CHINAwatch

China-Africa Summit 2024 - What are the implications

Backchat  on RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 6 September,  

How the US Keeps Fighting China, Knowing It Won’t Win?

The US has no Plan B, says Professor Radhika Desai, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, on the YouTube Thinkers Forum on 25 January 2024. She goes over paradigm shifts in 2023 on America's hegemony, including Ukraine and Gaza; the long-term impact on US's own economy; Russia's resilience against US-led pushback; questionable durability of the "casino-like" open-market dollar-system; the future of US-China relations; China's more restrained and globally-inclusive diplomatic stance; and the upcoming impactful elections in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

I should add that America's so-called Plan A against China has only four blunt coercive tools: (a) US military dominance, (b) US technological lead, (c) the weaponized dollar, and (d) America's so-called global alliance-network. These are proving less and less effective against China. 

As for (a), China has vastly expanded its military on all fronts. While unwilling and unable to match America's global military presence and supremacy, Chins is well capable of defending its core interests. This includes a mobile, hypersonic, nuclear-capable Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) System with multiple, separately-navigable warheads, a blue-water navy with more warships than the United States, state-of-the-art fifth-generation fighter planes and bombers, not to mention cyberwarfare and AI expertise. 

As for (b), nano-semiconductor-chips excepted for the time being, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has found that China is leading in 37 out of 44 21st-century cutting-edge technologies. Albeit excluded from the US-led International Space Station project from the very start, which is near the end of its useful life, China has succeed in building and operating its own Tiangong Space Station from scratch. It is the only country able to send a successful robotic probe to the far side of the moon. Its lunar program is picking up speed, partnering with other nations including some advanced countries. 

As for (c), indiscriminate long-arm dollar sanctions have pushed countries in the Global South to bypass the risks of exposure to a weaponized dollar. Some are beginning to transact bilateral trade with China using other currencies including the Renminbi. China's digital sovereign currency (e-CNY) is gaining traction internationally. After all, China is by far the world's largest trader and manufacturer. It remains the larger trading partner for 128 countries compared with America's 57. Seven of the world's top 11 container ports are in China, including Hong Kong. Even not "Made in China", China is embedded in myriad products across the globe, including materials. minerals, components and logistics, decoupling or de-risking regardless. 

As for (d), marginalized for decades under US hegemony, the Global South has become more able to defend their national sovereignty and strategic interests. Witness the massive Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) comprising ASEAN countries and their main trading partners. Absent the United States, this is the world's largest free trade bloc representing a third of global GDP and a third of world population, where China remains a central trading hub.  More developing countries have also chosen to join the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Group as well as the Eurasian Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) where China and Russia hold sway. Witness also the more independent tilt of the Middle East and even India. Fact is, most nations in the Global South don't want to be forced to choose between America and China, which remains a key source for economic development, including trade and infrastructure.

The fixation on coercion to serve American interests often ignores stark realities, includinjg Adam Smith's ''comparative advantage". China has been buying a lot of international passenger jets from Boeing and Airbus, as it has yet no comparable alternatives. However, as China is the world's largest manufacturer, the reverse is true for most of China's manufacturing ouput, including its fully-integrated shipbuilding production chains. According to a report of 19 April in Foreign Policy, Chinese businesses manufacture  96 percent of the world’s dry cargo shipping containers. A single Chinese firm, ZPMC, claims that it supplies  70 percent of the world’s cargo cranes. This compares to U.S.shipyards manufacturing fewer than 1 percent of the cargo vessels that ply the global seas. Using coercive sanctions to turn the table is fanciful. 

All in all, as pointed out by Professor Desai, the days of American hegemony are numbered. The sooner America's elites wake up from their pipe-dream of perpetuating American hegemony through brute coercion, the better would be the propsects for a more inclusive and peaceful world, where the United States can still play a crucial role.   

Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He’s Right?

So asks Jacob Dreyer in a New york Times Guest Essay dated 19 April 2024. Dreyer is a Shanghai-based  American editor and writer focused on the intersection of the Chinese political economy and science.

Dreyer's essay ticks all the right boxes on China;s green energy surge. These include China's powerful state-directed model in achieving all-of-society outcomes to combat Climate Change, its unbeatable cost-competitiveness for green energy businesses including EVs (electric vehicles), and its imperatives of achieving energy security through reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels through hostile transit "choke points" (e.g. the Malacca Strait controlled by America's Seventh Fleet). 

To these should be added China's possession of comprehensive and globally-oriented green-energy supply-and-value-chains, includng rare-earths and other materials, a  manufacturing powerhouse covering all aspects of production and utilization, and external connectivity through global Belt and Road linkages. 

