Max Amstutz, the Cement King. [Source: wikipedia.org]

Max Amstutz, the former head of the world’s largest cement company, Holcim, is calling on Europe, like many other Western warmongers before him, to arm itself massively against China and Russia in preparation for the inevitable major confrontation.

The Group he ran in the past failed in the world’s largest producing and consuming cement market. It is difficult to blame the Chinese Communist Party for this, as the company fared no better in India, the second largest but much smaller cement market. Is it the “sour grapes” that are driving him?

C:\Users\Felix Abt\Desktop\Rubbish\Cement statistics.png
Statista chart. [Source: Twitter screen shot by Felix Abt]

Completely ahistorical and without evidence, he claims that China wants to subjugate and dominate the world. In its long history, has China ever had the ambition to dominate the world as European powers and the United States had and have?

C:\Users\Felix Abt\Desktop\Rubbish\China restoration.png
Despite its historical status as the world’s most influential economic power for many centuries, China did not aspire to become anything like a global superpower. The Belt and Road Initiative is an ambitious global infrastructure and investment project that aims to create trade links across Eurasia, reviving the ancient Silk Roads. Throughout the country’s history, there have also been repeated incursions, usually limited to neighboring territories, and border conflicts. [Source: Bloomberg headline. Screen shot by Felix Abt]

Let’s stay down to earth and do the math, Mr. Amstutz: The United States and China have almost the same gross national product. The U.S. maintains more than 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Some 90% of all foreign military bases are U.S.-owned. How many foreign military bases would China need to stand up to the U.S., and how many does it actually have?

Of course, Mr. Amstutz is not one hundred percent responsible for his lack of judgment, as he depends on media that, for example, unsurprisingly ignored these quotes from Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Party Congress speech:

“Working together with the people of the world to create a better future for humanity!”

“Promote world peace and development, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.”

This is probably rather nothing new under “Tianxia,” i.e., the Chinese sky: The rulers of previous Chinese dynasties may have expressed themselves in the same or similar way. It is rather the antithesis to the call to take up arms and conquer the world.

“We have waged a fight against corruption unprecedented in our history, in which we dared to offend thousands rather than abandon 1.4 billion.”

The fight against corruption over the past ten years, in which five million party members were investigated for corruption and quite a few of them were punished, is presented by Mr. Amstutz without evidence as Xi Jinping’s personal fight to eliminate rivals.

“We must…unswervingly encourage and support the development of the private sector and give full play to the crucial role of the market in the allocation of resources…”

Yet, the media and so-called experts claim that Xi Jinping is the new “Mao” who is abolishing the private sector.

Xi Jinping giving address at Chinese Communist Party Congress. [Source: dailyhuntnews.com]

What can be learned from this? Perhaps that it is better to deal with the original sources yourself, by reading, for example, the speeches of Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin, and not only with the words put in their mouths by biased, not to say anti-Chinese and anti-Russian media, and the misleading interpretations and wild speculations.

In doing so, especially in Europe, one risks being labeled an evil Russia- and China-understander at a time when understanding has been radically abolished—from child soldiers and would-be inquisitors in editorial offices turned into shooting galleries to big, powerful corporate CEOs who have been abandoned by all good spirits.

History seems to be repeating itself: Warmongering is once again “in vogue” in Europe and is in the process of taking hold of everyone again, similar to the situation before the First World War.


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About the Author

11 COMMENTS

  1. I write regularly on the Ukraine proxy war.

    As in this article: https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/kherson-the-defeat-that-wasnt

    For the most part I focus on military strategy, which in the West is controlled by political considerations, which are built on lies.

    The lies are sold to people by a pervasive propaganda system that constitutes a Public Mind in and of itself

    The result are needless wars..Needless deaths.

    As John Boyd wrote all wars have three components a.) military b.) psychological c.) moral. America and Europe are deficient in all three.. So they cannot fight military wars themselves.

    They must fight propaganda and economic wars. But the lies come out. And politics founders on dubious morality. They are losing. Oddly enough Russia’s non-defeat “defeat” in Kherson speaks to this.

  2. Isn’t it amazing that the U.S. has punished the Hocim group for paying extortion money to the IS and al-Nusra terrorist groups to keep their Syrian cement factory running while Washington has supported Islamist terrorist groups like al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, which the U.S. has even helped build into a dominant threat to the secular Assad government?

    https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/industrials/2022-10-18-lafarge-fined-778m-for-payments-to-islamic-state-in-syria/
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-america-armed-terrorists-in-syria/

  3. The ‘people’ of no country in the world don’t want war, (except for those who make a living out of them) but the same people accept that Governments spend trillions in armaments, explosives, missiles and military vehicles. Trillions spent in training millions of military personal in the Art of Killing are also accepted by the masses. This means the masses approve of the War or Death industry. What else can Governments do then, if not concoct, negotiate and execute wars?

    As nobody wants war, Governments have no option but to ‘invent’ reasons. With or without evidence, is all the same. If there is no threat, Government has to invent one. It doesn’t matter if China wants or doesn’t want to subjugate and dominate the world. All that matters is that China agrees to the war.

    If China does NOT want war, there will be NO war. War only happen by mutual agreement.

    Alberto

    • Albert Einstein despised militarism and the use of force his entire life—although he later recognized that in some situations, there is no alternative but to “fight for peace.” Einstein denounced World War I and after the war became an outspoken pacifist. Nevertheless, later in life he reasoned that there were some situations where war was necessary.


  4. Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, people have rallied around the globe in support of Ukraine.
    It also marked a time when people in Canada began to learn about the history between the Indigenous peoples and people from Ukraine who immigrated to the Prairies.
    The historic relationship is on display in the so-called kokum scarves movement, in which Indigenous peoples are wearing the colourful Ukrainian scarves as a sign of solidarity.
    A professor of Ukrainian language and culture at the University of Saskatchewan, said that when Ukrainians started immigrating to Canada in 1891, they faced discrimination by other settlers. Yet when they crossed paths with Indigenous peoples, she said they were welcomed and treated with respect.
    They truly helped each other when others discriminated against (the Ukrainians). They’ve always had a genuine connection. They traded goods including the Ukrainian hustka, which Indigenous peoples adopted as kokum scarves. That all resulted out of the friendship and partnership.
    Seeing so much global support, including the kokum scarf movement, gives those some comfort during a difficult time in Ukraine.
    The Ukrainian community appreciates that more than they know

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