Inside US Afghanistan pullout, CIA opium ratline, pipeline conflict, new cold war ~~ Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/21/us-afghanistan-pullout-cia-opium-pipeline/

 ~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~

Introduction by dmorista

This is a two hour long interview with Pepe Escobar.  Escobar is very anti-American (tiresomely so sometimes) but has spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and knows some of the Afghan people.  

The first part of the interview refers to an article he wrote for Asia Times (below).

Introdution:

This is a nearly 2-hour long interview of Pepe Escobar by Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton both working at The Grayzone. Escobar is a relentlessly anti-American commenter who has written articles and opinion pieces at Asia Times On-Line for many years. His work is reposted at various places including Global Research. The interview looks at some of the underlying reasons for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, i.e. various proposed pipeline projects, control of the opium poppy and heroin trade, and the many mineral resources found in Afghanistan. They also discuss the fact that Afghanistan is very strategically located in a crossroads region in Central Asia. Many of the ongoing Chinese projects to build road and high speed rail systems and to exploit mineral resources cross the territory of Afghanistan.

Escobar says that the Chinese and Russians have been establishing close relations with the Taliban for years, and that they are advising them to actually not impose the draconian policies they enforced in the country the last time they ran it. It is a fact that both Russia and China are located in Eurasia near Afghanistan. They naturally have an outlook on some issues that is in common with the Afghans, and both the Chinese and Russians expected that the U.S. would give up on their occupation of Afghanistan and withdraw sooner or later. A large part of the interview refers to an opinion piece Escobar had posted at Asia Times on August 19 “China and Russia are Stage-Managing the Taliban”. This view is quite different from that being presented in the Corporate Controlled U.S. media outlets, that are reporting that Afghans who cooperated with the American occupation are being hunted down and killed. What the exact truth is is not quite clear right now, but we will see. Escobar has been right on the money in many of his observations in the past

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Inside US Afghanistan pullout, CIA opium ratline, pipeline conflict, new cold war

BEN NORTON AND MAX BLUMENTHAL·AUGUST 21, 2021

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton of the Moderate Rebels podcast discuss the US military pullout from Afghanistan with journalist Pepe Escobar, who has extensive experience reporting in the country and was arrested by the Taliban twice.

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In the first part of the interview, we talk about the geopolitics of the conflict, how the Taliban has changed, what the future Afghan government could look like, and the corruption of US puppet President Ashraf Ghani and other CIA assets.

In the second part, we discuss the 20-year US/NATO war in Afghanistan, the opium ratline the CIA used to fund dirty covert ops, the fight over pipelines, and the estimated $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral reserves in the country, as well as Washington’s “pivot to Asia” and how Afghanistan is central in the new cold war on China and Russia.

 

Pepe Escobar says he and other geopolitical analysts he has spoken with think the US defeat in Afghanistan “is even more important than 9/11.”

“Everything that happened in the century until now, of course for all of us the most important geopolitical happening of the 21st century, the start of the 21st century, was 9/11,” Escobar explained. “And now the circle has closed, and we are into a new paradigm.”

“The number one and two strategic threats to the United States, or at least for the people who assume they are conducting policy for the United States, are Russia and China, which happens to be a strategic partnership,” he continued.

“So you can imagine [Zbigniew] Brzezinski rolling in his grave 24/7, because he was always desperate about the emergence of a peer competitor in Eurasia, especially in the Eurasian heartland. This is a geopolitics 101, in fact.”

“And that is what moved Brzezinski at the time, even before the Soviets entered Afghanistan, to invent a jihad. Which is something that we are living the after-effects of this intervention, 40 years later. And now the whole thing is turned upside down.”

Escobar said the newly independent government in Kabul will now likely join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, alongside Beijing and Moscow.

“So what does this tell us tell us?” he continued. “Once again, the big story of the 21st century, which irrespective of what the US was doing, which was basically the ‘war on terror’ for most of these past 20 years, the big story is the integration of Eurasia, with Russia and China as let’s say the primus inter pares – everybody is more or less equal, but of course Russia and China are more equal than the others. And everybody is under the same roof.”

This “is something that we’re going to see in the next few months,” with China and Russia “discussing among other extremely important geopolitical issues how are we going to integrate Afghanistan into an all-Asian project of economic and political integration, how are we going to support their efforts to have a country that is relatively stable.”

