East Is East...

Despite all Trump's lying, posturing and 'economic' gaming, guess who holds all the cards that he so dearly thinks he holds? China, that's who. While America has been lurching back and forth between their two incompatible governmental [im]possibilities for the last fifty years, egged on by the rise and now the gradual decline of neoliberal globalist capitalism; the Chinese have learned, as only a society with such a deep and sophisticated cultural & political history as their's could, to transcend their increasingly embattled twentieth century position on the global stage, whilst the rest of the world blithely chose to ignore what was happening there.

Whilst everyone else's eye was far from the ball, China rebuilt it's economy and infrastructure quietly and competently against a background of political pariah-hood; gradually taking advantage of the always on internet economy and lack of any real, formal trade constraints to position itself as the global supplier of goods to the rest of the world. If Britain was famously a nation of shopkeepers, then modern day China is now the nation that controls pretty much the entire supply chain from production through wholesale and into the retail markets. And the US - particularly under Trump's bifurcated watch, have chosen to ignore this.

Meanwhile, Beijing has quietly realised that de-carbonising their energy infrastructure is not only the right way to go for the planet, but the way to go to secure their economy for the long term [caveat, they are still the biggest greenhouse gas producer in the world: but their move in the opposite direction is clear: they know it is in their best economic interest to replace coal with cleaner energy from a supply chain which they control; and hence China, probably better than any other nation in this current economic climate, understands how to make the very most out of global trade. And how are they doing this? With a mixed economy: a balance of state control and private business, with massive centralised investment driving the whole thing.

Which of course is the complete opposite to Trump's modus operandi, whose economic sensibilities are that of the school playground: accusing other nations of 'unfair' business practices: when was business ever 'fair' in any case? But of course, only what benefits Donald J. Trump is 'fair': the logic of a mobster, which of course he simply is. He thinks he can outflank an 'enemy' that already has him surrounded in a last redoubt. But this isn't bloody Rorke's Drift, and the economic forces bearing down on him and the US economy are lightyears ahead in their sophistication: rather than spears vs. Martini-Henry rifles, it's more big-block iron V8's vs. the very latest battery-powered supercars. Someone needs to grow a pair, negotiate properly, and rethink, methinks...