for the record, the only reason I kind of use fash and liberal somewhat interchangeably sometimes is that, well, my right wingers call themselves liberal, speak like liberals, but their liberalism is paper-thin: they'll call for a bloody coup and the extermination of communists before you know it.
, China will adapt the American system to the twentyfirst century. But if you think the Chinese aren't coming for your molybdenum, you're an idiot. Chile has more reason than most to say "anyone but America," but that generational trauma is going to be replaced by a new one real fast if they don't keep their eyes open about China.
I don't know... they will engage in their own superpowercraft, which is sure to be, well... in a word, evil: that's what superpowers do. This is not even a chilean thing: a lot of people are quite wary about China, and they should be, but what they're not is wary about the US, and a danger you know is dangerous is, well, kind of safer.
However, I think there are at least two factors that would that China could even be worse: 1° the USA has always been democratic, unlike the PCR. 2° as Piketty says (yes, my bedtime reading of the moment), the PCR has actually a more hypercapitalist pro-rich tax system.
those are excellent reasons why China's going to be an evil superpower: but have you considered, as a contrast, that the us has done -and keeps doing- some mighty evil things itself? to be quite pointed, an example is nuking and firebombing cities full of civilians? I have this strong feeling that for every Wang Quanzhang there's a Julian Assange, or a Condor plan. I don't think there's a very good way to quantifying these things and weighing this. And sure, the US is what we call 'a democracy'... though that's not all that transcendent, it's just free and fair elections that choose representatives nominated by a small and highly corrupt set of political parties, all in the pocket of big business: better than a single party dictatorship in principle, but not by that much. it ensures that they're beholden to some degree to US voters, but I'm not one of those so it's somewhat immaterial to me, and to the rest of the world that isn't western europe or the commonwealth, they do respect those guys somewhat. Also calling the early US 'a democracy' is, while strictly speaking correct in the sense that one of the meanings of democracy is 'a government like that of the US' is in another sense laughable: so much of the population was disenfranchised it wouldn't surprise me that the proportion of the political class was about 5% of everyone: there's no shame in this, Chile was the same early on, but an interesting comparison is that the enfranchised class of the PRC (CPC members) seems to be a lot more of the population.
this all being said, tbh I agree with Moose here, mostly: we don't actually know which will be a better or worse late capitalist neocolonialist overlord.... I have my guesses, tho.
Settled? Good. Now let's talk about high speed rail. Is the proposal of Santiago to Valparaiso still going forward? I can't find any info about what the post-Covid plans are for this project.
Ah, let me tell you the
woes of my people and trains.
we're literally the most rail-worthy country in the world, because we look very much like a rail line: long a thin stretch of land, this is. but also we're one of the least railed countries in the world. we used to be pretty good at it! in the 60 and 70ies we had 20, 30 million passengers a year (for a population of maybe 10?). these days rails are dilapidated, almost abandoned, and tbh I don't think I've ever taken one... we have a decent metro in santiago, though. Thing is, truckers were integral allies of the CIA-sponsored coup of 73, and part of the deal was they get preferential treatment, so railways get defunded. There's been some effort after the dictatorship in reviving the train system, with a couple kilometers of track here and there getting fixed and a big broohaha being made in the news, but if you search for passenger trains in the state railway company website you find tourist trains and nostalgia rides departing once a week, and actual passenger services to two or three destinations in the immediate santiago region. It's mostly been corruption and lack of funding, i think. The left has always been for the expansion of the railway system, cause we're clever like that, but it's just never happened: if we believe Boric he's going to make it a priority, but considering where we're at, I don't think it'll be HSR... or, well, I don't know the technical definition of it, but I'd be surprised if they installed anything fancier than a conventional 90kph line with relatively low throughput this decade. Don't get me wrong, that'd be much better than what we have, but I don't think I'll be posting selfies from a Valparaiso-bound shinkansen anytime soon. We're still a country that when the truckers protest and cut down the ONE HIGHWAY THAT CONNECTS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY the cops go and join them in solidarity, as opposed to, you know, repressing them like they do any other protesters. I really think the concertación never tried, since the tracks to valparaíso are actually there still, and from time to time a rickety freight train uses them, but I don't think they're in a very good state.
oh by the way you know who wanted to invest in that line? friends of mr jinping.