by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times.
It was hardly a secret throughout the Trump administration. Now, dying embers within sight, and with minimum fanfare, comes the declassification – virtually the whole document, minus a few redactions – of the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific.
Why now, no less than 30 years before the usual, standard US declassification/public record protocols apply? Don’t expect an answer from Trump or from his National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
O’Brien’s premise, presenting the declassification, is that, “Beijing is increasingly pressuring Indo-Pacific nations to subordinate their freedom and sovereignty to a ‘common destiny’ envisioned by the Chinese Communist Party.”
This is nonsense in multiple levels. The best Mandarin-English translation for China’s overarching strategy is “community with a shared future for humanity” – a Confucius/Marx crossover based on trade/connectivity and sustainable development.
No nation is pressured to surrender their “freedom and sovereignty” to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It’s a voluntary decision – otherwise over 130 nations would not go for it, including many in Europe. The strategy is not ideological; it’s based on trade. Moreover, China is already the top trade partner for the overwhelming majority of these nations.
Is Beijing trembling?
Since 2018 we were all familiar with the basic contours of the Trump administration’s “overarching strategic guidance” for the Indo-Pacific.
These are the Top 5 items – with no euphemistic softening:
– to maintain that sacrosanct US “primacy”, code for uncontested military power;
– promote the Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia);
– fully support the (failed) Hong Kong color revolution;
– demonize everything connected to BRI;
– and invest in “the rise of India”.
On the military front, things get way trickier: the imperative is to prevent Beijing, by all means necessary, from “dominating the first island chain” – that is, the island ring from the Japanese archipelago to Taiwan all the way to the northern Philippines and Borneo. Moreover, “primacy” should also be maintained in the “area beyond”.
So once again this is all about naval containment.
Chinese strategists obviously studied their Mahan and Spykman thoroughly – and understood that the US Navy would ultimately play their trump card as a naval embargo.
Thus the Chinese Heartland strategy to contain the US’s Rimland strategy: pipelines from Russia and Central Asia (energy supply chain) and BRI (trade). A neat combination of “escape from Malacca” (in terms of oil and gas supplies) and overland connectivity.
A graphic example is the importance of the southern sector of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In the long run, that offers Beijing, via Gwadar port, prime access to the Indian Ocean, bypassing Malacca. That can even be enhanced by upcoming Chinese investment in neighboring Chabahar port in Iran, in the Gulf Of Oman.
In contrast, US strategists advising the Trump administration, apart from not improving on Mahan and Spykman, completely ignored China’s economic pull all across Eurasia. They ignored the fact that scores of nations from Central to South and Southeast Asia (the ASEAN 10) would not sacrifice their trade/investment relations to the benefit of a Made in the Beltway “vision”.
The recent signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) deal all but buried the Indo-Pacific strategy.
As much as they are not reality-based, the core lineaments of the Indo-Pacific strategy are not bound to change much under Biden-Harris. They will be tweaked – in a “back to the future” manner. The Biden-Harris point man for China is bound to be none other than Kurt Campbell, the man who invented the “pivot to Asia” concept that was then embraced by Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State and Obama as President. Campbell now argues that emphasis on the sacrosanct “primacy” may be somewhat alleviated.
Is Beijing trembling? Hardly.
The 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party falls next July 23. Exactly one day before the declassification of Indo-Pacific, President Xi Jinping outlined his – and the CCP’s – vision for no less than the next three decades, culminating in the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049.
So here’s Xi Top Three – in a nutshell.
– Keep calm and carry on, despite the ravaging effects of Covid-19, unrelenting Western – especially American – hostility, and the trials and tribulations of the crumbling US Empire.
– Focus on domestic development, in all areas.
– Focus on China’s priorities; then whatever happens the world outside will not be able to interfere. China’s priorities include solidifying its own “primacy” in the South China Sea while diversifying trade/development strategic options all along BRI.
It will certainly help that China’s GDP is bound to grow by almost 8% in 2021 – as estimated by IMF/World Bank. Astonishingly, if that’s the case GDP by the end of this year will reach the same level that pre-Covid Western forecasters were predicting by the end of 2019: 5% growth each year for the next two years. China may have grown roughly 2% in 2020, booming foreign trade included.
Goldman Sachs is branding the current economic environment “the Chinese phenomenon”. China remains the high-speed rail locomotive of global capitalism. It’s easy to notice which way scores of nations see the wind blowing when they compare it with what’s just been declassified.
I don’t understand why the Americans would release this document?
Pepe, I think you may of been able to explain their motives better possibly? Then again, who knows why anyone in the US is doing anything anymore?
The place has gone crazy and madness seems to be the US’s only reliable export.
I’m 63 and I’ve never seen the world in this state before but, before you think I’m just pointing towards politicians, I’m pointing to people too.