“Behind the scenes,” Escobar added, Beijing and Moscow “are more or less, I described it as stage-managing, but it’s more like it stage-managing in the sense of pointing the Afghan Taliban where to position themselves in the global stage. So the other half, which is what we could call NATO-stan – the United States and Europeans in NATO, more or less – have to respect this new paradigm, and at least try to live with it.”

You can download an audio-only podcast version of the interview below.

Historic US defeat in Afghanistan: Is it ‘most important geopolitical event of 21st century’? (Part 1)

Afghanistan: Pipelines, minerals, and CIA opium ratline (Part 2)

You can read some of Pepe Escobar’s columns here:

• “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang: The US ‘loss’ of Afghanistan is a repositioning and the new mission is not a ‘war on terror,’ but Russia and China,” Asia Times (August 16, 2021)
• “China, Russia are stage-managing the Taliban: Beijing, Moscow are working overtime to scrub the Taliban’s ‘terrorist’ label and endorse it as a legitimate political movement,” Asia Times (August 19, 2021)
• “A Saigon moment looms in Kabul: August 12, 2021 will go down as the day the Taliban avenged America’s invasion and struck the blow that brought down its man in Kabul,” Asia Times (August 13, 2021)

POSTED IN OPINION

"China, Russia are stage-managing the Taliban"

Beijing, Moscow are working overtime to scrub the Taliban's 'terrorist' label and endorse it as a legitimate political movement

By PEPE ESCOBAR, AUGUST 19, 2021  ASIA TIMES,  at <  China, Russia are stage-managing the Taliban  - Asia Times >

Taliban fighters drive an Afghan National Army vehicle through the streets of Laghman province on August 15, 2021. Photo: AFP

The first Taliban press conference after last weekend’s Saigon moment geopolitical earthquake, conducted by spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, was in itself a game-changer.  

The contrast could not be starker with those rambling pressers at the Taliban embassy in Islamabad after 9/11 and before the start of the American bombing – proving this incarnation of the Taliban is an entirely new political animal.  

Yet some things never change. English translations remain atrocious. Here is a good summary of the key Taliban statements. These are the key takeaways: 

– No problem for women to get an education all the way to college and to continue to work. They just need to wear the hijab, like in Qatar or Iran. No need to wear a burqa. The Taliban insist “all women’s rights will be guaranteed within the limits of Islamic law.” 

– The Islamic Emirate “does not threaten anyone” and will not treat anyone as enemies. Crucially, revenge – an essential plank of the Pashtunwali code – will be abandoned, and that’s unprecedented. There will be a general amnesty, including people who worked for the former NATO-aligned system. Translators, for instance, won’t be harassed and don’t need to leave the country. 

– The security of foreign embassies and international organizations “is a priority.” Taliban special security forces will protect both those leaving Afghanistan and those who remain.

– A strong inclusive Islamic government will be formed. “Inclusive” is code for the participation of women and Shiites. 

– Foreign media will continue to work undisturbed. The Taliban government will allow public criticism and debate. But “freedom of speech in Afghanistan must be in line with Islamic values.”

– The Islamic Emirate of Taliban wants recognition from the “international community” – code for NATO. The overwhelming majority of Eurasia and the Global South will recognize it anyway.

Afghans climb atop a plane as they wait to flee at Kabul airport on August 16, 2021. Photo: AFP / Wakil Kohsar

It’s essential to note, for example, the closer integration of the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – Iran is about to become a full member, Afghanistan is an observer – with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The absolute majority of Asia will not shun the Taliban. 

For the record, the Taliban also stated that it took all of Afghanistan in only 11 days: that’s pretty accurate. They stressed “very good relations with Pakistan, Russia and China.”

Yet the Taliban don’t have formal allies and are not part of any military-political bloc. They definitely “won’t allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for international terrorists.” That’s code for ISIS/Daesh. 

On the key issue of opium and heroin, the Taliban say they will ban its production.

As eyebrow-raising as these statements may be, the Taliban did not even get into detail on economic and infrastructure development deals – as they will need a lot of new industries, new jobs and improved Eurasian-wide trade relations. That will likely be announced later.   

What this first press conference reveals is how the Taliban are fast-absorbing essential PR and media lessons from Moscow and Beijing, emphasizing ethnic harmony, the role of women, the role of diplomacy and deftly defusing in a single move all the hysteria raging across NATOstan.

