Tag Archives: Xi Jinping

Putin & Xi Have Red Lines, Too, from Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on April 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Russia regards Ukraine as a vital national interest, and China feels the same about Taiwan. Those are real red lines, not Obama red lines. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

What are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping up to?

In recent days, Russian tanks, artillery, armor, trucks and troops have been moving by road and rail ever closer to Ukraine, and Moscow is said to be repositioning its 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade in Crimea.

Military sources in Kyiv estimate there are now 85,000 Russian troops between six and 25 miles from Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders.

“I have real concerns about Russia’s actions on the borders of Ukraine. There are more Russian forces massed on those borders than at any time since 2014 when Russia first invaded,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” Blinken added this warning:

“President Biden’s been very clear about this. If Russia acts recklessly, or aggressively, there will be costs, there will be consequences.”

What “costs” and what “consequences” were left unstated.

Earlier, Biden personally assured President Volodymyr Zelensky of America’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.”

What does that mean?

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It Got Serious In A Hurry, by Robert Gore

Posted on April 1, 2021 | 31 comments

He’s a joke, but nobody’s laughing.

Trump’s five years were fun. He said things that provoked outrage among all the right people, often because they were true. You could laugh at their hypocritical idiocies, hysterical posturing, and sputtering anger. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, anyone who can watch Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow without laughing has a heart of stone. Frothing anger fueled effort after effort to depose Trump until success was realized with overblown pandemic panic, riots, and a clearly rigged election. If nothing else, Trump exposed the mendacity, arrogance, incompetence, venality, and criminality of the Corruptocracy.

Reality doesn’t invert. A corollary is that the severity of consequences from an inversion is the square of the distance between the inversion and reality. Consider the US military. It has disregarded the realities of the wars it has fought—the relative difficulty of invasion versus defense, the deadly effectiveness of guerrilla warfare and insurgency, the corruption, tyranny, and lack of domestic support for our puppets, and so on—losing every conflict since WWII, often after lengthy and in some cases ongoing engagements.

The current crop of corruptocrats have introduced yet another inversion in the military, the woke inversion. The military will now be graded on its commitment to combat-irrelevant factors: the racial, ethnic, gender, sexual preferences and political creeds of its forces, and their professed fealty to regnant political dogma. In other words, “diversity” in everything but thought.

This inversion is huge and given the distance squared corollary, it will soon render the armed forces incapable of fighting even a war for the protection of the United States proper. Given its ineptitude fighting offensive wars, the military will be completely useless. The defense budget, however, will grow ever more bloated.

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Joe Biden aspired to mediocrity in his prime and it’s been downhill ever since. As for Kamala Harris: some are born hacks, some achieve hackness, and some have hackness thrust upon them. She’s all three. They and their string-pullers have taken things from fun to serious—deadly serious—in a little over two months.

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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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Market Weekly: Merkel’s War for Germany is Nearly Over, by Tom Luongo

Posted on February 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping aren’t buying what Angela Merkel’s selling. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

I give German Chancellor Angela Merkel a lot of grief, and with good reason. She’s the main conduit through which every bad idea in Europe flows.

Merkel, as an agent for Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, is a ruthless destroyer of human potential. Hence, that’s why she’s in charge.

I truly despise everything about her.

But as a political animal she has no peer in Europe. None. Not because she’s so supremely talented but because everyone else is a literal idiot, placed in important positions with the help of the WEF to ensure EU policy conforms to their vision of the future.

Merkel, like the rest, was chosen.

In fact, Merkel’s ineptitude is always on display once she is forced to dabble outside of the EU itself. She rules it with an iron fist but when confronted by nearly anyone else, including a madman like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, she falls on her face spectacularly.

Merkel is a wholly constructed persona whose job it is to keep the ship of the nascent EU state trudging right towards that iceberg of The Great Reset.

The forces behind the ouster of Trump and the selection of Joe Biden did this with the intent of completing the task of subordinating the U.S. (and its military) to EU control through policy normalization on domestic spending, production, taxes, etc.

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Great Reset? Putin Says, “Not So Fast” by Tom Luongo

Posted on February 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Neither Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping had anything nice to say at the Davos virtual conclave about the Davos crowd’s Great Reset. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Did you happen to catch the most important political speech of the last six years?

