IT’S THE OILCONOMY, STUPID Part 4 :  A DIALECTICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GEOPOLITICAL SYSTEMS OF CHINA AND USA

By EAB, November 2025

INTRODUCTION

The Western narrative that Japan initiated war against the USA in 1941 by a sneak attack on Pearl Harbour is Hollywood propaganda. It was in fact triggered by the USA which had imposed oil sanctions on Japan.

[su_note note_color=”#ebf1f7″ radius=”17″]Japan was certainly a brutal imperialist aggressor, having invaded northern China to create the puppet state of “Manchukuo” in 1931 and having killed, exploited and enslaved millions of Chinese and Koreans for resources and lebensraum. The one resource that limited Japanese ability to mine all other resources and to maintain and expand their empire was petroleum. China’s largest oilfield is Daqing in Northern China, however that was not discovered until 1959. In 1939, Japan imported 80% of its oil from the USA. For various reasons, not necessarily all noble, the USA cut off its oil exports to Japan. For their part, the USA was well aware this would force Japan to confront the USA and hence drag the USA into WW2 against Japan and its Axis ally Germany. The US oil sanctions forced Japan to source oil from elsewhere and the most logical location for them was Indonesia, the so-called Dutch East Indies at that time. The Japs knew invading Indonesia would require prior seizure of British Malaya and cause confrontation with the Allies, yet they felt they had no choice. They knew the industrial capacity and resource base of the USA was many times larger than Japan and they could not possibly win a long term military conflict, however in desperation they hoped that an airstrike against the three Pacific aircraft carriers based in Pearl Harbour would give them an early military advantage and once they secured the Indonesian oilfields, they could sue for peace with the USA.[/su_note]

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, all three US aircraft carriers, the kingpins of Pacific power projection for the US, just “happened” to be away at that time, hence were untouched by the raid. Many historians believe that Roosevelt had ample foreknowledge of the Japanese attack, that it was NOT a surprise attack, that it was engineered for a convenient time the USA knew their carriers would be out of port and that Roosevelt allowed it to happen to force the USA to join the war. It has also been argued that the true puppetmasters behind it all, who were interested in instigating worldwide war-for-profit, were the US bankers (“all wars are bankers wars”). Such an argument is utterly compelling if you “follow the money” and ask Cui Bono? regarding these world events.

IT’S THE OILCONOMY, STUPID.

Fast forward to 2012 when Obama declared his “Pivot to Asia”. This Orwellian term was far from benign and China was well aware that the real aim of the USA was to turn its gunsights on China to prevent its rise. If the USA could not compete on a level playing field, its default mode was to resort to sabotage of perceived competitors, whether economic or subversive (colour revolutions, sponsorship of separatist terrorists etc) or military. The fact that the USA subsequently placed 60% of its entire military assets in the Pacific theatre, based in three concentric “island kill chains” surrounding China (US doctrinal language), validated China’s concerns.

China began its “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI) in 2013, which would involve establishing transcontinental land and maritime routes, initially between China, Central Asia, West Asia and Russia. The Western narrative that China’s BRI was a form of Imperialist expansion is Hollywood propaganda.

[su_note note_color=”#ebf1f7″ radius=”17″]China stopped being an expensionist empire in 221 BCE. During the Ming voyages involving thousands of ships to South East Asia, India and Africa which began in 1405 almost a century before Columbus; China, despite having gunpowder and cannons, never attacked any States, they only sank a few pirate ships, then unilaterally chose to retreat into isolation for centuries, which led to their eventual stagnation and weakness.[/su_note]

What was the 2013 BRI all about? The Chinese say it is all about “win-win” trade, which is true to a degree. To them, trade is the way to wealth. The big picture aim of the CPC, as stated by them, was to achieve “moderate prosperity” for all Chinese, which they are now well on track to delivering, having lifted 800 million out of poverty the past few decades. Such prosperity requires resources and China is in fact quite poor in most resources, making trade absolutely essential for them, especially oil importation which is necessary for their industry and mass agriculture. Despite Daqing, China was actually very poor in domestic petroleum compared with oil rich USA, Russia, Central Asia (Caspian area) and West Asia and the latter three were perceived as important oil exporters to China.

