Tag Archives: China

The stage is set for Hybrid World War III, by Pepe Escobar

The Russians and Chinese see quite clearly that they stand in opposition to the U.S., and they are determined to build something different and what they regard as better than the American model. From Pepe Escobar at thesaker.is:

A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia.

That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world.

A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing. It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West. No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space.

Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described

Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.”

For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.

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The Great Game Reloaded: Superpowers In The Modern World, by RFE/RL staff

The new Cold War is here and its centerpiece this time may the standoff between the West and China. From the RFE/RL staff at oilprice.com:

  • Munich Security Conference reveals tensions between US and China, with China sensing an opportunity to strengthen its global status.
  • Chinese official Wang Yi accuses US of fueling war in Ukraine, while US Secretary of State Blinken accuses China of preparing to provide weapons to Russia.
  • Despite tensions, European leaders engage with China during Wang’s diplomatic tour of Europe, raising concerns over de-dollarization and digital currencies decreasing Western leverage over China, Russia, and Iran.

Top foreign policy officials from the United States and China spent most of the last weekend at the Munich Security Conference stressing that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War, but amid tense rhetoric and accusations, a chill across much of the world is already being felt.Finding Perspective: The Munich gathering is Europe’s premier foreign policy conference and has long been a mainstay for leading officials from the West and elsewhere to hobnob and take the pulse of the current world order.

This year’s diagnosis was far from optimistic. While the West showed that it is perhaps more united now than in recent years and that support for Ukraine is entrenched — a message reinforced by U.S. President Joe Biden’s unannounced visit to Kyiv — it’s hard to shake the sense that the West remains more out of step than ever with the rest of the world and that the damage done by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can’t be undone.

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There Has Never In History Been A Greater Need For A Large Anti-War Movement, by Caitlin Johnstone

We may be looking at the extinction of our species. We should be expressing our concerns. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Things are escalating more and more rapidly between the US-centralized power structure and the few remaining nations with the will and the means to stand against its demands for total obedience, namely China, Russia, and Iran. The world is becoming increasingly split between two groups of governments who are becoming increasingly hostile toward each other, and you don’t have to be a historian to know it’s probably a bad sign when that happens. Especially in the age of nuclear weapons.

The US State Department’s Victoria Nuland is now saying that the US is supporting Ukrainian strikes on Crimea, drawing sharp rebukes from Moscow with a stern reminder that the peninsula is a “red line” for the Kremlin which will result in escalations in the conflict if crossed. On Friday, Ukraine’s President Zelensky told the press that Kyiv is preparing a large offensive for the “de-occupation” of Crimea, which Moscow has considered a part of the Russian Federation since its annexation in 2014.

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NATO Members Float Plan For Negotiations Amid “Growing Doubts” Ukraine Can Retake Territory, by Tyler Durden

The U.S. and NATO are looking for a face saving way out. Good luck with that. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update(1525ET): NATO has “answered” China’s Ukraine peace proposal unveiled earlier in the day by previewing a peace plan that three major Western allies reportedly have in the works. The plan hinges on Ukraine forging a defense pact with NATO (though stopping short of formal membership), and in return Kyiv would enter talks with Moscow, likely with territorial concessions on the table.

It’s said to be motivated in part by Western leaders having “growing doubts” over Ukraine’s ability to reconquer territory – thus a more ‘realist’ and pragmatic perspective might be taking hold one year into the stalemated conflict. The Wall Street Journal broadly outlines the German, France, UK plan as follows

Germany, France and Britain see stronger ties between NATO and Ukraine as a way to encourage Kyiv to start peace talks with Russia later this year, officials from the three governments said, as some of Kyiv’s Western partners have growing doubts over its ability to reconquer all its territory.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week laid out a blueprint for an agreement to give Ukraine much broader access to advanced military equipment, weapons and ammunition to defend itself once the war ends. He said the plan should be on the agenda for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s annual meeting in July.

