Latest via Alexander Gabuev, who is one of the best Russian China watchers.
Highlights include: Sanctions busting trade & investment innovations; manufacturing, inc. civil aircraft (CR929) and heavy lift helicopters; Glonass/Beidou integration; experience exchange in AI, surveillance, social credit; replacing US as China’s soybeans supplier, with investment in agriculture in the Russian Far East.
Russia becomes more immune to US sanctions, China gets to test out financial aspects of future Sinosphere on a large scale.
Historically the two secondary powers always ally against the top dog. It happened as US was losing the war in Vietnam and they reached out to China. When Germany was at the top, France and Russia were allies. This dynamic is over time almost inevitable. The countries who are below the secondary powers traditionally rush to the protection of the strongest power, thus US is not going to be short of ‘allies‘. How much good they would be in a real conflict is another question.
Even cumulatively, Russia and China, are weaker than US. But they have time on their side. EU is slowly disintegrating, the demographic time bomb that they have imported – and keep on importing – means that they will be close to useless in a few years. Interestingly enough, the single worse thing that could happen to Europe is for Russia to collapse after a conflict with the West or China. Russia is acting as the last safe hinterland to Europe, if Russia collapses the onslaught of Third World migrants through its territory would overwhelm Europe, starting with the Eastern countries who providently avoided the pleasures of the mass Third World migration so far.
US is on a mission to create a ‘multi‘ world – in other words they want the 7 billion Third Worlders to mix in with the remaining European based civilisation that is down to around 1 billion people. Mix 7 billion with 1 billion, you will get the kind of societies that we currently see among the 7 billion at home. That’s what happens, there will be no miracle, or magical ‘Indian growing middle class’, or African entrepreneurship. Arabs won’t suddenly cease being lazy, mestizos won’t learn engineering. We better hope that the eastern marches of Europe don’t open up. That would literally be the end of the European miracle.
(All in all, it is probably a good thing that Chinese will get their soya from Russia, but who the f…k eats soya?)
Soyabeans are native to the Russian Far East. It is extraordinary that the Soviet Union was not exporting them to China. Will the lack of population in the Far East hold this back. Quite some infrastructure is needed. This is not just physical. Exports flow from China to Russia without trouble. Imports from Russia to China can be held up for a week while the bureaucracy takes place. For trains of oil or coal that doesn’t matter. For perishables it does. It will be good news for the world when China starts importing with sincerity but much practical work remains to be done.
As a reminder, the St Petersburg Economic Forum in 2014 declared brotherly cooperation. For a while it looked as though the Chinese would build railways in Russia. Then someone looked at the small print. The head of Russian Railways was sacked and Siemens is again the preferred locomotive supplier. The first big private sector deal in Roubles was an import of shoes from China, just as the rouble crashed. The owner of the Chinese firm involved counts in dollars in the real world so it was a big loss to him. Private sector deals went back to dollars.
It will be good for the world if Russia and China can develop trade but neither country is all that organised to do it. Russia, without oil, needs two way trade. China is not good at that, raw materials aside. Russia will be selling gas to pay for shoes (90% of Russian shoes already come from China) for a while yet. So far as the aircraft is concerned, Russia needs to be cautious. It needs to model itself on the UK. The really important bits are the wings and engines. Those should be made in Russia. Then comes landing gear (also made in the UK). The Chinese can build the rest without excessive technology transfer risk to Russia. Russia needs to do some catch up on composites first though (there is a plan but all the capital is diverted into import substitution such as growing tomatoes in St Petersburg. get-act-together.
I’m sick and tired of people putting down Russia as a kind of “junior partner” to China, and more than a little irritated by Karlin embracing this view.
Creating a mechanism to bypass US financial system in bilateral trade is good and necessary, but it does not create any real leverage for the Chinese, who need access to Russian energy a lot more, than Russia needs their “machines”. It doesn’t make Russia beholden to China. It certainly doesn’t turn Russia into a “playground” for China or a part of “Pax Sinica” (whatever that means).
Is North Korea a part of “Pax Sinica”? Is Iran? Get real.
It makes more sense of China buying agriculture products including soybeans from Russia than the US. Russia has land, has lower labor cost and Russia Far East is just a short distance from China. I suspect the reason China has been buying soybeans from the US all these years instead of sourcing it from Russia is to keep the trade deficit with the US not grew too large. Once China start buying from Russia its hard for China to buy from the US again unless the US can match Russia’s cost.
Chinese pigs and cows.
Stop being so sensitive. When did Karlin ever suggest Russia is a “playground” for China or a part of “Pax Sinica”. The two countries have many complementary strengths that each side should exploit for its own benefits. I heard a lot of this Russia becoming a “junior partner of China” talk coming from US geo-political strategists, people like Brzezinski, probably to thwart the cooperation between the two countries. Karlin certainly doesn’t fall for this kind of cheap tricks.
Have you ever heard of tofu? It’s in every US supermarket. Find it and read the label.
One of the most important projects for China at the moment is to reduce its use of coal power stations, which is a curse upon its urban population.
Currently ratio of coal power production in China is terrible, and it needs to rapidly reduce the use of coal.
This is where Russia is so essential for the future of China, and increasing their standard of living – to increase the supply of gas, and allowing them to increase ratio of gas power stations.
Karlin doesn’t reference other expert opinion and research, unless he agrees with it, and “Sinotriumf” is a consistent theme of his writings. I can almost guarantee he agrees with everything Gabuev wrote here.
Now, Gabuev is putting down Russia because his job at Carnegie Center requires it, but from Karlin (who calls himself a Russian nationalist btw) it’s just obnoxious.
I understand that there are weirdos and desperate people who eat tofu or soya-fed meat. Soya has formed the Asians, is that what we want?
Bad China!
Burning coal makes tropical hyperborea real*.
*and Germany dry? 2018 could become the driest recorded year in German weather history.
What’s needed the most is the framework to allow private enterprise to undertake tasks, instead of every initiative having to be state-planned.
Apologies for offtopic.
I hear that Canada has legal cannabis now?
Personally, this situation looks civilized.
Positive – possible reduction in organized crime revenues, generation of tax revenues, police resources can be redirected to other areas, possible increase in tourism, and possible substitution of some alcoholism (some alcoholics may substituted to THC addicts, with increasing access to the latter).
Han Chinese are Asians, in case you are wondering. China buys soya, and the only question is, who sells it.
In Japan, there are some restaurants where you can only eat tofu.
It’s fried or grilled, and they give it to you with sticks. Then there different sauces which you can put it into.
