Alstair Crooke — The Biggest Player in the History of the World'

Must-read.

Xi Jinping lies at the apex of the Chinese political system. His influence now permeates at every level. He is the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao. Kevin Rudd (former PM of Australia and longtime student of China) notes, “none of this is for the faint-hearted … Xi has grown up in Chinese party politics as conducted at the highest levels. Through his father, Xi Zhongxun … he has been through a “masterclass” of not only how to survive it, but also on how to prevail within it. For these reasons, he has proven himself to be the most formidable politician of his age. He has succeeded in pre-empting, outflanking, outmanoeuvring, and then removing each of his political adversaries. The polite term for this is power consolidation. In that, he has certainly succeeded”.

And here is the rub: the world which Xi envisions is wholly incompatible with Washington’s priorities. Xi is not only more powerful than any predecessor other than Mao, he knows it, and intends to make his mark on world history. One that equates, or even surpasses, that of Mao.

Lee Kuan Yew, who before his death in 2015, was the world’s premier China-watcher, had a pointed answer about China’s stunning trajectory over the past 40 years: “The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.”...

Tidbit.

These states [China and Russia] are moving away from the classic liberal trade model to an economic model based on autonomy, and a state-led economy (such as advocated by economists like Friedrich List, before becoming eclipsed by the prevalence of Adam Smith-ian thinking).

Just like the US when it was emerging. Recall the American School initiated by Alexander Hamilton (also known as the National System) that drew inspiration from Friedrich List. Hey, it worked for the US to counter the then domination British System, as Hamilton had intended.

Is history rhyming?
  Strategic Culture Foundation
The Biggest Player in the History of the World'
Alstair Crooke, former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum

This is also a must-read.

Having rapidly pulled ahead over the past three decades, China must remain free of rentier ideology that imagines wealth to be created by debt-leveraged inflation of real-estate and financial asset prices.

Marx's "fictitious capital."

valuation of the entire capital structure. As a result, financial valuation based on expectations and animal spirits can widely diverge from actual economic value in terms of productive capacity. The result is interlinked houses of cards that an adverse wind can blow down rather suddenly.

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson: “Creating Wealth” Through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

See also

A dramatic development in the 2010s has been establishment of overland rail freight services between the EU and East Asia. This column, the first in a two-part series, look at the catalyst for the Eurasian Landbridge rail services and it's impact on trade costs. While traffic on the Landbridge is still small compared to China-EU maritime trade, there is potential for further service improvement with implications for global value chains across Eurasia.

vox.eu

The Eurasian Landbridge: Linking regional value chains

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has the potential to extend the Eurasian Landbridge to include both the current China-Poland mainline to western Europe and a China-Istanbul mainline with spurs to the Middle East and North Africa. This column, the second in a two-part series, outlines the history of the initiative and argues that future construction on the network could be a major step towards Eurasian integration and greatly improve rail's competitiveness relative to air for time-sensitive shipments.

The Eurasian Landbridge and China's Belt and Road Initiative

Richard Pomfret | Professor of Economics, Adelaide University