Washington’s fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that “community.” Its conclusion: “We assess that China’s leaders will try to extend the country’s global economic, political, and military reach while using China’s military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence.”
To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its capabilities to bolster American -- and diminish Chinese -- power. In Pentagon documents, this stance is summed up by the term “overmatch,” which translates as the eternal preservation of American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). “The United States must retain overmatch,” the administration’s National Security Strategyinsists, and preserve a “combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success,” while continuing to “shape the international environment to protect our interests.”
In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise....
When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump administration’s economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without qualification, as a “war.” And there’s no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so curtailing that country’s ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of power....
In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war. Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with this country....
Completing the picture of America’s ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions....That puts the US and China on a collision course.
Tom Dispatch
Tomgram: Michael Klare, A Long War of Attrition
1 comment:
It seems the Chinese can make the inherently unjust, inherently unstable, totally obsolete Gold Standard banking model relic currently plaguing the world work better than we can - being unhindered, I suppose, by any idealogical baggage about a free market working when it comes to the current banking model.
But so what? "Better" does not necessarily mean good or even adequate in the longer run with a banking model that is inherently unjust, inherently unstable and totally obsolete anyway given inexpensive fiat and modern computers and communications.
So isn't it time to quit playing a game we're losing anyway and move to a money system that takes full advantage of the ability of inexpensive fiat to totally replace private bank deposits? An inherently stable system with privileges for no one and which cheats no one? A system on the side of the Angels so we might have hope of God's mercy?
No doubt the current disgrace of a money system can be made more stable, for a time, by making it even more unjust. But that seems an unwise choice -to mock God - given our dangerous times with less than sane leadership.
No we don't necessarily need to believe in God but we had better give Him some good reasons to believe in us since every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down.
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