
them: "China's policy of large-scale intervention in the
exchange markets and the significant undervaluation of its
currency also subsidize Chinese exports to the United
States and, at the same time, make US exports to China more
expensive. Thousands of US factories have been shuttered
and millions of jobs have been lost or displaced over the
past decade as a result."

He went on to share that, "There is no question that this
is what one might call a 'put-up or shut-up' moment for US
lawmakers. American jobs and wealth are flowing out of the
US, across the globe to China and other countries with
cheap labor, lax environmental standards, and no
compunction about flouting WTO rules to gain an unfair
competitive trade advantage. This has got to stop."

It would be a mistake to overlook the senator's comments,
or to simply mark them up to the traditional politics of
organized labor and Schumer's relationship with them. This
week, during a separate congressional hearing of the House
Ways and Means Committee, Republican Congressman Dave Camp
(Michigan), asked whether "enough was doing to push China
... on its egregious economic barriers" specific to its
currency manipulation, the country's "Indigenous
Innovation" policies, and ongoing intellectual property
compliance with WTO rules.

What both provide is, at the base of their comments, a
critical insight into the inner-workings of Washington's
political class. Whatever the heritage of those ideas,
which for several decades have knit together the two
countries, they are under strain as never before. To the
extent both sides of the aisle hold similar frustrations
about China's economic policies, DC will find a way to vent
the intensifying political pressure.

What remains to be seen is the form this political pressure
will take: on the table appears to be a handful of likely
options, most likely of which may be a set of
countervailing duties imposed on China for its currency
practices, the remedy presented by Schumer in his Currency
Exchange rate Oversight Reform Act of 2010 (S.3134). During
this week's House Ways and Means Committee hearing on
"China's Trade and Industrial Policies", chairman Sandy
Levin (Democrat, Michigan) said simply but forcefully " ...
China must change its ways". Straight-forward words
certainly, but important coming from an influential
congressman long known for his reputation of urging caution
and balance in America's relationship with China.

It would appear that, if politicians like Levin can win the
day, Washington's approach to China will incorporate more
than just a single-minded emphasis on the country's
currency policies. Specifically, Levin appears to be
working for a compromise that would take into account the
whole of Beijing's economic policy, what he and other
policy-makers understand to be a form of national
mercantilism.

As Levin stated, "There are other policies in China that
place US companies and workers at a disadvantage, often in
clear violation of China's WTO obligations. They are part
and parcel of the overall trend in China's approach to
trade ... the selective use of tax rebates to stimulate
certain exports; export restrictions on raw materials;
trade-distorting subsidies, discriminatory product
standards ... weak laws and weak enforcement of labor and
environmental laws; state-owned enterprises that
discriminate against US companies. All of these policies
have a common thread: they have the purpose or the effect
of tilting the playing field to favor Chinese companies and
against US companies, workers and farmers."

Senator Debbie Stabenow (Democrat, Michigan), provided in
testimony to the USCC panel her plan to introduce the
"China Fair Trade Act, legislation that will prevent
Federal taxpayer dollars from being used to purchase
Chinese products and services until they sign on to and
abide by the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, which
will allow American companies to export into their
government markets." This sort of move, while it remains
uncertain as to whether it will be advanced in the House,
does represent the sort of escalation between two countries
that tends to indicate a looming conflict over trade that
could, given the present economy, too easily get out of
hand.

During last week's USCC hearing, Congressman Tim Ryan
(Democrat, Ohio), a long-time critic of China's currency
policy and one of the first to propose legislation
attempting to address the matter, echoed the concerns of
his colleagues but perhaps most importantly hinted at
deeper concerns which are too often glossed over by those
who suppose such critics want to simply hit rewind on the
global economy: "Several years ago, progress toward further
market liberalization began to slow and it became clear
that some parts of the Chinese government did not yet fully
embrace key WTO principals."

Against the backdrop of a general economic frustration in
the US, it is easy to miss that much of what lies beneath
Washington's concerns is not simply Beijing's economic
policy but a more general and caustic concern that how
China was anticipated to evolve and embrace global rule
sets and overall liberalize is not happening, which begs
the political question of whether the sacrifice American
workers are perceived to have made by opening their markets
to China has, in fact, been worth it.

