THE
HUNGRY BEAR PART 5: Russia,
China 'cooking something up' By W Joseph Stroupe
(For Part 1,
Promises that can't be kept, click here. For Part 2,
Corporate gigantism, click here. For Part 3,
No more Mr Nice Guy, click here. For Part 4,
The West's thorny crown, click here )
Russian
President Vladimir Putin was asked about
Russia-China relations and the mounting
regional/global clout of the SCO (Shanghai
Cooperation Organization). He expressed great
satisfaction and excitement
about the path of Russia-China relations, but
quickly denied that the two strategic partners
were involved in "cooking anything up between
themselves".
In fact, he claimed that the
mounting regional and global clout of the SCO has
never been planned for or intentionally striven
for by the two partners, that it has entirely
happened "by surprise". And, of course, he claimed
once again that neither the SCO nor the deepening
Russia-China strategic partnership was "aimed at
the US or NATO" (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization).
But contrary to Putin's
soothing assurances to the West at the recent
Valdai Club meeting, Russia and China most
certainly do have "something in the geopolitical
oven", and it has been cooking steadily for nearly
a decade. In fact, their geopolitical main course
is practically ready to be served to the table, so
to speak, and directly contrary to Putin's recent
claims they both intended from the beginning for
the SCO eventually to play a significant role.
One only has to read the Sino-Russian
Joint Statements from 1997 forward to see that the
two partners embarked on a carefully conceived and
adroitly executed geopolitical course and strategy
a decade ago, and they have made tremendous
progress toward the achievement of the specific
goal they set way back then. Note these facts and
precisely what their goal has been in the excerpts
and commentary that follow:
From the
Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
The two sides shall, in the spirit
of partnership, strive to promote the
multipolarization of the world and the
establishment of a new international
order.
The establishment of a
just and equitable new
international political and
economic order based on peace and
stability has become the pressing need of the
times and the inevitable necessity of history.
All countries, big or small, strong or
weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the
international community. No country should
seek hegemony, practice power politics or
monopolize international affairs.
Both sides express concern over the
attempt at enlarging and strengthening military
blocs, because such a tendency may pose a threat
to the security of certain countries and
aggravate regional and global tension.
Both sides underscore that the
vast member of developing countries and
the Non-Aligned Movement are important forces in
promoting world multipolarization and building a
new international order.
Developing countries have
enhanced their awareness of
self-strengthening through unity,
played a greater role in world politics and
increased their share of the world
economy.
Their rise will
give a strong boost to the historical process
towards the establishment of a new international
order. [Emphasis added]
From
"PRC, Russia leaders issue joint statement",
December 10, 1999:
[The two sides] propose to
push forward the establishment of a
multipolar world on the basis of the
principles of the United Nations Charter and
existing international laws in the 21st century,
strengthen the UN's dominant status in
international affairs, and peacefully resolve
international disputes through political means
... and establish a fair, equal, and mutually
beneficial international political
and economic order. Third, the two
sides point out that negative momentum in
international relations continues to grow, and
the following is becoming more obvious: The
forcing of the international community to
accept a unipolar world pattern and a
single model of culture, value concepts and
ideology, and a weakening of the role of the
United Nations and its Security Council; the
seeking of excuses to give irresponsible
explanations or amendment to the purposes and
principles of the UN Charter; the reinforcing
and expanding of military blocs; the replacing
of international law with power politics or even
resorting to force; and the jeopardizing of the
sovereignty of independent states using the
concepts of "human rights are superior to
sovereignty" and "humanitarian intervention".
The two sides agree to work
together with the rest of the world to oppose
the momentum presently preventing the
establishment of a just multipolar
structure for international relations.
Seventh, the two countries express
their satisfaction with the implementation of
the Bishkek Declaration issued by the summit of
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan, known as the "Shanghai Five
States", on August 25, 1999.