The divisions on so many subjects is so divisive for our societies and families. The spirit of Madness seems to be one of those seals mentioned in revelations because it seems to be flourishing.
I just read that the EU has just allowed meal worms to be used as protein to help the planet by reducing red meat consumption??!!!
Yea everything is normal.
“I’m 63 and I’ve never seen the world in this state before …”
As an 80-year-old geezer, I’ll second that observation. The stark raving madness is unprecedented in my life’s experience. I certainly agree that it’s by no means limited to the politicians, although they certainly seem adept at promoting the interests of whomever the madness does serve. I note in particular that some very strange notions of “diversity” and “equality” seem to underlie a lot of it. As nearly as I’m able to interpret the currently prevalent societal environment, those notions seem to apply quite selectively to certain designated “victimhood” classes — definitely excluding white males, of course.
As for the US declassification of some aspects of their “full spectrum dominance” plans, it hardly seems to reveal much that wasn’t already quite apparent and obvious to anyone other than willfully blind Americans themselves.
@Starving: “I just read that the EU has just allowed meal worms to be used as protein to help the planet by reducing red meat consumption??!!!”
Not so alarming. “If it walks, crawls, flies or swims the chances are you can eat it” — WW2 USAF Survival Guide for downed airmen. Fruit and vegetables are much more dangerous if you are not familiar with plant life in the wild.
Starving4truth says: “I don’t understand why the Americans would release this document?”
The document is released by Robert C. O’Brien (National Security Advisor), and/or Pompeo (with the approval of the deep state, of course). I doubt Trump cares anything like that at this stage.
And the reason for the release, in my opinion, is to make sure that Biden Administration’s relation with China can’t get back to anything like Obama’s time. The document is obviously trying to “show” to the public that China is the “enemy.” They want to make this permanent / irreversible, and lay as many “mines” for Biden as possible to navigate rationally. If Biden would to reconciliate with China on anything, he would be criticized heavily by the deep state/ O’Brien /Pompeo ilks for being too “soft” to the “enemy”.
I don’t think it’s so much trying to sabotage Biden’s relationship with China, more that they are trying desperately to present China as the enemy.
I see scores of articles everywhere alleging or concluding that China is behind the coronahoax lockdown tyranny occurring throughout the west, and everything else really. Now that the REAL enemy has been identified, they are desperate to point somewhere else. For decades we have been privatized and sold off to western banker owned corporations, but now the trendy news story is that China is buying everything. China is allegedly amassing troops to invade everywhere. China is doing this, and doing that. It’s all China, and never western zio mafia. I’m surprised they haven’t claimed China is behind ISIS yet, although I guess they do have to save something for other “enemies” like Russia and Iran. I call BS on the whole China thing.
Looking into history, they always create poverty and destitution (as they are doing now with coronahoax destruction of business and people) and then set the stage for secure employment in mass enlistment into armies to go blow things up, ie: ww1 and ww2. I see history repeating. It looks as though China is the main target for this, more so than Russia/Iran/etc. It seems that this declassification is just a piece of the “China is our enemy” picture.
I’m a 75 year old born and raised US citizen that cannot recognize this country that is putting the best of its inheritance at risk. The only way I can make sense of it is to see it in a large historical context so I start from WW2 when the US entered its Empire stage. It took about seven years from the end of WW2 to the early fifties to solidify Cold War v1 in which a small CPUSA was demonized and terrorized by US institutions with a larger but still small number of citizens accused of being ‘fellow travelers’ driven out of public life.
We are now in Cold War v2 – as to when it started is debatable. What is shocking is that the elites and intel agencies are now targeting Trump voters (call it the resistance?) and supporters with repression that is half the voting public. It was clear before the 2020 election that they brought home to the US their color revolution playbook but it has set in motion extremes of fear and hate that they lost control of. As a process it is reactionary – to re-establish the status quo and further enrich the oligarchs and their control with the intel agencies over the people.
The elites think they are in control but the animal spirits have jumped out of their hands which is why we sense insanity around us. It is easy to predict increasing failure and catastrophe. What else to expect from a people that cancel their history, that don’t know who or what they are, and do not know where they are going – a combination of cognitive failures that will be fatal.
Just imagine a world where the US saw China and Russia as strategic partners in combating all the ills of the current day instead of deadly enemies to be contained. Yeah, I know, a pipe dream. Unfortunately, its the US that’s delusional about containment. The would-be “container” is already largely contained itself, and not by the doings of any foreign enemies; but rather, by its own insane policies or lack thereof.
Either way, the totally insane exponential growth paradigm that even China subscribes to now is rapidly coming unraveled, so the Chinese will have problems enough of their own to deal with shortly. The US will once again be totally inconsequential, provided the nukes stay in their silos at least. Absent the nuclear threat, the US would already be a full-blown third world failed state.
