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| US taxpayer will have to sacrifice more for this |
There is also the growing military might of China that is presenting a problem for US imperialism which at the moment has air superiority in the region. The US has the world's only fully operational stealth fighter, the F22 but cut funding for it in 2009, relying instead on the smaller F35 under the assumption that the Chinese wouldn't be able to produce a similar aircraft until 2020.
But as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with China's Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi to discuss better relationships between the militaries of the two countries, the Chinese tested their new stealth fighter, the J20. If this plane can compete with the F22, this has "serious implications" for the US. the Wall Street Journal reports as it will mean it will no longer be able to maintain air superiority in the region. It appears that the Chinese are a bit ahead of schedule. Imagine it, having the world's most effective and dangerous fighter aircraft and being the only one to have it.
They all talk about "level playing fields" but in the capitalist world there is no such thing. Capitalism is a state of war, it is not about "level" anything, except leveling your competition. Now the US will have to try to one up the Chinese otherwise it slips to second place in the warfare department; it shows how insane the capitalist competitive economy is; it can never guarantee peace and instead threatens life as we know it. . "This is absolutely designed to compete with the F22...They want to be able to control the air space in the surrounding area" says one analyst. We are talking about the area around China mind you. I have yet to see Chinese warships and planes carrying out military exercises in the Caribbean.
Gates and his Chinese counterpart also discussed trade. One issue was the sale of locomotives to Pakistan (see we do sell them more than weapons). The Chinese, not being an OECD member country give nations that buy their stuff real cheap deals, deals that OECD member countries cannot according to set rules. The US Export/Import bank has just agreed to assist General Electric in a financial arrangement that will allow GE to "match China's cheaper financing terms." so the US company will make the sale as opposed to China.
The US wants to work with the OECD to get a "level playing field" with regards to trade. There's that phrase again. But here's what makes me laugh. Export/Import Bank Chairman, Fred Hochberg is pissed. "They're winning (the Chinese) deals in part because they're not playing by the rules." he whines. The arrogance of it. What rules? Just a few days ago, Wikileaks released US cables that revealed a communication between the US embassy in Paris and Washington that called on the Obama administration to wage a "military style trade war" against the French and other countries in Europe that are opposed to Genetically Modified crops. The US wants to wage this war on behalf of Monsanto, a US corporation.
We have also been made aware that the US spies on UN delegates, threatens countries that receive aide that if they don't vote the US capitalism's way at the UN the aide will be cut off. There are no rules, there is no "level playing field." The only rule is, don't get caught. Talk of "transparency" is bunk. The Chinese elite are as bad of course, but they are a rising power not an established one and their influence as yet is not quite the same.
On the discussion of the test flight of the new aircraft, US officials refused to release further details "Citing diplomatic protocol" says the Journal.
If transparency was so important Wikileaks would not be under fire and its co-founder hounded by the US government. Reading about the developments in Chinese/US relations today it makes me think about why the global capitalist class hates Wikileaks, especially the US bourgeois; "diplomatic protocol" is exposed for the sham that it is.
Free Bradley Manning, defend Wikileaks
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