Tuesday 26th of November 2024
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beijing should keep “the honorable and less perilous status” of being a US enemy.....

It was a photo op for the ages: a visibly well-disposed President Xi Jinping receiving centenarian “old friend of China” Henry Kissinger in Beijing.

Mirroring meticulous Chinese attention to protocol, they met at Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – exactly where Kissinger first met in person with Zhou Enlai in 1971, preparing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.

 

BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 

The Mr. Kissinger Goes to Beijing saga was an “unofficial”, individual attempt to try to mend increasingly fractious Sino-American relations. He was not representing the current American administration.

There’s the rub. Everyone involved in geopolitics is aware of the legendary Kissinger formulation: To be the US’s enemy is dangerous, to be the US’s friend is fatal. History abounds in examples, from Japan and South Korea to Germany, France and Ukraine.

As quite a few Chinese scholars privately argued, if reason is to be upheld, and “respecting the wisdom of this 100-years-old diplomat”, Xi and the Politburo should maintain the China-US relation as it is: “icy”.

After all, they reason, being the US’s enemy is dangerous but manageable for a Sovereign Civilizational State like China. So Beijing should keep “the honorable and less perilous status” of being a US enemy.

The World Through Washington’s Eyes

What’s really going on in the back rooms of the current American administration was not reflected by Kissinger’s high-profile peace initiative, but by an extremely combative Edward Luttwak.

Luttwak, 80, may not be as visibly influential as Kissinger, but as a behind the scenes strategist he’s been advising the Pentagon across the spectrum for over five decades. His book on Byzantine Empire strategy, for instance, heavily drawing on top Italian and British sources, is a classic.

Luttwak, a master of deception, reveals precious nuggets in terms of contextualizing current Washington moves. That starts with his assertion that the US – represented by the Biden combo – is itching to do a deal with Russia.

That explains why CIA head William Burns, actually a capable diplomat, called his counterpart, SVR head Sergey Naryshkin (Russian Foreign Intelligence) to sort of straighten things up “because you have something else to worry about which is more unlimited”.

What’s “unlimited”, depicted by Luttwak in a Spenglerian sweep, is Xi Jinping’s drive to “get ready for war”. And if there’s a war, Luttwak claims that “of course” China would lose. That dovetails with the supreme delusion of Straussian neocon psychos across the Beltway.

Luttwak seems not to have understood China’s drive for food self-sufficiency: he qualifies it as a threat. Same for Xi using a “very dangerous” concept, the “rejuvenation of the Chinese people”: that’s “Mussolini stuff”, says Luttwak. “There has to be a war to rejuvenate China”.

The “rejuvenation” concept – actually better translated as “revival” – has been resonating in China circles at least since the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911. It was not coined by Xi. Chinese scholars point out that if you see US troops arriving in Taiwan as “advisors”, you would probably make preparations to fight too.

But Luttwak is on a mission: “This is not America, Europe, Ukraine, Russia. This is about ‘the sole dictator’. There is no China. There is only Xi Jinping,” he insisted.

And Luttwak confirms the EU’s Josep “Garden vs. Jungle” Borrell and European Commission dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen fully support his vision.

Luttwak, in just a few words, actually gives away the whole game: “The Russian Federation, as it is, is not strong enough to contain China as much as we would wish”.

Hence the turn around by the Biden combo to “freeze” the conflict in the Donbass and change the subject. After all, “if that [China] is the threat, you don’t want Russia to fall apart,” Luttwak reasons.

So much for Kissingerian “diplomacy.”

 

Let’s Declare a “Moral Victory” and Run Away

On Russia, the Kissinger vs. Luttwak confrontation reveals crucial cracks as the Empire faces an existential conflict it never did in the recent past.

The gradual, massive U-turn is already in progress – or at least the semblance of a U turn. US mainstream media will be entirely behind the U turn. And the naïve masses will follow. Luttwak is already voicing their deepest agenda: the real war is on China, and China “will lose”.

At least some non-neocon players around the Biden combo – like Burns – seem to have understood the Empire’s massive strategic blunder of publicly committing to a Forever War, hybrid and otherwise, against Russia on behalf of Kiev.

