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xiaohongshu [none/use name]

@ xiaohongshu @hexbear.net

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864
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  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Last week Trump watched Jack Ryan, this week he watched Sicario.

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Tracks with what I have been saying for almost a year now that a renewed status quo between US and China is going to be the most likely outcome:

    Both the US and China are dealing with their own internal contradictions and cannot afford to keep the animosity going for too long. What’s most likely to happen is a renewed status quo, with new boundaries established, after Europe and the Global South have been properly harvested.

    In other words, the US and China will be the big winners in this new global reconfiguration.

    Both countries need each other more than they thought. The US might want to decouple, but China has adeptly showed Trump how decoupling will be painful, very painful. After all, all the best cards (especially rare earth restrictions) are being used to keep the US from going through the divorce.

    Also this FT article from last week - Why China is doubling down on its export-led growth model has some very interesting paragraphs that give us insight into how Chinese officials think about the US:

    During a recent visit to Beijing, one senior European businessman says he was shocked by the reception he received at one of the ministries. Previously welcomed as a valued foreign investor, he said a senior figure at the ministry treated him like a diplomatic adversary and accused Europe of being an unreliable partner.

    Others told him the Europeans should stop fixating on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights. “We like Donald Trump,” another official told him. “Why? Because he doesn’t talk about Ukraine and human rights. We can make deals with him.”

    Europe is China’s biggest export market after south-east Asia, but Beijing’s success in the trade war with Trump has made it more dismissive of all-comers, the person says.

    “China is single-handedly focused on the United States,” the person says. “They think that if they can handle Trump, they can handle Europe easily.” He adds: “The Chinese believe that ‘we can always deal with Europe on our terms. And if it’s not on our terms, we don’t talk to them’.”

    This tracks with what I understand about the basis behind China’s win-win cooperation, which is built upon a transactional relationship where mutual benefits are maximized.

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • While I do not share the same pessimism, I do want to point out that the poster in question was bullied right here on the news mega when Syria was falling… a lot of people doubted their takes (who was one of the few here that correctly saw the swift collapse in Syria) until the news inevitably proved the doubters wrong.

    I guess we need to embrace more diversity on thoughts and opinions here, as long as they’re not reactionary or peddling imperialist propaganda, we should let people have the freedom to voice their opinions even when we don’t agree with them. This is a discussion forum after all and not an echo chamber.

  • is it naïve of me to feel, deep in my bones, that despite how bleak it is now, the Western Bourgeoisie are overplaying their hand

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  • China ordering the dumping of all US assets by Nov 2026, and the bond market collapsing.

    Just to correct a misconception here: there is no such thing as China dumping US assets. This has been the biggest Republican scaremongering about China and we don’t want to perpetuate it.

    In order to sell an asset, you gotta have someone to buy it in the first place. The US dollar operates under a free floating exchange rate mechanism so if you try to dump a large amount of US dollars, and nobody wants to buy them at a rate that’s profitable for you, you lose.

    In the past, this worked during the fixed exchange rate era because the central bank promised to convert the currency into gold or whatever metal/currency they are pegged to, and if you dump a huge amount of the currency at the same time, you’re betting that the central bank won’t have enough reserves of the gold/metal/foreign currency to defend their exchange rate. This was how Soros screwed with the Bank of England and the Thai central bank in the 1990s.

    You literally cannot dump US assets today because it is not pegged to anything, so the Fed doesn’t have to defend the dollar exchange rate. Your best bet is finding a buyer stupid enough to buy from you at a rate that’s profitable for you, but the market players aren’t stupid (especially not the people/institutions/countries who can move trillions).

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • China’s not going to bend the knee. What people don’t really appreciate is the fact that Trump actually speaks Chinese.

    This recent article here from FT - Why China is doubling down on its export-led growth model is a long article but the most interesting are these paragraphs that provide insight into how Chinese officials think about the US:

    During a recent visit to Beijing, one senior European businessman says he was shocked by the reception he received at one of the ministries. Previously welcomed as a valued foreign investor, he said a senior figure at the ministry treated him like a diplomatic adversary and accused Europe of being an unreliable partner.

    Others told him the Europeans should stop fixating on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights. “We like Donald Trump,” another official told him. “Why? Because he doesn’t talk about Ukraine and human rights. We can make deals with him.”