I wasn’t very impressed with this restaurant – it tastes as boring as it sounds.
Also in Japan they have expensive confectioners where all the cakes have different flavours of soya pastes inside them. This is actually very good.
Very much so. What Russia has just now is French Dirigisme at best, Mussolini corporatism (but the F word is not relevant) at worst. It creates oligopoly at many levels and misdirects capital, which is relatively scarce in Russia.
Yeah, Karlin’s obsession with China and how Russia should hitch itself to China is annoying from a Chinese perspective.
If the Kremlin really reads his blog and follows through with his China worship as in actually letting China test out Pax Sinica, Step One would be Chinese full-spectrum dominance of the Russian economy, geopolitics, and perhaps society. I’m sure that the Chinese would LOVE to build key infrastructure projects on Russian soil and turn strategic Russian companies like Gazprom or Russian Railways into important State-Owned subsidiaries.
This opens up the possibility of Step Two: Russia hosting PLA bases; I’m sure the Chinese would LOVE naval base(s) on the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and even a few army bases in strategic locations in Siberia and near Moscow if offered the chance to build them by Karlin’s Chinese-bootlicking govt.
Guess who wins if Karlin’s Chinese bootlicking becomes part of Russia’s foreign and domestic policy? The Neocons. If you scrutinize their Russian and Chinese FP, this is EXACTLY what they are striving for.
Wouldn’t be surprised if post-Orbanization of Russia, they go after Karlin.
China isn’t that interested in using Russia as a test bed for Pax Sinica, its more interested in Southeast Asia and Africa, or even Australia before Russia.
But if Russia follows thru Karlin’s plans and grovels in front of China and begs it to use as a rug? Of course China will be overjoyed to use it, just like how the US doesn’t want to build a base in Poland but if Poland throws $$$ at the US to build a base? Of course the US military won’t resist such a temptation. Who doesn’t like a rug, especially an extremely natural resource rich rug that’s a world leader in military technology and that you can use to walk straight into the heart of Europe?
The only people who are excited to see Russia as a vassal of Pax Sinica with Chinese full-spectrum dominance of Russian economy/society are tankies who want to see Russia return to Sovokcore, or neocons who shortsightedly are doing whatever they can to eliminate Russian power. I normally disagree with Keverich, but I agree with him here.
Karlin has no clue what China is actually like and what it wants. It seems to me his entire “ideology” of Sinotriumph is from his decade in Berkeley, which is a huge magnet for China’s cognitive elite, but Russia is an undefeated, indestructible European Great Power that should be too proud to grovel at China.
Soy beans is one of the most used ingredients in the Chinese diet. It can be eaten directly in soups or sauteed, or it can be used to make tofu and soy milk.
That’s really a silly notion. Not that Russia is ever going to be a “rug” but there’s never a reason to build military bases there – what is China going to do? Invade Europe? Even provoking Europe is ridiculous. Its the US that has fantasies of and a philosophy for benevolent hegemony(debated benevolence, but its still the philosophy). There’s no real gain; at the very least, the risk liability is enormous.
This is all so silly, though its consistent with your theme of rather weird notions of the world and people.
It is in fact far more consistent for neocons to play Russia off China, as was done before, and which Kissenger(neocon extraordinaire) actively encourages now.
Benefits of PLA bases in Russia:
Army bases in Siberia can ensure that China uneventfully transport Siberian natural resources to China under all conditions.
And in terms of owning Russia economically, China can not only gain an impressive amount of technological knowhow and natural resources, and a huge market of 150 million, but also a safe land trade route to Europe, especially if the Chinese build a railroad and/or highway through Russia.
Russia gets almost nothing in return.
If Russian or Chinese leadership were as delusional as the US elites, some of these scenarios would have made sense. However, both Russian and Chinese elites are remarkably sane. Therefore, the two countries would simply engage in mutually beneficial cooperation and withstand the US madness as long as humanely possible. The day it becomes impossible would be WWIII and the end of all of us (deserved end for the US elites and compradors in the US vassals, undeserved for the rest).
More car accidents.
More casual sex.
Lower productivity.
Lower cognitive functions.
Poorer political judgment.
More people wasting their lives prematurely.
Growth of therapy and addiction treatment industry.
Negative wealth redistribution – siphoning money from poorer to richer.
I have this feeling that China does not trust Russia’s elites, who they consider only temporarily at odds with the West not of their own choice but because the West gave them a cold shoulder. When given an opportunity Russian elites will flip and opt for the West and dump China. If the US crazies really believe that the conflict with China is unavoidable they will do everything to use Russia as the brute force against China just as they used Russia against Hitler.
More schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorders
More anxiety/depression
More suicides
Lower TFR/More DNA damage
The West (US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ) is being destroyed from within by the globalist elites a.k.a. rootless cosmopolitans a.k.a. the Chosen. The deep state tentacles are far too deep in the US, no US president can escape it, not even Trump. He’s already a deep state puppet even as they seek to destroy him. In 20 years US will be completely unrecognizable and ungovernable as a multicultural hell.
Countries outside of US and EU would be wise to make other plans to save themselves, and be prepared as the belligerent deep state Ziocons will find any excuse to launch wars against any country who could potentially challenge the US, either economically or militarily.
The Jew World Order must prevail.
Agree. Except for your timetable. I would say it’s closer to 15 years that the U.S. is unrecognizable. That said, right now the U.S. military and Deep State is as white as Newton, Iowa in 1950. That won’t change any time soon.
You are grossly overestimating China’s desire to have foreign bases anywhere. We have one in Djibouti and even that gets a lot of criticism. Nobody on any side is suggesting Russia grovel to China.
I don’t get why there’s so much concern about Russia being a “subordinate” partner. Few Chinese policymakers ever think along these lines when it comes to Russia. Why can’t we just be partners, forget the junior/elder stuff?
Pax Sinica is not coming anytime soon. China needs to repair relationships with its Asian neighbors and get them to like China before that happens. But if Russia wants to ride the economic dragon, I say great. Get on.
The Day After (1983). A made-for-tv movie about a nuclear war between the U.S. and “Russia”.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyy9n8r16hs
That makes sense from the Russian POV but why should China wish to be dependent on Russia on wings and jet engines long term?
China will over the next 10-15 years figure out how to make jet engines and advanced composite wings given the money they are investing and the human capital they have.
It is sort of like UK and US in the 1940s the British had better jet engine and aerospace technology in the 1940s but the US due to its massive resources overtook the UK overall by the 1950s.
