Global Gladio: NATO Terror Network Reaches into Asia

Global Gladio: NATO Terror Network Reaches into Asia

Ex: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com

 

NATO terror network implicated in Bangkok blasts, appears to have been running Uyghur terrorists through Asia, into Turkey and onward to fight NATO's proxy war in Syria. 

September 4, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - An unprecedented blast in Bangkok, Thailand last month left 20 dead and over 100 injured. The blast was the latest in a string of violence carried out by US-backed proxy Thaksin Shinawatra, who himself was ousted from power in 2006 and finally had his political party removed from power completely in 2014 after massive street demonstrations and a military coup toppled the regime headed by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

 

Image: NATO created and funded the Grey Wolves terrorist network during the Cold War as part of its stay behind networks. Instead of fighting non-existent Soviet invaders, they were used instead to kill NATO's political enemies by the thousands. Today, the Grey Wolves are represented by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the third largest in Turkey's parliament. They are reported to operate globally, including terrorist training camps in Xinjiang, China. 

 

While the blast represented an escalation in violence, it should be remembered that terrorist networks operating in support of Shinawatra have carried out egregious acts of violence in the past, including fielding up to 300 armed militants in Bangkok's streets in 2010 leading to weeks of gunbattles between Thai troops and Shinawatra's armed supporters, leaving almost 100 dead and culminating in city-wide arson.

As for bombings themselves, while generally these networks have used grenades to attack institutions and individuals perceived as enemies of Shinawatra and his foreign sponsored agenda, precisely the same pipe bombs used in the August blast have been implicated in explosions in 2010 and 2014 where bomb makers accidentally killed themselves while assembling devices. In February 2015, a double pipe bombing would be carried out just down the street from where the most recent blast occurred. The devices used were linked to the 2010-2014 incidents. 

 

And while it is clear the bombing was used as a form of violent coercion against a Thai government increasingly drifting away from accommodating both Shinawatra and the foreign interests he represents and closer toward regional partners including China, what was not certain was which networks specifically these interests used to carry out the attack.

Recent evidence has emerged as several suspects have been identified and arrested, suggesting this network includes NATO's "Grey Wolves" and several other Uyghur groups long backed, funded, and directed by the US as a means of eliminating its enemies across Eurasia and up to and including China. In addition to carrying out attacks in Thailand, they appear to have also been moving militants from across Asia and feeding them into NATO's proxy war in Syria. 

 

Global Gladio, Target Thailand  

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing in Bangkok, the BBC would be the first to float the idea the blasts were in retaliation for Thailand's deportation of Uyghurs to China - Uyghurs apparently on their way to fight in NATO's proxy war in Syria - according to Reuters' report, "Uighurs 'on way to jihad' returned to China in hoods."

 

 

Images: The US State Department's NED refers to China's Xinjiang region as "East Turkistan," a fictional realm that does not exist. The US seeks to either destabilize or carve off a vast sum of Chinese territory through supporting terrorism in western China.  

On the very same day when the deportations occurred, Thursday July 9th, protests broke out in Turkey, both in Ankara the capital, and in Istanbul at the Thai consulate. Leading the protests in Ankara was the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a US-funded, Washington D.C. and Munich based political front that specializes in supporting terrorism under the guise of defending "human rights." 

 

 

Image: Thailand's consulate in Istanbul Turkey was destroyed on the same day Thailand deported Uyghur terror suspects back to China. One may find it difficult to speculate who on Earth currently possesses the operational capacity to organized a same-day retaliation anywhere in the world besides a handful of actors - NATO among them. 

 

WUC admits that violence broke out among the mobs it was leading in Ankara but denied any affiliations with the protesters in Istanbul who attacked the consulate and destroyed it on the same day, in the same country, over the same alleged grievances. WUC itself suggested it was the work of the "Grey Wolves," an organization they admit was "clandestinely funded by the US government."

The Grey Wolves are comprised of Turks and Uyghurs, and throughout the Cold War served as part of NATO's "stay behind networks" referred to as Gladios. They were used to purge NATO's enemies from Turkey in bloody violence that would leave over 6,000 dead. Since the Cold War, the Grey Wolves have set up operations internationally, including terrorist training camps in Xinjiang, China - all indicating that NATO's Gladio has gone global.  

 

 

Image: The US-based and funded World Uyghur Congress admits it led mobs on the same day the Thai consulate was attacked. Their mobs in Ankara also turned violent, however Turkish police were able to maintain control. While WUC claims they have no ties to the Grey Wolves they claim were likely behind the consulate attack, they admit they, like WUC itself, have been funded by the US government. 

  

During the days following the Bangkok blast, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) would give a presentation implicating the Uyghur-linked Turkish "Grey Wolves" terrorist network.

The FCCT is a group of foreign journalists from several of the most prominent Western news networks including the BBC, CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse. They have systematically manipulated events in Thailand in efforts to support the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra. The goal of the FCCT's recent presentation was to help deflect as much blame as possible from Thaksin Shinawatra over the bombings and to suggest Thailand faces "international terrorism."

Despite the detailed presentation the FCCT provided and the immediate headlines across the Western media attempting to sell the theory to the public, no mention ever was made of the Grey Wolves' NATO or US funding. Similarly, no mention has been made by the Western media regarding US funding and support behind many, if not all Uyghur opposition groups both in Xinjiang and beyond.

What is clear is that Thailand has inadvertently stumbled upon a highly organized, well-funded, international criminal and terrorist network operating from Xinjiang, China, across Southeast Asia, and as far as Turkey and Syria. This terrorist pipeline appears to have been "tapped" by those seeking to undermine the Thai government, causing its toxic contents to spill over into the ongoing crisis already racking Thailand.

That the Grey Wolves, Uyghur opposition front, and Thaksin Shinawatra are all backed by the US and instruments of US global hegemony, indicates that such instruments often share resources when necessary and are even used interchangeably. NGOs created and maintained in Thailand to support the regime of Shinawatra now cover for Uyghur terrorism, and Uyghur terrorism used against China and Syria is now used to strike hard at Shinawatra's political foes.

America's One-Size-Fits All Global Terror Racket 

NGOs the United States funds and directs in Thailand, and primarily used to undermine the current government and defend the remnants of Shinawatra's political front, were quick to not only condemn the Thai government for deporting terror suspects back to China, but have since then attempted to justify the bombing as Thailand's deserved return for doing business with China. One Bangkok Post op-ed penned by a former Reuters employee titled, "Should Regime Not Deported Uighurs?" attempted to argue that:

In retrospect, should Thailand not have expelled the Uighurs to China? Or to be more precise, should the ruling junta, which is not fully recognised by the democratic world, have been less responsive to Chinese demands?

National interest always comes first in a country's diplomacy. But being so accommodating to a superpower's demands, making Thailand the target of an international outcry and what is looking increasingly like an international terror attack, does not bode well for the country in the long term.  

The ransacking of the Thai consulate in Istanbul failed to alert the Thai security services that the anger was real and long-lasting, and could possibly turn into a calamity 

It should be noted that the author uses the term "international" to describe what is exclusively the US and Europe's "recognition" and "outcry." 

 

This op-ed and many like it pervading the Western media are sending a message to the Thai government that failure to comply to the demands of the "international community" will result in terrorism - whether it is a mob destroying your consulates abroad, or bombs exploding in the heart of your nation's capital. And while this "international community" has many terrorist proxies to use against Thailand, it appears they have selected their "Uyghurs" to stand in the front ranks. 

 

Ousted-exiled dictator Thaksin Shinawatra most likely still possesses the terrorist networks and paramilitary organizations he created and eagerly used during his time in power. However, by using them, he would only further justify the current government's moves to permanently uproot Shinawatra from Thailand's political landscape. Just as NGOs assigned by the West to support Thaksin Shinawatra have now become instrumental in justifying and manipulating the recent Bangkok bombing, the West's terrorist networks used to destabilize nations elsewhere from China to Syria have had terrorism in Thailand apparently outsourced to them.

So far, the investigation suggests this network has been in Thailand for years, long before the deportation of Uyghurs in July. Evidence also suggests a link between the uncovered terror network and previous terror networks uncovered at the height of Shinawatra's violence in 2010 and 2014. A large amount of forged Turkish passports and ties to Uyghur trafficking networks appear to implicate the terror network in what Syrian and Chinese authorities have attempted to expose for years now - a terror pipeline feeding militants from all over the globe first into Turkey where they are armed, trained, and staged, then into Syria to fight NATO's proxy war against the government in Damascus.

Do Business With China and Die 

It should be stated that the vast majority of China's Uyghurs do not support the aspirations of the terrorists and US-funded fronts which claim to represent them. Forty-five percent of Xinjiang's population - some 10 million people - are Uyghurs. It is likely that if even half of them supported violent separatism, they would have already gained their "independence."

In reality, Uyhgurs are perhaps the first and foremost victims of US-backed terrorism in Xinjiang and beyond. Those who seek to live in peace and stability with their Chinese compatriots, and who condemn the means and methods of US-backed groups are themselves attacked. The most prominent example of this is that of Imam Jume Tahir, 74 years old, hacked to death in front of China's largest mosque by terrorists.

The imam had openly condemned US-backed violence and in particular called for street clashes with Chinese police to end.

 

Image: Uyghurs in China who attempt to lead normal lives often find themselves the primary target of US-backed terrorism. The mosque pictured above, the 600 year old Kah Mosque, saw the murder of its imam, Jume Tahir, by US-backed terrorists for the "crime" of condemning violent protests. 

In the wake of his brutal murder, the Western press would write him off as a "state-appointed leader," while the US-funded World Uyghur Congress would repeatedly justify the murder throughout the Western media. In the New York Times article, "Chinese Court Sentences Teenagers to Death in Killing of Jume Tahir, Islamic Cleric," it was reported that:

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group based in Germany, condemned the harsh sentences for the defendants in the imam’s murder, saying they would do little to stem the rising tide of Uighur discontent. 

“The Chinese government should examine the roots of the problems, which are caused by coercive policies that Uighurs find unbearable,” he wrote. “It should respect the Uighur religion and traditional way of life, and stop provocations to avoid triggering new turmoil.” 

In another report titled, "The Day Imam Tahir Died," the World Uyghur Congress again justify the murder:

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled political organization World Uyghur Congress, told Reuters that local Uighurs, “suspected that he had a special relationship with China’s Ministry of Public Security” and that he helped the authorities monitor Uighur religious activity. His support for Beijing most likely bred resentment among Kashgar’s Uighurs, many of whom disdain the central government.

No where can it be found in WUC's many US-funded press releases, congressional assemblies, or publications anything even closely resembling condemnation for the murder of an unarmed elderly man who advocated non-violence. WUC's message, like that of the Western media in the wake of the Bangkok blast is simple - do business with China and you will die.

 

America's Grand Strategy in Asia in One Word - Primacy 

 

In this it is clear that "Uyghur terrorism" is simply another attempt to conceal what is essentially yet another tool devised to achieve and maintain American global hegemony. Looking at a map of China, it is clear why this otherwise minuscule, obscure ethnic group has been propelled to center stage by American interests.

 

Image: The US has much to gain by backing separatists in western China. 

The Xinjiang region along with Tibet, if successfully destabilized or carved off from China, would sever Beijing's long-laid plans to construct a modern-day Silk Road. It would deprive China of both its territory, its resources, and drive tens of millions of its people eastward from their homes in a refugee crisis that would strain the very stability of Chinese society.

 

And because the US-Uyghur cause is not genuine nor enjoys popular support even in Xinjiang, it is no surprise that those willing to participate can be persuaded to fight overseas in other projects of American hegemony - essentially as mercenaries.

The use of minority groups to divide and destroy a targeted nation is a tactic as old as empire itself. And while the Western media works ceaselessly to explain how various organizations, advocacy groups, and militant fronts all operate in an apparent vacuum, only "coincidentally" propelling US foreign policy forward, it is clear through both a study of history and current US policy papers that global hegemony is still at the very heart of Western ambitions globally and includes all forms of coercion, from propaganda to paramilitary groups.

In one of the  most recent US policy papers on the subject, published this year by the influential Council on Foreign Relations - a corporate-funded think tank that represents the collective interests of some of the most powerful Western corporate-financier interests on Earth - the goal of maintaining "primacy in Asia" is literally spelled out.

Their report, "Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China," states in no uncertain terms:

Because the American effort to 'integrate' China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy. 

The report was written by US political administrator and political lobbyist Robert Blackwill who has throughout his career played a role in grooming prospective client regimes in Asia through which the US planned to maintain its regional primacy. Among these client regimes was Thaksin Shinawatra himself. The use of violence and terrorism by Shinawatra to take and maintain control over Thailand is well documented. To think that the US would simply abandon its aspirations to control Thailand, or other nations throughout Southeast Asia vis-a-vis China would be misguided. What would be predictable would be instead an increase in terrorism and political destabilization.

Thailand is now being coerced through a concerted campaign of propaganda and organized violence, seized on by Shinawatra's supporters who are eagerly exploiting the socioeconomic and political damage the recent bombing has incurred, while so-called "rights" advocates invent creative defenses for otherwise indefensible violence directed at entirely innocent people.

Dismantle the Pipeline

Gladio was successful throughout the Cold War because those among NATO who employed such tactics did so within their borders. "Global Gladio" has networks stretching around the world, vulnerable to police and military operations carried out by host countries.

While the bombing in Bangkok appears to have been aimed at the government for its continued attempts to remove Shinawatra from power and divest from American interests by moving closer to China, the bombing itself stands as the single greatest example of just why Thailand has chosen to change tack in the first place. Accelerated military and counter-terrorism cooperation with China will  now be necessary to ensure the peace and security of both nations. As long as one serves as a base of operations for terrorism aimed at the other, neither will be safe.

For Thailand specifically, it is clear that Shinawatra's political existence was meant to infiltrate and overwrite Thailand's current political order. While threats and terrorism are being used to coerce Thailand into accommodating Shinawatra, it should be noted that by doing so, violence, division and destruction are all that await Thailand as a guarantee. The slow, patient dismantling of his political networks, along with a measured pivot toward Beijing appears to be Thailand's best bet.

For the rest of the world - NATO's "Gladio" networks are vast and varied. From Ukraine to Syria to Thailand, the most violent and criminal elements in any given society have been organized by the West in a bid to divide, destroy, and dominate the planet. From the original Gladio program in Western Europe, the means of expertly manipulating these criminal gangs has been perfected. Increasing awareness of how Gladio works will not only better arm society to take action against it, but perhaps even dissuade eager criminal elements from joining organizations that are essentially cannon fodder for NATO. 

 

 

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The New Warfare of Unnatural Disasters: Death by Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes

The New Warfare of Unnatural Disasters: Death by Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes

By Joachim Hagopian

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

The growing number of scientific studies that have demonstrated consistent electromagnetic anomalies associated with virtually every major earthquake both before and after the event during the last two decades strongly indicate the use of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry as the actual manmade cause of these so called natural disasters. A quote nearly two full decades ago from then US Secretary of Defense William Cohen at a counterterrorism conference back on April 28, 1997 openly revealed:

Others are engaging in even an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are a lot of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations… It’s real and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts.

As if to echo Cohen’s reality check, nine years ago Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated, “An arms race is entering its new stage. There is a threat of new weaponry looming on the horizon.”

This presentation will examine the compelling evidence supporting what those Russian and US leaders were alluding to by analyzing the supporting data surrounding the many so called “natural” disasters of the last twenty years. The overwhelming conclusion is that most if not all were in fact manmade. Tragically millions of humans have lost their lives at a cost into the trillions in property and infrastructure damage as yet more unaccounted for casualties of diabolically waged, unknown and undeclared secret wars. All the most powerful nation’s militaries on the planet possess and are no doubt using EMP weapons technology as the latest hi tech form of warfare, including the United States, Israel, NATO, Britain, France, Russia and China and likely a host of others we do not know about as well, possibly even non-state organizations like the Islamic State ISIS.

January 1995 Kobe Earthquake

A group of Japanese researchers in the 2002 Journal of Geodynamics (Volume 33, Issues 4–5) had this to say about the 1995 Kobe 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Japan:

Anomalous transmission of man-made electromagnetic waves in VLF and VHF ranges was also detected from a few days before the earthquake, indicating the possibility that the ionosphere above the focal zone was disturbed at the final stage of the earthquake preparation process.

In addition, the Japanese religious leader of the infamous terrorist cult Aum Shinrikyo who obsessed over doomsday and weapons of mass destruction, Shoko Asahara, predicted in a radio broadcast on January 8, 1995 that, “Japan will be attacked by an earthquake in 1995. The most likely place is Kobe.” Asahara even stated that the earthquake would be caused by “a foreign power” using an electromagnetic weapons system. A few days later nearly 6,500 Japanese residents in or near the million and a half sized city were killed in the deadly quake, the worst in Japan in 47 years.

Though Asahara’s bold warning accurately predicting the unnatural disaster just days ahead of the event may have been intended to increase his charismatic cult status as a prophet, to former editor of the Japan Weekly Times Yoichi Clark Shimatsu it only piqued his interest and determination to get to the bottom of this heinous crime. The earthquake crashed the Japanese stock market that in turn liquidated England’s Baring Bank. Shimatus’s investigative suspicions were only magnified just weeks later when another lethal act of terrorism struck the Tokyo subway where commuters were sarin gassed. Asahara and 11 other members from the violent cult were arrested and in 2004 Asahara was sentenced to death.

A month after the subway tragedy the cult’s science and technology minister Hideo Murai claimed at a news conference:

There is a strong possibility of the activation of an earthquake using electromagnetic power, or somebody may have used a device that applied force inside the Earth.

The brilliant science guy Hideo Murai knew all about the power of electromagnetic technology like nobody else. Prior to his joining the cult, he worked at a top secret lab under the cover of Kobe Steel as the mastermind behind the development of a highly advanced laser-powered seismic device that could generate powerful earthquakes. And the very epicenter of that Kobe quake was his old Kobe Steel lab.

Yoichi Clark Shimatsu through his publication Archipelago was among the few journalists that focused extensively on uncovering the high-powered concealment of the link that the criminal cult enjoyed with powerbrokers atop both the Japanese and Russian governments. Asahara had unusually close ties with Russian Premier Boris Yeltsin’s Security Council Chairman Oleg Lobov. Under the front of Russia-Japan College, Asahara courted and recruited top Russian scientists and gained full access to Russia’s advanced hardware including a gas laser for making plasma weapons. For a time the cult also maintained Japanese allies in high places, like Japan’s head of foreign intelligence service Toshio Yamaguchi. Even the current cabal owned Japanese President Shinzo Abe and his father along with a former Tokyo governor all played key roles as strong government backers of the WMD Aum cult. At its peak Aum was worth a billion dollars, and owned vast amounts of land in Western Australia where it test fired its weapons of mass destruction.

This unholy trinity’s purpose was the proliferation of WMD’s ostensibly to be deployed against the US at which point Aum’s leadership saw themselves ruling Japan. The geopolitics chessboard at that time had grown upset over the US as the world’s only superpower developing too cozy of relations with neighboring China vis-à-vis David Rockefeller’s globalist deal-making, re-colonizing venture with Beijing to export Western corporations to China in exchange for exploiting the fertile, limitless supply of Chinese slave laborers inhabiting the most populated county on earth. Hence, both the Russian and elements within the Japanese government were feeling left out, left behind and threatened by the shifting alliances, and subsequently employed the violent cult stooges to do their dirty bidding, not unlike the same way US Empire uses al Qaeda and ISIS even to this day.

Within weeks after Hideo Murai’s April 1995 news conference, he was suddenly stabbed to death on live television (unlike the staged, false flag fakery of the recent Virginia shooting that US government never fails to amateurishly use as mounting leverage for its unlawful gun confiscation). The Japanese crime syndicate Yakuza murdered Murai as apparent payback for publicly disclosing his firsthand knowledge of the EMP weapon used to level Kobe. Thus Defense Secretary Cohen’s cry of foul play over earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes less than two years later came in reaction to the secret Japanese-Russian skullduggery.

But in 1997 it’s not like the United States was simply an innocent bystander. The inner circle of elitist power in America was caught playing catch-up to the Russian KGB jump on deployment of geophysical weapons not unlike the space race a few years earlier. A full two years before his assassination JFK stated, “We shall propose further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control.” Back in 1958 the US military announced early success with weather modification by emitting strong electromagnetic beams into the atmosphere to heat up the ionosphere (the outermost layer of our atmosphere extending from 30 to 600 miles above the earth) as a precursor to the infamous HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) in Alaska and now spread elsewhere as well.

With Operation Popeye the Pentagon for a half dozen years seeded clouds over the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War in its failed attempt to make the muddy trail impassable in order to slow down and cut off the enemy supply line. In fact top secret US military deployment of weather warfare causing floods and droughts as well as other “natural” catastrophes like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and extreme weather events have been conducted with increasing frequency over the last several decades as a dominant, highly secretive and infinitely destructive brand of twenty-first century warfare.

Less than a year prior to Cohen’s admission of existing geophysical weather warfare, the US Air Force had published a comprehensive research paper entitled “Air Force 2025 The Final Report.” Under the section “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025,” weather modification and control was touted as offering  “the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary” that includes triggering floods, hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis:

Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.

Global Research director Dr. Michel Chossudovsky has written extensively on weather warfare. His response to the US Air Force overtly sinister plans:

An analysis of statements emanating from the Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare.

This full speed ahead approach toward US Empire’s “full spectrum dominance” globally comes less than two decades after the United Nations General Assembly explicitly prohibited all nations from using any military force to manipulate, modify or otherwise alter the natural environment. But then has the UN or international law ever stood in the way of America’s “might makes right” exceptionalism unilaterally and willfully defying the rest of the world with complete impunity?

Outside a handful of courageously honest, independent scientists, among them Dr. Leuren Moret, Dr. Nick Begich and retired LTC Tom Bearden, no serious debate, challenge or open opposition against this immoral turpitude or the disastrous global consequences have ever been raised in either the scientific community or the globalist-controlled mainstream media outlets. So the malevolent misuse of science for covert military WMD’s continues ruling the day and this modern age, often funded through the feds’ money laundering-drug profiteering machine and then granted free reign of absolutely no oversight.

Yet despite its ultra-secrecy and free reign, occasionally information does leak out, but of course largely goes unnoticed. An October 24, 2005 BusinessWeek issue matter-of-factly addressed weather modification in China:

Rainmaking and hail prevention are considered established arts in some countries. China has 35,000 people engaged in weather management, and it spends $40 million a year on alleviating droughts or stemming hail that would damage crops.

But the relatively “benign” use contracted out in America to mostly civilian companies like Weather Modification, Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota is suppressing hail in Argentina, stabilizing snowpack in Idaho or cloud seeding in Nevada – a far cry from harnessing powerful Tesla-like bursts of energy that can kill hundreds of thousands of people in an earthquake or murder millions more by destroying a nation’s vulnerable power grid infrastructure. Dr. Gordon J. F. MacDonald, Associate Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA in a 1968 book called Unless Peace Comes wrote:

The key to geophysical warfare is the identification of environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy.

An expert in Tesla’s wave energy technology, Dr. MacDonald would later became a Council on Foreign Relations and Board of Directors member of the powerful elitist non-profit company MITRE Corporation. As a key policymaker he was riding high on the inside track of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned that without citizens’ vigilance would take over America. Way back in 1968 Dr. MacDonald cast an ominously foreboding future that’s now unfortunately already here:

By the year 2018, technology will make available to the leaders of the major nations a variety of techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be apprised. One nation may attack a competitor covertly by bacteriological means, thoroughly weakening the population (though with a minimum of fatalities) before taking over with its own overt armed forces. Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm, thereby weakening a nation’s capacity and forcing it to accept the demands of the competitor.

And with the US busily gaining patents on the most deadly strains of the Ebola virus after classifying it as bio-warfare, through geoengineering creating the longest, most severe drought in the nation’s bread basket West in 1200 years, along with the slew of other unnatural disasters piling up worldwide, including the recent volley of chemical explosions in China and a US armory in Japan, the visionary scientist whose words near a half century ago ring so dead true today proved all too prophetic. In 2002 Dr. MacDonald likely paid with his life for his uncanny honesty and startling truths. Similar to another honest man about to blow the whistle on more WMD’s who was suddenly murdered while also a CFR member and MITRE Corporation consultant Jack Wheeler.

As a fellow neighbor of the CIA in McLean, Virginia and one of the elite’s interlocking entities that holds no-bid contracts with the FAA, Homeland Security and Defense Department, the MITRE Corporation can readily issue exemptions to such private contractors as Evergreen International Aviation. Evergreen’s the little Oregon firm responsible for raining chemtrail poisons down on much of the West Coast, producing that unmovable ridge of high pressure blocking all Pacific storms from reaching drought-stricken California for the last couple years. At the top of this predatory food chain, should anyone on MITRE’s payroll suddenly act on his or her conscience and attempt to do the right thing by humanity, they might well be sealing their own fate and casket.

March 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Turning to the disaster of disasters with toxic radiation levels still continuing to spew across the Pacific Ocean and the northern latitude land masses through the jetstream four and a half years later, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged by a nearby magnitude 9 earthquake that also caused the deadly tsunami in northern Japan. Instead of 9/11/01, this day of probable manmade reckoning is 3/11/11. During the preceding four days leading up to 3/11, scientists have detected significant heat spikes directly over the known fault lines. Specifically the number of electrons in the ionosphere that’s part of the earth’s upper atmosphere suddenly soared in the days just prior to the earthquake, peaking three days before while the increasing heat caused by infrared radiation peaked just hours prior to the disaster. Additionally, the research team has also analyzed over 100 other earthquakes of 5.5 magnitude or higher and with high correlation found this same heating phenomenon present.

January 2010 Haiti Earthquake

Going back to the January 12, 2010 to the horrendously destructive 7M Haiti earthquake, death toll estimates vary widely from US estimates of 100,000-160,000 while Haitian authorities believe as many as 316,000 people in the capital city of Port-au-Prince perished. By the way, it’s no accident that Haiti’s earthquake came on the 15^th anniversary of the Kobe quake. The global crime cabal network work that way, meticulously plotting dates and numbers by occult calibrations. In any event, Haiti’s considered the most deadly earthquake of the last 20 years.

A team of MIT scientists from the MIT Technology Review reported that again there were strange anomalies occurring during the entire month preceding the event. A French satellite captured a huge increase of ultra-low frequency (ULF) radio waves during the month leading up to January 12^th. The satellite named for its acronym DEMETER (Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions) was sent into orbit by French geo-scientists in 2004 to observe and measure precise atmospheric changes over earthquake zones before, during and after earthquake disasters. In the month prior to the Haiti quake a spike in ULF electromagnetic waves was recorded dramatically rising by 360% and then after the event slowly dissipated.

These findings are again consistent with other recorded measures of raised radiation heat levels prior to other large earthquakes suspected to be caused by manmade means primarily using electromagnetic pulse weapons. Nine days after the Haiti earthquake, RT, Fox and Press TV were covering Venezuelan media that had reported the quake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate.” The US defying Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had just gone on public airwaves denouncing the US Navy for triggering the quake with a “tectonic weapon.” Chavez attributed his information to Russian intelligence sources within its Northern Fleet. Venezuelan press also blamed the HAARP facility in Alaska three days prior to the Haiti disaster for initiating a 6.5 quake off the Eureka, California coast, and further implicating the US as the perpetrator behind the 2008 7.8M earthquake in southwest China that killed nearly another 90,000 people.