Aren’t the three countries partners already?
The US, China and Russia are very much in control over the world’s affairs, this despite the shenanigans of an exceptional nation. Other countries merely look for their benevolence.
Only the future can tell what their control will result in.
I have a feeling that some are looking outward rather than inward Pepe.The problems are at home.The youth in the US are lost and confused. What the media is all about is external threats or political infights with geriatic politicians whereas it appears the internal problems are manifest. I just made a short video of such … called Mona Lisa.
It addresses basic problems that have been missed… in my opinion. Why is this sublime painting important today? Why is it still a classic? This short video may explain how it may relate to the problems in society today and why it is such a classic.
https://youtu.be/PdMeNhVrMyk
Why did Trump and the NSC release this “secret” paper?
To brand Biden+China as partners in corruption, greed and the return to policies that weakened the US and the Middle Class.
Jobs will be lost in mass again as Biden returns the US to Obama’s TPIP concept, in some new form, which keeps China out and establishes US trade dominance so the Rules are American-made.
Though the basic momentum for trade is being driven for Financial participation by the big banks and insurance companies in China’s more opened economy. Access to the enormous Chinese wealth, savings and money transactions by US firms is now possible and without Chinese partners. And concurrent to doing business within the Chinese economy is the Direct Investment of Trillions in China’s growth. The multiples on returns for those investments will drain off money from US development, adding to more debt use to accomplish domestic programs.
Trump is tarring this return to China by Biden as anti-American, against the grain of America First, and highly destruction to the national security of the USA.
Biden’s son’s laptop should have been the simple means of stopping these developments as well as the means for discrediting Biden in the election. The FBI sat on the contents, and those who had the explosive contents were frightened to expose them to the general public.
All that is left for Trump is to release classified documents he should have released many months ago.
What folks have to always bear in mind is the threat of death to Presidents and their families by the Deep State.
1963 was a lesson taught to all Presidential candidates and winners.
Trump promised that he would release the Twin Towers documents. He never believed it was not a controlled demolition. That was his expertise–skyscrapers. But he never came close to even mentioning it once he won.
Logic and history tell us bravado ends when the guns, poisons and arranged accidents are pointed at your children.
Trump will lose his fortune, his Trump brand and his children will likely leave the scene and the US.
The talk of them running for office is dubious.
Ivanka has a better political career in Israel than she would in the US.
She’s a bleeding heart liberal with her father’s name and branding. She isn’t Ivanka Kushner, she’s Ivanka Trump. The dissonance is head-aching.
Donald will plink with a pea shooter from the sidelines of West Palm Beach until the Dem prosecutors tie up the rest of his life in wild prosecutions and endless investigations. He will be stripped of all ex-Presidents’s benefits, maybe even Secret Service protection. I expect one day we’ll wake to the news of a suspicious death of “45”.
It has become melodrama for Netflix. It won’t be about him, but about “deserved justice” served well.
Historically, the great irony is Trump’s enormous success was crippled and shut off by ‘the China virus”, as he branded Covid-19. China’s revenge delivered by the winds and airplanes of the globe’s wealthy tourists and business people entering the US long before Trump could shut the doors.
If nothing else, Trump demonstrated that populism is a force to be reckoned with. Trump was populist-light. I think as soon as he is quieted down, we’ll see a scramble to see who gets to be populist-heavy.
BTW, the WTC towers were the high-rise equivalent of an aluminum soda can with a straw in the middle. Did you know you can stand on an aluminum soda can? I didn’t believe it until I did it. The rest of the trick is to slowly bend your leg until you can touch the sides with your fingers, then lightly bruch the sides with two fingers. It pancakes into a very flat, almost perfectly compressed accordian.
… the WTC towers were the high-rise equivalent of an aluminum soda can with a straw in the middle…
Sorry but that statement is very misleading and mis-characterizes the actual way that the towers were constructed. Each of the WTC towers had a large, strong central core made up of concrete and steel. That central core had to be pulverized (turned to dust) before each building could be brought down with the top-down floor-by-floor explosives. That central core WAS pulverized but it took a small nuclear weapon in the bedrock below each central core tower to pulverize that central core. The unnaturally large quantities of radioactive byproducts in the dust could only have been present if nuclear explosions had taken place.
The external steel columns carried vertical load. The concrete core provided moment reistance – to eliminate drift. Once the shell buckled, it was the end.
From your statement, it is obvious you know nothing about either structures or physics.
