THE GMO SCRAPBOOK: CHINA TO ATTEMPT TO BUY BIG GMO CORPORATIONS
OK. You can chalk this one up in my "miss" column. In fact, you can chalk it up in my big miss column. What do I mean? Well, for a few years, as we've been tracking the GMO/anti-GMO issue here on this website, we have noted the growing opposition to GMOs, and more importantly, to the often under-handed policies, politics, and methods employed by GMO companies like IG Farbensanto, Syncrudda, and other purveyors of GMOs. THese policies began, more or less, under the administration of GHW Bush(who else?), with the findings of "substantial equivalence" for GMOs, a policy that, as F. William Engdahl has pointed out, allowed the big GMO companies like Mon(ster)santo to have their GMO cake and poison us too, for on the one hand, it allowed them to claim that GMO corn was "substantially equivalent" to non-GMO corn, while at the same time, allowing them to patent their creations. This "substantial equivalence" double standard effectively allowed a minimum of scientific testing to be done.
But opposition, both on a public and, more importantly, on a growing governmental level was met, particularly in countries like India where the big GMO companies ran roughshod over farmers. Russia, as regular readers here know, also joined the growing concerns and actually enacted bans on GMOs, and has undertaken a commitment to a long-term intergenerational scientific study of their human and environmental effects. There were indicators that China was having second thoughts about some aspects of GMOs, as llimited bans on certain products were enacted by that country as well.
This led me to hypothesize that if the BRICSA bloc played their cards right, they could transform the GMO issue into a geopolitical one, by pointing out the GMO issue as another example of rampant corruption in the corporate world of the west, and if they really played their cards right, they could move, in a major way, into the agribusiness markets by offering themselves as the sources for natural seeds, playing to the growing world movement against GMOs.
I called it GMO geopolitics, and I based my reasoning, in part, on the idea that there was opposition to GMOs in at least some of the BRICSA bloc countries.
Well, you can chalk it all up in the "big miss" column, for Chiina, it seems, has now decided GMOs are ok, and now wants to buy big western GMO companies, according to this article shared by Ms. M.W.:
The crux of the article appears to be this:
In recent days, the GMO information site Sustainable Pulse, one of the globe's largest and most respected sustainable agriculture information sites, was blocked by China's communist government censors "in all of mainland China, shortly after ChemChina launched a failed $ 42 billion bid to buy the largest Global pesticide company – Syngenta," the website reported.
"This is yet another example of the Chinese government trying to stop its citizens from informing themselves about topics that could possibly damage Chinese business," said Sustainable Pulse Director Henry Rowlands, in criticizing the ban.
"China has gone from sitting on the fence regarding the use of GM crops, to being one of the main Global 'pushers' of GMOs over the last 12 months. This will lead to a disaster for both the environment and human health in China over the coming years," he said, as quoted by the site.
There is even a faint hint, or suggestion, in the article itself that one may be looking at some sort of mild internal struggle within the Chinese government regarding the issue:
The website found out about the blocking in recent days, following news that the China National Chemical Corporation, known as ChemChina, was in negotiations to purchase Syngenta, based in Switzerland. Had it gone down, it would have been the largest acquisition to date by a Chinese company. And though the initial $42 billion bid for the Swiss pesticide manufacturer was initially rejected, officials familiar with the negotiations told Bloomberg Business that there remains a strong interest in making the deal.
If it does indeed go through, then ChemChina would become one of the world's biggest GMO developers, putting it in direct competition with the globe's GMO leader, St. Louis-based Monsanto.
The government's ban of Sustainable Pulse is odd when you consider that, in the past, Beijing has banned importation of GMO foods from the U.S., with the specific aim of preventing GMO contamination among Chinese agriculture. Ironically, a recent ban pertained to a Syngenta product.
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Hey commenters
If you really want to blow your mind (pun almost intended) on this China GMO subject then I implore the interested reader to surf over to my related comment on the News & Views from the Nefarium Nov 25th post.
Spoiler Alert Pop Quiz: What is the horizontal distance between the recently announced $21B state of the art cloning facility, the national supercomputer center and the explosion crater in Tianjin?
Answer: less than 2 miles
nice thank you
joseph, any follow on articles?
It may not be as big a miss as you think.
What would you do if you had secretly developed a strain of GM food that actually worked as advertised? Safe, great yield, robust etc. Sell it far and wide of course.
But how do you compete with the Monsatano sized corporations? A patent wouldn’t give you protection long enough to build the company and market from scratch. You buy one and you are instantly in the game.
More likely is that this is some infighting amongst the Chinese oligarchs and the pro-GMO side wanted to buy a corporation. We’ll see how the backlash goes. The anti-GMO side in the Chinese government might have just been watching and letting the pro-GMO side expose itself. Bureaucratic infighting can get very nasty.
Yogi,
did you ever see the cartoon Gullivers Travels? One of the group named glum always moans something like “We’re all gonna die…..” or “We’ll never make it…”
Goshawks is right. scary and plausible. Just the same that seems like too much work to achieve such simple ends.
The thought I’m looking for now is how to work in possible paths I like better than the one you outlined.
Joseph,
It’s not a miss. If you were reading the minds of a number of players in a number of languages, then sure, it’s a miss. This can still go infinite different directions.
All, please don’t get me wrong. Considering what we’ve seen Mr Global trying to do so far, I’m not real enthused with what appears to be his intent and goals. Happily though we’re not Mr Global. Regardless of the false flags and judas goats and gladios and manipulated mk ultra games and and and…..
Keep positive all and thank you.