According to Russia’s Northern Fleet, the Haiti earthquake was the result of US Naval testing its secret earthquake EMP weapon gone wrong. Though the enormity of death and destruction may not have been expected, the US had to be fully aware of the potentially catastrophic consequences its testing would risk in easily causing an earthquake. In fact the SOUTHCOM Deputy Commander General P. K. Keen, normally stationed out of Miami, was suspiciously already prepositioned in Haiti ready to launch yet another US military invasion of the poorest Western Hemisphere nation. Less than 24-hours after the earthquake, America’s first planes began arriving with Air Force Special Operations forces followed by 2000 Marines and another 3500 troops from the 82^nd Airborne Division ready to be deployed. An aircraft carrier was also immediately dispatched although it showed up less than 48 hours after the earthquake proving that it was not in Baltimore harbor as claimed but already en route at the time of the manmade disaster.

With the Haitian government literally toppled, the demolished presidential palace was the actual epicenter of the quake that weeks later still had rotting corpses laying in the streets. So much for America’s helping hand. Or more like so much for US sending its armed forces to protect its oil interests. Haiti has a vast wealth of untapped oil reserves. Of course US Empire has a long shameful history of inflicting numerous coups, assassinations and military interventions on the half-island nation and is using this US-induced disaster as its convenient excuse to once again wield total control for yet more plundering of a thoroughly ravaged, defenseless nation for years to come.

Yet another anomaly associated with both the 2008 China earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake are images caught on video by unsuspecting witnesses of a large bright orange glow or ball observed in the sky just prior to both earthquakes. This phenomenon has never been found to co-occur with any naturally occurring earthquake. In all likelihood, this strange coloring effect is a plasma discharge from a scalar electromagnetic weapon.

February 2010 Chile Earthquake

Right after the Haiti quake many South American nations like Venezuela’s Chavez saw that US imperialism was destroying one of their own in Haiti with the preplanned destruction and further plundering. Immediately they went into action to seek strength in unified numbers against the destroyer from the north. Six weeks after the Haiti disaster, a 24-nation bloc brought together the Latin American states with the Caribbean states in a show of solidarity and strength to ward off the destructive power of the United States. At the meeting in Mexico, host nation President Felipe Calderon announced:

We have decided to base an organization on shared values including sovereignty and the non-use of force, including threats of force, international cooperation, ever closer integration of Latin America and the Caribbean and permanent political dialogue.

Bolivian President Evo Morales added, “A union of Latin American countries is the weapon against imperialism. It is necessary to create a regional body that excludes the United States and Canada.” Probably the one continent where the US military presence is least evident is South America where trust towards the US is completely lacking. Diplomatic, trade and even military relations with both Russia and China are far closer.

Almost as a concession to the mighty giant to the north, the nation selected for the first two years to lead the alliance had perhaps the least antagonistic relationship with American Empire – Chile. But that made no difference a day after the group alliance was formally declared when a massive 8.8 M earthquake suddenly rocked 80% of Chile with the epicentre less than two miles off the central coast. It was the sixth largest earthquake ever recorded by a seismograph and also produced a tsunami that caused damage as far away as Japan and San Diego, California. Over a million and a half Chileans were displaced. For a quake of that size because it was relatively deep at 21 miles, fortunately the death toll was anywhere from 525-802. Again, the timing of this event with Chile becoming the leading nation in an alliance exclusively formed to protect itself from the aggressive malignancy of the US death grip speaks volumes. Do you see the pattern? Means and motive match every time.

2004 Niigata Japan Earthquakes

Former Forbes Magazine East Asian reporter Canadian Benjamin Fulford has written extensively and made videos documenting his observations from Japan. In an interview with former Japanese Minister of Financial Services Heizo Takenaka, Fulford asked why he “handed over control of the Japanese financial system to a group of American and European oligarchs,” and Takenaka replied that it was “because Japan had been threatened by an earthquake machine.” Since Fulford as a journalist then began exposing this shocking evidence of international extortion, Japanese security police approached him saying that his writing on the internet had caused Japan to receive information that the city of Niigata would soon be struck by an earthquake. Two days later on October 23, 2004, a major 6.8 M shaker followed hours later by a second 5.9 M tremor killed 39 people with an epicenter very near Japan’s largest nuclear power plant in Niigata, which sustained a fire and leaked some radioactivity.

These highly disturbing events cannot all be coincidence. It confirms what William Cohen had said seven years earlier, except this time it was the United States who was the rogue state carrying out lethal acts of terrorism as a viable and effective form of covert warfare to silence, intimidate, threaten and destroy any nation or person opposing the US into brute force submission. This is how the Empire game of hegemonic control is played. There’s a reason why for so many decades the US poured near as much money into its military budget as the rest of the world combined. Fulford chose not to go silent but has courageously defied Washington pointing the finger at rogue state America that decided six and a half years later to strike Japan once again with an even bigger lethal force at Fukushima. The US commits heinous and demonic high crimes against humanity on a regular basis and so far with complete impunity. The evidence is undeniably clear.

2004 Indonesia Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami

Two other brutal acts of war that are crimes against humanity were propagated against Indonesia in December 2004 with its M 9.1-9.3 earthquake and resultant Indian Ocean tsunami killing a total of 230,000 people in 14 nations followed in May 2008 by Myanmar’s Cyclone Nargis as its most devastating “unnatural” disaster in history with over 138,000 fatalities. Two questions to always ask in solving any mystery is does a potential suspect have the means and the motive to commit such a crime. And for each and every one of these so called natural disasters the US as the prime suspect has both the means and the motive.

 

 

Regarding Indonesia’s earthquake catastrophe, the Jakarta government had maintained steadfast refusal to open up the narrow Strait of Malacca to the US Navy. During the first half of 2004, the rate of acts of piracy in the Strait had increased to that of 2003 when the 150 vessels attacked accounted for one third of all global incidents of piracy. Always looking for an opportune excuse to flex its military might and muscle, the United States threatened to unilaterally assign its Pacific fleet to monitor security in the main artery separating the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Weary of America’s hegemony infringing on the sovereign rights of the two coastal nations holding responsibility for safe passage through their waters, Indonesia and Malaysia refused to permit the US access to control over their waterway. Determined to keep America out, Indonesia and Malaysia stepped up their naval patrols during the second half of 2004 to bring the number of incidents in 2005 down to just 79 and in 2006 down to 50. It was a win for regional cooperation and autonomy.

Additionally after 9/11 fighting on two warfronts against its recently designated, secretly created enemy – Muslim terrorists, under the guise of fighting terrorism, America was imposing its Empiric will on smaller Muslim nations like Indonesia, home to the most Muslims on earth and Malaysia, another Muslim nation. Their resistance to not allowing the US to gain a military foothold in their backyard waterway to “root out” the pirates and terrorists (like it’s rooting out ISIS), angered Washington to no end, which was quick to accuse Indonesia as a potential state sponsor for terrorism even though America’s far guiltier of spreading terrorism around the globe than any other nation on earth. Nonetheless, still fuming over being locked out of the Malaccan Strait and so used to punishing nations that do not readily succumb to its pressures and demands, and now armed with its favorite new form of twenty-first century punishment causing earthquakes and killing thousands of innocent people, the day after Christmas 2004 the US Empire sent its brutal holiday message to Indonesia with an over 9 earthquake just off its Sumatran coast that carried an extra wallop to 13 other nation victims with a tsunami bonus. Thus, the international crime cabal government sitting at home in Washington still gluttonous over their Christmas dinner the night before had both a means and a motive for committing the crime. Unfortunately after the earthquake and tsunami, desperate to receive economic assistance and humanitarian aid, Indonesia was no longer so resistive and US Empire got what it wanted, rewarded for murdering near a quarter million Asians. Empire aggression works to keep other nations in line and America atop in its full frontal assault/dominance over humanity.

2008 Myanmar Cyclone

The Myanmar story centers on a military junta government led by a general that was bent on having a referendum election to push through its military constitution scheduled on May 10, 2008. But enter the massive Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 that devastated the coastal areas especially. The timing of the disaster so close in advance of the election if maliciously planned by an outside force had an obvious aim to disrupt or cancel the constitutional vote altogether. It also could have intended to topple the regime. The junta went ahead with its election anyway on the 10^th, though in hardest hit areas voting was postponed for two weeks. But the constitution did get approved.

The Myanmar government was hesitant to let outside humanitarian relief into the worst hit areas prior to the election fearing its impact and ties to the outside world would present further challenges to the oppressive regime. But here is the strange part. Similar to the prepositioning of the South Command general already physically stationed in Haiti at the time of the quake and an aircraft carrier already in transit, the disaster relief forces from the US, Britain and France were already in place immediately at the time the cyclone hit the populated coastal zones.

The running theme here is it appears that certain preplanned preparations were already organized at both Haiti and Myanmar locations at the time the so called natural disasters hit. Though by itself it’s not sufficient empirical proof of US culpability, when all these co-incidental factors are taken into account together and important dots are connected, a very suspicious and dark picture emerges that strongly suggests that scalar electromagnetic weapons possessed by the superpower that holds both the means and the most to gain are conspicuously present in all of these catastrophic events. Especially when scientific anomalies and observations of manmade electromagnetic and discharging plasma are also factored into consideration.

No nation will create a weapon and never test or use it. The nature of these powerful sinister forces, as the Air Force openly admits, is its gainful advantage for either coercion or defeat of the enemy. The US is not alone in this new age of dark techno-war destruction. Be it nukes, HAARP, CERN, or an EMP electrical grid attack by ISIS, China, Russia or some other force, and in an instant life as we know it will be lost with estimates of 90% of us dead in America within a year.

Like the Soviet Empire before it, the United States has also over-prioritized allocation of its resources to building and overextending a military killing machine Empire to do the globalists’ diabolical bidding. Its hegemonic power and control come at the expense of the people of the United States and all its perceived and imagined enemies of the world. And for all its death and destruction it has perpetrated on this planet, like all empires it too is doomed to fail. For every action, there is a reaction. For every killing, there is only more killing. With madmen at the helm driving a rotted out system crashing and ready to burn at ground level, the demonically controlled lunacy in charge is self-destructing right before our eyes. In the ashes of destruction, let us rebuild and connect with our hearts, not blindly with our minds, and let us realize our spirits transcend the physical to embrace the infinite.

 

Joachim Hagopian [send him mail] is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing and has a blog site at http://empireexposed.blogspot.com. He is also a regular contributor to Global Research and Sott.net.

LES DIFFICULTÉS DE LA CHINE

Une économie fragile

Auran Derien
Ex: http://metamag.fr

La Chine s’est beaucoup transformée, en peu de temps. Nous avons déjà signalé que notre expérience européenne pouvait aider à comprendre l’origine des difficultés que rencontrent les pays en développement. Un processus de croissance rapide s’accompagne de multiples distorsions, entre régions, entre secteurs, entre groupes sociaux. Il en résulte des tensions qui débouchent régulièrement sur des conflits sociaux. Cela avait caractérisé l’Europe aux XIXème et XXème siècles. Même si les “ingénieurs sociaux” actuels ont appris la manière de manipuler les foules de sorte que la destruction de peuples et de civilisations entières soit devenue possible comme le prouve sous nos yeux l’éradication de l’Europe, il restait admirable que la Chine pût manœuvrer plus d’un milliard de personnes durant tant d’années sans chocs majeurs.

Cela touche à sa fin 

Les observateurs ont remarqué l’incohérence des chiffres. Comment expliquer que le taux de croissance soit élevé lorsque la consommation d’énergie stagne? Il était évident qu’en Chine comme au FMI et ailleurs, le mensonge permanent et systématique, base de la méthodologie actuelle et de la justification des dirigeants de la société du spectacle généralisé, régente les publications officielles. Les économistes lyssenkistes se moquent du monde puisqu’on les paie pour cela. L’essentiel de la croissance chinoise provient de l’investissement public accompagné de choix tournés vers l’exportation. La consommation interne ne dépasse pas 30% de la dépense globale. Lorsque les clients sont ruinés, cas de l’Europe et des USA depuis que l’oligarchie régente, les ventes chutent. L’investissement dans l’exportation ne rapporte plus, alors que le marché interne n’est pas en mesure d’absorber les produits qui ont cessé d’être demandés.

 
La cinquième colonne est-elle puissante?

Que l’investissement public ait été survalorisé ne peut surprendre puisque l’ancienne URSS, du temps de la planification bolchévique, souffrait du même handicap. La Chine a construit des infrastructures à tour de bras, sans clients finaux, et une bulle énorme a gonflé . Le charme d’une telle situation apparaît immédiatement aux yeux des financiers dont parle Perkins. Les bulles attirent les chacals et les escrocs, tous obsédés par l’idée soit de gérer le monde - car ils en ont reçu l’ordre - soit d’y faire entrer l’ordre paradisiaque du supermarché, l’équivalent occidental du goulag. Pourquoi les problèmes apparaissent-ils en ce moment ? Peut-être est-il temps de mettre en corrélation les bulles chinoises avec la nouvelle attitude des BRICS. Les fondations mondialistes, distributrices généreuses de dollars ont appuyé depuis des années la création d’écoles de commerce pour qu’on y enseigne l’économie lyssinkiste du modèle d’équilibre général et le rôle des banques privées créatrices de la monnaie, à condition qu’elles soient la propriété du pouvoir financier. Les multinationales installées en Chine et dans les autres pays du groupe BRICS pratiquent la méthode de corruption qui leur a si bien réussi en Europe. Elles créent des structures de réunions dans lesquelles sont invités politiciens, fonctionnaires - ou leurs proches - dont le point commun est qu’ils possèdent un pouvoir de décision, leur versent des pots de vin, des jetons de présence au montant proportionnel à leur inutilité directe au sein de cette structure mais considérés comme un investissement à long terme, pour le moment où les gestionnaires du néant proposeront un changement d’organisation, la privatisation au profit du soviet de la finance. 
Cette manière de détruire n’est pas encore perçue par les “élites” traditionnelles de ces pays. Ceux-ci ont juste compris l’ignominie des ONG, l’horreur des médias de la haine, et ont commencé à en freiner la propagande vomitive. Mais la corruption de la classe dirigeante à travers les jetons de présence n’est pas bien perçue, de sorte que les difficultés actuelles de la Chine et autres membres du groupe BRICS sont un test de la pénétration de l’axe de l’inhumanité avec sa capacité de nuisance.

Conclusion : un bilan d’étape

Dans la société du spectacle généralisé, la concentration des médias de propagande interdit toute connaissance sauf, comme l’exprimait Alexandre Zinoviev, le minuscule filet d’eau qui s’écoule des élites marginalisées mais qui s’expriment grâce aux blogs d’Internet. Le niagara de haine est entre les mains des "Al capone" associés, pour un temps indéterminé. La panne de l’économie mondiale, à cause du pillage de la finance met en difficulté les exportateurs chinois, et leur modèle de croissance appuyé sur le surinvestissement a besoin d’un ajustement. On va savoir très vite si les BRICS ont encore assez d’indépendance pour construire le modèle alternatif à cet axe, ou si la corruption de leurs élites, par les moyens déjà rappelés, se traduira par l’entrée en scène des tueurs habituels, du FMI à la CIA. 
Les mesures que prendront la Chine et les autres membres dans les temps qui viennent nous indiqueront si le pouvoir financier mondialiste  a enfin commencé sa descente vers le fond dont il n’aurait jamais dû sortir ou si l'obscurantisme et la haine vont se renforcer partout.

Los cinco grandes, seguridad euroasiática y otros proyectos

Los cinco grandes, seguridad euroasiática y otros proyectos

por Leonid Savin

Ex: http://paginatrasversal.wordpress.com

Ya en 2001, un destacado analista de la empresa bancaria estadounidense Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Jim O’Neill, utilizó el acrónimo BRIC para describir las economías en crecimiento. A pesar de que lo había utilizado en el contexto de un paradigma global neoliberal, Rusia “cooptó” el término, proponiendo a Brasil, India y China construir una cooperación multilateral. En un período relativamente corto se ha hecho mucho para desarrollar mecanismos de interacción. Más tarde, Sudáfrica se unió a los cuatro países (y el acrónimo BRICS cobró vida).

Ahora, los cinco países, que suman el 26% de la superficie terrestre del planeta, representan el 42% de la población mundial y generan el 27% del PIB mundial, son considerados como el nuevo actor colectivo del mundo multipolar basado en el principio de la descentralización y la capacidad de responder a los desafíos del siglo XXI. Como dijo el viceministro de Exteriores ruso, Sergei Ryabkov, en su informe en las Cumbres BRICS/OCS en Ufa, el 9 de julio de 2015: “la práctica del BRICS no tiene precedente en la política internacional”, y el grupo de estados se ha convertido en “un factor importante en las relaciones internacionales”. El BRICS se está convirtiendo en el nuevo “Big Eight” [G8], pero sólo sobre la base de la igualdad, la transparencia y el consenso entre todos los miembros.

La última cumbre en Ufa mostró que el tono informal en el que se basó la cooperación no impidió la creación de una asociación internacional de pleno derecho, más democrática que otras alianzas del siglo pasado. En Ufa fue aprobado un plan para futuras acciones, una especie de sumario matriz de las operaciones del BRICS en el futuro próximo. Incluye una declaración de finalidades, la estrategia de la asociación económica, y anuncia la apertura de un departamento -el sitio web oficial del BRICS – que publicará los documentos oficiales y los materiales relevantes. Se puso en marcha el Banco de los BRICS y se formó un fondo de reservas de divisas. Su capital combinado es de doscientos mil millones de dólares. Los primeros proyectos financiados se llevarán a cabo en la primavera de 2016, y no se limitan a los cinco países, sino que tienen un carácter global. En esencia, se trata de una alternativa financiera al Fondo Monetario Internacional de los Rothschild, realizando inversiones en sectores necesarios de la economía real de los países, y no llevando a cabo transacciones especulativas y concediendo préstamos onerosos, como hacen bancos extranjeros, bolsas de valores y fondos.

Además, la cooperación entre los países BRICS será reforzada en asuntos financieros y económicos. En particular, el director de los Asuntos europeos de y de Asia Central, Gui Congyou, señaló que Rusia es una prioridad para las inversiones chinas, que se harán no sólo en infraestructura, sino en la construcción de viviendas asequibles y alta tecnología.

El año de la presidencia rusa de los BRICS ha sido muy dinámico. Como dijo el Presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, el 9 de julio: “en el año de la presidencia rusa hemos llevado a cabo las primeras reuniones de los foros Civil, del Parlamento y de la Juventud de los BRICS. La creación de la Red Universitaria BRICS está en proceso así como la creación del Consejo de las Regiones de nuestra organización”.

Debería añadirse que ahora la cooperación está teniendo lugar no sólo en los ámbitos financieros y económicos del bloque: se han celebrado reuniones ministeriales en los campos de la salud, la educación, la agricultura, la fiscalidad, la ciencia y la tecnología, la seguridad social, las comunicaciones, el trabajo y el empleo y la cultura. El aumento de la coordinación entre los países afecta prácticamente a todas las cuestiones internacionales, desde los conflictos regionales y las amenazas del narcotráfico hasta el sector espacial y la piratería marítima. Por ello, todas los procedimientos que pueden conducir a relaciones multilaterales burocráticas se evitaron deliberadamente. Los líderes de todos los países BRICS coincidieron en la opinión de que en adelante debe mantenerse el actual formato anti-burocrático.

Esto indica el aspecto civil del propio BRICS. El tema, abordado en la cumbre en Ufa, también se discutió en la víspera del foro, en Moscú, con la participación de expertos. En particular, se alcanzaron muchos acuerdos a través del Consejo Empresarial de los BRICS, mientras que los líderes sindicales dieron sus recomendaciones a los Jefes de Estado de los BRICS. El Presidente de la Federación de Sindicatos Independientes de Rusia, Mijaíl Shmakov, en una reunión con Vladimir Putin, también señaló la necesidad de evitar los métodos del neoliberalismo, que es el culpable de todas las crisis actuales del mundo. Esta es una observación importante que muestra que el BRICS guarda un consenso en la ideología política que guiará a los países participantes.

El BRICS también puede ser considerado como un club donde los miembros siguen el principio de reciprocidad. El primer ministro indio Narendra Modi, durante una reunión de mayor formato de los líderes de los BRICS, indicó la importancia de completar una reforma de la ONU y de su Consejo de Seguridad. Según él, esto ayudará a responder más eficazmente cualquier llamada. Muy elocuente fue la declaración del líder indio sobre las sanciones: que sólo las sanciones de la ONU tienen poder, mientras que el resto es el intento de algunos países por imponer sus condiciones, lo cual es inaceptable. Dilma Rousseff, presidenta de Brasil, también planteó la cuestión de la reforma de la ONU y la disposición a participar en diversos proyectos, desde la armonización de los flujos migratorios hasta el control del cambio climático.

Es significativo que otros países estén mostrando un creciente interés en los BRICS. Por ejemplo, en el foro financiero BRICS / OCS, que tuvo lugar el 8 de junio, también estuvo presente el vice-presidente del Banco de Desarrollo Industrial de Turquía, Çiğdem İçel; además, la participación formal como invitados de los Jefes de Estado de la OCS en la Cumbre del BRICS, realzó enormemente el estatus del evento. No obstante, aparte de la agenda oficial, los líderes pudieron comunicarse en un ambiente informal, discutiendo una serie de cuestiones que son igualmente importantes para construir una relación de confianza.

Occidente se comportó según su manera característica a base de doble moral y guerra de la información. Por ejemplo, la publicación de Bloomberg fue totalmente manipulada, como si la economía conjunta de los  BRICS casi hubiera alcanzado a la economía de Estados Unidos. Esto no es cierto, una vez que, de acuerdo con el FMI, China en solitario ha superado a Estados Unidos ya en 2014; el Council on Foreign Relations [Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores], hablando de manera más realista, señaló que los BRICS van a reducir la influencia de Occidente. Stratfor agregó que los BRICS y la OCS han desarrollado una especie de plataforma con el fin de desplegar la resistencia contra Estados Unidos. Aparentemente, los analistas de Estados Unidos no han oído o no quieren escuchar las repetidas declaraciones de las líderes y los ministros de que el BRICS no está dirigido contra ningún Estado o poder, teniendo una agenda abierta. Del mismo modo, la OCS fue creada para resolver los problemas de seguridad regional en Eurasia, así como para participar en la producción de energía y en la creación de corredores de transporte.

Pero, por supuesto, las dos instituciones responderán adecuadamente a los intentos de socavar la soberanía o de interferir en los asuntos internos. En la cumbre, chinos y rusos han declarado una y otra vez la importancia de preservar la justicia histórica y la necesidad de responder a cualquier esfuerzo de reescribir la historia y justificar fenómenos como el fascismo y el nazismo.

La cumbre de la OCS, celebrada en el mismo lugar inmediatamente después de la cumbre de los BRICS, también estuvo marcada por decisiones importantes. Por primera vez en la existencia de la organización tuvo lugar la recepción de nuevos miembros, la India y Pakistán. Además, hubo acuerdo en elevar el estatus de participación de la República de Bielorrusia como Estado observador de la OCS. En calidad de socios de diálogo de la organización, se unieron Azerbaiyán, Armenia, Camboya y Nepal. En una de las reuniones informativas en Ufa, un periodista occidental planteó la cuestión de los diversos problemas entre la India y Pakistán y cómo podrían cooperar si las diferencias y el potencial de conflicto permanecen. El asunto es que la OCS está trabajando con un paradigma completamente diferente al occidental, que se adhiere a la escuela del realismo político, practicando elementos tales como la disuasión, la confrontación, el conflicto de intereses, y así sucesivamente. La OCS está desarrollando un enfoque completamente nuevo de la seguridad colectiva, respetando los intereses y la soberanía de todos los miembros de la organización. Es probable que, a través de este formato, podría ser capaz incluso de ayudar a normalizar las relaciones entre Armenia y Azerbaiyán.

Muy importante es el hecho de que la adhesión de la India y Pakistán a la OCS hace de esta una alianza de cuatro potencias nucleares. El presidente de Uzbekistán, Islam Karimov, añadió que esto podría cambiar el equilibrio de fuerzas en el mundo. No menos relevante es la cuestión de la futura adhesión de la República Islámica de Irán. Mientras que Teherán esté bajo sanciones de la ONU, ésta no es posible. Pero, como dijo el ministro ruso de Asuntos Exteriores, Serguéi Lavrov, Irán ha hecho progresos significativos en las conversaciones entre los seis países y podemos esperar que en un futuro próximo este problema será resuelto – únicamente si Occidente no trata de revisar el marco de los acuerdos alcanzados anteriormente, como ha ocurrido en etapas anteriores.

En la cumbre de la OCS fue aprobado también un programa de cooperación en la lucha contra el terrorismo y el separatismo para los años 2016-2018  (vale la pena notar que, para entonces, la dirección del Comité Ejecutivo de la OCS estará en manos de Rusia), y comenzó el desarrollo de la Convención sobre la lucha contra el extremismo de la OCS, así como la creación del Centro contra las amenazas y desafíos a la seguridad de los estados miembros de la OCS, sobre la base de la Estructura Antiterrorista Regional (RATS). La organización terrorista “Estado Islámico” fue reputada como una amenaza grave y todos los miembros de la OCS reiteraron su intención de combatirlo, así como a otros extremistas internacionales.

La estrategia de desarrollo de la OCS hasta 2025 fue aprobada, y se adoptó la Declaración Ufa para la OCS. La estrategia afirma que la OCS trabajará “a favor de la construcción de un sistema democrático policéntrico de relaciones internacionales”, en referencia también a la fundación de un espacio de seguridad indivisible. También son importantes los designados principios y valores de los Estados y los pueblos, en los que las características históricas y la identidad de todos los Estados miembros se han tenido en cuenta.

En su discurso dedicado a los resultados de las dos cumbres, el presidente ruso Vladimir Putin puso de manifiesto que se está trabajando “para crear el Banco de Desarrollo de la OCS y el Fondo de Desarrollo de la OCS (Cuenta Especial). La idea de tener instituciones sobre la base de la Asociacion Interbancaria de la Asociación del Centro Internacional de Financiación de Proyectos de la OCS es muy prometedora”. Además, el líder ruso llamó a un uso más activo de las posibilidades de la OCS inherentes a los BRICS.

Pero, aparte del par BRICS-OCS, existe una gran cantidad de proyectos regionales que, naturalmente, unirán ambos formatos. Así, los líderes de Rusia y China declararon que están dispuestos a trabajar en estrecha colaboración en la ejecución de los dos proyectos de integración ─ la Unión Económica Euroasiática y el Cinturón Económico de la Ruta de la Seda. Añadido a esto, existen relaciones trilaterales, como la de Rusia-Mongolia-China. Al margen de la cumbre del BRICS, los líderes de los tres países acordaron intensificar los trabajos en una variedad de frentes, desde la creación de proyectos de infraestructura hasta actividades culturales y de información. Como manifestó el presidente del gobierno de China, Xi Jinping, “esto es necesario para formar una comunidad de destino mutuo y promover la multipolaridad.”

El BRICS también coordinará la defensa de su posición dentro del Grupo de los Veinte (G-20). Además, esta plataforma será utilizada para diferentes proyectos dentro de los BRICS y la cumbre del G-20 en noviembre de este año, que se celebrará en Turquía, continuando las conversaciones para la preparación del banco y otras tareas identificadas en la Declaración de Ufa.

Todo esto significa automáticamente que cualquier intento de manipulación externa, incluso bajo pretextos plausibles (por ejemplo, EEUU promueve activamente el proyecto de una nueva ruta de la seda), estará condenada al fracaso. Y el mundo, con la ayuda de los BRICS y la OCS, será más seguro y armonioso.

