We are seeing this week another example of the results that come from Doing Almost Everything Wrong in American foreign policy since 1945. The visit of Chinese President-for-Life/Emperor Xi Jinping to Russia and the declaration of a “no-limits” friendship, is being taken by Those Who Usually Get It Wrong as a sign of a coming Sino-Russian alliance.
"The Global South looks at what the United States did in Southeast Asia 60 years ago, which those countries are still recovering from, and what the United States has done to destabilize the Middle East over the past 20 years, and they don’t see us as promoting FDR’s Four Freedoms we claimed we were fighting for 80 years ago."
Good gracious Tom - you mean the good old US of A isnt exceptional?
I think until & unless this country and, of course, its "leaders" acknowledge - gee maybe giving all that leeway to the war starters - VietNam, Iraq, Afghanistan & all those piddly little places in between - our global "image" will just keep falling further & further. Maybe the bar should be raised when it comes to electing people in our government. At this point, we've lowered it farther than we should have. Putting any politician - much less the Pres of US - in office with no regard to their background or even their criminal behavior? Look at this bunch - we, all of us, should be ashamed for allowing this kind of Keystone Kop activity in Congress or our Courts, much less the WH!
ANOTHER GREAT POST TC. Thanks for the instructive trip through time and space. This country has gotten foreign policy wrong for so long. And never learned from history or the history of wars. (Some great pages on not learning from Korean War in "The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" by a certain author known to this Substack group. Your paragraph. on FDR is a tribute and a lament for what we missed. Yes, we are seen by others in a far different way from the way others see us. And we seem to have total blinders that hinder seeing the truth
Making a deal for Siberian gas is just the beginning for Xi who likely will annex Siberia in the future as Russia continues to weaken. I'm sure it's part of the long game.
Additionally, Xi has made significant trade and lending inroads in Aftrica and South America, yes, in our very hemisphere, the latter being a source of precious metals China needs for its tech sector. He did all this while Bush/Cheney launched a longterm bog-down in the ME. And I agree with Maggie Frazier here that with the xenophobic Christian nationalist crowd in DC we are not likely to guide or even influence the changes in the global order going forward. Biden has given it a go in coaching the NATO team and in developing AUKUS, but after that what? What will be the expiration date for democracy? Cheesh, I'm glad I'm old.
What you’ve written is clear and makes a lot of sense, based on just one experience I had in Africa. In 2019, I traveled and drove some of the roads built by the Chinese in Southern Africa. One moment the road would be muddy and rocky; then suddenly as smooth as silk. And, there was always a specific local economic benefit to having that smooth road. I felt then that I was seeing a very smart “helping hand” move that wasn’t being made by the US. But, by China. It was eye opening and made me feel sad and worried.
My goodness TC, the picture you paint is devastating and much of it our own doing. The pieces many of us already know well, but, you’ve put together the whole ball of wax. It’s chilling. Along with accelerating AI, there seems to be nowhere to hide.
Initially posted on LFAA at around 6AM; the following also applies to TC's "GLOBAL CHINA"
'Xi’s Russia trip marks the arrival of a more ambitious ‘Global China’. That was the emphasis given by Ishaan Tharoor (with Sammy Westfall) in The Washington Post's' Today's WorldView, '...a more ambitious 'Global China'.
'Whatever the talk of a “no-limits” friendship, it’s the business deals that count. On the second day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, the two countries agreed to a set of proposals that would expand their natural gas trade as well as other economic ties. The proposed deals represent something of a lifeline for Russian President Vladimir Putin, isolated from the West because of sanctions imposed on Russia after his decision to wage a full-blown war across the border in Ukraine.'
'At the center of discussions in Moscow is a new planned pipeline, dubbed Power of Siberia 2, that could supply China with about 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually. “The pipeline, which would pass through Mongolia, has been under discussion for years. But the project took on greater urgency for Russia after its natural gas trade with Europe stopped last year because of its invasion of Ukraine,” my colleagues reported. “By 2030, Putin said, Russia will supply China with at least 98 billion cubic meters, in addition to 100 million tons of liquefied natural gas, through the new pipeline.”
