May Newsletter
Eid Mubarak to all those observing!
In the U.S., Sinophobia emerges as the legislative leverage galvanizing national “progress.” Biden’s new American Jobs Plan, unveiled on March 31st, may seem like a much needed relief for public good, but its promise of rejuvenation is premised on a palpable anxiety and hawkish orientation toward China. Describing itself as “an investment in America that will...position the United States to out-compete China,” the American Jobs Plan makes clear that the $769 billion budget it proposes for public research and development is aimed at ensuring the U.S.’s competitive edge above what it recognizes as China’s enormous investments in public infrastructure and R&D.
Complementing the defensive posture of the American Jobs Plan is Biden’s April 9th request for Fiscal Year 2022 discretionary spending, which includes a much-discussed $715 billion to the Department of Defense under the prominent heading “Deter China.” Above the more pressing global challenges of climate change and vaccine rollout, the defense budget emphasizes “the need to counter the threat from China as the Department’s top challenge,” while discretionary spending requests for the State Department emphatically professes a desire to “reassert American leadership” to counter “malign influence from China, Russian, and other authoritarian states.” Meanwhile, on April 8th, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released what committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez describes as “a new comprehensive China legislation” entitled the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021.” At just under 300 pages, the Act adds more sanctions against Chinese officials who don’t tow the Washington line on Xinjiang, requests publication an ”intellectual property violators list” targeted at Chinese-owned firms and expands the authority of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to scrutinize foreign capital to influence or access U.S. businesses and technology.
If the U.S.’s Cold War rivalry with the Communist Bloc incentivized the Democratic elite to assent to grassroots protests for civil rights reform, the U.S.-instigated rivalry with China today proves an equally effective incentive for Democratic and Republican elites alike to envision infrastructural renewal amid heightened domestic strife and continuing economic downturn. As if to prove that the U.S. ruling class can scarcely imagine national investment without invoking China as the bogeyman, the press release of the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021” boasts itself as the “first major proposal to bring Democrats and Republicans together in laying out a strategic approach towards Beijing—and assuring that the United States is positioned to complete with China across all dimensions of national and international power for decades to come.”
Read more: Anti-China Hysteria Drives Record 2021 U.S. Defense Spending
Across the world U.S. imperialism sinks its teeth. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken revived the G7 (EU, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States) call to protect U.S. hegemony and take an aggressive stance on China under the guide of protecting a “rules based order.” It begs the question: whose rules based order? The U.S.’s quiet assent to Japan’s plans to release nuclear-contaminated waste water from Fukushima into the Pacific, amidst criticism from Korea, China, Fiji, and beyond speaks to who this “rules based” system truly works for.
After unleashing sanctions against four Chinese officials, the European Commission has suspended efforts to ratify the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China. Though the agreement, which has been in negotiations since 2013, promised much-needed access to the Chinese market for the EU’s faltering economy, the European Parliament’s rigid adherence to the U.S. imperial party line promises no end in sight for this multilateral deal. Now, greedy European eyes once again look toward India as a potential client state, fanning inter-continental tension within Asia.
Read more: Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation
In the Pacific, the Australian government has been hysterically beating the U.S. war drum against China. In an April 15th keynote delivered to India’s premier geopolitical conference, the Raisina Dialogue, Australian Prime Minister Morrison stated that Australia was seeking to build “a strategic balance that favors freedom”—a scarcely coded call to arms in support of sustained U.S. hegemony. Against this backdrop of heightened tensions, Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo penned an essay for Murdoch media suggesting Australia may “send off, yet again, our warriors to fight the nation’s wars,” heavily insinuating Taiwan as the most likely next flashpoint.
Roundup of our latest
As rich nations stockpile COVID-19 vaccines, China is providing a lifeline to Global South nations spurned by Western pharmaceuticals and excluded by the West’s neocolonial vaccine nationalism. In our latest analysis, Qiao interrogates spurious accusations of Chinese vaccine opportunism, taking a deep dive into the U.S.’s medical neocolonialism, including the highly-politicized military alliances shaping its vaccine distribution.
The vaccine policies forwarded by China versus the U.S. and its allies serves as a microcosm for two very different worldviews: where China has insisted on global solidarity to defeat the pandemic, the Western world has refused to ease the pressures of its neocolonial regime. While China supports bids for vaccine equity in the WTO and UN, the Global North is bolstering vaccine apartheid for the sake of corporate profits. These differences alone ought to be enough to put to rest vacuous assertions that render U.S.-China conflict as a matter of “competing imperialisms.”
Reflecting on the spur of anti-Asian racism this past year, Chinese Canadian writer Xin interrogates the renewed enthusiasm for representational politics in North American discourse. This deceptive liberal schema, she argues, stakes Asian American political recognition upon the creation of a diasporic native informant class designed to propel U.S. empire’s denunciation of Asian socialism.
Read more: Check out our translations!
