7. Western resistance to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia
Over the last decade the center of gravity of the economy-world has been shifting extremely rapidly to east-Asia. But, as the graph hereunder illustrates (1), that shift is in reality no more than a return to the historical normality of these last 2,000 years.
Fast forward to 2021 and the Chinese-US GDP/PPP, expressed in Millions $US, compared as follows (2) :
In other words, depending on what criteria is being used, the hegemony of the West lasted merely a few short centuries as shown by the white vertical stripes on the graph here above. China lost its n°1 economic spot around 1880 and it got then eclipsed from the world economic scene for some 135 years ! But since 2014 it acted as the locomotive pulling the growth of the entire East-Asia Regional Economic Block (3).
In short, Western hegemony has been but a brief aberration in the normality of human affairs which momentarily left the nations of this earth at the mercy of the vile racism and violence exercised against them by Western European Christians who earnestly thought that they were racially superior and thus entitled to predatory expansionism.
Since its recovery, of the n°1 economic spot sometime between 2014 and 2016 (4), China’s economic pull has been shifting the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia and by the year 2020 ASEAN (5) had became its prime foreign trade partner while Japan, Korea, and South-Eastern Siberia are becoming ever more dependent on the Chinese economy to supply the material wellness expected by their citizens. And all this is growing the entire East-Asia Region into a large and vibrant Economic Block which necessarily has far reaching Geo-political implications.
In short, Western hegemony has been but a brief aberration in the normality of human affairs which momentarily left the nations of this earth at the mercy of the vile racism and violence exercised against them by Western European Christians who earnestly thought that they were racially superior and thus entitled to predatory expansionism.
Since its recovery, of the n°1 economic spot sometime between 2014 and 2016 (4), China’s economic pull has been shifting the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia and by the year 2020 ASEAN (5) had became its prime foreign trade partner while Japan, Korea, and South-Eastern Siberia are becoming ever more dependent on the Chinese economy to supply the material wellness expected by their citizens. And all this is growing the entire East-Asia Region into a large and vibrant Economic Block which necessarily has far reaching Geo-political implications.
7.1. The Obama pivot to East-Asia
Having taken note of China’s rapid accession to the top economic spot, in Purchase Power Parity terms, the US, under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, launched negotiations to form “The Trans-Pacific Partnership” with the ambition to exclude China from the economies of the Pacific. Here is how the Obama White house described that US ambition :
"The TPP is a trade agreement with 11 other countries in the Asia-Pacific, including Canada and Mexico that will eliminate over 18,000 taxes various countries put on Made-in-America products.
With the TPP, we can rewrite the rules of trade to benefit America’s middle class. Because if we don’t, competitors who don’t share our values, like China, will step in to fill that void. " (6)
In the United States, the TPP was viewed as an integral part of the Obama administration's military and diplomatic "pivot" toward East-Asia. Negotiations began in 2008, to form the TPP, between the 4 members, of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, and 8 additional countries. These twelve countries finally signed the TPP in 2016. But in January 2017, US President Trump signed a withdrawal memorandum.
Since Obama’s TPP was such an open act to marginalize it, in the pacific, China announced, in 2013, its own “pivot” to the West in the form of a global infrastructure development strategy to invest its trade surpluses in nearly 150 countries. The US “pivot” to East-Asia was in line with the traditional British economic expansionist model based on the control of the navigation on the seas. China’s reaction was to “pivot” away from the US “pivot” by prioritizing land routes and by doing so it undid centuries of unilateral belief in the primacy of sea transportation.
China’s “pivot” prioritized land transportation, through West-Asia, toward Europe and toward Africa which means freeways, high-speed rail lines, energy distribution pipelines, high voltage electricity lines, and telecommunications. The existing Chinese sea transportation lines through the Indian Ocean got connected to these land routes most visibly in Gwadar/Pakistan but the US countered China’s move by supporting Baluchi autonomist groups that threaten violence in Gwadar… .