    Europe is China’s biggest export market after south-east Asia, but Beijing’s success in the trade war with Trump has made it more dismissive of all-comers, the person says.

    “China is single-handedly focused on the United States,” the person says. “They think that if they can handle Trump, they can handle Europe easily.” He adds: “The Chinese believe that ‘we can always deal with Europe on our terms. And if it’s not on our terms, we don’t talk to them’.”

    It’s very clear that China prefers to deal with Trump than with Europe, because Trump thinks like a businessman, and China reaallllyy loves the transactional nature of business dealings. This is the basis behind China’s win-win cooperation model. And China is confident about dealing with Trump because he speaks their language lol.

  • is it naïve of me to feel, deep in my bones, that despite how bleak it is now, the Western Bourgeoisie are overplaying their hand

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  • Yes that makes more sense.

    I will reiterate my position: China is rolling out a lot of policies to promote domestic consumption, but my take is that you cannot truly resolve that without resolving the elephant in the room, which is the massive wealth inequality.

    The economists look at the record amount of household savings and think that they need to “trick” people into unleashing their savings, but this misses the fact the problem is a distribution problem. A lot people choose to save is because of the economic uncertainty. People are afraid of losing their jobs and since there is no social safety net, they prefer to save than to spend. This situation did not exist before 2020 by the way, when China’s economy was very much on the upward trajectory with the real estate booming.

    I have said this before but just to write it out again, the solution to this will be:

    1. The government provides job guarantee to the unemployed, so people will not have to worry about losing their jobs and lose their household income.
    2. The government provides social safety net so people won’t have to worry about dishing out large expenses in case of medical emergencies and during unemployment.
    3. Wealth redistribution.

    The first two require the central government to run high deficit. In order for people to have the money, somebody’s gonna have to spend it. Previously this was foreigners money through export, as well as the money from infrastructure investment. But since the export and investment-led growth are hitting a wall, it can only be the government running deficit (spending beyond what they earn) to offset that.

    The third is… uh… let’s just say very difficult.

  • is it naïve of me to feel, deep in my bones, that despite how bleak it is now, the Western Bourgeoisie are overplaying their hand

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  • It’s a real dilemma (when divorced from the other macro policies). The PBOC has given in somewhat since late December Bloomberg article and there is a strong international pressure for the yuan to appreciate, but at the same time the PBOC is giving out reassurances that they will keep the exchange rate stable. Commentaries about it are split: some predict the yuan will rise to 6 by the end of 2026, others think the PBOC will hold the line.

    For the third world countries, it’s a real dilemma as well. On the one hand, weaker yuan competes with their export industries, while a stronger yuan makes it more expensive to import from China as you said.

    This is why I keep saying that China having a strong consumer market is going to be key because it solves this problem altogether.

  • is it naïve of me to feel, deep in my bones, that despite how bleak it is now, the Western Bourgeoisie are overplaying their hand

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  • Thank you for the response, though a lot of that is too speculative that, while I would love for them to come true, simply does not refute the fact that we’re looking at a lot of inactions today, both domestically in the US, and on the international stage. Yes, there are movements, but not enough to threaten the empire.

    The tragedy of the woman murdered by ICE yesterday is one such example. ICE has been kidnapping people for nearly a year now, although most of them aren’t white. They are emboldened because nobody’s stopping them, and the fact remains that if nobody will stop the Gestapo, we all know what that will eventually lead to.

    Regarding the specific points on China:

    China's new 5 year plan includes building up domestic production. There is no indication that they will fail to implement this strategy.

    China is already in over-capacity. It needs to build up domestic consumption market to absorb global export surplus goods and drive the domestic demand, not more investment on production. If China fails to do so, the US will remain the world’s largest consumer market and dictate world trade.

    China has swapped US debt for 2 African countries for the equivalent in Yuan. We may see even more of this down the road.

    Which is probably the worst thing any country should do about their external debt situation right now.

    The yuan is currently under a lot of pressure to appreciate, and if (when) it does, these African countries that just swapped the loan for yuan are fucked, because the lower interest rate will not make up for the more expensive yuan they have to earn to repay. In this case, they’re probably better off sticking to dollar debt and take advantage of the USD depreciation instead.

