Pepe Escobar
Xi Jinping’s Boao Forum speech marked his latest appeal for an open global economy and against US-led decoupling
In times of grave geopolitical trouble it’s up for a true statesman to step up in the global podium and defuse a noxious Cold War 2.0 atmosphere. President Xi Jinping did deliver with his keynote speech at the annual Boao Forum in Hainan.
Here’s the full speech. And let’s start with a single sentence:
As we are going through the Covid-19 pandemic, people of all countries have more clearly realized that it is necessary to abandon the cold war mentality and zero-sum game, and oppose any form of new cold war and ideological confrontation.
The Boao audience, in a sort of Sino-Davos gathering, was composed not only of pan-Asian guests. Significantly, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, among others, were giving Xi their full attention.
In a relatively compact speech, Xi once again exposed the architecture of multilateralism – and how a back-to-superpower-status China fits in. The message may have been subtly directed to the Hegemon, but most of all to a fast integrating Eurasia, as well as the whole Global South.
Xi emphasized multilateralism as the realm of justice, not hegemony, featuring “extensive consultation”, big countries behaving “in a manner befitting their status and with a greater sense of responsibility”, and all that leading to “shared benefits”, not the welfare of the 0.001%.
Beijing sees an open world economy as the pathway to multilateralism – which implies no “walls” and no “decoupling”, with China progressively opening up its own economy and boosting the interconnection of supply chains, digital economy and artificial intelligence (AI).
In a nutshell, that’s Made in China 2025 in action – without referring to the terminology that was much demonized during the Trump era.
Multilateralism and open economy are key components of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – which is not only a vast trade/development model but also China’s overarching foreign policy concept.
So Xi once again had to stress that BRI is “a public road open to all, not a private path owned by one single party”. It is as much about poverty alleviation, economic growth and infrastructure “hard connectivity” as about “soft connectivity” – which includes “cooperation in infectious disease control, public health, traditional medicine and other areas”.
It’s quite telling that when Xi mentioned the adoption of Chinese vaccines, he illustrated it with two examples from the Global South: Brazil and Indonesia.
How to seduce the Global South
The Chinese approach to a new pattern of international relations draws as much from Confucius as from the Dao. Hence the emphasis on “community of shared destiny” as applied globally, and the refusal of a “Cold War and zero-sum mentality” as well as “ideological confrontation in whatever forms”.
The emphasis is on “equality, mutual respect and mutual trust” on the forefront of international relations, as well as “exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations”. The overwhelming majority of the Global South certainly gets the message.
As it stands though, realpolitik dictates Cold War 2.0 is already in effect, pitting Washington against the Russia-China strategic partnership. The key area where the game is played is in fact the whole Global South.
So Xi must be aware that the onus is on Beijing to prove “a new type of international relations” is the preferred road map ahead.
The Global South will be very much aware of China’s efforts “to do more to help developing countries defeat the virus” and “honor its commitment of making vaccines a global public good.”
On a practical level, this will be as crucial as keeping China in check in reference to Xi’s promise that the civilization-state “will never seek hegemony, expansion, or a sphere of influence no matter how strong it may grow”. The fact is great swathes of Asia are a natural, Chinese economic sphere of influence.
The European Union will be sharply focused on “multilateral cooperation on trade and investment” – in reference to the ratification and signing later this year of the China-EU trade deal. And US businesses carefully following Xi’s speech will be very much interested in an enticing promise: “All are welcome to share in the vast opportunities of the Chinese market”.
International relations are now totally polarized between competing governance systems. Yet for the overwhelming majority of Global South actors, especially the poorer nations, the ultimate test for each system – as Chinese scholars know so well – is the ability to advance society and improve people’s lives.
Chinese scholars and policy makers privilege what they define as SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) development plans.
This has translated in practice into confidence by the majority of Chinese citizens in their political model – whatever the West’s interpretations. What matters is how Beijing spent the shortest time anywhere in controlling Covid-19; how the economy is growing again; how poverty alleviation was a huge success (800 million people out of poverty in three decades; 99 million rural people and 128,000 rural villages in the last stretch); and how the official goal of achieving a “moderately prosperous society” is being met.
Beijing, over the years, has carefully framed the narrative of a “peaceful rise” based on its immense historical and cultural legacies.
In China, the interplay between historical resonance and future dreams is extremely complex for a foreigner to decode. Rhythms from the past are always echoing in the future.
What this ultimately means is that Chinese exceptionalism – quite obvious throughout centuries of history – is essentially based in Confucianism, which defines harmony as a supreme virtue and abhors conflict.
And that’s why China won’t follow the belligerent, colonialist recent past of the hegemonic West: once again, one of the key messages of Xi’s Boao speech. If Beijing manages to imprint this “historical mission” narrative all across the Global South – with tangible acts and not just rhetoric – then we will be entering a whole new ball game.
