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Chinese and American flags
So, China has slapped draconian export controls not just on rare earths, but on all technology related to rare earths. If you want rare earths you have to beg for permission and certify it won’t be used for anything military or anything technologically related. If you want the rare earths or tech to catch up, you can’t have them. (Like when the US banned advanced lithography machines.)
As an extra fillip, China has also announced that all American ships must pay port fees. (This is symbolic, few ships are flagged American.)
The writing was on the wall for this when China, just recently, told all domestic firms to not buy Western chips. That mean that they had enough of the chip technology stack that they felt they were immune to counter-sanctions.
And now the whoop-ass.
You can thank Trump for this. His chip and Huawei sanctions taught the Chinese they had to control their entire own tech stack. Before that they preferred American, Korean and Taiwanese chips. No big Chinese company would buy Chinese crap chips. If the US hadn’t decided on its moronic trade war, China would have allowed it to gracefully age out of its Empire, letting it keep some areas of technological superiority.
As usual, the Chinese played this ice cold. They took their lumps, they devalued the yuan, they made concessions. When Biden came in, he doubled down so they realized it wasn’t just a democratic hiccup, but core policy agreed to by both parties. Then Trump came in and went on his insane tariff blitz. Worked against his vassals, but China doesn’t have to take America’s crap any more and it isn’t.
Now, as the kids like to say, having fucked around, America and the West are about to “find out.” Revenge served ice fucking cold.
I want to be really clear on a couple things here.
First, China is not going to leave the US or the West anything meaningful in terms of tech lead. They are going to take the tech lead, with the industry to back it up, in essentially everything (they’re already in the lead in at least 80% of areas, so don’t kid yourself about the rest.) And they are going to break the US’s hold on the Americas too. By the time China is done with America, they’ll be lucky to still have have Mexico and Canada as vassals (which is why they might invade and is why the US is threatening Venezuela before it gets a full suite of Chinese and Russian weapons.)
Second: if you are in charge of any country in the world that is an American vassal and you have an IQ above 90 and the smallest amount of interest in the future of your country, your job right now is to transfer your allegiance to China and get the best deal you can in exchange. The longer you wait, the worse the deal will be.
I do mean everyone: Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea.
Everyone.
Get out, now. The US has already lost the war, and while there may be a lot of screaming and even a shooting war (without rare earths, the US needs to fight a war in the next two years, or wait tent years as it rebuilds its military stack) it’s over. Just like Japan had already lost even before Pearl Harbor (and that sort of attack is the danger now.)
China is going to run the world for the next forty to sixty years, minimum, barring ecological collapse. It has zero love for the old hegemons. The US, the Anglo countries and the Euros will not be treated kindly out of some feeling of kinship or because they are needed, neither is true. Only Australia and Canada have something to offer the Chinese might want. Everyone else is just wasting assets.
Besides, the Americans are bastards. Right now they aren’t offering anything but “stay our vassal and let us loot you.” Pull out your knife and your pen. Sign an agreement with the Chinese, and drive a knife right between America’s shoulder blades.
I’d say “they do it to you” but they’re natural born bullies and you’re already on your knees begging them not to hurt you more. (EU, I am especially looking at you. To say you have the dignity of slaves would be to malign slaves, who at least have no choice.)
America’s done. All statesmanship for the next fifteen years will be about handling the fallout. If the West had any statesmen, even one, that might be good news.
Jefferson Hamilton
“bar[r]ing ecological collapse”
Well, then.
someofparts
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.
As to ecological collapse, if any of us survive it, I put my money on people who work together instead of predators and liars who drive everyone around them to ruin.
jump
I have thought for years that Canada should nudge closer to China, even Russia, economically. I just don’t know how it could be done without being invaded by the US (unless you had a defense agreement too but that is a long shot). There was a chance under Biden, but the Trump squad would just march in.
It would be somewhat better if Canada had not followed the US lead and pressure regarding Huawei and EVs. That was just useless pandering to the US that left Canada with a surplus of rapeseed and a pissed off China.
someofparts
jump –
From Ian’s post above – “the US is threatening Venezuela before it gets a full suite of Chinese and Russian weapons” Now look at the map and tell me Russia won’t be able to get weapons into Canada.
In fact, while we are looking at the map, I wouldn’t want to fight the Canadians even if they won’t have access to superior Asian weapons, which they will. Just look at their blinking land mass. Geographically, invading Canada would be as futile as invading Russia has always been.
And while I’m at it, look at the blood sacrifices Hezbollah and Hamas have paid for decades to secure a future for their people, the countless lives sacrificed for a sacred cause. Is there really no one, no one at all, in the US who would lay down their lives to rid ourselves of the fascists? If there isn’t then we really deserve to live like the rats we are.
