Russia – China

In the first half of the 20^th Century the U.K., France, the U.S. and their allies fought victoriously two World Wars, WWI against the Central powers and WWII against the Nazis, the Fascists and Imperial Japan. After that the allied forces fought the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Cold war and until recently the Afghanistan war.

The wars in Korea and in Vietnam were part of the Cold war between the forces of liberty, democracy and free market capitalism and the forces of oppression, autocracy and state party centred communism.

In 1972, towards the end of the Vietnam war, Nixon and Kissinger visited China and restarted diplomatic and economic relations after 25 years of PRC isolation. After this China moderated the communist economic system, opened up to international investment, commerce flourished and China soon became preferred economic and trading partner of the U.S. and the world.

In 1989 after the Malta summit with Bush and the Reikjavic summit with Reagan in 1986, Gorbachev declared the end of the Cold war. Russia surrendered the communist system and the Soviet empire and subscribed to the system of liberty, democracy and free market capitalism.

30 odd years after the victory in the Cold war, the U.S. and the allied forces are practically at virtual war with Russia with battles raging in the Russophone regions of Ukraine for one year now. Over the invasion in Ukraine the U.S. and the allied forces have launched economic war against Russia under maximum pressure sanctions. In reaction Russia turns eastward and resorts to economic dependency from China. Russia develops also political and military alliance with China. With Russia goes Iran which is in isolation for decades and in the course of developing nuclear weapons under theocracy and under maximum pressure sanctions.

The U.S. and the allied forces are in the verge of war with China over South China Sea territorial claims and over the autonomy of Taiwan. A similar situation with Iran is at play in North Korea albeit DPRK is more advanced in the development of nuclear weapons than Iran.     

History obviously tells us that for 30 odd years, therefore since the end of the Cold war, the fall of communism in Russia, the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, the opening up of China and the moderation of communism there, the U.S., Europe and the allies are doing something wrong.

Equally obviously however we do not need history to teach us that extremism in capitalism with systemic corruption; oligarchy and kleptocracy in Russia (and elsewhere); party state-controlled businesses in China (and elsewhere); systematic free market competition abuses; massive LBOs, M&As and other extraordinary market consolidations; elimination (negation) of interest rates and “quantitative easing” to market players and speculators by the Bank of Japan, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the European Central Bank; extortionate bail outs of banks and financial institutions; antitrust violations; demolition of regulation; adoption of crypto currency and financial crime; dereliction of law enforcement; elimination of taxation for the big corporations and the super rich; devastation of the middle class; social and economic polarization; systematic extension of favors, preferences and privileges (including impunity) to special interests; excessive inequality; 9/11 terrorist attacks in the WTC in NY by Al Qaida; televised beheadings of hostages and wave of terrorist attacks and other atrocities in Europe and especially in France (Charlie Hebdo, Nice, Bataclan, deheadings of teachers and priests in Churches) but also in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.K., Spain, in U.S. Boston and elsewhere by ISIS and others; concurrent wave of massive illegal migration to Europe via Greece with organised trafficking with NGOs and media, drug smuggling, boat scuttling, drowning of migrants especially women, children and infants by the thousands and then to the U.S. with equal industries of crime; near Grexit and Brexit in the European Union; systematic institutional and constitutional subversion of democracy, violation of physical integrity and freedom, transgression of human rights and liberties across the world, systematic disruption of operations in the container terminals of major ports in China and in the U.S., incite of labour and market shortages; increase of transport costs; incite of inflation, economic, social and political devastation of the poor and developing countries and peoples in South Asia, Africa and Latin America all on agents of so called Covid influenza allegedly fabricated in China labs; energy crisis and inflation explosion after maximum pressure sanctions imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine; systematic sabotage of infrastructure; labour union manipulation; cyber attacks; disruption of trade, travel, transport and tourism, psychological and cultural wars; racial tensions; gun violence; repression and depression of the people; growth of obesity, opioids and narcotics; gender neutralisation, moral decadence and systematic sowing of fear, tension, conflict, crisis and chaos; social, moral, economic, political and institutional corruption and decadence of Greece; increase of tensions with Turkey; arson of Notre Dame in Paris; conversion of Agia Sophia in Istanbul to Muslim mosque; that any and all of this and other like this is wrong we do not need history to teach us.

Duty, dignity and self-respect will do it.