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TomDispatch: China's Global Shopping Spree: Is the World's Future Resource Map Tilting East?
China's Global Shopping Spree: Is the World's Future Resource Map Tilting East?
By Michael Klare | TomDispatch.com
From TomDispatch this morning: An unprecedented picture of China on one of history's great spending binges in search of access to, and control over, the world's key future energy and other resources -- "China's Global Shopping Spree: Is the World's Future Resource Map Tilting East?"
"Think of it as a tale of two countries," begins energy expert and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet Michael Klare. "When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the consumption of oil and other key industrial materials. Not so China. With the recession’s crippling effects expected to linger in the U.S. for many years, analysts foresee a slow recovery when it comes to resource consumption. Not so China."
TomDispatch regular Klare offers a picture of state-owned or state-backed Chinese companies ranging the world gobbling up the key future energy and other resources crucial to an industrial society, and at recession-induced bargain-basement prices. Backed with endless streams of cash, these companies are, in the field of oil alone, making deals from Kazakhistan in Central Asia to Ecuador in Latin America, Iraq to Venezuela, Burma to the African country of Guinea.
It's a remarkable, even shopaholic burst of buying of a sort we haven't seen in our lifetimes. As Klare concludes in this must-read piece: "Perhaps more than any other recent developments, China’s global shopping spree reveals how the world’s balance of power is shifting from West to East." Read it now.
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Endless illusions, mislabeling by Capitalists thugs who define China as "Communism", when it is Totalitarian Capitalism.
Neither China nor Russia represent or present what real commnism is, but from what little I have read, North Vietnam had a or some real communism before France and the U.S. inteferred, say.
Real communism is about community, benefiting the commnunity, the common, and this is good, healthy, ..., but it is not what governments support, for they do not usually work for the common good.
The U.S., by law, and sane it is, is fundamentally communistic. It is, by law, a republic, but because it is also by, for and of The People, by law, it is communistic; as opposed to oligarchic, plutocratic, plutogarchic, and so on. Unfortunately, the latter were made our reality; but the U.S. essentially is, by law, about or based upon The People, which is rather communistic, imo.
The U.S. condemns socialism, which is some half-breed of capitalism and communism, though the former clearly rules. If this was not true, then state universities and colleges would not cost much less than ìvy league alternatives, and would not repeat the standard line, say. Being corrupted at less cost does not remedy any socio-political or economic illness when students graduate from mere academia and are nevertheless psychopaths and the lesser sociopaths. Only professors who go beyond formally or officially stated curriculums really contribute to society, and they can be and have been outed even once they have obtained tenureship.
That is an example of what totalitarianism does.
When I was young, child and young teenager, decades ago, I heard and read a little about so-called Red Communism, but it never really made any sense to me. And that has not changed. What Red Communism really is is something I do not know, for neither Russia nor China, which are or were called Red Communistic, were seriously Communistic. Neither were, neither are. There is a tremendous degree of capitalism in both of these countries, and rogue capitalists of the West are seriously responsible.
F.e., Wal-Mart could demand that all Chinese manufacturers producing products this store chain sells respect human rights and dignity, and that they improve upon the presently unmet minimum wage in China. Instead, however, WM, etcetera, demand slave treatment, and even if the workers are not indentured slaves, they nevertheless and severely are economic slaves. Iow, the workers suffer due to their desperation and the GREED of ... the C-in-C of employment.
I personally know a little about so-called accidental economic slavery, including working for less, proportionally much less, than government regulated minimum wage (for most workers, that is). It was this, or nothing, so I chose to work, and given that it was outdoors and I seriously like being outdoors, this made the meager wage more acceptable. You could not independently live on that wage, but family helped. I was a low-payed worker in the U.S. and in Canada, paid below productive value; but that is okay, since greed preys everywhere. Everything is okay when Greed wins, Greed-thinkers think.
Communism does not really exist, for while many people would support it, assuming people really understood what real communism means, so-called elites, who effectively control our governments, only oppose this. They believe that real communism is not in their interests in terms of profits, yet doing business fairly is logically going to be always more profitable, for it will be long-term sustainable.
This, however, requires a CONSTRUCTIVE, rather than destructive, predatory, ... view, or understanding of reality, and we do not have such representation among politicians. There are the few, but they are not enough.
The U.S. is a little communistic and socialistic, but whatever good these represent on paper may be, it is only à piece of paper, said Bush Jr regarding the U.S. Constituton prior to the actual launching of the war on Iraq.
A government for, of and by The People is communism.
Mike Corbeil
I wouldn't call it as Michael Klare does, for while I've read for some years now about China going around the world, way, to try to secure energy-resource agreements, trade, and that it has succeeded with some gov'ts, Americans have a nasty habit of describing reality in terms that can cause negative reactions. Calling it shopaholicism is not going to inspire open-mindedness.
What China's been conducting is international [business] and far more fairly than the U.S. has any history at all of coming close to match; and not only the U.S., but also Europe.
Any term that resembles alcoholism is going to create a very negative outcome and image, and this isn't China's purpose, which is only to try to build up on its society. That the approach is or might be wrong, in the long term, for everyone, is another consideration, and this should be carefully investigated by real and independent experts. However, as for how China goes about achieving international trade deals, this is not of any real concern to the U.S., which, first and foremost, must stop warring on the whole planet.
It is of the interest of the populations of western countries ot learn that fair business practices are good.
Mike Corbeil