One belt, one road
by Gen. Qiao Liang
This document, which general Qiao Liang has allowed us to publish, was delivered at the University of Defense, China’s top military school, where the general is in charge of the education curriculum for the officers. The speech therefore must have the endorsement of the leaders of the school and ultimately also of the president of the Military Commission, Mr. Xi Jinping.
The document casts a light on China’s new strategic thinking. Beijing’s biggest challenge is not geopolitical but economic. This derives from a cold and cruel analysis of US behavior since 1944, the time of the Bretton Woods agreement, and more importantly since 1971, with the dollar decoupling from gold, and 1973 with the US imposing the use of the petro-dollar. Qiao Liang argues that the US goal in all these years was not just geopolitical; it was to accrue profits, and the US found a way, after the disastrously costly wars with North Korea and especially Vietnam, to make a profit out of regional crisis, with or without war. The general finds a dollar cycle of about 16 years: for 10 the US currency is weak, for 6 it is strong. The beginning of the strong dollar corresponds with a regional crisis that crashes a regional economy.
However, the US failed in its latest attempt to create a regional crisis around China in 2012 because Beijing didn’t fall for the US trap and get drawn into conflict with Japan or the Philippines over the Senkaku or the Scarborough Shoals. Qiao Liang is confident that China will not fall for a regional crisis and believes that new dramatic changes are ahead of us. The new bit money, which could well grow to dominate world finance, is challenging old transaction processes, and 3D printing may dramatically change production methods. These changes create a situation totally new for everybody and here Qiao Liang says the US should collaborate with other countries.
Therefore, according to this dispassionate analysis, China not only doesn’t see the necessity to fight a war but believes that a war directly or indirectly against America would be against Chinese national interests. It thinks that Washington will not fight Beijing for the next ten years, but to make sure that in ten years the US doesn’t change its mind, China must set its affairs in order and internationalize its currency, the RMB. This broad strategic vision also provides a deep justification for the ongoing anti-corruption campaign. China must hurry to overhaul its economy to face the risks of the next decade. If it doesn’t do it now, in a decade it could well be doomed.
This analysis then leaves ample room for collaboration with the US on the future risks that both face. In this analysis, China is confident, assured, and has a clear direction. Economists may agree or disagree with the analysis of the dollar cycles, but what is most important is that this analysis changes the playing field for the Chinese military: shooting weapons becomes not as important as understanding and managing finance. This should also help American military and strategists to better understand Chinese thinking.
(by Francesco SIsci)
First, the situation surrounding China and the US dollar exchange-rate cycle
1. For the first time in history, the emergence of the financial empire.
On this issue, I believe there are many comrades, financial experts, who are better suited than me to speak about the economy. What is different is that I talk about it in strategic terms. From August 15, 1971, after the decoupling of the US dollar from gold, the ship of the dollar lifted its anchor, which was gold. Let us start from the beginning. In July 1944, in order to take over leadership from the British and their currency, the US promoted the establishment of three world systems: a political system, the United Nations; a trading system, the GATT (which then became the WTO); and a monetary and financial system, the Bretton Woods system.
The Bretton Woods system, in accordance with the wishes of the Americans, was to establish the leadership of the dollar. But in fact after a full 27 years, from 1944 to 1971, the Americans’ monetary leadership was slipping because of the weight of gold. At the beginning of the Bretton Woods system, to affirm the leadership of the dollar, Americans pledged to the world: the money of different countries will be locked to dollar, while the dollar will be pegged to gold. How to peg it? With a fixed price for convertibility of $35 per ounce of gold. With this commitment to the world, the Americans could not do whatever they wanted with the dollar. Simply put, the $35-per-ounce-of-gold convertibility meant that the Americans could not just excessively print dollars; if you print more than $35, your treasury will have to have more than an ounce of gold reserves.
America could make such a commitment to the world because it possessed then about 80% of the world’s gold reserves. But the situation later became not as simple as the Americans might have wished. After World War II, the United States got foolishly involved in the Korean and the Vietnam wars. These were two costly wars for the US, especially the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War destroyed almost $800 billion through military spending. With the increasing costs of war, the United States was taking on more than it could afford. According to the US pledge, the loss of every $35 meant the loss of one ounce of gold.
In August 1971, the Americans still had more than 8,800 tons of gold. At this time the Americans knew they had some troubles, and other people were creating new troubles. For example, French President Charles de Gaulle did not have faith in the dollar, so he got the French finance minister and central bank governor to check on the French dollar reserves. France then had about $2.2–2.3 billion, and de Gaulle then ordered them to return all the dollars to the US and get in return the corresponding value in gold. The French blow produced a similar response from other countries. They similarly told the Americans: we do not want dollars; we want gold. This put the Americans in a corner.
Thus, on August 15, 1971, then US President Richard Nixon announced the closure of the gold window—the dollar was delinked from gold. It was the beginning of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, but it was also a time when the Americans went back on their pledge. But as far as the world was concerned, things were not entirely clear at the time. People believed in the dollar because there was gold behind it. The dollar had been used as an international, settlement, and reserve currency for almost 30 years, and people had become used to the dollar. If the dollar suddenly brakes and there is no longer gold behind it, in theory, it becomes a piece of simple green paper—then how can we still use it? One could stop using it, but there would be the problem of what measure to use in the international settlement of the value of goods? Because money is the measure of values, if one does not use the dollar, how can one also trust other currencies? For example, between the yuan and the ruble, Russia (then the Soviet Union) says, if you do not recognize the ruble, we do not recognize the yuan, and then one can only continue to take the dollar as a medium of exchange between us.
So, the Americans used the world’s inertia and in October 1973 pushed the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to accept American conditions: global oil transactions must be settled in US dollars. Prior to this, the global oil trading could use a variety of international settlement currencies, but after October 1973, everything changed, and OPEC announced that the dollar must be used on the global oil trade settlement. Thus, after the decoupling of dollar and gold, the Americans pegged the dollar to the basic commodity of oil. Why? Because the Americans saw clearly that one may not like the dollar, but one cannot do withou
t
the energy: one can do without the dollar, but would you do without oil? All countries must consume energy, and all countries need oil; in this case, one’s need for oil becomes equivalent to need for dollars, which was a very clever move by the Americans. In fact, after the 1971 dollar and gold decoupling, with the 1973 peg of dollar and oil, the US set a new milestone, though few people realized it at the time.
Many economists—financial experts—did not see clearly that the most important events of the 20th century were not World War I, World War II, and the collapse of Soviet Union. The most important event of the 20th century was the August 15, 1971 decoupling of dollar and gold. Since then, humanity saw the emergence of a financial empire, and this financial empire took all of the humanity race into its financial system. In fact, the so-called dollar leadership began at this moment. Today it is about 40 years old. After that day, we entered into an era of real paper notes, but behind the dollar there is no longer a precious metal—it uses entirely the government’s credibility and support from all over the world to gain profits. Simply put, the Americans can use a piece of printed green paper to get physical wealth from all over the world. We never had such a thing in human history. There were a lot of ways to make profits in human history, sometimes with money exchange, sometimes by using gold or silver; at other times countries used war to gain plunders, but the cost of war remained enormous. But after the appearance of the dollar as simply a green paper, the cost-benefit ratio for the United States we can say became extremely low.
Because of the dollar-gold decoupling, gold no longer drags on the dollar, and the United States is freer to print dollars. If a lot of dollars stay in the United States, they will cause inflation in the US. If the dollars go abroad, then the whole world will digest the US inflation, which is one of the reasons why the dollar’s inflation rate is not high. In other words, the outflow of US dollars abroad dilutes its domestic inflation. But the after of the global outflow of dollars, Americans have no money, and if they continue to print money, the dollar continues to depreciate, which is not good for the United States. So the Fed does not, as some people imagine, go on crazily printing money. Actually the Fed fully understands restraint. In the 100 years of its existence, from 1913 to 2013, the Fed issued a total about 10 trillion dollars.
In comparison, some people began to blame China’s central bank. Why? From the time it started to issue the new currency—the renminbi—in 1954 up to now, our central bank has issued over 120 trillion yuan. If converted at the exchange rate of 6.2 to the US dollar, we issued about $20 trillion. But that does not mean crazily printing money in China because after the reform and opening up, China earned a lot of dollars, and now there are a lot of dollars as foreign investment in China. Due to foreign exchange controls, the dollar cannot circulate in China, so the central bank has to release RMB of corresponding dollar and other currency value. However, foreign investments in China, after they make money, may be withdrawn in the future; at the same time, there will be a lot of foreign exchange to buy resources, energy, products, and technology. In this way, a lot of dollars will eventually move out while the RMB stays. One then cannot possibly destroy the corresponding amount of RMB, but can only let the yuan in China continue to circulate, so the stock of RMB becomes a force larger than the dollar. This in turn proves these amazing 30 years of China’s economic development. China’s central bank acknowledged that in recent years it probably issued over 20 trillion yuan. Most of this huge amount stayed in China, which drives to talk about the following problem: why the RMB must be internationalized.
2. The relationship of the dollar cycle and the global economy
The reason why the United States has no inflation is largely because of the global circulation of the dollar. But the US cannot issue unlimited amount of dollars, which would devalue the dollar—you want control. If exercising that control means don’t have dollars, what can you do? Americans have another set of solutions to this problem: they issue dollar bonds, and through the issuance of bonds, they get the dollars out of the country to flow back home. But when this outflows goes back to the United States through debt capital, Americans begin to play a new game, printing money with one hand and borrowing with the other. Printing money can make money, and borrowing can also make money, producing money with money. If it is easier to make money through finance than in real economy, then who is willing to sweat doing hard labor in the low-value-added manufacturing and processing of the real economy? After August 15, 1971, Americans gradually abandoned the real economy in favor of the virtual economy, turning into a hollow country. Today’s US GDP has reached $18 trillion, but the real economy contribution to GDP does not exceed $5 trillion—most of the rest is created by the virtual economy. Through the issuance of bonds, the US gets a large number of dollars circulating abroad back to the United States and into the three US markets: the futures market, bond market, and stock market. American money begets money in this way, and then the money flows abroad, so the cycle of outflow and inflow makes a profit and with this the US becomes a financial empire. United States takes the world financial system into itself. Many people think that after the decline of the British Empire, the colonial history was basically over. In fact it is not like that, because after the United States became a financial empire, it started using the dollar as a hidden “colonial” expansion: it controlled national economies through dollars, thus making various countries of the world its financial “colonies.” Today we see a lot of sovereign and independent countries, including China, that although sovereign, with their own constitutions and governments, still can’t shed the dollar. In the end, the countries’ wealth will be expressed in dollars and they will have their physical wealth enter the US through exchange and a steady stream of dollars.
We can see this very clearly over a 40-year period in the dollar exchange-rate chart. The August 15, 1971 US dollar-gold decoupling meant the Americans got rid of the shackles of gold, they could freely print dollar, the dollar circulation increased, and the dollar exchange rate was naturally low. From 1971, in particular with the 1973 oil crisis, the dollar exchange rate has been trading low, which indicates that they print a lot of dollars. This situation lasted nearly 10 years. A low US dollar exchange rate is not entirely a bad thing for the world economy because it means that the dollar supply increased, which means an increase in the flow of capital. Most of this capital did not stay in the United States but went abroad. At the start of the low dollar exchange rate, a lot of dollars went to Latin America, which stimulated investment and also brought prosperity. This was the 1970s economic boom in Latin America.
The period of dollar flood lasted for about 10 years. Then in 1979, the Americans decided to close the sluice. A low US dollar exchange rate is equivalent to the Americans opening the floodgates, and the closing of those flood gates is actually reducing the dollar’s liquidity. In 1979, the dollar exchange rate became strong and dollars flowing abroad were reduced. Latin America thought it was receiving a lot of dollars that drove development. Suddenly investment was reduced, liquidity dried up, the chain of capital investment broke, and naturally the economies had troubles.
Once trouble started each Latin American country started to think of ways to save itself. Take for instance Argentina. It
s per capita GDP had entered the ranks of the developed countries. But when the Latin American economic crisis appeared, Argentina was the first to enter recession. There are many ways to solve a recession, but unfortunately, when the Argentine government came to power through a military coup, the president was Galtieri, who had no sense of the economy. As a soldier, Galtieri’s only idea was war, and he hoped to rescue the situation with a war. He set his goal on the Malvinas Islands, 600 km away from Argentina’s mainland and called the Falkland Islands by the British. The islands had been under British rule for over 100 years, and Galtieri decided to claim them back. But Argentina is South America, which has always been regarded as America’s backyard. To fight a war in America’s backyard one can’t avoid asking America. So Galtieri people went to talk with US President Ronald Reagan, to see the US attitude on in it. Reagan must have known that if Galtieri wanted to fight this battle, it could lead to a large-scale war with the British, but allegedly he casually declared that this was a matter between Argentina and the United Kingdom, it had nothing to do with the United States: “we do not have any position; we remain neutral.” Galtieri thought it was the US president acquiescence, so he launched the Falklands War and easily recovered the Falklands. All in Argentina cheered, like an over-enthusiastic carnival. However, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared that she would never accept this outcome, and also forced the US president to take a stand. Reagan then immediately put down the mask of neutrality and issued a statement strongly condemning Argentina’s acts of aggression, while standing firm with Britain. Subsequently, the British sent an aircraft carrier task force over a lengthy and strenuous expedition of 8,000 sea miles, winning back the Malvinas.
In the meantime, the dollar began to strengthen, and international capital returned to the United States in accordance with the US wishes. When the Falklands War broke out, global investors drew immediate conclusions: Latin America was in a regional crisis and there was a deterioration of the investment climate in Latin America. One after the other, investors went to divest from Latin America. The Federal Reserve saw the moment and immediately announced an increase in interest rates. After the rates rose, disinvestment from Latin America gained momentum. Latin America’s economy was in ruins. The withdrawal of capital from Latin America almost all went to the United States in pursuit of the three markets (the bond, futures, and stock markets) in the US, and this brought the US the first big bull market after the dollar-gold decoupling. The dollar exchange rate had grown by 60 points then in one leap rose over 120 points, an increase of 100%. The three American markets did not keep this money there but seized the opportunity to earn more by going back to Latin America, this time to buy high-quality assets whose prices had dropped to the floor, thus savagely fleecing again Latin American economies. This was the situation after the first dollar strengthening.
If similar things happened only once, then it would be a rare occurrence; if they occur repeatedly, then it must be the rule. At the time of the first cycle—“10 years of weak dollar, six years of strong dollar”—people were not sure whether it was the rule. After the peak of the financial crisis in Latin America, the dollar exchange rate began to fall again starting in 1986. After that there was the Japanese financial crisis and the European currency crisis, but the dollar exchange rate was still low. Some 10 years later, in 1997, the dollar strengthened again. The strong dollar this time also lasted six years. This is very interesting, we can see that the dollar exchange rate showed more or less the same pattern: 10 years weak, six years strong, and then again 10 years weak, six years strong.
After 1986, the dollar exchange rate began to weaken for the second time, then after 10 years, the dollar came back like a flood, spilling all over the world. The main flood zone this time was in Asia. In 1980s what idea was hottest? The "four Asian Tigers,” "the Asian Geese,” and so on. Many people believed that Asia’s prosperity came through the hard work, intelligence, and the business acumen of the Asians. In fact, a big reason was because Asian countries received enough dollars for ample investments. When the Asian economies were roughly prosperous, the Americans felt it was time to reap the harvest. Then, after 1997, when the dollar exchange rate had been low for a full 10 years, by reducing the money supply to Asia, Americans brought back a strong dollar reversal. Most Asian countries, enterprises, and industries suffered liquidity shortages, and some even simply broke the chain of capital financing, and so came the signs of the Asian economic and the financial crisis.
This time the water in the pot was already 99 degrees, only 1 degree short of boiling, and then with the other degree the regional crisis would break out. It is not necessarily a war like that of Argentines. To create a regional crisis, war is not the only way. Since the goal is to squeeze out the capital, even without a fight one can create regional crisis. Then we saw that financial speculators like Soros, with his Quantum Fund, and hundreds of the world’s hedge funds, like a pack of wolves begin to attack the weakest economies of countries in Asia, such as Thailand, attacking the Thai currency the baht. A week or so after the baht crisis began, there was a chain reaction, all the way south, gradually moving to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, then north to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and all the way up to Russia—the East Asian financial crisis broke out. This time the water was boiling. Global investors concluded that the investment environment in Asia had deteriorated and withdrew their capital from Asia. The Fed once again seized the opportunity to sound the trumpet for interest-rate hikes. Following the withdrawal order from Asia to the US, capital once again sought the three major US markets and brought the second great bull market to the United States. When Americans saved enough money, as they had done in Latin America, they came back to Asia to buy quality assets in Asia at floor price. This time the Asian economies had been totally smashed, with no strength to fight back. This time China was the only lucky one.
