The countries join the bloc as partners, with a lower status than full members, but with the possibility of participating in summits and thematic meetings

This isn't news, its literaly what was announced before and maintains all the previous criticism and skepticism. Its literaly "they're members but haha joke is on you but all they get is a hotel reservation for the next Putin party in Moscow" or some nonsense.

Sadly it seems nobody bothers reading and are clearly reacting to a different interpretation of what "joining BRICS" ought to look like which is not at all what is happening(yet if ever). Nothing changed since this was announced months ago, unless the quote here is wrong. What on god's earth is a thematic meeting rofl makes it sound as bad as the G7 shit lets talk about the climate while everyone flies in on a private jet.

Mutual respect with the devil and worst enemies of the global south and of socialism. Nausiating words.

Dengism continues to show its ugly dirty side. Shake hands with genocide Joe then welcome fucking Trump into the presidency. I only speak for myself but god the CPC can go fuck themselves with this BRICS "multipolarity" scam shit. Multipolarity is when you stand side by side with your enemy, welcome them, praise them. What a bunch of lies and reactionary betrayal of the working class. Trump is literaly a god damn fascist that doesn't even pretend to be anything else. There is no "neoliberal civility" loophole copium shit like with [insert random walking corpse US dem politician #16676].

The global south must stand alone, the message is and has always been clear. Chinese socialism is definitely not going to help us, heck it may even eventually become our enemies by proxy. This is what we get for having even the tiniest amount of hope.

I'll try to use US equivalents.

First PIX is a modern QR code style payment system created by the federal government. It became very popular to the point a lot of people are cashless now.

The second major point is every informal(freelancer, gig worker etc) and every small business also use this.

Given those two we have what actualy happened. The Brazilian government sent out a new document saying the Federal Police(FBI) and the tax agency(IRS) are now going to monitor every PIX transaction.

The moral outrage then is two videos(I wont link but you can google "Nikolas Ferreira Pix Instagram") that by now got a combined 150 million views where the far right guy successfuly created this fake news narrative saying this is the Lula government going after the poor, who have been struggling due to neoliberalism and small businessses by making it harder to dodge taxes. The fear is the "IRS" will put a tax on these transactions and hurt the poor/small business.

It is particularly effective for 3 reasons.

First because the person mixes this fake news narrative along with the real Lula neoliberal government hypocrisy, including instances where the government did lie and went back on a similar promise e.g the promise to not tax cheap imports under US$50 which they in fact did.

Second because he successfuly also mixes the natural inherent exploitation and class issues, its very successful at pointing out the rich politicians, big business owners, state owned business are corrupt and dodging taxes while the poor are still struggling to make ends meet so it is just plain evil for "Lula" to go after the poor now. Indeed its true Lula 3 did not bring any meaningful economic gains so far.

Third because one of the main criticism of this neoliberal shit government from the left is that Lula doesn't care about communicating with the population. The President could arrange a prime time national announcement on every TV, radio etc network, every week if he wanted to in order to communicate but he literaly doesn't do that ever. This is a special opportunity where it is necessary for the government to address the population and dispel this narrative. But he hasn't and he wont.

So in the end the government is only barely responding now after almost a whole week. As a result a single Bolsonaro fake news campaign managed to bring down the whole payment system and as a result PIX transactions are down 15% already so far in January.

As for the Zuckerberg thing, as I said, did you notice why it is so ironic? This PIX fake news campaign was an Instagram video.

Remember that some people were quick to lick Moraes(the judge) boots just because of that extremely brief spout with Elon Musk where twitter got "banned" except it literaly all went back to normal, all Musk had to do was pay some absurdly tiny comical fines, literaly a few million is what Elon makes within a day or two.

Some random government/federal judge will say anything again today but the key point is Brazil is completely dominated by American IT, Brazil is held hostage by these companies not the other way around it literaly doesn't matter what political theater they try to pull, money talks and these people are cheap. Brazil is not China, there is no local Brazilian google to fall back on.

I beg you please ignore most of the information by some posters here, I get the feeling there are literaly no other brazilians here these days.

