The decline of the empire and the trap of Thucydides | In …

“It was the rise of Athens and the fear it instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.“, Thucydides, 460 AC-361 ?, On the Peloponnesian War.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund, Chinese GDP at purchasing power parity values (GDP / PPP) expanded its superiority over the United States in 2019/2020, which rose to third place, after the European Union. China: $ 27,331,166 billion (GDP-PPP). United States: 21,344,667 (GDP / PPP)

The IMF in its report explains that “the GDP / PPP indicator eliminates the price difference between different economies“, This makes it possible to compare what each country can buy. The CIA in turn points out that” the measure of nominal GDP underestimates the level of Chinese production. GDP at purchasing power parity, on the other hand, is the best measure to compare production between countries. ”In other words, GDP / PPP, helps to establish the relationship between production and prices.

What the mainstream media around the world have tried to hide is what the IMF itself, the World Bank and finally the CIA have been forced to make visible. That is to say: the beginning of the end of American imperial hegemony.

The IMF is spearheading the development of neoliberal policies that concentrate wealth at the cost of greater poverty, the most obvious global example of which is the United States. For its part, the CIA is the armed wing of imperial policy which promotes coups d’état. wars, attacks. That is to say, both institutions are essential to imperial policy, unsuspected of anti-American bias.

In dynamic terms and for projection purposes, in 2016 China’s GDP-PPP was $ 21 trillion and that of the United States was $ 18.5 trillion. By 2023, the Chinese economy will be 50% larger than that of the United States. In 1981, China accounted for 10% of the US economy, today nearly 130%.

Rare earth

The great bet of humanity is to avoid the trap of Thucydides. That is, the supposed inevitable fact that an empire which falls slowly but inexorably with military might, in this case repeatedly destroying the planet, accepts the situation and abandons the obsessive and compulsive imperialist dream of world domination. We must add another aspect that has an impact on the acceleration of imperial degradation and the danger of the Thucydides trap: rare earths or rare earth oxide.

So-called rare earths are neither earthy nor rare. It is therefore called a diverse group of chemical elements-metals. It is a set of 17 elements. Two are scandium and yttrium and fifteen more called lanthanides.

These articles are irreplaceable for manufacturing computers, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, catalytic converters, wind turbine magnets, fluorescent lighting. They are also essential for the manufacture of electric and hybrid automotive batteries, fiber optics and space weapon systems.

The conflict situation is that China has the largest reserves of rare earths with 44 million tonnes and produced 132,000 tonnes in 2019/2020 with six state-owned companies, which exercise strict control over the sector.

The world’s second largest producer is the United States with 15,000 tonnes and reserves of 1,400,000 tonnes, making it a major importer. The highest concentrations of deposits after China are Brazil and Vietnam with 22 million tonnes each

Threat

The decline in GDP / PPP in the United States compared to China is due, among other things, to the loss of productivity of its economy. The latter is due to the delay in applied technological innovation, emerging from Silicon Valley, where rare earths as determining raw materials play an essential role.

For example in the race for 5G, The United States is limited to reaching the Chinese level. It is high speed with a speed more than 10 times greater than 4G, and which is the very essence of AI (artificial intelligence) which, at the same time, is decisive for military superiority.

U.S. Intelligence Chief John Ratcliffe said “China poses greatest threat to the United States and it is also the greatest threat to democracy and freedom in the world since World War II ”. Following Lacan, what Ratcliffe does not say is that democracy and freedom must not be as values ​​what they essentially are, but must meet the demands of American geopolitical, political and economic interests. .

Dollar

The dollar is the spearhead of imperial power. It is the symbol that has been crushing as a country for decades with “carnal” governments, lukewarm or dignified and the complicity of abandonment of the dominant indigenous classes, which, far from being a national bourgeoisie, are a rentier oligarchy. financial, parasitic, currency leakage.

The decline of the empire implies the decline of the dollar as a mechanism of submission and relaxation of absolutist hegemony. The downside of China’s rise to power is that it places the country in the old division of labor as a supplier of raw materials. It has the advantage of multipolarity and the possibility of developing the infrastructure necessary for industrialization through the “Silk Road” megaproject.

The impossibility of industrialization has always been the master plan of the empire with the complicity of the dominant financial oligarchy and the liberal party. Has been shown the ability to build an industrialized country with social inclusion.

Argentina has qualified human resources and the quantity and quality of raw materials. Among the latter, the rare earths of the Bajo de la Alumbrera mine, where causing irreparable environmental damage, are extracted mixed with gold mud – with a price higher than gold – with a judicial collusion, denounced before the Judicial Council. This mine belongs to the multinational Glencore linked to Vicentin, denounced in North American courts in FinCEn reports for the alleged crime of corruption.

The Twilight of the Empire – saving Thucydides’ trap – is a opportunity to fight for political sovereignty and economic independence. We must not forget a historic phrase from Néstor Kirchner: “I will not leave my convictions at the door of Casa Rosada”.

* Teacher. Plublic treasure. Economist. Member of the Argentinian club Arturo Jauretche.

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