Israel is being the very opposite of a force for stability in the region, which isn’t going to help the Petro-Dollar.

Israel being a destabilizing force gives the US leverage over the oil rich nations of the region. That’s why Israel is important for the petrodollar. I’m also not sure the US currently has a way to maintain its global economic dominance without the petrodollar. That’s in part why I think you see the US doubling down on support for Israel even in a context where doing so is increasingly risky.

The FT is actually a tad bit more reliable than more mainstream outlets like WaPo or the NYT. It’s targeted towards people in finance who want more matter of fact reporting and fewer opinion pieces.

I think you underestimate just how many people are in China and how much development actually needs to happen in order to meet their needs. The urbanization rate of China is still lower than most developed nations despite the massive amounts of construction they’ve done in recent years.

Why would I lie and why does what I said make you so angry?

How could you possibly come to think that Marx’s works are censored in China? Marxism is literally taught in schools there.

Don’t worry, Biden just imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs so they can rest easy now.

It’s complicated. Chiang Kai-shek was a historical adversary of the CPC and is viewed as a traitor and war criminal in the PRC. However, his nationalist party, the KMT, is alive and well in Taiwan. The CPC currently favors the KMT even though they were former adversaries because the KMT advocates for deepening economic ties to the PRC.

With this context I’m guessing the KMT’s primary opposition, the DPP, wants to highlight the KMT’s fascist legacy while also conflating the KMT’s and the CPC’s expression of Chinese nationalism. Making that false equivalency is easier because of the KMT’s interest in building stronger economic ties with the mainland.

Western media usually frames issues from the DPP’s perspective which would explain the commentary in the article.

Good luck with that. The US is the world’s largest oil producer and therefore it has a vested interest in preventing the development of sustainable energy alternatives.

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Yes and no. Deng was definitely a strong advocate for market reforms. However, if you ask any Chinese economist from that era they would say reform was inevitable.

Also the strategies Deng advocated for were similar to the failed shock therapy programs that Eastern European countries underwent following the collapse of the USSR. In doing so he risked the stability of the Chinese economy.

That said, he also helped keep political control out of capitalist hands. That allowed China to course correct when some of their reforms induced economic instability.

Which by all indications was something he didn’t actually want to do in the first place. It’s just the west wasn’t ready to give up exploiting the people of the former USSR. If Putin allowed that to continue he would have likely lost his power just as Yeltsin had.

Sure but it’s always like one small step forward and two large steps back. Abortion was made illegal in many states. US domestic surveillance of its own citizens has increased dramatically and gone unchallenged. Housing and healthcare costs have continued to outpace wage growth. Inequality has increased unabated. Green energy remains woefully underfunded. I could go on.

This nihilistic right wing nonsense is just an excuse not to attempt to build something better. It’s lazy thinking and deeply unscientific.

It’s not Islam that’s the problem. Rather the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of India were decisions made by western governments, primarily the British. It was a classic colonial tactic to set the interests of various ethnic and religious groups against each other in order to maintain colonial domination. The British were experts at it.

They no longer had the capacity to maintain an empire after WW2 but they still wanted to maintain some level of economic domination over their former colonies. As such, they made sure to draw borders and empower certain ethnic groups in such a way that it would almost guarantee future conflict. The US inherited this strategy and has been deploying it ever since.

The Korean War never actually ended. It’s a frozen conflict with the demilitarized zone serving as a defacto border. Because of this, both the south and the north never demilitarized. The US and South Korea still to this day conduct massive military exercises which, from North Koreas perspective, could be used as cover for an invasion. While Americans have largely forgotten about the war, it still plays a large role in Korean policy decisions on both sides of the divide.

The Houthis are still not representative of Yemen and still are not the government of Yemen.

For all intents and purposes they do and they are.

The US supported Saudi Arabia in their bombing campaign and also participated in the blockade of Yemen.

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I just learned South Africa is Hamas and now this?!

Maybe if you’re running a protection racket