Russia is keen to push economic integration with parts of Asia and this fits in with China’s Belt and Road Initiative
by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
The concept of Greater Eurasia has been discussed at the highest levels of Russian academia and policy-making for some time. This week the policy was presented at the Council of Ministers and looks set to be enshrined, without fanfare, as the main guideline of Russian foreign policy for the foreseeable future.
President Putin is unconditionally engaged to make it a success. Already at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016, Putin referred to an emerging “Eurasian partnership”.
I was privileged over the past week to engage in excellent discussions in Moscow with some of the top Russian analysts and policymakers involved in advancing Greater Eurasia.
Three particularly stand out: Yaroslav Lissovolik, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club and an expert on the politics and economics of the Global South; Glenn Diesen, author of the seminal Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia; and the legendary Professor Sergey Karaganov, dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and honorary chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, who received me in his office for an off-the-record conversation.
The framework for Great Eurasia has been dissected in detail by the indispensable Valdai Discussion Club, particularly on Rediscovering the Identity, the sixth part of a series called Toward the Great Ocean, published last September, and authored by an academic who’s who on the Russian Far East, led by Leonid Blyakher of the Pacific National University in Khabarovsk and coordinated by Karaganov, director of the project.
The conceptual heart of Greater Eurasia is Russia’s Turn to the East, or pivot to Asia, home of the economic and technological markets of the future. This implies Greater Eurasia proceeding in symbiosis with China’s New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And yet this advanced stage of the Russia-China strategic partnership does not mean Moscow will neglect its myriad close ties to Europe.
Russian Far East experts are very much aware of the “Eurocentrism of a considerable portion of Russian elites.” They know how almost the entire economic, demographic and ideological environment in Russia has been closely intertwined with Europe for three centuries. They recognize that Russia has borrowed Europe’s high culture and its system of military organization. But now, they argue, it’s time, as a great Eurasian power, to profit from “an original and self-sustained fusion of many civilizations”; Russia not just as a trade or connectivity point, but as a “civilizational bridge”.
Legacy of Genghis Khan
What my conversations, especially with Lissovolik, Diesen and Karaganov, have revealed is something absolutely groundbreaking – and virtually ignored across the West; Russia is aiming to establish a new paradigm not only in geopolitics and geoeconomics, but also on a cultural and ideological level.
Conditions are certainly ripe for it. Northeast Asia is immersed in a power vacuum. The Trump administration’s priority – as well as the US National Security Strategy’s – is containment of China. Both Japan and South Korea, slowly but surely, are getting closer to Russia.
Culturally, retracing Russia’s past, Greater Eurasia analysts may puzzle misinformed Western eyes. ‘Towards the Great Ocean’, the Valdai report supervised by Karaganov, notes the influence of Byzantium, which “preserved classical culture and made it embrace the best of the Orient culture at a time when Europe was sinking into the Dark Ages.” Byzantium inspired Russia to adopt Orthodox Christianity.
It also stresses the role of the Mongols over Russia’s political system. “The political traditions of most Asian countries are based on the legacy of the Mongols. Arguably, both Russia and China are rooted in Genghis Khan’s empire,” it says.
If the current Russian political system may be deemed authoritarian – or, as claimed in Paris and Berlin, an exponent of “illiberalism” – top Russian academics argue that a market economy protected by lean, mean military power performs way more efficiently than crisis-ridden Western liberal democracy.
As China heads West in myriad forms, Greater Eurasia and the Belt and Road Initiative are bound to merge. Eurasia is crisscrossed by mighty mountain ranges such as the Pamirs and deserts like the Taklamakan and the Karakum. The best ground route runs via Russia or via Kazakhstan to Russia. In crucial soft power terms, Russian remains the lingua franca in Mongolia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
And that leads us to the utmost importance of an upgraded Trans-Siberian railway – Eurasia’s current connectivity core. In parallel, the transportation systems of the Central Asian “stans” are closely integrated with the Russian network of roads; all that is bound to be enhanced in the near future by Chinese-built high-speed rail.
Iran and Turkey are conducting their own versions of a pivot to Asia. A free-trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) was approved in early December. Iran and India are also bound to strike a free-trade agreement. Iran is a big player in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which is essential in driving closer economic integration between Russia and India.
The Caspian Sea, after a recent deal between its five littoral states, is re-emerging as a major trading post in Central Eurasia. Russia and Iran are involved in a joint project to build a gas pipeline to India.
