Tag: China

China Prepares for Decoupling

Recent Chinese actions on the financial front make it appear stage two of the Great Bifurcation is incoming, and it looks as if it’s going to be on a scale much larger than most observers of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict were prepared to believe.

The Chinese government reportedly held an internal conference with officials from foreign and local banks as the nation seeks to protect overseas assets from US sanctions over potential military tensions in Taiwan. The meeting between officials from China’s Central Bank and Finance Ministry, as well as executives from foreign and domestic lenders, was held on April 22, FT reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the discussion.

“If China attacks Taiwan, decoupling of the Chinese and western economies will be far more severe than [decoupling with] Russia, because China’s economic footprint touches every part of the world,” one of the people briefed on the meeting told the media.

Chinese officials are reportedly worried that penalties similar to those imposed on Russia over the military operation in Ukraine could be introduced against China in the event of a regional military conflict or other crisis.

China summons banks over sanctions fears, 1 May 2022

I very much doubt that the Chinese officials are worried in the slightest. They have clearly intended the break with the neo-liberal financial system for at least a decade, it’s only the preferred timing that is unknown. For me, the only serious question here is whether the Chinese will wait for the neo-liberal financial order to make a partial break in reaction to something, as per the article, or whether they prefer to make a preemptive break themselves. The evidence of prior Chinese behavior, including the erection of the Great Firewall of China, tends to indicate the latter, especially since their ability to choose the timing of the decoupling would permit the Chinese to create maximum disruption in the West while minimizing the disruption to the East.

Furthermore, the delicacy of the Russians in pursuing the moral and rhetorical high ground has gone mostly unrewarded, so there isn’t much tangible benefit to the Chinese in being able to proclaim that they are being further victimized by the imperialist colonial forces. A preemptive move would not only be materially beneficial, but would also be a powerful psychological blow to a Western elite that perceives itself to be dictating reality by calling all the shots.

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The Second Front

The Chinese clearly understand that the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine is just a small part of a much bigger conflict with the armed forces of the neo-liberal world order:

My colleagues and I have repeatedly pointed out that the conflict may appear to be a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but in fact it is one between Russia and the US-led NATO. The EU should reflect on who is benefiting from this war, who has been turned into a battlefield in this war, and who has suffered the biggest loss during this war….

The US breached its assurances and continuously promoted the eastward expansion of NATO, which is undoubtedly responsible for the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has triggered an unprecedented refugee crisis as more than five million Ukrainians entered neighboring European countries, while the US is staging a political stunt in accepting refugees. Only 12 Ukrainians entered the US through the refugee program in March. As the UN and the international community call for an early end to the conflict, the US continues to add fuel to the fire, clamoring for a fight “to the last Ukrainian”. Besides, the US keeps providing funding and arms to Ukraine. What it is really trying to achieve here is not peace, but the continuation the conflict so that Russia will be weakened, as admitted by the US. 

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on April 29, 2022

It’s rather fascinating to see how the Chinese are talking openly about a reality at which the entire Western media has barely even begun hinting. It’s going to be fascinating to see how the media propagandists attempt to ignore their previous narrative, just as they’ve completely ignored the fact that their military experts were telling us that the Russian military was going to run out of arms and ammunition within 10 days about 45 days ago.

The Russians have been using far fewer troops than was originally assumed and reported, and I very much doubt this is because they have a much smaller military than was previously thought. They have also been using second-line troops and older armor. Which makes it obvious that Russia knew, from well before the start of the initial operations, that NATO was the actual enemy for whom it had to be prepared.

And it’s now equally clear that China knew it too. Which raises the obvious question: when is China going to open the second front?

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Global NATO Threatens China

This proposal floated by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom may be one of the most shortsighted, suicidal geopolitical visions ever articulated in the written history of Man, as the West is rapidly being replaced by the growing power of the NorthEast.

The world order created after the Second World War and the Cold War isn’t working anymore, so the West needs “a global NATO” to pursue geopolitics anew, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss argued, in a major foreign policy speech on Wednesday. Truss also urged the US-led bloc to send more “heavy weapons, tanks” and airplanes to Ukraine, and said China would face the same treatment as Russia if it doesn’t “play by the rules.”

“My vision is a world where free nations are assertive and in the ascendant. Where freedom and democracy are strengthened through a network of economic and security partnerships,” Truss said in a speech at a Mansion House banquet in London.

Dubbing this arrangement “the Network of Liberty,” Truss argued it was necessary because the economic and security structures developed after 1945 – such as the UN Security Council – “have been bent out of shape so far, they have enabled rather than contained aggression.”

