Isnt the majority of Chinese loans to low and middle income countries already mostly in Yuan and not Dollars ?. Arent these to be paid back in Yuan/local currencies as well?
Unless the trend has been totally reversed in the last year dont these already dawrf whatever the BRICS bank can dish out in volume ?
If people were asking as a consequence of the meeting what was China's concession this time? Well its right here. China continues their commitment to non-interventionism, they continue to claim they wont fight the US. In doing so this is the result
Wtf do you want China to do for the Argentinian elections? Rig them or assasinate the ancap nutjob ? It wasnt close enough to be flipped by an agressive China intervention in the first place and its not like its losing some strategic ally. Argentina is gonna get worse with the clown and in 4 years time some socdem peronist will win and things will be more of the same. What is this "Well its right here?" that you so clearly see in this case?
Also where are you seeing this normalization and concession stuff ? The Americans were begging for a meeting for years and Xi went there in a position of strength and repeated every buzzword and positions China has stated in the last 10 years. There was no rhetoric shift. China is as non-interventionist today as it was 2 or 3 years ago. That may already be in issue yeah but that doesnt mean that somehow believe that they will have good peaceful relations with the US or that they conceeded their position in any international matter
Millenium Actress is moderately known just by beinga Kon joint. Tho unfortunately is maybe the lesser known of the 4 (and the best).
Liz and the blue bird has a bunch of following just through Kyoani having a bunch of following tho its not the most active online.
Votoms is weird. Like its super important and pretty amazing but the people who have heard it and talk about it are just people that like old Mechas cause its like 3rd/4th in line for most people when they started getting into that rabbithole. I have seen a bunch of people starting it on twitter but maybe pushing it as a MGS core influence would get more people to give it a try. people SHOULD watch it
Vampire Hunter D bloodlust is probably the better known of the bunch but mostly by US millenial audience. The physical releases sold very well and it was one of the best known "anime movies" of the 00s . But that crowd prob is just normal people that dont partake into online an ime discussions now
Beautiful Dreamer its probably the lesser known in the west. Despite it being Oshii and UY being such an important franchise. Its a hard sell when its attached to a 100+ ep 80s romcom no matter how good the latter is and even if you try to convince people to watch it standalone. Also thats not really true cause there is a ton of enjoyment and depth to be found when you are at least familiar with the characters and format of the show and how the movie handles them andbrings them upside down
People who were not Chinese got the same progress like the Chinese did at different speeds (earlier or later).
Those who did either did it on the back of the rest of the world and by plundering and colonizing billions (west and western protectorates) with China still managed to catch up with that in half a century or they just havent yet and wont in the forseeable future (most of the third world) and their progress marely amounts to the most generalized side effects of world wide medical and tech progress. China is bringing to 1.5 billion people the progress, QoL and modernity the former group achieved (and then some) without colonizing, imperializing or impovershing any other nation or people and in 1/5th of the time.No one else did that, no one else is doing that. Other than you know, the USSR (relative to era)
idk if i would read into a couple of purges and changes of personel with such negative and "china observer" like analysis.
We know the long standing issues of the PLA and how it improved and modernized a lot under Xi's tenure (often with purges like this) and we know there are different wings and interests inside the CPC. Whose to say that this isnt a case of Xi consolidating a more loyal and competent comand. Or that its indeed a corruption case which extremely realistic given PLA in the last 20 years and so despite a very widespread and successfull anti corruption campaign you can still find big names lacking. Or that they were found out to have a mistress like a couple of big officials in the last few months.
"Political shake up that has not occured since the cultural revolution" seems like a quite overblown take at the very least given the things you listed. China had self contained political crises in the 80s ,90s ,00s and 10s that saw "shake ups" much more dramatic and in scale. Hell the anti-corruption campaign that i mentioned saw like 500k mid, low and high level party officials and army officers purged. The "shake up" during zero covid and before the party's congress also seemed much more important than whatever this is.
