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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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…
RUSSIAN FEDERATION PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN 🇷🇺
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… pic.twitter.com/Klx81MRmlj
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.”
“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.
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.
Russia MFA Spokeswoman: "From what John Kirby said, he was referring to something known as the rules-based order, which in fact implies subjugating other states to the collective West, suppressing their will, that is, restraining the development and neglecting the interests of… pic.twitter.com/WMGcyYmqkU
According to him, such countries as China and India, many states of the Eurasian continent, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America “understand perfectly well what this is all about.” “And they do not want to compromise their legitimate national interests for the sake of helping the Anglo-Saxons and their associates maintain their hegemony or, to be more precise, try to retain their hegemony in the global arena,” Lavrov stressed.
According to the top diplomat, such countries as China and India, many states of the Eurasian continent, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America “understand perfectly well what this is all about”
MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. China and India, as well as a number of other states on the Eurasian continent, in the Asia-Pacific region, in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, do not intend to help the West maintain hegemony in the global arena, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a meeting of the board of guardians of the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund on Monday.
Today’s world is multipolar and “few want to pull chestnuts out of the fire for former parent states in the current conditions,” to the detriment of their national interests, the top diplomat noted. “It is therefore quite natural that about three-quarters of the world’s states have not joined the anti-Russian sanctions. All of them have taken a balanced position on the situation in and around Ukraine,” Lavrov said.
According to him, such countries as China and India, many states of the Eurasian continent, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America “understand perfectly well what this is all about.” “And they do not want to compromise their legitimate national interests for the sake of helping the Anglo-Saxons and their associates maintain their hegemony or, to be more precise, try to retain their hegemony in the global arena,” Lavrov stressed.
With this in mind, Lavrov focused on President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, which “demonstrated to the entire international community that attempts ‘to divide and conquer’ are doomed to fail.” “Despite the dirty campaign to cancel everything connected with Russia, we still have many friends in every country in the world, including in the West. We know that they like our multinational country, love Russian culture, and share the traditional moral and family values we promote,” the top diplomat summed up.
Russia Foreign Minister LAVROV: "At this point, we can expect anything on earth from the United States. In a bid to assert their hegemony, they have passed all bounds of diplomatic, ethical or any other kind of decency." pic.twitter.com/xMQ82Jk9ci
He emphasized that European nations “are no longer an independent subject of international law as they have simply become a cash cow for the United States at the expense of their taxpayers.” “And they are doing it not even for ideological reasons, but out of stupidity and cowardice,” Medvedev concluded.
“What I can’t understand is the position of European leaders who are unable to make decisions that benefit Europeans. All of their decisions benefit either certain rival political groups or the Americans,” the politician said
Russian Presidential First Deputy in Military-Industrial Commission and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev
MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. The United States is currently a hostile country that seeks to cause as much damage to Russia as possible, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.
“They are our rivals, and today – let’s put it bluntly-they are our enemy. The United States of America is our enemy,” Medvedev pointed out in an interview with Russian media outlets, including TASS, and users of the VKontakte social media network.
However, he pointed out that, unlike EU nations, the US holds “a consistent stance.” “They are trying to cause us as much damage as possible, and, where feasible, even tear our country apart and put Europe under their spell in the worst way so that it is unable to move at all,” the Russian Security Council deputy chairman noted, adding: “The reason is that sometimes, the leaders that come to power there start getting clever, either withdrawing from NATO or suspending membership or doing something else.”
The Americans have now achieved their goal, Medvedev went on to say, pointing out that the US position “is perfectly logical.” “What I can’t understand is the position of European leaders who are unable to make decisions that benefit Europeans. All of their decisions benefit either certain rival political groups or the Americans,” the deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council said.
He emphasized that European nations “are no longer an independent subject of international law as they have simply become a cash cow for the United States at the expense of their taxpayers.” “And they are doing it not even for ideological reasons, but out of stupidity and cowardice,” Medvedev concluded.
“Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order”.
The Chinese document “US Hegemony and its Perils” just came out on 20 February 2023.
It is very important – and says:
“Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order”.
The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.”
In five precise paragraphs, China analyses how the US exerts hegemony and abuse of global power in the fields of politics, military, economics, technology, and culture, media, social media as well as censorship.
The Chinese analysis is harsh but accurate – and China must be expected to act upon it.
Beware the timing. The Chinese paper comes exactly the day before Putin’s Federal Council speech and two days before Chinese top-diplomat Wang Yi’s visit to Moscow.
Below is the complete text of this important document entitled US Hegemony and Its Perilsreleased by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
US Hegemony and Its Perils
February 2023
Contents
Introduction
I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around
II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force
III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
Introduction
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.
In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”
Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.
The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”
In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.
The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force
The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.
◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.
The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.
The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”
In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”
◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”
◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”
V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.
◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.
◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Beijing believes cooperation with Moscow will further this goal, the Chinese leader told visiting ex-President Dmitry Medvedev
Both China and Russia are considered strategic rivals by the US, which accuses them of trying to undermine the so-called “rules-based order.” This is a term Russian officials have said describes Washington’s global hegemony, which it is trying to preserve by all means possible in the face of the natural course of history. Chinese officials have accused the US of having a “Cold War mentality,” which stands in the way of global cooperation.
Beijing seeks to advance cooperation with Moscow so that the two could promote a better world order, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, on Wednesday.
The two nations, which have been strengthening strategic bilateral ties, can “jointly promote the development of global governance in a more just and reasonable direction,” the Chinese leader said during the meeting in Beijing, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Xi met Medvedev in his capacity as secretary general of the Communist Party of China. His guest, who has had stints as both president and prime minister of Russia, leads the ruling United Russia party.
The host hailed the party contacts as a good platform for fostering trust between the nations they govern. Continued Chinese-Russian cooperation is a “long-term strategic choice” for both sides, Xi noted, according to the Chinese media. Medvedev described the talks as “very useful” in a video comment.
Both China and Russia are considered strategic rivals by the US, which accuses them of trying to undermine the so-called “rules-based order.” This is a term Russian officials have said describes Washington’s global hegemony, which it is trying to preserve by all means possible in the face of the natural course of history. Chinese officials have accused the US of having a “Cold War mentality,” which stands in the way of global cooperation.
Though to the US, the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine,” it is also “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Although the recently released 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as the current “acute threat,” it “focuses on the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China. The Strategy consistently identifies China as the “pacing challenge.” The long-term focus is on, not Russia, but China.
In his March 21 press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the gathered reporters that “President Zelenskyy has also made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.” A reporter asked Price, “What are you saying about your support for a negotiated settlement à la Zelenskyy, but on whose principles?” In what still may be the most remarkable statement of the war, Price responded, “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.”
Price, who a month earlier had discouraged talks between Russia and Ukraine, rejected Kiev negotiating an end to the war with Ukraine’s interests addressed because US core interests had not been addressed. The war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.
A month later, in April, when a settlement seemed to be within reach at the Istanbul talks, the US and UK again pressured Ukraine not to pursue their own goals and sign an agreement that could have ended the war. They again pressured Ukraine to continue to fight in pursuit of the larger goals of the US and its allies. Then British prime minister Boris Johnson scolded Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” He added that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, the West was not.”
Once again, the war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.
At every opportunity, Biden and his highest-ranking officials have insisted “that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how and when or if they negotiate with the Russians” and that the US won’t dictate terms: “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But that has never been true.
The US wouldn’t allow Ukraine to negotiate on their terms when they wanted to. The US stopped Ukraine from negotiating in March and April when they wanted to; they pushed them to negotiate in November when they did not want to.
The war in Ukraine has always been about larger US goals. It has always been about the American ambition to maintain a unipolar world in which they were the sole polar power at the center and top of the world.
Ukraine became the focus of that ambition in 2014 when Russia for the first time stood up to American hegemony. Alexander Lukin, who is Head of the Department of International Relations at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an authority on Russian politics and international relations, says that since the end of the Cold War Russia had been considered a subordinate partner of the West. In all disagreements between Russia and the US up to then, Russia had compromised, and the disagreements were resolved rather quickly.
But when, in 2014, the US set up and supported a coup in Ukraine that was intended to pull Ukraine closer into the NATO and European security sphere Russia responded by annexing Crimea, Russia broke out of its post-Cold War policy of compliance and pushed back against US hegemony. The 2014 “crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to it have fundamentally changed this consensus,” Lukin says. “Russia refused to play by the rules.”
Events in Ukraine in 2014 marked the end of the unipolar world of American hegemony. Russia drew the line and asserted itself as a new pole in a multipolar world order. That is why the war is “bigger than Ukraine,” in the words of the State Department. It is bigger than Ukraine because, in the eyes of Washington, it is the battle for US hegemony.
That is why US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on November 13 that some of the sanctions on Russia could remain in place even after any eventual peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. The war has never just been about Ukraine: it is about US foreign policy aspirations that are bigger than Ukraine. Yellen said, “I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate.” Sanctions could be adjusted when negotiations end the war, but, Yellen added, “We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place.”
That is also why the US announced a new army headquarters in Germany “to carry out what is expected to be a long-term mission” while it simultaneously began pushing Ukraine toward peace talks. The military pressure on Russia and support for Ukraine will survive the war.
It is also why on June 29, the US announced the establishment of a permanent headquarters for US forces in Poland that Biden boasted would be “the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s eastern flank.”
It is again why, on November 9, the State Department approved the sale of nearly half a billion dollars worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Lithuania. They are not to be used by NATO in the Ukraine war. But they will, according to the State Department, “support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the military capability of a NATO Ally that is an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress within Eastern Europe.” At the same time, the State Department approved the potential sale of guided multiple launch rocket systems to Finland to bolster “the land and air defense capabilities in Europe’s northern flank.”
