¿La Revolución Bolivariana en Venezuela sobrevivirá?

28 dic 2018

https://actualidad.rt.com/opinion/eva_golinger/300451-revolucion-bolivariana-venezuela-sobrevivira

Eva Golinger

Se cierra el año 2018 y Venezuela sigue en crisis. La inflación no deja de subir, el desabastecimiento de medicinas y productos de consumo persiste, las sanciones financieras y políticas desde Washington siguen asfixiando la economía y las diferencias y divisiones entre venezolanos parecen irreconciliables.

El próximo 10 de enero del 2019, Nicolás Maduro se juramentará como presidente para un nuevo período de seis años. Sin embargo, no han sido resueltas las tensiones y desacuerdos entre la oposición y el gobierno, y el futuro de la Asamblea Nacional, controlada por una mayoría debilitada y adversa al chavismo, está en duda. De hecho, la oposición no parece tener ningún liderazgo serio y creíble capaz de generar un nivel de apoyo suficientemente significativo para contrarrestar al Gobierno.

La disminuida confianza en las instituciones, la aparente inexistencia de independencia en los poderes del Estado y la falta de transparencia por parte del gobierno han impulsado una erosión de la democracia en el país. Los múltiples intentos de grupos anti-gubernamentales para derrocar y desestabilizar violentamente al Gobierno han generado más inestabilidad e incertidumbre. La administración de Trump está considerando seriamente la inclusión de Venezuela en la lista de 'Estados terroristas', lo cual intensificaría el ataque económico y político contra el país petrolero, y abriría la puerta a una intervención militar, con posibles consecuencias catastróficas.

El país que hace menos de una década era un modelo de justicia social con un gobierno del 'poder popular' parece haberse transformado en un estado caótico, inestable y retrógrado. Esa democracia participativa vibrante que inspiraba movimientos sociales por toda América Latina, Europa, África, Medio Oriente y hasta en EE.UU., parece ser una reliquia del pasado. La penetrante corrupción, visible en casi todas las instituciones del gobierno y el sector privado, ha vuelto y ha colapsado el funcionamiento cotidiano de la sociedad y el cumplimiento con los servicios básicos. Hablar de avances es fútil, porque lo único que parece avanzar es el deterioro del país.

La culpa de esta triste realidad no reside solamente en el gobierno, aunque éste tenga la responsabilidad de una gran parte del desastre que vive el país debido a su mala gestión y su mal manejo de la economía y la industria petrolera. También hay que tener en cuenta el papel de la dirigencia de la oposición, que ha hecho un 'lobby' fuerte y multimillonario en Washington durante años para apretar las sanciones contra Venezuela, con la intención de imposibilitar el funcionamiento del país y, como consecuencia, forzar un cambio de 'régimen'. Sus acciones han causado una implosión financiera y un bloqueo injusto.

Como ha publicado la prensa, varios casos judiciales que se desarrollan en Venezuela, España y EE.UU. involucran a altos funcionarios (o ex funcionarios) del gobierno de Maduro, así como a algunos que también estaban en funciones durante la gestión de Chávez —los casos vinculan además a empresarios—, que han robado miles de millones de dólares de la nación. Entre los procesados está Alejandro Andrade, quien abusó de la confianza de Chávez para enriquecerse y luego huyó a Miami, donde se enfrenta a la justicia estadounidense por delitos como lavado de dinero. Sobre personajes como él recae parte de la responsabilidad por el desplome económico de Venezuela y el subsecuente sufrimiento del pueblo venezolano.

La responsabilidad de la situación del país también está en el pueblo, que no ha mantenido una vigilancia independiente, crítica (constructivamente), constante y franca sobre el gobierno de Maduro. Muchos han caído en la trampa del Estado-paterno, depositando su confianza en quienes están en el poder y asumiendo que van a cumplir honestamente con sus funciones. Lamentablemente, el vicio de la corrupción y la enfermedad del poder se contagia rápidamente cuando la vigilancia, con un ojo crítico, no permanece como una sombra sobre el Estado.

El pueblo tiene el deber de asegurar que el Gobierno cumpla sus promesas y sus responsabilidades. Y el pueblo tiene que estar activamente trabajando en conjunto con el Estado para garantizar su funcionamiento y el cumplimiento con sus deberes. El 'poder popular' no significa votar y luego reposar hasta las próximas elecciones.

