Beijing reacts to claim EU will target Chinese firms with Russia sanctions
RT | February 14, 2024
Beijing rejects “illegal sanctions” and will defend the interests of its companies, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said following a report that the EU could blacklist some of the country’s firms for allegedly helping Russia to evade the bloc’s restrictions.
The EU is planning to place restrictions on three Chinese businesses and one Indian company as part of its 13th round of sanctions on Russia over its conflict with Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Brussels believes the firms in question are helping Moscow to circumvent existing restrictions, especially through the supply of electronic components that can be repurposed for use in drones and other weapons systems. If the plan is approved by member states, it will see the EU sanction companies from mainland China and India – two of the bloc’s key trading partners – for the first time.
”We are aware of the relevant reports,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “China firmly opposes illegal sanctions or ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ against China on the grounds of cooperation between China and Russia.”
Chinese and Russian companies “carry out normal exchanges and cooperation and do not target third parties, nor should they be interfered with or influenced by third parties,” the ministry said.
Beijing “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”
According to media reports, the EU was already considering sanctioning Chinese firms over their links with Russia last year, but refrained from doing so after Beijing assured Brussels that it was not supporting Moscow’s military effort in Ukraine.
Indian newspaper the Economic Times claimed on Wednesday that the government in New Delhi was also studying reports that an Indian firm could face sanctions over its dealings with Russia.
The Indian authorities may ask senior EU officials to clarify the situation during their meetings as part of the Raisina Dialogue forum on geopolitics and economy, which will take place in New Delhi next week, according to the outlet.
The paper’s source said it was “curious” that the report had emerged ahead of the high-profile event in the Indian capital.
Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, both China and India have consistently called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Beijing and New Delhi have resisted Western pressure to join sanctions on Moscow, and instead have boosted economic cooperation with Russia, becoming the main destinations for Russian oil.
Chinese customs data shows that trade turnover between the two countries has grown by 26.6% percent in the past year, reaching a record $240 billion. The sales volume between Russia and India in the first ten months of 2023 stood at almost $55 billion, according to the Russian ambassador in New Delhi – an increase of 41% compared to 2022.
Biden vs Trump has profound implications for the world order
By Glenn Diesen | RT | February 8, 2024
The world is watching the US presidential election closely as it will have significant implications for global governance. President Joe Biden and former leader Donald Trump have very different views on how the world order should be governed and how the US should respond to its relative decline.
Biden wants to restore unipolarity with ideological economic and military blocs, strengthening the loyalty of allies and marginalizing adversaries. Trump has a more pragmatic approach. He believes the alliance system is too costly and limits diplomatic room for maneuver.
Since World War II, the US has enjoyed a privileged position in the key institutions of global governance. The Bretton Woods format and NATO ensured its economic and military dominance within the West. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans sought to extend their liberal hegemony around the globe.
They developed a security strategy based on global superiority and an expanded NATO. Washington assumed that its dominance would mitigate international anarchy and great power rivalry, and that liberal trade agreements would strengthen the US’ position at the top of global value chains. The replacement of international law with a ‘rules-based international order’ – in effect, sovereign inequality – was supposed to promote American hegemony and enhance the role of liberal democratic values.
However, unipolarity has proven to be a temporary phenomenon because it depends on the absence of rivals and values are devalued as instruments of power politics. The US has predictably exhausted its resources and the legitimacy of its hegemony, and competing powers have collectively counterbalanced Washington’s hegemonic ambitions by diversifying economic relations, staging retaliatory military operations, and developing new regional institutions of global governance.
The Cold War was a unique period in history because the West’s communist adversaries were largely disconnected from international markets, and military confrontation strengthened alliance solidarity to the extent that it mitigated economic rivalry between the capitalist allies. After the Cold War, however, the former communist powers, China and Russia, gained experience in managing economic processes, and submission to the US-led economic path lost its value for them.
The system of alliances has also begun to decline. The US previously was willing to subsidize European security in exchange for political influence. But Washington shifted its strategic focus to Asia, demanding that its European allies show geo-economic loyalty and not develop independent economic relations with rivals China and Russia. Meanwhile, the Europeans sought to use collective bargaining mechanisms through the European Union to establish autonomy and an equal partnership with the United States.
It is now clear that the unipolar moment has come to an end. The US military, exhausted by failed wars against weak opponents, is preparing for a conflict against Russia and China and a regional war in the Middle East.
The ‘rules-based international order’ is openly rejected by other major powers. US economic coercion to prevent the emergence of new centers of power only encourages separation from US technology, industry, transport corridors, banks, payment systems, and the dollar.
The US economy is struggling with unsustainable debt and inflation, while socio-economic decline is fueling political polarization and instability. Against this backdrop, Americans could elect a new president who will seek fresh solutions for global governance.
Biden’s global governance: Ideology and bloc politics
Biden wants to restore US global dominance by reviving the Cold War system of alliances that divided the world into dependent allies and weakened adversaries. It pits Europe against Russia, Arab states against Iran, India against China, and so on. Inclusive international institutions of global governance are being weakened and replaced by confrontational economic and military blocs.
Biden’s bloc politics is legitimized by simplistic heuristics. The complexity of the world is reduced to an ideological struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Ideological rhetoric means demanding geo-economic loyalty from the ‘free world’ while promoting overly aggressive and undiplomatic language. Thus, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are smeared as ‘dictators’.