3. Now it’s China’s turn
Thereafter, timely and accurate as tides, after six years of being strong, the dollar exchange rate in 2002 it began to weaken again, and then again 10 years, in 2012, the Americans began to prepare to make the strong dollar weak again. The method was still the same old one: to create regional crises for others. We have seen the Cheonan incident [translator’s note: A South Korean navy ship sunk in 2010, possibly by a North Korean torpedo]; in neighboring China, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute [translator’s note: between China and Japan], and the Huangyan Island/Scarborough Shoal dispute [between China and the Philippines]. Almost all took place within a very short period. But very unfortunately, the United States in 2008, playing with fire in its own home, was first hit by the financial crisis. This resulted in a delay in the strengthening of the US dollar exchange rate. It seems that the Sino-Philippine dispute on the Huangyan and the Sino-Japanese on the Diaoyu Islands did not much impact the US dollar exchange rate, but does it really matter? Why did these incidents occur just at the beginning of the third 10-year period of weak dollar? Few people have been explored this issue, but it is really worth considering.
If we admit that from the 1971 dollar-gold decoupling there has been a dollar exchange rate cycle, and according to the cycle, the Americans take the opportunit
y to strain the economies of other countries, then we can conclude that, now it is China’s turn. Why do we say so? Because now China has become a global attraction for receiving investments and a large quantity of international capital arrives in China from those optimistic about its economy. From the perspective of economic laws, it is not just China as a country. An economy the size of China’s is equivalent to the whole of Latin America, even bigger than the total economic output of Latin America; and if we compare it with East Asian economies then we can say that China’s economy is equivalent to the whole rest of East Asia. Moreover, in the past decade, a lot of capital came into China, making China’s economy to grow at a mouthwatering speed and becoming the world’s second largest. If this is so, it is not strange that the United States aims to target China for its third straining.
If the assessment is true, then, from 2012, since the Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Sino-Philippines Huangyan Island dispute, China’s neighborhood disputes came one after the other, until last year’s Sino-Vietnamese clash over the "981" rig and then later the “Occupy Central” Hong Kong movement. Can the occurrence of all these events still be seen as accidental? Last year in May, when I accompanied General Liu Yazhou, political commissar of the National Defense University, to Hong Kong for a study visit, the “Occupy Central” movement was already brewing and would possibly start at the end of May. But by the end of May it did not begin, nor by the end of June or July or August. What was the reason? What was this brewing movement waiting for? Let’s compare the timetable of another event: Fed QE (quantitative easing) exit timetable. Early last year, the United States said it would withdraw QE, but come April, May, June, July, and August, still it did not end it. If the US did not end QE, then they were still issuing many dollars and dollar cannot be strong, so Hong Kong’s "Occupy Central" movement did not start. The timetables of both events completely overlap. At the end of September last year, the Fed finally announced the US withdrawal from the QE, and the dollar exchange rate began to turn strong in early October—and then the Hong Kong "Occupy Central" movement broke out. In fact, the Diaoyu Islands, the Philippines Huangyan Island, the 981 drilling rig, and Hong Kong "Occupy Central" movement are four explosive situations. If any of these four blows up, they would lead to a regional financial crisis, which would mean that the region surrounding China is no longer good for investment. This would fully satisfy the basic condition of the dollar revenue model: "when the dollar exchange rate becomes stronger, other areas must appear as in regional crisis; this deterioration of the investment environment in the region forces a large number of investors to withdraw capital.” But unfortunately for Americans, this time it they had to deal with Chinese as opponents. The Chinese people used the taijiquan method to solve one by one the crises in the neighborhood. The result up to the present is that what the Americans hoped for—that 99 degree hot water goes up an extra degree—has failed to occur; the water is not boiling.
If the water does not boil, the Fed has to hold on raising interest rates. It seems the United States understands it is not so easy to shear China’s wool, but it has no intention of just waiting around. At the same time as promoting the "Occupy Central" movement in Hong Kong, the United States multi-pronged approach was starting to move in other areas. Where? Ukraine, where the EU meets with Russia. Ukraine, under the leadership of Viktor Yanukoviych, of course was not a perfect egg, so flies could fill it with maggots. But the United States was eyeing Ukraine not just because it was a rotten egg, but because it was good at fighting Yanukovych, a disobedient politician, and also blocking the EU and Russia from getting closer. This could also cause a worsening of the European investment environment—the ideal objective of killing three birds with one stone. Thus, a Ukrainian seemingly spontaneous popular "color revolution" broke out, and the goal of the Americans was achieved beyond the expectations of Americans or anyone on Earth: Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, taking advantage of the opportunity, recovered Crimea. Although the move was not in the American plan, it gave Americans a reason to put pressure on the European Union as well as Japan, forcing them to join the United States in sanctions against Russia, bringing great pressure to the Russian but also to the European economy.
Why did Americans have to do it? Often one looks at issue from a geopolitical perspective, rather than from the perspective of capital. After the crisis in Ukraine, Russia’s relations with Europe and America deteriorated rapidly, but Western sanctions against Russia created a deterioration of the investment environment in Europe, leading to the withdrawal of capital. According to statistics, over a trillion dollars of capital left Europe. America’s two-pronged design was successful. That is, if you cannot get capital to withdraw from China in pursuit of the United States, then at least you can cause European capital to go to the US. This was the first step to achieve a dramatic change in the situation in Ukraine, but the second step, did not go as the United States wished. The capital withdrawn from Europe did not go to the United States, according to data—most of it went to Hong Kong. This means that global investors are still not optimistic about the US economic recovery. Although its economic growth is slowing down, they still are looking to the country with the fastest growth rate: China.
This is the first point. The second is that the Chinese government announced last year it wants to have the "Shanghai and Hong Kong markets communication” so global investors are eagerly hoping to make some money through the "Shanghai and Hong Kong communication.” Western capital in the past did not dare to enter the Chinese stock market. A very important reason was China’s strict foreign exchange controls, with strict exits—you are free to come in, but you cannot easily go out—so investors are generally afraid to invest in China’s stock market. Since the "Shanghai and Hong Kong communication,” they can easily through Hong Kong invest in the Shanghai stock market, and they can just leave after they make money. Over a trillion dollars are now stuck in Hong Kong and have been since last September, which is the beginning of the "Occupy Central” movement. This is why the forces behind the "Occupy Central" movement have always refused to give up and always wanted a comeback—Americans need to create a regional crisis aimed at China, so the capital stuck in Hong Kong will be withdrawn from China in favor of the American economy.
Why does the US economy need and so strongly depend on international capital flows? The reason is that after the August 15, 1971 dollar-gold decoupling, the US economy gradually gave up on physical production and left the real economy. Americans consider the real economy—low-end manufacturing, low-value-added industries—as garbage industries or call them “sunset industries,” and gradually transferred them to developing countries, especially to China. Furthermore, aside from the so-called high-tech industries such as IBM, Microsoft, and other companies, America has gradually turned about 70% of jobs to finance and financial services. Now, the United States has become industrially empty and does not have much of a real economy that can bring large profits to global investors. In this case, the Americans have to open another door, that of the virtual economy. Virtual economy is its three markets. As long as the international financial capital gets into the
pond of its three markets, it makes money for America’s own money. Then, it uses the money earned to fleece the world, and now this is the only way Americans can live. Or we call it the American way of life. The approach is that the United States requires the return of a lot of capital to support the daily lives of Americans and the US economy. Those blocking capital returns to the US are the enemy of the United States. We must understand this to think about it clearly.
Second, whose cheese was moved by the rapid rise of China?
1. Why the birth of the euro provoked a war?
On January 1, 1999, the euro was born. Three months later, the Kosovo war broke out. Many people thought that the war in Kosovo came about because the United States and NATO joined forces to fight the Milosevic regime, which had massacred ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, creating an appalling humanitarian disaster. After the war, the lie quickly burst, and Americans admitted that this was a move played jointly by the CIA and the Western media with the goal of hitting the Yugoslavian government. However, was the war in Kosovo really against Yugoslavia? Europeans overwhelmingly believe it was for this purpose, but after 72 days of war, the Europeans found themselves fooled, and why?
With the launch of the euro, the Europeans were very confident. They set the euro-dollar rate 1: 1.07. After the outbreak of the Kosovo war, the Europeans were fully involved in the NATO action, in support the US attack on Kosovo. After 72 days of bombing, the Milosevic regime collapsed and Yugoslavia yielded. But then after all of this, the Europeans found the accounts did not match. In these 70 days of the war, the euro actually was crippled. When the war ended, the euro plummeted 30 percent, to $0.82 to one euro. Europeans suddenly realized they were sold out, and they were still counting the money for other people. The Europeans began to wake up. That is why later when the United States fought in Iraq, France and Germany—the two EU powers—firmly opposed the war.
Some say that Western democracies do not fight among each other. So far, after World War II, there has been no direct war between Western countries, but this does not mean there is no economic or financial war between them. The Kosovo war was the Americans’ indirect financial war with the euro, the fight was with Yugoslavia but pain was felt by the euro. That is because the birth of the euro moved the dollar’s cheese. Before the birth of the euro, the world currency was the US dollar, and the dollar was used for about 80% of global settlements—even now it is around 60%. The emergence of the euro immediately cut away a chunk of US cheese. The EU is a $27 trillion economy, and its appearance suddenly overshadowed the world’s largest economy, the North American Free Trade Area ($24–25 trillion dollars). As a large economy, the European Union certainly could not be happy with the dollar settling its internal trade, so the Europeans decided to launch their own currency, the euro. The emergence of the euro cut away about a third of the dollar settlements, and now 23% of world trade settlement uses the euro instead of the dollar. Americans were vigilant enough when the Europeans started talking about the euro, but later when they discovered that the appearance of the euro was a challenge to the primacy of the dollar, it was a little too late. Therefore, the US learned a lesson, and on one hand it presses down the EU and the euro, on the other hand it must press down other challengers.
2. What does America want to balance with the "Asia-Pacific strategic rebalancing"?
The rise of China makes us the new challenger. The 2012 Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute are the latest attempt to suppress the American challenger’s success. Both occurred in China’s neighboring geopolitical areas, and although they failed to cause large capital outflows from China, they at least partially met American goals and created two problems. In early 2012, China-Japan-Korea negotiations on a trilateral Northeast Asian FTA were close to success; in April, China and Japan had a preliminary agreement on Japanese currency and bond swaps. But this time, the Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute appeared one after another, and all of a sudden the Northeast Asian FTA negotiations and the Japanese currency swaps went up in the wind. After a few years, we have barely completed bilateral negotiations on a China-South Korea FTA, which has little significance, since it is quite different from the Northeast Asian FTA. Why is that? Because once China-Japan-Korea FTA negotiations succeed, it will include China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. A Northeast Asian FTA would mean the third-largest economy would appear, a world-scale giant of about 20 trillion dollars. Then, once the Northeast Asian FTA was in place, it would not stop but would quickly move south to integrate the Southeast Asia free-trade area and form a free-trade area in East Asia generating over 30 trillion dollars. It would be the world’s first economy bigger than that of the EU and North America. Then we could continue to speculate that a free trade-zone in East Asia still would not stop. It could bring in India in the southwest, then move north to integrate the five Central Asian republics, and then go west to integrate the Middle East—so that the entire Asian FTA would have a scale of over 50 trillion US dollars, more than the EU and North America put together. If such a large free-trade zone were to appear, would it be willing to use the euro or the US dollar for clearing its internal trade? Of course not. This means that an Asian dollar might be born.
But I think, if an Asian FTA is to come about, we can only promote the internationalization of the RMB and allow the yuan to become Asia’s dominant currency, like the dollar became the hard currency in North America and then for the flow of goods around the world. The meaning of RMB internationalization goes far beyond what we say about the RMB: to go out and play a role in the "one belt, one road" policy and so on. It would split the world with the US dollar, and the euro. Chinese people can see it, will the Americans not see this? When Americans announced a rebalancing east, they pushed Japan on the Diaoyu Islands and wrangled with China to back the Philippines in the Huangyan Islands confrontation. If we think short-sightedly then the Diaoyu Islands dispute was started after the Japanese right-wing “bought the island” and the dispute with the Philippines started when Philippine President Corazon Aquino got carried away trying to stir trouble with China. But what we don’t see is American foresight in preventing the RMB from becoming a challenger the dollar. The Americans knew very well what they were doing because they knew they must not let such a thing happen again [as with the euro]. If the Northeast Asian FTA were formed, it would have a ripple effect dividing the world in three. If only a third of the global money is in the hands of the dollar, how can the US currency maintain its leadership? Could a hollowed out United States, left without monetary leadership, still be a global leader? If we want to understand this point, we should see why behind all of China’s recent troubles there is the shadow of the United States. This is because the United States has to think more long-term than us, see things more deeply to prevent China’s "peril" in the first place, and thus always give us trouble. This is the fundamental reason the US implemented its Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy. What do you want to balance exactly? It is really to try to balance China and Japan, China and the Philippines, or China and other countries? Of course not, the goal is to balance out the momentum of China’s rising power today.
Third, the secret that American soldiers
fight for the US dollar
1. The Iraq War and the currency used in accounting oil deals
Everybody says the power of America rests on three pillars: money, technology, and military. In fact, today we can see that the real pillars of the US are monetary and military, and supporting the currency is the United States military. Wars all over the world burn money, but the US military goes on fighting despite it. But it can burn money on one hand and earn money for the US on the other hand, which other countries cannot do. Only the United States can gain a great deal through war, although the United States also has lost some hands.
Why did the Americans fight in Iraq? Most people have in mind just one word: oil. Did Americans really go to war for oil? Definitely not. If Americans went to war for oil, then why didn’t the Americans take a single barrel of oil from Iraq after the victory? Moreover, oil prices went from $38 a barrel before the war, to $149 a barrel after the war. The American people did not get low oil prices because of the US occupation of Iraq. Therefore, the US war in Iraq is not about oil, but the dollar.
Why, you say? The reason is very simple. Because in order to control the world, the United States needs the world to use dollars. In order to let the world use dollars, the Americans made a very clever move in 1973: they linked the dollar and oil by forcing the leading OPEC country, Saudi Arabia, to conduct its global oil transactions in dollars. If you understand that global oil transactions are in US dollars, you can understand why the Americans fight for oil. A direct consequence of war in the oil-producing countries is the surge in oil prices, and a surge in oil prices means that the demand for dollars increases. Before the war, for example, if you had $38, in theory, you can buy a barrel of oil from an oil company. With the war, oil prices have more than quadrupled, reaching $149. So, $38 is only enough to buy a quarter of a barrel of oil, and for the remaining 3/4 of the barrel you are short more than 100 dollars. What to do then? You can only go to the Americans with your own products and resources and hand them out in return for American dollars. And then the US government can confidently, openly, and justifiably print dollars. It is through war—war against the oil-producing countries creating high oil prices—that the US creates a high demand for dollars.
The American war in Iraq had more than just one goal. It was also about maintaining the dollar leadership. Why then did George W. Bush insist on war in Iraq? Now we can very clearly that Saddam did not support terrorism or al-Qaeda, nor did he weapons of mass destruction—why was Saddam finally brought to the gallows? Because Saddam thought himself smart, and played with fire with superpowers. At the official launch of the euro in 1999, Saddam Hussein seized the opportunity to play with fire between the dollar and the euro—the United States and the European Union—and he could not wait to announce that the Iraqi oil transactions would occur in euros. This is what angered the Americans, in particular, it produced a chain reaction. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also announced the settlement of their country’s oil exports would be in euros. Was this not a stab in American backs? Some people think it is too far-fetched to say that after this war in Iraq was mandatory. Then please take a look at this: what did the Americans do after winning Iraq? Even before seizing Saddam, the Americans set up an Iraqi interim government whose first decree was to declare Iraqi oil exports would be accounted in dollars and not in euros. That’s why Americans are fighting for dollars.
2. The Afghan war and US capital account surplus
Some might say that the war in Iraq to for fight US dollars is understandable, but in Afghanistan there is no oil, so the US war in Afghanistan could not have been fought for the dollar, right? Moreover, the war in Afghanistan came clearly after "9/11," when the United States wanted to retaliate against al-Qaeda and the Taliban for supporting al-Qaeda. But is that really true? The war in Afghanistan started over a month after "9/11"—it was kind of rush. After a while the US ran out of cruise missiles but the war still continued. The Pentagon could not but order open the stash of nuclear weapons, remove the 1,000 nuclear warheads from cruise missiles, and put in place conventional warheads, Then they lobbed 900 more missiles and only then beat down Afghanistan. This is obvious proof that preparation was very inadequate, and in that case, why did the Americans insist on rushing into battle?
