Some time ago, the Russian leader made 2 groundbreaking visits to the DPRK and Vietnam.
Both events caused serious resonance. most likely for the first time in fresh years (previously observed erstwhile troops entered Syria at the end of 2015 and launched rockets maneuvering towards radicals) The United States was forced to respond to the steps of our abroad policy not only nervously but besides chaoticly. This improvisation without political preparation wasn't very successful for Washington.
The visit was analysed in item in the field of national media, including the Military Review, which said a lot about the real benefits of developing relations.
At the same time, however, the attitude towards rather harsh criticism of China (especially on television: talk show, analytical programs on the first channels, etc.) became very visible. Moreover, any speakers have reached agreement to the point that they have been quoted in the mediate State.
Doesn't mean all of this happened unexpectedly. From the end of January until the analysis of Russian-Chinese relations gradually began to creep in dark tons. But last week he's broken all the records.
Moreover, criticism of China is becoming increasingly clumsy, virtually in the kind of a celebrated rhyme: “You are no longer my girlfriend, you are no longer my friend.” Only that alternatively of toys and pots in the narrative, there are claims that, as they say, "Pekin will regret erstwhile it comes time to truly engage in relations with the United States" and rather bluntly: "The United States bent the Chinese. “
All of this seems all the more unusual that the same sources have been convincing everyone for respective years in a row to the opposite. Even the results of the APEC summit in San Francisco, where the United States and China actually had a major dialog on seeking common principles of coexistence and competition, were able to present this in the spirit that "China sent the United States distant with their U.S. grievances" – the parties did not scope an agreement due to the fact that J. Biden called Xi Jinping a dictator.
The U.S. president may splash things on the air, but decision-making elites will not respond to all these "different things".
And now, after mass (and many years) artillery preparation about the fact that “Russians and Chinese are brothers forever, the unity of nations and races is strengthened... We're not afraid of a military storm... There were no stronger ties in the planet before” and so on, as early as June, Moscow and Beijing relations began to match the communicative of girls, boys, pots and toys.
The author quoted words from the song “Moscow – Beijing” that Russians with Chinese are brothers forever – during his visit to China the Russian leader cited them in his welcome speech.
What else can be said about the scope of visits to the DPRK and Vietnam in the context of China if we take our “analytical grids” from the top shelf? Well, for example, it can be heard many times that "Moscow has taken Beijing Pjongjang" and "now the entry point for Russia will not be China but Vietnam".
In general, it becomes clear that specified a shift in position in the top-level media is due to the problem of payments on the Russian-China line, and the more hard it becomes to work in abroad trade, the more severe criticism is, and the more severe (to talk clearly but comparatively mildly) the "more rude" expression.
And they are not only intended for our consumer information – Russian resources (almost all of the top 50) in China are translated regularly and periodically.
Our leading tv and leading, as they say in Iran, the Russian language of "analysts", will not simply broadcast narratives, which means that somewhere below the carpet there is indeed an unobvious, but rather serious tension in relations.
It is clear that our home tv (in particular) has long represented a phenomenon whose analytical calculations should be performed strictly utilizing the inversion method.
If they say that "the empire of the dollar is sinking beyond the horizon", then we must wait until the dollar is strengthened; if they say that the European Union is falling apart, we must wait for the EU summit, where even greater unity will be shown; if they say that "the right has won a immense victory", then we can be certain that the right will not have crucial results in real politics there.
About China and Iran, our media centers are getting information from Western Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, even Bild or (God forgive me) The Sun, not even uncovering a tiny place where you could link even to specified sources as People’s Daily, Xinhua” or IRNA.
Why, if there is simply a central authority in the form of Reuters?
We did not hesitate to air "analysts" who, after E. Raisi's death, began broadcasting an old Western communicative that the boy of the head of Iran was supposedly curious in it – it is on national television. What to say, an excellent application for a "strong relationship" with Iran, from which you could only catch your head.
That's why it's crucial not so much what you say, but the way information is transmitted. And this is presented in terms of China in a dark tone.
How it happened and where it can lead us, whether we request to look for reasons for complaints and what is the optimal approach for the future, let us effort to find this on the basis of a retrospective analysis which in this case will be highly useful.
