History Lesson: Why China Wants to Become a Military Superpower — Harry J. Kazianis

Understanding the Chinese mindset means understanding their history.

Key Point: China plans on never being humiliated ever again.

Bingo. Harry J. Kazianis nails it.

The US-initiated "trade war" and the manufactured Hong Kong separatist revolt are eerily reminiscent of the British colonization of China and the Opium War. It is blazingly obvious to all Chinese people but is lost on the West that the intention is to keep China down and make it subservient to the the West, led by the US.

China is determined not to let this happen again.

There is not only a nationalistic factor here, but also a racial component. Explosive.

Needless to say, this is creating a very dangerous situation for the world.

The National Interest

History Lesson: Why China Wants to Become a Military Superpower
Harry J. Kazianis

Peter James Hudson — How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines. 

Scrubbed from the pages of glossy coffeetable books, the history of U.S. imperialism can be found in the archives of Wall Street’s oldest, largest, and most powerful institutions. A deep dive into the vaults and ledgers of banking houses such as Citigroup, Inc., and J. P. Morgan Chase and Co. reveals a story of capitalism and empire whose narrative is not of morally pure and inspiring economic growth, technological innovation, market expansion, and shareholder accumulation, but rather of blood and labor, stolen sovereignty and pilfered resources, military occupation and monetary control. Sugar comingles with blood, chain gangs cross spur lines, and the magical abstractions of finance are found vulgarized in the base manifestations of racial capitalism.

Boston Review
How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean
Peter James Hudson

Thomas Fazi — French Colonialism Is Alive and Kicking in Africa, Has the Continent in an Iron Grip

Thomas Fazi is an Italian journalist and collaborator with Bill Mitchell on several books.

The US is not the only neo-imperialist. It is joined by France and Great Britain.

spiked
French Colonialism Is Alive and Kicking in Africa, Has the Continent in an Iron Grip

Thomas Fazi

See also

Disproportionate focus on corruption of national leaders distracts from the systemic theft of Ghana's wealth

Slate
98.3 percent of Ghana’s gold remains in the hands of multinational corporations

Celina Della Croce

Jason Hickel — How Britain stole $45 trillion from India: And lied about it.

Colonialism and "the white man's burden." The story of the East India Company and how transnational corporate totalitarianism began. The rest is history that is still unfolding in accordance with this paradigm that has been adapted to neoliberal globalization and how capitalism is uplifting the masses, in particular those who are not of European descent.

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India - as horrible as it may have been - was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain. So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long - the story goes - was a gesture of Britain's benevolence.
New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik - just published by Columbia University Press - deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.

It's a staggering sum. For perspective, $45 trillion is 17 times more than the total annual gross domestic product of the United Kingdom today.

How did this come about?….

Enter the East India Company.

Here's how it worked. The East India Company began collecting taxes in India, and then cleverly used a portion of those revenues (about a third) to fund the purchase of Indian goods for British use. In other words, instead of paying for Indian goods out of their own pocket, British traders acquired them for free, "buying" from peasants and weavers using money that had just been taken from them.

It was a scam - theft on a grand scale. Yet most Indians were unaware of what was going on because the agent who collected the taxes was not the same as the one who showed up to buy their goods. Had it been the same person, they surely would have smelled a rat.
Some of the stolen goods were consumed in Britain, and the rest were re-exported elsewhere. The re-export system allowed Britain to finance a flow of imports from Europe, including strategic materials like iron, tar and timber, which were essential to Britain's industrialisation. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution depended in large part on this systematic theft from India.... 

Al Jazeera
How Britain stole $45 trillion from India: And lied about it.

Jason Hickel

See also

The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China’s markets with opium. The Company’s practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today.
The Corporation That Changed the World is the first book to reveal the Company’s enduring legacy as a corporation. This expanded edition explores how the four forces of scale, technology, finance and regulation drove its spectacular rise and fall. For decades, the Company was simply too big to fail, and stock market bubbles, famines, drug-running and even duels between rival executives are to be found in this new account.
For Robins, the Company’s story provides vital lessons on both the role of corporations in world history and the steps required to make global business accountable today.