Presumably, the delivery of upgraded B61-12 air-dropped gravity nuclear bombs to NATO bases in Europe is also not in the service of current US goals in Ukraine.
Though to the US, the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine,” it is also “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Although the recently released 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as the current “acute threat,” it “focuses on the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China. The Strategy consistently identifies China as the “pacing challenge.” The long-term focus is on, not Russia, but China.
The National Defense Strategy clearly states that “The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.”
If Ukraine is about Russia, Russia is about China. The “Russia Problem” has always been that it is impossible to confront China if China has Russia: it is not desirable to fight both superpowers at once. So, if the long-term goal is to prevent a challenge to the US-led unipolar world from China, Russia first needs to be weakened.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said that “China will firmly support the Russian side, with the leadership of President Putin . . . to further reinforce the status of Russia as a major power.”
According to Lyle Goldstein, a visiting professor at Brown University and author of Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, an analysis of the war in Ukraine published in a Chinese academic journal concludes that “In order to maintain its hegemonic position, the US supports Ukraine to wage hybrid warfare against Russia…The purpose is to hit Russia, contain Europe, kidnap ‘allies,’ and threaten China.”
The war in Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine. It has always been “bigger than Ukraine” and about US principles that are bigger than Ukraine and “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Ukraine is where Russia drew the line on the US-led unipolar world and where the US chose to fight the battle for hegemony. That battle is acutely about Russia but, in the long-term, it is about China, “the most comprehensive and serious challenge” to US hegemony.
Why do we have a United Nations if it is absolutely useless?
And now that the Nazis are out of Brazil Lula will most likely join the good side next year.
The question remains: Why is the US on Cuba’s soil? It is not their country. Cuba should take over Florida as a trade. Right…
For the 30th consecutive year, 185 countries at the UNGA have voted to end the illegal U.S. blockade of 🇨🇺, while just 2 countries voted to maintain it.
The countries supporting the blockade were, you guessed it, 🇺🇸 and 🇮🇱. Only 2 countries abstained from voting: 🇧🇷 and 🇺🇦. pic.twitter.com/irPMnVR6Bp
"The war in Ukraine has a great deal to do with the American intention to push NATO into Ukraine, and across the Black Sea, into Georgia. This is a narrative that the US doesn't want the people to know, but it's reality." — Professor Jeffrey Sachs pic.twitter.com/1CxvKdXdX2
The US Govt killed 20+ million people in 37 victim nations since WW2, funded gain of function research (Covid-19) causing millions of deaths, spies on everyone, started a proxy war with Russia risking nuclear war, created global inflation with endless reserve currency printing, commits global terrorism with drone strikes and pipeline sabotage, sends Europe into an economic slaughterhouse and floods it with refugees from US war zones, spends billions to manipulate the media with fake news and propaganda, persecutes truth-tellers and whistleblowers, ran illegal torture prisons and holds prisoners indefinitely without trial, bullies nations and UN delegates to obey a “rules-based order” made of US rules that it ignores at will. The US failed the world with arrogant and criminal foreign policies. Time for a multipolar order.
As leaders meet in Uzbekistan, the eight-member regional body is poised to add Iran to its ranks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 15, 2022. [Alexandr Demyanchuk/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters]
Published On 15 Sep 2022
Iran has signed a Memorandum of Obligations to become a permanent member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a central Asian security body, the Iranian foreign minister said.
“By signing the document for full membership of the SCO, now Iran has entered a new stage of various economic, commercial, transit and energy cooperation,” Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on social media.
Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are observer countries, while the organisation has six “dialogue partners”: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The statement came as leaders from China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan headed to the latter’s city of Samarkand for a summit of the eight-member SCO, a security group formed by Beijing and Moscow as a counterweight to United States influence.
Last year, the rapidly expanding SCO approved Iran’s application for accession, while the government in Tehran called on members to help it form a mechanism to avert sanctions imposed by the West over its disputed nuclear programme.
“The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US, such as Iran, Russia or other countries, can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during a meeting in Samarkand.
“The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped, their perception is a wrong one.”
For his part, Putin said relations were “developing positively” between Russia and Iran and gave his full support to the latter’s application to become an SCO member.
Reporting from the Silk Road oasis of Samarkand, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said Iran’s full membership is expected to become effective in April 2023.
He added that the SCO, the world’s largest regional organisation consisting of 40 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), wants to further expand.
The US military launched at least 251 interventions between 1991 and 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service. Washington’s meddling abroad drastically increased after the end of the first cold war.
When you become an ally to a bully it’s just a matter of time for the bully to turn against you. Bullies are selfish, they don’t have real friends. Bullies are supported by cowards who seek protection and want a share of the loot stolen from other bully victims. Wake up Germany.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 