El poder en manos del pueblo significa que la responsabilidad más grande de la patria reside en la ciudadanía. Construir la patria es un trabajo a diario. Alcanzar su potencia máxima debe ser una aspiración que obliga al desarrollo de un modelo sostenible que garantice el bienestar del pueblo y la prosperidad justa para todos. Parece un sueño, pero eso era la Venezuela que estaba en marcha durante la Revolución Bolivariana liderada por Chávez. Es la Venezuela por la cual me apasioné y por la cual entregué mi vida durante más de una década.

Hugo Chávez no ganó la presidencia en 1998 por ser 'buenmozo'. Su victoria inesperada se fundamentó en la promesa de una Venezuela mejor. La erradicación de la pobreza, la eliminación de la penetrante y destructiva corrupción, la transformación de un modelo socio-económico moribundo en un Estado de justicia social y la construcción de una patria independiente, soberana, potenciada y unida. Esa era la plataforma planteada por él y su Revolución Bolivariana. Una promesa que estaba floreciendo durante su gestión, a pesar de los grandes obstáculos y las amenazas internas y externas: golpes de Estado, sabotaje económico, corrupción interna, ineficiencia y agresiones externas —diplomáticas, políticas y hasta militares— supusieron unas trabas que fueron superadas con éxito bajo el liderazgo de Chávez.

Creo que Hugo Chávez ha sido posiblemente el presidente más subestimado y sobreestimado de la historia.

Una revolución —o la transformación de un Estado— no puede depender de un solo hombre. El pueblo tiene que ser el motor y el conductor. Chávez fue subestimado por casi todo el mundo que no creía en él, así como por aquellos que querían engañarlo o usarlo para su propio fin y terminaron traicionando su confianza. La oposición y sus aliados en Washington lo veían como alguien sin la capacidad intelectual y estratégica para manejar el gobierno y conducirlo hacia su meta, y acabaron todos sorprendidos y frustrados. Finalmente, el Instituto Estratégico del Ejército estadounidense lo calificó como un 'sabio competidor', reconociendo que se habían equivocado. Chávez fue un visionario brillante, con una capacidad estratégica magistral y el sueño de un mundo mejor que quería convertir en realidad.

No obstante, los que lo apoyaron también lo sobreestimaron. Porque Hugo Chávez no fue un dios, ni un emperador, ni un superhombre. Era un hombre con muchas ideas bonitas y con buenas intenciones para lograrlas. Pero falló en lograr su sueño, aunque seguro que consiguió más de lo que había pensado que era posible. El error de Chávez fue la concentración del poder, la incapacidad de dejar la conducción de la Revolución —o el Estado— en manos del pueblo. El error de no aceptar que el sistema de chequeos y balances, la independencia de los poderes, la transparencia y la vigilancia del pueblo son absolutamente esenciales para lograr un estado de justicia social y un sistema de democracia participativa.

Ahora que termina el 2018, y pronto se cumplirán seis años desde el fallecimiento de Chávez y, como resultado, el inicio del gobierno de Maduro, sería importante que nos preguntásemos si la Revolución Bolivariana ha podido sobrevivir sin su fundador. Cuando uno observa a Venezuela desde afuera, solo ve el desastre y el desorden. Pero mirando hacia adentro —en las comunidades, en los barrios, en los campos o en los centros urbanos— es evidente que la pasión, el amor y el compromiso que levantaron la bandera revolucionaria y la lucha por la justicia social siguen creciendo, siguen hirviendo con ganas de estallar.

Con los nuevos años, hay nuevas oportunidades. Ojalá la Revolución Bolivariana, en su forma pura y honesta, tenga otro chance de florecer.

How Britain stole $45 trillion from India

And lied about it.

by Jason Hickel

19 Dec 2018

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-trillion-india-181206124830851.html

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonization of India - as horrible as it may have been - was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain. So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long - the story goes - was a gesture of Britain's benevolence.

New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik - just published by Columbia University Press - deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938. 

It's a staggering sum. For perspective, $45 trillion is 17 times more than the total annual gross domestic product of the United Kingdom today.

How did this come about?

It happened through the trade system. Prior to the colonial period, Britain bought goods like textiles and rice from Indian producers and paid for them in the normal way - mostly with silver - as they did with any other country. But something changed in 1765, shortly after the East India Company took control of the subcontinent and established a monopoly over Indian trade.