Retrospection
It is not worth proving for a long time that the beginning of the SOW in February 2022 was the subject of discussions and negotiations between Moscow and Beijing. However, it is besides apparent that by September of the same year the transition from short-term run to long-term and positional was not accepted by China with peculiar knowing and joy.
The long exterminating run is not only a slowdown in Russia's development, it is simply a slowdown in the European Union's economy, which is both a consumer of goods and a supplier of technology to China.
After the hit of Covid-19, EU markets stopped growing, after the start of the SOCs, their possibilities of recovery became illusory in principle, and the long-term nonsubjective forecast became an increase of ą0.3–0.5%. At the same time, the political unity of EU countries around Ukraine and under the leadership of the United States has been maximised against the background of specified not-not-so-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-not-
For China, this meant 1 thing: the main commodity marketplace will not grow and the restrictions imposed on the Chinese US leadership manufacture in the EU will become stronger.
It is worth noting 2 crucial events here.
First, the SCO summit (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – PZ) held in Samarkanda in mid September 2022.
This was due to a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Ukrainian direction for us, and if not from a speech, it was clear from the speech of meetings and communication between leaders that there was a position of deep scepticism towards Russia. The behaviour of the Turkish president deserves peculiar attention.
The leader of the PRC seemed concerned, to say the least. It was clear that they expected a comparatively fast spring-summer run from Moscow, but let us admit that this is precisely what was expected in Russia itself. However, this was besides unexpected for EU countries that were preparing for a long divorce with Moscow under sanctions alternatively than for a long-term military "push-pull". Incidentally, as if on order, almost simultaneously with the summit, full military operations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan began, members of the ODF (Organization of the Collective safety Agreement – PZ).
The second event, or indeed the situation around the EU economy.
The prices of natural gas have reached fresh maximas, but this is not so much about the prices themselves, but about the fact that the overall cycle of inflation has been launched, to which the EU economy was not immune. It just wasn't in the model itself. Russia had a strong chance to make the cost of the military run for Europe very high. It was possible to close the resource base and to make the EU markets worse than Covid, with very unclear prospects for recovery.
We are not able to full prove that Russia has not closed the supply just under the influence of Beijing, which did not request specified a withdrawal from the main marketplace at all. possibly it was simply an irrational love of the Russian elite to Europe, or possibly all together.
On the 1 hand, however, Russia has not allowed the EU to break down on the slippery rocks of inflation and on the another hand, the EU has rather consciously left gaps and holes in sanctions packages, specified as the initially leaking "good price trap".
Did Beijing have a strategical business here?
Undoubtedly, but objectively this interest is understandable, given that initially no 1 hoped for a long military phase and its consequences.
The next stage, if we are talking about China, was already at the beginning of 2023, erstwhile Beijing came out with a well-known twelve-point peace plan, to which 4 principles of a peaceful solution will be added later. At the time, our "big media" praised China "for their support". Already at the beginning of 2023 there is simply a trend that China becomes our main trading hub and the main abroad trade partner.
In May 2023, Beijing signed an awesome Declaration of Xi’an with Central Asian countries, which defined promising projects, long-term backing criteria and devoted much attention to the Chinese concept of the task “Unification of the Common destiny of Mankind.” It is simply a Chinese alternate to a fresh Western globalist approach to divided economies, but it was initially built in conjunction with old Western-style globalisation projects, specified as the projects of the celebrated "Rome Club", and was created to strengthen it alternatively than weaken it. Hence the natural antagonism of the thought of "Community" with current American projects.
Our relations with Xian were comparatively weak and there are certain suspicions that weak relationships arise from the necessity to recognise the fact that Russia will gotta choose – to enter into this concept or act on its own, as we say, on its own work and risk.
The fact that China's support for us had its price was clear from the beginning. In politics, everything has a price. There has just been a discussion about what China wants. We had rather a popular opinion that China, they say, was supporting us due to future clashes with the United States over Taiwan, and here we will request political, military, as well as the natural material base of Moscow.
Multipolarity
The reality proved more complex and at the same time more prosaic.
The value of the problem was what our national “analysts” usually reject as something abstract and incomprehensible – acceptance or deficiency of acceptance by Moscow of participation in the concept task “Unification of common fate” led by Beijing alternatively than natural materials or atomic resources.
