China grows 4.8%; US faces stagflation

CHINA’s 14th Five Year Plan, approved in March 2021 and proposed by President Xi Jinping a year before that, is now proving correct amidst the tremendous challenges of the lingering pandemic effects and the economic shock of the Ukraine War and sanctions war the U.S. forced on the world.

China’s 1st quarter 2022 growth rate hit a surprising 4.8 percent despite the weight of crises brought about by recent negative developments, proving the foresight of President Xi Jinping and the Five-Year Planning of the Communist Party of China as both unerring and effective.

The Dual Circulation Economic Policy stressed on the focus and building of the internal economy of China, its domestic consumer market expansion, technological innovation and productivity. These has served very well in the global economic crunch brought on by the US sanctions war.

The U.S. on the other hand continues with its massive inflationary policies, its failed trade war campaign and pursuing its “forever war” instead of concentrating resources to reduce its inflationary spiral and reduce costs by restoring genuine global free trade and U.S. productivity.

The lessons for the Philippines from China’s repeated economic success is: first, a national economy led by a competent State political and economic leadership is essential; secondly, internal development is crucial to national economic health while export-dependence should not skew the balance for domestic development.

The three decades of liberalization-privatization-deregulation spoon- fed by the US, has not only retarded Philippine economic development but it now puts the nation in crisis due to imported shocks – the pandemic and the sanctions induced fuel-energy-food prices spiral. It all goes back to PNOC-Petron, power and water, rice and flour trade full-privatization.

While the US-backed proxy war in Ukraine continues into its second month and the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol have surrendered in droves and holdouts in the tunnels of Mariupol’s giant Azovstalh steel mill have appealed for “extraction” by the Western Powers in a hopeless “forever war” the U.S. has designed, Asia is continuing with it quest for growth and prosperity.

Focus shifts to Hainan, China, on the Boao Forum this April 22 to 24, 2022.

China leads the “forever prosperity” as the war clouds hover in the West, threatening a  drift to the East. The Boao Forum with “The World in COVID-19 and Beyond: Working Together for Global Development and A Shared Future” as its theme, aims for faster global economic recovery and building the sustainable future.

The Boao Forum for Asia was founded in 2001, twenty-one years ago. That is how long the vision for the economic rise of Asia has been engendered through this gathering of Asian leaders, experts, entrepreneurs and other productive sectors which lately have been held in the Hainan island-province of China.

In many ways we can and should thank the Russian people and its leadership, particularly the visionary Vladimir Putin for taking sacrifice and action to “Stop the Barbarians at the Gate,” so to speak, at the border of Ukraine, changing the course of this century in aborting the final expansion of the US and its allies to the East and full restoration of Western hegemony.

Hence, we in Asia, have these precious peaceful moments build and perpetuate the “forever peace and prosperity” mankind has longed for and have cherished as a universal dream enshrined in the songs of all religious such as “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men; Hark the Angels Sing” in Christian lore and songs that we are all familiar with in the Philippines.

In the Philippines we must remind ourselves to invite Russia into our Asian fold and be kin and brothers/sisters to us.

With Russia, China and India, all constant targets of the imperialist West for exploitation and Balkanization, as a solid front for the “multipolar” world against the “unipolar” world the West pursues, the world would then be safer for all.

China has the ideology, expertise, financial and economic infrastructure to help coordinate the global economic boom today and into the future.

It has built-up a constellation of initiatives: from the Belt and Road Initiative, to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), BRICS, AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), to make the vision of the “forever peace and prosperity” possible and real.

China has opened its markets to jumpstart the global economic recovery, launching in the past several years import and innovation expos from the China International Import Expo (CIIE) to the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), among others.

It is now up to the Philippines to move fast to take advantage of all these opportunities.

The Western Powers introduced 500 years of aggression by states and against state in the era of colonialism and imperialism, it is now Asia’s time to lead the entire world into an era of “permanent peace and prosperity.”

Let us do our share from the Philippines, no matter how small, to help cement this future.

(Samahan si Ka Mentong Laurel atbp. sa “Power Thinks” Miyerkules @6pm Live Global Talk News Radio (GTNR) sa Facebook at Talk News TV, You Tube; at tuwing Linggo 8 to 10am sa RP1 738khz AM radio.)