{"id":1450559,"date":"2024-01-14T04:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1450559"},"modified":"2024-01-14T04:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T09:20:00","slug":"escobar-year-of-the-dragon-silk-roads-brics-roads-sino-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/escobar-year-of-the-dragon-silk-roads-brics-roads-sino-roads\/1450559\/","title":{"rendered":"Escobar: Year Of The Dragon – Silk Roads, BRICS Roads, & Sino-Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Year Of The Dragon – Silk Roads, BRICS Roads, & Sino-Roads<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Pepe Escobar,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

As we enter incandescent 2024, four major trends will define the progress of interconnected Eurasia.<\/p>\n

Financial\/trade integration will be the norm. Russia and Iran already integrated their financial message transfer systems, bypassing SWIFT and trading in rials and rubles. Russia-China already settle their accounts in rubles and yuan, coupling immense Chinese industrial capacity with immense Russian resources.<\/p>\n

The economic integration of the post-Soviet space, tilting towards Eurasia, will predominantly flow not so much via the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) but interlinked with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).<\/p>\n

There will be no significant pro-Western inroads in the Heartland: the Central Asian \u201cstans\u201d will be progressively integrated into a single Eurasia economy organized via the SCO.<\/p>\n

The clash will become even more acute, pitting the Hegemon and its satellites (Europe and Japan\/South Korea\/Australia) against Eurasia integration, represented by the three top BRICS (Russia, China, Iran) plus the DPRK and the Arab world incorporated to BRICS 10.<\/p>\n

On the Russian front, the inimitable Sergey Karaganov\u00a0has laid down the law<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not deny our European roots; we should treat them with care. After all, Europe has given us a lot. But Russia must move forward. And forward does not mean to the West, but to the East and the South. That is where the future of humanity lies.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And that leads us to the Dragon \u2013 in the Year of the Dragon.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mao and Deng road maps<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

There were a whopping 3.68 billion Chinese trips by rail in 2023 \u2013 an all-time record.<\/p>\n

China is fast on the way to become\u00a0an AI global leader<\/a>\u00a0by 2030. <\/strong>Tech giant Baidu, for instance, recently released Ernie Bot to rival ChatGPT. AI in China is expanding fast on healthcare, education, and entertainment.<\/p>\n

Efficiency is the key. Chinese scientists have developed the\u00a0ACCEL chip<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 capable of performing 4.6 quadrillion operations per second, in comparison to NVIDIA\u2019s A100, which delivers 0.312 quadrillion operations per second of deep learning performance.<\/p>\n

China graduates no less than one million more STEM students than the U.S., year after year. <\/strong>This goes way beyond AI. Asian nations always reach the top 20% in science and mathematics competitions.<\/p>\n

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) may be lousy on geopolitics. But at least they did a public service showing nations that lead the planet in 44 critical technology sectors.<\/p>\n

China is number one, leading on 37 sectors. The U.S. leads on 7. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone else leads zero sectors. These include Defense, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, advanced materials, key quantum technology and of course AI.<\/p>\n

How did China get here? <\/strong>It\u2019s quite enlightening today to revisit a 1996 tome by Maurice Mesner:\u00a0The Deng Xiaoping Era: An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994<\/em>.<\/p>\n

First of all, one needs to know what happened under Mao:<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 1952 to the mid-1970s, net agricultural output in China increased at an average per annum rate of 2.5 percent, whereas the figure for the most intensive period of Japan\u2019s industrialization (from 1868 to 1912) was 1.7 percent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Across the industrial sphere, all indicators went up: steel production; coal; cement; timber; electric power; crude oil; chemical fertilizers. \u201cBy the mid-1970s, China was also producing substantial numbers of jet airplanes, heavy tractors, railway locomotives, and modern oceangoing vessels. The People\u2019s Republic also became a significant nuclear power, complete with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its first successful atomic bomb test was held in 1964, the first hydrogen bomb was produced in 1967, and a satellite was launched into orbit in 1970.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blame it on Mao:<\/strong> he transformed China \u201cfrom one of the world\u2019s most backward agrarian countries into the sixth-largest industrial power by the mid-1970s.\u201d On most key social and demographic indicators, China compared favorably not only with India and Pakistan in South Asia but also with \u201c\u2019middle-income\u2019 countries whose per capita GNP was five times that of China.\u201d<\/p>\n

All these breakthroughs laid down the path for Deng: \u201cThe higher yields obtained on individual family farms during the early Deng era would not have been possible had it not been for the vast irrigation and flood-control projects \u2013 dams, irrigation works, and river dikes \u2013 constructed by collectivized peasants in the 1950s and 1960s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course there were distortions \u2013 as the Deng drive produced a de facto capitalist economy presided by a bureaucratic bourgeoisie: \u201cAs has been true of the histories of all capitalist economies, the power of the state was very much involved in establishing China\u2019s labor market. Indeed, in China a highly repressive state apparatus played a particularly direct and coercive role in the commodification of labor, a process that has proceeded with a rapidity and on a scale that is historically unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains an inextinguishable source of debate to what extent this fabulous economic Great Leap Forward under Deng generated calamitous social consequences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Empire of kakistocracy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As the Xi era definitely tackles \u2013 and tries to solve \u2013 the drama, what makes it even more complicated is the constant interference of the notorious \u201cstructural contradictions\u201d between China and the Hegemon.<\/p>\n

