By Pepe Escobar
We were
waiting for the end of the world
Waiting for the end of the world, waiting
for the end of the world
Dear Lord, I sincerely hope You’re coming
‘Cause You really started something
Elvis Costello
, Waiting for the End of the
World, 1977
April 16, 2023:
Information Clearing House
--
We cannot even begin to
fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from
the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the
world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto
signaling the
beginning of the end of Pax Americana.
This has been the
ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American
hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed,
sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of
two peer competitors, intertwining a massive
manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of
natural resources – with value-added Russian
state of the art
weaponry and diplomatic nous.
From the point of view of
these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased
version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule,
this was never supposed to happen. In fact,
blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming.
Historically, this does not even qualify as a
remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more
like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming
at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova).
Xi and Putin, with one
Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism,
Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not
least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global
South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.
Adding insult to injury,
we have China, the world’s largest economy by
far when measured by purchasing power parity
(PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we
have Russia, an economy that by PPP is
equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with
the added advantages of being the world’s
largest energy exporter and not forced to
de-industrialize.
Together, in synch, they
are focused on creating the necessary conditions
to bypass the US dollar.
Cue to one of President
Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of
using the Chinese yuan for settlements between
Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America.”
A key consequence of this
geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully
designed throughout the past few years, is
already in play: the emergence of a possible
triad in terms of global trade relations and, in
many aspects, a Global Trade War.
Eurasia is being led –
and largely organized – by the Russia-China
partnership. China will also play a key role
across the Global South, but India may also
become quite influential, agglutinating what
would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on
steroids. And then there is the former
“indispensable nation” ruling over the EU
vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the
Five Eyes.
What the Chinese
really want
The Hegemon, under its
self-concocted “rules-based international
order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide
and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy.
Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated
even further into crude insults by an array of
US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and
frankly moronic functionaries.
It’s no wonder that a
true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,
has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a
partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’
Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After
all, EU member states… openly declare that
Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That
is why we consider the EU to be an enemy
organization.”
And yet the new Russian
foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on
March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does
not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and
does not seek isolation.
The problem is there’s
virtually no adult to talk to on the other side,
rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to
once again stress that “symmetrical and
asymmetrical” measures may be used against those
involved in “hostile” actions against Moscow.
When it comes to
Exceptionalistan, that’s self-evident: the US is
designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia
instigator, and the collective West’s overall
policy is described as “a new type of Hybrid
War.”
Yet what really matters
for Moscow are the positives further on down the
road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties
with “friendly global centers” China and India;
increased help to Africa; more strategic
cooperation with Latin America and the
Caribbean, the lands of Islam – Turkey, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.
And that brings us to
something essential that was – predictably –
ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao
Forum for Asia, which took place nearly
simultaneously with the announcement of Russia’s
new foreign policy concept.
The Boao Forum, started
in early 2001, still in the pre-9/11 era, has
been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China
through and through, with the secretariat based
in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of
the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a
tourist paradise.
One of the key sessions
of this year’s forum was on development and
security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao’s president.
There were quite a few
references to Xi’s Global Development Initiative
as well as the Global Security Initiative –
which by the way was launched at Boao in 2022.
The problem is these two
initiatives are directly linked to the UN’s
concept of peace and security and the extremely
dodgy Agenda 2030 on “sustainable development” –
which is not exactly about development and much
less “sustainable”: it’s a Davos uber-corporate
concoction. The UN for its part is basically a
hostage of Washington’s whims. Beijing, for the
moment, plays along.
Premier Li Qiang was more
specific. Stressing the trademark concept of
“community of shared future for mankind” as the
basis for peace and development, he linked
peaceful coexistence with the “Spirit of
Bandung” – in direct continuity with the
emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the
“Asian Way” of mutual respect and building
consensus – in opposition to “the indiscriminate
use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching
jurisdiction”, and the refusal of “a new Cold
War”.
And that
led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese
drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal,
and also advance the negotiations on the free
trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all
that integrated with the new expansion of the
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to
trade protectionism.
So for the
Chinese what matters, intertwined with business,
is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual
trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of
civilizations” and ideological confrontation.
As much as
Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above –
and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse
– Washington is terrified by how compelling is
this Chinese narrative for the whole Global
South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer
in the market of ideas is unilateral domination;
Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against
us”. And in the latter case you will be
sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or
regime-changed.
Is it 1848 all
over again?
Meanwhile, in vassal
territories, a possibility arises of a revival
of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all
over Europe.
In 1848 these were
liberal revolutions; today we have essentially
popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions
– from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to
unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and
Right populists combined in France.
It may be too early to
consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s
certain in several latitudes is that average
European citizens feel increasingly inclined to
shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its
dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to
mention NATO warmongering.
As virtually all European
media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see
this discussion in the MSM. Yet there’s a
feeling in the air this may be heralding a
Chinese-style end of a dynasty.
In the Chinese calendar
this is how it always goes: their
historical-societal clock always runs with
periods of between 200 and 400 years per
dynasty.
There are indeed
intimations that Europe may be witnessing a
rebirth.
The period of upheaval
will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of
anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for
the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to
a head in a single day. The target is quite
clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.
That’s how the Xi-Putin
view could make inroads across the collective
West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which
incorporates rabid cancel culture) is
essentially void compared to traditional, deeply
rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism,
Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and
Russian concepts of civilization-state are much
more appealing than they appear.
Well, the (cultural)
revolution won’t be televised; but it may work
its charms via countless Telegram channels.
France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its
history, may well be jump to the vanguard –
again.
Yet nothing will change
if the global financial casino is not subverted.
Russia taught the world a lesson: it was
preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term
Total War. So much so that its calibrated
counterpunch turned the Financial War upside
down – completely destabilizing the casino.
China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the
way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid
and otherwise.
The inestimable Michael
Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse
of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role
of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western
civilization, succinctly explains our current
state of play:
“America has pulled a
color revolution at the top, in Germany,
Holland, England, and France, essentially, where
the foreign policy of Europe is not representing
their own economic interests (…) America simply
said, – We are committed to support a war of
(what they call) democracy (by which they mean
oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine)
against autocracy (…) Autocracy is any country
strong enough to prevent the emergence of a
creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the
creditor oligarchy.”
So “creditor oligarchy”,
in fact, can be explained as the toxic
intersection between globalist wet dreams of
total control and militarized Full Spectrum
Dominance.
The difference now is
that Russia and China are showing to the Global
South that what American strategists had in
store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the
dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no
longer applicable. Most of the Global South is
now in open geoeconomic revolt.
Globalist neoliberal
totalitarianism of course won’t disappear under
a sand storm. At least not yet. There’s still a
maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of
constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda;
goon squads; censorship; cancel culture;
ideological conformity; irrational curbs of
freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution
of – Slav – Untermenschen; segregation;
criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show
trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC;
ISIS-style terror.
But the most important
vector is that both China and Russia, each
exhibiting their own complex particularities –
and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable
Others – are heavily invested in building
workable economic models that are not connected,
in several degrees, to the Western financial
casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s
what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk –
even more berserk than they already are.
Pepe Escobar is a
Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst
and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties
(Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at
@rocknrollgeopolitics
NOTE: THIS IS THE ENGLISH
ORIGINAL OF A COLUMN SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED BY
LEADING RUSSIAN BUSINESS DAILY VEDOMOSTI:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/columns/2023/04/10/970144-konets-sveta-dlya-gegemona
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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