The Duran Podcast
China & Russia, better than alliance
All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's trip to China and a hug. Xi Jinping actually hugged Putin, which shows how close this relationship has become. Alliance, I believe, I think either the economist or foreign policy came out with the post, or maybe political, I don't know. All the same, they came out with a post, and they said that this is an alliance, China and Russia is an alliance, even though they don't call it that. But they also issued a joint statement, which talks about the multipolar world, condemns the United States, and its hegemon tendencies, its hegemonic actions. It talks about building a deeper cooperation, military education, information space, finance, trading in local currencies, a quite an incredible trip by Putin to China, and of course, Putin brought most of his government with him, at least many of the important top officials, including the defense minister, and Shui Gu, was also by his side. Yeah, I think you summarized it, but let's just go into a few more of the details. This has been an extraordinary summit meeting, even by the standards of the Chinese-Russian relationship. Now, I think it was the financial times, but it's likely that it's been said in more than one place. They're talking about this as an alliance. The Chinese and the Russians, of course, say it's more than an alliance. It's better than an alliance. It's not a formal military alliance. They issued this extraordinary 8,000th word joint statement. I should say I've been reading it, but so far I've only found a Chinese text and I've only been able to read it in machine translation, but it's still pretty clear. It's a huge joint statement makes the point that they're not actually military political allies, but they're more than military political allies. It also says that they're not directing them, what they're doing. Their relationship is not specifically directed at other countries, which, of course, every country says. But whatever you call it, call it an alliance, call it a strategic partnership, call it a friendship. This is the greatest, the biggest convergence between two great powers that has taken place in modern history. I've never known a convergence quite like this to take place before. I suppose the closest analogy you can come up with is what happened between the United States and Britain during the Second World War and immediately after, but this goes beyond that. Of course, it's a much more equal relationship than the British American one was, where Britain became essentially a subordinate power to the United States and quickly ceased to be a great power. This is a forging together of two great powers. And of course, the atmospherics say it all. Now, I said that this is an 8,000 word statement. Now, Putin and C didn't just agree with this statement over the course of a relatively short two day visit. That is impossible. So they've been working on this for months. So in all that time, we've had Janet Yellen coming to Beijing. We remember that visit. We had Tony Blinken coming to Beijing. We've had Olaf Scholz coming to Beijing. We had this absolute debacle of a summit between Macron and the Xi Jinping in France. All of these countries have been basically saying to China, you must cut off economic links with Russia, you mustn't supply Russia with your dual use technologies. You mustn't do any of these things. We'll sanction you if you do. And throughout that time, even as the Chinese have been listening to all what all of these Western leaders have been saying, they've been working on this joint statement with Russia, this 8,000 word joint statement. And it is comprehensive. I mean, it covers every conceivable field of activity that you would expect from two countries. So there's a military aspect, which comes right at the beginning. There's a very strong joint statement of foreign policy. There is a clear attack on the current foreign policies of the United States, though they're carefully avoiding identifying it too obviously as the United States. But on the economic side, I mean, you can always talk about now the setting up of a unified economic space between China and Russia. So China and Russia coordinating their economies at every conceivable level, they're engaging in all kinds of joint projects. So, you know, there was a lot of talk a couple of years ago that the Chinese and the Russians were working together, for example, on a wide-body aircraft. Then there were suggestions that because the Russians are moving forward with bringing back the Aleutian 96, which is a Soviet era joint wide-body that they are modernizing, that the Russians had pulled out of that program. It turns out that they haven't, that, you know, they're fully involved. They're fully involved in a joint heavy left helicopter project. So enormous amount of work on aerospace, on big aircraft engines to rival those produced in Canada, Pratt and Whitney, and in the United States, General Electric. A huge amount of work on space programs, on consumer goods, on financing, a huge amount about that as well, that, you know, moving all their trade to their own currencies, no longer using the dollar or the euro in their mutual trade. Apparently, already 90% of settlements are in their own currencies. But obviously, there's going to be a development, a major development of that structure and, you know, development of Arctic, the Northern Sea Route, and of course, massive energy cooperation. I was reading today, you know, an article in the Daily Telegraph saying, you know, that the Russians will have one day to trade territory to Ukraine, give back territory to Ukraine, because they'll need to do that in order to reopen Western markets to their gas exports. This is so completely detached a reality when you read this, because, you know, the article says that, you know, by inheriting a trade with China on gas and energy is inherently inferior to trade with Europe. I'll just read this out. You read this joint statement and you understand immediately how completely surreal that kind of thinking is. And what this meeting was all about this visit by Putin to China was not to agree all of these things. They've already been agreed. They've already been negotiated over many months. But for the two sides, not just Putin and see who know each other very well now, but for everybody