In
line with the Sino-Russian equal and trustworthy
strategic partnership of cooperation, the two
sides are willing to strengthen their
cooperation, considering that the two countries
share similar or identical views on such issues
as the establishment of an international
multipolar order and democracy and justice in
international affairs. [Emphasis added]
From the China-Russia Joint Statement
of July 1, 2005:
Strictly abiding by the propositions
on building a multipolar world and a new
international order as enunciated in the Joint
Statement of the People's Republic of China and
the Russian Federation Regarding Global
Multipolarity and the Establishment of a New
International Order of April 23, 1997,
The international community should
thoroughly renounce the mentality of
confrontation and alignment, should not
pursue the right to monopolize or dominate world
affairs, and should not divide countries
into a leading camp and a subordinate camp.
In the sphere of regional security, the
establishment of security cooperation mechanisms
that take into account the interests of all
parties, are open, and are not directed at
other countries has fundamental
significance. [Emphasis added]
Look at the
declarations The ultimate target of
deepening Russian-Chinese strategic cooperation is
clearly the pushing toward the establishment of
what they call the "multipolar world order" to end
US global dominance. The joint statements above
prove that fact beyond any reasonable doubt
whatever.
Consequently, the repeated
claims by the two that no "third country" is being
targeted amount only to pure diplomatic
indirection and propaganda. The US most certainly
is being targeted. You cannot push to establish a
new international order to end dominance by one
power without simultaneously targeting the one
power that currently has that domination - namely,
the United States itself. However, the targeting
being done by Russia, China and their global
partners isn't that of directly hitting the US
economy to sink it, or of directly attacking the
US military in a confrontation.
The
targeting of the US global position of dominance
is much smarter than that. It is indirect
targeting, in which US economic, political and
even military dominance and power are undermined
and weakened by virtue of the creation of a
deepening and widening global complex of strategic
resources-based economic, political and military
ties, a complex that is centered in the East
rather than looking to the US as center, and a
complex that mostly disregards, and increasingly
rivals, US interests.
That strategy of
ending US global dominance by pushing for
"multipolarity", not directly confronting the US
but rather building a non-US-centric global
complex, works because the US is able to dominate
the globe only because the world at large permits
it to do so and either actively or indirectly
facilitates such dominance. The US is not nearly
omnipotent, politically, economically or
militarily. It must dominate by virtue of willing
allies and key powers that permit the US to
exercise its influence through them, and by
maintaining fear on the part of its rivals with
respect to opposing the US in the spheres of the
global economy and the military. Without the
combination of willing cooperation and fearful
acquiescence on the part of the world at large,
the US will tumble from its global position of
dominance.
Russia and China have correctly
calculated, therefore, that if they can undermine
that willing cooperation and fearful acquiescence
by turning enough of the globe's key states away
from a US-centric stance toward a stance more in
line with their own purpose, inculcating them
firmly into their own growing complex of economic,
political and even military ties centered in the
East, then the US will incrementally suffer ever
greater political and economic isolation and
subsequent weakening of its leverage and position
on the world stage.
At the center of the
new global complex of ties is the Russia-China
axis itself. That has been the strategy of the two
partners since before they issued their Joint
Statement of April 23, 1997 - to build a new
international economic and political order that
isn't US-centric, that progressively robs the US
of the deep cooperation and fearful acquiescence
it needs across the globe to keep it atop the
current order, and that thereby cuts deeply into
the US ability to continue to dominate the world
order. They aren't directly confronting the US in
their efforts, but make no mistake - they are
powerfully targeting the US nonetheless.
The United States has inadvertently
cooperated on a massive scale with Russia and
China in their push to create this new order,
cooperated with them in their political,
ideological and economic push to isolate the US
incrementally. By its policies and actions since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, and especially
since September 11, 2001, the US has profoundly
isolated itself on the world stage. That has
played, and continues to play, directly into the
hands of Russia, China and their strategic
partners who understand US global isolation is the
key to ending US global dominance. That is the
real meaning of the policies and actions
undertaken by Russia, China and their partners in
the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, in
which they have worked steadily to isolate the US
and to keep it isolated, and to deepen its
isolation. They have been very quick to capitalize
on growing US isolation to construct rapidly their
global complex of resources-based economic,
political, ideological and security ties not
centered on the US, and as rivals to the US.
