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post-globalisation period is ushering in regional cooperation......

The 12th “Middle East Conference” at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region.

But first, an important word on terminology – as only one of Valdai’s guests took the trouble to stress. This is not the “Middle East” – a reductionist, Orientalist notion devised by old colonials: at The Cradle we emphasize the region must be correctly described as West Asia.

 

BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 

Some of the region’s trials and tribulations have been mapped by the official Valdai report, The Middle East and The Future of Polycentric World.  But the intellectual and political clout of those in attendance can provide valuable anecdotal insights too. Here are a few of the major strands participants highlighted on regional developments, current and future:

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov set the stage by stressing that Kremlin policy encourages the formation of an “inclusive regional security system.” That’s exactly what the Americans refused to discuss with the Russians in December 2021, then applied to Europe and the post-Soviet space. The result was a proxy war.

Kayhan Barzegar of Islamic Azad University in Iran qualified the two major strategic developments affecting West Asia: a possible US retreat and a message to regional allies: “You cannot count on our security guarantees.”

Every vector – from rivalry in the South Caucasus to the Israeli normalization with the Persian Gulf – is subordinated to this logic, notes Barzegar, with quite a few Arab actors finally understanding that there now exists a margin of maneuver to choose between the western or the non-western bloc.

Barzegar does not identify Iran-Russia ties as a strategic alliance, but rather a geopolitical, economic bloc based on technology and regional supply chains – a “new algorithm in politics” – ranging from weapons deals to nuclear and energy cooperation, driven by Moscow’s revived southern and eastward orientations. And as far as Iran-western relations go, Barzegar still believes the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, is not dead. A least not yet.

 

‘Nobody knows what these rules are’

Egyptian Ramzy Ramzy, until 2019 the UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, considers the reactivation of relations between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE with Syria as the most important realignment underway in the region. Not to mention prospects for a Damascus-Ankara reconciliation. “Why is this happening? Because of the regional security system’s dissatisfaction with the present,” Ramzy explains.

Yet even if the US may be drifting away, “neither Russia nor China are willing to take up a leadership role,” he says. At the same time, Syria “cannot be allowed to fall prey to outside interventions. The earthquake at least accelerated these rapprochements.”

Bouthaina Shaaban, a special advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is a remarkable woman, fiery and candid. Her presence at Valdai was nothing short of electric. She stressed how “since the US war in Vietnam, we lost what we witnessed as free media. The free press has died.” At the same time “the colonial west changed its methods,” subcontracting wars and relying on local fifth columnists.

Shaaban volunteered the best short definition anywhere of the “rules-based international order”: “Nobody knows what these rules are, and what this order is.”

She re-emphasized that in this post-globalization period that is ushering in regional blocs, the usual western meddlers prefer to use non-state actors – as in Syria and Iran – “mandating locals to do what the US would like to do.”

A crucial example is the US al-Tanf military base that occupies sovereign Syrian territory on two critical borders. Shaaban calls the establishment of this base as “strategic, for the US to prevent regional cooperation, at the Iraq, Jordan, and Syria crossroads.” Washington knows full well what it is doing: unhampered trade and transportation at the Syria-Iraq border is a major lifeline for the Syrian economy.

Reminding everyone once again that “all political issues are connected to Palestine,” Shaaban also offered a healthy dose of gloomy realism: “The eastern bloc has not been able to match the western narrative.”

 

A ‘double-layered proxy war’

Cagri Erhan, rector of Altinbas University in Turkey, offered a quite handy definition of a Hegemon: the one who controls the lingua franca, the currency, the legal setting, and the trade routes.

Erhan qualifies the current western hegemonic state of play as “double-layered proxy war” against, of course, Russia and China. The Russians have been defined by the US as an “open enemy” – a major threat. And when it comes to West Asia, proxy war still rules: “So the US is not retreating,” says Erhan. Washington will always consider using the area “strategically against emerging powers.”

Then what about the foreign policy priorities of key West Asian and North African actors?

Algerian political journalist Akram Kharief, editor of the online MenaDefense, insists Russia should get closer to Algeria, “which is still in the French sphere of influence,” and be wary of how the Americans are trying to portray Moscow as “a new imperial threat to Africa.”

Professor Hasan Unal of Maltepe University in Turkiye made it quite clear how Ankara finally “got rid of its Middle East [West Asian] entanglements,” when it was previously “turning against everybody.”

Mid-sized powers such as Turkiye, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are now stepping to the forefront of the region’s political stage. Unal notes how “Turkiye and the US don’t see eye to eye on any issue important to Ankara.” Which certainly explains the strengthening of Turkish-Russian ties – and their mutual interest in introducing “multi-faceted solutions” to the region’s problems.

