Container Drivers (Version) – 14th November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen

Let’s heighten tensions with China
We’ve got to keep them down
Grey caps and grey trousers
Sweatshops will keep them down
We are containers, we are the drivers

Sideways perception
Allied ascension
Maintained low wages
Increased production
Therefore profit margins
We are the containers, and the drivers

The rhetoric was for two days
Maintained headlines for two days
Militarised, cold and grey
And sold so many papers
We are containers, we are the drivers

This is not our town
Alienation came from the ground
Hard work did not keep them down
Hard work bought them the town
With their containers and their drivers

J. Ma’s a distant relation
Of 1 billion full-time workers
So they all said ‘no thanks’
In commune and closed ranks
With their containers and their drivers

A wound self-inflicted
Partnerships invalidated
FOIP – branded strategy
Diplomatic engagements ended
With AI containers and robot drivers

Shared with dVerse Poetics – Pivot referencing the USA’s Pivot To Asia. For some reason, I had the Fall’s ‘Container Drivers’ stuck in my head and so the poem can be sung along in time with that (if you wish!)

14 thoughts on “Container Drivers (Version) – 14th November 2025”

    1. I saw a quote recently that compared AI in the US and in China. In the US it seems to be sold as being a personal tool to increase one’s productivity (or be distracted by it). In China it is already widely implemented in their manufacturing chain and being used to progress their society. Who will be best prepared for the future?

      In the US – those who can buy are the corporations. In China, it is the government. Who would you trust?

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