Here's how it worked. The East India Company began collecting taxes in India, and then cleverly used a portion of those revenues (about a third) to fund the purchase of Indian goods for British use. In other words, instead of paying for Indian goods out of their own pocket, British traders acquired them for free, "buying" from peasants and weavers using money that had just been taken from them.

It was a scam - theft on a grand scale. Yet most Indians were unaware of what was going on because the agent who collected the taxes was not the same as the one who showed up to buy their goods. Had it been the same person, they surely would have smelled a rat.

Some of the stolen goods were consumed in Britain, and the rest were re-exported elsewhere. The re-export system allowed Britain to finance a flow of imports from Europe, including strategic materials like iron, tar, and timber, which were essential to Britain's industrialization. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution depended in large part on this systematic theft from India.

On top of this, the British were able to sell the stolen goods to other countries for much more than they "bought" them for in the first place, pocketing not only 100 percent of the original value of the goods but also the markup.

After the British Raj took over in 1858, colonizers added a special new twist to the tax-and-buy system. As the East India Company's monopoly broke down, Indian producers were allowed to export their goods directly to other countries. But Britain made sure that the payments for those goods nonetheless ended up in London. 

How did this work? Basically, anyone who wanted to buy goods from India would do so using special Council Bills - a unique paper currency issued only by the British Crown. And the only way to get those bills was to buy them from London with gold or silver. So traders would pay London in gold to get the bills, and then use the bills to pay Indian producers. When Indians cashed the bills in at the local colonial office, they were "paid" in rupees out of tax revenues - money that had just been collected from them. So, once again, they were not in fact paid at all; they were defrauded.

Meanwhile, London ended up with all of the gold and silver that should have gone directly to the Indians in exchange for their exports.

This corrupt system meant that even while India was running an impressive trade surplus with the rest of the world - a surplus that lasted for three decades in the early 20th century - it showed up as a deficit in the national accounts because the real income from India's exports was appropriated in its entirety by Britain. 

Some point to this fictional "deficit" as evidence that India was a liability to Britain. But exactly the opposite is true. Britain intercepted enormous quantities of income that rightly belonged to Indian producers. India was the goose that laid the golden egg. Meanwhile, the "deficit" meant that India had no option but to borrow from Britain to finance its imports. So the entire Indian population was forced into completely unnecessary debt to their colonial overlords, further cementing British control. 

Britain used the windfall from this fraudulent system to fuel the engines of imperial violence - funding the invasion of China in the 1840s and the suppression of the Indian Rebellion in 1857. And this was on top of what the Crown took directly from Indian taxpayers to pay for its wars. As Patnaik points out, "the cost of all Britain's wars of conquest outside Indian borders were charged always wholly or mainly to Indian revenues." 

And that's not all. Britain used this flow of tribute from India to finance the expansion of capitalism in Europe and regions of European settlement, like Canada and Australia. So not only the industrialization of Britain but also the industrialization of much of the Western world was facilitated by extraction from the colonies.

Patnaik identifies four distinct economic periods in colonial India from 1765 to 1938, calculates the extraction for each, and then compounds at a modest rate of interest (about 5 percent, which is lower than the market rate) from the middle of each period to the present. Adding it all up, she finds that the total drain amounts to $44.6 trillion. This figure is conservative, she says and does not include the debts that Britain imposed on India during the Raj.

These are eye-watering sums. But the true costs of this drain cannot be calculated. If India had been able to invest its own tax revenues and foreign exchange earnings in development - as Japan did - there's no telling how history might have turned out differently. India could very well have become an economic powerhouse. Centuries of poverty and suffering could have been prevented.

All of this is a sobering antidote to the rosy narrative promoted by certain powerful voices in Britain. The conservative historian Niall Ferguson has claimed that British rule helped "develop" India. While he was prime minister, David Cameron asserted that British rule was a net help to India.

This narrative has found considerable traction in the popular imagination: according to a 2014 YouGov poll, 50 percent of people in Britain believe that colonialism was beneficial to the colonies.

Yet during the entire 200-year history of British rule in India, there was almost no increase in per capita income. In fact, during the last half of the 19th century - the heyday of British intervention - income in India collapsed by half. The average life expectancy of Indians dropped by a fifth from 1870 to 1920. Tens of millions died needlessly of policy-induced famine.

