Lithium nationalization would be based as fuck.
US is absolutely going to try and do regime change in Mexico given that there aren’t that many places producing lithium and it’s increasingly becoming a key commodity.
It’s a strange one. It’s certainly key, but it also seems to have a special role in capitalist propaganda.
All this nonsense about using technology to allow the west to continue as usual only works if they can claim (however unrealistic) that switching from fossil fuels to solar and wind is possible (using lithium in batteries to cover night time use, calm days, and personal vehicles). No lithium, no green capitalism.
Any Green New Deal is off the cards if they can’t get their hands on lithium. They know it’s only a matter of time before they see mass civil disobedience in the west due to climate change (which will require, at an absolute minimum, some kind of green transition, even if they resist that reality for now).
Also big oil is working hard to shift away from green energy in a way that is more threatening than ever. It makes these acquisitions of lithium even more important for greenwashers. They need an actual weapon that goes beyond saviorist sensibilities and national sovereignty is getting in the way.
“We will coup whoever we want!”
I wonder how China will go about and deal with this bullshit as it emerges as the dominant political power. I don’t think they will want to keep sitting in the corner forever watching the USA install a hundred little Pinochets and Yatsenyuks everywhere, but installing puppets and doing counter-coups seems like too much of the American way, and direct intervention would be even more absurd. I suppose it is most likely they will finance friendly neighbouring governments to beef up their own military and intelligence such that they are just a constant thorn in the side of these putsch regimes, and then hope the prospect of impending collapse will eventually deter the USA from its usual practices
Could all be part of the long game. We already know that China has cracked the CIA code. They know how to defeat corruption now. They expelled (maybe not all, but many) US agents in China, and have toyed with US agents in other countries, openly trailing them when they land, etc, and sending not so subtle hints to Washington.
IIRC in one instance, they learned of a CIA asset who was about to leave the US for an assignment. China sent a message telling Washington that they knew who the person was and what their task was. The agent wasn’t sent in the end. I’ll try to dig up the source. I could be wrong. It was a paywalled western mag/journal article about Xi’s anti-corruption drive, if anyone else can help find it. A three-part article (I waited patiently and read one part a month to avoid the paywall!).
China may well be able to put a stop to coups before they start once it is clear that a China-friendly government is stable enough to govern and stay in power without too much Chinese assistance afterwards. It’s got to be real careful not to agitate the jealous, dying monster, though.
Lmao I need this article
Found it.
Part one: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/21/china-stolen-us-data-exposed-cia-operatives-spy-networks/
The detail I referred to above is in part two, but I may have embellished some of the details. Edit: part two: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/22/china-us-data-intelligence-cybersecurity-xi-jinping/
“We didn’t fully know what they know about us.” Subsequently, “dozens of postings” for CIA officers scheduled for assignments in China were cancelled ….
So on the one hand, what we already know – people who are only brave against enemies with vastly inferior tech and lower levels of economic development, but will hide under the covers and tuck their toes in if they can’t just waltz around in enemy territory doing what they please under the safety of air support or hidden behind well-funded paramilitaries.
And on the other hand, possibly an attempt to lull China into a false sense of security. If the US did pull some agents, they almost certainly had others lined up, and China will still be looking for or keeping an eye on the alternative agents.
Another factor, notwithstanding the sheer outrage over China stealing data (in an article about how the US thinks it’s entitled not just to data but to corrupt high level governmental and military positions – satire and irony are not dead, they just write themselves) is that much of this is probably CIA officers posting about their upcoming deployments on Facebook and Twitter. Like those soldiers at the start of the Ukraine war who posted pictures online without deleting the meta data. As if you can expect enemies to politely look away when you reveal security secrets like when you get changed at the beach.
US getting stroppy that it’s spies are getting caught and then criticising Xi for ‘purg[ing] and creating a personality cult’, as if Xi should have casually let the US continue about is espionage.
he only wants to be surrounded by loyal people, they scream in protest. what a monster
I think China’s going to largely keep doing what they’re doing now which is making countries more stable through economic trade and assistance. They made start helping with security as well which they’re doing in Solomon Islands and South Africa already. Countries banding together will also present a much tougher challenge for US going forward.
The problem long term, is that China’s willingness to work with anyone and everyone, no matter how horrific, leads to them basically ignoring coups and just treating the resulting US puppets as if they are legitimate.
It would be good to see China make similar security arrangements with friendly countries, like they have with the Solomon Islands, to prevent the US from just couping all their allies from under their noses.
I think China’s been avoiding confrontation up to now, but they’ve been getting a lot more assertive recently. I suspect the main reason being that US is becoming openly belligerent, and Russia demonstrating that it is possible to decouple from western economy successfully.
I was going to say that Mexico should build up military since it’s doing this, but then I remembered that drugs are doing pretty good job against USA military so no need for that lol
✨imperialism✨
A journal for British millionaires
a clone of the economist
What’s the difference?
My neighbors may or may not refer to me as the “autocrat next door”
🤣
Literally 3 days later lol