One need only search on “world trade center building core” to see that the WTC buildings had (as I stated) a “large, strong central core made up of concrete and steel”. This is clearly not a “straw in the middle” as you described it. To help you properly visualize the building cores, here’s a link to both a description of the construction of the core(s) as well as a photograph showing a building core under construction.
https://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/arch/core.html
The same link contains a quote from the official U.S. Government report which MIS-states that the cores consisted of a “hollow steel shaft”. Perhaps your source of information is the official government report? If so, it is understandable that you could believe that the core was simply a “straw in the middle”.
This photograph, as well as many others available on the Internet, speak for themselves.
My source is Steel Structures: Design and Behavior 1st Edition,and 2nd edition which I also own, by Charles Salmon (Author) and John Johnson (Author). This is a well respected text for steel design. The WTC is discussed as an example of the wonderful utility and economy of Leslie E. Robertson’s design. I understood the structure long before you ever read any crazy theory about nuclear bombs in the basement.
As I stated before, it is obvious you know nothing about either structures or physics.
Thanks interesting article, however perhaps certain points overlooked:
a) Chinese technological/quantum computer/remote control and code breaking level is a few(2-6!!!) years ahead of USA. Demonstrated by recent moon mission.
Apparently, 3 officially acknowledged Chinese underwater drones have been caught off Indonesian waters – this raises serious doubts about 2 recent ´collisions !!´ by US naval vessels in China sea area. A 10-40 kg warhead on a smart-drone is all that is needed to ´bruise´, ´scare off´ and return to port for hostile naval vessels. Perhaps there are already 100 plus smart underwater Chinese drones patrolling the Japan sea, China sea and sensitive coastal areas.
Furthermore backed up by 1) smart underwater mines that actively home on specific naval acoustic signatures and 2) underwater-floating monitoring systems. Evidently, packages of ´swarm attack and/or tracking´ drones could be/already have been air dropped with full support from unidentified mother ships.
Ineffectiveness is demonstrated by USS Nimitz 100,000 tons aircraft carrier that is slouching off the Yemeni coastline surely to support near future Israeli-Saudi-´whoever´ operations against battered Yemen. Sure as hell is not poking around in the Persian Gulf..
Those Chinese ´anti-aircraft carrier´ ballistic missiles are operational…
Perhaps even Russian long-range super-fast torpedo technology has also been passed onto China.
b) Would not be surprised if Chinese and or Russian have already penetrated a growing number of ´back door´ systems of US naval technology including Aegis. Plus verified Russian ECM measures rendering certain defence systems on US vessels confused to inoperable have surely been passed onto China and or Iran.
c) US Navy lobbyists, MIC CEOs and admirals HAVE to JUSTIFY the obscene costs of maintaining a huge outdated navy, to an increasingly impoverished, unemployed and critical US public. The recent billion dollar ´smart sleuth´destroyer project has been shelved or frozen, F-35 is still not reliably operational by a long shot on US carriers… etc.,
d) This ´Cold war´dated overblown myth of US Navy supremacy and invincibility needs to be ´drowned´ gradually in order to permit US dumb-shit puppetized politicos and the Murdochian presstitutes etc., to prepare the indifferent public that an increasing number of vessels will not be in Asian or Mid East ´hot spots´ and sailors will be laid off..
Sailing thru the Taiwan Straits is jingoism and ´wank´ for domestic audiences. As is the ´Battle of Trafalgar´-dated flatulence of sending the English non-aircraft carrier ´Lizzy´ to the China seas… The Anglo-zionistic super-hero show must be dragged out for as long as possible – to save their own posteriors!!!
PS: Logistically these overland train routes China-Caspian-Russia-EU etc., are STILL under-performing in the limited quantity of containers being transported, a powerful message but at the moment, and for the next 5-10 years (!”!!), ship borne container traffic around Singapore still holds the cards.
Re: US Navy mistakes in doctrine and wasted money.
https://anti-empire.com/us-chief-of-naval-operations-shipbuilding-mistakes-could-mean-we-may-not-be-able-to-recover-in-this-century/
1000 thanks Anony Mouse.
US Navy condition even Worse than expected..thanks your excellent link..
However, this perhaps leaves certain ´Mad Hatters´ in the Swamp & elsewhere to opt for
even more deadly virus + drone etc., attacks and limited mini-nuke operations (covert & otherwise…).
Plus martime conditions are becoming more severe and unpredictable…again testing and limiting ´normal operations´ of poorly trained mariners on both naval and civilian vessels on all sides!!!
Oooh ..Pesky Persians are being naughty, yet again!!
<<Iranian Missiles Reportedly Fell 100 Miles From USS Nimitz Strike Group
by Daria Bedenko Sputniknews link
Earlier in the day, Iranian media reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had launched long-range ballistic missiles as part of its annual military drills, striking maritime targets 1,000 miles downrange.
