Eurasia: A Geo-political re-alignment

[Magda Hassan]

Robert Rubin, of course, "spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs", the creators of BRICS:

http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking...dream.html

I'm not aware of any Goldman involvement in the creation of BRICs. The term BRIC was used as an acronym to identify the new emerging economies of India, Russia, China and Brasil and that is what that article is referring to. The BRIC countries themselves at the PM/presidential level established the banking BRICS as a means of by passing the Goldman Sachs system as they had witnessed the spectacular clusterfuck meltdown of 2008. None of the PMs or presidents of BRICS have Goldman Sachs credentials nor their finance or treasury advisers. Or none that I have found. Though I have no doubt GS would love to get their hands on it.

[R.K. Locke]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but tell me more about the Bush's Latin American ranch? on another thread, or PM?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oc...omphillips

Sorry, this article is full of geographical inaccuracies. The Chaco is indeed in the northwest part of Paraguay, but Paso de Patria is in the extreme SW corner, and the aquifer that this article speculated GWB wants to control is in the south east. The Chaco is near the "lowlands" of Bolivia (not the part where the E. coca var coca grows) and the jungle of Brazil.

In an entirely coincidental and unrelated matter, I'm certain, Brazil is beginning to be concerned about the security of its borders. It would seem that cocaine is smuggled into Brazil thru the jungle and that crack is beginning to be sold in the streets of Brazil.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_...story.html

P.S. As of 2010, the USA and Paraguay do have an extradition treaty.

The Guardian is a horrible paper but there are lots of other outlets where you can find this story if you have a dig around.

[David Guyatt]

"Fifty Shades of Brown"... hahahaha. ::

[Paul Rigby]

"Fifty Shades of Brown...

Shirt"

[Magda Hassan]

P.S. As of 2010, the USA and Paraguay do have an extradition treaty.

Which brings great comfort to the Bushes.

I misread this. So maybe that explains their lack of travelling?

[David Guyatt]

P.S. As of 2010, the USA and Paraguay do have an extradition treaty.

Which brings great comfort to the Bushes.

I misread this. So maybe that explains their lack of travelling?

Well, Dubya and co are convicted war criminals (in absentia) in the Malaysian War Crimes trial and so yes, this has doubtless restricted their travelling internationally. I don't actually know if there are arrest warrants outstanding for them, but I do recall reading elsewhere that Dubya, in particular, was sensitive about where he travelled to in light of his new status of being a convicted war criminal.

[Paul Rigby]

Typical Guardian balls if you ask me...it's why I view that publication as an awful rag...

There Goes the Guardian, Lying About Ukraine…Again!

by ERIC DRAITSER

WEEKEND EDITION FEBRUARY 20-22, 2015

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/20/t...ine-again/

The western media is busily trying to prop up their failed narrative of "Russian aggression" in Ukraine in a desperate attempt to legitimize their consciously deceitful reporting. To do so, they are now relying not on experts or western intelligence reports, but a discredited blogger and his corporate media chums.

On February 17, 2015, The Guardian ran a story with the headline "Russia shelled Ukrainians from within its own territory, says study." The title alone is enough to convince many casual observers that yes, the mainstream media reporting on the civil war in Ukraine has been correct all along. You see, it's all because of Russian aggression, or so the meme would go. But closer analysis of this story, and the key players involved, should cause any reasonably intelligent and logical person to seriously doubt the veracity of nearly every aspect of the story.

Let's begin first with the headline and subhead which, as anyone in media knows, is often all that will be read by many readers. The headline leads with a conclusion: Russia shelled Ukraine from within Russian territory. Simple. Clear. Why bother reading further? Well, in reality, the article both overtly and tacitly admits that the so called "study" (more on that later) has not reached that clear conclusion, not even close. Here are some key phrases sprinkled throughout the piece that should give pause to any serious-minded political observer or analyst.

Despite the declaration in the headline, a close reader encounters phrases such as "near conclusive proof," "estimated trajectories," "likely firing positions," and other ambiguous phrases that are more suggestive than they are declarative. In other words, these are mere rhetorical flourishes designed to lead casual, uninformed readers to make conclusions that are simply not backed up by the evidence.

The so called study relied heavily on "crater patterns from satellite photos of three battlefields," and it is from these crater patterns, and the equally dubious "tyre tracks" that the authors of the study drew their conclusions. However, even the independent military forensics expert contacted by The Guardian "warned that the accuracy of crater analysis in determining direction of fire on the basis of satellite photography was scientifically unproven."