In the end of the day under Xi the biggest shake up has occured. That in a way "Politics are in command" in much more real sense than they have been in 40+ years. That new reality foundementaly makes staff changes, purges and shake ups in positions much more common than they were in lets say 90s-early 10s .And that shouldnt immediately be thought of as a negative or as a measure of instability, or that Xi positions is more precarious than ever. I simply dont see it.
Also repeating the completely and utterly unsubstantiated submarine incident rumor as something that even remotely can lend more merit to your analysis makes it more flimsy.
The source (Lude media) has no credibility and then the guy who originaly (and only) put the story out in western twitter claiming he also veryfied it ,H I Sutton, isnt a particularly trustworthy figure in the PLA watching sphere. He run with the "there is a coup against Xi" and "China is hiding 20 million covid deaths" stories last year and the manner in which the story broke was at best shaky. For example Lude media has written a rather defensive follow up tweet stating that the supposed incident occurred in the Yellow Sea and nothing occurred in the Taiwan strait, and that people saying it happened in the Taiwan strait are 50 cent shills, essentially claiming it is disinformation. Of course, it is rather confusing, as it was Lude media himself who first stated so confidently that he had top secret information, and that among other details he had access to, that this happened in the Taiwan strait ("在执行台海任务时出事"). And both had follow up tweets walking back on the claims saying that it is unconfirmed and to treat with great caution (and if im not mistaken they later delete dtheir original posts). And then nothing . There here's been no other news sites reporting this, even anti-china ones , and had the Chinese somehow lost a sub in the Taiwan Strait or SCS, the ereaand the skies above it would be full of Chinese ships and aircraft on search and rescue missions, and all of the traffic and survailance on the erea would see it and report it. There's no way such an effort could go unnoticed in such a busy water ways. Nothing came out of it an dnothing was reported.
But lets ignore that the submarine thing as a misstep. I see little reason to think Xi is going to meet biden from a position of weakness even if there is relative weakness in some apsects of the economic sphere as you claim.
The collapse of Ukraine’s offensive against Russian forces , its commander’s admission that the war is a “stalemate” and the slow but certain shift in narrative is a setback for America’s strategic geopolitical position and a gain for China and the end of the war seems to be shifting towards a net loss for the US and a net gain for China. And Russia itself isnt a market or economic hub that can be handwaived as easily as you think. China has doubled its exports to Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has increased their coordination with Moscow in almost all foreign actions and have secured or are in the process of securing energy and food security configurations they could not expect some years prior
The US tech war on China has mostly flopped, with even western think tanks and pushers of the sanctions admitting deffeat or panicking to double down. America’s restrictions on high-end chip exports to China failed to prevent Huawei Technologies from offering a new smartphone as well as Artificial Intelligence processors with performance comparable to or close to what’s achieved by the products of Nvidia and other US designers. Huawai is expanding both domesticaly and worldwide and so do other chip and tech companies America tried to strangle. Chinese and SEA market is increasingly being caprtured by China and so is the developing world and the lead in 5g tech and applications only grows larger . The mate60 came out of no where and Chinese AI firms buy fast Huawei processers in place of chips from Nvidia and other US producers. US,japanese and Korean tech firms lost and are losing markets of ~2 billion peope and they are in a positionf of weakness right now, many begging the US regime to change approach and course
The Isreili war on Gaza and the US response gives China a free option to act as the de facto leader of the Global South in opposition to Israel, an American ally even by simply not doing much and simply watch the US losing their hold in PR and public opinion in lot of the developing world. US prob spend tens of billions in worldwide media and NGO campaigns to undermine China's image and postive attitudes towards it but all that effort has been at the very least counteracted it by the last month;s impact on West's and US's image for billions. Also China now exports more to the Muslim world than it does to the United States and more to the developing world than they do to US+EU+Japan+Korea+Canada
Also the US military ,despite what the political hawks are pushing for, really wants to avoid confrontation with China in the Northwest Pacific region as well as its home waters in the South China Sea, where the PLA’s thousands of surface-to-ship missiles and nearly 1,000 fourth- and fifth-generation warplanes give China an overwhelming home-theater advantage in firepower. By most credible voices ,both official and unoffical, China holds a distinct advantage in the erea and can achieve right now a ,costly for itself but even more costly for the US in more way than material, win in a military campaign against Taiwan.ANd that will become increasingly more true over the next decade
LA Rocket Force “is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough anti-ship missiles to attack every US surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defense,” Major Christopher J. Mihal wrote in 2021 in a US Army journal.
