The last time Mexico privatized its state-run industries it was at the behest of IMF structural adjustment which drained $26 billion from Mexico to Western banks in *interest payments* alone by the end the 1980s. I don’t think they need your “economic evidence”

https://twitter.com/davidluhnow/status/1862530192704426300

They think we should just accept as some kind of natural law that everything should be privatized no matter how many lives it destroys or nations it impoverishes, and that to do anything else would be bad for The Economy

Figures they would spin this—what the headline invites you to overlook is that China’s billionaires have been declining for three full years of economic growth.

What’s remarkable is that it’s happening *despite* GDP growth (~5% in 2024) and rising real wages for everyone else 🧵 They won’t dare to make this comparison, so I will: despite the United States’ much more modest economic growth, the wealth of U.S. billionaires has grown tremendously—by 26% during the same time period.

https://twitter.com/kyletrainemoji/status/1803229521929445486

People had feelings about this tweet. Many reactionaries, but some left-wingers too.

In the West, the left has been in retreat since 1980 and especially since the USSR fell. Protest movements of the 2010s were crushed, and many if not most are worse off.

How to start again? 🧵

https://twitter.com/kyletrainemoji/status/1836226664420012182

It took over half a century after the Communist Manifesto was published to create the first proletarian state.

It may be even harder today—after 1991, the capitalist class became more centralized and united than ever, and now has many more technological terrors at its disposal.

https://twitter.com/kyletrainemoji/status/1806695339732455789

The biggest story about Haiti is that the U.S. has invaded, occupied, and overthrown Haiti’s government multiple times, and in 2009, on behalf of U.S. corporations that super-exploit Haitian labor, the U.S. embassy and USAID prevented Haiti from raising its minimum wage to $5/day Before that, after Haiti finally won independence from a century of the most brutal slave system in the Western hemisphere, it was forced to pay a $20 billion indemnity to France for their “lost property”

https://twitter.com/kyletrainemoji/status/1412869827568422919

Often one of the most interesting things about a theorist is their errors.

In 1991, Wang Huning thought the U.S./Japan imperial alliance would fracture, and Japan would be a main rival.

Today, that alliance is more solid than ever.

China has surely learned from this mistake 🧵

https://twitter.com/neilthomas123/status/1822991985772241053

The Soviet Union also made a similar error, and in their case it was fatal.

It’s somewhat understandable, since exploiting the contradictions within the imperialist world was key to the Soviet victory in the Second World War.

Stalin, in 1951:
marxists.org/reference/arch…

Thread 🧵 of Amazing Graphs 📈 and Maps 🗺️ Relating to the People’s Republic of China 🇨🇳

1. The rate of solar energy capacity increase worldwide, overlaid with past predictions: 2. The growth of per capita rural household income in Chinese autonomous regions in the 21st century:

What’s happening to China’s banks?

According to Western newspapers, nothing good! Due to bad loans to developers and local governments, many are now “vanishing”, which will surely be bad for The Economy.

But actually, I think it’s quite good news… 🧵
economist.com/finance-and-ec… To get an idea of how the West would prefer China and other countries to manage their banking systems, look no further than the International Monetary Fund (which is a predatory, imperialist institution controlled by the United States government—see below).

https://twitter.com/benjaminnorton/status/1811612789644947922

There’s been some discourse lately on homelessness, or the lack thereof, in Beijing.

Since there’s very little data on it, I attempted to find some evidence myself, in the most systematic way I could as an individual. 🧵



As a mega-city of >20 million, Beijing should be ground zero for the neoliberal hell of rough sleeping, if China’s system is really similar to the United States’. You’d expect the problem to be FAR worse there than in a much smaller city, like, say, Portland, Oregon (<1 million)

There have been some posts arguing about alleged Chinese “colonization” of Tibet lately.

Though this thread will show that Tibet is not actually a colony, I don’t find the “Mao already freed Tibet” line to be the most convincing, and prefer an alternate approach. 🧵 For one thing, it was not the immediate goal of the PRC to “free” Tibet in 1951, no matter how awful conditions of feudalism were for the serfs. In fact, Mao was initially prepared to allow Tibet to remain feudal for a century if necessary, as Politburo records have shown.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Chevron precedent may end up deregulating corporations more than any policy in a generation.

But in the People’s Republic of China, regulations on business are increasing, not declining. Here’s a thread of a few recent ones 🧵 (All these new regulations were created within the past five years, and are from 2021 in particular unless otherwise noted.

Again, a more complete and detailed list is available in my book, WHY THE WORLD NEEDS CHINA, now available where books are sold: )ischinagood.org

The destruction of the Soviet Union had a profoundly negative effect upon not just its former republics, but the entire world.

