In Episode 181 [15] of the CounterVortex podcast [16], Bill Weinberg discusses the strange reality that the Barbie [17] move has been banned in Vietnam [18] over a brief image of a world map appearing to show the "nine-dash line [19]" demarcating China's unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea. While US-China brinkmanship over Taiwan [20] has won headlines recently, Beijing's maritime dispute [28] with Hanoi holds unsettling potential for escalation [21]. In a nearly surreal paradox (for those who remember their history [22]) Vietnam has actually been tilting to the US [23] in the new cold war with China. It has also been increasingly resorting to internal police-state measures [24] to protect the interests of foreign capital in the country. All of this constitutes a rebuke both to the neoliberals, who cling to the discredited dogma that "free markets" inevitably lead to peace and democracy, and to the tankies [25], who rally around both the regimes in Beijing and Hanoi, in defiance of political reality.
Listen on SoundCloud [15] or via Patreon [26].
Production by Chris Rywalt [29]
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