The right wing in Brazil controls every part except the northeast and smaller parts of the southeast. This was 2022.

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https://noticias.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2022/analise/presidente-2-turno/mapa-mostra-quem-foi-mais-votado-nos-estados-e-municipios-no-2-turno/?uf=sp

As you can see the last vestiges of the brazilian left are concentrated in the North and Northeast regions. Keep in mind these regions have a much lower population density so it is somewhat misleading.

São Paulo is one of the biggest cities in the world and it was always divided between the suburbs and surrounding smaller cities being a somewhat leftist tendency and the metropolitan urban area being a right wing tendency.

This changed in the 2010s with the complete destruction of labour unions which were the massive source of the Worker Party's political base. Now the entire south east including these previously left wing cities have turned to the right.

Now as I've maintained earlier a few months ago, Lula will most likely not be reelected given the extremely neoliberal government and the massive right wing political shift across the country.

This was already true in 2022 and it got even worse after the last municipal elections a few months ago where they won literaly in 90% of the cities.

The Brazilian left got absolutely crushed winning barely 12% of the total mayoral elections.

You can check this interactive map too The left wing parties, with a huge caveat of "left" here being the usual extremely neoliberal left are only PT-PDT-PSB. Actualy somewhat sucdem left like PSOL continue to not elect literaly nobody and actual socialist parties like PCdoB and PCB have no political power.

It is absolutely pointless to talk about regional differences without this context. Please for the love of god ignore anyone who doesn't understand this.

To answer your question, Bolsonaro supporters live everywhere, regional stereotypes are not meaningful anymore.

Bolsonaro's strongholds are in the central states of Brazil and in the small towns in the southeast that tend to vote for conservative candidates. The left tends to do well in the northeast, the Amazonian states, Rio de Janeiro and Brazil's southernmost state.

Completely and utterly wrong, please double check your information about Brazil because I realy don't get where you get your information from these days, this is so completely wrong its harmful actualy. Please don't mischaracterize the situation.

Bolsonaro won in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in 2022 more state capitals than Lula, 16 vs 11, including some of the biggest wins in the state of 56.5% in Rio de Janeiro 55.5% and São Paulo.

Likewise the vote given the state capitals shows a massive bolsonaro victory accross the board.

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Lula only barely managed to win because of the northeast, thats it. The entire country is otherwise captured by the right wing already for years since 2016.

I do not know where you get your information about Brazil but Rio de Janeiro hasn't been a leftist state for for over 20 years after Brizola's death.

I don't get this, how would Bytedance selling Tiktok to one of America's big tech be a pro-China move?

Trump is winning this rethoric no matter what imo. If they sell he claims his idiotic big business guy brain shit "oh and I forced them to sell. See? Even the big Chinese business recognized they were no match for us" etc.

If they don't it gets banned anyway and China does something else to appease Trump anyway like they've been doing with Biden already.

The US doesn't need "narratives" when China is willing to do whatever it takes to be friendly.

These idiots can say this shit all they want but it is absolute nonsense, any surface level look at Brazilian social media's most popular apps like Whatup shows its just as infested with bots and fake news as FB/Twitter or any other garbage.

The cultural phenomenon which allows these services to be almost entirely controlled by right wing/far right-bolsonaro/religious fundamentalists(evangelicas) and ultimately still a somewhat decisive political factor is completely adjacent to whatever the American billionaire alien face dipshit says or does.

1he "Brazilian government" will say this and do actualy nothing meaningful about it. Case in point the recent PIX(online transaction) tax fake news scandal/mass hysteria going on. Entirely through social media.

Yet the Lula government did absolutely nothing to fight about it and that will remain true.

Weapons grade copium that could fund a global socialist revolution's weapons program IMO

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in January 2021 – just days before leaving office – saying at the time that Havana was “providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists” after refusing to extradite leaders of a Colombian guerrilla organization who were in Havana for peace talks when a deadly bombing took place in the South American nation. Pompeo accused the nation of reneging on its commitments made when President Barack Obama took them off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2015.