But if the plan hinges on creating a ‘fortress Ukraine’ through ramped up arms deliveries, including tanks and possibly jets, then it’s unlikely to sit well with Moscow – especially if the plan falls short of making territorial concessions. WSJ continues: 

The officials were careful to say that any decision on when and under what conditions any peace talks start is entirely up to Ukraine. Sunak on Friday said the West should give Ukraine arms that would give it a “decisive advantage” on the battlefield, including warplanes.

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The Geoeconomics of Modern Conflict, by James Rickards

China is probably not going to invade Taiwan, and it is nowhere near the threat it is made out to be. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

Geopolitics play a major role in the outlook for global economies. But more importantly, today, we must look at the world through the prism of geoeconomics.

What is “geoeconomics”? Obviously, it’s a portmanteau from the words geopolitics and economics. There’s nothing new about considering those disciplines in the same context.

Wars are geopolitical and are often won through industrial capacity, which is primarily economic. Economics and global strategy have always been entwined. What is new is the idea that economics are not just an adjunct of geopolitics, but are now the main event.

This does not mean that warfare is over or that military prowess no longer matters… It means that the major powers in a globalized age will base their calculations on economic gain and loss, and will use economic weapons not as ancillaries, but as primary weapons.

This change was described at the beginning of the new age of globalization by strategic thinker Edward N. Luttwak in a 1990 article titled“From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce.”

Luttwak wrote that the end of the Cold War and the start of globalization meant that armed conflict was too costly and uncertain for great powers. Economic interests would now be the arena for great power conflict.

Luttwak wrote, “Everyone, it appears, now agrees that the methods of commerce are displacing military methods – with disposable capital in lieu of firepower, civilian innovation in lieu of military-technical advance and market penetration in lieu of garrisons and bases.”

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Is China Considering Supplying Russia With Weapons? By Ted Snider

If the Chinese do supply weapons to Russia, what’s the U.S. going to do about it? From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:

On February 3, following the balloon incident, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his trip to China. On February 18, he got a second chance on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. It didn’t go well.

After reprimanding China over the balloons “unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law” – for which China offered “no apology” – and warning them that such an “irresponsible act must never again occur,” Blinken “warned” China about the ” consequences if China provides material support to Russia or assistance with systemic sanctions evasion.”

American officials described the meeting between Blinken and Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Yi as “confrontational.”

The day after the meeting, Blinken claimed that the US has “information that gives us concern that [China is] considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine.” He said that China is “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia.”

The US has made similar claims before. In March 2022, US officials claimed that Russia had asked China for military equipment. They provided no details on the request nor on how they knew. That’s because they didn’t know. European and US officials told NBC that that accusation “lacked hard evidence” and that, in fact, “there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia.”

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Russia And China Draw ‘Red Lines’ On Their Borders; US Draws Them On The Other Side Of The Planet, by Caitlin Johnstone

You get to draw red lines wherever you want when you run the global unipolar empire. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Reacting to China’s announcement that it will be putting forward a proposal for a political settlement to end the war in Ukraine, the US ambassador to the United Nations said that if China begins arming Russia in that conflict this will be a “red line” for the United States.

“We welcome the Chinese announcement that they want peace because that’s what we always want to pursue in situations like this. But we also have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that that is unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN on Sunday.

“That would be a red line,” she said.

The US ambassador to the United Nations said that China would cross a “red line” if the country decided to provide lethal military aid to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine https://t.co/R47CzEZmJi

— CNN (@CNN) February 19, 2023

The ambassador’s comments pertained to an unsubstantiated claim made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday that China is “considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” according to US intelligence.

The US has been making evidence-free claims in relation to China arming Russia against Ukraine since the war began. In March of last year the New York Times reported that “Russia asked China to give it military equipment and support for the war in Ukraine after President Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale invasion last month, according to U.S. officials.” Then in April of last year NBC reported that this claim “lacked hard evidence” and was essentially just a lie the US government told the media “as part of an information war against Russia.”

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Gaming America’s Next Big War, by Byron King and Joel Bowman

Choosing to defend Taiwan could be disastrous for the U.S., and even if the defense was successful, it would be costly. From Byron King and Joel Bowman at bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com:

Who wins and who loses in a battle in the South China Sea?

