On one hand, the fact that only Russia and China dared to oppose this resolution (South Africa and Pakistan abstained while Azerbaijan, India, Colombia, Morocco, Togo, Germany, Guatemala, Portugal voted in support) is a pretty good indicator of the relative power of the two sides: Russia and China are still pretty isolated in their opposition to the US Empire. Even India, a fellow BRICS member, did not have the courage to abstain, nevermind oppose, this Resolution. On the other hand, this also shows that Russia and China are powerful enough to act by themselves and that they don’t need anybody else’s support.
I am not sure that this “¡No pasarán!” will be any more successful than the original one, but it is heartening to see that somebody is still resisting.
No doubt, the anti-Russian hysteria will now reach a new high (for some reason, China’s stance is mostly overlooked by the so-called “friends of Syria”), but if that is the price to pay for standing up for what is right, then it is well worth it.
There was a thread on the Anatole Karlin site where someone suggested that the reason China isn’t attacked as vehemently as Russia for opposing Imperial interests is a) China has a much better lobbying system in the US and b)the Chinese economy is much more important indeed vital to the US and there are huge US business interets in China that don’t want Uncle Sam to piss off the Chinese and get in the way of hard money.
Also the Soviet Union was always the main enemy during the Cold War plus Russia is a huge disappointment to the US. Russia seemed so promising in the good old days of Yeltsin.
Agreed, Saker.
@Robert: There was a thread on the Anatole Karlin site where someone suggested that the reason China isn’t attacked as vehemently as Russia for opposing Imperial interests is a) China has a much better lobbying system in the US and b)the Chinese economy is much more important indeed vital to the US and there are huge US business interets in China that don’t want Uncle Sam to piss off the Chinese and get in the way of hard money. Also the Soviet Union was always the main enemy during the Cold War plus Russia is a huge disappointment to the US. Russia seemed so promising in the good old days of Yeltsin.
All true, I fully agree.
But that also tells me something else: of the two countries (Russia and China) the Western diplomats instinctively feel that Russia is the leader and China the partner, and I think that they are correct. I sense a HUGE wave of anti-US and anti-NATO feelings in Russia, even the rather “liberal” intelligentsia is now very strongly anti-US and anti-NATO. I think that the US policies during the Eltsin years have resulted in an immense, popular, blow-back which go far deeper than just the “regime”.
I am not so sure about China which, after all, has not been nearly as abused, lied to and otherwise subverted as Russia. At the very least, there has been no “Chinese Eltsin” and no Jewish oligarchs to plunder the country.
I think that the Western plutocrats are probably feeling that in many ways Russia is really welcoming a confrontation with them. Sure, the Russians always speak of “our Western partners” or “our Western friends”, but nobody is duped by this. The fact is that besides a very VERY small percentage (1 or 2 percent tops) of *clinically* pro-US “professional dissidents”, the entire Russian nation is now thoroughly disgusted with, and hostile to, the US/NATO block.
So not only is China far more important economically, it is also probably far less hostile to the US/NATO block than Russia. I guess that this also explains the rather lopsided singling out of Russia as the bad guy.
Also, let’s not forget that in terms of military power, Russia is still the only country able to compete with the US in many aspects, and the only one capable of wiping off the US with its nuclear arsenal. Perhaps in 2 decades China will have a mightier military than Russia, and then the US will turn its focus on China.