cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/887932

Interesting piece by Wolff pointing out the ways China-bashers contradict themselves. This passage is particularly germane:

Scapegoating China joins with scapegoating immigrants, BIPOCs, and many of the other usual targets. The broader decline of the U.S. empire and capitalist economic system confronts the nation with the stark question: whose standard of living will bear the burden of the impact of this decline? The answer to that question has been crystal clear: the government will pursue austerity policies (cut vital public services) and will allow price inflation and then rising interest rates that reduce living standards and jobs.

As Yves Smith puts it,

Richard Wolff provides a wide ranging yet comparatively compact tour of the incoherence of America’s official posture on China, using that as an example of late imperial disfunction. This would be a usefully provocative piece to send to China detractors.

Might be a useful piece to send to liberals inevitably screeching Yellow Peril nonsense.