Tag Archives: China

Autocracy vs. Democracy or China vs. America? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on March 30, 2021 | 1 comment

The US government’s beef with Xi Jinping isn’t that he’s an autocrat, it’s that he’s not our autocrat. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

“I’ve known Xi Jinping for a long time. … He doesn’t have a democratic — with a small ‘d’ — bone in his body,” said Joe Biden in his first press conference as president, and then he ambled on:

“He’s one of the guys, like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future — democracy can’t function in an ever-complex world.

“It is clear, absolutely clear … that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. … We have to prove democracy works.”

Thus did Biden frame the conflict between America and China in almost purely ideological terms.

“Look … your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just with China.”

But is this really what the conflict between America and China for economic, military and strategic supremacy is about — a contest between two political systems? And does Xi Jinping see it that way?

Does Xi see himself as the global champion of “autocracy” or as the nationalist leader of the Chinese people and Mao’s successor as The Great Helmsman who heads the party that decides the destiny of the nation?

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The Iran-China Axis Is A Fast Growing Force In Oil Markets, by David Messler

Posted on March 30, 2021 | 1 comment

The Chinese and Iranian governments are sealing their alliance with oil and a shared antipathy towards the US. From David Messler at oilprice.com:

One of the things that doesn’t get a lot of discussion in the press is the under-the-table relationship Iran and China have had when it comes to oil. At first glance, they wouldn’t seem to have a lot in common. One is a theocracy with a radical view of non-believers and the other is probably the only example of a successful communist dictatorship since this form of government was created. But, if you look a little deeper they have a couple of things that align their mutual interests strongly. The first is they are both absolute dictatorships, meaning the institutions of government and national policies can be changed at the whim of those at the top. The second thing they have in common, and this is the main takeaway, both countries have serious geopolitical issues with the United States.

Iran suffers from years of sanctions imposed primarily by the U.S. to compel them to comply with U.N. resolutions regarding their atomic program. China views this century as the one in which they displace America as the world’s dominant Super Power. The place where these two authoritarian government’s worldviews align is in their opposition to the U.S.

It’s worth noting China’s apparent success has been funded by western economies over the last 75-years, thanks to our desire to buy everything as cheaply as possible. In that time, China has become the manufacturing center for the world and amassed immense wealth in doing so. The pandemic has caused a rethinking of the wisdom of outsourcing strategic commodities to despotic regimes, but for now, if you buy something other than food odds are it was made in China.

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Biden Administration on Aggression Tour of Europe Against Russia, China, by the Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on March 26, 2021 | Leave a comment

Heaven forbid! There are countries in this world that would rather not see the US running it. From the Strategic Culture Editorial Board at strategic-culture.org:

Biden asserted that China wanted to supplant the United States as the world’s leader, as if that in itself is a crime.

This week saw a frenetic foray by the Biden administration to provocatively wind up tensions with Russia and China. Lamentably, judging by European acquiescence, the Americans can claim some success in their nefarious aim. But such “success” is a dangerous slide toward conflict, a baleful dynamic that the sycophantic leaders of the European Union are facilitating.

President Joe Biden has said, rather disingenuously, that he is not seeking confrontation with Russia nor China. But it is difficult to conclude otherwise from the statements and actions of this president and his top officials since he occupied the White House two months ago.

His secretary of state Antony Blinken – America’s most senior diplomat – arrived in Europe this week in what was the first in-person meeting for European and NATO leaders with the Biden administration. The week kicked off with the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union unveiling coordinated sanctions against China over alleged human rights abuses.

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Blinken’s Pièce de Théâtre Failed; Its Script Was Passé, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on March 26, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Biden administration is further cementing an important strategic partnership—between China and Russia. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

Blinken, having read out the prepared ‘grievances’ indictment, found that the anti-hero, Yang Jiechi, instead of being chastened, hit back.

A Global Times editorial assessed that the China-U.S. Anchorage talks would come to be seen as “a landmark in history”. For the first time, U.S. hegemony was treated disdainfully; for the first time, the U.S. ‘right’ to claim its values – its ‘style’ of democracy – as universally applicable, was publicly and flatly contradicted. Even the posture of ‘speaking from strength’ was dismissed, and the U.S.’ pressure of an alliance ‘bloc’ system ‘despised’. All spoken with an air of impunity (you need us, more than we need you). Strong stuff; no wonder Blinken looked shell-shocked.

Yet, this was not ‘it’. Anchorage was, in practice, a play of several acts. Well before ‘Opening Night’, a supportive cast was being mobilised as chorus to the play’s anticipated moment of climax: The Quad (U.S., Japan, Australia, and India) were warmed up; NATO activated, and the Europeans co-opted.

