China has become the world's factory, but its aggressive presence across the planet raises the alarm. Beijing has accelerated its policy of global influence: in Africa it buys pieces of the economy, controls regimes and portions of territory in which he founds cities, builds infrastructure, exploits energy resources, prepares a near future of a hegemonic planetary power. The Twenty-first will increasingly be the century of the Dragon. Alibaba and Huawei, two technological giants, they are now able to compete with the giants of Silicon Valley. His scientific research, without the knowledge of researchers in the rest of the world, has arrived at the disturbing modification of the genetic heritage of two twins.
At dinner, after Deng Xiaoping's historic outward opening, it soon transformed into a universal factory, but for about ten years it has accelerated towards the objective - a novelty in its very long historical history - of achieving a decisive presence at a global level by concentrating investments in strategic sectors and not just by selling cheap products. In this it is supported by strong political centralization, from economic steering, from the control over monetary issuance and investments. His silent strategy, slowly, with a recent clear acceleration, it has affected not only the United States and Africa, transformed into a strategic outpost, energy reservoir, medium-term colony for millions of Chinese, but also Japan, Singapore and of course the European Union.
China has long been committed not only to securing low-cost raw materials and energy for its industrial apparatus, but it does much more, as demonstrated by the gigantic megaproject of the new Silk Road, aimed at building a network of port and railway infrastructures westwards to the Atlantic which will also involve Italy (Trieste and Genoa above all). China has made a clear change of direction in its foreign policy, initially concentrated on internal economic development, starting to challenge the current world order.
The turning point is most evident since 2012, since the current president Xi Jinping has been in power. L’ americano Hoover Institute, linked to the Republican Party, published a weighty study on the Chinese presence in the United States. The list of Chinese interests in America is very long, their economic impact is very important. The cultural aspect is also starting to become relevant, con 350 thousand students pursuing degree courses in the United States, while the motherland trains young Africans and Asians in its universities, the future ruling classes. The American trade deficit with China is enormous, circa 350 billions of dollars annually. A significant part of America's heavy public debt is in Chinese hands, so much so that Vice President Mike Pence called on the American financial system to refuse further purchases. Furthermore, many Chinese emigrate to the USA, acquiring considerable economic and political influence. The Dragon's penetration strategy, we know it, does not spare Italy, with a very dense network of not only commercial and artisan businesses that create a sort of closed economy, circulate with the homeland and the companies of resident compatriots.
The study found no direct interventions on American political life and electoral choices, but he is concerned about growing Chinese influence in universities, in the "think tanks" (think tanks), the intense lobbying work in every channel useful for orienting or opposing financial decisions, economical, policies, geostrategic. Universities are starting to receive pressure to cancel or sterilize events potentially critical of the Chinese regime, with real reprisals from the embassy and consulates present in the country.
Chinese penetration is particularly significant in the technology sector, the key to strengthening economic power and military strength. It widely uses industrial espionage and technology transfer (know how) through the purchase of companies. The Americans, champions of free trade, they do not officially question the entry of Chinese capital into their industries, but they complain about the impossibility of distinguishing which part of capital is public and which is private, taking into account the strategic role of the State, of public finance and the Communist Party.
In fact, the Chinese wild deer is a difficult enigma to interpret: the mandarins chosen by the Communist Party are in charge, whose leaders have the State in their hands, the banking system and direct the economy according to plans decided from above. At the same time, they promoted a strong development of the private system. Concern is mounting over the opaque nature of Chinese companies, partners and often owners of industries and large infrastructures in Europe too. L’Olaf, the community anti-fraud agency, confirmed the extent of the well-known practice of import under-invoicing, with the triple objective of evading taxes, practice unfair competition and regulate part of the transactions at home. The privileged entry channels are the Greek port of Piraeus - controlled by Chinese companies- that of Constance, but also Rotterdam and the ports of the United Kingdom, in which the investigations resulted in fines of two billion euros.
The debate has spread to Germany and France, where the authorities' alarm is growing, although expressed mainly in reserved meetings and confidential locations, and concerns Chinese penetration in strategic sectors. The ancient system of preventive ministerial authorizations for the import and export of certain products is being restored, a mechanism considered a protectionist remnant of the past, but which is agreed in Brussels and will presumably be extended into areas such as intellectual property and the media.
The concern shook mercantilist Germany this year 2017 after the Chinese purchase of Kuka, one of the world's leading robot manufacturers. A bargain for approx 4,5 billions of euros in a crucial sector for research and safety, destined to shape the industrial and labor policies of the coming decades. What is worrying is the lack of reciprocity, basic principle of commercial relations. Barriers to entry into the Chinese economy, whose companies are financed with public money and don't care about the "sacred" rules of the market, are such as to prevent access for unwelcome European and American companies, whose investments often fail due to obstacles of various kinds posed by the Dragon authorities. The paradox is that, with the Trump presidency and his protectionist approach, China has now stood up as a supporter of free trade free of tariffs and bans that it systematically violates at home.
Reactions are timid and stuttering; the Asian giant is too strong, too important for the global economy and cannot be addressed head-on. He is an uncomfortable partner but one who cannot be ignored, this is demonstrated by the silence on violated human rights, lack of freedom of thought and religion, as the Catholic Church knows well. The smell of business makes you close your eyes and plug your ears, especially in countries whose sovereign debt is financed by China's massive trade surplus.
China's new aggressive stance is at the heart of globalization, it highlights its contradictions and is becoming a breeding ground for the reactions of international public opinion. Nonetheless, and it couldn't have happened otherwise, the Chinese dossier was completely ignored in Buenos Aires in the G20 conclusions, an enlarged international body set up, in its current design, to put out the fires of the great recession that began ten years ago, become a rhetorical showcase of leaders politicians without any real function, the appearance of a non-existent multilateralism.
Chinese economic aggressiveness is one of the great themes of globalization and gives new fuel to the "populist" reactions already triggered against the austerity imposed by Western neoliberalism. The Americans are obviously silent about this, preferring to urge the Asian competitor to "recover its neutrality in the global geostrategic framework". Pious illusion of those who have dramatically miscalculated their strategic forecasts by opening the doors of world trade to China and want to continue to control and dominate the world scenario. The root of sovereignist claims, as well as the growing demand for economic protectionism, it finds itself precisely in the need to recover the space wrested away by tariff disarmament in the name of free trade, with the request for less immigration, more border controls and greater financial and technological barriers.
The role of aggressive Chinese economic nationalism should not be underestimated, which launched the MIC with fanfare 25 (made in China 2025) to promote its flagship products and protect its companies from competition on the domestic market after having largely taken advantage of the tariff liberalizations ordered by the WTO to extend its presence in international markets. A policy that is no stranger to the coming winter of international recession, since trade is not balanced if the rules of the game, tax, environmental, working, they are as unfair and one-sided as the manipulation of the value of the yuan, the Chinese currency. Some economists suggest the activation of intelligent protectionism, made of extra-customs legal barriers, also capable of discouraging the use of budget surpluses for political influence purposes, a problem that concerns China, and in Europe it involves Germany.
The struggle between the great financial power, American economic and technological economy and its eastern adversary has a battlefield as large as the planet. Free-swinger globalization is unbalanced, it does not work, impoverishes a growing part of the world. It makes Europe a periphery without prospects, it does not guarantee freedom, well being, development. It's not just tariffs that are at stake, finance and technology, but a world structure that divides humanity into prey and predators.
source: https://www.qelsi.it/2018/la-cina-mette-paura/