Being a fellow Anglo country(Five eyes,NATO,extensive inter marriage at the elite level) RR was given access to US government funds and even DARPA funding for its liberty works subsidiary..
Why would China be so generous with Russia creating a Airbus type entity when it could create it’s own Boeing and MDD instead?
This talk of junior/senior partners seems to make both some Russians and some Chinese uncomfortable – the Russians for either touching insecurities or a perceived attack on their pride, and the Chinese for seeing themselves wrongly accused of some sinister intentions when they are just building a partnership in good faith.
It is worth remembering that all those suspicions are mostly spread by people who don’t have the good of either Russia or China in mind.
There is also a truth at the core of this junior/senior partner talk, and it should not make anyone uncomfortable – the truth is that China’s aims are ultimately bigger than Russia’s – it has the ambition and the potential to become nothing less than the strongest power in the world. Russia has been out of that race for some time.
The way I see it, Russia wants to develop in peace and to be sovereign. The partnership with China has already proven itself useful for the former while not threatening to the latter. And if anyone has anxieties for the future, the Chinese have already seen Russia standing up to the United States, it has already proven that it won’t bend to anyone, “world’s sole hyperpower” or not. They are smart enough to know that mutual respect is the way to go for mutual benefit. When you think about it, what has the US actually gained from its confrontation with Russia?
tl;dr this Gabuev fellow has described real things that are happening that are good for both Russia and China, and the provocative language like who’s junior or senior and who needs the other more should simply be ignored. It’s an Anglo way of thinking, but you should not restrict yourself to thinking like an Anglo, especially when you aren’t one.
One of the most popular notional dishes in China is tofu…..with pork added to it which I used to find hilarious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapo_doufu
Very pleased to read all of this as the long term outcome from these “strategic partnership” trends will be benevolent satelitism (like UK to US) at best or being the prey at worst (like Poland-Lithuania state to Russian Empire) for RF.
Both outcomes will be quite enjoyable to see, but guess there is some quiet hope in RF that they will be free to entertain their maniacal imperialism in the so call “near abroad” safely under Chinese umbrella, but even US slapped UK relatively hard when they tried to do their usual imperialistic stuff to former colony of Egypt during Suez crisis in 1956.
What is REALLY needed is a genuine Russo-Sino free trade area.
The complementarities and the potential for wealth creation is enormous, to say the least.
But, very best of all, it would be a massive – and most welcome – giant FUCK YOU to the EU.
Very pleased to see the convergence between deranged svidomy Polish trolls and deranged Sinophobes…
… in response to a Twitter thread in which I did not even take an editorial stand of my own.
China is going for nuclear in a big way – at the exact same time the west is abandoning it.
Ultimately, the development of a massive 3rd generation nuclear complex will seal China’s future as the world’s industrial/economic/financial – and probably military – hegemon.
As dry as Angela Merkel’s cunt.
Russia has too much capital, Russia spews out capital to balance the current account due to all the money coming in to pay for natural resource exports. Russia is just like Canada or Australia, natural resources will always dominate the economy, attempts to lessen this have a place, but one should be realistic.
I used to smoke heavily when I was younger, liberalising cannabis is really stupid.
Don’t worry.
Nothing by nothing can facilitate the ‘invasion of Europe’ better than the fucking EU is now doing presently with its shitty ‘human rights’ laws.
I believe Russia has always been clear they are a European country but closer cooperation with China will always deliver clear benefits for both parties so it will be pursued regardless.
Indians never cease to love using such talk regarding the UK.
China doesn’t have “full-spectrum” dominance of North Korea, a country with 8x fewer people and 100x less economic output than Russia. In fact, China’s main man there got unceremoniously purged a few years ago. So I am not quite sure how exactly that is supposed to work with Russia.
The elites in Russia don’t accumulate luxury property in China, they don’t set up offshore bank accounts there, they don’t hang on the words of whatever Xinhua or Beijing think-tanks are saying. The West has all that. Even so, its attempts to bring Russia to heel by pressuring its “oligarchs” has been a complete failure. China doesn’t even have that.
Why would Russia sell them, short of some major crisis (the likelihood of which itself declines with a stronger China relationship)? Russia didn’t sell its major state-owned companies to foreigners even in the 1990s, when it really needed the cash. Those it did sell, it primarily sold to well-connected Russian citizens (which is actually perhaps a bad thing, since Westerners would have managed them much better, but that discussion is for another day).
I know you’re obsessed with this idea but you’ve never addressed questions that have already been asked about this:
You do realize that Russians were even opposed to NATO resupplying its forces in Afghanistan via Ulyanovsk (no uniformed NATO military on site). China might have fewer problems (70% of Russians approve of China, vs. 25% for the US) but then again a full-fledged military base is a different proposition from a supply depot.
What are the Siberian and Baltic bases there for – to secure OBOR shipments from Buryat partisans and Swedish pirates? (Swedestan still has at least a few decades left before it turns into Somalia and that might be needed).
The liberals are the only consistently anti-China bloc in Russia. Theoretically, a Navalny regime might “go after” Karlin for that, but they are much likelier to “go after” him for a few dozen other things before that.
Complete nonsense.
First, the only way in which Russia returns to sovokcore will be if relations with both the West and China break down. It will become an Iran, though richer and glitzier.
Second, the neocons want relations between Russia and China to be acrimonious, so that the US has an easier time containing China. It’s just that their maximalist demands on Russia (actual as opposed to envisioned attempts to gain “full-spectrum dominance” over Russia) have made that impossible.
Their goal is to have a wide-body aircraft that can compete with the Boeing-Airbus duopoly, they are already very late at this game so cooperation with Russia can win them several years, also take for example Boeing’s Dreamliner, it has important parts sourced in Japan, including the wings (though not the engines): naturally you see All Nippon Airways and Japan airlines placing very large orders of this aircraft. This is by design. Going forward Russian airlines will have the same exact incentives for prioritizing the CR929 over the competition…
China Russia is never going to be US Japan.
Also Boeing let’s Japan build things like wings and wingbox because of Japanese investment in the 787 program not because it is incapable of making those components stateside.
Russia will not and China is not seeking Co financing of its widebody program.
Russian civilian aerospace technology while presently superior to China’s is inferior to the point of Russian aerospace products featuring things like Russian jet engines being rendered non competitive against western offerings due to poor specific fuel consumption (due to a generational lag in Russian material science and thermal barrier coating technology)and abysmal after sales service.
Frankly other than hyper sonic cruise missiles,LOX Kerosene rocket engines and advanced SAM (where they are still world leaders) and arguably new generation nuclear submarines and land based heavy ICBMs which Russia will never sell there is precious little in the Russian aerospace and defence industry that can be deemed state of the art.