Eradicating Ideological Viruses was the Title of HRWs China’s XianJang Autonomous Region Uyghur Human Rights Abuse Report.
How did we all start being treated like Uyghur Muslims with the covid scamdemic?
HRW:
They have also subjected people in Xinjiang to pervasive and constant surveillance. The authorities encourage neighbors to spy on each other. The authorities employ high-tech mass surveillance systems that make use of QR codes, biometrics, artificial intelligence, phone spyware, and big data. And they have mobilized over a million officials and police officers to monitor people, including through intrusive programs in which the monitors are assigned to regularly stay in people’s homes.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) reviewed the situation in China in mid-August and described Xinjiang as a “no rights zone.” The Chinese delegation disputed this portrayal of the region, as well as its characterization of political education camps, calling them “vocational education centers.”
“The pain and anguish of families torn apart, with no knowledge of what’s happened to their loved ones stands in stark contrast to Beijing’s claims that Turkic Muslims are ‘happy’ and ‘grateful,’” Richardson said. “A failure to urgently press for an end to these abuses will only embolden Beijing.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/09/china-massive-crackdown-muslim-region
Human Rights Watch:
[W]hat they want is to force us to assimilate, to identify with the country, such that, in the future, the idea of Uyghur will be in name only, but without its meaning.
—Tohti, who left Xinjiang in 2017, March 2018
This report presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and details the systemic and increasingly pervasive controls on daily life there. These rampant abuses violate fundamental rights to freedom of expression, religion, and privacy, and protections from torture and unfair trials. More broadly, governmental controls over day-to-day life in Xinjiang primarily affect ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities, in violation of international law’s prohibitions against discrimination.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs
The Chinese government has called the incident a sectarian conflict, but its support for the rival group, the massacre of Muslims, the closure of mosques show that it is an anti-Muslim conspiracy and Muslims should not remain silent, he added.
Even though China has established good economic and political relations with Muslim nations, Muslims should make no differentiation between the East and the West and should not remain silent about this issue, he noted.
“We not only strongly condemn this crime, but we also ask all Muslims and liberal persons around the world to express their strong protest over this crime.”
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/34825/Clerics-stand-up-for-rights-of-Uyghur-Muslims
Sputnik News:
According to the US, China has been holding up to one million ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in re-education camps in the autonomous region, abusing their rights. China has repeatedly refuted the accusation, stating that the only reason for detentions in the area is linked to “fighting violence, terrorism, and separatism”. Beijing also stressed that the facilities called “re-education camps” by the US are actually education centres, where Uyghurs can learn the official language.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/202007101079844258-china-to-take-countersteps-in-response-to-us-sanctions-on-xinjiang/
21stCenturyWire William Engdahl:
The true state of affairs in China’s Xinjiang Province regarding Uyghurs is not possible to independently verify, whether such camps exist and if so who is there and under what conditions.
What is known, however, is the fact that NATO intelligence agencies, including that of Turkey and of the US, along with Saudi Arabia, have been involved in recruiting and deploying thousands of Chinese Uyghur Muslims to join Al Qaeda and other terror groups in Syria in recent years. This side of the equation warrants a closer look, the side omitted by Reuters or UN Ambassador Haley.
According to Syrian media cited in Voltaire.net, there are presently an estimated 18,000 ethnic Uyghurs in Syria most concentrated in a village on the Turkish border to Syria. Since 2013 such Uyghur soldiers have gone from combat alongside Al Qaeda in Syria and returned to China’s Xinjiang where they have carried out various terrorist acts. This is the tip of a nasty NATO-linked project to plant the seeds of terror and unrest in China. Xinjiang is a lynchpin of China’s Belt Road Initiative, the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan, Russia and a prime target of CIA intrigue since decades.
Washington and ETIM
In an excellent analysis of China’s Uyghur terror history, Steven Sahiounie, a Syrian journalist with 21st Century Wire, notes that a key organization behind the radicalization of Chinese Uyghur youth is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and its political front, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), which is also known as “Katibat Turkistani.” He cites a speech in Istanbul in 1995 by Turkey’s Erdogan, then Mayor, who declared, “Eastern Turkestan is not only the home of the Turkic peoples but also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization and culture…” Eastern Turkestan is Xinjiang.
Mehr News Agency:
The crisis began on July 5 when Chinese police cracked down on a peaceful demonstration held by Muslims in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Uyghurs said they were protesting against the religious discrimination they experience at the hands of the Chinese government. Over 180 Muslims have been killed in the unrest.
There has been tension between the Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the region for decades.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/34802/Iran-China-say-security-of-Muslim-Uyghurs-must-be-maintained
But look at what China’s ambassador to Iran claims in 2019 on Mehr News! He sounds like Netenyahu talking about the Palestinians!