'The Kremlin is grateful for the vast appetite and requirements of the Chinese economy. “Russian business is in a position to meet the growing demand from the Chinese economy for energy carriers both within the framework of current projects and those that are now in the process of negotiation,” Putin told reporters after Tuesday’s meetings.'
'Some observers in Moscow recognize a perhaps humiliating new reality taking root. “The logic of events dictates that we fully become a Chinese resource colony,” a source closely linked to the Kremlin told the Financial Times, before pointing to the expanding role of Chinese tech companies within Russia. “Our servers will be from Huawei. We will be China’s major suppliers of everything. They will get gas from Power of Siberia. By the end of 2023 the yuan [renminbi] will be our main trade currency.”
'Last year, Xi unveiled a parallel vision for a Western-led order, dubbed the “Global Security Initiative.” Even when refined by subsequent “concept papers” issued by Beijing, the initiative remains a largely vague set of principles — U.S. critics have dubbed them “platitudes” — about world peace and neighborly relations. But even in its vacuous outlines, analysts see a Chinese desire to move away from the alliance systems and global security architecture that the United States ushered into place in the aftermath of World War II, a status quo built by a Washington that Beijing frequently complains is still gripped by a “Cold War mentality.”
'In various forums, from meetings of the BRICS nations and Shanghai Cooperation Organization to newspapers in countries as far-flung as Kenya and the Solomon Islands, Chinese officials have touted the “GSI” as a new platform for global partnership. In some instances, their foreign counterparts have welcomed the rhetoric.'
'China has “been very carefully constructing this new basically Asian and then global order,” David Arase, resident professor of international politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, said to Nikkei Asia Review in November. “Right from that time, they sort of laid down the fundamental principles, and they’re filling in the details as they go along.”
'For years, the meat on the bones of what this Chinese order may look like has been economic — think of massive efforts like the Belt and Road Initiative, where Chinese state companies invest in major infrastructure projects around the world. But as Xi settles into his third term as de facto president for life, we are also seeing the emergence of China as a more capable political actor.'
'Case in point is Beijing’s recent brokering of rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “China’s position as a secondary great power has allowed it to free ride on the American security umbrella without incurring the same security costs and without facing the same strategic dilemmas,” wrote Amr Hamzawy of the Carnegie Middle East Program. “This appears to be changing. By mediating the Saudi-Iranian normalization agreement, China is veering into new territory, expanding its regional footprint from economic exchange to negotiated conflict resolution.”
'That doesn’t mean China is driving any meaningful effort toward peace right now between Russia and Ukraine. “Chinese officials … calculate (correctly) that neither Russia nor Ukraine wants peace talks at the moment, as both believe they can make advances on the battlefield,” noted the Economist. “Xi’s peace posturing is thus more about burnishing his international image while undermining America’s, and positioning China to take advantage of whatever emerges from the war.”
'This opportunism is matched by a more overt sense of ambition. In an interview with geopolitical analyst Bruno Maçães, Zhou Bo, a retired colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, offered a new expression to frame the moment.'
“We are talking about Global China,” Zhou said, borrowing the language of post-Brexit Britain. “When [former British prime minister] Boris Johnson talked about Global Britain, it was probably more rhetorical. But Global China is definitely real. China is ubiquitous. China’s influence is everywhere.”
'In the face of this, the Biden administration has set about confronting China on various fronts — engaging in a full-blown trade war over key technologies, tightening security partnerships with other regional powers in Asia and putting itself at the forefront of an ideological clash between liberal democracies and autocracies elsewhere. (Next week, the United States will co-host its second “Summit for Democracies.”)'
'But Washington’s perceived hawkishness is a source of tension for countries elsewhere. “Few in Southeast Asia look forward to a future of Chinese regional hegemony. Most therefore want the U.S. to play a balancing role, alongside Australia, Japan, India and others,” wrote James Crabtree, executive director of the Asia office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. At the same time, he added, “regional leaders are also anxious about Washington’s deteriorating ties with Beijing” and the potential for instability and conflict that may follow.'