China was and is under no illusion that the USA will eventually (not) attempt to curtail their access to oil to obstruct their rise. How so? Most oil exports to China are shipped by tanker. China uses around 16 million barrels per day and a single VLCC can contain as many as 2 million barrels, meaning that just 8 VLCCs can supply China’s entire requirements each day. Cut those off and the lights go out in China. Maritime oil deliveries go through various choke points, the most important being the Straits of Hormuz, Bab Al-Mandab, the Malacca Strait and the Sunda Strait. Hence it was of utmost importance that China establish alternative oil supply routes that could bypass those choke points. That is, I believe, one of the major reasons Xi Jinping embarked on the BRI.

Other ways that China could reduce their oil vulnerability was to electrify as much of their land transportation systems (high speed rail, metros, electric cars, buses and trucks) as possible which would be powered by non-oil, non-gas energy (hydroelectricity, solar power, wind power, nuclear power etc). Of course a major motivator to shift from ICE vehicles to electric vehicles was to eliminate the hazardous smog in Chinese cities, which proved to be spectacularly successful, but oil dependence reduction was equally important. Was establishing a new dominance in the electric car market important? Yes, but oil dependence reduction was equally important.Was reduction of carbon emissions important? Yes, but oil dependence reduction was equally important.

IT’S THE OILCONOMY, STUPID.

A DIALECTICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GEOPOLITICAL SYSTEMS OF CHINA AND USA

The scope and ambition of this title is so vast (it could easily occupy 50 essays) that I will provide only a big picture overview using summary bullet points and flow charts. I have included a few links which validate the assertions in the summaries.

In a nutshell:
– China makes things (ask any China trade partner); the USA breaks things (ask any Iranian, Syrian, Libyan, Iraqi, Palestinian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Cuban, VENEZUELAN, etc, etc).
– The Chinese economy is a real, productive economy; the US economy is a fake (financialised), parasitic (sucks blood from the rest of the world and ordinary US citizens) economy. – The Chinese banking system is publicly owned and works for the people; the US banking system is privately owned and works for the bankers.
– The Chinese political system involves democracy at grassroots (municipal) level and meritocracy at the top; the US political system enshrines legalised bribery (Citizens United ruling), oppression by militarised police (defacto abandoning posse comitatus – “Portland is burning down every night so we must send the National Guard in” blah blah) and overall Kleptocracy. Various studies eg from Princeton/NW university, showed unequivocally that the USA is an oligarchy (all politcal decisions favour corporations) and not a democracy (no political decisions favour the people).
– Legitimacy of governance is achieved by delivery of real benefit to ordinary people – the Chinese government had > 90% approval rating according to Western surveys eg by Harvard which reflected real world outcomes eg rising life expectancy, low cost of living etc. https://jasonhickel.substack.com/p/studies-show-strong-public-support

Meanwhile, Trump now has a net negative 11% approval level accompanied by falling life expectancy, rising cost of living etc.

DE FACTO U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

[su_note note_color=”#ebf1f7″ radius=”17″]Here is my summary of de facto US foreign policy* as described by Professor Michael Hudson, with some input from John Perkins of “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” fame. It is entirely based on hard evidence, is easily digestible, easily remembered and easily repeatable for those who wish to spread the truth.[/su_note]

(*AKA the US economic model as the principal unprincipled global parasite, perpetrating predatory usury, protection racket extortion and plunder on other countries). These are the steps:

1. POLITICAL CAPTURE of the foreign country –
Using various tactics on a sliding scale of escalation:
– bribery/blackmail of existing leaders if already corrupt or corruptible (eg Javier Milei of Argentina, all current Western European leaders). If not feasible then…
– perversion of political / electoral process to manufacture consent for the installation of the selected US poodle (eg Marcos Jr in the Philippines). If not feasible then…
– lawfare using corrupt courts and judges to exclude undesirable socialist leaders (eg Lula and Dilma of Brazil), or exclude undesirable Russian-leaning popular election candidates (eg Romania, Moldova in 2024). If not feasible then…
– CIA assassination of elected leaders (many many examples…. may include wholesale slaughter of millions of people AKA the Jakarta method). If not feasible then…
– colour revolution /coup d’etats (which may also include assassination of leaders, eg Allende). If not feasible then…
– Direct US bombing (eg Libya) or US invasion (eg Iraq). If not feasible then…Long term economic sanctions / trade blockade of countries (eg DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria)

