As The Guardian reported in the last day or so:
Job losses in EU manufacturing will rapidly increase unless Brussels stops the “colonisation” of industry by Chinese component manufacturers, a leading industry trade body has warned.
Eurometal predicts 300,000 job losses in manufacturing in the rest of 2026 because of expanding competition from China, which is now enjoying a record €1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc.
China is becoming deeply embedded in our product supply chains. The claim that a product might be 'Made in Europe' or 'Made in the UK' is increasingly meaningless.
On climate-change technology, EVs, and related tech, they are beating the world.
And then there is AI. Try their models and you will find they work, and may turn out to be much cheaper than those from the USA. And when the US is a fascist state, who to share data with becomes a difficult question, but one with a potentially easier answer.
At the same time, don't talk about who is winning the conflict in Iran; the answer is China, without a doubt. They have the oil. No one else has.
Amongst the many ideas we have to get our heads around now is the fact that China may now become the world's single global superpower. As neoliberalism kills Western democracies, that is the reality we have to face.
What does that mean?
How does it make us feel?
What does it change?
Answers on the back of a postcard, please......
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Might a facet of the “West’” current and increasing deficiencies/problems be a result of the “Wests’s” subversion/misunderstanding of “democracy”?
It seems to present democracy as the holding of elections of varying validity as being democracy.
Might a valid democracy have to have genuine elections, effective processes and demonstable benefits for all citizens and their children?
Although it appears/is the case that China has limited elections, it does seem to be clear in its its governance processes and makes clearly stated efforts to recognise and manage opporunities and problems facing people across the whole of its society, at least as presented in China Daily.
China has the power equation the right way around: politicians (yes I know unelected) call the shots (literally), the finance rabble follow orders. Just imagine if the central bank said “sorry Xi old chum, we’ve gotta keep inflation under control by raising interest rates, innit”. Such a response would be shortly followed by a knock on the door and the speaker being asked to pay $X for a bullet. Tempting though it is, I am not advocating such a response to our current “banking elite”. However, they are out of control. Euro industry (& UK industry) have a big problem with high elec costs – despite the growth of renewables. This is because the formation of elec prices is unreformed, because reform would mean that elec traders (owned by banks) would make less money. They lobby govs to ensure reform does not happen. The other problem is the formation of gas prices. I have been told that at least in Europe, prices are manipulated. One of my collaborators has argued that the ECB needs to treat energy in a similar way to Euros. Perhaps something to be discussed further?
Failure to act will have political consequences for the future existence of the EU.
“Our current “banking elite” are out of control”
Agreed
And true to form, Western capitalism will blame the Chinese for filling the vacuum it created, and we may have another conflict based on extreme Christian conversion theory. I kid you not.
Britain pioneered the Industrial Revolution.
The world came to Britain to see how we did it, learnt, took what we did well and changed what they thought we didnt do well.
No reason why we cannot do the same now, look at what China, the US, Europe etc does well – and badly then take those lessons and apply them here.
We could, if we ended neoliberalism.