If you think this is just a "please give us money" and not the realistic analysis a lot in the US military are having you are mistaken.
We got a taste of the Biden-Xi discussions from Newsom's visit (who is also the likeliest 2024 Democratic presidential candidate should Biden withdraw for health reasons) . Newsom has been quoted as saying that he had “expressed my support for the One-China policy … as well as our desire not to see independence” of Taiwan. Clear rejection of Taiwanese independence contrasts with the approach and statements of the last few years of almost all US officials including Biden who will likely echo such retorical pull back in the next few months. It doesnt mean too much materialy but its an important point of where the wind is shifting and with teh upcoming Taiwanese elections in mind and the weakening of the DPP positions.
Thats all to say that yeah (de)dolarization matters, yeah US financial capital hegemony and capabilities matter but they dont come or exist from without. Their strength and usability is at some point a function of the material,political and social base and on the ground contradictions both domesticaly and abroad matter more long term. Each global or geopolitical crisis or event of the last few years has "trickled down" much more instability and rot in the US political and social fabric than it did for China and provided much more fertile ground for counterhegemonic developments in the developing world , even if one can say that China and Russia didnt take advantage of them as much as they could. US financial hegemony doesnt exist outside of politics or (geo)politics in "people" centered sense even if we might still be far from the US domestic contradictions and global crises having significant impact on the ability and effectiveness of it to act and react in the way it needs to to "win" (but we also might be closer than we think). US might have gotten a lot of economy related "wins" already in Ukraine for example but in a long term PoV im not sure "putting EU back in its place" and having them on a geopolitical and economic leash is enough considering the changes it kickstarted and accelerated domsetcialy and abroad and especially their consolidation given the likely outcome
You can "nuance" the matter all you want but at the end of the day i cant shed many tears for those acting like comprador dogs in the face of genocide, fighting with the ones facilitating it no less. When you not only make a deal with the devil but actively help him and fight for him in such situations, you are one of his demons. No matter the "libertarian socialist" or whatever coating (that so many people still buy into)
President Xi says we can have a little Maoism, as a treat 
Xi meets with representatives of grassroots units applying 'Fengqiao model'
What is the Fengqiao model? Generaly speaking, a mass line based model developed and advocated in Mao’s era that directed the masses themselves at the local level to carry out the on-site “rectification” of “reactionary elements” in society promoting greater degrees of local self-governance and "decentralizing" class struggle. The “Fengqiao experience” ,named after Fengqiao Township, was the process of mobilizing the masses in order to “strengthen the dictatorship over class enemies.” Here is how the top Party leader of Fengqiao District at the time (early 60s) reflected back on it:
During the National People’s Congress in 1963, the minister of public security, Xie Fuzhi (谢富治), gave a speech called, “Relying on the Strength of the Masses, Strengthening the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, Transforming the Majority of ‘Reactionary Elements’ into New People” (依靠群众力量，加强人民民主专政，把绝大多数“四类分子”改造成新人). Xie’s speech made specific mention of the example provided by Fengqiao.
On November 20, 1963, Mao Zedong added his written instructions to the Xie Fuzhi speech, in which he said: “The example of Zhuji raised here is a good one — various regions should follow this example, expanding the work through pilot programs.” Before the Cultural Revolution, the ministry of public security released materials about Fengqiao, but the People’s Daily never reported on these. On December 21, 1977, the People’s Daily published the piece from the top Party leader of Fengqiao District quoted above. That piece was called, “Raising High the Red Flag of Fengqiao Erected by Mao Zedong, Relying on the Masses to Strengthen Dictatorship"
In the struggle against the enemy, arrest is necessary and proper only for a small number of class enemies; as for those you can choose to arrest or not, none should be arrested; you must mobilize the masses to carry out a struggle of reason, to deal with the enemies, carrying out on-site monitoring and rehabilitation, without the need to submit issues to higher authorities. This experience was affirmed and praised by the greater leader and teacher Mao Zedong.