Kazakhstan shows how Greater Eurasia and BRI are complementary; Astana is both a member of BRI and the EAEU. The same applies to gateway Vladivostok, Eurasia’s entry point for both South Korea and Japan, as well as Russia’s entry point to Northeast Asia.
Ultimately, Russia’s regional aim is to connect China’s northern provinces with Eurasia via the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railway – with Chita in China and Khabarovsk in Russia totally inter-connected.
And all across the spectrum, Moscow aims at maximizing return on the crown jewels of the Russian Far East; agriculture, water resources, minerals, lumber, oil and gas. Construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Yamal vastly benefits China, Japan and South Korea.
Community spirit
Eurasianism, as initially conceptualized in the early 20th century by the geographer PN Savitsky, the geopolitician GV Vernadsky and the cultural historian VN Ilyn, among others, regarded Russian culture as a unique, complex combination of East and West, and the Russian people as belonging to “a fully original Eurasian community”.
That certainly still applies. But as Valdai Club analysts argue, the upgraded concept of Greater Eurasia “is not targeted against Europe or the West”; it aims to include at least a significant part of the EU.
The Chinese leadership describes BRI not only as connectivity corridors, but also as a “community”. Russians use a similar term applied to Greater Eurasia; sobornost (“community spirit”).
As Alexander Lukin of the Higher School of Economics and an expert on the SCO has constantly stressed, including in his book China and Russia: The New Rapprochement, this is all about the interconnection of Greater Eurasia, BRI, EAEU, SCO, INSTC, BRICS, BRICS Plus and ASEAN.
The cream of the crop of Russian intellectuals – at the Valdai Club and the Higher School of Economics – as well as top Chinese analysts, are in sync. Karaganov himself constantly reiterates that the concept of Greater Eurasia was arrived at, “jointly and officially”, by the Russia-China partnership; “a common space for economic, logistic and information cooperation, peace and security from Shanghai to Lisbon and New Delhi to Murmansk”.
The concept of Greater Eurasia is, of course, a work in progress. What my conversations in Moscow revealed is its extraordinary ambition; positioning Russia as a key geoeconomic and geopolitical crossroads linking the economic systems of North Eurasia, Central and Southwest Asia.
As Diesen notes, Russia and China have become inevitable allies because of their “shared objective of restructuring global value-chains and developing a multipolar world”. It’s no wonder Beijing’s drive to develop state-of-the-art national technological platforms is provoking so much anger in Washington. And in terms of the big picture, it makes perfect sense for BRI to be harmonized with Russia’s economic connectivity drive for Greater Eurasia.
That’s irreversible. The dogs of demonization, containment, sanctions and even war may bark all they want, but the Eurasia integration caravan keeps moving along.
The ‘Making of Greater Eurasia’ starts in earnest with the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan by Ivan the Terrible. That quashed the attempts of the “Mystery and Company of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places unknown”, founded in 1551 by Richard Chancellor, Sebastian Cabot and Sir Hugh Willoughby, who decided to look for the Northeast Passage to China, which eventually failed. The Company was rechartered in 1555 as “Muscovy Company”, with a more modest aim, obtaining the monopoly of all commerce in Russia and the opening of a land route to Persia, India, China along the Volga. The terrible Tsar took umbrage at these pretensions and unceremoniously showed the door to the ‘Adventurers’. That’s why he became the monster we know.
But the ‘Adventurers’ came back to the charge, trying to make good out of the troubles of Russia (in which they most certainly had a direct hand) until Peter the Great put an end to their meddling, crushing the uprising of the Streltsy and the ‘Raskol’ (which made Peter the ‘antichrist’), the Fifth Column of the time.
Anyhow, Peter the Great and his successors continued the ‘building of Greater Eurasia’. A ‘strategic partnership’ with China was on his drawing board. Hence, all the attempts to prevent, hamper, sabotage, destroy it by ‘Oceania’ (the Orwellian code name for the Anglo-Zionist ‘Empire’) which led to two World Wars and threatens to ignite the Third (and last). Russia simply continues the policies of the Tsars.
Anonymous
Nice presentation. I would like to add Napoleons invasion of Russia in 1812, financed by ‘Oceania”, as well as two world wars, also financed by ‘Oceania’. In the 19th century Bismarck advocates an economic alliance between Germany and Russia, which would also include China. The bankers use the Kaiser to remove him from Office. Instead of becoming allies, the Russians and Germans become enemies. ‘Oceania’ uses Germany as a proxy to fight Russia. It still does, having American troops in Germany.
