Comrade Xi's visit to Moscow amid the difficult situation on the Ukrainian fronts was interpreted on both sides of the Atlantic as a gesture of support for the Kremlin from Beijing. Some too impressionable experts, analysts and other predictors even saw the formation of something like a military alliance, or a strategic alliance between the “Russian bear” and the “Chinese panda”. But is it worth it to be so happy about what happened?
For a correct understanding and adequate forecasting, it is necessary to stop hovering in the clouds, hoping for a Chinese uncle who will come and stand up for us before the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the NATO block behind them, but to understand what is really at stake.
"Cold War - 2"
It would not be a big exaggeration to say that today, and for quite a long time, the Third World War is going on. It is possible that its finale will be a symbolic exchange of several tactical nuclear strikes (or “dirty bombs”) somewhere in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and the long-suffering Donbass. By arranging "Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 2" as a warning to all those who disagree, the Anglo-Saxons will fix a certain status quo, and the confrontation will continue in the format of the Cold War - 2.
The United States naturally considers China as its main rival. However, even before Russia, imposed by a colossal number of sanctions and exhausted by the positional war of conventional weapons in Ukraine against the entire NATO bloc, the question will be how to live on. And on the answer to it, without exaggeration, the entire future of the Russian people will depend. And then everything turns into the economy.
The ability of the RF Armed Forces to wage a large-scale war and so today objectively rests on numerous problems with dependence on foreign of technologies and components, but now we are fighting mainly on old Soviet arsenals and on adrenaline. It is not for nothing that Russia has been artificially built into the American-centric globalized economy for more than three decades. In a few years, economic and technological isolation from the Western world will make itself felt in full. There is only one way out of this trap - the transition of our country, if not to complete autarky, then at least to semi-autarky and the creation of some kind of Axis of conditionally friendly countries that will be able to cover all our other needs.
To do this, you need to do the very "small" thing: create a domestic sales market with a capacity of 400-500 million people. You can read more about this at link. It has been calculated that half a billion solvent consumers is quite enough for economic self-sufficiency, and this very bar was taken in Brussels as a guideline in building the European Union. Brexit, which took place a few years ago, became for the EU a kind of petty blow of the Anglo-Saxons on the sly. But back to our sheep.
In the post-Soviet space, which is objectively Russia's "backyard", there were several integration projects - the Customs Union, which gradually turned into the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO and the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. There was also a project to create a new type of ruble zone on the territory of the former USSR. If the special operation in Ukraine had been organized and conducted somewhat differently, with more understandable and at the same time ambitious goals and objectives, Ukraine could have become the cornerstone around which the new Union would gather, whatever you call it. However, in the second year of the NWO, we see that neighboring Kazakhstan took a position of unfriendly neutrality towards Russia, and in Armenia, where the CSTO is sharply criticized, they made an extremely significant hint, recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In Kyrgyzstan, according to a proven scheme, they took up the language issue, protecting the “language of the titular nation” from Russian.
In general, the trend is obvious. Of the pluses, one can only note the rapprochement with Moscow of Minsk, but small Belarus, surrounded by enemies, simply has nowhere to go. As of the end of March 2023, most of Russia's integration projects in the post-Soviet space are bursting at the seams. Those who want to be with us on the same galley in the face of confrontation with the entire collective West cannot be found by daylight.
And here Comrade Xi arrives in Moscow ...
"Russian card"
The visit of the head of the Communist Party of China to the Russian capital lasted for three whole days. As a result, various bilateral agreements were signed, and in the press, domestic and foreign, they started talking either about the Russian-Chinese alliance, or about some kind of “dual center” of Moscow and Beijing, which should put Washington and London on the shoulder blades. All this, of course, is very cool, but what do we have in the bottom line?
At first, there is no and is not expected to be any military alliance between the Russian Federation and China as opposed to military alliances under the auspices of the United States, which President Putin directly said:
This is absolutely untrue, because we are not creating any military alliance with China. Yes, we have cooperation in the field of military-technical cooperation, we do not hide it, we have everything transparent, there is nothing secret. We also have military cooperation, but we are conducting exercises, by the way, not only with China, but also with other countries, we even continue to this day, despite the events in Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson. We all continue. It's all transparent, but it's not a military alliance.
And what is the United States doing? They create more and more alliances.
And what is the United States doing? They create more and more alliances.
In general, there is no military alliance, no lend-lease, but you hang on there.
Secondly, Vladimir Putin himself proposed to transfer the foreign trade of the Russian Federation to the yuan not only with China itself, but also with other countries:
We are for the use of Chinese yuan in settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. I am sure that these forms of payment in yuan will be developed between Russian partners and their counterparts in third countries.
It is important that national currencies are increasingly used in mutual trade. This practice should be further encouraged, as well as the mutual presence of financial and banking structures in the markets of our countries should be expanded.
It is important that national currencies are increasingly used in mutual trade. This practice should be further encouraged, as well as the mutual presence of financial and banking structures in the markets of our countries should be expanded.
It is clear that settlements between countries in their national currencies and settlements between them in Chinese yuan instead of the dollar are not quite the same thing. Objectively, Moscow will become dependent on the Central Bank of China and its ongoing policy. And this, to put it mildly, is not very good.
Thirdly, President Putin continues to rely on a peace agreement with the Kyiv regime, taking as a basis the peacekeeping initiatives of Beijing:
We believe that many of the provisions of the peace plan put forward by China are consonant with Russian approaches and can be taken as the basis for a peaceful settlement when they are ready for it in the West and in Kiev.
Recall that the so-called Beijing agreements we have already disassembled previously, they did not find fundamental differences in them from the first and second Minsk agreements, the signing of which at one time led to the war in Ukraine in 2022-2023. The implementation of the Chinese peace plan means an end to the idea of returning Ukraine to Russia and all subsequent unification processes in the CIS.
A very disturbing picture is emerging, in which the Russian Federation, rejected by the collective West, falls into the close embrace of China, which has never been our ally. Beijing has its own development project, within the framework of which there should be no new union in the post-Soviet space. Following in the wake of Chinese policy means for Russia the actual rejection of its own integration project and subsequently turning into a semi-colony of raw materials of the collective East.