Recall that last week Zhou called Xi, basically out of the blue, to try to get the Chinese to pressure Putin to agree to lose the war in Ukraine. Xi responded by giving Zhou a lecture on being serious and not wasting other people’s time with stupid phone calls. Something like that.
This week Janet “MAGA” Yellen winds up her trip to Beijing where she threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese products—really. Somehow I’m guessing that if Xi had agreed to pressure Putin we wouldn’t be reading these kinds of news accounts.
Nevertheless, assuming that Yellen is really not just gaslighting the Chinese—a futile exercise—this very lengthy tweet explains that she’s BSing them, and maybe herself and the rest of us. It’s a must read tweet, but I’ll excerpt just two paragraphs that focus on our social decline as a cause for our loss of competitiveness:
What is crystal clear is that the competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries - like solar or EVs - there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.
Contrary to popular belief, this competitiveness isn’t thanks to Chinese "cheap labor". One guy who explained this extremely well is Apple’s Tim Cook (https://inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html…): “There's a confusion about China. The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago. And that is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill, and the quantity of skill in one location and the type of skill it is.” He credits the Chinese education system for this: “I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational [...] China called that right from the beginning.”
I’m not sure I’d want to live in that kind of a society, but the Chinese are doing what they have to do to prevent a societal explosion. They can’t just print yuan to ward off that explosion, so the alternative is to out-compete everyone else in a disciplined fashion. It’s called hard work, ingenuity out of necessity, harnessing talent, etc.
Next up, back to Zhou:
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand Subscribe
The immense irony in this headline... Biden being the leader of a country 8,000 miles away with zero territorial claims in the South China Sea...
The official definition of "meddling" is "to interest oneself in what is not one's concern": as such it's complete Orwellian doublespeak for America to tell China it's meddling in the South *CHINA* Sea!
Words still have meaning, even in our post-truth world...
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Financial Times @FT
Apr 7
Biden to warn Beijing against meddling in South China Sea https://on.ft.com/3PUjje1
7:54 AM · Apr 8, 2024
My guess is that the Chinese will respond very badly to attempted bullying by the US. Further, the Chinese are plenty smart enough to realize that their geopolitical interests lie in their close relationship with Russia to fend off American imperial bullying.
Now, here are some fascinating tweets about AUKUS and the submarine deal that the US forced on the Aussies (France was totally irate over this). Yeah, we Americans have a luv affair with Oz. So much so that we want to make them the front line for our war on China. Not to worry, though! We’ll force China into submission without firing a missile. Trust us—we can pull it off!
Boy, we were pinching ourselves over being rid of Nuland. Check this Kurt Campbell character out:
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
This is a must-read by @j_b_curran
There's no overstating how insane Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell comments on AUKUS were: he "directly countermanded statements by [the Australian government] that Australian sovereign control over the use of the submarines would be maintained".
Indeed the Australian government regularly stated that AUKUS "does not involve any ante facto commitment to participate in, or be directed in accordance with, the military operations of any other country."
However Campbell in his comments revealed that the "AUKUS submarines are intended for a potential war with China over Taiwan" and "confirms that Washington would not transfer the jewels in its crown - nuclear powered submarines - if it did not have ultimate say over their operational use". In effect this is Washington saying "we've locked Australia for the war against China, they don't have a choice now".
Heck, as the article points out, Campbell pretty much literally said that earlier in 2022 when he said that AUKUS was "about getting Australia off the fence - we have them locked in now for the next 40 years."
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James Curran @j_b_curran
Apr 7
In today’s @FinancialReview, questions to answer for Aus Gov as Kurt Campbell says AUKUS boats are for Taiwan straits, that AUKUS is not a “jobs” project and “more money” will be required. Campbell has effectively countermanded PM and Marles on Aust sovereignty. 1/2
9:59 PM · Apr 7, 2024
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I guess:
Marco Carnelos @MarcoCarnelos
So Australia is supposed to pay $370 billion for a fleet of submarines (a robbery!) that will not control, and that it will lock the country in a future war with China over an island (Taiwan) that even the US has recognized as Chinese? This is the mother of all masochistic acts!
12:24 AM · Apr 8, 2024
Nearby, another minor world player that thought it could punch above its weight by associating with The Empire is learning their own lesson the hard way:
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Similar situation over in New Zealand.
Check this rather extraordinary statement from former Prime Minister Helen Clark : "NZ’s independent foreign policy is being ditched as NZ foreign & defence ministers go all in on AUKUS"
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Helen Clark @HelenClarkNZ
Concern building that #NZ’s independent foreign policy is being ditched as NZ foreign & defence ministers go all in on #AUKUS & Foreign Minister goes to Washington DC for a week. This carries many risks for NZ, not least economic. WHO voted for this? https://democracyproject.nz/2024/04/08/geoffrey-miller-aukus-or-not-new-zealands-foreign-policy-is-being-remade/…
12:19 AM · Apr 8, 2024·
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FOOLS !
Lessons are not being learned, are they?