It would have been easy to miss given everything going on.  In fact, I almost did, and this speech sits at the intersection of nearly all of my areas of intense study.

The annual World Economic Forum took place last week via teleconference, what I’m calling Virtual Davos, and at this year’s event, of course, the signature topic was their project called the Great Reset.

But if the WEF was so intent on presenting the best face for the Great Reset to the world it wouldn’t have invited either Chinese Premier Xi Jinping or, more importantly, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And it was Putin’s speech that brought down the house of cards that is the agenda of the WEF.

The last time someone walked into a major international forum and issued such a scathing critique of the current geopolitical landscape was Putin’s speech to the United Nations on September 29th, 2015, two days before he sent a small contingency of Russian air support to Syria.

There he excoriated not only the U.N. by name but most importantly the U.S. and its NATO allies by inference asking the most salient question, “Do you understand what you have done?” having unleashed chaos in an already chaotic part of the world?

As important as that speech was it was Putin’s actions after that which defined the current era of geopolitical chess across the Eurasian continent.   Syria became the nexus around which the resistance to the “ISIS is invincible” narrative unraveled

And the mystery of who was behind ISIS, namely the Obama administration, was revealed to anyone paying attention.

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XI and Putin Make the Case for Win-Win vs. Zero-Sum, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on February 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

Xi and Putin offer much of the world a better option than what passes for US foreign relations—do as we say or else. From Pepe Escobar at unz.com:

So the Davos Agenda has come and gone.

That was the virtual Great Reset preview, hosted by Kissinger acolyte cum World Economic Forum (WEF) oracle Herr Klaus Schwab.

Still, corporate/political so-called “leaders” will continue to wax lyrical about the Fourth Industrial Revolution – or its mild spin-offs such as Build Back Better, the favorite slogan of the new White House tenants.

The WEF co-sponsors – from the UN and the IMF to BlackRock, Blackstone and the Carlyle Group – will continue to expand their synchronicity with Lynn Forester de Rothschild and her corporate-heavy Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican – pop Pope Francis at the helm.

And yes, they they accept Visa.

Predictably, the two really crucial events at Davos received minimal or non-existent coverage across the wobbly West: the speeches by President Xi and President Putin.

We have already highlighted Xi’s essentials. Aside from arguing a powerful case for multilateralism as the only possible road map to deal with global challenges, Xi stressed nothing substantial may be achieved if the inequality gap between North and South is not reduced.

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How the U.S. Benefits from ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’, by Doug Bandow

Posted on October 31, 2020 | Leave a comment

Just because much of the world hates the US government doesn’t mean they necessarily love China’s. From Doug Bandow at theamericanconservative.com:

As Washington seeks allies amid rising tensions, Beijing discovers the downside of its international image.

(By icedmocha/Shutterstock)

With the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China potentially headed into a new cold war that would hurt both countries, American policymakers should remember the importance of gaining friends and allies around the world. And not just governments, but peoples too.

That wasn’t too hard against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Washington made mistakes internationally, but the USSR was dull, gray, threatening, backward, isolated, oppressive, and hostile to what so many people around the world desired: freedom in all its forms, modern commerce and culture, and hope for the future. The regime effectively imprisoned its entire population. Moscow’s most economically successful satellite regime, East Germany, literally walled in its people.

The PRC is threatening and oppressive, but its opening to the West, abandonment of Maoism, acceptance of personal autonomy, and embrace of economic freedom make it radically different than the USSR. China is connected to the world, flush with current culture, and full of economic opportunity. It is a technological leader and place of hope for people just a few decades away from immiserating poverty. Beijing no longer bars its people from traveling, other than those deemed to be politically unreliable.

Which, of course, highlights the fact that the PRC is retrogressing on the freedom front. Unfortunately, President and General Secretary Xi Jinping appears to see himself as the second coming of Mao Zedong and has been moving his country back toward the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian past. Doing so is creating plenty of enemies at home—popular dissatisfaction occasionally bursts forth on social media, as it did early in the COVID-19 pandemic after doctors were silenced for expressing their concerns. And Xi will not rule forever. He, like Mao, could be followed by a liberalizer, who would quickly dismantle Xi’s brutal edifice.

