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Non-archive: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/world/asia/china-tariffs-trade-warning.html

This is actually some interesting strategy from the US. Rather than trying to actually reindustrialise the USA itself, they could move their offshore labour to some other aspiring third world country. The carrot of becoming a “Second China” against the stick of suffering sanctions could be enough to convince some massive country like the Philippines to also embargo China.

They can also extract more surplus than corporations in China due to less labour regulation and class struggle.

Vietnam seems like a prime candidate to become to China what China was to the USSR in the 70s. Despite statements of solidarity and friendship, they can easily fill China’s niche in the world market.

Ironically, this competition between the old economic bloc and the nascent Chinese one could lead to industrialisation efforts in the periphery of both.

I’m not as positive on China as most users here, so I see a clear incentive for Chinese capital to invest in dependent primary sector development at the periphery of their bloc, as investing in advanced manufacturing is both competition in their own bloc and creating a replacement for the NATO bloc. On the other hand, any “second China” can’t be held down economically, so it’ll need a tighter leash through military dependence by surrounding them with war.

My candidates for those besides the usual Europe, Israel and Japan are Chile, Philippines, Vietnam and possibly even occupied and reconstructed Ukraine after the war.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.mlOP
    0·
    5 days ago

    Brazil is distancing itself from China at such a fast pace that some analysts are predicting it’ll leave BRICS after a right wing victory in the next election.

    Do you have any idea how many more people China has compared to Vietnam?

    Yes, 14 times. I’m not saying it is going to be easy or that it’ll be concentrated on a single country like it was with China. In fact, I believe that some fragmentation will be optimal to prevent China 2 from just doing what China did.

    The USA is looking for lebensraum.

    The US doesn’t need Lebensraum because they already have colonies and barely any national industry. Incorporating Canada and subduing Mexico for geopolitical reasons aren’t incompatible with trying to replace China in the international division of labour.

    Surplus value must be extracted from somewhere, and although Mexico and Canada have their industries it’ll not be enough and too close to home to be too heavy handed.

    That’s not even considering how ideologically communist Vietnam is.

    China, Vietnam and the USSR were all nominally communists when Kissinger was playing the three of them against each other. The superstructure follows the base, and unless both countries integrate their economies or at least make SolidNet into a proper successor to the Third International, I won’t hold my breath. Right now the CPV is already negotiating zero tariffs with the US.

    The only countries I would seriously bet on staying with China are Venezuela, Iran, Russia, the DPRK and Cuba, and possibly the AES. And that’s just because they are so economically desintegrated from the world economy that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, for both their proletariat and (if it exists) their bourgeoisie.