Dragons Awake
Remember Russiagate!
In his presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump, among the very few policy positions that he explored and that seemed to me to make any sense was the scope for a closer partnership between Russia and the USA. Not only did this make sound civilizational sense in itself, in the cause of greater global security and prosperity, but, from a more real-politik point of view it offered a path towards a softening of US angst over the growing might of China. In practice, Trump was sealing a fate that he could not have anticipated but that he surely came to regret, namely, that he would both win the election but that Hilary Clinton would exloit Trump’s supposed warmth for Russia to create the massive Russiagate Hoax.
Aware of the damage that revelatation of the leaked (not hacked) DNCC emails had caused her campaign (showing how the party machine had favored her candidacy over that of Bernie Sanders), Clinton and her advisors, through the office of the party’s legal represenatative, Perkins Coie, and the latter’s contracting, within days, of both Christopher Steele (for the Steele Dossier’s fairytales of Trump as Russian Manchurian Candidate) and CrowdStrike (for fairytales about how Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNCC servers) moved to imprison Trump’s Presidency within a national hysteria that the FBI, Mueller and other culpable agencies extended to well beyond the mid term elections.
In place of the enlightened capitalism rationalism that Trump seemed to have once embraced, and imprisoned by the hysterical fantasies of irresponsible and gullible intelligence and media systems, Trump’s actual presidency goaded Russia and (through an unprovoked, insane and mutually-destructive trade war) humiliated China. In place of one enormous adversary, the US now had two. And they both seemed consistenty smarter.
The Russiagate hoax is one more anti-Russian propaganda campaign, adding to a litany that stretches back at least a couple of hundred years. It serves to soften up the public mind-set, to ready it for absorption of any nonsense in support of risking nuclear annihilation. All for the sake of a former comic and neocon who thought he would look cool if Ukraine joined NATO and the EU, and did not mind sacrificing his own people and his nation to achieve that dubious ambition.
Evolution of the new Bipolar Order
All modern states, particularly of large nations, must achieve at least three things: judicially to maintain distance from and softly but firmly to control their oligarchs (without turning off the spiggots of wealth that some of these help create); to maintain distance from, and softly but firmly to control their media systems (without turning off the spiggots of critical insight that these create); and through a system of rotating parties or, within a single party, a system of rotating voices or factions, within which the broad ranks of the masses are represented and heard.
The Soviet Union in the 1980s lurched from absolute control of all to absolute freedom for all. The Gorbachev experiment sought within months, and fatally, to move from a command system to a market system that permitted these extremes allowing itself to be toppled by a US-supported coup d’etat perpetrated by the Drunk Quisling, Boris Yeltsin, before the bemused gaze of mass population that had been thoroughly deceived through the media of liberal elites and western consultants who told them that now they would not just own their factories but they would actually have practical control over them. Under Putin, its successor regime has made strong headway towards control of the oligarchs. At least until the current war, it was moving towards a passably balanced media system within a global Internet universe, while consolidating what is in effect a one party system but, at least, one in which the welfare of the people is attended to with a moderate degree of seriousness.
Much more cautiously, China also moved, gradually, towards a capitalist system under the control of one party, while retaining considerable control (but by no means absolute) of both its oligarchs and its media, while retaining an ideology that still resonates with its Confucian and Communist traditions. Yet, in the sphere of international relations since its capitalist turn, the Chinese global voice has mostly seemed bland, almost parroting western-based, even neoliberal narratives about world events, while China itself, an iron fist within a velvet glove perhaps, has quietly advanced globalization in its own likeness - the Belt and Road initiative, the BRICS and the SCO - that hid its military potential, and otherwise made as little noise as possible.
Both countries have significantly raised the standard of living of their respective peoples and significantly developed their respecrtive national infrastructures. In the immediate wake of their respect capitalist turns, both started out by aping the dress, customs and tropes of western neoliberal elites; both were shocked to discover, slowly, that no matter what they did, how they dressed, what they said, they would never be accepted into, nor respected by, the white blinkered civilization clubs of the US and its closest allies.
In the United States, by contrast, the masses have, by and large, suffered a steady and significant reverse in living conditions and social security since the 1970s. The US has maintained excessive corporate and State control over its establishment “free” media, and totally failed to exercise control over its oligarchs whose class, instead, controls the State.
The Great Push Back
And now both Russia and China have now determined to push back against US hegemony, firmly and aggressively. First Russia, asserting its rights, at last, over Ukraine (having finally accommodated the bitter lessons of Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, amongst many others; and now China, which this week has thrown out blandness, and welcomed back in through the front door - ideological conviction.
China’s principal foreign minister or equivalent, Wang Yi, has been in recent conversations with all the most influential voices in Moscow. The Russian readout of the meeting between Putin and Wang notes that Putin spoke of the progressing features of the relations between Russia and China, and his ambition to reach $200bn dollars of trade between them by 2024 (from $185 billion in 2023) and perhaps sooner, given the current growth in bilateral trade. Their relations are very important for stabilization of the international situation following the collapse of the bipolar system.
