Hegemonism
This is so obvious and everybody looks the other way because the American media told them so. Brain-dead sheeple are subscribed to all the garbage media out there.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-year-dragon-silk-roads-brics-roads-sino-roads
SATURDAY, JAN 13, 2024
As we enter incandescent 2024, four major trends will define the progress of interconnected Eurasia.
- Financial/trade integration will be the norm. Russia and Iran already integrated their financial message transfer systems, bypassing SWIFT and trading in rials and rubles. Russia-China already settle their accounts in rubles and yuan, coupling immense Chinese industrial capacity with immense Russian resources.
- The economic integration of the post-Soviet space, tilting towards Eurasia, will predominantly flow not so much via the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) but interlinked with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
- There will be no significant pro-Western inroads in the Heartland: the Central Asian “stans” will be progressively integrated into a single Eurasia economy organized via the SCO.
- The clash will become even more acute, pitting the Hegemon and its satellites (Europe and Japan/South Korea/Australia) against Eurasia integration, represented by the three top BRICS (Russia, China, Iran) plus the DPRK and the Arab world incorporated to BRICS 10.
On the Russian front, the inimitable Sergey Karaganov has laid down the law:
“We should not deny our European roots; we should treat them with care. After all, Europe has given us a lot. But Russia must move forward. And forward does not mean to the West, but to the East and the South. That is where the future of humanity lies.”
And that leads us to the Dragon – in the Year of the Dragon.
The Mao and Deng road maps
There were a whopping 3.68 billion Chinese trips by rail in 2023 – an all-time record.
China is fast on the way to become an AI global leader by 2030. Tech giant Baidu, for instance, recently released Ernie Bot to rival ChatGPT. AI in China is expanding fast in healthcare, education, and entertainment.
Efficiency is the key. Chinese scientists have developed the ACCEL chip – capable of performing 4.6 quadrillion operations per second, in comparison to NVIDIA’s A100, which delivers 0.312 quadrillion operations per second of deep learning performance.
China graduates no less than one million more STEM students than the U.S., year after year. This goes way beyond AI. Asian nations always reach the top 20% in science and mathematics competitions.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) may be lousy on geopolitics. But at least they did a public service showing nations that lead the planet in 44 critical technology sectors.
China is number one, leading on 37 sectors. The U.S. leads on 7.
Everyone else leads zero sectors. These include Defense, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, advanced materials, key quantum technology and of course AI.
How did China get here? It’s quite enlightening today to revisit a 1996 tome by Maurice Mesner: The Deng Xiaoping Era: An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994.
First of all, one needs to know what happened under Mao:
“From 1952 to the mid-1970s, net agricultural output in China increased at an average per annum rate of 2.5 percent, whereas the figure for the most intensive period of Japan’s industrialization (from 1868 to 1912) was 1.7 percent.”
Across the industrial sphere, all indicators went up: steel production; coal; cement; timber; electric power; crude oil; chemical fertilizers. “By the mid-1970s, China was also producing substantial numbers of jet airplanes, heavy tractors, railway locomotives, and modern oceangoing vessels. The People’s Republic also became a significant nuclear power, complete with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its first successful atomic bomb test was held in 1964, the first hydrogen bomb was produced in 1967, and a satellite was launched into orbit in 1970.”
Blame it on Mao: he transformed China “from one of the world’s most backward agrarian countries into the sixth-largest industrial power by the mid-1970s.” On most key social and demographic indicators, China compared favorably not only with India and Pakistan in South Asia but also with “’middle-income’ countries whose per capita GNP was five times that of China.”
All these breakthroughs laid down the path for Deng: “The higher yields obtained on individual family farms during the early Deng era would not have been possible had it not been for the vast irrigation and flood-control projects – dams, irrigation works, and river dikes – constructed by collectivized peasants in the 1950s and 1960s.”
Of course, there were distortions – as the Deng drive produced a de facto capitalist economy presided by a bureaucratic bourgeoisie: “As has been true of the histories of all capitalist economies, the power of the state was very much involved in establishing China’s labor market. Indeed, in China, a highly repressive state apparatus played a particularly direct and coercive role in the commodification of labor, a process that has proceeded with a rapidity and on a scale that is historically unprecedented.”
It remains an inextinguishable source of debate to what extent this fabulous economic Great Leap Forward under Deng generated calamitous social consequences.
The Empire of kakistocracy
As the Xi era definitely tackles – and tries to solve – the drama, what makes it even more complicated is the constant interference of the notorious “structural contradictions” between China and the Hegemon.
China-bashing is the number one politically correct game across the Beltway – and that’s bound to go out of control in 2024. Assuming a Democratic debacle next November, there are few doubts a Republican presidency – Trump or no Trump – will unleash Cold War 3.0 or 4.0, with China, not Russia, as the top threat.
Then there is the upcoming Taiwan election. If pro-independence candidates win it, incandescence will exponentially rise. Now imagine that compounded with a rabid Sinophobe occupant of the White House.
Even when China was militarily weak, the Hegemon could not defeat it, either in Korea or in Vietnam. There is less than zero chance Washington would defeat Beijing on a South China Sea battlefield now.
The American problem is encapsulated in a Perfect Storm.
Hegemon hard and soft power have been hurled down a black void with the imminent, cosmic NATO humiliation in Ukraine, compounded with complicity with the Gaza genocide.
Simultaneously, Hegemon global financial power is about to take a very hard hit as the Russia-China strategic partnership leading BRICS 10 starts offering quite viable alternatives to the Global South.
Chinese scholars, in priceless exchanges, always remind their Western interlocutors that History has been a consistent playground pitting aristocratic and or/plutocratic oligarchies against each other. The collective West now happens to be “led” by the most toxic variety of plutocracy: kakistocracy.
What Chinese qualify, correctly, as “crusader nations” are now significantly exhausted – economically, socially, and militarily. Worse: nearly totally de-industrialized. Those with a functioning brain among the crusaders at least have understood that “decoupling” from China will be a major disaster.
None of that eliminates their arrogant/ignorant drive for a war on China – even as Beijing has exercised immense restraint by not giving them any excuse to start another Forever War.
Instead, Beijing is reversing Hegemon tactics – as in sanctioning the Hegemon and assorted vassals (Japan, South Korea) on rare earth imports. Even more effective is the concerted Russia-China drive to bypass the U.S. dollar and weaken the euro – with full support of BRICS 10 members, Opec+ members, EAEU members and most SCO members.
The Taiwan riddle
The Chinese masterplan, in a nutshell, is a thing of beauty: to finish off the “rules-based international order” without firing a shot.
Taiwan will remain the prime not-yet-engaged battlefield. Roughly, it’s fair to argue that the majority of the population of Taiwan does not want unification; at the same time, they don’t want an American-engineered war.
They want, essentially, the current status quo. China is not in a hurry: Deng’s master plan pointed to reunification sometime before 2049.
The Hegemon, on the other hand, is in a tremendous hurry: it’s all about Divide and Rule, all over again, promoting chaos and destabilizing China’s inexorable rise.
Beijing tracks literally anything that moves in Taiwan – via monumental, meticulous dossiers. Beijing knows that for Taipei to thrive in a peaceful environment, it needs to negotiate while it still has something to negotiate with.
Every Taiwanese with a brain – and there are plenty of first-class scientific brains in the island – knows they can’t expect Americans to die fighting for them. First of all because they know the Hegemon won’t dare fighting a conventional war with China, because the Hegemon will lose – badly (the Pentagon gamed all options). And there won’t be a nuclear war either.
Chinese scholars are fond of reminding us that when the Middle Kingdom was totally fragmented in the 19th century under the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), “the Sino-Manchu ruling class was incapable of relinquishing their self-image and of taking the draconian necessary steps.”
The same applies to the Exceptionalists now – even as they go on serial somersaults trying to preserve their own, mythological self-image: Narcissus drowned in a pool of his own making.
It’s possible to advance that the Year of the Dragon will be a year where Sovereignty reigns. Hegemon fits of Hybrid War rage and collaborationist comprador elites will be obstacles constantly hampering the Global South. Yet at least there will be three poles with the spine, the resources, the organization, the vision and the sense of Universal History to take the fight towards a more equal and just system to the next level: China, Russia and Iran.
EDITORIAL
December 22, 2023
Seeing the naked truth is usually the first step before we can go on to realize the truth of beauty and decency. We might hope that the world is taking that first step.