At the beginning of the 20th century the English geographer Halford Mackinder warned the British Government of the dangers of a German-Russian economic alliance and the importance of Eurasia. The result ? Two world wars, including the Russian Revolution of 1917, financed by bankers. Berzezinsky picked up where Mackinder stopped, publishing his book ‘The Grand Chessboard’.
Oceania” always had two huge obstacles, Russia and China. It used Napoleon, Kaiser and Hitler to destroy Russia, which failed. The Korean and Vietnam wars were fought, as ‘Oceania’ needed troops in both countries, as both have borders with China. The intent was for China to be destabilized, and then use troops from Korea and Vietnam for a pincer movement into China. That too failed.
What do we have today ? ‘Oceania” is quarrelling with both Russia and China, and quite a number of others. At the same time ‘Oceania’ is in a heap of financial trouble, using fiat currencies. It forgot the old rule that empires always collapse, going bankrupt in the process. What is ‘Oceania” going to do ? Start a wider war, again ?
Pepe brings into focus a geo-political kaleidoscope that grows more complex in every dimension. Eurasia is multi-continental, multi-civilizational and multi-polar in and of itself.
Russia and China, with India and Iran, with Mongolia and the Koreas, with Japan and Philippines, with Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia, with Turkey and ME, with Central Asia and Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the Balkins, the Caucasus, all of the smart Europeans like parts of Italy, Austria, Portugal and Spain.
Where China has made bilateral trade and infrastructure investments, nearby are trade and security investments from Russia. As India grows and develops, and Iran grows and develops, they will be additional centrifugal forces drawing the distant closer and the Eurasian mix thicker and more substantial.
The force of these processes cannot be stopped. They face obstacles and challenges from the Hegemon. But the dynamics are like water flowing down a tall mountain. No dam is possible. The power of 4.5 Billion people all in desire of the same objectives is overwhelming.
The USA was manufactured by multiple varied “cultures”. The Indians were killed en masse and those that survived got turned into a form of slavery too. Chinese, Africans, Irish, e.g. Europeans, many peoples built the American Empire. And the Families from the “Pirates Cove” (England) manufactured the USA as a vassal state. The intention? An enlightenment. The reality is a nightmare. The “Evildoers” manufacture the USA as a melting pot of criminally insane commodities. Tragically, the Mark Twains, Dogberrys, Robert Frosts, Wes Montgomerys, Ray Charles’, Georgia O’Keefes, John and Robert Kennedys (John Jr. too) are in the graveyard of buried hopes.
Exposing 9-1-1 may turn some of the evildoers into blubbering piles of protoplasm, but then the criminally insane are ready to hell fire and brimstone Earth. Our minds must become whole as one super power, species human beings. Image, dream, focus and cocreate the reality of cosmic citizens of the universe too.
China is a totalitarian nightmare and so is the West — the former does it by law; the latter by “fashion”, as Solzhenitsyn put it.
If you observe China and the Chinese closely, the public and the privileged don’t feel they live in a totalitarian nightmare. They have lived through hell in many forms over the last eighty years. Occupation, massacres, civil war, Cultural Revolution, famine, destabilization, and economic containment and isolation from the family of nations.
The sense of security they derive from their system permeates every person. The most important thing in the life and psychology of Chinese is a sense of stability in their society.
Don’t judge another culture by our standards. The Chinese have risen from dirt poverty. They have built a beautiful and modern nation, with edifices and connectivity that is #1. They are getting richer. They have real friends in the third world who value their assistance and investment.
China has a one-party system of rigid ideology but the daily flow of life is not interrupted or micromanaged by the Party like it once was. In fact, except for the registration system for residence, Hukou, they have as good freedom as most any developed nation. There are some censored topics on Weibo, and religion is controlled, but you can find comparable restrictions and controls in many nations. And everyday in the USA, the elites, globalists, billionaire tech giants are depriving Liberty at turbo speed.
Democracy in America is almost useless. There’s a one-party system in every Blue State of significance (Calif., NY, NJ, Mass.). You think living and voting in these states is better than living and not voting in China? Delusion, my friend.
Would we want China to have a better system? Let the Chinese decide. The CCP has to produce results or the masses will sweep them away. So far, no better success exists on the planet. The Chinese have what they needed to rise from poverty.
No governmental form is perfect and nearly all are quickly a Tyranny. I prefer no ideology-based systems. But nothing is assured with or without ideology or parties. Government by definition is always poised to oppress and to transform into totalitarianism. Show me an exception.