I see no reason for China over the next 10-15 years not to create it’s own wings and engines for civilian aircraft. They have the money,human capital and political will to get this done.
Once they do so why would they have a critical part of their civilian aerospace supply chain in Russia or any other country if they can build it all on PRC territory?
Sad but true.
For people with predisposition to mental illness, this should be avoided. If you perceive for yourself tendency for apophenia and paranoia (utu), this is a very evil substance indeed, more than alcohol.
For people with naturally stable mind, it is less dangerous than bottle of vodka, intoxication effect not much less, addiction potential less, doesn’t kill significant numbers of teenagers and young adults falling unconscious outside in the winter, or give a proportion of the next generation of children fetal alcohol syndrome.
As for need to intoxify yourself with something, this is in every population, and people without access to the relatively safer substances, will even drink bath lotion.
As proportion of their electricity generation, it is still very low – and even as they increase it, it will still be only a small proportion of the electricity generation.
It’s a lot slower and more expensive than converting coal power stations to gas power stations. They need to massively reduce their ratio of coal power stations, and for this gas is the key – Russian supply of gas will be the key for China to improve their citizens’ standard of living.
For close to 40 years now China imports variants of AL-31 because they couldn`t figure it out, lol.
Especially on muh material science front, lol.
Offtopic for Karlin.
Have you seen this graph?
https://i.imgur.com/k2mkeJU.jpg
I saw it inside this book below. (I did not read the book, so not sure it’s a good book – it’s probably quite stupid – but some of the graphs look interesting).
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/vodka-politics-9780199755592?
PD 14 is much inferior to PW Gtf and GE leap X which is why the export version of uac mc 21 flies with PW GTF..
Thanks for proving my point…
Actually, China’s importing of food from Yankeedom may have more to do with Beijing’s WTO accession in the late 1990s. At the time, the U.S. was in a far stronger position than it is now, so it attempted to fleece China as much as possible during the brutal, 15-year-long negotiations preceding China’s accession in 2001. A huge concession forced on China was that they could not protect their domestic food producers from foreign competition. (Very few countries have been obliged to concede on their food security.)
The U.S. had the most efficient agriculture, producing the cheapest food, so the Yanks could capture a large share of the Chinese market for soybeans (for example).
Fortunately, the trade war gave the Chinese excellent excuses to avoid importing U.S. food, excuses that will survive a WTO review. I understand that U.S. soybean exports to China have dropped by 90%.
Another graph from the same book, comparing with Japan’s “Lost Decade” and USA’s “Great Depression”:
https://i.imgur.com/GhjdkI9.jpg
China’s economy is six times larger than Russia’s.
Bad trade for us.
We lost one third of our manufacturing jobs in the 2000s to Chinese competition. We produce less steel now than we did in 1944.
American farmers need to take a haircut and let us rebuild our manufacturing.
You’re right. There’s a nuclear peace, but that just means that the big countries don’t invade each other. Nukes aren’t much protection against globalists who live among us and migrant invasion.
Maybe, it was better when Europeans fought wars against each other, but would have prevented any migrant invasion.Maybe, this is the way that nukes are our doom.
I read it and have been meaning to review it for a couple of years now. It’s a very good book.
Russia gets a rapidly growing market of 1.4 billion people. Russia’s other major alternative is a barely growing Europe.
Russia also gets a lot of military security.
…which is implacably hostile to it.
Lol, anyone who knows anything about Chinese and Asian culture knows that junior/senior style thinking is deeply embedded in Chinese thinking to the point where the language forces you to refer to almost everyone you speak to in junior/senior terms based on status.
Hierarchy is embedded in the language and egalitarian notions are utterly foreign to Asian ways of thought.
Karlin wasn’t joking when he said Chinese thought is barely studied in Russia.
And human nature suggests that a rising China with a strong will to power will totally treat others as equals and with respect – lol.
Human naivete never ceases to amaze.
If Russians and Chinese want to cooperate, that’s fine, but doing so on the basis of silly naivete probably isn’t the right way to go about.
Still, that’s human nature so that’s the way it will be gone about 🙂
Ah the human comedy.
The late, great Enoch Powell thought of Russia as the UK’s natural ally, primarily against the Franco-German run EU axis, but also against the move towards American hegemony.
Because Americans think in terms of genocide and conquest and overbearing dominance. They think that everybody else must have fundamentally the same motivations. The Chinese do not; they built the Great Wall instead.
Why would China want to waste resources on manufacturing its own gear when importing from Russia will be far cheaper?
Equality and fair dealing are also important parts of Chinese culture. That is why we see China pursuing win-win deals all over the world.
And that gives them power over us?
It’s time for you to take a stand and explain how your views are different from Gabuev’s, who basically sees Russia as the needy, desperate partner in this relationship.
That’s a fair point.
But it does make them a more powerful country than Russia–or at least potentially more powerful.
China in fact admires your country and is learning from you–see this article for example: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1111711.shtml
Look, you made a reply to my comment, where I was talking about current relationship dynamic between Russia and China. This isn’t an argument about which country has the bigger GDP, it’s about whether or not Russia is becoming Chinese satellite, a “playground” for “Pax Sinica” as Gabuev put it.
My answer to that would be unequivocal ‘no’. Gabuev suggests that Russia IS in fact becoming Chinese satellite. And Karlin is “not taking a stand”. lol
Equality never has been and is not now an important side of Chinese culture. Hierarchy is essential to their way of thinking.
Fair dealing is a side of traditional Chinese culture but seems recently to have been swallowed up by its will to power as its actions across every arena show.
At its best, the kind of fair dealing China would show towards Russia is that of a superior to a subordinate.
Of course, I am just describing the kind of relation Chinese culture would like to establish – in reality, even in the heyday of the imperial tribute system China was just as much bribing nations to keep the peace and participate in maintaining a facade of Chinese suzerainty – in many ways pure theater – as it was China “exacting” tribute.
Russia can certainly more than hold its own in such an arrangement and since I don’t share Karlin’s worship of numbers the power relation between the two is not nearly so lopsided as he suggests.
What I am impressed by is the way China consistently underperforms its numbers and its full potential is always in the future. Its been 50 years since China opened up, and history suggests it takes a country about 30 or 40 years at most to reach its full potential in an industrial capitalist system.
In reality, this is China’s full potential, and any gain a will come only at the expense of others decline.
