GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
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#1 CHINA AND JAPAN
#2 CHINA AND AUSTRALIA
#3 CHINA AND JACK PERRY – PART 4
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#1 CHINA AND JAPAN – TENSIONS INCREASE
NIKKEI ASIA
“For years Japan has sought a “special relationship” with the U.S. one similar to the bonds that exist between the U.S. and the U.K.
SUCH HOPES were shattered Monday, when U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, ahead of all trading partners, declaring the relationship “far from Reciprocal” and announcing a unilateral 25% tariff on all Japanese goods exports to the U.S.
Officials in Tokyo had believed that Japan’s massive foreign-direct-investment footprint in the U.S. and its centrality to the China-Taiwan question would protect it from blunt trade pressure. They were incorrect.
“Japan is holding on to a set of assumptions about alliances, cost-benefit calculations and grand strategy that no longer fully apply,” said Lizzi Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. “The old political and economic logic, where security contributions and political alignment bought you economic indulgence, seems to carry much less weight”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
The U.S. – Japan relationship has, hitherto, been the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in the Far East but the above article from Nikkei Asia is evidence that fractures have appeared in the alliance which call into question the permanence of the U.S. anti-China thrust.
This undermines speeches and articles emanating from Washington that there is a strong international anti-China alliance of leading countries. Fragmentation – not Unity – is the order of the day. China has made itself too successful, too vibrant, too important. In fact too irresistible.
It has been many years since China was committed to promoting revolution in the Third World countries. China is now very focused on the idea of non-interference in the internal affairs of countries with whom it has relations. The U.S. CIA and the UK M.I.5 made big play of Chinese espionage at a joint press conference in London approximately 18 months ago but little has appeared in the media to justify their collective fanfare.
The growing appeal of China to the 150 countries it has involved in the Belt and Road Initiative is one part of the explanation of the changing balance in world power. There is another explanation – The U.S. is suffering from Imperial Overreach.
The U.S. is stretched. Its 800+ military bases make calls upon the U.S. defence budget that Washington is struggling to meet.
This much is clear from a recently published U.S. document entitled “Aligning Global Military Posture with U.S. Interests,”. It is written by Jennifer Kavanagh, Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates a foreign policy of restraint, and Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser at the Defense Department and a veteran of the Iraq War. The paper is their precursor to the Pentagon’s Global Posture Review, which is expected to be released later in the year.
The authors propose;-
- U.S. military should reduce the number of U.S. forces deployed to South Korea TO around 10,000, not the 28,500 of today
- The U.S. presence in Okinawa should reduce to around 14,000 troops, from the current 26,000, This would facilitate the closure of some of the Okinawa bases.
As of now, there are a total of over 200,000 American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen deployed overseas. Forward-deployed military power has long been seen as key to maintaining global stability, reassuring allies and preventing aggression by adversaries.
But, the authors now contend that the U.S. military is overstretched and provides few benefits. “In an era of increasingly strict U.S. resource constraints, the United States cannot afford to maintain such a large global posture,” Kavanagh told Nikkei Asia.
For Europe, the authors propose reducing the overall military presence from the current 90,000 soldiers and airmen to around 60,000 because, they argue, that Russia does not pose a significant conventional military threat to the U.S. and that the American presence in Europe — which has continuously grown since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 — should return to the pre-Crimea conflict levels.
On the Middle East, the authors said that the current force posture of 40,000 personnel, along with aircraft and warships, is “far too large” for the U.S. interests at stake and should be reduced to 15,000 troops.
China remains the #1 focus of the U.S but Overreach is preventing the U.S. from assembling the required military power to go onto the offensive against China
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#2 CHINA-AUSTRALIA RELATIONS IMPROVE
NIKKEI ASIA
“The leaders of China and Australia touted a sustained improvement in their bilateral ties as they held a rare face-to-face meeting on Tuesday, while highlighting emerging opportunities for cooperation on the decarbonization of iron ore mining and steel production.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to reporters after sitting down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, identifying decarbonization as an area with “potential for new engagement.”
Albanese flew to the Chinese capital after spending Monday in Shanghai, promoting trade, business and tourism ties. Accompanied by senior executives from Australian mining giants, he met with Chinese steel industry figures to discuss GREEN IRON and steel opportunities as China works to lower emissions in the energy-intensive sector.
His six-day trip comes as Canberra balances deep economic ties to a more assertive Beijing and its core security partnership with Washington under the transactional leadership of Donald Trump.
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Australian Prime Minister Albanese has recently visited China for the second time and met Chinese President Xi Jinping for the fourth time. China is Australia’s largest trading partner.
In 2023-24, China alone accounted for 26% of Australia’s international trade (by comparison the U.S accounts for just 5% of trade with the U.S.) The health of the Australian economy hinges in large part on China’s continued appetite for Australian beef, Australian barley and Australian iron ore – not overlooking Chinese international students and Chinese tourists, who effectively subsidise Australia’s higher education system by paying exorbitant fees.
Australia, however, faces tensions because China is its largest trading partner but the U.S is its primary security ally.
AUKUS is the stand out problem – a trilateral agreement between Australia, the UK and the US, to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. The U.S. is over-stretched and has real concerns that providing nuclear submarines to Australia could come at the expense of supplying them to the U.S. Navy.
