Some serious paranoid ranting here......
He's right about China's threat. Add in Russia and we see two major geoeconomic players that have been playing the global system, which we created, far better than we have since Nixon. China and Russia have found great success within our capitalist, private industry, and free-trade system. But they have used state-owned corporations and state-owned banks as tools within their foreign policies to gain political and economic influence into Asian, Middle Eastern, and African governments. State-owned banks and businesses give them greater control and this has been affecting even our allies. Russia's pipe-line diplomacy into Western Europe is the most notable.
- The Chinese government has already been introducing the Renminbi as a secondary global monetary system through the BRICS Bank and AIIB, which has received the highest credit ratings from the three biggest rating agencies in the world, and is seen as a potential rival to the World Bank and IMF.
- The China Development Bank and Brazil's BNDES already have lending portfolios that outstrip the World Bank.
- Because the World Bank and IMF offer loans with conditions, autocrats across Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia have turned to
China, which offers loans without condition. In other words, China has been strapping these autocrats with
debts that they cannot pay, which leaves the country in the hands of the Chinese.
Our counter-punch has not been to play the geoeconomic game on their terms. On the contrary, we aren't really playing at all. Recently, we have actually been systematically removing American influence everywhere. Russia's growing influence in Western Europe could have been checked already had we
not suspended the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) for an entire year and introduced a piece of the
energy boom that North America has been experiencing for years. China's growing influence across the Pacific could have been checked had we not withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017. Now, even Australia is having to stand largely alone against
China's interference in Australian politics. And our removal from the Iran deal and pissing off Muslim governments over the Jerusalem Embassy move merely exacerbated Russia's influence in Syria and there
status as the nuclear WalMart of the Middle East.
And what has been the actual latest U.S. response to this geoeconomic tsunami across the world? Largely nothing. For example: After acknowledging that there is a concern about rising Chinese influence in the Pacific, the U.S. has once again defaulted to a military solution. It has recently decided to
partner with Australia in developing a naval base on Manus Island. In other words, as China's state-owned banks and state-owned companies walk right into these governments and pull out a chair, we are going to show them some warships. In the meantime, the Chinese men in suits are shrugging.