Multilateralism is welcome to the extent that it reinforces US leadership. Biden is less hostile to the UN and the EU than his predecessor, and under his administration, the US has rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. But Biden has not revisited the Iran nuclear deal or reduced economic pressure on China to change its supply chains. The institutions that could constrain the US – the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – are not favored by either Biden or Trump.
The deteriorating socio-economic and political situation in the US will also affect Biden’s approach to global governance. Biden will remain reluctant to enter into new ambitious trade agreements as the losers of globalization and neo-liberal economics within the US move into the camp of the populist opposition. Nor will he favor free trade agreements in areas where China has a technological and industrial advantage, and his attempts to cut European states off from Russian energy and Chinese technology will further fragment the world into competing economic blocs.
Western Europe will continue to weaken and become more dependent on the US, to the point where it will have to give up any claim to ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘European sovereignty’.
Biden has also shown a willingness to disrupt allied country’s industries through initiatives such as the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump’s global governance: ‘America First’ and great power pragmatism
Trump seeks to restore American greatness by reducing the costs of alliance systems and hegemony. He sees alliances against strategic rivals as undesirable if they involve a transfer of relative economic power to allies. Trump believes that NATO is an “obsolete” relic of the Cold War because Western Europeans should contribute more to their own security. In his view, the US should perhaps reduce its presence in the Middle East and allies should pay America for their security in some way. Economic agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have promoted US leadership, but under Trump, they have been abandoned because of the transfer of economic benefits to allies. Trump does not reject US imperialism, but wants to make it sustainable by ensuring a higher return on investment.
Less tied to the alliance system and unencumbered by ideological dogma, Trump can take a more pragmatic approach to other great powers. Trump is able to make political deals with adversaries, use friendly and diplomatic language when talking to Putin and Xi, and even perhaps make a diplomatic visit to North Korea. While Biden’s division of the world into liberal democracies and authoritarian states makes Russia an adversary, Trump’s view of the world as nationalists/patriots versus cosmopolitans/globalists makes Russia a potential ally. This ideological view complements the pragmatic consideration of not pushing Russia into the arms of China, the main rival of the US.
Global governance will be utilitarian in this case, and the main goal of the US will be to regain a competitive advantage over China. Trump is fundamentally inclined to blame China excessively for America’s economic problems. Economic pressure on China is intended to restore US technological/industrial dominance and protect domestic jobs. Economic nationalist ideas reflect the ideas of the 19th-century American system, where economic policy is based on fair trade rather than free trade. Trump appears to view the entire post-Cold War security system in Europe as a costly attempt to subsidize Western Europe’s declining importance. These same Europeans have antagonized Russia and pushed it into the arms of China. Trump’s unclear stance on NATO has even prompted Congress to pass a bill prohibiting presidents from unilaterally deciding whether to withdraw the US from NATO.
While Trump is in favor of improving relations with Russia, his presidency would be unlikely to achieve this goal.
The US can be seen as an irrational actor to the extent that it allows domestic political battles to influence its foreign policy. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff fabricated the Steele dossier and Russiagate to portray Trump as a Kremlin agent. In the 2020 election, Biden’s campaign staff attempted to portray the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a Russian disinformation campaign and accused Russia of paying bribes to kill US troops in Afghanistan. These false accusations were designed to distract the public and make Trump look weak on Russia. All of this ultimately soured relations with Russia and even contributed to the current conflict in Ukraine.
Both Biden and Trump seek to reverse the relative decline of the US in the world, but the difference in their approaches will have a profound impact on global governance. While Biden seeks to restore US greatness through systems of ideological alliances that will fragment global governance into regional blocs, Trump will seek to withdraw from the institutions of global governance because they drain US resources and impede pragmatic policies.
Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal.
Bret Weinstein Goes out to Lunch with Tucker: The Chinese Boogeyman Strikes Again
Matt Ehret’s Insights | February 6, 2024
Throughout the past week, I received dozens of requests to share my thoughts on Bret Weinstein’s recent appearance on Tucker Carlson where the intrepid biologist sounds the alarm like a latter day Paul Revere on the dangerous Chinese Communist conspiracy to destroy America by directing mass immigrants to flood the Texas border, unleash new bioweapons and BRI the west to death… The full interview can be viewed here:
I respect Bret and his Dark Horse podcast was a useful platform for sifting through medical lies throughout the past few years, so I didn’t want to think that Bret could possibly engage in sloppy Cold Warrior fear-mongering, so I put it off. This is the sort of thing I have come to expect out of figures like Robert Malone, Tucker, Ezra Levant, intel chiefs running the CIA, NSA, FBI or CSIS… but certainly Bret couldn’t have jumped on that bandwagon too… or could he?
Well, after finally watching the interview, I am sad to say that’s exactly what he did.
What I can say with full honesty is that this is an asinine assessment that builds conjecture upon conjecture without ever proving anything, using the ancient art of office gossip. But Bret is a scientist so his gossip is supposed to be really high quality I guess and in no way connected to the sort of gossip circulated by the Five Eyes which is obviously not to be trusted.
Some of Bret’s claims:
1) China is bad because they resisted the pressure to allow mRNA jabs into their country… This of course proves that they will be safe from the next bioweapon they will also release onto the world! (And you thought a nation resisting Pfizer and the WHO pressure to mRNA their people was a good thing… You fool.)