else, all of the people on the Russian side, all of the people on the Chinese, Chinese side, to get to know each other, to, you know, to establish personal connections. So not just meet virtually, but actually to have proper established physical contacts to meet together as a group. So as you correctly said, virtually the entire Russian government, all the top people that matter, the exceptions are misused in the prime minister and Medvedev, who remained in Moscow to keep things running there. But, you know, bellos of the new defense minister said again, the shoyu, the former defense minister comes now, obviously secretary of the security council, and Putin had a lot to say a couple of days ago, a day or so ago about what his responsibilities would be. Lavrov, obviously. Manturov, the economics, sorry, the overall man in charge of the economics now, former industry minister, Ali Khanov, the new industry minister, Rachetnik of the economics minister, Novak, the energy minister, Nabulina, the central bank chair, you know, you don't just bring your central bank chair, if you're just discussing trade issues, she's clearly there to discuss currencies and other things, Siluaneff, the finance minister, and then there's this army of business people as well. I mean, Deripaska, you know, Deripaska was there, Kostin was there, you know, from VTV, that the, you know, that the bank, VTV, Gerevan Gereff, head of Sparebank, he's also there, Sparebank, biggest bank by far in Russia, the one that most Russians keep their accounts in, the one that is, of course, providing most Russians with mere cards. Gereff often assumed in the West to be pro-Western, anyway, he's not, clearly, he's there, he's this meat, he's come on this visit, and you know, all of these people are forming working parties talking to each other, and basically, they're meeting their Chinese opposite numbers. This is first and foremost, what this is all about, so personal contacts and relationships are being established between the top people of the Russian government and the top people of the Chinese government, and then, of course, Putin goes to Harbin, Harbin is a town in the north of China, and a major city in the north of China, used to have, that still has, a Russian community, these were white Russians mainly, who left Russia after the end of the revolution, and the civil war, and they established themselves in this Chinese city, in Harbin, big Chinese Russian community there. It, by the way, survived and continued, even after the communists took over China itself, even though these were white Russians, but to the extent that this community exists, still, which it does, to a certain extent, the Russians reconnecting with it, but of course, it's an important industrial centre, close to the Russian border, the Russians are now developing the Far East, and Putin also goes to the university there, meets the students, has discussions with the students, so there's that kind of contact at a person-to-person level. So, as I said, what we're looking at, and I think this is the key thing, it's a unified economic space, it is, in effect, the unification of Eurasia, and, you know, there's been an awful lot of work to get us to this point, this hasn't happened, as I said, immediately, but it's the further big step in the economic unification of Eurasia, that machinder, the British geo-politician of the early 20th century, was so worried would one day happen, and which he said, if that does ever happen, it will mean that the Atlantic powers will lose their control of the world. So, it's not happening, it's not just happening to a very great extent, it's largely already happening. I mean, if anyone ever had any doubts about China and Russia, I think this trip should put all those doubts over, finished. China and Russia, they're in this together, and the way I saw it is not only are they in this together, but they're going to bring bricks and the multipolar world to fruition. They're going to usher in the multipolar world, whether the collective west, the United States, likes it or not. I think that was the message that they were putting out. It's a done deal. After getting into a multipolar world, and the US can either play ball, or they can resist, the choices is there, so that's how I read the statement. But before you comment on that, what was the thinking for China and for Russia, for China, mostly, in hosting Yellen Lincoln, in going to meet with Makuro and Ursula, if all of this had already been planned months in advance, were they just saying, let's give it one more try, let's feel these countries out, let's see what the US is thinking, let's see what the EU is thinking in France. Was that the reason to take all these meetings? Were they misdirecting a bit? I don't know. What was the reasoning? I don't think they were misdirecting. If we're talking about Yellen and Blinken, what basically happened was the Biden out of the blue telephones Xi Jinping and asked him to agree to receive these two people, Xi Jinping agreed, and they came, and the Yellen visit didn't go especially well, but the Blinken visit was a disaster. We need to say that the Chinese were not happy with all the threats and demands that he was coming with, and the threats to impose sanctions on Chinese banks, and they made that absolutely clear. I think that the reason why the Chinese agreed to meet Blinken and agreed to meet Yellen was because they wanted to maintain a dialogue with the United States. They don't want to close the doors, just as the Russians didn't want to close the doors. Remember, the closing of the doors was not made by the Russians. It was carried out by the Western powers in February and March 2022. Firstly, they imposed all this enormous wave of sanctions. Then there were still some contacts between Macron and Schultz and Putin over the course of March. The French and the Germans found Putin immovable, and at some point a decision was made that they wouldn't communicate with the Russians any further, and that was their decision. It wasn't a Russian decision, and the same applies. I think to the Chinese, they don't want to close the doors. They want to maintain an economic relationship with the United States. They understand that it's important. They also want to keep some kind of dialogue with the United States going because otherwise the situation of the South China Sea