Understanding what Washington is currently obsessed with
talking about, and separating it from what is actually
likely to get acted upon, is not an easy task. This
realization is essential when evaluating the likelihood of
actions such as those suggested by Schumer, Stabenow, or
Ryan to be implemented. Specific to the matter of China's
presence in the WTO, Alan Wolff, chair of the Committee on
Comparative Innovation Policies at the National Academies,
provided to the USCC during last week's hearing a reminder
that "The United States believed that bringing China into
the WTO would foster domestic economic reforms within
China, which would ultimately create a functioning large
and growing market for US goods and services ... Large US
headquartered multinational businesses shared this vision.
They saw China as a major market and a major source of
supply for all other markets including the United States."

This sentiment is perhaps the most powerful counterweight
to the building political frustration in Washington;
specifically, the interest of American business remains in
many ways to maintain the status-quo with China. Changes in
Beijing's currency will have the immediate effect of
changing costs for outbound exports from their
Chinese-based subsidiaries, possibly forcing costly
production relocations, and the even more dire possibility
of the Chinese market growing additionally difficult to
access and sell into.

It has been quite literally several decades since the
interests of the working class and the ownership class have
been so front and center in Washington as they are now. The
still-powerful pro-business lobby will push back against
bills like those mentioned earlier, but unless the American
economy begins to show additional life, even organizations
like the critical Business Roundtable may be ineffective at
limiting a political retaliation against China.

During last week's testimony, this was communicated most
eloquently by James Bacchus, formerly a two-term chairman
of the Appellate Body of the WTO and a former Special
Assistant to the United States Trade Representative in the
Executive Office of the President. "I worry when I hear
other Americans describe China as a 'threat' to the United
States," he said. "I am reminded at such times of the
warning of Thucydides in his history of the Peloponnesian
War - that a belief in the inevitability of conflict can
become one of the main causes of conflict. Trade disputes
between the United States and China are inevitable.
Conflict is not."

The recent USCC hearing on China's WTO compliance was
ostensibly about just that, but it quickly became the
tapestry for a broader conversation that is taking place
within Washington about whether China's growth has come at
too great a cost for Americans, and whether its policies
and practices will ever embrace the rough outlines of what
the US recognizes as a politically liberal environment.

This debate is growing in intensity, and holds the
potential to redefine the contours of the two countries'
relationship in ways that may prove as foundational as
China's first timid entry into free-market reforms in the
early 1980s. The stakes, for Chinese and Americans, have
not been any higher than they are now for decades.

Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc
(www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to

ARTICLE ARGUES: 'US CANNOT FIGHT CHINA WITHOUT OCCUPYING YEMEN'

Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China
By M K Bhadrakumar

Asia Times

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the
startling revelation that his country's security forces
apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli
intelligence forces. "A terrorist cell was apprehended and
will be referred to the courts for its links with the
Israeli intelligence services," he promised.

Saleh added, "You will hear about the trial proceedings."
Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold. Welcome to
the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the
Arabian Nights were played out.

Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden,
al-Qaeda and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady
mix. The head of the US Central Command, General David
Petraeus, dropped in at the capital, Sana'a, on Saturday
and vowed to Saleh increased American aid to fight
al-Qaeda. United States President Barack Obama promptly
echoed Petraeus' promise, assuring that the US would step
up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and
perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the
region.

Another Afghanistan?

Many accounts say that Obama, who is
widely regarded as a gifted and intelligent politician, is
blundering into a catastrophic mistake by starting another
war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic and
unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, on the face of it,
Obama does seem erratic. The parallels with Afghanistan are
striking. There has been an attempt to destroy a US plane
by a Nigerian student who says he received training in
Yemen. And America wants to go to war.

Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged
mountains that could be a guerilla paradise. Yemenis are a
hospitable lot, like Afghan tribesmen, but as Irish
journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while they are
generous to passing strangers, they "deem the laws of
hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal
territory, at which time he becomes 'a good back to shoot
at'." Surely, there is romance in the air - almost like in
the Hindu Kush. Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni
has a gun. Yemen is also, like Afghanistan, a land of
conflicting authorities, and with foreign intervention, a
little civil war is waiting to flare up.

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1
speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his
own canons? Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The
intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest
moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global
hegemony. It is America's answer to China's surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is
one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the
Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi
Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In
effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a
lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening
its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow
in the race.