China's current global green energy dominance is well documented in the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s Renewables 2023 Report (released Janury 2024). See its Executive Summary and a Reuters report of 11 January 2024. 

According to the IEA report, China will account for 56% of renewable energy capacity additions in the 2023-28 period. China is expected to increase renewable capacity by 2,060 gigawatts (GW) compared with the rest of the world's 1,574 GW addition. China accounts for almost 90% of the global upward forecast revision, consisting mainly of solar photovoltaic (PV). 

The IEA report flags up China's 80‑95% share of global green energy supply chains. Its solar PV manufacturing capabilities have almost doubled since last year, "creating a global supply glut," says the IEA.

Nevetheless, the IEA points out that China already accounts for 53% of the world's 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world. So China is likely to achieve its declared goal of net zero carbon emission (carbon neutrality) by 2060 only during the final years before the target.  

New World, New Order How to reposition ourselves for a New Economy

Download New World New Order - How to reposition for a New Economy (A business dinner presentation) 

China's Role in a Multipolar World

PowerPoint presentation at the 10th Annual Conference on International Studies, Center for Strategic Research and Analysis, Lisbon, Portugal 14-15 September 2023. (CESRAN 2023) (An online presentation) 

Download China's Role in a Multipolar World - CESRAN 2023 (New) [Autosaved]                                                                                      

The Great Tech Rivalry - China v the US: How China will surpass USA in key 21st Century technologies by 2030

Drawing from the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Centre December 2021 Report - The Great Tech Rivalry: China vs the US, a YouTube podcast dated 18 March  2023 summarizes the state of play in 21st Century technologies comprising Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G & 6G, Quantum Information Science, Semiconductors, Bitoechnoloy, and Green Energy, indicating that China is likely to surpass the US by 2030 in key domains in these fields. 

The full Belfer Centre Report may be accessed here.

What does China's massive African debt forgiveness tell us about so-called "debt trap diplomacy"?

Live exclusive TV interview with RT on 22 August, 2022. 

Download RT INTL LEUNG LIVE

How the Ukrainian Crisis Impacts on Eurasia Geopolitics and US-China Relations

A PowerPoint presentation to the EGN Founding Chairmen Group in  Hong Kong on 7 April, 2022.

Download How the Ukrainian Crisis Impacts on Eurasia Geopolitics US-China Relations including HK 

 

Building China 3.0 - Final Sprint toward the China Dream

The above named is a full lecture for the Ljubljana Confucius Institute, Slovenia, including Q & A, open to worldwide participation. The lecture (free of charge) was  simultaneously promoted by the World Strategic Insights based in Rome.

The Zoom lecture took place on Thursday, 17 February, 2022 at 0900 hours European time (1600 hours Beijing/Hong Kong time). The lecture attracted 135 applicants with 76 physically present, pandemics and other obstacles notwithstanding. 

Full details of the lecture's contents are here. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation in PDF format is as follows. Download Building China 3.0. A voice-over video recording of the PowerPoint lecture is here. Also re-published on World Strategic Insights based in Rome. 

Owing to time constraints, one question not given time to answer was on China's hukou (household registration) problem, which created a massive underclass of rural migrants. A podcast Caste aside: The future of China's peasants captures the conundrum. 

The ongoing hukou reform remains a huge, moving challenge. You can't flood the big cities with migrant, poorly-educated villagers. You can't leave them in limbo. Covered in the PowerPoint presentation is China's massive high-speed rail network expansion (doubling to 70,000 km), to connect ALL cities with a population of over 500,000 people, with modern motorways connecting ALL towns with population over 200,000 inhabitants, however remote, by 2035. Many fourth-tier cities and towns are in a largely rural region, including millions of villages. A great many are formed into inter-connected "urban clusters".(Slide 109 of 114) Along with the vibrant digital economy, this hopefully will provide many opportunities for the "rural" population. 

President Putin's virtual summit with President Xi - what's on the agenda - Russian TV channel

Pre-recorded TV interview on 15 December, 2021 with IZ, a most-watched Russian-language national TV channel.

What I said was that the crisis over Ukraine and rising US-China tensions (including the Taiwan question) brought the two leaders even closer together. Much coordination is needed to forestall catastrophe. Other issues to explore include Islamic terrorism and separatism as well as Climate Change, which would open up Russia's norther sea route for Pacific-Atlantic navigation, Arctic geopolitics, and Russia's agricultural potential thanks to global warming.