    Regardless, no country should take on external debt not denominated in their own currency. It’s a guaranteed way to lose your economic sovereignty.

    Besides, since China is running a record $1 trillion trade surplus last year, the question becomes where are those countries going to earn the yuan to repay the loans? In the end, they still have to sell their goods to countries who are willing to run a trade deficit (that means the US) to earn the foreign currencies, sell the currencies on the forex market to buy yuan, and then pay back their Chinese creditors.

    It’s extra steps to take advantage of the lower interest rate, but the risks are being shifted to hoping that the Chinese yuan does not appreciate down the road.

    Furthermore, the internationalization of yuan (and the rise of China’s consumer market) necessarily involves the appreciation of the yuan itself. You cannot have it both ways - that you want an internationalized Chinese RMB with an artificially devalued exchange rate.

    In other words, if you’re betting on the yuan supplanting the dollar, then you should expect the yuan to appreciate and the dollar to depreciate. In this case, it does not make sense to swap the dollar loans for yuan.

    What China can do right now is to use its vast USD foreign reserves to pay off those African countries’ debt (the entire external debt of the African continent is $800 billion, well within the reach of China’s several trillions of dollar reserve as well as its $800 billion worth of US treasuries), THEN flood those countries with Chinese yuan in a Marshall Plan style to give them the money to import from China. This will simultaneously raise the income of the Chinese working class, build up China’s domestic consumer market, who will now have more purchasing power to import from the developing countries in return while their countries are freed of debt bondage to foreign financial institutions. This will raise the income of both Chinese working class and those in the developing countries together - a true win-win strategy.

  • is it naïve of me to feel, deep in my bones, that despite how bleak it is now, the Western Bourgeoisie are overplaying their hand

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  • ICE has been openly kidnapping minorities for nearly a year, and yet you do not see any meaningful resistance to stop them, including from the so-called leftist organizations.

    The US openly supports genocide, bombs Iran, kidnaps Venezuelan president, and yet you do not see the other world powers come together to stop them. (The most you can argue is maybe Russia against NATO expansion in Ukraine, but even that was a situation forced upon Russia, who would otherwise be happy to let the status quo persists).

    So, no, the empire did not overplay its hands. The empire is free to do so because there is no organized left, not domestically, nor internationally, to stop them. It is pure cope to believe there will be some kind of divine justice against the empire. They are not scared, they are emboldened.

    The materialist answer is much simpler: unlike in the past century when there were strong labor movements and international solidarity, today neoliberalism rules the world and every country is more interested in taking advantage for their own gains than to come together as a cohesive force against Western imperialism.

    All the pretense about social democracy, civil rights and upholding international laws were relics of the past when Western capitalism had to compete against the Soviet Union. It simply took some years for these institutions to become fully eroded after the 1990s. In other words, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its consequences.

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • You have to trust that he knows he can convince Trump into softening his stance against Latin America.

    See how Mamdani gets a pass at condemning the US action in Venezuela? Because Trump likes him.

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • I used to think like this too but since reading what Wang Jian (chief architect of China’s external circulation strategy) said I fully understood why China does what it does now. (Funny that you replied below that comment I linked so you should know what I’m talking about)

    China cannot and will not abandon the dollar, because why would they abandon the trillions of trillions of dollars accumulated over the years? It’s as I said: left hand fighting with the right hand, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot want to take advantage of the dollar hegemony that made you rich in the first place, while also want to displace dollar hegemony at the same time, without sacrificing all the wealth you had accumulated throughout the years.

    As Wang Jian said above, the biggest loser in the collapse of US dollar hegemony is actually China. That’s because in the US, 1 USD is always 1 USD and the US government has full control over both fiscal and monetary policy (whether they want to use it to benefit the working class, is another matter, but it has that power). But for the Chinese investors, it means everything they have earned are now depreciated. This is why you see the central banks are frantically buying up gold (Trump wants to reduce the US trade deficit and make the dollar depreciate to make its export more competitive), but that merely shifts the risks to the speculative gold market, which fluctuates as much as S&P500.