Indeed, conveniently buried at the end of the long article is the key quote from Stephen Johnson, a weapons expert at the Cranfield Forensic Institute, part of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom who said quite clearly that crater analysis is "highly experimental and prone to inaccuracy." Mr. Johnson added that "This does not mean there is no value to the method, but that any results must be considered with caution and require corroboration."

Wait a second. I thought that our dear expert authors of the study had "near conclusive proof" according to the lead paragraphs of the story. When you actually read what the real expert, as opposed to the non-experts who conducted the "study," has to say, it immediately casts a long shadow of doubt on the entire narrative being propagated by the article. Is The Guardian here guilty of clear manipulation of the story for political purposes? It would seem at best unprofessional and dishonest reporting, at worst it's outright lying in the service of the agenda of those at the top of the western political establishment.

Now of course we know that The Guardian has repeatedly been taken to task by highly respected journalists and analysts for its biased and one-sided reporting of issues ranging from its coverage of Russian President Putin and Russia's actions in Crimea, to its shamefully biased (here, here and here for three of the many examples) coverage of Israel-Palestine conflict, and a number of other important issues.

Perhaps most germane to this discussion is The Guardian's own reporting last summer, which it references in this article, of Russian military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine a significant charge that would be taken seriously if there were one shred of tangible proof. But alas there isn't. There is only the word of The Guardian's reporter Shaun Walker, who conveniently could not get a photograph or video of the alleged military vehicles crossing into Ukraine. One would think with mobile phones all equipped with cameras and the vast resources of a major western media outlet, not to mention the seemingly all-encompassing global surveillance architecture at the disposal of western governments, at least some credible, verifiable evidence would have emerged. But no, we just have to take the Guardian's word for it.

There's a lot of that going around when it comes to Ukraine. We just have to "take their word for it," as we were supposed to with regard to the charges of Russian military shooting down MH17, a baseless charge that has since disappeared from the headlines, with the actual results of the investigation being buried or suppressed entirely.

Not only should The Guardian's reporting be scrutinized, but so too should their darling "expert" blogger Eliot Higgins, aka Brown Moses, the author of this inconclusive "conclusive report."

Fifty Shades of Brown

Aside from the deceptive language and misleading statements, there is a broader issue that must be addressed, namely the reliability of the source of this so called study. Perhaps first we should dispense with the use of the term "study" as that would imply experts using objective facts, data, etc. Rather, what we are dealing with is a politically motivated report by a source that has already been discredited numerous times.

The report comes from an organization called Bellingcat, purportedly an independent citizen journalism platform that uses social media and other open source information to draw conclusions about everything from military hardware movements to the firing of missiles and artillery. Of course it should immediately raise questions that The Guardian's article is co-authored by one Eliot Higgins, a self-proclaimed "military expert" who founded the "Brown Moses" blog. Why is this important? Because Bellingcat is a creation of the same Eliot Higgins. Indeed, Bellingcat's Kickstarter page made no secret of the fact that "Bellingcat is a website founded by Brown Moses…the pseudonym for Eliot Higgins, a laid-off government worker turned blogger turned weapons analysis expert and leading source of information on the conflict in Syria."

A close look at some of the blurbs noted on the Kickstarter page reveals that this "independent blogger" has been touted by The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, UK's Channel 4, The Daily Beast, and many other corporate media outlets. Anyone with an understanding of how hard it is to actually be an independent analyst knows that such establishment outlets do not simply promote independent media that provides thoughtful analysis. Rather, Brown Moses and Bellingcat have been seized upon as a convenient foil to true alternative media, spinning the establishment narrative under the guise of "independent reporting." However, let us not simply deride this obvious sham. Let us evaluate Brown Moses' own record, which for an "expert" is dismal.

Higgins aka Brown Moses aka BM claimed to have proven that the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, Syria on August 21, 2013 could only have been carried out by the Syrian military and government. His claims are based on his own "expert" analysis of missile trajectories and other "evidence" he claims to have obtained through videos and other open source information. Of course, in making this claim, Higgins places himself in direct opposition to former UN weapons inspector Richard Lloyd and Prof. Theodore Postel of MIT, the authors of an actual report from the MIT Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group entitled "Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013." The report, conducted by real experts, not armchair bloggers, concluded that the Syrian government could not have carried out the attack, and that such intelligence was nearly used as justification for yet another aggressive war.