The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with
Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that,
the US establishes its military presence in an entire
unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian
Ocean's western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken
of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The
US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country
with a coastline that is available for China to set up a
naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries
have a Western military presence.

The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on
the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he
doesn't receive any body bags of American servicemen
serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects
from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special
forces and "focus on providing intelligence and training to
help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants", according to the US
military. Obama's main core objective will be to establish
an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many
purposes.

A new great game begins First, the US move has to be viewed
against the historic backdrop of the Shi'ite awakening in
the region. The Shi'ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have
been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi'ite uprisings
have been a recurring theme in Yemen's history. There has
been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of
Shi'ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.

More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they
constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate
Sunni Arab states - and Israel - is that the Believing
Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is
entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in
Lebanon in all respects - politically, economically,
socially and culturally.

Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the
Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The
Yemeni Shi'ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have
far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which
is a key American base, is predominantly Shi'ite. Even more
sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of
Shi'ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia's highly
restive Shi'ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it
all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country's
fabulous oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of
political transition as a new generation is set to take
over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and
fault lines within the royal family are likely to get
exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of
institutionalized Shi'ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by
the Wahhabi establishment, Shi'ite empowerment is a
veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this
juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the
recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against
the north Yemeni Shi'ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia
testifies.

The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama
to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies - as he
did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But
democratization in the Yemeni context - ironically, in the
Arab context - would involve Shi'ite empowerment. After the
searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched
like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be
aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh
than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil
rich-region in which it has profound interests.

Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what
Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn't
want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with
all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only
"democratic" system operating in that entire region.

Iran's shadow over the Yemeni Shi'ite consciousness worries
the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle
going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the
ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that
constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he
isn't finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be
believed, there could be times when the vague recollections
of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of
his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling
intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the
White House corridors.

Israel moves in But Obama is first and foremost a realist.
Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic
considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval
Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has
tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a
military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a
springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty
considerations for Obama.

The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni
authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli
intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen - just as it did
in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.

Islamism doesn't deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn't have
been far off the mark when he alleged last year that
Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links
with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a
highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort
of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates
marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is
lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.

Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift
insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian
Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose
effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously
handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf
region. The overarching US military presence helps Israel
politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without
doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel
(and Britain). But the "pro-West" Arab states with their
rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute
spectators on the sidelines.

Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli
security presence in the region as a safer bet than the
spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi'ite empowerment
emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some
stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the
extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known
as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn't done that
already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for
the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite
possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in
the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.

It's all about China

Most important, however, for US global
strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port
of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the
gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait
will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great
game" of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian
Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy.
By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to
Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a
declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an
extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming
under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the
Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese
naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between
Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese
influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its
Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the
primary intent of eroding China's influence with the
military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at
strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to
open a new transportation route towards the Middle East,
the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting
traditional Western economic dominance.

China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca
Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US,
on the contrary, is determined that China remains
vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and
Malaysia.

An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy
with China's efforts to reach the warm waters of the
Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan.
Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose
around the neck of the Pakistani elites - civilian and
military - and forcing them to make a strategic choice
between the US and China. This will put those elites in an
unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they
are inherently "pro-Western" (even when they are
"anti-American") and if the Chinese connection is important
for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances
perceived Indian hegemony.

The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites
are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from
Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis
Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George
W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent
power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will
have to learn to live?


US-India-Israel axis

On the other hand, the Indian elites
are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the
Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama's
political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all
but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the
broad contours of the US's global strategy - of which
containment of China is a core template.

The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard
to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the
Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the
Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish
lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in
the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers
as well as successive administrations. And all this is
happening at a time when the India-Israel security
relationship is gaining greater momentum.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to
visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is
reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude
toward India's longstanding quest for "dual-use" technology
from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military
cooperation is about to open between the two countries,
which will make India a serious challenger to China's
growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the
great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business
for American companies.

Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides
the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on.
It will have significance for the security of the Indian
Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last
year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.

All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and
missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen
in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard
reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be
"change", has careened away and increasingly defaults to
the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the
Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the "revisionism" in
his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We
can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the
Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia
and towards China and Russia.

Arguably, this sort of "return of the native" by Obama was
inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his
circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama's
presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a
train cannot be "steered", the driver can at best set its
speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.

Besides, history has no instances of a declining world
power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the
sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance
without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all
such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought
piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet
Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.