In the Xi-Putin joint statement, there was a strong emphasis on the fact that one country’s security measures do not overlap with those of other countries. This while every day the security interests of India and several members of ASEAN are threatened by the actions of Beijing.

New Delhi: Recent actions by the Atlantic Alliance, which has once again become the centerpiece of US policy and embraced by President Biden after effectively downgrading the Indo-Pacific Alliance, have given President Vladimir Putin two choices. The first is to follow the path of his predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, who made concession after unilateral concession to the public and secret demands of the United States and its European partners. The other is to avoid terminal damage to the Russian economy by further cementing ties with China. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping is (apparently unlike President Joe Biden) clear about his goals and the step-by-step steps needed to achieve them, Xi has eagerly seized the opportunity to ensure that any US sanctions -European Union would indeed have a limited effect on Russia and which would end up biting the EU and the United States not only in economic terms but in broader geopolitical terms. More US-EU sanctions would bring Moscow closer to Beijing. Beyond a certain point, they may present the risk that Putin will believe that there is no longer any point in waiting for common sense to arise in Washington, London and other European capitals, and that he move forward with military measures designed to eliminate any threat that a NATO-joining Ukraine poses. Recapturing Crimea from Ukraine was only the first step. Others would include the achievement of de facto independence by parts of Ukraine that directly impinge on Russian security interests. In their obsession with rendering Russia kinetically impotent (at least in the conventional sense), Bill Clinton and his successors in the White House have pursued policies blatantly hostile to Russia’s overall interest, particularly in matters of influence and control. global security. Barack Obama discovered just how powerful a threatened Russia could be when the Kremlin sent spetsnaz planes and forces into Syria to ensure GCC and NATO-backed groups were repelled from taking control of the country like they had done it before in Libya. A happy result for NATO, which lost the game against Russia and Iran, because it is only in the regions still free by NATO from the control of the Kurds and the Assad regime that the terrorists breed. It is no coincidence that the leader of the Islamic State taken under President Joe Biden lived in this “free zone”, as the United States and the EU call it. It is indeed a “free zone”, free for terrorists from Al-Qaeda and ISIS, that is. Or earlier, when excesses by a Georgian president convinced of substantial rather than verbal support between the United States and the EU led to significant swaths of his territory being wrested from Russian control. Given the current trajectory of world events, it may be that within the next decade at most, Kosovo is at risk of being taken over by a joint Serbian-Russian military operation, modeled on Crimea. Such an outcome would be contrary to the calculations of the same “experts” who led Biden into the Sino-Wahhabi trap of shifting US attention to Russia from China. Such a reversal has consequences for Australia, India and Japan, and when Antony Blinken meets his counterparts from these Quad members soon, perhaps they will be candid enough to warn him against Biden’s return. in the past.

Despite their tough rhetoric about countermeasures and new sanctions, not to mention the rush of troops to some new members, will NATO’s major powers make the unprecedented decision to go to war with Russia (helped by its ally, the PRC) and not only in Ukraine, but in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? Putin and Xi could decide otherwise. After all, in the 1930s Paris and London’s promises of an immediate and deadly response (including invading Germany from the west) gave Poland a false sense of security, giving Warsaw enough of confidence to oppose a security partnership between Russia, France and the United Kingdom that CPSU General Secretary Stalin understood from the start was necessary to deter another war in Europe on the lines of 1914-19 . Of course, such logic was beyond the ability of the leaders of France and Russia to comprehend, even if a few like De Gaulle and Churchill understood it. The Polish people have paid a very high price for such a miscalculation on the part of their leaders, and the capitals that were once part of the USSR or the Warsaw Pact, but are now in NATO, must hold account of the willingness of some of them their difficult interlocutors to risk a kinetic war on European soil with Russia, unless they themselves are invaded. And Beijing would like such a conflict to end in humiliation for the Atlantic Alliance, even at a high price for Russia. Such an outcome would be far better to Beijing than any humiliation from Moscow, something the emissaries landing in Moscow overlook while suggesting Gorbachev-Yeltsin models of concessions to the Kremlin.

Realizing that the possibility of US-EU sanctions is close to zero no matter how much the PRC helps Russia stay competitive, the CCP under Xi Jinping’s thinking has thrived by adopting policies that suit its interests, even those tracked by countries they see as obstacles on the way to global primacy. Much of what Xi Jinping Thought achieves in practice (though not always in words made public) by the CCP General Secretary or his subordinates is almost identical to the 20th century path taken by the United States to achieve the same goals as China. is looking for himself in the 21st. The “international rules of the game” were what Washington declared they were, and in the event of such a restriction, the United States exempted itself. This is precisely the path taken by Xi a day ago in the joint statement issued after the Xi-Putin meeting, who are the leaders of the two most powerful Eurasian powers, Russia and China. Much has been done to ensure that one country’s moves towards safety do not encroach on those of other countries. This while every day the security interests of India and several ASEAN members are threatened by the actions of Beijing, while all the while the assertion is made that “every action (including by PLA) is for China’s own security only.” ”. The CCP is essentially a Han party, which is why PRC founder Chairman Mao Zedong steered clear of any kinetic action other than tokenism against Taiwan throughout his tenure. While Mao’s three immediate successors as CCP bosses continued the policy of not emphasizing the Big Stick, instead focusing on winning enough hearts and minds in Taiwan that there is a voluntary unification with China. Based on Hong Kong’s success under Deng’s One Country Two Systems, elements of a One Country Three Systems solution were discussed. Shortly after coming to power in 2012, Xi abandoned the “one country, two systems for the next fifty years” policy, much to the shock of those in Hong Kong, like Jimmy Lai, who sought greater freedom through relation to the modes of governance of the CCP than they had done. This has been the case since 1997. In Xi Jinping’s thinking, there is “One Country, One System”, thus leaving no room for anything other than kinetic methods in any effort to capture Taiwan. It would be a battle of Han versus Han, given that the overwhelming majority of Taiwan’s population is Han, as is the majority of the population of Singapore, two countries that are far ahead of China in terms of pers capital. Such superiority in economic achievement runs counter to the thinking of Xi Jinping, who argues that the only system of governance suitable for the Han people is the one followed under his leadership in China. As for “mutual respect and non-interference” in matters relating to foreign countries, the less said about the actual practice, the better.

The international rules of the game were once set by Washington. Today, they are increasingly prescribed by Beijing. India has refused to take the first set of rules for granted and will not accept the second. In the case of the United States first and now of China, rules that are meant to be followed only by others and never by themselves. PM Modi and EAM Jaishankar have learned from the behavior of the PRC not only since 2017 but since the 1950s. This was the period when Aksai Chin was taken care of. The failure of previous governments to act has resulted in significant costs in territory and in other ways for India, a fate the government is eager not to replicate.