As tensions rise between Russia (and China!) vs. 'the West', it's more important than ever to listen to both sides of the divide. Spoiler alert--China backs Russia, which considers the present WWIII
Thank you for your final thoughts. Growing up in the USA, we were indoctrinated to dislike the Russians (ussr). However, 65 years later I find myself feeling sorry for Mr. Putin. His own people like him. They are the ones who must live under his rule. Same for the Chinese, they have President Xi. The USA, to be honest, is looking more and more weak when people like Joe Biden become president of what was once the greatest country in the world. Despite this, and instead of acknowledging this, denial is the order of the day and full speed ahead, no matter what.
Well guess what, “no matter what” could potentially lead to the loss of millions of lives. Maybe that is what George soros has placed his latest bet on? The USA is in trouble financially, the country is split and no longer one and all. It is in trouble. But to try and start WWIII to get out of trouble makes little sense. Sadly, that does not seem to matter. Welcome China, the new global leader. I admire your perseverance and hard work. Democracies are so overrated, because most of the time they are corrupt. I have always said the USA has the best government money can buy. Look where it got us in the end. Second place, maybe.
Growing up in Central Europe, we were all similarly indoctrinated, but with a twist: a bit more 'pragmatism', which comes with living check by jowl with (often more powerful) neighbours, which is something the US never really had to contend with after the Civil War.
Also, remember that the much-disliked 'energy dependence' on Russia developed as a consequence of continued economic growth in 'Western Europe' after its own reservoirs of hydrocarbon energy peaked and went into decline. Soviet energy supplies were reasonably close by and these arrangements worked both ways: Moscow needed foreign exchange, Europeans wanted to stay warm and continue producing.
After 1989/90, Russian energy exports took off, for the above-reasons, but also because many believed that this economic 'model' (much like other erroneous 'models' of more recent vintage) would be the wave of the future: Russiaunder Mr. Yeltsin was o.k. to do business with, hence no more holding back on (phoney) ideological grounds.
Yes, everyone was aware of 'energy as a weapon', but then again, that would be a stupid thing for both parties, isn't it?--Now watch the Russians lay pipelines across Siberia and perhaps towards India to sell the gas that currently flows 'West' to East Asia.
Much like the post-Maidan sanctions--really: acts of (economic) war--Russia considers its mutual dependency on 'the West' a liability, which, in FM Lavrov's recent words, are something like 'a tax for sovereignty'. In a few years, the prices Europeans would be willing to pay won't matter, because Russia will have alternative customers, and 'the market' will take care of the rest. Note that this works also the other way: due to EU 'leaders', the US will hold Europeans captive in terms of energy supplies, for the US will be the main, and only, supplier to Western Europe.
In short: EU leaders made a blunder of enormous proportions, for so far US pressures could be somewhat deflected by the 'Russian oil and gas are cheaper' argument supported by market prices. The end of Nord Stream II has effectively abolished the pretense of 'markets', and as EUropeans now move towards dependency from one single supplier (yes, there's also the Emirates, but they do as the Swamp Creatures say). In other words: however little agency the EU had, it's gone now.
China benefits no matter who comes out looking the winner, because that's how China positions itself. It is also sound strategy, and both chinese and russian leaders have military backgrounds - often actual active military and not desktop generals or corporate shills as in the West, especially the US. It is called "Let him and you fight". Sweden used that strategy to great success during WW2.
Russia cannot for many reasons adopt the same strategy the chinese and the arab and iranian moslems do regarding territory as a pretext for policy. After all, if China was to absorb Taiwan, the excuse Taiwan is would be gone. So for China Taiwan is much more useful the way it is. The same goes for the palestinians on the West Bank and in Palestine. They are worth far more as a convenient excuse for the surrounding nations, excluding Israel, in extorting money via "foreign aid" - money which can the be funneled to the corrupt leadership in Palestine to get them to continue being proxy warriors against Israel and by extension the US.
Russia cannot do that. Russia has been labeled Evil Empire ever since the Oktober Revolution and the civil war being won by the reds. No one is disputing the horrendous deaht toll and mass murders of Lenin's and later Stalin's regimes - but:
That has never stopped western bankers in any other arena. What made and still makes Russia different? After all, Wall Street has no problem doing business with China, a nation with actual KZ camps, slavery, eugenics, ethnic cleansing, and so on.
Well, which american, french and british banking and finance families lost influence and money after the revolution, and which families and clans spent and spent and spent to lobby the White House to take an adversarial stance against the nascent Soviet Union?