Also debunking BM's spurious charges is the report from Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh which revealed the existence of a classified US Defense Intelligence Agency briefing which noted unequivocally that the Al Nusra Front had its own chemical weapons, not to mention deep ties to Saudi and Turkish intelligence and chemical arms suppliers. Hersh's reporting finally firmly established the fact that the rebels were indeed capable of carrying out the attack on East Ghouta, and that they had help from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and possibly other regional actors. And so, not only did they have the motive (to blame Assad for using chemical weapons while international investigators were in Syria, thereby justifying a military intervention and regime change), but also the means and opportunity. This is an essential point because the entire case' against Assad relied on the fact that only Damascus was technologically and logistically capable of carrying out such an attack.

But BM contended that he was right, Hersh, Lloyd, and Postel were wrong, and that the narrative should reflect that. So, on the one hand we have a blogger with no formal training in ballistics, physics, or any relevant scientific or military field, and on the other we have a Pulitzer Prize winner with decades of experience and high-level contacts and sources all over the world. We have the word of some guy in an apartment in the UK, or the scientifically arrived at findings of a former chemical weapons inspector (read actual expert) and an internationally respected Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at MIT, a world renowned academic and research institution. And which do you think The Guardian chose to promote?

But BM's noxious odor also pervades the reporting on the downing of MH 17, yet another story that The Guardian utterly distorted, before mostly dropping it from the headlines when the western narrative was discredited. In an August 2, 2014 article written by Higgins entitled "MH17 Missiles Can't Hide From These Internet Sleuths," Higgins claims to have concluded that Russia or the anti-Kiev rebels must have shot down the plane with a Buk missile launcher a weapons system also in the possession of Kiev's military. What is his evidence? It's a series of photographs published in various media outlets that he cannot corroborate in any way. Instead, this "sleuth" is making his case based on faith faith that the photographs were taken where and when they claim to have been, and show what they claim to show.

Of course, it has since been publicly acknowledged on more than one occasion that photographs purporting to show Russian military incursions into Ukraine have been fabricated and/or misrepresented causing tremendous embarrassment for US and European governments that have repeatedly claimed to have such evidence. But our dear BM is unfazed by such revelations. Instead, he seems to simply shriek louder. Rather than leaving analysis of MH 17 to aviation and military experts, he peddles his "opinion." Rather than acknowledging the bias in his own reporting, to say nothing of the limitations of armchair technical analysis, he continues to grow his image, and with it, the lies, omissions, and distortions he propagates.

And so we return to the new "study" by Higgins and his Bellingcat group of "digital detectives." They are obviously front-and-center in the western media because their conclusions are aligned with the US-NATO political agenda. They are a de facto arm of the western corporate media and military-industrial complex, providing the veneer of "independent analysis" in order to penetrate the blogosphere and social media platforms where the mainstream narrative is being questioned, scrutinized, and discredited. Bellingcat and Higgins' names should be known to everyone, but not because their analysis is worthwhile. Rather, they need to become household names so that those who understand how western propaganda and soft power actually works, will be on the lookout for more of their disinformation.

Perhaps The Guardian should also be more careful in how it presents its information. By promoting Higgins and his discredited outfit, they are once again promoting disinformation for the purposes of selling war. The US almost went to war with Syria (which it is doing now anyway) based on the flawed intelligence and "analysis" of people like Higgins. Naturally, everyone remembers how The Guardian, like all of its corporate media brethren, helped to sell the Iraq War based on complete lies. Have they learned nothing? It would seem so.

But those interested in peace and truth, we have learned something about propaganda and lies used to sell war. We who have called out these lies repeatedly from Iraq in 2003, to Syria and Ukraine today we once again repudiate the false narrative and the drumbeat for war. We reject the corporate media propagandists and their "alternative media" appendages. We stand for peace. And unlike The Guardian and Higgins, we stand on firm ground.

Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

Eric Draitser received an email from blogger Bryan Hemming in response to the above piece:

Hi Eric,

Having read your latest article in counterpunch, I thought you might be interested to read my own little piece of armchair research into Bellingcat, published on my blog last September 10th, where I did a bit of digging into its funding: 'MH17 - Brazen censorship by The Independent.'

