On Geoeconomics and Geopolitics #9
Big Farms poor farmers Rich Corporations poor workers Climate Changes and China's energy strategies
Suite of my postings as scripted in various websites during the week; and an exploration of some referenced articles.
1] LABOUR DAY with a reflection from Progressive International honouring the historical workers’ movement.
2] Not forgetting the INDONESIAN WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS who are often exploited, deceived and neglected not only by their employers but also by their recruitment agencies.
3] Where such Foreign Labour (Part II) cases are also happening in Malaysia where the recruitment processes have their procedural problems as documented by the World Bank in 2016:
4] In a CHINA ENERGY MIX STRATEGY, Xue Li (薛力) - Professor, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) offers a rationalised argument in China's objectives for “energy self-sufficiency” that implies achieving a “diversified, stable and reasonably priced” supply of energy so as to ensure China’s “sustained economic development”.
The full English-translated text was posted and archived HERE.
Just as China’s businesses are cautioned that DE-GLOBALISATION IS HERE TO STAY by Yan Xuetong (阎学通), Director of the Institute of International Relations, Tsinghua University.
His primary observation is that US-China relations are in a worse state today than they were in 1978 before diplomatic relations were established.
5] Big Agribusiness small farmers
Where the four Big Agribusiness conglomerates - the ABCD conglomerates of Archer-Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus are controlling the distribution of grain stock in the world, one needs to ask what has to be executed in eradicating Big Farms’ of ownership and control 90% of the world’s grain trade:
MILLIONS GO HUNGRY as they continue profiteering at the expense of the planet.
It's the iota of financialisation capitalism that engenders such monstrous misfits creating the pandemic of poverty poors in the GLOBALISATION OF AGRIBUSINESS
With adherence to the neo-colonial praxis in financial corporatisation of large agribusiness plantations catering to metropolitan countries commercial needs, a country like Malaysia has had neglected her domestic food security concern, too. The country imports almost 100% of grain corn or two million tonnes annually from Argentina, Brazil and the US.
On another instance, soy has become one of the world’s most important agro-industrial commodities – serving as the nexus for the production of food, animal feed, fuel and hundreds of industrial products – and South America has become its leading production region. However, the soy boom on this continent entangles transnational capital and commodity flows and disrupted social relations deeply in contested ecologies and economies, see The Journal of Peasant Studies : Soy Production in South America: Globalization and New Agroindustrial Landscapes and John Wilkinson, The Globalization of Agribusiness and Developing World Food Systems, Monthly Review, Sep 01, 2009.
Most of the new soy crops are located in savanna and dry forest regions – the Cerrado in Brazil and the Gran Chaco in Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. However, some new croplands have eaten into rainforests. For instance, soybean fields in the Brazilian Amazon increased more than tenfold over the two decades. About 32 percent of the new fields were planted among primary tropical rainforests, often in areas that had first been cleared for cattle pastures,(nasa.gov).
6] BRIICSS and De-Dollarisation
By 2022, the dollar share of reserve currencies slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades as the De-Dollarization process begins kicking into high gear, (Pepe Escobar, April 27 2023).
BRICS is already more relevant to the global economy than the G7. Latest IMF figures are that the BRICS nations will contribute 32.1 percent to global growth, compared to the G7’s 29.9 percent.
The share of global trade invoiced in US dollars has declined from its peak in 2014 and the global share of foreign exchange reserves held in dollars has fallen to a three-decade low (Arslanalp et al (2022)).
Incoming BRIICSS would encompass Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose historic reconciliation was brokered by China.
7] China modern developmental approach is different as John Ross conversed with Ileana Chan:
and, China relationship with developing countries are unlike those western colonial settlement practices of the past imperial era.
Even at present, the collateral damage from capitalism is immense: in Latin America and much of sub-Saharan Africa, the quantity of food that could be purchased with an unskilled labourer’s wage declined markedly, reaching levels lower than in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It is also an era when the U.S administration is pursuing a suite of policies to reduce the entanglement of the U.S. and China’s economies— a goal variously referred to as derisking, decoupling, and reshoring. These measures include subsidies to relocate manufacturing as well as energy and transportation infrastructure and rules to reduce investments in China. However, the broader strategy comes into view where Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gave a speech to clarify terms of the new rivalry with China and set boundaries for it.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan took the view further on the death of neoliberalism with a new Washington consensus in Renewing American Economic Leadership which is no more than proposals for reducing U.S. economic dependence on China and constraining that nation’s economic development, (intelligencer 3/5/2023).
As John Ross had indicated profoundly, that it's no more than the U.S. is trying to persuade China to commit suicide.
Already, 29 percent of world economy is now under US, EU or UN sanctions and this has tremendous negative economic, social and public health impact; view the powerful dataset from Francisco Rodríguez CEPR.
8] America’s current techno-economic decoupling drive on China (read, on the other hand, CHINA AND WASHINGTON, 15/02/2023) - concurrent with using cyberweapons in global espionage (and China’s expanding DRONE surveillance and strike capabilty) would likely lead to an imminent Asia-Pacific war.
Reminding from history that the creation of NATO and the ‘containment’ of China spring from the same imperial roots.
According to Tim Beal, it seems that the game plan for Taiwan is an Air/Sea battle where Taiwan is the tethered goat, and the US with Japan the initial combatants, with South Korea, Australia perhaps Europe to follow.
[ Australia may be at a distance but, having ceded sovereignty, it is a front-line state. ]
"We are being seduced into war again by the US, this time over Taiwan” as expressed by John Menadue.
9] MOMENTUM - collection of events in Malaysia and geopolitico-economic situatons emerging in the Asia-Pacific basin, and around the world; edition #145
10] A collation of breaking news items are curated in the FRIDAY FILES 5/05/2023.
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