The next bombshell step in the PR wars will be to cut off the lethal, evidence-free Taliban-9/11 connection; thereafter the “terrorist organization” label will disappear and the Taliban as a political movement will be fully legitimized.  

Screen grab of video showing Taliban leader Mullah Baradar Akhund (front, center) sending a congratulatory message for the victories in Afghanistan in Kabul on Sunday Aug 15, 2021. Photo: AFP via EyePress News

Moscow and Beijing are meticulously stage-managing the Taliban’s reinsertion in regional and global geopolitics. This means that the SCO is stage-managing the whole process: Russia and China are applying consensual decisions that have been taken in SCO meetings.

The key player the Taliban are talking to is Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan. In yet another debunking of the NATOstan narrative, Kabulov confirmed, for instance, “we see no direct threat to our allies in Central Asia. There are no facts proving otherwise.” 

The Beltway will be stunned to learn that Zabulov has also revealed: “we have long been in talks with the Taliban on the prospects for development after their capture of power and they have repeatedly confirmed that they have no extraterritorial ambition, they learned the lessons of 2000.” 

Zabulov reveals plenty of nuggets when it comes to Taliban diplomacy: “If we compare the negotiability of colleagues and partners, the Taliban have long seemed to me much more negotiable than the puppet Kabul government. We proceed from the premise that the agreements must be implemented. So far, with regard to the security of the embassy and the security of our allies in Central Asia, the Taliban have respected the agreements.”

These contacts were established “over the past seven years.”

Faithful to its adherence to international law, and not the “rules-based international order,” Moscow is always keen to emphasize the responsibility of the UN Security Council: “We must make sure that the new government is ready to behave conditionally, as we say, in a civilized manner. That’s when this point of view becomes common to all, then the procedure [of removing the qualification of the Taliban as a terrorist organization] will begin.”

Afghans wait to leave the Kabul airport on August 16, 2021, fearing a hardline brand of Islamist rule. Photo: AFP / Wakil Kohsar

So while the US/EU/NATO flee Kabul in spasms of self-inflicted panic, Moscow is practicing diplomacy. Zabulov adds: “That we have prepared the ground for a conversation with the new government in Afghanistan in advance is an asset of Russian foreign policy.” 

Meanwhile, Dmitry Zhirnov, Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, is working overtime with the Taliban including a meeting with a senior Taliban security official on Tuesday. The meeting was “positive, constructive … The Taliban movement has the most friendly; the best policy towards Russia … He arrived alone in one vehicle, with no guards.”

Both Moscow and Beijing have no illusions that the West is already deploying hybrid war tactics to discredit and destabilize a government that isn’t even formed yet and hasn’t even started working. No wonder Chinese media is describing Washington as a “strategic rogue.”

What matters is that Russia and China are way ahead of the curve, cultivating parallel inside tracks of diplomatic dialogue with the Taliban. It’s crucial to remember that Russia harbors 20 million Muslims and China at least 35 million. These will be called to support the immense project of Afghan reconstruction and full Eurasia reintegration.   

Off the Rails: New report by Corporate-funded think-tank reveals how profit-driven motives drive New Cold War against China ~~ Danny Haiphong

https://mronline.org/2021/06/08/off-the-rails-new-report-by-corporate-funded-think-tank-reveals-how-profit-driven-motives-drive-new-cold-war-against-china/

~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~

 Introduction by dmorista: 

The crux of the arguments that Haiphong addresses in this article is that China used existing technology (manufactured under standard licensing agreements I hasten to add although Haiphong did not address that issue) but subsidizes it with their massive economic surpluses; and thereby they undercut Western (including Japanese and S. Korean) high speed rail companies. And to be honest, those are arguments that have some validity. Of course, the Capitalist/Western argument does not mention that, during the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis and Economic Collapse, that China began building its high-speed rail system along with other Keynesian investments; as the way to get out of the financial crisis and the resultant downturn in Western demand for China's industrial capital and consumer products. So in essence; while the U.S. and Western European Central Banks and Governments gave trillions of dollars to their failing financial institutions, to save their pals and donors, the Chinese spent their trillions of dollars on new infrastructure. China was widely criticized by U.S. / Western political and socioeconomic analysts for building “roads to nowhere” and “entire cities that sat empty”, and so on and so on. But in fact China, that did not have one kilometer of inter-city high speed rail line in 2007, started building the world's largest high-speed train system. They now have over 22,000 Kilometers of high-speed rail track.