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/147336/Efforts-to-counter-terrorism-and-extremism-in-Xinjiang
I will not unite with the pathological lying psychopaths that have illegally experimented on me, tortured me, terrorized me, illegally invaded my life, my brain, and my property, vandalized, hacked, broken into my house, and stolen from me. The creatures that have perpetrated these sadistic crimes are not human beings. They are monsters that pose extreme threats to all life forms. This goes for the deep state fakes of invisible enemies from the terrorist networks of the DNC and RNC. I don’t care if you like it! It is my life, and it is all about me and it doesn’t have a thing to do with what you or what you want! Grow up! You are acting like cross versions of Netenyahu and Chinese Communist Party leaders! Move to Israel or China! You do not qualify to live in this country!
Andrea Iravani
Geostrategic thinking has always shipped along political forms as a piece with it’s mercantile and military aspects. Heartland powers were land powers based on armies in the service of monarchies. Rimland powers were/are sea powers based on mercantile trade in the service of oligarchic elites dominating parliamentary institutions.
As well, throughout the 20th century the theory has resonated with a grand view of progressive history. Out with the old land power monarchies, in with free trading democracies (oligarchies). Even now the publication of Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’ remains a milestone. But about 10 minutes after the end of history something happened: China. The quintessential land power, which suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1839 (about the last time Jupiter and Saturn were conjunct) succumbed to the naval power of the Brits leading to the high tide of the British maritime empire marked by the publication of Makinder’s thesis in 1904.
We presently see all of the main elements of the Makinder thesis going into reverse. Britain/America headed down, China/Russia/Iran headed up. Land power is up. Connectivity (Pepe Escobar) and the dissemination of defensive technology deadly to navies and air power (Andrei Martynov) marks the revival of China, Russia, and Iran. The mercantile flows are undergoing a tidal change. Previously North Atlantic finance broadcast its globalised financial seeds and raw materials plus finished products flowed back to the metropolitan naval powers. This is still largely the case but the metropolitan West is depression prone as debt policies limit the ability of the Western market to absorb Asiatic industrial production, while China presently generates a middle class of consumers to solidify ties with mercantile elites everywhere who determine political ties – at the end of the day. American naval policy is presently faced with a dilemma. To impose compliance on vassal states is to impoverish them. It used to work the other way when they could export their industrial surplus to the US; then America reigned supreme. Now the trend is the other way.
But at the political heart of the matter, and thus the nexus of the ideological hysteria presently building up, we see Chinese governmental planning scoring hit after hit against the waste and incompetence of parliamentary oligarchy. At the moment the oligarchic elites can just barely rely upon popular legitimation via elections accompanied by a tightly controlled media. But the deplorable masses on both sides of the Atlantic are becoming restive and the Davos people understand clearly that soon they’ll have to do away with popular legitimation altogether as they try to mimic the Chinese monarchy (but better understood as a Polybian mixed constitution). We know it won’t work and it’s easy to see why: oligarchic corruption and general incompetence. I look forwards to the publication of Andrei Martynov’s new book: Disintegration. A book review and maybe even an interview is something I’d very much look forwards to.
Xi Jin Ping is cracking down on the billioaires in China. Jack Ma has bern MIA and has been forced to hand Alibaba over to the CCP. Xi was upset because Jack Ma said that the banking system was like an old people’s club. Two others entrepenuers criticized Xi and disappeared only to resurface at trials for corruption charges.
Everyone in government, military brass, heads of the financial sector, corporate sector, are corrupt in America. I have no idea how they will attempt to justify their actions. They all conspired to commit high crimes and treason.
I know that it is VOA, but this article happens to be true. Sputnik has reported on Ma’s disappearance, and Xi has spoken out against corruption and has cracked down on corruption within the CCP. I still do not trust him either though because of BRI, which I oppose because it is similar in many ways to the TPP, which I also opposed. Contracted forced trade is not free trade.
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/speculation-grows-over-fate-chinese-tech-billionaire-jack-ma
Andrea Iravani
@No Friend of the CCP: “Xi Jin Ping is cracking down on the billioaires in China. Jack Ma has been forced to hand Alibaba over to the CCP. … Two others entrepenuers … disappeared only to resurface at trials for corruption charges…. Xi has spoken out against corruption and has cracked down on corruption within the CCP. I still do not trust him …”
“Nobody hangs a Banker” — spoken by Nazi banker, let off under the Nurenberg Laws.
The CCP does things differently. They hang bankers, cut plutocrats down to size and crack down on political corruption within the Party. Result: a brief but effective Lockdown, a quick return to The Old Normal, and a productivity rise ever for 2020 the year of Con-19. Meanwhile Western economists remain deeply puzzled by “The Chinese Phenomenon”; they give it a name but their dismal science cannot explain the phenomenon.