Americans could not wait any longer. In the early 21st century, the United States was an industrially hollow country and needed about $700 billion every year in net inflows to survive. But within a month after "9.11," the investment climate in the US had badly deteriorated to a level of worries and anxiety never felt before. No matter how strong it is, if the United States could not look after its own security, how could it ensure investors’ financial security? As a result, over $300 billion of hot money left the United States. This forced the United States to fight a war as soon as possible. The war was not only to punish the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also to regain global investors’ confidence. As the first cruise missiles exploded in Kabul, the Dow Jones rebounded 600 points in one day, the capital flowing out began to return to the US, and by the end, there was about $400 billion moving back to the US. Does this not prove that the war in Afghanistan was for the dollar and capital?
3. Why aircraft carriers gave way to rapid global strike systems
Many people have great expectations about China’s own aircraft carrier, because they have seen the history of aircraft carriers and eagerly look forward to China with its own. Then when we heard the whistle of the Liaoning, we rushed to catch the last train of a Chinese aircraft carrier. While the aircraft carrier remains today a sign of a big country, it is but a sign. Because the global economy is increasingly focused on financial technology, the role of aircraft carriers will gradually decline. The history of aircraft carriers is a product of its times. When the British Empire flourished, it promoted global trade, and it would sell its manufactured goods to the world, and then get resources in return. It needed a strong navy to ensure the smooth flow of sea lanes. Later the development of aircraft carriers was all to control the seas and to ensure the safety of sea lanes. It was the era of "logistics is king”: to guarantee control of the flow of resources and products on the sea would guarantee control of the flow of global wealth. But the world today is in the era of "capital is king." Billions, hundreds of billions, or even trillions in capital flow from one place to another place within a few seconds with the tap of a few keys on the computer. Of course, the aircraft carrier sailing the oceans at the speed of logistics, but unable to keep up with the speed of capital, will not be able to control global capital.
Today, what are the alternatives? Can you keep up with the direction, volume, and speed of the flow of global capital supported by the Internet? Americans are developing a huge, rapid global combat system: using ballistic missiles and supersonic aircraft five times or ten times faster than a supersonic cruise missile, it can quickly hit any area of high concentration of capital. Now the US claims it can hit any part of the world within 28 minutes, so no matter where capital is concentrated, it can hit anywhere in the world. As long as the United States does not want a particular place to have capital, a missile can get there in 28 minutes. And when the missile goes down, capital ca
n be still quietly and nicely withdrawn. This is the reason why a fast global combat system will replace the carriers. Of course, the aircraft carrier of the future will still have irreplaceable roles, such as the protection of maritime safety and of sea lanes, humanitarian missions, and so on, because the carrier is a very good offshore platform. But as a weapon to control future capital flows, it has far less speed than the global strike systems.
Fourth, the "Air and Sea Battle": A Gordian knot for the US
When Americans consider the use of military means to deal with the rise of China, they proposed a concept called the "air and sea battle." I think the "air and sea battle" remains intractable dilemma for the US. The "air and sea battle" against China was raised at the 2010 joint US Air Force and Navy summit. The strategy primarily reflects the fact that the US military today is weakening. US troops used to think that it could use air strikes and the Navy against China. Now the US finds neither the Air Force nor the Navy by themselves can gain advantages against China; a joint air-and-sea attack can provide a certain advantage over China. But though the US raised the idea a little more than four years ago, the Americans suddenly changed the name, now calling it a "concept of global common involvement and joint mobility."
In this joint concept of operations by air and sea, Americans believe that there will be no war between the two countries within the next ten years. After recent American studies on China’s military development, they believe the US’s existing capacity is not sufficient to offset some advantages the Chinese military has established, such as the ability to destroy space systems or attack aircraft carriers. The United States must then come up with ten years of development and a more advanced combat system to offset China’s advantages. This means that Americans may schedule a war for ten years later. While war may still not happen in a decade, we must be prepared for it. If Chinese do not want a war in the next ten years, we need to put all of our affairs in order, including the preparation of the military and war.
Fifth, the strategic significance of "one belt, one road"
Let’s look at the Americans’ passion for sports: the first is basketball and the second is boxing. Boxing typically reflects strength in the style Americans advocate: go straight, strike, the KO (knockout) wins, and everything is clear. China, by contrast, likes blur and softness, and we do not look forward to knocking you out, but want to resolve and understand all your actions. Chinese people like to practice taiji, which is indeed a higher art than boxing.
"One belt, one road" reflects this idea. The history of the rise of all great powers concerns their globalization movement. This means that globalization is not a consistent process from antiquity to the present day, but each place—the Roman Empire, the Qin Empire—has its own globalization process. Each process of globalization was being pushed by the rising empire; every empire is associated with a period of globalization, with its heyday of globalization when it reached a peak. And globalization will also be limited by their strength, which is the maximum range that can be achieved by their vehicles—that is, it’s the end point for each phase of globalization. Therefore, both the Roman and Qin Empire globalization, today only seem like a process of regionalization of imperial expansion. The real globalization of modern history came from the beginning of the great British Empire, which was the globalization of trade. After the United States took over the mantle of the British Empire, it carried on with the globalization of trade, while the truly American globalization was the globalization of dollars. This is the globalization that we are experiencing today. But I do not agree that today’s Chinese strategy of "one belt, one road" is an integration into the global economic system. To say that the dollar will continue its globalization and integration is a misunderstanding. As a rising great power, "one belt, one road" is the initial stage of China globalization. As a big country, the process of rising must be about the plan for advancing globalization.
"One belt, one road" is by far the best strategy China can put forward. It is a hedge strategy against the eastward move of the US. Some people will question this, believing hedging should be in the same direction—how can you hedge by going in the opposite direction? Right, "one belt, one road" is China’s hedge strategy of turning its back to the US eastward shift: You push in one direction; I go in the opposite direction. Didn’t you pressure me to it? I go west, neither to avoid you nor because I am afraid, but to very cleverly defuse the pressure you gave me on the east.
“One belt, one road" is not a strategy of two parallel lines, but there should be primary and secondary focuses. Given that China’s sea power is still weak, the first choice of “one belt, one road" should be to compete on land, which means "the way (sea lanes)" should be a secondary attack direction and "the belt" should be the main direction. If "the belt" has become the main direction, it means that we must re-recognize the role of the Army. Some people say that the Chinese Field Army is invincible. If they mean it within the scope of Chinese territory, yes, the Chinese Army is invincible. Who would want to set foot on Chinese territory to fight large-scale battles? The problem is, does the Chinese army have expeditionary capabilities?
Last year I talked about this issue at the Global Times forum. I said that in choosing China as its rival, America chose the wrong opponent and the wrong direction. Because in the future, the real challenge to the United States is not China; it is the United States itself, and the United States will bury itself. Because it does not realize that a great era is ending, the United States will fall with time because financial capitalism has been brought to the highest stage. On the one hand, through the virtual economy, the United States has already eaten up all the profits of capitalism. On the other hand, through scientific and technological innovation—of which it is proudly is a world leader—the Internet, big data, and the cloud are pushed to the extreme will eventually bury in the United States, as the representatives of the most important opponent of financial capitalism. [That is, the internet and the cloud will gain a life of their own and oppose the government of the US].
On last year’s "double 11" [November 11, Chinese Valentine day], online shopping reached 50.7 billion yuan in a day for Alibaba’s Taobao. Over the three days after the Thanksgiving holiday, US online and on-the-ground store sales had a total equivalent to 40.7 billion yuan, less than Alibaba sales in one day. And China was not even counting Netease, Tencent, Jingdong, or revenue from malls. This means that a new era has already arrived, while the American reaction is still slow. Alibaba deals were all made directly with Alipay. What does direct pay mean? It means that the currency is already out of the transaction stage, and the American leadership is built on the dollar. What is the dollar? It is a currency. In the future, when we no longer use money, traditional money settlement will become useless. When money becomes useless, will an empire built on money still exist? That is the question to be considered by the Americans.
3D printers also represent a future direction and will bring a fundamental changes in the mode of production in today’s society. Because production is changing and trade is changing, the world is bound to change radically. But history has proven that real change
can lead to changes in the social nature, which will be led by these two [changes in production and trade modes] and no other factors. In China from the period of the late Qin Emperor, people began to rebel: Chen Sheng Wu Guang rose a revolution and uprisings occurred many times during 2,000 years of history. Rebellions, wars, revolutions—do they solve the problem? They do not solve the problem; they just bring a change of rulers, a low-level water circulation. These movements could not change the nature of the farming community, nor did they change the modes of production or the ways of trade. They could only bring a regime change. In the West too, Napoleon brought the glory of the French Revolution and led a new army baptized in the revolution across Europe, throwing down one crown after the other, but when he failed at Waterloo, Napoleon stepped down. All European kings were restored and immediately they returned to feudal society. The Industrial Revolution came when the British steam engine allowed humanity to greatly enhance its production and a large number of surplus products appeared. With the remaining products there was surplus value, and thus capital and capitalists. Capitalist society had arrived.
So today when capital may disappear with the disappearance of money and when production will also change with the emergence of 3D printer, mankind is about to enter a new social stage. This time China and the United States stand on the same starting line, the starting line of the Internet, big data, and cloud computing. We have to compare who is better at entering this era, rather than the vie for who will suppress whom. In this sense, I was saying that the United States picked the wrong opponent. The real opponent is the United States itself—or is this era. Precisely on this point, Americans appear amazingly slow. Because they are too eager to keep their leadership and never thought to share power with other countries, approaching this new social stage jointly still has many unknown areas and many uncertain barriers.
This document, which general Qiao Liang has allowed us to publish, was delivered at the University of Defense, China’s top military school, where the general is in charge of the education curriculum for the officers. The speech therefore must have the endorsement of the leaders of the school and ultimately also of the president of the Military Commission, Mr. Xi Jinping.
The document casts a light on China’s new strategic thinking. Beijing’s biggest challenge is not geopolitical but economic. This derives from a cold and cruel analysis of US behavior since 1944, the time of the Bretton Woods agreement, and more importantly since 1971, with the dollar decoupling from gold, and 1973 with the US imposing the use of the petro-dollar. Qiao Liang argues that the US goal in all these years was not just geopolitical; it was to accrue profits, and the US found a way, after the disastrously costly wars with North Korea and especially Vietnam, to make a profit out of regional crisis, with or without war. The general finds a dollar cycle of about 16 years: for 10 the US currency is weak, for 6 it is strong. The beginning of the strong dollar corresponds with a regional crisis that crashes a regional economy.
However, the US failed in its latest attempt to create a regional crisis around China in 2012 because Beijing didn’t fall for the US trap and get drawn into conflict with Japan or the Philippines over the Senkaku or the Scarborough Shoals. Qiao Liang is confident that China will not fall for a regional crisis and believes that new dramatic changes are ahead of us. The new bit money, which could well grow to dominate world finance, is challenging old transaction processes, and 3D printing may dramatically change production methods. These changes create a situation totally new for everybody and here Qiao Liang says the US should collaborate with other countries.
However, the US failed in its latest attempt to create a regional crisis around China in 2012 because Beijing didn’t fall for the US trap and get drawn into conflict with Japan or the Philippines over the Senkaku or the Scarborough Shoals. Qiao Liang is confident that China will not fall for a regional crisis and believes that new dramatic changes are ahead of us. The new bit money, which could well grow to dominate world finance, is challenging old transaction processes, and 3D printing may dramatically change production methods. These changes create a situation totally new for everybody and here Qiao Liang says the US should collaborate with other countries.
Therefore, according to this dispassionate analysis, China not only doesn’t see the necessity to fight a war but believes that a war directly or indirectly against America would be against Chinese national interests. It thinks that Washington will not fight Beijing for the next ten years, but to make sure that in ten years the US doesn’t change its mind, China must set its affairs in order and internationalize its currency, the RMB. This broad strategic vision also provides a deep justification for the ongoing anti-corruption campaign. China must hurry to overhaul its economy to face the risks of the next decade. If it doesn’t do it now, in a decade it could well be doomed.
This analysis then leaves ample room for collaboration with the US on the future risks that both face. In this analysis, China is confident, assured, and has a clear direction. Economists may agree or disagree with the analysis of the dollar cycles, but what is most important is that this analysis changes the playing field for the Chinese military: shooting weapons becomes not as important as understanding and managing finance. This should also help American military and strategists to better understand Chinese thinking.
(by Francesco SIsci)
First, the situation surrounding China and the US dollar exchange-rate cycle
1. For the first time in history, the emergence of the financial empire.
On this issue, I believe there are many comrades, financial experts, who are better suited than me to speak about the economy. What is different is that I talk about it in strategic terms. From August 15, 1971, after the decoupling of the US dollar from gold, the ship of the dollar lifted its anchor, which was gold. Let us start from the beginning. In July 1944, in order to take over leadership from the British and their currency, the US promoted the establishment of three world systems: a political system, the United Nations; a trading system, the GATT (which then became the WTO); and a monetary and financial system, the Bretton Woods system.
The Bretton Woods system, in accordance with the wishes of the Americans, was to establish the leadership of the dollar. But in fact after a full 27 years, from 1944 to 1971, the Americans’ monetary leadership was slipping because of the weight of gold. At the beginning of the Bretton Woods system, to affirm the leadership of the dollar, Americans pledged to the world: the money of different countries will be locked to dollar, while the dollar will be pegged to gold. How to peg it? With a fixed price for convertibility of $35 per ounce of gold. With this commitment to the world, the Americans could not do whatever they wanted with the dollar. Simply put, the $35-per-ounce-of-gold convertibility meant that the Americans could not just excessively print dollars; if you print more than $35, your treasury will have to have more than an ounce of gold reserves.
America could make such a commitment to the world because it possessed then about 80% of the world’s gold reserves. But the situation later became not as simple as the Americans might have wished. After World War II, the United States got foolishly involved in the Korean and the Vietnam wars. These were two costly wars for the US, especially the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War destroyed almost $800 billion through military spending. With the increasing costs of war, the United States was taking on more than it could afford. According to the US pledge, the loss of every $35 meant the loss of one ounce of gold.
In August 1971, the Americans still had more than 8,800 tons of gold. At this time the Americans knew they had some troubles, and other people were creating new troubles. For example, French President Charles de Gaulle did not have faith in the dollar, so he got the French finance minister and central bank governor to check on the French dollar reserves. France then had about $2.2–2.3 billion, and de Gaulle then ordered them to return all the dollars to the US and get in return the corresponding value in gold. The French blow produced a similar response from other countries. They similarly told the Americans: we do not want dollars; we want gold. This put the Americans in a corner.
Thus, on August 15, 1971, then US President Richard Nixon announced the closure of the gold window—the dollar was delinked from gold. It was the beginning of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, but it was also a time when the Americans went back on their pledge. But as far as the world was concerned, things were not entirely clear at the time. People believed in the dollar because there was gold behind it. The dollar had been used as an international, settlement, and reserve currency for almost 30 years, and people had become used to the dollar. If the dollar suddenly brakes and there is no longer gold behind it, in theory, it becomes a piece of simple green paper—then how can we still use it? One could stop using it, but there would be the problem of what measure to use in the international settlement of the value of goods? Because money is the measure of values, if one does not use the dollar, how can one also trust other currencies? For example, between the yuan and the ruble, Russia (then the Soviet Union) says, if you do not recognize the ruble, we do not recognize the yuan, and then one can only continue to take the dollar as a medium of exchange between us.
So, the Americans used the world’s inertia and in October 1973 pushed the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to accept American conditions: global oil transactions must be settled in US dollars. Prior to this, the global oil trading could use a variety of international settlement currencies, but after October 1973, everything changed, and OPEC announced that the dollar must be used on the global oil trade settlement. Thus, after the decoupling of dollar and gold, the Americans pegged the dollar to the basic commodity of oil. Why? Because the Americans saw clearly that one may not like the dollar, but one cannot do withou
t
the energy: one can do without the dollar, but would you do without oil? All countries must consume energy, and all countries need oil; in this case, one’s need for oil becomes equivalent to need for dollars, which was a very clever move by the Americans. In fact, after the 1971 dollar and gold decoupling, with the 1973 peg of dollar and oil, the US set a new milestone, though few people realized it at the time.
the energy: one can do without the dollar, but would you do without oil? All countries must consume energy, and all countries need oil; in this case, one’s need for oil becomes equivalent to need for dollars, which was a very clever move by the Americans. In fact, after the 1971 dollar and gold decoupling, with the 1973 peg of dollar and oil, the US set a new milestone, though few people realized it at the time.