Britain didn't develop India. Quite the contrary - as Patnaik's work makes clear - India developed Britain.

What does this require of Britain today? An apology? Absolutely. Reparations? Perhaps - although there is not enough money in all of Britain to cover the sums that Patnaik identifies. In the meantime, we can start by setting the story straight. We need to recognize that Britain retained control of India not out of benevolence but for the sake of plunder and that Britain's industrial rise didn't emerge sui generis from the steam engine and strong institutions, as our schoolbooks would have it, but depended on violent theft from other lands and other peoples.

Editor's note: A previous version of this article erroneously had the beginning of the British Raj as 1847. The correct year is 1858.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance. 

Dr. Jason Hickel is an academic at the University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Our Poor, Defenseless Military Industrial Complex

Media decry ‘inadequate’ US military budget that rivals the rest of the world combined

ALAN MACLEOD

DECEMBER 20, 2018

https://fair.org/home/our-poor-defenseless-military-industrial-complex/

It is a sign of our times that our media attempt to decipher future government policy by analyzing the president’s tweets, like some bizarre game of telephone. Throughout November, there was speculation of a coming reduction in military spending, and when Donald Trump took to Twitter (12/3/18) to describe the $716 billion budget as “crazy,” media took this as confirmation.

The prospect of a cut to the military elicited a storm of condemnation across the media landscape. The National Review (11/17/18) wrote that “cutting the resources available to the Pentagon is a bad idea,” noting that, “for decades, America has short-changed defense” meaning “America’s ability to defend its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt.” In an article headlined “Don’t Cut Military Spending Mr. President” (Wall Street Journal, 11/29/18),  Senate and House Armed Services committee chairs James Inhofe and Mac Thornberry claimed the military is in “crisis” after “inadequate budgets for nearly a decade,” and that “any cut in the Defense budget would be a senseless step backward.”More centrist outlets concurred. Forbes Magazine (11/26/18) began its article with the words, “The security and well-being of the United States are at greater risk than at any time in decades,” recommending a “sensible and consistent increase” to the budget. Bloomberg (19/11/18) recommended a consistent increase in military spending of 3 percent above inflation for five to ten years, while Reuters (12/4/18) noted the increased “risk” of a lower military budget.

What exactly was this “risk” that media were so worried about? Max Boot, the neo-con fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations—who apparently still supports the Iraq War and demanded ones in Syria and Libya, while arguing that America should become a world empire—articulated the risk in the Washington Post (12/12/18). Describing a reduction in military spending as “suicide,” and claiming the US is in a “full-blown national security crisis,” he cited the work of a blue-ribbon panel that called for continuous hikes in military spending:

“If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat,” the report warns. “These two nations possess precision-strike capabilities, integrated air defenses, cruise, and ballistic missiles, advanced cyberwarfare and anti-satellite capabilities, significant air, and naval forces, and nuclear weapons—a suite of advanced capabilities heretofore possessed only by the United States.”… So we’re in deep trouble. We are losing the military edge that has underpinned our security and prosperity since 1945.

Thus, the crisis is that the US could not be assured of destroying the Russian military in a Baltic war or the Chinese in the South China Sea. It is important to note that these necessary wars of defense would not be happening in Maine or California, but thousands of miles away, on the doorsteps of our geopolitical rivals. Boot presents these wars on the other side of the world as impossible to avoid—“if the US had to fight”—continuing a tradition of presenting the US as stumbling or being reluctantly dragged into wars against its will, that we at FAIR (6/22/17) have cataloged. In reality, more than half of all US discretionary spending goes to the military, and its war-related spending is a much larger percentage of its budget than in comparable countries—3–5 times as much as Canada, Germany or Japan. In fact, the US spends almost as much on its military as all other countries in the world put together, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and has around 800 (official) foreign military bases, placed on every inhabited continent of the world.

Even these figures do not include military pensions and veterans’ healthcare, or nuclear weapons, and therefore the true total is possibly greater than all other countries combined. Military spending is approaching the highest in the recorded history of any country, and the increase in military spending Trump approved last year alone would be enough to make public colleges and universities across the US free to all.

Considering the problems of unemployment, poverty, climate change and infrastructure in the US, perhaps tooling up for an intercontinental war against two nuclear-armed superpowers is not the most effective use of trillions of dollars. That reducing a $716 billion war budget can be presented as a threat to the nation, and that “defense” can refer to wars in Taiwan or the Baltic, illustrates the depth of the media’s imperial mindset and goes to show President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the power of the military industrial complex went unheeded.