In Other News
Excerpts from Dongsheng Collective
US pharmaceutical firms oppose overriding patents for mRNA vaccines, fearing Russia and China may develop new treatments
Under national and international pressure, White House considers temporary waiver of IP rights – backed by 60 countries – but Big Pharma warns that Russia and China could develop other vaccines and cancer and heart treatments
China shifts from oil to minerals, investing US $5.6 billion (2019) in Democratic Republic of Congo, world's leading cobalt producer
Beijing pledged US $28 million write-off of loans (US $2.7 billion, 2000-19) and pandemic financial relief (US $17 million) to DRC, where Chinese mining activities are deemed minor compared with “giants of Western countries”
South China Morning Post, 25.04.2021
Government announces medical insurance reform, covering over 300 million urban workers, to better protect elderly and vulnerable groups
2% of workers’ salary remains in personal funds (around $130 billion in 2019, 40% of total), while employers’ contributions (4-10% of salary) will go entirely to large community funds for public use, addressing healthcare demands
Sixth Tone, 23.04.2021
Caixin Global, 21.09.2020
Foreign direct investment in China (US $46.38 billion) surges 39.9% year-on-year in Q1, with 10,263 new enterprises
Investment grew in the less developed Western Region (+91%), services (+51.5%) totalling US $36.6 billion and high tech (+32.1%); ASEAN is largest investor (+60%) and China narrows list of restricted industries to 33 (-17.5%)
China Briefing, 21.04.2021
Chinese IPOs raised a record US $11 billion on US stock markets, surging 440% this year, despite delisting threat
Though NYSE delisted three state-run telecoms and Washington's law to delist companies refusing audits, Chinese companies still drawn to US capital markets, offering higher valuations and price-to-earnings ratio (100x for US-listed Chinese firms) versus domestic market (19x)
Financial Times, 26.04.2021
Regulators issue new rules for live-streaming e-commerce industry (US $154 billion), scrutinizing fake products, falsified sales figures and fraudulent behaviors
Starting May 25, live streamers will be required to authenticate their identities and meet age requirement (>16); platforms will need to hire moderators to ensure safety of content
South China Morning Post, 24.04.2021
Increased meat demand generates record imports of soybeans and corn (100 and 11.3 million tons, respectively), threatening Chinese food security
Ministry of Agriculture recommends diversification of animal feed (with rice, sorghum, canola, etc.) and development of domestic breeds (95% of the pigs are of foreign origin); China depends largely on US and Europe
South China Morning Post, 27.04.2021
Chinese take five-day holiday for International Workers' Day, first declared a national day by the newly-formed PRC in 1949
On 1 May 1950, 200,000 workers, peasants, soldiers and students celebrated May Day with Czech, North Korean, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Indonesian delegates in Beijing
That's Mag, 29.04.2021
China Pictorial, 25.04.2017
What We’re Watching/Reading/Listening
Cultural excerpts keeping us sane
Longform
“In Quest of a Multi-Polar World.” Writer and economist Michael Hudson (Super Imperialism: Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance) engages in a deep debriefer of U.S. financial warfare, joined by Brazilian reporter Pepe Escobar. Arguing that the world witnesses a new kind of imperialism, Hudson frames U.S. hegemony as the ideological triumph of a “financial system run by finance,” against predominantly Global South formations of “econom[ies] run by governments.”
Angela Qian’s beautiful piece in The Guardian ventures out of the usual anti-China terrain of diaspora writing, delivering a quietly profound meditation on her family’s history through the last sixty years of Chinese Socialism.
Hao Jingfang’s short story “Folding Beijing” had us reeling with its imaginative rendering of a capital city spatially and temporally fractured by class. Its evocation of class struggle (and decidedly proletarian ethics) is a central tenet of socialist SF, and we can’t wait to read more from this talented writer!
Television
Awakening Age. A popularized depiction of the turbulent years from 1915 to 1921, Awakening Age retells the events leading up to the founding of the Communist Party of China, centering on Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, the co-founders of the CPC. With its powerful storytelling of the Party’s earliest figures and martyrs, Awakening Age has proven a hit for China’s youth, an apt addition to the commemorations of the Party’s centennial.
Beyond the Mountain. In this breathtaking documentary, Director Ryo Takeuchi (Long Time No See, Wuhan) visits Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, going deep into the mountains to interview residents and cadres involved in the national poverty alleviation scheme. Included: gorgeous views, public housing, soccer, Yi embroidery! We shed a tear.
Podcast
Mikaela Nhondo Erskog speaks brilliantly on the Black Myths Podcast, addressing myths of China’s “colonization” of Africa. Part 1 and Part 2 available now!
Events
YELLOW PERIL / RED SCARE, featuring Amanda Yee, Xiangyu, Danny Haiphong, Sheila Xiao, Carl Zha & Qiao Collective!
ANTICONQUISTA x Qiao Collective x Geopolitical Economy Research Group (GERG) lecture: “Chinese solidarity with Latin America”