This would mean, in principle, that Washington can’t just walk away like it did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Yet Hegemons do enjoy the privilege to walk away: after all they exercise sovereignty, not their vassals. European vassals will be left to rot. Imagine those Baltic chihuahuas declaring war on Russia-China all by themselves.

The off-ramp confirmed by Luttwak implies Washington declaring some sort of “moral victory” in Ukraine – which is already controlled by BlackRock anyway – and then moving the guns towards China.

Yet even that won’t be a cakewalk, because China and the about-to-expand BRICS+ are already attacking the Empire at its foundation: dollar hegemony. Without it, the US itself will have to fund the war on China.

Chinese scholars, off the record, and exercising their millennia-old analytical sweep, observe this may be the last blunder the Empire ever made in its short history.

As one of them summarized it, “the empire has blundered itself to an existential war and, therefore, the last war of the empire. When the end comes, the empire will lie as usual and declare victory, but everyone else will know the truth, especially the vassals.”

And that brings us to former national security adviser Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 180-degree turn shortly before he died, aligning him today with Kissinger, not Luttwak.

“The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, before the 9/11 era, argued that the US should rule over any peer competitor rising in Eurasia. Brzezinski did not live to see the living incarnation of his ultimate nightmare: a Russia-China strategic partnership. But already seven years ago – two years after Maidan in Kiev – at least he understood it was imperative to “realign the global power architecture”.

 

Destroying the “Rules-Based International Order”

The crucial difference today, compared to seven years ago, is that the US is incapable, per Brzezinski, to “take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence (…) can be contained without destroying the global order.”

It’s the Russia-China strategic partnership that is taking the lead – followed by the Global Majority – to contain and ultimately destroy the hegemonic “rules-based international order”.

As the indispensable Michael Hudson has summarized it, the ultimate question at this incandescent juncture is “whether economic gains and efficiency will determine world trade, patterns and investment, or whether the post-industrial US/NATO economies will choose to end up looking like the rapidly depopulating and de-industrializing post-Soviet Ukraine and Baltic states or England.”

So is the wet dream of a war on China going to change these geopolitical and geoeconomics imperatives? Give us a -Thucydides – break.

The real war is already on – but certainly not one identified by Kissinger, Brzezinski and much less Luttwak and assorted US neocons. Michael Hudson, once again, summarized it: when it comes to the economy, the US and EU “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”

Republished from Sputnik International

 

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/neocons-want-war-with-china/

 

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stormy seas.....

 

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

 

The NATO Summit in Vilnius (July 11-12) signalled that there is absolutely no possibility of talks to settle the Ukraine war in a foreseeable future. The war will only intensify, as the US and its allies still hope to inflict a military defeat on Russia although that is clearly beyond their capability. 

On July 14, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of US joint chiefs of staff said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “far from a failure” but the fight ahead will be “long” and “bloody”. Milley has a reputation for speaking what the White House wants to hear, no matter his professional judgment. 

Indeed, on July 19, the Biden administration announced additional security assistance of about $1.3 billion for Ukraine. The Pentagon said in a statement that the announcement “represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine.” That is to say, the US will be using funds in its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative program, which allows the administration to buy weapons from industry rather than pull from US weapons stocks. 

According to the Pentagon, the latest package includes four National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions; 152 mm artillery rounds; mine clearing equipment; and drones. 

Meanwhile, in an ominous development, no sooner than Russia let the UN-brokered grain deal expire on July 17, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky disclosed that he had sent official letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan suggesting to continue the grain deal without Russia’s participation. 

On the very next day, Kiev followed up with an official letter to the UN’s International Maritime Organization spelling out a new maritime corridor passing through Romania’s territorial waters and exclusive maritime economic zone in the north-western part of the Black Sea. 

Evidently, Kiev acted in concert with Romania (a NATO member country where the 101st Airborne Division of the US army is deployed). Presumably, the US and NATO are in the loop while the UN’s imprimatur is being arranged.  It goes without saying that the NATO has been working on a new maritime route in the Black Sea for sometime already.