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There are Three Things China Still Fears About America. The Dollar is One of Them, by Mark Dittii

Posted on October 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

An insider who knows something about China speculates about the future of Chinese-American relations. From Mark Dittii at themarket.ch:

The Honorable Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia and President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, warns of a progressive decoupling of China from the United States in fields such as trade, direct investment, technology and financial markets.

Few Western observers know China better than The Honorable Kevin Rudd. As a young diplomat, the Australian, who speaks fluent Mandarin, was stationed in Beijing in the 1980s. As Australia’s Prime Minister and then Foreign Minister from 2007 to 2012, he led his country through the delicate tension between its most important alliance partner (the USA) and its largest trading partner (China).

Today Mr. Rudd is President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. In an in-depth conversation via Zoom, he explains why a fundamental competition has begun between the two great powers. He would not rule out a hot war: «We know from history that it is easy to start a conflict, but it is bloody hard to end it», he warns.

Mr. Rudd, the conflict between the U.S. and China has escalated significantly over the past three years. To what extent has that escalation been driven by the presence of two strongmen, i.e. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping?

The strategic competition between the two countries is the product of both structural and leadership factors. The structural factors are pretty plain, and that is the continuing change in the balance of power in military, economic, and technological terms. This has an impact on China’s perception of its ability to be more assertive in the region and the world against America. The second dynamic is Xi Jinping’s leadership style, which is more assertive and aggressive than any of his post-Mao predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The third factor is Donald Trump, who obsesses about particular parts of the economy, namely trade and to a lesser degree technology.

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Two Paradigms Clash: Offers for U.S.-China-Russia Partnership That Won WWII or Hellish Plunge Into WWIII, by Matthew Ehret

Posted on September 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

We can live together or die together, those are the choices. From Matthew Ehret at strategic-culture.org:

The Pentagon’s new military report on China released on September 1st has demonstrated that the outdated and deadly Cold War mentality which has wrought such destruction upon the world since the end of WWII has not only become more deeply embedded into the psyche of dominant foreign policy officials in the Pentagon, it demonstrated that the current American establishment is totally unfit to survive in today’s nuclear age. In our nuclear age, Hobbesian laws of the jungle will only result in mass extermination. If we are to survive beyond the coming decade, it is high time that a higher moral paradigm befitting of human dignity becomes hegemonic.

If one wishes to play the role of Alice and join the tea party which these Pentagon Mad Hatters are hosting, one would be expected to believe that the belligerent aggressor in the Pacific theater is not the America which has spread its military tentacles around China’s backyard since Obama’s Asia Pivot that was announced in 2012, but rather China itself. The authors of the Pentagon report assert that it is China who is interested in expansionism, overthrowing the “rule of law”, conquering the weak of the Pacific and overtaking the US as a globally hegemonic power, both militarily and with their Belt and Road Initiative, which the Washington Consensus has labelled a debt trap.

More recently, Pompeo has sent Undersecretary of State Keith Krach to Taiwan to belligerently organize bilateral free trade deals and several military deals worth $7 billion which the current basket-case leadership of Taiwan is all too happy to oblige.

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War for Hong Kong? by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Posted on June 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

China is trying to draw a line in the sand on Hong Kong, and the US should think long and hard about crossing it. From Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. at lewrockwell.com:

President Trump faces trouble, and he is handling it in a dangerous way. Our economy is reeling, as the Fed pours out billions of dollars in a futile effort to avert disaster. We know to our cost that politicians, faced with crisis at home, provoke war “to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.”

Unfortunately, this is just what Trump is doing. According to a CNN news report on Friday, May 28, “President Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on Beijing Friday, naming misdeeds that range from espionage to the violation of Hong Kong’s freedoms, and announced a slew of retaliatory measures that will plunge US-China relations deeper into crisis.

‘They’ve ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before,’ Trump said of China, as he decried the way Beijing has ‘raided our factories’ and ‘gutted’ American industry, casting Beijing as a central foil he will run against in the remaining months of his re-election campaign.

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