Wang Yi pointed out that opportunities create crises and the two countries need to double their cooperation and efforts. Their relations are not directed towards third nations and are not subject to pressure from third countries. The two countries support multipolarity and democratization of tinternational relations, principles which meet the interests of most countries, and China looks forward to deepening its ties, trust and practical cooperation with Russia.
The Dragon Awakes
Chinese media have now started to talk about Chinese ideas for a possible peace plan. Wang Yi did not bring a peace plan with him to Moscow, but there have been discussions about the situation in Ukraine. Russian leaders grateful for what they can see of Chinese understanding of their position on Ukraine. The Russian foreign ministry has published a statement of the conversation between Russian foreign minister Lavrov and Wang Yi. The statement reports that Wang expressed the Chinese vision of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis, as well as China’s approaches towards a political settlement. Lavrov commended China’s constructive policy.
Over the last two days the Chinese have published two position papers, available among a series of position papers available on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website. I am grateful to today’s broadcast by Alexander Mercouris (Mercouris 02.23.2023)for the following details.
The series of position papers includes what might seem odd topics, such as gun control in the US, and the US drugs crisis. What relevance might these have? They are part of a major Chinese intellectual assualt on the whole direction of US foreign policy.
US Hegemonic Policies
China has published a gigantic document under the title US Hegemony And Its Perils.
Its introduction records how the US, since World War 2, has acted more and more audaciously to interfere in the affairs of other nations, pursue and maintain hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and wilfully wage wars that bring harm to the international community. The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook of color revolutions, the instigation of regional disputes, and the launching of wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality the US has ramped up block politics, stoked conflict and confrontation, 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 and discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve only its own interest in a supposed “rules-based international order.”
The Chinese report seeks to expose the US abuse of hegemony in the economic, military, technological, financial, cultural and other fields and to draw international attention to the perils of US practice, for the benefit of world peace and prosperity. Subsections of the report deal with the US seeking to promote color revolutions and putting economic pressure on various countries, its wilfull rejection of international law and creation of blocs, its use of force (quoting former US president as saying the US is the most warlike nation in history, and even quoting Julian Assange, presumably to the same effect), US economic policies (including economic hegemony, looting and exploitation), US abuse of the reserve currency position of the dollar, technological hegemony (how the US tries to prevent technology development in non-US countries - including Japan in the 1980s and China today), and a long section on cultural hegemony that addresses the spreading of false narratives through media, social media, soft power, cultural exports and so on, with the purpose of maintaining an overall US strategic global dominance.
The Chinse have published their own manifesto as to how foreign policy should be conducted, under the title The Global Security Initiative Concept. The paper talks about things like the core concepts and principles that are required to stay committed to common, comprehensive, cooperative security, national sovereignty and territorial integrity interests, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, commitment to the principles of the UN Charter (a rejection, therefore, of the rules-based international order), serious commitment to the legitimate security interests of all countries, peaceful resolution of conflicts, dialog and cooperation, maintenance of security in both traditional and non-traditional domains, fostering a community of shared security for humankind, offering freedom from fear and universal security.
A Different Vision
The document, Mercouris observes, sets out a vision that is profoundly different from the exceptionalist vision that one sees so much of in the US today and which emphasizes the right of every country to chart its own form of development, to develop its own form of economic and political system, in the light of its own traditions and interests, to have those interests respected, and to have its sovereignty and security respected as well. It is not difficult when looking at these documents together, Mercouris suggests, to see that the Chinese believe that the reason for the Ukraine conflict is that the US pursues its hegemonic policies, interferes in the internal affairs of other countries and promotes color revolutions (including the organge revolution in Ukraine), and ignores the security interests of other countries - specifically those of Russia. The root cause of the conflict in Ukraine is US hegemonic policies.
Mercouris asks “Why are the Chinese publishing these documents now?” He argues that we are now in a position in which China and the USA are adversaries. Once again, in other words, two great powers are opposed. China says that the USA is responsible for bringing this about, and points out what could be done to turn things around. But of course it is obvious to everyone that the US is not going to change. So China is inviting the world to consider which great power is offering the more attractive package. Against the litany of odious flaws that are listed in the two position papers, China offers cooperation, peaceful resolutions of conflict, respect for internal affairs of other countries, with the peoples of the world moving forward together as passengers in the same ship, respecting tjheir differences and refraining from imposing their own values over everyone else.
The US continues to deploy many of the tools and mindset that may have been appropriate during the Cold War, without taking heed of the fact that the Chinese challenge is very different to that which had been presented to the US by the Soviets. Biden’s highly simplistic division of the world between democracies and autocracies does not get the traction that the division between the US (capitalist democracy) and the Soviet Union (communism) once achieved. Multipolarity may come, but for the moment we are back into a bipolar world divided into two great systems in competition with one another. The conflict in Ukraine is a part of this. Ultimately China will be siding with Russia, especially if the US engages in further escalation.