This is a serious development, as it seems a precursor to involving the NATO in some way to challenge Russia’s domain dominance in the Black Sea. Indeed, the NATO’s Vilnius Summit Communiqué (July 11) had forecast that the alliance is gearing up for a vastly enhanced presence in the Black Sea region, which has been historically a Russian preserve, where its  has important military bases. 

The relevant para in the NATO Communiqué said: “The Black Sea region is of strategic importance for the Alliance. This is further highlighted by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We underline our continued support to Allied regional efforts aimed at upholding security, safety, stability and freedom of navigation in the Black Sea region including, as appropriate, through the 1936 Montreux Convention. We will further monitor and assess developments in the region and enhance our situational awareness, with a particular focus on the threats to our security and potential opportunities for closer cooperation with our partners in the region, as appropriate.” [Emphasis added.] 

Four things need to be noted: 

  • one, the Ukraine conflict has been singled out as the context; the focus is on Crimea; 
  • two, “freedom of navigation” means an assertive US naval presence; reference to the 1936 Montreux Convention hinted at the role of Turkey, both as a NATO member country and the custodian of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits; 
  • three, the NATO flags its intention to enhance its “situational awareness,” which as a military term involves 4 stages: observation, orientation, decision, and action. Situational awareness has two main elements, namely, one’s own knowledge of the situation and, secondly, one’s knowledge of what others are doing and might do if the situation were to change in certain ways. Simply put, the NATO surveillance of Russian activities in the Black Sea will intensify; and, 
  • four, the NATO seeks closer cooperation with “our partners in the region” (read Ukraine).  

Most certainly, a new maritime route in northwestern and western regions of the Black Sea along Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (all of whom are NATO member countries) will cut off the Russian garrison in Transnistria (Moldava) and would boost Kiev’s capability to strike at Crimea. The NATO involvement would complicate any future Russian operations to liberate Odessa as well, which is historically a Russian city. 

Apart from the huge legacy of culture and history, Odessa is a port head for the industrial products of Russia and Ukraine. The Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline (which the Ukrainian saboteurs blew up recently) is one of the best examples. The 2,471 km pipeline, the longest ammonia pipeline in the world, connected the world’s largest ammonia producer, TogliattiAzot, in Russia’s Samara region with Odessa Port. 

In strategic terms, without control over Odessa, NATO cannot have force projection in the Black Sea region or hope to resurrect Ukraine as an anti-Russia outpost. Nor can NATO advance toward the Transcaucasus and the Caspian (bordering Iran) and Central Asia without dominating the Black Sea region. 

And for the same reasons, Russia cannot afford to cede the Black Sea region to the NATO, either. Odessa is a vital link in any land bridge along the Black Sea coast connecting the Russian hinterland with its garrison in Transnistria, Moldova (which the US is eyeing as a potential NATO member.) In fact, Crimea’s security will be endangered if hostile forces establish themselves in Odessa. (The attack on the Kerch Bridge in October 2022 was staged from Odessa.) 

Clearly, the entire US project on the new maritime route is intended to pre-empt Russia from gaining control of Odessa. It factors in the strong likelihood that with the Ukrainian offensive floundering, Russia may soon launch its counter-offensive in the direction of Odessa. 

From the Russian perspective, this becomes an existential moment. The NATO has virtually encircled the Russian Navy in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea (with the induction of Sweden and Finland as members). The freedom of navigation of the Baltic Fleet and the dominance in the Black Sea, therefore, become all the more crucial for Russia to freely access the world market round the year. 

Moscow has reacted strongly. On July 19, Russian ministry of defence notified that “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo. Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.” 

Russia has further notified that “the north-western and south-eastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea have been declared temporarily dangerous for navigation.” The latest reports suggest that the Black Sea Fleet of warships are rehearsing the procedure for boarding foreign ships sailing to Ukrainian waters. In effect, Russia is imposing a sea blockade of Ukraine.   

In an interview with Izvestia, Russian military expert Vasily Dandykin said he would now expect Russia to stop and inspect all ships sailing to Ukrainian ports. “This practice is normal: There is a war zone there, and in the past two days it has been the scene of missile strikes. We’ll see how this will work in practice and whether there will be anyone willing to send vessels to these waters, because this is very serious.” 