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Terrific piece. As Saker readers are no doubt aware, US post-WWII global hegemony has rested on three interacting facets: 1) unrivaled military power, 2) control of world’s energy reserves, and 3) maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. All of the pillars supporting US power are now breaking down from decades of neo-liberal economic policies, spending vast sums of public money on the military and war and more recently, attainment of economic/military parity by China and Russia. The Covid19 pandemic has accelerated US economic decline- American capitalism confronts the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Indeed, US economic decline has progressed to the point where the very survival of the American Empire requires constant debt monetization (aka money printing) to prop up financial markets, over-priced real estate, the Pentagon and support ongoing wars. The Biden Administration wants the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany halted and views the Russia-China-Iran axis as an intolerable obstacle to US global hegemony. This is why the US is encouraging Ukraine to start a war with Russia and is constantly issuing bellicose threats against China. The American empire is not interested in dealing with China and Russia as equals, they want them under US control, just as the EU, UK and Japan function as US vassals, taking their marching orders from Washington. If Biden thought he could get away with it, he would not hesitate to attack China and Russia. I am sure that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are well aware of this.
The final pillar is the hegemonic dollar. But even this is about to be over. What was not mentioned in Boao is even more significant. Xi did not mention the advent of the Central Banks’ digital currencies (CBDC) led (far ahead) by the digital yuan. These currencies will surely replace the fiat dollar and not even the (nuclear) weapons of the Hegemon will be able to prevent this from happening. The old system of international trade dominated by the fiat dollar and backed by the international banking system (also dominated by the US banks) is fading away fast.
In its place will be the central banks of the major trading nations, led by the People’s Bank of China which will facilitate trade among all the BRI countries. Big Tech and Big Data will be involved with AI all along the supply chains. This will displace the traditional role of the banks (many now call them “banksters”).
What is involved is the wholesale shakeup of the international trading and financing system itself, the displacement of the dollar in international trade and therefore making the dollar’s role (or any currency for that matter) as a “reserve currency” redundant.
China, as the world’s top trading nation, will lead the orderly and fast passage into this brave new world. The US, still holding on to the sinking pieces of its titanic hegemony,
has disqualified itself from the new world trading system such that it is unaware that it is being marginalised and left behind.
Absolutely. Maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency is crucial for US global hegemony. This has allowed the American empire to run huge deficits and finance the Pentagon and astronomically expensive wars. Once this ends, the American empire will collapse.
Why are you promoting China as the “new multilateral boss”? Is that the new politically correct line? What about Russia and its place in the world as the original beacon of the idea for justice and freedom, hope for the enslaved? The CCP and their social credit system are just the new face of the slavery, they haven’t even formally denounced the their horrible totalitarian past
Yet, the anglo zionist looters are allowed to run roughshod over the rest of the world, killing millions since 1945, disrupting emerging economies that would benefit billions and you worry about a social credit system that holds people accountable for their actions? I find that the threat of execution for great social harms would go a long way towards creating more equality in the west. I think the west is toast anyway and have migrated to another country to help them achieve their goals. Unfortunately, they are under the umbrella of the hegemon as well.
The social system is based on Confucius values. If you dont visit your parents who have raised you, it means you dont respect then which makes you lose score points and if you are not in favor of the government thats trying to put China as the number one in the world, then you are not a nationalist therefore you dont need money. Needless to say that the government has overwhelming approving rates among Chinese, Harvard has even made a pool some years ago and it was 90%.
There's also the language. In chinese the characters for Country is made by putting together the characters for family and government.
Family plus Goverment equals Country.
China is a civilization, therefore dont simplify their government to our own understanding the Western Kleptocracy type of government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0YjL9rZyR0&t=939s
The west and its ruling elites have predicated their entire system and raison d etre for being on centuries old and outdated concepts of scarcity and how population growth eventually butts up against finite resources.
this same fallacy is seen dripping out of all the public utterances of the green and environmental movements worldwide.
Malthusian ideas simply are not relevant and have never proven themselves to be true. the one thing defining your system based on scarcity does accomplish is to legitimize political and economic systems requiring gatekeepers, positions naturally filled by morally better humans than the pack in order to do the deciding.
Rising Eurasia is creating a system of shared abundance and creating abundance using technology and innovation to solve problems for all rather than presuming there are limitations to human development commonly found riddled throughout western elite thinking.
in effect the west is now going backward, restricting energy consumption and civilizational development while Eurasia looks ahead determined to resolve problems that arise.
it won’t be hard to spot where the bulk of humanity decides to gravitate in 10 years and why the ruling western elites are so desperate to derail the Eurasian train.
the west is now selling from an empty shelf using fear and a relatively harmless virus (death rate of a fraction of 1% who get it) to gain traction they can not achieve using common sense and logic to steamroll public opinion and behaviour into accepting a bleaker future so the few can keep or increase what they already have.
Frankly you (collective) have to be an idiot to fall for the snake oil the west is trying to sell.