Senior administration officials also said Biden was rescinding another Trump-era memorandum that established “the so-called restricted list, which is a list of entities that form the base of certain entities in Cuba that are subject to certain prohibited financial transactions.”

Still, the moves are not likely to last. President-elect Donald Trump has filled his team with officials hawkish on Cuba, including Sen. Marco Rubio, his pick for secretary of state. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long backed punitive measures against the island’s government.

Look at how the CNN article frames it as reversing the 2019-21 Trump move and in general how they contextualize, not once or twice but three times how this Biden move is opposite to Trump.

This is literaly a petty Biden last minute move to make things tougher for Trump on the short term and get some cheap rethoric ready for the next election cycle when some dipshit will remind you Biden did this and then Trump undid it etc etc.

It is absolutely low cost and low/medium return investment for politics 4 years from now. Trump got no reason to be dovish towards Latin America and if that happens its entirely unexpected.

I can assure you despite the mainstream media reporting this story is definitely like 99% true.

First a key point to understand. BYD is not building the factory on its own, the project was outsourced to a Chinese contractor Jinjiang. The key here is BYD and Chinese defense want to argue on BYD's behalf, but under Brazilian law both parties are responsible, not just the contractor, i.e yes BYD is responsible(negligent) for allowing their contractor to break Brazilian labour law.

This must be understood because it is only an attack on BYD if you completely ignore Brazilian law, that sounds like absolute condescension from the BYD defense side. Maybe make sure your contractors are not breaking the law is common sense. I should note Brazil got a structural problem with migrant labour and attempts to circunvent local labour law by giving double standards. In this story only the Chinese workers are mistreated exactly as a cost-cutting strategy.

Second this is the original Brazilian media investigative reporting. Denúncia: operários chineses estariam sofrendo agressões em fábrica da BYD na Bahia This was at first an allegation of physical abuse by independent journalists. this prompted the Brazilian authorities to launch the investigation.

This was the first opportunity for Jingjiang/BYD to take notice and respond.

The report sought the company regarding the allegations. In a statement, BYD said that it has been operating in Brazil for 10 years “strictly complying with local laws”. The automaker also said that “the works at the factory in Camaçari, Bahia, meet all legal standards, including the installation license obtained in 2024 and approved by the state government”, in addition to highlighting that it made an investment of R$5.5 billion, with the potential to generate “more than 20 thousand jobs”.

I have to note here that BYD can go fuck themselves with this phrasing, it is absolutely horrible to see this same attitude which usualy comes from westerners "yes let me remind you we put a lot of money into it" as if we're animals begging for scraps at a table. More importantly it shows they're not cooperative as you can see, in many instances they did not even address the allegations provided.

Also BTW as a reminder 10 years should be put into context that Dilma suffered the coup in 2016. Basicaly 6 out of those 10 years were under the extreme right wing Temer/Bolsonaro governments that severely destroyed our labour rights, specialy the outsourcing reform etc. In that regard the Lula government did absolutely nothing to improve the situation btw.

This is not a bragging moment is what I mean. Jesus leave it for the Chinese to brag about working under a right wing government lol, anyway.

In the note , BYD also informs that JinJiang Construction Group is the construction company responsible for the works. And, because it is a very specific type of building, “it operates in several countries where BYD expands operations”. BYD, however, did not respond specifically to the allegations of violence.

On November 11 of this year, the Federal Police and the MPT were at the construction site to inspect working conditions, but they did not go to the accommodations or tour the entire assembly area of ​​the factory, according to sources heard by the report.

When contacted, the MPT confirmed the inspection of the factory. According to the agency, an investigation is underway to determine information about the “health and safety at work” of the workers. The visit was attended by a prosecutor, an expert and civil servants, in addition to the Federal Police escort.

“There is an ongoing investigation. The report is not ready yet and must be attached to it. Complaints help us begin the investigation. In this case, there is an investigation that will have to reach a conclusion,” the agency responded, via press office.