China will probably use GE Tech to build a stronger Chinese People, especially with their two-child policy–which can spread out across the world…however, the advent of the mass numbers of bots will displace millions and millions in short order, and, going forward, simply means Mr Global will use them to run “his” world making the “millions and millions of unemployed” social parasites–“A problem to be gotten rid of–” and doing so means less unruly competition for dwindling global resources…”Do The Math….”
I think that we have to look at the Fed for the source of this ‘move’. Once the Fed began printing dollars like the Weimar Republic did reichsmarks, the Chinese knew the handwriting was on the wall for dollar collapse – or at least some version of hyperinflation. So, what’s the best way to protect oneself, if one is a huge holder of dollars? Why, buy up everything ‘physical’ in sight, in a hurry…
The GMO companies have a lot of good bio-tech, regardless of how they are using it. They would make a good acquisition.
And remember, he/she/it who owns the company is the one who directs it’s future ‘movement’. The Chinese government is a control freak; what better way to direct GMO research & deployment?
My guess is that China will ‘sweeten the offer’ until shareholders give in. That government has nothing to lose, given the imminent dollar demise. Whether they will then turn out to be more on the ‘light side’ or succumb to the ‘dark side’ will be interesting to watch…
In line with the above, a good article on Chinese use of money:
thesaker dot is/silk-roads-night-trains-and-the-third-industrial-revolution-in-china-by-pepe-escobar/
A great closing-line from that article:
“Within it [the G-20], Washington and Beijing might sometimes actually work together in a world in which chess, not Battleship, would be the game of the century.”
I have to agree that it is premature to call it a miss.
If they were trying to buy a major player in GMO in order to undermine the market, then they would have to convince the seller that they were “serious” about developing the tech. That would just be part of the game (corporate acquisitions being somewhat less civilized than SS warfare). They would not necessarily show their true hand if they were going to eventually leverage the IP assets against the rest of the market. They could hold up sales of various competitor’s seeds for years in litigation.
They might also get their hands on incriminating internal research.
If major shareholders on the board were “true believers” in GMO tech, they would not have approved the sale to someone who was intending to sink the ship instead of sail it. Just seems like a chess move (Go move?) on China’s part, especially since the rest of BRICSA (and most of the population of the planet) seems aligned against GMO.
On the other hand, they may have wanted to get their hands on some of the technology, since it is essentially biological warfare technology. It is not usually possible for someone buying seeds to know if they are GMO until it is too late, and all their crops are ruined for who knows how long. Maybe they want to cull their own population selectively – wouldn’t be the first time.
This might have more to do with supercomputing and CRISPR than geopolitics. CRISPR is the start of a complete control of the biogenome. It strikes one as a panic move in light of recent gene engineering advancements and might not have anything to do with food. If someone else has control of the genomic revolution, C would not stand much of a chance. It strikes me as an IP purchase, more than a merchantilist one.
If true, then there are not many governments left who stand with the people they supposedly lead.
The whole system from the ground up and been compromised from its early beginnings. Its time to begin again, with the people being in control of their families health & well being, and of our common living planet.
Those in charge now care only for them damn selves; and a living planet is not on their agenda. At least… for “normal” human beings and living animals.
Yeah, I agree that it is too soon to say what the real Chinese intention is in buying Syngenta. Off the top of my head, it seems possible that they could use this foreign purveyor of poison as a weapon against foreign countries (by keeping the products out of China and only for foreign consumption).
Also, it is possible that there is huge market potential if they do approach GMO in an more ethically balanced way (i.e., by conducting long term studies, and slowly bringing to market superior products than Monsanto or other competitors.)
Guess we’ll just have to wait & see.
Umm. Have you ever read Cordwainer Smith’s the Day the People Fell? Or any of his writing under his real name of Dr. Paul Lineberger? He was Sun Yat-sen’s godson and a famous old China hand. Based on his views and my other readings and discussions, I think it very believable the Chinese would want some proprietary interest in technology they don’t want – if only to make it easier to keep it out. They complained about the lack of Chinese developers working on the Linux Kernel, then when an emigre started contributing they enticed him home, where he had to give up because it was too difficult to work from there. So no, I don’t think they are necessarily reasonable. Therefore I think you are premature to say you missed. Thank you for pointing this out because it probably will be significant, but it’s too soon, I thin to say how.,
I read a lot of Cordwainer Smith’s SF work when growing up. Thanks for the interesting background material. Must have been a fascinating life…
If this story is true then the Chinese Government has been mole agents for Western Imperialism. Or as they say Running Dogs for Corporate Fascism reminds me of the scene at the end of Animal Farm the book where you couldn’t distinguish the pigs from the humans.
PS–China’s recent “2nd Child Policy,” I admit, does obfuscate their “intentions” for GE Food use–unless it is to rebalance their population going forward before “the trimming begins…”
I personally think GMOs are one of the key tools to a decade of mass population trimming–which is NOW starting. (The Walking Dead is a psych-ops programming “get ready”…)
Why Now? Because this year AI/Robots advanced very quickly, AND, ALONG WITH the new advances in 3-D Printing, the workforces of major manufacturing and service economies can now be replaced with the new Bots. Within 10 Years there will be large numbers of UNemployed people in the US, UK, Japan and, as it will be, China, too. The amount of social unrest, unless we have been dumbed down and numbed into a weakened state, will be huge. So, GMOs are a way to insert “bio-time bombs” into many which can progressively be “be turned-on” thus subversively starting the depop ramp-up….and this is WHY they really want them so bad–beyond profits–And Why “they” (the CABAL) doesn’t want them labeled…. It’s all making sense, now….
Scary, but plausible…
It’s hard to tell what is really going on here but we know that there are already a lot of US-China interlocking shareholdings and China is after all the home of incredible food pollution frauds. If we posit that there are “breakaway civilization connections” between the technocracies of the two countries, this could be a way to shift GMO poison offshore to more hospitable climes.