But what is left unsaid, in China’s answer to the US pivot to East-Asia, is its strategy of economic development in the regions traversed by its land routes and also by its Arctic shipping lane. The plan is to create economic development zones in association with the local authorities on the model that got China industrialized over the last 4 decades. The Chinese transportation corridors are thus also deliberately targeting the expansion of vibrant industrial corridors.
Once it became evident that China was prioritizing the financing of industrial and communication corridors in the North through Russia and in the South through Pakistan and Iran. The West suddenly understood that China was creating the conditions for an industrial awakening of Eurasia in association with Russia and Iran that would de-facto exclude it from these areas.
The answer of the West was swift and consisted in the generation of chaos at specific nodes along these transportation corridors with the view of interrupting the transportation flows :
As we’ll see in part 8 the Russian operation in Ukraine was also forced on Russia in the hope of weakening Russia so badly that a color revolution would eventually install a Yeltsin like government willing to break up Russia into pieces…
"Sixty percent of oil imports to China come from the Persian Gulf while 80 percent of total oil imports have to cross the Strait of Malacca before reaching the mainland—putting China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, in significant jeopardy from the threat of a US Navy blockade of the Strait of Malacca.
… Gwadar is located in politically volatile Baluchistan Province, which has poor infrastructure and is gripped with the insurgency of separatist Baluchi nationalist groups. These groups are fighting the Pakistani military and demanding autonomy. Some have appealed to Washington for support and have opposed China’s building of the port at Gwadar.
China countered the US’ move in Baluchistan by joining Russia in its creation of the Arctic shipping lane that connects Europe to East-Asia thus escaping the dilemma of the Malacca strait.The US has refused Pakistani requests for the Baluchi insurgents to be placed on a list of terrorist organizations. Sections of the US political establishment have even raised the possibility of supporting “Baluchi self-determination” to warn Islamabad not to tie itself too closely to Beijing." (7)
But what is left unsaid, in China’s answer to the US pivot to East-Asia, is its strategy of economic development in the regions traversed by its land routes and also by its Arctic shipping lane. The plan is to create economic development zones in association with the local authorities on the model that got China industrialized over the last 4 decades. The Chinese transportation corridors are thus also deliberately targeting the expansion of vibrant industrial corridors.
Once it became evident that China was prioritizing the financing of industrial and communication corridors in the North through Russia and in the South through Pakistan and Iran. The West suddenly understood that China was creating the conditions for an industrial awakening of Eurasia in association with Russia and Iran that would de-facto exclude it from these areas.
The answer of the West was swift and consisted in the generation of chaos at specific nodes along these transportation corridors with the view of interrupting the transportation flows :
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Afghanistan
By abandoning Afghanistan, and financing terror groups to fight the Taliban, the US hoped to immerse the whole of Central Asia in flames.
But China and Russia pledged to stabilize the country by protecting it from further foreign interference and by building roads and railway lines in order to open the transportation of its metals and minerals from mining and its commodities from industrial activities. The plan was to open the country to foreign investments in order to channel revenues to the local government and the Taliban subscribed to the plan by engaging itself in the protection of Russian and Chinese interests.
Discovering that the explosion of Afghanistan would definitely not take place a second effort was attempted. -
Kazakhstan
The opportunity came in Kazakhstan with the demonstrations, against energy price hikes, that started on January the 2nd of 2022, and resulted in the death of 227 people while the local elites were squabbling and some were collaborating with the West.
On January 5th President Tokayev requested that the CSTO8 deploy troops in Kazakhstan. 3,000 Russian paratroopers arrived on the 6th of January. President Putin justified sending CSTO troops to protect an ally from a color revolution instigated by foreign interference. -
Pakistan
Supporting Baluchi autonomist groups would never be sufficient to deter the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. The refusal of the Prime Minister Imran Khan to host US military bases on Pakistan’s territory annoyed the US so much that it fomented a resistance to the Prime Minister from within the ranks of his own party. He rapidly got ousted from power by a no-confidence motion in the Pakistani Parliament.
"In a meeting with leaders of his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan singled out Donald Lu, the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.
According to the prime minister, Lu threatened Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed, warning that there would be serious “implications” if Khan was not ousted.
