At the Munich Conference in February, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yi invited Europe to join with China in working on trade routes. He then spoke of multilateralism — all nations working together for their mutual benefit.
State-owned Bestune carmaker comes with a Japanese-anime girl on the dashboard; she has a choice of several outfits.
Image: South China Post
We Find Out that China Has Cars and Computers
by Mary Beaudoin/ Women Against Military Madness Newsletter,
Vol. 43 No. 1, Winter 2025
The U.S. Congress passed a bill in January banning the popular app TikTok when members realized that young people were not just watching short videos of dancing and clowning around. They were also seeing posts of genocide in Gaza. This prompted Utah’s Senator Mitt Romney, who introduced the bill, to comment:
Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of times it mentions Palestinians, relative to other media sites – it’s overwhelmingly so many TikTok broadcasts.
Apparently, Congress was happy to support genocide, but not people knowing about it. What they did not foresee is that TikTok refugees would migrate to Rednote,[1] also a Chinese-owned app, and used extensively by the Chinese. Thus American interest was piqued, not only by Palestinians but by Chinese.
To the delight and surprise of many connecting via Rednote, the Chinese youth whom they met on the app had grown up learning English and appeared open, friendly, and eager to share their lives. Americans began to discover that, while they themselves struggle to keep up with the cost of living, their Chinese counterparts have low- to no-cost healthcare, abundant food, nice apartments and houses (90 percent of Chinese own their own home), affordable college tuition, and cool cars, including electric models, at a fraction of the cost of vehicles in the U.S.
In comparison with the U.S. and its encampments of unhoused people and too many food-insecure families, the Chinese government has eliminated extreme poverty. Can we get over our outdated paranoia about Commies coming to take away our freedoms? Can we set aside our (undeserved) hubris about being the best in the world, and maybe learn something from another part of the world? The Chinese government at least attempts to practice equality and distribution of benefits and appears to have done so successfully for a majority of its citizens. The U.S., instead, is on a trajectory transferring our country’s wealth to an ever-smaller number at the top.
An even greater surprise to Americans that has come from China is DeepSeek, an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine. The low cost ($6 million start-up) of its development and training enables greater access to AI. Its capabilities and accessibility sent shock waves through Silicon Valley. A handful of tech giants had formed a joint-venture private company to build Stargate[2], a next-level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) super-computing system. Investors have been looking to raise $500 billion for Stargate’s grand plan to “not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.” *It would be alarming to have so much power under the control of a private company. However, the invention of DeepSeek can open up the AI commons to the broader public and challenges the idea that Stargate is viable.
What’s the U.S. reaction to Chinese technological advances? We know that chips are a necessary component of electronics in computers, cars, etc. The U.S. is sanctioning the sale of chips to China and Russia, believing that this policy will slow down competition. But China manufactures its own chips and is making improvements all the time.
The U.S. hasn’t really caught up yet with the idea of shifting power in the world, doesn’t have a concept of fair trade, and is still trying to hold onto the idea of being the sole hegemonic power. However, China and Russia, with their combined resources, are working on uniting global trade by land through the Belt and Road Initiative, as the U.S. militarizes sea routes in an effort to cut China off from trade.
Diplomats of the other great powers speak in very different terms from the U.S. At the Munich Security Conference on February 17, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi invited Europe to join with China in cooperating on trade routes. He then spoke of multilateralism — all nations working together for their mutual benefit. He cautioned that the “self-interest only” approach to international relations leads to a lose-lose scenario and “a small yard with high fences only results in restraining oneself.” Is it time for our U.S. government to listen?
[1] For examples, see: The Rednote Diaries, Carl Zha on Youtube. tinyurl.com/4a5635vx
[2] Description from “Announcing The Stargate Project” OPENAI. Accessed February 22, 2025. tinyurl.com/5b8ct3k3
Mary Beaudoin is the editor of the Women Against Military Madness Newsletter. Carol Masters and Ilze Mueller edited this article.
The opinions expressed in this article may or may not reflect the opinions of the Wings of Change editor.
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