Divide
and conquer not working out for US elites
Don
Hank
Something
smelled rotten back in the 70s when Nixon and Kissinger started pushing Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for China, claiming,
absurdly, that China was a potential market for US goods, even though China
couldn't afford them at the time. It was an obvious lie and naturally, smart
people knew there had to be an ulterior motive. As time went on and after the
MFN was ratified by Congress, it became fairly clear that the whole idea was to
make China rich while keeping Russia poor, thus driving a wedge between Russia
and China using an economic carrot for China and a military stick against
Russia. If this long-shot strategy had worked, China would be kowtowing to its
no. 1 trade partner by now while moving further and further away from Russia.
Shortly after the introduction of MFN status for China, Neocons had devised
their puzzling strategy of "encircling" Russia as if Russia were the most
formidable threat on the horizon – yet they totally ignored the much bigger
Chinese threat. So why not encircle China as well? One can only surmise that
what would later be dubbed the Wolfowitz doctrine (encirclement of Russia) was
already part of a rigid ideology with a life of its own. The elites no needed no
justification for Russophobic policies, which had become their own justification
and are now adopted unquestioningly by both US political parties and by the
puppets in the EU.
Of
course, no one's fool, China was on its best behavior as long as the economic
incentive was there and as long as it was still the underdog.
But
now China is, as could easily be predicted in the 70s, the number one economy in
the world.
So
how did that plan work out to turn China against Russia?
Well,
we are patting China on the back while kicking Russia for a kind of
“aggression” in Ukraine that is much more justified than China's blatant
aggression (unlike the islands in the South
China sea, for example, whose peoples reject Chinese domination,
Crimea was culturally and linguistically tied to its “aggressor” and
wanted to be annexed. If you don’t
believe that the Russian speakers in Ukraine are emotionally and sentimentally
tied to Russia, kindly explain why the vast majority of refugees from
Southeastern Ukraine are voluntarily emigrating to Russia and not to other parts of
Ukraine).
Now
if I were Russia, I'd be jealous of China for getting this special treatment
that it in no way deserved – unlimited trade with the richest country in the
world plus no sanctions when it behaves aggressively toward its neighbors – and,
in contrast to Russia, unjustifiably to boot. In fact, the US, which openly
supported the bloody coup in Ukraine and supports a government that bombs
Russian-speaking civilians, sanctions Russia for protecting these civilians, but
hardly protests when China builds an oil platform in Vietnamese coastal waters
against the protests of the Vietnamese! It is hard to think of a more
inconsistent and unfair policy. It is as if a parent rewarded a child who
bullied his classmates but punished a child who protected other students from
bullies. But Russia and China know that this lopsided US policy does not reflect
real friendship and are not about to be divided and conquered.
The
elites certainly expected to ignite animosity between Russia and China when they
began their campaign to turn these 2 allies against each other and capture China
as a loyal ally.
But
instead, what has happened is that China and Russia are both
turning against the US, outraged that a grown nation would attempt this childish
game with the obvious intent of souring relations between two friends with more
in common with each other than they will ever have with the
US.
Ironically,
what the two nations have in common now is an economic and geopolitical strategy
based on common sense rather than ideology – in stark contrast to the past when
they were both driven by a hardline communist ideology. Specifically, what they
share now is the kind of economic and social pragmatism that the US once
displayed, while the US has completely abandoned all reason and logic in its
economic policies and is racing toward implementing a socialist ideology not
much different from the former Soviet Union and Red China.
It
is a role reversal, with the US now paying its people $1 trillion a year as a
reward for not working at all (which is more socialist than either of these
countries ever were) while Russia and China pay to their unemployed, only a
fraction of that paid in the US. According to a CNN
report, China pays only 17% of the average salary in unemployment,
compared to 47% in the US and 60% in Germany. Russia’s system is even less socialist,
as I showed here (while some of the data in that article need
updating by now, Russia has not moved significantly closer to socialism since
then).
Result?
The Chinese RMB looks poised to compete mightily with the US dollar in a few
short years, as I showed here, and when that happens, there will be no earthly
reason for other countries to accept dollars – backed up by nothing but debt
– in trade when they can have the RMB, backed up by a truly
viable and dynamic economy.
To
sum it up, the behind-the-scenes skullduggery of US foreign policy
toward Russia vs China has been an abject failure and the elites who devised it
and implement it are looking increasingly like the deer in the headlights. A
perfect example of their bewilderment was on display when George Soros was
interviewed by Fareed Zakarias.
No
one illustrates better than Soros the ancient proverb: there
is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of
death.
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