and Taiwan could escalate out of control, and it's important for the Chinese to keep explaining to the Americans how dangerous this game the Americans are playing in this region actually is. They want to maintain that kind of line of communication. But it's absolutely clear that any attempt, any diplomatic attempt now, by the Americans to change China's course with respect to Russia is a failure. It's going to be a failure because the Chinese having interacted with the Americans for some time now, but especially during this period of the Biden administration, and seeing what people in Congress and in the media landscape in the United States and increasingly in Europe also are saying about them. Well, the Chinese have come to their conclusion, the conclusion that a confrontation with the United States is now inevitable, and they must prepare for it. And that means strengthening their position with their major friend, which is of course Russia. So the Blinken, the Yellen trips and what followed because of course Yellen and Blinken went back to the United States and we've seen more aggressive action from the United States, at least action which the Chinese will interpret is aggressive. The decision for example to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. I mean, the Chinese will have seen all of that and they'll have concluded that as the Russians have long been saying, the Americans are not agreement capable. So, you know, they listen, they hear, they maintain the dialogue, they set out their own views to these leaders, but they've come to realize that what the Americans say is not always necessarily the same as what they do. The Americans are becoming increasingly hostile and as the Chinese would see it aggressive and what China needs to do is to shore up its defenses in advance of the crisis that is going to come. Now, the Europeans are slightly different because there is still a division in Europe. I mean, the Germans still keen to maintain some kind of economic connection with China. It's become one of their, I believe it's their biggest market and I think their economy is already in a bad shape now that they've cut themselves off from Russian energy, but you know, they want to maintain some kind of connection to China. Other European countries becoming increasingly aggressive, notably the British. You have Macron dithering, sometimes he wants to keep on good terms with the Chinese as he showed when he went to Beijing last year. Other times, especially when he's got Ursula von der Leyen hovering around him, making sure that, you know, he sticks to the proper line. He takes the hardest possible line with China. We discussed this the other day. You know, we'll let you export some EV cars to Europe, but in return, you've got to agree to let us have to let us confiscate Russian assets and to stop exports to Russia. By the way, the joint statement makes it absolutely clear that confiscation of assets is absolutely out of the question as far as the Chinese and the Russians are concerned, but China absolutely completely rejects that. It's actually in the statement. So anyway, the Europeans trying with the Chinese to have their cake and eat it as well, but they're also drifting into confrontation. And as we discussed in the program that we did the other day about Xi Jinping's trip to Europe, his real purpose, the really meaningful part of that journey, was not the visit to France, which went nowhere. And apparently, if anything, worsened the relations. It was the meetings with Vuchitch and Orban in Serbia and Hungary. As I said, the Chinese are shoring up their defenses and they're shoring up their potential allies when that confrontation where the West comes. Yeah, I wonder what the US is going to now do. Well, you're saying everything that happened in China, I mean, well, what can they do? Well, there's what they should do and what they will do. The first is, I mean, if they really want to take a step back and think about what's happened, they would understand that they've, to great extent, been responsible for bringing this whole situation about. I mean, the Russians and the Chinese were always going to establish good relations after the Soviet Union fell. In fact, they were moving towards establishing better relations in the last years of the Soviet Union already. So they're going to establish good relations, but it wasn't necessarily going to result in the creation of an economic block, like the one we're seeing, US policy trying to contain China and Russia simultaneously. Again, as the Russian Chinese joint statement is saying, has brought this all about all the work of Kissinger has been undone. So, I mean, it's brought us back to the situation, the worst nightmare that both Kissinger and Zhzezhinsky, by the way, both warned against. It's happened. But what is the United States going to do? They're not going to learn the lesson from that. They're not going to say to themselves, my god, we're creating this colossal block against us, far more powerful with immeasurably greater resources than the old Warsaw Pact ever had. They're not going to do that. They're not going to revise their views. They're going to continue more of the same. They're going to continue to harass the Chinese with more, you know, export bans, technology bans, selective sanctions, probably outright decoupling from China. They realize it's not an option because that would be too disruptive to the American economy, the US economy. But, you know, they'll continue to try to contain China in some kind of ways. They'll try to build up alliances with countries like the Philippines and others in the Pacific, very unreliable alliances, and they'll start getting locked up in an arms race with the Chinese in the Pacific. And, of course, they've already got an arms race with the Russians in Europe, which they're losing. But, you know, I don't really see any sign that they're going to really try to reverse policy. And my own guess is that at some point, once the Ukrainian crisis has been resolved, in other words, once the Russians have won in Ukraine, after an interval of further hysteria, we will start to see some voices in Washington saying, again, what they have been saying before, the true enemy is China. What we need to do is to peel Russia off from China, confronting Russia hasn't worked. So let's see whether we can find some way to win