The media needn’t have worried, as the military industrial complex usually gets its way. President Trump, “with the help of Senator Inhofe and Chairman Thornberry,” according to the Defense Department (London Independent, 12/10/18), agreed to increase the military budget after all, to $750 billion. A lot of people are going to get rich—not least of all Senator Inhofe, who quietly purchased tens of thousands of dollars in Raytheon stock after he met with Trump (CNN, 12/13/18). Raytheon is the world’s largest producer of guided missiles and is sure to reap a huge windfall from the spending boom.

This whole affair illustrates the important and worrying links between the media, “defense” contractors and politicians. But at least the terrible risk to the United States has been avoided. Those defenseless Air Force Generals and Defense contractors can finally sleep easy at night.

John Bolton Wants To Protect Africa From ‘Predatory’ Chinese Behavior. What About Washington’s?

Chinese investment may come with strings attached, but Africa deserves an alternative to U.S.-led neoliberalism and militarization.

https://original.antiwar.com/Netfa_Freeman/2018/12/26/john-bolton-wants-to-protect-africa-from-predatory-chinese-behavior-what-about-washingtons/

by Netfa Freeman Posted on December 27, 2018

John Bolton’s recent unveiling of the Trump Administration’s “Prosper Africa” plan did what is typical of such U.S. foreign policy announcements. It performed the balancing act of admitting motives to protect vague “US interests” while dishonestly claiming benevolent intentions for the other country, region, or continent concerned. In this case, the continent is Africa.

The “new” Africa policy, National Security Advisor Bolton suggested, is an adjusted US strategy to “assist” African economic independence from the predatory designs of China and Russia. In reality, it is the Trump’s administration taking the baton from the Obama administration in the new Scramble for Africa, a sequel to the proliferation of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period, between the 1880s and the start of World War I.

Bolton admits as much when he calls the administration’s new plan a response to “predatory practices pursued by China and Russia [that] stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten the financial independence of African nations; inhibit opportunities for US investment; interfere with US military operations; and pose a significant threat to US national security interests.”

He divulged this and the “new” U.S.-Africa policy in a speech he gave at the far-right Heritage Foundation.

It should be obvious that Bolton cares little about predation – he just doesn’t want other predators to compete with. He made no mention of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), which has put most African nations under the effective military control of the United States. AFRICOM is the re-colonization of Africa by the US, with thousands of US troops now stationed in some 30 African countries and dozens of US bases across Africa. The total estimated cost for AFRICOM in 2018 is $236.9 million.

Another quarter-billion dollars over the next six years is projected to be spent to build a US military drone base in Niger, West Africa. Bolton’s claims of having humanitarian concerns for Africa – or for anyone – ring hollow when U.S.-Africa policy is predicated on spreading these instruments of death (while domestic budgets for health care, education, and necessary social services in the US are considered expendable).

No mistake should be made in thinking that foreign policy toward Africa is a partisan issue. Its essence is consistently the same.

Obama, the first Black president, paved the way for the proliferation of AFRICOM on the continent. During his terms, there was a 1,900 percent increase in the US military presence on the continent.

African independence movements since the 1950s have been destabilized by US administrations of both parties. Leaders such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo, assassinated by the CIA, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who was overthrown in a CIA orchestrated a coup, fell victim to US government meddling.

With this history, the United States lags behind China in Africa, which is investing in African infrastructure and forgiving debt demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If China and now Russia are increasing their influence in Africa, it’s because Africans see advantages to having an alternative to Washington – and they have every right to do business with, or ally themselves, with the states of their choosing.

Regardless of the motivations of China, Russia, or any other non-Western nations, for African countries to have an alternative to the US and Western European-dominated institutions for investment can only be a good thing for Africa. The record of institutions like the World Bank and IMF has been to impose economic structural adjustments that increase profits for Western multinational corporations but spiral African people into poverty.

Then there’s the Pentagon.

Long-standing US military aid to, and close joint operations with, Rwanda and Uganda led proxies of these countries into the Congo, contributing to a conflict that resulted in the deaths of 6 million people between 1998 and 2007.

More recently, thousands of Ghanaians rallied in the streets of their capital this spring to protest a deal that would give the United States military an expanded role in Ghana. And this month, an AFRICOM press release boasted its success in killing 62 people in Somalia by four “precision airstrikes.”