You know why the Chinese government does what it does? Because the people want the resulting condition of stability and security. They know their own people, that Chinese can form into killing mobs and riots instantly. We see that at car accidents, industrial accidents, officials who outrage them, etc.
And the US is directing Islamic terrorism at them, as well as paying for separatists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang and even has tried in Inner Mongolia. The three evils, extremism, separatism, terrorism, are real if you are Chinese.
So, in balance, the Chinese allow a one-party system, a rigid security system, and they go about their lives happy, productive and pursuing their dream of riches. That’s what the fat Laughing Buddha is about and why it is so ubiquitous in their society. They are a materialistic people, hard-working, smart, and determined to be #1 in everything from ping pong to Space travel.
I have lots of Chinese friends and none of them indicate a scintilla of oppression or dread from their government.
Cannot distinguish a Mainlander from a Taiwanese, though the Taiwanese friends are vehemently anti-Beijing.
If China had better air quality and the language was easier to master, millions of people would be flocking there.
If I was younger, I’d be in Xiamen, a beautiful city, or Hangzhou, another beautiful city.
The NSA and Google, FB and Amazon are at least a match for any CCP apparatus of social control.
And China doesn’t go around the globe bombing and drone-striking hundreds of thousands of people, paying for assassinations of splendid souls like Alexander Zakharchenko, or trying to destroy whole secular nations like Syria.
The standards of the West have gone satanic and psychotic. And getting worse each day.
” you observe China and the Chinese closely, the public and the privileged don’t feel they live in a totalitarian nightmare. ”
Neither do many Yanks; they think they’re living the exceptional dream and that their boys are delivering payloads of freedom and democracy — that’s socialization for you ;) No way will I ever accept communist mind control as an alternative to liberal mind control — in the end they are both totalitarian. China is up to its neck in bankster control, just like the West. Don’t be played.
”Neither do many Yanks; they think they’re living the exceptional dream and that their boys are delivering payloads of freedom and democracy”
As most Western ’anti-authoritarians’, you’re unconcerned with what it is that underpins and corroborates the moronic US population’s perceptions: They live in the most powerful nation throughout history; they can feed themselves to obesity; they suck in the world’s natural resources and labour output for free; they make life hell on Earth for a steadily growing global majority and revel in it; they pollute and poison the environment everywhere. Very ugly people being very proud of their ugliness.
The complaints and, ahem, sensibilities of Western ’anti-authoritarians’ come across as being totally and absolutely moot. To call them morally tone-deaf would be a mild euphemism indeed.
If you think that Communist and Liberal mind control are the only two kinds of mind control, you might want to reconsider. I live in Singapore, and like China, the people here know they are being fed propaganda. So they take it with a large handful of salt.
What surprises me about the US is that people can complain about left/right leaning media sources being biased, but at they same time believe that their preferred information source is complete and truthful. They need to learn to obtain information from varied sources across the spectrum of political leanings and in multiple languages if possible, then form an opinion.
Excellent points Larchmonter. I totally agree with you. The US demonization of China is based on envy and fear.
Very insightful comment Larchmonter!
I’ve spent several months touring in China, Larchmonter, and that was my take also, that the power structure is no more repressive on the ground than it is in the West. Similarly, I lived under Soviet rule for a year and found that rather less repressive than the Western version at that time (late 70’s) for the ordinary person.
We have a lot more to gain from our cultural differences by learning from each other than by demonising ‘the other.’ We are going to have to do that at some point anyway if human beings are going to survive as a viable life-form on the planet. We ain’t doing so well with the current paradigm…which clearly leads to a dead end.
The (pardon the pun) Party Line of your average Western ’anti-authoritarian’: The Earth is flat and everything/everybody is equally rotten (if not worse) as my West is. Hey, the West might not be so bad, coming to think of it.
Western ’anti-authoritarians’ correctly perceive there is a problem with foreign peoples, governments, and leaders showing stiffening resolve and courage while the neoliberal West rots away. The global demand for their ’anti-authoritarian’ pearls of wisdom is plummeting.
Im not sure what is great about giving chinese my job, buy from them and see them buy my land.
So it’s better to give the Anglo-imperialists your job(the status,connections and most of your pay that is, you’d still be doing the physical labor at far lower pay), buy from them and watch them buy your country.And continue to be ruled by them until your people are driven to extinction?
Also you are using the Western definition of trade here, I believe when the Chinese say trade they mean exchange of goods and services at mutually agreed upon prices, the rest is circumstantial.