Many economists—financial experts—did not see clearly that the most important events of the 20th century were not World War I, World War II, and the collapse of Soviet Union. The most important event of the 20th century was the August 15, 1971 decoupling of dollar and gold. Since then, humanity saw the emergence of a financial empire, and this financial empire took all of the humanity race into its financial system. In fact, the so-called dollar leadership began at this moment. Today it is about 40 years old. After that day, we entered into an era of real paper notes, but behind the dollar there is no longer a precious metal—it uses entirely the government’s credibility and support from all over the world to gain profits. Simply put, the Americans can use a piece of printed green paper to get physical wealth from all over the world. We never had such a thing in human history. There were a lot of ways to make profits in human history, sometimes with money exchange, sometimes by using gold or silver; at other times countries used war to gain plunders, but the cost of war remained enormous. But after the appearance of the dollar as simply a green paper, the cost-benefit ratio for the United States we can say became extremely low.
Because of the dollar-gold decoupling, gold no longer drags on the dollar, and the United States is freer to print dollars. If a lot of dollars stay in the United States, they will cause inflation in the US. If the dollars go abroad, then the whole world will digest the US inflation, which is one of the reasons why the dollar’s inflation rate is not high. In other words, the outflow of US dollars abroad dilutes its domestic inflation. But the after of the global outflow of dollars, Americans have no money, and if they continue to print money, the dollar continues to depreciate, which is not good for the United States. So the Fed does not, as some people imagine, go on crazily printing money. Actually the Fed fully understands restraint. In the 100 years of its existence, from 1913 to 2013, the Fed issued a total about 10 trillion dollars.
In comparison, some people began to blame China’s central bank. Why? From the time it started to issue the new currency—the renminbi—in 1954 up to now, our central bank has issued over 120 trillion yuan. If converted at the exchange rate of 6.2 to the US dollar, we issued about $20 trillion. But that does not mean crazily printing money in China because after the reform and opening up, China earned a lot of dollars, and now there are a lot of dollars as foreign investment in China. Due to foreign exchange controls, the dollar cannot circulate in China, so the central bank has to release RMB of corresponding dollar and other currency value. However, foreign investments in China, after they make money, may be withdrawn in the future; at the same time, there will be a lot of foreign exchange to buy resources, energy, products, and technology. In this way, a lot of dollars will eventually move out while the RMB stays. One then cannot possibly destroy the corresponding amount of RMB, but can only let the yuan in China continue to circulate, so the stock of RMB becomes a force larger than the dollar. This in turn proves these amazing 30 years of China’s economic development. China’s central bank acknowledged that in recent years it probably issued over 20 trillion yuan. Most of this huge amount stayed in China, which drives to talk about the following problem: why the RMB must be internationalized.
2. The relationship of the dollar cycle and the global economy
The reason why the United States has no inflation is largely because of the global circulation of the dollar. But the US cannot issue unlimited amount of dollars, which would devalue the dollar—you want control. If exercising that control means don’t have dollars, what can you do? Americans have another set of solutions to this problem: they issue dollar bonds, and through the issuance of bonds, they get the dollars out of the country to flow back home. But when this outflows goes back to the United States through debt capital, Americans begin to play a new game, printing money with one hand and borrowing with the other. Printing money can make money, and borrowing can also make money, producing money with money. If it is easier to make money through finance than in real economy, then who is willing to sweat doing hard labor in the low-value-added manufacturing and processing of the real economy? After August 15, 1971, Americans gradually abandoned the real economy in favor of the virtual economy, turning into a hollow country. Today’s US GDP has reached $18 trillion, but the real economy contribution to GDP does not exceed $5 trillion—most of the rest is created by the virtual economy. Through the issuance of bonds, the US gets a large number of dollars circulating abroad back to the United States and into the three US markets: the futures market, bond market, and stock market. American money begets money in this way, and then the money flows abroad, so the cycle of outflow and inflow makes a profit and with this the US becomes a financial empire. United States takes the world financial system into itself. Many people think that after the decline of the British Empire, the colonial history was basically over. In fact it is not like that, because after the United States became a financial empire, it started using the dollar as a hidden “colonial” expansion: it controlled national economies through dollars, thus making various countries of the world its financial “colonies.” Today we see a lot of sovereign and independent countries, including China, that although sovereign, with their own constitutions and governments, still can’t shed the dollar. In the end, the countries’ wealth will be expressed in dollars and they will have their physical wealth enter the US through exchange and a steady stream of dollars.
The reason why the United States has no inflation is largely because of the global circulation of the dollar. But the US cannot issue unlimited amount of dollars, which would devalue the dollar—you want control. If exercising that control means don’t have dollars, what can you do? Americans have another set of solutions to this problem: they issue dollar bonds, and through the issuance of bonds, they get the dollars out of the country to flow back home. But when this outflows goes back to the United States through debt capital, Americans begin to play a new game, printing money with one hand and borrowing with the other. Printing money can make money, and borrowing can also make money, producing money with money. If it is easier to make money through finance than in real economy, then who is willing to sweat doing hard labor in the low-value-added manufacturing and processing of the real economy? After August 15, 1971, Americans gradually abandoned the real economy in favor of the virtual economy, turning into a hollow country. Today’s US GDP has reached $18 trillion, but the real economy contribution to GDP does not exceed $5 trillion—most of the rest is created by the virtual economy. Through the issuance of bonds, the US gets a large number of dollars circulating abroad back to the United States and into the three US markets: the futures market, bond market, and stock market. American money begets money in this way, and then the money flows abroad, so the cycle of outflow and inflow makes a profit and with this the US becomes a financial empire. United States takes the world financial system into itself. Many people think that after the decline of the British Empire, the colonial history was basically over. In fact it is not like that, because after the United States became a financial empire, it started using the dollar as a hidden “colonial” expansion: it controlled national economies through dollars, thus making various countries of the world its financial “colonies.” Today we see a lot of sovereign and independent countries, including China, that although sovereign, with their own constitutions and governments, still can’t shed the dollar. In the end, the countries’ wealth will be expressed in dollars and they will have their physical wealth enter the US through exchange and a steady stream of dollars.
We can see this very clearly over a 40-year period in the dollar exchange-rate chart. The August 15, 1971 US dollar-gold decoupling meant the Americans got rid of the shackles of gold, they could freely print dollar, the dollar circulation increased, and the dollar exchange rate was naturally low. From 1971, in particular with the 1973 oil crisis, the dollar exchange rate has been trading low, which indicates that they print a lot of dollars. This situation lasted nearly 10 years. A low US dollar exchange rate is not entirely a bad thing for the world economy because it means that the dollar supply increased, which means an increase in the flow of capital. Most of this capital did not stay in the United States but went abroad. At the start of the low dollar exchange rate, a lot of dollars went to Latin America, which stimulated investment and also brought prosperity. This was the 1970s economic boom in Latin America.
The period of dollar flood lasted for about 10 years. Then in 1979, the Americans decided to close the sluice. A low US dollar exchange rate is equivalent to the Americans opening the floodgates, and the closing of those flood gates is actually reducing the dollar’s liquidity. In 1979, the dollar exchange rate became strong and dollars flowing abroad were reduced. Latin America thought it was receiving a lot of dollars that drove development. Suddenly investment was reduced, liquidity dried up, the chain of capital investment broke, and naturally the economies had troubles.
Once trouble started each Latin American country started to think of ways to save itself. Take for instance Argentina. It
s per capita GDP had entered the ranks of the developed countries. But when the Latin American economic crisis appeared, Argentina was the first to enter recession. There are many ways to solve a recession, but unfortunately, when the Argentine government came to power through a military coup, the president was Galtieri, who had no sense of the economy. As a soldier, Galtieri’s only idea was war, and he hoped to rescue the situation with a war. He set his goal on the Malvinas Islands, 600 km away from Argentina’s mainland and called the Falkland Islands by the British. The islands had been under British rule for over 100 years, and Galtieri decided to claim them back. But Argentina is South America, which has always been regarded as America’s backyard. To fight a war in America’s backyard one can’t avoid asking America. So Galtieri people went to talk with US President Ronald Reagan, to see the US attitude on in it. Reagan must have known that if Galtieri wanted to fight this battle, it could lead to a large-scale war with the British, but allegedly he casually declared that this was a matter between Argentina and the United Kingdom, it had nothing to do with the United States: “we do not have any position; we remain neutral.” Galtieri thought it was the US president acquiescence, so he launched the Falklands War and easily recovered the Falklands. All in Argentina cheered, like an over-enthusiastic carnival. However, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared that she would never accept this outcome, and also forced the US president to take a stand. Reagan then immediately put down the mask of neutrality and issued a statement strongly condemning Argentina’s acts of aggression, while standing firm with Britain. Subsequently, the British sent an aircraft carrier task force over a lengthy and strenuous expedition of 8,000 sea miles, winning back the Malvinas.
In the meantime, the dollar began to strengthen, and international capital returned to the United States in accordance with the US wishes. When the Falklands War broke out, global investors drew immediate conclusions: Latin America was in a regional crisis and there was a deterioration of the investment climate in Latin America. One after the other, investors went to divest from Latin America. The Federal Reserve saw the moment and immediately announced an increase in interest rates. After the rates rose, disinvestment from Latin America gained momentum. Latin America’s economy was in ruins. The withdrawal of capital from Latin America almost all went to the United States in pursuit of the three markets (the bond, futures, and stock markets) in the US, and this brought the US the first big bull market after the dollar-gold decoupling. The dollar exchange rate had grown by 60 points then in one leap rose over 120 points, an increase of 100%. The three American markets did not keep this money there but seized the opportunity to earn more by going back to Latin America, this time to buy high-quality assets whose prices had dropped to the floor, thus savagely fleecing again Latin American economies. This was the situation after the first dollar strengthening.
If similar things happened only once, then it would be a rare occurrence; if they occur repeatedly, then it must be the rule. At the time of the first cycle—“10 years of weak dollar, six years of strong dollar”—people were not sure whether it was the rule. After the peak of the financial crisis in Latin America, the dollar exchange rate began to fall again starting in 1986. After that there was the Japanese financial crisis and the European currency crisis, but the dollar exchange rate was still low. Some 10 years later, in 1997, the dollar strengthened again. The strong dollar this time also lasted six years. This is very interesting, we can see that the dollar exchange rate showed more or less the same pattern: 10 years weak, six years strong, and then again 10 years weak, six years strong.
After 1986, the dollar exchange rate began to weaken for the second time, then after 10 years, the dollar came back like a flood, spilling all over the world. The main flood zone this time was in Asia. In 1980s what idea was hottest? The "four Asian Tigers,” "the Asian Geese,” and so on. Many people believed that Asia’s prosperity came through the hard work, intelligence, and the business acumen of the Asians. In fact, a big reason was because Asian countries received enough dollars for ample investments. When the Asian economies were roughly prosperous, the Americans felt it was time to reap the harvest. Then, after 1997, when the dollar exchange rate had been low for a full 10 years, by reducing the money supply to Asia, Americans brought back a strong dollar reversal. Most Asian countries, enterprises, and industries suffered liquidity shortages, and some even simply broke the chain of capital financing, and so came the signs of the Asian economic and the financial crisis.
This time the water in the pot was already 99 degrees, only 1 degree short of boiling, and then with the other degree the regional crisis would break out. It is not necessarily a war like that of Argentines. To create a regional crisis, war is not the only way. Since the goal is to squeeze out the capital, even without a fight one can create regional crisis. Then we saw that financial speculators like Soros, with his Quantum Fund, and hundreds of the world’s hedge funds, like a pack of wolves begin to attack the weakest economies of countries in Asia, such as Thailand, attacking the Thai currency the baht. A week or so after the baht crisis began, there was a chain reaction, all the way south, gradually moving to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, then north to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and all the way up to Russia—the East Asian financial crisis broke out. This time the water was boiling. Global investors concluded that the investment environment in Asia had deteriorated and withdrew their capital from Asia. The Fed once again seized the opportunity to sound the trumpet for interest-rate hikes. Following the withdrawal order from Asia to the US, capital once again sought the three major US markets and brought the second great bull market to the United States. When Americans saved enough money, as they had done in Latin America, they came back to Asia to buy quality assets in Asia at floor price. This time the Asian economies had been totally smashed, with no strength to fight back. This time China was the only lucky one.
3. Now it’s China’s turn
Thereafter, timely and accurate as tides, after six years of being strong, the dollar exchange rate in 2002 it began to weaken again, and then again 10 years, in 2012, the Americans began to prepare to make the strong dollar weak again. The method was still the same old one: to create regional crises for others. We have seen the Cheonan incident [translator’s note: A South Korean navy ship sunk in 2010, possibly by a North Korean torpedo]; in neighboring China, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute [translator’s note: between China and Japan], and the Huangyan Island/Scarborough Shoal dispute [between China and the Philippines]. Almost all took place within a very short period. But very unfortunately, the United States in 2008, playing with fire in its own home, was first hit by the financial crisis. This resulted in a delay in the strengthening of the US dollar exchange rate. It seems that the Sino-Philippine dispute on the Huangyan and the Sino-Japanese on the Diaoyu Islands did not much impact the US dollar exchange rate, but does it really matter? Why did these incidents occur just at the beginning of the third 10-year period of weak dollar? Few people have been explored this issue, but it is really worth considering.
Thereafter, timely and accurate as tides, after six years of being strong, the dollar exchange rate in 2002 it began to weaken again, and then again 10 years, in 2012, the Americans began to prepare to make the strong dollar weak again. The method was still the same old one: to create regional crises for others. We have seen the Cheonan incident [translator’s note: A South Korean navy ship sunk in 2010, possibly by a North Korean torpedo]; in neighboring China, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute [translator’s note: between China and Japan], and the Huangyan Island/Scarborough Shoal dispute [between China and the Philippines]. Almost all took place within a very short period. But very unfortunately, the United States in 2008, playing with fire in its own home, was first hit by the financial crisis. This resulted in a delay in the strengthening of the US dollar exchange rate. It seems that the Sino-Philippine dispute on the Huangyan and the Sino-Japanese on the Diaoyu Islands did not much impact the US dollar exchange rate, but does it really matter? Why did these incidents occur just at the beginning of the third 10-year period of weak dollar? Few people have been explored this issue, but it is really worth considering.
If we admit that from the 1971 dollar-gold decoupling there has been a dollar exchange rate cycle, and according to the cycle, the Americans take the opportunit
y to strain the economies of other countries, then we can conclude that, now it is China’s turn. Why do we say so? Because now China has become a global attraction for receiving investments and a large quantity of international capital arrives in China from those optimistic about its economy. From the perspective of economic laws, it is not just China as a country. An economy the size of China’s is equivalent to the whole of Latin America, even bigger than the total economic output of Latin America; and if we compare it with East Asian economies then we can say that China’s economy is equivalent to the whole rest of East Asia. Moreover, in the past decade, a lot of capital came into China, making China’s economy to grow at a mouthwatering speed and becoming the world’s second largest. If this is so, it is not strange that the United States aims to target China for its third straining.
If the assessment is true, then, from 2012, since the Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Sino-Philippines Huangyan Island dispute, China’s neighborhood disputes came one after the other, until last year’s Sino-Vietnamese clash over the "981" rig and then later the “Occupy Central” Hong Kong movement. Can the occurrence of all these events still be seen as accidental? Last year in May, when I accompanied General Liu Yazhou, political commissar of the National Defense University, to Hong Kong for a study visit, the “Occupy Central” movement was already brewing and would possibly start at the end of May. But by the end of May it did not begin, nor by the end of June or July or August. What was the reason? What was this brewing movement waiting for? Let’s compare the timetable of another event: Fed QE (quantitative easing) exit timetable. Early last year, the United States said it would withdraw QE, but come April, May, June, July, and August, still it did not end it. If the US did not end QE, then they were still issuing many dollars and dollar cannot be strong, so Hong Kong’s "Occupy Central" movement did not start. The timetables of both events completely overlap. At the end of September last year, the Fed finally announced the US withdrawal from the QE, and the dollar exchange rate began to turn strong in early October—and then the Hong Kong "Occupy Central" movement broke out. In fact, the Diaoyu Islands, the Philippines Huangyan Island, the 981 drilling rig, and Hong Kong "Occupy Central" movement are four explosive situations. If any of these four blows up, they would lead to a regional financial crisis, which would mean that the region surrounding China is no longer good for investment. This would fully satisfy the basic condition of the dollar revenue model: "when the dollar exchange rate becomes stronger, other areas must appear as in regional crisis; this deterioration of the investment environment in the region forces a large number of investors to withdraw capital.” But unfortunately for Americans, this time it they had to deal with Chinese as opponents. The Chinese people used the taijiquan method to solve one by one the crises in the neighborhood. The result up to the present is that what the Americans hoped for—that 99 degree hot water goes up an extra degree—has failed to occur; the water is not boiling.