KT Chong
“As an extra fillip, China has also announced that all American ships must pay port fees. (This is symbolic, few ships are flagged American.)”
This is not symbolic. This is long-term strategic thinking.
The US wants to rebuilding its shipbuilding industry. Currently, about 12-15% of the global trade is Chinese. The US is behind China and accounts for 10-12% of the global trade. China has 7 of the 10 of the world’s busiest ports. Most of the global shipping go through China at some points. China is the world’s biggest producers and exporters of most everything. It is also the world’s biggest market for agricultural, energy, minerals and many other products. What country (other than the US under Trump) and who the hell would send US ships to China to pick up or drop off goods and pay the port fees?
By imposing port fees on US ships, China basically prematurely terminates any attempt of the US to rebuild its shipbuilding industry. Trump’s “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” Executive Order, SHIPS act, and MARAD initiative are basically DOA.
That is brutal.
KT Chong
Also, China might have just stopped Trump from invading Venezuela and resuming the bombing and war of Iran.
No rare earths = no way for the US to produce weapons and resupply and sustain any war for more than a few months. This must factor into the calculus of Trump’s Department of War…
… and also into the motivations for China to cut off rare earths to the US just as the Trump administration is ramping up rhetoric against Venezuela and Iran, (i.e., there is rarely just “one” reason for China to do something. Most any China policy covers multiple angles.)
KT Chong
Trump seems to be really, really, angry at China for cutting off rare earths to the US and is going off on tirades against China on social media. People think it’s because Trump is upset for not winning the Nobel Peace Price; but IMO, it’s really because China’s rare earth move has checkmated and derailed Trump’s war plans for Venezuela and Iran. Without China’s rare earths, there is no way for the US to supply and sustain wars on three fronts: Venezuela, Iran, and Ukraine.
Quite Likely
Did the US really leave the British with nothing? Seems like they transitioned into being a normal prosperous modern country after their superpower era ended. Of course they’ve made some additional errors along the way but I’d hardly blame the US for Thatcher or Brexit.
KT Chong
“China is going to run the world for the next forty to sixty years, minimum…”
China goes by dynastic cycles. The CPC is really just another Chinese dynasty. The “major” dynasty in China typically lasted about 250 to 400 years, (e.g., Han: 206 BC–220 CE, Tang: 618–907 CE, Ming: 1368–1644 CE, Qing: 1644–1912,) with peaks of cultural, economic, and political dominance often spanning the middle 100–200 years.
If history repeats itself, the current dynasty of China will last for another 200-300 years. The CPC dynasty begun in 1949… that is not even 100 year old yet We are not in the “middle” of that 250-400 year cycle. The CPC is 76 years into its rule. It is still in the ascendant phase, not yet at the zenith and peak of its economic, geopolitical, and cultural influence. We won’t see the beginning of China’s new peak in another 30-40 years, and then it will go on for another 100-200 years (before it go into decline again, but none of us will live to see the decline.)
cc
@KT Chong, looking at it that way – if China’s export control move helps to starve the US-armed wars against Venezuela, Iran, and Russia (using the zombified Ukraine), and perhaps also helps curtail any resumption of the US-armed genocide of Palestinians – then perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize should really have gone to China.
(But of course in our Orwellian “rules-based order” Western world, the thoroughly-discredited Norwegian Nobel “Peace” prize is again given to yet another US-regime-change puppet.)
Ian Welsh
China probably won’t maintain hegemonic dominance that long, even if the CCP does hold on that long, and it’s not clear that it will have the same cycle as standard dynasties. I’d think 150 years max for dominance.
different clue
Hmmm . . . . .
Is this a sign of American decline?
” Trump Admin Sparks MAGA Fury With Qatari Air Force Base in US—’Betrayed’ ”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-sparks-maga-fury-with-qatari-air-force-base-in-us-betrayed-10862415
Well . . . Trump had to show sincere apology and “make-it-up-to-you” for Israel’s bombing of targets in Qatar. That may also be behind Trump’s recent push for Israel-on-Gaza ceasefire. The Emir may have told the TrumpAdmin, ” either get this done or no base for you.”
UphillBend
Concur with KT Chong on the effect it will have on shipping. Even bringing in products from Korea or Vietnam is often done by coordinating with, and finding spaces on, container ships that got loaded at a Chinese port first. The extra transit time from Vietnam to a US port is not just due to the greater distance between them but the extra trip the ship from China has to make to Vietnam before heading towards the US. Ocean traffic for merchandise is an intricate setup with China as the lynchpin.
I don’t know how this will effect US shipbuilding in terms of the US’s desire to revive its naval production. This is from the US Naval Institute in 2024.
