BRICS nations like China are desperately trying to move off the dollar, which is a major tool of US control. The problem is, nobody trust the Yuan, the Ruble, or any of their other fiat currencies. They can’t trust each other, so the US remains the global currency hegemon. But that is a privileged position it basically only got because everybody else was blown up after the world wars. The US’s position in this area will continue to erode.
There is a fantastic overview of how the US uses the dollar to control other countries and extract trillions of dollars from them while keeping them in a cycle of debt. The Human Rights Foundation youtu.be/7qRWurFaUD0?list=PLe0djdakvnFb0T-oZAeF49… and another one on how France abuses its currency influence in Africa to keep the colonial legacy alive www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-u1Pjce4Lg&pp=ygUxaG93IG…
What will replace it? My bet is on Bitcoin. A few smaller nations (Ecuador, Argentina, El Salvador) have embraced it as a way to reduce the control the US has over their economies. The blowback from the world bank, IMF etc has been very telling. They do not like the idea of a country that doesn’t want to get stuck in a cycle of debt, restructuring, and subservience to the dollar. Throughout history, countries have had to choose between minting their own currency which many lack the political stability to do, or using the currency of another country as the expense of their own sovereignty. But now there is Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a politically neutral currency that cannot be controlled by any nation state or even group of nation-states. It is immune to corruption and human error. It just works well to send money from A to B and nobody can cheat it. It’s market cap is 850 billion dollars, that puts it in the top 25 countries by GDP. On par with Switzerland. Higher than sweden. Higher than Israel. Higher than vietnam.
Bitcoin’s fiscal policy is clear and predictable. 21 million coins will be minted. No more, no less. And if you have a private key, you can spend your coins. Nobody else can spend them. It has kept that promise for 15 years. 365 days a year. 7 days a week. 24 hours a day. Without a single hour of downtime, bank holiday, or a single hack. And there’s no reason to think it can’t keep that promise another 15. The incentives and security mechanisms built into Bitcoin the past 15 are the same it will have the next 15.
Anybody can use Bitcoin with a cell phone and a halfway reliable internet connection. With Bitcoin lightning, you can send an international transaction in under a second for pennies in fees. No credit check required, no middlemen, no nonsense. It doesn’t matter if your country doesn’t have stable banking infrastructure or a government constantly devaluing your currency. And it does all of this with less than 1% of global energy usage, mostly from renewables, since miners tend to chase the cheapest electricity which tends to be made from renewables at off-peak hours.
Just a few weeks ago, Taiwan held historic elections without any major cross-Strait incident, in part because all sides — Washington, Beijing, and Taipei — worked to reduce miscommunication and misperception about their respective intentions. That is an outcome few may have foreseen in August of 2022, when most expected the cross-Strait situation to grow more tense, not less. But it’s no guarantee of future trends, and the risk remains real.
This approach has been the hallmark of Biden’s foreign policy. They’re working behind the scenes subtly and competently, making progress in ways that doesn’t really track with the 24-hour news cycle and clickbait journalism. It’s good to see the efforts paying off, but they really, REALLY need to work on their messaging.
Beijing has never cared much about the result of this Taiwanese election because the majority of Taiwanese support improving relations with China (see: votes for KMT, TPP). This entire claim of “tense cross-Strait relations” is a manufactured concern so Biden can knock a win.
The most significant recent tension in cross-Strait relations has been the declaration of the Taiwan Strait as international waters (induced largely by FONOPS declaring it as such) and the ending of some of Taiwan’s special economic statuses for trade with China (induced largely by increased arms trade with foreign powers). Everything else is just posturing to save face on both sides.
That’s nonsense, even if you pretend Taiwan is a part of China, which is clearly nothing more than a useful fiction for all parties, there is a space even at the narrowest point of the straight that is just EEZ. Which is a region that is free to navigate but the host country has exclusive rights to minerals, fishing etc within that region.
This is just strictly not true, otherwise Canada’s Northwest Passage would be considered EEZ and not part of internal waters. EEZ is drawn from the extant point outside of the baseline.