Kudos for them cracking down on corruption which I have been calling for in America and have been demonozed as a result of it for extremely obvious reasons – they are all corrupt! Chinese productivity growth is no mystery. They have exercised a manifest destiny expansionist policy of colonialism throughout Asia, descending into Africa, and Latin America, and have engaged in extremely rapacious practices including the seizure of Brazillian gold mines in the Amazon. They have adopted Western policies and have also practice absolute barbarism using microwave weapon technology on Indians in the disputed Ladakh region. The Chinese are not peaceful, are not humanitarians, and are not honest. The practices in Iran refusing to trade with Iran until Iran consented to signing a 25 year trade agreement which included the Chinese building ports and pipelines for Iran which Iran has both expert capability of doing as well as the natural resources to do. I am convinced that the 77 Iranian government officials that died supposedly because of covid were extrajudicually murdered with microwave weapon or 5G technology for strong opposition to the 25 year agreement. Iranians are extremely independent and opposed to foreign domination. Replacing American domination that occured under the Pahlovi reign with Chinese domination under Rouhani is anti-thetical to Iranian independence and
philosophy over all. Many Iranianis think that the Chinese will be even worse. They are right. This is a Ghengis Kahn 2.0 style far east invasion, pillaging, and domination of the entire region and beyond. Win win for China means that China wins by charging interst to Iran to build things that Iranians know how to build and winning by getting 25 years worth of oil from Iran. The Chinese also demand controling Iranian foreign policy in exchange for Iran paying the Chinese interest to build ports and pipelines all for the purpose of sending oil to China.
Andrea Iravani
The blinders are really on here, a depleting saudi oil and dollar transmission mechanism to a growing iranian oil and yuan transmission mechanism, and one which the congress critters wont admit either.
It is why they are so paranoid about Russia, because it has the largest oil reserves in the world.
Andrea Iravani
@No Friend of the (Chinese) Devil: “I am convinced that the 77 Iranian government officials that died supposedly of covid[-19?] were extrajudicially murdered with microwave weapon or 5G technology …. ”
What exactly convinces you that 77 Iranians were killed with a “microwave weapon”?
And why do you include “5G technology” in this unsavoury context of alleged “microwave weapon”? Sounds like the usual attempt to discourage customers from Huwei’s lead in 5G microwave, while the U$A tries desperately to catch up:
“How China’s Huawei took the lead over U.S. companies in 5G technology”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/10/us-spat-with-huawei-explained/
Dr. NG Maroudas,
About That 5G – China Confesses That They Resort To Microwaving Enemies! America Does It To Me But Will Not Confess!
Sputnik:
The ministry, however, did not include mention of the term microwave weapons which Jin Canrong, Deputy Dean of the School of International Relations of China’s Renmin University, had referred to during a television programme in November last year. Jin said the Chinese military “made innovative use of high-power microwave weapons” to attack Indian soldiers in possession of the higher positions at Pangong Tso.— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) November 15, 2020.
Microwave weapons use a focused beam of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation to heat the water in a person’s skin. China had made its microwave weapon Poly WB-1 public in 2014 during an air show. – Sputnik
https://sputniknews.com/military/202101051081658100-india-accuses-china-of-using-unorthodox-weapons-during-ladakh-clash/
As I previously reported:
It is my hypothesis that Corona-Thrax was developed so that individuals that are being extrajudicially murdered with 5G mimmick symptoms of corona-thrax. Anthrax causes symptoms that affect the brain, lungs, heart, blood vessels, and kidneys. These sympyoms have also been reported in Multi-System Inflamatory Disease and Pediatric Multi-System Inflamatory Disease in regions that recently installed 5-G and has been diagnosed as covid. 5G uses microwaves and at the high end of the frequency range it vibrates water molecules. Microwave ovens cook food by vibrating molecules. The vibrating molecules causes friction. The friction causes the heat which cooks the food, like rubbing two sticks together, and creating a fire that way, which I have yet to succeed at doing, but it can and has been done, and it is a well known fact. Multi System Inflamatory Disease has been associated with Covid, which sounds similar to anthrax, and almost no physicians in America have ever treated or seen an anthrax victim before. They would be unlikely to be able to spot an anthrax victim if they ever saw one, and they have never seen 5-G effects until now either.
The anthrax vaccine caused narcolepsy in military recipients. When the corona outbreak first started in China, the individuals collapsing in the street appeared to suffer from narcolepsy as well. Bill Gates has a Gavi division in China. Chinese people may have been experimented on without their knowledge or consent.
Corona deaths initially were reported to have been from kidney failure in China.