'In an op-ed for The Washington Post, CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria lamented the rigid thinking in Washington that has made dialogue with a host of autocratic regimes difficult, if not impossible, and opened more space for China on the world stage to play a more proactive role.'
“America’s unipolar status has corrupted the country’s foreign policy elite,” Zakaria wrote. “Our foreign policy is all too often an exercise in making demands and issuing threats and condemnations. There is very little effort made to understand the other side’s views or actually negotiate.”
'Whether you think it’s true or not, that more levelheaded approach is the one Beijing claims to be taking.' (WAPO,WorldView)
The above represents the full report by Ishaan Tharoor of Xi’s Russia trip for WorldView in today's Washington Post.
Excellent information Tom. Thank you for posting this. Everyone needs to be aware. A China Russia alliance standing guard over the world is a less than comforting thought.
"The one thing I have learned in writing the histories I have is that the United States never learns the right lesson from the wars it fights."
Just look at what happened after 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Every time I write about this, I think of what might have been, had FDR lived. He foresaw this world, that the colonialized nations would fight for independence, and he saw it as right and proper. His plan was for the world’s first anti-colonial power - the U.S. - to support the fight for colonial independence, to take the lead internationally. "
What would the world look like today if we had initiated a Marshall Plan for Asia and the Middle East?
Thank you Tom. This was the most cohesive and far thinking
report on China I've read in quite
a while. China has always played
the long game, going back centuries. Russia has always been a partner in one way or
another, since the establised
"Silk Road". They sure were during Vietnam. We better keep
a close eye on Modi/India. He's
playing his own long game. The
only possible problem I see for China is what the climate may
do there this year. They were hit
very hard last growing season
by drought and crops failed
badly. They also lost an untold
population to Covid. Xi has some
problems on his own home front,
but silence is one of their greatest advantages. It's a
commununist regime and country. Mao taught them all
well.
Excellent analysis. I loved theconclusion.
Putin screwed himself. He thought his britches were bigger than they really were. Xi basically has his mineral rights now.
We (America) step in it militarily every chance we get, and afterwards the CIA goes in and makes it worse.
Thank you, Tom, for this cogent analysis.
This is especially telling:
"The Global South looks at what the United States did in Southeast Asia 60 years ago, which those countries are still recovering from, and what the United States has done to destabilize the Middle East over the past 20 years, and they don’t see us as promoting FDR’s Four Freedoms we claimed we were fighting for 80 years ago."
Good gracious Tom - you mean the good old US of A isnt exceptional?
I think until & unless this country and, of course, its "leaders" acknowledge - gee maybe giving all that leeway to the war starters - VietNam, Iraq, Afghanistan & all those piddly little places in between - our global "image" will just keep falling further & further. Maybe the bar should be raised when it comes to electing people in our government. At this point, we've lowered it farther than we should have. Putting any politician - much less the Pres of US - in office with no regard to their background or even their criminal behavior? Look at this bunch - we, all of us, should be ashamed for allowing this kind of Keystone Kop activity in Congress or our Courts, much less the WH!
ANOTHER GREAT POST TC. Thanks for the instructive trip through time and space. This country has gotten foreign policy wrong for so long. And never learned from history or the history of wars. (Some great pages on not learning from Korean War in "The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" by a certain author known to this Substack group. Your paragraph. on FDR is a tribute and a lament for what we missed. Yes, we are seen by others in a far different way from the way others see us. And we seem to have total blinders that hinder seeing the truth
Tom, would you agree the US got it right in Europe, at least 1945-1989, and wrong everywhere else?
Making a deal for Siberian gas is just the beginning for Xi who likely will annex Siberia in the future as Russia continues to weaken. I'm sure it's part of the long game.
