China’s Trade Expansionism.

Response to a Facebook post. 

THE Belt and Road Initiative (a.k.a. New Silk Road) is a global project per China's trade expansionism. This brainstorm was actually first drafted right after Mao's death (1976) as Deng Xiaoping took over. Through the years, China has been buying lands and giving out loans and handing out FDIs all over the globe, except in the U.S. A game-changing review of Deng's playbook took place after the Tiananmen shudder in 1989, and the subsequent erasure of the hardliner Gang of Four. 

        But the real pump happened when Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin signed a trade pact in 2000 to signal the U.S. liberal brainchild "globalization." That's the CCP's long-awaited signal. The following year, China entered the WTO with a "most favored nation" status. 

        Maybe America’s 1 Percent didn't really mind because they obviously racked up gargantuan profits by moving factories to China and elsewhere + easy access to the dragon's pertinent minerals or raw materials. But China isn't dumb. As the U.S. and Europe got into eerie internal schisms, China took advantage. Beijing's 4 giant state-owned banks wobbled the monopoly of the IMF and World Bank, then BRICS was born in 2009 (still expanding). Then Asia/Pacific’s RCEP in 2020 (China as ad hoc chief), the largest trade bloc so far. Etc etcetera. 

        While America still wrestles with itself. 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

Mr Trump’s Gung-ho Mouth. The Reiners. Deaths in the world. And how the media cherry-picks for the click-bait.

From my responses to friends’ Facebook posts and my response to comments to my FB posts about the subject.

JOURNALISM has a professional (and moral) responsibility to report/write only those that would aid the people and community, narrow the divide, and not to project the contrary. Presidents and you and I say stuff but since heads of state and politicians' words affect public perception, it is a journalist's common sense to only type up what the people require towards a better coexistence with society. Sounds ideal-bullshit but that's my belief.

       We judge a leader by their overall leadership, not what comes out of their mouth; and as sane people, it is primal reflex to take in only the good and reject the bad. I mean, politicians are not gods and goddesses. I once worked (as media liaison) for senators and presidential bets in Asia. If I wrote everything that I heard or told me, I'd be a non-thinking tape recorder. Not a journalist.

WORDS matter. But "words," whether they are said truthfully/honestly or in jest or in sarcasm or even in anger, have to be processed (by the media) for the greater public good. 

       In the context of current America, the divide is eerily self-destructing (regardless of where, Left or Right, we are holding fort) and I blame the media a lot for these cracks. Mr Trump as he is, says it as he feels it. And many times, that'd be careless or the words are cherry-picked as click baits. This side of the divide is so alert for those quotes, of course. They're always ready to capture the grim highlights of Trump's mouth. 

       That's how the media covers Donald Trump. Accentuating his bad mouth and downplaying his POTUS work. As conventional journalism ups the mockery grade and Social Media picks up the dirt, late night TV raises the insult measure, afterwards. 

LEADERS say stuff. Amidst all the drama, I don't think a head of state maintains poise as though they are robots. No cuss words, no bad retorts, no "unfriendly" comment–when the tape recorder or camera isn't there? Nah ah. They are human and you and me. Yet many personalities and celebrities simply say things.

       But as a reporter/editor I must know what is "off the record" even if the speaker couldn't stop yapping. That differentiates the tabloid writer from the earnest beat reporter. At least that's what I learned in journalism school. I think, I don't just hear. 

       I repeat, reporters are not tape recorders; reporters think before they write. But since today's media is more hot on pulling the man down, so WTF, accentuate the quote, I guess? That is not my journalism.

DONALD Trump isn't really criticized for his POTUS work per se, instead he is being criticized for every word that comes out of his gung-ho mouth? 

       I never liked Mr Trump, pre-2017. Never. But I closely followed his POTUS work, policy per policy (especially his foreign affairs playbook), after his MOAB drop in April 2017. From that point, he suddenly became more dovish. I rate his performance better than most but I concur that his public speaking mojo is the worst ever by a POTUS. 