“Geopolitics is back,” she announced.

The collective West and its allies need to supply Kiev with “heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production,” Truss said, because the objective is to “push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine” and rebuild the country along the lines of a new Marshall Plan.

“The war in Ukraine is our war – it is everyone’s war because Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for all of us. Beyond that, NATO must ensure that “the Western Balkans and countries like Moldova and Georgia have the resilience and the capabilities to maintain their sovereignty and freedom,” and uphold the “sacrosanct” open-door policy, Truss said.

Her ambitions went beyond Europe, though, as Truss denounced the “false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security. In the modern world we need both. We need a global NATO,” she said. “And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.” Pointing to London’s unprecedented effort to embargo Russia, Truss insisted that “economic access is no longer a given. It has to be earned,” and that countries who wish to earn it “must play by the rules. And that includes China.”

In other worlds, the New World Order aka the neo-liberal rules-based world order aka Globohomo has failed, so naturally what is needed is more of that which has failed. This response isn’t even remotely surprising in the abstract, as doubling down is what idiots and fools always do instead of examining the reasons for their failure and rethinking both their assumptions and their approach.

But it is surprising in the particular, as Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and now Algeria have made it clear that they will not submit to the globalists’ demands that they deliver natural resources to their Western customers on demand while simultaneously being subject to having their economic access to those same customers controlled by the globalists.

Indeed, if they are given a choice, many in the West will choose the growing economic system of the NorthEast over the collapsing system of the West. But they will not be given a choice if the globalists have anything to say about it.

This tends to strongly support something I have repeatedly pointed out, the Russian Special Military Operation has very little to do with Ukraine per se; it is merely the opening battle in the NorthEast’s war with the globalists who rule over the West. This will be confirmed when the second battle begins, though whether that will be in Taiwan, Western Europe, Russia, or somewhere in the Middle East is yet to be seen.

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The Bifurcation Proceeds

China sends a strong message by shipping missiles to Serbia:

A Chinese official confirmed on Monday that Beijing had made a delivery of military equipment to Serbia under a longstanding partnership with the Balkan nation, but the transfer has reportedly rattled nerves in the West as media outlets warned of an “arms buildup” by a “Russian ally” amid the Ukraine crisis.

Six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed in Belgrade on Saturday to deliver their cargoes. The delivery was routine under a cooperation plan between the countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters on Monday. It has “nothing to do with the current situation” and doesn’t target any other nation, he added.

The Associated Press and other media outlets speculated that the planes were carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missiles that Serbia had ordered from China. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic hinted at a big announcement this week, saying that he would introduce “the newest pride” of his country’s military.

China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper reported on the shipment, trumpeting it as potentially the largest overseas operation in the Y-20’s history. The outlet even speculated that the planes were delivering HQ-22 missiles, the export version of which is known as the FK-3.

Serbia and Hungary are clearly going to side with China and Russia. Finland and Sweden have just as clearly chosen to side with the globalists. The question is which side India, Brazil, and the Philippines are going to take, and right now, it looks as if they are rejecting globalism.

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NATO and USA Demand Chinese Kowtow

The head of NATO is demanding public submission from China concerning its war on Russia:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has declared that by being “unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression,” China has issued a challenge to the Cold War-era alliance. Beijing has remained neutral on the conflict in Ukraine, but has accused NATO of fomenting the crisis by expanding into Eastern Europe.

“We have seen that China is unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression, and Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Thursday, following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, along with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and officials from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

“This is a serious challenge to us all,” Stoltenberg added. “It makes it even more important that we stand together.”

The US government is doing the same:

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman warned China on Wednesday of “a response from the international community” should Beijing support Russia “in any material fashion.”

However, the Chinese do not appear to be inclined to kowtow to globohomo’s imperial demands, as it rejected what it described as “coercive diplomacy” in an editorial in the Global Times:

US “coercive diplomacy” is increasingly ineffective as its fake morality and true hegemony are seen by the world. Fundamentally, it is Washington that stands on the wrong side of history. It cannot always threaten other countries to “take chestnuts from the fire” for it, and it is even less possible to extend its hegemony through intimidation.

US ‘coercive diplomacy’ is getting less effective, Global Times, 8 April 2022

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China Stands Against Globohomo

The Chinese Foreign Ministry says NATO should have been disbanded three decades ago:

China believes NATO should have been dissolved after the USSR, which it was created to contain, no longer existed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said. Instead, it expanded and cornered Russia, triggering bloodshed in Ukraine, Zhao said.