It is ironic that the highly critical article in Railway Age, “Report: Chinese Policies Damaging HSR, Globally”, April 26, 2021, William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief (for which there is a link in the first sentence of Haiphong's article) and the much longer actual report Heading Off Track: The Impact of China’s Mercantilist Policies on Global High-Speed Rail Innovation, (it was written by the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) there is a link to the report at the bottom of the Railway Age article), are both featured in American publications.

The irony is made all the more blatant as the U.S. does not have even one kilometer of true high speed rail track, the closest approximation being the Accela train in the NorthEast Corridor that runs from Washington D.C. to Boston. The Accela is not really a serious high-speed train line, it is not electrified, shares the ancient rail lines with slow-moving freight trains, actually had some collisions where doubled curving tracks were too close together and northbound and southbound Acella trains actually side-swiped each other, has a few spots where the trains can go 90 mph, but the route average speed is down around 50 mph. The only other U.S. high speed train is the line under construction in California that is bogged down in routing disputes and eminent domain battles. The U.S. does operate a massive freight train system (mostly to move Chinese goods from Pacific Coast Ports to the rest of the U.S.

Haiphong argues that the real dispute is that the Chinese are publicly funding their train system and the U.S / West want them to follow the discredited Neoliberal Privatization model. Also the Chinese, like other societies before them, built a new national system, in this case high-speed rail, by deciding on adopting a standard technology and widely implementing it. Both the Japanese and French before them built their high speed train systems while at the same time developing and perfecting the technology. By the time the Chinese decided to build a high-speed train system there was perfectly adequate technology available. The Chinese did decide to gradually replace the material bought from foreign suppliers with domestically produced equipment. The argument made in the ITIF report is that China should just buy high-speed rail equipment from the lowest priced foreign sources; China that suffered when the West was more developed and industrialized than they were has no intention of following the WTO Neoliberal model.

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Article:

Source: silknsteel.podbean.com

Imperialism, Media, Strategy, WarChina, United StatesNewswireNew Cold War, the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the U.S.-led New Cold War on China

Anew report published in Railway Age magazine and written by the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has sounded the alarm about China’s growing high-speed rail sector. The report comes amid escalations in the U.S.’s New Cold War against China, of which technology is a key component.

High-speed bullet train in China. [Source: railwayage.com]

China is by far the world leader in high-speed rail investment and development, sporting more than 35,000 kilometers (21,700 miles) of high-speed rail, or 68 percent of the world’s total. The ITIF itself admits to China’s rapid success in this sector since its first high-speed rail line was completed in 2008:

Since then, China has opened thousands of kilometers of high-speed lines with speeds ranging from 200 to 350 kph. To do this, China spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the world’s most expensive public-works project since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System of the 1950s.

The United States might learn from China’s success in investing in high-speed rail and try and emulate it; however, according to the ITIF, China’s high-speed rail policies damage “innovation” by privileging domestic market development and state-owned enterprises over the interests of private, foreign firms primarily residing in the West. China is accused of employing a form of “mercantilism” to manipulate the global market at the expense of the superior capabilities of Western, Japanese, and American investors.

The term “mercantilism” has been used by big business interests in the U.S. and West to portray China’s policy of indigenous development as a high crime against the free market. In fact, the ITIF has been sounding the alarm about China’s prioritization of its own tech sector since 2013.

It lamented that China was no longer keeping its promise “to be a low-cost production platform for foreign multinational corporations (MNCs).” As if the Chinese government’s function was to serve the latter’s needs and not that of its own people.

The telecommunications giant was a target of the Trump administration’s tech war on China. [Source: wired.com]

The ITIF’s latest report focusing on China’s high-speed rail sector comes amid escalating U.S. attacks on China’s tech sector. Most associate this “tech war” with the Trump administration’s sanctions on China’s Huawei Corporation and social media apps such as WeChat and TikTok. However, the Biden administration and its allies have been just as aggressive in their attempts to forestall China’s technological development.

Biden has proclaimed that the U.S. is in a battle against China to “win the 21st century” and has expanded the list of Chinese telecommunications and supercomputing companies on the U.S.’s blacklist. In a recent speech to the UK-funded Chatham House, neo-con hawk and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton passionately claimed that the U.S. is at “the mercy of China” and demanded that the U.S. “take back the means of production.”