American President Joe Biden likes to talk about “inflexion points” when he is lecturing about world affairs and the supposed superiority of the United States. This year is indeed an inflexion point.
It was the year that the entire world saw the truly hideous and criminal nature of U.S. power.
Washington’s fuelling of the futile conflict in Ukraine and the despicable slaughter in Gaza is a wake-up call for the entire world. The United States stands barefaced and grotesque as the primary purveyor of war. There can be no doubt about that. For many it is shocking, scandalous and frightening.
Tragically, it seems, for the world, every year’s end is an occasion to witness and lament conflicts, wars and suffering over the preceding 12 months. Often the causes of wars and suffering are seemingly unfathomable.
However, this year seems to be unique. The year ends with a horrendous massacre in Gaza that is unprecedented and perpetrated by Israel with the full support of the United States. The scale of deliberate mass killing in Gaza makes it a genocide. The fact that this abomination is occurring at Christmas time when the world is supposed to celebrate the divine birth of Jesus Christ – the Prince of Peace – in the very place where he was born some 2,000 years ago makes the abomination all the more profane and damning.
What is particularly wretched is that the heinous destruction of children is happening in full view of the world. There is no remorse or pretence. It is full-blown premeditated murder done with cruelty and sickening impunity.
Virtually the whole world is horrified by the devastating, relentless violence and absolute violation of international law. The butchery by the Israeli regime cannot in any way be rationalized by the previous attack on Israel by Palestinian militants on October 7. Those killings by Hamas have been cynically used as a pretext for the subsequent and ongoing annihilation of Palestinian civilians.
This genocide could not happen without the crucial support of the United States for the Israeli regime. Financially, militarily and diplomatically, Washington is sponsoring the horror in Gaza as well as the Occupied West Bank.
This week saw the U.S. once again obstructing calls at the United Nations for a ceasefire and the urgent supply of humanitarian aid to more than two million people. The World Food Program has declared a catastrophic famine in the coastal enclave after more than 70 days of bombing and blockade by the Israeli regime. More than 20,000 people – mainly women and children – have been slaughtered with up to 7,000 more missing, presumably dead. Israeli troops are carrying out mass executions of terrified and traumatized human beings, according to UN rights monitors.
The United States is arming Israel to the hilt and enabling it. U.S. President Joe Biden has pointedly refused to join international demands for a ceasefire. The United Nations has voted by an overwhelming majority for a cessation of the violence. Washington has repeatedly rejected the world’s pleas because the Biden administration is obscenely amplifying Israeli lies and distortions. “Unwavering, unshakable support” is how the White House arrogantly boasts about it without a hint of shame that it is self-indicting.
Tens of thousands of tonnes of munitions have been flown to Israel to carry out “indiscriminate bombing” (Biden’s own admission). One-tonne bunker-buster bombs have been dropped deliberately on refugee camps and hospitals. And still, the Pentagon shamelessly refuses to impose any red lines on the use of its munitions.
This genocide has Israeli fingers on the triggers but it is ultimately an American-sponsored genocide. Based on Nuremberg principles, Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu would be both in the dock, accompanied by Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin and their counterparts in Tel Aviv.
If there were previous international doubts about Washington’s systematic criminality, the whole world knows for certain now.
Significantly, too, American citizens are also repulsed by the barbarity and the fact that their government is an accomplice in a historic crime against humanity. Polls show that Biden is one of the most unpopular presidents ever, and his culpability for the genocide in Gaza is a primary reason for the widespread disgust, especially among younger Americans.
As things stand, there is a fair chance that 81-year-old incumbent Democrat will lose the presidential election in 2024 – less than 11 months away. Not that any of the Republican contenders are qualitatively better. American politics are in a crisis of chaos.
But this is not just about Biden or other individual U.S. politicians. The United States government and much of the corporate-controlled media stand full square behind Israel’s crimes. That has always been the case since the Israeli state was formed in 1948 through Washington’s skulduggery at the newly established United Nations, together with the old colonial power, Britain – the author of the infamous and treacherous Balfour Declaration that instigated Zionist dispossession of the indigenous people in the Holy Land, or what London called its Palestinian Mandate.
Decades of duplicity and dissembling as a peace broker in the Middle East have been blown away by the horrendous massacre that has culminated at the end of 2023. Israel is carrying out a Final Solution that is comparable to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The Zionist regime has cynically used the Holocaust against Jews as a cover for its genocide against Palestinians. And many decent Jews around the world, including Holocaust survivors, are rightly mortified by the depraved association exploited by the Zionist regime.
What is happening in Gaza may be seen as a shocking revelation for the world of historic proportions. It is an eye-opener of the violence and lawlessness that the U.S. emperor has been systematically engaged in since it became the dominant world power almost a century ago. Following the Second World War and the defeat of European fascism – largely by the Soviet Union – the United States has taken up the fascist mantle, albeit unspoken and disguised with pretensions claims of democratic virtue. No other nation has waged as many wars and conflicts over the past eight decades as the U.S. The death toll from American imperialism runs to tens of millions of people with victims on every continent.
The conflict that erupted in Ukraine in February 2022 is another manifestation of Washington’s imperialist machinations. That war is approaching its third year and shows no sign of ending because the U.S. continues to weaponize the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, a regime that Washington and its European NATO allies installed in 2014 through a coup d’état. The hostilities in Ukraine – the biggest in Europe since the Second World War – were fomented by the United States as a proxy war to defeat Russia. The war could have been avoided if the U.S. and its European vassals had negotiated a diplomatic solution to NATO’s expansionist threat to Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want a war in Ukraine. Respected American commentators like John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs and Scott Ritter have all confirmed with extensive analysis that Washington and its European allies are primarily responsible for creating the conflict – one that has cost the lives of as many as 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the displacement of 10 million civilians across Europe. Nearly $200 billion in Western public money has been wasted so far. Biden and the European Union want to donate another $100 billion to prolong this futile war.
America’s wars were always officially rationalized with some seeming plausible cause or mission. In the early decades of the Cold War, Washington claimed to be defending the “Free World” against Communist aggression in Korea, Vietnam, Africa and Latin America. When the Cold War supposedly ended in 1990-91 after the collapse of the Soviet Union due to its internal political problems, we then saw a spate of U.S. wars around the world against drugs, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and – most absurdly – defense of human rights.
The latest war in Ukraine is purportedly to defend democracy and sovereignty (of a Nazi Waffen SS-adulating regime in Kiev installed by the CIA!).
Nonetheless, the genocide in Gaza is the culmination, the final act. This is where all the history of U.S. crimes and fraudulence as a “noble exceptional democratic leader” finally comes unstuck.
It is an infernal climax for a global power, arguably the world’s first and last imperialist global hegemon. The whole of humanity can now see that all the American rhetoric and vanity is nothing but an ugly lie. The emperor is naked in all his crimes. The blood of children on his hands, his mouth drooling with lies. It was always so, but now universally evident.
One might ask, where do we go from here? Despite the abominable cruelty, suffering and misery, one can still hope that humanity will eventually find a way to live in peaceful coexistence. By respecting all those who abide by international law and basic moral precepts. Arguably, most of humanity is willing and capable of living in peace.
But to achieve that peace there must be no illusions and lies. There must be accountability and genuine atonement.
U.S. imperial power is damned. There’s no going back or reform. The capitalist economic system – evolved as oligarchic fascism and its two-party puppet show – driving imperialist barbarism must be called out and overturned. Biden is doomed, and Trump and so on are just more false prophets.
Seeing the naked truth is usually the first step before we can go on to realize the truth of beauty and decency. We might hope – for the sake of peace and ending much of the suffering – that the world is taking that first step.
The formation of a multipolar world is the objective course of history, the Russian foreign minister said
“Is there a single place where the US intervened with military force, where life has become better? I think you know the answer,” Lavrov told the forum participants.
Dec 11, 2023
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, delivers a video address to the Doha Forum. © AFP / Salim Matramkot
The 500-year-long dominance of the West is coming to an end, being replaced by “a new polycentric world,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Sunday in a video address to the Doha Forum.
The minister expressed regret that certain “circumstances” prevented him from coming to the Qatari capital in person and hearing the discussions at the annual high-profile event.
“But I assume that you were discussing the multipolar world, which is emerging after 500 years of domination of what we call the ‘collective West,’” Lavrov said.
This hegemony of the US and its allies had been “based on a diverse history, including ruthless exploitation of peoples and territories of other countries,” he said.