Additionally, Xi has made significant trade and lending inroads in Aftrica and South America, yes, in our very hemisphere, the latter being a source of precious metals China needs for its tech sector. He did all this while Bush/Cheney launched a longterm bog-down in the ME. And I agree with Maggie Frazier here that with the xenophobic Christian nationalist crowd in DC we are not likely to guide or even influence the changes in the global order going forward. Biden has given it a go in coaching the NATO team and in developing AUKUS, but after that what? What will be the expiration date for democracy? Cheesh, I'm glad I'm old.
What you’ve written is clear and makes a lot of sense, based on just one experience I had in Africa. In 2019, I traveled and drove some of the roads built by the Chinese in Southern Africa. One moment the road would be muddy and rocky; then suddenly as smooth as silk. And, there was always a specific local economic benefit to having that smooth road. I felt then that I was seeing a very smart “helping hand” move that wasn’t being made by the US. But, by China. It was eye opening and made me feel sad and worried.
My goodness TC, the picture you paint is devastating and much of it our own doing. The pieces many of us already know well, but, you’ve put together the whole ball of wax. It’s chilling. Along with accelerating AI, there seems to be nowhere to hide.
Initially posted on LFAA at around 6AM; the following also applies to TC's "GLOBAL CHINA"
'Xi’s Russia trip marks the arrival of a more ambitious ‘Global China’. That was the emphasis given by Ishaan Tharoor (with Sammy Westfall) in The Washington Post's' Today's WorldView, '...a more ambitious 'Global China'.
'Whatever the talk of a “no-limits” friendship, it’s the business deals that count. On the second day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, the two countries agreed to a set of proposals that would expand their natural gas trade as well as other economic ties. The proposed deals represent something of a lifeline for Russian President Vladimir Putin, isolated from the West because of sanctions imposed on Russia after his decision to wage a full-blown war across the border in Ukraine.'
'At the center of discussions in Moscow is a new planned pipeline, dubbed Power of Siberia 2, that could supply China with about 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually. “The pipeline, which would pass through Mongolia, has been under discussion for years. But the project took on greater urgency for Russia after its natural gas trade with Europe stopped last year because of its invasion of Ukraine,” my colleagues reported. “By 2030, Putin said, Russia will supply China with at least 98 billion cubic meters, in addition to 100 million tons of liquefied natural gas, through the new pipeline.”
'The Kremlin is grateful for the vast appetite and requirements of the Chinese economy. “Russian business is in a position to meet the growing demand from the Chinese economy for energy carriers both within the framework of current projects and those that are now in the process of negotiation,” Putin told reporters after Tuesday’s meetings.'
'Some observers in Moscow recognize a perhaps humiliating new reality taking root. “The logic of events dictates that we fully become a Chinese resource colony,” a source closely linked to the Kremlin told the Financial Times, before pointing to the expanding role of Chinese tech companies within Russia. “Our servers will be from Huawei. We will be China’s major suppliers of everything. They will get gas from Power of Siberia. By the end of 2023 the yuan [renminbi] will be our main trade currency.”
'Last year, Xi unveiled a parallel vision for a Western-led order, dubbed the “Global Security Initiative.” Even when refined by subsequent “concept papers” issued by Beijing, the initiative remains a largely vague set of principles — U.S. critics have dubbed them “platitudes” — about world peace and neighborly relations. But even in its vacuous outlines, analysts see a Chinese desire to move away from the alliance systems and global security architecture that the United States ushered into place in the aftermath of World War II, a status quo built by a Washington that Beijing frequently complains is still gripped by a “Cold War mentality.”
'In various forums, from meetings of the BRICS nations and Shanghai Cooperation Organization to newspapers in countries as far-flung as Kenya and the Solomon Islands, Chinese officials have touted the “GSI” as a new platform for global partnership. In some instances, their foreign counterparts have welcomed the rhetoric.'
'China has “been very carefully constructing this new basically Asian and then global order,” David Arase, resident professor of international politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, said to Nikkei Asia Review in November. “Right from that time, they sort of laid down the fundamental principles, and they’re filling in the details as they go along.”
