G 7: Partnership for Global Infrastructure- Litmus test for Western unity and image
So far, the G7 summit has only performed expected rituals. Selensky’s speech with demands for more heavy weapons, a few new sanctions against Russia, especially in the armaments sector, the mention of a possible famine, to which Germany, chaired by Baerbock, Özdemir and Schulte, dedicated a food security summit, but all very Ukraine-centric. In addition to spending billions on armaments, which are to be pushed again at the NATO summit, the G 7 also decided on a famine relief fund of only 4.5 billion euros. That shows quite clearly the priorities and the role that starvation negroes are given in the global imperialist showdown for a new world order. Much more important and worth mentioning is the „Partnership for Global Infrastructure“ decided by the G7, which is supposed to represent the West as a creative, constructive world power and also a partner for development and stability in competition with China’s New Silk Road and is supposed to have a volume of 800 billion euros , although one could still say: It is better than always organizing short-term food and famine relief and filling holes, but rather creating sustainable infrastructure and social structures that will stop these famines and bring about economic development in an ecological manner, especially since nobody is addressing the subject of a population explosion anyway in the so-called Global South because of fear of postcolonial criticism of neocolonialism. Nationalist macho representatives in the Global South are making a united front with religious opponents of birth control – and fanatics and the Global North, which does not exist in this topic, even not as G7.
„China in sight: G7 want to compete with Beijing’s „New Silk Road“ with a project worth billions
Parts of China’s „New Silk Road“ are now a dead end. The gigantic infrastructure project, also known as the „Belt and Road Initiative“ (BRI), is actually intended to connect China more closely with the rest of the world. But the corona lockdowns in many of the country’s cities with a population of over a million are currently stalling the global supply chains, and containers are piling up in the ports. Goods are still rolling on the rails, but that too could soon come to an end. Because the central railway line of the „New Silk Road“ runs through Russia and thus right through the country that has made itself a pariah in the west by attacking Ukraine. Alternative routes, such as through Central Asia, are less efficient.
However, three quarters of all countries worldwide are somehow connected to the project, which was launched in 2013 by China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping. The government in Beijing is still investing billions, building bridges in South America and rail connections in Africa. And there is no end in sight. Especially since, as some experts suspect, China is about more than just beautiful new roads in previously underdeveloped regions of the world: Beijing, so the assumption goes, also wants to secure geopolitical advantages with the „New Silk Road“. Biden’s „Partnership for Global Infrastructure“ is intended to stand up to China’s „Silk Road“. At their meeting in Elmau, Upper Bavaria, the heads of state of the G7 countries have now launched their own initiative intended to compete with China. This „Partnership for Global Infrastructure“ was announced by US President Joe Biden last year. „Together, we want to mobilize nearly $600 billion through the G7 by 2027,“ Biden said on Sunday. „And I’m proud to announce that the United States will mobilize $200 billion in public and private capital for this partnership over the next five years.“
Biden added that this is not a charity. “It’s an investment that will pay off for everyone, including the American people and the people of all our countries, and will boost all of our economies. It is an opportunity for us to share our positive vision for the future.” Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz saw the initiative as another example of the unity of the G7. A US official said Sunday the initiative would target low- and middle-income countries. The aim is infrastructure investments „that the countries need without being dictated from outside“. The projects would be bound to high standards „to ensure that these investments are economically and commercially driven and do not result in debt traps“. Countries with funds from the Chinese project found that their debts were mounting and that the „so-called investments“ were not reaching the people. White House communications director for the National Security Council, John Kirby, said on Saturday that China will be „an important focus“ at the G7 summit in Elmau. Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented China as the greatest long-term challenge to the international order, despite the acute crisis caused by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
What we have been propagating again and again and then on on Global Review for a good 2 decades: A Western New Silk Road. With Global Gateways, B3W and now the EUR 800 billion strong Partnership for Global Infrastructure of the G7, the very late and long overdue decision and important and right direction. Just as important as the military. There seems to be enough money, although it remains unclear whether the partnership will be financed by the Global Gateway of the EU and B3W of the USA or whether there will be an additional amount, which unfortunately has not been revealed so far. I also discussed the topic of a Western New Silkroad with the then German ambassador in Afghanistan and then South Korea, Dr. Seidt, a few years ago. He said the real challenge is coordinating the projects between several countries, so that you don’t have a lot of uncoordinated building and construction ruins and then embarrassment. I also suggested that a western New Silk Road should also be designed taking into account the military-geopolitical and ecological dimensions. The question is, however, whether a coordinating body could be created or, if again, too many cooks spoiling the food. China has the advantage that it is an actor and leader of a global project. So also an organizational question.But even China with a supposed central planing office, although its existence is also disputed among China experts (see the reports of the Jamestown Foundation), also has a number of setbacks and failures, and is therefore not as successful as one would otherwise expect when reding the win-win-win propaganda of the the People’s Daily and the Global Times. Especially since a Global Review article was censored by Chinese state television and not printed, which simply asked whether China’s New Silk Road had a corresponding security belt that would stabilize it. This has already been seen as a criticism of Xi’s mega-project that shouldn’t be questioned. Win-win-win and the winner takes it all. I came, saw, won and win-win for all. On the one hand we discussed a western New Silk Road in a global sense, on the other hand also at that time as a special subtopic with regard to Afghanistan. Dr Seidt and I had the idea that instead of building a well here and there and a girls‘ school and conducting a few combat missions, Afghanistan would go beyond the limited military (mostly ring roads and bunker constructions) and partly more symbolic-medial civil society infrastructure projects by means of an economic infrastructure project for the development of the country and its raw materials (not opium) and integration into a Western infrastructure, i.e. Afghanistan could be brought to a primary and original capital accumulation and the beginnings of capitalism in the Marxian sense through an economic development and infrastructure program.