According to the minister, the West suggested that it could use the model of globalization, which it had been building for centuries, to maintain its dominance. “However, other countries, using exactly the principles and instruments of the Western globalization, managed to beat the West on its own turf, building the economies on the basis of national sovereignty, on the basis of balance of interests with other countries.”
New centers of economic growth and political influence have been emerging, “changing the balance of power in the world, and not to the West’s liking,” he said.
US exploits its allies – Putin
“In order to suppress this kind of development,” the US and its allies have in recent years “sacrificed” globalization in favor of the so-called ‘rules-based world order,’ Lavrov continued.
“The rules were never published, were never even announced by anyone to anyone, and they are being applied depending on what exactly the West needs at a particular moment of modern history,” he added.
The FM said that such an approach is most seen “in various conflicts, which the West ignites all over the world,” including the one in Ukraine. “Everything goes to keep the hegemony. Intervention in domestic affairs, sanctions against all the principles of competition, regime change, and of course direct military interventions, like we have seen in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.”
“Is there a single place where the US intervened with military force, where life has become better? I think you know the answer,” Lavrov told the forum participants.
According to the diplomat, new formats like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, African Union, and others will become “the bricks of the new polycentric world.”
READ MORE: Middle East royal calls for end to Western ‘dominance’
It should be recognized, including by those in the West, that “the objective course of history… is the evolution of a multipolar world,” Lavrov insisted.
The Russian president addressed a number of key issues including Ukraine, sanctions, Western hegemony, and Russia’s role on the international stage
https://www.rt.com/russia/584154-putin-valdai-club-speech/
Oct 6, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the plenary session of the XX Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi © Vladimir Smirnov; RIA Novosti; POOL
Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the plenary session of the 20th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi.
In his keynote speech, Putin addressed a number of key issues, including the Ukraine conflict, the Western sanctions on Russia, nuclear weapons, and Moscow’s role on the international stage.
Watch and read the full speech below.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Participants in the plenary session, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I am glad to welcome you all in Sochi at the anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The moderator has already mentioned that this is the 20th annual meeting.
In keeping with its traditions, our, or should I say your forum, has brought together political leaders and researchers, experts and civil society activists from many countries around the world, once again reaffirming its high status as a relevant intellectual platform. The Valdai discussions invariably reflect the most important global political processes in the 21st century in their entirety and complexity. I am certain that this will also be the case today, as it probably was in the preceding days when you debated with each other. It will also stay this way moving forward because our objective is basically to build a new world. And it is at these decisive stages that you, my colleagues, have an extremely important role to play and bear special responsibility as intellectuals.
Putin outlines desired principles of international relations
Over the years of the club’s work, both Russia and the world have seen drastic, and even dramatic, colossal changes. Twenty years is not a long period by historical standards, but during eras when the entire world order is crumbling, time seems to shrink.
I think you will agree that more events have taken place in the past 20 years than over decades in some historical periods before, and it was major changes that dictated the fundamental transformation of the very principles of international relations.
In the early 21st century, everybody hoped that states and peoples had learned the lessons of the expensive and destructive military and ideological confrontations of the previous century, saw their harmfulness and the fragility and interconnectedness of our planet, and understood that the global problems of humanity call for joint action and the search for collective solutions, while egotism, arrogance and disregard for real challenges would inevitably lead to a dead-end, just like the attempts by more powerful countries to force their opinions and interests onto everyone else. This should have become obvious to everyone. It should have, but it has not. It has not.
When we met for the first time at the club’s meeting nearly 20 years ago, our country was entering a new stage in its development. Russia was emerging from an extremely difficult period of convalescence after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. We launched the process of building a new and what we saw as a more just world order energetically and with good will. It is a boon that our country can make a huge contribution because we have things to offer to our friends, partners and the world as a whole.
Sanctions have helped Russia restructure economy – Putin
Regrettably, our interest in constructive interaction was misunderstood, was seen as obedience, as an agreement that the new world order would be created by those who declared themselves the winners in the Cold War. It was seen as an admission that Russia was ready to follow in others’ wake and not to be guided by our own national interests but by somebody else’s interests.
Over these years, we warned more than once that this approach would not only lead to a dead-end but that it was fraught with the increasing threat of a military conflict. But nobody listened to us or wanted to listen to us. The arrogance of our so-called partners in the West went through the roof. This is the only way I can put it.
The United States and its satellites have taken a steady course towards hegemony in military affairs, politics, the economy, culture and even morals and values. Since the very beginning, it has been clear to us that attempts to establish a monopoly were doomed to fail. The world is too complicated and diverse to be subjected to one system, even if it is backed by the enormous power of the West accumulated over centuries of its colonial policy. Your colleagues as well – many of them are absent today, but they do not deny that to a significant degree, the prosperity of the West has been achieved by robbing colonies for several centuries. This is a fact. Essentially, this level of development has been achieved by robbing the entire planet.
The history of the West is essentially the chronicle of endless expansion. Western influence in the world is an immense military and financial pyramid scheme that constantly needs more “fuel” to support itself, with natural, technological and human resources that belong to others. This is why the West simply cannot and is not going to stop. Our arguments, reasoning, calls for common sense or proposals have simply been ignored.
Putin predicts ‘gradual collapse’ of dollar-based financial system
I have said this publicly to both our allies and partners. There was a moment when I simply suggested: perhaps we should also join NATO? But no, NATO does not need a country like ours. No. I want to know, what else do they need? We thought we became part of the crowd, got a foot in the door. What else were we supposed to do? There was no more ideological confrontation. What was the problem? I guess the problem was their geopolitical interests and arrogance towards others. Their self-aggrandisement was and is the problem.
We are compelled to respond to ever-increasing military and political pressure. I have said many times that it was not us who started the so-called “war in Ukraine.” On the contrary, we are trying to end it. It was not us who orchestrated a coup in Kiev in 2014 – a bloody and anti-constitutional coup. When [similar events] happen in other places, we immediately hear all the international media – mainly those subordinate to the Anglo-Saxon world, of course – this is unacceptable, this is impossible, this is anti-democratic. But the coup in Kiev was acceptable. They even cited the amount of money spent on this coup. Anything was suddenly acceptable.
At that time, Russia tried its best to support the people of Crimea and Sevastopol. We did not try to overthrow the government or intimidate the people in Crimea and Sevastopol, threatening them with ethnic cleansing in the Nazi spirit. It was not us who tried to force Donbass to obey by shelling and bombing. We did not threaten to kill anyone who wanted to speak their native language. Look, everyone here is an informed and educated person. It might be possible – excuse my ‘mauvais ton’ – to brainwash millions of people who perceive reality through the media. But you must know what was really going on: they have been bombing the place for nine years, shooting and using tanks. That was a war, a real war unleashed against Donbass. And no one counted the dead children in Donbass. No one cried for the dead in other countries, especially in the West.
This war, the one that the regime sitting in Kiev started with the vigorous and direct support from the West, has been going on for more than nine years, and Russia’s special military operation is aimed at stopping it. And it reminds us that unilateral steps, no matter who takes them, will inevitably prompt retaliation. As we know, every action has an equal opposite reaction. That is what any responsible state, every sovereign, independent and self-respecting country does.
Putin showers praise on Indian G20 leadership
Everyone realises that in an international system where arbitrariness reigns, where all decision-making is up to those who think they are exceptional, sinless and right, any country can be attacked simply because it is disliked by a hegemon, who has lost any sense of proportion – and I would add, any sense of reality.
Unfortunately, we have to admit that our counterparties in the West have lost their sense of reality and have crossed every line. They really should not have done this.
The Ukraine crisis is not a territorial conflict, and I want to make that clear. Russia is the world’s largest country in terms of land area, and we have no interest in conquering additional territory. We still have much to do to properly develop Siberia, Eastern Siberia, and the Russian Far East. This is not a territorial conflict and not an attempt to establish regional geopolitical balance. The issue is much broader and more fundamental and is about the principles underlying the new international order.
Lasting peace will only be possible when everyone feels safe and secure, understands that their opinions are respected, and that there is a balance in the world where no one can unilaterally force or compel others to live or behave as a hegemon pleases even when it contradicts the sovereignty, genuine interests, traditions, or customs of peoples and countries. In such an arrangement, the very concept of sovereignty is simply denied and, sorry, is thrown in the garbage.