When asked about the MPT inspection, BYD said that the inspection “indicated the need for specific adjustments in the operation”. And that the nonconformities had already been identified, with demands that JinJiang “act urgently to correct them”. The company did not specify what these corrections would be.

So at first they deny and deflect with a condescending tone and then finaly actualy despite the BS, the capitalist screeching they actualy admitted they were at fault and asked their contractor to fix it.

Except they didn't and then you saw the shameless abhorrent attempt to intimidate the workers with that recent PR video.

Later more evidence came out including reports of injuries at the working site. This should not be taken lightly, the local Union is involved too, though even if you give them minimum legitimacy, it means there are witnesses and this is not fake news or whatever US plotting.

BYD confirmed the accidents took place and they were treated on site. I personaly don't think this is appropriate, certainly not an amputation shouldn't be taken lightly as a mere simple working accident. There is no defense for this kind of coincidence only the fact many others may have happened that we don't know about.

Two accidents involving Chinese workers working at the Build Your Dreams (BYD) construction site in Camaçari , in the Salvador Metropolitan Region (RMS), were reported to the Bahia Labor Prosecutor's Office (MPT-BA) this Tuesday (3). One of the foreigners had a finger amputated and the other suffered a broken leg.

The situation was reported by the Union of Civil Construction, Assembly and Industrial Maintenance Workers of Camaçari and Region (Sindticcc), which is monitoring the situation and visited the workers at Santa Helena Hospital, in the city, where they are hospitalized.

In a statement, the entity reported that the accidents occurred on consecutive days, last Sunday (1st) and Monday (2), but the circumstances were not detailed.

BYD/Jiang admitted the workers were treated on-site. I'm sure you're aware this is wholy inadequate to put it mildly when these are not special conditions e.g a oil rig in the ocean or some base in antartica. Its a city in Brazil with adequate public and private health options.

Then finaly as is ample photos and available video evidence. They had absolutely appaling hygiene standards, workers were eating from buckets, the kitchen looks like an open market with absolutely no health inspection standards i.e this is already illegal by Anvisa standards to prepare food in such places.. Also in the same video you can see their beds are of low quality, some lack even a mattress which is something even poor families in the favelas have access to. Its inexcusable.

I still think Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked perhaps one of the most radical points in history over the past two decades. I will admit I had perhaps way too much optimism back then. Unfortunately, the opportunities opened up by it weren’t seized upon and things are slowly reverting to status quo.

What I've been thinking since Syria is there are bigger issues here with how the "alternative media" or whatever you call it handled the '22-25 period so far that specially now after Syria, I think this NC post is a good example(“Russia Dodged a Bullet by Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With the Now-Defeated Resistance Axis”) only slightly gets to some of it, not even the author or the article(its pretty whatever I don't even agree with it) but the commenters are fascinating to me, and some of it is something I've come to agree with some time.

These people we turned to as "geopolitical experts" have questionable biases and track records, looking at the comments and some of the people mentioned and how they handled Syria is very telling.

I say this because some people are eager to say "oh but China isn't doing anything new they've been opening up since Deng duh" as if they don't understand this is embarrassing and ultimately a condemnation of China.

We were correct imo as I said often now for a brief moment it realy did look as if we were actualy going towards the start of what could be a long chain of events/conflicts between the west and the rotw. It realy did look as if China wasn't going to take it anymore(following HK, Xinjiang, COVID etc) and we could see Russia having to choose between a Chinese led opposition to western interests and the usual post soviet neoliberal history. Of course even back then it was only though the hopes of Russia having an impossible choice between their worst enemy and their "biggest" ally that through this relationship(Putin literaly went to China and traveled together with Xi and all that shit) that they/he would learn something about what needed to be done.

China is too comfortable for a radical transformation, not to mention the entire Xi’s (and many others’) family history with the Cultural Revolution, so they’ll want to play it slow and steady.

I've maintained China has been the critical actor, with the biggest influence and biggest potential and the turn around is inexplicable except by the obvious realization we were wrong and China wasn't in fact looking to be oppositional at all.

