politics for the 99%

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Dec 17, 2014.

… This article by Pepe Escobar gives a fine overview of the measures China is taking to create greater economic integration with its Eurasian and European trade partners, to the detriment of US influence. And Washington appears to have been caught flat-footed:

By Pepe Escobar, the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong and an analyst for RT.. His latest book is Empire of Chaos (Nimble Books). Follow him on Facebook.Originally published at TomDispatch:

• November 18, 2014: it’s a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China’s Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9th.  
• Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain.
• You may not have the faintest idea where Yiwu is, but businessmen plying their trades across Eurasia, especially from the Arab world, are already hooked on the city “where amazing happens!” We’re talking about the largest wholesale center for small-sized consumer goods — from clothes to toys — possibly anywhere on Earth.
• The Yiwu-Madrid route across Eurasia represents the beginning of a set of game-changing developments. It will be an efficient logistics channel of incredible length. It will represent geopolitics with a human touch, knitting together small traders and huge markets across a vast landmass. It’s already a graphic example of Eurasian integration on the go. And most of all, it’s the first building block on China’s “New Silk Road,” conceivably the project of the new century and undoubtedly the greatest trade story in the world for the next decade.
• Go west, young Han. One day, if everything happens according to plan (and according to the dreams of China’s leaders), all this will be yours — via high-speed rail, no less. The trip from China to Europe will be a two-day affair, not the 21 days of the present moment. In fact, as that freight train left Yiwu, the D8602 bullet train was leaving Urumqi in Xinjiang Province, heading for Hami in China’s far west. That’s the first high-speed railway built in Xinjiang, and more like it will be coming soon across China at what is likely to prove dizzying speed.
• Today, 90% of the global container trade still travels by ocean, and that’s what Beijing plans to change. Its embryonic, still relatively slow New Silk Road represents its first breakthrough in what is bound to be an overland trans-continental container trade revolution.
• And with it will go a basket of future “win-win” deals, including lower transportation costs, the expansion of Chinese construction companies ever further into the Central Asian “stans,” as well as into Europe, an easier and faster way to move uranium and rare metals from Central Asia elsewhere, and the opening of myriad new markets harboring hundreds of millions of people.
• So if Washington is intent on “pivoting to Asia,” China has its own plan in mind. Think of it as a pirouette to Europe across Eurasia.

Defecting to the East? … //
… New Banks and New Dreams: … //
… When Dragon Embraces Bear: … //
… So Long to the Unipolar Moment: … //

… What About That “Harmonious Community”?

• At the same moment that China is proposing a new Eurasian integration, Washington has opted for an “empire of chaos,” a dysfunctional global system now breeding mayhem and blowback across the Greater Middle East into Africa and even to the peripheries of Europe.
• In this context, a “new Cold War” paranoia is on the rise in the U.S., Europe, and Russia. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who knows a thing or two about Cold Wars (having ended one), couldn’t be more alarmed. Washington’s agenda of “isolating” and arguably crippling Russia is ultimately dangerous, even if in the long run it may also be doomed to failure.
• At the moment, whatever its weaknesses, Moscow remains the only power capable of negotiating a global strategic balance with Washington and putting some limits on its empire of chaos. NATO nations still follow meekly in Washington’s wake and China as yet lacks the strategic clout.
• Russia, like China, is betting on Eurasian integration. No one, of course, knows how all this will end. Only four years ago, Vladimir Putin was proposing “a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” involving a trans-Eurasian free trade agreement. Yet today, with the U.S., NATO, and Russia locked in a Cold War-like battle in the shadows over Ukraine, and with the European Union incapable of disentangling itself from NATO, the most immediate new paradigm seems to be less total integration than war hysteria and fear of future chaos spreading to other parts of Eurasia.
• Don’t rule out a change in the dynamics of the situation, however. In the long run, it seems to be in the cards. One day, Germany may lead parts of Europe away from NATO’s “logic,” since German business leaders and industrialists have an eye on their potentially lucrative commercial future in a new Eurasia. Strange as it might seem amid today’s war of words over Ukraine, the endgame could still prove to involve a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance.
• At present, the choice between the two available models on the planet seems stark indeed: Eurasian integration or a spreading empire of chaos. China and Russia know what they want, and so, it seems, does Washington. The question is: What will the other moving parts of Eurasia choose to do?

