CHINA

ANDRE VLTCHEK—Some 20 years ago, China and its socialist project, were still in the ‘unfinished stage’. There were big differences in standards of living, between the urban areas in the east, and the countryside. Transportation was inadequate. Pollution in the industrial cities was very, very bad. Tens of millions of people were trying to migrate from the countryside to the cities, in search of jobs and a better living, putting great strains on the social system of the nation.

Those who did not like China had plenty of ‘ammunition’ when criticizing it then. The country was moving forward, but the task to make it prosperous, clean, and healthy appeared to by Sisyphean.

What followed was an absolute miracle, unprecedented in human history. Only the Soviet Union before the WWII registered greater growth and improvement of the standards of living of its people, than China did in the two last decades.

ALEX RUBINSTEIN—Just over a year before Senator Josh Hawley came under fire for egging on a supposed six-hour insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, he and Senator Ted Cruz partook in a yearlong, full-fledged insurrection in China funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which featured actions more typical of insurrections such as widespread vigilant violence, property destruction, road blockades, occupations, serious vandalism of the local legislature building, vehicular attacks on police officers and knife attacks against enemy politicians.

Mere days following the IRF Summit, Hawley and Cruz teamed up yet again, filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging them to overrule their previous decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion in the United States.

ERIC ZUESSE—After WW II, when FDR’s America was allied with China against Japan, Truman’s America (the source of neoconservatism, or overt U.S. imperialism) supported the anti-communist Chinese, not mainland China, and therefore generally backed Taiwan’s independence from the mainland. However, that intense Trumanesque U.S. neoconservatism ended formally with the 1972 Shanghai Communique. And Biden is now considering whether America will go to war in order not only to restore, but now to further intensify, Truman’s neoconservative, imperialistic, U.S. thrust — going beyond even Truman.

JEFF J. BROWN—Ms. Meng was apprehended in Vancouver, Canada on 1 December 2018 at the behest of the United States, to be extradited south of the 49th parallel. Since then, she has been battling in court and in the headlines to show that US charges of fraud are unfounded, and that she should be released. Since that time Ms. Meng has been under house arrest in Vancouver for 2.5 years, grinding out endless testimonies>

MICHAEL HUDSON—As Amar Bhide pointed out in a landmark Harvard Business Review article, Efficient Markets, Deficient Governance, anonymous, freely traded shares inherently lead to poor governance. Public companies cannot share critical business information that investors need to make informed decisions. Transient shareholders also lack the motivation and means to improve the performance of the companies they’ve invested in. Bhide has pointed out in other venues that while all other types of investments, such as derivatives and venture capital, existed in pre-modern times, arms length share trading did not because stock is a legally vague and weak promise.