3 years later it is even clearer China wants the consensus, as I mentioned many times they're not even afraid, let alone embarrassed lol to shit on the entire global south left/socialists conception or hopes of international socialism by working as closely with the US as they can. Be it state media or Xi himself, they'll say US bad one day and then beg Wall St for money and shake hands with Genocider in Chief the very next day.

We weren't wrong to have hope, we were wrong for not understanding Xi's fundamental change of the CPC had absolutely nothing to do geopolitics. As far as China is concerned the year may as well be 2002. Not understanding or appreciating this enough is at least what I consider my own mistake, not realizing the Dengism hole goes quite a bit deeper and nastier. I leave this quote

Economic globalisation resulted from growing social productivity, and is a natural outcome of scientific and technological progress, not something created by any individuals or any countries. Economic globalisation has powered global growth and facilitated movement of goods and capital, advances in science, technology and civilisation, and interactions among peoples… Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible (Xi 2017)

Yes praise globalization says the Great Communist Leader, fucking kill me 8 years ago already lol. There is "taking it slow" as you put it and then there is whatever this brainworm is. I have serious doubts dengism has any meaningful intentions of moving beyond the current status quo. China wants a seat on the table and only to keep the inadequacies of our global south suffering away from their borders(and preferrably out of sight by begging the US to be "nice" to everyone). I could be wrong, I want to be wrong, I'd like to see them actualy do anything before believing it though.

There is both video and photo evidence of their working conditions, including things like eating from a fucking bucket and working without proper equipment. In any abuse situation you don't trust just the victim given the conflict of interest but rather what is the evidence you can find on the actual scene.

Not only that this is a very shitty move, a shitty clueless PR move and its classic victim blaming, "oh how dare you shame our workers telling them they're being treated like slaves, have you considered their feelings" you say as you beat them with a leash?

There is no justification for confiscating their passports even, that is complete BS.

You should trust the Brazilian reporting on this, these violations are also against Brazilian labour law. They found them eating with little or no hygiene, sharing 1 bathroom/toilet for as many as 30 workers, sleeping in beds without mattress etc. Here for example, the shit beds and the "kitchen" the person says it looks like a open(fair) market, trust me this is slum like conditions.

I do not believe the US has any reason to be involved, because this is not an out of the blue move. The Brazilian authorities were notified 1 month ago, nothing was done until the government raid. There was even a working accident 3 weeks ago after the first reporting on their conditions, an amputated finger and a broken leg.

I can only say I'm sorry for them, I do not believe for a second you'd work 10h a day in conditions like that and then still turn around record a video like this.

I'll give a tip, don't mistake Chinese capitalists for principled Communists, fuck these assholes. Brazilian authorities caught them with the smoking gun.

The Chinese left hand working right along side the right hand, the epitome of hypocrisy and double faced charity.

Absolutely amazing article a 11/10.

Its sad you left us OP, maybe one day if you return let it be known Patrick Bond is and has been on fucking fire all this time. Not just standing on the shoulders of Samir's sharp criticism but even his recent articles as of Dec 2024, just what an incredibly good writer.

Its funny that I knew of Patrick because Michael Roberts(thenextrecession blog) loved that one quote from some time ago("Brics talk left walk right" he even reiterates it here when he talks about the Russian assets issue), it is a pleasant surprise Patrick not only continued on that critique but is continuously expanding on it masterfully.

A bit of warning though its a fairly long article and the first half is dedicated as a introduction and contextualization of the South African apartheid which is specialy useful for the unfamiliar.

I am now slowly trying to find time to read on all his articles, if I could I'd quote everything, but this, this is just damning, you hate to see it but what a damn banger I'd quote everything if I could.