Khan hinted that the soft-coup attempt was aimed at reversing his independent foreign policy. Under Khan, Pakistan has deepened its alliance with China, greatly improved relations with Russia, and maintained staunch support for Palestine.
Washington has rejected these allegations. However, Khan’s comments are bolstered by testimony that Lu himself gave in a March 2 hearing of the US Senate Subcommittee on Near East, South East, Central Asia and Counter-terrorism.
The US hopes that a new government will be less favorable to China… But the 50 Billion dollars, or more in Chinese investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), renders this idea suicidal for any new government. CPEC is the future of Pakistan and its people are eager for jobs and a better tomorrow for their kids (10). The US has nothing to offer out of military adventures.A video clip of Assistant Secretary of State Lu in the hearing, which went viral on Twitter, shows him admitting that the US government had pressured Pakistan to condemn Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine. " (9)
But, in light of the US’s actions in Pakistan, China decided to push a new round of investments in the Middle Corridor, or Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), starting in China and running through Kazakhstan, the Caspian sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and further to European countries.
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Sri Lanka
Facing bankruptcy Sri Lanka was rocked by popular protests in July 2022 and the government resigned. Sri Lanka’s foreign debt is due to the following entities :- 4.1. 81% to US and European financial institutions and Western allies like Japan and India.
- 4.2. 10% is due to Beijing !
- 4.3. 13% is due to the Asian Development Bank
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4.4. 9% is due to the World Bank in which the United States has a veto power.
The small portion of Sri Lanka’s debt due to Beijing does not stop Western media to blame its bankruptcy on a Chinese “debt trap”…
As we’ll see in part 8 the Russian operation in Ukraine was also forced on Russia in the hope of weakening Russia so badly that a color revolution would eventually install a Yeltsin like government willing to break up Russia into pieces…
7.2. The Trump trade war
The trade-war saga of Donald Trump has been etched in Chinese, and Asian, peoples’ memory for its racist overtones and the numerous instances of rather undiplomatic language emanating from the US. And the tone of the language of US government officials has been determinant in provoking the steep fall of its own population’s favorable view of China as illustrated in the following graph. (11)
The tone of the US language, and the subsequent fall in favorable US opinions about China, has since trapped the US political class in an automatic need to bash that country in order to please the newly found unfavorable opinion of the public that had been created by the political class in the first place.
The US is now stuck amidst a vicious circle that poisons its relations with the first economic power on earth whose total wealth had jumped 30% higher than total US wealth in the year 2020 !
But bashing China distracts the US population from the root causes of the general malaise prevailing in their country for which the Western political class’ bears full responsibility : rampant poverty, historical levels of inequality, the loss of a shared worldview that unleashed a deep distrust among the citizens for all traditional societal authorities, societal atomization that does not allow any longer for any action undertaken as one entity.
What the Western media failed to report is that Trump’s team, stuck in this vicious circle, went one step too far in its trade negotiations with the Chinese. It wanted to impose the stationing of US agents in all departments of the Chinese State Council to verify the implementation of the trade deal in discussion.
In pure Chinese fashion a non-answer signaled that the negotiations were over and official conversations have been rare since then.
7.3. the Biden Taiwan provocations
For a time the Chinese thought that the rudeness of the trade-negotiations were attributable to Trump’s style. But they soon lost their last illusions when they saw the path walked by team Biden from Hong Kong, to Xinjiang, to Ukraine. And ultimately to Taiwan where team Biden crossed China’s ultimate red line.
In light of all this the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs started to speak a more forceful language :
And lately these messages from Zhao Lijian (13) ...“The United States and its allies’ atrocious abuses of human rights that challenge human conscience are not isolated cases. They are persistent, systemic and prevalent recurrences.
... Those who are most vocal about defending human rights have turned out to be the deadliest murderers of innocent civilians; and those most fervently attacking other countries’ human rights conditions are the ones who should be put in the dock on human right.