'For years, the meat on the bones of what this Chinese order may look like has been economic — think of massive efforts like the Belt and Road Initiative, where Chinese state companies invest in major infrastructure projects around the world. But as Xi settles into his third term as de facto president for life, we are also seeing the emergence of China as a more capable political actor.'
'Case in point is Beijing’s recent brokering of rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “China’s position as a secondary great power has allowed it to free ride on the American security umbrella without incurring the same security costs and without facing the same strategic dilemmas,” wrote Amr Hamzawy of the Carnegie Middle East Program. “This appears to be changing. By mediating the Saudi-Iranian normalization agreement, China is veering into new territory, expanding its regional footprint from economic exchange to negotiated conflict resolution.”
'That doesn’t mean China is driving any meaningful effort toward peace right now between Russia and Ukraine. “Chinese officials … calculate (correctly) that neither Russia nor Ukraine wants peace talks at the moment, as both believe they can make advances on the battlefield,” noted the Economist. “Xi’s peace posturing is thus more about burnishing his international image while undermining America’s, and positioning China to take advantage of whatever emerges from the war.”
'This opportunism is matched by a more overt sense of ambition. In an interview with geopolitical analyst Bruno Maçães, Zhou Bo, a retired colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, offered a new expression to frame the moment.'
“We are talking about Global China,” Zhou said, borrowing the language of post-Brexit Britain. “When [former British prime minister] Boris Johnson talked about Global Britain, it was probably more rhetorical. But Global China is definitely real. China is ubiquitous. China’s influence is everywhere.”
'In the face of this, the Biden administration has set about confronting China on various fronts — engaging in a full-blown trade war over key technologies, tightening security partnerships with other regional powers in Asia and putting itself at the forefront of an ideological clash between liberal democracies and autocracies elsewhere. (Next week, the United States will co-host its second “Summit for Democracies.”)'
'But Washington’s perceived hawkishness is a source of tension for countries elsewhere. “Few in Southeast Asia look forward to a future of Chinese regional hegemony. Most therefore want the U.S. to play a balancing role, alongside Australia, Japan, India and others,” wrote James Crabtree, executive director of the Asia office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. At the same time, he added, “regional leaders are also anxious about Washington’s deteriorating ties with Beijing” and the potential for instability and conflict that may follow.'
'In an op-ed for The Washington Post, CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria lamented the rigid thinking in Washington that has made dialogue with a host of autocratic regimes difficult, if not impossible, and opened more space for China on the world stage to play a more proactive role.'
“America’s unipolar status has corrupted the country’s foreign policy elite,” Zakaria wrote. “Our foreign policy is all too often an exercise in making demands and issuing threats and condemnations. There is very little effort made to understand the other side’s views or actually negotiate.”
'Whether you think it’s true or not, that more levelheaded approach is the one Beijing claims to be taking.' (WAPO,WorldView)
The above represents the full report by Ishaan Tharoor of Xi’s Russia trip for WorldView in today's Washington Post.
Excellent information Tom. Thank you for posting this. Everyone needs to be aware. A China Russia alliance standing guard over the world is a less than comforting thought.
Well done. Scary, but well done.
TC, great analysis.
These stand out for me:
"The one thing I have learned in writing the histories I have is that the United States never learns the right lesson from the wars it fights."
Just look at what happened after 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Every time I write about this, I think of what might have been, had FDR lived. He foresaw this world, that the colonialized nations would fight for independence, and he saw it as right and proper. His plan was for the world’s first anti-colonial power - the U.S. - to support the fight for colonial independence, to take the lead internationally. "
What would the world look like today if we had initiated a Marshall Plan for Asia and the Middle East?
Yes. Tragically. Just finished Doris Kearns Goodwins, "Leadership," the section when FDR dies. If only his spirit and intentions could have lived on.
Well written. Thank you.
Thanks, TC. I have so much to learn about “globalization”. This student appreciates.