University of Chicago Press

The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational by Nick Robins, distributed for Pluto Press

See also

The East India Company was the first multinational corporation - until its abuse of power caused a public backlash. Nick Robins examines its legacy to reveal how it set the corporate blueprint for today's firms to operate unchecked.…

Founded on a cold New Year’s Eve in 1600, the Governor and Company of Merchants in London Trading into the East Indies – its original full name – was the mother of the modern corporation. From its headquarters in the City of London, it managed a commercial empire that stretched across the Atlantic, around the Cape, past the Gulf and on to India and China. Starting as a marginal importer of Asian spices, the Company became the agent that changed the course of economic history, combining financial strength with military muscle to conquer India and break open China’s closed economy. Always with an eye to the share price and their own executive perks, its executives in India combined economic muscle with a small, but effective private army to establish a corporate state across large parts of the sub-continent.

Under neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization, corporations no longer have private armies but rather are under the wing of the military, political and economic might of the Anglo-American Empire.

Ecologist

East India Company: the first multinational corporation

Nick Robbins | Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance at Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment

Justin Podur — Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

The structures of the global economy present challenges to any country or political party that wants to try to break out of U.S. hegemony. Even for countries as big and with as much potential as Brazil or Egypt, countries that have experienced waves of relative independence, the inertia of these economic structures helps send them back into old patterns of extraction and debt. In this moment of right-wing resurgence it is hard to imagine political movements arising with plans to push off the weight of the economic past. But that weight cannot be ignored.

Colonialism and path dependence. I would say that this is one of a number of factors. Whether they can be reduced to a single factor or even a few factors remains to be seen. However, this seems to be one of the key factors.

The post focuses on Brazil.

Naked Capitalism
Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

Justin Podur | Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada

Scholar Explains Macron's Involvement in Syria — Sputnik interviews Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Sputnik spoke to Dr. Binoy Kampmark, a Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, Melbourne and former Commonwealth Scholar at Selywn College, Cambridge University; who is also a contributing editor to CounterPunch to find out more about the France's role in Syrian conflict as well as about the recent Emmanuel Macron's statements on the topic.

Nails it here.

Macron is playing what has been termed a more ‘reserved’ game to his predecessors Sarkozy and Hollande, who both felt that French power should be projected militarily in Africa and the Middle East.…

France is pursuing its role as a revived colonial power, of sorts. It has treasured a role in interfering in Middle Eastern states since its days of empire, and has been aggressively seeking an overthrow of the Assad regime, sponsoring a range of anti-Assad forces.…

The parties of the left and right of Europe disagree with the strikes on ideological grounds (there is, certainly in France, an admiration for the Russian cause in Syria), but they also see little gained in continued involvement on the part of France and European powers in what essentially looks like a revived colonial theatre of conflict....

Sputnik International
Scholar Explains Macron's Involvement in Syria

Sputnik interviews Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Assad Abu Khalil — This is an important book that you should read about the Middle East: Shadow Wars by Christopher Davidson

His narrative is logically linked from the Western plots after WWI to the current Western policies in the wake of Arab uprisings.… 

It is time that we treat Western intervention in the Middle East as an integral part of domestic Middle East politics...

WWI established petroleum as vital to national security owing to its necessity in military operations, hence the need to secure access to petro resources and ideally control them. Therefore, securing access and denying access to adversaries became a priority from that time. This mandated control of sea and air, as well as territory rich in petro resources.

Angry Arab News Service
This is an important book that you should read about the Middle East: Shadow Wars by Christopher Davidson
Assad Abu Khalil | Professor of Political Science, California State University, Stanislaus

The Opium Wars: The Bloody Conflicts That Destroyed Imperial China – And drives its anger over the South China Sea today.

Backgrounder.

In 1839, England went to war with China because it was upset that Chinese officials had shut down its drug trafficking racket and confiscated its dope.

Stating the historical record so plainly is shocking — but it’s true, and the consequences of that act are still being felt today.

The National Interest
The Opium Wars: The Bloody Conflicts That Destroyed Imperial China – And drives its anger over the South China Sea today

Sebastien Roblin

Helena Norberg-Hodge and Steven Gorelick — Globalization and the American Dream

In reality, however, globalization is a continuation of a broad process that started with the age of conquest and colonialism in the South and the enclosures and the Industrial Revolution in the North. From then on a single economic system has relentlessly expanded, taking over other cultures, other peoples’ resources and labor. Far from elevating those people from poverty, the globalizing economic system has systematically impoverished them.…

"Progress" on the backs of others.

