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The US and China:
One Side is Losing, the Other is Winning
By James Petras
January 03, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Asian capitalism, notably China and South
Korea are competing with the US for
global power. Asian global power is driven by dynamic economic growth,
while the US
pursues a strategy of military-driven empire building.
One Day's Read of the Financial Times
Even a cursory read of a single issue of the Financial Times
(December 28, 2009) illustrates the divergent strategies toward empire
building. On page one, the lead article on the US is on
its expanding military conflicts and its 'war on terror', entitled "Obama Demands Review of
Terror List". In contrast, there are
two page-one articles on China, which describe China's launching of the
world's fastest long-distance passenger train service and China's
decision to maintain its currency pegged to the US dollar as a mechanism
to promote its robust export sector. While Obama turns the US focus
on a fourth battle front (Yemen) in the 'war on terror' (after Iraq, Afghanistan
and Pakistan), the Financial Times reports on the same page that a South
Korean consortium has won a $20.4 billion dollar contract to develop
civilian nuclear power plants for the United Arab Emirates, beating its
US and European competitors.
On page two of the FT there is a longer article elaborating on the
new Chinese rail system, highlighting its superiority over the US rail
service: The Chinese ultra-modern train takes passengers between
two major cities, 1,100
kilometers, in less than 3 hours whereas the US
Amtrack 'Express' takes 3 ½ hours to cover 300 kilometers between
Boston and New York. While the US
passenger rail system deteriorates from lack of investment and
maintenance, China
has spent $17 billion dollars constructing its express line. China plans to construct 18,000 kilometers
of new track for its ultra-modern system by 2012, while the US will spend an equivalent amount in
financing its 'military surge' in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
as well as opening a new war front in Yemen.
China builds a transport system linking producers and labor markets
from the interior provinces with the manufacturing centers and ports on
the coast, while on page 4 the Financial Times describes how the US is
welded to its policy
of confronting the 'Islamist threat' with an
endless 'war on terror'. The decades-long wars and occupations of
Moslem countries have diverted hundreds of billions of dollars of public funds to a militarist
policy with no benefit to the US, while China modernizes its civilian
economy. While the White House and Congress
subsidize and pander to the militarist-colonial state of Israel with its
insignificant resource base and market, alienating 1.5 billion Moslems
(Financial Times - page 7), China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10
fold over the past 26 years (FT - page 9). While the US allocated
over $1.4 trillion
dollars to Wall Street and the military, increasing the fiscal and
current account deficits, doubling unemployment and perpetuating the recession
(FT - page 12), the Chinese government releases a stimulus package directed at
its domestic manufacturing and construction
sectors, leading to an 8% growth in GDP, a significant reduction of
unemployment and 're-igniting
linked economies' in Asia, Latin America and
Africa (also on page 12).
While the US was spending time, resources and personnel in running
'elections' for its corrupt clients in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and participating in pointless mediations between its
intransigent Israeli partner and its impotent Palestinian client, the South
Korean government backed a consortium headed by the Korea Electric Power
Corporation in its
successful bid on the $20.4 billion dollar nuclear power deal,
opening the way for other billion-dollar contracts in the region (FT -
page 13).
While the US was spending over $60 billion dollars on internal
policing and multiplying the number and size of its 'homeland'
security agencies in pursuit of potential 'terrorists', China was
investing $25 billion dollars in 'cementing its energy trading relations'
with Russia (FT - page 3).
The story told by the articles and headlines in a single day's
issue of the Financial Times reflects a deeper reality, one that
illustrates the great divide in the world today. The Asian
countries, led by China,
are reaching world
power status on the basis of their massive domestic and foreign
investments in manufacturing, transportation,
technology and mining and mineral processing. In contrast, the US is a declining world power
with a deteriorating society resulting from its military-driven empire building
and its financial-speculative centered economy:
1. Washington pursues minor
military clients in Asia; while China expands its trading and investment
agreements with major
economic partners - Russia, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.
2. Washington drains the domestic
economy to finance overseas wars. China extracts minerals and
energy resources to create its domestic job market in
manufacturing.