If the water does not boil, the Fed has to hold on raising interest rates. It seems the United States understands it is not so easy to shear China’s wool, but it has no intention of just waiting around. At the same time as promoting the "Occupy Central" movement in Hong Kong, the United States multi-pronged approach was starting to move in other areas. Where? Ukraine, where the EU meets with Russia. Ukraine, under the leadership of Viktor Yanukoviych, of course was not a perfect egg, so flies could fill it with maggots. But the United States was eyeing Ukraine not just because it was a rotten egg, but because it was good at fighting Yanukovych, a disobedient politician, and also blocking the EU and Russia from getting closer. This could also cause a worsening of the European investment environment—the ideal objective of killing three birds with one stone. Thus, a Ukrainian seemingly spontaneous popular "color revolution" broke out, and the goal of the Americans was achieved beyond the expectations of Americans or anyone on Earth: Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, taking advantage of the opportunity, recovered Crimea. Although the move was not in the American plan, it gave Americans a reason to put pressure on the European Union as well as Japan, forcing them to join the United States in sanctions against Russia, bringing great pressure to the Russian but also to the European economy.
Why did Americans have to do it? Often one looks at issue from a geopolitical perspective, rather than from the perspective of capital. After the crisis in Ukraine, Russia’s relations with Europe and America deteriorated rapidly, but Western sanctions against Russia created a deterioration of the investment environment in Europe, leading to the withdrawal of capital. According to statistics, over a trillion dollars of capital left Europe. America’s two-pronged design was successful. That is, if you cannot get capital to withdraw from China in pursuit of the United States, then at least you can cause European capital to go to the US. This was the first step to achieve a dramatic change in the situation in Ukraine, but the second step, did not go as the United States wished. The capital withdrawn from Europe did not go to the United States, according to data—most of it went to Hong Kong. This means that global investors are still not optimistic about the US economic recovery. Although its economic growth is slowing down, they still are looking to the country with the fastest growth rate: China.
This is the first point. The second is that the Chinese government announced last year it wants to have the "Shanghai and Hong Kong markets communication” so global investors are eagerly hoping to make some money through the "Shanghai and Hong Kong communication.” Western capital in the past did not dare to enter the Chinese stock market. A very important reason was China’s strict foreign exchange controls, with strict exits—you are free to come in, but you cannot easily go out—so investors are generally afraid to invest in China’s stock market. Since the "Shanghai and Hong Kong communication,” they can easily through Hong Kong invest in the Shanghai stock market, and they can just leave after they make money. Over a trillion dollars are now stuck in Hong Kong and have been since last September, which is the beginning of the "Occupy Central” movement. This is why the forces behind the "Occupy Central" movement have always refused to give up and always wanted a comeback—Americans need to create a regional crisis aimed at China, so the capital stuck in Hong Kong will be withdrawn from China in favor of the American economy.
Why does the US economy need and so strongly depend on international capital flows? The reason is that after the August 15, 1971 dollar-gold decoupling, the US economy gradually gave up on physical production and left the real economy. Americans consider the real economy—low-end manufacturing, low-value-added industries—as garbage industries or call them “sunset industries,” and gradually transferred them to developing countries, especially to China. Furthermore, aside from the so-called high-tech industries such as IBM, Microsoft, and other companies, America has gradually turned about 70% of jobs to finance and financial services. Now, the United States has become industrially empty and does not have much of a real economy that can bring large profits to global investors. In this case, the Americans have to open another door, that of the virtual economy. Virtual economy is its three markets. As long as the international financial capital gets into the
pond of its three markets, it makes money for America’s own money. Then, it uses the money earned to fleece the world, and now this is the only way Americans can live. Or we call it the American way of life. The approach is that the United States requires the return of a lot of capital to support the daily lives of Americans and the US economy. Those blocking capital returns to the US are the enemy of the United States. We must understand this to think about it clearly.
pond of its three markets, it makes money for America’s own money. Then, it uses the money earned to fleece the world, and now this is the only way Americans can live. Or we call it the American way of life. The approach is that the United States requires the return of a lot of capital to support the daily lives of Americans and the US economy. Those blocking capital returns to the US are the enemy of the United States. We must understand this to think about it clearly.
Second, whose cheese was moved by the rapid rise of China?
1. Why the birth of the euro provoked a war?
On January 1, 1999, the euro was born. Three months later, the Kosovo war broke out. Many people thought that the war in Kosovo came about because the United States and NATO joined forces to fight the Milosevic regime, which had massacred ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, creating an appalling humanitarian disaster. After the war, the lie quickly burst, and Americans admitted that this was a move played jointly by the CIA and the Western media with the goal of hitting the Yugoslavian government. However, was the war in Kosovo really against Yugoslavia? Europeans overwhelmingly believe it was for this purpose, but after 72 days of war, the Europeans found themselves fooled, and why?
On January 1, 1999, the euro was born. Three months later, the Kosovo war broke out. Many people thought that the war in Kosovo came about because the United States and NATO joined forces to fight the Milosevic regime, which had massacred ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, creating an appalling humanitarian disaster. After the war, the lie quickly burst, and Americans admitted that this was a move played jointly by the CIA and the Western media with the goal of hitting the Yugoslavian government. However, was the war in Kosovo really against Yugoslavia? Europeans overwhelmingly believe it was for this purpose, but after 72 days of war, the Europeans found themselves fooled, and why?
With the launch of the euro, the Europeans were very confident. They set the euro-dollar rate 1: 1.07. After the outbreak of the Kosovo war, the Europeans were fully involved in the NATO action, in support the US attack on Kosovo. After 72 days of bombing, the Milosevic regime collapsed and Yugoslavia yielded. But then after all of this, the Europeans found the accounts did not match. In these 70 days of the war, the euro actually was crippled. When the war ended, the euro plummeted 30 percent, to $0.82 to one euro. Europeans suddenly realized they were sold out, and they were still counting the money for other people. The Europeans began to wake up. That is why later when the United States fought in Iraq, France and Germany—the two EU powers—firmly opposed the war.
Some say that Western democracies do not fight among each other. So far, after World War II, there has been no direct war between Western countries, but this does not mean there is no economic or financial war between them. The Kosovo war was the Americans’ indirect financial war with the euro, the fight was with Yugoslavia but pain was felt by the euro. That is because the birth of the euro moved the dollar’s cheese. Before the birth of the euro, the world currency was the US dollar, and the dollar was used for about 80% of global settlements—even now it is around 60%. The emergence of the euro immediately cut away a chunk of US cheese. The EU is a $27 trillion economy, and its appearance suddenly overshadowed the world’s largest economy, the North American Free Trade Area ($24–25 trillion dollars). As a large economy, the European Union certainly could not be happy with the dollar settling its internal trade, so the Europeans decided to launch their own currency, the euro. The emergence of the euro cut away about a third of the dollar settlements, and now 23% of world trade settlement uses the euro instead of the dollar. Americans were vigilant enough when the Europeans started talking about the euro, but later when they discovered that the appearance of the euro was a challenge to the primacy of the dollar, it was a little too late. Therefore, the US learned a lesson, and on one hand it presses down the EU and the euro, on the other hand it must press down other challengers.
2. What does America want to balance with the "Asia-Pacific strategic rebalancing"?
The rise of China makes us the new challenger. The 2012 Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute are the latest attempt to suppress the American challenger’s success. Both occurred in China’s neighboring geopolitical areas, and although they failed to cause large capital outflows from China, they at least partially met American goals and created two problems. In early 2012, China-Japan-Korea negotiations on a trilateral Northeast Asian FTA were close to success; in April, China and Japan had a preliminary agreement on Japanese currency and bond swaps. But this time, the Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute appeared one after another, and all of a sudden the Northeast Asian FTA negotiations and the Japanese currency swaps went up in the wind. After a few years, we have barely completed bilateral negotiations on a China-South Korea FTA, which has little significance, since it is quite different from the Northeast Asian FTA. Why is that? Because once China-Japan-Korea FTA negotiations succeed, it will include China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. A Northeast Asian FTA would mean the third-largest economy would appear, a world-scale giant of about 20 trillion dollars. Then, once the Northeast Asian FTA was in place, it would not stop but would quickly move south to integrate the Southeast Asia free-trade area and form a free-trade area in East Asia generating over 30 trillion dollars. It would be the world’s first economy bigger than that of the EU and North America. Then we could continue to speculate that a free trade-zone in East Asia still would not stop. It could bring in India in the southwest, then move north to integrate the five Central Asian republics, and then go west to integrate the Middle East—so that the entire Asian FTA would have a scale of over 50 trillion US dollars, more than the EU and North America put together. If such a large free-trade zone were to appear, would it be willing to use the euro or the US dollar for clearing its internal trade? Of course not. This means that an Asian dollar might be born.
The rise of China makes us the new challenger. The 2012 Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute are the latest attempt to suppress the American challenger’s success. Both occurred in China’s neighboring geopolitical areas, and although they failed to cause large capital outflows from China, they at least partially met American goals and created two problems. In early 2012, China-Japan-Korea negotiations on a trilateral Northeast Asian FTA were close to success; in April, China and Japan had a preliminary agreement on Japanese currency and bond swaps. But this time, the Diaoyu Islands dispute and the Huangyan Island dispute appeared one after another, and all of a sudden the Northeast Asian FTA negotiations and the Japanese currency swaps went up in the wind. After a few years, we have barely completed bilateral negotiations on a China-South Korea FTA, which has little significance, since it is quite different from the Northeast Asian FTA. Why is that? Because once China-Japan-Korea FTA negotiations succeed, it will include China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. A Northeast Asian FTA would mean the third-largest economy would appear, a world-scale giant of about 20 trillion dollars. Then, once the Northeast Asian FTA was in place, it would not stop but would quickly move south to integrate the Southeast Asia free-trade area and form a free-trade area in East Asia generating over 30 trillion dollars. It would be the world’s first economy bigger than that of the EU and North America. Then we could continue to speculate that a free trade-zone in East Asia still would not stop. It could bring in India in the southwest, then move north to integrate the five Central Asian republics, and then go west to integrate the Middle East—so that the entire Asian FTA would have a scale of over 50 trillion US dollars, more than the EU and North America put together. If such a large free-trade zone were to appear, would it be willing to use the euro or the US dollar for clearing its internal trade? Of course not. This means that an Asian dollar might be born.
But I think, if an Asian FTA is to come about, we can only promote the internationalization of the RMB and allow the yuan to become Asia’s dominant currency, like the dollar became the hard currency in North America and then for the flow of goods around the world. The meaning of RMB internationalization goes far beyond what we say about the RMB: to go out and play a role in the "one belt, one road" policy and so on. It would split the world with the US dollar, and the euro. Chinese people can see it, will the Americans not see this? When Americans announced a rebalancing east, they pushed Japan on the Diaoyu Islands and wrangled with China to back the Philippines in the Huangyan Islands confrontation. If we think short-sightedly then the Diaoyu Islands dispute was started after the Japanese right-wing “bought the island” and the dispute with the Philippines started when Philippine President Corazon Aquino got carried away trying to stir trouble with China. But what we don’t see is American foresight in preventing the RMB from becoming a challenger the dollar. The Americans knew very well what they were doing because they knew they must not let such a thing happen again [as with the euro]. If the Northeast Asian FTA were formed, it would have a ripple effect dividing the world in three. If only a third of the global money is in the hands of the dollar, how can the US currency maintain its leadership? Could a hollowed out United States, left without monetary leadership, still be a global leader? If we want to understand this point, we should see why behind all of China’s recent troubles there is the shadow of the United States. This is because the United States has to think more long-term than us, see things more deeply to prevent China’s "peril" in the first place, and thus always give us trouble. This is the fundamental reason the US implemented its Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy. What do you want to balance exactly? It is really to try to balance China and Japan, China and the Philippines, or China and other countries? Of course not, the goal is to balance out the momentum of China’s rising power today.
Third, the secret that American soldiers
fight for the US dollar
fight for the US dollar
1. The Iraq War and the currency used in accounting oil deals
Everybody says the power of America rests on three pillars: money, technology, and military. In fact, today we can see that the real pillars of the US are monetary and military, and supporting the currency is the United States military. Wars all over the world burn money, but the US military goes on fighting despite it. But it can burn money on one hand and earn money for the US on the other hand, which other countries cannot do. Only the United States can gain a great deal through war, although the United States also has lost some hands.
Why did the Americans fight in Iraq? Most people have in mind just one word: oil. Did Americans really go to war for oil? Definitely not. If Americans went to war for oil, then why didn’t the Americans take a single barrel of oil from Iraq after the victory? Moreover, oil prices went from $38 a barrel before the war, to $149 a barrel after the war. The American people did not get low oil prices because of the US occupation of Iraq. Therefore, the US war in Iraq is not about oil, but the dollar.
Why, you say? The reason is very simple. Because in order to control the world, the United States needs the world to use dollars. In order to let the world use dollars, the Americans made a very clever move in 1973: they linked the dollar and oil by forcing the leading OPEC country, Saudi Arabia, to conduct its global oil transactions in dollars. If you understand that global oil transactions are in US dollars, you can understand why the Americans fight for oil. A direct consequence of war in the oil-producing countries is the surge in oil prices, and a surge in oil prices means that the demand for dollars increases. Before the war, for example, if you had $38, in theory, you can buy a barrel of oil from an oil company. With the war, oil prices have more than quadrupled, reaching $149. So, $38 is only enough to buy a quarter of a barrel of oil, and for the remaining 3/4 of the barrel you are short more than 100 dollars. What to do then? You can only go to the Americans with your own products and resources and hand them out in return for American dollars. And then the US government can confidently, openly, and justifiably print dollars. It is through war—war against the oil-producing countries creating high oil prices—that the US creates a high demand for dollars.
The American war in Iraq had more than just one goal. It was also about maintaining the dollar leadership. Why then did George W. Bush insist on war in Iraq? Now we can very clearly that Saddam did not support terrorism or al-Qaeda, nor did he weapons of mass destruction—why was Saddam finally brought to the gallows? Because Saddam thought himself smart, and played with fire with superpowers. At the official launch of the euro in 1999, Saddam Hussein seized the opportunity to play with fire between the dollar and the euro—the United States and the European Union—and he could not wait to announce that the Iraqi oil transactions would occur in euros. This is what angered the Americans, in particular, it produced a chain reaction. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also announced the settlement of their country’s oil exports would be in euros. Was this not a stab in American backs? Some people think it is too far-fetched to say that after this war in Iraq was mandatory. Then please take a look at this: what did the Americans do after winning Iraq? Even before seizing Saddam, the Americans set up an Iraqi interim government whose first decree was to declare Iraqi oil exports would be accounted in dollars and not in euros. That’s why Americans are fighting for dollars.
2. The Afghan war and US capital account surplus
Some might say that the war in Iraq to for fight US dollars is understandable, but in Afghanistan there is no oil, so the US war in Afghanistan could not have been fought for the dollar, right? Moreover, the war in Afghanistan came clearly after "9/11," when the United States wanted to retaliate against al-Qaeda and the Taliban for supporting al-Qaeda. But is that really true? The war in Afghanistan started over a month after "9/11"—it was kind of rush. After a while the US ran out of cruise missiles but the war still continued. The Pentagon could not but order open the stash of nuclear weapons, remove the 1,000 nuclear warheads from cruise missiles, and put in place conventional warheads, Then they lobbed 900 more missiles and only then beat down Afghanistan. This is obvious proof that preparation was very inadequate, and in that case, why did the Americans insist on rushing into battle?
Americans could not wait any longer. In the early 21st century, the United States was an industrially hollow country and needed about $700 billion every year in net inflows to survive. But within a month after "9.11," the investment climate in the US had badly deteriorated to a level of worries and anxiety never felt before. No matter how strong it is, if the United States could not look after its own security, how could it ensure investors’ financial security? As a result, over $300 billion of hot money left the United States. This forced the United States to fight a war as soon as possible. The war was not only to punish the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also to regain global investors’ confidence. As the first cruise missiles exploded in Kabul, the Dow Jones rebounded 600 points in one day, the capital flowing out began to return to the US, and by the end, there was about $400 billion moving back to the US. Does this not prove that the war in Afghanistan was for the dollar and capital?
3. Why aircraft carriers gave way to rapid global strike systems
Many people have great expectations about China’s own aircraft carrier, because they have seen the history of aircraft carriers and eagerly look forward to China with its own. Then when we heard the whistle of the Liaoning, we rushed to catch the last train of a Chinese aircraft carrier. While the aircraft carrier remains today a sign of a big country, it is but a sign. Because the global economy is increasingly focused on financial technology, the role of aircraft carriers will gradually decline. The history of aircraft carriers is a product of its times. When the British Empire flourished, it promoted global trade, and it would sell its manufactured goods to the world, and then get resources in return. It needed a strong navy to ensure the smooth flow of sea lanes. Later the development of aircraft carriers was all to control the seas and to ensure the safety of sea lanes. It was the era of "logistics is king”: to guarantee control of the flow of resources and products on the sea would guarantee control of the flow of global wealth. But the world today is in the era of "capital is king." Billions, hundreds of billions, or even trillions in capital flow from one place to another place within a few seconds with the tap of a few keys on the computer. Of course, the aircraft carrier sailing the oceans at the speed of logistics, but unable to keep up with the speed of capital, will not be able to control global capital.