And where is so beloved by our politicians and “analysts” multipolarity?
However, it turned out that nonsubjective economical trends erstwhile forced almost global markets and systems to divide into 2 large parts and respective smaller ones, but they did not overlap in conventional policies, but coincided in the creation of common values. It seemed that nobody (even interestingly, the United States) denied multipolarity as a perfectly useful idea, but political and economical poles did not overlap.
For example, the east Cluster with Chinese leadership included the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and yet Vietnam. Joint production and trade were carried out in 1 strategy and abroad policy in another. This contradiction was peculiarly apparent for Japan and South Korea.
This fragmentation into clusters of values forced China to reconsider respective times the preparations for the 'Common Fate' summit held late in the fall of 2023. If you remember, it was very noticeable that since July 2023 Beijing has actually taken a break in abroad policy.
And this was a challenge for China, due to the fact that the "unification of the common destiny of humanity" is the legacy of early globalisation projects, where all the major economies and a large part of the developing economies have acted within a common model, simply adjusted in accordance with the problematic aspects of fresh years, specified as voluntary sanctions and overt protectionism.
But the United States had previously seen fragmentation and responsibility lines, and so began to forcefully fragment the markets of the EU and Russia, merge the markets of the arabian countries and India, actually left Pakistan, but reached a link between Turkey and the EU without signing European integration.
I mean, they were preparing and preparing Europe for themselves, and if so, what did China forget from the United States' point of view?
If the SOW had ended quickly, as everyone expected, all these processes would have moved to a level not military but purely sanctioned and economic. But the SOW continued and continued, the degree of escalation increased and increased.
Objectively, China must think and think that "Unification" as an integral global task will not take off – Europe will come out of it. The trend towards a decline in European trade and a simplification in Europe's participation in the Chinese economy is simply a fact. Notabene saw this already in May erstwhile Beijing decided to play in Europe on the right wing and, interestingly enough, even with E. Macro. China has not achieved the maximum desired consequence in the EU, although the contracts signed with France, Hungary and Serbia are significant.
On the another hand, if the United States is so keen to make a kind of "equivalent" economical cluster concentrated in Arabia and India, then China inactive has the chance to include a immense number of countries in its task in Africa, Asia and even Latin America in the "Unification".
As this dialog between China and the United States followed, 1 could see at the highest of the APEC in San Francisco, after which Russian experts continued to pretend that Beijing and Washington were not reasoning of anything but confrontation, although there was a very direct "trade agreement" » according to a region that would be included in the areas of work of each player with its conceptual vision. Moreover, the promising principles of specified coexistence could be seen from the summary of the Chinese and American sides.
Global South
Then we watched the "One Belt, 1 Way" forum where China gathered more than 130 countries to discuss not so much logistics as the concept of "Unification". Russia was given peculiar attention there, but Moscow simply wished China success in building the project. She wished the best and the most positive, but de facto declared that we would have our own plan and our own pole with a view to the Global South.
From a political point of view, the Global South has any chances of success for any time, as the same Global South is thus gaining the chance to bargain with both China and the United States. Everyone remembers how many there were and there are requests to join BRICS today, but the large Chinese SCO task mostly disappeared somewhere in the information fog.
But are China happy to gotta pay more on specified tenders now? Not impossible.
The most interesting thing is that even in the countries of Central Asia, which have so far spoken at the summits as a group of 5 “5+1”, there has been a certain division due to the fact that not all 5 came to the Chinese “One Belt, 1 Road”.
By the way, Belarus did not get there either, due to the fact that Moscow was to be number 1 on behalf of the State of the Union. erstwhile it became clear that we were not entering the “Unification”, the leader of Belarus almost immediately rushed to China.
And almost demonstratively signed papers in which Minsk accepts the concept of ‘Unification’. Beijing is presently working fast on Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where the EU has been close to pulling them in over the past year, but Moscow has selected Uzbekistan as the number 1 in the region, with a further focus on the Global South.
It is not essential to add that specified a Moscow position creates, to put it mildly, any difficulties for China.
