Amid Ukraine War, Russia and China Seek to Create ‘New World Order’
Fifty years after Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong’s historic 1972 handshake, the geopolitical world order is once again reshaping. The world is now watching a growing alliance between Beijing and Moscow. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in early February on the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The meeting could have granted an opportunity for Xi to urge Putin to pursue diplomacy with Ukraine and de-escalate tensions between the two countries. Instead, the Chinese regime appeared to have looked the other way as Russia planned its advances on its neighbor.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/amid-ukraine-war-russia-and-china-seek-to-create-new-world-order-analyst_4322255.html
The Ukraine War: Agriculture Edition
We’ve been babystepping to a collapse of agricultural supply chains for over a decade, but the sharp shock of the Ukraine War has kicked the deglobalization process into high gear. This calendar year we will experience breakdowns in the supply systems that make industrialized agriculture possible, and not just in Africa. The Middle East and East Asia also face a catastrophic unwinding of the input streams that keep regional populations alive, while major agricultural producers like Australia and Brazil will face challenges far beyond what their systems are capable of tolerating. The result is the same in all of them: lower yields. And lower yields means famine.
https://us11.campaign-archive.com/?u=de2bc41f8324e6955ef65e0c9&id=024081d8bb
US Capital Pours Into China, Posing Risks
Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management seized control of “Venice,” a massive apartment complex near Shanghai, after the project defaulted on a secured loan that Oaktree provided late last year, according to reporting in January by the Financial Times. Evergrande had invested billions of dollars in the coastal project in Jiangsu Province, which features 66 million square feet of residential space. Oaktree also took over a huge plot of undeveloped Hong Kong land from the flailing real estate firm.
https://udumbara.net/us-capital-pours-into-china-posing-risks
China’s Ballooning Defense Budget – Beijing leads an arms race in Asia that could spark war over Taiwan
The numbers that the regime provides for its defense spending, approximately $229 billion this year, are not trusted by most serious defense analysts and many diplomats. They expect the real numbers to be much higher. The same goes for China’s self-reporting of how many nuclear weapons it has, considered by military experts to be grossly underreported.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-ballooning-defense-budget_4320049.html
I Read ‘The Communist Manifesto’ for the First Time. Here’s What I Learned about Karl Marx
These policies were incorporated in Soviet Russia and the People’s Republic of China following both countries’ successful communist revolutions. The Soviet Union became a superpower and then collapsed under the inefficiencies of communism; the Chinese Communist Party still exists today because its leaders largely abandoned Marxist policies in favor of market reforms.
https://fee.org/articles/i-read-the-communist-manifesto-for-the-first-time-here-s-what-i-learned-about-karl-marx/
Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination
Through interviews with FBI agents and executives of victim companies, this film aims to help the private sector recognize the urgent need to protect their intellectual property against sustained and ongoing industrial espionage by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Visit fbi.gov/chinathreat to learn more.
https://www.fbi.gov/video-repository/made-in-beijing-030722.mp4/view
China accuses US of ‘biological military activities’ in Ukraine
However, the claims generated renewed interest Tuesday when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. was concerned about Russian troops seizing “biological research facilities” in Ukraine.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-us-biolabs-ukraine-russia
How The Narcotic Of Defense Spending Undermines A Sensible Grand Strategy
Future historians may well view the last 30 years as a case study in the institutional survival of the American Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC), together with its supporting blob now saturating the media, think tanks, academia, and the intelligence community. Perhaps, these future historians will come also to view the Global War on Terror (GWOT) as the bridging operation that greased the transition to Cold War II by keeping defense budgets at Cold War levels after Cold War I ended. Also, 9-11 may have re-acclimated the American people to the climate of fear now needed to sustain Cold War II for the remainder of the 21st Century.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-narcotic-defense-spending-undermines-sensible-grand-strategy
China says it seeks to ‘resolve’ Taiwan question, amid comparisons to Ukraine
China is committed to “resolving the Taiwan question in the new era,” it said in its annual government report issued Saturday, using sharper wording than in previous such reports amid debate among foreign-policy experts over whether Beijing would attempt a takeover of the self-ruled island similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/05/china-taiwan-ukraine-report/
With America’s Eyes on Ukraine, Biden Made Biggest Concession to China Yet
In a little-noticed February 23 university speech, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division announced the department would be terminating its preeminent counter-espionage program, the China Initiative.
https://www.newsweek.com/americas-eyes-ukraine-biden-made-biggest-concession-china-yet-opinion-1684672
Whatever happens in Ukraine, China will emerge the victor
As the euro, South Korean won and other major currencies have been sliding during the intensifying conflict in Ukraine, the yuan is increasingly growing as a “safe haven” currency — a role hitherto dominated by King Dollar. In the mean time, China’s Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS) is moving to replace SWIFT for Russian trade financing.
https://unherd.com/thepost/whatever-happens-in-ukraine-china-will-emerge-the-victor/
CHINA’S STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF RUSSIA: MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU THINK
In assessing Sino-Russian alignment, it is important to examine their grand strategic goals, not their short-term postures. Simply put, do China and Russia share the same endgame vision and approach to the international system? With this question in mind, the prospects for long-term Sino-Russian cooperation are ultimately limited by four important factors. First, China and Russia have different visions of international order. Second, as argued in the previous section, China believes that Russia’s ambitions outpace their capabilities. Third, China fears a Russian betrayal of China (just as China betrayed the Soviet Union during the Cold War). Fourth, the two economies are not mutually complementary in the long run. Digging into these factors should disappoint enthusiasts of a Sino-Russian alliance.
https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/chinas-strategic-assessment-of-russia-more-complicated-than-you-think/
With US distracted by Ukraine, Xi is plotting his own invasion
However, although Xi hopes to see the US, China’s chief rival in the Indo-Pacific, bogged down in a proxy war in Ukraine, the street fighting in Kviv and other cities must give the Chinese dictator pause. If the citizens of Taiwan fight like the Ukrainians — and three-quarters say they would take up arms to defend their country — then the takeover of the island might cost tens, or even hundreds of thousands of lives and drag on for many weeks or months.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/05/with-us-distracted-by-ukraine-china-plots-its-own-invasion/
ANALYSIS: Is China TURNING On Russian Invasion?
Krystal and Saagar analyze the response from China to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the western world’s economic punishment of the Putin regime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpUf5HaCOPw