For one, Russia is actively mediating Turkiye-Syria rapprochement. Unal confirmed that the Syrian and Turkish foreign ministers will soon meet in person – in Moscow – which will represent the highest-ranking direct engagement between the two nations since the onset of the Syrian war. And that will pave the way for a tripartite summit between Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Note that the big regional reconciliations are being held – once again – either in, or with the participation of Moscow, which can rightfully be described as the capital of the 21st century multipolar world.

When it comes to Cyprus, Unal notes how “Russia would not be interested in a unified state that would be EU and NATO territory.” So it’s time for “creative ideas: as Turkey is changing its Syria policy, Russia should change its Cyprus policy.”

Dr. Gong Jiong, from the Israeli campus of China’s University of International Business and Economics, came up with a catchy neologism: the “coalition of the unwilling” – describing how “almost the whole Global South is not supporting sanctions on Russia,” and certainly none of the players in West Asia.

Gong noted that as much as China-Russia trade is rising fast – partly as a direct consequence of western sanctions – the Americans would have to think twice about China-hit sanctions. Russia-China trade stands at $200 billion a year, after all, while US-China trade is a whopping $700 billion per annum.

The pressure on the “neutrality camp” won’t relent anyway. What is needed by the world’s “silent majority,” as Gong defines it, is “an alliance.” He describes the 12-point Chinese peace plan for Ukraine as “a set of principles” – Beijing’s base for serious negotiations: “This is the first step.”

 

There will be no new Yalta

What the Valdai debates made crystal clear, once again, is how Russia is the only actor capable of approaching every player across West Asia, and be listened to carefully and respectfully.

It was left to Anwar Abdul-Hadi, director of the political department of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the latter’s official envoy to Damascus, to arguably sum up what led to the current global geopolitical predicament: “A new Yalta or a new world war? They [the west] chose war.”

And still, as new geopolitical and geoeconomic fault lines keep emerging, it is as though West Asia is anticipating something “big” coming ahead. That feeling was palpable in the air at Valdai.

To paraphrase Yeats, and updating him to the young, turbulent 21st century, “what rough beast, its hour come out at last, slouches towards the cradle [of civilization] to be born?"

 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

 

READ MORE:

https://thecradle.co/article-view/22167/the-valdai-meeting-where-west-asia-meets-multipolarity

 

IMAGE AT TOP FROM CHINA DAILY.

 

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bullish....

Deutsche Bank is bullish on the Chinese market and has revised its economic growth forecast for China from 4.5 percent to 6 percent this year.

With a fast improving outlook for China and global investors becoming more bullish, Deutsche Bank sees a big potential this year for its debt underwriting, asset management, investor services and custody businesses.

The conjuncture of China's clear decarbonization and clean energy transition targets, and financial market liberalization also presents a huge opportunity for foreign banks, said Samuel Fischer, head of China onshore debt capital markets at Deutsche Bank.

 

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https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202302/28/WS63fd3145a31057c47ebb11e4.html

 

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china dreaming.....

by Bruno Bertez

The Chinese central government is telling bankers in China to change their mindset, clean up their "hedonistic way of life", and stop copying Western habits.

Western commentators cannot understand what is happening in China. It's not a question of intelligence, it's a question of culture and training. Training in the sense of form: they do not have in their minds the forms, or the structures which would enable them to put in order and to interpret the Chinese decisions.

Worse, they judge the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which thinks in terms of dialectical materialism, based on spiritualist, voluntarist, positivist and mechanistic patterns!

 

Value system

China has been preparing for conflict for many years now. China stopped Westernization, took over the education of its children, popular culture — brought stars, plutocrats and billionaires into line, China changed the boss of the central bank, because the former wanted to open it up too much and insert it into the western mesh. China maintained control of the currency and capital movements, it has put a stop to unwanted reforms, it burst its real estate bubble, and so on. It has tightened its centralization. It has strengthened the role and representation of the Party, the CCP.

Generally speaking, the CCP leaders understood that if they allowed their original internal system to become "trivialized" under Western influence, they were lost.

They understood that it was necessary to preserve isolation and the system of internal Values ​​– in every sense of the word: civilizational values, specific market values, political values, moral values, etc.

They understood that the basis of their survival was, in the broad sense, the maintenance and control of their system of Values.

They understood that the United States was laying a trap for them. The one they had handed to the Soviets was that of confrontation on the ground chosen by the United States. So they withdrew and are still withdrawing from this terrain.

A Marxist-type system, not based primarily on the market and the commodity, but on state impulse, CCP directives, state investment, and labor value, cannot allow itself to be accepted as is. they the external values ​​conveyed by the goods, the currency and the culture of the rivals.