Counterpunch
Globalization and the American Dream
Helena Norberg-Hodge and Steven Gorelick

Ollie Richardson — Partitions, Coups, and Colonies: A Timeline for the Middle-East

Backgrounder on colonialism and the Middle East. It' difficult to understand the present situation without knowing the history of the region, the major players, and the stakes of the game. This would be of minor interest but for the oil and gas resources in abundance there, which gives the region not only economic interest but also military. Militaries run on oil, and the US is military is the largest single consumer of oil globally, along with global maritime transport. Ships and aircraft guzzle oil. So this has direct impact on control of the seas and air. For example, the British empire rested on control of the seas, and the American "empire" on control of the seas and air. As a result the region plays a major part in the chessboard of the Great Game of geopolitics and geostrategy.

While not a definite list, the aim of the timeline is to focus on the countries that are still heavily involved in conflicts in the 21st century. These include: Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, and other nations such as Algeria and Tunisia (peripheral to Libya). The timeline excludes countries in the gulf and most of Africa, as they have shown to be merely assets of Western intelligence, usually with western-friendly monarchies or despotic regimes. The aforementioned countries in and around the Levant have sincerely tried to retain sovereignty and independence, but seem to be consistently thwarted in these attempts by Anglo-Atlanticist nations and their proxy forces.

Snake pit.

Fort Russ
Partitions, Coups, and Colonies: A Timeline for the Middle-East
Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

Richard Falk — ISIS's challenge to the statist world order

One of the seemingly permanent contributions of Europe to the manner of organising international society was to create a strong consensus in support of the idea that only a territorially delimited sovereign state was entitled to the full privileges of membership.
The United Nations, the institutional embodiment of international society, recognises this principle by limiting membership in the organisation to "states".
Of course, there is an enormous variation in the size, population, military capabilities, resource endowments and de facto autonomy as between the various states. At one extreme are states such as China and India with populations of over 1 billion, while at the other are such tiny countries such as Liechtenstein or Vanuatu, but all four have the same one vote when it comes to action in the UN General Assembly or votes at the global conferences on climate change.
From the point of view of international law and organisational theory, we continue to live in a state-centric world order early in the 21st century.
This is somewhat surprising, especially in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa where the "states" were often arbitrarily imposed a century or more ago to satisfy colonial ambitions and took no account of the wishes and identities of the people living in a particular geographic space.
Yet without exception nationalist movements and their leaders throughout the world, although aware that the colonial demarcations of boundaries were not rooted in ethnic, religious and historic experience, nevertheless refrained from challenging the idea that a politically independent state should be delimited by the same boundaries as the prior colonial state.…

It is against this statist background that some recent Islamic practice with regard to political community and world order is innovative and challenging. When explaining the revolutionary process in Iran that unfolded in 1978-79, Ayatollah Khomeini insisted that what was happening in Iran should be treated as an "Islamic Revolution" rather than an "Iranian Revolution".

What was being asserted was that the relevant community was the Muslim umma, which has not been actualised in recent times but deserves the loyalty and adherence of believers whatever their location in national space happens to be. Such a view was more aggressively articulated in the declarations of Osama Bin Laden, whose worldview was Islamic, which transcended the secular realities of statehood and nationalism, and expressed what might be called an Islamic cosmopolitan worldview.

The most concerted challenge of all directed toward state-centricism has been mounted by ISIS, and especially by announcing the establishment of a new caliphate in the Middle East, whose contours were based on governance patterns in Syria and Iraq rather than on the boundaries of existing sovereign states.

ISIS leaders also boasted of "the end of Sykes-Picot," the Anglo-French originally secret agreement in 1916 that led to the formation of the modern statist Middle East in the territories formerly administered by the Ottoman Empire. So far, ISIS has made good on its claim to govern the area it controls by sharia law strictly applied, and thus defy the sovereign territorial authority of both Syria and Iraq.

There are at least three elements of this non-state pattern of control that are worth noticing. First, ISIS seems to have no interest in being accepted as a state or to be treated as a vehicle of self-determination for Syrians and Iraqis living under its authority. ISIS rests its authority to govern exclusively on a sectarian claim to be applying Islam.

Secondly, by discrediting those states that were imposed on the region after World War I, ISIS is claiming a superior political legitimacy to that conferred by international diplomatic procedures or through admission to the United Nations.

