Portside

Would the US be better off helping stabilize the Chinese economy, rather than gearing up for a trade war?

World peace, “the most important topic on earth….not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” That was 1963, the president was was John F. Kennedy. Contrast to today and the desire for ever greater stockpiles of nuclear bombs.

In other words, U.S. tariff threats are, in reality, a bargaining chip to get the Chinese government to accept stronger protections for the intellectual property rights and technology of leading U.S. firms in industries such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace, telecommunications, and autos.

The US trade deficit is the result of a conscious globalization strategy by large multinational corporations. This strategy has greatly paid off for them. They have been able to use their mobility to secure lower wages, reduced regulations and lower taxes.

The project is Beijing’s big experiment in outsourcing, and a $10 billion shot in the arm for the African nation—if there isn’t a civil war first.

The Chinese Communist Party, at its 19th Congress, set the goal to eliminate extreme poverty by 2022 and then begin process of "socialist modernisation." The challenge the country will face is to combine economic growth with environmental protection and to address the extreme inequality within society.

By roping India and Japan into its standoff with China, the U.S. is raising the nuclear stakes in Asia — including, dangerously, between India and Pakistan. With the world focused on the scary possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, not many people paid much attention to a series of naval exercises this past July in the Malacca Strait, a 550-mile long passage between Sumatra and Malaysia through which pass over 50,000 ships a year.

China's communist party held its nineteenth congress which adopted Xi Jinping Thought and inspirational plans to build a modern socialist country by mid-century. Western capitalist press accounts were generally negative and focused on Xi's consolidation of power. However successful implementation of the program despite difficulties will have great bearing and positive impact on the global balance of forces between socialism and capitalism and prospects for world peace.

The war hawks are wrong when they say that past negotiations, like the 1994 Agreed Framework, didn’t make a difference. August 2017 was a reminder of the scariest, and riskiest, days of the Cold War. All month long, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un engaged in a bitter war of words that escalated into tit-for-tat displays of military might and ended with mutual threats of mass destruction.