Posted on 08/23/2023 9:42:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The BRICS summit is taking place in South Africa this week. BRICS started out as BRIC for Brazil, Russia, India and China but has since added South Africa. The group of nations doesn’t have much in common except a generalized sense of grievance over the US being the most powerful country in the world.
The other BRICS nations have offered little to no protest of the Kremlin’s decision to rush to war. China and India stepped up purchases from Russia as Western sanctions started to bite. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva suggested that the West was at least partially to blame for the conflict and has offered a vague proposal to help forge a truce between Kyiv and Moscow. South Africa’s government equivocated, too, refusing to outright condemn Putin’s regime while bemoaning the war’s ripple effects on supply chains critical to African societies.
In Johannesburg, a big topic of conversation will be the outsize influence of the U.S. dollar in the global economy. Talk of “de-dollarization” is rife among exponents of the BRICS, even though not formally on the summit’s agenda. Some have floated a rival BRICS-backed currency to challenge the greenback’s supremacy. But the invention of a new BRICS currency is wildly ambitious — and probably unfeasible — and the summit is expected to focus instead on options to expand the use of local currencies in trade between bloc members. Dollar-strapped countries like Argentina have already started dealing in the Chinese yuan in certain transactions.
“Why does Brazil need the dollar to trade with China or Argentina? We can trade in our currency,” Lula told reporters recently<, before casting the BRICS bank as a more just potential actor on the world stage than U.S.-led institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
So the general idea of this conference is for these countries to get together as a kind of vague rival to the G7 or the G20. What you don’t want at a meeting like this is signs of confusion or possible problems behind the scenes. But this week China is experiencing both. First, there was this incident in which a Chinese aide seen running after Xi Jinping was stopped by security who, it seems, didn’t know who he was. As you can see in this clip, Xi seems confused and stops and looks back.
At BRICS summit, South African security officers stop Chinese President Xi Jinping's officials who were trying to make their in. Literally had to close the doors prompting the Chinese President to look back several times. pic.twitter.com/EHhsd6IKEH
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) August 23, 2023
It turns out the man who got body slammed into a door was Xi’s translator. You can see the same small guy with glasses in this earlier video shot upon Xi’s arrival.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the BRICS summit in South Africa
If you're wondering what small talk between national leaders sounds like:
Props to President Xi pulling out an appropriate ancient proverb, responding to President Ramaphosa's apartheid story at the end. pic.twitter.com/4H0PerqSEm
— Zhao DaShuai 无条件爱国🇨🇳 (@zhao_dashuai) August 23, 2023
But that was a relatively minor incident compared to what happened yesterday. Xi Jinping failed to show up for a planned speech.
Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to show up at the Brics Business Forum on Tuesday in South Africa, where he was expected to deliver a speech alongside his counterparts. In his place, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao read the speech that criticised the US over its tendency toward “hegemony”.
Xi, in the speech read by Wang at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, said the US tended to fight countries that threaten its dominance in global affairs and financial markets.
The speech said that every country has a right to development and that people should have the freedom to pursue a happy life. But one country, he said in a thinly veiled swipe at the US, is “obsessed with maintaining hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets and developing countries”…
“This should be ‘stop the presses’ news!” Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China, said in response to Glaser’s post. “An unannounced absence, especially in a multilateral forum (which the PRC seldom misses), after all the ground work with India, is truly newsworthy. If true, something is certainly amiss.”
Again, the anti-US tone is standard fare for this event but the fact that Xi didn’t deliver his own speech is odd. Close watchers of China say this simply never happens without some extraordinary reason.
Xi later attended the summit dinner, but no reason was given for missing the speech. It appeared to be a last-minute decision, as state media articles and social media posts from China’s foreign ministry spokesperson were published as though he had delivered it himself…
The China Global South Project noted this was the second unexplained absence by a Chinese official after former foreign minister Qin Gang – who has not been seen in public for months – also missed last month’s foreign ministers Brics meeting.
“To say [Xi’s absence] is extraordinary is an understatement as Chinese leaders never miss highly choreographed events like this,” it said.
Did anything extraordinary happen yesterday that might have unavoidably pulled Xi away from his duties? Maybe?
