Tag: Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Is China Transforming the World?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Is China Transforming the World?

From speeches by president Xi Jinping, including the one he gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017, journalists only wanted to retain his support of globalization—that is, his praise of free trade without obstacles—and a denunciation of protectionism. It is clear that the Chinese president was saying that “economic globalization has provided a powerful driving force for world growth, by facilitating the movement of capital and goods, the advancement of science, technology and human civilization, as well as exchanges between peoples.”1. What a sweet song in the ears of the neoliberals! Nevertheless, we should not hide the setbacks and problems, also underlined in this same speech: “Globalization is a double-edged sword.… The contradiction between capital and labor is accentuated.… The gaps between the rich and the poor, between the North and the South, are constantly widening.… The richest [elements] represent 1 percent of the world’s population, but have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent.”2

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MONTHLY REVIEW JULY-AUGUST 2021

U.S. State Dept. No.2 Sherman speaks with Myanmar shadow government + Reuters, UK Gov, & BBC Prepare Ground for Myanmar Intervention

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

U.S. State Dept. No.2 Sherman speaks with Myanmar shadow government

Right out of Gene Sharp’s playbook (#198)!

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Reuters, UK Gov, & BBC Prepare Ground for Myanmar Intervention

Myanmar’s Conflict: America’s Proxy War with China

How US Government Fronts Shape Media Coverage of Myanmar Upheaval, Propagandize for Western Intervention

Sleepwalking into Washington’s Next Regime Change Crisis: Myanmar

A Better U.S. Strategy For East Asia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A Better U.S. Strategy For East Asia

When considering Chinese ambitions, the authors correctly note that “Beijing has not behaved as a wholesale revisionist power seeking to upend existing institutions.” Like other major powers, China seeks to use existing international institutions to its advantage, but it is not interested in trying to bring the current institutional order crashing down. Along the same lines, China has not been trying to export its political system. While Mike Pompeo has tried to cast China in the role of a revolutionary adversary bent on spreading its ideology abroad, the truth is that the Chinese government prefers to advance its interests and increase its influence in much the same way that other great powers have done for centuries.

In latest US move vs. China, Pompeo stirs up division in Southeast Asia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

In latest US move vs. China, Pompeo stirs up division in Southeast Asia

Despite its noble-sounding proclamations, the true goal of the U.S. government is to prevent a resolution to the disputes among neighbors in Southeast Asia. Noh highlighted the fact that, “China and all the other ASEAN nations were in the process of negotiating and resolving their disputes amicably, until the US, weaponizing lawfare, concocted with the Philippines in 2015 a fraudulent case about the South China Sea in a paid-for farce of a private tribunal that was later marketed as a UN ruling (it wasn’t).”

Mike Pompeo’s speech to the ASEAN summit was a textbook example of the oldest imperialist trick in the book: divide and conquer. But the reality is clear — the U.S. government is a friend to no one other than Wall Street and the ultra-rich, and causes chaos wherever it intervenes.

Biden and Australia (Asia Link Sep 8, 2020)

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Biden and Australia (Asia Link Sep 8, 2020)

That said, in recent months, several common themes have emerged from American thinkers, some of whom will serve in a Biden administration. These themes will impact on American allies.

Biden will prioritise rebuilding those alliances that have contributed to keeping the peace since World War 2. We have an active interest in this. As with the Trump Republicans, not all the Democrats are enthusiastic supporters of America’s security commitments.

Second, while the Democrats share some of the wider American reservations about multilateralism, they will put constructive energy into multilateral endeavours and structures at the regional and global levels, including reforming some of them. They will be looking to Western democracies, including Australia, to work to this end.

Third — and crucial for Australia — will be the Biden administration’s approach to China.

Mainstream American foreign policy thinkers, including the people around Biden, are realistic. They understand that China has changed. But rather than espouse the ideological crusading language of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, they are developing alternative concepts.

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Why America Must Lead Again — Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump