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Welcome to shocked & awed 21st century geopolitics
With a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the hegemon, we now have a brand new geopolitical chessboard
By PEPE ESCOBARMARCH 23, 2021
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) in Beijing, China on March 23, 2021. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency
It took 18 years after Shock and Awe was unleashed on Iraq for the hegemon to be mercilessly shocked and awed by a virtually simultaneous, diplomatic Russia-China one-two.
How this is a real game-changing moment cannot be emphasized enough; 21st century geopolitics will never be the same again.
Yet it was the hegemon who first crossed the diplomatic Rubicon. In the middle of a softball interview, the handlers behind the hologram Joe “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Nance” Biden whispered in his earpiece that he should brand Russian President Vladimir Putin as a soulless “killer.”
Not even at the height of the Cold War had the superpowers resorted to ad hominem attacks. The result of such an astonishing blunder was to regiment virtually the whole Russian population behind Putin – because that was perceived as an attack against the Russian state.
Then came Putin’s cool, calm, collected – and quite diplomatic – response, which needs to be carefully pondered. These sharp-as-a-dagger words are arguably the most devastatingly powerful five minutes in the history of post-truth international relations.
Combination of file pictures shows US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photos: AFP / Jim Watson and Alexander Nemenov
In For Leviathan, it’s so cold in Alaska, we forecast what could then take place in the US-China 2+2 summit at a shabby hotel in Anchorage, with cheap bowls of instant noodles thrown in as extra bonus.
China’s millennial diplomatic protocol establishes that discussions start around areas of common ground, which are then extolled as being more important than disagreements between negotiating parties. That’s at the heart of the concept of “no loss of face.” Only after establishing the common ground do the parties discuss their differences.
Yet it was totally predictable that a bunch of amateurish, tactless and clueless Americans would smash those basic diplomatic rules to show “strength” to their home crowd, distilling the proverbial litany on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea and the “genocide” of Uighurs.
Oh, dear. There was not a single State Department hack with minimal knowledge of East Asia to warn the amateurs you don’t mess with the formidable head of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CCP’s Central Committee, Yang Jiechi, with impunity.
Visibly startled, but controlling his exasperation, Yang Jiechi struck back. And the rhetorical shots were heard around the whole Global South. They had to include a basic lesson in manners: “If you want to deal with us properly, let’s have some mutual respect and do things the right way.”
But what stood out was a stinging, concise diagnostic blending of history and politics:
The Chinese delegation led by Yang Jiechi (center), director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second left) speak with their US counterparts at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18, 2021. Photo: AFP / Frederic J Brown / Pool
And all that translated in real time by young, attractive and ultra-skilled Zhang Jing – who inevitably became an overnight superstar in China, reaping an astonishing 400 million plus hits on Weibo.
The incompetence of the “diplomatic” arm of the Biden-Harris administration beggars belief. Using a basic Sun Tzu maneuver, Yang Jiechi turned the tables and voiced the predominant sentiment of the overwhelming majority of the planet: Stuff your unilateral “rules-based order.” We, the nations of the world, privilege the UN charter and the primacy of international law.
So this is what the Russia-China one-two achieved almost instantaneously: From now on, the hegemon should be treated, all across the Global South, with at best disdain.
Inevitable historical process
Pre-Alaska, the Americans went on to Japan and South Korea for “consultations” – a charm offensive. That’s irrelevant. What matters is post-Alaska, starting with the crucial Sergey Lavrov-Wang Yi meeting of foreign ministers in Guilin.
Lavrov, always unflappable, clarified in an interview with Chinese media how the Russia-China strategic partnership sees the current US diplomatic train wreck:
Lavrov pointed out that Russia-China have clearly identified how the “Western partners” are:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (not seen) in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: AFP / Russian Foreign Ministry / Handout / Anadolu Agency
“There are no relations with the European Union as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made by Brussels.”
The door to reconciliation, though, is left open, “if and when Europeans deem fit to eliminate these anomalies in contacts with their largest neighbor.” Lavrov almost ruefully compared “no changes on the Western front” with a “very intensive agenda” in the East.
As a stark presentation of an inevitable “historical process,” it doesn’t get more crystal clear than that. And, predictably, it had taken no time at all for the “Western partners” to fall back into – what else? – their same old bag of sanctions tricks.
Here we go again: a US, UK, EU, Canada “alliance” issuing sanctions against selected Chinese officials because the People’s Republic of China in Blinken’s words “continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
The EU, UK, and Canada didn’t have the guts to extend the sanctions to a key player: Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo, who’s a Politburo member. The Chinese response would have been – economically – devastating.
Still, Beijing counterpunched with its own sanctions – targeting, crucially, Adrian Zenz, the German far-right evangelical nut posing as a “scholar” who produced the bulk of the completely debunked “proof” of a million Uighurs held in concentration camps.