Today, what are the alternatives? Can you keep up with the direction, volume, and speed of the flow of global capital supported by the Internet? Americans are developing a huge, rapid global combat system: using ballistic missiles and supersonic aircraft five times or ten times faster than a supersonic cruise missile, it can quickly hit any area of high concentration of capital. Now the US claims it can hit any part of the world within 28 minutes, so no matter where capital is concentrated, it can hit anywhere in the world. As long as the United States does not want a particular place to have capital, a missile can get there in 28 minutes. And when the missile goes down, capital ca
n be still quietly and nicely withdrawn. This is the reason why a fast global combat system will replace the carriers. Of course, the aircraft carrier of the future will still have irreplaceable roles, such as the protection of maritime safety and of sea lanes, humanitarian missions, and so on, because the carrier is a very good offshore platform. But as a weapon to control future capital flows, it has far less speed than the global strike systems.
Fourth, the "Air and Sea Battle": A Gordian knot for the US
When Americans consider the use of military means to deal with the rise of China, they proposed a concept called the "air and sea battle." I think the "air and sea battle" remains intractable dilemma for the US. The "air and sea battle" against China was raised at the 2010 joint US Air Force and Navy summit. The strategy primarily reflects the fact that the US military today is weakening. US troops used to think that it could use air strikes and the Navy against China. Now the US finds neither the Air Force nor the Navy by themselves can gain advantages against China; a joint air-and-sea attack can provide a certain advantage over China. But though the US raised the idea a little more than four years ago, the Americans suddenly changed the name, now calling it a "concept of global common involvement and joint mobility."
In this joint concept of operations by air and sea, Americans believe that there will be no war between the two countries within the next ten years. After recent American studies on China’s military development, they believe the US’s existing capacity is not sufficient to offset some advantages the Chinese military has established, such as the ability to destroy space systems or attack aircraft carriers. The United States must then come up with ten years of development and a more advanced combat system to offset China’s advantages. This means that Americans may schedule a war for ten years later. While war may still not happen in a decade, we must be prepared for it. If Chinese do not want a war in the next ten years, we need to put all of our affairs in order, including the preparation of the military and war.
Fifth, the strategic significance of "one belt, one road"
Let’s look at the Americans’ passion for sports: the first is basketball and the second is boxing. Boxing typically reflects strength in the style Americans advocate: go straight, strike, the KO (knockout) wins, and everything is clear. China, by contrast, likes blur and softness, and we do not look forward to knocking you out, but want to resolve and understand all your actions. Chinese people like to practice taiji, which is indeed a higher art than boxing.
"One belt, one road" reflects this idea. The history of the rise of all great powers concerns their globalization movement. This means that globalization is not a consistent process from antiquity to the present day, but each place—the Roman Empire, the Qin Empire—has its own globalization process. Each process of globalization was being pushed by the rising empire; every empire is associated with a period of globalization, with its heyday of globalization when it reached a peak. And globalization will also be limited by their strength, which is the maximum range that can be achieved by their vehicles—that is, it’s the end point for each phase of globalization. Therefore, both the Roman and Qin Empire globalization, today only seem like a process of regionalization of imperial expansion. The real globalization of modern history came from the beginning of the great British Empire, which was the globalization of trade. After the United States took over the mantle of the British Empire, it carried on with the globalization of trade, while the truly American globalization was the globalization of dollars. This is the globalization that we are experiencing today. But I do not agree that today’s Chinese strategy of "one belt, one road" is an integration into the global economic system. To say that the dollar will continue its globalization and integration is a misunderstanding. As a rising great power, "one belt, one road" is the initial stage of China globalization. As a big country, the process of rising must be about the plan for advancing globalization.
"One belt, one road" is by far the best strategy China can put forward. It is a hedge strategy against the eastward move of the US. Some people will question this, believing hedging should be in the same direction—how can you hedge by going in the opposite direction? Right, "one belt, one road" is China’s hedge strategy of turning its back to the US eastward shift: You push in one direction; I go in the opposite direction. Didn’t you pressure me to it? I go west, neither to avoid you nor because I am afraid, but to very cleverly defuse the pressure you gave me on the east.
“One belt, one road" is not a strategy of two parallel lines, but there should be primary and secondary focuses. Given that China’s sea power is still weak, the first choice of “one belt, one road" should be to compete on land, which means "the way (sea lanes)" should be a secondary attack direction and "the belt" should be the main direction. If "the belt" has become the main direction, it means that we must re-recognize the role of the Army. Some people say that the Chinese Field Army is invincible. If they mean it within the scope of Chinese territory, yes, the Chinese Army is invincible. Who would want to set foot on Chinese territory to fight large-scale battles? The problem is, does the Chinese army have expeditionary capabilities?
Last year I talked about this issue at the Global Times forum. I said that in choosing China as its rival, America chose the wrong opponent and the wrong direction. Because in the future, the real challenge to the United States is not China; it is the United States itself, and the United States will bury itself. Because it does not realize that a great era is ending, the United States will fall with time because financial capitalism has been brought to the highest stage. On the one hand, through the virtual economy, the United States has already eaten up all the profits of capitalism. On the other hand, through scientific and technological innovation—of which it is proudly is a world leader—the Internet, big data, and the cloud are pushed to the extreme will eventually bury in the United States, as the representatives of the most important opponent of financial capitalism. [That is, the internet and the cloud will gain a life of their own and oppose the government of the US].
On last year’s "double 11" [November 11, Chinese Valentine day], online shopping reached 50.7 billion yuan in a day for Alibaba’s Taobao. Over the three days after the Thanksgiving holiday, US online and on-the-ground store sales had a total equivalent to 40.7 billion yuan, less than Alibaba sales in one day. And China was not even counting Netease, Tencent, Jingdong, or revenue from malls. This means that a new era has already arrived, while the American reaction is still slow. Alibaba deals were all made directly with Alipay. What does direct pay mean? It means that the currency is already out of the transaction stage, and the American leadership is built on the dollar. What is the dollar? It is a currency. In the future, when we no longer use money, traditional money settlement will become useless. When money becomes useless, will an empire built on money still exist? That is the question to be considered by the Americans.
3D printers also represent a future direction and will bring a fundamental changes in the mode of production in today’s society. Because production is changing and trade is changing, the world is bound to change radically. But history has proven that real change
can lead to changes in the social nature, which will be led by these two [changes in production and trade modes] and no other factors. In China from the period of the late Qin Emperor, people began to rebel: Chen Sheng Wu Guang rose a revolution and uprisings occurred many times during 2,000 years of history. Rebellions, wars, revolutions—do they solve the problem? They do not solve the problem; they just bring a change of rulers, a low-level water circulation. These movements could not change the nature of the farming community, nor did they change the modes of production or the ways of trade. They could only bring a regime change. In the West too, Napoleon brought the glory of the French Revolution and led a new army baptized in the revolution across Europe, throwing down one crown after the other, but when he failed at Waterloo, Napoleon stepped down. All European kings were restored and immediately they returned to feudal society. The Industrial Revolution came when the British steam engine allowed humanity to greatly enhance its production and a large number of surplus products appeared. With the remaining products there was surplus value, and thus capital and capitalists. Capitalist society had arrived.
So today when capital may disappear with the disappearance of money and when production will also change with the emergence of 3D printer, mankind is about to enter a new social stage. This time China and the United States stand on the same starting line, the starting line of the Internet, big data, and cloud computing. We have to compare who is better at entering this era, rather than the vie for who will suppress whom. In this sense, I was saying that the United States picked the wrong opponent. The real opponent is the United States itself—or is this era. Precisely on this point, Americans appear amazingly slow. Because they are too eager to keep their leadership and never thought to share power with other countries, approaching this new social stage jointly still has many unknown areas and many uncertain barriers.
Uses Its Dollar to Dominate the World
[Editor’s Note: In April, Qiao Liang, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Major-General, gave a speech at a book study forum of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Committee and government office. Qiao is the PLA strategist who co-authored the book, “Unrestricted War.”
In his speech, Qiao explained that he has been studying finance theories and concluded that the U.S. enforces the dollar as the global currency to preserve its hegemony over the world. The U.S. will try everything, including war, to maintain the dollar’s dominance in global trading. He also discussed China’s strategy, to rise as a super power, amid the U.S.’s containment.
The following are excerpts from his speech.] [1]
I. The Situation Surrounding China and the Secret of the U.S. Dollar Index Cycle
A. The First Financial Empire in History
People working on economics or in the finance field are probably more suited to talk about this topic. I will discuss this topic from the [national] strategy angle.
On August 15, 1971, when the U.S. dollar stopped being pegged to gold, the dollar ship threw away its anchor, which was gold.
Let’s take a step back. In July 1944, to help the U.S. to take over the currency hegemony from the British Empire, President Roosevelt pushed for three world systems: the political system – the United Nations; the trade system – the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which later became the World Trade Organization (WTO); and the currency financial system – the Bretton Woods system.
The Americans’ desire was to establish the U.S. dollar’s hegemony over the world via the Bretton Woods system. However, from 1944 to 1971, the dollar didn’t gain that power. What blocked the dollar? It was gold.
When the Bretton Woods system was set up, the U.S. promised the world that the U.S. dollar would be pegged to gold while every other country’s currency could peg to the dollar. One ounce of gold was fixed at US$35. With this promise, the U.S. couldn’t do anything according to its own will. In other words, the Americans couldn’t print an unlimited number of dollars. Whenever it printed a dollar bill, it had to add one additional ounce of gold into its treasury as a reserve.
The U.S. made that promise to the world because it held eighty percent of the world’s gold reserve at that time. The Americans thought that, with that much gold in hand, it was enough to support the U.S. dollar’s creditability.
However, it was not that simple. The U.S. stupidly got involved in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, which cost it dearly. The Vietnam War especially cost US$800 billion. The cost became so much that the U.S. couldn’t bear it. Based on the U.S.’s promise, every time it spent US$35, it meant a loss of one ounce of gold.
By August 1971, the Americans had about 8,800 tons of gold left. They knew they were in trouble. Other people continued creating new trouble for them. For example, French President De Gaulle didn’t trust the U.S. dollar. He asked the French Finance Minister and Central Bank President and was told that France had about US$2.3 billion dollars in reserve. He told them to sell all of that for gold. Some other countries followed suit.
Thus, on August 15, 1971, then U.S. President Nixon announced that the U.S. stopped pegging the dollar to gold. It was the beginning of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, and also a way in which the Americans cheated the world. However, the world didn’t realize it.
People trusted the U.S. dollar because it was supported by gold. The U.S. dollar had been the international currency, the settlement currency, and the reserve currency for over 20 years. People were used to the dollar. When the U.S. dollar suddenly lost its tie to gold, it then, in theory, became a pure piece of green paper. Why did people still use it?
In theory people could stop using it., Bbut in practice what would people use for international settlement? Currency is a measure of value. If people stopped using the U.S. dollar, was there any other currency they trusted?
Thus, the Americans took advantage of people’s inertia and forced the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to accept the U.S. condition that the world’s oil trade must settle in U.S. dollars. Previously, oil trades were settled in any international currency, but, since October 1973, settlement was limited to the U.S. dollar only.
After unpegging from precious metal, the Americans linked their dollar to oil. Why? The Americans were very clear: people might dislike the U.S. dollar, but they could not live without energy. Every country needed development and thus needed to consume energy. In this way, the need for oil translated into the need for the U.S. dollar. For the U.S., this was a very smart move.
Not many people had a clear understanding of this at the time. People, including economists and financial experts, didn’t realize that the most important thing in the 20th century was not World War I, World War II, or the disintegration of the USSR, but rather the August 15, 1971, disconnection between the U.S. dollar and gold.
Since that day, a true financial empire has emerged, the U.S. dollar’s hegemony has been established, and we have entered a true paper currency era. There is no precious metal behind the U.S. dollar. The government’s credit is the sole support for the U.S. dollar. The U.S. makes a profit from the whole world. This means that the Americans can obtain material wealth from the world by printing a piece of green paper.
This has never happened in the world before. Throughout mankind’s history there have been many ways for people to obtain wealth: an exchange with currency, gold, or silver, or using war to grab things (however, war is very costly). When the U.S. dollar became just a piece of green paper, the cost for the U.S. to make money became extremely low.
Without the restriction of gold, the U.S. can print dollars at will. If they keep a large amount of dollars inside the U.S., it will certainly create inflation. If they export dollars to the world, the whole world is helping the U.S. to deal with its inflation. That’s why inflation is not that high in the U.S.
However, once the U.S. exports its dollar to the world, it doesn’t have much money. If it continues to print money, the U.S. dollar will keep devaluating, which is not good for the Americans. Therefore, the U.S. Federal Reserve is not, as some people have imagined, a central bank that prints money irresponsibly. The Federal Reserve knows what “restriction” means. From its establishment in 1913 through 2013, the Federal Reserve only printed US$10 trillion.
This may lead people to criticize China’s Central Bank, which has printed 120 trillion yuan (around US$20 trillion using an exchange rate of 6.2 yuan per dollar) since 1954. Actually this does not mean China is printing money without any restriction either. Since its opening up, China has earned a lot of U.S. dollars and also a large amount of dollars has flown into China as investments.
China’s foreign currency control prevents the U.S. dollar from circulating in China. When the U.S. dollar comes, for circulation in China, China’s Central Bank has to print a corresponding amount of renminbi instead.
However, a foreign investor can withdraw its money out of China after making money. Also we need to spend our foreign reserves to buy energy, products, and technology. As a result, a large amount of U.S. dollars has flown out of China, but a corresponding amount of renminbi has stayed in China. You can’t destroy those renminbi, so China ends up with more renminbi than its foreign reserve.
China’s Central Bank admitted that it overprinted 20 billion yuan. This huge amount all stayed in China. This is a topic that I will discuss later – why we should make the renminbi an international currency.
B. The Relationship between the U.S. Dollar Index Cycle and the Global Economy
The U.S. avoided high inflation by letting the dollar circulate globally. It also needs to restrain the printing of dollars to avoid a dollar devaluation. Then what should it do when it runs out of dollars?
The Americans came up with a solution: issuing debt to bring the dollar back to the U.S. The Americans started to play a game of printing money with one hand and borrowing money with the other hand. Printing money can make money. Borrowing money can also make money. This financial economy (using money to make money) is much easier than the real (industry-based) economy. Why will it bother with manufacturing industries that have only low value-adding capabilities?
Since August 15, 1971, the U.S. has gradually stopped its real economy and moved into a virtual economy. It has become an “empty” economy state. Today’s U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has reached US$18 trillion, but only $5 trillion is from the real economy.
By issuing debt, the U.S. brings a large amount of dollars from overseas back to the U.S.’s three big markets: the commodity market, the Treasury Bills market, and the stock market. The U.S. repeats this cycle to make money: printing money, exporting money overseas, and bringing money back. The U.S. has thus become a financial empire.
Many people think that imperialism stopped after the U.K. became weak. Actually, the U.S. has conducted a hidden imperialism through the U.S. dollar and has made other countries its financial colony. Today, many countries, including China, have their own sovereignty, Constitution, and government, but they are dependent on the U.S. dollar. Their products are measured in dollars and they have to hand over their material wealth to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. dollar.
This can be seen clearly in the cycle of the U.S. dollar index over the past 40 years. Since 1971, when the U.S. started to print money freely, the U.S. dollar index has been dropping in value. For ten years, the index has kept going down, indicating that it was overprinted.
Actually, it was not necessarily a bad thing for the world when the U.S. dollar index went down. It meant an increase in the supply of dollars and a large outflow of dollars to other countries. A lot of U.S. dollars went to Latin America. This investment created the economic boom in Latin America in the 1970s.
In 1979, after flooding the world with U.S. dollars for nearly 10 years, the Americans decided to reverse the process. The U.S. dollar index started climbing in 1979. Dollars flew back to the U.S. and other regions received fewer dollars. Latin America’s economy boomed due to an ample supply of dollar investment, but this suddenly stopped as its investments dried up.
The Latin American countries tried to save themselves.
Argentina, which once had its per capita GDP among the ranks of the developed countries, was then the first to drop into a recession. Unfortunately, then Argentine President Galtieri, who came to power through a military coup, chose to use a war to solve the problem. He turned his eyes toward the Malvinas Islands (which the British called the Falkland Islands), which are 400 miles away from Argentina. These islands had been under British rule for over 100 years. Galtieri decided to take them back.