Against South Africa’s corporate-neoliberal, sub-imperial expansion, Amin repeatedly argued on behalf of anti-imperialist alliances, such as in a 2016 book, The Long Term Prospects of the Arab World:

“A new path of development, the only guarantee of social justice claimed by the vast majority of people, is excluded in the current economic model and is synonymous with a rupture with economic liberalism. And because this option comes into open conflict with the logic of the global system dominated by the imperialist powers, the assertion of national independence, in turn, is the condition for progress in this direction. It is therefore necessary to relinquish the exploration of ‘friendship’ with the United States and Europe, to give up seeking their ‘economic aid,’ to revive the spirit of Bandung, to open negotiations with China and the BRICS, and to flesh out the prospect of rebuilding a front of the South” (Amin 2016, 71).

But Amin (2016, 71) was already aware of the BRICS’ limitations, asking poignantly,

“Could a project of this kind be implemented from above by national powers? This was the case in the era of Bandung and of national popular but undemocratic projects of that era (1955-1980). But today a replay of those projects seems hard to imagine because the new ruling classes, shaped and enriched by their adherence to the liberal globalisation established over four decades, aspire only to maintain the system from which they benefit.”

In a 2015 Monthly Review essay, Amin (2015) confirmed his negative impression:

“The ongoing offensive of United States-Europe-Japan collective imperialism against all the peoples of the South walks on two legs: the economic leg – globalised neoliberalism forced as the exclusive possible economic policy; and the political leg — continuous interventions including pre-emptive wars against those who reject imperialist interventions. In response, some countries of the South, such as the BRICS, at best walk on only one leg: they reject the geopolitics of imperialism but accept economic neoliberalism.”

In a follow-up, he critiqued the BRICS because economically, “success is primarily defined in terms of the neoliberal ideology, as an example of the success of ‘happy globalisation’” (Amin 2016c, 138). Others have the same impression. For Tanzanian Marxist Issa Shivji (2019, 266-67), the initial political-economic projects of ‘Bandung and Pan-Africanism’ were

“led by the bourgeois tendency that sought to install an auto-centric capitalist accumulation within their countries and nations. This proved to be its failure as peoples’ projects. The bourgeoisies in Asia and the proto-bourgeoisies, private or state, in Africa were eventually compradorised, thus yielding BRICS and NEPAD – integrationist projects par excellence. The auto-centric tendency of accumulation was subverted… BRICS and NEPAD are symptomatic of the integrationist path based on hubs and hinterland.”

Beyond participation in neoliberal multilateral institutions, in the five years after Amin’s 2018 death there were many ways that the BRICS sub-imperial project played out, which he would have found familiar. BRICS directors and staff have had entirely uncritical participation in the International Monetary Fund (without any appearance by the BRICS’ Contingent Reserve Arrangement) and the World Bank (with a BRICS New Development Bank indistinguishable from orthodox institutions except for more blatant corruption). That role included not only generous recapitalisation (at the expense of poor countries’ voting share) but regular support for their U.S. and European leaders. BRICS delegates even voted for the climate-denialist Sinophobe David Malpass, appointed to run the World Bank in 2019 by Donald Trump, as well as for IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in 2011 and again in 2015, although she was at the time facing prosecution for political corruption during her time French Finance Minister, for which she was ultimately convicted in 2016.

As for the BRICS Bank, the main 2023 controversy surrounded the need to increase local-currency lending – because its President Dilma Rousseff confirmed a rise from 22 to 30 percent of its asset base in non-dollar or euro currencies by 2030, a revealingly unambitious objective. The BRICS Bank agreed to Western financial sanctions against Russia (a 19 percent owner) in 2022 due to its fear of the New York credit ratings agencies’ downgrade, bragging that Moscow loans represented less than 7 percent of the bank’s assets. The ongoing role of BRICS in United Nations climate summits fuses tightly with that of the West, insofar as adequate emissions cuts and acknowledgement of ‘climate debt’ liabilities to the rest of the world are both rejected by imperial and sub-imperial climate powers. Numerous other instances of anti-imperialist rhetoric contradicted by sub-imperial practice suggest that the formulation of semi-peripheral capital’s joint super-exploitation and expansion, notwithstanding occasional ‘antagonistic’ forms of cooperation with imperialism – formulated by Marini and given African expression by Amin – remains valid (Samson 2009, Bond 2023).