Reports circulating online have claimed that one of China’s Type 093, or “Shang-class,” nuclear submarines had crashed in unknown circumstances at some point in the past few days. Some of the reports claimed the entire crew onboard the vessel had been killed…
There has been no official confirmation of a Chinese submarine running into difficulty in the contentious strait, and experts have been hesitant to speculate. The topic was not mentioned in a press briefing from China’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday and has not appeared in any state news agencies’ reports.
Two points about this. First, if a Chinese nuclear sub did sink in the Taiwan straight that would be a huge story. Second, this definitely seems like the kind of news China would deny and lie about because that’s just what they do anytime their prestige is on the line.
On the other hand, no one seems convinced this happened yet. Taiwan’s MOD put out a statement yesterday saying they hadn’t heard anything beyond the rumors.
“As per my understanding, this information is circulating on social media but I haven't received any official confirmation”- Spokesperson of Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on the rumours regarding the Chinese submarine accident in the Taiwan Strait
pic.twitter.com/adlPZlphW4— Sana Hashmi | 胡莎娜 (@sanahashmi1) August 22, 2023
Also there’s this:
Taiwan Atomic Energy Council spokesman Wang Chongde said that if a nuclear submarine sinks nuclear fuel could leak However, none of Taiwan's 63 radiation monitoring stations detected a change in bg radiation after reports of a Chinese submarine accident in the Taiwan Strait. pic.twitter.com/F3YhaYenWU
— JohneidpyM01 (@johneidpyM01) August 22, 2023
So at least for now this looks like a rumor with no confirmation at all. It probably didn’t happen. That still leaves the mystery of why Xi Jinping was suddenly unavailable for a scheduled speech yesterday without any notice. Something happened, we just don’t know what it was yet.
The minute the other BRICS countries have to carry the ball, they will be out...Those smaller countries or less moneyed countries want Russia and China to run this thing......Annnd just give everyone else money...Tons of it....
Also possible that “something” from Wuhan was leaked at the conference and Xi was keeping away from it.
We are quick to freeze bank accounts, homes, boats, planes etc., even private citizens property, restrict trade, force others to restrict trade in all aspects, leverage our dollar, limit the movement of people, censor...
But then we warn others of the huge threat of being dependent on Russian gas because the Russians may leverage this against one in the future if there is disagreement.
The problem is that we're behaving like assholes. We like to talk about these high and noble ideas, but reality has it that others have figured us out.
We're willing to use military force in furthering our economic interests, we are expansionist, we will subvert governments, fuel insurrections, cause uprisings, propagandize the crap out of someone, we kidnap, torture, assassinate, don't follow our own laws nor hold to our promises, outright lie and cheat, prop up dictators, are entirely NOT transparent. But we'll talk a lot about democracy, freedom, human rights, bla bla bla.
***Folks don't trust us, and many see us as the big bully on the playground, even though the common Joe in the US don't see it that way. After the end of the Cold War we were left as the only remaining worlds superpower. We have become ever more brazen in what we're willing to do to achieve our political goals and many have had enough or are frankly afraid. Even our neighbors and NAFTA members like Mexico are getting pissed. Only in our own mind are we still the knight in silver armor defending democracy and freedom, but for the rest of the world, to include India, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Serbia, Belarus, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua (most of the worlds population and landmass)... “we” are the pariah.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream We are everything we accuse the Russians of being.
https://www.dw.com/en/kidnapped-by-the-cia-the-case-of-khaled-el-masri/a-61205120
Since our dominance extends into the realm of news media, big tech (search engines, social media, www infrastructure), we can control the narrative for the most part in our own world, leading to the dichotomy between how the average American sees how we behave and how the rest of the world sees us.
Poutine didn’t even go, attended remotely.
He’s scared to leave his bunker.
Yeah, you love Russia, we get it.
Great argument.
Ever been inside Mexico? Actually in it, not just in the tourist areas.
They don’t like you, Gringo. And it’s for a reason.
That’s right on your border.
How is that a coherent response to you loving Russia?
