Anna Chen – 13 December 2024, Trump on China
The Shanghai skyline at night
US Allies Learn A FAFO Lesson In Geopolitics
This article might contain chickens – and not just our leaders
The list of nations who did US bidding and are now in trouble looks alarming.
Who’d have thought that ganging up on China, our global lifeboat and growth engine that hasn’t had a war in over four decades, would have consequences? It’s almost as if there’s a cosmic rule we might term “FAFO” — F**K around and Find Out. A matched pair with “Honi soit qui mal y pense” — evil to those who evil think — going to the dark side is proving costly.
And this time, China might not save us the way it did after America’s 2008 Great Financial Crash. So play nice.
Karma’s Naughty Step Round-Up: The Master Race
USA: Joker’s in the White House once more, this time bringing all his friends. Not only won’t the mighty US be immune from polio if the quacks get their way, it won’t be immune from any recession created by Donald Trump’s coming tariff binge either. China’s trade and tech ascendence looks inexorable no matter what the fading hegemon throws at it.
With self-reliance now an existential imperative, China finally responded to years of a one-sided protectionist trade war with a $690 Billion cut to US imports, ending America’s privileged role as a key supplier. US agriculture is already reeling from the self-inflicted gut punch, losing its biggest buyer of soybeans — down to 18 percent this year and falling. Other industries are following suit.
Cry for the US people but not for its elites who are doing fine, thank you.
GERMANY: From cock of the Euro roost in one of the three dominant global blocs to chicken dinner not a winner. Chancellor Olaf Scholz swerved Germany from its prosperous China trade trajectory to aiding the rival US bloc in NATO’s war in Europe.
Not one inch eastwards, keep Ukraine neutral and don’t get involved with the 2014 coup: that’s all you had to do. Instead, replacing cheap Russian gas with America’s expensive LNG has wrecked Germany’s industry. And now you’re sailing warships through one-China’s Taiwan Strait?
War ‘n’ poverty, huh!, who is it good for? Absolutely no-one. The electorate knows this, lost confidence in Scholz and is about to punish him at the ballot box.
FRANCE: Similarly with President Emmanuel Macron, whose newly-appointed Prime Minister Michel Barnier has been ousted in a vote of no confidence, replaced by Francois Bayrou. Wants to continue EU tariffs on China where Scholz saw the light but too late to stave off disaster. A tough guy Sophie’s choice – who to please? Macron promises to continue war against Russia if Trump commits coitus interruptus and pulls out, but can the French afford it?
CANADA: Justin Trudeau’s constant stream of China invective can only ingratiate and deflect from Canada’s dire economy for so long, especially now that the “friendly” US is about to rack up trade tariffs on its neighbour to the north. Trump actually told him: 25 percent tariffs or become America’s 51st state. “Governor” Trudeau’s limp trade tariff retaliation and Ontario energy threat against the 300 pound bully is fooling no-one. One of America’s Viking war party. Another white settler nation that climbed aboard the USS Titanic to its own detriment.
AUSTRALIA: After the UK’s spectacular Brexit self-harm, the next US ally to reverse its own fortunes was Australia. This is, after all, the home of the boomerang. Perfectly placed to prosper from its Asia locale, Oz folded like origami under pressure from that other, bigger white settler colony that wiped out its native peoples. Right on cue in April 2020, ministers Peter Dutton and Marise Payne blamed China for Covid. China. Their biggest trading partner buying a third of their produce and putting two jet-skis and multiple cars in every Australian driveway when the global economy was melting down in the US Great Crash. That China.
Never mind, the trade was picked up by the US whose farmers were delighted to have a huge new market vacated by Oz. AUKUS is a similarly painful stitch-up costing billions and making them a target in any proxy war America might have out East.
UNITED KINGDOM: Now fully morphed into US Airstrip One. May enter recession soon. A tiny island excrescence off the arse end of the Eurasia landmass from which we could have prospered had we not done the dirty and splintered the EU bloc in service to the US. It is the monkey most likely to be used to teach the other monkeys a lesson.
