Leon Panetta in Auckland announced that US naval cooperation with New Zealand will be resumed—cut off in 1985, when the Pacific nation declared itself a nuclear-free zone.
China and Japan are moving ahead with new Free Trade Agreements such as the ASEAN+6 pact and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even amid escalated military tensions.
Leon Panetta warned that the latest escalation over islands disputed by China and Japan could lead to war—even as he arrived in Tokyo to inaugurate a new anti-missile system.
Beijing's move to set up a military garrison on disputed Yongxing Island—claimed by the Philippines as part of the Paracel chain—is escalating tension in the South China Sea.
In Episode Five of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that despite the official ideology of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the revival of rhetoric and imagery from the Mao era, media commentators are off base in their comparison of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong. The new personalistic dictatorship of Xi is appropriating the outward forms of Maoism, but whereas the Great Helmsman used totalitarian methods to advance socialism (at least in terms of his own intentions) Xi is doing so to further entrench China's savage capitalist system. As a part of the same constitutional changes that have installed Xi as the new "paramount leader," the Chinese Communist Party is imposing further market liberalization and "supply-side" economic reform. The New Cold War between the US and China is simply a rivalry between capitalist powers. But in the global divide-and-conquer game, the leaders of oppressed nationalities within China such as the Tibetans and Uighurs look to the US and the West as allies, while left-populist governments in Latin America such as Venezuela and Bolivia similarly look to China. How can we respond to these developments in a way that builds solidarity between peasants, workers and indigenous peoples across the geopolitical divide? Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon
(Photo: chinaworker.info)
