Is the Chinese economy growing very rapidly
At issue are two different views of how economies should evolve. China is moving for its own trading bloc instead of being in a privatized pro-corporate bloc, it’s a mixed economy. So what you have is the Chinese economy growing very rapidly, and the American economy that’s been going flat.
In a situation like this there’s not really much to say. China and the United States have announced pretty much what they were going to do anyway and make it appear as if they’re all doing it in harmony.
President Obama was talking mainly to his American base, and to the Republican Party in particular to work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His vision is an agreement that will abolish government regulation of the environment, abolish regulation of banking, and implicitly nullify the Dodd-Frank Act. If a bank misbehaves or a government requires higher reserve requirements, then under the new international law that Mr. Obama is pushing, the government have to pay the private bank as if it weren’t regulated. And if a government imposes environmental fines on a company for polluting the environment, the government will have to pay the company whatever it would have made if it didn’t have any such fines.
The big news in the American press is that China has agreed to lower its air pollution. Well, of course China has to do this. If you’ve been in Beijing, you know it’s a polluted city. So this is just an announcement of where it’s going. Russia announced at the meetings a $400 billion 30-year gas deal with China to increase gas exports, with some oil also going to China. So China will scale back its coal plants, and there’ll be less coal smoke in the air.
Mr. Obama said that the United States is also going to cut back carbon emissions. But he’s still pushing for the XL Pipeline with Alberta to bring tar sands oil into the United States. That is the most high polluting activity on the planet.