... There should be a thorough international investigation into the UK’s and U.S. war crimes and human rights violations, let justice be done for the innocent victims and protect people all over the world from more bullying and cruelty” by Wang Wenbin spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (12)
These kinds of media interventions, by Chinese Foreign Affairs officials, would have been inconceivable before team Biden started to walk a path of naked racist aggression. That’s indeed how “the other’s” perceive the words and actions of Biden’s Foreign Relations.
7.3.1. Five factors shape the present moment
Not only has China reached the limits of its patience for Western bullying but this also happens in a context of converging factors that all point to a coming separation of the Rest from the West. The West, and its few satellites, form what is called the North which represent merely 15% of the world population. The Rest represents 85% of humanity and, with the present demographic trends, this proportion is continuously growing !
President Biden thought that by uniting the West the US would succeed to remain hegemonic. But his calculation omitted the fact that the Rest had observed, over the last 20 years, its constantly lessening power. And as a consequence the Rest is no longer afraid to say no to US diktats. The BRICS+ will furthermore soon assemble more than 50% of the world population and these countries are ready to lead the Rest on the path of a community with a shared destiny that is rooted in — the rejection of Western bullying — the respect of the sovereignty of all participating nations — the respect of the equality of large and small.
7.3.1.1. Moscow’s ultimatum to the West.
On December 17th, 2021, Russia proposed 2 draft security treaties (14) to the US and Nato.On 2022-02-17 the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated, in substance, that the US and its allies refused to even address Russia’s “red lines” and key security interests. And in consequence Russia has decided to respond with “military and technical measures” by launching a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine to ensure its own security.
President Putin had been crystal clear (15) beforehand that Russia would take the necessary military and technical measures to make the West understand that it is deadly serious indeed. The West unfortunately thought that by forcing Russia to act militarily it would have the opportunity to weaken it decisively. It soon appeared that its actions against Russia unexpectedly backfired pushing its nations in a cycle of hyper-inflation and economic depression.
7.3.1.2. Beijing Declaration
President Putin and President Xi met on February 4th 2022 in Beijing and signed a historical declaration that gave a first approximation of the new multilateral order which they had decided to build in association with the other nations of the Global South. Here is how I summed up the substance of that declaration in an earlier blog post:The Beijing declaration was a first sketch of the intention by the Global South to take its fate in its own hands. And the West heard the message."From a realistic geopolitical point of view, what is evident today is that the West must urgently wake up to take the measure of the new reality of the world that its own ineptitude has helped to create over the past 50 years. Blaming others will not change the new situation. The fact is that it was indeed Western ineptitude that opened a breach which China hastened to engage in. The whole world then witnessed the irresistible economic rise of that country. And the only good explanation we have for its uninterrupted rise resides in its unparalleled governance system that got polished over the last 2,000 years of daily experience.
Accepting this new reality is imperative for the West. Failing to do so will push East-Asia to ignore the West in the future and this will isolate the West from the vital Asian industrial chains.
This is already emphasized by China and Russia in their February 4 statement. These two nations indicate that the time to look in the rear view mirror has passed. Their declaration is a first approximation of the new multilateral order which they have decided to build in association with the other nations that wish to participate. This document is the most detailed to date in its description of a new multilateral order based on the recognition of three fundamental principles:
- The will of the people is the sole criterion of the principle of democracy and its application by nations must naturally be adapted to their cultural and historical context. There is no perfect single model of the democratic principle and, in this sense, no nation has the right to impose its own conception on others. The sole judge of the governance of a country is its own people !
- The sovereignty, equality and security of all nations is the necessary foundation of a new multilateral order that seeks to exclude the hegemony and domination through force by the strongest.
- In the current context, the UN is the sole institution recognized by all nations and in this sense the decisions of the UN form the only legal platform binding all nations. (16)
7.3.1.3. Russian operation in Ukraine
The result of the Western rejection of the concerns of Russia, which it had proposed to settle amicably through diplomacy, was the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The day following the start, of Russia’s Special Military Operation, the West answered with economic and financial sanctions against Russia which shows that it had premeditated the whole adventure. Unfortunately for the West its sanctions backfired and ignited a bout of hyper-inflation in Western countries. The resulting reduction of the flow of energy from Russia to Europe now threatens to terminate a big chunk of European heavy industries during this coming 2022-2023 winter and this will open the West to its worse economic depression ever.By this August 26 the situation on the ground shows that Russia has defeated Ukraine but the West is not ready to let Ukraine concede which means that it will continue to ship new equipment while Western agents will take the lead of the remaining Ukrainian forces.