In summary, he is saying China is not there yet, but they are going to get big enough to eat our lunch and we can't do shit about it, so we might as well start getting on their good side or we'll get fucked in the long term.
Close up shop, boys. Looks like Godric@lemmy.world knows better than the entire US Department of Defense.
You should definitely call Biden and let him know all the Ivy League college educated generals, expensive million-dollar think-tank groups, and hundreds of experienced advisors are all wrong in their assessment of China.
Who said any of us here are trying to solve problems?
You sound like what we are talking about here is to resolve global issues like we are a bunch of dudes in a fucking cabal of globalists and as effective as Facebook "Thoughts and Prayers™️"
No, you need to read the remarks again. Paragraphs like this one do not support your interpretation at all.
The US is saying that China's economic trajectory has been too optimistic in the past and that the US needs to focus on domestic improvements, force China to play by the rules, and then facilitate the US becoming the leader.
A nation of 330 million cannot control a nation that has 1 billion more people. Nations should also be free to choose their own destiny. A logical fallacy many in the West fall for is assuming the rest of the world wants to be like them and should be like them. If I have a 3000 or 4000 year-old civilization why should I take marching orders from a baby state that’s not even 300 years old like the US?
Those are relevant arguments to people with ancient civilizations with a long history of political and social development and philosophies. They are certainly relevant to me and many like me in the Arab world.
When China had its socialist revolution, it threw away some of its principles in an instant. While its history has an influence on its current reality, it’s far from being the main thing that explains why China is China and why it shouldn’t aspire to be the US.
This is essentializing nonsense, that only helps to further narratives that cement things in time, and fail to explain the changing reality of China.
There are much more solid arguments to be made against the West being seen as a model.
I really can’t speak for China, a Chinese would be better informed here. But if I were to draw parallels to the discourse here [Arab and Muslim world], history plays a huge role, not just as a model to follow. As socialism is clearly a break from the past for China. But lessons to learn from and shape your world view.
For the Arab world Islam was the midpoint of our history and a new beginning. But we still carry on things that even predate our ethnogenesis as a distinct Semitic people, as past lessons.
it’s far from being the main thing that explains why China is China and why it shouldn’t aspire to be the US.
China is China because of its economic model. I do believe socialism is a better model than capitalism. But even some capitalist countries are closer to China than the US because the culture emphasizes things like harmony and shared prosperity, and places a greater burden on the government’s responsibility towards the people and their welfare. Things like this are motivated and informed by our own history and culture, at least for Arabs.
Western people with 500 years of culture have no idea what role millenia old civilisation plays for some places, like Indian, Chinese or Egyptian civilisations. Please do not speak without experience and learn humility.
The British Empire and basically the world was controlled by a single city of ~1million. And besides the historical and current examples of smaller cities controlling much more land and people then they had themselves, the statement doesn’t make sense. Why can’t a nation of 330 million control a nation of 331million?
Oh sorry, do you not know how to respond if I don’t phrase it where you can go ‘no u?’
If you keep hearing these labels, maybe it’s because this is the reality. Xi is a dictator - Biden is not. Americans can talk shit about their leader - the Chinese cannot.
“Nuh-uh!” repeats troll, ignoring damning example of real problems in the next sentence.
Often described as an authoritarian leader by political and academic observers, Xi’s tenure has included an increase of censorship and mass surveillance, deterioration in human rights, including the internment of a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang (which some observers have described as part of a genocide), a cult of personality developing around Xi, and the removal of term limits for the presidency in 2018.
“Vibes,” says lying idiot. “Whatever I don’t wanna hear is just vibes.”
It’s Wikipedia, blocked troll. Not that you’d care even if the man told you to your face. You’ve found one stupid thing to repeat, and that is the extent of your ability to form thoughts. Waste someone else’s time. Or, better idea: don’t.
Let’s be honest. If China became a liberal democracy now and keeps their economic trajectory, would the US really be cheering them on? When it means that China’s GDP will surpass that of the USA in about a decade and double that of the US in two more decades after that? Will America be okay with China becoming the leader of the free world and become China’s junior partner a la Britain?