China can only survive as a China and an original experience if it protects itself and avoids confrontation with Western value systems. It's not that Western values ​​are superior, but they are destructive. It is ontological.

 

To counter the soft power

The proof that this is ontological is that the West seeks by all means to implant its system of values ​​among its enemies, a system of values ​​including unlimited consumption, enjoyment, the priority of desire over needs, libertarian vision, transgression, generalized hedonism, destructuring, etc.

Until now, soft power, propaganda and the management of the imagination had sufficed, but this is no longer the case since the financial crisis of 2008 and the latent economic crisis that has been raging since that date. The world having ceased to be cooperative, it has become first competitive, then adversarial and now strategically warmongering. The saber was forced to replace or supplement the aspergillum of the hedonic religion. Just like the good old days before modernity.

The truth " soft power of the West was its ability to impose through spectacle and imitation its values ​​of decadence because they are values ​​of carelessness, comfort, selfishness, minimal effort. These are values ​​where you just have to let yourself slide down the slope. A system of enjoyment of rights rather than a system of duties is thuws necessarily more attractive!

China cannot support, for example, the extension of Western so-called “democratic” values.  

China understood that these values ​​were not democratic, that they did not come from the people, but from above, from the Merchants in the Temple. That these "democratic" values ​​were only so in appearance, that they were only formal without any real content.

This is also a discussion that deserves to be conducted, to know which is the most autocratic system, the one where freedom is only formal and where you are programmed by the elites at the level of your unconscious or the system where freedom is limited but where there is a residue of authentic individual freedom where everyone can still follow their personal determinations. Huge topic I wonder about.

China understood that in reality Western values, through ideological progressivism, were manipulations; manipulations such as victimization, human rights, feminization, wokenism, the dictatorship of fashion, the dictatorship of the Self and the Money fetish, the destruction of ancestor worship and of the respect for the elderly, the negation of identities, etc.

If China had continued on this path for more than a decade, the American dream would have come true; Under the battering from the outside, China would have lost its specificity, its strengths and its assets.

Hence the halt and the reversals and the divergent developments, of the authoritarian and non-liberal type. In my opinion, since 2012 or 2013, China has been moving towards a society and an economy of confrontation, not to say war. China is on the mend. At some point Xi like Putin in Munich in 2007 understood that his country was gambling for its survival.

One more word on this subject. In the United States, there are a few people who think like the Chinese and the CCP, but it is mostly the neocons who are able to understand what is happening in China. The culture of the Straussian neocons is not that of traditional political circles in the West; no, their culture is Trotskyist, and as such, they are able to understand and dismantle strategies that are inspired by Marxism. They are able to flip them around.

 

READ MORE:

https://en.reseauinternational.net/la-chine-se-met-en-ordre-de-marche-xi-comme-poutine-a-munich-en-2007-a-compris-que-son-pays-jouait-sa-survie/

 

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taking the baton......

Fyodor Lukyanov: China is finally stepping up to its role as a superpower. This will change the world

 

The international sphere is aligning along two blocs, one led by the US and its allies, and the other by Beijing and Moscow

 

By Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

 

China has stepped up its diplomatic activity considerably. This is not only because it has broken out of the long-standing pandemic isolation that previously hampered its outreach. The main motive is that China’s role and weight in the international arena have grown to the point where contemplative detachment is no longer possible. This is an important shift in Chinese self-awareness; the question now is what changes in international practice it will lead to.

Non-action as the highest virtue and the non-contradictory interpenetration of opposites are principles of traditional philosophy, but they are also quite an applied way of conducting international activities. A detailed analysis of this phenomenon should be left to specialists, but it is worth noting that the shift from such a worldview to a more familiar ideological and geopolitical confrontation took place when China adopted the generally alien Western communist doctrine.

Mao Zedong attempted to change not only the social order but also the culture of the Chinese. But his reign ended with a bargain with the United States, which was a return to a strategic equilibrium that better suited the Chinese view of the world. Mutual recognition did not mean agreement and harmony, but it was in line with the objectives of the parties at the time. This period, which lasted until very recently, is only now showing signs of coming to an end.

There is much debate in America about the last few decades, and there is complaining that it is China that has gained the most from the interaction. Criteria may vary, but in general it is hard to disagree that Beijing has been the primary beneficiary – at least in terms of the transformation of the country and its place on the international stage. Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of quiet, gradual ascent was entirely in the Chinese spirit, and the result has undoubtedly been justified.

So much so that it was extremely difficult for Beijing to understand that this super favorable and advantageous situation would come to an end.