2) China wants to undermine the USA by building BRI connected infrastructure in Latin America (and American satraps like the canary islands where the USA never allowed any infrastructure)… is evidence that they want to destroy the USA. Think no more deeply on this or assume any other possible motive of why China is building infrastructure.
3- The existence of chinese young men who are laborers in central and south america is obviously evidence that China is directing all the immigrants into the USA and possibly also flooding Chinese soldiers into the USA as part of Biden’s new CPC secret army waiting to be let loose onto our freedom loving Patriots!
And you thought that Chinese construction workers were just in Latin America to build the billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects which Latin American nations need to deal with poverty caused by western colonialism. Nope! it’s actually CPC elite mercenaries out to take your freedoms. If you listen to Gordon Chang on Fox News, you might also believe these alleged elite soldiers are blood drinking vampires.
In his chat with Tucker, Bret Weinstein even explains how the Chinese communist party even made a “how to’ video cartoon for what appears to be 12 year old Chinese Mercs wanting to subvert America which Bret has intrepidly discovered (but admits hasn’t translated or even knows where it came from).
….
What kills me is how many times Bret has to say things like “I have no idea how the world works… but isn’t this suspicious?” Or “I have no way of proving this but… isn’t this suspicious”… It’s a gossipy slimy way of speaking.
Since the anti China psyops will only continue to accelerate full throttle as Americans fall into greater states of fear, and as our Five Eyes intelligence agencies, George Soros and anti-Great Reset conservatives will increasingly sound like the same voice in regards to China, it’s probably a good idea to do as much research into these psyops as possible. This means coming to better understand what is China, how China kicked out George Soros, and how were we played throughout the Cold War by the same forces who killed JFK, launched the Vietnam War, carried out Iran Contra, created Al Qaeda, arranged 9/11, Anthrax attacks and oversaw the growth of the largest bioweapons complex in world history.
And no, I’m not talking about China.
So take advantage of the following resources which Cynthia and I have compiled to sharpen your mind’s edge, and avoid letting your brain turn into Cold Warrior gelatin.
Breaking Free of Anti-China Psyops Vol ONE: How the Cold War is Being Revived and What you can do about (80 pgs) (we are making this one free for now, so download that PDF by clicking the above link)
Breaking Free of Anti-China Psyops Vol TWO: Know Your Enemy
VIDEO: China Russia or Something Else: Who is our Real Enemy?
VIDEO: Chinese Secret Police Stations: Fact or Fiction?
VIDEO: Chinese Election Interference: Five Eyes, CSIS and the Ugly Truth of NATO
VIDEO: How China Banned Soros in 1989
VIDEO: The Tiananmen Square Hoax: Massacre or Failed Color Revolution?
VIDEO: Is China a Friend or Enemy of the New World Order?
China, Russia pip US to the Taliban hearth
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 6, 2024
The diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan on January 31, 2024 by China must be bracketed with two other far-reaching regional policy moves by Beijing in the post-cold war era —the Shanghai Five in 1996 — later renamed as Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2001— and the Belt and Road Initiative announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013.
A regional security architecture is emerging with the above three legs reinforcing, supplementing and interchanging in a creative response to the rapidly transforming international environment. If the SCO marked China’s return to Central Asia after nearly a century and the BRI creates massive strategic depth for China’s global rise, the move on Afghanistan has geopolitical characteristics in relation to the Asian Century.
At its most obvious level, Beijing has outwitted the US’ surreptitious, attempts in the recent months to return to Afghanistan after its humiliating military defeat and exit in 2021. The Biden Administration produced in the public domain a back-dated document titled Integrated Country Strategy for Afghanistan on the same day that Xi Jinping received the letter of credentials from the Taliban ambassador at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on January 30.
The document contained the following core elements:
- “Predatory powers like Iran, China and Russia seek strategic and economic advantage (in Afghanistan) or at a minimum to put the US at a disadvantage;
- “Even as, –- and for as long as –- the United States does not recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, we must build functional relationships that fulfil our (US) objectives”;
- “With diaspora Afghans, we discourage support for a new armed conflict through resistance group proxies in Afghanistan — more violence or regime change is not the solution to the Taliban”;
- “we must simultaneously pump unprecedented amounts of humanitarian assistance into the country, convince the Taliban to adopt international economic norms and advocate tirelessly for education”;
- “With the Taliban we advocate for consular access…”
The document is a shameful retreat from the thundering US rhetoric that unless the Taliban fulfilled its conditions, Washington would ostracise the government in Kabul and freeze its bank accounts. Apparently, the Biden administration no longer insists on its demands and is knocking at Kabul gates for entry.
Interestingly, the document, while taking note of the human rights conditions in Afghanistan and the absence of a broad-based government in Kabul, acknowledges that regime change is no longer an option. It calls on the diaspora Afghans (who are largely in the West) to reconcile with the Kabul government, and seeks a consular presence for the US in Afghanistan.
