Does this phrasing suggest we would sympathize with the US if they had in fact been duped? The US always explains its aggression in terms of evil villains that hold unamerican values, that doesn't provide an argument either in favor of or against their characterisation. If the US calls Brazil socialist that doesn't make it socialist, but it also doesn't make it not socialist. It has no bearing.

China develops to the point where they are no longer exploited for cheap labor, leading to less foreign demand for Chinese labor. That's what necessitates MIC2050, the Chinese plan to create an economy that doesn't rely on foreign capital exploiting Chinese workers.

I'm impressed with the ability to frame this as a negative. I think the mechanisms of recall being exercised suggest good things about the party's internal democracy

What makes him so dependent? I suspect the author means the leader of China saying things will get better for Chinese people is nationalist rhetoric.

Manufacturing was relocated to China to exploit it's underdeveloped and weakly protected labor market, which is the reason why China has long been the world's largest mfer and exporter. Here China is blamed for that and elsewhere in the article China is blamed for developing their workforce to the point of becoming too expensive for the imperialists, who then moved production to SE Asia.

This phrasing suggests two belligerents, which overlooks that Taiwan is in China, which is on the other side of the planet from the US

So it's Chinas fault that they're surrounded by US forces? The context of this being in China is missing, making the presence of the two militaries not at all equivalent.

Awkward phrasing suggests US benefits from resistance to debt trap diplomacy, or blaming US imperialism on China

Is not clear why the author thinks this. capitalist states already interfere to the advantage of "their own" capitalists, and if they interfered to benefit workers as in keynesian policies, that would be good. A socialist state that prioritizes working class interests generally would be even better.

What is the source for this? And what is the relevance?

This possibility is rejected below

The author appears to hate China and his primary purpose in the article seems to be to drive home that the US and China are equivalent imperialist powers. He doesn't seem to have a strong grasp of a wide range of Marxist and even liberal economic terminology and gets confused in his own arguments. By the author's own admission, the US is the aggressor and has the significant advantage militarily and politically, and the conditions offered by the US would risk destroying party rule in China. That the US has squandered their one time overwhelming economic superiority should not be surprising to Marxists familiar with the US role in the global order and with the tendencies of capitalist development.

It would be useful to contrast the Trump administration's attempt at a 19th century style trade war utilising protectionism mechanisms with the economic sabotage the US used against Japan's booming economy in the 1990s.

The author appears to endorse the call for the overthrow or defeat of the PRC. He also takes the rhetorical stance that China is wrong to exercise protectionist policies and therefore that China should submit to greater exploitation by western imperialists. He characterises his positions on the basis of free market mechanics, positioning them as preferable to centralized planning and even as preferable to keynesian economic controls, a position typically considered right wing even in the US context. He also quotes primarily right wing, primarily US sources such as the economist, brookings institute which is a right wing anti China think tank, a China watcher's blog, and a Georgetown professor interviewed in SCMP.

I wonder what hierarchy is referenced or who these so called princelings are?

I think it's more reasonable to say trade wars were the result of or are a symptom of the strained relations.

Not sure what the quotes are for here

Was said above that it's not really about values

The scare quotes indicate maybe the US is not democratic, but it apparently doesn't warrant the term authoritarian, reserved for enemies of the US. Echoed with the phrasing: "not only" in China, "but also" in the US. So is the US democratic, which phrasing suggests, or not democratic, as scare quotes suggest?

I'm reasonably certain that global economic relations have always been in the realm of geopolitical strategy. If georgetown professor is right that the domination of the world and carving up into spheres of influence and control has slowed, then this recalls the conditions leading up to WWI

Right wing China watcher, not clear on what basis he's being considered an expert

Another hint of the one sided nature of this conflict. The US fears China might build up a military capable of resisting the US empire, accepting that China does not have such capability as yet.

Also block US investors from investing in Chinese industry

Again, why scare quotes? The author has argued that the US needs to play this bully game of trade war bc of what is at stake for the US ruling class.

Globalization is the setup of global supply and value chains, how is China alone such a dent?

I wonder whether the author would call this state capitalism, protectionism, keynesianism, or red capitalism

It is also a lack of confidence in the US strategy to beat China. Historically the imperialist bloc has been led by the US on the promise that this leadership will break down all barriers to capital, via whatever means necessary. If the US were capable of opening China by force and not forced to the bargaining table, it is unlikely the European capitalists would find any fault.

The name of this practice is imperialism. Do imperialist countries do this to each other, or do they vie over undeveloped countries? The rest of this article suggests the latter. Why in this inter-imperialist conflict is there no threat of China opening up the US by force?