Of course, he couldn’t take on a war without the U.S.’s blessing. He sent an intermediary to inquire about the U.S.’s opinion. U.S. President Reagan answered it lightly: it was between you and the U.K.; the U.S. had no position and would stay neutral. Galtieri took it as acquiescence by the U.S. He started the war and took over the islands with ease. The Argentinians were crazy.
However, then U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed that they would absolutely not accept it and forced the U.S. to speak out. Reagan tore off his neutral mask, issuing a statement to blame Argentina for the invasion and to stand by the U.K. The British dispatched a task force with an aircraft carrier, travelling 8,000 miles, to take the Malvinas Islands back.
At the same time, the U.S. dollar appreciated and international capital flew back to the U.S. just as the U.S. wished. When the Malvinas Islands War started, investors around the world concluded that a regional crisis had started in Latin America and the Latin American investment environment would deteriorate. So investors withdrew their capital from there. The Federal Reserve, at the same time, announced an increase in interest rates, which further accelerated the withdrawal of capital from Latin America.
The Latin American economy dropped to the bottom. The capital leaving there went to the U.S.’s three big markets. It gave the U.S. the first bull market since the dollar had been unpegged from gold. The U.S. dollar index jumped from 60 to 120, a 100 percent increase.
The Americans didn’t stop after making big money from their bull market. Some took the money they just made and went back to Latin America to buy the good assets whose prices had just fallen to the ground. The U.S. harvested handsomely from Latin America’s economy.
If this had happened only once, it could be argued as a small probability event. As it has occurred repeatedly, it indicates an intended pattern.
In 1986, after the first “ten years of a weak U.S. dollar following six years of a strong dollar,” the U.S. dollar index started to decline again. Ten years later, in 1997, the dollar index started climbing. This time, the strong dollar also lasted for six years.
During the second ten-year weak U.S. dollar cycle, U.S. dollars went mainly to Asia. What was the hottest investment concept in 1980s? It was the “Asian Tigers.” Many people thought it was due to Asians’ hard work and how smart they were. Actually the big reason was the ample investment of U.S. dollars.
When the Asian economy started to prosper, the Americans felt it was time to harvest. Thus, in 1997, after ten years of a weak dollar, the Americans reduced the money supply to Asia and created a strong dollar. Many Asian companies and industries faced an insufficient money supply. The area showed signs of being on the verge of a recession and a financial crisis.
A last straw was needed to break the camel’s back. What was that straw? It was a regional crisis. Should there be a war like the Argentines had? Not necessarily. War is not the only way to create a regional crisis.
Thus we saw that a financial investor called “Soros” took his Quantum Fund, as well as over one hundred other hedge funds in the world, and started a wolf attack on Asia’s weakest economy, Thailand. They attacked Thailand’s currency Thai Baht for a week. This created the Baht crisis. Then it spread south to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Then it moved north to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and even Russia. Thus the East Asia financial crisis fully exploded.
The camel fell to the ground. The world’s investors concluded that the Asian investment environment had gone south and withdrew their money. The U.S. Federal Reserve promptly blew the horn and increased the dollar’s interest rate. The capital coming out of Asia flew to the U.S.’s three big markets, creating the second big bull market in the U.S.
When the Americans made ample money, they followed the same approach they did in Latin America: they took the money that they made from the Asian financial crisis back to Asia to buy Asia’s good assets which, by then, were at their bottom price. The Asian economy had no capacity to fight back.
The only lucky survivor in this crisis was China.
C. Now, It Is Time to Harvest China
It was as precise as the tide; the U.S. dollar was strong for six years. Then, in 2002, it started getting weak. Following the same pattern, it stayed weak for ten years. In 2012, the Americans started to prepare to make it strong. They used the same approach: create a regional crisis for other people.
Therefore, we saw that several events happened in relation to China: the Cheonan sinking event, the dispute over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese), and the dispute over Scarborough Shoal (the Huangyan Island in Chinese). All these happened during this period. The conflict between China and the Philippians over Huangyan Island and the conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, might not appear to have much to do with the U.S. dollar index, but was it really that case? Why did it happen exactly in the tenth year of the U.S. dollar being weak?
Unfortunately, the U.S. played with too much fire [in its own mortgage market] earlier and got itself into a financial crisis in 2008. This delayed the timing of the U.S. dollar’s hike a bit.
If we acknowledge that there is a U.S. dollar index cycle and the Americans use this cycle to harvest from other countries, then we can conclude that it was time for the Americans to harvest China. Why? Because China had obtained the largest amount of investment from the world. The size of China’s economy was no longer the size of a single county; it was even bigger than the whole of Latin America and about the same size as East Asia’s economy.
Since the Diaoyu Islands conflict and the Huangyan Island conflict, incidents have kept popping up around China, including the confrontation over China’s 981 oil rigs with Vietnam and Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” event. Can they still be viewed as simply accidental?
I accompanied General Liu Yazhou, the Political Commissar of the National Defense University, to visit Hong Kong in May 2014. At that time, we heard that the “Occupy Central” movement was being planned and could take place by end of the month. However, it didn’t happen in May, June, July, or August.
What happened? What were they waiting for?
Let’s look at another time table: the U.S. Federal Reserve’s exit from the Quantitative Easing (QE) policy. The U.S. said it would stop QE at the beginning of 2014. But it stayed with the QE policy in April, May, June, July, and August. As long as it was in QE, it kept overprinting dollars and the dollar‘s price couldn’t go up. Thus, Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” should not happen either.
At the end of September, the Federal Reserve announced the U.S. would exist from QE. The dollar started going up. Then Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” broke out in early October.
Actually, the Diaoyu Islands, Huangyan Island, the 981 rigs, and Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” movement were all bombs. The successful explosion of any one of them would lead to a regional crisis or a worsened investment environment around China. That would force the withdrawal of a large amount of investment from this region, which would then return to the U.S.
Unfortunately, this time the American’s opponent was China. China used “Tai chi” movements to cool down each crisis. As of today, the last straw to break the camel’s back has yet to occur and the Camel is still standing.
The camel didn’t break. Therefore, the Federal Reserve couldn’t blow its horn to increase the interest rate, either. The Americans realized that it was hard for them to harvest China, so they looked for an alternative.
Where else did they target? Ukraine, the connection between the EU and Russia. Of course there were some problems under Ukraine President Yanukovych’s administration, but the reason that the Americans picked it was not simply because of his problem. They had three goals: teach a lesson to Yanukovych who didn’t listen to the U.S., prevent the EU from getting too close to Russia, and create a bad investment environment in Europe.
Thus, a “color revolution,” took place, which the Ukrainians themselves appeared to have led. The U.S. achieved its goal unexpectedly: Russian President Putin took over Crimea. Though the Americans did not plan it, it gave the Americans better reasons to pressure the EU and Japan to join the U.S. in sanctioning Russia, adding more pressure to the EU’s economy.
Why did the Americans do this? People tend to analyze it from the geo-political angle, but rarely the capital angle. After the Ukraine crisis, statistics showed over US$1 trillion in capital left Europe. The U.S. got what it wanted: if it couldn’t get dollars out of China, it would get dollars out of Europe.
However, the next step didn’t occur as the Americans planned. The capital out of Europe didn’t go to the U.S. Instead, it went to Hong Kong.
One reason was that the global investors preferred China, which claimed the world’s number one economic growth rate, despite the fact that its economy started to cool down. The other reason was that China announced that it would implement the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect. Investors over the world wanted to get a handsome return through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect.
In the past, Western capital was cautious about entering China’s stock market. A key reason was China’s strict foreign currency control: you can come in freely but you can’t get out at will. After the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, they could invest in Shanghai’s market from Hong Kong and leave immediately after making a profit. Therefore, over US$1 trillion stayed in Hong Kong.
This is why the hand behind “Occupy Central” has kept planning a comeback and has not wanted to stop. The Americans need to create a regional crisis for China, to get the money back to the U.S.
Why does the U.S. economy rely so desperately on capital flowing back to its market? It is because, since 1971, the U.S. has given up producing real products. They called the real economy’s low-end or low-value-creating manufacturing industries garbage industries or sunset industries and transferred them to developing countries, especially China. Besides the high-end industries, such as IBM and Microsoft, that it kept, 70 percent of its people moved to finance and financial services industries. The U.S. has completely become a hollow state which has little real economy to offer investors a big return.
The Americans have no choice but to open the door of the virtual economy, which is its three big markets. It wants to get the money from the world into these three markets so that it can make money. Then it can use that money to harvest other countries.
The Americans only have this one way to survive now. We call it the U.S.’s national survival strategy. The U.S. needs a large amount of capital flowing back to sustain its daily life and its economy. If any country blocks that capital flow, it is the enemy of the U.S.
II. Whose Lunch Will China Take If China Rises Quickly?
A. Why Did the Birth of the Euro Lead to a War in Europe?
On January 1, 1999, the euro was officially born. Three months later, NATO started its war against Yugoslavia. Many people thought the U.S. and NATO fought the war to stop the Milosevic administration’s genocide of the Albanians, a scary humanitarian tragedy. After the war, this was soon proved to be a lie. The Americans acknowledged it was a setup, done jointly by the CIA and the Western media. The goal was to attack the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
However, was the Kosovo War really to attack the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? The Europeans first overwhelmingly believed in this theory. However, after this 72-day war, they found they had been cheated.
When the euro was first created, the Europeans had a lot of confidence. The euro’s exchange rate to the U.S. dollar was 1:1.07. After 72 days of bombing, the Europeans found something was not right: Their euro was ruined. The euro lost 30 percent of its value; one euro could only get 0.86 dollars. The Europeans realized that they had been cheated. This was why later, when the U.S. insisted on having a war with Iraq, France and Germany were strongly against it.
Some people say that the Western democratic countries don’t fight among themselves. It is true that, since World War II, the Western countries haven’t fought among themselves, but that does not mean they do not have any military conflicts or economic or financial wars among themselves.
The Kosovo War was an indirect financial war that the Americans fought against the euro. On the surface it was against Yugoslavia, but the euro got the real hit. This was because the birth of the euro touched the U.S. dollar’s lunch. Before, the U.S. dollar was used to commanding 80 percent of the international transaction market. It dropped to 60 percent of the market. The euro cut a big pie from the dollar.
The European Union (EU), a US$27 trillion economy when formed, surpassed the economy of the North American Free Trade Area (FTA) with a size of US$24-25 trillion, becoming the world’s largest economic zone. For such a large economy, of course the EU didn’t want to use the dollar to handle its trades, so it created the euro. The introduction of the euro took away one third of the dollar’s settlement business – as of now, 23 percent of the world trade is settled in euros.
In the beginning, the Americans were not vigilant about the euro. It was a bit late when they found out that it would challenge the dollar’s hegemony. So the U.S. needed a way to press down the EU and the euro, as well as other possible challengers.
B. What Is the U.S. Trying to Balance with Its “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” Strategy?
China’s rise made China the new challenger [to the dollar’s global dominance]. The fights over the Diaoyu Islands and the Huangyan Island were the U.S.’s latest attempt to suppress its challenger.
Though these two political events around China’s border didn’t cause a large amount of capital to flee out of China, the Americans achieved their partials goals – two of China’s efforts died. At the beginning of 2012, China, Japan, and South Korea were close to reaching an agreement on the negotiation of the Northeast Asia FTA. In April 2012, China and Japan had also reached a preliminary agreement on currency exchange and on holding each other’s national debts. However, the conflict over the Diaoyu Islands and Huangyan Island occurred, blowing away the FTA and the currency exchange.
A few years later, China finally finished the negation with South Korea on the bilateral FTA, but it does not have much significance. Why? The original Northeast Asia FTA, once established, would include China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. It would be the third largest economy in the world, with a size of over US$20 trillion. Furthermore, it would likely expand south to integrate with the ASEAN FTA, forming the East Asia FTA. That would become the largest economy in the world, with a magnitude of over
US$30 trillion in size.
We can further imagine that the East Asia FTA could continue expanding: adding India and South Asia in the south, the five Central Asian countries in the north, and the West Asia countries (part of the Middle East) in the west. This Asia FTA would then have a scale surpassing US$50 trillion, more than the EU and U.S. combined. For such a big FTA, would it use the euro or the dollar to settle its internal trade? Of course not. This meant that the Asian Dollar would be born.
I think, if indeed there is an Asia FTA, we should promote the renminbi to be the primary currency of Asia, just as the U.S. dollar first became the currency of North America and then the currency of the world. Pushing the renminbi to the international stage is far more than what we talked about previously with the “Renminbi going abroad” or letting the renminbi play a role in the “One Belt, One Path.” It will, along with the dollar and the euro, share the world.
If the Chinese could think of this, couldn’t the Americans think of it? When the Americans announced that they would shift their focus to the East, they pushed the Japanese to create an issue over the Diaoyu Islands and they supported the Philippines to have a confrontation with China over the Huangyan Island. We can’t be so naive as to think this was just caused by the right-wing Japanese or by the Philippines President Aquino.
It was the Americans’ deep and careful thought to prevent the renminbi from being a challenger to the dollar. The Americans were very clear about what they were doing. If the Northeast Asia FTA were formed, with its chain reaction, the renminbi, the euro, and the dollar each would claim one third of the world trading market. Then for the U.S., would it still have the currency hegemony if it had only one third of it? Without a real economy, if it were to lose its currency hegemony, how could the U.S. remain as the world’s dominator?
Once one understands this, he will know why, behind every one of China’s problem, the U.S. is there. The U.S. is preventing China’s “trouble” [to the U.S.] up front. Thus it has created troubles for China everywhere. What does the U.S. try to “rebalance” in the Asia-Pacific? Does it really want to play the role of balancer between China and Japan, China and the Philippines, and China and other countries? Of course not. It has only one goal in mind: nullify the trend of China’s rise.
III. The Secret That the U.S. Military Is Fighting for the Dollar
A. The Iraq War and Whose Currency Was Used for Oil Trades
People all say that the strength of the U.S. is based on three pillars: currency, technology, and military force. Actually today we can see that the real backbone of the U.S. is its currency and military force. The backing of its currency is its military force.
Every country in the world spends a large amount of money when it has a war. The U.S., however, is unique. It can also make money while spending money on a war. No other country can do that.
Why did the Americans fight a war in Iraq? Many people would answer, “For oil.” However, did the Americans truly fight for oil? No. If they indeed fought for oil, why didn’t they take a single barrel of oil out of Iraq? Also, the crude oil price jumped to US$149 a barrel after the war from a pre-war price of $38 a barrel. The American people didn’t get a low oil price after its army occupied Iraq.
Therefore, the U.S. fought the war not for oil, but for the dollar. Why? The reason was simple. To control the world, the U.S. needed the whole world to use the dollar. It was a great move in 1973 to force Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries to install the dollar as the settlement currency for oil trades.
Once you understand that, you can understand why the U.S. fought a war in an oil producing country. The direct result of fighting a war in an oil producing country was to increase the price oil. Once the oil price shot up, the demand for the dollar also went up.
For example, if you had US$38, you could buy a barrel of crude oil before the war. After the war, the price went up over four times to $149. Your $38 could only get you a quarter of a barrel. How could you get the other three quarters? You had to use your products and resources to trade the Americans for dollar. Then the U.S. government could openly, legitimately print more dollars. This was the secret.
I also want to tell everyone, the U.S.’s war in Iraq was not only for that goal. It was also to keep the dollar’s hegemony. Saddam didn’t support terrorists or Al-Qaeda, nor did it have weapons of mass destruction. But why was he still hung? It was because he played a game between the U.S. and EU. After the euro was created in 1999, he announced that Iraq’s oil trade would be settled in euros. This angered the Americans, especially when many other countries followed suit. Russian President Putin, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez all made the same announcement. How could the Americans accept this?
Some people may think what I said was a fairy tale. Let’s take a look at what the America did after it won the Iraq War. Before they arrested Saddam, the Americans rushed to form the temporary Iraqi government. The first order that the temporary government published was to announce that the Iraqi oil trade switched from the euro back to the dollar for settlement. This showed that America was fighting for its dollar.
B. The Afghanistan War and the Net-flow of Capital
Someone may say, “I can see that [the Americans fought] the Iraq War for the dollar. Afghanistan does not produce oil. Then it shouldn’t be for the dollar that the Americans fought the Afghanistan War. Also the war was after the September 11 attack. The whole world knew it was to revenge the Al-Qaeda and punish the Taliban which supported the Al-Qaeda.”
Was that true? The Afghanistan War started a month after September 11. It started in a rush. By the middle of the war, American used up all of its cruise missiles. As the war continued, the U.S. Defense Department had to open its nuclear weaponry. It took out 1,000 nuclear cruise missiles, replaced the nuclear warheads with conventional warheads, and fired another 900 cruise missiles to win the war. Obviously the Americans were not ready for this war. Why did they rush into it?