The US is nervous about the Russian and Chinese approaches vis-a-vis the Taliban government. Conceivably, we need to reassess the US invitation to the Pakistani army chief Gen. Asim Munir to pay a 5-day visit to America in end-December, engaging in discussions with senior officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence General Lloyd Austin. Going back even further, it is also necessary to contextualise the ouster of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan (“Taliban Khan”) from power by the military, with American support. Pakistan’s role becomes crucial as Central Asian states harmonise with Russia and China. (See my blog Decoding Iran’s missile, drone strikes, Indian Punchline, Jan. 18, 2024)
Sensing the American moves to return to Central Asia and reboot the great game, Russia and China are determined to stay two steps ahead in engaging with the Taliban government. Most certainly, China’s diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government is in coordination with Russia. On the same day that Xi Jinping received the credentials letter from the Taliban ambassador, the special envoys of Russia and China visited Kabul and took part in a meeting under the rubric Regional Cooperation Initiative convened by the Taliban government which was attended by diplomats from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Indonesia. Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi addressed the meeting.
All the same, the Chinese decision to recognise the Taliban government cannot be seen through the prism of the great game. In the economic sphere, China is already a big stakeholder in Afghanistan and its equity is growing. Equally, Kabul is an enthusiastic votary of the Belt and Road and potentially, Afghanistan is another gateway for China to the Gulf region and beyond. China is planning a direct road link connecting Xinjiang with Afghanistan via Wakhan Corridor.
At long last, the construction work on the missing link in the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is also commencing — a new strategic Eurasia logistic network along the Belt and Road route that can connect Afghanistan with both China and the European market.
Indeed, the geopolitical significance of the China-Afghanistan normalisation is to be measured in global terms in the contemporary world situation. A friendly government in Kabul gives China enormous strategic depth to push back the US’ hostile moves in Asia-Pacific.
The bottom line is that China is establishing formal links with a militant Islamist movement that once harboured Osama bin Laden and that is happening at a time when the US is demonising the resistance movements in the Muslim Middle East and has unleashed a vicious boring campaign against them in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Of course, the resistance movements in the Muslim Middle East will draw inspiration from China’s example.
Equally, the participation of 9 regional states — Indonesia and India, in particular — in the regional meeting hosted by the Taliban government in Kabul is an assertion of the Asian Century. Addressing the meeting in Kabul, Taliban’s foreign minister Muttaqi emphasised that these nations “should hold regional dialogues to increase and continue the positive interaction with Afghanistan.” Muttaqi asked the participants to take advantage of emerging opportunities in Afghanistan for the development of the region and to also “coordinate the management of potential threats”.
He stressed the need for positive interactions with the countries of the region and asked the diplomats to convey the Taliban’s message of a “region-oriented initiative” to their countries so that Afghanistan and the region can jointly take advantage of new opportunities for the benefit of all. Reports in the Afghan media quoted Muttaqi as saying that the meeting was focused on discussions for establishing a “region-centric narrative aimed at developing regional cooperation for a positive and constructive engagement between Afghanistan and regional countries”. (here)
Without doubt, China has now shown the way that the era of imperialism is buried forever and erstwhile colonial powers should realise that their dubious methods of “divide and rule” no longer works.
The State Department’s Integrated Country Strategy for Afghanistan is quintessentially old wine in a new bottle. Reading between the lines, the US hopes to revive its interventionist policies in Afghanistan for geopolitical purposes, while shedding crocodile tears over the human rights situation. Its strategic calculus is a morbid mix of geopolitics and Neo-mercantilism.
However, Taliban is unlikely to fall for it, being witness to the US’ bombing campaign against Muslim nations on an industrial scale that harks back to the two-decade long western occupation of Afghanistan.
The back-dated state department document is a knee-jerk reaction by the Biden Administration as word spread that Beijing is moving towards diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government with the active support of Moscow and Beijing aiming at creating a firewall to prevent further manipulation of the Afghan situation by the West. Short of an outright recognition, Moscow has extended a vital lifeline for Kabul.
It was no coincidence that Xi Jinping received the new Taliban ambassador at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the very same day that the Taliban government unveiled its regional initiative.
Canada smears China over ‘interference’ in elections to fool its people, blindly follow US: expert
By Zhang Yuying | Global Times | February 3, 2024
After Canada released an assessment smearing China for “interference” on Thursday at a hearing investigating “foreign influence” in its past two elections, Chinese experts on Saturday pointed out that this is actually an attempt by the Canadian government to fool its people into supporting the policy of following the US to engage in strategic competition with China.
According to media reports, the assessment was released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service at a hearing held to investigate whether foreign countries interfered in Canada’s past two elections, after the country smeared China as “meddling” and set up a commission to conduct an inquiry.
However, Canada’s repeated hype about China’s “intervention” in its elections was refuted by Chinese experts as an attempt by the Canadian government to gain social consensus supporting the country’s policy of following the US’ strategic competition with China.
Canada hopes that through such hype, its people’s fear and resistance to China will increase, so that they will give strong support to the Canadian government’s current policy and future direction toward China, which is to have competition and confrontation, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
“Canada is blindly following the US, and wishes to show its “loyalty” through such acts,” Li added.
The expert also pointed out that by smearing China, Canada is sending a warning to local Chinese, as well as those who have extensive economic, trade and people-to-people ties with China, to reduce their contacts with the Chinese side. “This is a very unwise and foolish approach that undermines the comprehensive connection and mutual understanding between China and Canada,” Li said.
In response to Canada’s smearing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in May 2023 that China follows a foreign policy of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and is also firmly against interference by any country in other countries’ internal affairs.
