Scary reds! Be afraid!! Russia needs America and China to be able to scare their own populace into giving up more and more of their own personal freedoms, just like America needs China and Russia to do the same. No one country could “rule the world” in a way that wouldn’t immediately galvanize worldwide opposition. Capital claims no nationality, so nationality is one of the ways the very rich divide and conquer the populace at large. It’s a fake idea in an age of global instant communication when people have literally bought citizenships.
I would love to be able to work with the people of China and Russia as you’re suggesting, I think the great mass of people in all these countries would, but you’re blurring the populations of the countries and the strategic plotting of the national leaders. I wonder if you might be making the terrible mistake that almost all of us seem to make, of seeing your country from the intimate perspective of family, friends and ordinary people living their lives, and others through the words and actions of national politicians. I think the leaders of all of these countries are threats to the world, and not because they necessarily have plans of expanding their empire across the globe, but because their primary goal is to hold power in their own country which requires theatre to the populace and flows of wealth to their core supporters. China doesn’t need to retake Taiwan, there are already Chinese people there doing just fine, Russia doesn’t need to threaten Ukraine, US doesn’t need its military practically everywhere, but the leaders in each of those countries can’t back down on any of those things or their person hold on power is over
I don't know about Russia, but China doesn't let people from other nationalities to occupy positions of power especially in foreign policy, in which they're completely right. This is the main weakness of the USA and UK. They will let foreign born people to raise to power and dictate self servicing policies, many times in detriment to their own population. For example, take Henry Kissinger: a german born person, he spent his whole life influencing American policy to accommodate his views concerning Europe and the rest of the world. It is not a surprise that the Western world is in this situation.
I think there are two mindsets here. Russia is a gangster, brutal and clumsy, yet rational. However Russia is also barely hanging on to first world status, they are not a global balance of power threat. China is a threat to shifting the balance of power decisively towards China and away from America and the West. They mean it when they say this will be the China century.
You can't not comply with the government of a country unless you are a country. And the citizens of Russia and China would not appreciate that, because they actually like their governments, and don't care what you think.
I'm Bulgarian, I know a lot of Russians, I've been raised with the Russian culture during communism, and I've been living 16 years in California. Russia is a powerful country, but I think China is a much bigger threat to the US than Russia!
Russia is a malevolent authoritarian regime. Russian companies (like Chinese companies) have no power to resist the dictates of their authoritarian governments. I don't trust anyone completely, but democratic countries where government authority is checked/constrained by the people and competing forces are far more trustworthy.
China, Russia will do anything that will help to destabilize USA. Have I discovered anything new? Rather not. This sentence is a tautology. In the same way USA is/was destabilizing Middle East countries or communistic countries during cold war (I am grateful for the latter, BTW).
I am only curious how sophisticated such action can be. Who was behind the claims that Trump was a Russia ally (this turned out to be total bullshit at the end). Is Russia or China supporting BLM movement (or will support it), which is clearly destabilizing and polarizing US society (not judging if BLM are right or wrong, it does not matter, China and Russia cannot care less, that what matters are street fights)?
Maybe they don't need to do anything, Facebook and Twitter are even better in polarizing people, throwing them into information bubbles outside which everybody is an enemy.
Russia is a minor player compared to China, a distraction that was welcomed by China with open arms as it helps divide and weaken the West. I understand that Russia has a much bigger impact on Europe than on the US, but strategically speaking, China is the only one actually capable of influencing the world to embrace despotism and collectivism at the expense of freedom.
i’m on the US’s side, but for the fun of playing devil’s advocate, it could be that the US resisting the assent of Russia/China is the very thing that unifies them under totalitarianism (common threat and all that) - China and Russia might have had their governments overthrown already if it weren’t for the US giving them something to fight against.
Every group turns toward infighting once the outside threat is defeated.
Democracy is ideal, but I’d rather see Russia utterly dependent on China than autocratic and warmongering. Russia is just 1.7% of global GDP, China already 14%. Russia is driving the rest of Eastern Europe into NATO and towards Western influence, so it may net out. It will also rapidly drive renewable energy investment and growth.
Russia is obviously preparing for a war. They are trying to build and control their own services for everything (finance, e-commerce, even CPU manufacturing etc.) so that the country doesn't collapse once it is cut off from the West, the weakness China doesn't have. It sucks for all the people that want to enjoy freedom there.
This new world order the Russians and Chinese are looking to create sounds like a much much worse deal for Russia and Putin and the Oligarchs, than being part of the world system, it makes zero sense. China really don’t care one bit about Russia, it’s like them buddying up with Holland and Belgium specially. What is the point? Such small fry for no reward to them. The Russians being stupid enough to think things will get better for them by being friends with China is beyond insane. Good for China and bad for Russia.
This perspective is very western-centric. Nobody sees themselves as the villain in their own story, after all. I strongly doubt the non-Chinese non-Russians countries are thinking like that.
How about another perspective: when you run a science experiment, say if you are checking if a drug works or not, you don’t compare against “nothing”. You compare against a placebo sugar pill; otherwise you will get a significant placebo effect.
What if we replace the leaders of these countries with “placebos”? Let’s say they are generic, generally pro-democracy, boring leaders with the interests of their people at heart. Let’s not assume they’re trying to be villains for the sake of being villains, and try to explain this move. What would happen?
First off, it seems clear that world trust in the USA and western european countries is falling. The USA is chaotic domestically, and that is spilling over into its foreign policy. A neutral country cannot expect the USA to act in the public interest. The USA will always act in its own interest. For example, West Germany or Japan in the late 1990s could count on a total guarantee of USA protection against the USSR; nowadays, Taiwan is functionally a client state for the USA but seen as more “disposable” in the long run. The USA clearly intends to replace TSMC with domestic companies. Countries like Ukraine can count on USA support only for as long as public opinion holds; as soon as that dries up, the supplies will follow. Russia knows this and is fighting a war of attrition right now.
The western democracies are also bound by their election cycles. The USA’s global policy changes every 4 year election cycle, and can be hard to predict. In that sense, China or Russia are more stable allies- you’re not bound to a 4 year election cycle.
So if you’re a leader of a somewhat neutral country like Brazil or India or Egypt or Argentina, you’re not inclined to kowtow to the USA long term. It’s in your interest to recognize geopolitics is rapidly moving to a multipolar world, and being seen as one of the poles of the world as opposed to a single standard bearer is seen as being a good neighbor.
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