Clearly, commitment to bloc-based approaches and the push to drive the world into a situation of ongoing “us versus them” confrontation is a bad legacy of the 20th century. It is a product of Western political culture, at least of its most aggressive manifestations. To reiterate, the West – at least a certain part of the West, the elite – always need an enemy. They need an enemy to justify the need for military action and expansion. But they also need an enemy to maintain internal control within a certain system of this very hegemon and within blocs like NATO or other military-political blocs. There must be an enemy so everyone can rally around the “leader.”
The way other states run their lives is none of our business. However, we see how the ruling elite in many of them are forcing societies to accept norms and rules that the people – or at least a significant number of people and even the majority in some countries – are unwilling to embrace. But they are still urged to do so, with the authorities continually inventing justifications for their actions, attributing growing internal problems to external causes, and fabricating or exaggerating non-existent threats.
Late Wagner boss had giant cocaine stash – Putin
Russia is a favourite subject for these politickers. We have grown used to this over the course of history, of course. But they try to portray those who are not willing to blindly follow these Western elite groups as enemies. They have used this approach with various countries, including the People’s Republic of China, and they tried to do this to India in certain situations. They are flirting with it now, as we can see very clearly. We are aware of and see the scenarios they are using in Asia. I would like to say that the Indian leadership is independent and strongly nationally oriented. I think these attempts are pointless, yet they continue with them. They try to portray the Arab world as an enemy; they do it selectively and try to act accurately, but this is what it comes down to. They even try to present Muslims as a hostile environment, and so on and so forth. In fact, anyone who acts independently and in its own interests is immediately seen by the Western elite as a hindrance that must be removed.
Artificial geopolitical associations are being forced onto the world, and restricted-access blocs are being created. We see this happening in Europe, where an aggressive policy of NATO expansion has been pursued for decades, in the Asia-Pacific region and in South Asia, where they are trying to destroy an open and inclusive cooperation architecture. A bloc-based approach, if we call a spade a spade, limits individual states’ rights and restricts their freedom to develop along their own path, attempting to drive them into a “cage” of obligations. In a way, this obviously amounts to the dispossession of part of their sovereignty, often followed by the enforcement of their own solutions not only in the area of security but also in other areas, primarily the economy, which is happening now in relations between the United States and Europe. There is no need to explain this now. If necessary, we can talk about it in detail during the discussion after my opening remarks.
To attain these goals, they try to replace international law with a “rules-based order,” whatever that means. It is not clear what rules these are and who invented them. It is just rubbish, but they are trying to plant this idea in the minds of millions of people. “You must live according to the rules.” What rules?
And actually, if I may, our Western “colleagues,” especially those from the United States, don’t just arbitrarily set these rules, they teach others how to follow them, and how others should behave overall. All of this is done and expressed in a blatantly ill-mannered and pushy way. This is another manifestation of colonial mentality. All the time we hear, “you must,” “you are obligated,” “we are seriously warning you.”
Who are you to do that? What right do you have to warn others? This is just amazing. Maybe those who say all this should get rid of their arrogance and stop behaving in such a way towards the global community that perfectly knows its objectives and interests, and should drop this colonial-era thinking? I want to tell them sometimes: wake up, this era has long gone and will never return.
Russia not looking for ‘more territory’ – Putin
I will say more: for centuries, such behavior led to the replication of one thing – big wars, with various ideological and quasi-moral justifications invented to justify these wars. Today this is especially dangerous. As you know, humankind has the means to easily destroy the whole planet, and ongoing mind manipulation, unbelievable in terms of scale, leads to losing a sense of reality. Clearly, a way out should be sought from this vicious circle. As I understand it, friends and colleagues, this is why you come here to address these vital issues at the Valdai Club venue.
In Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept, our country is characterised as an original civilisation-state. This wording clearly and concisely reflects how we understand not only our own development, but also the main principles of international order, which we hope will prevail.
From our perspective, civilisation is a multifaceted concept subject to various interpretations. There was once an outwardly colonial interpretation whereby there was a “civilised world” serving as a model for the rest, and everyone was supposed to conform to those standards. Those who disagreed were to be coerced into this “civilisation” by the truncheon of the “enlightened” master. These times, as I said, are now in the past, and our understanding of civilisation is quite different.
First, there are many civilisations, and none is superior or inferior to another. They are equal since each civilisation represents a unique expression of its own culture, traditions, and the aspirations of its people. For instance, in my case, it embodies the aspirations of my people, of which I am fortunate to be a part.
Outstanding thinkers from around the world who endorse the concept of a civilisation-based approach have engaged in profound contemplation of the meaning of “civilisation” as a concept. It is a complex phenomenon comprised of many components. Without delving too deeply into philosophy, which may not be appropriate here, let’s try to describe it pragmatically as it applies to current developments.
The essential characteristics of a civilisation-state encompass diversity and self-sufficiency, which, I believe, are two key components. Today’s world rejects uniformity, and each state and society strives to develop its own path of development which is rooted in culture and traditions, and is steeped in geography and historical experiences, both ancient and modern, as well as the values held by its people. This is an intricate synthesis that gives rise to a distinct civilisational community. Its strength and progress depend on its diversity and multifaceted nature.
Russia has been shaped over centuries as a nation of diverse cultures, religions, and ethnicities. The Russian civilisation cannot be reduced to a single common denominator, but it cannot be divided, either, because it thrives as a single spiritually and culturally rich entity. Maintaining the cohesive unity of such a nation is a formidable challenge.
We have faced severe challenges throughout the centuries; we have always pulled through, sometimes at great cost, but each time we learned our lessons for the future, strengthening our national unity and the integrity of the Russian state.
This experience we have gained is truly invaluable today. The world is becoming increasingly diverse, and its complex processes can no longer be handled with simple governance methods, painting everyone with the same brush, as we say, which is something certain states are still trying to do.
Putin weighs in on Canadian parliament Nazi scandal
There is something important to add to this. A truly effective and strong state system cannot be imposed from the outside. It grows naturally from the civilisational roots of countries and peoples, and in this regard, Russia is an example of how it really happens in life, in practice.
Relying on your civilisation is a necessary condition for success in the modern world, unfortunately a disorderly and dangerous world that has lost its bearings. More and more states are coming to this conclusion, becoming aware of their own interests and needs, opportunities and limitations, their own identity and degree of interconnectedness with the world around them.
I am confident that humanity is not moving towards fragmentation into rivaling segments, a new confrontation of blocs, whatever their motives, or a soulless universalism of a new globalisation. On the contrary, the world is on its way to a synergy of civilisation-states, large spaces, communities identifying as such.
At the same time, civilisation is not a universal construct, one for all – there is no such thing. Each civilisation is different, each is culturally self-sufficient, drawing on its own history and traditions for ideological principles and values. Respecting oneself naturally comes from respecting others, but it also implies respect from others. That is why a civilisation does not impose anything on anyone, but does not allow anything to be imposed on itself either. If everyone lives by this rule, we can live in harmonious coexistence and in creative interaction between everyone in international relations.
Of course, protecting your civilisational choice is a huge responsibility. It’s a response to external infringements, the development of close and constructive relationships with other civilisations and, most importantly, the maintenance of internal stability and harmony. All of us can see that today the international environment is, regrettably, unstable and quite aggressive, as I pointed out.
Here is one more essential thing: nobody should betray their civilisation. This is the path towards universal chaos; it is unnatural and, I would say, disgusting. For our part, we have always tried and continue to try to offer solutions that consider the interests of all sides. But our counterparts in the West seem to have forgotten the notions of reasonable self-restraint, compromise and a willingness to make concessions in the name of attaining a result that will suit all sides. No, they are literally fixated on only one goal: to push through their interests, here and now, and do it at any cost. If this is their choice, we will see what comes of it.
It sounds like a paradox, but the situation could change tomorrow, which is a problem. For example, regular elections can lead to changes on the domestic political stage. Today a country can insist on doing something at any cost, but its domestic political situation could change tomorrow, and they will start pushing through a different and sometimes even the opposite idea.
A standout example is Iran’s nuclear programme. A US administration pushed through a solution, but the succeeding administration turned the matter the other way around. How can one work in these conditions? What are the guidelines? What can we rely on? Where are the guarantees? Are these the “rules” they are telling us about? This is nonsense and absurd.