Also under the aegis of a Western planning institution that doesn’t allow 80 cents of an aid dollar to flow into the corrupt pockets of the Kabul elite. But apparently this was not even considered, especially since. not even the idea of a Western New Silk Road has been considered. Luckily that’s changing now, but a western planning coordination office that limits particular interests to some extent and gives the whole thing a direction is becoming a crucial question. Also from the point of view of whether the West is just putting up Berlin airports or showing that they are planning in a united and geostrategic manner and are also efficient. Ultimately also a litmus test of the unity of the West, especially since the question then arises as to whether such projects would then exist in the long term and continuously if another US President was elected or other important G7 countries would be paralyzed, boycotted or disturbed by right-wing populists and right-wing radicals or governed by those who see such international infrastructure projects as just thrown out development aid and charity by globalist do-gooders for some lazy negroes and not as geopolitical investments in „shitholes“ (Trump), but under America First only promote infrastructure programs in the USA and promote them nowhere else, at best maybe they can still be persuaded if such partnerships for global infrastructure are suitable for US jobs, profits and geopolitical disputes with China.
China expert Professor van Ess commented: “Now the West is beginning to realize how little it has actually done. It’s all a little bit hasty. I just read that countries like India and South Africa have to be offered an offer to reconsider their attitude towards Russia… It’s a joke, really.“ But that is the neoliberalism propagated in the West for a long time, the neoliberal parts of the West as it has been since Thatcher and Reagan and then under Clinton, Bush jr. (China as a „strategic competitor“ in words and the promotion for China to become member of the WTO – neoliberal bullshit and it is the economy, stupid and China will modernize and democratize- same neoliberal bullshit from Clinton and Obama- so crazy as Bush jr´s Iraq war and the democratization of the Greater Middle East which was also supported by Hillary Clinton), Blair and Schröder. Clinton was a liar. „It’s the economy, stupid“. Actually it was „It’s the neoliberal economy, stupid“. But he was just the complete idiot and stupid, not his critics, that´s what the the West is now learning in private lessons. But all the globalist free traders and neoliberals who rejected Keynes, sacked and ruined infrastructure and the state, created more and more tax cuts for the rich and corporations and global tax havens and offshore money laundering islands, and wanted to make things lean and smart and fit for globalization by deregulation and privatizations and de-bureaucratization failed at the latest with the financial crisis of 2008, as well as with the competitor China, which they themselves raised. Under Biden, Keynes has returned with the New Deal and New Green Deal and infrastructure program and minimum taxation, both nationally and internationally. But China finally forced these neoliberal assholes to do it and has a two-track approach: free trade via RCEP and Global Keynes and Global New Deal via BRI. Free trade agreements are still taboo for the USA for the time being because of economic nationalism ala Trump, only Keynes remains for the time being. Even if US strategists complain that further US military bases against China will only be obtained if, for example, the Marcos clan would have to be rewarded with a free trade agreement with the USA for a Subic Bay in the Philippines, as the Chinese are trying to do. It will be exciting to see which states will join the Partnership for Global Infrastructure, how they will then deal with China’s New Silk Road, whether they want to play them off against each other in order to achieve the maximum and what the western conditions will be like for potential aspirants and how China will respond to this initiative.