23/08/2015

(Traducción Página Transversal)

Fuente: Katehon

Le Big Bang du pivot de l’Eurasie

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Par Pepe Escobar 

Source TomDispatch

Ex: http://lesakerfrancophone.net

Les quelques centaines de républicains qui ont jeté leurs chapeaux dans l’arène pour la course à la présidentielle 2016 et les faucons de guerre du Congrès (principalement républicains mais pas seulement) sont déjà en mode turbo pour hurler à propos de l’accord nucléaire avec l’Iran à Vienne.

Jeb Bush a pris environ deux secondes pour étiqueter l’accord apaisement, convoquant instantanément l’image du Premier ministre britannique Neville Chamberlain cédant à Hitler, à Munich en 1938, avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’ancien gouverneur de l’Arkansas Mike Huckabee n’a épargné aucune métaphore dans la description de l’accord, «un accord qui permet au régime iranien de mettre à exécution sa menace de rayer Israël de la carte et de mettre à mort l’Amérique», le sénateur Lindsey Graham l’a qualifié de «peine de mort pour Israël»; le premier candidat milliardaire de cette année, Donald Trump, résume son opinion sur l’affaire en un mot dans le style vous-êtes-viré : «ridicule», le sénateur John McCain décrit le secrétaire d’État John Kerry, qui a négocié l’accord, comme «délirant»; et le sénateur … pardon, je veux dire, le premier Ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahou a retourné, infâme moqueur, l’expression de Chamberlain «la paix dans notre temps» en «la paix à tout prix», en rejetant l’accord comme une catastrophe remplie d’«absurdités», puis est apparu sur tous les médias américains possibles pour le dénoncer. Et cela c’est juste pour entamer la liste des habituels suspects. Même le sénateur Rand Paul a juré qu’il votera contre l’accord (bien que son père a dit que c’était «au profit de la paix du monde»), tandis que le gouverneur du Wisconsin Scott Walker était typique des candidats républicains en jurant qu’il saborderait personnellement l’accord dès son premier jour dans le bureau ovale.

Ceci est, en bref, la version folle de la politique internationale qui fait de Washington une chambre d’écho claustrophobe. Après tout, le choix n’est pas réellement d’empêcher l’Iran d’avoir une capacité nucléaire maintenant et de la retrouver d’ici 15 ans (comme la présente affaire semble offrir) ; le choix est entre un accord pour 15 ans de vérification de la non-possession des armes et une garantie de rien du tout à part ça. Et si vous avez coché cette dernière option (avoir rien du tout),  l’alternative est, en quelque sorte, d’écraser les Iraniens, pour les forcer à se soumettre. Il s’agit, en d’autres termes, d’une version de la guerre. Deux questions à ce sujet : quel succès a eu la guerre, utilisée comme arme de la politique américaine dans le Grand Moyen-Orient, ces 13 dernières années? Et qu’est-ce-qui fait croire à tout le monde que, alors même que Dick Cheney et sa bande n’ont pas pu se résoudre à appuyer sur la gâchette à propos de l’Iran, Jeb Bush ou l’un quelconque des autres candidats sera probablement susceptible de le faire dans un monde affublé d’un État islamique en 2017?

Lorsque vous avez répondu, pour votre compte, à ces deux questions, considérez le contexte plus large, rarement discuté, au sein duquel la politique nucléaire du XXI^e siècle a évolué. Dans ces dernières années, les Pakistanais, les Indiens, les Russes et les Américains, pour ne citer que quatre puissances nucléaires, ont soit augmenté, soit modernisé leurs stocks d’armes nucléaires de façon significative. Et Dieu sait ce que les Israéliens faisaient avec leur super-secret-de-polichinelle, jamais officiellement reconnu, mais potentiellement dévastateur de civilisation, c’est à dire leur arsenal atomique de 80 ou plus d’ogives nucléaires, tandis que les Nord-Coréens sont eux-mêmes devenus un mini-pouvoir nucléaire. Il n’empêche, le centre d’attention nucléaire et la question du désarmement sont restés presque exclusivement focalisés sur un pays qui n’a pas de telles armes, qui les a officiellement désavouées, et à ce jour au moins, n’a même pas de programme pour en fabriquer. Et notez bien que, dans tout Washington, il n’y a absolument personne pour trouver tout cela, pour le moins, un peu étrange.

C’est dans ce contexte, que l’irrépressible chroniqueur régulier de TomDispatch, Pepe Escobar, ouvre une autre focale de l’objectif pour élargir le champ de vision sur l’affaire iranienne. Il se concentre sur un sujet que Washington n’a pas encore pleinement absorbé : l’évolution des relations en Eurasie. Peu de gens ici l’ont remarqué, mais alors que l’accord de Vienne était négocié, la Russie et la Chine, des pays que le Pentagone vient officiellement de qualifier de menaces, ont déplacé des montagnes (littéralement, dans certains cas) pour intégrer toujours plus de parties dans cette grande masse de terres cruciale, cette île du monde pour en faire une vaste zone économique qui, si tout va comme ils le souhaitent, sera au-delà de la puissance et du contrôle de Washington. C’est un développement remarquable qui, malgré deux mois de bruit et de fureur à propos de l’Iran, ne sera pas au sommet des nouvelles dans les médias aux ordres, ce qui explique pourquoi vous avez besoin d’un site web comme TomDispatch pour rester en phase avec les temps nouveaux.

Tom

LE BIG BANG EURASIEN, COMMENT LA CHINE ET LA RUSSIE PRENNENT LE DESSUS SUR WASHINGTON

Par Pepe Escobar

Commençons par le Big Bang géopolitique  au sujet duquel vous ne savez rien, celui qui a eu lieu il y a à peine deux semaines. Voici ses résultats : à partir de maintenant, toute menace de future attaque contre l’Iran proférée par le Pentagone (en conjonction avec l’Otan) serait essentiellement un assaut contre un ensemble de d’organisations verrouillées – les nations du BRICS (Brésil, Russie, Inde , la Chine et l’Afrique du Sud), l’OCS (Organisation de coopération de Shanghai), l’EEU (Union économique eurasienne), l’AIIB (la nouvelle banque d’investissement asiatique pour les infrastructure fondée par la Chine ), et de la NDB (Nouvelle banque de développement du BRICS) – tous étant des acronymes que vous avez peu de chances de connaître. Pourtant, ils représentent un nouvel ordre émergent en Eurasie.

Téhéran, Pékin, Moscou, Islamabad et New Delhi ont activement verrouillé des garanties pour leur sécurité. Ils ont simultanément relevé le défi du bluff atlantiste quand il s’agit des roulements de tambour ininterrompus à l’attention du fragile cliché de l’Iran «le programme d’armes nucléaires». Et quelques jours avant que les négociations nucléaires de Vienne ne finissent par aboutir à un accord, le BRICS et l’OCS ont rejoint un sommet jumeau à Oufa, en Russie – un endroit dont vous n’avez sans doute jamais entendu parler et qui n’a retenu aucune attention aux États-Unis. Et pourtant, tôt ou tard, ces développements assureront que le parti de la guerre à Washington et les néoconservateurs républicains (ainsi que les néoliberaux-cons démocrates), qui crachent déjà abondamment sur l’accord avec l’Iran, vont réduire la mitraille au fur et à mesure que s’écroulent leurs mythes sur la façon dont le monde fonctionne.

La Route de la Soie eurasienne

Au cours des interminables négociations de l’accord de Vienne, que j’ai eu le douteux plaisir de suivre de près, le ministre des Affaires étrangères iranien Javad Zarif et son équipe diplomatique ont tiré, du chapeau froissé d’un improbable magicien, un accord qui pourrait réellement mettre fin aux sanctions contre leur pays dans un conflit asymétrique largement fabriqué.

Pensez à cette réunion à Oufa, capitale du Bachkortostan en Russie, comme à un préambule identique à la façon dont l’accord longtemps retardé à Vienne a fini par être conclu. Cette réunion a fondé la nouvelle dynamique du continent eurasien et signalé l’avenir géopolitique du Big Bang formé par tout cela. A Oufa, du 8  au 10 juillet , le 7^e sommet du BRICS et le 15^e sommet de l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai se chevauchaient tout comme l’accord de Vienne dévorait l’une après l’autre les dates limites.

Considérez cela comme un coup de maître diplomatique de la Russie de Vladimir Poutine d’avoir fusionné ces deux sommets avec une réunion informelle de l’Union économique eurasienne (de EEU). Appelez cela la déclaration de guerre douce d’une puissance naissante contre la logique impériale de Washington, qui mettait en évidence l’ampleur et la profondeur d’un partenariat stratégique sino-russe en évolution. En mettant tous ces chefs d’État participants à l’une ou l’autre de ces organisations sous un même toit, Moscou a offert une vision d’une structure géopolitique coordonnée émergente, ancrée dans l’intégration eurasienne. D’où l’importance de l’Iran : peu importe ce qui se passera après Vienne, l’Iran sera un élément vital concentrateur/nœud /carrefour de l’Eurasie pour cette nouvelle structure.

Si vous lisez la déclaration qui est sortie du sommet du BRICS, un détail devrait vous frapper : l’Union européenne caracolant sur son austérité est à peine mentionnée. Et ce n’est pas un oubli. Du point de vue des dirigeants des principales nations du BRICS, ils offrent une nouvelle approche de l’Eurasie, à l’opposé de la langue des sanctions.

Voici quelques exemples de l’activité vertigineuse qui a eu lieu à Oufa, tout cela ignoré par les grands médias occidentaux. Lors de leurs entretiens, le président Poutine, le président chinois Xi Jinping, et le Premier ministre indien Narendra Modi ont travaillé d’une manière concrète pour faire avancer ce qui est essentiellement une vision chinoise de la future Eurasie unie grâce à une série de verrouillages de nouvelles routes de la soie. Modi a approuvé davantage d’investissements chinois dans son pays, tandis que Xi et Modi se sont engagés à travailler ensemble pour résoudre les questions frontalières obstinées qui ont miné leurs pays et, dans au moins un cas, ont conduit à la guerre.

La NDB (Nouvelle banque de développement), réponse du BRICS à la Banque mondiale, a été officiellement lancée avec $50 Mds de capital au démarrage. Axée sur le financement de grands projets d’infrastructure dans les pays du BRICS, elle est capable d’accumuler jusqu’à $400 Mds en capital, selon son président, Kundapur Vaman Kamath. Plus tard, elle prévoit de se concentrer sur le financement de tels projets dans d’autres pays en développement à travers le Grand Sud – le tout dans leur propre monnaie, ce qui implique de se passer du dollar américain. Compte tenu de sa composition, l’argent de la NDB sera étroitement lié aux nouvelles Routes de la soie. Comme l’a souligné le président de la Banque de développement du Brésil, Luciano Coutinho, dans un proche avenir, il pourra également aider les États européens non membres de l’UE comme la Serbie et la Macédoine. Pensez à cela comme une tentative de la NDB de briser le monopole de Bruxelles sur la Grande Europe. Kamath a même avancé la possibilité d’aider un jour à la reconstruction de la Syrie.

Vous ne serez pas surpris d’apprendre que, tant la nouvelle Banque asiatique d’investissement dans les infrastructures que la NDB, ont leur siège social en Chine et vont travailler à complémenter leurs efforts. Dans le même temps, le bras d’investissement à l’étranger de la Russie, le Fonds d’investissement direct (RDIF), a signé un protocole d’entente avec des fonds provenant d’autres pays du BRICS, lançant ainsi un consortium d’investissement informel dans lequel le Fonds chinois de la Route de la soie et la Compagnie financière pour le développement des infrastructure en Inde seront des partenaires clés.

Domination sur toute la gamme des moyens de transport

Sur la terre ferme, il faudrait considérer cela comme une partie du nouveau Grand Jeu en Eurasie. Sa contrepartie occidentale est le Partenariat trans-pacifique et la même version pour l’Atlantique, le TTIP, partenariat pour le commerce et l’investissement transatlantique, qui sont tous deux promus par Washington afin de maintenir la domination des États-Unis sur l’économie mondiale. La question soulevée par ces plans concurrents est de savoir comment intégrer les échanges commerciaux à travers cette vaste région. Du point de vue chinois et russe, l’Eurasie doit être intégrée via un réseau complexe d’autoroutes, de lignes ferroviaires à grande vitesse, de ports, d’aéroports, de pipelines et de câbles à fibre optique. Par terre, mer et air, les nouvelles Routes de la soie sont destinées à créer une version économique de la doctrine du Pentagone de «Full Spectrum Dominance» – une vision qui montre déjà des dirigeants d’entreprises chinoises sillonner l’Eurasie en signant des contrats pour la réalisation des infrastructures.

Pour Pékin, le retour à un taux de croissance de 7% au deuxième trimestre de 2015 – malgré une quasi-panique récente sur les marchés boursiers du pays –  est d’une logique économique parfaite : alors que les coûts du travail augmentent, la production sera transférée de la côte Est du pays vers ses confins occidentaux moins chers, tandis que les débouchés naturels pour la production d’à peu près tout seront situés le long de ces ceintures parallèles et interconnectées des nouvelles Routes de la soie.

Pendant ce temps, la Russie pousse à moderniser et à diversifier son économie dépendant trop de l’exploitation de l’énergie. Entre autres choses, ses dirigeants espèrent que l’effet conjoint du développement des Routes de la soie et de la fusion de l’Union économique eurasienne (Russie, Arménie, Biélorussie, Kazakhstan et Kirghizistan) se traduira par une myriade de projets de transport et de construction pour lesquels le savoir-faire dans l’industrie et l’ingénierie se révéleront cruciaux.

Comme l’EEU a commencé à établir des zones de libre-échange avec l’Inde, l’Iran, le Vietnam, l’Égypte, et le Mercosur, le bloc de l’Amérique latine (Argentine, Brésil, Paraguay, Uruguay et Venezuela), les premières étapes de ce processus d’intégration s’étendent déjà au-delà de l’Eurasie. Pendant ce temps, l’OCS, qui a commencé comme un forum sur la sécurité, est en pleine expansion dans le domaine de la coopération économique. Ses pays, en particulier les quatre centrales asiatiques en stan (Kazakhstan, le Kirghizistan, l’Ouzbékistan et le Tadjikistan), seront de plus en plus appelés à compter sur les banques chinoises, l’AIIB et la NDB. A Oufa, l’Inde et le Pakistan ont achevé un processus de mise à niveau dans lequel ils sont passés du statut d’observateurs à celui de membres de l’OCS. Cela en fait un G8 alternatif.

En attendant, quand on en arrive à l’Afghanistan assiégé, les nations du BRICS et de l’OCS ont maintenant appelé «l’opposition armée à désarmer, à accepter la Constitution de l’Afghanistan, et à couper les liens avec al-Qaïda, ISIS, et d’autres organisations terroristes». Traduction : dans le cadre de l’unité nationale afghane, l’organisation accepterait les talibans dans le cadre d’un futur gouvernement. Leurs espoirs, avec l’intégration de la région à l’esprit, serait un avenir stable en Afghanistan en mesure d’absorber plus de Chinois, des investissements russes, indiens et iraniens, et la construction – enfin! – d’un pipeline de gaz de $10 Mds, long de 1 420 km traversant le Turkménistan, l’Afghanistan, le Pakistan et l’Inde (TAPI), prévu de longue date. Du gaz qui pourrait bénéficier à ces nouveaux membres de l’OCS qui ont soif d’énergie, le Pakistan et l’Inde. (Ils recevront chacun 42% du gaz, les 16% restants étant pour l’Afghanistan.)

L’Asie centrale est, pour le moment, une page vierge pour la convergence des projets économiques de la Chine, de la Russie et de l’Inde. Ce ne fut pas un hasard si, sur son chemin vers Oufa, le Premier ministre Modi a fait escale en Asie centrale. Comme les dirigeants chinois à Pékin, Moscou attend avec impatience (comme un document récent le dit) «l‘interpénétration et l’intégration de l’EEU et de la ceinture économique de la Route de la soie» dans une Grand Eurasie et «le développement, d’un voisinage commun sûr et stable» à la fois pour la Russie et la Chine.

Et ne pas oublier l’Iran. Au début de 2016, lorsque les sanctions économiques seront entièrement levées, il devrait rejoindre l’OCS, la transformant en un G9. Comme son ministre des Affaires étrangères, Javad Zarif, l’a récemment précisé sur la chaîne 1 de la télévision de la Russie, Téhéran considère les deux pays comme des partenaires stratégiques. «La Russie, a-t-il dit, a été le participant le plus important au programme nucléaire de l’Iran et elle continuera, sous l’accord actuel, à être un partenaire nucléaire majeur de l’Iran.» Il en sera de même, a-t-il ajouté, «au sujet de la coopération dans les secteurs du pétrole et du gaz», compte tenu de l’intérêt commun de ces deux nations, riches en énergie, dans le «maintien de la stabilité des prix du marché mondial».

On a un corridor, on voyagera

À travers l’Eurasie, les nations du BRICS se dirigent vers des projets d’intégration. Un corridor économique Bangladesh-Chine-Inde-Myanmar en développement est un exemple typique. Il est maintenant en cours de reconfiguration en route à voies multiples entre l’Inde et la Chine. Pendant ce temps, l’Iran et la Russie développent un corridor de transport depuis le golfe Persique et le golfe d’Oman jusqu’à la mer Caspienne et  la Volga. L’Azerbaïdjan sera relié au niveau de la mer Caspienne à ce couloir, tandis que l’Inde envisage d’utiliser les ports du sud de l’Iran pour améliorer son accès à la Russie et à l’Asie centrale. Maintenant, ajoutez à cela un couloir maritime qui va s’étirer de la ville indienne de Mumbai vers le port iranien de Bandar Abbas, puis de là, par voie terrestre en Iran, puis maritime dans la mer Caspienne, à la ville d’Astrakhan au sud de la Russie . Et cela ne fait qu’effleurer une partie de la planification en cours.

Voilà des années que Vladimir Poutine avait suggéré qu’il pourrait y avoir une Grande Europe s’étendant de Lisbonne, au Portugal, sur l’Atlantique, à la ville russe de Vladivostok sur le Pacifique. L’UE, sous la férule de Washington, l’a ignoré. Ensuite, les Chinois ont commencé à rêver de la planification de nouvelles Routes de la soie qui, à rebours du voyage de Marco Polo, iraient de Shanghai à Venise (et ensuite à Berlin).

Grâce à un ensemble de pollinisations croisées des institutions politiques, des fonds d’investissement, des banques de développement, des systèmes financiers et les projets d’infrastructures qui, à ce jour, restent largement ignorés des radars de Washington, un cœur eurasien de libre-échange est en train de naître. Un jour il reliera la Chine et la Russie à l’Europe, à l’Asie du Sud, et même à l’Afrique. Cela promet un progrès incroyable. Gardez votre attention, si vous le pouvez, sur l’accumulation des faits sur le terrain, même s’ils sont rarement couverts par les médias occidentaux. Ils représentent le Nouveau Grand – accent sur ce mot – Jeu en Eurasie.

Géographie, géographie, toujours géographie

Téhéran est maintenant profondément investi dans le renforcement de ses liens avec cette nouvelle Eurasie et l’homme à surveiller sur ce point est Ali Akbar Velayati. Il est le chef du Centre pour la recherche stratégique en Iran et conseiller principal pour la politique étrangère du guide suprême l’ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati souligne que la sécurité en Asie, au Moyen-Orient, en Afrique du Nord, en Asie centrale et dans le Caucase dépend de la poursuite du renforcement d’une triple entente Pékin-Moscou-Téhéran.

Comme il le sait, géo-stratégiquement l’Iran est à la bonne place. Ce pays offre le meilleur accès pour ouvrir les mers dans la région, en dehors de la Russie, et est de toute évidence le seul trajet est-ouest/nord-sud pour le commerce de l’Asie centrale des stan. Pas étonnant alors que l’Iran soit bientôt un membre de l’OCS, alors même que son partenariat avec la Russie est certain d’évoluer. Ses ressources énergétiques sont déjà cruciales pour la Chine, qui les considère comme une question de sécurité nationale et, dans la pensée des dirigeants de ce pays, l’Iran remplit également un rôle clé en tant que plaque tournante dans les Routes de la soie qu’ils projettent.

Ce réseau croissant de routes, de lignes ferroviaires et de pipelines, comme TomDispatch l’a déjà signalé, représente la réponse de Pékin à l’annonce par l’administration Obama d’un pivot vers l’Asie et à l’envie de l’US Navy de se mêler des affaires dans la mer de Chine méridionale. Pékin choisit de projeter sa puissance par l’intermédiaire d’un vaste ensemble de projets d’infrastructures, en particulier les lignes ferroviaires à grande vitesse qui s’étendront profondément dans l’Eurasie, à partir de sa côte Est chinoise. De cette façon, le chemin de fer construit par les Chinois d’Urumqi, dans la province du Xinjiang, à Almaty au Kazakhstan, sera sans aucun doute un jour étendu à l’Iran et traversera ce pays sur son chemin vers le golfe Persique.

Un nouveau monde pour les planificateurs du Pentagone

Lors du Forum économique international de Saint-Pétersbourg le mois dernier, Vladimir Poutine a dit à Charlie Rose de CBS que Moscou et Pékin avaient toujours voulu un véritable partenariat avec les États-Unis, mais ont été éconduits par Washington. Alors, chapeau bas au leadership de l’administration Obama. D’une certaine manière, il a réussi à réunir les deux anciens rivaux géopolitiques, tout en solidifiant leur grande stratégie pan-eurasienne.

Même le récent accord avec l’Iran à Vienne est peu susceptible – surtout compte tenu des faucons de guerre au Congrès – de mettre fin à 36 ans de Grande Muraille de méfiance de Washington à l’encontre de l’Iran. Au lieu de cela, les chances sont que l’Iran, libéré des sanctions, va en effet être absorbé dans le projet sino-russe d’intégration de l’Eurasie, ce qui nous amène au spectacle des guerriers de Washington, incapables d’agir efficacement, se lamentant comme des banshees. ¹

Le Commandant suprême de l’Otan, Dr. Folamour, le général américain Philip Breedlove, insiste pour que l’Occident crée une force médiatique de réaction rapide – en ligne sur internet – pour contrer les faux récits de la Russie.

Le Secrétaire à la défense Ashton Carter prétend sérieusement considérer unilatéralement le redéploiement de missiles nucléaires en Europe.

Le candidat à la tête du Joint Chiefs of Staff [État-major interarmes, Ndt], le Commandant de Marines Joseph Dunford, a récemment qualifié directement la Russie de véritable «menace existentielle» pour l’Amérique ; le Général Paul Selva, de l’US Air Force, désigné pour être le nouveau vice-président du Joint Chiefs, a appuyé cette évaluation, en utilisant la même phrase et a rajouté à la Russie, la Chine et l’Iran, dans cet ordre, comme plus menaçants que État islamique (ISIS). Dans l’intervalle, les candidats présidentiels républicains et un ramassis de faucons de guerre du Congrès ne savent que vociférer et pester quand on en vient aux affaires iranienne et russes.

En réponse à la situation ukrainienne et à la menace d’une résurgence de la Russie (derrière laquelle se dresse une résurgence de la Chine), la militarisation de l’Europe, américano-centrée, se poursuit rapidement. L’Otan serait actuellement obsédée par ce qu’elle appelle «repenser la stratégie» – par exemple l’élaboration de scénarios futuristes détaillés de guerre sur le sol européen. Comme l’économiste Michael Hudson l’a souligné, même la politique financière est militarisée et liée à la nouvelle Guerre froide de l’Otan 2.0.

Dans sa dernière stratégie militaire nationale, le Pentagone suggère que le risque d’une guerre américaine avec une autre nation (par opposition à l’épouvantail du simulacre terroriste), bien que bas, augmente et identifie quatre nations comme des menaces : la Corée du Nord, un cas à part et, de manière prévisible, les trois nations qui forment le nouveau noyau eurasien : la Russie, la Chine et l’Iran. Ils sont représentés dans le document comme «des États révisionnistes», défiant ouvertement ce que le Pentagone identifie comme «la sécurité et la stabilité internationale» dans ce qui reste du terrain de jeu éventré entièrement créé par la mondialisation, l’exclusion, le capitalisme de casino en mode turbo et par la marque du militarisme de Washington.

Le Pentagone, bien sûr, ne fait pas dans la diplomatie. Apparemment pas au courant des négociations de Vienne, il a continué à accuser l’Iran de se doter d’armes nucléaires. Et que l’option militaire contre l’Iran est toujours sur la table.

Donc considérez la suite comme la Mère de toutes les superproductions hollywoodiennes [Blockbusters] et regardez comment le Pentagone et les faucons de guerre du Congrès vont réagir à la suite de l’accord de Vienne, et aussi – bien qu’il ait été à peine remarqué à Washington – le nouvel environnement suite au sommet eurasien de Oufa, en particulier avec un nouveau tenancier du bordel de la Maison-Blanche en 2017.

Ce sera un spectacle. comptez là-dessus. La prochaine version de Washington essayera-t-elle de faire avec une Russie perdue ou enverra-t-elle des troupes? Verra-t-on contenir la Chine ou le califat de ISIS? La collaboration avec l’Iran va-t-elle fonctionner pour lutter contre ISIS ou va-t-on la dédaigner? Verrons-nous vraiment un pivot vers l’Asie pour de bon et un abandon du Moyen-Orient ou vice-versa? Pourrait-il tenter de contenir la Russie, la Chine et l’Iran simultanément ou trouver un moyen de les jouer les uns contre les autres?

En fin de compte, quoi que fasse Washington, ce sera certainement le reflet de la crainte de l’augmentation du développement économique stratégique entre la Russie et la Chine, une réalité déjà visible à travers l’Eurasie. A Oufa, M. Poutine a déclaré à Xi sur le dossier : «En combinant nos efforts, il n’y a aucun doute que nous [la Russie et la Chine] pourrons surmonter tous les problèmes qui se présenteront à nous.»

Par efforts, il faut comprendre de nouvelles Routes de la soie, l’Union économique eurasienne, la croissance du BRICS, l’expansion de l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai , les banques basées en Chine, et tout le reste de ce qui ajoute à ce début d’intégration de parties importantes de la masse terrestre eurasiatique. Quant à Washington, volera-t-il comme un aigle? Dites plutôt : se lamentera-t-il comme une banshee.

Pepe Escobar est correspondant itinérant pour Asia Times, analyste pour RT et Spoutnik, et habitué de TomDispatch. Son dernier livre est l’Empire du Chaos. Suivez-le sur Facebook en cliquant ici.

Traduit par jj, relu par Diane pour le Saker Francophone

 

1. Dans les légendes du folklore irlandais et écossais, la banshee est décrite comme une messagère de mort, une créature surnaturelle féminine qui commence à gémir ou crier quand quelqu’un est sur le point de mouri… La banshee est souvent comparée à d’autres créatures légendaires d’Europe ou du monde, comme la Dame blanche. Wikipédia

Naar nieuwe belangrijke geopolitieke wijzigingen?

Naar nieuwe belangrijke geopolitieke wijzigingen?

 

Verhouding Rusland-China-Amerika bepaalt Europese macht

 

Peter W. Logghe

Ex: Nieuwsbrief Deltastichting Nr. 95 - Augustus 2015

Koopt China haar belang in Rusland?

 

Midden juni geraakte bekend dat China in het zuidoosten van Siberië, in de regio Transbaikalië (aan de Chinese grens gelegen) voor ongeveer 300 miljoen euro zal gaan investeren. Volgens berichten het om investeringen in een agrarisch gebied van ongeveer 115.000 hectaren groot. Enkele dagen later merkte de gouverneur van het nog oostelijker gelegen joods autonoom gebied (met 176.000 inwoners) op dat Chinese ploegen daar reeds meer dan 80% van de grond bewerken, waarvan 85% met soja bepland is.