As for Shaun Walker, The Guardian archives appear to have been tampered with since you last looked. In There's Goes The Guardian Lying About Ukraine...Again! you mention a Guardian article Russian military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine by Shaun Walker published on August 15th 2014 where he claims to have witnessed a Russian armoured convoy crossing the border into Ukraine.

You say: "There is only the word of The Guardian's reporter Shaun Walker, who conveniently could not get a photograph or video of the alleged military vehicles crossing into Ukraine." As you correctly point out, the original article did not contain a photo of the convoy Walker claims to have seen. Yet, magically now it does. And Shaun Walker is given the credit for having snapped it. There is something a little disturbing about that claim, as to judge from the photo he would've had to have been driving one of the armoured vehicles in the convoy, or riding in it. Yet according to Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph, he and Walker had spotted a Russian armoured convoy driving through a hole in the fence, which separates Russia from Ukraine, at the dead of night.

I know very well the original didn't include the photo because I happen to have posted an article dealing with that very point on my blog. Shaun 'wish I'd brought my camera' Walker was published on August 17th 2014, the date can be verified from wordpress site records. Not only has the Walker article been tampered with but so has the headline. Now posted as Aid convoy stops short of border as Russian military vehicles enter Ukraine (the link is exactly the same as it is in my original article) it does contain a photo of a convoy, credited to Shaun Walker. Yet that photo did not appear in a Guardian article until November 12th 2014, when it accompanied a different article by Shaun Walker under the headline Russian tanks and troops crossing into Ukraine, says Nato commander. The photo of the convoy Walker claims to have witnessed, and was previously in the article, has been replaced by a video.

By removing the photo from the November 12th article to insert it into the August 15th article The Guardian brazenly attempts to give the August article credibilty it didn't formerly possess, as Walker didn't produce one shred of evidence to back his claim at the time. I know the photo wasn't there because I wrote another article about it called Shaun Walker is caught invading Ukraine by his own camera, which I posted on November 13th 2014.

This manipulation of the article by the placing of a photo which was not there previously is an exercise in deception. It demonstrates that The Guardian is content to alter evidence on extremely serious matters that threaten world peace and security.

Bryan Hemming

Draitser's Facebook posting is here: https://www.facebook.com/EricDraitser1/p...0258530348

Hemming's blog on the subject, How the Guardian changes history, is here: https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/...d-history/

[David Guyatt]

[quote=Paul Rigby]

Eric Draitser received an email from blogger Bryan Hemming in response to the above piece:

Hi Eric,

Having read your latest article in counterpunch, I thought you might be interested to read my own little piece of armchair research into Bellingcat, published on my blog last September 10th, where I did a bit of digging into its funding: 'MH17 - Brazen censorship by The Independent.'

As for Shaun Walker, The Guardian archives appear to have been tampered with since you last looked. In There's Goes The Guardian Lying About Ukraine...Again! you mention a Guardian article Russian military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine by Shaun Walker published on August 15th 2014 where he claims to have witnessed a Russian armoured convoy crossing the border into Ukraine.

You say: "There is only the word of The Guardian's reporter Shaun Walker, who conveniently could not get a photograph or video of the alleged military vehicles crossing into Ukraine." As you correctly point out, the original article did not contain a photo of the convoy Walker claims to have seen. Yet, magically now it does. And Shaun Walker is given the credit for having snapped it. There is something a little disturbing about that claim, as to judge from the photo he would've had to have been driving one of the armoured vehicles in the convoy, or riding in it. Yet according to Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph, he and Walker had spotted a Russian armoured convoy driving through a hole in the fence, which separates Russia from Ukraine, at the dead of night.

I know very well the original didn't include the photo because I happen to have posted an article dealing with that very point on my blog. Shaun 'wish I'd brought my camera' Walker was published on August 17th 2014, the date can be verified from wordpress site records. Not only has the Walker article been tampered with but so has the headline. Now posted as Aid convoy stops short of border as Russian military vehicles enter Ukraine (the link is exactly the same as it is in my original article) it does contain a photo of a convoy, credited to Shaun Walker. Yet that photo did not appear in a Guardian article until November 12th 2014, when it accompanied a different article by Shaun Walker under the headline Russian tanks and troops crossing into Ukraine, says Nato commander. The photo of the convoy Walker claims to have witnessed, and was previously in the article, has been replaced by a video.

