Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Thought this was interesting:
In a surprise to absolutely no one,
Vietnam this year will FINALLY surpass Thailand to become Southeast Asia’s second largest economy, Vietnam will end the year with a 8/9 % growth rate and a GDP of likely $600 billion and per capita income of 5k+.
Thai elites wasted the last twenty to thirty years on endless factionalism and getting addicted to tourism instead of moving up the manufacturing value ladder. All of this while having a decades long headstart on Vietnam.
Vietnam is likely to become the last country in the world to go from poor to developed, an absolute triumph for the Sino world and in twenty years or so I wouldn’t be surprised if most people see it as an East Asian country formally rather than Southeast Asian.
The Vietnamese Century.
A big part of this is Vietnam deciding to get rid of a lot of corrupt officials. They even cancelled the planned annual Formula 1 race and the whole track because the government officials involved were corrupt. Most nations would never cancel such a high level planned annual sporting event over corruption.
Vietnam is already seen as part of the Sino world, only Westerners think otherwise. The (derogatory?) implications of being cast as Southeast Asian is noted though - very typical for these sort of commentators.
In reality Southeast Asia doesn’t exist, and even if it did, it’d be split into three parts, Maritime Southeast Asia (Nusantara/the Malay World), Mainland Southeast Asia (buddhist regions stretching from Burma to Laos), and Vietnam. This is due to history. Only international school kids and liberals think of themselves as “southeast asian”. I use it purely as a geographical marker but without claim to any pretensions of a larger cultural unity.
Thailand’s manufacturing industry is suffering but it is still the second largest in the Southeast Asia. The main point of contention is this recency bias - “factionalism of the past 20-30years” - which showcases the sort of fake analysis so common these days. It may sound profound but doesn’t actually tell you much. Like saying “just pursue manufacturing bro”.
Questions people should be asking:
???
OP is basing “poor” and “development” just on GDP per capita figures and thinks that is be end and end all of “development”. But I can’t expect much from someone who the day before was doing psychoanalysis about Maduro having to switch from a life of luxury to living in US prisons and implying he might suicide lol and that instead of being addicted to power you should just become a merchant (the irony of someone saying that an advocating for manufacturing is not lost on me).
It’s all vibes based analysis from these people.
I, for one, love the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
I doubt it. China is already pre-empting this by turning Hainan Island into a Free Trade Port since mid-December, which by the way, is officially fully open to the world (you can access Youtube and the entire Western internet from Hainan Island without restriction now).
If China plays the card right, then Vietnam will be locked into low end manufacturing while China kills any chance of Vietnam transitioning into high end manufacturing sector.
I will write an effort post maybe later this week if I have the time to detail the genius move behind China’s Hainan Island strategy. If played right, it will kill the Southeast Asian economy and ensure China’s independence from Western imperialism, who is increasingly looking to block China’s rise through Southeast Asia sea-based trade route (aka the Malacca Straits).
Once again, China is at least two moves ahead of everyone.
Except that would contradict your own posture that China is giving the US a freebie by not developing domestic consumption no?
I struggle to see how this contradicts with my statements?
I have always said that China is a major player and knows exactly how to play its cards. In fact, China’s dominance in trade (which is what my comment above refers to) is caused precisely its inability to build up a strong domestic consumer market, hence the increasing reliance on global trade to offset the low growth in domestic consumption.
Here’s what I said most recently:
Look at what happened to China’s petroleum import from Venezuela immediately after the Trump-Xi meeting:
China divested its import from Venezuela and shifted to importing from Canada. The US gave China at least 2 months to readjust its oil import routes. While we do not have direct evidence, it is not hard to see that this helped reduce China’s energy reliance on Venezuela, and allowed them to cede Latin America to Trump (which is exactly part of the US imperial strategy).
You can also follow the link above and see how China is also giving up Iran and the Middle East on both its investment and the UN front.
Meanwhile, following the reasoning that China gets Taiwan and Japan in return, do you think it’s a coincidence that South Korea’s president is now bringing the entire business entourage to warm relations with China this week?
It’s very clear that the US has no objection to that, and Trump wouldn’t mind it either, because Trump’s main objective is to reduce US trade deficit first and foremost.
Now, back to Southeast Asia, which is the main story here - clearly under the tariffs and the ongoing US-China dispute has positioned Southeast Asian exporter countries such as Vietnam to benefit from the current development, as foreign companies attempt to relocate their production sites from China to Vietnam.
And what is Vietnam’s advantage here? The world-class entrepot of Singapore that is conveniently situated in the East-West sea-based trade route. Vessels have to pass through the Malacca Straits to load and unload their cargoes in Singapore, and Vietnam being part of the ASEAN community takes advantage of Singapore as part of their supply chain network to integrate into the global market.
Now, the Hainan Island being converted into a Free Trade Port is about to upset this balance completely, if China’s strategy succeeds.