Hence whenever Russian and Chinese leaders
say that neither the US nor NATO is being targeted
by their activities, that is an entirely facetious
statement designed to give the two partners
plausible deniability, in that the statement is
technically true - they aren't directly hitting or
confronting the US economy or military. But they
most certainly are actively working to undermine
the US global position by insidious, indirect and
profoundly effective means. And US leaders simply
aren't intelligent and humble enough to understand
the effectiveness of the strategy or how they
themselves are aiding in its success.
Note
that in the joint statements quoted above, the two
partners (Russia and China) repeatedly spoke not
only of a new political order, but also of a new
international economic order. Notably, in the
April 23, 1997, statement the following statement
was made:
Both sides underscore that the
... developing countries and the
Non-Aligned Movement are important
forces in promoting world
multipolarization and building a new
international order.
Developing
countries have enhanced their awareness of
self-strengthening through unity, played a
greater role in world politics, and increased
their share of the world economy.
Their rise will give a strong
boost to the historical process towards the
establishment of a new international
order. [Emphasis added]
It so
happens that the vast bulk of the world's
strategic resources are located within the very
group mentioned here, the developing countries and
the Non-Aligned Movement. It is not by accident
that Russia and China have concentrated their
efforts there, succeeding in deeply integrating
those nations into their global complex of ties,
and simultaneously those resource-rich nations
have become ever more characterized by adoption of
deeply anti-American economic, political and/or
religious ideologies.
The undermining and
weakening of US global economic power and
dominance are key to the achievement of the goal
of ending the unipolar order that is led by the
United States. It is being accomplished without
direct confrontation between the US and its
rivals. The massive ongoing transfer of wealth
from the US to its rivals and the attendant
weakening of the US economy is in no small part
facilitated by energy developments and the growing
cohesiveness and anti-US political affinity among
the globe's energy producers, who by and large
disdain continued US global dominance.
Additionally, entities such as the SCO are being
employed to reverse US geopolitical advances in
energy-rich regions by helping to close ranks
among its members, further placing the strategic
US economic security in a precarious position. The
US has requested, but has been denied, any role
whatever in the SCO, which is shaping up to be a
closed entity to the West.
On September
15, RIA Novosti reported that prime ministers of
SCO member countries, while gathered in Dushanbe
for a key meeting, gave instructions for studies
to be conducted into the establishment of a
regional energy club. In June at the SCO Summit,
Putin caused a stir when he proposed the creation
of the energy club centered in the SCO and
designed to balance the interests of producers and
key consumers such as China (a key founding member
of the SCO) and India (which has observer status
in the SCO) in a new arrangement that would
transcend the leverage of a mere axis of producers
alone. That proposal appears to be taking definite
shape now, with officials from Kazakhstan and
Russia tasked with drafting proposals for a key
meeting next year of the grouping's fuel and
energy experts. The ongoing development of the
SCO-centered energy club proposed by Putin in June
is a development of profound importance and
constitutes a major advance in the Russian effort
to complete the drawing of the circle of
international energy security, a circle that by
and large excludes the West.
Russia and
China have been "cooking something up between
themselves" for at least a decade now, and the
results are already dramatic, to say the least.
Don't expect Russia and its partners to "play
nice" with energy and other strategic resources,
not in view of the colossal stakes for both sides
in the Great Game and the fact that the West will
stop at nothing to try to turn the Game around in
its favor before the clock soon runs out.
Putin's promise that Russia will not
behave like an energy superpower is a promise that
cannot be kept. It is a promise the West must not
give credence to or rely upon, but the West itself
is partly to blame for the increasingly
contentious relations between resource-rich East
and resource-dependent West. The moment of truth
for both sides in the Great Game and for the
current global order itself is impending.
This is the final article in a
five-part report.
W Joseph Stroupe
is editor of Global Events Magazine, online at
www.GeoStrategyMap.com. He has authored a new book
on the implications of ongoing energy
geopolitics, Russian Rubicon: Impending
Checkmate of the West.
(Copyright 2004-06
GeoStrategyMap.com and W Joseph Stroupe. All
rights reserved.)