The White House has accused Russia of laying mines to block Ukrainian ports. Of course, Washington hopes that the NATO moving in as the guarantor of the grain corridor, replacing Russia, would have resonance in the Global South. The Western propaganda caricatures Russia as creating food scarcity globally. Whereas, the fact of the matter is that the West didn’t keep its part of the bargain reciprocally to allow the export of Russian wheat and fertiliser, as has been acknowledged by the UN and Turkey.

What remains to be seen is whether beyond the raging information war, any NATO country would dare to challenge Russia’s sea blockade. The chances are slim, the daunting deployment of the 101st Airborne Division in next-door Romania notwithstanding. 

 

https://www.indianpunchline.com/storm-clouds-gathering-in-the-black-sea/

 

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solutions....

 BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 

BRICS problems, BRI solutions

 

While the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.

As the BRICS approach the most important summit in their history on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, some fundamentals need to be observed.  

The top three BRICS cooperation platforms are politics and security, finance and the economy, and culture. So the notion that a new BRICS gold-backed reserve currency will be announced at the South Africa summit is spurious. 

What is in progress, as confirmed by BRICS sherpas, is the R5: a new common payment system. The sherpas are only in the preliminary stages of discussing a new reserve currency which could be gold or commodities-based. The discussions within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), led by Sergey Glazyev, by comparison, are way more advanced. 

The order of priorities is to get R5 rolling. All current BRICS currencies start with an “R”: renminbi (yuan), ruble, real, rupee, and rand. R5 will allow current members to increase mutual trade by bypassing the US dollar and reducing their US dollar reserves. This is only the first of many practical steps in the long and winding road of de-dollarization.  
An expanded role for the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – is still being discussed. The NDB may, for instance, grant loans denominated in BRICS gold – making it a global unit of account in trade and financial transactions. BRICS exporters will then have to sell their goods against BRICS gold, instead of US dollars, as much as importers from the collective west would have to be willing to pay in BRICS gold. 

That’s a long way away, to put it mildly.  

Frequent discussions with sherpas from Russia and also independent financial operators in the EU and the Persian Gulf always touch on the key problem: imbalances and weak nodes inside the BRICS, which will tend to serially proliferate with the imminent BRICS+ expansion.

Within BRICS, there’s a wealth of serious unsolved dossiers between China-India, while Brazil is squeezed between a list of imperial dictates and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s natural drive to fortify the Global South. Argentina has been all but forced by the usual suspects to “postpone” its admission request to join BRICS+. 
And then there’s the weak link by definition: South Africa. Squeezed between a rock and a hard place, the organizer of the most important summit in BRICS history opted for a humiliating compromise not exactly worthy of an independent Global South middle-ranked power.   

South Africa decided not to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin and opted instead for the presence of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as Pretoria first suggested to Moscow. The other BRICS members validated the decision.  

The compromise means that Russia will be physically represented by Lavrov while Putin will participate in the whole process – and subsequent decisions - via videoconference.

Translation: Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority - easily threatened by the western “garden” gang and not a real independent foreign policy practitioner. 

St. Petersburg-Shanghai via the Arctic 

This South African decision by itself raises serious questions about whether BRICS-led geopolitics is just an illusion. 

Geoeconomically though, the group has entered a whole different ball game, illustrated by the multiple BRICS interconnections with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

Chinese trade with BRI nations increased 9.8 percent in the first half of 2023 - compared to the same period last year. That contrasts sharply with the 4.7 percent overall contraction of trade between China and the collective west: Down with the EU by 4.9 percent, and down with the US by 14.5 percent. 

Chinese trade with Russia, meanwhile, alongside exports to South Africa and Singapore, raised exponentially by 78
percent. As an example, late last week, a Chinese cargo set sail from St. Petersburg loaded with fertilizers, chemicals, and paper products. It will cross the Arctic and arrive in Shanghai in early August. 

Zhou Liqun, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Russia, went straight to the point - this is just the start of the “routine operation of the Arctic freight shipping route between China and Russia.” It’s all about “the security of logistical channels” inbuilt in the Russia-China strategic partnership. 