China is bezig aan een stille, maar opmerkelijke opmars in Rusland, zoals het dat in het verleden deed in Afrika bijvoorbeeld. China zoekt grondstoffen, zoekt uitbreiding van importproducten. Vooral het Russische Siberië komt steeds vaker in beeld en de reden hiervoor is natuurlijk vrij duidelijk: De oppervlakte van Siberië bedraagt ongeveer 13,1 miljoen km2, waarin 40 miljoen inwoners leven. China is ongeveer een kwart kleiner, maar daar leven 33 keer zoveel mensen.

Sommige Russische politici – de liberaal-democraten om ze niet te noemen – schreeuwen al moord en brand en zien een dreigende invasie van Chinezen op zich af komen. Het zou wel eens kunnen dat hier gewoon een volgende zet op het geopolitieke wereldschaakbord bezig is tussen de verschillende grote partners, Amerika, Rusland en China.

Indamming van Rusland als actueel Amerikaans buitenlands beleid

Voor steeds meer politieke commentatoren is het duidelijk dat vrede en stabiliteit in Europa onmogelijk zullen blijken als ze tegen Rusland gericht zullen zijn. Maar sinds de crisis in Oekraïne kwam dit natuurlijk wel in een ander licht te staan. Konden sommigen de Russische operatie in de Krim geopolitiek nog enigszins plaatsen, dan bleek de bewapening van separatisten in Oekraïne voor velen een brug te ver! Het beeld dat velen van Rusland hebben – vooral, maar niet alléén NAVO-voorstanders – werd hierdoor eerder versterkt: Moskou, zo leek het wel, zou zich niet aan internationale verdragen houden, breekt het volkerenrecht waar het haar uitkomt, en geeft alleen maar de indruk mensenrechten te respecteren.

Men kan nochtans ook niet om de vaststelling heen dat Amerika er alles aan doet om de Koude Oorlog verder te zetten, en dat Rusland door haar ‘boerse’ opstelling argumenten in grote mate versterkt. Rusland zit in een moeilijke geopolitieke toestand. Heel wat voormalige Warschaupakt-leden werd intussen een sterke NAVO-partner. Had Rusland tot voor enkele jaren nog de wereld als geopolitieke Bühne, dan is die nu ingeperkt tot de periferie rond Rusland. Zelfs het Russische grondgebied zelf wordt stilaan geopolitiek strijdtoneel….Enkele bijzondere problemen houden de Russische bewindvoerders zeer bezig: Ten eerste ziet men het gevaar van latent etnische spanningen, gecombineerd met een extreme vorm van islamisme in Centraal Azië. Bijzonder veel Russische staatsburgers vechten nu al mee in de rangen van IS, en die strijders komen stilaan terug binnen gesijpeld.

Rusland ziet de Oekraïnecrisis, gekoppeld aan het in 2008 geëscaleerd conflict met Georgië en de verschillende gekleurde revoluties in en rond de Kaukasus als een nieuwe ronde in een geopolitiek spel waarin de VS als enige grootmacht er alles op alles op zetten om Rusland onder de duim te houden. Voor veel Russische commentatoren houdt de Koude Oorlog gewoonweg verder aan en sloot de NAVO – onder leiding van de VS natuurlijk – Rusland geleidelijk op in zijn binnengrenzen. Aan de buitengrenzen houden nieuwe, betrouwbare NAVO-lidstaten de wacht.

Een derde problematiek maken de Rusland “in het buitenland” uit. In de postsovjet-ruimte leven – het Baltikum inbegrepen – ongeveer 17 miljoen Russen, waarvoor het moederland zich verantwoordelijk voelt. Zal Rusland naar militaire middelen grijpen om hun belangen veilig te stellen? Stelt u even voor dat Rusland de Amerikaanse Monroedoctrine zou aanwenden om daar in te grijpen waar de belangen van “haar” Russische burgers in gevaar of in het gedrang komt?

Naar een einde van de indammingspolitiek? China als Dritte im Spiel?

En zo komen we terug op Amerika. Als er iets is, dat de VS met 

bijzondere argwaan gadeslaan, zijn het maneuvers waarbij gebieden die voor haar strategisch zijn, 

toegang zou kunnen worden ontzegd. En dan valt natuurlijk de naam van die ‘andere’ supermacht, China.afgesloten worden, of waarbij hun de 

Ook in de multipolaire wereld, met haar grote economische belangen, is het duidelijk dat de handelingsvrijheid van de VS niet primair belemmerd wordt door Rusland. Rusland is momenteel – hoezeer bepaalde Russofielen dit ook kunnen of zullen betreuren – geen échte relevante geopolitieke factor. China is momenteel de enige wereldmacht die in staat is de VS te stoppen, of fundamenteel te hinderen. Economisch, financieel en technologisch is China stilaan zelfs de meerdere van de VS.

De voorbije jaren concentreerden de Amerikanen zich dan ook vooral op de vraag wat men zou moeten doen als bijvoorbeeld China de toegang tot operatiegebieden in Zuid-Oost- en Oost-Azië zou verhinderen. Wat als de toegang tot bepaalde strategische gebieden in de Stille Oceaan door China onmogelijk wordt gemaakt. Het is geen geheim dat de Volksbevrijdingsmarine al meer opdrachten uitvoert dan alleen de controle op de eigen kusten uit te voeren (zie vorige Nieuwsbrief van onze vzw…). Deze geopolitieke machtsuitbreiding van China komt voor de VS zeker niet als een verrassing uit de lucht vallen.

De VS hebben verschillende strategische scenario’s op zak, een zogenaamde dubbele strategie. De eerste strategie bestaat erin dat men China  prikkelt om deze weg niet te gaan. Zelfs verregaande economische samenwerking met China zou tot de mogelijkheden behoren, terwijl men verder zou bouwen aan militaire en technologische allianties in de regio, om de groeiende invloed van China in te dammen. De samenwerking met China zou kunnen op voorwaarde dat China de geopolitieke macht in de VS in de regio niet vermindert of afbouwt…

Een andere strategische keuze zou een Russisch-Amerikaanse alliantie kunnen zijn, een troefkaart waardoor een tot hiertoe louter maritieme indamming van China vervolledigd zou kunnen worden door een continentale insluiting. Een keuze die voor de VS bijzonder problematisch is, natuurlijk, want dan komen ook enkele strategische keuzes in Oost-Europa onder druk. Zelfs Europa zou de gevolgen van deze mogelijke nieuwe en onuitgegeven alliantie bepaald wel voelen.

Peter Logghe

Author: Salman Rafi Sheikh

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

The US’ “Asia Pivot” is in Doldrums

If the US’ “Asia Pivot” was to be described in one sentence, it would be “encirclement” of its two most important strategic peers in the world: Russia and China. The idea of “encirclement” was further based upon building a chain of allies across Asia, which is somehow now suffering from standstill. As it stands, not only is the US not succeeding in securing that chain of allies, but the ‘counter-economic-offensive’ of Russia and China has struck a heavy blow to the US ambitions as well.

As far as the question of the effectiveness and the success of “Asia Pivot” is concerned, one can evaluate it by emphasizing the fact that in its bid to strengthen its weak position, the US did not hesitate to virtually accept Iran’s erstwhile position on its nuclear programme. The fast changing situation inside Afghanistan and in Central Asian region must have compelled the US to make a serious attempt to wean Iran to its side so that the Iranian route to the Caspian Sea could be opened to use for the former. In other words, in the US’ new strategic calculations with regard to its position in this part of the word, Iran has come to occupy a significant position, and as such, Iran is most likely to take strategic advantage of it in order to strengthen its position against Saudi led “Sunni” block in the Middle East.

However, the success of the “Asia Pivot” is not dependent upon Iran alone; it is rather more deeply dependent upon that chain of allies the US originally conceived of as vital in this strategy. Iran, as is obvious, is only one link in that chain. Therefore, its position and its role in in facilitating the “Asia Pivot” must not be over-emphasized.

Although it is believed that the on-going crisis in the Middle East have impacted the progress of the “Asia Pivot”, the fact is that the US has not been able to succeed in securing the kind of agreements with its East Asian allies it wanted to secure. East Asia, as it turns out, is not waiting for the US, nor is it willing to engage with the US on such terms as would jeopardize their relations with Russia and China. Major countries in the region, including America’s key allies and its top emerging rival, are actively jockeying for influence, assertively reassessing their bi-lateral relations with their neighbors and generally stirring for what could become a significant realignment of power in the world’s fastest-growing region specifically, and in the world generally. It is increasingly become clear with each day passing that the post-cold war balance of power has now changed a lot, and that global politics is no longer solely dominated by the US.

The recalcitrant behaviour of the US’ erstwhile allies, in this behalf, is only a reaction to this changing global political realities. Not only this, China is also actively involved in jeopardizing the “Asia Pivot” by exploiting rivalry between two of the US’ main allies in the region: South Korea and Japan. Tensions between the two American allies, which stem from a troubled history, particularly events that transpired during World War II, continue to flare from time to time and are always a source of trouble for the US to get over it. South Korea wants to see genuine repentance from Tokyo, in addition to compensation, for Japanese actions during the war, notably on the so-called comfort women, as the Korean women forced into sexual slavery for the benefit of Japanese soldiers were called.

China, meanwhile, is deliberately working to profit from the dispute between Japan and South Korea with a strong, top-level diplomatic offensive to complement the South Korea’s considerable economic muscle. Chinese policy, and priorities, were markedly evident during Chinese President’s last year visit to South Korea. Making an unprecedented move, and breaking with the tradition, Xi Jingping travelled to South Korea before travelling to North Korea. Not only was it an indication of Chinese policy to sabotage the “pivot” by embarking on offensive diplomacy but also a clear message to the young North Korean leader who has presided over a deteriorating relationship with Beijing. But more than a mere warning to North Korea, the Chinese gesture was meant to warmly embrace South Korea. That the tour was meant to hit at the heart of South Korea-Japan rivalry became self-evident in one of the speeches Xi delivered during the visit. In the speech delivered to Korean students, Xi not only spoke of Japanese military aggression during World War II, but also of the time 400 years ago when China’s Ming rulers sent soldiers to help Korea fend off Japanese invaders.

Apart from winning the US allies to its side, China, in partnership with Russia mainly, has also launched an “economic offensive” in the shape of Asian Infrastructure and Development Bank. Under Chinese stewardship, a new and potentially disruptive player in the development banking landscape, the AIIB, which was initially proposed in 2013 by President Xi Jingping, has gathered a lot of steam in the past few months, and has become the primary source of attraction for the erstwhile US allies in the region. In other words, this initiative has alone done so much damage to the US position in the region that no limited military conflict could do. As it stands, the Bank’s stated mission is to “focus on the development of infrastructure and other productive sectors in Asia.” It has attracted 57 founding member countries. This group includes some of America’s closest allies — first the UK, followed by Germany, France, South Korea, and Israel, among others. The U.S. and Japan are, as should have been expected, two of the most prominent players to decline membership. Although this Bank is by far much smaller, in terms of the capital it has, than World Bank and Asian Development Bank, however, with so many major countries on board, the AIIB poses a credible alternative to incumbent development banking systems like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and others that have been in place, largely unchallenged, for 70 years. It’s a big shake-up for the development world, and a very suitable alternative to many a state in the region which do wish to get out of the dollar-oriented, US dominated, economic system.

The Chinese-Russian endeavor is, perhaps, the strongest response to the “Asia Pivot”, which not only meant to encircle and contain China but, at the same time, also aimed at integrating itself into the US led global economic system dominated by dollar. The initiative to establish a different currency system and the related development of the AIIB have thus clearly established the failure of the US ‘dream’ of having China into the trap.

However, apart from attempting to structure an altogether ‘new economic system’, China, by default, is not that much integrated in the current global economic system being virtually run by the World Bank and the IMF. This can be illustrated in this way: China is now the world’s second largest economy—the largest if measured in terms of purchasing-power parity; however, its contribution and its voting power in the IMF is roughly equivalent to that of the Netherlands and Belgium combined. It is certainly much less than China’s economic worth. And, it is certainly a bad omen for the US policy to have China integrated into global economic system.

On politico-military front, China is equally aggressively asserting its space. Not only is she reclaiming land and building an airstrip on the disputed Spratly Islands, creating what the Pentagon has called “facts on the water,” but also actively engaged in rash island-building program in the South China Sea. Although the US has signaled to send its Navy in the region to ensure “freedom of navigation”, it is quite obvious that the US cannot afford to confront China militarily; after all, China is one of the most important investors in the USA itself. Chinese presence in the US can be assessed from the fact that between 2011 and 2013, the value of China’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the United States exceeded the value of US merger and acquisitions deals in China. Similarly, between 2011 and 2012, Chinese FDI flows into the US exceeded US FDI flows into China. While it is too early to call this a permanent turning point, Chinese companies are also certainly poised to deepen their presence in the US with the passage of time. Given these trends, it can hardly be expected that the USA can or should even think of engaging in a military conflict with China.

In this context, it is quite an evident fact that China is playing a long game, and it is scoring points slowly but steadily while the US struggles to carry out its much-advertised “pivot.” With US attention currently occupied by Iraq, Syria and now Yemen, developments in Asia that clamor for closer attention from the US once again seem to be getting drowned out by the din from the Middle East. However, it is also a fact that the US-Iran rapprochement is kind of a US response to Chinese assertiveness in East Asia. The US policy, in this regard, can be summarized in this way: if China gets hold over East Asia, the US can manipulate energy rich regions of West and Central Asia through Iran. And, if the US can bring this region under its control, it can not only manipulate the flow of energy to China and other East Asian states and thereby impact their economic growth, but also cause trouble for another major power: Russia. The US strategy is, therefore, two edged: one of the one hand, it aims to strengthen its position in the Middle East, and on the other, it aims to maintain political influence in the Eastern and Central Asian regions, enough to prevent China-Russia alliance from establishing total hegemony. Notwithstanding the strategic aim of the US, it seems quite improbable that the US would, at least in the near future, be able to secure any major victory. Whether or not its position is weak can be a moot question; however, it is quite certain that its competitors—Russia and China—are much stronger than ever, and are therefore in a much better position to put the “pivot” in the ‘dustbin’ of geo-politics.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

 

China slaat de geopolitieke vleugels uit

China slaat de geopolitieke vleugels uit

 

door Peter W. Logghe

Ex: Deltapers, Nieuwsbrief, Nr. 94, juni 2015

In een eerdere bijdrage, voor het tijdschrift TeKoS, had ik in mijn conclusie het volgende gesteld: “In de confrontatie, die zich aankondigt tussen China en de VS, zal de politieke elite in Europa moeten kiezen.

 

Kiest zij ervoor om in naam van de “Westerse waarden” de imperiale wereldmissie van de VS verder te steunen. Of zal ze daarentegen in het kader van een zelfstandige buitenlandse politiek een andere keuze maken? Het is duidelijk dat het de Chinezen in deze niet gaat om het opdringen van een bepaald moreel-ideologische ordeningspolitiek – zoals het in het geval van de VS wel is – maar om pure nationale belangen, om geopolitieke macht.”

Soms wordt een mens vlugger op zijn wenken bediend dan men voor mogelijk houdt! China werkt in elk geval in snel tempo aan de uitbouw van zijn machtsbasis in de Zuid-Chinese Zee. De tijd lijkt ook voorbij van de ‘zachte druk’. Kritiek op Peking, vooral dan van de buurlanden, heeft het over een (Chinese) politiek “van suikerbrood en zweep”. Neem nu de oprichting van de Aziatische investeringsbank, voor China een groot diplomatiek succes, aldus Albrecht Rothacher in Junge Freiheit (nr. 21, 15 mei 2015), want een duidelijk signaal naar de VS dat men – lees: China – de dominantie van allerlei ‘Amerikaanse’ instellingen als het IWF en de Wereldbank niet langer aanvaardt. Met deze Investeringsbank stelt China in elk geval geld beschikbaar voor grote investeringen door Aziatische bedrijven.

Maar het duidelijkst is de opmars van China als het gaat om grensdiscussies, waar het Middenrijk tot hier toe de deugd van het geduld beoefende. Steeds vaker registreren waarnemers dat China de door haar opgeëiste atollen en eilanden stilaan aan het uitbouwen is tot “onzinkbare vliegdekschepen”. Obama, die wat graag de sympathie van de buurlanden zou willen verwerven, stelde al dat China landen als Vietnam en de Filippijnen “in een ondergeschikte rol aan het duwen is”. De VS kunnen er intussen niet onderuit dat ze tegen de hegemonieplannen van China met lege handen staan.

De (zich aankondigende) grensconflicten spelen zich het duidelijkst af in Zuid-Chinese Zee, waar ook Maleisië, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan en Filippijnen aanspraken op maken. Deze zee is goed voor het transport voor 40% van de wereldhandel, wat onmiddellijk haar belang onderstreept. Het totale olie- en grondstoffentransport van Japan, Korea en Taiwan gebeurt via deze waterwegen, die tot hier toe voor iedereen vrij toegankelijk waren. Reeds in de jaren 40 van de vorige eeuw maakte China haar aanspraken op eilandengroepen in de Chinese Zee bekend, bijvoorbeeld op de Spratly-eilanden, die zo’n 1.300 km van de Chinese kusten verwijderd zijn. China onderbouwde haar eisen met het opgraven van grafstèles van Chinese zeelui. Het zwaarste argument, het beslissende ‘argument’ zou wel eens haar uit de kluiten gewassen zeevloot kunnen zijn. Die zeevloot nam onlangs het Woody-eiland in bezit – waar ook Vietnam zijn zinnen op had gezet – en bouwde het eiland intussen uit tot een echte militaire vesting. Dezelfde werken zijn gestart op de Spratly-eilanden, waar bunkers en schuilkelders werden aangelegd, maar ook radar- en raketstellingen. De Chinese minister van Buitenlandse Zaken wist te vertellen dat deze vooral bedoeld waren om reddingacties te faciliteren, het zeeonderzoek verder te helpen en de meteorologie, milieubescherming en de visserij, maar in de buurlanden groeit de onrust.

Het doel van de vele Chinese activiteiten in deze regio mag vrij duidelijk zijn als men even naar het bijgaande kaartje kijkt: De eilandenring rond China, die van Japan tot diep in Zuidoost-Azië reikt, en die tot op vandaag vooral door de VS wordt gecontroleerd, werkte als een soort Amerikaans-Aziatische versie van de containment-theorie. China wil die perse doorbroken, militair, politiek en ook economisch. China wil haar hegemonie over dit stuk oceaan vestigen. De strijd in Oost-Azië is nog maar in haar beginfase.

 

Peter Logghe

Modernity and Muslims Encroach on Unique Tribe in Pakistan

Kalash people’s free mixing of the sexes and use of alcohol are anathema to many of its neighbors

The pagan Kalash people live in Chitral, a remote area in the far northwest of Pakistan.

 

BySaeed Shah 

Ex: http://www.wsj.com

CHITRAL, Pakistan—The Kalash tribe’s annual celebration of Joshi, a unique festival that marks spring’s arrival in their remote corner of the Hindu Kush mountains, is no longer the carefree affair it once was.

The festival is still a riot of color and rhythm, as it has been for centuries: Kalash women hold each other by the shoulder and swirl around in their customary dance, singing and whistling to a hypnotic drumbeat played by the men as they walk from village to village before all converge at special hilltop sites for their carnival.

But this year’s festival, held in May, took place under heavy security. Less than 5,000 Kalash survive and maintain their mystical beliefs. The tribe’s ancient religion, free mixing of the sexes and wine drinking put them at odds with some of their Muslim neighbors who consider such practices sacrilegious.

“If this celebration ends, our culture will end,” said Mutaram Shah, 80, a Kalash elder who wore a shimmering golden coat for the festival in the Bumburet valley, where he and other male elders engaged in mock fights with sticks amid the dancing.

The Kalash are under pressure from modernization and the cultural and physical encroachment of their Muslim neighbors. Photo: SAEED SHAH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Members of this community say they are battling to preserve their traditions against two powerful forces: the encroachment of modernity and pressure to conform with the surrounding Muslim population.

At this year’s festival, the women wore their traditional long black dresses embellished with bright patterns, heaps of colorful necklaces and headdresses adorned with beads and seashells. But some of the younger women covered their faces for the dance with scarves, in a recent adoption of conservative Muslim norms.

Kalash children now go to school, where the girls come under pressure to adopt the chador, a wraparound cloth to hide their hair and faces, like the Muslim girls of Chitral, members of the tribe say.

The threat of attack was also visible: Around 400 police officers were deployed at this year’s festival, along with a contingent of army in both uniform and plainclothes, partly in response to a long video the Pakistani Taliban distributed last year that warned the Kalash to convert to Islam, security officials said.

Community members, however, say the steady erosion of their culture is the greatest threat to the Kalash.

“Since I came here, people have been saying that the Kalash will disappear,” said Akiko Wada, a Japanese woman who moved here in 1987 and married a Kalash man. “I can see the culture is adapting to the nearby culture, the lifestyle is changing. It is worrying.”

The historic realm of the Kalash people, now greatly reduced.

Many Kalash consider themselves descendants of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian conqueror who led his army into what is now Pakistan in 326 B.C. Anthropologists believe the Kalash are more likely the marooned remnants of an ancient migration from Central Asia to South Asia and Europe.

The Kalash’s realm once straddled Pakistan’s far northwestern Chitral area and the adjacent Afghan province of Nuristan, a region dubbed Kafiristan, or “Land of the Infidels.” Muslims started to conquer Chitral in the 14th century, driving the Kalash into ever-smaller pockets. In Afghanistan, King Abdur Rahman forcibly converted Kalash in the 1890s to Islam, wiping out their culture there. The number of Kalash in previous centuries is unclear.

The tribespeople now inhabit three narrow valleys in Chitral, where they grow crops and raise long-haired goats. Their valleys are accessible only by a narrow track carved into the mountainside. The Kalash language and religion are distinct, as are their pacifistic ways in a region known for violence and internecine feuding.

“We’re a peaceful people,” said Muhammad Iqbal Kalash, sitting outside his traditional stone-and-wood house on the banks of a mountain river in the Rumbur valley. “Without the security now provided, we would no longer go to our dancing places.”

Even in their remaining three valleys, the Kalash are now outnumbered by Muslims. While the native Chitralis are known for their tolerance, many Muslim settlers from outside the region have brought a harsh brand of Islam with them.

Women are in many ways the anchor of Kalash culture. Confidently mixing with men and enjoying home-made wine and liquor fermented from mulberries or apricots at festivals, women usually choose their husbands—unlike most of Pakistan, where marriages are arranged by family elders. A Kalash wife can leave her husband for another man as long as the first one is financially compensated.

“Kalash religion and culture has survived because of the women,” said Sayed Gul Kalash, a woman taking a break from dancing at the festival. “Conversion is a silent killer. When someone leaves their religion, they leave their language and culture too.”

Kalash men have adopted the shalwar kameez, the baggy shirt-and-trousers combination worn by men throughout the rest of Pakistan. The men say they are encouraged by Muslims neighbors to shave, so they are not mistaken for Muslims.

The Kalash have adopted Muslim names, while the now-educated young men are reluctant to tend goats, an animal considered pure by the Kalash and an important part of their religion.

With no written tradition and no sacred book, many Kalash find their religion, a faith of shamans and animal sacrifice, hard to explain. They believe in one supreme God, but other deities function as intermediaries.

Cellphone service, another intrusion of the modern world, arrived in some Kalash areas only this year. But while modernization has taken some Kalash away from their home valleys and beliefs, it has also made many of them prouder of their unique heritage.

“There is now awareness of our culture,” said Meeta Gul, a mother of two in Rumbur. “Educated Kalash don’t convert.”

Write to Saeed Shah at [e-mail]

Chine: routes de la soie et haute mer

Auteur : Pepe Escobar

Traduit par jj, relu par Diane pour le Saker Francophone

Ex: http://zejournal.mobi

La semaine dernière, l’annonce par Pékin de son nouveau livre blanc militaire, qui présente une doctrine dépassant le concept de défense offshore pour aller vers une défense en haute mer, n’a pas manqué d’ébranler les certitudes de plus d’un tenant de l’exceptionnalisme états-unien.

Ce que l’on appelle également le projet de Nouvelle route de la soie – dénomination qui a toutes les connotations romantiques d’un certain âge d’or – ne se limite pas à de nouvelles routes, à des chemins de fer à grande vitesse, à des pipelines et à la fibre optique : c’est également un réseau maritime qui s’étend de l’Extrême-Orient au Moyen-Orient et à l’Europe.

Ainsi, l’expansion chinoise en haute mer, de la mer de Chine méridionale au Pacifique occidental et à l’océan Indien, devait être étroitement liée à la protection de la Route de la soie maritime.

Affaire conclue, c’est parti

À mesure que le réseau One Road, One Belt prend forme malgré sa complexité délirante, pas une semaine ne s’écoule sans que la Chine ne signe un nouveau contrat pour la construction d’un pipeline, d’une centrale électrique, d’un réseau de fibre optique ou encore d’une usine en vue d’accélérer l’intégration eurasienne – du Pakistan aux Stans d’Asie Centrale, en passant par tout ce qui relie, par le rail ou la route, la Chine occidentale à la mer d’Arabie et aux installations portuaires de la Corne de l’Afrique.

La logique commerciale qui sous-tend ce déferlement de contrats d’infrastructure est solide : il s’agit d’absorber l’énorme excédent de la capacité industrielle chinoise. Bien entendu, ce processus est étroitement lié à la stratégie énergétique complexe de Pékin, dont le leitmotiv est principalement d’échapper à Malacca 1

La coopération étroite de membres des BRICS tels que la Chine et l’Inde sera absolument décisive pour le succès de l’intégration eurasiatique. Ce processus est déjà en marche avec la banque des BRICS – la Nouvelle banque de développement – qui aura son siège à Shanghai et sera dirigée par un banquier indien. Ce n’est pas un hasard si l’Inde fait également partie des membres fondateurs de la BAII.

Le premier président de la BAII sera Jin Liqun, ancien vice-ministre des Finances et vice-président de l’Asian Development Bank (ADB), dont la direction est nippo-américaine. Les allégations des suspects habituels selon lesquelles la BAII sera une sorte de société secrète chinoise ne tiennent pas debout. Le conseil d’administration sera constitué de représentants de plusieurs puissances mondiales développées et en développement.

La BAII s’annonce déjà comme incontournable dans toute l’Eurasie. Il n’est pas surprenant que les Japonais, se sentant exclus, aient été contraints de relever la barre et d’annoncer l’intention de Tokyo de s’engager à hauteur de pas moins de 110 milliards de dollars dans le financement de projets d’infrastructures d’ici 2020. Le grand sujet de conversation du moment dans toute l’Asie est la guerre des infrastructures.

L’appel de l’Ouest

Il ne faut pas oublier que ce que j’ai appelé le Go West Young Han de l’expansion de l’influence commerciale de la Chine a en fait commencé dès 1999. La première étape s’est traduite par une vague de délocalisation d’usines de la province du Guangdong vers les provinces de l’intérieur. Au bout de quelques années, dans le Triangle du Guangdong – aujourd’hui beaucoup plus riche que bien des pays industriels –, des entrepreneurs soucieux du cycle de vie des produits se sont lancés dans une accélération technologique frénétique. Dans la mégalopole de Shenzhen, les autorités vont d’ailleurs jusqu’à repousser les entreprises moins axées sur la technologie vers la périphérie de la ville.

Dans le domaine des ports de marchandises, sur les dix plus grands ports du monde, pas moins de sept sont en Chine. À lui seul, ce chiffre est révélateur de la domination écrasante de la Chine dans le commerce maritime mondial.