German anthropologist Adrian Zenz. Photo: Wikipedia
Once again, the “Western partners” are impermeable to logic. Adding to the already appalling state of EU-Russia relations, Brussels chooses to also antagonize China based on a single fake dossier, playing right into the hegemon’s not exactly secret divide-and-rule agenda.
Mission (nearly) accomplished: Brussels diplomats tell me the EU Parliament is all but set to refuse to ratify the China-EU trade deal painstakingly negotiated by Merkel and Macron. The consequences will be immense.
So Blinken will have reasons to be cheerful when he meets assorted eurocrats and NATO bureaucrats this week, ahead of the NATO summit.
One has to applaud the gall of the “Western partners.” It’s been 18 years since Shock and Awe – the start of the bombing, invasion and destruction of Iraq. It’s been 10 years since the start of the total destruction of Libya by NATO and its Gulf Cooperation Council minions, with Obama-Biden “leading from behind.” It’s been 10 years since the start of the savage destruction of Syria by proxy – complete with jihadis disguised as “moderate rebels.”
Yet now the “Western partners” are so mortified by the plight of Muslims in Western China.
At least there are some cracks within the EU illusionist circus. Last week, the French Armed Forces Joint Reflection Circle (CRI) – in fact, an independent think tank of former high-ranking officers – wrote a startling open letter to cardboard NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg de facto accusing him of behaving as an American stooge with the implementation of the NATO 2030 plan.
The French officers drew the correct conclusion: the US/NATO combo is the main cause of appalling relations with Russia.
Paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Brigade from Krakow seen near the banner ‘Poland 20 Years in NATO’ on March 7, 2019. Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via AFP ForumThese Ides of March
Meanwhile, sanctions hysteria advances like a runaway train. Biden-Harris already threatened to impose extra sanctions on Chinese oil imports from Iran. And there are more in the pipeline – on manufacturing, technology, 5G, supply chains and semiconductors.
And yet no one is trembling in his boots. Right on cue with Russia-China, Iran has stepped up the game, with Ayatollah Khamenei issuing the guidelines for Tehran’s return to the JCPOA.
In our latest conversation-interview, to be released soon in a video + transcript package, Michael Hudson – arguably the world’s top economist – hit the heart of the matter:
With a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the hegemon, we now have a brand new geopolitical chessboard
By PEPE ESCOBARMARCH 23, 2021
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) in Beijing, China on March 23, 2021. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency
It took 18 years after Shock and Awe was unleashed on Iraq for the hegemon to be mercilessly shocked and awed by a virtually simultaneous, diplomatic Russia-China one-two.
How this is a real game-changing moment cannot be emphasized enough; 21st century geopolitics will never be the same again.
Yet it was the hegemon who first crossed the diplomatic Rubicon. In the middle of a softball interview, the handlers behind the hologram Joe “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Nance” Biden whispered in his earpiece that he should brand Russian President Vladimir Putin as a soulless “killer.”
Not even at the height of the Cold War had the superpowers resorted to ad hominem attacks. The result of such an astonishing blunder was to regiment virtually the whole Russian population behind Putin – because that was perceived as an attack against the Russian state.
Then came Putin’s cool, calm, collected – and quite diplomatic – response, which needs to be carefully pondered. These sharp-as-a-dagger words are arguably the most devastatingly powerful five minutes in the history of post-truth international relations.
Combination of file pictures shows US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photos: AFP / Jim Watson and Alexander Nemenov
In For Leviathan, it’s so cold in Alaska, we forecast what could then take place in the US-China 2+2 summit at a shabby hotel in Anchorage, with cheap bowls of instant noodles thrown in as extra bonus.
China’s millennial diplomatic protocol establishes that discussions start around areas of common ground, which are then extolled as being more important than disagreements between negotiating parties. That’s at the heart of the concept of “no loss of face.” Only after establishing the common ground do the parties discuss their differences.
Yet it was totally predictable that a bunch of amateurish, tactless and clueless Americans would smash those basic diplomatic rules to show “strength” to their home crowd, distilling the proverbial litany on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea and the “genocide” of Uighurs.
Oh, dear. There was not a single State Department hack with minimal knowledge of East Asia to warn the amateurs you don’t mess with the formidable head of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CCP’s Central Committee, Yang Jiechi, with impunity.
Visibly startled, but controlling his exasperation, Yang Jiechi struck back. And the rhetorical shots were heard around the whole Global South. They had to include a basic lesson in manners: “If you want to deal with us properly, let’s have some mutual respect and do things the right way.”
But what stood out was a stinging, concise diagnostic blending of history and politics:
The Chinese delegation led by Yang Jiechi (center), director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second left) speak with their US counterparts at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18, 2021. Photo: AFP / Frederic J Brown / Pool
And all that translated in real time by young, attractive and ultra-skilled Zhang Jing – who inevitably became an overnight superstar in China, reaping an astonishing 400 million plus hits on Weibo.