Hillary Clinton has supported the tech war against China. [Source: brookings.edu]

The U.S. war on China’s tech sector therefore shares widespread bipartisan support. As this analysis will demonstrate, far from calling for more public investment in the needs of an increasingly destitute U.S. workforce, the ITIF’s new warnings about China’s high-speed rail sector reveal how powerful economic interests are pushing for a new Cold War with China alongside the perpetuation of neoliberal economic policies that prioritize the interests of multi-national corporations.

Who Is behind ITIF?

Richard Haass [Source: cfr.org]

Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations noted in a 2002 speech at the State Department that think tanks serve as an important bridge between policy and action, and have been shaping U.S. foreign policy for over 100 years.

What Haass leaves out is that the majority are funded by corporate and military interests to help condition the public and skew public policy in a direction that favors capitalist elites and not the public at large.

The Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) claims to be an independent public policy think-tank based in Washington, D.C. However, a closer look into its background demonstrates that ITIF is a pillar of free-market fundamentalism and the military and corporate domination in world affairs required to maintain the U.S.-led neoliberal order.

[Source: idealist.org]

Currently, it is one of several players driving a false and demonized view of China that may very well provoke a new world war.

The ITIF receives the vast majority of its funding from U.S. corporations in every sector of the economy. This includes the two largest employers in the United States, Walmart and Amazon.

More notable in the realm of technology and militarism is the host of donors from the defense and U.S. big-tech industries. Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and leading Silicon Valley corporations as well as the Charles Koch Institute join an alliance of U.S. monopolies and industry associations backing the ITIF.

The same corporations backing the ITIF have led the charge in pressuring Washington to take a hostile approach to China’s tech sector, whose success threatens them. Amazon and Northrop Grumman, the major arms manufacturer also are top sponsors of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

[Source: antinuclear.net]

ASPI has produced several dubious reports on China’s supposed repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Some of these reports attack journalists who have challenged the official narrative, notably at the Grayzone project. ASPI publications have generally been used by Washington to enhance sanctions against China over “human rights” claims.

ITIF founder and President Robert D. Atkinson is a champion of global neoliberalism who is regarded highly in elite circles as a tech policy guru.

Prior to founding the ITIF, Atkinson served as Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank of the Bill Clinton-led Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that sports initiatives such as the Neoliberal Project. Atkinson has served as an adviser for every U.S. administration from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump.

Cover of ASPI report on the persecution of Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province. Military-funded think-tanks are playing up China’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang to mobilize public opinion against China. [Source: saveuighur.org]

Atkinson currently holds a post as an adviser for the Minister of Science, Research, and Innovation in the UK. He also serves on the Markle Foundation’s Task Force on National Security, which helped write the 9/11 Commission Report and regularly lobbies for the privatization of the national security state in Congress on behalf of the Foundation’s president, Zoë Baird, Bill Clinton’s failed Attorney General nominee.

In a testament to his commitment to Clinton-era neoliberalism, Atkinson argued in a 2011 article that progressives should drop social welfare policies and instead “support corporations” in their fight against “foreign mercantilism.”

More recently he has been warning about the China “threat” which he uses as a pretext for promoting the implementation of his conservative economic ideals.

Robert D. Atkinson [Source: youtube.com]

China’s High-Speed Rail Ascendency a Nightmare for Neoliberalism

Given Atkinson’s history, it should come as little surprise that the ITIF’s report Heading Off Track: The Impact of China’s Mercantilist Policies on Global High-Speed Rail Innovation reads like a cartoonish screed against public investment.

Authored by Nigel Cory, the report provides an inside look into the nightmare that China’s high-speed rail presents to the global order of neoliberalism.

Zoë Baird. [Source: twitter.com]

Mercantilism is a derogatory word devised by free-market fundamentalists to describe the prioritization of domestic market development. According to the report, China’s largest rail manufacturer, the CRRC, is state owned and “has the largest share of the global high-speed rail market due to its dominance of the Chinese market.”

What is particularly troublesome to the ITIF is that China’s early reliance on foreign technology to develop its high-speed rail sector has been gradually replaced with domestic alternatives.

The report blames China’s dominance over its own market for the failures of European, Japanese, and U.S. rail manufacturers to keep up with high-speed rail production. European firms such as Alstom or Japanese firms such as Hitachi are described as “innovative” more than a dozen times yet have seen their market share in the industry decrease as much as fifty percent since 2007. The United States does not have a single high-speed rail firm capable of developing high-speed rail and has thus fallen the furthest behind.