En termes de gestion, le plan 125 – c’est-à-dire le 12e plan quinquennal chinois – expire en 2015. En Occident, peu de gens savent que les objectifs des sept domaines technologiques où la Chine voulait dominer ont été atteints et même, dans certains cas, dépassés. Le grand bond en avant technologique explique pourquoi la Chine est aujourd’hui capable de construire des réseaux d’infrastructures, chose qui semblait auparavant impossible.

Le prochain plan quinquennal s’annonce encore plus ambitieux. Il sera axé, entre autres conséquences de la restructuration du modèle économique de la Chine, sur le lancement par Pékin d’une vague de construction de nouvelles mégalopoles.

The China Dream, qui vient d’être publié par le professeur Liu Mingfu, un spécialiste de premier plan des questions militaires, donne une idée d’ensemble au moment de la montée en puissance de la Chine dans le domaine des infrastructures en Eurasie. Un clash avec les États-Unis semble désormais inévitable.

Les murmures de mécontentement incessants du Pentagone au sujet de la mer de Chine méridionale ne sont que la partie visible de l’iceberg (mortel), mer que Washington considère finalement comme un Grand Lac américain.

 

Liu Mingfu, à l’instar d’autres grands analystes chinois, souhaiterait que Washington finisse par trouver un modus vivendi avec la superpuissance mondiale émergente, un peu comme l’Empire britannique a transféré sa domination maritime mondiale aux États-Unis au début du XXe siècle.

Cela n’arrivera pas. Dans l’immédiat, selon la doctrine du pivot vers l’Asie de l’administration Obama annoncé en 2011 par le Pentagone, l’endiguement sera musclé. Toutefois, cela ne marchera que si l’Inde, membre des BRICS, est entièrement solidaire. Et c’est assez peu probable.

En attendant, Washington va continuer d’être submergé de ce type d’analyse paranoïde d’un ancien conseiller stratégique du haut commandement US/OTAN en Afghanistan.

Pendant ce temps sur la Terre…

Ce qu’il faut retenir, et ce qu’a déjà fait une écrasante majorité des pays du Sud, c’est que la stratégie One Road, One Belt de la Chine vise avant tout à établir des relations commerciales équitables. Cette politique la situe à des années-lumière de ce que fait l’Empire avec ses bases militaires et sa sempiternelle guerre bushienne contre le terrorisme, ses infernales listes d’assassinats illégaux et ses bombardements de pays récalcitrants (généralement des républiques arabes séculaires) en vue de leur faire avaler la démocratie à leur sauce.

Le projet One Road, One Belt, immensément ambitieux, couplé à la protection par la marine chinoise des intérêts nationaux en haute mer, s’inscrit en droite ligne dans le plan directeur du Rêve chinois du président Xi Jinping. La meilleure manière de bâtir une société modérément prospère est de construire des infrastructures modernes à l’intérieur du pays avant de se tourner vers l’extérieur et le monde.

Une fois encore, la Chine exportera l’énorme excédent de sa capacité industrielle, poursuivra la diversification de ses sources d’approvisionnement en énergie et étendra son influence commerciale de l’Asie centrale à l’Europe en passant par l’Iran, la Turquie et la Grèce.

La Chine a les moyens financiers de résoudre l’un des problèmes les plus insolubles de l’Inde, à savoir la reconstruction de son infrastructure sclérosée. Dans l’idéal, ces deux membres des BRICS sont appelés à signer contrat sur contrat (d’infrastructure) aux côtés d’un autre membre, la Russie, et d’un Iran qui a regagné la confiance de l’Occident. Cela implique que tout ce qui a trait à la ou aux nouvelles Routes de la soie touche directement pas moins d’un tiers de la population mondiale. Zone d’influence, dites-vous ?

À Washington, on a beaucoup grondé que personne n’a droit à une zone d’influence – en dehors des États-Unis, bien entendu. Pourtant, les efforts économiques, financiers, diplomatiques et géopolitiques de Pékin en vue d’unifier l’Eurasie représentent la surenchère suprême dans l’exercice d’une influence mondiale. Finalement, la tactique habituelle inspirée des Romains, Divide et impera, appliquée par l’Occident, pourrait bien se révéler inopérante.

Notes du traducteur :

(1)Le détroit de Malacca est un passage obligé du trafic pétrolier vers tous les pays d’Extrême-Orient. Il est sous l’étroit contrôle de l’US Navy pour se procurer un maximum de pétrole et de gaz en contournant les eaux où patrouille la marine US.

Sa ruée vers l’Ouest, conséquence naturelle d’une politique officielle lancée en 1999 mais, à l’époque, limitée principalement au Xinjiang, conduit Pékin à s’ouvrir de plus en plus sur le monde. Pour s’en convaincre, il suffit de voir le nombre de pays orientaux et occidentaux qui ont intégré la Banque asiatique d’investissement pour les infrastructures (BAII).

- Source : Pepe Escobar-Traduit par jj, relu par Diane pour le Saker Francophone

Le condominium Russie-Chine et la Nouvelle Route de la Soie font réfléchir le Maître de l’univers

Le condominium Russie-Chine et la Nouvelle Route de la Soie font réfléchir le Maître de l’univers (Asia Times)

par Anna Markonova

annamarkonova

Ex: https://theorisk.wordpress.com

Quand les flottes russes et chinoises mènent conjointement des exercices navals en Méditérranée et en Mer de Chine de méridionale, les véritables Maîtres de l’univers qui ne sont peut-être pas météorologues commencent à flairer le sens du vent. L’histoire dira peut-être que tout a commencé cette semaine à Sotchi, lorsque leur camelot de service, le secrétaire d’État John Kerry, a rencontré le ministre des Affaires étrangères Lavrov, puis le président Poutine.

Ce qui a mis la puce à l’oreille des véritables Maîtres de l’univers, c’est sans doute la vue de ces soldats de l’Armée Populaire de Libération, défilant côte à côte avec les militaires russes sur la Place Rouge le Jour de la Victoire. Jamais on n’avait vu des troupes chinoises défiler sur la Place Rouge, même à l’époque de l’alliance entre Staline et Mao.

Comme rappel à l’ordre, c’est digne du système de défense antimissiles russe S-500. Les adultes dans les officines à Washington ont peut-être fait les calculs qui s’imposent et conclu que Moscou et Pékin pourraient être sur le point de signer des protocoles militaires secrets similaires au Pacte germano-soviétique (Molotov-Ribbentrop). Le nouveau jeu des chaises musicales a vraiment de quoi rendre fou de rage le « docteur Zbig » qui a fait de l’Eurasie son obsession.

Et voilà que soudain, en lieu et place de la diabolisation incessante de la Russie et des hauts cris de l’OTAN à propos d’une agression russe proférés toutes les dix secondes, nous avons Kerry qui dit que le respect de Minsk-2 est la seule façon de s’en sortir en Ukraine et qu’il mettra sérieusement en garde son vassal Porochenko de ne pas exécuter sa menace de bombarder l’aéroport de Donetsk et ses environs afin de réintégrer le tout dans le giron de la démocratie ukrainienne.

Le sempiternel réaliste Lavrov a qualifié la rencontre avec Kerry de « merveilleuse ». Pour sa part, le porte-parole du Kremlin Dmitry Peskov a décrit la nouvelle entente US-Russie comme « extrêmement positive ».

Ainsi donc, les tenants de la politique autoproclamée tentant d’éviter les « conneries » de l’administration Obama semblent avoir fini par comprendre, en apparence du moins, qu’isoler la Russie ne sert à rien et que Moscou ne reculera jamais sur deux fronts : pas question que l’Ukraine intègre l’OTAN et pas question que les Républiques populaires de Donetsk et Lougansk soient écrasées par Kiev, par l’OTAN et par qui que ce soit d’autre.

Ce dont il a été vraiment question à Sotchi (mais rien n’en est ressorti), c’est de déterminer comment l’administration Obama pourra se sortir du bourbier géopolitique dans lequel elle s’est elle-même enfoncée à la frontière occidentale russe sans trop perdre la face.

À propos des missiles…

L’Ukraine est un État en déliquescence maintenant converti en colonie du FMI. L’Union Européenne n’acceptera jamais de l’accueillir comme membre ou de payer ses factures astronomiques. Le véritable enjeu, aussi bien pour Washington que pour Moscou, c’est l’Iran. Ce n’est pas un hasard si la très suspecte Wendy Sherman, la négociatrice en chef des US dans les pourparlers sur le nucléaire entre l’Iran et le P5+1, faisait partie de la délégation accompagnant Kerry. Un accord détaillé avec l’Iran ne pourra être conclu sans la collaboration essentielle de Moscou sur tout, de l’élimination du combustible nucléaire usé à la levée rapide des sanctions imposées par l’ONU.

L’Iran joue un rôle clé dans le projet chinois des Nouvelles Routes de la Soie. Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers ont dû s’apercevoir (il était temps !) que tout gravite autour de l’Eurasie qui, c’était à prévoir, a volé la vedette lors de la parade du Jour de la Victoire le 9 mai. Après son arrêt d’une portée significative à Moscou (où il a signé 32 accords distincts), le président chinois Xi Jinping est allé conclure des ententes avec le Kazakhstan et la Biélorussie.

Bienvenue dans le Nouvel ordre mondial (des Routes de la Soie) : de Pékin à Moscou par TGV, de Shanghai à Almaty, Minsk et au-delà, de l’Asie centrale à l’Europe de l’Ouest.

Nous savons maintenant que cette aventure commerciale et géopolitique à vitesse grand V est inéluctable, avec la participation de la Banque Asiatique d’Investissement pour les Infrastructures (AIIB), sous la direction de Pékin avec l’appui de Moscou, et de la Banque de Développement des BRICS. L’Asie centrale, la Mongolie et l’Afghanistan (où l’OTAN vient de perdre une guerre) sont inexorablement attirés vers cette orbite commerciale et géopolitique qui englobe tout le centre, le nord et l’est de l’Eurasie.

Ce qu’on pourrait appeler la Grande Asie est en train de prendre forme, non seulement de Pékin à Moscou, mais aussi de ce centre commercial qu’est Shanghai à la porte de l’Europe qu’est Saint-Pétersbourg. C’est la conséquence logique d’un processus complexe que j’examine depuis un certain temps déjà, c’est-à-dire la rencontre entre la Ceinture économique de la Route de la Soie et l’Union économique eurasiatique, menée par Moscou, que Poutine a décrite comme un nouveau genre de partenariat.

Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers ont peut-être remarqué aussi les discussions très approfondies entre Sergueï Choïgou, ministre de la défense russe, et le général Fan Changlong, vice-président de la Commission militaire centrale de la Chine. La Russie et la Chine comptent effectuer des exercices navals en Méditerranée et dans la mer du Japon, en donnant la priorité absolue à leur position commune en ce qui concerne le bouclier antimissile mondial des US.

À cela s’ajoute cet aspect non négligeable qu’est la découverte, par le Pentagone, que la Chine possède jusqu’à 60 silos de missiles balistiques intercontinentaux (les CSS-4) capables de frapper l’ensemble des US, à l’exception de la Floride.

Dernier point, mais pas le moindre, le déploiement par les Russes du système de défense antimissile ultra perfectionné S-500, qui protégera la Russie contre la Force de frappe mondiale rapide (Prompt Global Strike) des US. Chaque missile S-500 peut intercepter dix missiles balistiques intercontinentaux à une vitesse pouvant aller jusqu’à 24 912 km/h, atteindre une altitude de 185 km et parcourir une distance horizontale de 3 500 km. Moscou soutient que le système ne sera fonctionnel qu’en 2017. Si la Russie est capable de déployer 10 000 missiles S-500, ils seront en mesure d’intercepter 100 000 missiles balistiques intercontinentaux lorsque la Maison-Blanche aura un nouveau locataire.

Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers semblent avoir refait leurs calculs à ce chapitre aussi. La Russie ne peut être réduite en poussières. Le Nouvel ordre mondial (des Routes de la Soie) ne peut être changé. Il vaudrait peut-être mieux alors s’asseoir et discuter. Mais il est préférable de bien tenir votre bride (géopolitique), car ils pourraient encore changer d’idée.

La version française de US wakes up to New Silk World Order (Pepe Escobar / Asia Times) a été reproduite avec l’aimable autorisation du Saker francophone.

Rejoignez Anna Markonova sur Facebook / Twitter / Google+

China: Silk Roads and Open Seas

China: Silk Roads and Open Seas

By Pepe Escobar
RT.com

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

Beijing’s disclosure earlier this week of its latest military white paper, outlining a new doctrine moving beyond offshore defense to “open seas” defense, predictably rattled every exceptionalist’s skull and bone.

Almost simultaneously, in Guangzhou, the annual Stockholm China Forum, hosted by the German Marshall Fund and the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, was mired in deep thought examining the vast Eurasian integration project known in China as “One Road, One Belt”.

What is also known as the New Silk Road project – displaying all the romantic connotations of a remix of a golden era – is not only about new roads, high-speed railways, pipelines and fiber optics, but also about a naval network from East Asia all the way to the Middle East and Europe.

So Chinese maritime expansion in the “open seas” – from the South China Sea to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean – had to be intimately tied to protection of the Maritime Silk Road.

Got deal, will travel

As the maddeningly complex One Road, One Belt network takes form, not a week passes without China clinching pipeline/power station/fiber optic/ manufacturing plant deals to accelerate Eurasian integration – from Pakistan to the Central Asian “stans”, and including everything from a road/railway linking Western China to the Arabian Sea to naval hubs on the way to the Horn of Africa.

The business logic behind this flurry of infrastructure deals is sound: to absorb China’s enormous excess industrial capacity. This process is of course enmeshed with Beijing’s complex energy strategy, whose main mantra is the famous “escape from Malacca”; to obtain a maximum of oil and gas bypassing waters patrolled by the US.

As Beijing “goes West” – the natural consequence of an official policy launched in 1999, but at the time mostly concerning Xinjiang – it becomes increasingly more open to the world. Just check the array of East and West nations that joined the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Close cooperation between BRICS members China and India will be absolutely key for the success of Eurasia integration. It’s already happening via the BRICS bank – the New Development Bank – that will be based in Shanghai and headed by an Indian banker. It’s not by accident that India is also a founding member of the AIIB.

AIIB’s first president will be Jin Liqun, a former deputy finance minister and former vice-president of the Japanese/American-led Asian Development Bank (ADB). Complaints by the usual suspects that AIIB will be a secret Chinese club are nonsense; the board making decisions includes several developed and developing world powers.

Across Eurasia, AIIB is bound to be the place to go. No wonder the Japanese, feeling excluded, were forced to raise the bar, announcing Tokyo is willing to commit a whopping $110 billion to finance infrastructure projects across Asia until 2020. The talk of the town – actually many mega-towns – across Asia is now all about the “infrastructure wars”.

Dreaming of going West

It’s fascinating to remember that what I called the Go West Young Han story of China’s expanding its trade/commercial clout actually started back in 1999. The first stage was a wave of factories moving from Guangdong province to the inward provinces. After a few years, in the Guangdong Triangle Area – which is now much wealthier than many an industrialized nation – product life-cycle timeline entrepreneurs embarked on frantic technology acceleration. Within the megalopolis of Shenzhen, the authorities actually push lower tech companies to move out of the downtown core area.

In terms of container ports, of the top 10 largest global ports no less than seven are based in China. That’s a graphic indication of China’s overwhelming predominance in maritime trade.

In terms of management, the 125 plan – that is, the 12^th Chinese 5-year plan – expires in 2015. Few in the West know that most of the goals encompassing the seven technology areas China wanted to be leading have been achieved and in some cases even superseded. That technology leap explains why China can now build infrastructure networks that previously were considered almost impossible.

The next five-year plan is bound to be even more ambitious. It will focus, among other items, on Beijing’s drive to build a wave of huge new cities, a by-product of China’s restructuring of its economic model.

The China Dream, a new book by Professor General Liu Mingfu – a top military analyst – offers the Big Picture as China’s infrastructure drive across Eurasia gathers pace. A clash with the US is all but inevitable.

The Pentagon’s non-stop rumblings about the South China Sea are just the tip of the (lethal) iceberg; after all Washington considers it an American lake.

Li, as well as other leading Chinese analysts, would like to think Washington eventually finds a modus vivendi with the emerging superpower – as in relinquishing sovereignty, much as the British Empire did to the United States in the early 20^th century.

That’s not going to happen. For the foreseeable future, according to the Obama administration’s own “pivoting to Asia”, announced in 2011 at the Pentagon, it will be hardcore containment. That might work only if BRICS member India is totally on board. And that’s quite unlikely.

In the meantime, Washington will continue to be submerged by this type of paranoid analytics, perpetrated by a former strategic adviser to the top US/NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Check that sphere

The crucial point, already absorbed by the overwhelming majority of the Global South, is that China’s One Belt, One Road strategy is all about trade/commerce/”win-win” business; nothing remotely similar to the Empire of Bases, the never-ending “war on terra”, “kill lists”, and bombing recalcitrant nations (usually secular Arab republics) into “democracy.”

The immensely ambitious One Belt, One Road project, coupled with the Chinese Navy protecting its national interests in the “open seas”, fit into President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream in terms of a business master plan. The best way to build a “moderately prosperous society” is by building modern infrastructure internally and by reaching out to the world externally.

Once again, China will be exporting its massive surplus industrial capacity, will keep diversifying its energy sources and will extend its commercial influence from Central Asia all the way to Europe via Iran, Turkey and Greece.

China has the funds to solve one of India’s absolutely intractable problems – the rebuilding of its creaky infrastructure. The optimal scenario sees these two BRICS nations involved in deal after (infrastructure) deal, side by side with BRICS member Russia and “rehabilitated by the West” Iran. This means everything revolving around the New Silk Road(s) directly affecting no less than one-third of the world’s population. Talk about a “sphere of influence.”

There has been many a rumbling in Washington, ruling no one is entitled to a “sphere of influence” – except the US, of course. And yet Beijing’s economic, financial, diplomatic and geopolitical drive to unite Eurasia is the ultimate bid for a global sphere of influence. Against it, the usual Western, Roman-based Divide et Impera tactic may finally not work.

Reprinted from Russia Today.

Copyright © 2015 Russia Today

Japan's Demographic Atom Bomb

Japan's Demographic Atom Bomb

By Andy Sirkis

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

Could you imagine living in a country that was about to die, or would virtually disappear as if it had been hit by neutron bombs that kill the people but leave the property intact?  Japan is just such a country, it’s dying, rather its people are dying at an alarming rate and the country will be mostly dead as a result of a demographic calamity in another hundred years or so if things don’t change.

A 2014 study of Japan’s demographics was recently published and the results were astonishing.  People are now paying more attention to the impending disaster.  Given current demographic trends, Japan’s population will decrease by 30% in the next 45 years with about half of all municipalities disappearing.  In the area of northern Japan where I live and much of rural Japan, about 80% of municipalities will cease to exist.  Imagine America with half of the cities and towns gone due to depopulation and several states with 80% of the towns erased off the map and you will understand the enormity of the situation facing Japan.

Japanese people and government officials are well aware of the problem.  People fret and say that “something needs to be done”, but there is little analysis of the disastrous economic and geopolitical effects and no analysis of the causes and potential solutions.  People really have their heads buried in the sand, perhaps because they think it’s going to be someone else’s problem when the country’s population falls from 125 million to 85 million and half of the remaining people are elderly.

But it’s not going to happen overnight, so people who are alive today and their children will need to deal with a shrinking economy, the costs of taking care of so many elderly people, and the security risks that Japan will encounter if it maintains it’s bad relations with neighboring countries while at the same time being less able to defend itself because it is depopulated and economically shriveled.

It is essential to the Japanese people that the demographic trend is reversed.  Japan will be a poor and potentially less secure place to live if nothing is done.

Why is it that Japan’s demographics have become so poor?  Every person and every family has reasons, but I believe it’s clear that there are a few social habits, but primarily severe economic reasons for the declining population.

Socially speaking, office workers are expected to work long hours and then go out socializing with coworkers after they leave the office.  These workers, often referred to as “salarymen”, typically work 6 days a week, returning home to a distant suburb late at night.  It isn’t difficult to imagine that they find it difficult to make children for reasons of being tired, unable to allocate time to family raising matters or spousal relationships.  This isn’t the main reason for a low birthrate.

The root of the demographic problem plaguing Japan is the weak economic situation that has continued since the bubble burst in 1990.  Due to government interventions and regulations, the economy has crawled along at a snails pace for a quarter of a century.  One of the most destructive regulations revolves around rules that make it almost impossible to lay off a permanent employee in Japan, so employers have responded by hiring fewer people on a full time basis and instead many people are hired for low paying short term contract work.  After a Japanese worker is forced to accept temporary work, it is very difficult to convince any employer to hire them on a full time basis.  With no permanent employment, and few job prospects, making a family is unlikely.

In addition to the weak and overly regulated labor market, it has been Japanese government policy to continually raise taxes to the point where they are almost the highest in the world for both corporations and individuals.  Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the trend toward higher and higher taxes has been expanding, with the consumption (sales) tax to be increased by 100%, increases in income taxes, property taxes, social security taxes, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, and anything else the Japanese government can think of taxing.  The people have been squeezed dry by this enormous tax burden.

Government policy also encourages special treatment and protections for large companies so they don’t have to compete and can fix prices at a high level.  This is yet another heavy burden on the Japanese people, draining their pockets and leaving them without the means to raise a family.

With high taxes, an artificially high cost of living due to stifling government regulations and a vastly depreciated Yen, young couples find it difficult to make ends meet and many Japanese women have been forced into the labor market, typically into low paying jobs, just to be able to pay the rent and eat.  Instead of staying home to make and raise a family as many women would prefer, these women arrive home from work exhausted and without the time or energy to raise a family as they would want.  As a result of the high cost of living and women being forced into the workforce, Japanese families have fewer and fewer children.

In short, the Japanese government is acting like a cattle farmer who fails to take care of his herd, shearing, milking, and slaughtering to excess, putting stress on the lives of the herd, and making it difficult to breed.  Unlike a farmer who would usually want to hand down a productive enterprise to his descendants, a democratically elected politician has little or no incentive to maintain “the herd” beyond his term in office.  Thus, ruling party bosses never seem to stop abusing and taking advantage of the people.

Precisely because people are not farm animals who need to be tended to, the solution is simple and easy.  All that needs to be done, indeed the only thing that can be done, to resolve the demographic problem is for government to leave people alone so that they can readily create a family, save, invest, and create enough wealth to support their families and offspring over time. By “leave alone” I mean stop taxing and stop trying to control the economy and peoples lives.  No more favors for friends, no more tax bills, no more restrictions on the ability to make a contract with an employer.

Sadly, I doubt that Japanese government officials would even consider letting people get on with their lives and flourish.  Japan has so many intelligent and talented people, not to mention lovely and charming women who would love to have a nice family, so it’s truly shocking that the country is on the path toward demographic destruction, thanks mostly to arrogant and incompetent politicians.

The Best of Andy Sirkis

Andy Sirkis [send him mail] is a Japanese resident who left the "greatest country in the history of the world" seeking more friendly, humble, and civilized people. His opinions have been irritating people for more than 40 years.

Previous article by Andy Sirkis: How I Learned To Stop Worrying

Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations: Geopolitical Dimensions

Natalya Zamarayeva

Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations: Geopolitical Dimensions

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

Speaking about the status and prospects of Pakistan-Afghan relations, we should take into account several factors:

 –  first, the “Afghan problem” has been removed from the US/NATO agenda following the completion of the thirteen-year military mission of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the withdrawal of the main part of the coalition forces from Afghanistan in December 2014. In other words, it has lost its global strategic urgency and has transformed into a regional issue. Since January 2015, Washington has been carrying out a follow-up mission called “Resolute Support.” The new strategy of the US President, Barack Obama considers Afghanistan a “sovereign and stable partner capable of protecting itself, regardless of the presence of US/NATO troops”;

-    second, and as a consequence, geopolitics have been gradually replaced by regional geo-economics.

Traditionally, the talks between Islamabad and Kabul cover the issues of trade and economics, border questions, Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Afghan and Pakistani militants, culture and education, long-planned transnational hydrocarbon and energy projects, etc. But both capitals give priority to security issues.

On January 1, 2015, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan welcomed the significant reduction of the number of the ISAF troops in Afghanistan which was also aimed at transferring the responsibility for the country’s security to the defense and security forces of Afghanistan.

Kabul began to upgrade its relations with Islamabad at the end of September 2014 after Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai took office as the new president. As the country’s security situation was deteriorating, he saw Pakistan, especially the generals, as potential assistance in the liquidation (in its border zone) of foreign and local militants also capable of bringing the leaders of the Afghan Taliban movement to the negotiation table. The question remained whether the Taliban would try to seize power as they did in the 1990-ies by “restoring” the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Islamabad was aware that President Ashraf Ghani did not have much support in Afghanistan and relied on political groups and power centers that were not fully consistent with his policies. The new president could not fully rely on the Afghan National Security Forces. The Pakistani press published numerous reports about the high level of desertion among the Afghan National Security Forces, the fragile morale of the troops and the disastrous state of military equipment despite the continued funding from the US.

The internal situation in the country was complicated by intensified Afghan Taliban measures, which was facilitated by several factors. The drawn out presidential election process followed by a long period of formation of the National Unity Government, and consequently, the vacuum of the central government in the Summer and Autumn of 2014. This resulted in the Afghan Taliban’s gradual expansion of its zone of influence into the provinces around Kabul. By December 2014, not only Afghanistan’s South-East, which has always been their stronghold, but the North-Western regions of the country as well fell under its control.

The militants fleeing from Pakistan brought an additional terrorist impetus to the territory of Afghanistan. Following the military operation of the Pakistan Federal Army in the agencies of North Waziristan, Khyber, South Waziristan and Mohmand (on the border with Afghanistan), which was officially launched in June 2014, Afghan, Pakistani and foreign militant groups (such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) groups on numerous occasions crossed the border and entered the territory of Afghanistan which generally strengthened their mass base and increased their number in the country and resulted in a dramatic increase of the number of terrorist attacks.

The 2015 offensive of Afghan militants on Kabul, which they traditionally do during the spring and summer time, was considered by Islamabad not only as a revolt against the official authorities, but also as a potential threat to the security of the border zone of Pakistan’s Pashtun tribes (Kabul is less than a hundred kilometers away from the Pakistan Kurram Agency). Following the completion of the US/NATO combat mission, the Afghan National Security Forces were left alone to deal with the militants. Pakistani generals realized that the civil war in the neighboring country can “spill over” the border and dramatically worsen the security situation in Pakistan which will create an additional military operation load on the Federal Army of Pakistan.

 

 

Based on the past years’ experience, Islamabad also associated the intensification of Afghan Taliban activities with the strengthening of the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP) and, consequently, with further deterioration of the security situation in its outer regions.

Taking into account the new geopolitical norms in the region, Pakistan has revised its approach towards the Afghan Taliban. While, in the past, it saw them (for various reasons) as a strategic reserve in the neighboring country at war, after the withdrawal of most of the US/NATO coalition troops it began to consider them a real fighting force especially in the southern provinces bordering Pakistan. Islamabad, especially its military establishment, is not interested in strengthening the combat positions of the Taliban. Islamabad’s goal with respect to the Afghan militants is to incorporate them into the political life of Afghanistan and to facilitate the provision of a number of administrative positions in the central and southern provinces of the country. Bearing this in mind, the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army General Raheel Sharif assured President Ashraf Ghani that he will help to bring representatives of all factions of the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table.