(full long text with many hyper-links).

Economy Related Links:

• Ruble starts clawing back drastic losses – dollar, euro down in trading, on Russia Today RT, Dec 17, 2014;
• Marking Mark to market – was he right about a 2014 Greek recovery? on RWER Blog, by merijnknibbe, Dec 17, 2014;
• Russia Pivots to Eurasia for Trade and Military Alliances – [Video and Transcript], on Global Research.ca (first on The Real News), by Michael Hudson, Dec 16, 2014: - So the result of these changes is the opposite of what American strategy was based on for the last half-century, the idea of dividing and conquering Eurasia by setting Russia against China, by isolating Iran, by preventing India, the Near East, and other Asian countries from joining together to create some kind of alternative to the dollar area. In fact, the American sanctions and the new Cold War policy of the neocons are driving these Asian countries together, in association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as an alternative to NATO, and the BRICS are trying to make an alternative to dealing with the dollar area and with the IMF and the World Bank that represent U.S. policy …;
• Russia Rejects South Stream Pipeline Through Europe, Hudson Report – Europe’s effort to join the US in isolating Russia has backfired, it makes no sense to build an oil and gas pipeline for Russian exports that would be owned and leased to them by the US and Europe – December 15, 2014
• The incompetence of economic policy makers, why U.S. women are leaving the labor force, on RWER Blog, by Dean Baker, Dec 15, 2014;
• In the USA the already huge wealth gap between whites and non-whites is growing. (2 graphs), on RWER Blog, by David Ruccio, Dec 13, 2014;
• TTIP: Will politics capitulate in favour of the corporations? on Current Concerns, by Prof Dr Eberhard Hamer, Dec 9, 2014;
• How Chase Ruined Lives of People Who Paid Off Their Mortgages, on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Aug 26, 2011;

Other Links:

Methane ‘burps’ detected on Mars, on BBC/cbbc, Dec 17, 2014: … a possible sign that life once existed or could still exist on the red planet - Guide: The history of Mars exploration, on BBC/cbbc, Dec 17, 2014;

Peshawar carnage, deadly portent, on KASHMIR and IDPs, by K.N. Pandita, Dec 17, 2014;

Shooting Down MH 17 – BUK 312 Story False Says Ukraine Crew Member, on the People’s Voice.org, by Michael Collins, Dec 17, 2014  - The shoot down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 came into greater focus with the December 15 YouTube video: СРОЧНО! Интервью солдата с “БУК” #Анатолий Шарий, 17.04 min, uploaded by Новости Сегодня Онлайн 24/7, Dec 15, 2014 … (see fully translated text at the end of the article);

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) – Profit, Power and Geopolitics, on Global Research.ca, by Colin Todhunter, Dec 15, 2014;

C’est le ton qui fait la musique, on Current Concerns, by Dr iur Marianne Wüthrich, Dec 9, 2014: On the friendly-confederate interaction in the Swiss Parliament – If we Swiss hear in the media about how some delegates in the parliaments of our neighboring states insult each other in the ugliest manner, this rude type of interaction between representatives of various parties strikes us as deeply disconcerting. However, in recent times there is also a certain pitch to be heard which does not really match our country’s customs. But normally the style of interaction in the Swiss legislative and executive is cooperative, matching with our cooperative authorities system. A large majority of Swiss politicians who have been given a mandate by the sovereign know very well: Switzerland, the nation established by the will of the people lives on the presupposition that every single citizen, with or without a political office, takes on his or her responsibility by supporting the delicate direct democratic and federal structure …;

Pro memoria: Switzerland is a state under the rule of law with a constitution and civil rights, on Current Concerns, by Thomas Schaffner, Dec 9, 2014: Who arrogates to restrict citizen’s rights has to explain his understanding of democracy;

… and this:

• Irish music: The Late Late Show tribute to The Chieftains – 1987, 85.22 min, uploaded by Conor Ryan, Oct 11, 2014 … and many other videos in autoplay.