Nigel Cory [Source: itif.org]

That more “innovative” firms in the U.S. orbit have fallen behind China is an obvious contradiction. To explain away failure, the ITIF outlines measures China has taken to unfairly keep foreign corporations out of the Chinese market. Many of these claims are contradicted in the report itself.

“Forced technology transfer” is a particular sore point for the ITIF and forms the basis of claims of “stolen” intellectual property constantly made by the United States and its allies. China is accused of forcing foreign firms to share technology on an unequal basis. Yet so-called “forced” technology transfers are not forced at all. Rather, as the report explains:

China’s ongoing requirement for 100 percent Chinese-owned technology in many procurement contracts, combined with foreign firms having to engage with majority-Chinese owned JVs [joint ventures] in order to submit a bid, amounts to a de facto mandate to transfer technology to local partners. Foreign firms continue to capitulate because they have no choice—they either give up their technology or lose out to other competitors in the growing Chinese market.

[Source: ushsr.net]

Describing this scenario as “forced” obscures the actual problem: that China does not allow its high-speed rail market to be controlled and dominated by foreign, mainly U.S. and European, firms. Rather, China allows foreign firms to invest in rail development only if Chinese firms maintain majority ownership and are allowed access to information which allows them to develop the technology domestically.

While the ITIF claims foreign rail firms had “no choice” in doing business with China, it also admits that these same firms entered into such agreements willingly in part because China was not expected to catch up to its foreign peers so fast.

Another particularly sore point for the ITIF is China’s bidding process. Foreign rail firms must partner with a Chinese firm just to hold a license to operate and compete for procurement contracts in the Chinese market. Foreign firms are allowed no more than forty-nine percent of the shares in any joint venture.

High-speed railways that are part of China’s New Silk Road project. [Source: dw.com]

As the report laments, only a limited number of entirely state-owned companies are allowed to contract for projects in China, thereby ensuring little flexibility in the way revenue is spread between foreign and Chinese partners.

A huge fear among the industrial and financial magnates that fund ITIF is that China’s model for infrastructure development in the high-speed rail sector will spread globally. The report expresses anguish over the Belt and Road Initiative directly, the massive government-led global infrastructure plan that China hopes will create sustained trade relations between itself and nations along the old Silk Road.

China has appointed CRRC, its foremost state-owned rail company, to develop rail projects abroad such as the Sino-Laos railway set to debut before 2021’s end.

Workers carry out construction of the Sino-Laos railway. [Source: Kunming.cn]

The global expansion of China’s high-speed rail sector is particularly problematic because of its disregard for profit. High-speed rail is a costly endeavor which requires massive investments in research and development and components that can range from $17 to $21 million per kilometer of rail. The report quotes an unnamed executive who makes clear that foreign firms lack “the full weight and money of the state behind them in the way the Chinese rail companies do.”

In sum, China is accused by the ITIF of unfairly gobbling up market share from foreign firms by “stealing” intellectual property and “forcing” technology transfer. No proof is provided by the ITIF that verifies either claim. More importantly, the report simultaneously admits that foreign (read U.S. and EU) firms are unable to compete with China in large part because high-speed rail requires massive public investment rather than the prioritization of private profit.

Sanctions: Economic Weapon of the New Cold War

To punish China’s public investment in high-speed rail, the ITIF recommends first and foremost that foreign competitors, principally the United States and Europe, pursue sanctions against China. Thirty-nine countries around the world currently suffer from starvation sanctions imposed by the U.S. or EU. Sanctions are an act of war that cuts off a country’s access to the international market and, in the cases of Iran and Venezuela, prevent the import of crucial supplies necessary to sustain human life.

CodePink activist protests U.S. worldwide sanctions. [Source: globalresearch.ca]

The ITIF specifically calls on the EU and the United States to work together to prevent Chinese acquisition of rail firms and contracts abroad. This would amount to a de facto blockade of China’s access to European and U.S. technology required for the development of high-speed rail and is not dissimilar to existing U.S. sanctions on the semiconductor industry meant to slow China’s progress in the realm of “smart” technology.

The ITIF also suggests that U.S. and European governments adopt higher prices for public procurement contracts for foreign investment in rail projects and more stringent screening processes to essentially prevent China’s high-speed rail sector from expanding into the industrialized world.

Perhaps most damning is the ITIF’s inclusion of the demand that the World Bank withdraw financial support to China. Historically, the World Bank has operated alongside the IMF as an enforcer of global privatization, particularly in the Global South.