(Source: Getty Images)

“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” 

~ Frederic Bastiat (attributed)

Joel Bowman, appraising the situation from Buenos Aires, Argentina…

Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we gather around the campfire, rustle up a few tall tales and give thanks that we made it through another seven days without our trigger-happy, power-drunk overlords nuking our precious blue orb into oblivion…

On that cheery note, we have a special treat in store for you today. We recently caught up with Harvard-trained geologist, energy and resource expert, keen geopolitical observer and all-round man of letters, Mr. Byron King. 

Your weekend correspondent first met Byron almost two decades ago, when we worked together (with Bill Bonner) during the old Daily Reckoning days. Byron invited us up to Titusville, PA. the birthplace of the American oil industry, where Colonel Edwin Drake sank the nation’s first commercially viable well way back in the 1850s. We spent the day talking to local historians and even dynamite fracking a well. (Fire in the hole!) 

Fast forward to 2021 and Byron kindly agreed to lend his insights during our first ever Winter Catastrophe event for Bonner Private Research. He and fellow natural resource expert, Rick Rule, alerted early members to what they saw as a coming energy supply crunch, owing in no small part to western governments commitment to burdensome regulation and even outright hostility to conventional energy, such as Colonel Drake had brought to the market. 

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Iran-China strategic partnership: The big picture, by Pepe Escobar

Asian countries are turning towards Asia, which doesn’t bode well for Americans who think America has to control Asia to control the world. From Pepe Escobar at presstv.ir:]

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

The national flags of China and Iran fly in Tiananmen Square during Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi’s visit to Beijing, China, February 14, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)

The key takeaway of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s state visit to Beijing goes way beyond the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements.

This is a crucial inflexion point in an absorbing, complex, decades-long, ongoing historical process: Eurasia integration.   

Little wonder that President Raeisi, welcomed by a standing ovation at Peking University before receiving an honorary academic title, stressed “a new world order is forming and taking the place of the older one”, characterized by “real multilateralism, maximum synergy, solidarity and dissociation from unilateralisms”.

And the epicenter of the new world order, he asserted, is Asia.  

It was quite heartening to see the Iranian president eulogizing the Ancient Silk Road, not only in terms of trade but also as a “cultural bond” and “connecting different societies together throughout history”.

Raeisi could have been talking about Sassanid Persia, whose empire ranged from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, and was the great intermediary Silk Road trading power for centuries between China and Europe.

It’s as if he was corroborating Chinese President Xi Jinping’s famed notion of “people to people exchanges” applied to the New Silk Roads. 

And then President Raeisi jump cut to the inescapable historical connection: he addressed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which Iran is a key partner.

All that spells out Iran’s full reconnection with Asia – after those arguably wasted years of trying an entente cordiale with the collective West. That was symbolized by the fate of the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal: negotiated, unilaterally buried and then, last year, all but condemned all over gain.

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Imagine If China Did To The US What The US Is Doing To China, by Caitlin Johnstone

China keeps putting its country next to U.S. military bases. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

This past Thursday US Senator Josh Hawley gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation — a warmongering think tank with immense influence in the DC swamp — that is a perfect representation of a couple of interesting dynamics occurring in US foreign policy thought today.

The Trump-endorsed Hawley is a perfect example of the faux-populism in the “MAGA” branch of the Republican Party: a rich Ivy League alum who makes a big display of standing up to the elites on behalf of the little guy, while consistently advancing the longstanding agendas of western oligarchs, DC neocons, and secretive US government agencies.

Hawley’s latest performance of pretending to fight the Deep State while directly assisting the Deep State appears in his speech titled “China and Ukraine: A Time for Truth,” wherein he denounces the “endless proxy war in Ukraine,” the “Uniparty” of “neoconservatives on the right and liberal globalists on the left,” and the way US wars in the Middle East cost “billions of dollars there and lost hundreds of American lives” (a massive understatement on both counts).

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