By revising its approaches, Islamabad had to distance itself from a number of “non-state actors” in Afghanistan (e.g., Hafiz Gul Bahadur and the militants of the Haqqani network), who had lived for many years in the Northern Waziristan Agency in Pakistan.

The two countries saw a certain turning point in their relations in December 2014 after the attack of the militants on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014 which left over 140 people, mostly teenage students, killed. The Afghan Taliban and TTP hiding in Afghanistan claimed responsibility for the massacre. Military commanders began to make more frequent visits to coordinate joint actions aimed at eliminating the militants involved in the terrorist attack; the exchange of intelligence information also intensified. Both capital cities began to talk about a strengthening of mutual trust.

The border issue was brought back to the agenda. The parties committed to refrain from using their territories against each other; to improve the coordination of the existing mechanisms for ensuring border security without the involvement of the ISAF. The two border checkpoints in Torkham and Spin Boldak resumed work. The efforts included: control over the movement of militants, a thorough inspection of the civilian population crossing the border at the checkpoints, elimination of the hiding places of the Afghan, Pakistani and foreign (for example, the O’zbekistan Islami Harakati (the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and al-Qaeda) militants on both sides of the border and deportation of illegal Afghan refugees from Pakistan. Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army General Raheel Sharif confirmed that the territory of Pakistan will not be used against Afghanistan and that the enemy of Afghanistan is the enemy of Pakistan. Kabul considered these words as an expression of trust and commitment of the two countries to coordinate their action against the militants.

At the same time, Islamabad continued accusing Kabul of harboring the militants who were prosecuted in Pakistan by military courts on terrorism charges. The list prepared by the authorities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province had the name of the leader of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mullah Fazlullah who was thought to be hiding in Afghanistan and Islamabad demanded his extradition.

In late December 2014 and early January 2015, bilateral consultations were expanded in four areas: political cooperation, cooperation in the field of security and the fight against terrorism, expansion of trade and economic relations and regional cooperation.

Kabul fulfilled a number of Islamabad’s requirements. In particular, the security forces eliminated several TTP militants from a group operating in the Mohmand Agency – commanders of the Jamaat–ul-Ahrar subgroup and Qari Shakeel Haqqani – who flew to Afghanistan in 2014 after the Federal Army offensive.

The priority for Islamabad in its relations with the new administration in Kabul is strengthening of military cooperation. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai had for several years declined invitations to send Afghan military personnel to study at the Pakistan Military Academy. It was only when Ashraf Ghani came to power that the first six Afghans joined the cadets of the Military Academy at Kakul.

The warmed relations between the two countries are fickle. There is a strong anti-Pakistan lobby in the Afghan Parliament. The countries are gradually strengthening their trade and economic ties, but these too are faced with challenges: high customs duties, the rising cost of Pakistani transit transport vehicles which makes the Afghan exporters to often refuse to use the trade routes going through Pakistan. 

Natalya Zamaraeva, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Pakistan Institute for Near-East Studies, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/28/pakistan-afghanistan-relations-geopolitical-dimensions/

La Russie étend son influence au sud

Auteur : The Saker

Ex: http://zejournal.mobi

La Russie projette d'inviter l'Inde, le Pakistan et l'Iran dans l'Organisation de coopération de Shanghai (OCS). C'était en discussion depuis longtemps, mais cette fois, c'est officiel : Sergei Lavrov vient de déclarer que lors du prochain sommet des pays membres de l'Organisation de coopération de Shanghai (OCS), la Russie proposera d'entamer le processus menant à l'adhésion de l'Iran comme membre effectif, ainsi que de l'Inde et du Pakistan.

Petit rappel. Les pays suivants sont actuellement membres de l’OCS : Chine, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Russie, Tadjikistan et Ouzbékistan ; les pays suivants sont actuellement observateurs et, par conséquent, candidats possibles : Afghanistan, Inde, Iran, Mongolie et Pakistan, tandis que le Belarus, le Sri Lanka et la Turquie sont des partenaires de dialogue. La prochaine future OCS inclurait donc, comme membres titulaires : la Chine, l’Inde, l’Iran, le Kazakhstan, le Kirghizstan, le Pakistan, la Russie, le Tadjikistan et l’Ouzbékistan.

Il est important de rappeler que l’OCS est une organisation de sécurité incluant une forte composante militaire. Alors que son objectif principal est la coordination des États membres dans leur lutte contre le terrorisme, le séparatisme et l’extrémisme, l’OCS a mené un certain nombre d’exercices militaires. L’OCS n’est pas une alliance militaire formelle, mais elle compte en son sein des pays qui sont membres de l’Organisation du traité de sécurité collective (OTSC), à savoir la Russie, l’Arménie, le Kazakhstan, le Kirghizstan, le Tadjikistan et l’Ouzbékistan. Nous pourrions dire très approximativement que la fonction de l’OCS est similaire à celle de l’OTAN alors que celle de l’OTSC peut se comparer à celle du Grand Quartier général des puissances alliées en Europe (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe – SHAPE). Cette comparaison n’est pas à prendre à la lettre, mais de même qu’en Europe nous pouvons observer une alliance économique (l’UE), une alliance politique de sécurité (OTAN) et un commandement purement militaire (SHAPE), nous voyons en Asie l’Union économique eurasiatique (UEE), qui est l’alliance économique, l’OCS comme organisation politique de sécurité, et l’OTSC, l’organisation purement militaire.

Inutile de dire que tout cela horrifie positivement la Maison Blanche : non seulement les États-Unis se sont opposés à la création de l’OCS, de l’OTSC et de l’UEE à chaque étape du processus, mais la consolidation de ces organisations est une illustration vivante de leur perte d’influence et de puissance. Les États-Unis ont tenté de le bloquer, ils ont exercé des pressions énergiques pour empêcher quiconque d’y adhérer et ont même tenté de l’ignorer – et ils ont échoué : l’OCS croît en augmentant ses membres et son influence.

Pour dire les choses clairement, les États du BRICS sont maintenant parvenus à lancer un défi direct à l’hégémonie économique des États-Unis sur notre planète.  Les gens de Washington commencent à prendre lentement conscience de l’ampleur de la menace à laquelle l’Empire est confronté.

Ces développements illustrent aussi le contraste dramatique entre les méthodes et les objectifs diplomatiques des États-Unis et de la Russie. Alors que les États-Unis favorisent la méthode classique du diviser pour mieux régner, la Russie privilégie la méthode unir et diriger, conçue pour réunir d’anciens ennemis (comme l’Inde et le Pakistan ou la Chine et l’Inde) et construire de larges coalitions.

La perspective que l’Iran rejoigne l’OCS est perçue par Washington comme une provocation ouverte, un soufflet au visage de l’Empereur, tout particulièrement à un moment où les États-Unis et le royaume d’Arabie saoudite sont en guerre au Yémen, précisément dans le but de contenir l’Iran (évidemment, contenir la Russie, la Chine et l’Iran en même temps n’était pas un plan très intelligent, pour commencer!).  La réponse des États-Unis est prévisible : punir tous ceux qui sont impliqués dans le chaos. Cette fois, c’est la minuscule Macédoine qui fait l’objet de l’agression US (via les terroristes du Kosovo membres de l’UCK téléguidée par la CIA) avec l’intention délibérée d’envoyer à tout le monde le message suivant : mettez-vous du côté de la Russie et vous le payerez très cher. Il y a donc eu des avertissements d’analystes russes sur les risques des entraînements d’ISIS/EI en Géorgie ou une reprise de l’insurrection tchétchène, mais cette fois, avec le soutien direct des Ukronazis. Oncle Sam tente apparemment de frapper la Russie dans son ventre mou, mais ce plan n’a aucune chance de réussir parce qu’un tel ventre mou n’existe plus.

Le mythe de ventre mou de la Russie

Parmi les nombreux mythes de la géopolitique ancien style, il y avait le fameux ventre mou de la Russie. Pour être honnête, il y avait un peu de vérité là-dedans, mais pas beaucoup. Aujourd’hui, cependant, c’est tout à fait faux.

En réalité, les résultats combinés des deux guerres en Tchétchénie, de la guerre en Géorgie, de la guerre civile en Ukraine, de la menace terroriste au Daghestan, de l’insurrection wahhabite au Tadjikistan et du chaos provoqué par les États-Unis en Irak ont tous contribué à la définition et à la mise en œuvre d’une politique à long terme de la Russie pour cuirasser son maillon faible.

La toute première manifestation de cette politique a été la décision de déployer la division d’élite motorisée 201 au Tadjikistan en soutien direct aux gardes qui surveillent la frontière russo-tadjike.  Plus tard, cette décision a été rebaptisée 201e Base, pour refléter les compétences uniques de cette unité. Actuellement, des sous-unités de cette base sont cantonnées dans trois villes tadjikes, d’où elles couvrent toutes les zones sensibles. La 201e est, selon tous les standards, une force formidable, de loin supérieure à tout ce que le Tadjikistan ou l’Afghanistan pourraient déployer. Mais les Russes ont fait un pas de plus : les capacités récemment testées des forces aéroportées russes à se déployer en quelques heures au Tadjikistan ; sans aucun avertissement, des éléments de la 98e Division aéroportée ont été mis en alerte et transportés avec tout leur équipement et leurs armes au sud du Tadjikistan.

Cet exercice a été spécifiquement mené sous l’égide des forces de réaction rapide du CSTO et était destiné à tester la capacité russe de projeter sa puissance militaire exactement à la frontière entre le Tadjikistan et l’Afghanistan.

Actuellement, la position russe en termes de sécurité à l’égard de l’Afghanistan repose sur les éléments suivants : d’abord, maintenir de bonnes relations avec la population tadjike du nord de l’Afghanistan ; ensuite, renforcer les gardes-frontière et les forces armées régulières tadjiks en leur fournissant des instructeurs et de l’équipement ; déployer des troupes de gardes-frontières russes aux côtés de leurs collègues tadjiks ; puis maintenir une puissance de combat pugnace sous la forme de la 201e Base et, enfin, être prêt à renforcer cette 201e avec des forces aéroportées. Résultat, la Russie est maintenant capable de déployer un groupe de combat extrêmement puissant en 48 heures n’importe où, à l’intérieur ou à proximité du Tadjikistan.

Un autre exemple du ventre blindé de la Russie est la non moins formidable 58e armée basée dans et autour de la Tchétchénie, dont le récent record au combat comprend la défaite des Tchétchènes wahhabites en 2000 et celle de l’armée géorgienne en 2008.  La 58e armée est l’une des mieux entraînées et équipées des forces russes. Aujourd’hui, elle peut aussi compter sur le soutien total des forces tchétchènes loyales à Ramzan Kadyrov, et qui sont sans aucun doute les forces armées les mieux entraînées et les plus expérimentées du Caucase. Si les fous d’ISIS/EI tentent de pénétrer dans le Caucase (disons, par la Géorgie), ils se heurteront à une force militaire extrêmement puissante, qui serait supérieure à tout ce que la Syrie ou l’Irak pourraient déployer.

Enfin, il y a la Flotte de la mer Noire, considérée à l’époque soviétique comme la moins capable et, franchement, la moins importante des quatre Flottes soviétiques (Nord, Pacifique, Baltique et, en dernier, mer Noire – par ordre d’importance). Maintenant, avec la guerre civile en Ukraine et après la guerre en Géorgie, la flotte en mer Noire a retrouvé de l’importance, spécialement comme Flotte de Crimée. Les dirigeants russes ont annoncé qu’ils renforceront considérablement non seulement le groupe de forces en Crimée, mais également la Flotte de la mer Noire.

La solution choisie par la Russie a été la création, en Crimée, d’un groupement militaire séparé comprenant 96 formations et unités, dont la tâche inclura non seulement la protection des intérêts russes en mer Noire et dans le district fédéral de Crimée, mais aussi la réponse aux défis sur toute la distance de la zone maritime. En d’autres termes – projection de puissance.

La forteresse de Crimée, la Flotte de la mer Noire, la 58e armée et la 201e Base font toutes partie d’une nouvelle ceinture de force solidement blindée sur le ventre de la Russie, qui est tout à fait prête à faire face à toute menace venant du sud.

Conclusion

Au cours des dernières décennies, la Russie a investi des ressources considérables dans le développement d’une politique à multiples dimensions vers le Sud et l’Est. Au niveau politique, des organisations telles que l’OCS, l’OTSC et les BRICS forment un réseau d’alliances sur le soutien desquelles la Russie peut compter. Sur un plan militaire, la Russie a installé des verrous militaires sur son flanc sud en mer Noire, au Caucase et en Asie centrale et a développé ses capacités d’envoyer des renforts puissants à ces verrous. En effet, la Russie a créé un cordon sanitaire pour se protéger elle-même de l’instabilité sur sa frontière méridionale.  Cette combinaison de mesures politiques et militaires a donné à la Russie un haut niveau de souplesse pour répondre à n’importe quelle crise ou défi.

- Source : The Saker

Turkish-Iranian Competition in the Middle East

Turkish-Iranian Competition in the Middle East

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor

By: Orhan Gafarli

The Jamestown Foundation & http://www.themoderntokyotimes.com

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a formal visit to Iran on April 7, 2015. The trip was designed to try to repair bilateral relations after their severe breakdown linked to the crisis in Yemen. Indeed, the conservative wing of the ruling establishment in Tehran, including the head of Iran’s Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Huseyn Nakavi, demanded that Erdogan’s Iran visit should be delayed (BBC–Turkish service, April 7). Some even warned the government that if Erdogan did not cancel the visit, the issue would be brought before Iran’s Guardian Council. Despite this negative pressure, the Turkish president did end up traveling to Tehran to clarify Ankara’s position (Radikal, April 7).

Four significant issues have contributed to this nadir in Turkish-Iranian relations: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and energy. Regarding Syria, the only area of agreement between Ankara and Tehran is their firm opposition to the Islamic State. However, Iran has continued to support the beleaguered Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey backs the united opposition. On Iraq, Turkey still sees Iran acting as a manipulator in bilateral Ankara-Baghdad relations. Although from time to time Tehran sends positive messages on this issue, in reality, these are tactical games on Iran’s part (Internet Haber, March 4). In recent months, as the war in Yemen continued to spiral out of control, Turkey has sided with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates and supported their international military action backing the embattled Yemeni regime. Iran, on the other hand, stands behind the Houthi rebels who are fighting on the other side of this conflict.

Over the past fifteen years, these regional issues have become increasingly contentious for Ankara and Tehran. The reason, as many experts contend, is related to the relative power of Iran in the region. For one thing, its power and ability to influence other regional actors has grown after the Arab Spring. Moreover, Iran has been strengthening regional Shia groups and building a crescent of influence in the Middle East. In addition, some have argued that Iran now feels more confident after reaching a framework agreement with the 5+1 Western countries on its nuclear program (Internet Haber, March 4; Radikal, March 18).

Another key point of contention between Turkey and Iran has become the issue of energy. “Turkey, as a country, is the largest consumer of [natural] gas from Iran, and yet it pays the highest price,” President Erdogan declared while in Tehran (BBC–Turkish service, April 7). Turkey expects a possible discount on the gas volumes it already imports from Iran; but Tehran has, so far, ignored these pleas. Speaking to journalists, on April 14, Iranian Fuel Minister Bijen Namdar Zengene said that Tehran’s proposal of lowering the gas purchase in exchange for Turkey buying double the volumes was rejected by Ankara. Annually, Turkey buys 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Iran. Sources from the Turkish Ministry of Energy confirm that Iran proposed selling Turkey another 10 bcm of gas at a gradually decreasing price scheme, but without changing the price it charges Ankara for the first 10 bcm. Turkish Foreign ministry sources declared that this proposal was not acceptable to authorities in Ankara (Hurriyet, April 17).

In addition to the subject of energy sales, the website Iran.ru, controlled by the Iranian embassy to Moscow, earlier this year published an article criticizing Turkey’s developing role as a regional gas hub. “Turkey, as an ‘Energy Hub’ country, [will be] dangerous for Iran,” the article asserts, adding, “and Iran does not understand why Russia has been helping Turkey in this process. Russia supports Iran via strategic cooperation [but] assists Ankara on the energy issue—which is not preferable for these nations [Russia and Iran]. Russia must defend Iran’s interests” (Iran.ru, January 23).

Relations between Russia, Turkey and Iran are being influenced by a complicated set of cross-cutting and often contradictory interests. Ankara, expecting that its warm relations with Russia would bolster Turkey’s international role, has felt uncomfortable with growing Iranian strength in the Middle East as a result of improving relations between Tehran and the West (Iran.ru, February 27). For one thing, Turkey is concerned about the fact that Iran has not taken any firm action on helping to resolve the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Furthermore, if the economic sanctions on Iran are terminated, the Islamic Republic could grow to become the preeminent power in the region. That is why Ankara is assisting Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in their campaign over Yemen (Hurriyet, April 24). This support clearly has a tactical dimension, particularly against the background of Turkey’s own disagreements with Saudi Arabia on Yemen. Moreover, relations between Ankara and Cairo have been virtually frozen after Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in Egypt two years ago (Turkiye, April 25).

Meanwhile, Turkish media has been hinting that relations with Israel might again come up for debate following Turkey’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 7. The geopolitical struggles in the Middle East are encouraging Turkey and Israel to rebuild a new, cordial relationship. But some experts infer that, in exchange for re-normalizing relations, Turkey will expect help from Israel on Syria. Without any dedicated alliances in the Middle East, Turkey is pursuing a series of tactical policy steps wherever it can find areas of common interest with other regional players. In the absence of any other allies in the Middle East, Turkey has been relying on political support from the United States—a fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member. But the insufficient backing it has received from Washington on the Syria issue has left Ankara feeling uncomfortable (CNN–Turkish service, April 24).

Turkey’s Middle East policy is thus in a current state of flux. But in its quest for new regional partnerships, it is unlikely to seek out either Iran or Russia. Rather, Turkey may be expected to seek closer cooperation with Saudi Arabia or re-build its relations with Israel. Recently, Turkey appears to have swung its attention more toward Saudi Arabia—President Erdogan attended the funeral of Saudi King Abdullah (Today’s Zaman, January 23) and later paid a formal visit to the country in March (Al-Monitor, March 3). These exchanges may herald a coming breakthrough in bilateral Saudi-Turkish relations in the near future. Though Turkey’s ultimate decision between moving closer to Israel or Saudi Arabia will undoubtedly have to wait until after the June 7 elections.

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Les USA découvrent le Nouvel ordre mondial (des Routes de la Soie)

Auteur : Pepe Escobar

Ex: http://zejournal.mobi

Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers aux USA ne sont peut-être pas météorologues, mais ils commencent à flairer d’où le vent souffle.

L’histoire dira peut-être que tout a commencé cette semaine à Sotchi, lorsque leur camelot de service, le secrétaire d’État John Kerry, a rencontré le ministre des Affaires étrangères Lavrov, puis le président Poutine.

Ce qui a mis la puce à l’oreille des véritables Maîtres de l’univers, c’est sans doute la vue de ces soldats de l’Armée populaire de libération, défilant côte à côte avec les militaires russes sur la place Rouge le Jour de la Victoire. Jamais on n’avait vu des troupes chinoises défiler sur la place Rouge, même à l’époque de l’alliance entre Staline et Mao.

Comme rappel à l’ordre, c’est digne du système de défense antimissiles russe S-500. Les adultes dans les officines à Washington ont peut-être fait les calculs qui s’imposent et conclu que Moscou et Pékin pourraient être sur le point de signer des protocoles militaires secrets similaires au Pacte germano-soviétique (Molotov-Ribbentrop). Le nouveau jeu des chaises musicales a vraiment de quoi rendre fou de rage le docteur Zbig grand échiquier Brzezinski, qui a fait de l’Eurasie son obsession.

Et voilà que soudain, en lieu et place de la diabolisation incessante de la Russie et des hauts cris de l’Otan à propos d’une agression russe proférés toutes les dix secondes, nous avons Kerry qui dit que le respect de Minsk-2 est la seule façon de s’en sortir en Ukraine et qu’il mettra sérieusement en garde son vassal Porochenko de ne pas exécuter sa menace de bombarder l’aéroport de Donetsk et ses environs afin de réintégrer le tout dans le giron de la démocratie ukrainienne.

 

Le sempiternel réaliste Lavrov a qualifié la rencontre avec Kerry de merveilleuse. Pour sa part, le porte-parole du Kremlin Dmitry Peskov a décrit la nouvelle entente USA-Russie comme extrêmement positive.

Ainsi donc, les tenants de la politique autoproclamée d’éviter les conneries de l’administration Obama semblent avoir fini par comprendre, en apparence du moins, qu’isoler la Russie ne sert à rien et que Moscou ne reculera jamais sur deux fronts : pas question que l’Ukraine intègre l’Otan et pas question que les Républiques populaires de Donetsk et Lougansk soient écrasées par Kiev, par l’Otan et par qui que ce soit d’autre.

Ce dont il a été vraiment question à Sotchi (mais rien n’en est ressorti), c’est de déterminer comment l’administration Obama pourra se sortir du bourbier géopolitique dans lequel elle s’est elle-même enfoncée à la frontière occidentale russe sans trop perdre la face.

À propos de ces missiles…

L’Ukraine est un État en déliquescence maintenant converti en colonie du FMI. L’Union européenne (UE) n’acceptera jamais de l’accueillir comme membre ou de payer ses factures astronomiques. Le véritable enjeu, aussi bien pour Washington que pour Moscou, c’est l’Iran. Ce n’est pas un hasard si la très louche Wendy Sherman, la négociatrice en chef des USA dans les pourparlers sur le nucléaire entre l’Iran et le P5+1, faisait partie de la délégation accompagnant Kerry. Un accord détaillé avec l’Iran ne pourra être conclu sans la collaboration essentielle de Moscou sur tout, de l’élimination du combustible nucléaire usé à la levée rapide des sanctions imposées par l’ONU.

L’Iran joue un rôle clé dans le projet chinois des Nouvelles Routes de la Soie. Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers ont dû s’apercevoir (il était temps !) que tout gravite autour de l’Eurasie qui, c’était à prévoir, a volé la vedette lors de la parade du Jour de la Victoire le 9 mai. Après son arrêt d’une portée significative à Moscou (où il a signé 32 accords distincts), le président chinois Xi Jinping est allé conclure des ententes avec le Kazakhstan et la Biélorussie.

Bienvenue dans le Nouvel ordre mondial (des Routes de la Soie) : de Pékin à Moscou par TGV ; de Shanghai à Almaty, Minsk et au-delà ; de l’Asie centrale à l’Europe de l’Ouest.

Nous savons maintenant que cette aventure commerciale et géopolitique à vitesse grand V est inéluctable, avec la participation de la Banque asiatique d’investissement pour les infrastructures, sous la direction de Pékin avec l’appui de Moscou, et de la Banque de développement des BRICS. L’Asie centrale, la Mongolie et l’Afghanistan (où l’Otan vient de perdre une guerre) sont inexorablement attirés vers cette orbite commerciale et géopolitique qui englobe tout le centre, le nord et l’est de l’Eurasie.

Ce qu’on pourrait appeler la Grande Asie est en train de prendre forme, non seulement de Pékin à Moscou, mais aussi de ce centre commercial qu’est Shanghai à la porte de l’Europe qu’est Saint-Pétersbourg. C’est la conséquence logique d’un processus complexe que j’examine depuis un certain temps déjà, c’est-à-dire la rencontre entre la Ceinture économique de la Route de la Soie et l’Union économique eurasiatique, menée par Moscou, que Poutine a décrite comme un nouveau genre de partenariat.

 

Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers ont peut-être remarqué aussi les discussions très approfondies entre Sergueï Choïgou, ministre de la défense russe, et le général Fan Changlong, vice-président de la Commission militaire centrale de la Chine. La Russie et la Chine comptent effectuer des exercices navals en Méditerranée et dans la mer du Japon, en donnant la priorité absolue à leur position commune en ce qui concerne le bouclier antimissile mondial des USA.

À cela s’ajoute cet aspect non négligeable qu’est la découverte, par le Pentagone, que la Chine possède jusqu’à 60 silos de missiles balistiques intercontinentaux (les CSS-4) capables de frapper l’ensemble des USA, à l’exception de la Floride.

Dernier point, mais pas le moindre, le déploiement par les Russes du système de défense antimissile ultra perfectionné S-500, qui protégera la Russie contre la Force de frappe mondiale rapide (Prompt Global Strike) des USA. Chaque missile S-500 peut intercepter dix missiles balistiques intercontinentaux à une vitesse pouvant aller jusqu’à 24 912 km/h, atteindre une altitude de 185 km et parcourir une distance horizontale de 3 500 km. Moscou soutient que le système ne sera fonctionnel qu’en 2017. Si la Russie est capable de déployer 10 000 missiles S-500, ils seront en mesure d’intercepter 100 000 missiles balistiques intercontinentaux lorsque la Maison-Blanche aura un nouveau locataire.

Les véritables Maîtres de l’univers semblent avoir refait leurs calculs à ce chapitre aussi. La Russie ne peut être réduite en poussière. Le Nouvel ordre mondial (des Routes de la Soie) ne peut être changé. Il vaudrait peut-être mieux alors s’asseoir et discuter. Mais il est préférable de bien tenir votre bride (géopolitique), car ils pourraient encore changer d’idée.

- Source : Pepe Escobar

Author: F. William Engdahl

China and Russia Firm Ties With High Speed Rail Link

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

The growing fusion of economic self-interest between Russia and China has just taken another major step forward with the final decision by Beijing and Moscow governments to build a critical link in a high-speed rail infrastructure that will connect Beijing and Moscow. It follows only weeks after signing major energy deals between the two Eurasian nations as Putin’s Russia continues her dramatic shift away from a contemptuous EU towards the world’s fastest-growing region.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich announced at a Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum on February 27 that agreement has been finalized between the two countries on a proposal made by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang during his October 2014 visit to Moscow to construct a 7,000 km and $242 billion high-speed rail corridor going from Beijing across Kazakhstan and Russia to Moscow. The project will include a high-speed Moscow to Kazar in Russia’s Autonomous Tatarstan.

While the economies of the EU sink deeper into debt and stagnation of investment in its own rail and other infrastructure, China has become the world’s premier infrastructure builder. In a space little more than thirty years, the Asian country has become the world specialist in railway construction with projects across China and beyond. Last year the Chinese government announced that it had made construction of a trans-Eurasian high speed rail project, the so-called New Silk Road, highest state priority.

The project when completed will reduce rail time from Moscow to Beijing from the present 6 days down to a mere two days. Far more important that passenger travel however will be the new possibilities to reduce shipping time for freight traffic across Eurasia. The rail link will literally “create” entire new markets in the hinterlands of Eurasia.

One example makes it clear. Presently the 803 Km rail journey from Moscow to Kazar takes 14 hours and 7 minutes. The new high-speed line will cut the time to Kazan to just 3 hours and 30 minutes. That brings the two cities closer for economic ties to expand. Similarly for Nizhny Novgorod. That will mean more business traffic, logistics links will emerge and the depopulation trends for Russia’s interior can begin to reverse as economic growth spreads.

The Moscow-Kazan rail link will cut time from 14 hours to just 31/2 hours

First Vice President of Russian Railways, Alexander Misharin, said in November that it would cost $60 billion to reach the Russian border from Moscow to Kazakhstan and that the journey from Moscow to Beijing could be done within 30 hours. Misharin estimates construction will take 8 to 10 years. He compared the new railway network to the Suez Canal “in terms of scale and significance.”