Thirdly, significant portions of the Sunni population that is dominant presence in the caliphate welcomed ISIS, at least at first, as a liberating force freeing the population from Shia oppression and discrimination and more effectively offering social services at a grassroots level.

In effect, ISIS has successfully raised questions about the political legitimacy of states imposed by colonial authority and accepted by indigenous nationalist movements.

The takeaway. Defeating ISIS may not resolve the issue now that it has been  raised.

This questioning of statism in the Middle East is likely to be more durable than ISIS itself. 

Middle East Eye

ISIS's challenge to the statist world order
Richard Falk

David F. Ruccio — Ayn Rand, Native Americans, and property rights

The twisted logic "primitive accumulation" (Marx & Engels), summarized by Ayn Rand to justify the massive rip-offs of colonialism. And the neo-colonialists are still at it. It is still taking place in undeveloped and underdeveloped areas on the same pretext, mostly tribal with no formal land titles even through the peoples living in those places have been using the land for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Economic liberalism is based on enclosure of the commons ordinarily through violence or the threat of violence, and property rights are maintained by the force of law with the power of the state to enforce it. There is nothing liberal about this at all. It is the height of illiberal based on the use and threat of violence based on specious reasoning to justify it.

Historically, economic liberalism required imperialism and colonialism to develop in the way it did into modern capitalism, and it still need it, so the neo-imperialistic and neo-colonial wars continue to increase spheres of influence, add territory controlled and resources available for exploitation.

See Gen. Smedely Butler, War is a racket

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

And war is the most profitable racket in the world! [source] 

Occasional Links & Commentary
Ayn Rand, Native Americans, and property rights
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics ,University of Notre Dame

See also

West Point appeared to express no concern with Rand’s extreme, white supremacist views, nevertheless. A West Point official offered final remarks after her speech, quipping: “Ms. Rand, you have certainly given us a delighted example of a major engagement in philosophy, in the wake of which you have left a long list of casualties” — to which the audience laughed and applauded. “And have tossed and gored several sacred cows,” he added. “I hope so,” Rand replied.

More than just seemingly condoning Rand’s comments, the U.S. Military Academy also admirably echoed Ayn Rand’s views. “Ms. Rand, in writing Atlas Shrugged,” the West Point official continued at the graduation ceremony, “made one remark that I thought was important to us when she said that the only proper purpose of a government is to protect Man’s rights, and the only proper functions of the government are the police, to protect our property at home; the law, to protect our rights and contracts; and the army, to protect us from foreign threats. And we appreciate your coming to the home of the Army tonight to address us.” More thunderous applause followed.

The U.S. Military Academy later republished the lecture — but not the Q&A — in a philosophy textbook, giving it the government’s seal of approval.

White supremacy because "American exceptionalism."

Salon
Libertarian superstar Ayn Rand defended Native American genocide: “Racism didn’t exist in this country until the liberals brought it up”

Ben Norton

Branko Milanovic — Imperialism and World War I

A review of Dominic Lieven’s new book “The end of Tsarist Russia: The march toward World War I and Revolution” (Viking, 2015, 430 pages). It is about the intersection of politics (power) and economics (possession) in imperialism and colonialism — and how it can lead to stumbling into war.

Global Inequality
Imperialism and World War I
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Greanville Post — Britain must pay reparations to India—and possibly others she victimised

Refresher course in colonialism. Some interesting history here — a truly disgusting tale. Churchill may not have been Stalin, but.…...

At the beginning of the 18th Century, India’s share of the world economy was 23%, as large as all of Europe put together. By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to less than 4%.

The reason was simple: India was governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India.

By the end of the 19th Century, India was Britain’s biggest cash-cow, the world’s biggest purchaser of British exports and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants – all at India’s own expense.

And then there was that opium "trade" forced on China at gunpoint.

The Greanville Post
Britain must pay reparations to India—and possibly others she victimised
Staff

Jon Schwarz — Six Things You Didn’t Know The U.S. And Its Allies Did To Iran

Colonialism and pawns in the Great Game.

