We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 10, 2015

AIIB, BRICS Development Bank and an Emerging World

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. 

As promised I continue to post articles which show promise of explaining the dramatic trend that is now appearing: major alternative international funding organizations spearheaded by China. This is a fourth in this series which includes (in chronological order) this, this, and this.

I regard the control of money as a major component of the US Empire's hegemony over the rest of the world, and any threat to its control of it will be met by the most aggressive actions. These alternative organizations (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank both centered in China) will follow much more legitimate rules than the US dominated IMF, World Bank, and the Asia Development Bank. Perhaps this explains the highly aggressive actions of the Empire targeting Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Russia, and China. What continues to astonish me is that Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Australia, and Japan (apparently) have joined the AAIB. I'm still looking for some reasonable explanation for this.
Washington is holding on like a pit bull to the old bylaws in which the US retains a blocking veto share of votes. The US Congress refuses to pass the IMF reforms and to break the impasse. This is a major way forced China and the other fast-growing BRICS states to look outside the IMF and World Bank and build an entirely new architecture. The AIIB today is emerging rapidly as a centerpiece in this emerging new global architecture.

Rather than trying to influence the new AIIB from within, Washington has chosen a tactic that has delivered it a huge and humiliating geopolitical defeat, and which will likely exclude US corporations from lucrative construction bids.

US foreign policy under Obama, as it was under George W. Bush, is being run by a gaggle of neo-conservative ideologues who seem incapable of flexible response. For them anything China does is “bad” and must be opposed with all US might.

China for those Washington people is the emerging global challenger to US military power, so Obama imposes an “Asia Pivot” military strategy to encircle and anger Beijing. China’s economic and financial influence threatens the dollar system so that too must be opposed. The BRICS threatens to become independent of Washington control as vassal states....

The problem for Washington is that none of this is working as it used to.
See also an article entitled "AIIB: Guess Who’s Got Back in Business?" from the same website.