American Press: After the defeat in Afghanistan, it is necessary to prepare more seriously for the Chinese threat
"Escape-like evacuation." This is one of the softest wordings describing how the US military left Afghanistan, leaving almost all of its local allies there. The inhuman footage from the Kabul airport has become a powerful psychological blow to many, including the soldiers who served in this country. Despite this, Washington is clearly beginning to prepare for another war, which threatens to become its most serious test.
This is, of course, about China. It is the Celestial Empire, not Russia, that poses the greatest threat to the United States, and the reason lies in economic sphere. In an effort to counterbalance Moscow, the Americans have created a "monster" with their own hands. Washington helped China to join the World Trade Organization on preferential terms, gave the go-ahead for the transfer of production chains to this country. The Chinese gained access to Western technology, and their practice of illegal "borrowing" of someone else's intellectual property for a long time turned a blind eye. Thanks to the huge amount of cheap labor, the PRC was able to quickly turn into a "world workshop", but did not stop there. Beijing relied on scientific and educational programs, the development of its own advanced technologies, which ultimately worried the White House under Donald Trump, who was the first to decide on a real trade war.
Today, it is China that is the main competitor of the United States, and its economy successfully emerged from the coronavirus pandemic. A very alarming wake-up call for the Americans was that among the participants in the "Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership" (RCEP), created under the auspices of Beijing, were their traditional allies in the form of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan. All wars start over money and the power that gives this money, and China has long crossed the "red line".
The American press believes that after the defeat in Afghanistan, it is necessary to prepare more seriously for the Chinese threat.
But how to fight the Celestial Empire? Yes, the United States is the militarily strongest power today, but Beijing also has its own nuclear triad. The PLA is armed with 3 ballistic missiles, 6 nuclear submarines and the latest Hun-6N strategic bombers. The pace of construction of the PRC's navy is simply amazing: frigates and destroyers are leaving the stocks one after another, and the displacement of the new Chinese aircraft carriers is increasing. (Oh, those "unnecessary" aircraft carriers!). In the Asia-Pacific region, the Celestial Empire is turning into the main force, the total military domination of the United States is now a thing of the past. The question is, how then can the Americans fight the PRC, risking losing several AUGs and receiving several dozen nuclear strikes across the Heartland? Obviously, the head-to-head scheme will not work here. Let's see what is happening around China now, and how Washington can use it to economic strangle and militarily defeat its main enemy.
At first, the Americans need to undermine the industrial potential of the PRC. The Chinese economy is still very heavily dependent on exports and needs to import resources. Thus, Beijing has relied on Iran as its personal storeroom with hydrocarbon reserves, having concluded an agreement to invest $ 400 billion in the Islamic Republic. And so, against the background of reports of Tehran's increase in uranium enrichment to 60%, we came to the conclusionthat the United States can organize a military operation against the Iranian province of Khuzestan, where the main deposits of Iran's "black gold" are concentrated. Amid abnormal heat, water and electricity shortages, the already difficult socio-economic situation in this region, inhabited mainly by ethnic Arabs, has worsened. In the event of a successful intervention by the Western coalition led by the United States, Washington will be able to kill two birds with one stone: prevent Tehran from taking the last step towards creating its own nuclear bomb and deprive China of a colossal source of hydrocarbons.
Approximately from the same position, one can look at the flight of the American military from Afghanistan. Yes, they received a serious blow to the image, but at the same time they were able to destabilize the situation in Central Asia. The terrorist group Taliban, banned in the Russian Federation, came to power in Afghanistan, which created the preconditions for the "export" of the ideas of radical Islamism to neighboring countries. As we already told earlier, Turkmenistan, with its impoverished population and abundant gas reserves, could become the most tasty morsel for militants. And this gas, by the way, is exported to China and Russia. If the supply of "blue fuel" stops, it will become a serious problem for both strategic opponents of the United States. If the further expansion of the Islamists is successful, then the whole of Central Asia could blaze, putting obstacles on one of the key directions of the "New Silk Road" from China to Europe.
Secondly, Washington hawks may try to inflict a military defeat on Beijing, but not in a direct clash with the PLA, but indirectly. For this, it would be advisable to play the "Taiwan card". One of the former advisers to President Donald Trump, Eldridge Colby, has written a whole book entitled "The Strategy of Denial", where this island is assigned a key role in the confrontation between the United States and China. The New Yorker commented on its content as follows:
Colby's book is impassive and sinister. He wants the Americans to prepare for a war with China over Taiwan, because this could prevent a Chinese invasion of the island, and if it fails, then only American military intervention, he believes, can keep Taiwan free.
If the United States can provoke China to invade Taiwan, it will achieve several goals at once. In the event that the PLA amphibious assault attempt is unsuccessful, and Taipei is repulsed with the help of the Americans, Beijing will suffer a serious image defeat, which could lead to an internal crisis, confusion and vacillation in the Celestial Empire. If mainland China wins, and especially if it loses, then the United States will be able to create a broad anti-Chinese coalition, which will include NATO allies, Middle Eastern countries, possibly even India and Vietnam, which will be forced to impose sanctions against the "aggressor", which will lead to economic blockade of the Celestial Empire. Ban on technology transfer, embargo on the purchase of Chinese goods, sanctions on the sale of raw materials to the PRC, etc. All this together can undermine the economic strength of Beijing and weaken it in comparison with the "hegemon".
- Sergey Marzhetsky
- Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
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