As Louis Devine of Australia’s Pearls and Irritations notes; Beijing, by applying economic pressure and diplomatic seduction, hopes to wean Australia off its strategic dependency on the U.S. and further fragment the anti-China thrust of U.S. foreign policy.
Australia is well-placed to become a “geopolitical swing state”, aligning wholeheartedly neither with China nor the United States, but rather using its strategic position to pursue an independent foreign policy and extract concessions from either side.
China can live with that. Its goal is not to become the U.S. MK Two but to create a multi-polar world where nations rather than alliances can pursue one-to-one relations with other nations. It spells the end of the Superpower world that has dominated international affairs since 1945.
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#3 CHINA AND JACK PERRY
PART 4
Jack explained in his autobiography – From Brick Lane to the Forbidden City – “that with entry into city life being precluded, the Jews came to live alongside villagers whose lifestyle and economic status had scarcely changed over several centuries. Yet, in stark contrast to their neighbours, the Jews had no attachment to the land…They were never farmers, peasants, agricultural labourers. Rather, wherever they settled, they brought with them the skills of the petty craftsmen, the artisan and the small-time merchant.
JEWISH WORK SKILLS
Early producers of consumer goods, Jews were cabinet-makers, tailors, shoemakers, furriers, saddlemakers, haberdashers, and grocers. In addition, a new class of pedlars gradually came into existence. Later immortalised, in twentieth-century incarnation in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, they began by travelling from village to village on foot, and then as business expanded, by horse and cart. Many of these artisans sold their products in their own villages but, as skills developed and transport improved, they took them to the open markets in the nearby towns.
When Jews arrived in Western Europe and the U.S.A from Poland and Tsarist Russia and elsewhere, many were already experienced craftsmen – a category of people then much in demand as the industrial revolution had initiated mass production of consumer goods presaging the beginning of a huge economic boom. In the excitement of those times, the skills of the erstwhile pedlar and small trader held out the prospect of hitherto undreamt possibilities.”
Jack’s father, A TAILOR, would get up at 4 am, cut the cloth and give it to workers to finish. He would rarely go to bed before midnight. When he was working there was plenty of food but in the quiet periods he would have nothing to do.”
JACK’S CAREER DEVELOPMENT
There were more bad times than good and the fluctuating family income was maintained by Jack’s surviving sister, Lily, and later by Jack himself, who was required to leave the well-regarded Dame Alice Owen Grammar School to start work, just before his fifteenth birthday, to commence work as a messenger boy and general sweeper-up at a clothing warehouse in central London. He earned 15 shillings a week (75p).
He was promoted to warehousemanager and then obtained work as an assistant trimmer before moving to a firm in East London that manufactured women’s coats and dresses. He was now responsible for buying silk before his promotion to the grade of producer.
He was now aged twenty and gaining a reputation for astute commercial ability. He was appointed assistant to the new manager and then promoted to his position as the main fabric buyer.
This was the beginning of his commercial life. The dress department was growing rapidly as part of the large-scale industrialisation of the whole women’s clothing industry.
He then formed a new venture to make and sell medium-priced clothes at a time when the dress industry was flourishing. Electrification of the machinery led to faster production and the invention of artificial silk.
Jack’s company was now producing for the mass market and his skill was in designing garments.
It was a period of expansion and, in a few years, Jack had advanced from being a messenger boy to being a manging director of a company employing forty people.
Family loyalty apart, it was the case that Jack was a talent – in school, in work and in politics and just as his commercial career advanced so his political reputation propelled him into a leading member of the Communist Party in the fight against Mosley.
In this narrative I do not want to overlook the significance and impact of the Spanish Civil War. The fascist military led by General Franco staged a country wide revolt – complete with distinctive uniforms and salutes.
A civil war ensued, The UK government declared a policy of non-intervention which was nothing more than a transparent cloak of encouragement to Berlin and Rome. A broad international movement nevertheless took shape and the International Brigade was formed to support the Spanish people against Franco.
As Jack wrote; the Spanish Civil War was the watershed in the development o Of our political consciousness”. It was another step in Jack’s journey from the Jewish East End to the world of international politics.
POST WAR DEVELOPMENTS
In 1946 Jack formed the first conglomerate in the women’s dress industry. Together with five colleagues he coalesced associated companies into a single holding company with Jack as Joint Managing Director.
The company owned production facilities in Northampton and in Pontardawe in South Wales. They established a manufacturing company in South Africa and at the end of 1950 he was in Australia to oversee the start-up of a new plant in Sydney.
He travelled across the United States, Australia and then arrived in India where he saw at close quarters the shanty huts, the beggars and the naked children. It was an introduction to the Third World.
Back in London Jack had met Joan Robinson, one of the closest colleagueS of John Maynard Keynes. She became a Professor of Economics at Cambridge and an admirer of Jack’s courage and determination. She introduced him to Richard Kahn who became Provost of Kings College Cambridge also a Professor of Economics.
Through this Cambridge connection Jack also established a long standing friendship with Professor Joseph Needham then the acknowledged world expert on Chinese civilisation and through Needham, Jack was introduced to Dr Ji Chaoting from China,
It was a big step along the path that took Jack PERRY from Hackney to Beijing