By removing the photo from the November 12th article to insert it into the August 15th article The Guardian brazenly attempts to give the August article credibilty it didn't formerly possess, as Walker didn't produce one shred of evidence to back his claim at the time. I know the photo wasn't there because I wrote another article about it called Shaun Walker is caught invading Ukraine by his own camera, which I posted on November 13th 2014.

This manipulation of the article by the placing of a photo which was not there previously is an exercise in deception. It demonstrates that The Guardian is content to alter evidence on extremely serious matters that threaten world peace and security.

Bryan Hemming

Draitser's Facebook posting is here: https://www.facebook.com/EricDraitser1/p...0258530348

Hemming's blog on the subject, How the Guardian changes history, is here: https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/...d-history/

Very disturbing, but not very surprising. Yet it does show us the ethical standards in MSM journalism we are faced with these days. Lying and deceiving are SOP at the government level, so journo's reason why not theirs too. Or maybe they have to revise articles in the line with policy?

I always make a point of posting the full article with pics etc., for this exact reason. I have seen so many articles disappear from the face or the earth, or suffer re-editing (at least to the way I remembered them) that I just don't think anyone can trust electronic journalism to be anything but underhanded. It's the "Ministry of Truth" doing their "historical revision" and rewriting "past newspaper articles, so that the historical record always supports the party line" (see HERE).

Who, 30 years ago would've thought Orwell's 1984 would become a reality in the west. I certainly didn't.

[Paul Rigby]

China to Spain cargo train: Successful first 16,156-mile round trip on world's longest railway brings promise of increased trade

ALISTAIR DAWBER Tuesday 24 February 2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...67895.html

The first train to complete a journey on the world's longest railway line, connecting Spain and China, has returned home. The 16,156-mile round trip on the new Yixin'ou cargo line through China, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France and Spain took four months. The train arrived laden with cheap goods and returned to China with expensive olive oil.

The 82-container cargo train began its journey in November in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu. Packed full of Christmas trinkets and decorations, stationery and craft products, it arrived in Madrid on 14 December, in time for the thousands of small shops and Christmas markets to stock up on the cheap Chinese goods.

Before the Yixin'ou line was opened, goods traded between Europe and China depended on inefficient sea or air transport, meaning higher prices in Europe.

"The cargo train will boost economic exchange between Yiwu, the world's largest small commodity market, and Madrid, Europe's largest small commodity market," said Li Huihuan, manager of Yiwu CF International Logistics, which operates the train.

The train returned to Yiwu last weekend, carrying olive oil and other Spanish-made goods that are becoming popular in an increasingly affluent China.

The line is 450 miles longer than the previous record holder, the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects Vladivostok in the east of Russia, to Moscow. State media in Russia greeted the opening of the Yixin'ou by pointing out that containers on the new line must be changed three times during the journey from China to Spain, because tracks in the seven countries are of different gauges.

Nonetheless, the line's supporters hope that it will boost trade between the EU and China, which already stands at more than €1bn a day. Traders at both ends of the new track point out that the train provides a vastly faster service than seaborne goods and is substantially cheaper than air cargo.

Yiwu, a city of 1.2 million, is a booming example of modern China. The city's small commodities market is growing at an exponential rate and in 2014 combined imports and exports were valued at $23.7bn, a 28.6 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

According to the Chinese-state run news agency, Xinhua, 60 per cent of the world's Christmas trinkets are originally bought and sold in Yiwu's annual Christmas market. While traders in Madrid's Plaza Mayor and elsewhere will welcome the opening of the Yixin'ou railway, which should see the prices they pay for nativity scenes and Christmas lights fall, Yiwu is also famous for being the centre of the world's illegal counterfeiting industry.

Eamonn Fingleton wrote in his book about China's rapid economic growth that "Yiwu… functions as a sort of Wall Street' for the counterfeiting industry, providing a vast marketplace where… 100,000 counterfeit products are openly traded and 2,000 metric tonnes of fakes change hands daily".

[Paul Rigby]

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon?
Inside China's "New Normal"

by PEPE ESCOBAR
BEIJING

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/24/i...ew-normal/

Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you hear about in the Western media, with its falling industrial figures, its real estate bubble, and its looming environmental disasters. Prophecies of doom notwithstanding, as the dogs of austerity and war bark madly in the distance, the Chinese caravan passes by in what President Xi Jinping calls "new normal" mode.

