U.S. ascendancy is finished. The supposed borders and boundaries of nation-states have become more of a convenient fiction, hiding the true nature of power and influence. The rhetoric of preserving national wellness and demographic ethnicity is a useful tool to control the public, while a clever and multifaceted hegemony is created by wealthy capitalists.
Obama supported vast hydro-fracking and resource exploitation in the name of controlling our own sources of fuel. However, the majority of domestically produced petroleum and natural gas is transshipped to China. This is possible due to an artificial economic relationship between the U.S. and China.
The U.S./China partnership devalues the Chinese currency. This low cost of currency allows Chinese products to be sold relatively cheaply. Thus, China enjoys the vast wealth gathering possible through the sale of exports.
China uses this money to build infrastructure and greater production at home, create relationship with resource rich nations abroad by constructing bridges, ports, railways, etc., purchase important resources such as gold, silver and steel, secure pipelines for fossil fuels, and finally, re-invest in foreign debt.
Thus, China prospers and grows at record rates, while owning an increasing portion of U.S. debt. This ownership of debt is a political lever: the threat of collecting on that debt puts tremendous political pressure on the U.S., because if China wished to collect, the U.S. would have no recourse other than to take out more debt from different countries in order to pay the Chinese. This creates a snow ball effect because in taking out more debt, our bond rating, meaning the interest rate we are forced to pay on bonds [read: portions of our debt] that other nations and individuals own, is higher. To pay that higher interest, yet more debt need be incurred.
The second major political lever is simply for China to refuse to purchase more of our bonds than they already have. Even this decision has major normative impacts on U.S. policy. We need other nations to purchase our bonds in order for our government to continue to operate. If they choose to not invest in the U.S., it threatens the very fabric of civil society.
At the moment, China is dumping U.S. debt. They would never do this with excess speed or immediacy. They have already calculated the exact rate at which they can transition from the current situation, where their own currency is de-valued, they own U.S. debt, and they market most of their products to our consumers, to the probable future of Chinese Hegemony that we already witness unfolding.
In this near-term future, China secures enough internal (within China) and external (In nations other than the U.S.) market share to be able to sell their products. They must have this developed market in order to keep their people employed. So long as enough Chinese are gainfully employed and able to enjoy the benefits of modern life, the government of China maintains an acceptable mandate to do as they wish. This can and does mean that a high percentage of citizens are suffering abject poverty, toxic exposures, oppression, and human rights violation. The fundamental values of civil society in China have ever been amoral, which the west has trouble understanding. At any time throughout history, China was willing to sacrifice half of more of the population to realize a long term strategy of increased wealth and power.
Western governments, specifically in the U.S., could never achieve such a dramatic indulgence. The narrative of freedom, democracy, and self-preservation would cause violent uprisings long before a situation on par with China’s abuses became realized. But in China, this level of sacrifice is possible, likely, and part of historical precedent.
Thus, China has already worked out the acceptable losses of humans, habitats, rivers, etc., in their bid for power. They are making smart moves to minimize this loss and maximize the likelihood of maintaining enough public fiat, through enriching large sectors of that public, to move forward in this next great leap.
In changing from the current policy of cultivating U.S. debt and market shares, to the future policy of total global dominance, China first creates no-strings-attached relationships to foreign nations. They make vast investments, possible due to their export/import imbalance, and nourish a diplomacy wherein Chinese business can flourish.
China moves towards the following goals with inexorable progress and will:
-Unrestricted global movement of goods into foreign markets through a vast network of roads, airports, ocean shipping, and railways.
-Unrestricted placement of permanent Chinese personnel in foreign nations, first as guest workers and contractors, then as citizens and business owners.
-Full control of gold and silver bullion, creating the first significant precious metal backed currency in the modern era.
-Supplanting the dollar with the RMB as the main international currency for trades.
-Ownership of foreign debt, to be used as political leverage.
-Ownership of property, including productive land, infrastructure, and stocks in major corporations.
-Successful geo-political outmanuvering of rival nations to attain territorial dominance. (i.e. China has created harmonious relationships with Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, nourished the armed forces of those nations, built roads equipped to move trucks and armor, and even constructed military bases. They have built artificial islands with military jet bases to expand their resource exploitation into the sovereign territorial waters of other maritime neighbors such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines)
-Construction of mega-city regions as the highest beacon of technology and urbanization.
