https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/no_author/bombs-vs-bridges-how-two-empires-are-competing-for-their-version-of-the-new-world-order/

By Brandon Turbeville
The Organic Prepper

There is a crisis in the Western world. Both in terms of domestic affairs and foreign policy, Western nations are showing all signs of impending collapse. This is despite the fact that the flagship of the Western world, the United States, continues to expand its empire across the globe. At the same time, the world is witnessing the “rise of China,” an empire in its own right though no one seems to have any interest in calling it what it is.

The American empire has come to terms with itself to some extent. Through all the claims of support for “democracy” and “freedom,” the United States has transitioned to an authoritarian state at home and a rampaging military of conquest abroad. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, Somalia, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, Venezuela, Chad and Mali all serve as hot battles for the American military (in cooperation with other Western militaries, including Australia) in service of forcing governments into accepting the rule of private central banks, big biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical and industrial corporations and forcing those nations into providing raw materials for major industry centered in the Western world…

But the US is definitely not alone in this.

China is also an empire and it is also marching across the globe attempting to expand its influence and control. However, most Westerners do not recognize it as such and even those anti-imperialist journalists in the alternative media find it difficult if not impossible to call China what it is; an expanding empire. Like the United States, China’s empire is one based on authoritarianism and control, though placing the collective in an even higher priority than its American competitor. Domestically, it has surpassed America in totalitarianism though the US is running as quickly as it can to the Marxist slaughterhouse.

The main reason China is still seen as a victim of American aggression rather than a mutual purveyor of imperialism is the fact that the boots of Chinese empire march much softer than the American version. While the US offers sticks, China offers carrots, albeit tainted ones. The US offers threats of overthrow and chaos, China offers roads and industry. The US offers bombs, China offers bridges…

The Chinese Strategy

With the exception of its domestic oppression, China’s expansion of empire has been largely bloodless. It has focused on the maintenance of its status as a “developing nation” as well as benefiting from Free Trade globalism, the intentional de-industrialization of the West (particularly the United States) and the tyrannical repression of individual rights at home. China’s slave labor industrial model [see here also] has made it the number one dumping spot for jobs that once provided high wages and high living standards to workers in America and, though raising some Chinese out of the poverty of rural areas, has simply moved them to the poverty of the city. With its excessively long hours, authoritarian work culture, extreme pollution, and low living standards, China has made the Chinese people into the collective Mao slaughtered so many to bring about, a mass able to be molded and adapted to serve the whims of the ruling class.

China has used the designation of “developing nation” to its greatest benefit, allowing it to skirt virtually all environmental regulations, turning the country into a toxic cesspit of pollution, chemical pools, and fake food. Its “developing nation” status allows it to avoid the obnoxious “climate change” regulations that have hastened the de-industrialization of the West and heralds the low living standards that have already begun to make themselves manifest wherever climate hysteria takes hold.

Likewise, China has willingly acted as a depository for the Free Trade system, allowing it to soak up jobs and industry that should have remained in the West providing high wages and high living standards for Americans. Unfortunately, however, both the left and the right, as well as the well-meaning but uninformed middle have supported this transition under the name of Free Trade. But the result is not just the weakening of American economic might, it is the growth of China’s economic and, hence, political power…

The Strategy Of Bridges

While the US bombs its way across the world, threatening to overthrow uncooperative governments at the slightest sign of resistance, China has chosen to play the long game, armed with centralized economic control and captured American industry at its command, by using its economic might and promised (often real) guarantees of economic growth to the third and “developing” world. What China offers is development, infrastructure, and economic growth but what it takes in return is influence and control over sovereign affairs. Much like its position of holding America’s debt, China holds critical infrastructure and the purse strings of investment and growth. If one decides to balk at Chinese wishes, they will not face a color revolution or bombs, they will face having the financial spigot cut off. What happens after that is a natural flow of events that will most likely benefit the Chinese, as whoever is able to manage to get that spigot on is likely to be the next one holding the seat of power.