The incompetence of the “diplomatic” arm of the Biden-Harris administration beggars belief. Using a basic Sun Tzu maneuver, Yang Jiechi turned the tables and voiced the predominant sentiment of the overwhelming majority of the planet: Stuff your unilateral “rules-based order.” We, the nations of the world, privilege the UN charter and the primacy of international law.
So this is what the Russia-China one-two achieved almost instantaneously: From now on, the hegemon should be treated, all across the Global South, with at best disdain.
Inevitable historical process
Pre-Alaska, the Americans went on to Japan and South Korea for “consultations” – a charm offensive. That’s irrelevant. What matters is post-Alaska, starting with the crucial Sergey Lavrov-Wang Yi meeting of foreign ministers in Guilin.
Lavrov, always unflappable, clarified in an interview with Chinese media how the Russia-China strategic partnership sees the current US diplomatic train wreck:
The inevitable consequence is that Russia-China must “consolidate our independence,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov pointed out that Russia-China have clearly identified how the “Western partners” are:
And then, at the joint press conference with Wang Yi in Guilin on Tuesday, Lavrov dropped a stunning but predictable bombshell:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (not seen) in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: AFP / Russian Foreign Ministry / Handout / Anadolu Agency
“There are no relations with the European Union as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made by Brussels.”
The door to reconciliation, though, is left open, “if and when Europeans deem fit to eliminate these anomalies in contacts with their largest neighbor.” Lavrov almost ruefully compared “no changes on the Western front” with a “very intensive agenda” in the East.
As a stark presentation of an inevitable “historical process,” it doesn’t get more crystal clear than that. And, predictably, it had taken no time at all for the “Western partners” to fall back into – what else? – their same old bag of sanctions tricks.
Here we go again: a US, UK, EU, Canada “alliance” issuing sanctions against selected Chinese officials because the People’s Republic of China in Blinken’s words “continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
The EU, UK, and Canada didn’t have the guts to extend the sanctions to a key player: Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo, who’s a Politburo member. The Chinese response would have been – economically – devastating.
Still, Beijing counterpunched with its own sanctions – targeting, crucially, Adrian Zenz, the German far-right evangelical nut posing as a “scholar” who produced the bulk of the completely debunked “proof” of a million Uighurs held in concentration camps.
German anthropologist Adrian Zenz. Photo: Wikipedia
Once again, the “Western partners” are impermeable to logic. Adding to the already appalling state of EU-Russia relations, Brussels chooses to also antagonize China based on a single fake dossier, playing right into the hegemon’s not exactly secret divide-and-rule agenda.
Mission (nearly) accomplished: Brussels diplomats tell me the EU Parliament is all but set to refuse to ratify the China-EU trade deal painstakingly negotiated by Merkel and Macron. The consequences will be immense.
So Blinken will have reasons to be cheerful when he meets assorted eurocrats and NATO bureaucrats this week, ahead of the NATO summit.
One has to applaud the gall of the “Western partners.” It’s been 18 years since Shock and Awe – the start of the bombing, invasion and destruction of Iraq. It’s been 10 years since the start of the total destruction of Libya by NATO and its Gulf Cooperation Council minions, with Obama-Biden “leading from behind.” It’s been 10 years since the start of the savage destruction of Syria by proxy – complete with jihadis disguised as “moderate rebels.”
Yet now the “Western partners” are so mortified by the plight of Muslims in Western China.
At least there are some cracks within the EU illusionist circus. Last week, the French Armed Forces Joint Reflection Circle (CRI) – in fact, an independent think tank of former high-ranking officers – wrote a startling open letter to cardboard NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg de facto accusing him of behaving as an American stooge with the implementation of the NATO 2030 plan.
The French officers drew the correct conclusion: the US/NATO combo is the main cause of appalling relations with Russia.
Paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Brigade from Krakow seen near the banner ‘Poland 20 Years in NATO’ on March 7, 2019. Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via AFP ForumThese Ides of March
Meanwhile, sanctions hysteria advances like a runaway train. Biden-Harris already threatened to impose extra sanctions on Chinese oil imports from Iran. And there are more in the pipeline – on manufacturing, technology, 5G, supply chains and semiconductors.
And yet no one is trembling in his boots. Right on cue with Russia-China, Iran has stepped up the game, with Ayatollah Khamenei issuing the guidelines for Tehran’s return to the JCPOA.
- The US regime is in no position to make new demands or changes regarding the nuclear deal.
- The US is weaker today than when the JCPOA was signed.
- Iran is in a stronger position now. If anyone can impose new demands it’s Iran and not the US.
In our latest conversation-interview, to be released soon in a video + transcript package, Michael Hudson – arguably the world’s top economist – hit the heart of the matter:
To be continued. As it stands, we can all be sure that the Ides of March – the 2021 version – have already configured a brand new geopolitical chessboard. The Russia-China Double Helix on high-speed rail has left the station – and there’s no turning back