Brexit happened. Trump happened… with people waking up, why not considering combining both for other EU countries ? Then I prefer chinese stay where they are, I dont need BRI
Are you willing to fight and possibly die (personally, not in an abstract sense) to prevent this from happening? If not than it is going to happen. And if yes, it will happen anyway, just with some delay that, historically, is irrelevant. The entire human race is moving to greater connectivity. First economic, than cultural. It is a truism that “planet is getting smaller”.
Again Trump happened… because some people waked up.. once people realize thats not in their interest to accept any kid of empire rule (in that case the chinese economic complex rule) they can protect themself.. as countries with “honnest” leadership do. There is no written destiny as you seem to propose… it is not in european people interest to massively buy goods from china … they need to start producing more… but first they need to get ride of eu oligarquie which is organising this hoax.
The oligarchy can only be removed by force.
It’s their ‘manifest destiny’. At least they buy ‘your land’ and not take it by force.
Well, I find it difficult enough coping with Western totalitarianism, so I’m not really excited about Chinese totalitarianism either. I’ve no problem with trading with other nations but I’m never going to drink any “good cop bad cop” kool aid that China is somehow better than the West.
My social credit score just dropped by a few points ;)
Yes, but unlike the West, China is not imperialist, meaning they’ll keep any totalitarianism they have inside the borders of China.
Nothing is fixed. All is motion, vibration
The only constant is change and the lack of change of some minds. In spite of all the abundant evidence that change is possible, indeed inevitable there are some that will have none of it, holding that their fixedness is The Highest Good of All.
In this way, the Solipsist achieves their goal……….in the Microcosm…of Self-Satisfaction…that does absolutely nothing for anyone or anything else!
Meanwhile, (to paraphrase Pepe) ..as cynical dogs growl….the Macroscosmic Caravan Moves On, as surely as the planet, solar system and galaxy does the same…..none ever conceivably so fixed in place as the most stubbornly made up minds.
I was taken by the notion of what is now being proven not only possible, but probable…. nearly 30 years ago as the Berlin Wall came down and the Keystone Nation Atop Eurasia looked expectantly West for friendship and was rebuffed by an Egoism in High Places that disgusts the mostly western visitors to the Vineyard of the Saker ….who themselves build and embody conceptual bridges between cultures that will flower in peace …..or be wasted in war…if enough pieces of the World Landbridge…particularly the eastern extremity of its “World Island”, major portion….Eurasia….. connecting to Alaska…. is never achieved.
If that that inverted bridge, tunnelled under the Bering Strait, envisaged by Lincoln 154 years ago, and Sergei Witte…attending the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia shortly thereafter…..in 1876.. is never completed A Species Divided Against Itself …..Must Fall and Eventually Fail Catastrophically
But I don’t think it will.
Necessity is a powerful force and I fully expect to ride a train west to Russia, under the Bering Strait, as envisaged by Witte, the instigator of the Trans-Siberian Railway…..before I’m done.
I highly suggest the series of Valdai Club reports Pepe alludes to: Toward the Great Ocean. The link will get you to all 6 reports.
Make no mistake; all the fuss being put forth by the Outlaw US Empire is related to keeping Russia and China from further consolidating their hold on the Eurasian Heartland, but it is an effort that will fail completely–too much waging of war and not nearly enough wooing. Why? The neocons inability to see beyond the end of their noses means they have no long game whatsoever whereas China and Russia are centuries old masters of the long game.
Outlaw Historian, thank you for the link. I have read several of the Valdai papers – they are really good. As you say, Russia and China do have long-term goals to achieve, and they will achieve them because they play accordingly. It is all about planning, and they know very well what genuine planning can achieve –that is: almost everything! I know this because, as a master and PhD student of planning theory, I adopted old Russian books and I understood the power of planning as a tool – a tool of command – in the hands of a government. ‘Revisionist’ books on planning (the so-called ‘planning theory’ books) are abundant in the west – they try to provide a semblance of rationality to the useless policies western capitalist countries adopt, as they are controlled by the lobbies, the interests of a greedy and ignorant minority that meddles with everything… Multilateralism (as opposed to US unilateralism) is inevitable because Russia and China are dialectically planning/playing very well. It will eventually destroy the AZ way of doing things.
Do you really think the US will fail? The brazen arrest of Huawei’s CFO suggests that the US and its Western alliance have now decided to take down China (and Russia) in earnest. I don’t see how China can overcome the entire West at this point.