2. Once political capture is achieved and PUPPET POODLES are installed, they institute PRIMARY PRODUCTION POLICIES to prevent food sovereignty and instead promote cash crop production for cheap export to USA. Dependency on the USA for grain imports is imposed. Also prevent establishment of high-value industries and instead promote extraction of unrefined raw materials for cheap export to USA.

3. Institute PREDATORY LOANS (denominated in USD, of course) to fund PREPOSTEROUS PROFITEERING PROJECTS conducted by US contractors, which will NOT BENEFIT THE ORDINARY POPULATION (eg hydroelectric dams to provide electricity to only the richest comprador suburbs = bribery for loyalty of the 5th columnists), for the US to pursue perfidious price gouging.

4. Apply PROTECTION RACKET EXTORTION pretending to provide security against one or more external bogeymen or domestic terrorists (often created and funded by the USA, eg Israel or ISIS). This involves sale of overpriced underperforming US weapons (why? because…. interoperability!) and the establishment of US military bases in that foreign country, preferably funded by that foreign country itself eg Qatar

5. PLUNDER: When predatory loans from the IMF or World Bank inevitably default, then enforce austerity on the foreign populace to cut national expenditure and sell off natural resources / natural monopolies (eg national electricity and water grids) at rock bottom prices to US interests, eg Blackrock or Blackstone or other blackguards, for asset stripping or to pursue price gouging RENTIER parasitism. Then issue new loans from IMF or World Bank to pay off the old loans, thus further increasing the national debt of the foreign country, and when that inevitably defaults, enforce another round of austerity and asset selloffs, then issue new loans to pay off old loans, thus further increasing the national debt, and when that inevitably defaults…. rinse and repeat, you get the idea.

In summary, remember the 5Ps of US foreign policy, practiced by the most egregious PARASITE NATION in human history:
– POLITICAL CAPTURE
– PRIMARY PRODUCTION POLICIES pursued by the PUPPET POODLES
– PREDATORY LOANS from the IMF or World bank in USD for PREPOSTEROUS
          PROFITEERING PROJECTS
– PROTECTION RACKET EXTORTION
– PLUNDER and penury perpetrated on the populace

All of the above are enabled and facilitated by US PROPAGANDA (via US media eg VOA, and US governmental “non”-governmental organisations eg NED, USAID), which nauseatingly bloviate that the US is promoting freedom and democracy abroad, when it is in reality imposing economic slavery and autocracy on foreign countries.

Orwell would be so proud.

Links from a Geopolitical Economy substack reader ChatterX:

How to Overthrow a Government: The US Colour Revolution Playbook:

youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGlZDKjTtM
Summary

The video provides an in-depth analysis of the “Colour Revolution Playbook,” a strategy frequently employed by the United States to orchestrate regime changes in foreign countries under the guise of promoting democracy. These colour revolutions typically begin with disputed elections and mass protests, often appearing as grassroots democratic movements but are in reality heavily influenced, funded, and directed by foreign actors, primarily the U.S. The playbook involves a systematic sequence of tactics, including economic warfare, propaganda, funding opposition groups, organizing protests, employing force, and consolidating power under a U.S.-friendly regime. Historical examples such as Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and Libya illustrate how these tactics have been used over decades to destabilise governments that resist U.S. interests.

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Economic sanctions and embargoes are used to cripple economies and create public dissatisfaction. Media control and propaganda amplify anti-government narratives to justify intervention and delegitimize targeted regimes. Opposition groups are funded, armed, and trained to act as the vanguard of regime change, often with little genuine popular support. Mass protests and demonstrations are organized or manipulated to simulate popular uprisings, while covert operations and intelligence agencies work behind the scenes to neutralise loyal security forces and political opposition. Once the government is toppled, the U.S. supports the installation and consolidation of a compliant regime to secure American geopolitical and economic interests.