Yeah Google is censoring new satellite imagines, the comments mentioned Mariupol yeah its obvious look at the Mariupol rail station on google maps its clearly destroyed despite the 2024 copyright.

The before and after

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I would not look at India so superficialy like that. The US is at very least looking at that as a favor that they will call back on later. The US doesn't have much to care about what other countries do unless it is relevant to agenda.

This is the sort of rethoric around the Khashoggi murder. They did that, they shocked the world, they got all the liberal media and even the NGO clown shit circle to turn their head away in disgust and then what exactly materially changed about KSA and USA relations? 5 years later KSA is as big a vassal as ever.

For India as a country I think rather this double faced BRICS and US relations will bring them absolutely nowhere but the bottom pit of the global south material conditions. Climate change, Bangladesh. These are some of the keywords that matter for 10-20 years from now.

Government shutdown due to fake political theater over infinite fake money and the "budget".

Government shutdown due to bird flu pandemic.

LOL seeing MoA quoting that particular Rand paper is just incredibly funny to me that's all.

Just a note. US is ~3% of FDI in China… in good years, FDI is ~4% total investment in China, <2% of GDP for a decade now. (Some of the FDI from HK SAR is also partly from the US, taking a detour to the mainland over HK but still) Im sure China is dismantling one of the pillars of its monetary and economic policy in capital controls in defeat as we speak to get that life saving American FDI. All the signs are there, after all the CPC has announced that "they welcome and urge foreign investment and US cooperation and will try to make the enviroment easier for it" for the 5000th time since reform and opening up

@xiaohongshu@hexbear.net is a lot more partial about the a certain aspect of this but you should be careful that their approach is not the only one that criticizes the current 180 CPC turnaround in 2023/24.

On a rhetorical level the FDI is only a very coincidental part of the narrative. You are correct China is on this course for a long time however it is silly to pretend the conditions of today are the same as even 25 years ago or even when Xi first took power.

By all metrics China should not depend on US external influence, the fact US financial media(and the Fed) got any influence at all is an indictment not an excuse. To recap the FDI is circumstantially important because it perfectly aligns with the financial media attack, if you remember how Yellen and Blinken went to China and everyone started complaining about the insane "overproduction"/"overcapacity" narrative.

Immediately following that the Fed lowered interest rates and China started not only begging for better "investor sentiment" but also they have taken a few notable steps like signaling for more consumption incentives and liberalization of industrial investment(for foreigners).

I say this often it doesn't matter what we observe and think, only how the party is behaving and what they believe and we have more than enough evidence the party cares a lot about the mainstream economic rethoric, they use the same terms and they're starting to use some of the same policies(or at least signaling it).

Ultimately what happened IMO is they gaslit themselves into believing the overproduction narrative by the west. Its obviously nonsense. China shouldn't stimulate "consumption" just because the US doesn't want to import cheap renewables. Worst still is that the diagnosis of this perceived slowdown is entirely withing the neoliberal economic consensus.

If you notice where Chinese FDI drops below the 2020 level at the beginning of this year, it coincides perfectly with both Blinken/Yellen's visits and when the overcapacity narrative gains traction on western media, e.g:

Atlantic Council December 11, 2023 China’s manufacturing overcapacity threatens global green goods trade

FT February 1 2024 China’s overcapacity a challenge that is ‘here to stay’, says US chamber

FT February 4 2024China’s cull of EV overcapacity will bring little relief to Europe

Yellen and Blinken both visited China in April '24.

Likewise MR wrote about this as it happened and he linked this source Part I of Xu Gao: corporate gains fail to boost household income, leading to over-investment & excessive savings in China

On March 13, 2024, the National School of Development (NSD), Peking University, in collaboration with Baidu Economic & Financial News, held the 68th session of the China Economic Observation Report event and launched the 30th-anniversary celebration of the NSD.

Today's The East is Read will feature Xu Gao, the Chief Economist and Assistant President of Bank of China International Co. Ltd., leading the research department and sales and trading department of the company. He is also an adjunct professor of the NSD at Peking University.

