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

Saturday, March 5, 2016

China One Belt One Road Vision for Global Trade

Click here to access article and short video posted by James Corbett from The International Forecaster. 

The best part of this report, which he devotes most of his report to, is an up-to-date coverage of actual efforts to create this imaginative "one belt road" project. Afterwards he writes the following:
Taken singly, the projects may seem random or haphazard. Taken together they are a brilliant way of playing win-win politics with China's neighbors and trading partners. China gets to increase markets and stabilize shaky trading partners and the recipients of China's largesse get a multi-billion dollar shot in the arm that comes without the usual burden of IMF debt conditions.

So we have a happy and prosperous China recognizing that its long term interest lays in spreading some of that wealth around to help prop up its neighbors. Rather than seeing other countries as competitors in a cutthroat dog-eat-dog world, China is treating its One Road, One Belt collaborators as partners whose rising tide will help lift the Chinese dragon boat. What could possibly go wrong?

Three things.
However he provides little evidence to support the "three things" other than common sense.
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