“As a product of the Cold War, NATO should have become history when the Soviet Union disintegrated,” he said during a daily press conference on Friday, when asked about remarks on NATO’s role as a US geopolitical tool made by his Russian counterpart, Maria Zakharova.

Zhao said that NATO expanded eastwards in Europe for decades, in violation of promises made to the Soviet leadership. This pushed Russia “into a corner step by step,” so ultimately, NATO was “the initiator and biggest promoter of the Ukraine crisis” on behalf of the US, he stated, adding that the organization should reflect on what its contribution to European security is.

Boomers and Gen-Xers have got to get over their childhood cartoon programming of Chinese and Russian commies as being the root of all evil on the planet. The great evil is The Empire That Never Ended, which took root in the USA in the early 20th century and rules it today. Those who oppose it are diverse and do so for their own reasons, but the primary enemies of the great enemy are, at the very least, powerful allies.

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A Direct Challenge

Russia and China are openly challenging globohomo’s New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is meeting, on Wednesday, with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, for the first time since Moscow launched its military campaign in Ukraine on February 24. Unlike most Western nations, and some Asian countries, Beijing has refused to condemn Moscow and rejected calls to impose sanctions.

The neighboring countries will work to achieve “a multipolar, fair, and democratic world order,” Lavrov said after arriving in Tunxi, a city in China’s eastern inland Anhui Province, on Wednesday.

TASS quoted Wang as saying that despite “new challenges” to the ties between the two nations, “the will of both sides to develop bilateral relations has become even stronger.” The minister said this month that China’s relations with Russia is “one of the most crucial bilateral relationships in the world,” and hailed the friendship between the pair as “ironclad.”

Translation: US military failures in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine have led the two great regional powers to conclude that the wicked Empire That Never Ended has definitively entered its decline phase, which means that it can be successfully challenged.

We would be fortunate indeed to witness the defeat of global satanry and a restoration of Christendom. No one is expecting it to be granted favored legal status in China, but then, no one was expecting Constantine to reject paganism and embrace Christianity either.

And certainly none of us who grew up in the red shadow of the atheist Soviet Union was expected what has happened in Russia since 1991.

In the meantime, this joint statement makes it very unlikely that Russia will not follow through on its threat to cut off gas supplies to European countries that refuse to pay in rubles.

So far, the EU and G7 nations have rejected Russia’s demand to switch their payments for gas to rubles. Russia said it will not provide free gas supplies, suggesting that it is ready to shut off the taps. If that happens Moscow would lose between €200 million to €800 million each day of the embargo. However, Russia could redirect some of the gas to Asia. Europe would likely face an economic crisis not seen since WWII, as soaring energy prices would send the region’s economies into recession. So, who will blink first?

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China Signals its Side

The specific choice of rhetoric utilized in this Global Times article is extremely significant.

Last year, several “anonymous US officials” have told the media either “the Chinese military has three times rejected requests for calls from the US defense secretary,” “researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick and sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed,” or “China has no intention of engaging in serious or substantive talks with the US.” All of these have later been proven to be utter disinformation, which only serves as “cannonballs” for attacking China.

When looking back at his past as CIA director, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo once said publicly, “We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.” So how does the US lie and deceive people? It is easier for Washington and the US media to quote “anonymous officials” to spread lies as shocking “exclusive news.” The cooperation between US propaganda machines and diplomatic and intelligence services has greatly increased the deceptiveness of those lies. Moreover, the US’ alliance system and hegemony in public opinion can make sure that even though Washington is a habitual liar, it can obtain a certain amount of assentation and support. This has become the bases for the US to play politics as it wants.

While US media maliciously falsifies the truth, Washington deliberately pretends to know nothing. These two to some extent have even formed an integral production, supply and distribution chain of fake news. This is unprofessional, immoral, and irresponsible, and will only further discredit the US in front of the world. As some comments pointed out, whenever people see the news reports that include sentences like “anonymous officials revealed…” and “US intelligence agencies claimed…,” they should in their minds replace everything in those sentences with “They may be lying.”

Therefore, unsurprisingly, as Washington is changing its foreign strategy to “great power competition,” it will use its hegemony in public opinion and media to spread false information and launch a “public opinion warfare.” Of course, we can also be sure that such a “double act” will sooner or later fail to work as the deficit in the US’ account of credibility rises.

Right now, when the military conflict in Ukraine is getting increasingly serious under Washington’s provocation, and when the energy and refugee crises become more and more severe in Europe, the US’ smear campaign will only unmask it as the initiator. More and more people will see the true face of the US – an “empire of lies.”

The Chinese may not believe in Satan or the spiritual side of Babelism, but they are nevertheless opposed to the forces of globalist satanry for their own materialistic and nationalistic reasons.