The video also discusses U.S. policy toward Iran, detailing a Brookings Institution report outlining multiple strategies for regime change, many of which have been implemented through sanctions, propaganda, and covert support for opposition groups. The Russian post-Soviet era is analyzed to show how Western-backed oligarchs and economic shock therapy devastated the economy and society while consolidating wealth and power. The U.S. approach to Venezuela demonstrates the use of sanctions and support for opposition leaders to destabilize the Maduro government. The consequences of these interventions often include prolonged instability, weakened governance, and increased suffering for ordinary citizens.

Finally, the video critiques the hypocrisy of U.S. claims to promote democracy and human rights, highlighting how these interventions often violate international law and undermine local institutions. It notes that targeted countries increasingly resist U.S. influence by strengthening regional alliances and developing alternative economic and security arrangements, contributing to the emergence of a multipolar world order. The video concludes with a call for awareness of these covert operations and the possibility of a better, more just global system beyond imperialist interventions.

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Every Leader The US Has Assassinated:

youtube.com/watch?v=lM_p4QhuBVE

US launched 251 military interventions since 1991, and 469 since 1798:

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions-1991/

“When Plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they will create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it” -Frederic Bastiat

Commentary from Prof Richard Wolff:

youtube.com/shorts/h-6Bo4DupHg

DE FACTO U.S. DOMESTIC POLICY

Here is my summary of de facto US domestic policy* as described by Professor Michael Hudson and other experts, eg Prof Radhika Desai, bank auditor Lena Petrova.
These are the steps:

1. POLITICAL CAPTURE of the all the pillars of power in the USA by CAPITALIST BIG MONEY: the Presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the military, the police, the judiciary, media, intelligence agencies, etc.

[su_note note_color=”#ebf1f7″ radius=”17″]Who are the CAPITALIST BIG MONEY players who therefore control the Deep State? They range from traditional private banking cartels to investment/hedge fund managers, and private equity Vulture Capitalists, to modern-day Tech Bro Mafia. These are the puppet masters behind the curtain, the wizards of Oz.[/su_note]

Capture is done by:
– legalised bribery of all decision makers in all sectors (exemplified by Citizens United court verdict that there is no limit to monetary contributions to political campaigns)
– blackmail of “leaders” is more covert but undoubtedly equally pervasive, and the public can only guess at how truly widespread it is by the refusal of TPTB to release the Epstein files, etc.,
– assassination of inconvenient Deep State opponents is also more commonplace than we know, from the famous cases of JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom X, etc to lesser known targets such as journalist Gary Webb who exposed CIA drug crimes and who the CIA claimed committed suicide by shooting himself in the head TWICE.
– Elections are entirely rigged to ensure any candidate with any chance of victory is always a pawn of capitalist big money. Whoever you vote for, you always get John McCain. In the two party, first past the post, electoral college system, the only two candidates allowable are both corrupt pawns of Big Money. Each party has mechanisms to ensure presidential nominees can never again be democratic choices of the people, eg JFK, but will always be Big Money Pawns, eg the super delegate voting system within the DNC, which in 2016 and 2020 prevented Bernie Sanders from becoming the “Democratic” party nominee. (NOT that Sanders was or is a truly reliable”progressive”. The man is, after all, a social democrat, a sheepdog in the service of the same establishment interests, albeit speaking a more “radical” language.—Ed).  Other tactics ensured Jill Stein was denied ballot status in many states and could never reach anywhere near (the coveted) 5% threshold vote.

2. Consent to be ruled is manufactured by PROPAGANDA

3. Once political capture is achieved and PUPPET POODLE POLITICIANS are installed, they institute POLICIES OF PREFERENCE OF THE PARASITES OVER THE PRODUCERS so the parasites can railroad through their self serving policies to the detriment of everyone else. This explains the widening wealth inequality, worsening living conditions of ordinary people and crumbling public infrastructure in the USA.