Even before the audience could take their seats, a small early drama was enacted in Moscow. It set in place the scenery to the climatic Act that was expected at Anchorage. The EU High Representative who had travelled purposively to read the ‘Riot Act’ to Moscow for its treatment of demonstrators, and of Alexei Navalny himself, was completely nonplussed to find the tables entirely turned – it was the EU that was led to the Moscow dock, chastised for criminalising Catalonian leaders as seditionists, and presented with videos of European police heavy-handedness in dealing with demonstrators. The first crack to the mould appeared.

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The Entire World Should Be Laughing At America For Pretending To Care About Muslims In China, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on March 26, 2021 | Leave a comment

Hypocrisy, as HL Mencken once said, is the hair running through the hot dog of American foreign policy. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

The current representative of the US empire finally held his first full press conference yesterday, an embarrassing and undignified affair which saw a gaggle of obsequious imperial stenographers gather round to make believe that important policy decisions about the operation of the most powerful government in the world are actually being made by this dried up empty husk of a man who can barely think or talk.

Once again we heard the US empire babbling about the plight of Muslims in China, with the words tumbling out of Biden’s dementia-addled brain that he “made it clear that no American president, at least one did, but no American president had ever backed down from speaking out of what’s happening in the Uyghurs.”

By “what’s happening in the Uyghurs” Biden was attempting to articulate a concern for the human rights of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, a talking point the US empire has been fallaciously and dishonestly pushing with more and more aggression as attempts to halt the rise of China escalate in urgency. And literally seconds later, Biden made it clear that that is exactly what this feigned concern for Muslim lives was indeed really about.

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Biden’s last throw of geopolitical dice, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on March 26, 2021 | 1 comment

Biden will be unable to maintain the US empire. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

In a continuing cold war, America is already on the back foot. We have yet to see how long it will be before the Biden administration realises its few victories will be unaffordably Pyrrhic, and by merely not responding to American provocation the Chinese/Russian partnership will emerge as the victors.

Halford Mackinder’s century-old vision of a Eurasian superstate, based between the Volga and the Yangtse, is becoming reality. Commentators usually fail to understand why; it is not due to military superiority, but down to simple economics. While the US economy suffers a post-lockdown inflationary outcome and an existential crisis for the dollar, China’s economy will boom on the back of increasing domestic consumption, which is an official government objective; and increasing exports, the consequence of America’s stimulation of consumer demand and a soaring budget deficit.

The Chinese-Russian partnership already dominates or controls Mackinder’s World Island, defined as Eurasia and all Africa. South-east Asian nations notionally in the US’s sphere of influence are firmly tied to the partnership’s economy, and the overland and sea silk roads similarly bind the EU and the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans’ states respectively. It amounts to over half the world’s population no longer sharing the economic and currency interests of 328 million Americans.

This article summarises the background to the geopolitical situation facing the Biden administration before concluding that in the current cold war against the combined power of Russia and China, America will fail in its political objectives, not through lack of military power, but due to economic forces.

Introduction

Now that the Biden administration has settled in, it is time to reassess American policy towards Russia, China and the wider Asian scene. Is it going to be a continuation of the Trump administration’s policies, or is there something new going on? Given the continued tenure of staffers at the Pentagon from before the Trump presidency, it seems unlikely there will be much in the way of détente: it is game-on for the cold war to continue.

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Posted in Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Eurasian Axis, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History

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China Hit With Sobering Splash of Reality as Alaskan Talks Melt Under Heat of U.S. Belligerence, by Matthew Ehret

Posted on March 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

As anybody who’s been in a successful marriage can attest, telling the other party what they’re doing wrong doesn’t get you very far. From Matthew Ehret at strategic-culture.org:

he Biden Administration is committed to accelerating the worst elements of the “hard imperial” practices of military encirclement of China while also advancing the “soft imperial” practices, Matt Ehret writes.

Going into the March 18 diplomatic talks between U.S. and Chinese delegates to discuss the long-term strategic interests of the two nations, China projected a largely positive hope that the days of military aggression, trade wars, sanctions and interference into China’s affairs which characterized much of the past 8 years might finally be coming to an end.

They had some reason to make their hopeful assumptions as the U.S. State Department press releases announced that the meetings would “highlight cooperation that promotes peace, security and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

The Chinese certainly hoped that the sanctions imposed under Trump’s watch might be rolled back by the new administration and that the new team might respect China’s sovereign right to pursue its economic interests without being seen as an opponent to the decaying western empire. They have understandably gotten quite tired of dealing with the constant unipolar intimidation as has been so common since Obama’s Asia Pivot was first announced in 2012. In response to the pressure of a dying empire attempting to insecurely impose its will on a growing nation which will soon find itself as the economic leader of the world, China has responded consistently with class and restraint calling for cooperation and dialogue.