Why is this happening, and why does everybody seem comfortable with it? The answer is that strategic thinking has been replaced with the short-term mercenary interests of not even countries or nations, but the succeeding groups of influence. This explains the unbelievable, if judged in Cold War terms, irresponsibility of the political elite groups, which have shed all fear and shame and think of themselves as guiltless.
The civilisational approach confronts these trends because it is based on the fundamental, long-term interests of states and peoples, interests that are dictated not by the current ideological situation, but by the entire historical experience and legacy of the past, on which the idea of a harmonious future rests.
If everyone were guided by this, there would be far fewer conflicts in the world, I believe, and the approaches to resolving them would become much more rational, because all civilisations would respect each other, as I said, and would not try to change anyone based on their own notions.
Friends, I read with interest the report prepared by the Valdai Club for today’s meeting. It says that everyone is currently striving to understand and imagine a vision of the future. This is natural and understandable, especially for intellectual circles. In an era of radical change, when the world we’re used to is crumbling, it is very important to understand where we are heading and where we want to be. And, of course, the future is being created now, not only before our eyes, but by our own hands.
Naturally, when such massive, extremely complex processes are underway, it is hard or even impossible to predict the result. Regardless of what we do, life will make adjustments. But, at any rate, we need to realise what we are striving for, what we want to achieve. In Russia, there is such an understanding.
First. We want to live in an open, interconnected world, where no one will ever try to put artificial barriers in the way of people’s communication, their creative fulfilment and prosperity. We need to strive to create an obstacle-free environment.
Second. We want the world’s diversity to be preserved and serve as the foundation for universal development. It should be prohibited to impose on any country or people how they should live and how they should feel. Only true cultural and civilisational diversity will ensure peoples’ wellbeing and a balance of interests.
Third, Russia stands for maximum representation. No one has the right or ability to rule the world for others and on behalf of others. The world of the future is a world of collective decisions made at the levels where they are most effective, and by those who are truly capable of making a significant contribution to resolving a specific problem. It is not that one person decides for everyone, and not even everyone decides everything, but those who are directly affected by this or that issue must agree on what to do and how to do it.
Fourth, Russia stands for universal security and lasting peace built on respect for the interests of everyone: from large countries to small ones. The main thing is to free international relations from the bloc approach and the legacy of the colonial era and the Cold War. We have been saying for decades that security is indivisible, and that it is impossible to ensure the security of some at the expense of the security of others. Indeed, harmony in this area can be achieved. You just need to put aside haughtiness and arrogance and stop looking at others as second-class partners or outcasts or savages.
Fifth, we stand for justice for all. The era of exploitation, as I said twice, is in the past. Countries and peoples are clearly aware of their interests and capabilities and are ready to rely on themselves; and this increases their strength. Everyone should be given access to the benefits of today’s world, and attempts to limit it for any country or people should be considered an act of aggression.
Sixth, we stand for equality, for the diverse potential of all countries. This is a completely objective factor. But no less objective is the fact that no one is ready to take orders anymore or make their interests and needs dependent on anyone, above all on the rich and more powerful.
This is not just the natural state of the international community, but the quintessence of all of humankind’s historical experience.
These are the principles that we would like to follow and that we invite all of our friends and colleagues to join.
Colleagues!
Russia was, is and will be one of the foundations of this new world system, ready for constructive interaction with everyone who strives for peace and prosperity, but ready for tough opposition against those who profess the principles of dictatorship and violence. We believe that pragmatism and common sense will prevail, and a multipolar world will be established.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the forum’s organisers for your fundamental and qualified preparations, as always, as well as thank everyone at this anniversary meeting for your attention. Thank you very much.
‘Hegemonism’ isn’t in Beijing’s nature, the leader has said
https://www.rt.com/news/581696-xi-china-brics-history/
Aug 23, 2023
President of China Xi Jinping arrives at the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. © AFP / Gianluigi Guercia
China will continue to pursue an independent foreign policy while building a shared future for mankind, President Xi Jinping has said. He insisted that Beijing is standing “on the right side of history.”
In an address prepared for the BRICS Business Forum in South Africa, Xi stated that “hegemonism is not in China’s DNA; nor does China have any motivation to engage in major-power competition.”
Xi is among the leaders in Johannesburg for the 15th BRICS summit, and held talks with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday. However, the Chinese president did not personally attend the BRICS Business Forum held on the same day, and his speech was read out by Beijing’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao.
Xi insisted that China will remain committed to a peaceful and independent foreign policy, with the aim of “building a community with a shared future for mankind.” He added that “our door is wide open to anyone who wants to engage in cooperation with us.”
“China stands firmly on the right side of history, and believes that a just cause should be pursued for the common good,” the Chinese leader said.
Ukraine crisis caused by Western attempts to preserve hegemony – Putin
Prosperity and development must be promoted for all members of the international community, “but some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the EMDCs (emerging markets and developing countries),” Xi claimed, in apparent reference to the US.
He argued that any attempts to contain developing countries would be “futile,” and that “the collective rise of EMDCs represented by BRICS is fundamentally changing the global landscape.” Xi also noted that EMDCs have contributed up to 80% of global growth in the past 20 years.
BRICS, which currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, should be expanded further, Xi insisted, stating: “I am glad to note that over 20 countries are knocking on the door of BRICS. China hopes to see more joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who addressed the BRICS summit via video link on Wednesday, also said that Moscow was “against any hegemony [and] the notion of exceptionalism promoted by some nations.”
READ MORE: South Africa endorses expansion of BRICS
According to the Russian leader, the goal of BRICS members is “the formation of a multipolar world order, truly just and based on international law.”
Who invited the damned Americans to Syria? OR anywhere else for that matter.
If the US made it clear that it would do nothing to prevent Russia and China from militarizing the nations south of the US border to the furthest extent possible, after those military presences begin to appear empire critics will no longer be able to claim that the US is the clear and obvious aggressor in its conflicts with Moscow and Beijing.
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
JUL 23, 2023
The US empire claims to use its domination of the world stage to uphold the world order, yet it can only continue to dominate the world stage by endless violence, chaos and disorder. The US is the clear aggressor in its confrontations with Russia and China. It is an insatiable monster who feeds on human blood, and world peace will never be possible as long as it rules over us.
Headlines in the 2020s are continually dominated by the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and US brinkmanship against China with Taiwan.
The US asserts that it has been well within its rights to bring NATO to Russia’s doorstep and convert Ukraine into a heavily-armed NATO asset and that it is perfectly entitled to menace China with military encirclement and its provocations with Taiwan. When Russia and China contend that these actions pose a threat to their national security interests, US empire managers argue that no nation is entitled to a “sphere of influence” beyond their own territory and that the US is just helping its good friends on the borders of its top two geopolitical rivals protect themselves.
If I may, I have a solution that could help the US defend its foreign policy a bit more convincingly: simply welcome Russia and China to amass military forces in Latin America.
If the US made it clear that it would do nothing to prevent Russia and China from militarizing the nations south of the US border to the furthest extent possible, after those military presences begin to appear empire critics will no longer be able to claim that the US is the clear and obvious aggressor in its conflicts with Moscow and Beijing.
This would entail officially abolishing longstanding policies like the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary thereto which have led to the US continually intervening in Latin American affairs to crush socialism and advance its own interests, often with extreme violence and to the great detriment of the people who live there. Once the US has made it clear that Russia and China have an open path to establish an extensive military presence in Latin America using the same means the US has used to establish its military presence in Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia, opponents of Washington’s foreign policy will soon lose the ability to accuse the US empire of flagrant hypocrisy.
Let China militarize as much as it wants in socialist countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Let Russia make some military deals with Mexico and Brazil. Let them patrol their warships along the east and west coastline of the United States, and hang out in the Gulf of Mexico for as long as they like. Let them build bases. Let them build missile systems. Let them set up anything they like using whatever means they can get away with in the nations in that region because according to the United States, that’s all perfectly fine.
Then the US will have legitimacy in the arguments it has been making about its militarization around Russia and China. Then the objections from Moscow and Beijing to that militarization can legitimately be framed as unreasonable. Because the rules will be applied equally to all parties.
Of course, we all know this will never happen. If Russia or China began amassing military threats to US regional dominance in Latin America, it would immediately be treated as an act of war. The last time a foreign power placed a military threat to the United States near its coastline, it was responded to so aggressively that the world almost ended.
This is because the “rules” in the US empire’s much-touted “rules-based international order” do not apply to the US empire. They’re the for-thee-but-not-for-me kind of rules.
