Thoughts on this article? I liked it, but I’m wondering whether or not it’s fine.

  • Muad'DibberA
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    53 years ago

    I thought it was good, outlines how important the BRI is for India, and why India is likely to reject US overtures, because the US has nothing to offer:


    Today, China accounts for 30 percent of global manufacturing and continues to grow, with an economy that is almost one-third larger than that of the US in purchasing power terms and rapidly approaching parity at nominal exchange rates. China is hard to beat as it is now the largest consumer market on the planet and the biggest trading partner of over three-fourths of the world’s other economies.

    China is fully integrated into the global capitalist system and cannot be walled off from it. And China already possesses one-fourth of the world’s scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematics workforce. Its ascendancy has become unstoppable.

    Yet, China spends only two percent or less of GDP on its military compared to the current 7.9% spent by the US. China is disinterested in matching the US’ nuclear arsenal and adopts a “no first use” policy backed by a modest force de frappe that can conduct a limited but devastating retaliatory counterstrike.

    China cannot be beaten since, unlike the USSR, it is part of the same global society as the US. Look at the sheer spread of the US-China battlefields — global governance, geoeconomics, trade, investment, finance, currency usage, supply chain management, technology standards and systems, scientific collaboration and so on. It speaks of China’s vast global reach. This wasn’t the case with USSR.

    Above all, China has no messianic ideology to export and prefers to set a model by virtue of its performance. It is not in the business of instigating regime change in other countries, and actually gets along rather well with democracies.

    The heart of the matter is that India has no reason to be the US’ pillion rider. Whatever remained of the US’ exceptionalism is also gone as the world witnesses its pitiable struggle with Covid-19, repeated displays of racism, gun violence, political venality, xenophobia. No wonder, the transatlantic alliance is withering and Europeans are dissociating from the US’ effort to “contain” China.

    The US created the ASEAN but today no Asian security partner wants to choose between America and China. The ASEAN cannot be repurposed to form a coalition to counter China. Thus, no claimant against China in the South China Sea is prepared to join the US in its naval fracas with China.

    China has resources, including money, to offer its partners, whereas, the US budget is in chronic deficit and even routine government operations must now be funded with debt. It needs to find resources needed to keep its human and physical infrastructure at levels competitive with those of China and other great economic powers.

    Why on earth should India get entangled in this messy affair whose climax is a foregone conclusion? No, things should never be allowed to reach such a pass that India needs to tackle a China-Pakistan collusion.

    • lemmygrabberM
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      3 years ago

      Great comment

      Edit: lmao my bad it’s from the article

    • lemmygrabberM
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      23 years ago

      The good thing about China is that it can hypothetically come in an alliance with the self-serving bourgeois government, which in today’s climate would have been very difficult with the USSR. It wouldn’t be great for India in terms of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but it would be very good for China who would be able to prevent unnecessary and detrimental polarisation of the regjon.

    • Makan ☭ CPUSAOP
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      23 years ago

      I liked that part too. Overall, it was pretty good, and it makes a good point about there being more geopolitical “battlefields” that the USA is losing against to China. I think that, very likely, the PRC will come out on top, though I won’t hold my breath as I’ve been disappointed before.