But all this is not going to change the situation on the ground. A few weeks from now Russia will have increased substantially the Ukrainian territory under its control and the West will have to decide on a new strategy. But whatever the West decides going forward the facts on the ground have already been established :
- The state of Ukraine has lost its richest mining, industrial, and agricultural regions while at least 100,000 of its soldiers and citizens have died and hundreds of thousand more are badly hurt. In light of this the Ukrainian nation will be the biggest looser of this Western Geo-political adventure.
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The second losers will be the European countries that have lost the cheap and reliable supply of Russian energy, metals, minerals and industrial components while the Russian market will be closed to European goods. China and India will be only too happy to take over the European empty seats in the Russian economy ! The inevitable inflation-shock caused by this loss is bound to reposition the demand from the Rest for European productions.
It is by now evident that the choices made by European leaders have fatally weakened the position of Europe in the concert of nations. The dream, in the wake of the 2nd World War, of positioning the EU, as one of the great centers of power, comes now to an end. Europe has marginalized itself in the eyes of the Rest and it will be marginalized from the decision-making centers of the new world order. - The US has had its 5 minutes of satisfaction by uniting Europe under its leadership but its adventurism is destroying the European economy and the popular reaction this coming winter will be extremely brutal. To the Rest Europe’s downfall will be seen as a confirmation of karma’s just retribution while the USA will forever be seen as a treacherous nation that “speaks with a forked tongue" (17) and this time the judgment will stick in the minds of all in the Rest of the world and also in Europe !
7.3.1.4. The sudden rise of the 87% !
The most extraordinary in this Ukrainian episode has been the completely unpredictable emergence of a front of refusal to the US diktat to punish Russia. The conflict in Ukraine metamorphosed into a moment of opportunity for 85% of the world's population who spontaneously said no to the Western diktat to sanction Russia. After some hesitation the world was flabbergasted that something so momentous had just happened. We have indeed been witnessing nothing less than the rejection of Western Modernity by the entire non-Western world ! This is a historical moment indeed !But this historical reality will take some time to enter into the Geo-political calculations of national experts. This was such an unexpected thing that people will need some time to digest its implications. For the first time in its history Western Modernity is opposed by some 85% of the world's population ! The ideological totalitarianism that is baked in Western dualism has finally backfired like a boomerang that nobody awaited.
The Global South, or the Rest, suddenly discovers that it can say no to the West. But this is also a moment of great danger because the hegemon will be tempted to knock on their knees those countries that have fallen in a Western debt trap (18). This is how we discover that the Rest is an assembly of disparate states that could easily be coerced into submission by the West. The Global South has urgently to awake from its surprise at this extraordinary moment. It badly needs to come together and to unite on a common platform. The Beijing Declaration is a good start to deliberate such a common platform. Russia, India, and China are best placed to take the lead. And the least we can say is that they are moving fast. Russia's leaders are loosing no opportunity to hammer the West for its hypocrisy while China is taking decisive action to knock the dollar off from its global monetary altar.
7.3.1.5. Beijing and Washington are on the brink !
US state governance crossed the line on Taiwan and, in its answers to Pelosi’s visit, China shows that further provocations would leave the two countries one short step from a total break-up of diplomatic relations (19) ! A break-up of diplomatic relations would be just short of the break-out of a kinetic war ! China does not want a war but most Chinese leaders believe, that the US is preparing one, and so the country readies its defenses.The US and the West can argue all they want. The fact is that China has been crystal clear about the fact that Taiwan is under China’s sovereignty and that a foreign interference in its sovereignty would not be tolerated. But if President Putin’s clarity with the West has succeeded to prove anything at all it is that the West not only “speaks with a forked tongue" but that it also is “non-able to implement a contract“.