"Slower" economic activity still means a staggeringly impressive annual growth rate of 7% in what is now the globe's leading economy. Internally, an immensely complex economic restructuring is underway as consumption overtakes investment as the main driver of economic development. At 46.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP), the service economy has pulled ahead of manufacturing, which stands at 44%.

Geopolitically, Russia, India, and China have just sent a powerful message westward: they are busy fine-tuning a complex trilateral strategy for setting up a network of economic corridors the Chinese call "new silk roads" across Eurasia. Beijing is also organizing a maritime version of the same, modeled on the feats of Admiral Zheng He who, in the Ming dynasty, sailed the "western seas" seven times, commanding fleets of more than 200 vessels.

Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing are at work planning a new high-speed railremix of the fabled Trans-Siberian Railroad. And Beijing is committed totranslating its growing strategic partnership with Russia into crucial financial and economic help, if a sanctions-besieged Moscow, facing a disastrous oil price war, asks for it.

To China's south, Afghanistan, despite the 13-year American war still being fought there, is fast moving into its economic orbit, while a planned China-Myanmar oil pipeline is seen as a game-changing reconfiguration of the flow of Eurasian energy across what I've long called Pipelineistan.

And this is just part of the frenetic action shaping what the Beijing leadership defines as the New Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road of the twenty-first century. We're talking about a vision of creating a potentially mind-boggling infrastructure, much of it from scratch, that will connect China to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe. Such a development will include projects that range from upgrading the ancient silk road via Central Asia to developing a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor; a China-Pakistan corridor through Kashmir; and a new maritime silk road that will extend from southern China all the way, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, to Venice.

Don't think of this as the twenty-first-century Chinese equivalent of America's post-World War II Marshall Plan for Europe, but as something far more ambitious and potentially with a far vaster reach.

China as a Mega-City

If you are following this frenzy of economic planning from Beijing, you end up with a perspective not available in Europe or the U.S. Here, red-and-gold billboards promote President Xi Jinping's much ballyhooed new tagline for the country and the century, "the Chinese Dream" (which brings to mind "the American Dream" of another era). No subway station is without them. They are a reminder of why 40,000 miles of brand new high-speed rail is considered so essential to the country's future. After all, no less than 300 million Chinese have, in the last three decades, made a paradigm-breaking migration from the countryside to exploding urban areas in search of that dream.

Another 350 million are expected to be on the way, according to a McKinsey Global Institute study. From 1980 to 2010, China's urban population grew by 400 million, leaving the country with at least 700 million urban dwellers. This figure is expected to hit one billion by 2030, which means tremendous stress on cities, infrastructure, resources, and the economy as a whole, as well as near-apocalyptic air pollution levels in some major cities.

Already 160 Chinese cities boast populations of more than one million. (Europe has only 35.) No less than 250 Chinese cities have tripled their GDP per capita since 1990, while disposable income per capita is up by 300%.

These days, China should be thought of not in terms of individual cities but urban clusters groupings of cities with more than 60 million people. The Beijing-Tianjin area, for example, is actually a cluster of 28 cities. Shenzhen, the ultimate migrant megacity in the southern province of Guangdong, is now a key hub in a cluster as well. China, in fact, has more than 20 such clusters, each the size of a European country. Pretty soon, the main clusters will account for 80% of China's GDP and 60% of its population. So the country's high-speed rail frenzy and its head-spinning infrastructure projects part of a $1.1 trillion investment in 300 public works are all about managing those clusters.

Not surprisingly, this process is intimately linked to what in the West is considered a notorious "housing bubble," which in 1998 couldn't have even existed. Until then all housing was still owned by the state. Once liberalized, that housing market sent a surging Chinese middle class into paroxysms of investment. Yet with rare exceptions, middle-class Chinese can still afford their mortgages because both rural and urban incomes have also surged.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is, in fact, paying careful attention to this process, allowing farmers to lease or mortgage their land, among other things, and so finance their urban migration and new housing. Since we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, however, there are bound to be distortions in the housing market, even the creation of whole disastrous ghost towns with associated eerie, empty malls.

The Chinese infrastructure frenzy is being financed by a pool of investments from central and local government sources, state-owned enterprises, and the private sector. The construction business, one of the country's biggest employers, involves more than 100 million people, directly or indirectly. Real estate accounts for as much as 22% of total national investment in fixed assets and all of this is tied to the sale of consumer appliances, furnishings, and an annual turnover of 25% of China's steel production, 70% of its cement, 70% of its plate glass, and 25% of its plastics.