4. The basic agenda of Capitalist Big Money is to CHASE the HIGHEST FINANCIAL RETURNS possible irrespective of any adverse consequences to ordinary people or the environment, dismissively termed “externalities”. Much of this involves fraud, eg stock market manipulations (eg share buybacks to create Ponzi pyramids, then shorting those stocks just before pulling the plug and when asset prices crash, buy assets back at rock bottom prices. This is similar to what happened with the GFC of 2008/9).

It must be emphasised that the disciplines of political science (both domestic and foreign policy analyses) and economics are artificial divisions, and are so intertwined that they must be considered one and the same discipline (described by Prof Desai as Geopolitical Economics)

Jay Shapiro – Dilemma Podcast

Aug 12, 2025 The Dilemma Podcast

Political economist Radhika Desai offers a Marxist reading of today’s global crises — from Gaza to the dollar’s fragility. We unpack why she believes capitalism has reached its monopoly stage, why it cannot function without imperialism, and how those contradictions shape everything from U.S. foreign policy to BRICS. Gaza becomes a stark example of how imperial systems maintain power, revealing the collapse of Western moral authority and the violent logic built into capitalism itself. FREE DOWNLOAD (thanks to Knowledge Unlatched) Capitalism Coronavirus and War https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.5…

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Where were, are and will likely be the highest financial returns of the past, present and future?
– Bank usury
– War profiteering via the MIC
– Fossil fuel profiteering

– Deindustrialisation
– The other major rentier sector today is called Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis, the establishment of digital monopolies in money grubbing rentier / advertising / propaganda digital platforms eg PayPal, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Uber, Air BnB etc.

– The biggest aspirational rentier enterprise on the US Techbro agenda is digital AGI, requiring heaps of super-high-end chips by NVIDIA, and LLM by software companies like “Open” AI (= closed AI) costing multiple $billions and using shitoads of energy. This US enterprise was vampire- staked and zombified by the advent of China’s DeepSeek, truly open AI (=completely free) using a handful of mediocre chips and a pittance of energy and costing less than $6 million.

– The above have led to the USA spending far beyond its means for decades, now with $38 trillion in public debt, $20 trillion in private debt, multiple other unfunded liabilities (pensions, veterans’ benefits, welfare etc) amounting to many trillions, an obscenely overvalued stockmarket (more than $30 trillion), ONE QUADRILLION of illusory IOUs in derivatives, etc, etc. This is US debt and shares that can NEVER be redeemed.

– The US stock market is an everything bubble that WILL collapse, however we just do not know exactly when. Even Quisling stooge countries know this fact, eg Japan, which responded to the Trump tariffs in April and consequent US stockmarket decline by selling off US TBills, which is the opposite of what always happened in the past (countries always bought US TBills in response to US stockmarket declines). This shows that the Global Majority is losing confidence in any US debt securities they may hold, quite apart from the fact that the USA could steal their gold or US-denominated sovereign funds at any time. It is only a matter of time before the Global Majority get rid of such debt based US “assets” and Ponzi shares, which will mean the end of the US debt based financialised fraudulent economy.

5. US Capitalist Big Money is therefore now in the process of “grabbing anything that is not nailed down” (quote from Michael Hudson) and working out how to default on their debts while preserving their personal assets and maintaining control over US monetary policy and public finances. Hyperinflating the existing US dollar, then completely abolishing it by transitioning to one or more crypto-based programmable and surveillable CBDCs are possible strategies.

THE USA WILL GO BANKRUPT, COLLAPSE AND BREAK UP (Judge Andrew Napolitano), which is exactly what the USA tried to do to Russia, now on an economic rise and civilisational resurgence. Talk about Karma.

Judge Nappy also refers to specific situations in which the US Deep State has coerced, threatened and likely blackmailed US decision makers to do the bidding of Capitalist Big Money, in keeping with the model I outlined above on US domestic policy.

Alex Krainer, financial and geopolitical expert: “All wars are bankers wars”:

This essay is already waaay too long so I shall end it here.  With regard to details about China’s domestic and foreign policies, I recommend these links:

Carlos Martinez:

Jerry Grey has lived in China for decades and rode a pushbike several times, North to South and East to West:

Socialism is just better, scientifically—