That’s because the Americans couldn’t wait any longer. Their financial life was in big trouble. In the early 21st Century, as a country without real material producing industries, to keep it running at the current level, the U.S. needed to have a net inflow of US$700 billion from other countries every year. After the September 11 event, the global investors showed great concern about the investment environment in the U.S. As a result, US$300 billion fled from the U.S.
This forced the U.S. to fight a war quickly to stop the fleeing. It was not only to punish the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but also to rebuild the global investors’ confidence. After the first cruise missiles exploded in Kabul, the Dow Jones index jumped up 600 points in one day. The capital that left the U.S. started to flow back. By the end of 2001, US$400 billion came back to the U.S. This showed again that the Afghanistan War was fought for the dollar and for capital.
C. Why Will the Prompt Global Strike System Replace Aircraft Carriers?
Many Chinese have great hope for China’s aircraft carrier. They have seen aircraft carrier’s importance in the past and China’s Liaoning ship let China join the rank of owners of aircraft carriers.
However, though the aircraft carrier is still a symbol for a major power in the world, it is now only a symbol.
That is because the aircraft carrier is a product of the logistics era. When Great Britain was at its peak, it pushed for global trade – it sent its products to the world and took back the world’s resources – so it needed a strong navy to ensure safety over the water. The creation of the aircraft carrier also served to control the ocean and the sea path. At that time the saying was, “Logistics is the key.” Whoever controlled the ocean controlled the flow of global wealth.
Now capital is the key. A few strokes on a computer keyboard can move billions or even trillions [of dollars] of capital from one location to another. An aircraft carrier can keep up with the speed of logistics, but it can’t keep up with the flow of capital. It is thus unable to control global capital.
Then today, what measure can keep up with the direction, speed, and volume of the flow of global capital over the Internet? American is developing a huge prompt global strike system that will allow it to hit any capital-concentrated region with ballistic missiles, supersonic planes, and cruise missiles that travel at five or ten times sonic speed. The U.S. claims that it can hit any place on the earth in 28 minutes. No matter where capital is, as long as the Americans do not want it to be there, its missiles can go there in 28 minutes and drive the capital out. This is why the prompt global strike system will inevitably replace aircraft carriers.
Of course, the aircraft carrier also has its own value, such as safeguarding the sea path or conducting a humanitarian mission. It is a good platform over the sea.
IV. The “Air Sea Battle” Will Not Solve the U.S.’s Problem
America brought up the concept of “Air Sea Battle” when designing responses to China’s rise. It was first introduced in 2010. As a war concept, it meant jointly combining the powers of the air force and the navy when fighting against China. The creation of this concept showed that the American military was getting weaker. In the past, the U.S. thought that it could use either air strikes or the navy to strike China. Now it finds that the use of only one source does not provide it with military superiority over China. It needs to join the two forces together. That’s how this “air sea battle” concept came into being.
The Americans think that China and the U.S. won’t get into a war in the next ten years. After studying China’s military development, the Americans realize that the U.S.’s current military capability does not guarantee itself an advantage over China’s strengths, such as China’s ability to attack aircraft carriers and to destroy space systems. Therefore, the U.S. needs to spend another ten years to develop a more advanced battle system to offset China’s advantage.
It may mean that the U.S. has moved the timetable of a war with China to ten years from now. Though there may not be a war for ten years, we must prepare ourselves for it. If we don’t want a war to happen in ten years, we need do get our things done within the next ten years, including preparing for war.
V. The Strategic Meaning of the “One Belt, One Road” Strategy
The Americans like basketball and boxing. Boxing shows the American’s typical nature of respecting power: a direct hit with full strength and the hope of knocking the opponent out. Everything is straightforward.
The Chinese are quite the opposite. Chinese prefer ambiguity and “using softness to conquer strength.” One doesn’t seek to knock his opponent out, but he will defuse all of his opponent’s attacks. Chinese like Tai-chi, which is a higher level of art then boxing.
The “One Belt, One Road” strategy reflects this philosophy.
Throughout history, whenever a great power rises, there is a corresponding globalization movement. This means that globalization is not a phenomenon that has continued from the past all the way to the present; rather it belongs to a great power. The Roman Empire had its own globalization. The Qin Dynasty in China (around 200 B.C.) had its own globalization.
Every globalization was initiated by a rising empire. And that globalization was also limited by the empire’s own strength. The farthest location that the empire’s power could influence and its transportation means could reach defined the boundary of its globalization. Therefore, in today’s view, both the Roman Empire’s globalization and the Qin Dynasty’s globalization were only considered to be a regional expansion. “Globalization” on today’s terms started with the British Empire. The U.S. continued the British trade globalization for a while. Then it switched to U.S. dollar globalization.
China’s “One Belt, One Road” is not simply to join the global economic system, which is a globalization under the U.S. dollar. As a rising super power, the “One Belt, One Road” strategy is the beginning of China’s own globalization. It is a necessary globalization process that a super power must have during the phase of its rise.
“One Belt, One Road” is the best super power strategy that China can bring up at this moment, because it is a counter measure to the U.S. strategy of shifting focus to the East.
Someone may ask: “A counter measure should be in the opposite direction of the force coming toward you. How can you turn your back on the U.S.?” (The U.S. is pressing China from the east over the Pacific Ocean, but China turns its back on the pressure and moves to the west.) That’s right. The “One Belt, One Road” strategy is China’s indirect counter to the U.S. shift to the East. China turns its back on the U.S. [to avoid direct confrontation]. You pressure me [from the east], I walk to the west, not because I want to avoid you, nor because I am afraid of you, but rather because this is a smart move to defuse the pressure you bring to me.
The “One Belt, One Road” strategy does not require the two paths happen in parallel. It should have priorities. Sea power is still China’s weakness, so we can focus on the land path first. The “One Belt” is the primary direction. This also means that we need to revisit the importance of the army.
Some people say that China’s army is the best in the world. It is true if it is inside China: the Chinese army will beat whoever invades China’s land. The problem is that China’s army may not have the capability to go outside China to fight and win a war?
I talked about this issue last year at the Global Times annual meeting. I said that America chose a wrong opponent when it chose China as its opponent and pressured China. The real threat to the U.S. in the future is not China, but rather the U.S. itself. The U.S. will bury itself. That’s because it has not yet realized that a big era is coming and the financial capitalism that the U.S. represents will reach its peak and then start falling. On the one hand, the U.S. has already taken full advantage of benefits that capital generates. On the other hand, via the technological innovation that the U.S. leads, the U.S. pushes the Internet, big data, and cloud computing to an extreme. These tools will eventually become the forces that end financial capitalism.
Taobao.com and tmall.com, both under the Alibaba company, registered 50.7 billion yuan (US$8.2 billion) in sales on November 11, 2014. A few weeks later, the total Internet sales plus the in-store sales in the U.S. market in the three-day Thanks-giving weekend was only 40.7 billion yuan (US$6.6 billion). The 50.7 billion yuan is only the sales for one-day on Alibaba, not including 163.com, qq.com, jd.com, and other online stores in China, nor including any physical store sales.
All Alibaba’s sales were done via Alipay (an electronic payment system). What does Alipay mean? It means that currency is out of the trade platform. The U.S. hegemony is based on its dollar. What is the dollar? It is a currency. In the future, when we stop using currency to complete sales, the traditional currency will be useless. Will the empire that is established on currency still exist? That is the question that the Americans should think about.
3D printing also represents a future direction. It will create fundamental change to the human production process. When the production process changes and the trading process changes, the world will go through a fundamental change. History shows that these two changes, not other factors, are the real cause for society’s change.
Today’s capital may disappear when currency disappears. When the production method changes along the line of 3D printing, the human world will step into a new social mode. At that time, China and the U.S. will stand at the same starting line of the Internet, big data, and cloud computing. The competition at that time will depend on who will be the first to step through this new door, not on who will press the other down. From this point of view, I say that the U.S. has chosen the wrong opponent.
America’s real opponent is itself and this change. America has shown a surprising slowness in realizing this point. That is because America has too much invested in keeping its hegemonic position. It does not want to share power with other countries, nor does it want to step together with others into the new social door behind which there are still many things unknown to us.
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Got this from another Chat. Aside from the claims about the US stranglehold over oil; US $ as the default reserve currency; the deposing (or the ongoing attempt to depose Maduro) of Saddam, Gaddarfi, some of the other claims need to b verified:-
"China is standing tall !!
Henry Kissinger said previously: whoever controls petroleum shall control the other countries; whoever controls food supplies shall control mankind; whoever controls the distribution of money shall rule the world. No one country can manage without petroleum, but not every country has petroleum resources.
Realizing the amazing commercial opportunity stated above, US laid down ground rules for Saudi and other major petroleum exporting countries, that all petroleum trading must be done in USD. Therefore any country who intended to import petroleum must convert their currency to USD to complete the deal. The petroleum exporting countries must receive the sale proceeds in USD, otherwise they might faced serious repercussions. All these implied that US derived certain benefits in all petroleum trading in the world then.
But what were the bases for these? The bases rest on the American fighter bombers and canons, as any rationales or justifications were within the firing range of the canons.
Under the autocratic power of US, who dared to oppose. The benefits derived from the practice of using USD was significant and all encompassing. Therefore US would pulverized any one who dared to act differently.
It could be recalled that when the defiant Saddam Hussein made known his intentions to trade petroleum based on Euro instead of USD, US Secretary of State Powell just waved a packet of washing powder at the United Nations (claiming it to be WMD), took actions to overthrow the “dictator”, and bombed Iraq to become a waste land. Saddam was hanged and the Americans just dusted their backsides to leave a “democratic” but bomb-shattered Iraq. In that bullying era, US Seventh Fleet was the justice, whoever had greater fist power became the big brother.
Aside from Iraq, even when staunch US allies ever considered of replacing USD in petroleum trading, harsh measures would rained upon them. Thus when the highly revered German Chancellor Angela Merkel just said Euro could be more appropriate for petroleum trading, the Americans immediately acted to precipitate the Greek debt crises. These causes a big mess in European Union and almost resulted in the break-up. Merkel retreated in anguish and dared not raise such issue again.
The Americans were apt to use such tactic ( the Chinese idiom equivalent of killing chicken to warn monkey) to evoke fear. Any one who disregard the “base line” would incur their wrath and punitive actions.
What none of the nation in the world would dare to offend the US, China did and succeeded. In 2014, the Russians made the first move to trade petroleum with China using Renminbi (RMB). That was astounding. Subsequently Iran and Iraq follow suit. Later Venezuela also discarded USD and traded their petroleum with China in RMB. With these major petroleum exporting nations trading in RMB, two-third of China’s import of petroleum were secured in RMB, thus US started to lose its benefits had these trading been done in USD.
In order to crack the monopoly of trading using USD, China took further actions. Any country which accepted RMB for the sale of petroleum would be permitted to swapped the RMB for gold in the Shanghai bullion market. This move enables RMB to become more internationalized. The US become more alarmed. Now that petroleum, RMB, and gold are interchangeable, it means the confidence in RMB is linked to confidence in gold. This would hasten savings in RMB in the whole world.
Upon China’s move to permit interchangeability between RMB and gold, another nation which became alerted besides US was petroleum juggernaut Saudi Arabia. As the Chinese were keen to widen the acceptability of RMB for petroleum imports, its import from Saudi had reduced considerably. As the China market was a huge one, the Saudi could not hold its patience any longer and had of late begun initiatives to cooperate closer with China.
Based on a number of signals, Saudi Arabia, close ally of US, will “bend with the wind” to accept RMB for petroleum export to China. One must note that Saudi is the “big brother” of petroleum export nations in Middle East. If Saudi were to accept RMB, more petroleum exporting nations in Middle East would join in and American dominance and use of USD would shrink in importance.
It has to be noted that, if 20 years ago, any nation was to trade in RMB, it would be suicidal as the Americans would resort to 1000 ways to mangle it. But China today differed greatly from China of the past. 20 years of bitter endurance, China has grown from strength to strength. The US today isn’t the same as US of the past. 20 years of friction and wars had left a huge deficit in its cofer, and waned off its warring spirit.
These countries which chose to use RMB to trade, be it the newly awakened Russia, US arch rivals Iran, Venezuela or the battered Iraq, were all ever ready to stand up to say no to US. Moreover what added to their resolve was that they are cooperating with China which has been well recognized as one country which could stand tall viv-a-vis the US.
On the other hand, the US had fought in many wars over the years, depleting it’s reserves and piling up astronomical national debt. In view of shortage of fund there were incidences of government shutdown. Under Trump’s administration, there were measures to down-size US global operations to avert worsening of its economic health. Now that monopoly of USD in trading has been foiled and US were well exasperated. But any show of force with China by the downcast war-monger is not the best option.
That was the reason that the US had in recent years laid shackles on China, such as threatening China in South China seas. That was one way for the US to let go its choked up air. The past dominance and overriding superiority is a thing of the past. That’s why one US analyst sighed: 20 years ago, US let China off the hook, now China has turned the table. But who would know, China’s growing power today was attained through how much of sweat, blood and tears!
In the past, US bombed the Chinese embassy (1999 Belgrade), the Chinese kept their cool.
In the past, US navy air-craft collided with Chinese fighter jet (2001, Hainan) China exercised patience.
In 1996 Taiwan Straits crisis, US shut down GPS, immobilizing two Chinese air-craft carriers in the Taiwan Straits, China still held its patience.
As of now, situations in South China Sea have become clearer. Vietnam’s claim was repulsed and the anti-Chinese ex-president in Philippines was force to resign, now awaiting trial.
The arbitrators appointed by the US to manage the South China Sea disputes were unsuccessful. The Japanese also fumbled in their claims. Now the routine patrol of Diaoyu Islands is done by the Chinese. In addition, Chinese naval frigates and jets are often seen to traverse between the Japanese islands, drawing repeated protests from the Japanese. The Chinese officials said defiantly: they will get use to the trespassing in due course!! And regarding the islet which the Indonesians had landed, the Chinese scientists announced they discovered an endangered plant in the vicinity and cordoned off an area more than 10 km radius as protected land. When the netizens read the news, they said that plant was there to uphold China’s national honour.
Now, the Chinese telescope called Tianyan is the world’s most advanced radio telescope. For mankind to hear the voices of the universe, the world got to depend upon China.
Now Huawei smartphone has begun to rise in popularity, and Samsung status has dropped and has tendency to explode. Plane passengers with certain series of Samsung smartphones were even not allowed to board. Apple 8 launch appeared to receive declining response.
Now, China has fully activated OROB (One Road One Belt), thus widened its global markets without interference by the US.
The spectacular Chang-an cargo train could haul about 200 coaches and reduced the time for cargo transport from China to Europe. Wherever it passed the crowds were greatly amazed and referred it as the Chinese great dragon.
Now online payment has become widespread so much so that roadside hawkers selling roasted potatoes could also accept online payment. Numerous westerners who lived in China felt greatly inconvenient when they returned to their home countries. They expressed that China is the cashless society and their home countries have lagged behind. Going home appears to get into another era.
Now China’s super fighter jet Chengdu J20 has been commissioned. To counter the US Stealth fighter jets, China has the Redflag series-9 Aerial Defence Missiles. Now US fighter jets would not dare to trespass China’s air space.
Now the Chinese nuclear submarines equipped with special high-tech have been fully upgraded. China’s very own aircraft carriers were successively commissioned.
Now China has also developed counter arsenals to thwart the American aircraft carriers. Those are Dongfeng 21D anti-ship ballistic missiles. These missiles could easily knock out the US aircraft carriers. When this news was announced, the US aircraft carriers line of defense retreated 400 Km.
Today, China has its own new early warning aircrafts, a new type of strategic bombers, and Xian Y-20 large transport aircrafts. Now China's military helicopters and heavy-duty helicopters are constantly being commissioned. These are Z-10, Z-19, Z-20 and others, dazzling to the sight.
This is the speed of China! This is China's national defense.
Over the last hundred years, China experienced humiliation and suffering through the Opium War, the Eight-Power Allied Forces and the
Anti-Japanese War.
In the last hundred years, the Chinese took great pains and made relentless efforts to make nuclear bombs, build planes, build tanks and whatever the enemies have. China also made new gadgets that the enemies didn’t have.
Finally, China spent 60 years to catch up with what the West achieved over the past 200 years! China had used the blood, sweat and tears of numerous ancestors in exchange for today's success!
When China suddenly raised its “heavenly sword” to put a stop to US’s dollar hegemony, the United States suddenly found that the rapid rise of China is now beyond its control!, They have been unable to stop China's vigorous pace.
Now as China is marching doggedly forward despite torrents of resistance, achieving one breakthrough after another, it is hope that every Chinese will strive hard to keep the glorious flame of the Chinese race ever brighter. While it is said that China achieved miracles, one may just as well say China is a miracle.
Magnificent and Towering !!"
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