       But we are talking about the President of the world's most powerful nation. While the popular hate for him is obviously the reason for all the anti-Trump bombast, I can't judge a POTUS by his crass character. Mr Trump is a lot more than that.

       There is no way I could discuss a person's language or overall personality but I am always set and ready to debate the person. In the case of The D, his individual policies. In a parallel line, Barack Obama could be the coolest POTUS dude ever, saying only the nicest words. But I can rant anytime about all the lies that he said. The policies that sucked. (He is the last POTUS that I actually covered before I quit my journalism life.)

FROM what I pointed out somewhere here, we say words beyond normal perception of cool. You and me and POTUS. But someone's death somehow quiets us down. That's how I see death, let them RIP. I don't wish death to anyone, including my perceived enemies. 

       But then there's media that is only after public consumption of the product that they toss than anything else. The media should simply ignore "words" that don't make sense, let `em go. But they pick them up for obvious reasons--not per media's job to foster unity or narrow the cracks or optimism amidst all the hate but per media's clear intent to widen the divide by accentuating Trump's mouth over his POTUS work in its entirety. 

       They know Mr Trump will say something that amounts to controversy. Yet I don't think it is only Mr Trump who wields such a no-filter mojo among heads of state. But these are the times when quotes matter more to the media than information dissemination, in general, esp. because it's hate-Trump that rules the ink. Ergo, the Left-wing media is more interested in the dirt in his words than the output in his leadership. 🏛🗽🏛

DONALD TRUMP: The Great American Scapegoat.

Reacting on a commondreams.org article: “How Corporate Democrats Made Trump Possible: A 10-Year Timeline.” Posted on Facebook. 

I SAY, 25-year timeline. From 2000, Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin's game-changing trade pact that paved the way for China's entry to the WTO the following year. The Democratic Party called it "globalization." Next, the U.S. 1 Percent got magnificently richer but (probably) they didn't foresee that that Washington template would make China's global trade expansionism more real. 

       Looking back, China quietly started its “new journey” right after Mao Zedong died (1976). Deng Xiaoping took over. The CCP’s “open door” policy snuck off the Great Wall, late-1970s. At that point, China started buying lands all over the globe (not in the U.S. where they own only below 1 percent of foreign-owned land). 

And then in 2009, BRIC(S) was born to challenge G7; already, China's 4 state-owned banks "balanced" the loans scale that the IMF and World Bank used to monopolize. Etc etcetera. 

       The Dems (politics or corporate) didn't make Donald Trump. The “new” Left of America failed to see China's ascent but it is Mr Trump who knows how to keep the swing to favor the U.S. How? By playing China's trade game, not "counter-playing" Beijing's very fluid playbook. All this as Europe insists on a stubborn hawkish agenda via NATO expansion, which is clearly countered by BRICS' trade expansion. The narrative says The D weakens America yet he only took over and had to improvise from the Democratic Party's blunder in miscalculating the Chinese. 🏛🗽🏛

Compilation of my short MORNING THOUGHTS.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

Political/economic memes are angled at influencing the narrative. Yet we need to dig up the veracity of data. Truths and facts. Example: Unemployment at 3.6 percent or recent addition of 7.9 million jobs, which could be a 1st year record. Check as well that at least 4 million workers resigned each month in the second half of 2021. They are returning to work due to the obvious 8.6 percent inflation rate. Hence the spike in job numbers. Still, the economy is in crisis. ⚒🧰🛠

Avid watcher of sports, me. Knew the #1s. These days, due to politics, #1 is “Who?!?” Tennis: Ex #1 Novak Djokovic was barred from the Australian Open. So #1 is Daniil Medvedev. Novak just won Wimbledon but may be banned again for the U.S. Open. Unvaxxed. Russian Daniil wasn’t in Wimby. Without the best from the world, why call it world’s #1? But MLB is called the World Series. The only “other people” that I see there are Japanese, Koreans, and South Americans? 🎾🥇🎾