Just as The Machine decided to opt for a simultaneous manufactured crisis of covid-19 to use as a fall guy for the third economic collapse in twenty years in a CYA psy-op, the military has also developed Corona-Thrax. Why would they develop something that could kill them? My guess is that they are extrajudicially murdering people with 5G and blaming it on Corona-Thrax. I do not believe that they would release it into the environment. I believe that it serves as a psy-op and that the majority of people who did get sick had the flu.-
https://www.unz.com/wwebb/engineering-contagion-upmc-corona-thrax-and-the-darkest-winter/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-vaxxing-us-military-forces-covid/5733386
Andrea Iravani
@NFOTD: “It is my hyphothesis …”
… as yet unproven, having adduced no evidence to support your allegation that 77 Iranians were murdered by China using microwave weapons.
The reported effects of Chinese microwave weapons on Indian soldiers, in your Link, are that the Indian soldiers threw up and ran away; no deaths and not a shot fired, as the Chinese prof emphasized — rather benign, as weapons go.
Dr. NG Maroudas,
That is correct that I do not have proof that the Chinese extrajudicially assassinated the 77 Iranian government officials. I suspect it because these deaths occurred during the negotiation process. That is an extremely high percentage of individuals that died attributed to covid for a relativiely small population. It is uncanny, and the timing coincidences led me to believe it as well as the Chinese technology and their use of it against rivals. They are suspect in my assessment of those developments. Many have suggested that it was the Israelis, who have no proof of that either. In this case, I disagree, because the Israelis are opposed to the China Iran agreement because they view it as a threat since the Chinese have agreed to defend Iran militarily, which is why Netenyahu, Trump, and Pompeo are so trigger happy to go to war against Iran, which they attempted to incite Iran into war with tne Soleimani assassination, and scores of relentless provocations.
Andrea Iravani
Dr. NG Maroudas,
My statement that the Chinese are dishonest is not a racist statement. The Chinese are prohibited from being honest, and prohibited from freedom of expression and free speech that cefies and contradicts the CCP narative. It is a totalitarian state which has worsened with social credit scores where they are rewarded for disseminating CCP propaganda and for countering and attacking any critics of the official CCP propaganda. America, Europe, and Canada have quickly followed in those footsteps, unsurprisingly since the tech corporations and other US corporations manufactured in China whose citizens now have higher material standards of living than those in the west. The corporations now want to abandon China as a result of the higher wages. Corporations, particularly in technology have been lobbying to move head quarters to India. Modi is also totalitarian. Now the only thing that the corporations are exporting are totalitarianism,
fascism / Marxism, and other Orwellian, dystopian, phantasmagorias.
Andrea Iravani
“Why did Trump and the NSC release this “secret” paper?”
Perhaps instead of undermining, it is meant to give the new admin an extra card at the negotiating table with China.
Somehow I never and still dont believe that Trump was a reaction “gone Bad” to the “swamp”. That story was for domestic consumption. The constant and grotesque attacks he was subjected to were necessary to divert and neutralize public attention to the real out of hand domestic economic problems. If Trump were for real he would have gone for the jugular as soon as he entered office by arresting the Clintons and such for high treason. Same for those who control the social media giants when they cancelled him. If he did, they would have attempted to erase him instead. But since he is afraid to die he could never be who he claimed to be. Otherwise his only purpose was to play the mad card on the international scene in the hope that it would cower every one out. Imagine: a president with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet carrying his businesses through Twitter!!! The bluff evidently failed. So now we’re back to square one except that it has considerably deteriorated since.
The Chinese are businessmen and always have been. Several hundred years ago, in giant ships twice or more the size of ships of British ships, Chinese merchants and Businessmen sailed the Southern coast of Eurasia trading with all of the countries along the way to the East coast of Africa. Then they traded with the Africans and when they were done they sailed back home with all their new goods of all kinds. They did not try to conquer, rape and pillage African people. That is not in their DNA. China, Russia and India and all of the countries of Eurasia will laugh all the way to the Bank.
‘just sailed home’ sounds lovely, but you should go back and study history, the Chinese made thier ‘trading’ partners pay ‘tributes’ no different than any modern day mafia, look it up. It’s a fact. Fail to pay tribute, same old same old, since the begining of human greed…..a protection racket. Which is also recorded. Usury, graft, grifting, same people same plan…
In the mid to late1400’s, the bloated and untested Chinese Navy, with thier massive ships, fell on thier hegimon sword, much like thier modern US counterparts, ‘we’re the biggest and best and we don’t need to repair, because”….there’s an exceptional component in there, and repair they didn’t, then along came the Dutch and Brits with much faster better armed ships……the rest is also recorded history.
btw, ‘laughing,all the way to the bank’…..is what caused the current Global mess we are in.
Money, get away
You get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four-star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team
This one, is for the team, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USZkNCoIXSQ