While the EU faces chocking debt crises across the Eurozone from Greece to France, Italy, Spain and investment declines amid repeated US-ordered economic and financial sanctions against Russia, the two Eurasian nations are welding long-term overland economic bonds that are making US foreign policy guru Zbigniew Brzezinski get gas pains. In 1997, a time when America was the unquestioned Sole Superpower following the dis-orderly collapse of the Soviet Union, Brzezinski wrote,

It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America…How America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” 

The Eurasian challenge is here and that is the real reason for US war in Ukraine and its attempts at economic and military encirclement of China. Whether Washington succeeds in fomenting chaos and more dis-order remains to be seen.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

China’s Land Bridge to Europe

EURASIAN ECONOMIC BOOM AND GEOPOLITICS:

 

China’s Land Bridge to Europe: The China-Turkey High Speed Railway

 

By F. William Engdahl

Global Research, April 27, 2012

Ex: http://www.globalresearch.ca

 

The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand. The first steps binding the vast economic space are being constructed with a number of little-publicized rail links connecting China, Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Western Europe. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession.  Rail infrastructure is a major key to building vast new economic markets across Eurasia.

 

China and Turkey are in discussions to build a new high-speed railway link across Turkey. If completed it would be the country’s largest railway project ever, even including the pre-World War I Berlin-Baghdad Railway link. The project was perhaps the most important agenda item, far more so than Syria during talks in Beijing between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Chinese leadership in early April. The proposed rail link would run from Kars on the easternmost border with Armenia, through the Turkish interior on to Istanbul where it would connect to the Marmaray rail tunnel now under construction that runs under the Bosphorus strait. Then it would continue to Edirne near the border to Greece and Bulgaria in the European Union. It will cost an estimated $35 billion. The realization of the Turkish link would complete a Chinese Trans-Eurasian Rail Bridge project that would bring freight from China to Spain and England.1

 

The Kars-Edirne line would reduce travel time across Turkey by two-thirds from 36 hours down to 12. Under an agreement signed between China and Turkey in October 2010, China has agreed to extend loans of $30 billion for the planned rail network.2 In addition a Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway connecting Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to Kars is under construction, which greatly increases the strategic importance of the Edirne-Kars line. For China it would put a critical new link in its railway infrastructure across Eurasia to markets in Europe and beyond.

 

(Map: Yunus Emre Hatunoğlu)

 

Erdogan’s visit to Beijing was significant for other reasons. It was the first such high level trip of a Turkish Prime Minister to China since 1985. The fact that Erdogan was also granted a high-level meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the man slated to be next Chinese President, and was granted an extraordinary visit to China’s oil-rich Xinjiang Province also shows the high priority China is placing on its relations with Turkey, a key emerging strategic force in the Middle East.

 

Xinjiang is a highly sensitive part of China as it hosts some 9 million ethnic Uyghurs who share a Turkic heritage with Turkey as well as nominal adherence to the Turkish Sunni branch of Islam. In July 2009 the US government, acting through the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime-change NGO it finances, backed a major Uyghur uprising in which many Han Chinese shop owners were killed or injured. Washington in turn blamed the riots on Beijing as part of a strategy of escalating pressure on China.3 During Uyghur riots in Xinjiang in 2009, Erdogan accused Beijing of “genocide” and attacked the Chinese on human rights, a dicey issue for Turkey given their Kurd ethnic problems. Clearly economic priorities from both sides have now changed the political calculus.

 

Building the world’s greatest market

 

Contrary to the dogma of Milton Friedman and his followers, markets are never “free.” They are always manmade. The essential element to build new markets is building infrastructure and for the vast landmass of Eurasia railroad linkages are essential to those new markets.

 

With the end of the Cold War in 1990 the vast under-developed land space of Eurasia became open again. This space contains some forty percent of total land in the world, much of it prime unspoiled agriculture land; it contains three-fourth of the entire world population, an asset of incalculable worth. It consists of some eighty eight of the world’s countries and three-fourths of known world energy resources as well as every mineral known needed for industrialization. North America as an economic potential, rich as she is, pales by comparison.

 

The Turkish-China railway discussion is but one part of a vast Chinese strategy to weave a network of inland rail connections across the Eurasian Continent. The aim is to literally create the world’s greatest new economic space and in turn a huge new market for not just China but all Eurasian countries, the Middle East and Western Europe. Direct rail service is faster and cheaper than either ships or trucks, and much cheaper than airplanes. For manufactured Chinese or other Eurasian products the rail land bridge links are creating vast new economic trading activity all along the rail line.

 

Two factors have made this prospect realizable for the first time since the Second World War. First the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened up the land space of Eurasia in entirely new ways as has the opening of China to Russia and its Eurasian neighbors, overcoming decades of mistrust. This is being met by the eastward expansion of the European Union to the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.

 

The demand for faster rail transport over the vast Eurasian distances is clear. China’s container port activity and that of its European and North American destinations is reaching a saturation point as volumes of container traffic explode at double-digit rates. Singapore recently displaced Rotterdam as the world’s largest port in volume terms. The growth rate for container port throughput in China in 2006, before outbreak of the world financial crisis was some 25% annually. In 2007 Chinese ports accounted for some 28 per cent of world container port throughput. 4 However there is another aspect to the Chinese and, to an extent, the Russian land bridge strategies. By moving trade flows over land, it is more secure in the face of escalating military tensions between the nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially China and Russia, and NATO. Sea transport must flow through highly vulnerable narrow passageways or chokepoints such as the Malaysian Straits of Malacca.

 

The Turkish Kars-Edirne railway would form an integral part of an entire web of Chinese-initiated rail corridors across the Eurasian landmass. Following the example of how rail infrastructure transformed the economic space of Europe and later of America during the late 19th Century, the Chinese government, which today stands as the world’s most efficient railroad constructor, has quietly been extending its rail links into Central Asia and beyond for several years. They have proceeded in segments, one reason the vast ambition of their grand rail infrastructure has drawn so little attention to date in the West outside the shipping industry.

China builds Second Eurasian Land Bridge

 

By 2011 China had completed a Second Eurasian Land Bridge running from China’s port of Lianyungang on the East China Sea through to Kazakhstan’s Druzhba and on to Central Asia, West Asia and Europe to various European destinations and finally to Rotterdam Port of Holland on the Atlantic coast.

 

The Second Eurasian Land Bridge is a new railway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic that was completed by China to Druzhba in Kazakhstan. This newest Eurasia land bridge extends west in China through six provinces–Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang autonomous region, which neighbors respectively with Shandong Province, Shanxi Province, Hubei Province, Sichuan Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Inner Mongolia. That covers about 360,000 square kilometers, some 37% of the total land space of China. About 400 million people live in the areas, which accounts for 30% of the total population of the country. Outside of China, the land bridge covers over 40 countries and regions in both Asia and Europe, and is particularly important for the countries in Central and West Asia that don’t have sea outlets.

 

In 2011 China’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan announced plans to build a new high-speed railway link within Kazakhstan, linking the cities of Astana and Almaty, to be ready in 2015.  The Astana-Almaty line, with a total length of 1050 kilometers, employing China’s advanced rail-building technology, will allow high-speed trains to run at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

 

DB Schenker Rail Automotive is now transporting auto parts from Leipzig to Shenyang in northeastern China for BMW. Trains loaded with parts and components depart from DB Schenker’s Leipzig trans-shipment terminal in a three-week, 11,000 km journey to BMW’s Shenyang plant in the Liaoning province, where components are used in the assembly of BMW vehicles. Beginning in late November 2011, trains bound for Shenyang departed Leipzig once each day. “With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are twice as fast as maritime transport, followed by over-the-road transport to the Chinese hinterland,” says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, member of the management board for DB Mobility Logistics’ Transportation and Logistics division. The route reaches China via Poland, Belarus, and Russia. Containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice—first to Russian broad gauge at the Poland-Belarus border, then back to standard gauge at the Russia-China border in Manzhouli.5

 

In May 2011 a daily direct rail freight service was launched between the Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest port, and Chongqing, the industrial hub in China’s southwest. That greatly speeded rail freight transport across Eurasia to Europe. Compared to the 36 days for maritime transport from east China’s ports to west Europe, the Antwerp-Chongqing Rail Freight service now takes 20 to 25 days, and the aim is to cut that to 15 to 20 days. Westbound cargo includes automotive and technological goods, eastbound shipments are mostly chemicals. The project was a major priority for the Antwerp Port and the Belgian government in cooperation with China and other partners. The service is run by Swiss inter-modal logistics provider Hupac, their Russian partner Russkaya Troyka and Eurasia Good Transport over a distance of more than 10,000km, starting from Port of Antwerp through to Germany and Poland, and further to Ukraine, Russia and Mongolia before reaching Chongqing in China.6

 

The Second Eurasian Land Bridge runs 10,900 kilometers in length, with some 4100 kilometers of that in China. Within China the line runs parallel to one of the ancient routes of the Silk Road. The rail line continues across China into Druzhba where it links with the broader gauge rail lines of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the largest inland country in the world. As Chinese rail and highways have expanded west, trade between Kazakhstan and China has been booming. From January to October 2008, goods passing through the Khorgos port between the two nations reached 880,000 tons – over 250% growth compared with the same period a year before. Trade between China and Kazakhstan is expected to grow 3 to 5 fold by 2013. As of 2008, only about 1% of the goods shipped from Asia to Europe were delivered by overland routes, meaning the room for expansion is considerable.7

 

From Kazakhstan the lines go on via Russia and Belarus over Poland to the markets of the European Union.

 

Another line goes to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s largest city of some two millions. Another line goes west to Turkmenistan’s capital Asgabat and to the border of Iran.8  With some additional investment, these links, now tied to the vast expanse and markets of China could open new economic possibilities in much-neglected regions of Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could provide a well-suited vehicle for coordination of a broad Eurasian rail infrastructure coordination to maximize these initial rail links. The members of the SCO, formed in 2001, include China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan with Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan as Observer Status countries.

 

Russia’s Land Bridge

 

Russia is well positioned to benefit greatly from such an SCO strategy. The First Eurasian Land Bridge runs through Russia along the Trans-Siberian Railway, first completed in 1916 to unify the Russian Empire. The Trans-Siberian remains the longest single rail line in the world at 9,297 kilometers, a tribute to the vision of Russian Sergei Witte in the 1890s. The Trans-Siberian Railway, also called the Northern East-West Corridor, runs from the Russian Far East Port of Vladivostok and links in Europe to the Port of Rotterdam some 13,000 kilometers. At present it is the less attractive for Pacific-to-Atlantic freight because of maintenance problems and maximum speeds of 55 km.

 

There are attempts to better use the Trans-Siberian Land Bridge. In January 2008 a long distance Eurasian rail freight service, the “Beijing-Hamburg Container Express” was successfully tested by the German railway Deutsche Bahn. It completed the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) journey in 15 days to link the Chinese capital to the German port city, going through Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Poland. By ship to the same markets takes double the time or some 30 days.  This route, which began commercial service in 2010 incorporates a section of the existing Trans-Siberian Railway, a rail link using a broader gauge than either Chinese or European trains, meaning two offloads and reloads onto other trains at the China-Mongolia border and again at the Belarus-Poland border.

 

Were the Trans-Siberian railway passage across Russian Eurasian space to be modernized and upgraded to accommodate high-speed freight traffic, it would add a significant new economic dimension to the economic development of Russia’s interior regions. The Trans-Siberian is double-tracked and electrified. The need is minimally to improve some segments to insure a better integration of all the elements to make it a more attractive option for Eurasian freight to the west.

 

There are strong indications the new Putin presidency will turn more of its attention to Eurasia. Modernization of the First Eurasian Land Bridge would be a logical way to accomplish much of that development by literally creating new markets and new economic activity. With the bond markets of the United States and Europe flooded with toxic waste and state bankruptcy fears, issuance of Russian state bonds for modernization or even a new parallel high-speed rail Land Bridge linking to the certainty of growing freight traffic across Eurasia would have little difficulty finding eager investors.  

 

Russia is currently in discussion with China and Chinese rail constructors who are bidding on construction of a planned $20 billion of new high-speed Russian rail track to be completed before the 2018 Russian hosting of the Soccer World Cup. China’s experience in building some 12,000 km of high speed rail in record time is a major asset for China’s bid. Significantly, Russia plans to raise $10 billion of the cost by issuing new railroad bonds.9

 

A Third Eurasian Land Bridge?

 

In 2009 at the Fifth Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional (PPRD) Cooperation and Development Forum, a government-sponsored event, the Yunnan provincial government announced its intention to accelerate construction of needed infrastructure to build a third Eurasian continental land bridge that will link south China to Rotterdam via Turkey over land. This is part of what Erdogan and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao discussed in Beijing this April. The network of inland roads for the land bridge within Yunnan province will be completed by 2015, said Yunnan governor Qin Guangrong. The project starts from coastal ports in Guangdong, with the Port of Shenzhen being the most important. It will ultimately go all the way through Kunming to Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Iran, entering Europe from Turkey.10

 

The route would cut some 6,000-km from the sea journey between the Pearl River Delta and Rotterdam and allow production from China’s eastern manufacturing centers to reach Asia, Africa and Europe. The proposal is for completing a series of missing rail and modern highway links totaling some 1,000 Km, not that inconceivable. In neighboring Myanmar a mere 300 km of railways and highways are lacking in order to link the railways in Yunnan with the highway network of Myanmar and South Asia. It will help China pave the way for building a land channel to the Indian Ocean.

 

The third Eurasian Land Bridge will cross 20 countries in Asia and Europe and have a total length of about 15,000 kilometers, which is 3,000 to 6,000 kilometers shorter than the sea route entering at the Indian Ocean from the southeast coast via the Malacca Straits. The total annual trade volume of the regions the route passes through was nearly US$300 billion in 2009. Ultimately the plan is for a branch line that would also start in Turkey, cross Syria and Palestine, and end in Egypt, facilitating transportation from China to Africa. Clearly the Pentagon’s AFRICOM and the US-backed Arab Spring unrest directly impacts that extension, though for how long at this point is unclear. 11

 

The geopolitical dimension

 

Not every major international player is pleased about the growing linkages binding the economies of Eurasia with western Europe and Africa. In his now famous 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives”, former Presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski noted,

 

“In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geo-strategy involves the purposeful management of geo-strategically dynamic states…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and to

 

maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” 12

 

The “barbarians” that Brzezinski refers to are China and Russia and all in between. The Brzezinski term “imperial geo-strategy” refers to US strategic foreign policy. The “vassals” he identifies in the book as countries like Germany, Japan and other NATO “allies” of the US. That Brzezinski geopolitical notion remains US foreign policy today. 13

 

The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand.

 

The first sinews of binding the vast economic space have been put in place or are being constructed with these rail links. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession.  In the period prior to World War I it was the decision in Berlin to build a rail land link to and through the Turkish Ottoman Empire from Berlin to Baghdad that was the catalyst for British strategists to incite the events that plunged Europe into the most destructive war in history to that date. This time we have a chance to avoid a similar fate with the Eurasian development. More and more the economically stressed economies of the EU are beginning to look east and less to their west across the Atlantic for Europe’s economic future.

 

*F. William Engdahl is author of several books on contemporary geopolitics including A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. He is available via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

 

Notes:

 

 

 

1 Sunday’s  Zaman, Turkey, China mull $35 bln joint high-speed railway project, Istanbul, April 14, 2012, accessed in

 

http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=277360.

 

2 Ibid.

 

3 F. William Engdahl, Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China, Global Research, July 11, 2009, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14327.

 

4 UNCTAD, Port and multimodal transport developments,2008,  accessed in http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Chapter+5%3a+Port+and+multimodal+transport+developments.-a0218028142.

 

5 Joseph O’Reilly, BMW Rides Orient Express to China, Global Logistics, October 2011, accessed in http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/global-logistics-october-2011/.

 

6 Aubrey Chang, Antwerp-Chongqing Direct Rail Freight Link Launched, May 12, 2011, accessed in

 

http://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/antwerp-chongqing-direct-rail-freight-link-launched/

 

7 CNTV, Eurasian land bridge, March 12, 2011, accessed in http://english.cntv.cn/program/china24/20111203/108360.shtml.

 

8 Shigeru Otsuka, Central Asia’s Rail Network and the Eurasian Land Bridge, Japan Railway & Transport Review 28, September 2001, pp. 42-49.

 

9 CNTV, Russian rail official: Chinese bidder competitive, November 21,2011, accessed in

 

http://english.cntv.cn/program/bizasia/20111121/110092.shtml

 

10 Xinhua, Yunnan accelerates construction of third Eurasia land bridge, 2009, accessed in http://www.shippingonline.cn/news/newsContent.asp?id=10095

 

11 Li Yingqing and Guo Anfei, Third land link to Europe envisioned, China Daily, July 2, 2009, accessed in

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/02/content_8345835.htm.

 

12 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, 1997, Basic Books, p. 40. See F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, Wiesbaden, 2011, edition.engdahl, for details of the role of the German Baghdad rail link in World War I.

 

13 Zbigniew Brzezinski, op. cit. p.40.

China’s Silk Road Economic Project Will Include Gold

By Koos Jansen

Ex: https://www.bullionstar.com

China’s Silk Road Economic Project Will Include Gold

The Chinese government seems to be very keen on developing the New Silk Road Economic Belt as fast as possible; an initiative, said to be designed by President Xi Jinping himself, that will increase economic cooperation in the wide Eurasian region. At a stunning speed China and Russia take the lead in strengthening ties in the area. For the wind down of the US dollar hegemony the Silk Road economic project is an important tool. As part of this project two clubs are rapidly developing as we speak, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Additionally, China is incorporating gold into the Silk Road project.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

The AIIB is an international financial institution proposed by China in 2013 to finance infrastructure projects in Asia. The Chinese government has been frustrated with the slow pace of reforms in established institutions like the IMF and World Bank, which are dominated by the US. China’s rapid economic growth in recent years has made them pursuing a greater input in these institutions, but the US has neglected to honor these requests appropriately, forcing China to launch its own institutions.

Despite the US has been pressuring its allies from signing up as AIIB prospective founding members only Japan obeyed, signaling a demise of US power and failing US foreign policy. In a milestone event many western countries have submitted for membership in March and April 2015, amongst others the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Australia and Israel. The AIIB articles of agreement are expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

China is now playing multiple games at the same time by developing the AIIB and concurrently pressuring the IMF to reform. One of China’s goals is for the renminbi to be included into the IMF’s basket of currencies the Special Drawing Right (SDR). On April 30, 2015, the IMF’s Director Of The Communications Department, Gerry Rice, stated in a press briefing about the SDR review “Yes, the work has begun” (see this video at 28:15). The first IMF board meeting on the SDR review originally scheduled in May 2015, has been “deferred, because the work is underway” (see the same video at 31:30).

The Eurasian Economic Union

The President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, first suggested the idea of creating a regional (Eurasian) trading bloc during a speech at Moscow State University In 1994. Afterwards Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan formed a free trade zone, which turned into a customs union, followed by a single economic space, finally reaching an economic union (the EEU) on May 29, 2014, when an agreement was signed by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Worth noting is that according to Pravda.ru Nazarbayev is of the opinion the US dollar is an illegal and non-competitive means of payment, “the world currency was not de jure legitimate because it was never adopted by any communities or organizations. There is no such international law,… the world currency market is not a civilized market, as the system of world currency issuance is not being controlled”. Nazarbayev believes the world is heading towards a new monetary system, from “defective capitalism” to “the new capitalism that would be based on a non-defective currency.” Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Kazakhstan in September 2013 where he raised the initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt at the Nazarbayev University. In March this year China and Kazakhstan signed 33 deals on industrial capacity cooperation.

The EEU is aggressively expanding; its latest official members are Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. By looking at the EEU flag, that displays the whole of Asia, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to expect they’ll continue expanding. Turkey has mentioned it likes to join and there are talks with Vietnam to form a free trade area.

Russian news outlet RT has disclosed that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have signed a decree on cooperation in tying the development of the EEU with the Silk Road economic project. “The integration of the Eurasian Economic Union and Silk Road projects means reaching a new level of partnership and actually implies a common economic space on the continent,” Putin said. Furthermore, columnist for Russian news outlet Sputnik, Pepe Escobar, stated, “What we have here, above all, is the China-led New Silk Road directly connecting with the Russia-led EEU. China and the EEU are bound to set up a free trade zone”. The EEU could potentially grow into a very significant power bloc.

More from Escobar:

The always-evolving strategic partnership is not only about energy – including the possibility of Chinese-controlled stakes in crucial Russian oil and gas projects – and the defense industry; it’s increasingly about investment, banking, finance and high technology.

…The partnership’s reach is extremely wide, from Russia-China cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to the Russia-China stake in the new BRICS development bank, and to Russian support to the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Foundation.

…Beijing and Moscow, along with the other BRICS nations, are fast moving to trade independently of the US dollar, using their own currencies. In parallel, they are studying the creation of an alternative SWIFT system – which will necessarily be joined by EU nations, as they are joining the AIIB.

There have also been talks for an EEU joint currency titled Altyn, which refers to an ancient currency that used to circulate in Eurasia. In the past Altyn has never been minted in gold, although in Turkic, a language family spoken in Eurasia, Altyn does mean Gold.

Make sure English captions are turned on in the next video clip from Russian television about Altyn.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and China have all substantially increased their official gold reserves since the first quarter of 2000. Kyrgyzstan to a lesser extent and Armenia has currently no official gold reserves.

Source: World Gold Council

“One Belt One Road” And Gold.

It was first disclosed by Albert Cheng, Managing Director of the World Gold Council, in a speech at the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre April 12, 2015; China has ambitions to include gold in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) economic project. From one of Cheng’s slides we can read:

China Gold Market – the next 10 years – Integrate gold cooperation into One Belt, One Road

– Mr. Xu Luode, President of Shanghai Gold Exchange and a National People’s Congress (NPC) delegate proposed that to integrate gold market development into the strategic development plan of “OBOR” to the NPC & CPPCC ended in mid-March, 2015.

– His proposal suggested that cooperation and development mechanism to involve major gold producers/users along the OBOR.

– This initiative to be led by People’s Bank of China, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Commerce and other related ministries, should be developed by leveraging the Shanghai Gold Exchange as the trading hub, and be integrated into the “OBOR” plan.

– Related specialized plans and supportive policies will also be developed to balance the regional developments in China and accelerate the interconnection with countries along the routes.

At first I was a bit skeptical towards these statements; when the Xi Jinping launches new projects all the subordinate bureaucrats need to show that their respective departments will contribute to this. Previously the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) has been very clear about its international ambitions with the SGE International Board, but before any of this is realized let’s not copy-paste every idea they put out, I thought.

However, the first signs of cooperation in the gold industry along OBOR are reality, time to pay attention. On May 11, 2015, China’s largest gold mining company, China National Gold Group Corporation (CNGGC), announced it has signed an agreement with Russian gold miner Polyus Gold to deepen ties in gold exploration. The cooperation will include mineral resource exploration, technical exchanges and materials supply.

“China’s Belt and Road Initiative brings unprecedented opportunities for the gold industry. There is ample room for cooperation with neighboring countries, and we have advantages in technique, facilities, cash, and talents,” said Song Xin, General Manager of CNGGC and President of the China Gold association. Song Yuqin, Deputy General Manager of the Shanghai Gold Exchange has stated, “Asians have a tradition of collecting gold. The gold trade is expected to become a significant component of transactions by ‘Belt and Road’ countries.”

Koos Jansen
E-mail Koos Jansen on: [e-mail]

EE.UU. desvía su interés geopolítico hacia el Extremo Oriente

EE.UU. desvía su interés geopolítico hacia el Extremo Oriente y planea enviar buques y aviones al mar de China Meridional

Ex: http://www.elespiadigital.com

El Ejército estadounidense baraja la posibilidad de usar buques y aeronaves para impugnar las reivindicaciones territoriales de Pekín en el mar de China Meridional, un movimiento que podría aumentar la tensión en una zona en disputa, informa 'The Wall Street Journal' citando a funcionarios estadounidenses.

Según 'The Wall Street Journal', el secretario de Defensa estadounidense Ashton Carter ha pedido a su personal que "busque opciones", incluido el uso de aviones de vigilancia sobre las islas y el envío de buques de guerra de EE.UU. a menos de 12 millas náuticas de los arrecifes del archipiélago de Spratly, que son reclamados por China.

Si EE.UU. desafía las demandas de China usando naves o buques de guerra y Pekín defiende su posición, el resultado podría ser el aumento de las tensiones en la región

"De ser aprobados por la Casa Blanca, este tipo de movimientos buscarían enviar el mensaje a Pekín de que EE.UU. no accederá a las reivindicaciones territoriales chinas sobre las islas artificiales en lo que EE.UU. considera aguas y espacio aéreo internacionales", reza el artículo.

De acuerdo con los funcionarios consultados por el rotativo, aunque EE.UU. ya ha expresado que no reconoce las islas artificiales como territorio chino, hasta ahora la Marina estadounidense no ha enviado sus aviones militares o buques a menos de 12 millas náuticas de distancia de los arrecifes para evitar la escalada de tensiones.

Las fuentes explicaron que actualmente existe un "creciente impulso" en el Pentágono y la Casa Blanca para tomar medidas concretas "con el fin de enviar una señal a Pekín de que la reciente construcción en las Spratly ha ido demasiado lejos y ha de detenerse".

Según 'The Wall Street Journal', la idea del Pentágono es que cualquier despliegue militar "aumentaría la presión sobre los chinos para que hagan concesiones sobre las islas artificiales".

Sin embargo, prosigue la publicación, ello podría tener el efecto contrario y hacer que Pekín "amplíe la construcción en desafío a EE.UU." y, potencialmente, dar lugar a nuevas reclamaciones chinas en la zona.

"Si EE.UU. desafía las demandas de China usando naves o buques de guerra y Pekín defiende su posición, el resultado podría ser el aumento de las tensiones en la región", advierte el artículo.

Las propuestas militares aún no han sido presentadas formalmente a la Casa Blanca, que tendría que aprobar cualquier cambio en la postura de EE.UU. sobre el tema.

Una caravana de buques ruso-china se acerca al Mediterráneo realizando maniobras

Dos corbetas chinas y un buque de misiles sobre cojín de aire de la Marina rusa han iniciado las maniobras conjuntas al zarpar del puerto de Novorosíisk rumbo a los estrechos del Bósforo y Dardanelos, que cruzarán este jueves.

Según un portavoz del Ministerio de Defensa ruso citado por RIA Novosti, los buques ya han iniciado los entrenamientos en su camino hacia la zona del ejercicio principal, situada en el mar Mediterráneo. Allí se les sumarán otros cinco buques de guerra rusos y una embarcación de apoyo china.

"Cada milla náutica del recorrido de los buques se utiliza con la máxima eficacia para el aprendizaje marino de las tripulaciones", agregó el oficial. En concreto, los tripulantes de las naves trabajarán en la coordinación de su comunicación y mejorarán conjuntamente sus capacidades de maniobra en alta mar.

La fase activa de los ejercicios navales tendrá lugar entre el 17 y el 21 de mayo. El pasado día 8 las corbetas de la Armada china atracaron en un puerto ruso por primera vez –en este caso en el de Novorossíisk– para participar el día siguiente en las celebraciones del Día de la Victoria.

Paul Craig Roberts: "Washington cometió un error que podría ser fatal para la humanidad"

La Casa Blanca está decidida a bloquear el surgimiento de las dos potencias nucleares clave, Rusia y China, ninguna de las cuales aceptará la hegemonía de EE.UU., opina el politólogo y economista norteamericano Paul Craig Roberts, quien considera que "Washington cometió un error que podría ser fatal para la humanidad".