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Why Corporations Are Terrified Of China: Nike, H&M Tumble After Boycott Begins Over Xinjiang Criticism, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

Nobody wants to be excluded from the world’s largest market. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

China may be a closed, authoritarian, militant, “reverse-engineering” society. But even more importantly, China has the world’s largest consumer army, and that – more than anything else – is why China is feared by countless corporations around the globe, all of whom desperately seek access to this army of rabid buyers.

For the latest example of that look no further than the plunge in H&M shares, which fell as much as 3.1% in Stockholm, while Nike dropped 3.6% in U.S. premarket trading, with the brands facing possible boycotts in China over their stance on using cotton sourced from the contentious Xinjiang region.

As Reuters reports, Nike and Adidas came under fire on Chinese social media on Thursday after Beijing’s propaganda offensive against Swedish fashion brand H&M sparked by the company’s expression of concern about labor conditions in Xinjiang. The sportswear companies were the latest to be caught up in a backlash prompted by a government call to stop foreign brands from tainting China’s name as internet users found statements they had made in the past on Xinjiang.

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Sowing Seeds of War, by Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on March 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

China and Russia are challenging the US government’s hegemonic aspirations. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.com:

China Is Losing Patience with Washington. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” China tells Washington, and China is getting angry.

Beijing warns US and its UK, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand puppets to give up pretending they constitute “world opinion.”  https://www.rt.com/news/519004-china-five-eyes-west-xinjiang/

This rebuke to the “Five Eyes” follows a strong dressing down delivered by Yang Jiechi, a ruling member of the Chinese government to the Biden regime at the Alaska talks.  Yang Jiechi told the US delegation that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”  In other words, who do you think you are?  Where did you get the idea that your self-serving position constitutes international public opinion and that you can lean on us to comply with your position?

In their most recent public statements President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have stopped pleading with the West to be nice.  Putin acknowledged that Washington only wants a hegemonic relationship with Russia, a relationship inconsistent with Russian sovereignty, and Lavrov said that the EU’s hostility to Russia could result in Russia breaking off relations with Europe.

Washington is probably too arrogant to hear what it is being told.  This is why I am concerned that Washington’s hegemonic aspiration can result in a devastating war.  It is easy to rouse Americans, especially patriotic Trump supporters, against Russia and China.  The American Establishment did not allow Trump to improve relations with Russia, but it did permit him to worsen relations with China.  But what sense does it make for Trump supporters, defined by the Biden regime as “Trump insurrectionists,” “enemies of democracy,” and “America’s greatest threat,” to support the Biden’s regime’s propaganda against Russia and China?

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Welcome to Shocked and Awed 21st Century Geopolitics, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on March 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

In the last couple of weeks, thanks to Biden blunders, Russia and China have served notice that they were no longer going to pay attention to the US’s unipolar and exceptional nation delusions. From Pepe Escobar at unz.com:

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) in Beijing, China on March 23, 2021. Russian Foreign Ministry / Handout / Anadolu Agency

It took 18 years after Shock and Awe unleashed on Iraq for the Hegemon to be mercilessly shocked and awed by a virtually simultaneous, diplomatic Russia-China one-two.

How this is a real game-changing moment cannot be emphasized enough; 21st century geopolitics will never be the same again.

Yet it was the Hegemon who first crossed the diplomatic Rubicon. The handlers behind hologram Joe “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Nance” Biden had whispered in his earpiece to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin as a soulless “killer” in the middle of a softball interview.

Not even at the height of the Cold War the superpowers resorted to ad hominem attacks. The result of such an astonishing blunder was to regiment virtually the whole Russian population behind Putin – because that was perceived as an attack against the Russian state.

Then came Putin’s cool, calm, collected – and quite diplomatic – response, which needs to be carefully pondered. These sharp as a dagger words are arguably the most devastatingly powerful five minutes in the history of post-truth international relations.

In For Leviathan, it’s so cold in Alaska, we forecasted what could take place in the US-China 2+2 summit at a shabby hotel in Anchorage, with cheap bowls of instant noodles thrown in as extra bonus.

China’s millennial diplomatic protocol establishes that discussions start around common ground – which are then extolled as being more important than disagreements between negotiating parties. That’s at the heart of the concept of “no loss of face”. Only afterwards the parties discuss their differences.

Yet it was totally predictable that a bunch of amateurish, tactless and clueless Americans would smash those basic diplomatic rules to show “strength” to their home crowd, distilling the proverbial litany on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea, “genocide” of Uighurs.

Oh dear. There was not a single State Dept. hack with minimal knowledge of East Asia to warn the amateurs you don’t mess with the formidable head of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the CCP’s Central Committee, Yang Jiechi, with impunity.

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