@humphrey

...and we spent $1.7 Trillion on a F-35 jet that still doesn’t work.

Not that I want to throw away taxpayer money (er, debt?), but I hope it never works.

I’ll read the report but a simple answer is that China spent $1.7 Trillion on this aid program that increases its global clout - and we spent $1.7 Trillion on a F-35 jet that still doesn’t work. https://t.co/eKjibqkoS7

— Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) March 23, 2021

@MrWebster

It takes about three years to write a Five-Year Plan. It's a long process, which also incorporate millions of line-item proposals written by ordinary Chinese. Hundreds of these writers are invited in for interviews. Some are chosen to present their ideas to the Party.

The goals of the 13th Five-Year Plan — Eradicating Poverty — were finally achieved in January 2021. The final stage of the Plan involved eradicating poverty in rural areas, and upgrading services in those areas, internet, water, electricity, and a local health care clinic with digital consultations with a large Internet hospital. It also required teaching rural people new skills that would provide a living. Often this was achieved through using computers to open businesses, and making or growing products to sell. The stories of what the people came up with are really inspiring. Suddenly, these little forest hamlets are attracting tourists, who hike in to meet the new bloggers and merchants. That has resulted in more new businesses, such as restaurants and tea houses.

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But now, we have moved on to the 14th Five-Year Plan. The final version of the New Plan was approved just last week. The Plan's theme relates to the West's desire to fully own new businesses in China. This commercial evolution has been part of the longer 25 to 35 year plans, but only now do business conditions in China allow it to emerge — and the timing of what it does is very appropriate.

The 14th Five-Year Plan will raise the GDP of nations that trade with China, which of course, includes the United States. An idea whose time has come! The US has been pushing for something like this for a long time. For the first time, China's economy is now powering the economic growth in the world. It is China who has the opportunity and the wherewithal to pass on some of their good fortune. And, that's the Plan.

The Plan is named 'Opening Up'. It is China's goal is to remove protective regulations and restrictions that have held the West back from over-investing in China's businesses until they had become more financially stable and well-established in a marketplace (China) that could sustain Business profitability. Here's an excerpt from a description of the plan:

Last year, 2020, China emerged from the global headwinds to become the only major economy to register positive growths in GDP and foreign trade in goods, thanks to its effective anti-epidemic measures. The country's GDP increased by 2.3 percent year on year to cross the 100-trillion-yuan (about 15.35 trillion U.S. dollars) threshold, while its imports and exports of goods expanded 1.9 percent.

"China is the main global economic engine for recovery from the COVID-19 economic downturn. Therefore, the entire world will be affected by the targets set in China's new five-year plan and its success in achieving these," John Ross, a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

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China's has a new development paradigm that features prominently in this new Five-Year Plan. The paradigm is a business pattern where China's domestic markets and its overseas markets are designed to reinforce and strengthen each other commercially. China's domestic market is the mainstay that guarantees profitability.
After this new concept was first proposed, China's top leadership has reiterated that while the emphasis on boosting domestic consumption, this does not mean China will seek development behind closed doors. Instead, China remains committed to pushing ahead with its 'opening-up' Plan in order to share development opportunities with the rest of the world.

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This is a very good thing. US businesses have been asking for this type of opportunity. But it is also an especially good thing for the US economy. A higher GDP relieves some pressure from the debt, and from the US financial system as a whole. If the US ever decided to tax high marginal rates of income like other nations do, life would be much less anxious and tragic for the people in the US. Of course, no one can stop US rulers from pouring that revenue surplus into the Pentagon, where it will disappear without a receipt. I would call that 'Freedom with US characteristics.'

To execute the 14th Five-Year Plan, China has pledged to further lower tariffs and institutional transaction costs, and expand imports of quality consumer products, advanced technologies, key equipment and energy resources, and to allow global firms to further tap into the immense purchasing power of the world's most populous market.

"The increasing income and more complex needs of the Chinese people will transform and enormously expand numerous global markets associated with high living standards, such as culture, education, entertainment, travel, healthcare and environmental protection," Ross said.

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China could gear up and develop these things, but the US already produces the best in this class, so China would prefer to integrate these US commercial applications into their own systems for the long term. This is one example of China's 'opening up' that are included in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Opening up to foreign services would significantly expand China's imports, bringing the balance of trade into closer accord. It would also be a major boost to western industries that are creating innovative, good quality products. On a large scale, these open partnerships with China can refresh the global economy, and unleash new possibilities for shared development between Western makers and the expanding Asian economy. China has until January 2025 to achieve these goals.