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Tough Talk

You don’t want to mess with Joltin’ Joe Biden. He’s a hardcase. He’s from Scranton, PA. You just ask Cornpop, he’ll tell you Joe isn’t a man you want to cross when he tells you off:

Biden warns Xi of the ‘consequences’ if China supports Putin during his ‘brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians’ and told him to stay away from Taiwan in two-hour phone call.

President Joe Biden warned on Friday Chinese President Xi Jinping of the ‘consequences’ Beijing would face if it provides support to Russia during its invasion of the Ukraine.

In the nearly two-hour video call between the two leaders, Biden ‘described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians,’ the White House said in a readout of the conversation.

But the White House declined to say what those consequences would be and refused to say whether or not Biden made any specifics asks of China, which has a close diplomatic relationship with Russia.

I have no doubt that Xi Jinping is every bit as impressed with the Fake President’s posturing as I am. In response to the tough talk, China declared that it would continue doing whatever it deemed to be in the interests of the Chinese people without any interference from the United States or anyone else.

China and Russia are both independent great powers. Besides, China has maintained a consistent position over the Ukraine issue, emphasizing all sides’ security concerns and interests should be respected and upheld. Its position is out of its own interests and the interests of the region. It will never dance to the tune of the US or sacrifice relations with Russia to satisfy US demands.

For a long time, the West has misinterpreted the China-Russia relationship, believing it’s based on expediency and could be easily torn apart. The truth is, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has withstood the test of the time and is rock solid. It’s China’s most important and stable diplomatic strategic asset that cannot be damaged.

Global Times, 18 March 2022

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The Proxy War

Game theoretician Alex Macris shares his perspective on the special military operation in the Ukraine.

In order to maintain hegemony, the United States needs Russia to become a Western satellite before the petrodollar system collapses.

As long as Russia is a pro-Chinese authoritarian state, China can:
1) reliably get food, oil, and gas without needing to worry what the US thinks
2) focus all of its military might on population control (internal) and power projection (vs Taiwan, southeast Asia, and South China Sea) without worrying about its border with Russia
3) develop the Belt & Road initiative into Europe without worrying about Eurasian continental interference

These three factors, in turn, spell doom for the American hegemony. The first factor means that it can detach from the petrodollar, and therefore detach from SWIFT; the second factor means that it can be a one-front power rather than have to be a two-front power like the US, doubling its budget-per-theater; and the third factor means that it can neutralize America’s blue ocean sea power and thalassocracy.

It’s thus no surprise that the US has systematically and methodically worked towards turning the former USSR into a Western client. It has rolled EU and NATO membership eastward. When it has encountered resistance, it has staged color revolutions (twice, in Ukraine’s case). It applies sanctions, propaganda, and soft power. Since 2015 the CIA has been training anti-Russian insurgents.

Since I know this, we can safely assume that Russia knows this, too. Putin knows, for a fact, that his regime is the prime target of the West. Not because they are afraid of Russia, but because they are afraid of China. Controlling Russia is the method to keep China in check.

Moreover, China knows this too. China has Russia’s back. If China is going to unseat America as hegemon, it needs Russian oil, gas, resources, food, and access through its territory. Russia didn’t just get China’s permission to attack Ukraine — it collaborated with it on timing and intelligence.

During the Cold War, the US would not go to war with the Russians directly, but it took every opportunity to go to war with Russia via proxies. What we have now is another such proxy war. The proper lens to understand the Russia-Ukraine War is that it is a proxy war between China and the US.

What makes this a uniquely dangerous situation is that this time the proxy has nukes.

I see it as less a proxy war and more of a nationalist alliance against The Empire That Never Ended. But I completely agree that the conflict is much bigger than Russia vs Ukraine, and I suspect one reason for NATO’s sudden reticence to throw its weight around militarily is that it not only fears the possible consequences of facing Russia’s A-Team and losing Eastern Europe, but that any such direct action would cause China to open a second front against the imperial globalists.

There are, in fact, certain signs that China is preparing for action. While it’s possible that its revived anti-Covid campaign is nothing more than a lingering fear of the virus, in light of the fact that the Chinese authorities have seen Covid disappear in the West, I suspect the campaign is being used as cover for the various preparations now being undertaken for the second stage of what will not be known in the future as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The relative equanimity with which Russia has endured the all-out economic assault of the globalist institutions, and its obvious anticipation of the unrestricted nature of the assault, tends to suggest that it knows it is holding a very substantial ace in the hole. And that ace would appear to be a second front in Asia.

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