“In terms of shipbuilding, however, China has 46.59 percent of the global market and is the largest builder, with South Korea second at 29.24 percent, and Japan third with 17.25 percent. The United States has a relative insignificant capacity at 0.13 percent.”
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/february/united-states-must-improve-its-shipbuilding-capacity
Aside from US lacklustre capacity it shows its two allies have the wherewithal to help bolster its dreams of a shiny new 300 vessel fleet in a couple of decades. But this will depend on Chinese pressures on Korea and Japan, its sanctions on various materials, and, last but not least, the US mishandling its relations with its two most important allies, along with Germany, in terms of advanced manufacturing prowess.
As for the longetivity of Chinese dynasties the standard view is 200 to 300 years. The Han dynasty is a special case but, in this case also, even traditional scholars note a disruption between the Former / Western Han and the Later / Eastern Han. Afterwards, from the glorious Tang, the refined Song, the stolid Ming, and to the two barbarian dynasties before and after the Ming, none were able to last so long.
(For history buffs note the weird synchronicity between Republican-Imperial Romes and the two Han periods. Note also the same between the romanticized Three Kingdoms period for China, 220–280 AD, and the Crisis of the Third Century for Rome, 235–284 AD, when both empires were split into three parts. )
This really casts more instructive light on the US rather than on China. The US is in many ways reminiscent of China with its founding sages, its geographical isolation, mercantile talent, egalitarian temper, and, as an ideal, meritocracy. We might be seeing something like a dynastic cycle underway in the US. It is to be devoutly hoped for that the interregnum will be one of those relatively painless transitions and not like the recent “Century of Humiliation”, much less the centuries-long horrors between the Han collapse and Sui-Tang revival.
David
Maureen McHugh wrote the excellent science fiction novel
“China Mountain Zhang” set in the 22nd Century where China is the world hegemon with the US as a vassal country. The US became what was called a “2nd world country” after not recovering from a second great depression, exasperated by debt and subsequent revolution.
Global warming was severe in this future, but civilization still survived. Mars became like Australia in the 19th century, a place where malcontents were exiled. Oh, the book was published in 1992. and was republished in 2020 with a new introduction. When I read it about 15 or so years ago, I had the vague feeling that something like this could be a possible future and events since then has only made it seem more prescient.
GrimJim
“Trump Admin Sparks MAGA Fury With Qatari Air Force Base in US—’Betrayed’ ”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-sparks-maga-fury-with-qatari-air-force-base-in-us-betrayed-10862415
The real reason? Because Qatari pilots will bomb US Democrat-run cities without question when even the Christofascists in the US Air Force might hesitate…
Look for more the positioning of foreign “allied” forces (i.e., Trump mercenaries) in the US in the near future…
different clue
@GrimJim,
That’s a very interesting “real reason”. If Trump or future Trumps gave Qatari airmen the order to bomb American cities, how would the non-Qatari US airmen respond to that?
If Trump or whomever ordered the US airmen to stand down and stay stood down in that scenario, would the US airmen obey that order?
Dan Kelly
‘Did the US really leave the British with nothing? Seems like they transitioned into being a normal prosperous modern country after their superpower era ended.’
They were a ‘modern welfare state’ from WWII until Thatcher began the dismantling that has ramped up over the years and is now on steroids.
Still a lot of wealth and power centered in London, much of it international.
GrimJim
different clue
“That’s a very interesting “real reason”. If Trump or future Trumps gave Qatari airmen the order to bomb American cities, how would the non-Qatari US airmen respond to that?
If Trump or whomever ordered the US airmen to stand down and stay stood down in that scenario, would the US airmen obey that order?”
Well, the Air Force was already riddled with Evangelical Christian Nationalists (plenty of reports to check online); I expect that this is just for back-up in case there are issue.
As for whether US airmen would stand down if so ordered; if they are not willing participants, under Trump’s purged Air Force, they will be likely to be imprisoned for not obeying orders.
Hegseth does not believe in the Geneva Conventions.
“In his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth referred to judge advocates general as “jagoffs,” and asked “should we follow the Geneva conventions … Aren’t we just better off in winning our wars according to our own rules?””
One of the first thongs he did was purge the JAG office.
He and Trump have no respect for law or the Constitution.
As long as he’s purged the Air Force of everyone but White Christian Nationalists, he should be able to order them to do just about anything to Democrat-run cities and be assured to compliance.
The Qataris are just there as a back-up plan.
We’ll know this is his plan if/when he starts dropping more foreign bases — air force, army, whatever — across the country.
Dan Kelly
What is China going to do about the United Nations?
They have remained within the UN system and continue to defer to it regularly on vital matters of international cooperation and dispute resolution among nations.
The UN system as currently strutured allows the US to veto every decent proposal put forward for the world. This remains integral to Palestine and to every other entity on earth that is subject to US wrath.