the Russians back. I think that's, you know, we're looking at five, 10 years forward now. And, of course, by that time, what they'll discover, if they do go to Moscow, is that the train has left the station, because it's not just that all these linkages have been created, these economic and technological and other linkages. But also, coming back to what I was saying earlier in the program, all of these person-to-person linkages are now being established as well. You know, business people like Deripaska and Graef once had what they thought were firm ties with Western business people are now going to establish similar ties with Chinese business people, which are going to be more durable, and which they're not going to want to risk with adventures with the West. So it's a complete, not just economic shift, but in terms of Russia, you could almost call it a cultural shift, an ongoing cultural shift as well. Yeah. Okay. So let's wrap up the video and talk about the fact that Putin brought with him a blue self-ent Sergei Shoyuku. Sergei Shoyuku actually was sitting next to Putin most of most of the time during meetings and negotiations. What does that tell you? Well, it, first of all, it confirms a point that we made the other day in our program, when we analyze what had happened, that Shoyuku has not been disgraced or dismissed or parked in some sign of your position. He is a key player now in the Russian power structure. If anything, he's been promoted. He's now closer to Putin as Putin's national security advisor. He is supervising the military industrial complex. Putin explained that to the army officers, and he had a meeting, which both Bellos and Shoyuku attended with the heads of the military industrial complex as well. So Shoyuku is in charge of that. He's also in charge of foreign arms exports, technological developments, all kinds of things like that. So he is, if anything, an even more powerful man than he was previously. He now wears a civilian suit, which in which he looks, I would add, a lot more comfortable than the military uniform he used to wear. And he's now close to Putin, where I think he always wanted to be. So that's one thing. Now, Putin had these two back-to-back meetings. I discuss them in detail in my channel. These two back-to-back meetings. One was with the top people in the military, the actual military officers, Gerasimov and the heads of the military districts, in which he made it absolutely clear, by the way, that the Russians in Ukraine are working according to a plan, and that the team, the military team, is not going to be changed. In other words, Gerasimov and all the other top military leaders are going to remain in place, and Putin said that he's now happy with the way everybody's doing their job, and he sees no reason to change that. But he also explained, at both of these meetings, a lot about Belarus as well. And he said that military expending is now very high. The footprint of the military industrial complex has increased massively over the last two and a half years. That means that a strong economic manager needs to be put in charge in order to ensure that the development of the military industrial complex is beneficial to the development of the civilian economy. And he's put in charge of the Ministry of Defense, the country's most senior and most capable economic planner. And I think that is how we should think about Belarus, to ensure that that is done. So that's his role. And making sure that the military industrial complex is not just cut off from the rest of the economy becomes a black hole in which resources and money are poured in at the expense of the wider economy, that it becomes instead, as he put it, a center of innovation and new developments, and that kind of thing. Which, by the way, is not new. I mean, it's not unique. If you know anything about the economic history of the United States, you will know that a lot of the military spending that used to happen in the United States in the old days, when the United States was still in industrial power, did actually strengthen and advance the civilian industrial economy as well. You see that in aerospace, the aerospace industry, for example, where the United States achieved its huge lead in civilian aircraft and civil aircraft after the Second World War. Because of the enormous development, developments in military aircraft technology, particularly the big bombers and the transport aircraft, that took place both during and immediately after the Second World War. There is a direct line, if you like, between the development of the B-29 Superfortress and the development of the 747, you know, the original jumbo jet, the first big widebody that appeared in the 1960s. And, you know, it's there in many, many other sectors as well, even the internet started initially as a military program. So that's what Putin wants to do. He wants to make sure that these two parts of the economy feed off and support each other, rather than the one acting as a drain on the other. And Belosif, who's, he went out of his way to say, has always enjoyed those, has always had an interest in this, and in, you know, the military side of things as well, that he's the right person in the defense ministry to pilot that. Now, coming back to this trip to China, Belosif and Shoyugu are going to be the people who will be increasingly driving technological and industrial development, technology, technological development, and things like AI, for example, in which Belosif is now to have a particularly keen interest. So you bring these two people along with you. Obviously, they're going to be involved in discussions with the Chinese military. But based on what Putin has just been saying, they're going to be key players in developing, you know, developing contacts with the Chinese over civilian developments and applications as well. And what I said about a military industrial complex, that you can use it if you use it properly to support your civilian industries. That's also been happening in China too. So, you know, the Tiv Delta. All right, makes sense. Let's see what happens going forward, interesting times. All right, the Doran.local.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitchew, Telegram, Rockfin, and TwitterX. And go to the Doran shop. Get 50% off. Most merchandise use the code, get ready, get ready for summer. Get ready, 50. Take care.