Posted on 03/28/2006 4:33:19 PM PST by RWR8189
A blossoming Sino-Russian romance is undercutting U.S. global interests on an unprecedented scale. Indeed, Russia and China seem to have their eyes on restraining European and Japanese power, too.
Start with the United Nations, where Russia and China are hampering U.S.- and European Union-led efforts to address Iran's nuclear program. It's been weeks since the Security Council got official notice that Iran had violated its nonproliferation promises - yet the U.N. body has yet to manage to even condemn Tehran's actions, much less impose economic sanctions.
No surprise: Both Moscow and Beijing have way too much at stake to bully their buddy, Tehran. China has billions invested in Iran's oil/gas fields; Russia hopes to make its own billions by reprocessing Iranian reactor fuel. And both sell millions in advanced weapons to Iran.
Russian and Chinese unwillingness has also stalled the world's drive to contain and roll back North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. While Pyongyang may be an annoying, needy country cousin for Moscow and Beijing, neither minds that the issue causes nuclear-strength heartburn for Washington, exacerbating festering U.S.-South Korean alliance problems. China certainly doesn't lose sleep over North Korean missiles bore-sighted on Japan, either.
Meanwhile, both have pushed for the closing of U.S. bases in Central Asia (used to support the Afghanistan mission). They've succeeded in Uzbekistan, but so far fallen short in Kyrgyzstan.
And Russia and China last summer conducted their first-ever joint military exercises, which included 10,000 military, intelligence and internal security forces. Both capitals claimed the drills weren't aimed at any country - not that anyone in the U.S., Taiwan or Japan believed that . . . Rumors abound that another series of joint exercises is planned later this year.
Of course, Russia is fueling China's military buildup - selling billions of dollars in advanced submarines, fighters, destroyers and missiles. Just recently, Beijing purchased strategic aircraft from Russia for troop movement, air-to-air refueling and AWACS-type duties.
Just last week the world's No. 2 energy producer (Russia) signed a slew of energy deals with the world's No. 2 energy consumer (China), including a deal to build a 2,000- mile-long gas pipeline. The pacts allow Beijing, now the world's fourth biggest economy, to feed its insatiable energy appetite, while competing with energy-poor Japan for access to Russian oil/gas resources. For Russia, sales to China give it an alternative to the demanding, increasingly "Green" European market.
Moreover, both nations have been cooperating on foreign and military intelligence matters since the end of the Cold War, and are growing counterintelligence problems for the United States, Europe and Japan. With the end of Cold War-era travel restrictions, Chinese and Russian spooks see open societies as easy pickings.
According to the FBI, China is now America's greatest spy threat. But Russian intel operations - under Russian President Vladimir Putin (a former KGB Colonel) - are at an all-time, post-Berlin Wall high, too. Just last week came news of Russia giving U.S. war plans and troop-movements to the Saddam Hussein regime just before and after the 2003 invasion.
Chinese espionage rings have also been exposed in Europe, while Russia has redoubled its efforts there in recent years. And Japan's weak espionage laws make it a spy's happy hunting ground.
Everything isn't completely rosy between the two capitals: There are trade disputes and friction over mass Chinese migration into resource-wealthy Siberia. Russia has to worry about China's growing military muscle, while China's not wild about the budding Russo-Japanese rapprochement.
But the two powers share a host of concerns - on American global power and EU/NATO expansion, on Japan's growing international profile and on democratic revolutions in Europe and Asia that undermine their influence.
And Putin's Russia is nostalgic for its Soviet glory days, while President Hu Jintao's China wants to restore the all-powerful Middle Kingdom. Which means that neither country is going to be reversing course any time soon.
Think back to the Soviet Union - Afghan war. Same thing here. Supply the jihadists in Chechnya with weapons, and drag the Russians into a new quagmire. The muhajadeen are willing to take the fight *into* Moscow even.
If their president continues to undermine efforts of middle east reform, or continues with the power plays on global oil supply, the dogs of war can be unleashed on them, on the cheap.
Ah c'mon doesn't the author know the Bush administration is fearful of only those who have car bombs and IEDs who want to take over the world?
One of my favorite developments over the last few weeks, was China being positioned to check cargo containers headed into the U.S. for radiation. The question comes to mind, who would be slipping radiation into the U.S. if not for China?
Is Al Qaeda shipping merchandise here? Are the Taliban? What large cargo containers are entering the U.S. from the Middle-East, and why?
There are times when it seems like this nation and some of it's policies are taken directly from the pages of the Mad Magazine.
I don't trust either nation's govt and I am concerned about some of their recent actions. However, any potential pact between the two has all the weight and security of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty of 1939.
That's ridiculous......Communism is dead. Haven't you followed the last 20 years of history??...COMMUNISM IS DEAD!!!....It fell with the Berlin Wall and the self-imposed implosion of the USSR!!!....COMMUNISM IS DEAD!!!
Signing off now from the planet Mars...May return tommorow...if Komrade Marx, from the grave, allows me.
(marx is winning, especially in our own good'ol' USofA).
FEH!
FMCDH(BITS)
ping
Bump!
"Splitting the communist powers was one of the most effective strategies of the cold war...."
If it in fact ever happened. Anatoli Golitsyn was a high-ranking KGB agent presents at meetings in Moscow from 1957-1960 where representatives of communist governments and parties throughout the world met to repair the damage done to international communism by Stalin.
And those meetings, according to Golitsyn, the Soviets rejected Stalin's principal that the Soviet Union must dominate all Communist parties of the world and, in conjunction with other Communist parties, ushered in a new principal incorporating much more independence. I can remember Golitsyn going into great detail about the role of the Eastern European parties here (they obviously were still basically under Soviet control, though with a new measure of semi-independence) but I remember he did talk quite a bit about China in this regard. Having patched up the dispute between Russia and China, the two parties resolved to continue it in public on a fake level. The purpose was to suck in Western nations into an attempt to try to take advantage of the supposed dispute. According to Golitsyn, Nixon's China initiative was the prime example of this.
"...Fortunately they have never really liked each other."
Again, this dislike has been fake since 1960 according to Golitsyn. Considering how much they supposedly dislike each other, they are warming up with astonishing rapidity.
Oh, these policies are taken from a book, alright!!! You can find it at any bookstore. It has the red cover...Many in CONgress swear by it!!!
I know what happens. I read the book! I believe we just got the goodbye look!
Dark days ahead...very dark
That sounds like tin hat conspiracy theory and it's just one man making the claim. KGB agents are professional liars. It's a pretty well known fact that during the 1950s and 1960s, 3/4 of the Chinese military were stationed at the Russian border. There's no reason to amass such a large force if the nations were friendly.
"(marx is winning, especially in our own good'ol' USofA)."
Would you say, as I would, that the Russians are behind this Marxist trend, as part of an attempt to defeat the US?
Maybe you better go back and look at what those animals did in Beslan.
Who's side are the Beslanians on?
If the Russians are interesting in undermining us and the West, the favor needs to be returned.
Think back to the Soviet Union - Afghan war. Same thing here. Supply the jihadists in Chechnya with weapons, and drag the Russians into a new quagmire. The muhajadeen are willing to take the fight *into* Moscow even. ==
Too late. Those jihadists got bitten already. Russian army got trained on them.
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