And that's the reason Russia remins their enemy. These clans and families have never forgotten or forgiven the russians for daring to not only enter the game, but to upset the rules - or even make their own. And these are the same clans and families which has lobbied the EU and all european nations to adopt multiculturalism - cultural and actual suicide.
I use the terms clans and families because they are often related by blood or marriage, and because the structure of power itself very much resembles that of a clan or tribe: one set of laws, morals and rules for those within, and a different set for those without. As the gypsies aehonest enough to say: law for rom and crime for gadje.
Russia refused to play the game. Had the soviets allowed these business-clans to do business as usual, no problem. Same thing after the collapse: had the MAI been accepted in Russia, had the World Bank's projects been allowed to continue and so on - no problem. None of which are the fault of ukrainians however.
Unfortunately for them, the chechen and the georgians Russia cannot use them as an excuse for getting aid. Saudi Arabia? Yemen? UAE? Jordan? Syria? Iraq? Oh yes - despite the obscene wealth among their elites and despite their prophet clearlystating that the rich shall give until there is no more need. But not Russia.
Here's a prognosis: if Sweden gets a Sweden Democrat/moderate party governement instead of socialist democrats, and they actually starts dealing with our problems (such as one bombing ever six days on average), expect Sweden to be labeled the same way Poland and Romania and Russia is.
You don't break the rules of the game unpunished, unless you have nuclear weapons and can threaten "the Samson Option".
Translation is never the really tricky part, I'd argue, for the main problem rests with the cultural allusions. Machine translations of Russian to English are working o.k. (the above piece didn't appear on TASS' English website, though), but as you can see, it takes more than knowledge of words.
China is a quite interesting case, and it's much more than meetsthe eye. But I agree on the Taiwan notion, it's perhaps more useful to keep that 'wound' festering a bit longer, for what would the régime do once 'the gathering' of all Chinese in one great nation is achieved?
Also, doing so certainly increases resentment among the numerous and powerful Taiwanese expat community in the US. Mainly concentrated along the West Coast, they are often linked to (rabid, in political terms) nationalist-Chinese expat circles, much like, incidentally, many of New York's Russian émigrés, or the largely anti-Russian Ukrainian diaspora in the US. They are all pressure groups and, certainly within their own political areas (districts) extremely important voting blocs.
Thank you for your final thoughts. Growing up in the USA, we were indoctrinated to dislike the Russians (ussr). However, 65 years later I find myself feeling sorry for Mr. Putin. His own people like him. They are the ones who must live under his rule. Same for the Chinese, they have President Xi. The USA, to be honest, is looking more and more weak when people like Joe Biden become president of what was once the greatest country in the world. Despite this, and instead of acknowledging this, denial is the order of the day and full speed ahead, no matter what.
Well guess what, “no matter what” could potentially lead to the loss of millions of lives. Maybe that is what George soros has placed his latest bet on? The USA is in trouble financially, the country is split and no longer one and all. It is in trouble. But to try and start WWIII to get out of trouble makes little sense. Sadly, that does not seem to matter. Welcome China, the new global leader. I admire your perseverance and hard work. Democracies are so overrated, because most of the time they are corrupt. I have always said the USA has the best government money can buy. Look where it got us in the end. Second place, maybe.
You are welcome.
Growing up in Central Europe, we were all similarly indoctrinated, but with a twist: a bit more 'pragmatism', which comes with living check by jowl with (often more powerful) neighbours, which is something the US never really had to contend with after the Civil War.
Also, remember that the much-disliked 'energy dependence' on Russia developed as a consequence of continued economic growth in 'Western Europe' after its own reservoirs of hydrocarbon energy peaked and went into decline. Soviet energy supplies were reasonably close by and these arrangements worked both ways: Moscow needed foreign exchange, Europeans wanted to stay warm and continue producing.
After 1989/90, Russian energy exports took off, for the above-reasons, but also because many believed that this economic 'model' (much like other erroneous 'models' of more recent vintage) would be the wave of the future: Russiaunder Mr. Yeltsin was o.k. to do business with, hence no more holding back on (phoney) ideological grounds.
Yes, everyone was aware of 'energy as a weapon', but then again, that would be a stupid thing for both parties, isn't it?--Now watch the Russians lay pipelines across Siberia and perhaps towards India to sell the gas that currently flows 'West' to East Asia.
Much like the post-Maidan sanctions--really: acts of (economic) war--Russia considers its mutual dependency on 'the West' a liability, which, in FM Lavrov's recent words, are something like 'a tax for sovereignty'. In a few years, the prices Europeans would be willing to pay won't matter, because Russia will have alternative customers, and 'the market' will take care of the rest. Note that this works also the other way: due to EU 'leaders', the US will hold Europeans captive in terms of energy supplies, for the US will be the main, and only, supplier to Western Europe.