Besides expanding imports and facilitating trade, China has vowed to further open up its economy in this new Five-Year Plan, through a series of measures. Some of these include shortening negative lists for foreign investment access. China has pledged to promote the opening-up of such sectors as telecommunications, the internet, education, culture and medical care to potential foreign collaborators and investors. Advanced technologies and carbon emission reduction would be key areas for China's future cooperation with its global partners.

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I doubt that any of this was discussed at the recent Alaska meeting between the top level Chinese Delegation and the fumbling Neocons who were posing as US diplomats. The timing for the Plan is ideal, but to propose it to a State Department that reeks of Neocon ideology would be dangerous — the generosity and openness of China's 14th Five-Year Plan would have been twisted and smeared as a diabolical Chinese plot.

Thus, we have before us yet another defective and unethical Secretary of State. Mr. Blinken's cheap tricks and his complete lack of gravitas has wasted a strategic opportunity. He could have used the diplomatic turds Pompeo dropped with China — which are still stinking up the World Stage — to contrast and compare to the measured dignity that the Biden Admin. would bring to future international proceedings. Instead, Blinken with his juvenile bullying, put the stink on Joe Bidet.

The people who operate Joe must replace Blinken right away if they want to maintain Joe's dignity. Notice how the Neocon advisors that both Presidents, Trump and Biden appointed, undermine their goals. They are agents of chaos. The Biden admin has a bunch of them ready to pop up and bite him in the ass.

Well, the US has a plan and that plan is allowing unfettered greed guide markets and finance. In America there used to be talk of an "industrial policy". No such thing exists, but it exists in China regardless what one might think of it. And it is working and has parts to it like taking people out of massive poverty.

@Linda Wood

We hated Gaddafi for the same reason. Libya was once a place to live that people here can only dream about. High standards of living across most issues and we couldn’t let people’s happiness stand.

Thanks, CB for posting this excellent summary and for setting the record stream. Between you, Pluto and others I can see China for what it is instead of what I’ve been told.

Tweeted!

As for Blinken’s treatment of the Chinese was horrible and I’m glad that China told him to stick it. Russia pulled its ambassador and Biden bros cheered like Russia left with its tail between its legs when its just the opposite. A warning. Russia has cut most diplomatic ties with Brussels and if they continue minding us with sanctions they will go all the way. Lavlof is saying out loud that Russia is being pushed into deals with China because the rest of the world is f’cking insane.

And thank you all, each of you great commenters, for showing China has invested in raising its standard of LIVING, while we invest in raising the likelihood of death.

Putin has insisted oligarchs pay wages and taxes, thereby raising the standard of living in Russia, therefore he is popular there. Therefore our horseshit capitalists hate him, while they love Saudi Arabia and its headchoppers, our idea of an ideal economy.

Defense contractors are indeed under scrutiny for criminal malfeasance in the F-35, Zumwalt-class destroyers, and Littoral combat ship disasters. Read the Project on Government Oversight - POGO. Therefore we change the subject, sail into the Black Sea and Chinese waters trying to provoke WWIII.

The reason we hate Assad is that he increased nationalization of his oil resources in order to invest in job creation in response to draught. Hilariously, his oil resources were named CONOCO FIELDS, because they were operated by Conoco, a U.S. corporation! We could not tolerate an increased cut for the people of Syria.

The most infuriating part of the pathetic scolding of China by Blinken is that it objects to China becoming more economically powerful by sharing the wealth of its consumer-goods production with its people! We frigging gave them that manufacturing base, but we wanted them to conduct a slave labor economy. China is spreading the wealth to working people throughout the South Asian region. Therefore they've betrayed us.

I'm sorry this is a disjointed rant, but the insanity of our foreign policy has me shaking. They don't give a damn about human rights, obviously, because they love, arm, train and enbrace the Nazis in Ukraine and the Psychopaths in Saudi Arabia. They're in a constant state of sweat from the passion they bring to arming the sucking scum of the earth.

Clearly what they hate about Putin and the Chinese government is that the standard of living in those countries is improving, which makes the people of those countries more powerful and the nationalization of resources more popular. Clearly our capitalists were counting on those countries being their own playgrounds for abuse of labor, but the leadership of each country has decided to champion the workforce instead of the plunderers, all the while still inviting the plunderers to take part, as long as they share the wealth with working people.

OBVIOUSLY, that's asking too much of our merchants of death. What our leadership wants is Libya, gang war, starvation, slavery, torture, kidnapping, and an arms bazaar. In a word, hell.