“We have no interest in interfering in Canada’s internal affairs, including its elections, nor will we do any such thing. We urge Canada to abandon its ideological bias and Cold War mentality and stop making an issue of China,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
Analysts noted that Canada’s repeated smearing will undoubtedly have a destructive impact on China-Canada relations. “Since elections involve politicians as well as high participation from all sectors of society, Canada’s false accusations against China not only undermine mutual trust and communication at the government level, but also disrupt people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” experts said.
Pentagon, Raytheon Sign Contract Worth $68.4Mln for Delivery of 50 Missiles to Taiwan
Sputnik – 03.02.2024
The US Department of Defense has signed a contract worth $68.4 million with the Raytheon defense-industrial company for the production and delivery of 50 air-to-ground missiles to Taiwan, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
“Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, was awarded a $68,420,396 modification (P00001) to a firm-fixed-price order (N0001924F2560) … This modification exercising an option for the production and delivery of 50 Joint Standoff Weapon Air-To-Ground Missiles (AGM-154 Block III C) for the government of Taiwan,” Pentagon said in a statement.
The work under the contract is expected to be completed in March 2028, the statement read.
Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan — a territory with its own elected government — maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence.
Beijing opposes any official contacts of foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable. In response to visits of high-ranking US delegations to Taiwan in 2022 and 2023, the Chinese military launched large-scale drills near the island, in what it called a warning to Taiwanese separatists and foreign powers.
Chinese energy firms top buyers of Iraqi oil
The Cradle | January 29, 2024
Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced on 29 January that Chinese energy firms were the biggest buyers of Iraqi oil last month.
“Chinese companies were the largest in number among other international companies in purchasing Iraqi oil, with 12 companies out of 44 companies purchasing oil during the month of last December,” SOMO said.
“Indian companies came second with seven companies, South Korean companies came third with four companies, Turkish companies came third with three companies, and American, Italian, Japanese, UAE and Greek companies came fourth with two companies each.
“The rest were Spanish, Dutch, British, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Russian, Malaysian, Azeri, and French companies,” the statement added.
China was also the largest buyer of Iraqi oil the previous month. Chinese and Indian firms were the top purchasers of Iraqi oil in December 2022.
Ties between Baghdad and Beijing have improved significantly recently, and Chinese firms have increased their presence in Iraq.
In 2019, Iraq signed a 20-year contract, agreeing to supply Chinese firms with 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, with the revenue earmarked for funding various development projects in Iraq undertaken by Chinese firms.
Following the deal, Chinese firms built 1,000 schools, developed the Nasiriya city airport, erected power plants, and completed several other infrastructure projects.
China has accelerated its investment in Iraq and other West Asian nations as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013.
Last month, Iraq began work on 30,000 housing units near Baghdad as part of a $2 billion project in partnership with Chinese firms to build five new cities across Iraq.
Beijing is fully committed to “friendly” ties with Baghdad and “actively participates” in Iraq’s reconstruction, a Chinese official told Kurdish news outlet Rudaw on 3 January.
The recent surge in Chinese-Iraqi cooperation comes as Iraq continues to fall under attack by the US army.
In October, Iraqi resistance factions banded together under a single coalition to confront US bases in Iraq and Syria. The attacks – which have been ongoing – are a show of solidarity with the resistance in Gaza and a rejection of US support for Israel’s assault on the strip.
Russia-China Joint Approach to the Middle East
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern outlook – 29.01.2024
By repeatedly targeting the Houthis in Yemen and pushing for an escalation in the Red Sea, the US is jumping into the Middle East with a military and strategic mindset. The objective is to create space for Washington – and its global allies – to push back against the recent gains, i.e., normalization between Iran and Saudi and Arab normalization with Syria more than a decade after the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”, that Russia and China have made. A wider war in the region will, in the US calculation at least, re-politicize regional fault lines that might allow Washington to reverse the larger normalization process. Considering the high stakes Washington has in developing a wider war in the region, it makes sense for both Russia and China, who largely have similar interests vis-à-vis normalization processes within the Middle East, to develop a joint approach.
In October, soon after Israel launched its brutal war after the October 7 attacks by Hamas and much before the US started doing its own strikes, Russia, anticipating a deeper US military involvement in the Middle East, confirmed that it was already coordinating its Middle East policy with China. This coordination, on the other hand, is also an outcome of the recent state of Russia-China bilateral ties, which, in the words of the Russian foreign minister, are in the best state in the “centuries-old history”.
This coordination also has its roots in the ways that the Arab world itself has come to see its ties with the US on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. For instance, some recent surveys have shown that an increasing number of people across most Arab states view Russia and China as crucial economic players above all. The core reasons for this favourable view are twofold. First, many Arab societies today view the US as no longer a reliable partner. Second, they view Russia and China not from a revisionist perspective, i.e., as states deepening their involvement in the region to replace the US. Rather, Russia and China continue to emphasize the Middle East as a region that can play an autonomous role, i.e., a role not tied to, or disproportionately overshadowed by, any superpower’s interests.
The fact that Russia and China both see the Middle East from this perspective, their calculation sees the Middle East as a vital region that can really push for shifting the center of the present world order away from the West to creating multiple power centres within a multipolar world order. Therefore, developing a joint policy and indirectly protecting the Middle East from slipping too much under the US radar makes sense for both Moscow and Beijing. Were the Middle East to relapse to being a US vassal region, it would make it extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, for Russia and China to realize their ambitions for a new world order.