3. The US
invests in military
technology to target local insurgents challenging US client regimes; China
invests in civilian
technology to create competitive exports.
4. China
begins to restructure
its economy toward developing the country's
interior and allocates greater social spending to redress its gross
imbalances and inequalities while the US rescues and reinforces the parasitical
financial sector, which plundered industries
(strips assets via mergers and acquisitions) and speculates on financial
objectives with no impact on employment, productivity or competitiveness.
5. The US
multiplies wars
and troop build-ups in the Middle East, South
Asia, the Horn of Africa and Caribbean; China
provides
investments and loans of over $25 billion dollars
in building infrastructure, mineral extraction, energy production and
assembly plants in Africa.
6. China signs multi-billion dollar trade and
investment agreements with Iran, Venezuela,
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia, securing access to strategic energy, mineral
and agricultural resources; Washington provides $6 billion in military aid
to Colombia, secures
seven military bases from President Uribe (to
threaten Venezuela), backs a military coup in tiny Honduras and
denounces Brazil and Bolivia for diversifying its economic ties with
Iran.
7. China
increases economic relations with dynamic Latin American
economies, incorporating over 80% of the continent's population; the US partners with the failed state
of Mexico,
which has the worst economic performance in the hemisphere and where
powerful drug cartels control wide regions and penetrate deep into the
state apparatus.
Conclusion
China is not an exceptional
capitalist country. Under Chinese capitalism, labor is exploited;
inequalities in wealth and access to services are rampant;
peasant-farmers are displaced by mega-dam projects and Chinese companies
recklessly extract minerals and other natural resources in the Third World. However, China has
created scores of millions of manufacturing jobs, reduced poverty faster
and for more people in the shortest time span in history. Its banks
mostly finance production. China doesn't bomb, invade or
ravage other countries. In contrast, US capitalism has been
harnessed to a monstrous global military machine that drains the domestic
economy and lowers the domestic standard of living in order to fund its
never-ending foreign wars. Finance, real estate and commercial
capital undermine the manufacturing sector, drawing profits from
speculation and cheap imports.
China invests in petroleum-rich
countries; the US
attacks
them. China
sells
plates and bowls for Afghan wedding feasts; US drone aircraft bomb
the celebrations. China
invests
in extractive industries, but, unlike European colonialists, it builds
railroads, ports, airfields and provides easy
credit. China
does not finance
and arm ethnic wars and 'color rebellions' like
the US CIA. China
self-finances
its own growth, trade and transportation system; the US sinks under a multi trillion
dollar debt to finance its endless wars, bail out
its Wall Street banks and prop up other non-productive sectors while many
millions remain without jobs.
China will grow and exercise power through the market;
the US
will engage in endless
wars on its road to bankruptcy and internal
decay. China's diversified growth
is linked to dynamic economic partners; US
militarism
has tied itself to narco-states, warlord regimes, the overseers of banana
republics and the last and worst bona fide racist colonial regime, Israel.
China entices the world's
consumers. US global wars provoke terrorists here
and abroad.
China may encounter crises and even
workers rebellions, but it has the economic resources to
accommodate them. The US is in crisis and may face
domestic rebellion, but it has depleted its credit and
its factories are all abroad and its overseas bases and military
installations are liabilities, not assets. There are fewer
factories in the US
to re-employ its desperate workers: A social upheaval could see the
American workers occupying the empty shells of its former factories.
To become a 'normal
state' we have to start all over: Close all
investment banks and military bases abroad and return to America.
We have to begin the long march toward rebuilding industry to
serve our domestic
needs, to living within our own natural environment
and forsake empire building in favor of constructing a democratic socialist republic.
When will we pick up the Financial Times or any
other daily and read about our own high-speed rail line carrying American
passengers from New York to Boston in less than
one hour? When
will our own factories supply our hardware stores? When
will we build wind, solar and ocean-based energy generators? When
will we abandon our military bases and let the world's warlords, drug
traffickers and terrorists face the justice of their own people?
Will we ever read about these in the Financial Times?
In China,
it all started with a revolution...
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