This proved inevitable for one simple reason: China has acquired a power that, whatever its wishes and intentions, makes it a potential rival to the US. And this has led to a natural evolution of the American approach to Beijing. After all, the US style is the direct opposite of the classic Chinese style described above. And the latter’s attempts in the late 2010s and early 2020s to slow down the growing American pressure have run up against Washington’s firm intention to move the relationship into the category of strategic competition. To be fair, China’s assertiveness and self-confidence were also growing, but if everything had depended on Beijing alone, the period of beneficial cooperation would have lasted several more years.

Be that as it may, a new era has dawned. China’s diplomatic revival is intended to demonstrate that Beijing is not afraid to play a role in world politics. The form of engagement so far bears the hallmarks of the previous period and of that very traditional approach – the sterile precision of the wording of Chinese peace proposals on the Ukraine issue is evidence of this. But this too is likely to change. China’s desire to maintain an outwardly well intentioned neutrality suits Moscow; it is the West that is quick to allege insincerity, and to do so in a tone that is unbecoming of the Chinese. Beijing should not be expected to make a sharp U-turn, which is also contrary to its sense of propriety, but the direction is set.

And it is not a question of whether China shares Russia’s assessment of what is happening in Ukraine. Beijing has carefully avoided expressing an opinion because it does not consider it to be its business. But the realignment of forces on the world stage is taking its course, with China and Russia, whether they like it or not, on one side and the United States and its allies on the other. And from now on this will become increasingly clear. In his ten years at the helm of his country, Xi Jinping has transformed its domestic and foreign policies.

On the one hand, he has emphasized the classical Chinese outlook more than his predecessors, while on the other, he has honored the slogans and ideas associated with socialism. The former implies a self-sufficient harmony, while the latter tends to be outward-looking as much as inward-looking. This symbiosis is likely to define China’s positioning in the next five or ten years of Xi’s rule. The hostile international environment will increasingly test Beijing’s ability to maintain an acceptable equilibrium. Much will depend on how successful these attempts are, including for Russia.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/572465-china-is-finally-superpower/ 

 

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stop annoying china......

Chinese FM: US Needs to 'Hit the Brakes' Before Conflict Becomes Inevitable With Beijing

 

BY IAN DeMARTINO

 

China and the United States have the world’s third and second-largest nuclear stockpiles, respectively. Tensions have been increasing between the two countries over economic issues and the US repeated accusations that Beijing is supporting Russia, as well as matters over Taiwan.

Newly appointed Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said in a Tuesday media briefing that the US and China are headed towards conflict if the United States does not “hit the brake” in its dealings with Beijing.

On Tuesday, Qin, who was until recently the Chinese ambassador to the United States, said that the balloon incident was proof the US sees China as its main adversary, and that the United States acts “with the presumption of guilt” towards China.

The US contends the balloon shot down by the United States Air Force in early February was a Chinese surveillance balloon despite China maintaining it was a scientific vessel launched by a private company that had blown off-course.

Just in: Chinese FM Qin Gang @AmbQinGang on China-U.S. relations. #2023TwoSessions pic.twitter.com/d34mFuTyjS

— T-House (@thouse_opinions) March 7, 2023

Qin reiterated that China was seeking “a sound and stable relationship with the US” but that the Biden administration’s call for “guardrails” in their relationship was the US signaling “that China should not respond in word or in action when attacked,” adding: “That’s not possible.”

If the US does not draw down its aggressive position towards China, Qin warns that “conflict and confrontation” will be inevitable.

 

 

“If the US does not hit the brake but continue to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said.

 

Qin also spoke about China’s relationship with Russia and pointed to it as a template that other countries could follow.

 

 

“Relations between Russia and China are characterized by non-alignment with blocs, absence of confrontation and are not directed against third parties,” Qin said, seemingly in reference to NATO which was created to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. “[The relationship between China and Russia does] not pose a threat to any country in the world.”

 

On the subject of sanctions, Qin questioned why his country was being threatened with sanctions by the West, while his country has provided no arms to either side of the conflict in Ukraine.

Qin also said sanctions on Russia are unlikely to solve the issue and said that dialogue to end the conflict should begin as soon as possible. Earlier this month, China proposed a plan to begin peace talks in Ukraine, but it was roundly rejected by Ukraine and its western allies.

The next day reports were leaked by the US intelligence community, accusing China of “considering” weapon shipments to Russia and US officials warned that any such shipments would be met with sanctions. While the Biden administration hinted it was considering making the intelligence reports covering China’s plans public, the US has yet to provide any evidence that China is or was considering weapon shipments to Russia.

 

READ MORE:

https://sputniknews.com/20230307/chinese-fm-us-needs-to-hit-the-brakes-before-conflict-becomes-inevitable-with-beijing-1108134780.html

 

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