-Regional destabilization of resource rich nations, allowing Chinese investment and eventual harmonious relationship, through wars fought by client states [read: U.S.A.].
-The end of the one-child policy and an era of expansion of the Han ethnicity.
One must applaud the Chinese method of achieving these goals. Instead of territorial military invasions, they give support, lend money, build necessary infrastructure, create businesses, and flood regions with products that make life more comfortable and modern for affordable prices.
Even as the U.S. builds new aircraft carriers and expensive jet fighters, carrying on two endless wars and being involved in shooting-wars in no less than 6 other countries, China builds pipelines and relationships the world over. By trading directly with Iran, China secures the flagship of petro-resources in the world.
So, while most U.S. citizens concern themselves with the song and dance of electoral politics, a tyrannical and genocidal nation is using the utmost subtlety to attain true control over the entire world. Certainly, an insane president with control of nuclear weapons (Trump) is a real threat to human life. But it is highly unlikely that Trump will do such an insane act.
More likely is that Trump is a continuation of a dramatic narrative designed to obfuscate the truth and delude the public, while the real bid for power goes on behind the curtain. Alongside previous presidents and executive cabinets, Trump secretly serves the Chinese and the ostensibly U.S. based banking firms that make the real decisions in the world.
Ignoring the emotional critiques of Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush senior, we can make an accurate assessment of the true aim of all recent administrations: To support the ultimate overthrow of U.S. hegemony, eliminate democracies, human rights, and the rule of law, nourish Chinese supremacy, and make a ton of money in the process.
They have done and will continue to do so by utilizing a false rhetoric that is exactly opposite of their actual plan: viz., they speak to supporting democracy, defending human rights, and limiting power and financial corruption in government.
So I support the efforts of women to protest Trump. I support those Americans who made strong efforts to uphold the remnants of our democracy and electoral process. But I point out in sadness and realism that a much more insidious power grab, which puts women, children, all people and places in much greater danger, is going on under our noses.
Thus my call to action: Let us not be distracted and deluded by the fiction of our news media and false political process. Instead I suggest we nourish and unfold our own divine wellness and truth. We cannot rely on government to provide solutions to our problems. But in personal and community empowerment, we can utilize all available technology, from meditation to solar panels, from video chats to soil science, creating a better future.
And finally, let us not judge, demonize or hate the nation of China or its people. They are human beings just like us, caught in the same web of Man vs Nature narrative that brought us to this global crisis well before the Chinese resumed power in modern times.
China and its people, paradoxically, may represent the best opportunity for the healing of the world and the creation of harmony with nature. China leads the world by huge margins in producing solar, wind and hydroelectricity, in planting trees, in materials efficiency during construction and manufacturing processes, in medical outcomes per price, and many other significant areas.
With the right relationship, this pre-existing propensity for ecological and human thriving can be cultivated into the template of global habitat protection. In this, China is neither good nor evil. It is simply powerful and motivated. Given the right communication, support, respect, and tools, China may well become an enlightened nation that protects human rights and the life of all species and environments.
Thus, while current memes of habitat and human destruction might be extrapolated into a future of horror and suffering, the investment of energy into new and burgeoning memes of sustainability and justice could have far reaching, exponentially multiplied effects upon the world stage.
Even as the near term future bespeaks an era of crisis through a phase of shifting hegemony, the medium and long term future of the world could emerge in exactly the right direction.
Of paramount importance in the writing of this future history is actually the successful modeling of the self-same behaviors that allow the Chinese to come to power. Namely, by respect, nourishment, abundance, benevolence, non-violence, and investment, we earth-minded actors can have profound influence within and without China.
Realistically, there can be no resistance to the expansion of Chinese global eminence. As they are simply doing the same thing that the U.S. did, at a greater scale, we also hold no moral high ground from which to judge. Rather, we have had enough time enjoying the fruits of global hegemony to begin thinking altruistically and creating the skills and memes that may actually save the world as a place fit for human habitation.
Now, we must use these skills and memes to respectfully and non violently cultivate a morally upstanding and righteous future. This is the best use of our time and energy, which has been diluted and dissipated with worries and concerns over domestic politics and xenophobic fear-mongering.
Blessings to all the healers and fighters. We must adapt. We must flow like water. And I, for one, am learning Chinese.
[Alexander Diaz is Author of, “The Path of Man, How to be a Hero,” available on amazon.com.]