About these things, Bolton seems unconcerned. If anything, Bolton seems to gripe that the US has been too helpful to Africans in the recent past.

Bolton says what distinguishes Prosper Africa from the plan of the previous administration is that “The United States will no longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent, without focus or prioritization. And, we will no longer support unproductive, unsuccessful, and unaccountable UN peacekeeping missions.”

This part is consistent with Bolton’s notorious disdain of the United Nations and with Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine. This might be about the only substantial difference between his Africa policy and that of the previous administration. It basically means the administration just intends to advance US hegemony using less cooperation with other global powers.

Federal spending that militarizes other parts of the world might secure access to corporations robbing Africa of its rich mineral resources, and enrich military contractors, but it does little to nothing that benefits common US citizens or the struggling people of Africa.

What can average citizens do? One way to end the madness is to support the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) campaign that calls for an end to AFRICOM and to all foreign interference in the affairs of African nations. BAP’s petition calls upon the US Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to hold hearings on the impact of US militarization in Africa.

A mass movement is needed to expose the real bipartisan US foreign policy in Africa. The campaign to “shut down AFRICOM” is part and parcel of a peace movement to demilitarize the US and the world. This objective is a requirement of any legitimate and genuine peace movement.

Netfa Freeman is the Events Coordinator and an analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies. He organizes with Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. Reprinted with permission from Foreign Policy In Focus.

Talks with US key to better Sino-LatAm ties

By Liu Yuqin Source: Global Times Published: 2018/12/25 

China-Latin America relations made remarkable achievements in 2018 but will face challenges next year. Thus, it is important for Chinese authorities, think tanks and media to be prepared for what is coming.

Latin America has gone through political evolution in recent years as the right-wing advanced and the left-wing lost steam. In the elections in 2018, Mexicans chose the left-wing while Brazilians preferred the right. However, it was not caused by the electorate's ideological convictions. 

More likely, electors used votes to penalize the governments and show them the door - widely attributed to the anti-incumbency factor. Corruption among officials was a factor that influenced voters' choice, and so did the changing situation in Latin America and the world. 

Therefore, we could take ideology into consideration when making policies about the continent, but should not give it undue importance. 

China is practically and realistically handling relations and cooperating with countries in Latin America; what we should pay more attention to is rising populism, which could affect cooperation and relations between the two sides. 

We should not be overoptimistic about relations with Latin America although ties between the region and China did leap forward in 2018. 

When considering policies on Latin America, we must keep in mind that we don't have an advantage in the area vis-à-vis the US. 

Washington could be another factor that we must not overlook. The US intends to put pressure on Latin American countries because it doesn't want to see China get along well with them. Actually, China-Latin America cooperation does not harm US interest, but Washington believes China's footprint in the region will be a threat to its dominance. 

Under the circumstances, I suggest improving communication with the US for 2019.

There used to be a dialogue between China and the US on Latin American affairs but it was suspended in recent years. The mechanism should be restored. 

We must pay attention to the feelings of Latin American countries and do our best not to make them choose a side. 

The simplicity of the Latin American economy and its dependence on the export of raw materials is not going to change in a short time. So, we could expand our exports to Latin American nations and open our market wider to them by removing as many obstacles as possible - like China's quarantine of imported products. Similar moves would affect our tangible interest in Latin America and help China acquire more leverage.

The leverage here does not mean acting against the US. Strengthening talks with the US and Latin America is what China should do, and Beijing's improved cooperation with Latin America could help alleviate the pressure of the trade war. 

Another factor that could affect China is the crisis in Venezuela, which has been suffering due to US interference. China should clarify its position on firmly backing Venezuela, opposing US hegemony and interference in the Latin American nation's internal affairs. 

The US would not let go of this issue before achieving its goal, even if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were to follow Washington's suit. On the other hand, although some other Latin American countries are not satisfied with Venezuela due to the security and refugee problems the country created, they wish all the same that China could do something to help the embattled nation.

This being the case, I hope China will be active in participating in the regional affairs of Latin America, making full use of the China-Latin America forum to cross the barriers it could face. 

The author is former ambassador to Ecuador, Chile and Cuba and a committee member for foreign affairs at The Chahar Institute. The article is an abstract of her speech at a seminar on the Situation in Latin America and China-Latin America Relations organized by The Charhar Institute on December 17. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Which way to the exit?