Structural adjustment programs implemented in countries across Asia, Latin America, and Africa have reinforced neocolonialism and massively increased extreme poverty around the world to the benefit of financial elites in the U.S. and Europe. That the ITIF would demand the withdrawal of World Bank funds from Chinese-backed high-speed rail projects demonstrates the lengths the U.S. and its allies will go to contain the rise of China.

Sanctions are indisputably the economic weapon of choice in the U.S.-led New Cold War on China. While many who politically identify as “left” in the U.S. and West see China as a “capitalist” country, it is clear that the U.S. and its allies employ targeted sanctions not on capitalist firms but on socialist development in China and elsewhere.

The ITIF specifically targets state-owned enterprises in China for sanctions in the same manner that the U.S. currently enforces targeted sanctions on state-owned enterprises in Belarus and Myanmar.

Regardless of whether the justification is “human rights” or “competition,” the effect of sanctions is to starve countries of their capacity to meet the needs of their people in the hopes that they will either “play ball” with U.S. and EU hegemony or see their political systems replaced with more compliant regimes.

China does not “play ball” with U.S. hegemony. China maintains public ownership over key sectors of the economy such as high-speed rail and disregards U.S. and European sanctions placed on poor nations across the Global South. This is evidenced by China’s massive bilateral relationships with Iran and Russia. China is also Europe’s, Latin America’s, and Africa’s largest trading partner.

Furthermore, high-speed rail marks only one area where China has surpassed the U.S. and European powers technologically. China leads the world in artificial intelligence, regenerative medicine, and a host of other sectors that once were dominated by private U.S. and European firms.

Visitors check their phones behind the screen advertising facial recognition software during the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) at the National Convention in Beijing, China, April 27, 2018. [Source: pri.org]

Sanctions are thus deemed necessary to arrest the development of China’s large publicly driven tech sector from taking the reins as the foremost economic power. The ITIF published a follow-up article authored by Robert Atkinson himself which anguished over the reality that Chinese state-driven development is fast becoming the engine of the global economy.

This article appeared to reflect a tacit admission of the failure of the economic model Atkinson and his ilk have tried to impose on the rest of the world, and reaffirmation of China’s policies.

Free-Market Fundamentalism Spells Doom for Humanity

The ITIF not only calls for sanctions but also for direct public investment to spur “innovation” and make the U.S. and its allies competitive again. The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has followed these recommendations by approving $110 billion in basic research in the tech sector.

Michael Hudson [Source: michael-hudson.com]

Still, there is an obvious contradiction in the demonization of China’s state-owned economy and the U.S.’s decision to increase government spending in tech research to counter China. This contradiction is unlikely to be resolved given that the New Cold War is predicated upon the religion of free-market fundamentalism—an ideology which is foundational to U.S.-led neoliberal capitalism.

As economist Michael Hudson remarks, the New Cold War on China is essentially a clash of two systems:

Today’s Cold War 2.0 aims to deter China and potentially other counties from socializing their financial systems, land and natural resources, and keeping infrastructure utilities public to prevent their being monopolized in private hands to siphon off economic rents at the expense of productive investment in economic growth.

Free-market fundamentalism spells doom for humanity. It is that which Secretary of State Tony Blinken chastised China when he said they were not following the “rules-based international order.”

Free-market fundamentalism is behind the massive bailouts and stock buybacks Biden supported under the Obama administration and the massively bloated U.S. military budgets, which pad the profits of private weapons manufacturers.

Yang Jiechi, the top Chinese foreign policy official, left, and Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, in Anchorage, Alaska, in March. Blinken angered the Chinese by lecturing them on human rights even before the meeting began. [Source: ft.com]

Abroad, free-market fundamentalism inspired the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile, sanctions on Zimbabwe for its engagement in land reform, and the dozens of societies destroyed by the U.S. in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”

China’s high-speed rail sector is now under fire from the U.S.-led neoliberal order precisely because the titans of big tech and finance cannot imagine development that does not place the massive profits of capitalists such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in command of international politics.

Think-tanks such as the ITIF serve as mouthpieces for their Wall Street and Silicon Valley funders. It is quite clear from ITIF’s report on high-speed rail that, beneath the bellicose rhetoric and policies of the U.S.-led New Cold War on China, is a very real attempt to stymie the progress of alternative economic arrangements to neoliberalism on the world stage.