China-bashing is the number one politically correct game across the Beltway \u2013 and that\u2019s bound to go out of control in 2024. Assuming a Democratic debacle next November, there are few doubts a Republican presidency \u2013 Trump or no Trump \u2013 will unleash Cold War 3.0 or 4.0, with China, not Russia, as the top threat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there is the upcoming Taiwan election. If pro-independence candidates win it, incandescence will exponentially rise. Now imagine that compounded with a rabid Sinophobe occupant of the White House.<\/p>\n

Even when China was militarily weak, the Hegemon could not defeat it, either in Korea or in Vietnam. There is less than zero chance Washington would defeat Beijing on a South China Sea battlefield now.<\/p>\n

The American problem is encapsulated in a Perfect Storm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hegemon hard and soft power have been hurled down a black void with the imminent, cosmic NATO humiliation in Ukraine, compounded with complicity with the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, Hegemon global financial power is about to take a very hard hit as the Russia-China strategic partnership leading BRICS 10 starts offering quite viable alternatives to the Global South.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chinese scholars, in priceless exchanges, always remind their Western interlocutors that History has been a consistent playground pitting aristocratic and or\/plutocratic oligarchies against each other. The collective West now happens to be \u201cled\u201d by the most toxic variety of plutocracy: kakistocracy.<\/p>\n

What Chinese qualify, correctly, as \u201ccrusader nations\u201d are now significantly exhausted \u2013 economically, socially, and militarily. Worse: nearly totally de-industrialized. Those with a functioning brain among the crusaders at least have understood that \u201cdecoupling\u201d from China will be a major disaster.<\/p>\n

None of that eliminates their arrogant\/ignorant drive for a war on China \u2013 even as Beijing has exercised immense restraint by not giving them any excuse to start another Forever War.<\/p>\n

Instead, Beijing is reversing Hegemon tactics \u2013 as in sanctioning the Hegemon and assorted vassals (Japan, South Korea) on rare earth imports. Even more effective is the concerted Russia-China drive to bypass the U.S. dollar and weaken the euro \u2013 with full support of BRICS 10 members, Opec+ members, EAEU members and most SCO members.<\/p>\n

The Taiwan riddle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Chinese masterplan, in a nutshell, is a thing of beauty: to finish off the \u201crules-based international order\u201d without firing a shot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Taiwan will remain the prime not-yet-engaged battlefield. Roughly, it\u2019s fair to argue that the majority of the population of Taiwan does not want unification; at the same time, they don\u2019t want an American-engineered war.<\/p>\n

They want, essentially, the current status quo. China is not in a hurry: Deng\u2019s master plan pointed to reunification sometime before 2049.<\/p>\n

The Hegemon, on the other hand, is in a tremendous hurry: it\u2019s all about Divide and Rule, all over again, promoting chaos and destabilizing China\u2019s inexorable rise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beijing tracks literally anything that moves in Taiwan \u2013 via monumental, meticulous dossiers. Beijing knows that for Taipei to thrive in a peaceful environment, it needs to negotiate while it still has something to negotiate with.<\/p>\n

Every Taiwanese with a brain \u2013 and there are plenty of first-class scientific brains in the island \u2013 knows they can\u2019t expect Americans to die fighting for them. First of all because they know the Hegemon won\u2019t dare fighting a conventional war with China, because the Hegemon will lose \u2013 badly (the Pentagon gamed all options). And there won\u2019t be a nuclear war either.<\/p>\n

Chinese scholars are fond of reminding us that when the Middle Kingdom was totally fragmented in the 19th century under the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), \u201cthe Sino-Manchu ruling class was incapable of relinquishing their self-image and of taking the draconian necessary steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same applies to the Exceptionalists now \u2013 even as they go on serial somersaults trying to preserve their own, mythological self-image: Narcissus drowned in a pool of his own making.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible to advance that the Year of the Dragon will be a year where Sovereignty reigns. <\/strong>Hegemon fits of Hybrid War rage and collaborationist comprador elites will be obstacles constantly hampering the Global South. Yet at least there will be three poles with the spine, the resources, the organization, the vision and the sense of Universal History to take the fight towards a more equal and just system to the next level: China, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 01\/13\/2024 – 23:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bRead More<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Year Of The Dragon – Silk Roads, BRICS Roads, & Sino-Roads Authored by Pepe Escobar, As we enter incandescent 2024, four major trends will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-65m7","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}