David Runciman writes about the Brexit puzzle

Vol. 41 No. 1 · 3 January 2019

London Review of Books

https://www.lrb.co.uk

Brexit has arrived at its witching hour. Seemingly plausible schemes are being conjured out of thin air and every meaningful question has many possible answers, and therefore possibly none. It is hard to think of anything to say which is not being said somewhere else by people you’d prefer not to associate with. Still, here is a question I have not seen posted elsewhere: why did not one Tory MP abstain from the vote of confidence in Theresa May? The whole process felt a little uncanny. The poll was triggered in secret one night and fully concluded by the next. Turnout was a Stalinist 100 percent – a figure only achieved by allowing two MPs who had lost the whip over allegations of sexual misconduct back into the fold for this occasion – and there were no spoilt ballots. Every single eligible voter expressed a view one way or the other: 200 for, 117 against. Was there really no one who felt truly conflicted, unable to convey confidence in the prime minister but unwilling for her to be replaced by someone even worse? When Jeremy Corbyn faced – and overwhelmingly lost – a confidence vote in 2016, 13 Labor MPs declined to take part, along with four who spoiled their ballots. Are all Tories so much clearer in their minds than that?

Of course not. The reason no one abstained is that this was a secret ballot and refusing to participate is a public act. The whips could not know how anyone voted – not even whether all government ministers followed their constitutional duty either to support the prime minister or to resign – but they would know the names of all those who failed to collect their ballot slips. If you have to vote, you might as well pick a side. As a result, the starkly divided outcome was perfectly calibrated to resolve nothing and to entrench mistrust. Enough MPs voted for May – including those who wish her gone – to keep her safe for now. Enough voted against – including those who dread the alternatives – to ensure she could not move forward with her deal. In Brussels, the effect seems to have been to harden the resolve of European leaders not to budge, for fear of being beholden to intransigent, organized opposition inside the parliamentary Conservative Party. Yet appearances can be deceptive – there was nothing organized about this opposition. It was a contrivance of the occasion itself.

Here in microcosm is the essence of the Brexit puzzle and the reason it is proving such a nightmare to resolve: are we stuck because we are so divided or are we so divided because we are stuck? The various political mechanisms we have for getting out of this impasse seem inadequate to the task of bridging so many fundamental differences of opinion, yet those differences are being exacerbated by the mechanisms at work. It should, in theory, be possible to secure parliamentary approval for the sort of compromise deal that May has been working to achieve, given that hardline Brexiteers ought to prefer it to the prospect of not leaving the EU at all, and remainers should prefer it to the prospect of leaving with no deal. Yet both sides seem united only by their loathing of the sort of compromise May’s deal represents. It is far from clear that committed Brexiteers do prefer it to not leaving at all. They have invested too much in this struggle to be content with any outcome that gives them a half-baked version of their heart’s desire. A compromised Brexit – especially if the biggest compromise is on the question of national sovereignty – does more to devalue the price they have paid to get here than an outright rebuff: better than the struggle should continue fruitlessly than having to live with the thought that we did all that just to get this. Better still to let the clock wind down to 29 March in the hope that no agreement in Parliament means that no deal can be struck.

Meanwhile, for remainers, secure in the knowledge that there is no parliamentary majority for a no-deal exit, the temptation is always there to push for a second referendum in the hope of overturning the original result. Why settle for this when that might be just around the corner? While the three options of May’s deal, no deal, and a second referendum are all on the table, there is little prospect of making progress. For that to happen, one of the three options would need to fall away, forcing at least one side to choose between compromise and intransigence. But that is the reason it is proving so hard to whittle three down to two because it would force at least one side to compromise. We are divided because we are stuck as much as we are stuck because we are divided.

For the Labor Party, the situation is further complicated by the fact that it is committed to a fourth option, which is to bring down the government and force a general election. Corbyn has been much criticized for using the process as a fig-leaf to cover his own reluctance to reveal his hand. It is widely assumed that he is stalling on a vote of confidence in the government because were that to be defeated, he would be required to take a position in favor of a second referendum, something that as a convinced Brexiteer he is deeply reluctant to do. But this is the sequence that was mandated at Labor Party Conference, where it was agreed that the strategy should be to push for a second referendum only if it was clear that the government could not be collapsed through a vote in Parliament. So it is not really a position on Europe, or even on a united Ireland, that lies at the heart of the Corbyn project, but rather a commitment to allowing party conference – and therefore party members – to set the course of policy. The Process is something on which the current leadership is not willing to compromise.