So no wonder, on my recent stay in Beijing, businessmen kept assuring me that the ever-impending "popping" of the "housing bubble" is, in fact, a myth in a country where, for the average citizen, the ultimate investment is property. In addition, the vast urbanization drive ensures, as Premier Li Keqiang stressed at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, a "long-term demand for housing."

Markets, Markets, Markets

China is also modifying its manufacturing base, which increased by a multiple of 18 in the last three decades. The country still produces 80% of the world's air conditioners, 90% of its personal computers, 75% of its solar panels, 70% of its cell phones, and 63% of its shoes. Manufacturing accounts for 44% of Chinese GDP, directly employing more than 130 million people. In addition, the country already accounts for 12.8% of global research and development, well ahead of England and most of Western Europe.

Yet the emphasis is now switching to a fast-growing domestic market, which will mean yet more major infrastructural investment, the need for an influx of further engineering talent, and a fast-developing supplier base. Globally, as China starts to face new challenges rising labor costs, an increasingly complicated global supply chain, and market volatility it is also making an aggressive push to move low-tech assembly to high-tech manufacturing. Already, the majority of Chinese exports are smartphones, engine systems, and cars (with planes on their way). In the process, a geographic shift in manufacturing is underway from the southern seaboard to Central and Western China. The city of Chengdu in the southwestern province of Sichuan, for instance, is now becoming a high-tech urban cluster as it expands around firms like Intel and HP.

So China is boldly attempting to upgrade in manufacturing terms, both internally and globally at the same time. In the past, Chinese companies have excelled in delivering the basics of life at cheap prices and acceptable quality levels. Now, many companies are fast upgrading their technology and moving up into second- and first-tier cities, while foreign firms, trying to lessen costs, are moving down to second- and third-tier cities. Meanwhile, globally, Chinese CEOs want their companies to become true multinationals in the next decade. The country already has 73 companies in the Fortune Global 500, leaving it in the number two spot behind the U.S.

In terms of Chinese advantages, keep in mind that the future of the global economy clearly lies in Asia with its record rise in middle-class incomes. In 2009, the Asia-Pacific region had just 18% of the world's middle class; by 2030, according to the Development Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, that figure will rise to an astounding 66%. North America and Europe had 54% of the global middle class in 2009; in 2030, it will only be 21%.

Follow the money, and the value you get for that money, too. For instance, no less than 200,000 Chinese workers were involved in the production of the first iPhone, overseen by 8,700 Chinese industrial engineers. They were recruited in only two weeks. In the U.S., that process might have taken more than nine months. The Chinese manufacturing ecosystem is indeed fast, flexible, and smart and it's backed by an ever more impressive education system. Since 1998, the percentage of GDP dedicated to education has almost tripled; the number of colleges has doubled; and in only a decade, China has built the largest higher education system in the world.

Strengths and Weaknesses

China holds more than $15 trillion in bank deposits, which are growing by a whopping $2 trillion a year. Foreign exchange reserves are nearing $4 trillion. A definitive study of how this torrent of funds circulates within China among projects, companies, financial institutions, and the state still does not exist. No one really knows, for instance, how many loans the Agricultural Bank of China actually makes. High finance, state capitalism, and one-party rule all mix and meld in the realm of Chinese financial services where realpolitik meets real big money.

The big four state-owned banks the Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, and the Agricultural Bank of China have all evolved from government organizations into semi-corporate state-owned entities. They benefit handsomely both from legacy assets and government connections, or guanxi, and operate with a mix of commercial and government objectives in mind. They are the drivers to watch when it comes to the formidable process of reshaping the Chinese economic model.

As for China's debt-to-GDP ratio, it's not yet a big deal. In a list of 17 countries, it lies well below those of Japan and the U.S., according to Standard Chartered Bank, and unlike in the West, consumer credit is only a small fraction of total debt. True, the West exhibits a particular fascination with China's shadow banking industry: wealth management products, underground finance, off-the-balance-sheet lending. But such operations only add up to around 28% of GDP, whereas, according to the International Monetary Fund, it's a much higher percentage in the U.S.