In short: EU leaders made a blunder of enormous proportions, for so far US pressures could be somewhat deflected by the 'Russian oil and gas are cheaper' argument supported by market prices. The end of Nord Stream II has effectively abolished the pretense of 'markets', and as EUropeans now move towards dependency from one single supplier (yes, there's also the Emirates, but they do as the Swamp Creatures say). In other words: however little agency the EU had, it's gone now.
China is Russian's Trojan dragon. In geopolitics, there are no allies/backers; only self-interests.
Ha, that's a good analogy.
As to geopolitics, agreed, but let me ask you this: may there be shared interests, at for a while and/or against a common (perceived) threat?
"....may there be shared interests, at for a while and/or against a common (perceived) threat?"
Da.
China benefits no matter who comes out looking the winner, because that's how China positions itself. It is also sound strategy, and both chinese and russian leaders have military backgrounds - often actual active military and not desktop generals or corporate shills as in the West, especially the US. It is called "Let him and you fight". Sweden used that strategy to great success during WW2.
Russia cannot for many reasons adopt the same strategy the chinese and the arab and iranian moslems do regarding territory as a pretext for policy. After all, if China was to absorb Taiwan, the excuse Taiwan is would be gone. So for China Taiwan is much more useful the way it is. The same goes for the palestinians on the West Bank and in Palestine. They are worth far more as a convenient excuse for the surrounding nations, excluding Israel, in extorting money via "foreign aid" - money which can the be funneled to the corrupt leadership in Palestine to get them to continue being proxy warriors against Israel and by extension the US.
Russia cannot do that. Russia has been labeled Evil Empire ever since the Oktober Revolution and the civil war being won by the reds. No one is disputing the horrendous deaht toll and mass murders of Lenin's and later Stalin's regimes - but:
That has never stopped western bankers in any other arena. What made and still makes Russia different? After all, Wall Street has no problem doing business with China, a nation with actual KZ camps, slavery, eugenics, ethnic cleansing, and so on.
Well, which american, french and british banking and finance families lost influence and money after the revolution, and which families and clans spent and spent and spent to lobby the White House to take an adversarial stance against the nascent Soviet Union?
And that's the reason Russia remins their enemy. These clans and families have never forgotten or forgiven the russians for daring to not only enter the game, but to upset the rules - or even make their own. And these are the same clans and families which has lobbied the EU and all european nations to adopt multiculturalism - cultural and actual suicide.
I use the terms clans and families because they are often related by blood or marriage, and because the structure of power itself very much resembles that of a clan or tribe: one set of laws, morals and rules for those within, and a different set for those without. As the gypsies aehonest enough to say: law for rom and crime for gadje.
Russia refused to play the game. Had the soviets allowed these business-clans to do business as usual, no problem. Same thing after the collapse: had the MAI been accepted in Russia, had the World Bank's projects been allowed to continue and so on - no problem. None of which are the fault of ukrainians however.
Unfortunately for them, the chechen and the georgians Russia cannot use them as an excuse for getting aid. Saudi Arabia? Yemen? UAE? Jordan? Syria? Iraq? Oh yes - despite the obscene wealth among their elites and despite their prophet clearlystating that the rich shall give until there is no more need. But not Russia.
Here's a prognosis: if Sweden gets a Sweden Democrat/moderate party governement instead of socialist democrats, and they actually starts dealing with our problems (such as one bombing ever six days on average), expect Sweden to be labeled the same way Poland and Romania and Russia is.
You don't break the rules of the game unpunished, unless you have nuclear weapons and can threaten "the Samson Option".
Translation is never the really tricky part, I'd argue, for the main problem rests with the cultural allusions. Machine translations of Russian to English are working o.k. (the above piece didn't appear on TASS' English website, though), but as you can see, it takes more than knowledge of words.
China is a quite interesting case, and it's much more than meetsthe eye. But I agree on the Taiwan notion, it's perhaps more useful to keep that 'wound' festering a bit longer, for what would the régime do once 'the gathering' of all Chinese in one great nation is achieved?
Also, doing so certainly increases resentment among the numerous and powerful Taiwanese expat community in the US. Mainly concentrated along the West Coast, they are often linked to (rabid, in political terms) nationalist-Chinese expat circles, much like, incidentally, many of New York's Russian émigrés, or the largely anti-Russian Ukrainian diaspora in the US. They are all pressure groups and, certainly within their own political areas (districts) extremely important voting blocs.