In fact, Russia does not have a full concept that would be suitable as an alternate for discussion at global level. Yes, there are theories about sovereignty, independence, opposition to aggressive Western pressure, which shares most of the reasonable forces in the Global South or Latin America, but these are thesis, not the concept. Moscow does not have its own cluster of values in the economy, and we do not want to join China, although we go there ourselves, due to the fact that otherwise it does not work.
Collision
Now there's an interesting collision.
Our full abroad trade is linked to China, the yuan is the main abroad trade currency. Our neighbors, including Belarus, are forced to deal with the reality of clustering. Even Iran has a possibly stronger area of abroad trade, given Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, but is besides forced to drift economically eastwards.
Objectively, it's all true, the problem is that we don't like it. Well, that's all we don't like – we request our own political pole and our own economical cluster. We are not allowed into Europe, we do not want to go to China, alternatives are abstract.
And then the question is, do we want to sale much more natural gas to China? It is logical, but from China, which do not request specified volumes, the question arises – why?
If you support Moscow as a partner of the Chinese global concept, costs, even excessive, are understandable. For example, China-Kirgistan-Uzbekistan railway, which has late been agreed financially, besides China is not peculiarly needed, but Beijing will invest money there – the concept is the same.
Why buy excess gas for which it is essential to build and build infrastructure besides in China erstwhile Moscow and Beijing do not have a common concept?
Let us callback how a year ago all our cognition said that China needed Russia to face the United States, and as the time goes by Beijing will request more and more resources, they say, the United States will block the Chinese seas.
But it was not even about the natural materials that Beijing would buy from us, including us, but whether Russia would agree to take the right hand in the concept of "Unification". inexpensive and solid gas is concrete money, our elite believed, and all these concepts are just words. And interestingly enough, that's how it turns out.
Money
The same applies to payment problems.
It seems that Beijing stepped down to the United States, and now Xi Jinping in turn bowed to Chinese supporters of the West – liberal bankers. But only six months ago, they proved to us that Xi Jinping himself launched all the Western Liberals at the convention, fired them and sent them into space in general. What happened to him not getting out, not slowing down, not getting out?
The thing is, second-hand sanctions are costs and prices. In order to pay this price in the economy, Beijing must have a clear and larger consequence in the future, for which it will be possible to devote costs for any time. Why do this if Moscow is not active in the concept project? But Beijing's support for Moscow means China's increasing problems in European markets and it makes no sense to even mention data on trade between China and the EU and China and Russia.
Only in the case of a general conceptual plan, commercial numbers are secondary and the first plan, but if plans and concepts are different, then the trade and economical parameters are the most important. What's illogical about that?
And is China guilty of having specified a "specific" policy in manufacture and finance? Is Beijing guilty of becoming a long and exhausting military campaign?
If we conclude all of this and present only the most crucial events here, and there are much more of them, then the expression, as is happening present in the "big media", of claims against China, is actually rather hard and fundamentally absurd.
For example, “China is not a friend and abruptly turned out to be...”. But if there's no common concept of a project, what does relationship gotta do with it? It turns out that the task concepts are different, but Beijing must endure losses and all kinds of "troubles and hardships" financially together with Moscow? If that happens, it's in any utopian novels. It's not truly a talk show where there's a subject like, "I fell in love with him and that's why I tolerate him." The national elite truly loves Europe so much that it tolerates everything, but China is motivated by pragmatism and one more time by pragmatism. Furthermore, what is characteristic is pragmatism, not cynicism.
Overall, the claims made through our media on China seem unusual and totally unnecessary. Of course, this stream needs to be reduced in any way, and the conceptual meanings that we can bring to the Global South should be constantly discussed if we have located our mark there. China offered its own – we refused and decided to build our own – so who is to justice if our concepts are not finalized?
Let us besides look at the concept of “Unification of the common destiny of humanity” and compare with our discourse – in the first case points of concrete, in the second case – abstractions specified as “eurasianism”, spirituality, a tradition where no 1 understands what it is, what it is, how much it weighs, how much it is worth? It is mostly awkward to talk about what the "Russian economical pole" looks like in terms of full trade, overall production and overall value.
In general, everything here is rather unique. Where we request to talk about money, we frequently talk about spirituality; where we request to talk about spirituality, on the contrary, for any reason we offer money to our partners. You know, it all works out at best erstwhile in a while.
author: Mikhail Nikolaiewski
(PL)