7.3.2. the emerging shake-up of the world-order
The convergence of the 5 factors, that I laid-out in 7.3.1, has been missed by most Geo-political analysts. It represents nonetheless a rarely seen historical alignment that unmistakably points to a shake-up of the Western driven world-order. The Beijing declaration, and the numerous speeches from Russian leaders, point to a clear rejection of Western bullying. Now comes the more complex phase of laying the foundations of a new world order.
It is necessary, at this point, to be clear-minded about the context that permitted the affirmation by the Global South of its resistance to the hegemon. That affirmation is de-facto deriving from its observation of the following two factors : — the US, and the West’s, have been constantly weakening economically over the last 2 decades which is reflected in their internal imbalances — China’s accession to the top economic spot, and its accumulation of the biggest chunk of the world’s wealth, is “the coup de grace” that signals an end to the bullying.
Attracted to China, for historical reasons, the Global-South senses, for the first time since Europe’s destructive incursions in the native territories of the Americas of Africa and of Asia, that a realistic chance has emerged of true liberation from the crusaders, the conquistadors, and the technocrats of the IMF.
The next decade, of the Global South’s liberation, will be marked by the initiatives of its representatives organizations : the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, + new-comers (BRICS+), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), etc…
It is necessary, at this point, to be clear-minded about the context that permitted the affirmation by the Global South of its resistance to the hegemon. That affirmation is de-facto deriving from its observation of the following two factors : — the US, and the West’s, have been constantly weakening economically over the last 2 decades which is reflected in their internal imbalances — China’s accession to the top economic spot, and its accumulation of the biggest chunk of the world’s wealth, is “the coup de grace” that signals an end to the bullying.
Attracted to China, for historical reasons, the Global-South senses, for the first time since Europe’s destructive incursions in the native territories of the Americas of Africa and of Asia, that a realistic chance has emerged of true liberation from the crusaders, the conquistadors, and the technocrats of the IMF.
The next decade, of the Global South’s liberation, will be marked by the initiatives of its representatives organizations : the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, + new-comers (BRICS+), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), etc…
7.3.2.1. BRICS+
The BRICS already command the respect of the world, for, as Michael Murray recently noted :After integrating Iran, Argentina, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey the BRICS+ will force a re-balancing act to the current global order. Contrary to the West, which always wants to impose its views, the BRICS+ are defending a win-win cooperation among all countries on earth. This holds the promise of a termination of Western power politics, hegemony, and the law of the jungle which would then open the door to a focus on — a globally balanced economical development — a new global governance of a multi-polar world — the formulation of answers to the side-effects of Western Modernity."Imagine: an organisation representing 43% of the world’s population across four continents, comprising 30% of the global land area, currently producing 24% of global GDP and responsible for 16% of world trade – convenes a virtual meeting for 2600 participants, not counting their back-up teams, advisors and other ancillary staff.
The IMF estimates that same organisation’s growth rate as being over twice as fast as that of the US and, with present composition, destined to comprise over 50% of global GDP by end of this decade. (20)
7.3.2.2. BRI (belt and roads initiative)
BRI acts as “the open infrastructure investment arm” of “the political re-structuring of the world order undertaken by BRICS+”.
Contrary to Western private investments BRI investments fit in a holistic vision of a post-Western world-order which means a more rational approach, to the communications between nations, that would offer them a more equal access to the world market. In that sense BRI pushes the rationality of Western modernity one step further by integrating a principle of equality that is unknown in the rationality of Western Modernity.
This will necessarily provoke a clash with the new strategy of Western big capital holders that I summed up, in Chapter 2.1 of Part 2, as being “the totalitarianism that is at work in the transformation of nature into capital”.
In light of this two fundamental questions arise :
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What is the capital formation methodology retained to realize the investments necessary to materialize the holistic vision of a post-Western world-order ?
The answer to this question is capital. For, as I have laid out in “2. A new lease on life for the unipolar world ?” Western big capital holders are already engaging in a new form of capital formation that in substance is robbing nature from humanity. But to keep things simple I will address this question more in depth in a future separate text. -
How and who will decide on the holistic vision of a post-Western world-order ?