I am not saying China and Russia should not ally – they should. And Russia can even with a wink and a nod participate in China’s theater of hierarchy if that becomes necessary or desirable.
But it should be done on the basis of correct understanding and not naivete.
But of course it won’t be 🙂
Glad you’re alive.
I agree that Russia will not become a Chinese satellite.
Simply because Russia is determined to remain an independent country.
And for the record I like you Felix.
Try as I might, I seem unable to die.
Honorifics is more about overall culture of manners and civility (something alien to jews and boorish Americans, including supposed diplomats) than a compulsive need to establish dominance whenever you are dealing with someone.
What the talk about junior/senior partners is really about, on the other hand, is an expectation that someone is certainly going to become a vassal, that master-slave relationships are the only way for people and countries to work together and it’s all a zero sum game. Which is how you see things, as evidenced in your other comment how “this is China’s full potential, and any gain a will come only at the expense of others decline.”
Thank God their language itself is hardened against anglo-jewish subversion – something that I remember someone noted on this blog actually, I think it was about Chinese hieroglyphs. Nobody claimed they are egalitarian.
You don’t have to be egalitarian in order to have friends. But I guess the very concept of “friend” is alien to the anglo-jewish mind, which was precisely my point when I said that people who are not anglos don’t have to be limited by anglo thinking.
I’m not Russian so I am not sure how that is related to what I said.
What do you as a jew know about human nature in the first place, lol.
Anglos and Jews are always projecting. You know how the Japanese are described as conformist bucktoothed bugmen – guess which island nation actually fits that description 🙂
For all your cold transactional ruthlessness, you don’t seem to understand how having friends and treating people with respect can have very real practical benefits too.
There is nothing naive about it – a common threat, a lack of real causes for conflict and a huge potential for mutually beneficial dealing is a great recipe for friendship.
And I suspect the Chinese know this – managing the relationship with Russia like a friendship rather than aggressively trying to impose a power dynamic will benefit them much more. All of you cold hard non-naive geniuses over there have already tried the other approach, I’m sure it will work out great for you.
Who eats soy?
Mainly pigs and chickens.
The passionate screed of a loser country
AaronB,
“even in the heyday of the imperial tribute system China was just as much bribing nations to keep the peace and participate in maintaining a facade of Chinese suzerainty ”
What is so bad about that? You’d prefer China beat other nations to submission instead of bribing them?
Well, its not just honorific and polite terms like sir and thank you – it’s terms like “big brother” and ” little brother” that clearly indicate status. Its even entirely different words for “you” based on the status of the person you are addressing. And the language is not mere language but carries with it a complex set of privileges, expectations, rights, and responsibilities.
Correct, its not about compulsive need to establish dominance. Compulsive need to establish dominance occurs in the absence of a clearly delineated hierarchy, and is indeed a feature of late-stage Democratic Anglo societies (constant one-upmanship permeating all aspects of social interaction)
Its about the recognition of a pre-existing hierarchy based on concrete factors that no one in that society challenges. It presupposes a clear hierarchy and does not seek to establish one through personal force of will or strength of personality, as is the Anglo way.
At its best, it creates a very polite society that functions smoothly on the basis of genuine reciprocal moral obligations, mutual obligation, and fellow feeling.
However, it is still a deeply hierarchical system without even the ghost of equality in it 🙂
And when it isn’t functioning at its best, it tends to degenerate into a high-handed arrogant tyranny.
Sort of agree here. I was thinking the other day how the Japanese see themselves as a “wet” culture – a deeply emotional and expressive culture, one where emotional considerations often override rational ones – and the West as a “dry” culture – unemotional, rigidly rational, and perhaps….robotic.
Yet the West sees it as the exact opposite 🙂
Having engaged extensively with Japanese culture it is obvious to me the West is projecting here.
You are confusing my objective analysis of international relations with my personal preferences.
In fact I love the system you are describing based on mutual respect and amity and would shed my blood if I thought there was any chance if bringing it about – but we can’t simply wish it into being, and being realistic is a precondition for realizing such a system even partially.
I am a great fantasist myself and favor indulging in fantasy as healthy and necessary for creativity – but fantasy utterly detached from realism prevents the realization of the best fruits of fantasy and imagination. The two must be fused.
But you are apparently a great softy, and I admire you for that 🙂
I should also note that I have been fairly intensely involved in Asia and with Asians for about a decade and a half initially in a business capacity but inevitably also in a personal capacity – I have spent years at a stretch living mostly in Asia.
I love Asians, but I don’t romanticize them, and naivete is not the best approach.
No, I like, admire, and am amused by this theatrical Chinese system – it’s very human, very forgiving to human fallibilities, perhaps expressing the admirable Confucian virtue of human-heartedness rather than strict morality, and it takes the proper joking approach to appearances and reality – as a game.
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Get a job
Not master/slave – that is only the harshest expression if the hierarchical ideal. More like big brother/ little brother or Lord/loyal retainer. These relationships have a considerable moral basis but are deeply hierarchical.
And I do not gloat that China has likely reached its full potential – it is partly a simple observation of fact based on the development trajectory of every country that has opened itself up to capitalism and modernized so far, and if you know anything of my frequently expressed value system you would realize I respect China for not having completely succumbed to the soulless values needed to become a true superpower and has retained somewhere in the back of its souls a smidgen of its traditional values.
Enlightening you troglodytes is my job 🙁
Thor, I’m not opposed to wealth getters and power desiring people like you. I think you are an expression of one side of human nature and need to be accommodated and your lifestyle recognized as legitimate.
Part of our current instability is because we are trying to establish a regime of moral purity which suppresses human nature and doesn’t recognize the legitimate existence of people like you. We need to share our world.
We need a system of balance and fusion of opposites. You do your thing and I do mine. But if I try and prevent you from being you, you will understandably try and crush me, and vice versa.
The current oligarchic excess is probably a backlash against moralistic repression -but it is creating a backlash among the rest of the population upon whom the oligarchs depend, threatening your power.
Instead of this swinging between extremes – the stupid history of the West which always destroys us – we should make a compact.
China is acquiring significant economic assets in Eastern Europe. Twoin prticular, monstrously large farms in Ukraine and the Greek port of Piraeus. Plan A was to build two newports in Crimea but Russia squashed that. Given that Russia put both these schemes into uncertainty at best, China cannot be wholly pleased with Russian foreign policy.