Until recently, no top Chinese leader since Mao Zedong had ever been quoted publicly in the People’s Daily or other state media making remarks on the “Fengqiao experience.” But in 2013, marking the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s written instructions, Xi Jinping broke this pattern by issuing “important instructions on the development of the ‘Fengqiao experience’." But the focus and promotion of the model has increased considerably in the last few years.
In the report of the 20th National Congress it was clearly directed that that the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era must be upheld and developed at the grassroots level of society and based on it the mechanism for correctly handling contradictions among the people under the new situation should be improved. To facilitate and regulate the expression of public demands, coordinate interests and safeguard rights.
In March 2023, Xi again emphasized the need to uphold and develop the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era, improve the mechanism for correctly handling conflicts among the people under the new situation, and promptly resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud by involving the masses in the identification of elements ,practices or people that must be reformed. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, Xi made a special trip to inspect the Fengqiao Museum and affirmed the great historical and practical significance of the "Fengqiao Experience".
The other day, along with the meetup i originaly linked Xi met with like 4 heads of state (including the Australian dumbass) ,yet his meeting with cadre representatives of the "fengqiao model" was the frontpage news on the People's Daily and other state media over them
To end with some interesting (optimistic and with a bunch of assumptions) food for thought. The "common prosperity" project, lauded as the next stage in socialism with chinese chracteristics and specificaly its "pilot" in Zhejiang, aimed to be completed by the mid 30s, calls , among other things, for "adjusting income distribution" and "adjusting excessive income". No specifics have been given on how that wealth redistribution will be achieved but it is notable that county-level social conflict and dispute mediation and resolution centers have been also a behind the scenes focus of the "common prosperity" pilot in Zhenjiang and its also the province with the most developed and widespread grassroots "fengqiao model" system
i see
in the meantime i found this quite interesting thread on the particular somewhat self contained conflict going on on Northen Myanmar. No clue how accurate but it paints a pretty enlighting picture https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1720022978350735417
Anyone here got any good analysis on the situation in Myanmar. Junta seems to be on the back foot and a couple of (pro china) resistance groups with strong maoist roots that have been participating and co-leading some noticable gains lately. But also large part of the conflict is between them and cartel like militias controling ereas of Myanmar? Are they prominent enough ?
Some funny and probably positive news from Greece with the political landscape there being both the same and the opposite from other countries in Europe rn.
Its same in the sense that New Democracy (not Maoist but like 80% Macron - 20% Le Pen) governs after getting ~40% in the elections this year all while the socdem to center-left has either been eating shit and imploding (SYRIZA), being PASOK doing nothing after being Pasokified and or being Varoufakis enjoying his internationalist larp party at ~2% outside of parliament. With Syriza's implosion being the funny one since they ate shit in the elections, Tsipras resigned and then they literaly imported some better looking Pete Buttigieg - Beto O'Rourke dude from the US but with worse politics (reaganite, campaigned for Biden in 2008) and made him the leader so now they are about to be polling at signle digits. Like look at this
But there are also opposing trends compared to other countries.
The Greek Communist Party (Hardline MLs who also dont suck too much on LGBT issues anymore despite what the convo was some years ago) has more than doubled their support, consistently hitting 10%+ in recent polls and now has a real chance of actually reaching 2nd place. Looking at the state of communist parties and movements in most of the west , at eurocommunism and in general the post war trajectory of most , you dont have that kind of party that doesnt suck in 90% of issues with that kind of parliamentary numbers + organizational strength at a youth or union level almost anywhere else.
Also contrary to other countries the far right is very split and incoherent . After the collapse of Golden Dawn the overtly anti-migrant fascists, neonazis , ethnonationalists, alt-right nutjobs, religious nutjobs etc are split over 4-6 parties with basicaly no organizational strength or organic reach. They wont and cant reach any really threatening unified movement as of now and they mostly overtly clownish and lame