There will be a new power bloc, but it is unlikely to be Eurasia…..
The China-Russian “Iron Road” railway already exists. It needs some capacity and quality work, but that can be done as traffic runs up.
The China-Africa-South America “Sea Belt” can be developed. China is already expanding its Sub-Saharan national ties.
However, the “Silk Road” probably will not happen. Several key reasons:
— The concept needed lots of Iranian money. The Iranian economy is very weak, unemployment and poverty are up (1). The collapse of Macron and Merkel killed off any hope that a coordinated EU response would break U.S. sanctions.
— The concept planned on going through Iraq after Iran. The most powerful Shiite leader in Iraq, Muqtada alSadr is actively working to minimize Iranian government power in Iraq. (2). He doesn’t want Western overlords to be replaced by Iranian colonizers.
— China is using Reeducation camps to eradicate their Muslim Weiger population. (3). China has killed many, many, many more Muslims than Israel….. This creates a dangerous wild card in the “Main Street” Muslim population that the elite leaders in those countries cannot readily control if they try to move closer to China as a “friend & ally”.
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(1) https://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33232:11-more-people-below-poverty-line-in-tehran&catid=30:life-in-iran&Itemid=122
(2) http://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2018/11/29/ANALYSIS-Muqtada-al-Sadr-and-rising-tensions-between-Iran-and-Iraq.html
(3) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/an-inside-look-at-muslim-reeducation-camps-in-china-a-1238046.html
“The China-Africa-South America “Sea Belt” can be developed. China is already expanding its Sub-Saharan national ties.”
None of these two regions are as yet ready for any sort of world power.
Their time will come, doubtless – but not yet.
Chinese are endowed with a virtue lost on the seekers of ‘instant gratification’, patience.
@A123
Where to begin (unnecessary incitation removed – mod)? First, thanks for the 3 links to your sources because that clears things up fast. Quite simply, all three are voices of the Empire.
It’s a canard that Iran can’t afford the BRI and therefore the BRI will fail. First, the BRI infrastructure consists mainly of more rail lines which are not costly. So China and other nations can afford to build it. In the long run, it’s clear that Iran will have the wealth to hold up its end of the BRI. Iran survived the Imposed War with far fewer resources than it has now.
I have not read anywhere that Macron and Merkel were trying to overturn the anti-Russia sanctions. You are mistaken if you think you can put such an unsupported claim before the public without any evidence.
The destitution of Macron and Merkel will be a good thing for the people of Europe, and for the French and Germans in particular. The Empire will not benefit from losing these two pawns who have been shameless and punitive in doing everything the Empire has asked of them. These pawns and the associated propaganda machines (including Der Spiegel) have caused grate pain and woken up the populaces. No doubt the Empire will try to replace the worn-out pawns with newer ones, but that gambit is reaching an end. Probably sooner in France than in Germany.
As for the Spiegel story about Chinese mistreatment of the Uigars, I have no particular reason to believe it. As I recall, the Axel Springer press published some whoppers about all those nukes that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have, and the Springer press never confessed that it was a well-orchestrated hoax. Even if stories of Chinese repression of the Uighars were all tragically true, it would be inconsequential for the BRI, OBOR, or whatever you want to call it. By the way, has Der Spiegel ever ran a news story about the 15,000 Uighars who, along with their families, joined al-Qaeda and now live in Syria ?
The whole line about major friction between Iran and Iraq is also insignificant. The tension is mostly about personalities, not major differences in national interests. It’s about the ambitions of politicians.
Cosimo,
Let’s take this point by point, I will try to use blockquote on your text, but that fails occasionally…
In unfavorable geography truck roads are expensive. Rail construction costs for bridges and tunnelling are brutal.
Russia spent ~$4 billion on the Kerch Strait bridge project. The cost for the much longer Silk Road effort will be many times higher because trains and mountains are difficult to mix. Tunnels are frequently more expensive than bridges.
Please present evidence of your assertion that “Iran has sufficient wealth”. They may have hydrocarbons in the ground, but their infrastructure to extract and export is dilapidated. Russia’s Lukoil pulled out of a $5 billion investment plan. (1). France’s Total-Fina also suspended their investment efforts.
Also, please present evidence that the Iranian government will prioritize road and rail construction over competing military projects, such as ballistic missiles.
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The sanctions I am referring to are those on Iran.
