Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Asia Unhedged — EU snubs Beijing, won’t support Belt and Road statement

Diplomat says OBOR can only be successful if it’s based on “transparency and co-ownership”
Asia Times
EU snubs Beijing, won’t support Belt and Road statement
Asia Unhedged

also
In an interview with Chinese state-run People’s Daily last week, the vice-governor of the People’s Bank of China, Yi Gang, said Belt and Road suffered from structural financing problems and needed support from international lenders. His boss, PBOC governor Zhou Xiaochuan, has voiced the same concern, saying governments alone could not fund all the potential Silk Road projects...
Apparently clueless about MMT.
Many EU countries are concerned that the rhetoric of “win-win cooperation” enshrined in the Silk Road initiative actually hides China’s will to assert itself globally.
Projection?

Don’t expect EU money to fund China’s new Silk Roads
Emanuele Scimia

15 comments:

Dan Lynch said...

As I posted earlier, increased trade with China will only benefit China (from a mercantilist perspective). People like Pepe Escobar who tout the silk road proposal as the greatest thing since sliced bread are buying into the neoliberal view of free trade.

If I were a manufacturer in Russia I would oppose the silk road and hope that the Western sanctions against Russia never end.

Matt Franko said...

"Apparently clueless about MMT."

You are making my point....

MRW said...

What if Beijing provided products for trade that the EU can only sell at 2X or 3X the price? Think the Europeans consumers aren’t going to bite? We did.

If I were a manufacturer in Russia I would oppose the silk road and hope that the Western sanctions against Russia never end.

Why?

Dan Lynch said...

@MRW "we" were given no choice in the matter.

What if we repealed the minimum wage law, workman's comp, OSHA, the EPA, and even brought back slavery -- just think of how much money consumers would save if goods and services could be produced by slaves! Do you see a problem with that?

That is how Asian goods are cheaper. Competitive advantage is a myth, exploitation and pollution are real.

MRW said...

I asked you about Russia. It was a genuine query into what you meant.

Matt Franko said...

MRW, he means Russia has more self-respect than China...

MRW said...

I'm not interested in Russia's self-esteem levels, I wanted an economic answer for why Russia should hope the Western sanctions never end.

MRW said...

economic reason.

Peter Pan said...

To force them to be more self-reliant. Could be applied to Venezuela.

Tom Hickey said...

I'm not interested in Russia's self-esteem levels, I wanted an economic answer for why Russia should hope the Western sanctions never end.

As Putin explained, it was the only way to cure Dutch disease.

McCain was correct. Formerly, Russia was a gas station.

No longer.

But they still need the sanctions to last a while longer to gear up.

Russia needs to revive its technological capability, which deteriorated after the collapse of the USSR, now that sanctions prevent imports.

The weapons development demonstrated since about 2014, and most recently in Syria, caught the US by surprise.

Russia is also ramping up agriculture.

They still need to reinvigorate their industry though.

Kaivey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kaivey said...

I've read about the oil curse, where countries get lazy and just rely on oil revenues. Maybe this is what happened to Venezuela? You would think with all that wealth they would rapidly industrialize and invest in the future? I've also read that a strong financial centre can do the same thing, like in the UK. It messes up the exchange rate making it harder to export

Peter Pan said...

Venezuela failed to carry out land reform. They failed to develop the capacity to feed themselves. These are basic steps to guard against a crisis, which in this case was a drop in the price of oil. Lazy, complacent, inept, have your pick.

Tom Hickey said...

The big problem in Venezuela was not knowing how to deal with currency.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38094-venezuela-s-economic-crisis-does-it-mean-that-the-left-has-failed

Here is a Marxist analysis

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/12948

Peter Pan said...

No argument that their economic mismanagement failed in several areas. But calling this a "revolution" is a joke. The Saudis are better socialists in the sense of redistribution of wealth. In the end, their Bolivarian ideology did not help them to address real-world problems. And it never will.