weaponry and diplomatic nous<\/a>.<\/p>\nFrom the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire\u2019s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming. Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it\u2019s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, \u201cfoaming at the mouth\u201d (copyright Maria Zakharova).<\/p>\n
Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.<\/p>\n
Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world\u2019s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany\u2019s \u2013 with the added advantages of being the world\u2019s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize.<\/p>\n
Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.<\/p>\n
Cue to one of President Putin\u2019s crucial one-liners: \u201cWe are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.”<\/p>\n
A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War.<\/p>\n
Eurasia is being led \u2013 and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former \u201cindispensable nation\u201d ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.<\/p>\n
What the Chinese really want<\/p>\n
The Hegemon, under its self-concocted \u201crules-based international order\u201d, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of \u201cdiplomacy\u201d has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK\u2019s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.”<\/p>\n
And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an \u201cenemy of the West\u201d and does not seek isolation.<\/p>\n
The problem is there\u2019s virtually no adult to talk to on the other side, rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to once again stress that \u201csymmetrical and asymmetrical\u201d measures may be used against those involved in \u201chostile\u201d actions against Moscow.<\/p>\n
When it comes to Exceptionalistan, that\u2019s self-evident: the US is designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia instigator, and the collective West\u2019s overall policy is described as \u201ca new type of Hybrid War.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet what really matters for Moscow are the positives further on down the road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties with \u201cfriendly global centers\u201d China and India; increased help to Africa; more strategic cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, the lands of Islam \u2013 Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.<\/p>\n
And that brings us to something essential that was \u2013 predictably – ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place nearly simultaneously with the announcement of Russia\u2019s new foreign policy concept.<\/p>\n
The Boao Forum, started in early 2001, still in the pre-9\/11 era, has been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China through and through, with the secretariat based in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a tourist paradise.<\/p>\n
One of the key sessions of this year\u2019s forum was on development and security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
There were quite a few references to Xi\u2019s Global Development Initiative as well as the Global Security Initiative \u2013 which by the way was launched at Boao in 2022.<\/p>\n
The problem is these two initiatives are directly linked to the UN\u2019s concept of peace and security and the extremely dodgy Agenda 2030 on \u201csustainable development\u201d \u2013 which is not exactly about development and much less \u201csustainable\u201d: it\u2019s a Davos uber-corporate concoction. The UN for its part is basically a hostage of Washington\u2019s whims. Beijing, for the moment, plays along.<\/p>\n
Premier Li Qiang was more specific. Stressing the trademark concept of \u201ccommunity of shared future for mankind\u201d as the basis for peace and development, he linked peaceful coexistence with the \u201cSpirit of Bandung\u201d \u2013 in direct continuity with the emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the \u201cAsian Way\u201d of mutual respect and building consensus \u2013 in opposition to \u201cthe indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching jurisdiction\u201d, and the refusal of \u201ca new Cold War\u201d.<\/p>\n
And that led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal, and also advance the negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all that integrated with the new expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to trade protectionism.<\/strong><\/p>\nSo for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of \u201cclash of civilizations\u201d and ideological confrontation.<\/strong><\/p>\nAs much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above \u2013 and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse \u2013 Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan\u2019s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and \u201cyou\u2019re with us or against us\u201d. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and\/or regime-changed.<\/strong><\/p>\nIs it 1848 all over again?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.
\nIn 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions \u2013 from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.
\nIt may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what\u2019s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.
\nAs virtually all European media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see this discussion in the MSM. Yet there\u2019s a feeling in the air this may be heralding a Chinese-style end of a dynasty.
\nIn the Chinese calendar this is how it always goes: their historical-societal clock always runs with periods of between 200 and 400 years per dynasty.<\/p>\n
There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.
\nThe period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz \u201cmodernity\u201d (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values \u2013 be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and Russian concepts of civilization-state are much more appealing than they appear.<\/p>\n
Well, the (cultural) revolution won’t be televised; but it may work its charms via countless Telegram channels. France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its history, may well be jump to the vanguard \u2013 again.<\/p>\n
Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down \u2013 completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.<\/p>\n
The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:<\/p>\n
“America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests (\u2026) America simply said, – We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy (\u2026) Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.”<\/p>\n
So “creditor oligarchy”, in fact, can be explained as the toxic intersection between globalist wet dreams of total control and militarized Full Spectrum Dominance.<\/p>\n
The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them \u2013 you\u2019re going to \u201cfreeze in the dark\u201d if you deviate from what we say \u2013 is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.<\/p>\n
Globalist neoliberal totalitarianism of course won\u2019t disappear under a sand storm. At least not yet. There\u2019s still a maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda; goon squads; censorship; cancel culture; ideological conformity; irrational curbs of freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution of \u2013 Slav \u2013 Untermenschen; segregation; criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC; ISIS-style terror.<\/p>\n
But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities \u2013 and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and\/or supply chain networks. And that\u2019s what\u2019s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are.<\/p>\n
Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties (Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at @rocknrollgeopolitics<\/p>\n
___
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