China's Belt and Road Initiative is the most significant geoeconomic effort in history, a multidecade $4-$8 trillion plan impacting 70% of humanity to develop productive forces throughout Eurasia and steadily erode US power in the hemisphere.
Here's a thread.
Here's a thread.
I'm going to take quotes from Tom Cavanna, bourgeois scholar from Fletcher, to give a sense of the Western "realist" view of BRI and its potential impacts.
This is important to understand, as this issue and Washington's response to BRI is determining its policy toward China.
This is important to understand, as this issue and Washington's response to BRI is determining its policy toward China.
"China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in seeking to connect China to Central Asia and eventually to Europe will have the practical significance of shifting the world’s centre of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific"
- Kissinger, the zombie priest of modern US foreign policy
- Kissinger, the zombie priest of modern US foreign policy
That Kissinger quote should underline how serious this is taken by US imperialism. Obama's "pivot to Asia" redeployed assets in the region, and now the escalating trade war and separatist CIA ops under Trump are all efforts to split, divide and encircle China.
This should also help put into context issues as China's desire to have stable, secure relationships in the region
This map is dated, but gives a sense of the reach of US military bases in the Pacific. It of course doesn't include US presence in South Asia/Middle East.
This map is dated, but gives a sense of the reach of US military bases in the Pacific. It of course doesn't include US presence in South Asia/Middle East.
Encirclement, containment and ultimately balkanizing China are the main goals for the US and have been for a long time.
The BRI is fundamentally about giving China's neighbors a non-US source of economic development and deepening ties to China to undermine US ploys.
The BRI is fundamentally about giving China's neighbors a non-US source of economic development and deepening ties to China to undermine US ploys.
The BRI will link Asia and ultimately Europe through ports, bridges, green energy and trade with China at the center. It will help historically overexploited countries fill development gaps and reduce or eliminate their reliance on the US.
Imperial planners are naturally quite worried about this. Trump all but admitted that the HK riots are being used as a bargaining chip in the trade war. The trade war is in turn an effort to weaken China and the BRI.
Enter Tom Cavanna, who works at the extremely influential Fletcher school. Here are some excerpts of his analysis:
-Do not underestimate the potential behind the BRI, and recognize China has a strong base to implement it.
-Do not underestimate the potential behind the BRI, and recognize China has a strong base to implement it.
-In many ways, the BRI must be understood as the defining alternative to US power, especially in the light of the extremely costly War on Terror. Cavanna is clearly a skeptic of the traditional "neocon" approach to hard military intervention, and positions it against China.
-The BRI is the only serious attempt to address the $50+ trillion "infrastructure gap" (read: the result of underdevelopment and exploitation via imperialism) and the US is nowhere to be found in this issue.
-The "debt trap" myth is not supported by the data and China is one of the few countries that takes debt forgiveness seriously.
-The BRI is largely a defensive reaction to historical and current US aggression.
-The BRI lessens the ability of the US to impose blockades, either on China or on any of its allies. It leverages China's control of strategic metals/minerals and weakens US control of oil supplies.
-More of an aside, but it is worth noting here that Cavanna and the rest of the US planners are aware that China's attraction of foreign capital is partly motivated by the desire to extract technical knowledge. This is part of the "deal" with foreign capital.
-He notes that China's development will result in China dwarfing the STEM output of the United States almost 5 to 1 in coming years.
-The high technology aspects of BRI are partly designed to leverage this STEM advantage into military-industrial gains
-BRI is clearly aimed at disrupting US dominance over multilateral orgs and financial bodies. This shift may have significant effects on US empire's maintenance.
-He notes that Russian willingness to participate in BRI is enhanced by (my words) US aggression against Russia.
-He closes with this assessment, that BRI has the potential to fundamentally uproot US hegemony.