The honest answer is no to all of the above questions. The strategy has never been to hope that China turns liberal when they get rich and powerful because America doesn’t want China to get truly rich and powerful. China’s political system is of secondary concern for the West. Their increasing wealth and strength is what really bothers the US.
We also saw something that really stood out, which is that the PRC believed the United States was in terminal decline — that our industrial base had been hollowed out, that our commitment to our allies and partners had been undercut, that the United States was struggling to manage a once-in-a-century pandemic, and that many in Beijing were openly proclaiming that “the East was rising and the West was falling.”
Sullivan can’t get away with this. He can’t just say a banger line like this and continue on without addressing it.
I feel like this isn't surprising information. Quite a lot of the rhetoric and behavior coming out of China has signaled as much pretty openly for a while now.
You are giving a very sinister lean to shaping and changing. I think its clear that they wanted China to be another Japan, not any number of failed coups in the middle east or Central/South America.
Japan? The country that the USA economically crippled the moment it started to threaten US dominance, sending it into a multi-decade depression (literally called the lost decades) and permanently transforming it into the poster-child of capitalist dystopia?
Yeah, nothing sinister at all about trying to do that to China…
In the 80s, Japan was poised to be a genuine economic rival to the USA. There’s a reason so much media from the 80s depicts the Japanese with the same fear that modern media depicts China, the cyperpunk genre being the most lasting example.
But then the Plaza Accords cratered the Japanese economy
You act like the Japanese didn’t want to lift their people out of poverty. That the people within SONY didn’t aspire to be one of the largest corporations in the world.
The Japanese owned a significant amount of real estate within the US at their zenith (kind of like China today). They faltered because it started to cost more to import certain materials then it did to improve those raw materials and export them. Econ 101, cheaper markets existed for that type of manufacturing. It took some time to transition to a service economy. They still excelled at heavy industry and still do. They’re still one of the predominant ship builders and car builders in the world.
Japan was also one of the first countries to be hit hard by an aging population, partly because of xenophobia, but I think mainly other cultural factors. It’s challenging to try to keep your economy going when the workforce is shrinking and more of a country’s wealth is going towards caring for the elderly. I think anyone with aging parents can attest to that.
It’s not always America ruined their lives, plenty more nuance than American geopolitics. Lest we not forget that America helped to build them up after the war in the first place. And not having to fund a military can do wonders for a country’s growth (you know, so long as they aren’t invaded).
Your hate for America and capitalism has distorted your world view. I’d prefer to live in a world of opportunity rather than a world of schadenfreude.
You act like the Japanese didn’t want to lift their people out of poverty.
I don’t and I have no idea why you think I do.
That the people within SONY didn’t aspire to be one of the largest corporations in the world.
The vast majority of people working for SONY are far more concerned with their own declining wages and working conditions than they are with the prestige of a corporation.
The Japanese owned a significant amount of real estate within the US at their zenith (kind of like China today).
Hmm yes, I wonder what happened
They faltered because it started to cost more to import certain materials then it did to improve those raw materials and export them.
Yeah, of course; just a regular, everyday, normal completely future destroying collapse of the national economy. Plaza Accords? What are they?
They still excelled at heavy industry and still do. They’re still one of the predominant ship builders and car builders in the world.
Yeah, and the people of Sierra Leone are excellent diamond miners. What does that have to do with the USA wrecking their economy?
Japan was also one of the first countries to be hit hard by an aging population, partly because of xenophobia, but I think mainly other cultural factors.
“Black people aren’t economically discriminated against in the USA, it’s just their culture!”
I think anyone with aging parents can attest to that.
The Lost decades started 35 years ago; my boomer parents weren’t even middle aged yet.
It’s not always America ruined their lives
Maybe not, but it is in this case.
Lest we not forget that America helped to build them up in the first place.
After leveling all their cities and incinerating half a million civilians.
Your hate for America and capitalism has distorted your world view.
Spare me your patronizing crap.
I’d prefer to live in a world of opportunity rather than a world of schadenfreude.
Well then you should be damn pleased that America didn’t manage to do to China what it did to Japan.
The only reason there wasn’t a coup in Japan like a lot of other south/east asian countries is that after the aftermath of WW2 there was no need of one
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