The algorithm doesn’t analyze “facts.” Such as two massively shared memes that deal with gasoline prices in the U.S. and Europe, and another that talks about U.S. GDP etcetera—to justify that President Biden is doing fine managing the economy. Nope. For starters: Inflation rate at 8.6 percent is the largest 12-month increase since 1981. Public debt is $30.49 trillion, up from last year's $2.3 trillion. Foreign debt: $7.7 trillion, up by $1.5 trillion from last year. 🇺🇸👀🗽

A “globalized” universe means economics has been balanced between West and East. Political affairs and trade leverages aren't the exclusive power base of Europe and the U.S. anymore. Higher education has been spread out. Asians and Arabs don’t need to leave their comfort zone to study Western capitalism. What I learned in Manila’s schools are no different from what is taught in New York. Interfaces between cultures have blurred the “supreme race” narcissism.☮️💝☯️

First Amendment: Speak up against those who spoke on the contrary. But things don’t end with Social Media disparagement. People lose jobs, stripped of achievements, outed forever. Words that they said/wrote 10 years or 100 years ago are “recalled” to shame their memory. This is a New Morality that far exceeds the boundaries of any religious good or bad, political bad or good. Shinzo Abe, ex PM of “gun-less” Japan, wasn’t killed by a gun; he was assassinated by hate.☮️💝☯️

Only when you are a years-long BFF, I talk and talk and talk. But I am not a talker per se. I don’t dig talking at all. I’d rather write all my thoughts down. Always. While in a family/kin gathering or friends in a crowd, I am the quiet clam in a corner. Watching, listening. Not a good responder unless it is one on one conversation, in person. Not a telephone guy either. I don’t stop on the street to talk stuff like you got awesome hair or how’s your Brandon? Nope. 🗣👥👀

President Biden refuses to play China’s trade game. Yet he engages Russia via Vladimir Putin’ arena, military. Yet as Russia controls armed hostilities in Ukraine, Putin wins globally on economics. Kremlin’s Elvira Nabiullina pummels White House economic team. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping keeps on beating Joe Biden: RCEP/Asia Pacific, Nov 2020; Iran $400 oil deal, March 2021; Solomon Islands pact, May 2022. Etcetera. Joe needs to redo his foreign policy playbook. 

       Already, the American public is paying too much for the costly war. Almost $50 billion in aid to Kyiv, mostly military, since Feb this year. Etcetera. Fantastic gas pump prices + 8.6 percent inflation. War as rationale for economic ruin--so 1 Percent corporations assure profit margins--ain't gonna fool the world this long. 🇺🇸🇷🇺🇨🇳

Fascinating that many (in America) are so protective of their dogs from fireworks or thunder. I understand. The manner in which dogs are petted here is similar to how children are guarded. In the Pacific islands where I emanated from, dogs are also integral members of the family—although they mostly stay outdoors, inside a gated house, as guard dogs. They warn of intruders and strangers, and since they could “feel” a coming storm—they remind us to prepare. 🌬🐕💨

Happy July 4th to Americans who love their country! A week or so before today, the majority of what I read on my Homepage are scorn, displeasure, and hate of America. Which I fail to find sense. I grew up or evolved as a Leftist activist back home in the Philippines because I love my country. So I protested leadership corruption and foreign intervention. Hence I don’t get it that Americans who disapprove of how the United States is governed by politicians also hate the country.☮️🇺🇸🗽

Superpower #1 is all geopolitical narcissism. Already, the United States of America is the world’s #1 corporation. Number 1 economy, #1 consumer market, #1 oil producer/consumer, #1 prescription drug taker, #1 in military spending, #1 in drug industry, #1 in kickass sports shoes, and many others at #1. America loves being #1, so any perceived #1 threat from China or Russia is taken seriously. Fact is, Beijing and Moscow just want to stay #1 in noodles and vodka. 🇺🇸🥇🇺🇸