This year 2023, we have passed the tipping point

Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 27.12.2023

It’s over and done

In a few days, the historical year 2023 will be over. This past year, significant changes have taken place, shining some light on what we have to expect in the coming time.

The USA has lost its first place

This year the US suffered a major blow. The US’s global reputation as the most powerful and leading nation was undermined. The image of the US has been completely destroyed in the past year.

The de-industrialisation of the USA and western Europe is almost complete. It will make it nearly impossible for the US to continue the war with Russia in Ukraine or to start a full-scale hot war with China. The trade war with China, the sanctions and restrictions on technology trade with China should have made it very clear that China no longer needs anything from the West. 

The latest RAND report (with a simulation of a hot war between the US and China) was showing a devastating outcome for the USA.  For the US, it is getting increasingly difficult to mobilise its “allies” (actually vassals, colonies, servant countries). For their “Operation Prosperity Guardian” in the Red Sea, they were unable to convince any NATO “partner” to participate.  The US appears to be increasingly isolated internationally, as recent votes in the UN have shown.
The US weaponry is proving to be technologically outdated. Russian and Chinese weapon systems are faster, more accurate and flexible.
The global de-dollarization has just started. Latest in 2025 almost all countries will have dropped the dollar as a universal trade currency.

The USA preparing for a war with China

The war cries today are so deafening that they threaten to awaken from the dead all of the victims of previous wars, including the First and Second World Wars. American tax money is poured into military spending of all kinds, while civilian economies collapse, infrastructure decays, and schools and hospitals are closed or fall apart. In the United States, the Pentagon’s defence budget for 2024 amounts to nearly one trillion dollars, while the entire EU budget and all national budgets in Europe are slated for militarization. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is demanding that society become “war-ready” and has asserted that we only have five to eight years before a major military confrontation with Russia. American think-tanks are working feverishly on “war games” for a major war with China, which should, in their view, take place sooner rather than later. See the article by the Council of Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, “The Big One: Preparing for a Long War With China.”  The US spends four times more in real terms and sixteen times more per capita on defence than China.

How did we end up on this trajectory, which can only take us to a Third World War, a global nuclear war between the U.S.A. (probably joined by some NATO countries) on the one side, and Russia and China on the other, and thus nuclear Armageddon? [1]

It is unfortunate that the USA is refusing to accept its defeat with more dignity. They keep behaving internationally as a gang of school bullies. That attitude will not win them any supporters in the rest of the world.

China, on the other hand,

China, on the other hand, is gaining ground in all the above-mentioned fields. In 2021, China was leading the world in 4 scientific fields. Only two years later, in April 2023 a new study was showing that China was leading in 37 of 44 technologies.[2]  At the time when China was still weak, poor and underdeveloped, the USA could not defeat it in Korea, nor in Vietnam.
There really is no way to stop or contain China. No sanctions, no slander, no cold or hot war will prevent China’s further development.

Admittedly, China is nowhere to be found in a number of areas such as global propaganda, media control and public opinion influencing. It is remarkable how absent China is in these fields.
Since Confucius, 2500 years ago, Chinese culture or politics has never had any desire to influence politics or culture in other countries.

2024 will be the year of the Dragon

In Chinese legend, the Dragon Kings were believed to be the rulers of weather and water, such as rainfall, waterfalls, rivers, and seas. Four Dragon Kings each controlled a sea of China: ‘East Sea’ (the East China Sea), ‘South Sea’ (the South China Sea), ‘West Sea’ (Qinghai Lake and lakes beyond), and ‘North Sea’ (Lake Baikal). The four Dragon Kings were believed to be the dispensers of rain and wind.

Consequently, 2024 will be a decisive year.

We have passed the tipping point. [3]

There’s no way back. The economic prosperity that Europeans so long for is now rapidly declining. The  decreasing prosperity hopefully will purify the political system and paving the way for a new future. The USA is rapidly declining in economic downfall, moral and political demolition and impoverishment. This year 2023 will go down in history as the year the US lost its significance.
Certainly, for Europe and the rest of the West, the demise has only just begun. Western Europe is facing a steep descent into a deep valley. The combined population of the US and EU is only 13%, a small fraction of the world’s population. They will have to learn to find peace with their insignificance in the world. 

There is hope; and joy and happiness at the other side of the valley. Not immediately for the west, but for the large majority of the world population, 2023 was the year of the tipping point, the year where they got a clear view on their much brighter future.

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I wish you and your family a Happy New Year of the Dragon. 春节快乐！龙年快乐！

1] Helga Zepp-Larouche: Christmas Message: Turn Swords into Ploughshares! Schiller Institute Inc. 25.12.2023

[2] The Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Tracked in 2023 in a year-long project .   

[3] Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. 07.01.2002