Xu argues that the significantly lower consumption-to-GDP ratio in China, compared to the global average, is the fundamental cause of the country's lackluster domestic demand and economic slowdown. He attributes this low consumption level to unusually high savings rates, with both enterprise and household savings rates remaining notably elevated. This is in stark contrast to other economies where the two rates typically exhibit a negative correlation.

That entire article explains what the current mainstream Chinese analysis of the problem was/is and MR's argument in his blog post

Zu explains that “weak domestic demand, compounded by lackluster external demand or export volumes, results in insufficient total demand, thereby stifling economic growth. In that sense, the long-term growth constraints on the Chinese economy lie not in the supply but in demand.” Really? China’s relative growth slowdown in the past decade has been due to slowing expansion of its labour force with economic growth then depending primarily on raising the productivity of labour. And that depends on investment in productivity-boosting technology, not consumption, which is a deduction from resources for investment. Moreover, which countries have achieved faster growth in the last few years: the consumer-led West or low consumption China?

Zu follows up his classic crude Keynesian theory, by saying that “the objective of economic growth is to fulfill the people’s expectation for a better life, which is primarily manifested through their expectation for enhanced consumption—better quality food, clothing, and leisure activities. When a country’s consumption constitutes a small fraction of its GDP, it indicates a misalignment between the aggregate economic growth (as depicted by GDP) and the lived experiences of its people.”

But this is just not true. A low consumption to GDP ratio does not necessarily mean low consumption growth. And China’s consumption growth has been way faster than the consumer-led economies of the West.

So what to do? “Of course, SOEs in China are technically owned by the people, yet their equity is predominantly held by the state. Consequently, the dividends from SOEs primarily flow to the state rather than the households; the profits retained post-dividend distribution from SOEs are not directly connected to the balance sheet of households, making it difficult to contribute to household wealth. So says Xu, “we need to distribute all SOE stocks to citizens” ie privatise the state-owned companies.

"A Chinese academic working in the financial sector spewing neoliberal economic shit? No way!" Yes its obviously not news, but the point is he repeats mainstream nonsense about efficient markets and copying western narratives.

The real worry here is if the CPC follows these advices and realy believes investment in production and technology are no longer necessary or consumption incentives should become the priority.

China would lose one of their main advantage against the west and current signs is they actualy do believe some of it.

They've arrived at the logical conclusion, we can do whatever we want because only China matters, so if the economy is slowing just boost consumption. This is the most mainstream of the mainstream western modern economic theory. Everyone ignores the state of the global economy, the EU crash, the global south debt crisis etc. For both western media and mainstream econ, if China is not meeting growth expectations, its their fault for not being liberal enough. Do you realize how dangerous this path is?

Of course everyone can be wrong and this time next year China is celebrating, FDI is up, Xi is smiling next to Trump etc. Nobody is predicting China will crash in 30 days(probably not even 30 months) because of a few charts and random theories, but alas who is expecting communism "soon" when the party is seemingly embracing mainstream neoliberalism at the first sign of trouble?

For me that is the compelling takeaway. More Dengism with some neolib shit along the way no matter how dangerous it is while paying no attention to the climate abyss right ahead or the global south collectively getting murdered or worse.

Why was this removed? If you're going to do that clean the entire chain. Nonsense moderation policy, the top comment is explicitly about user activity, maybe there are reasons why some regulars stopped posting? That is not fucking drama.

Funny thing is this mod behavior is exactly why this site is going downhill.

I'm sure you've seen the current CN state media pushing out the more consumption stimulus for 2025 narrative.

If there is an argument to be made they doesn't even understand why Dengism worked so well we may start to make that argument soon lol.

It will be both weird and funny to watch China continue growing more than 2x the US while the western financial media tells the CPC China is crashing while at the same time the CPC completely agrees with it and starts repeating much of the same rethoric as the worst western neoliberal mainstream economists but still not managing to actualy crash.

Anyway I'm nobody ever said "in times of trouble just boost consumption! Wow nobody tried that before, surely its a sign it works so well!"