China's problems may turn out to come from non-economic areas where the Beijing leadership has proven far more prone to false moves. It is, for instance, on the offensive on three fronts, each of which may prove to have its own form of blowback: tightening ideological control over the country under the rubric of sidelining "Western values"; tightening control overonline information and social media networks, including reinforcing "the Great Firewall of China" to police the Internet; and tightening further its control over restive ethnic minorities, especially over the Uighurs in the key western province of Xinjiang.

On two of these fronts the "Western values" controversy and Internet control the leadership in Beijing might reap far more benefits, especially among the vast numbers of younger, well educated, globally connected citizens, by promoting debate, but that's not how the hyper-centralized Chinese Communist Party machinery works.

When it comes to those minorities in Xinjiang, the essential problem may not be with the new guiding principles of President Xi's ethnic policy. According to Beijing-based analyst Gabriele Battaglia, Xi wants to manage ethnic conflict there by applying the "three Js": jiaowang, jiaoliu, jiaorong ("inter-ethnic contact," "exchange," and "mixage"). Yet what adds up to a push from Beijing for Han/Uighur assimilation may mean little in practice when day-to-day policy in Xinjiang is conducted by unprepared Han cadres who tend to view most Uighurs as "terrorists."

If Beijing botches the handling of its Far West, Xinjiang won't, as expected, become the peaceful, stable, new hub of a crucial part of the silk-road strategy. Yet it is already considered an essential communication link in Xi's vision of Eurasian integration, as well as a crucial conduit for the massive flow of energy supplies from Central Asia and Russia. The Central Asia-China pipeline, for instance, which brings natural gas from the Turkmen-Uzbek border through Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, is already adding a fourth line to Xinjiang. And one of the two newly agreed upon Russia-China pipelines will also arrive in Xinjiang.

The Book of Xi

The extent and complexity of China's myriad transformations barely filter into the American media. Stories in the U.S. tend to emphasize the country's "shrinking" economy and nervousness about its future global role, the way it has "duped" the U.S. about its designs, and its nature as a military "threat" to Washington and the world.

The U.S. media has a China fever, which results in typically feverish reports that don't take the pulse of the country or its leader. In the process, so much is missed. One prescription might be for them to read The Governance of China, a compilation of President Xi's major speeches, talks, interviews, and correspondence. It's already a three-million-copy bestseller in its Mandarin edition and offers a remarkably digestible vision of what Xi's highly proclaimed "China Dream" will mean in the new Chinese century.

Xi Dada ("Xi Big Bang" as he's nicknamed here) is no post-Mao deity. He's more like a pop phenomenon and that's hardly surprising. In this "to get rich is glorious" remix, you couldn't launch the superhuman task of reshaping the Chinese model by being a cold-as-a-cucumber bureaucrat. Xi has instead struck a collective nerve by stressing that the country's governance must be based on competence, not insider trading and Party corruption, and he's cleverly packaged the transformation he has in mind as an American-style "dream."

Behind the pop star clearly lies a man of substance that the Western media should come to grips with. You don't, after all, manage such an economic success story by accident. It may be particularly important to take his measure since he's taken the measure of Washington and the West and decided that China's fate and fortune lie elsewhere.

As a result, last November he made official an earthshaking geopolitical shift. From now on, Beijing would stop treating the U.S. or the European Union as its main strategic priority and refocus instead on China's Asian neighbors and fellow BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, with a special focus on Russia), also known here as the "major developing powers" (kuoda fazhanzhong de guojia). And just for the record, China does not consider itself a "developing country" anymore.

No wonder there's been such a blitz of Chinese mega-deals and mega-dealings across Pipelineistan recently. Under Xi, Beijing is fast closing the gap on Washington in terms of intellectual and economic firepower and yet its global investment offensive has barely begun, new silk roads included.

Singapore's former foreign minister George Yeo sees the newly emerging world order as a solar system with two suns, the United States and China. The Obama administration's new National Security Strategy affirms that "the United States has been and will remain a Pacific power" and states that "while there will be competition, we reject the inevitability of confrontation" with Beijing. The "major developing powers," intrigued as they are by China's extraordinary infrastructural push, both internally and across those New Silk Roads, wonder whether a solar system with two suns might not be a non-starter. The question then is: Which "sun" will shine on Planet Earth? Might this, in fact, be the century of the dragon?

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). His latest book is Empire of Chaos. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. This piece first appeared in TomDispatch.