The way the forces are now lined up, each of them dug in behind their respective red lines, gives the strong impression that our politics is currently organized around commitments that no one can deliver. Is that the way this whole episode will appear to future historians, as a case of grotesque political overreach? Does Brexit represent the limit of what is politically possible? Perhaps. Even so, it still matters whether we think the limit was set by the end itself – leaving the EU – or by the means, we have employed for achieving it. If it is simply not possible for a nation to leave an international organization with which its laws and economy have become intertwined over more than forty years then that is a lesson for all major democracies in the 21st century: you are not as sovereign as you might like to think. Certainly, that is the lesson many European leaders would like their electorates to take from the Brexit fiasco. But if this is a story of unfortunate accidents rather than inevitable disappointment then the moral might be different: not don’t do Brexit, but don’t do politics the British way. The UK political system – parliamentary sovereignty, a strong executive, first-past-the-post, no codified constitution, and therefore a referendum on a whim – is designed to facilitate decision-making. If we can’t arrive at a decision, maybe there is something wrong with the whole set-up. Political realists say that to will the end is to will the means. We lack the means to will the means.

As a case of political overreach, Brexit is fundamentally different from the other notorious modern instance of Britain’s political elite biting off more than they could chew: Suez. Then it became rapidly clear that a small group of politicians, acting in secret, had dangerous illusions about the scope of their power. They thought they could get others – above all, the Americans – to do their bidding. They were wrong. With Brexit, it is true that many politicians – above all, Boris Johnson – appear to harbor Suez-like illusions about how easy it should be to get others to do our bidding. But the difference is that Brexit is not a policy concocted in secret by an out-of-touch political elite. It was the choice of the people in a referendum. If we conclude it cannot be done, we are also drawing a conclusion about the political overreach of the voting public when offered a direct say in the future of the country. That is potentially a much more uncomfortable place to be.

There is enough that is contingent about the present situation to suggest it was not bound to end up like this. Much of the mess is a consequence of major political change being attempted by a minority government, beholden to small factions on which it has to depend but which it cannot control. The centrality of Northern Ireland to the whole process was underplayed in the original vote. But it has surely been exaggerated by the fact that the government found itself reliant on DUP support to remain in office at all. Had May held the parliamentary majority she hoped the 2017 general election was going to deliver – say, fifty or more – she would not be where she now is. Yet that, too, is not a straightforward way of saying that this is some terrible accident. It was the same voting public that produced the current configurations in Parliament that produced May’s original task of finding a Brexit deal that could pass Parliament. May went to the country on the prospectus that a big majority would strengthen her hand in negotiating the best Brexit deal. Maybe people didn’t believe her. Maybe they didn’t care. Either way, they didn’t give her what she asked for. They gave her this.

Whatever happens, the fundamental question to be resolved is whether those disappointed by the outcome decide it was reached because some original promise was betrayed or because we have arrived at the limits of the possible. If Brexit goes to a second referendum, and that vote overturns the result of the first, it could be argued that the people changed their minds in the face of the evidence of what their original decision would result in. But anyone convinced of the virtues of the first vote will likely remain convinced that we only arrived at a second one because of deliberate sabotage of the original decision. The great danger of a second referendum is that it creates the illusion that the system either corrected itself or betrayed itself when it would be closer to the truth to accept that the system simply revealed itself as inadequate to the task at hand. The referendum result, whatever the merits of the case, has exposed the limits of our institutional arrangements. It is not that parliamentary government has failed. Or that plebiscitary democracy has failed. But this way of trying to combine parliamentary government with plebiscitary democracy has failed.

In this context, the great advantage of May’s much-hated deal is just how hated it is. The fact that no one likes it means that if it passes Parliament, no one can be in any doubt that we have reached the limits of the possible under the current system. The greatest danger comes if the Brexit outcome fuels the view that one group manipulated the democracy we have to thwart the will of another group, who can therefore neither forgive nor forget. Better to recognize that we have exhausted the options than to believe that there is a version of our present politics that allows our preferred option to prevail. Better, in other words, a miserable compromise and then to get on with reforming the democracy we have so that the next compromise is a better one.

21 December 2018