The drivers of the empire truly believe that the entire planet is their property and that anyone who resists this claim is essentially attacking the United States. Its planetary hegemony is treated as the baseline norm, and any opposition to it is treated as a freakish affront to freedom and democracy.
The US empire claims to use its domination of the world stage to uphold the world order, yet it can only continue to dominate the world stage by endless violence, chaos and disorder. The US is the clear aggressor in its confrontations with Russia and China. It is an insatiable monster who feeds on human blood, and world peace will never be possible as long as it rules over us.
A former White House official has acknowledged the reality of growing resistance to the country’s imperialism
It is high time that the American people awaken to the crimes their country has committed, and to the fact that the rest of the world is painfully aware of them and is rebelling accordingly.
https://www.rt.com/news/576588-resistance-us-washington-imperialism/
May 26, 2023
FILE PHOTO: A demonstrator sets fire to a United States flag hanging on a paper statue, symbolizing that, US backed militarism during the massacre of students in 1975, El Salvador, 2021. © Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
In an interesting recent speech in Tallinn, Estonia, former White House official Fiona Hill showed that at least someone in Washington has enough self-awareness to see what’s happening in the world.
Hill acknowledged that the conflict in Ukraine has sparked a global “proxy rebellion,” led by Russia, against American hegemony. This is quite true, as many of us could see from the very start of Moscow’s military offensive, in the spring of last year. But this kickback has been a long-time coming, and the US has brought it upon itself through its own deeds.
First of all, it must be pointed out that the Soviet Union, modern Russia’s predecessor, led a rebellion against American hegemony throughout much of its history. Especially during the Cold War, Moscow’s support was critical for Third World countries striving to overturn centuries of Western colonialism in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The US took it upon itself to forcefully defend this colonial system. Indeed, the Cold War was really a giant proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union over colonialism, with the US fighting to maintain this system and the Soviet Union fighting to dismantle it. Much of the world’s population continues to be grateful for the help they received from the Soviets in breaking their colonial chains.
The Russian Federation recently acknowledged all of this in its foreign policy statement of March 31, 2023, in which it stated that the Soviet Union’s chief foreign policy achievements were the defeat of Nazism during the Second World War and its part in the successful decolonization of the world. Modern-day Russia states that, as the “legal successor” to the USSR, it continues to pursue these goals. It is my observation, after just returning from Russia and the May 9 Victory Day celebrations, that the Russian people continue to cherish these accomplishments of the Soviet Union, with the hammer and sickle red flag ubiquitous in every city I visited from St. Petersburg to Yalta.
‘Havana syndrome’ has been debunked, but will lessons be learned?
Meanwhile, after the Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989 and the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the US saw the opportunity to reassert Western dominance of the world largely unchecked. While the US referred to its goal as Pax Americana, its methods had little to do with peace and everything to do with war. Thus, Washington wasted no time in invading and attacking other countries from Panama (1989), to Iraq (1990), Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq again (2003) and Libya (2011). This does not even count the smaller invasions and many proxy and terror wars waged by the US during this time, such as Syria, beginning in 2011, and in Ukraine with the coup it helped instigate in 2014.
Russia and the rest of the world, unable to counter the superior US military might, largely sat back and took this. But anger and resentment grew, for none of these wars were necessary or just. They were wars of choice, which the US waged to protect what it saw as its economic and geopolitical interests, all the while dressing up its actions as “humanitarian.” As a rule they claimed these interventions as necessary to protect the target country’s population from an “oppressive,” “brutal” or “dictatorial” regime. While Americans largely bought into such justifications, the rest of the world grimaced at the patent absurdity.
In 2015, the Russian bear started to awaken once more, intervening in Syria to beat back the brutal terrorist war against that country, which the US actively instigated and supported.
While the US tries to claim that the whole world stands with it in opposing Russia’s actions, in Ukraine, this is simply not true, and US officials know it. “The world” supports the US only if one excludes Latin America, Asia and Africa. These regions, home to most of the planet’s population, did not and do not support the Americans. Many countries in these regions are weary of the US intervening in their backyards at will in the form of aggressive wars, coups d’etat and the support of armed insurgents, and they were happy to see that someone – namely Russia – was finally fighting back. Meanwhile, even Saudi Arabia, a long-time ally and co-conspirator of the US in its imperial machinations, has broken ranks with the US by refusing to boost oil supplies. It has additionally begun engaging with Iran, demonstrating that the world is getting fed up with Washington’s meddling.
US to ease restrictions on Cuban migrants
The US government pretends it doesn’t see this, and much of the American public really doesn’t, demonstrating the pervasiveness of propaganda and its ability to drown out and obfuscate reality. This again brings to mind playwright Harold Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize speech in which he scolded the US imperium, which “supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War,” leading to “hundreds of thousands of deaths.” But thanks to the power of propaganda, “it never happened,” Pinter said. “Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. America has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good,” something Pinter describes as a “highly successful act of hypnosis.”
It is high time that the American people awaken to the crimes their country has committed, and to the fact that the rest of the world is painfully aware of them and is rebelling accordingly. After acknowledging this, Americans could finally start to hold their government accountable for its actions and demand that it stop antagonizing the world through unprovoked violence and instead try to engage with other nations as equals in addressing the world’s pressing problems of poverty, illness and environmental degradation. It is the only course of action that can save humanity.
The Brazilian president has asserted his country’s role as a player in its own right in the new multipolar world
https://www.rt.com/news/574882-lula-china-trip-us/
April 18, 2023
By Oliver Vargas, a Latin America-based journalist, co-founder of Kawsachun News and host of the ‘Latin America Review’ podcast
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, accompanied by their wives, attending a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 14, 2023. © Ricardo STUCKERT / Brazilian Presidency / AFP
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has just returned from his highly anticipated and successful trip to China, generating optimism and enthusiasm for an enhanced role for Latin America as it emerges from the shadow of the US.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s welcoming ceremony was the first sign the trip would be a success for everyone involved. As he and Lula walked down the red carpet, China’s military band played a rendition of ‘Novo Tempo’, an ‘80s Brazilian song associated with the protests against the US-backed dictatorships of that time.
Behind closed doors, 15 bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed, including investment deals, research and development plans, food standards, state news agencies, technology transfers, and cooperation on building the seventh China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS). The meeting built upon years of strategic partnership. China displaced the US as Brazil’s largest trade partner in 2009, and the event was about deepening that process.
However, the most interesting facet of the visit was the tone of the public statements by both leaders, as it went beyond diplomatic niceties and showed a clear commitment from both countries in taking on a leadership role that will challenge the years of Washington’s unipolar dominance.
US must stop ‘encouraging war’ in Ukraine – Lula
“I wonder every night why all countries are forced to do their trade backed by the dollar. Why can’t we do trade backed by our currency?” said Lula at an event in Shanghai. The conflict in Ukraine was also on the agenda, and Lula made it clear that the US funneling billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Kiev regime was escalating, rather than calming, the conflict. He commented, “It is necessary that the United States stop incentivizing the war and begin to speak about peace. The European Union needs to start talking about peace.”
Reasserting Latin America’s own interests
This visit marks the beginning of a much closer relationship between Latin America and those challenging US dominance on the international stage. Once Lula returns, the next big item on the agenda will be a visit from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who will be embarking on a Latin America tour in which he’ll also visit Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
Lavrov’s visits will be an opportunity to discuss areas of common interest for Russia and Latin America, such as trade, investment, energy, and defense. He will also attempt to strengthen cultural ties at a time when Washington is promoting xenophobia against Russians and Russian culture globally.
The success of Lula’s China trip will clearly put an extra spring in the step of the Latin American governments that will be receiving Russia’s official delegation this week. The win-win cooperation possible with China and Russia stands in clear contrast to the arrogant finger-wagging and interventionism on offer from the US.
Brazil calls for ‘move away’ from dollar
However, Latin America is not a passive participant in the process of building a multipolar world. The region is taking on leading roles in the process. Former Brazilian president and Lula ally, Dilma Rousseff – who is also the victim of a US-backed coup – is starting her new role as chief of the BRICS development bank in Shanghai, a crucial coordinating role for Brazil, China, Russia, India, and South Africa, as well as for a possible ‘BRICS plus’ expansion to include more emerging economies in the Global South.