The only thing you can ultimately do with foreign earnings is to spend them on imports or overseas investment (you can save them for a while). Generating internal capital flows is another game altogether. Spending the foreign earnings on components of infrastructure can be a very good idea. However, it can also trigger inflation which is still a dragon in Russia. Thatcher’s governments did not spend the oil revenue on infrastructure for fear of inflation. It went on tax cuts for imported consumption (inflation reducing but industry eliminating too) and overseas investment. Overseas investment worked. The FTSE 100 famously earns the largest part of its income overseas.
I’ve met the author. Her study of Russia seems to have been very academic. It is all top down politics from the past. Her grasp on the details of business practicalities in modern Russia is not that great. Even so, thorough at the political and social level. Business and mafia, not so much.
Wrong book. I’m referring to a new one on Vodka Politics. Whoops.
China still has a lot to do to free its markets both internally and in terms of trade. Both will boost productivity, necessary in the race to get rich before getting old.
More casual sex is a bad thing?
Not sure about the “car accidents” thing. May be a small decrease as stoners tend to be more cautious than drunks.
After a certain amount of time passes under a given set of conditions, a given individuals personality with all its positives and negatives reveals what it is capable of under those conditions.
Sure, in the abstract there are isolated things the person could theoretically do to improve, but within the context of that unique personality with its unique profile of positives and negatives those isolates actions cannot occur without a fundamental change within the whole system.
A personality profile is a unique system of attributes that interact as a total system.
So unless China utterly transforms its entire character profile then it has likely revealed its full potential under current conditions.
That is why countries flatten out after 20 or 30 years under capitalism and reach their full potential.
Utu is against pleasure. He is a very grim person. We should make space for that attitude in our culture.
Cannabis makes people less socially, more likely to be entertained in their apartment, less able to impress new people, and less libido longterm – so to extent it substitutes for alcohol (which I believe it does), less causal sex for better or worse.
Sober or not, his writing already expresses typical symptoms of cannabis intoxication – apophenia and paranoia.
While your writing expresses more symptoms of alcohol intoxication.
Not even Chinese stash their wealth in China. The Chinese economic and even political elite stash their cash overseas. Just take a drive around San Gabriel Valley in LA will let you witness the sheer amounts of Chinese money in America, but have no interest or plans in assimilating to America.
The amount of Chinese elites in America is probably 10 times that of Russian elites, mostly concentrated in the San Gabriel Valley of LA followed by NYC, and then Boston after that. San Francisco has less Mainland Chinese elites than the 3 cities that I listed even though the Chinese-American population is far higher, due to the Taiwanese.
I wonder if East African elites are stashing their cash in China (probably not), but if Gabuev allows Russia to be used as a “testing ground for Pax Sinica”, there’s nothing I can do to stop Russia from letting China treat it as Africa/Pakistan 2.0.
I personally think that China should focus on turning most of Southeast Asia into vassal states, as is the norm in history. The only country in SEA which this will be difficult is Vietnam, the rest shouldn’t be too hard as long as vassalage is exchanged technological and infrastructural improvements, and making sure the non-ethnic Chinese natives get their slice of the pie.
Last time the Sovoks tried to turn China into a junior partner, we all saw how that went down. China was very enthusiastic for the first 10 years or so and then it all fell apart. The opposite way will go down just as bad.
Russia in my opinion should have the foreign policy of Cold War era China, as the third pole aligned with neither China nor the US, and domestically, ethnic Russian nationalism and a return to some Tsarist symbolisms and style of ruling.
China on the other hand, should turn Southeast Asia into a “Warsaw Pact”. If China really hit its peak in terms of development, that’s the best it can do.
In the Great Ages of the West, nearly all brilliant writers used alcohol and tobacco lavishly and were often addicted to some other drug as well.
And in Japan and China they drank vast quantities of their psychedelic tea.
I often wonder if the death of creativity and genius in modern times is attributable to the war on alcohol and tobacco and drugs in general.
Sometimes I get so frustrated at the utter mediocrity of commenters on this site with their complete lack of flashes of inspiration but then I remember these poor timid souls maybe never had a chance and are just products of our culture which produces people like…. you 🙂
China’s biggest feature is that its a atheist technocratic bugmen culture. China has to fix bugmendom in order to change its character profile. Whether that feature is a curse or blessing is open to interpretation and argument.
Russia is a great power that had recently been going through a difficult stretch. Myopic Americans project Russia’s temporary weak state to eternity. China has a longer view. They know very well from their own long history that what goes up must come down and vice versa. America is yet to learn this lesson.
Tell that to Romans\Byzantines, they should be very joyful about the inevitable rise from the dead 🙂
I really don’t think it’s under anyone’s control though. China will eventually stop being atheist and technocratic no doubt, but its not something that we can push and will likely lead to a culture not based on expansion, when it does happen.
Definitely a blessing. Atheism is what keep China and its peripheral cultures from having a single religious war in their entire history. Worshipping ‘Saddam Hussein in the sky’ do people no good. It only makes a society uptight and its people easy to get offended.
Not to mention ‘Self-Righteousness’.
I would say that atheism and technocracy will change, but what won’t likely change that there’s a very strong bugmen mentality in Chinese culture, which is exactly how China managed to pull off being a middle income country while being 1.4 billion strong.
Define bugman?
Huge herd mentality. The average Chinese is a soulless consumerist, almost robotic, following trends and have not many opinions of their own.
Equality and partnership has always been important in Chinese culture. See the Three Kingdoms.
The win-win deals China has been signing everywhere are not an example of fair dealing? The Greeks, accustomed to rough treatment from the West, and presently in a weak position, are astonished that the Chinese are considering how the work in Piraeus would benefit the Mediterranean country over the long run.
Wonder why you bothered with such a long reply. It’s obvious from his wild ramblings (lots of Chinese military bases in Russia) that is not intelligent and no insights are yielded from debating him. He seems motivated by some resentment towards Chinese power in itself.
That is very Western — always thinking that if someone is winning, then someone else must be losing. This is why China had to introduce the phrase “win-win”.
Translation: both are necessary if the AngloZionist Empire is to plunder China as thoroughly as it wants.
Not necessary. Robots will soon be boosting productivity immensely.
Very Western and very correct. If someone is winning someone else is losing.
Win-win deals between two parties imply a loss for an uninvolved third party.
I am not sure I buy into that. That seems very much to characterize the West these days as well.
I think the Chinese have a different way of life, one that creates less restlessness and dissatisfaction, and thus is less driven to transformational style activity that an unhappy person like Steve Jobs is driven towards.
I don’t think this needs correction – and I don’t think China to get any more wealthy or powerful. It needs to focus perhaps in better distribution of wealth and a satisfying way of life.
But those are just my values.