Read the link of China’s readout in my comment above - the key clause is that goods entering Hainan and achieving 30% added value will be able to enter Mainland China duty-free. In other words, Hainan Island will simultaneously function as a key logistics hub that threatens to replace the role of Singapore, and more importantly, foreign companies that add 30% value to their products within Hainan Island will now enjoy tariff-free entry into China.
Look at Hainan Island’s geographical location in relation to Southeast Asia (Vietnam and Singapore) - pay attention to its proximity to Vietnam:
If Hainan Island can be developed into an industrialized region, do you think foreign investments, especially high tech sector, will still find Vietnam attractive?
First of all, Singapore has 17% corporate income tax. Hainan Island’s going to be 15%. So Singapore is going to lose its comparative advantage there.
Second, Hainan Island will effectively function as a portal for foreign corporations into China that will enjoy virtually very low tariff and tax for their goods (complementing Hong Kong’s role as China’s offshore financial powerhouse).
Third, just behind Hainan is the backing of the world’s most powerful industrial economy complete with world-class logistics and supply chain.
If China’s Hainan strategy succeeds, Vietnam will be locked into low end manufacturing for it cannot offer cost advantage for the high tech sectors with Hainan just next to them.
Now, there’s a caveat: which is that Hainan is still comparatively underdeveloped compared to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, but the potential for growth is strong if China invests heavily into the region.
And most importantly, by supplanting Singapore and Southeast Asia as a chokehold against itself, China gains geostrategic advantage against the US blockade strategy and ensures its dominance in global trade on the supply side of the equation (i.e. Chinese export industries get to remain competitive).
Finally, just to reiterate: there is no contradiction at all with what I’ve been saying. China’s problem is internal and ideological - that its neoliberal policy cannot sustain a healthy growth of domestic consumption due to growing wealth inequality, hence its prioritization on global trade-based strategy, which in turn, serves as a positive feedback loop that makes China become even more reliant on global trade than ever. And when you have over-capacity, you have no choice but to kill your competitors’ trade through mercantilism because there isn’t enough demand in the world to keep all of the workers employed.
The opposite strategy, which is what I propose, will take advantage of China’s huge consumer market to absorb the global export surplus goods (including those from Vietnam) and alleviate much of the regional tension, allowing those countries to successfully transition into higher end manufacturing eventually. This will require wealth redistribution and abandoning of neoliberal policies to raise the income of the Chinese working class. Otherwise, China will have to choose protecting its own export industries and destroy that of its neighbors.
What I’d like to know is why Hainan Island. I thought it was harder to develop than anywhere else in China’s coast due to geographic constraints. That it was best used for tourism than industry. What is it that Hainan Island can do that Guangdong and Guangxi can’t? Is it just that industrialization an initiative by the Hainan government that is endorsed by Beijing? Is Hainan rent/real estate/labour just cheaper than the mainland’s?
Hainan Island used to be an experimental real estate speculation haven in late 1980s until it all crashed down in the early 1990s. Since then it’s rather underdeveloped. And yes there is difficulty when it comes to accessibility but never doubt China’s ability to build infrastructure. They can build superhighways in a matter of years if that’s the plan forward.
The key to Hainan Island is to turn it into a fully liberalized part of China, where entry and exit to the mainland can still be regulated relatively easily. Its economic role is also completely different from the manufacturing hub like Guangdong, or technology hub like Shenzhen, which are fully subject to Chinese laws.
Hainan’s advantage is its free trade status, that will allow foreign investments to come in and build their production sites there while enjoying duty-free access to mainland China (provided a 30% added value), and not being subject to strict Chinese laws in the mainland (a typical complaint from foreign companies).
Its proximity to Vietnam means it’s going to directly challenge Vietnam’s role as a rising manufacturing hub, as more and more companies are relocating to Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia. Hainan is China’s response to these foreign companies’ decisions. But as you can see from my comment above, the thinking goes much further. It is a strategic move.
I’m skeptical this will be as effective in blocking Vietnam’s high tech development given their population size and similar planning capacity to China. Very useful analysis, though.
Yeah, there’s still a big gap when it comes to developing Hainan into a competitive industrialized region, so it’s far from certain that this strategy can succeed. But again I wouldn’t bet against China’s infrastructure building capacity either.
Does China even really want to block Vietnam out?
Thanks for the concise answer!
Yeah, usually OP’s sentiment is much more critical. I was surprised by that line as well.
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It sucks that realpolitik over solidarity has gotten the world to the point where these are the considerations at play.
I ended up writing that (semi) effort post in response to another user in the thread here, though I initially planned to present more data but I don’t have the time right now.
Feel free to have a read and let me know of your thoughts. Again, I don’t pretend to know everything, but I do believe in China’s competency and its deliberate strategy of positioning itself to gain every advantage against the US. Unfortunately this does not mean China has the desire to overturn the global neoliberal order. If anything, China simply wants the US to return to the status quo so they can get rich together lol, as have been shown repeatedly by China over the past year in their negotiations with Trump and previously, Biden.