This thread will list quantitative changes to Western imperialism following the fall of the USSR 🧵

I’ve described the disastrous effects upon Eastern Europe itself previously, and you can read them in the quoted thread here.

The rest of the world, however, also suffered as imperialism became more overt.

https://twitter.com/kyletrainemoji/status/1803566902213746755

When was the last time the People’s Republic of China had an economic recession?

Let’s find out together. In this thread I will take you on a journey back through time 🧵 A recession in the U.S. was (until 2022, for some reason) traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

In 2020, when the U.S. (and most of the world) fell into recession due to the pandemic, China had only one negative quarter, so no recession.

What happens when a ruling Communist Party is subverted or overthrown, as some claim China’s has been?

There are several very clear examples of this happening in the early 1990s. A comparison between those countries’ experiences and China’s Reform period may be enlightening. 🧵 (Before I continue, please note that you can find a much longer and more detailed version of this thread in my book WHY THE WORLD NEEDS CHINA, available now from Clarity Press)
ischinagood.org

From 2021 to 2024, the total wealth controlled by billionaires in China’s mainland declined by 47%, from $2.5 trillion to $1.3 trillion.

This thread (🧵) will present a selected list of Chinese billionaires who have been ordered arrested or sentenced over the last decade. (A longer list and more detailed analysis can be found in my book, WHY THE WORLD NEEDS CHINA, which is now available from Clarity Press at the link below, and also in many other places books are sold.)
ischinagood.org

The rumors are true—I wrote a book!

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS CHINA is an analysis of modern imperialism, how the People’s Republic of China is undermining it, and a close look at Chinese domestic policy. It’s available from Clarity Press and in stores now 🧵
ischinagood.org If you consider yourself left-wing but are uncertain what to think of the PRC or don’t know where to find independent analysis, this book is for you. Rather than anecdotes or dogma, it relies mainly on studies, data, and comparative analysis to understand China’s transformation.

2023 was almost certainly China's fossil fuel peak.

According to UK news org Carbon Brief, a permanent drop in emissions in 2024 is "essentially locked in."

The original plan was to peak by 2030; this is 7 years ahead of schedule.

Thread 🧵

carbonbrief.org/analysis-china…




Electric vehicles are now a majority of all car sales. In March, BYD predicted this would occur within 90 days. Others didn’t expect it until 2028.

Actually, it took less than three weeks after their prediction was printed.
arenaev.com/chinese_ev_car…

“Does the wealth of the Western world still come from imperialist extraction?”

In very large part, yes. IMF-classified “advanced economies” drain $10 trillion from the rest of the world each year, through unequal exchange underlying international trade.🧵
sciencedirect.com/science/articl… “Is that a lot?”

Yes. It’s over a tenth of the entire world’s GDP. And it doesn’t even include lesser mechanisms of exploitation like the payment of interest in debt, royalties for patented technology, or other forms of rent.

The actual number is likely a bit higher.

Housing prices fell dramatically in the US in 2007-2008.

Housing prices are falling dramatically in China right now.

What's the difference?

In one sentence: Chinese banks will not make people homeless.

In several sentences... 🧵 The reason why so many people lost their homes during the 2008 financial crisis has to do with adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs).

In the US, ARM-dealing was highly predatory, promising very low interest ("teaser rates") to begin with, which would then greatly increase later on.

Sometime in the next seven years, a human being will set foot on the Moon for the first time since 1972.

That human will probably be a Chinese taikonaut, and the outrage from the West will be like nothing we’ve seen.

A thread 🧵 on China 🇨🇳 and the New Space Race 🚀 Let’s briefly review the history of the United States’ Moon policy.

JFK’s famous promise of a Moon landing by 1970 was fulfilled. But it may not surprise you to learn that Western plans since then have been…overly optimistic.

The progress China has made in renewable energy just THIS YEAR makes the entire rest of the world look like it's standing still.

I wrote in December that to call China the "world leader in renewable energy" was a colossal understatement.

That’s even more true today.

Thread 🧵

Even the Western press considers the PRC's climate target to be all-important to preventing complete global disaster. It was estimated to reduce projected temperature by 0.3 degrees Celsius, the largest *drop* ever calculated by climate models.
foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/25/xi-…

Sudan’s government did everything the IMF told it to. It devalued its currency by 10x, cut fuel subsidies, and normalized relations with Israel.

But instead of forgiving Sudan’s debt as promised, the Paris Club reneged. Sudan’s debt is still increasing.
https://t.co/Nn8ubmAhB2country.eiu.com/article.aspx?a…




The power the IMF (and its puppet masters the US and Europe, which control its policy decisions) has over countries like Sudan is immense. To make a deal for debt relief, the victim country must enact “reforms” FIRST, before receiving anything.