Equality and partnership between equals and as a temporary measure, hierarchy between unequalls. This isn’t necessarily bad and it can have a moral foundation – but China is not egalitarian.
China’s bullying behavior in Asia and unfair trade relations with the US and the West do not suggest fair dealing.
China buying assets in other countries is a long term bid to gain power – see port purchases in Sri Lanka and other places, etc.
Is the “Average Income” measured in U.S. dollars or in PPP (Purchasing Power Parity)? The difference matters: PPP determines how well the people live.
“China’s bullying behavior in Asia and unfair trade relations with the US and the West do not suggest fair dealing.”
Examples of bullying behavior in Asia?
I don’t like to get into excessively detail oriented discussions the way other commenters do where every claim needs demonstration. I’m a big picture kind of guy.
Are you saying China hasn’t been throwing its weight around in SEA?
Translation: both are necessary if the AngloZionist Empire is to plunder China as thoroughly as it wants.
Market liberalisation transformed Maoist China, Congress India or Kenyatta Kenya into growing states with a prospect of prosperity in front of them. For opposite examples try North Korea, Venuzuela or Argentina. Privatization will also reduce corruption.
Exporting more than you are importing is giving away your added value. Exports should be the price you pay for imports. Any other policy is impoverishing your people and strangling your investments. (for lack of robot parts).
May be you know something I don’t know. That is possible. I don’t keep up with the news everyday. As far as I know I haven’t seen China throwing its weight around in SEA. China’s footprint there is certainly growing. But it is mostly in investment and trade and some military cooperation with various governments. This is inevitable as the country looks for new market. I haven’t seen anything bullying.
How long is “temporary” to you? For thousands of years, China did not conquer Siberia, but chose to build the Great Wall instead.
Yes, trade relations with the U.S. are definitely unfair. China sends vast quantities of manufactured goods to the Americans, and the U.S. “pays” with printed dollars. What could be more unfair than that?
In contrast, China’s deals with Africa, for example, are win-win. That is very fair.
DB cooper and Vidi, I am glad to hear that China is a benevolent and fair rising power.
Its foreign relations have traditionally been defined by hierarchy and the tribute system, and its internal society has also been defined by hierarchy.
If it has now abandoned this tradition and seeks equal and happy relations than that is to be celebrated.
Kudos to you guys.
If you want to know what a bullying country looks like I can give you one. It is India. A country that escape the scrutiny of the Western media. Or may be the Western media just don’t care for various reasons. India’s bullying behavior towards its neighbors is nothing short of disgusting. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that India learnt its foreign policy statecraft from the Raj, the Anglo empire in South Asia.
https://www.dailyo.in/politics/the-missing-hindus-in-south-asia-and-a-conspiracy-of-silence/story/1/1149.html
Media coverage of Hinduism is by far the most negative lol
Indian neighbors are totally justified in expelling squatters from India. Do you know why Bhutan expelled a hundred thousand Hindus from Bhutan? Because it doesn’t want to be the next Sikkim, an independent country invaded and annexed by India. Talking about Bhutan India treatment of Bhutan is disgusting. It wants total control of Bhutan. The country is infested with tens of thousands of Indian military personnel who operate out of the jurisdiction of the Bhutanese government. It forbids Bhutan to have any meaningful diplomatic relation with any major countries including the five permenant members of the United Nation, and that includes China, its neighbor on its north. It’s treatment of Nepal is also disgusting. Enacting an embargo just months after the landlocked country suffered a devastating earthquake to maximize the pain just because the country amend its own constitution not to India’s liking?
India is a little thug. Now this is a bullying country.
AquariusAnon,
“Huge herd mentality. The average Chinese is a soulless consumerist, almost robotic, following trends and have not many opinions of their own.”
LOL… Well, Chinese indeed care more about the current life we’re living than endless debates about soul and after-life.
Large herd mentality? Good, why shouldn’t I try to live as others? Why should I be content in poverty while some other people can enjoy all the wealth? I’m not a dumb Hindu.
As for not having opinions of their own, I can’t find better example of religious people treating the opinions of some long dead men as holy.
And it is China’s fault. They must have used some Jedi mind tricks to force American corporations to move manufacturing offshore.
Is the U.S. about to break another treaty? I am certainly hearing the kind of mutterings that tend to precede every such treaty abrogation by Americans.
Sorry, I don’t accept your definition that “not benefitting” means “losing”. If a farmer in Alabama sells a sack of potatoes to someone in Seattle, I neither win nor lose. Nor do I care.
Your attitude, however, is indeed very Western and very greedy.
China was already averaging 6.4% annual growth before Deng Xiaoping’s market liberalizations. In other words, about as much growth as now — and far more than the U.S.’s ultra market liberal economy. Why would China want to slow down to the U.S.’s rate of growth?
Ha ha ha. Like the trillions of dollars that were given to the banks in the U.S.? That was not corruption? Sorry, I don’t think China needs that kind of “improvement”.
‘Nepal’ is rightfully a Hindu Monarchy.
The communists in power are there at the behest of China/UK.
I get that you’re a christcuck and you want the little Hindus to be the slaves of Muslim Nawabs & British Sahibs again,
but just be honest about it.
Your country fully adopted Buddhism and was civilized by it.
Those Dumb Hindus survived Turkic Invaders after they converted to Islam.
If Genghis Khan was a Muslim you’d be speaking Arabic right now
“‘Nepal’ is rightfully a Hindu Monarchy.”
That’s all I need to know of the Indian mentality. Nepal is an independent country. Get it? The Nepalese have the right to choose whatever government they want and what constitution they want. It is none of India’s business. Do you understand why India is so hated in its own neighborhood? Nepalese are Hindu all right. They should natually have affinity with India but India alienate them and for good reasons. For the Nepalese and India’s other neighbors for that matter India is a thug.
Buddhism originated from Nepal, not what is today India.
Anon[276],
“Your country fully adopted Buddhism and was civilized by it.”
Buddhism civilized Chinese? What a joke… Well, every Chinese can and do quote Confucius in their daily life, not Budda.
Confucius was born in year 551BC. And that was 1200 years before Buddhism has any significant influence in China, in Tang dynasty.
Chinese never “fully adopted” any religion, either. It’s considered an escape route from real life, it’s supposed to be “spiritual”. This is why Chinese despise monks who hungry for powers of the secular world.
China wisely took advantage of the opportunities so foolishly provided by American politicians and corporations.
If you fail to sell something then you have relatively worse status than someone who succeeds in selling something.
