[…] Measured by total assets, the four biggest banks in the world are Chinese. Shanghai has overtaken Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore to become the most important financial hub of the Asian region. China has outflanked bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to become the largest global creditor backed by its own currency swap measures, gold holdings, a cross-border payment system (CIPS), a state-backed digital currency and new financial services institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China is also spearheading the global rebellion against a world financial system defined by the US dollar and its rentier finance capitalist economy; in mid-2023, for the first time, the RMB topped the US dollar in China’s cross-border transactions. […]
Not to be overlooked is a fact of sobering importance: the People’s Liberation Army and its strategy of what I have elsewhere called the yīn-yáng doctrine of ‘militarised peace’. The PLA is now the globe’s largest standing army, with two million troops backed by an expanding nuclear arsenal, more submarines than any other power, and sophisticated military hardware. The PLA is heavily involved in UN peacekeeping operations. In Libya, Yemen and the Sudan, it has practised the difficult arts of military evacuation of its citizens from conflict zones. Its hand has been strengthened by China’s internal colonisation of Tibet and Xinjiang and its settlement of disputes with neighbouring states, including India.
The PLA militarised peace strategy is backed by a military-industrial-aerospace complex featuring mega-companies sporting trade names such as China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO) and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). It is reinforced by space power aspirations, a heavy reliance on smart diplomacy, and a commitment to a new and formidable model of warfare that presupposes, runs the Chinese saying, that melons forced from the vine don’t taste sweet. Success in war, runs this way of thinking, demands self-control, forbearance, and the ability and willingness to wait (wuwei: non-action). Only fools rush into war. Wars are won, or avoided, by outfoxing opponents, wearing down or frightening enemies without firing a single shot. Läs artikel