Now, for both Russia and China, keeping the Middle East – which is already on the verge of a wider war – as a center of power, they must project their ties beyond the Gaza war. Of course, Israel’s war on Gaza is the most important issue today, and both Russia and China have adopted and emphasized a pro-Arab/pro-Palestine position. But Russia and China are also taking steps to not allow their ties with the region to be bogged down by this one issue.
China and Russia, as we know it, already have deep economic ties with the Middle East. Both, as we know, remain focused on maintaining and expanding these ties despite the ongoing conflicts. Putin’s recent visit to the Middle East was not simply provoked by the Gaza crisis, nor was this war the sole subject of his discussions with Arab leaders. In fact, a lot of discussion was around the core issue of a multipolar world order. Putin emphasized how the conflict in the Middle East is a US failure, a failure that makes it imperative for the Middle East to not only distance itself from Washington but also adopt a more autonomous role to, among other things, resolve the issue through its initiatives. But beyond this, Putin emphasised that “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”
For China as well, this logic of relationship beyond and above the Palestine issue remains prominent. While Beijing has openly supported the Arab state’s current stance on the issue, its ongoing engagement with this region remains predominantly underpinned by the logic of trade and development, building a relationship that helps the Middle East transform into a powerhouse that can ultimately help China and Russia tackle the hegemony of the West. (That’s why both China and Russia recently adopted new members into BRICS, including those from the Middle East.)
At the same time, China has taken steps to use the scenario, like Russia, to step up itself as a global power that can help mediate regional conflicts. In November, China announced its five-point peace plan that placed heavy emphasis on the United Nations, calling for the implementation of all relevant UN resolutions on the conflict and an international conference organized by the world body that leads to a two-state solution, all overseen by the Security Council. While nothing concrete followed this plan, it served China’s purpose of projecting itself as a power different from the West on the one hand and very close to the Arab world on the other.
For Washington, which has been hoping for differences to emerge between Russia and China taking them back to the era of rivalry, this situation is frustrating, making it extremely difficult for it to not lose ground in the Middle East specifically and across the Global South more generally. But its continuing support for Israel’s war machine and its continuing push for NATO’s expansion is doing exactly the opposite of what the US aims for, i.e., preventing its global decline and the related rise of Russia and China.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
‘Swarming’ the US in West Asia, until it folds
The US is so deeply mired in an unwinnable battle from the Levant to the Persian Gulf that only its adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran can bail it out.
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | January 29, 2024
Deterrence in defense is a military strategy where one power uses the threat of reprisal to preclude attack from an adversary, while maintaining at the same time the freedom of action and flexibility to respond to the full spectrum of challenges. In this realm, the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, is an outstanding example.
Hezbollah’s clarity of purpose in establishing and strictly maintaining ground rules that deter Israeli military aggression has set a high regional bar. Today, its West Asian allies have adopted similar strategies, which have multiplied in the context of the war in Gaza.
America, surrounded
While the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah is comparable to Hezbollah in certain respects, it is the audacious brand of defensive deterrence practiced by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq that is going to be highly consequential in the near term.
Last week, citing sources in the State Department and Pentagon, Foreign Policy magazine wrote that the White House is no longer interested in continuing the US military mission in Syria. The White House later denied this information, but the report is gaining ground.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote on Friday that while Ankara is taking a cautious approach to media reports, it does see “a general striving” by Washington to exit not only Syria but the entire region of West Asia, as it senses that it has been dragged into a quagmire by Israel and Iran from the Red Sea to Pakistan.
Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, also told Tass on Friday that much depends on any “threat of physical impact” on American forces present in Syria. The swift US military exit from Afghanistan took place with virtually no advance notice, in coordination with the Taliban. “In all likelihood, the same may happen in Iraq and Syria,” Lavrentiev said.
Indeed, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has stepped up its attacks on US military bases and targets. In a ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq a week ago, an unknown number of American troops sustained injuries, and the White House announced its first troop deaths on Sunday when three US servicemen were killed on the Syrian-Jordanian border in strikes earlier that day.
Calling Beijing for help
This situation is untenable for President Joe Biden politically — in his re-election bid next November — which explains the urgency of the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday and Saturday in Thailand to discuss the Ansarallah attacks in the Red Sea.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained Washington’s rush for Chinese mediation thus:
“China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t. What we’ve said repeatedly is: We would welcome a constructive role by China, using the influence and the access that we know they have…”
This is a dramatic turn of events. While the US has long been concerned about China’s growing sway in West Asia, it also needs that influence now as Washington’s efforts to reduce violence are getting nowhere. The US narrative on this will be that the “strategic, thoughtful conversation” between Sullivan and Wang will not only be “an important way to manage competition and tensions [between the US and China] responsibly” but also “set the direction of the relationship” on the whole.
Meanwhile, there has been hectic diplomatic traffic between Tehran, Ankara, and Moscow, as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Turkiye, and the moribund Astana format on Syria last week got kickstarted. Succinctly put, the three countries anticipate a “post-American” situation arising soon in Syria.
A US exit from Syria and Iraq?