And here’s another Western saying for you: never leave money on the table.
about the PD-14. Wild exaggerations, it may be like 3% less fuel efficient than a direct competitor like PW GTF or GE LEAP-X but simpler production and maintenance means you recoup this difference (assuming they don’t screw up customer support). Not as hapless as our Hindu friend makes it out to be, most probably competitive as well since unit costs are much lower too.
As I said, it’s very Western and very greedy. It is also very short-sighted.
There’s no need to totally rape the other side of your contract or treaty. They have needs too, and they have to be happy with the deal. If they are not, you don’t get repeat business, and your reputation suffers. That is China’s attitude: your prospects improve in the long run if you consider the long run.
You’re projecting views upon me that I do not have.
My country has suffered in this century as a result of shortsighted decisions we ourselves made.
I in no way begrudge China for taking the opportunity to better herself because of these decisions.
I only wish that we restore our own strength.
With respect to relations with China, it will be difficult for us both. But it is very important for the world that we get it right. America will have to surrender some ground to your country, which will be difficult for us but is better than the alternative. And as you suggest, if we make the right arrangements perhaps we can both prosper.
Due to the extraterritorial US sanctions regime, Indonesia will be forced to cancel its purchase of Su-35 warplanes, and buy F-16s instead:
https://www.janes.com/article/84427/indo-defence-2018-indonesia-s-su-35-procurement-faces-caatsa-hurdle
I suspect those monks who went to China are good bull$hit artists, just like Indians today. Had the East Asians knew that India was a $hithole Buddhism would never have spread to East Asia.
Don’t know much about other transactions you mentioned. But the description of port of Piraeus is inaccurate. You made it sound like China bought the port. It didn’t. Greece leased docks 2 and 3 from PPA to the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company for a 35-year-period.
Prior to the lease, the port had been losing money for years. The Chinese expanded and modernized the port, brought in the expertise and new businesses, transformed it into one of the busiest ports in the world. The new port created a lot of jobs for Greece, paid huge amount of tax because of the booming business, and revitalized the businesses around the port. So what did Greece get to lose? It isn’t like Chinese can do whatever they want with the port. It is a business, just like any other businesses, which must follow Greek’s laws and regulations.
If the US or EU was so concerned about China’s investment, why didn’t they invest in Piraeus and help the failing port? I’m sure Greece would take the American money. When the Greeks went off to demonstrate against the austerity imposed on them, the other EU countries treated the Greeks as if they were some loser relatives whom they don’t to see in Thanksgiving, and squeezed them more.
When the Japanese bought many American commercial properties in the 80’s and the earlier 90’s, there was this “the sky is falling. the Japs bought America” outcry everywhere. It is funny to look back now. The Japanese spending spree actually benefited the US. The money was poured into the country. It wasn’t like the Japanese could take the buildings with them. The Japanese ended up losing money in most of the deals anyway. So it wasn’t so good for Japan. The same goes for China. Some Chinese businesses tried to expand outside of China. Some made money but a lot of Chinese overseas investments are losing money. Not everything in the garden is rosy.
I don’t understand the hysteria some people exhibited about China’s rise. There are a few hundred American military bases surrounding China. 6800 America’s nuclear warheads VS China’s 260. And you worry about China’s threat?
Any transhumanist would embrace data-driven decisionmaking.
It’s quite simple.
We want to remain #1.
Your rise means we will not remain #1.
Why is that hard to understand?
I was trying to show that China is not wholly concentrating on Russia. In fact Russia’s politics has got in the way of Chinese investments plans elsewhere. Those plans include investment relationships that are not consistent with Russian foreign policy. It is possible to imagine that they do not have coordinated foreign policies.
The Chinese wanted a better port in Eastern Europe to cut journey times. No reason for anyone else to invest in port opportunities there. I can sell you Romania’s port facilities if you like. Zero interest in them now.
Maybe Jeffrey Sachs can make you feel better?
https://youtu.be/kZU0IXO7AQw
Right to choose meaning China can fund communists to murder the royal family & everyone else watches.
Stop concern trolling christcuck
You missionary vultures were salivating at converting Nepalis
Your sense of national boundaries is gay & retarded.
Hinduism went from Armenia to Vietnam, the democratic government of India & communist of Nepal are anti Hindu.
If you’re not a Hindu you cease right to exist let alone speak up
June 4th Tianenmen Square Massacre 1989
June 4th Tianenmen Square Massacre 1989
Who told you China has been funding and murdering the royal family & everyone else watches. It is much more likely the handiwork of the RAW. China couldn’t care less what is going on in Nepal or the internal affairs of any other country for that matter. It is India that is extremely interest in its neighbor’s business. And that is the reason India is hated by its smaller neighbors.
The protests leading up to June 3rd has been peaceful all along except on the early hours of June 4th unarmed soldiers were killed by Molotov cocktailed thrown at them by some rioters. The government in turn reacted by calling in armed troops to dispel the violence. There is no massacre, only a very ugly and violent clash between armed troops and some rioters.
The narrative you alluded to did not happened in China but actually happened in another place and another time, it should be called May 18 Gwangju Massacre 1980. Look it up. There armed troops has been killing peaceful democratic protesters for days.
Anon[336],
“China can fund communists to murder the royal family & everyone else watches.”
Both the murdered king of Nepal Birendra, and his father Mahendra, were China-friendly. Birendra visited China 9 times during his rule. His father visited in Mao’s time.
On the other hand, Birendra’s brother, who succeeded the crown after the massacre, has an Indian daughter in law. That means the next queen of Nepal would have been an Indian and the next crown prince half-Indian if the brother grab the throne.
Any surprise that the brother became the only successor of the throne after the massacre? And which country was behind the whole scheme?
Only a dumb and shameless Hindu will claim “China can fund communists to murder the royal family”.
However, it’s reasonable to suspect China later supported the Maoists to kick the brother off the throne and make Nepal a republic.
Oh, by the way, the woman that the late crown prince so wanted to marry but so opposed to by his parents, has gone to India and married into an Indian politic family, not long after the massacre. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if this woman was originally another attempt to get a future Indian queen in the late king’s family.
According to this article, it’s Xi and not Trump who is responsible for the souring of relations between the two countries. It’s interesting because Bloomberg is an anti-Trump source, and so it shows that large parts of the American elites will support the confrontation long after Trump will be gone.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-13/xi-jinping-not-trump-is-the-true-cold-warrior
Pence says “all-out cold war” will result if China doesn’t give in to all US demands. I don’t think this will end well.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-14/pence-all-out-cold-war-coming-if-china-doesnt-change-course