One such example of the rapid expansion of Chinese influence in world affairs is the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. OBOR is a global “development initiative” launched publicly by the Chinese government in 152 countries and “international organizations” spanning the globe in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The “Belt” aspect of OBOR refers to overland routes as well as road and rail routes (aka “Silk Road Economic Belt”) and the “road” aspect involves the sea routes, the 21st Century “Maritime Silk Road.” Interestingly enough, the plan involves the improvement of infrastructure on land routes that equate to the old Silk Road. It is essentially the creation of a trading network controlled and owned by the Chinese government.

But the Chinese initiative is about much more than mere trade routes. It is a neo-colonial project that is using the carrots of trade and infrastructure held in front of the third world as bait, while the subservience of the recipient nations is what is paid in return. Not all third world countries see sovereignty as a willing trade for infrastructure crumbs, however. In 2018, for instance, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad canceled a number of Chinese-funded projects warning that “there is a new version of Colonialism happening.”…

China is going after other countries with “debt traps”

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and Zambia have already suffered such consequences from China and Sri Lanka also has a story tell. To get an idea of how the Chinese “debt trap” works, examine the article “How China Got Sri Lanka To Cough Up A Port,” written by Maria Abi-Habib published in the New York Times on June 25, 2018.” Habib writes,

Every time Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, turned to his Chinese allies for loans and assistance with an ambitious port project, the answer was yes.

Yes, though feasibility studies said the port wouldn’t work. Yes, though other frequent lenders like India had refused. Yes, though Sri Lanka’s debt was ballooning rapidly under Mr. Rajapaksa.

Over years of construction and renegotiation with China Harbor Engineering Company, one of Beijing’s largest state-owned enterprises, the Hambantota Port Development Project distinguished itself mostly by failing, as predicted. With tens of thousands of ships passing by along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the port drew only 34 ships in 2012.

And then the port became China’s.

Mr. Rajapaksa was voted out of office in 2015, but Sri Lanka’s new government struggled to make payments on the debt he had taken on. Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years in December.

The transfer gave China control of territory just a few hundred miles off the shores of a rival, India, and a strategic foothold along a critical commercial and military waterway.

The case is one of the most vivid examples of China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world — and of its willingness to play hardball to collect.

The debt deal also intensified some of the harshest accusations about President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative: that the global investment and lending program amounts to a debt trap for vulnerable countries around the world, fueling corruption and autocratic behavior in struggling democracies.

It should be noted that a sizeable portion of Chinese money was also funneled directly to the Sri Lankan President and his aides, ensuring that he and his administration would be more willing to agree to the ridiculous Chinese terms.

As far what lies ahead for Djibouti, ‘The debt with China increases exponentially. They are going to take this port, just like they did in Sri Lanka,’ Doualeh Egueh Ofleh, a deputy in the National Assembly with the opposition Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development told ISS Today.

This is what lies ahead for all the nations who take part in China’s OBOR initiative.

OBOR Is About Free Trade

With China expected to invest around $1.3 trillion in infrastructure projects across the globe, it should be remembered that what China is promoting is not even a plan designed to protect the Chinese economy, it is a Free Trade network that will see China at the helm of the exploitation of workers, worker’s rights, and the environment.

OBOR is not about fighting against Free Trade with the cooperation of third world countries, it is about expanding exploitation to those countries with a Chinese flavor instead of the Western Anglo version.

That, in a nutshell, is what Free Trade is all about. Indeed, Free Trade and colonialism have always existed side by side. The two are virtually inseparable…

How Could The US Turn It Around?

If the United States wishes to maintain its influence on the world stage, it must abandon its desires for an empire and it must cease attempting to force systems of government upon sovereign nations, particularly the Anglo-financier system. If the United States does not wish to see its influence eroded and eliminated in the coming decades, it must focus on providing tangible improvement in the lives of the citizens of the countries it wishes to influence and it must do so through an open and honest channel, unlike the Chinese debt trap and unlike and most unlike the carpet bombing American version. America has done everything in its power to squander the enormous good will many of the world’s people had in the past and still continue to have for it today. However, that need not be the case. America could once again establish good will for generations to come if it decides to influence the world by improving the living standards of its people. America’s legacy must cease to be war and destabilization and instead must become clean water, clean air, industry, infrastructure, and freedom…

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