Of course, the security dimensions are always tricky. On Friday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad chaired a meeting in Damascus for commanders of the security apparatus in the army to formulate a plan for what lies ahead. A statement said the meeting drew up a comprehensive security roadmap that “aligns with strategic visions” to address international, regional, and domestic challenges and risks.
Certainly, what gives impetus to all this is the announcement in Washington and Baghdad on Thursday that the US and Iraq have agreed to start talks on the future of American military presence in Iraq with the aim of setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops.
The Iraqi announcement said Baghdad aims to “formulate a specific and clear timetable that specifies the duration of the presence of international coalition advisors in Iraq” and to “initiate the gradual and deliberate reduction of its advisors on Iraqi soil,” eventually leading to the end of the coalition mission. Iraq is committed to ensuring the “safety of the international coalition’s advisors during the negotiation period in all parts of the country” and to “maintaining stability and preventing escalation.”
On the US side, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the discussions will take place within the ambit of a higher military commission established in August 2023 to negotiate the “transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between Iraq and the United States.”
Pentagon commanders would be pinning hopes on protracted negotiations. The US is in a position to blackmail Iraq, which is obliged, per the one-sided agreement dictated by Washington during the occupation in 2003, to keep in the US banks all of Iraq’s oil export earnings.
But in the final analysis, President Biden’s political considerations in the election year will be the clincher. And that will depend on the calibration by West Asia’s resistance groups, and their ability to ‘swarm’ the US on multiple fronts until it caves. It is this ‘known unknown’ factor that explains the Astana format meeting of Russia, Iran, and Turkiye on January 24-25 in Kazakhstan. The three countries are preparing for the endgame in Syria. Not coincidentally, in a phone call last Friday, Biden once again told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to scale down the Israeli military operation in Gaza, stressing he is not in it for a year of war,” Axios‘ Barak Ravid reported in a ‘scoop’.
Their joint statement after the Astana format meeting in Kazakhstan is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the US occupation of Syria. It indirectly urges Washington to give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates “operating under different names in various parts of Syria” as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism.’ It demands an end to the US’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria,” the unilateral US sanctions, and so on.
Simultaneously, at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the latter reportedly stressed that Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism “must continue, particularly in Syria.” Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to host a trilateral summit with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts to firm up a coordinated approach.
The Axis of Resistance: deterrence means stability
Iran’s patience has run out over the US military presence in Syria and Iraq following the revival of ISIS with American support. Interestingly, Israel no longer abides by its “de-confliction” mechanism with Russia in Syria. Clearly, there is close US-Israeli cooperation in Syria and Iraq at the intelligence and operational level, which goes against Russian and Iranian interests. Needless to say, the backdrop of the imminent upgrade of the Russia-Iran strategic partnership also needs to be factored in here.
These developments are a vintage illustration of defensive deterrence. The Axis of Resistance turns out to be the principal instrument of peace for the issues of security that entangle the US and Iran. Clearly, there isn’t any method or any reasonable hope of convergence to this process, but, fortunately, the appearance of chaos in West Asia is deceiving.
Beyond the distractions of partisan argument and diplomatic ritual, one can detect the outlines of a practical solution to the Syrian stalemate that addresses the inherent security interests of the US and Iran that are embedded within an outer ring of US-China concord over the situation in West Asia.
Russia may seem an outlier for the present, but there is something in it for everyone, as the pullout of US troops opens the pathway to a Syrian settlement, which remains a top priority for Moscow and for Putin personally.
Red Sea Crisis Is Opportunity for U.S. to Weaken Europe & China
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2024
The Red Sea conflict is intensifying as is the impact on commercial shipping and the global economy, according to shipping news reports.
One might think that common sense would prevail here to solve the conflict diplomatically and quickly. If a ceasefire was called in Gaza to stop the horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel then that would end the restrictions imposed on shipping by Yemen.
Yemeni leaders have unequivocally said so. End the genocide and we will end the interdiction on shipping.
The moral imperative to immediately end the appalling suffering in Gaza is therefore a straightforward – not to say absolutely necessary – way to restore normal navigation through the Red Sea and for wider peace in the region. It’s not a dilemma. It’s not a conundrum. And it’s inexcusable to prevaricate.
The United States has the power to end the Israeli genocide. But the Biden administration has refused to exert its control over the Netanyahu regime.
Washington has opted to escalate the military aggression in the Red Sea by launching at least eight waves of air strikes since January 11 on Yemen – the poorest nation in the Arab region, having already suffered a genocidal war at the hands of the U.S. and Britain supporting Saudi Arabia’s aggression between 2015 and 2022.
The Yemenis have in turn defiantly warned that their operations to interdict shipping will continue until the genocidal siege on Gaza has ended.
Biden even admits that the military action to deter the Yemenis is limited in achieving its supposed objectives.
So, why continue to aggravate the situation and escalate potential conflict across the region? Not only will bombing Yemen not work, but it is also inflaming violence across the Middle East and risking a head-on confrontation with Iran which is allied with the Yemenis.
As Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi points out in our interview this week a big incentive for the U.S. and its Israeli ally is to blow up the region as a reckless and nefarious way to conceal how disastrous the defeat in Gaza is for the Americans and their Israeli client regime.
But there may be more to it. Another incentive for taking a militarized response to the Red Sea crisis is the strategic gain that this gives the United States with regard to Europe and China.
The Red Sea shipping restrictions are hitting the European and Chinese trade most acutely. American economic interests are relatively unaffected.
