{"id":179842,"date":"2018-12-01T05:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179842"},"modified":"2018-12-05T04:32:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T04:32:42","slug":"g20-summit-top-agenda-item-bye-bye-american-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179842","title":{"rendered":"G20 Summit, Top Agenda Item: Bye-Bye American Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finian Cunningham \u2013 Strategic Culture Nov 30, 2018<\/h1>\n
\"G20<\/a>

Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The G20 summits are nominally about how the world\u2019s biggest national economies can cooperate to boost global growth. This year\u2019s gathering \u2013 more than ever \u2013 shows, however, that rivalry between the US and China is center stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zeroing in further still, the rivalry is an expression of a washed-up American empire desperately trying to reclaim its former power. There is much sound, fury and pretense from the outgoing hegemon \u2013 the US \u2013 but the ineluctable reality is an empire whose halcyon days are a bygone era.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahead of the summit taking place this weekend in Argentina, the Trump administration has been issuing furious ultimatums to China to \u201cchange its behavior\u201d. Washington is threatening an escalating trade war if Beijing does not conform to American demands over economic policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Trump has taken long-simmering US complaints about China to boiling point, castigating Beijing for unfair trade, currency manipulation, and theft of intellectual property rights. China rejects this pejorative American characterization of its economic practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, if Beijing does not comply with US diktats then the Trump administration says it will slap increasing tariffs on Chinese exports.<\/span><\/p>\n

The gravity of the situation was highlighted by the\u00a0comments<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0this week of China\u2019s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, who warned that the \u201clessons of history\u201d show trade wars can lead to catastrophic shooting wars. He urged the Trump administration to be reasonable and to seek a negotiated settlement of disputes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that Washington is demanding the impossible. It\u2019s like as if the US wants China to turn the clock back to some imagined former era of robust American capitalism. But it is not in China\u2019s power to do that. The global economy has shifted structurally away from US dominance. The wheels of production and growth are in China\u2019s domain of Eurasia.<\/span><\/p>\n

For decades, China functioned as a giant market for cheap production of basic consumer goods. Now under President Xi Jinping, the nation is moving to a new phase of development involving sophisticated technologies, high-quality manufacture, and investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an economic evolution that the world has seen before, in Europe, the US and now Eurasia. In the decades after the Second World War, up to the 197os, it was US capitalism that was the undisputed world leader. Combined with its military power, the postwar global order was defined and shaped by Washington. Sometimes misleading called Pax Americana, there was nothing peaceful about the US-led global order. It was more often an order of relative stability purchased by massive acts of violence and repressive regimes under Washington\u2019s tutelage.<\/span><\/p>\n

In American mythology, it does not have an empire. The US was supposed to be different from the old European colonial powers, leading the rest of the world through its \u201cexceptional\u201d virtues of freedom, democracy and rule of law. In truth, US global dominance relied on the application of ruthless imperial power.<\/span><\/p>\n

The curious thing about capitalism is it always outgrows its national base. Markets eventually become too small and the search for profits is insatiable. American capital soon found more lucrative opportunities in the emerging market of China. From the 1980s on, US corporations bailed out of America and set up shop in China, exploiting cheap labor and exporting their goods back to increasingly underemployed America consumers. The arrangement was propped up partly because of seemingly endless consumer debt.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the whole picture of course. China has innovated and developed independently from American capital. It is debatable whether China is an example of state-led capitalism or socialism. The Chinese authorities would claim to subscribe to the latter. In any case, China\u2019s economic development has transformed the entire Eurasian hemisphere. Whether you like it or not, Beijing is the dynamo for the global economy. One indicator is how nations across Asia-Pacific are deferring to China for their future growth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington likes to huff and puff about alleged Chinese expansionism \u201cthreatening\u201d US allies in Asia-Pacific. But the reality is that Washington is living in the past of former glory. Trading blocs like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) realize their bread is buttered by China, no longer America. Washington\u2019s rhetoric about \u201cstanding up to China\u201d is just that \u2013 empty rhetoric. It doesn\u2019t mean much to countries led by their interests of economic development and the benefits of Chinese investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

One example is Taiwan. In contrast to Washington\u2019s shibboleths about \u201cfree Taiwan\u201d, more and more Asian countries are dialing down their bilateral links with Taiwan in deference to China\u2019s position, which views the island as a renegade province. The US position is one of rhetoric, whereas the relations of other countries are based on material economic exigencies. And respecting Beijing\u2019s sensibilities is for them a prudent option.<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>by the New York Times starkly illustrated the changing contours of the global economic order. It confirmed what many others have observed, that China is on the way to surpass the US as the world\u2019s top economy. During the 1980s, some 75 per cent of China\u2019s population were living in \u201cextreme poverty\u201d, according to the NY Times. Today, less than 1 per cent of the population is in that dire category. For the US, the trajectory has been in reverse with greater numbers of its people subject to deprivation.<\/span><\/p>\n

China\u2019s strategic economic plans \u2013 the One Belt One Road initiative \u2013 of integrating regional development under its leadership and finance have already created a world order analogous to what American capital achieved in the postwar decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

American pundits and politicians like Vice President Mike Pence may disparage China\u2019s economic policies as creating \u201cdebt traps\u201d for other countries. But the reality is that other countries are gravitating to China\u2019s dynamic leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arguably, Beijing\u2019s vision for economic development is more enlightened and sustainable than what was provided by the Americans and Europeans before. The leitmotif for China, along with Russia, is very much one of multipolar development and mutual partnership. The global economy is not simply moving from one hegemon \u2013 the US \u2013 to another imperial taskmaster \u2013 China.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing seems inescapable. The days of American empire are over. Its capitalist vigor has dissipated decades ago. What the upheaval and rancor in relations between Washington and Beijing is all about is the American ruling class trying to recreate some fantasy of former vitality. Washington wants China to sacrifice its own development in order to somehow rejuvenate American society. It\u2019s not going to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that American society can never be rejuvenated. It could, as it could also in Europe. But that would entail a restructuring of the economic system involving democratic regeneration. The \u201cgood old days\u201d of capitalism are gone. The American empire, as with the European empires, is obsolete.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the unspoken Number One agenda item at the G20 summit. Bye-bye US empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

What America needs to do is regenerate through a reinvented social economic order, one that is driven by democratic development and not the capitalist private profit of an elite few.<\/span><\/p>\n

If not, the futile alternative is US failing political leaders trying to coerce China, and others, to pay for their future. That way leads to war.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

This year\u2019s G20 summits is really all about the U.S. trying to reassert itself as the world\u2019s foremost power in the face of mounting challenges, particularly from China<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179842"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179860,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179842\/revisions\/179860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}