Farewell, post-war liberal order. Hello, Oligarchy.
Karma’s Naughty Step Round-Up: Pacific Rimmers
SOUTH KOREA: President Yoon Suk-yeol makes Dracula’s Renfield look like a model of independence and rectitude. Yoon crooned embarrassingly to American Pie for Joe Biden in the White House, literally and figuratively. His constant drone of anti-China drivel may have pleased his masters, but he over-reached when he attempted a coup back home and declared martial law.
The US didn’t leap to his aid, quelle surprise. Horrified mass protests not seen in the country for decades put him back in his box within a few days. Under threat of impeachment he suddenly blames China for his actions. Kids, do not grow up to be like this.
JAPAN: Occupied by America since the end of the Second World War, and stagnating since the 1980s Plaza Accord hobbled its economy, Japan is in no position to buck orders. October’s snap election lost the ruling coalition its parliamentary majority. Shigeru Ishiba, Prime Minister since October, is not having an easy time.
PHILIPPINES: In 2022, the young country elected Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son of the famed kleptocrats with all the shoes, gallon bottles of Chanel and bullet-proof bras financed by America. After the US cooled off collecting the $3.9 billion tax owed on his late father’s plundered funds since he took office, Bongbong undid the stable relations with the regional superpower and pinned a target on the island nation by extending it as a US base. A growing economy that could easily be curtailed by war.
Chief talent: stirring conflict in the South China Sea. The US is not a member or upholder of UNCLOS.
Who’s Still Kissing The Ring?
So. NATO, under threat of defenestration by the incoming Trump administration, finds itself another project now that Ukraine is likely off the menu: getting that Viking raiding party together. Blaming China for its own messy losses to Russia, NATO has conveniently discovered China’s “strategic competitor” status from 2017 now that Donald Trump has been reelected and everyone knows what he wants.
Oh no, says a face-palming Mark Rutte. We picked a fight with a sleeping dragon that can build munitions faster and better than we ever dreamed. Better kick it some more.
Don’t say: What’s China got to do with the North Atlantic?
Do say: Give us more impossible tasks to perform. Where do I kiss?
When China Was Our Global Lifeboat
It’s amazing to remember that only eight or so years ago the world was enjoying relative stability as China’s productive economies of scale kept inflation near zero; there were few flashpoints, and the global south was headed economically north. The Great Crash was over, thanks to China’s intervention. Wall Street was happy. We were all friends.
However, America’s best days were over. The Crash had exposed its weaknesses and, although China saved it, no good deed goes unpunished when you are supposed to be king of the heap. Seeing America’s green-eyed monster squaring up to the dragon, the IMF’s Christine Lagarde pointed out we were at last emerging from the USA’s Great Financial Crash of 2008 in sync, so don’t f**k it up!
Did they listen? Heck, President Trump doubled down on Obama’s Pivot to Asia and began his mobster move on the rising superpower, threatening to turn the Golden Goose into a dead duck.
When Trump’s trade war failed to bring China to its knees, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) backed riots in Hong Kong. The protest leaders were treated like movie stars in Washington and mentored by the old imperialists. Nancy and Joshua in a tree. K. I. S. S. I. N. G.
Hong Kong’s last colonial governor and BBC Trust chair, Chris Patten, even wrote the foreword to their figurehead’s manifesto because Chris wants his Empire back and no steenkin’ Joint Declaration signed by Britain and China is gonna stop him. Even though the last six words of the pertinent clause promises Hong Kong will enjoy full autonomy, “except in Foreign and Defence Affairs“. Six little words that are always left out. Funny that.
China exercised its right to a National Security law in Hong Kong, just like everyone else in the world, and drew the former Opium Wars colony into the bosom of the motherland.
Under the West’s relentless pressure, China’s growth plummeted … to 5 percent. And it still outstripped the covetous band of declining nations now lining up to pillage the rising superpower like a bunch of Dark Age Berserkers drunk on bull’s blood, testosterone and memories of when they were the Master Race.
(EDIT: And don’t even get me started on Covid …)
