Dollar ‘hegemony’ has shifted from being a tool of power projection to being the prime source of U.S. vulnerability. Plainly put, Washington’s massive oversupply of dollars and dollar-debt has turned ‘the dollar’ into a distinctly double-edged sword; It cuts against the West now. Financially top-heavy, the western manufacturing base has atrophied and shrunk –triggering a two-tier U.S. society of huge inequalities.
The present conflict in Ukraine has underlined the deficiencies in hegemonic power that specifically arise from a neglected manufacturing base.
Every day, the western MSM celebrates the resultant economic difficulties facing China:
“Its [China’s] meteoric growth has slowed, a brief post-pandemic surge petered out, and analysts point to profound structural issues undermining China’s future prospects. Xi and the ruling clique (sic) are struggling to address the new challenges posed by China’s maturing economy…China’s economy once seemed the new engine of the world [as Japan once did] … but a sense of stagnation is creeping in”.
It is true. The American extended attrition of the Chinese economy has hobbled growth. Chinese exports to both the U.S. and Europe are falling, and youth unemployment indeed is an active concern for the Chinese leadership.
The culmination: Washington is breaching (its own) Brzezinski Rule Number One: the ‘imperative’ to ensure that Russia and China do not come together, versus the West.
Meanwhile, this week, China launched a $40 billion investment fund to underpin its semiconductor industry.
In one move, Arnaud Bertrand notes, China has demonstrated that U.S. efforts to hobble Huawei and the Chinese semiconductor industry have been ineffective. What did the sanctions achieve? They have contributed to building an indigenous semiconductor ecosystem that wasn’t there before sanctions. Other states ‘get it’: source your semiconductors to western firms, and the U.S. will not hesitate to weaponise the industry for geopolitical ends. Buy Chinese, Bertrand says.
https://www.unz.com/article/the-mackinder-strategic-bible-reconsidered/