It is estimated that about 60 percent of China’s exports to Europe are shipped through the Red Sea, according to the Washington DC-based Middle East Institute.
Put another way, Eurostat figures indicate that 20 percent of all EU imports come from Asia via the Red Sea.
Inevitably, the longer the insecurity and hostilities persist in the Red Sea, the worse will be the damage to Europe-China trade and their economies.
Reuters reports that China is urging Iran to rein in the actions of the Ansar Allah and Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea. That indicates how severe the impasse is impacting Chinese trade with Europe.
The Europeans meanwhile seem oblivious to the damage that the United States’ policy is inflicting on their economies. The Europeans have meekly gone along with Washington’s militarized aggression against Yemen.
It is a long-term and deeply coveted goal for Washington to cleave European trade and political relations with China. China has become the European Union’s top trading partner, surpassing the United States in that historic role.
During recent Democrat and Republican administrations, Washington has vigorously sought to undermine European-Chinese relations. The Americans have reacted testily to any trade and investment pacts signed between the two.
The Red Sea crisis is thus a handy opportunity for the United States to kill two birds with one stone.
By ramping up the shipping problems through militarizing the conditions, the U.S. can weaken the economies of Europe and China while also sticking a very big wedge between the two.
In short-term American imperial calculation that is a tantalizing gain. The U.S. consolidates its hegemonic control over the weaker European allies while damaging China’s economic power.
This short-term zero-sum thinking by the American imperial planners is of course self-defeating in the long term from the far-reaching deterioration in the global economy and international peace and security. But long-term thinking about the common global good is not a priority for U.S. capitalist imperialism. One might even say they are fundamentally in opposition.
There is a close analogy here to the Ukraine crisis. Washington has pursued hostilities with Russia as a way to undermine European-Russian trade and their wider cultural and political relations. Washington calculates that such antagonism will bolster its hegemonic ambitions. The ideologically slavish European leaders have gone along with that policy even though it has resulted in an economic and security disaster for Europe.
The European leaders are either too stupid or too brainwashed to assess what is going on and how they are being manipulated by Washington for its selfish strategic interests.
If the European regimes had any independence or integrity they would not have gone down the path of conflict with Russia in Ukraine. But as it is, they have been had by Uncle Sam – big time. What’s more, they don’t seem to realize or even care.
Likewise, the same fate of shooting themselves in the foot is occurring over the Middle East crisis. The Europeans are backing a genocide in Gaza in deference to U.S. imperialist interests and the Israeli regime. That has rebounded with the Red Sea crisis that is set to hammer EU-China trade. Rather than seeking to resolve the conflict diplomatically, the Europeans are making it worse and in the process damaging their own international standing and strategic interests.
No wonder the Americans ultimately treat their European vassals with contempt. Because they are utterly spineless and clueless.
Saudi, Chinese vessels undeterred by Yemen Red Sea ops
The Cradle | January 26, 2024
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is continuing to send oil and fuel tankers through the Red Sea, despite US and UK bombing of Yemen and attacks by Yemen’s armed forces on Israeli, US, and UK-linked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
“We’re moving in the Red Sea with our oil and products cargoes,” Mohammed al-Qahtani, head of Aramco’s refining and oil trading and marketing businesses, told Bloomberg on 26 January.
The risks of continuing to use the Red Sea route to Europe amid the violence are “manageable,” he said.
In November, Yemen’s de-facto government, led by the Ansarallah resistance movement, began targeting ships with Israeli links and ships traveling to Israel via the Red Sea and Suez Canal.
Ansarallah took the decision in response to Israel’s bombing and ground campaign against Gaza, which many view as a genocide.
Rather than press Israel to end attacks on Gaza, the US and UK began bombing targets in Yemen, endangering not only Israeli-linked ships but ships from other nations as well.
In response, many of the world’s largest shipping companies began redirecting ships around the Horn of Africa, adding two weeks to the journey from Asia to Europe.
But in January, Aramco increased crude shipments through the Red Sea toward Europe, according to vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
“That is also giving us huge access and optionality,” Qahtani said. “We are assessing that almost on a daily basis.”
He said that the cost of these shipments has increased, as few shipping companies are willing to travel the route, and insurance costs have risen. “But overall it’s is very manageable.”
Most Saudi crude is exported east to Asia, but the kingdom has been able to continue using the Red Sea route for western shipments due to its continued ties with the Yemeni government.
Saudi Arabia and Ansarallah continue to negotiate a formal end to the war they fought between 2015 and 2022.
As western shipping companies have rerouted their ships, Chinese firms have stepped in to fill the void, as China also enjoys good relations with Ansarallah and does not fear its ships being attacked in the Red Sea.
Chinese firms have been serving ports such as Doraleh in Djibouti, Hodeidah in Yemen, and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which all saw major drops in port traffic following the attacks.
Cichen Shen, the China expert at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, told the Financial Times that the “easiest explanation” for the rush of Chinese operators into the region was that they seek to exploit their relative invulnerability to attack to win business.
“You have commercial interest and you see this capacity gap and you see the demand,” Shen said of the lines’ motivation for moving ships to the region. “I think the commercial interest is probably the biggest reason.”
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From the Archives
15 Saudi ‘hijackers’ were CIA agents working for US: Scholar
Press TV – April 13, 2016
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
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