This is a question of public governance. And seen China’s unique heritage, of an uninterrupted 2000+ years old knowledge base in that field, it would be wise for the Rest of the world to listen to the eventual suggestions that China might have gleaned from its long memory on the subject. But, in full respect of the foundational principles of the new world order as expressed in the Beijing Declaration, all discussions and the final decision on the new form of world governance will be the responsibility of all individual member countries composing the Global-South…
What I mean to say is that, “the great convergence of Late-Modernity” proves, without a shred of a doubt, that humanity can no longer blindly follow the rationality imposed by the Western model of capital formation. If we want to survive as a species we have to start to think ASAP about the priorities suggested by “the first Principles of Life”. This is not an ideological question. It is a question related to our species’ survival !
Notes :
1. Source: “The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 Little Graph”, The Atlantic, by Derek Thompson. 2012-06-19. Based on "Statistics on World Population, GDP and per Capita GDP, 1-2008” by Angus Maddison, University of Groeningen. This graph was customized by myself laodan.
2. World Bank, IMF, CIA (CIA data are not available for 2021 → data input for 2020 in 2017 dollars)
3. REB’s. See “A First Blow in Late-Modernity. 5.2. toward a world confederation of regional economic blocs (REBS)”
4. CIA, World bank and IMF show that China passed the US, in GDP in PPP terms, sometime between 2014 and 2016. GDP is the measurement of the total annual production of goods and services by a country measured in dollar terms. Measured in PPP terms means measured in terms of the purchasing power of that country’s inhabitants.
Some people claim that a GDP measurement does not indicate the economic power of a nation A comparison of economic might, they say, is more accurately attained by comparing the national wealth of countries. An article in India Today Web Desk, from 2021-11-16, came conveniently to my attention that informs us about a report by McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich which concluded that by that particular measure China is now the wealthiest country on earth :
China’s wealth jumped to $120 trillion in 2020 from just $7 trillion in 2000. This marks a jump of $113 trillion in 20 years, helping the nation surpass the United States in terms of net worth. During the same period, the US saw its net worth more than double to $90 trillion.5. "ASEAN becomes China's largest trading partner in 2020, with 7% growth" by Global Times. 2021-01-14.
6. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership". The Obama White House Archives.
7. "Pakistan transfers strategic Gwadar port to China", wsws, Sampath Perera. 2013-02-26.
8. CSTO : The Collective Security Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance between six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States : Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
9. "Pakistan’s prime minister accuses US diplomat of ‘conspiracy’ to overthrow his elected government", Multipolarista, by Benjamin Norton. 2022-04-04.
10. Check China Pakistan Economic Corridor Maps
11. "American Views of China Drop to Record Low", The Diplomat, by Eleanor Albert. 2021-03-05.
12. "Chinese FM spokesperson urges investigations into UK, U.S. war crimes, human rights violations", Macau Business Media. 2022-07-19, by Xinhua News Agency.
13. Zhao Lijian on Twitter
14. "Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on security guarantees". Russian Ministry of Foreign Affair. 2021-12-17.
"Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Russia. 2021-12-17.
15. “A Chinese-Russian Christmas Tale”, in painting and thinking, by laodan. 2021-12-23
16. “Geopolitics was shaken to the core this 4th of February ! “, in painting and thinking, by laodan. 2022-02-07.
17. This was the expression used by Native American Tribal Confederations to categorize the duplicity of White people who never respected their spoken or written words.
18. "Be wary of Western neoliberalism swallowing more developing countries", Global Times. 2022-08-21
19. “China Terminates Cooperation with US After Pelosi's Taiwan Visit", AllSides. Headline Roundup, 2022-08-06.
" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Friday confirmed that China will cut diplomatic ties with the White House on several key fronts, including all future phone calls with U.S. defense leaders as well as cooperation on climate policy, anti-drug measures and intercontinental crime."20. “From BRICS to BRICS+ — and beyond”, Labour Affairs, by Michael Murray. 2022-07-08.
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