"EE.UU. siempre ha tenido una buena opinión de sí mismo, pero con la caída de la Unión Soviética la autosatisfacción alcanzó nuevas cumbres. Nos convertimos en el pueblo excepcional, el pueblo indispensable, el país elegido por la historia para ejercer la hegemonía sobre el mundo", escribe el politólogo en un artículo publicado en su sitio web. Agrega que "esta doctrina neoconservadora libera al Gobierno de EE.UU. de las limitaciones del derecho internacional y permite a Washington usar la coerción contra Estados soberanos con el fin de rehacer el mundo".

Debido a esta política, Pekín actualmente se está confrontando con la estrategia estadounidense conocida como 'Pivot to Asia' (giro a Asia), y con "la construcción de nuevas bases navales y aéreas de EE.UU. para asegurar el control de Washington en el mar de China Meridional, que ahora se define como una de las áreas de interés nacional para los estadounidenses", señala el autor.

Por otro lado, el intento de contener a Rusia es el origen de "la crisis que Washington ha creado en Ucrania y de aprovecharla para hacer propaganda antirrusa", explica Roberts.

Rusia y China finalmente se han dado cuenta de que tienen que elegir entre el vasallaje o la guerra

En su opinión, "la agresión y la propaganda descarada" de EE.UU. no han hecho más que convencer a Rusia y China de que "Washington tiene intenciones de guerra, y haberse dado cuenta de ello ha empujado a los dos países hacia una alianza estratégica".

Ni Rusia, ni China aceptarán el llamado "estatus de vasallaje aceptado por el Reino Unido, Alemania, Francia y el resto de Europa, así como Canadá, Japón y Australia", afirma el analista político, que añade que "el precio de la paz mundial es que todo el mundo acepte la hegemonía de Washington".

"En el frente de la política exterior, la arrogancia de la autoimagen de Estados Unidos como el país 'excepcional e indispensable' y con los derechos hegemónicos sobre otros países significa que el mundo se prepara para la guerra", escribe Roberts.

A su juicio, "a menos que el dólar, y con él el poder de EE.UU., se derrumbe o que Europa encuentre el coraje para romper con Washington y llevar a cabo una política exterior independiente diciendo adiós a la OTAN, una guerra nuclear es nuestro probable futuro".

El precio de la paz mundial es que el mundo acepte la hegemonía de Washington

En su columna, Roberts también aborda la cuestión de las celebraciones en Moscú del Día de la Victoria sobre el nazismo, que los políticos occidentales boicotearon, mientras que "los chinos estaban allí en su lugar", con el presidente sentado junto a Vladímir Putin durante el desfile militar en la Plaza Roja, lo cual, según el politólogo, marcó un "punto de inflexión histórico".

Aunque la comparación de las bajas soviéticas con las de EE.UU., Reino Unido, y Francia juntas "deja totalmente claro que fue Rusia quien derrotó a Hitler", en su discurso con motivo del 70.º aniversario de la rendición de la Alemania nazi el presidente estadounidense solo mencionó a las fuerzas de EE.UU. En cambio, el presidente Putin "expresó su agradecimiento a los pueblos de Gran Bretaña, Francia y EE.UU. por su contribución a la victoria", recuerda el exasesor económico del Gobierno de Ronald Reagan.

Desde hace muchos años el mandatario ruso declara públicamente que "Occidente no escucha a Rusia", escribe el autor del artículo. "Washington y sus Estados vasallos en Europa, Canadá, Australia y Japón no escuchan cuando Rusia dice 'no nos presionen tanto, no somos el enemigo, queremos ser su socio'", lamenta Roberts.

 

Por culpa de la política de Washington, "Rusia y China finalmente se han dado cuenta de que tienen que elegir entre el vasallaje y la guerra", opina el politólogo, advirtiendo que "Washington ha cometido un error que podría ser fatal para la humanidad".

What’s Washington Doin’ in Central Asia Now?

F. William Engdahl:

What’s Washington Doin’ in Central Asia Now?

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

Since the time the CIA financed and trained mone than one hundred thousand Mujahideen Islamic Jihadists, including a fanatical Saudi named Osama bin Laden, to wage a decade-long proxy war against forces of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, Washington has been obsessed with the idea of penetrating deep into Central Asia in order to drive a wedge between China and Russia.

Early attempts in the wake of the post-2001 US forces’ presence in Afghanistan met with mixed success. Now it appears that Washington is frantically trying a repeat, even calling the ageing US Ambassador Richard M. Miles out of retirement to head a new try at a Color Revolution.

There seems to be a sense of urgency to Washington’s new focus on Central Asia. Russia is hardly buckling under from US and EU financial sanctions; rather she is looking more vibrant than ever, making strategic economic and military deals seemingly everywhere. And Russia’s Eurasian neighbor, The Peoples’ Republic of China, is laying plans to build energy pipelines and high speed rail links with Russia across Eurasia.

Washington appears now to be responding.

The problem with the Washington neoconservatives is that they aren’t very creative, in fact, in terms of understanding the larger consequences of their specific actions, they are rather stupid. And their shenanigens have become very well-known, not only in Moscow, but also in Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and other Central Asian republics formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The Coming Eurasia Economic Boom

Central Asian republics, most especially Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, are strategically located between China, Kazakhstan and Russia. They are also in the midst of the developing economic boom region that will follow China’s New Silk Road high-speed railway networks. Those rail networks will create a highly efficient land route, independent of possible US sea lane interference, to facilitate the rapidly-growing trade across Eurasia and potentially, if the hapless EU ever gets the courage to buck Washington, to Europe as well.

China recently made headlines with the establishment of its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a clear rival to the IMF and the US-controlled Asian Development Bank, when the UK, Germany, France and most every major nation—with exception of the USA, Canada, Mexico and Japan—rushed to be founding members and to get in on what promises to be the global economic locomotive for at least the next half century or more, if done right. The AIIB was founded by Beijing with its initial contribution of $50 billion, to partly finance the New Silk Road.

Recently Beijing also revived an earlier plan to build a rail link from China’s Xinjiang Province in far western to Uzbekistan across the territory of northern Kyrgyzstan. Their initial plans were derailed in 2005 when an earlier US-instigated Color Revolution made Kyrgyzstan too unstable.

On January 21, 2015 Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev announced that his government was sending a delegation to Beijing to finalize details of the project launch.It will be a $2 billion 270 km-long rail link from Kashgar in the Xinjiang region of western China to Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan via Kyrgyzstan’s Naryn and Osh oblasts.

In a recent memo on the development, the UK Foreign Office notes that the rail project would have significant benefits for especially Uzbekistan and for China as well as advancing the overall Eurasian New Silk Road rail projects. They note that for China, it would create an additional land-based route through Central Asia for its exports to European markets, assuming it would connect into the existing Uzbek and Turkmen rail network running to the Caspian Sea. It would also improve Chinese access to gold, coal and other mineral deposits within Kyrgyzstan, a largely economically forgotten state since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Kyrgyzstan’s declaration of an independent republic.

For Uzbekistan, the Foreign Office memo notes that it would offer a new rail route for trade with Asia-Pacific markets. This would be especially important for the GM-UzDaewoo car assembly plant located in the Andijan region, which relies on regular imports of parts and components from South Korea. For Kyrgyzstan, it would offer the potential to earn transit fees of up to $200 million per year, by some estimates, in addition to creating up to 20,000 construction jobs during the implementation phase. As well there are the potential gains for opening Kyrgyzstan to significant Chinese mining investment, something the Kyrgyz economy sorely needs.

And in another geopolitical Eurasian economic advance, on April 9, Pakistan announced that, once US Iran sanctions are lifted, it will proceed with long-stalled construction of a $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan natural gas pipeline that would pass through Pakistan’s port of Gwadar to the city of Nawabshah in southeastern Pakistan providing a desperately needed equivalent of 4500 Megawatts of electricity.

In 2014 Washington sabotaged the project by essentially bribing the financially-strapped Pakistan government with $1.5 billion in Saudi money if she were to abandon the project. Washington threatened Pakistan with penalties were they to violate US economic sanctions on Iran. Washington, like Wall Street, prefers to use other peoples’ money to advance their agenda. A year later, the Saudi money spent, Pakistan has announced the pipeline project will now go ahead. Pakistan has quietly secured a $2 billion loan from… China. The Pakistan segment of the pipeline will be 485 miles, funded by a Chinese loan and construction would be undertaken by China’s CNPC state energy company. Iran has already completed its 560-mile segment of the pipeline.

Washington Scrambles to Sabotage

With the explosion of trans-national Eurasian economic linkages, rail and pipeline, Washington has realized it must react if they are not to be outflanked by the states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan.

Not only that, also in January 2015 Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia launched their Eurasian Economic Union with Kyrgyzstan planning to join. That’s the same economic union which Ukraine’s democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovich opted to join rather than accept the paltry proposal of an EU Associate Membership status. Washington’s Assistant Secretary of State Viktoria Nuland and the usual gaggle of neoconservative warhawks launched the Maidan Square Twitter protests and the February 2014 coup d’etat partly to block that Ukraine move.

So it’s worth noting that in late March 2015, the Kyrgyz newspaper Delo No, reported that a mysterious Ukrainian aircraft delivered 150 tons of cargo with the status of “diplomatic mail” to the US Embassy in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek late last month. The status diplomatic mail meant it could not be inspected by Kyrgyz customs police. Apparently the US Embassy staff in Bishkek are furious letter writers.

The paper reported that the cargo was delivered during two separate flights by an AN-124 transport jet of the Ukrainian air carrier Antonov Avialinii between March 28 and March 30, and each time the plane was en route from the UAE capital Abu Dhabi to the Manas international airport. Hmmm.

It’s worth noting that in November 2013, the US Embassy in Kiev also received “diplomatic cargos” that were delivered by US Air Force transport aircraft. Former Ukrainian Security Service chief Alexander Yakimenko was quoted by Russia’s Vesti.ru news network as saying that the Kiev cargos included boxes with 60 million dollars in small bills that were distributed to protesters at Kiev’s Maidan Square during anti-government riots in late 2013—Victoria Nuland’s idea of democracy. Until April 2014 the US Government had maintained a strategic airbase at Manas in Kyrgyzstan totally immune from Kyrgyz inspection. Reports were rampant at the time that US military cargo laden with Afghan heroin landed there en route to Russia and the EU.

In November, 2014 Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) head, Nikolay Bordyuzha, accused the West of attempting to destabilize CSTO countries. The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a security alliance of former Soviet states, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan to cooperate in strategic issues amongst the member states.

Bordyuzha charged that activities of “NGO’s financed by Western Agents” have increased in the region. Bordyuzha accused the West of destabilizing the situation in the CSTO countries. As proof he cited a “disproportionate increase in the number of officials in Western embassies, especially those of the US as well as the activation of the work of the many NGOs financed by Western grants.” He noted that just before the launch of Washington’s Kiev coup d’etat, the number of US Embassy personnel in Kiev exploded to a staggering 1,500, that for a country whose only interest to Washington is to drive a wedge between Russia, China and the EU.

Then on February 5 this year, the US State Department announced that it had hauled out 78-year-old retired Color Revolution maker, Richard M. Miles, as “Charge d’Affaires ad Interim” at the US Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Miles was the point person behind the CIA “Rose Revolution” that fraudulently installed Washington’s hand-picked Mikhail Saakashvili as President of the Republic of Georgia as well as similar dirty operations in the 1990’s in Azerbaijan where BP and the US oil companies wanted to build an oil pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan via Georgia to avoid the existing Russian oil line running through Chechnya.

The appointment of Miles came at the same time US State Department Assistant Secretary, Victoria Nuland, the neoconservative former Dick Cheney assistant and ex NATO Ambassador who was key point person for the Kiev coup of 2014, travelled to the Southern Caucasus to visit the governments of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Washington clearly aims to wreak havoc in the form of Color Revolutions across Central Asia, in order to sabotage the rapidly-developing Eurasian economic developments. Kyrgyzstan is especially strategic to that aim as chaos there immediately threatens China, Russia and Kazakhstan economic cooperation.

We can expect a new wave of Washington-orchestrated Color Revolutions across Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. It will likely also include Baluchistan in Pakistan where radical Jihadists, backed by the CIA, are being prepared to sabotage the Iran-Pakistan-China gas pipeline that passes through Baluchistan as well. It’s all a bit tiresome, but a Superpower in decay is not generally the most creative.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/05/what-s-washington-doin-in-central-asia-now/

Russia’s Game in Southeast Asia

Russia’s Game in Southeast Asia

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor

By: Stephen Blank

The Jamestown Foundation & http://moderntokyotimes.com

The Ukraine crisis has brought Russia and China much closer together (see EDM, April 3). But Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s trip to Southeast Asia—Thailand and then Vietnam—in early April 2015, suggests that Moscow is simultaneously hedging against China, as Beijing is visibly trying to subordinate Vietnam and other local governments to its effort to dominate the South China Sea and the region more generally.

Russia calls Vietnam its strategic partner and is expanding energy ties and defense sales to this Southeast Asian country (China Daily, April 6; Interfax, Vietnam News Agency, April 5). Hanoi even has allowed Russian planes to refuel at a Vietnamese base, from where they take off on probes against the United States (RT, March 12; Interfax, March 25). Yet, Moscow acknowledged Hanoi’s right to buy arms from anyone it wants, including the US (Interfax, March 25).

The recent Russo-Vietnamese communiqué of Prime Minister Medvedev’s visit in April opposes China’s territorial claims in Asia and shows that Russia has other friends in the region besides China (Moscow Times, April 9). The most striking and consequential forms of cooperation with these regional partners are in the military sphere. Vietnam’s defense minister, General Phung Quang Thanh, in 2013, called Russia “Vietnam’s primary strategic military partner in the sphere of military and technical cooperation” (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 7, 2013). Beyond Russia’s interest in the naval facilities at Cam Ranh Bay, Russia has been helping Vietnam build a submarine base and repair dockyards to provide maintenance support for other naval platforms. The submarine base will host Kilo-class subs that Vietnam bought from Russia to protect its interests in the South China Sea. More recently, both sides have begun discussing regular Russian port visits to Vietnam for maintenance, rest and relaxation—although Cam Ranh Bay will not become a Russian base. Vietnam and Russia also announced a third tranche of the sale of 12 new Su-30MK2 fighter aircraft that can target ships as well as aerial and ground targets. Furthermore, Vietnam has ordered six new Varshavyanka-class submarines that improve on its existing Kilo-class vessels and can conduct anti-submarine, anti-ship, general reconnaissance, and patrol missions in relatively shallow waters like the South China Sea. These sales display Vietnam’s defense modernization strategy to resist Chinese threats to its offshore energy interests, defend Vietnamese claims in the South China Sea, and deter growing Chinese aggressiveness.

But perhaps the most striking aspect of these recent arms sales and ministerial talks is the fact that Prime Minister Medvedev approved a draft Russo-Vietnamese military cooperation pact formalizing bilateral defense cooperation. Medvedev’s approval compels the Russian Ministry of Defense to discuss the planned accord with Hanoi and authorizes it to sign the agreement on Russia’s behalf. The planned accord would stipulate exchanges of opinions and information, the implementation of confidence-building measures, cooperation to enhance international security and ensure more effective action against terrorism, as well as better arms control.

Of course, allegedly nothing in this bilateral relationship targets a third country. However, it is noteworthy that most of these announcements come from the Vietnamese side, which has every reason to display publicly its ability to garner outside support for its military buildup and political resistance to Chinese territorial claims.

Vietnam’s efforts to weave together a series of partnerships against Chinese power are not surprising. But Russia’s activities clearly have stunned and even dismayed China. Perhaps Beijing should not have been caught unawares, as those policies are clearly part of Moscow’s overall “pivot” to Asia. Indeed, the Russian moves actually preceded the US “rebalancing” program in Asia, and they aim to invigorate Moscow’s economic-military-political position as an independent major Asian power in its own right. Moreover, they visibly confirm Edward Luttwak’s observation that, given the logic of strategy, China’s unceasing aggressive policies will lead its neighbors and other Asian states, including Russia, to find new ways of collaborating together to check those policies (Edward N. Luttwak, The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy, Belknap Press, 2012).

Still, Beijing clearly dislikes Moscow’s policies. In 2012, China called them “unrighteous” and rebuked Russia for preferring to cooperate with “ill-doers” over nurturing a partnership with China—with whom Russia professes an overlap of interests. Chinese media also stressed that Russo-Vietnamese military and energy cooperation allows Vietnam to extend energy exploration into contested areas. These articles also charged that Vietnam depends on this cooperation with Russia, so in some sense Moscow is culpable. China also correctly accused Russia of seeking a return to Cam Ranh Bay—where the Soviet (and later Russian) navy used to lease a base until 2002. Thus, Russia’s “chess moves” suggest that Sino-Russian amity, at least as regards Asia’s regional security agenda, is something of a facade. Russia’s comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with Vietnam amply underscores its refusal to yield to China in Southeast Asia (China Daily, April 6).

Beyond arms sales, Medvedev’s visit to Thailand and Vietnam was also instructive from an economic viewpoint. Vietnam announced its intention to join the Eurasian Economic Union (RT April 6). Medvedev also sought Vietnamese and Thai investments in Russia and offered to sell Thailand arms in exchange for agricultural exports, no doubt to relieve Russia’s growing food crisis (Kyodo World Service, Interfax, April 8). All these moves must be seen as part of Russia’s Asian policy: specifically, it hopes to gain an independent status as an Asian great power even as it slips into dependence on China. Thus, paradoxically, even as Russia proclaims an unprecedented convergence or identity of interests with China, it is simultaneously seeking to hedge against it and restrain Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific. However, it is unlikely that this elaborate game fools Beijing.

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Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 12 Issue: 80

Photo: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, Hanoi (Source: Reuters)

Zentralasien – Die neue Zielscheibe für die USA

F. William Engdahl

Seit der Zeit, als die CIA mehr als 100 Mudschahedin, islamische Gotteskrieger – unter ihnen ein fanatischer Saudi namens Osama bin Laden – für einen zehn Jahre währenden Stellvertreterkrieg gegen Einheiten der Sowjetarmee in Afghanistan bezahlte und ausbildete, ist Washington von der Idee besessen, weit nach Zentralasien vorzudringen, um einen Keil zwischen China und Russland zu treiben.

Ersten Versuchen während der Anwesenheit amerikanischer Truppen in Afghanistan nach dem 11. September 2001 war nur mäßiger Erfolg beschieden. Jetzt will es Washington offenbar erneut versuchen. US-Botschafter Richard M. Miles wurde sogar aus dem Ruhestand zurückgerufen, um eine neue Farbenrevolution in die Wege zu leiten.

Washington fühlt sich offenbar zu der neuen Konzentration auf Zentralasien gedrängt. Denn weit davon entfernt, sich den finanziellen Sanktionen der USA und der EU zu beugen, wirkt Russland dynamischer denn je und schließt allerorten strategisch wichtige Verträge über wirtschaftliche und militärische Zusammenarbeit ab. Und Russlands eurasischer Nachbar, die Volksrepublik China, präsentiert Pläne für den Bau von Öl- und Gaspipelines und Hochgeschwindigkeits-Eisenbahnverbindungen quer über den eurasischen Kontinent bis nach Russland. Darauf scheint Washington nun zu reagieren.

Das Problem der Neokonservativen in Washington liegt in ihrer mangelnden Kreativität, die Folgen ihres Vorgehens zu verstehen, genauer gesagt: Sie sind reichlich dumm. Und ihre Tricks sind inzwischen allgemein bekannt, nicht nur in Moskau, sondern auch in Usbekistan, Kirgistan und anderen ehemaligen zentralasiatischen Teilrepubliken der Sowjetunion.

Der kommende Wirtschaftsboom in Zentralasien

Die zentralasiatischen Republiken, insbesondere Kirgistan und Usbekistan, liegen strategisch wichtig zwischen China, Kasachstan und Russland. Das bedeutet: Sie liegen im Zentrum des zukünftigen Wirtschaftsbooms, der mit Chinas neuem Hochgeschwindigkeits-Eisenbahnnetz der Neuen Seidenstraße kommen wird. Durch diese Eisenbahnverbindungen entsteht eine hocheffiziente Überlandverbindung, die auch bei möglichen Unterbrechungen des Seeweges durch die USA offenstehen und in ganz Eurasien rapide wachsenden Handel ermöglichen –potenziell auch den Handel mit Europa, wenn die EU jemals den Mut aufbringt, sich Washington zu widersetzen.

Weiterlesen:

http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/geostrategie/f-william-engdahl/zentralasien-die-neue-zielscheibe-fuer-die-usa.html

Sancties tegen Rusland treffen centraal Azië hard

Door: Henk Jurgens

Ex: http://www.doorbraak.be

Sancties tegen Rusland treffen centraal Azië hard

De Centraal-Aziatische republieken lijden zwaar onder het Europees embargo van Russische producten.

In Rusland werken miljoenen gastarbeiders uit de voormalige Sovjetrepublieken. Velen van hen zijn er illegaal. Allen sturen ze geld naar hun families thuis, veel geld. Volgens de Wereldbank hangt 21% van de Armeense economie, 31,5% van de economie van Kirgizië, 42% van de Tadzjiekse en 12% van de Oezbeekse economie af van deze geldzendingen. Veel van de arme gezinnen op het platteland zijn hiervan volledig afhankelijk.

Volgens The Guardian werken er 2,4 miljoen Oezbeken in Rusland. Zes tot zevenhonderdduizend zijn legaal, de anderen leven zonder geldige papieren. Oezbekistan heeft ongeveer 29 miljoen inwoners. The Moscow Times berichtte dat er in 2014 meer dan 200 000 illegale Tadzjieken door de Russen de grens zijn overgezet. Er wordt geschat dat er nog ruim een miljoen Tadzjieken in Rusland leven. Tadzjikistan heeft acht miljoen inwoners.

De exacte cijfers over de gastarbeiders zijn onbekend. Zoals overal op de wereld doen ook de gastarbeiders het werk dat de autochtonen niet willen doen. En nu het economisch slechter gaat als gevolg van de lage olieprijs en de sancties verdringen de Russen de gastarbeiders weer uit hun slecht betaald, ongeschoold werk. In het eerste kwartaal van 2015 is de Russische economie al met 2% gekrompen. De centrale bank van Rusland voorziet voor het jaar 2015 een economische krimp van 4%. Begin dit jaar heeft de Russische regering wetgeving afgekondigd waardoor het moeilijker wordt voor gastarbeiders van buiten de EEU om een verblijfsvergunning te krijgen. De EEU, de Euraziatische Economische Unie, is door Rusland opgericht om een vrijhandelszone tussen de voormalige Sovjetrepublieken, vergelijkbaar met die van de EU, te krijgen. Kazachstan, Wit-Rusland, Armenië en Kirgizië zijn lid, Oezbekistan en Tadzjikistan niet. Immigranten van buiten de EEU moeten voor ze een verblijfsvergunning krijgen eerst inburgeringcursussen volgen en examens afleggen in de Russische taal en de Russische geschiedenis. Verder betalen ze drie keer zoveel voor een werkvergunning in Moskou dan immigranten uit de EEU. In 2010 werkten 72% van de Tadzjiekse gastarbeiders in Moskou.

Als gevolg van de sancties tegen Rusland en de lage olieprijs is de Russische roebel gedevalueerd. Het naar huis gestuurde geld is daardoor minder waard. Niet alleen is er voor de gastarbeiders minder werk, hun inkomen daalde ook dramatisch. De Wereldbank verwacht dat ze in 2015 voor 10 miljard USD minder naar huis kunnen sturen. Volgens The Economist overweegt een kwart van de gastarbeiders om weer naar huis te gaan, maar thuis is er geen werk. De vrees voor sociale onrust als gevolg van werkloosheid en armoede is bij de politieke elite van de thuislanden groot.

Een land als Tadzjikistan staat onder grote politieke druk vanuit Moskou om lid van de EEU te worden. Door de devaluaties van de roebel is de somoni, de Tadzjiekse munt, ten opzichte van de roebel 35% meer waard geworden. De export naar Rusland staat daardoor onder grote druk.
Ook Oezbekistan overweegt, volgens The Diplomat, zich bij de EEU aan te sluiten. Het land was een belangrijke partner voor de Verenigde Staten tijdens hun oorlog in Afghanistan maar nu Amerika zich uit Afghanistan terug trekt vervalt de noodzaak hun bevoorrading via Oezbekistan te laten lopen.

Kirgizië is inmiddels tot de EEU toegetreden. Het is een klein, arm land met 5,5 miljoen inwoners. Volgens The Diplomat controleert Rusland de economie van Kirgizistan. Buiten de Vallei van Fergana, de vallei tussen Kirgizië, Oezbekistan en Tadzjikistan, met zijn vruchtbare landbouwgronden is er weinig economische activiteit. Alleen de toeristenindustrie is een beetje in opkomst zoals ik tijdens mijn verjaardag in 2009 in Bishkek, de hoofdstad, heb mogen ervaren.

Net als in Turkmenistan en Oezbekistan hangt ook de export van de Kazachse olie en gas af van Russische pijpleidingen. Kazachstan heeft nauwe economische banden met Rusland. In 2013 bedroeg de Russische export naar Kazachstan 17,7 miljard USD en de Kazachse export naar Rusland $5,8 miljard. Afgelopen jaar is de handel met Rusland echter met 20% afgenomen. Het land heeft vooral veel last van goedkope Russische producten die de markt overspoelen. In februari vroegen ondernemers de regering de import van een aantal Russische producten, waaronder auto's, voedsel en fruit drastisch te beperken. Goedkope Russische producten verdringen de Kazachse. De Tenge, de Kazachse munt, is het afgelopen jaar met 20% ten opzichte van de US dollar gedevalueerd maar de roebel devalueerde nog veel meer. Een roebel was in juni 2014 nog 5,44 tenge waard, begin 2015 was dit gedaald tot 3 tenge.

Het Amerikaanse ratingbureau Standard & Poor verwacht dat het bruto nationaal product van Kazachstan in 2015 met 1,5% zal dalen. Dit komt voornamelijk door de lage olieprijzen. Ruim 20% van het bnp en ruim 60% van de export komt voor rekening van de olie- en gasindustrie. De Kazachse begroting gaat uit van een olieprijs van 80 USD per vat. Op het ogenblik ligt dit rond de $60. Het land zit dan ook door de sancties tegen Rusland en de lage olie- en gasprijs op de wereldmarkt in grote economische problemen. Het is dan ook geen wonder dat president Nazarbaev samen met Lukashenko, de president van Wit-Rusland, er alles aan doet om de burgeroorlog in de Oekraïne te beëindigen en daardoor de sancties tegen Rusland te laten opheffen. Afgelopen december sloot hij een contract met Kiev om Kazachse steenkool aan Oekraïne te gaan leveren. Ook de Minsk-akkoorden die min of meer tot een staakt-het-vuren in Oost Oekraïne hebben geleid zijn na bemiddeling van de beide presidenten tot stand gekomen.

Er zijn berichten dat ook ambassadeurs van de Europese Unie met Russische parlementariërs gaan praten over een mogelijke beëindiging van de sancties. Om de burgeroorlog in de Oekraïne definitief te beëindigen is een dialoog met Rusland noodzakelijk. Ook de NAVO-top die jarenlang in het geheim met de Russische militairen in gesprek was moet weer met de Russen gaan praten. Het is onverantwoord dat deze discussies zijn stil gevallen.
Natuurlijk moeten de Russen zich uiteindelijk uit Oost-Oekraïne terug trekken, maar dat geldt ook voor de ruim duizend Amerikaanse trainers en waarnemers die het leger van Kiev 'adviseren'.

Voor de arme gezinnen op het platteland van Centraal-Azië is beëindiging van de sancties tegen Rusland op kort termijn noodzakelijk.