Backlash from the US
Washington has tried to court Lula ever since he was elected president. Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America, so it would be unwise not to do so. The State Department has issued official condemnations of the right-wing rioters that attacked the Brazilian congress with the aim of preventing Lula from assuming office, its statements in support of ‘Brazilian democracy’ was perhaps an attempt to communicate that the US would not work to undermine Lula’s presidency, as they had done against other leftist presidents from Bolivia to Venezuela.
For that reason, Washington has not formally responded to Lula’s China trip and upcoming official meeting with Lavrov. Nevertheless, the cottage industry of pro-US ‘analysts’ and ‘commentators’ have been weighing in and setting a narrative that Lula was scoring an “own goal” by reaching out to China and Russia.
Top economist frets that US is getting ‘lonely’
The Argentina-based website Infobae, one of the largest right-wing digital media outlets in the region, ran a piece entitled ‘Lula’s trip to China risks becoming a goal against Brazil’. The author questions China’s intentions by saying, “Brazil, one of the richest countries in the world in terms of raw materials and natural resources, has everything to be a power on its own, without the help of any other foreign power. But to do so, it must overcome the corruption of its politicians and submit its management to strict scrutiny.”
The same outlets that decry the nationalization of industry and celebrate free trade deals with the US have suddenly taken a hardline “third-worldist” and isolationist turn.
Others are warning Brazil of drawing the ire of Washington. Oliver Stuenkel, who writes for Americas Quarterly – an outlet funded by Western oil corporations – recently said, “The more Lula talks about Ukraine during this visit in China, which in Western perception is not a neutral actor, the greater the risk that Brazil will be seen in Europe and the United States as an actor closer to Russia than to them.”
Perhaps being “an actor closer to Russia” and closer to China will prove to be a more fruitful path for Latin America. Being an actor closer to Washington has resulted in unequal trade deals, coups, invasions, and much more. Lula’s China trip shows that another, more equal relationship is possible. Lavrov’s Latin America tour will be a fantastic opportunity for Latin America to build on this and elevate itself onto the global stage.
The Chinese yuan may be the perfect foil for the rupee to usher in a new multipolar order for global trade.
India’s new foreign trade policy, which took effect on April 1, seeks to pivot away from the US dollar’s hegemony and promote the country’s own national currency, the rupee, in a bid to boost exports and conserve its foreign exchange reserves.
In 2022, India’s exports were $453.3 billion, a 14.6% uptick year-on-year, despite a slowdown in global trade. India became the fifth-largest economy in the world last September at $3.18 trillion, even though the Covid-19 pandemic slowed its march towards $5 trillion by another two years.
Amid a robust economic growth outlook, India is poised to trade in rupees with countries that are facing an acute shortage of dollars, according to the country’s commerce secretary, Sunil Barthwal. Santosh Kumar Sarangi, head of the directorate-general of foreign trade (DGFT), has spelled out a national goal of $2 trillion in exports of merchandise and services by 2030. Additionally, India will launch a new amnesty scheme for one-time settlement of defaults on export obligations, Sarangi said. The scheme, which will remain operational till September, aims for quicker resolution of trade disputes.
Indian rupee goes global
The rupee’s global push got a shot in the arm after 18 countries including Russia, Germany, Singapore, Israel, and the UK agreed to trade in the Indian national currency. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, recently gave its approval to these countries to pay for imported goods in rupees. The move will reduce India’s ballooning trade deficit of $233 billion between April 2022 and January 2023.
India’s trade with its south Asian neighbors such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka will also grow as BRICS members push to de-dollarize the global market.
Last month, the Indian government announced that the RBI had cleared 60 requests from various banks in these 18 nations to open Special Vostro Rupee Accounts (SVRAs) that allow foreign banks to settle payments in rupees.
Indian importers will make payments in rupees that will be credited to the SVRAs of the foreign correspondent bank, and exporters will receive payment from the SVRAs of their foreign partners. India’s central bank has also given the nod for the surplus rupee balance in these SVRAs to be used for payments on projects and investments, import advance flow management, and investments in government securities.
The RBI’s new norms augur well for India, which holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year. New Delhi would like to use this elite world economic club to push for international trade settlement in rupees, Barthwal said. He believes the rupee trade will help several developing and less developed economies that are facing currency issues.’ A broad consensus on these lines emerged during the first Trade and Investment Working Group (TIWG) meeting of the G20 that was held in Mumbai, India in late March.
Time to end the dollar’s ‘bullying’
As economies around the world – especially emerging ones – feel the spillover effect of US monetary tightening, the debate is being reignited on ending the dollar’s dominance in global trade. Another key factor is Washington’s ability to use its currency as a potent tool for political blackmail and coercion against nations it sees as adversaries. From Cuba to Iran to Syria to Russia, the US has been accused of arbitrarily imposing sanctions on nations to further its own economic interests while pursuing irresponsible monetary policies. Several experts have cited the weaponization of the dollar as a likely trigger that could bring an end to its dominance as the world’s most powerful currency.
The call to ditch the US dollar has intensified following US sanctions on Russia due to the Ukraine conflict that started in February 2022. The punitive measures led to overseas assets of Russia’s financial institutions being frozen and multiple major Russian banks being cut off from the SWIFT system. This was an indication for the rest of the world, including India and China, of the growing risks of the US using the dollar for its geopolitical and expansionist gains. A new arrangement is needed, and currencies such as the Chinese yuan have an opportunity to play an important role in providing such an alternative.
Plans are afoot by many nations to ensure the SWIFT system becomes less relevant through innovative financial mechanisms that are gathering momentum. These measures would limit the system as a tool for the US and its coercive tactics. For instance, during the meeting of all ASEAN finance ministers and central bank governors in Bali, Indonesia on March 30, topping the agenda were discussions about reducing financial transaction dependence on the US dollar, euro, yen, and pound sterling and alternatively making payments in regional currencies.
In January, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was quoted as saying in an interview with Sputnik that the emerging economies of BRICS would like to find a way of bypassing the US dollar and creating a mechanism that would not be skewed towards wealthier Western nations. Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan echoed Pandor in January, saying the oil-rich sheikhdom would be open to talks about settling petroleum trade in currencies other than the US dollar.
Not so rosy for rupee-ruble trade
Though India has been working overtime to push the rupee for its global trade, the realities are far from ideal, as the currency has considerably weakened in the past year.
In the case of India-Russia bilateral trade, which has been rapidly growing since the Ukraine conflict started, New Delhi has found a viable alternative.
India and Russia have decided to route goods through third countries such as the UAE, which enjoys healthy ties with both the nations, and also because the emirates’ currency – the dirham – is pegged to the dollar, and as a result, the dirham enjoys global stability. Both nations have come to the understanding that this is the best way to engage in bilateral trade and also avoid trading in rupees, rubles and dollars.
However, the new approach contradicts the Indian government’s bid to settle international trade in rupees in line with an announcement made last July.
The rupee-ruble payment mechanism is proving to be tough going so far because of the growing trade imbalance between India and Russia and several other teething issues. Russian banks such as Sberbank and Gazprombank, which have operations in India, are also not in favor of Indian rupees piling up.
Besides, the rupee lost 7.8% in the last financial year, the most since 2019-20, and it was one of the worst-performing Asian currencies – falling more than 10% – in 2022. It ended this past fiscal year in March at 82.18 to a dollar. Given such volatility, using the UAE dirham appears to be a reasonable solution to help facilitate a further ramping up of bilateral trade.
Foreigners less enthusiastic about US debt
Another important area where de-dollarization trends are being observed is American debt. While statistics on foreign holdings of US Treasuries for any given month or even year may simply reflect the vicissitudes of markets and the relative strength of the dollar, the long-term secular trend is of foreign central banks scooping up less American debt than they once did.
For decades, foreign countries sterilized a significant share of US deficits – meaning the US ran deficits that it financed with dollar-denominated debt, which other countries bought in large quantities. However, this arrangement – a key component of the special status the dollar has enjoyed – has begun being chipped away at in recent years. In fact, since 2014, foreigners have been consistent net sellers of Treasuries.
Prominent American fund manager Luke Gromen has noted that between 2002 and 2014, foreign central banks bought 53% of all US Treasuries issued; from 2014-2022 that figure is just 3%. China, in fact, announced in 2013 that henceforth it would not grow its balances of US Treasuries and has been a net seller of Treasuries for over a decade.
This trend is likely set to continue. And with less trade being settled in dollars, there will be fewer dollars to be recycled into traditional reserve assets such as US Treasuries.