Merkel and Macron proposed an EU based SPV to beat U.S. sanctions. However no EU country, including France and Germany, is willing to risk hosting such an entity. SWIFT has locked major Iranian banks out of the system to comply with the U.S. (2)
A number of countries received waivers to continue oil trade with Iran as they were not technically ready to change suppliers. Refinery facilities requiring new equipment need 6-9 months of lead time after a replacement supplier is placed under contract. And, the Saudis just became much less reliable as that alternate.
There will be fewer waivers as time goes by. A few may be semi-permanent. For example, natural gas to Iran’s neighbors has no economically viable replacement.
It should be noted that there is an immediate bite on Iranian spending for violence under the waiver program. (3)
“The waivers come with strings attached. Countries that receive waivers will need to pay for the Iranian oil into escrow accounts in their local currency. Iran can use this money to buy “nonsanctioned goods” like food or medicine from these countries, but it is not able to repatriate the money directly. Given the threat of U.S. sanctions, it is highly unlikely that banks will want to violate these escrow restrictions,” Poten explained.
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Unfortunately, English language search engines return hits from some sources more than others. Would you accept South China Morning Post as as better source? (4)
At this point the existence of the camps is an ‘open-secret’, because the displacement of Weigers by Han Chinese ethnicity is so large it is showing up in the demographics of Xinjiang province.
Feel free to take a run at the topic with your preferred sources and report back to all of the readers here.
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(1) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-lukoil-iran/lukoil-puts-iran-plans-on-hold-due-to-threat-of-u-s-sanctions-idUSKCN1IU1M7
(2) https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/11/15/eu-caving-to-trump-pressure-on-iran-sanctions-spv-alternative-mechanism-now-in-tatters/
(3) https://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/263938/u-s-sanctions-against-iran-to-drive-tanker-rate-increases/
(4) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2167893/china-legalises-use-re-education-camps-religious-extremists
Taking your first point first, the railways runs through relatively flat deserts. Tunnels in Kyrgystan may be needed, but not elsewhere. Rail lines run thru flatland Kazakhistan for simple reasons. Withing Iran, an important line will run north from Chabahar to Zahedan, and on to Mashad. The line up to Zahedan will be partly funded by India who want to trade with Afghanistan. I don’t think important rail lines will be built on the west side of the Caspian, with difficult terrain, and unreliable governments in Azerbaijan and Georgia. That’s not a problem because the Turkmenistan desert is nice and flat, so the existing rail lines may be paralleled, etc.
Standard speed rail lines are not costly, and China has long experience, both in China and in Africa. So I will stand by my assessment that there is no economic problem for the OBOR infrastructure.
For now, the full impact of the anti-Iran and anti-Russian sanctions is very much undetermined. Will those 6 month extensions turn into 6 year and then 16 year extensions ? For example, does anyone really expect India could or will rebuild its refineries to accept heavy sour crude, and to do it within 6 months ? Even European companies have been unwilling to pay the price. As for Europe accepting tutelage of the Empire, I think that is coming to a slow but definite end. For example, Macron can’t deliver on his promises of no fuel tax and maintaining pension benefits, because that would raise the budget deficit to at least 3%, which is a big no-no. Italy will want the same deficit for themselves. More likely, in the coming years the EU will simply fall apart, and part of that will be Italy going bust and taking out the French banks with them.
I think Iran has given Europe a Dec. 31 deadline to implement an alternative to Swift, and ithe important thing will be what happens after the European stall has lost its fig leaf. I agree Europe has stalled dishonestly trying to bu time. Swift can be replaced with a trivial 2000 lines of code and I’m sure the Russians would not mind lending the software they have, if the Europeans ever want an alt-Swift in a big hurry.
The Iranians have many options and they are playing the long game. Iranian officials don’t say much and have never bluffed. It’s clear that if Iran wants to close the Straits of Hormuz, they can do that with shore-based missiles and mines, The world would have to go without Persian Gulf oil for 6 months to 2 years in the outcome where the Empire wins its war. But the Empire might simply not win the war quickly, which would mean no oil being pumped, and in effect that would be the same as losing a war. The main resources of the Empire are US Navy ships. Surface ships would simply vanish in the first 30 minutes of war. Submarines could launch Tomahawks, but the non-nuclear versions don’t cause enough damage to win a war. The Gulf is shallow, and I doubt any standard-size subs could hid and survive for long. The technology to tracks subs is 20-30 years old and well within Iran’s capabilities. As for any ground war, it’s absolutely clear the Empire does not have enough soldiers of high-enough quality to actually fight a war. The US attempt to kill Erdogan in 2016, is especially pertinent. The Empire can’t count on Turkish troops.
