RUSSIA, CHINA, BRICS, GROUP OF 20, SCO, & NAM ==================================== THE ROVING EYE ASIA TIMESHow Crimea plays in Beijing By Pepe Escobar We are paying very close attention to the situation in Ukraine. We hope all parties can calmly maintain restraint to prevent the situation from further escalating and worsening. Political resolution and dialogue is the only way out. This, via Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong, is Beijings quite measured, official interpretation of whats happening in Ukraine, tailored for global consumption. But here, in a Peoples Daily editorial, is what the leadership is really thinking. And the focus is clearly on the dangers of regime change, the Wests inability to understand the lessons of history, and the final battlefield of the Cold War. Yet again the West misinterpreted Chinas abstention from the UN Security Council vote on a US-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum. The spin was that Russia - which vetoed the resolution - was isolated. Its not. And the way Beijing plays geopolitics shows its not. Oh, Samantha … The herd of elephants in the (Ukraine) room, in terms of global opinion, is how the authentic international community - from the G-20 to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - who has had enough of the Exceptionalist Hypocrisy Show, has fully understood, and even applauded, that at least one country on the planet has the balls to clearly say F**k the US. Russia under President Vladimir Putin may harbor quite a few distortions, just like any other nation. But this is not a dinner party; this is realpolitik. To face down the US Leviathan, nothing short of a bad ass such as Putin will suffice. NATO - or shorthand for the Pentagon dominating European wimps - keeps issuing threats and spewing out consequences. What are they going to do - launch a barrage of ICBMs equipped with nuclear warheads against Moscow? Furthermore, the UN Security Council itself is a joke, with US ambassador Samantha Nothing Compares to You Power - one of the mothers of R2P (responsibility to protect) - carping on Russian aggression, Russian provocations and comparing the Crimean referendum to a theft. Oh yes; bombing Iraq, bombing Libya and getting to the brink of bombing Syria were just innocent humanitarian gestures. Samantha The Humanitarian arguably gives a better performance invoking Sinead OConnor in her shower. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin was polite enough to say, these insults addressed to our country are unacceptable. Its what he added that carried the real juice; If the delegation of the United States of America expects our cooperation in the Security Council on other issues, then Power must understand this quite clearly. Samantha The Humanitarian, as well as the whole bunch of juvenile bystanders in the Obama administration, wont understand it. Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov gave them a little help; Russia didnt want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to raise the stakes, but if the US and the EU continue with their sanctions and threats, thats whats going to happen. So the plot thickens - as in a closer and closer strategic partnership between Tehran and Moscow. *** Beijing has identified very clearly the sequence of affairs; long-running Western interference in Ukraine via NGOs and the State Department; regime change perpetrated with the help of fascists and neo-nazis; a pre-emptive Russian counterattack which can be read as a by-the-book Samantha. The Humanitarian R2P operation (protecting Russians and Russian speakers from a second coup planned in Crimea, and thwarted by Russian intelligence.) *** *** While the Western dogs bark … Russia and China are strategic partners - at the G-20, at the BRICS club of emerging powers and at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Their number one objective, in these and other forums, is the emergence of a multipolar world; no bullying by the American Empire of Bases, a more balanced international financial system, no more petrodollar eminence, a basket of currencies, essentially a win-win approach to global economic development. A multipolar world also implies, by definition, NATO out of Eurasia - which is from Washingtons point of view the number one reason to interfere in Ukraine. In Eurasian terms, its as if - being booted out of Afghanistan by a bunch of peasants with Kalashnikovs - NATO was pivoting back via Ukraine. While Russia and China are key strategic partners in the energy sphere - Pipelineistan and beyond - they do overlap in their race to do deals across Central Asia. Beijing is building not only one but two New Silk Roads- across Southeast Asia and across Central Asia, involving pipelines, railways and fiber optic networks, and reaching as far as Istanbul, the getaway to Europe. Yet as far as Russia-China competition for markets go, all across Eurasia, its more under a win-win umbrella than a zero-sum game. On Ukraine (the last battlefield in the Cold War) and specifically Crimea, the (unspoken) official position by Beijing is absolute neutrality (re: the UN vote). Yet the real deal is support to Moscow. But this could never be out in the open, because Beijing is not interested in antagonizing the West, unless heavily provoked (the pivoting becoming hardcore encirclement, for instance). Never forget; since Deng Xiaoping (keep a low profile) this is, and will continue to be, about Chinas peaceful rise. Meanwhile, the Western dogs bark, and the Sino-Russian caravan passes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ COMMENT if you have read this far, congratulate yourself for you are one of a very small group of intelligent people who try to catch a glimpse of, and make sense of, an American foreign policy that is destroying America, and, probably, doing irreparable harm to its future and that of its people. SHOCKLEY
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 22:28:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015