These interventions are critical to the party remaining in power? I thought this article said these policies were new? Anyway, retaining control over China from the capitalists seems again to be a good thing.

The profits AND wealth of princeling families AND all Chinese capitalists. These are the state owned enterprises, how are they making profit or wealth for capitalists?

Central economic control again portrayed as a negative. Is the author a free market capitalist?

Other socialists criticise China for allowing too much leeway for western NGOs to operate, highlighting the difficulty of criticism from afar. But why does this author suggest allowing NGOs more leeway is a good thing and a "limited" concession? Concession to whom?

Why the scare quotes?

This is again a classic right wing claim that is made against all socialist states and leaders since Stalin. It is a form of character assassination, and HK media is notorious for nativist views against China including such portrayals of Chinese government and leadership.

In that context this seems a good thing. But why former?

Otherwise known as the counter revolution that led to the destruction of the Soviet Union. Considering we have this example with the greatest recorded drop in living conditions, i don't think we can blame China for not acquiescing to it

Nothing less than a right wing anti communist claim. Rather than suggesting China "rejected democracy" because it would hurt the supposed wealthy elite, the lesson of tiananmen was that China will hold on and not give up what they've achieved in order to pacify a relatively small intellectual class interested in immediate liberalisation at all costs. No second such uprising has since occurred.

Deng Xiaoping came to power and began liberalising economic reforms in 1978. The tiananmen square uprising was in 1989. Author links them only for an excuse to invoke 1989. In fact reform stagnated as a result, from 89-92

Isn't US backed regime change also unacceptable to socialists anywhere?

Can't blame them as protectionism clearly works best for exporting, manufacturing economies. Trump carried this on his own belief that he's long held that the US economy can be turned back in time.

Another confusing use of quotes

On what basis can we say they're unreliable?

Sounds like a good thing?

Soviet trade included most of the world. This statistic only makes sense if the source pretends that socialist states are not included in "world markets". Most of the world's population lived in the socialist world and trade within it was an existential threat to US imperialism.

Yes, as US imperialism pressured China into opening its markets and labor force to foreigners, foreigners especially the US made billions off of the imperialist oppression of China.

What do these countries have in common? Why these countries? The European states are integrated into NATO, SK and Taiwan are essentially western controlled, and India is poor. Moreover many of these countries have long established their economies and militaries, whereas this was and still is the primary period of Chinese development

The author means the US, surely. The US is among other things a consumer economy where the global value chain reaches its final stage, which is required for the realization of profit. This along with the economic policies that maintain a large parasitic landlord class cause the American economy to be largely reliant on debt as a financial and economic instrument. What exists in China that compares to this? At best I can only assume the author is referring again to the "debt trap". But foreign debt is not an asset, rather a liability.

Becoming more Chinese here mirrors "increasingly anti democratic". The US democracy is falling and becoming more like non democratic China. This is a ludicrous suggestion, not least from a socialist perspective. This is standard yellow peril rhetoric.

How does the author reconcile increasing state regulation and nationalization with "more" deregulation and privatizations? They appear to be in direct conflict

Where is this evidence for this hegemony? How can China maintain a putative Chinese empire with one foreign base, when the US has 800+?

The capitalists set up rules that benefit their entire international class. US leadership of the imperialist bloc is predicated on winning victories that benefit their whole class. Does the author suggest China is gunning for the US' leadership role? How, with such massive disparity in military and economic power?

This is a strange framing for the cold war. It also suggests the author is opposed to state ownership and central planning of the economy, a tenet broadly agreed upon by Marxist socialists

Not sure this is true, the Democrats never stop talking about authoritarian China

I guess this is an accurate use of scare quotes but it seems a fairly immature and insecure way to make the point.

I can't fault this description of capitalism but this article makes no effort to explain then why one of these two capitalist nations is the world leader on climate change, poverty alleviation and wage growth.

Nationalist seems to be doing a lot of work to make these two leaders equivalent to each other.

Imo this dismissal of US warmongering is naïve. The US openly states that their war doctrine is not constrained by the cold war policy of mutually assured destruction. The US has also surrounded China with naval forces and a large number of bomber capable military bases. This also contradicts earlier statement in the article that the conflict could enter the military realm.

This references the argument that both China and the US represent imperialists, where imperialism is a complex phenomenon arising out of highly developed capitalism within a country. According to this argument any tensions, conflicts, disputes or aggressions between the two countries is best described as "inter-imperialist conflict"

With the benefit of hindsight we know that the US dropped these threats entirely five days after this article was written.

President Trump v Xi Jinping's Regime. This sort of rhetorical sneering is in almost every paragraph and I won't highlight them all.

In favor of what? What force exists in HK that would better represent the issues of working people?