Category: Aggregated

Two reports on Xi Jinping’s New Silk Road initiative were released in the U.S. recently which competently and forcefully capture the transformation taking place in China and the impact on the future, one from a former U.S. intelligence official and one from a former French Defense Ministry advisor who now works at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) in Seattle

Flynt Leverett, a former CIA and NSC official who has done battle with the Bush-leaguers over the need to negotiate with Iran, wrote a paper with his wife Hillary Mann called “China Looks West: What Is At Stake in Beijing’s ‘New Silk Road’ Project,” published on the Ron Paul Institute website on Jan. 28 (both Leveretts are board members of the RPI).

On Feb. 12, Nadege Rolland published his article, “China’s New Silk Road,” on the NBR website. Both present the concept as Xi Jinping’s contribution to restoring China’s pre-colonial role as a “prosperous, strong, culturally advanced and harmonious country,” as Xi has stated it. They review the “One Belt, One Road” concept — the rail and infrastructure projects through Central Asia to the Gulf and to Europe, and the Maritime Silk Road through the Indian Ocean on into Europe through the Suez Canal. They emphasize the grand scale of the projects, encompassing the majority of the world’s population.

Both also identify the potential problems confronting the New Silk Road — the growth of terrorist networks in Xinjiang and the ties to the al-Qaeda networks along the Belt and Road; the potential conflict with Russia over influence in the former Soviet states; and the Obama Administration “pivot” to Asia, which threatens both military and economic confrontation with China. As Leverett writes,

“the Sino-American rapprochement in the 1970s required Washington to abandon a failed quest for Asian hegemony. Now, the U.S. appears to be backing away from these commitments and looking for ways to reassert a more traditionally hegemonic stance in Asia.”

It is refreshing, in this light, to see Western analysts present China’s serious efforts to meet these difficulties peacefully, through cooperative development proposals rather than confrontation. On the Uighur tensions, writes Rolland,

“Bejing firmly believes that the political and ethnic tensions in Xinjiang can be attenuated by economic development and for this reason has been investing massively in the local economy and infrastructure.”

On Russia, Rolland writes, China is bound to encounter Russia as it moves into the former Soviet states in Central Asia.

“But instead of creating friction, the proposed new Silk Road is intended to create more cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.”

Rolland also addresses the “geopolitical” issue — China sees that the U.S. confrontation comes from the sea, and also notes the “Malacca dilemma” — the fact that most imports from Europe and Africa must pass through the Malacca Strait.

“The fear of a maritime blockade imposed by the U.S. in the event of a conflict in East Asia has led Chinese thinkers to look for ways to bypass sea lanes subject to U.S. naval dominance,” noting that China has “historically given priority to its landmass at the expense of maritime expansion.”

Rolland closes:

“If China succeeds in linking itself more closely to Russia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, then U.S. policymakers may be compelled to radically alter their traditional approaches to these regions and indeed the entire world.”

At his recent speech at the National Press Club, former Reagan Administration Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 1, 2007 address to the Wehrkunde international security conference in Munich as evidence that the Russians were warning for some time about the West’s violations of the fundamental agreements that were reached to end the Cold War and bring security and prosperity to all of Europe and Eurasia.

Ambassador Matlock was correct that, in that address, Putin warned of the dangerous consequences of the U.S. pursuit of a policy of a “unipolar world” dominated by Washington. Not only did Putin offer an alternative architecture for global security. He specifically cited his vision for the future role of the BRICS as one new emerging institution that could help forge a just, multipolar new world order.

In his Wehrkunde speech, Putin issued an unambiguous warning about the danger of the U.S. pursuing a unipolar global order. He spelled out exactly how Soviet and American leaders had reached a detailed agreement for the reunification of Germany, the end of the Warsaw Pact, and guarantees that NATO would not encroach further eastward.

Putin told the audience of world leaders. He specifically went on to cite the emerging role of the BRIC countries as a key element of a new world architecture.

Putin went on to characterize the expansion of NATO as

As Ambassador Matlock told his audience this week, Putin made absolutely clear what Russia’s concerns were, and offered a way out of the building conflict. Unfortunately, as the Ambassador lamented, no one paid any attention to Putin’s offer. He was demonized for his Wehrkunde speech and accused of threatening a New Cold War.

Several months after that speech in Munich, President Putin made his famous visit to George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush at Kennebunkport, Maine and extended the offer to renew the joint effort at strategic defense.

With her neo-Nazi killers openly vowing to destroy the peace agreement reached in Minsk this week by Russian President Putin, Ukrainian President Poroshenko, German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande, Victoria Nuland, President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs now stands to be one of the major provocateurs of a pending global war that could rapidly lead to a thermonuclear war of extinction. If there is to be any genuine effort to implement the cease-fire hammered out in 17 hours of intense negotiations in Minsk, Nuland must be immediately fired and her neo-Nazi death squads in Ukraine shut down.

Lyndon LaRouche today demanded Nuland’s immediate firing and called for a full public exposé of her ties to the latter-day Banderist killers who were behind the Maidan coup and are the major on-the-ground force pressing for a strategic military confrontation with Russia. “She has shown by her actions that she is a Nazi-loving killer. She is the backer of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine who openly boast that they refuse to accept the cease-fire agreement reached by the Normandy Four, and will continue to carry out their butchery in eastern Ukraine. These same Banderists came to Washington late last year and peddled fraudulent photographs, claiming to show that Russia had invaded eastern Ukraine. The photographs were later exposed as fake. That fakery could contribute to the starting of world war,” LaRouche concluded.

Nuland has a long and notorious career in Washington, particularly during the last two administrations. During the Bush 43 term, Nuland was a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. She was later made U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

Obama named her to the key post of top American diplomat for Europe and Eurasia, from which she personally promoted the Banderist coup in Ukraine between November 2013 and February 2014. She was earlier deeply involved in the lying cover-up of the al-Qaeda networks that carried out the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, Libya.

Nuland, who is married to neo-con ideologue Robert Kagan, openly boasted in December 2013 that successive U.S. administrations had poured $5 billion into the color revolutions in Ukraine. She has also repeatedly lied about her role in promoting Banderist neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine, when questioned by Members of Congress and the media.

LaRouche concluded:

“Now that Nuland’s Nazis have vowed to break the agreement that could represent the last genuine opportunity to halt the drive for war with Russia, there is only one sane option—fire Nuland and thoroughly expose and shut down her Nazi terrorists. Only by removing her from her position as one of Obama’s key agents promoting world war, can the drive for war be halted at this late date.”