The UN headquarters is in New York City. This is where the Secretariat, General Assembly and all-important Security Council reside.
All the nations of the world still come to NYC to meet and vote on UN Security Council resolutions etc that have monumental impact on the nations and peoples of the world.
Is China – now the most powerful country in the world as Ian has outlined and as the US continues its inglorious plunge into second-world status – is China going to move or propose moving the UN headquarters to Beijing or somewhere in China?
When will China propose that the US lose its Security Council veto? I don’t believe it ever has proposed such a thing but I believe such a proposal is in order. I would imagine some time soon would be a good time to announce this.
What is the US going to do?
—
We know that there isn’t going to be some ‘basket of currencies’ because in the globalized complexified world within which we operate there has to be an ultimate ‘reserve currency’ or ‘bancor’ or single unit of account at the international level.
Neither BRICS nor the SCO are anywhere near developing a replacement for the dollar which still fulfills this necessary function.
https://caliber.az/en/post/sco-members-weigh-pros-and-cons-of-unified-currency-talks-ongoing
The only other national currency that could play this role is the renminbi but evidently China doesn’t want to run the massive deficits necessary in order for it to become the international unit of account.
There has to be an international unit of account. As the US continues its plunge the dollar will continue to be less and less trusted at what point…what?
Will the renminbi just sort of automatically slide into that role whether China likes it or not because there has to be something for everything else to be ‘measured against’ for lack of a better way of putting it.
Posaunist
Don’t forget that much of China’s rise is simply because of the greed of U.S. corporate leadership. Moving manufacturing overseas has always been a short-sighted money-grabbing maneuver. China would eventually have overtaken the U.S., but it could have at least been a real contest if U.S. leadership wanted. Or if there was real U.S. leadership at all.
Jemerd
Actually the new port fees are applied to the owners, all US entities are subject to these fees. So, that is not symbolic either
elkern
1. “US left Britain Nothing”: Seems to me that British Engineering remained on a par with US through WWII but declined rapidly post-war. As Ian has often pointed out, loss of Mfg meant loss of Eng prowess. Britain did manage to punch above its weight in cultural exports (Pop music, movies) a bit longer (Punk was their last shot?).
2. KT Chong: New fees for US-built ships at Chinese ports won’t have much effect. US Mfg will not be economically competitive any time soon, so any ships built in USA will be exclusively used for shipping between US ports (see: Jones Act).
3. KT Chong: At least some of the social/financial/etc factors that have tended to limit Dynastic longevity probably run at much higher speeds these days (speed of info, etc), so I wouldn’t take any bets on how long the CPC will last as a ‘Dynasty’. OTOH, I’d gladly bet a case of good Scotch that it /will/ be finite. OTOOH, I do not expect to live long enough to collect on such a bet…
Dan Kelly
On the port fees, they are not just for US-flagged vessels but for any foreign-owned ships that have over 25% US ownership.
US-flagged ships make about a whopping half a percent worldwide, a number that has actually increased slightly over the past few years.
This was the design of course as the ‘flags of convenience’ allows for all manner of chicanery.
Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands etc.
Adding the ships that are foreign-flagged but have at least some US ownership increases the percentage significantly though a quick dive shows the reporting on actual numbers seems rather variable.
Attempting to enforce closed ship registries as much as possible the world over would probably be good for most us. It’s certainly the more honest way. Haha.
KT Chong
An excellent analysis of the events that led up to China’s rare earth retaliation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PapWCUABYTo
“Small Town Voice” channel is generally an excellent geopolitical channel: https://www.youtube.com/@smalltownvoice1/videos
petergrfstrm
“China Is Going To Leave The US What America Left Britain: Nothing”
For historical completeness one might point to what Britain once did to the US.
From 1757 Benjamin Franklin, at the time a colonial, came to Britain and a group of likeminded British engineers developed the industrialisation of Britain.
When Franklin returned to the US it turned out Britain and their American associates (like the slave owner Thomas Jefferson) did not want the US to develop an industry. Jeffersom subscribed to Britains wishes that the US remain a Farmland. Britain, thanks to its industrialisation, could offer qualified jobs in that industry. The US wanted to have a similar development.
This circumstance was a significant motive behind breaking free from Britain.
What happened after WW2 Seems like Payback doesnt it?
Americans are ignorant about their own history. The British-controlled Pilgrim Society that invaded the US after Cecil Rhodes’ death instructed its american members to undereducate the american working force so they could lower the wages to Britains levels.
Ian Welsh
Sure, now think about what the West, including America, did to China.
At least with the US/Britain there was a shared ancestry and culture. With China/West there’s just a bunch of barbarians rubbing their face in the dirt for a century. They haven’t forgotten, and they haven’t forgiven.