The European hope is that by trading the USA for China, that some of the old fashioned mercantile fairy dust will rejuvenate their moribund economies. When one points out that Pacific trade has outgrown Atlantic trade, and that Occidental-Oriental trade is a mere fraction of Pacific trade, the Europeans are the first to tell you that this is anomalous. The Europeans are the quickest to talk about some Mackinder World Island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History) as if an old theory was any substitute for our lying eyes, or trade data.
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/saudi-sand-castles-built-on-imported
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/inflation-pain-tolerance
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/ruble-vs-yuan-part-2
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/the-russian-financial-superpower
Eurasia could never unify, much less bridge with Africa... never mind Europe itself. This notion that in the 21st century, there will be a trade network that will do what Genghis Khan, the British, and Russia failed to do—it's absurd. Belt and Road is a loss leader that China can no longer afford. The World Island is a supposition that has no basis in empiricism. The Silk Road was replaced by naval trade over five hundred years ago. That hardly deters European jingoists. This is why the Europeans are especially fascinated by the promises of China's 'One Belt, One Road,' boondoggle. It's a grand future that someone else planned and built, with a leading role for great and mighty Europe. Beats the shameful past where America prevented German and Russian hegemony over Europe, only to have a shadow society of the same old European nobility survive to run its banks and political institutions. That's a past where America won't stop reminding the Europeans they fucked it all up. And that we have to run their stupid empires for them. But even if the Europeans lost the taste for cruelty, they brought their taste for hypocrisy to ever greater heights. They want the fruits of empire, without all that nasty blood and iron. They don't like the way the US runs things and expect a PRC run international order to be better.
The Europeans always want to be a part of something bigger, even as they remain distinct. They were 'Christendom' and then they were 'Civilized' and then they were 'Developed' and then they were 'White' and then they were 'European' and now they aspire to be 'World Islanders.' They want to ditch the colonies, but maintain the colonial relationship (France's monetary relationship with West Africa being a case in point)
The European identity is interwoven with notions of superiority. It's why it's so psychologically damaging to their psyche to have their weaknesses enumerated. The relationship with the United States is a constant reminder of Old Europe's suicide. This is why the Europeans are so enamored with the idea that China is ascendant. “We were number two in the US led system and we did great. Number two in the Chinese system will be even better!” They fail to understand their own narrative: that European empires passed over to an Anglo-American empire, and that the Chinese now threaten to take over that Anglo-American empire. Nowhere in that narrative is there a confrontation that Europe is too weak to take back its old empires. Number two? Yeah right. Maybe number four.Is Europe going to do better with a China with which they have almost no blood ties, compared to a United States where they do? So unlikely. I'm not talking about Britain or Russia. Europe itself has always rejected Russia as part of Europe, and the Anglophone world spans multiple continents, so consider this a preemptive strike against jackasses with atlases.
It took me a while to notice this data pattern. Originally, many of my readers came from Moon of Alabama (a German website... Anglophone no less... why not write in Deutsch if they hate us so?), because they interpreted my Russia political-economic census (https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/one-trillion-dollars-in-2023-how) to be anti-American and therefore pro-world island. Whenever I wrote something along the lines of 'Russia surprisingly strong. Crush like Hulk,' they loved it. I'd get more subscribers. The anti-Jewish sentiment bothered me, but I'm used to it because I spent so many years with American leftists. That should have been my first sign that European alternative analysis was mentally diseased and on as bad foundations as the American Left and alt-Right . When they started huffing that dedollarization paint-thinner, I knew I had to correct the record. My false assumption was that alternative analysis was like open source development: that everybody would share innovations and bad old models would get discarded, and new, better models would be embraced. It offended them when I tried politely explaining why America was fundamentally stronger than China.
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/america-runs-on-geniuses-and-burns
I failed to recognize that these fragmented emotional containers needed a home.
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/the-predictive-power-of-holistic
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/conspiracy-lobotomy-how-conspiracy
https://aaronlee.substack.com/p/the-origins-of-the-woke-mind-virus
They needed a container for a unifying thesis to join European supremacy, anti-America narratives, pro-China fairy-tales, a supposedly 'anti-war' worldview that's oddly in favor of Russian militarism—but only because it furthers 'world island' goals, anti-Jewish sentiment (to deflect off the fact that European banks are mostly run by nobles/ex-noble bloodlines), European 'goodness' (in an atheistic post-Christendom way)(“we're better than Christians, because we don't need to believe in God to be good”) with being superficially 'anti-war' and 'pro-refugee', and of course participation in trade with the global empire they built and have a hand in operating. When I pointed out that China's economy is eating shit and this is well deserved, and that the declining trend accelerated at just the exact moment 'dedollarization' talk was at its most promiscuous—they mass unsubscribed. It was only ten or so, but it correlated with a proportionate drop off of direct hits. When I investigated yesterday, it turns out I lost most of my European readership. And what's funny, is that those subscribers were replaced with Americans. Not my local California maniacs (although there are some, who I presume are as disgruntled as I am). Saner people from New York, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. It was an interesting data point and the only correlation I could find was a big drop off on the days where I pointed out I was right and rubbed salt in the wounds of dedollarizers, who will never admit to being wrong (I'm sure they'll say they were just 'early.').
The sad truth is that Europe is in a decline that started over 100 years ago and Europeans are angry about it. That's why even though WW2 birthed our modern era, they fixate on WW1—the death of their era. Their decline isn't just demographic and it isn't just political. It's an ideological malaise. They've had many chances to fix things. Instead, they treat the things they've inherited as if custody was the same as creation. They are custodians of the international trading and political order. They don't run it. They are given permission because they are America's cousins, not because they have much inherent strength of their own. They can't even manage migrant insurrections. They want to reduce carbon emissions and then wind up burning coal, because they didn't plan on Russian gas supplies getting cut. They want to command Russia, though they lack the military means to back their words. This is clownish. And those in the European counter-culture fixate on the wrong issues. They want to blame America for all wars, as if that would absolve them for their own. This is why they want to blame Israel for the same jihad that attacks France, Germany, Italy, and Britain—because they don't want to accept that anti-Jewish hatred is unfounded, irrational, and based in a need to absolve Europe for the Holocaust. They want to blame America for European weakness. And they believe that China is their salvation—the hypocritical fools.
Kunstler is singing harmony with you, Aaron.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/father-of-our-country/