The US had just one trump card, which is to drop bombs, and I can’t completely exclude that the US would use atomic bombs. But that’s unlikely. I have not seen any discussion of the consequences of the US using nukes on Iran, but I’m sure the studies have been done, and I suppose the Iranians are correct to say that if the Empire thought it could get away with such a historic mass crime, it would have already dropped the bombs.
To sum up, it’s not likely there will be a shooting war because the professionals all know the outcome.
There is a piece you didn’t mention.
We in the west tend to ignore that the populations of Russia, China, and the west side of the Persian Gulf are also caught up in the battle for “hearts and minds”. If Iran were to suffer a severe reverse, it’s possible the Shia in the Gulf and in the Eastern Province would finally rise up. I’m sure the CIA and Mossad read weekly reports on those possibilities. And of course the Iranians have nothing to say.
It’s very interesting that Russian and Chinese companies have not resisted US sanctions. You didn’t mention it, but one of the biggest Chinese banks has already stopped doing business with Iran, fearing the (((US Treasury Department))). Perhaps one of the consequences of the imprisonment of the Huawei CFO, will be more resolve and self-respect in Beijing.
The tanker rates you mention are a minor indicator of tension. Iran has been working with its trading partners to cover the tankers with insurance, etc. and that seems to be working.
As I wrote before, China’s re-education camps for Uighars has no relevance for the issues we are discussing. As for the morality , etc, recall that Vietnam had re-education camps for the former officers of the South Vietnamese army, which were not brutal and most inmates left after 2-3 years. Saudi money, Al-Qaeda, Wahabbist preachers and the CIA all worked their spidery webs on the Uighars for many decades, so you can’t expect Beijing to just ignore the consequences. It’s correct to say that Han migration has already changed Xingiang and the Tibetan plateau, but so what? When similar processes occur in the West, we are supposed to not notice. Gentrification, for example, is only an issue for uppity *******, as an Afro-American friend once explained it with bitterness. For whites, the same process is merely urban renewal and Progress. It’s not just that this is an area of double standards, but as a practical matter, what could/should non-Chines do about this ?
An interesting point: “If the current Russian political system may be deemed authoritarian – or, as claimed in Paris and Berlin, an exponent of “illiberalism” – top Russian academics argue that a market economy protected by lean, mean military power performs way more efficiently than crisis-ridden Western liberal democracy.”
Can you cite some specific sources (in English)? I am depressed by the failure of contemporary U.S. political theory to address seriously the crises of Western liberal democracy, and I would be very interested in what outside observers think.
The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities
John J. Mearsheimer. Yale Univ, $30 (328p) ISBN 978-0-300-23419-0
Liberalism has two definitions.
The older definition is anti-clerical, “equity” instead of equality (i.e. phony equal opportunity to go grab the wealth instead of equal distribution of the wealth), anti-family, and 100% pro-capitalism and “Progress”.
Around 1930, the Democrat Party in the US put forth a twisted definition, opposing liberalism to conservatism, with memes of liberalism as soft left-wing and conservatism as soft right-wing. This was a deliberate move by sophisticated political operatives to muddy the waters and make it difficult for the public to understand the basic truths. That type of “liberalism” is Orwellian Newspeak.
But when people use the word illiberalism, it’s clear they are referring to the older and still highly relevant version of liberalism. Quite simply, anything and everything that is not liberalism can be called illiberalism. Notably, illiberalism includes fascism, socialism, communism, religion-centered economic systems, the Varna system, and so on. So illiberalism says almost nothing but does gets sued as an insincere perjorative.
Alain Soral has written some excellent take-downs of liberalism. In To Understand the Empire (no English translation yet of this 2011 book) he says Liberalism became established after the French Revolution, and by the year 1900, liberalism had demolished all the old institutions (trade guilds and labor unions, parochial schoolsand public morality, remnants of the old non-capitalist classes (intellectuals, army officers, etc.) and what now stands before the public is The Bank, a monolith that has dropped all pretensions to modernity, progress and humanism.
I would suggest one English book as the first big step away from liberalism: The True And Only Heaven; Progress And Its Critics, (c) 1991, by Christopher Lasch (1932-1994). Liberalism used to promise “progress” but never let anyone nail down what was meant by Progress. Progress was one of the many frauds of liberalism. BTW, Lasch influenced the French dissidents. Lasch is subtle, and gets people to think beyond the Right – Left paradigms. The book is very readable.