    If China is serious about it, then it should actually spend its vast dollar reserve to bail out Africa’s $800 billion foreign debt and the entire Latin America’s IMF debt. Because that would actually help eliminate trillions of US dollars from global circulation at the very least, while freeing the Global South from debt bondage. China can easily do that in an instant, but if you understand what I said above, they cannot and will not.

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • The point is actually moot right now because the AI push will use up more energy from both fossil fuel and renewables than the world is ever capable of producing.

    Unless the AI bubble bursts, the projected energy demand is going to be so great that oil, natural gas, coal, solar, wind and other renewables combined together will not be able to meet those demand.

    Regarding “petrodollar”, it isn’t really a thing, or should we say, it’s not what people think it is. Petrodollar simply means that the Gulf States that got rich off selling oil are not allowed to invest those dollar revenues in their own domestic development, and they are instead forced to use those dollars to either purchase US arms or buy US treasuries (which, contrary to popular conception, does not finance the US government. It merely acts as a “sink” for US dollar spent by the US federal government).

    It also has nothing to do with the “demand for dollar”, because as long as the world wants to run a trade surplus, and the US remains the only country willing to run huge trade deficit to absorb their surplus export goods, then countries will always want to earn that dollars to accumulate their trade surplus.

    The only real means to de-dollarize is to not sell anything to the US, and that would require the world to have its own consumer market. A few years ago, the EU could have fulfilled that substitution role. But the Ukraine war obliterated that possibility. Meanwhile, China finds itself difficult to transition into a domestic consumption model since Covid. So the US still has a final say.

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Protection against Russian retaliation. You think the EU would dare to challenge Russia without the US military backing? They get to take advantage of that while spending minimally into their own defense budget. The EU is not as innocent as you think they are.

    Again, the Ukraine conflict is manufactured by the US and the EU followed.

    Not true. Ukraine conflict was started by the EU and the US took advantage of the coup.

    Read my long post here about the background of the Ukraine war, which literally started with the EU offering a free trade agreement to the Ukraine with the strategic intent to destroy Russia’s domestic market.

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Can any Geopolitics Understander tell me more about US control of Greenland and what this means for the Arctic trade route that Russia and China are forging?

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Thanks, I’ll look into it for sure

  • They truly are decades ahead of us

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  • This is the correct answer

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • Trump is a businessman. That’s just how he treats geopolitical matters as though he’s negotiating a business deal, as he did in his tariff negotiations with the various countries. He loves the art of the deal negotiation shit.

    In other words, it means “we’ll see what Venezuela has to offer after we made our big spectacle and we’ll respond to that”.

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    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • They’re export competitors. With US-China trade war going, Vietnam has become an intermediary hub for Chinese exports and offshore production base for tariff evasion purposes, and Vietnam actually benefited quite a lot from the ongoing spat between the two superpowers.

    However, this gap is being plugged with Trump’s global tariffs, and China knows that sooner or later, Vietnam will no longer have the ability to keep importing Chinese goods. So, it’s still ends with competing for the same market - to keep workers in China employed or in Vietnam employed? Somebody will have to lose.

    This is why I said that China’s domestic market is going to be a deciding factor in the geopolitical relationship between China and the rest of the world. If the US remains the world’s greatest consumer market, it gets the final say.

  • Featured

    Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 5th to January 11th, 2026 - The New Old Colonialism (And Long Live Chavismo) - COTW: Venezuela

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  • I have a question since you know more about this: was the need for oil by Nazi Germany driven by their expanding militarization (mechanized forces)? i.e. if they had to sustain the size of their military for continuous warfare, they had no choice but to seize the oil in the Caucasus?

  • electoralism @hexbear.net
    xiaohongshu [none/use name] @hexbear.net
    Naked Capitalism

    Zohran Mamdani Wins New York With a Youthquake

    www.nakedcapitalism.com /2025/11/zohran-mamdani-youthquake-new-york-cuomo-trump-democrats.html
  • Chapotraphouse @hexbear.net
    xiaohongshu [none/use name] @hexbear.net

    Ridiculous Chinese censorship used AI to change the gay couple in Together (2025) to a heterosexual couple

  • History @hexbear.net
    xiaohongshu [none/use name] @hexbear.net

    Average working hours dropped drastically after 1917, due to fear that the Russian Revolution would inspire similar revolutions in other countries