The Intercept

Six Things You Didn’t Know The U.S. And Its Allies Did To Iran

Jon Schwarz

Olivier Acuña — Racism Is Used By World Powers to Justify Domination

Racism and colonialism are based on making people non-persons. This has been going on for a very long time. Now, the situation is changing because white citizens of developed nations are now also being treated as non-persons. This is a new and unfamiliar experience for most and they are perplexed by it, since most have not yet figure out what is happening. It's the colonizing of the developed world also by the oligarchs as the new aristocrats using deep state. This was made quite evident in the response to Occupy, for example, or the UCAL Berkeley officer pepper-spraying peaceful protestors (they were sitting with arms interlocked) like bugs.

Asserting exceptionalism and treating out-groups as non-persons is a characteristic of Fascism, and using violence against them to control them or even exterminate them is  a hallmark of Nazism.

While denying that capitalism is the cause of racism despite that this system is based on the exploitation of people by people for capital gain, Cali Tzay did recognize that, “Racism thrives in capitalism,” and added that, “multinational extractivist companies today are responsible for deplorable atrocities against humanity and in many countries they violate the rights of indigenous people.”

Telesur
Racism Is Used By World Powers to Justify Domination
Olivier Acuña

And its not only racism but also gender and other differences. Where they overlap is called "intersectionality." It's a hot topic in sociology and polo sci now.

India Approves Rule Requiring A Third of Women in Police Forces

AFP — Chinese demand return of priceless British Museum artifacts ‘illegally plundered’ during Boxer rebellion

This is just the beginning of blow back from colonialism.

The Raw Story

Chinese demand return of priceless British Museum artifacts ‘illegally plundered’ during Boxer rebellion

Agence France-Presse

Unlearning Economics — The Many Straw Men Surrounding Marx

Debunking some of the persistent myths about Marx and Marxism.

Every school of thought likes to claim that the other schools of thought misunderstand or misinterpret them, and hence that their criticisms miss the mark by attacking a 'straw man'. Sadly, it is often true that this is the case, and I am guilty of misinterpreting my opponents on many occasions. However, in my opinion, there is little contest for the most frequently misrepresented figure around: it has to be Karl Marx.

For many, Marxist theories should be laid to rest. His labour theory of value is often referred to as "discredited", superseded by the subjective theory of value, while historical materialism and its lofty ideals about changing human nature are held to be equally fallacious. His purported views on colonialism (and their Leninist children), while not entirely wrong, are held to be incomplete as they fail to include non-capitalist instances of these phenomena. Finally, his historical ideas about the 'inevitable' overthrow of class war and victory of socialism are seen as naive and deterministic, and, to a degree, ethnocentric.

However, as I will show, such crude caricatures have been around for over a century, and were often repudiated by Marx (and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels) themselves. In actuality, Marx's theories are generally coherent and illuminating, even if you disagree with them.

Peiria
The Many Straw Men Surrounding Marx
Unlearning Economics

Imperialist Indentured Workers

And people are worried about our youth, even wondering why many are dropping out of school and refusing student loans? At this rate, our kids should be worried about continued exposure to US! Try to explain the following to a 10 year old logician.

Japan: "We have ways to make our products dirt cheap to you ... and we're willing to use 'em!"

Japan Finance Minister Stresses Commitment to Acting on Undue Yen Rises

Maybe there'll be another Japan-German pact, to jointly indenture both populations? In the name of freedom?

When should we tell them that exports are a REAL cost, and imports a REAL benefit, regardless of the fiat numbers?

Meanwhile, did JP Morgan really say the following?

"People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd." - J. P. Morgan

Can someone verify that quote?

Are both Japan and America remaking themselves in Wall St.'s image?  Decisions, decisions. Is it "ban colonialism" or "banko-loanialism" .. ? Let's divide into groups and argue the point. (BMHOTK or Palm Slap or just stare in slackjawed numbness - your results may vary.)

All we need are slogans.    "Sounds stupid!"    .... vs ... "Less meaningful!"

Add Gordon Gekko as a spokesman, and we'll have some ribboting ads to keep competing frog choruses slowly boiling.  "We're ..... no ..... wiser."

Why, with continued practice & proper miseducation of our youth, we can achieve that!  It's a goal we've nearly met.  We can do it America!  Can't let Japan outdo us on THAT score either.  It's the Geithner way, or no way at all!  Yeah!  Let's DO nothing!  Forget miscegenation, "misceducation" is our real goal.

After all, we too are of no importance to ourselves except as entities to be misused.  Same for our kids.

Or?