Friday, 11 November 2022 — CovertAction Magazine
By Felix Abt
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?
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?
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.
The New Dark Age 