The Arctic Silk Road, from now on, will be increasingly strategic. The Chinese can keep it open at least from July to October every year. And as a bonus, a warming Arctic allows better access to oil/gas resources. A trademark “win-win” - no wonder since 2017 the development of the Arctic Silk Road is part of BRI. 

All of the above shows a sharp shift in the Chinese commercial drive towards the Global South. Trade with China’s BRI partners now amounts to 34.3 percent of China’s total global trade in terms of value – and that number is rising.  

From the UAP railway to the Greater Bay Area 

On the Russian front, all eyes are on the 7,200 km-long, multimodal International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – which alarms the collective west as a de facto replacement of the Suez Canal. The INSTC cuts shipping costs by about 50 percent and saves up to 20 days of travel compared to the Suez route.

INSTC trade – via ship, rail, and roads linking Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, India, and Central Asia - should triple over the next seven years, as Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Saveliev noted at the recent St. Petersburg forum. Russia will invest over $3 billion in the INSTC up to 2030. 

Increasing trade between Russia, Iran, and India via the INSTC connects to something that until recently would be regarded as a UFO: the Trans-Afghan Railway. 

The Trans-Afghan will emerge as a follow-up to something very important that happened last week, when Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan signed a joint protocol to connect the Uzbek and Pakistani networks via Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar in Afghanistan. 

Welcome to the UAP railway – which could be hailed not only as a BRI but also as a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) project - where Tashkent and Islamabad are full members, and Kabul is an observer. Call it a much-needed trade corridor doubling up as a classic Chinese “people-to-people exchange” platform.

The Uzbeks estimate that the 760 km-long railway will reduce travel time by five days and costs by at least 40 percent. The project could be finished by 2027. 

The subsequent 573 km-long Trans-Afghan Railway has already got its road map: it’s bound to connect the intersection of Central and South Asia to ports on the Arabian Sea.  

All of the above expands Chinese trade in several directions. Which brings us to a fascinating symbiosis in progress between south China and West Asia – symbolized by the Greater Bay Area. 

As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turbo-charges his immensely ambitious Vision 2030 modernization project, the Greater Bay Area is being hailed by Saudis as no less than “the future of Asia.” 

Every investor from Jeddah to Hong Kong knows that Beijing is aiming to turn the Greater Bay Area into a prime global tech center, centered in Shenzhen, with Hong Kong playing the role of privileged global finance hub and Macau as the cultural hub. 

The Greater Bay Area, not by accident, is a key BRI plank. As a whole, the nine cities in Guangdong, plus Hong Kong and Macau (more than 80 million people, 10 percent of Chinese GDP), will be configured as an astonishing first-class economic powerhouse by 2035, largely overtaking Tokyo Bay, the New York Metro Area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

With Saudi Arabia aiming to become a full member of both BRI and SCO, Beijing and Riyadh will turbo-charge their tech cooperation on top of energy and infrastructure.

All eyes on South Africa next month are on how BRICS will work to solve its internal issues while organizing the expansion to BRICS+. Who will get to join the club? Saudi Arabia? UAE? Iran? Kazakhstan? Algeria? The top two BRICS countries, China and Russia keep investing in a geoeconomic roll that has dozens of countries lining up to join. 

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/brics-problems-bri-solutions

 

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conditions....

Russia has revealed its Black Sea grain deal bargain plan after the United Nations' request. Moscow said it would consider a revival of the deal if the UN delivered on its part. Embattled Russia has set a sanctions relief condition before the United Nations if it wants the resumption of safe passage for Ukrainian grains in the Black Sea. The statement was made by the Russian President's advisor a day after the Kremlin refused to accept the UN's appeal. The United Nations Chief had requested Russia's revival, saying that many may die if grain exports don't resume.

Putin Plays Smart, Puts UN and West In A Tight Spot Over Grain Deal; 'Will Return If...'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXnrmhDDuU

 

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africa's freedom....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unbgpr2KVGA

Uganda President Shocks Putin with how the West has been Exploiting Africa

 

Welcome to #CandidAfrica Today we watch Uganda President Yoweri Museveni Shocks Putin with how the West has been Exploiting Africa.

 

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The AI transcription in subtitles is atrocious.... but the gist is IMPORTANT....

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpzgx2nlWb8

 

the end of colonialism……?

 

 

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