Image by Kremlin.ru
The Chinese economy is a house of cards, a Ponzi scheme waiting to be exposed, a debt bomb waiting to blow up. The misallocation of capital and centralized planning, even buttressed by the allowance of low-level capitalism, will kill Beijing’s mandate from heaven, just as all planned economies eventually die. The novel coronavirus epidemic we are seeing spread from Wuhan like an Australian brush fire may be what rips the veil off the scam the Communist Party has been running for decades.
This development will have global consequences, possibly most of all for Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation, who has staked Moscow’s future on trade with the east, after sanctions from the West shut down interaction with the developed world. The ‘East will save us’ narrative just evaporated quicker than piles of bodies in Wuhan can be incinerated.
Putin’s first olive branch to China, after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, consisted of signing a pipeline deal to essentially provide natural gas to China for almost nothing. Many analysts believe the Kremlin may be even losing money on gas deals with the East. This is unsustainable of course, but at least it brought a willing buyer for Russia’s main export. John McCain was right, unfortunately due to Russia’s repressive economic policies which destroys innovation, the country is essentially a gas station, with hydrocarbons consisting of about 50% of its exports.
Military cooperation with Beijing has followed the pipeline deals, and been visibly heralded by both capitals. Chinese tourism to Russia used to be dramatically on the rise, that is until Putin shut off contact with the PRC due to concerns about the viral outbreak.
Now all of this positive engagement is threatened, at least for the foreseeable future.
Donald Trump is right; it would be good for the United States to have better relations with the Kremlin. Despite the aggressive behavior of Russia’s security services against Western interests (chemical attacks, poisonings, money laundering, etc), there are many areas POTUS could pursue common interests and maybe even cooperation with Moscow.
These areas include the usual suspects like the fight against Islamic extremism, and environmental concerns. However, many other avenues are simply not discussed — like the struggle against communist infiltration across the developed world (Putin is not a fan of Lenin), the fight against the persecution of Christians across the Middle East, and even in the West, as globalists continue to intentionally marginalize the ‘Easter Worshipers’.
In fact, an argument can be made that Russia must move towards the West, in order for Putin’s government to survive. China will give Russia nothing; it will only take, especially now that the Communist Party’s grip on power may be weakened by the growing pandemic. Many suspect that the ‘long-term land leases’ Russia signed with China in Siberia may simply be a land grant to Beijing, something the Kremlin used to be petrified of allowing to happen.
Russia needs capital. Russia needs technology. Russia needs customers. And most of all, due to the severe demographic outlook, Russia most of all needs babies. Today Russia’s parents are afraid to have children; their financial outlook simply won’t allow for more than one child in most cases. I’m talking about the masses of course, not the ‘friends of Vlad’ in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where no one counts money.
This will be a very hard needle to thread for the leadership of the United States and NATO. Howeveer, a solution to the problems in Ukraine and Syria must be found, so that Russia can move back into the community of nations.
There is a new guard slowly coming of age in the Russian Federation. They are not the Cold Warriors of old, mirroring the changes happening in the West. This phenomenon will provide the opportunity for positive change.
Donald J. Trump is just the man to get the process started.
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6 comments
The author is a complete idiot on this subject. Russia’s first overture to China was way before the USA invaded The Ukraine and Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and return to it’s historical roots, Russia. In fact the entire eastern half of the Ukraine is more Russian than anything else and what’s more they voted in the pro-Russian presidents of the Ukraine.
Russian Federation has always had detente towards the USA. It was the USA who spurned Russia and made it impossible to have proper relations with Russia. The Deep-State has worked overtime to see that it made America and Russia enemies and to see that dummies like the author of this article were duped into believing the Deep-State propaganda. MI6 poisoned the Skripals. MI6 has the exact same poison and had the motive to use it. Russia has no motive to do so. Teresa May lied to Trump about having any evidence of the poisoning and Trump was stupid enough to go with her, placing more sanctions on Russia for which Russia has not done.
The USA has intentionally pushed Russia into looking for stronger relations elsewhere at a time when Russia was looking to the USA as a friend. A real journalist would be investigating why the USA has done this.
Anybody who followed any of this and the nature of Russian and US/UK relations since 1991 will tell you the same.
It is quite surrising and assuring that someone else is exposing the obious American Deep State drive to make an enemy of post Cold War Russia, and to keep it that way even in the most preposterous, childish strategies imaginable. Perhaps now that the communist Democrat Party is collapsing into disgrace and disarray, there can be come constructive actions to create a dentente that would unify Western civilization as the worldwiode counterbalance to globalist, world communism. It is such a tragedy that two nations of similar cultural and ethnic origins must engage in ugly postures as if we have some underlying hatred, when in reality, American Russians are a fine mix, and Russian Americans also have a natural affinity.
One monster both nations cower before is alcohol and other drug addiction, and sadly, the USA has exported to Russia something far more destructive than mere alcohol and illicit drugs. We invented the disease concept of addiction, which turns the world upside down for addicts, their families, and the health and social service systems assigned to help them. It would be wise indeed for Russian health ministers to consult with me to apply the natuiral laws of nature and traditional family values so that the perpetrators and not considered victims, and families considered part of the problem. Addiction treatment services and recovery group participation are the worst options in restoring addicts to their original, better selves, and the family should be considered as the supreme moral authority in all measures pertaining to drug addiction, which is simply chemically enhanced immorality and stupidity, and a disgraceful betrayal of one’s family and country.
More than detente: allegiance alliance.
I call it Three Brothers Doctrine:
https://theological-geography.net/?p=27675
Ukraine has never recovered from the Holodomor, perpetrated upon it by Russia during collectivization.
Exploitation continues.
I spent years inside Ukraine and Russia and love the people and beautifully depth of culture there (aside from the addictions referenced above, sadly). I agree in general with this article, and while I have spent time in the Donbass and considerably more time in Crimea and understand the affinity of its inhabitants and my friends there for mother Russia, my sympathies are entirely with the pro-Western present government of Ukraine. Putin, that `sly fox,` can never be trusted, as he has already amply demonstrated. But we do have areas where our nations can cooperate. Close cooperation will be impossible as long as Putin`s illegal occupation continues of Crimea and the eastern Ukrainian territories according to his dictum, MOVE YOUR BORDERS AWAY FROM OUR TROOPS. That land grab was one of appropriating the coal resources and oil reserves of those strategic locations.
No editing feature? I meant, of course, `beautiful depth` above. And, I agree with Show Me above with reference to the famine caused by Stalin.