De-dollarized global trade
India and China have initiated the move to de-dollarize global trade with Russia, while Brazil is joining the party and South Africa is waiting in the wings. The initiative connects the BRICS trade dots. India has paid Russia in UAE dirhams for its crude oil purchases and saved an estimated $3.6 billion in the process.
The yuan has in recent years established itself as a major global currency that is poised to contribute to the dislodging of the dollar from its position of supremacy. The yuan is now the fifth most used currency in payments, third largest in trade settlements and fifth largest reserve currency.
To make matters worse for several developing countries, there has been an exponential rise in dollar borrowing costs, holding back the growth of their foreign trade. This is where comparatively low-cost yuan financing could further boost the Chinese currency’s global visibility.
The yuan joined the IMF’s Special Drawing Right (SDR) basket in October 2016, and since then the currency’s strength has grown significantly. IMF data showed that yuan accounted for 12.28% of the SDR last year.
With Beijing working overtime to make a currency play as the world’s second-largest economy, the prevailing dollar-dependent scenario could change in the next couple of years. China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which is a viable alternative to SWIFT, and its digital currency (e-CNY) promise to become a dominant payment system to further trade between Beijing and its partners such as the Global South. The e-CNY could emerge as the significant reserve currency, which would break the dollar hegemony.
The Indian rupee could double down as a foil to the Chinese currency in a multipolar world. De-dollarization is likely to become a reality in a new global order, where the US won’t have the last word based on its economic might.
Historically, it’s the decline of the currency that portends the decline of hegemony. And the dollar could be the epitaph for US imperialism.
The “Rules-Based International Order” was born out of the ash heap of WW2 with the United States being the sole great power whose homeland wasn’t revenged by the dark hand of war. Other former great powers recognized this, being that their nations were in ruins. So, they voluntarily transferred the bulk of their wealth into the United States. In addition, the former great powers agreed to make the US Dollar the world’s one reserve currency in 1944, since so much gold flowed into the United States…
The US enjoyed this unipolar hegemony for about 3 years until the Soviet Union recognized that with the US, it was their way or the highway. The USSR was a massive nation, but was not industrialized enough nor had the wealth to match the US. The USSR and its Warsaw Pact were a formidable military foe to the US and NATO. This Cold War lasted for 42 years until 1991 when the USSR collapsed because of its stagnant Communist economic system. The US also convinced the Saudi-led GCC to tank the price of crude oil in 1985, which slowly choked off the Soviet economy. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the USSR eventually collapsed at the delight of the US and NATO…
The 15 former republics of the USSR were nations in shambles economically. The US enjoyed absolute unipolar hegemony from 1991 to 2022. Not only was US military unipolar hegemony unquestioned, but its economic, political, and media hegemony was also total. American hegemony grew so powerful, it was able to place itself in a different class where it flaunted and ignored International Law, yet chastised other nations who were in the “Global South”, or unfriendly to it. The US was actually allowed to invade other countries, killing millions of innocent people without even being questioned. When the International Criminal Court questioned or accused the US, American government officials viciously attacked the ICC. Any nation who did not yee or haw to the US’s every whim during this time period was slapped with economic sanctions…
Leaders during this time period of US drunkenness from 1991-2022 were either used then thrown away, or just murdered. This was no more evident than the overthrow and hanging of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2006, the regime change of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the funding of rebels and NATO airstrikes to overthrow and murder Libyan Brotherly Leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. These leaders tried to resist the United States. They tried, and they died…
RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE
The Russian Federation is the first great power since 1945 to openly challenge the US and the NATO military alliance, and still be around to talk about it. Since NATO’s founding in 1949, it saw its first military action in 1994. NATO has been preying on weak nations along with the US ever since. President Vladimir Putin saw a great threat festering on his Western border which could have been an open highway straight into Moscow. He and Russia have taken everything that The West has in their arsenal of gangsterism: economic sanctions, total economic and military support for Ukraine, and worldwide Russophobia. His resistance to the Rules-Based International Order has quickened the pace of China’s rise and inspired other nations to stand up to US bullying. We are surely living through a distinct moment in history in 2023. Even the USSR with a much larger and more powerful military 1949-1991 never challenged the US in this way. The US is losing its political capital, and economic dominance, which will lead to a shrinking of its military…
THE IRONY
Isn’t it extremely ironic that the United States would jump at any chance to enter conflict with countries that have weakened or broken militaries? Yet, the US cowered in its corner and allowed Ukraine to be used as cannon fodder when the opportunity presented itself to fight another great power…
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/marco-rubio-accidentally-makes-a
April 3, 2023
Some empire managers are so brash about wanting to rule the world that they’ll occasionally voice their position so directly it sounds like an anti-imperialist said it.
We saw just such an instance last Wednesday during a conversation between empire propagandist Sean Hannity and warmongering senator Marco Rubio on Fox News. So frenzied was Rubio in his vitriol about the rise of China on the world stage that he accidentally wound up providing a very good argument against the hegemony of the US dollar.
Rubio began with a rant about how the US is in a “conflict” with China in response to a question from Hannity about whether Xi Jinping is preparing for war with America.
“The bottom line is we’re in a conflict, and I think we have to start talking about it that way,” Rubio said. “I was very young, obviously, at the end of the Cold War, but it’s been about 30 years since there was another superpower on the earth that was in conflict with the United States. We are back in that place. We need to stop pretending like that’s not the case now.”
Hannity repeated thsoundbyte he’s been pushing for the last few weeks saying that China, Russia and Iran are a “new Axis of Evil,” then Rubio made a very revealing comment about a recent deal that was struck between China and Brazil.
“Just today, Brazil, the largest country in the Western Hemisphere, cut a trade deal with China,” said Rubio. “They’re going to, from now on, do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They’re creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there’ll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”
Rubio is not the first US imperialist we’ve seen expressing concern about the US dollar losing its position as the dominant currency of the world, not just with regard to China and Brazil but between China and Russia, between China and Saudi Arabia, between China and India, and between India and Russia.
“The dollar is America’s superpower,” Fareed Zakaria writes for The Washington Post. “It gives Washington unrivaled economic and political muscle. The United States can slap sanctions on countries unilaterally, freezing them out of large parts of the world economy. And when Washington spends freely, it can be certain that its debt, usually in the form of T-bills, will be bought up by the rest of the world.”
“Now an increasing number of nations are eager to find alternative financial systems to insulate themselves from Washington’s willingness to use sanctions as political leverage,” writes Jamie Seidel for the Murdoch-owned News.com.au, quoting an Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tanker as saying, “Chinese authorities were shocked by the seizure of the Russian central bank’s foreign exchange reserves following the invasion of Ukraine. In the event of a Sino-American conflict, Chinese assets would similarly be vulnerable.”
The other day Pentagon insider and DC swamp monster Elbridge Colby spotlighted a concern on Twitter that the US might not be able to finance a war with China if the US dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency.
Michael Goolsby @MichaelGoolsbyV
@ElbridgeColby Would the US even be able to finance a war with China if the dollar was no longer the world reserve currency?4:18 PM ∙ Mar 27, 202318Likes5Retweets
The US has engaged in a tremendous amount of manipulation to secure the dollar’s position as the global reserve currency and all the power that comes with it, and has used it to fund a war machine of unprecedented might and to inflict starvation sanctions on disobedient nations around the world. It is a weapon, and US imperialists are bemoaning the looming loss of that weapon because they want to use it on many more people for the advancement of the interests of the empire.
Economic sanctions are somehow the only form of warfare where it’s considered acceptable to deliberately target civilian populations with deadly force, and the US empire makes liberal use of them. Starvation sanctions always hurt the weakest and most vulnerable members of a population by depriving them of access to medicine and adequate nutrition, and future generations (if there are future generations) will judge harshly those who used them.
It seems unlikely to me that the emergence of a multipolar world will in and of itself produce any kind of wonderful utopia, and as Professor Richard Wolff explains the dollar’s decline could potentially give rise to a lot of economic chaos and suffering. But at the very least the fall of US dollar hegemony would deprive one group of psychopaths a powerful weapon they should never have had, and could even end up impeding the empire’s ability to ramp up for a global conflict between major powers — a conflict which must never occur.
In any case humanity cannot continue along the trajectory it has been on, and any divergence from that trajectory opens up the possibility of real healthy change. Here’s hoping Marco Rubio is given a lot more to be upset about in the coming years.