A collection of my blogs and articles posted across various websites during the week, and selective articles referred.
1] Vijay Prashad of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, with the editors of Wenhua Zongheng, have initiated a quarterly international edition of 文化纵横 with the theme ON THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW INTERNATIONALORDER.
The contributors include Yang Ping (editor of Wenhua Zongheng), Yao Zhongqiu (professor at the School of International Studies and dean of the Centre for Historical Political Studies, Renmin University of China), and Cheng Yawen (dean of the Department of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Shanghai International Studies University) - covering China’s role in the developing world, like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and political dimension such as China’s attempt to restart a peace process in Ukraine.
2] Hearings by the US Congress on the video-sharing app TikTok in a summary:
US concerns that TikTok may pose a threat to its national security are, of course, dismissed with the company being compared to “an innocent man whose talent has aroused the envy of others”.
The US’s crackdown on TikTok is said to be a case of “treating the symptoms but not the root cause” and the result of the politicisation of America’s tech and industrial policies.
It is seen as a symbol of Washington’s quest for cyber “dominance and leadership” in the world and its desire to constrain China in this field.
The TikTok affair is depicted as particularly worrying and as potentially auguring further TikTok-like crackdowns – a trend that would also exacerbate an already fragmented internet.
by Li Yan (李艳) an Executive director of the Institute of Sci-Tech and Cyber Security Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).
For a nationalistic commentary, see Tian Feilong’s opinion piece (in chinese for Guancha.cn), entitled “Xiang Zhuang’s Sword Dance: What is he after? — The Prismatic Effect of the TikTok Incident”.
One must read also Liberatioñ on U.S. tech war on China when on March 23, CEO of TikTok Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee though TikTok is a subsidiary of ByteDance, Chew has maintained the company has never shared user-data with the Chinese government, and would refuse if pressed to do so.
However, the Congressional hearings “amounted to nothing more than racist political theater, a McCarthyite witch trial, in which members of Congress who demonstrated little understanding of basic social media algorithms” knowledge at all.
3] Intan Suwandi's Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism - the Indonesian version as reviewed by Sawyer Martin French is archived HEREIN.
Suwandi menegaskan bahwa pergeseran industri ke Selatan justrumerupakan hasil dari strategi kelas kapitalis global yang sengaja memindahkan produksinya ke negara-negara di mana tenaga kerja dapat diupahi dengan serendah-rendahnya (tanpa penurunan produktivitas secara drastis). Strategi ini ia sebut sebagai “global labor arbitrage” atau taktik untuk memanfaatkan ketimpangan struktural dalam ekonomi global dengan menggantikan tenaga kerja yang mahal (di negara-negara Utara) dengan yang murah (di negara-negara Selatan). Standar upah yang rendah di dunia Selatan memungkinkan perusahaan multinasional untuk meningkatkan eksploitasi buruh—yang pada saat yang sama, juga semakin meningkatkan keuntungan atau penyerapan “nilai lebih” bagi perusahaan.
As an Indonesian marxist, Suwandi has won praise for this work on uncovering the exploitation of labour and the downtrodden class in the Global South.
She was the Winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy—Paul A. Baran Memorial Award for original work regarding the political economy of imperialism.
Cik Suwandi's deft handling of global labour arbitrage and unequal exchanges between transnational corporations and Global South countries are distinctively well explored in Monthly Review.
Global commodity chains are whereby global value chains (GVCs) in the different stages of the production process are located transborder across different countries to exploit variety of resources and differentiation in processes. These may cover design, production, marketing, distribution, and post-sales support of a product or service to the final consumers’ needs.
Parts and sub-component in the making a biscycle, and its global value contributions from the GVCs process.
4] Last week, and a week ago, there were commentaries and analyses on the Saudi-Iran mediation event. This rappochment is not something new, but a continuing historical trend.
The subject of Saudi-Iranian détente has, lately, attracted much attention. Many policy experts, however, had rarely analyzed their earlier dating rapprochements, why each friendly period in nearly 100 years of their diplomatic history lasted for so long, and when and why things changed. The article addresses this lacuna.
China’s role in restoring Saudi-Iran ties may well be the harbinger of a new dawn in West Asia and a new era in international relations, according to Chandra Muzaffa.
On the other side of a pond, the US-Australia defence alliance has put Australia out of synch with South-East Asia; read Murray Hunter's From deputy sheriff to lone ranger: The loneliness of the US alliance.
Meanwhile, according to UTS The Australia-China Relations March 2023 summary and analysis, the Australia-PRC relationship appears to remain on the path to stabilisation, Canberra no doubt remains uneasy as – among other continuing difficulties with Beijing – US-PRC relations continue to devolve.
President Xi Jinping in a speech on March 6 asserted, ‘Western countries — led by the US — have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development.’
PRC Foreign Minister Qin in his first press conference since assuming the role said that if the US ‘does not hit the brake but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.’
And in the wake of a paper on ‘US hegemony and its perils’ last month, the PRC Foreign Ministry on March 20 published another critical paper ‘The state of democracy in the United States: 2022’ with sections with titles such as ‘American democracy in chronic ills’ and ‘The United States’ imposition of ‘democracy’ has caused chaos around the world’.
5] Neoimperialism still pervades in many of the emerging economies in the Global South as neoliberal economic policies entangled them and strangled their progressive growth path.
It's the FINANCIALISATION OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM that aggravates the development of a nation.
In the case of Malaysia, from a colonial economy to a neo-colonial dominated economic development, the country developmental performance is worsened by the circuitry of capitalism - even more so during a pandemic - as activities facilitated by the GLCs and local compradore capital, especially by the ethnocapital clientel-rentiers as the intermediary agencies colluding to conclude odious transactions with monopoly-capital of the Global North.
6] The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor is the high plain on spatial economic development for an emerging economy by China - which, in a wave of infrastructure projects - uplifts many Global South countries in Asia and Africa developmental efforts; this is well explored by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, assistant professor at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies at Quaid-i-Azam University, in Islamabad.
© csloh
CPEC will not only benefit China and Pakistan, but will have positive impact on Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Central Asia. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is a journey towards economic regionalization in the globalized world founded on a win-win model for everyone.
In the case of Malaysia, with a debt level approaching RM$1.5 trillion, the country cannot afford big BRI infrastructure projects funded by massive borrowing from China. On his recent trip to China, premier Anwar had call for a “reinvigoration” to shift the BRI framework from loans to direct investments, Dennis Ignatius.
On China's geoeconomic strategy, read chi-sigma Economic Connectivity in Geoeconomics
7] The week's outlook in the Asia-Pacific region and around The World is amalgamated in MOMENTUM edition #141, and some collated, but belated, news in FRIDAY FILES.
DO have a nice weekend browsing through content links, READ the material contents therein or kindly DISTRIBUTE this digest freely to your peers, diaspora communities and in the respective Element FB Instagram Signal Telegram WeChat WhatsApp groups.
edited while trucking along northern Pakistan outtracks.
© csloh