The Romans didn’t see themselves as bad either, nor did Cesar, and I suppose to some degree your idea of simply choosing ones own side and putting on blinders works for those that benefit from the system or feel some loyalty towards it.
The problem is that when you become pushy, brazen, forceful, no longer care about other people’s concerns, folks eventually begin to gang up on you and at some point you’ll be shocked as even Brutus plunges a knife into you.
Kings/empires that survive the test of time understand this concept. It’s not weakness or apathy, it’s not appeasement or a lack of principles, it’s realizing that no matter how big you think you are, if you act like an ass, folks will eventually cheer as you fall.
Nature is lazy and entropy is real. When you have global organizations forming that are in obvious opposition to your own power, some of its members former allies, many wanting to join, your biggest trade partners being part of that, there is a reason. That doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. There was/is an impetus for this. When your own neighbor doesn’t like you despite being in a trade agreement with you, millions of their people in our country and millions of our people retiring and vacationing in theirs, there is a reason.
For for the time being, enjoy your high.
Well said.
When Americans huff and puff about “foreign election interference” in US elections, the rest of the world just laughs.
The USA big vulnerability is the potential fall of the $US as the international currency.
Demand for dollars from that allows for massive deficits with low inflation and interest rates, as well as massive printing whenever there is a financial crisis, without inflation or devaluation.
If that were ever to come to an end, the USA just becomes a “post-industrial” country with massive trade an budget deficits, and a lot of enemies who will go out of their way to add whatever damage they can.
If the US dollar collapses, the DC Globohomo Regime goes with it, and then anything is possible.
If the dollar was backed by something of inherent value again, it would at least have tangible value being pegged to something real and valuable.
Having some sort of asset backing to the currency is a separate issue from demand for the dollar as the international currency.
The Swiss Franc was partially backed by gold until 2001(?) but it wasn’t the international currency even with that advantage.
Are you RCP?
https://www.reuters.com/world/what-is-brics-who-are-its-members-2023-08-21/
Over 40 countries have petitioned or expressed an interest to join.
And what do you think is their common interest?
BRICS, you may as well call it the “counter US/Western political and economic hegemony movement.”
Think about this, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, nations which are fairly close aligned with us are wanting to join!
What do you think is happening right now with the US dollar and US held securities by other nations? Why do you think they are slowly divesting of it?
Being the big guy and using your weight excessive and belligerently, makes others turn their back on you eventually.
If you’re the big guy, and want to stay the big guy, learn to be “nice.” Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_of_Jordan#:~:text=Abdullah%20II%20bin%20Al%2DHussein,throne%20on%207%20February%201999 Already his father understood this concept. Had he been an ass, he would not have survived and his son would not be the king today.
A huge part of the problem is that after the wall collapsed and the “winds of change” were blowing eastward, then really, NATO should have been shrunk in conjunction with the integration of communist bloc into the western world. That didn’t happen.
You can figure out what happened from a cursory glance at the NATO wikiepedia page in the history section:
“In the 1990s, the organization extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns.[32] “
That says it all. Who would want to pull the plug on a baby-fed, multi-billion dollar organization/alliance?
Basically NATO’s mission became irrelevant so the organization decided to keep it self alive. NATO’s presence was supposed to shrink after the cold-war (assuming both sides had good intentions) but it is still trying to expand.
You don’t think China and Russia aren’t doing the same bullying the US does?
“That’s right on your border.”
What’s a “border”?
Sure, we invade countries in order to annex their territory. Okay
Right, because russia lost its imperial expansionist ambition. Why was Finland desperate to join NATO even though it has treaties signed with russia agreeing to respect its borders?
Its amazing to some that out of all former Soviet/russian colonies, all want to join NATO. Total mystery.
you have a very valid point. for sure.
The West was supposed to help the East integrate and assimilate into the modern world and economy. Perhaps the Ruskies were too slow so all the commie bloc countries came running to NATO. who knows. I doubt the Russians are innocent in this mess, thats for sure. But the West hasn’t done it’s fair part either.
It seems like the wall came down and the west decided to eat up the pieces instead of teaching them how to stand on their own feet.
In all honesty, i have no clue what i’m talking about, but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night!
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