Move
over, Cold War 2.0. The real story, now and for the foreseeable future, in its
myriad declinations, and of course, ruling out too many bumps in the road, is a
new, integrated Eurasia forging ahead.
China’s immensely ambitious New Silk Road project will keep intersecting
with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EEC). And that will be the day when
the EU wakes up and finds a booming trade/commerce axis stretching from St.
Petersburg to Shanghai. It’s always pertinent to remember that Vladimir Putin sold
a similar, and even more encompassing, vision in Germany a few years ago –
stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
It will take time – and troubled times. But Eurasia’s radical face lift
is inexorable. This implies an exceptionalist dream – the U.S. as Eurasia
hegemon, something that still looked feasible at the turn of the millennium –
fast dissolving right before anyone’s eyes.
Russia
pivots East, China pivots West
A few sound minds in the U.S. remain essential as they fully deconstruct
the negatives, pointing to the dangers of Cold War 2.0. The Carnegie
Moscow Center’s Dmitri Trenin, meanwhile, is more concerned with the positives, proposing a road map for
Eurasian convergence.
The Russia-China strategic partnership – from energy trade to defense
and infrastructure development – will only solidify, as Russia pivots East and
China pivots West. Geopolitically, this does not mean a Moscow subordinated to
Beijing, but a rising symbiotic relationship, painstakingly developed in
multiple stages.
The BRICs – that dirty word in Washington – already have way more global
appeal, and as much influence as the outdated G-7. The BRIC New Development
Bank, ready to start before the end of 2015, is a key alternative to
G7-controlled mechanisms and the IMF.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is bound to include India
and Pakistan at their upcoming summer summit in Russia, and Iran’s inclusion,
post-sanctions as an official member, would be virtually a done deal by 2016.
The SCO is finally blossoming as the key development, political/economic
cooperation and security forum across Asia.
Putin’s “greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok – which would mean
the EU + EEC – may be on hold while China turbo-charges the its New Silk Road
in both its overland and maritime routes. Meanwhile, the Kremlin will
concentrate on a parallel strategy – to use East Asian capital and technology
to develop Siberia and the Russian Far East. The yuan is bound to become a
reserve currency across Eurasia in the very near future, as the ruble and the
yuan are about to rule for good in bilateral trade.
The
German factor
“Greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok inevitably depends on a
solution to the German puzzle. German industrialists clearly see the marvels of
Russia providing Germany – much more than the EU as a whole – with a privileged
geopolitical and strategic channel to Asia-Pacific. However, the same does not
apply as yet to German politicos. Chancellor Angela Merkel, whatever her
rhetoric, keeps toeing the Washington line.
The Russian Pipelineistan strategy was already in place – via Nord
Stream and South Stream – when interminable EU U-turns led Moscow to cancel
South Stream and launch Turk Stream (which will, in the end, increase energy
costs for the EU). The EU, in exchange, would have virtually free access to
Russia’s wealth of resources, and internal market. The Ukraine disaster means
the end of all these elaborate plans.
Germany is already the defacto EU conductor for this economic express
train. As an export powerhouse, its only way to go is not West or South, but
East. Thus, the portentous spectacle of an orchestra of salivating
industrialists when Xi Jinping went to Germany in the spring of 2104. Xi
proposed no less than a high-speed rail line linking the New Silk Road from
Shanghai to Duisburg and Berlin.
A key point which shouldn’t be lost on Germans: a vital branch of the
New Silk Road is the Trans-Siberian high-speed rail remix. So one of the yellow
BRIC roads to Beijing and Shanghai boasts Moscow as a strategic pit stop.
That
Empire of Chaos …
Beijing’s Go West strategy overland is blissfully free of hyperpower
meddling – from the Trans-Siberian remix to the rail/road routes across the
Central Asian “stans” all the way to Iran and Turkey. Moreover, Russia sees it
as a symbiosis, considering a win-win as Central Asian stans jump
simultaneously aboard the EEU and what Beijing dubs the Silk Road Economic
Belt.
On other fronts, meanwhile, Beijing is very careful to not antagonize
the U.S., the reigning hyperpower. See for instance this quite frank but also
quite diplomatic interview to the Financial Times by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
One key aspect of the Russia-China strategic partnership is that both
identify Washington’s massively incoherent foreign policy as a prime breeder of
chaos – exactly as I argue in my book Empire of Chaos.
In what applies specifically to China and Russia, it’s essentially chaos
as in divide and rule. Beijing sees Washington trying to destabilize China’s
periphery (Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang), and actively interfering in the South
China Sea disputes. Moscow sees Washington obsessed with the infinite expansion
of NATO and taking no prisoners in preventing Russia’s efforts at Eurasian
integration.
Thus, the certified death of Russia’s previous geopolitical strategy. No
more trying to feel included in an elite Western club such as the G-8. No more
strategic partnership with NATO.
Always expert at planning well in advance, Beijing also sees how
Washington’s relentless demonization of not only Putin, but Russia as a whole
(as in submit or else), constitute a trial run on what might be applied against
China in the near future.
Meet the
imponderables
All bets are off on how the fateful U.S.-China-Russia triangle will
evolve. Arguably, it may take the following pattern: The Americans talk loud
and carry an array of sticks; the Russians are not shy to talk back while
silently preparing strategically for a long, difficult haul; the Chinese follow
a modified “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping doctrine – talk very diplomatically
while no longer keeping a low profile.
Beijing’s already savvy to what Moscow has been whispering:
Exceptionalist Washington – in decline or not – will never treat Beijing as an
equal or respect Chinese national interests.
In the great Imponderables chapter, bets are still accepted on whether
Moscow will use this serious, triple threat crisis – sanctions, oil price war,
ruble devaluation – to radically apply structural game changers and launch a
new strategy of economic development. Putin’s recent Q&A, although crammed with intriguing
answers, still isn’t clear on this.
Other great imponderable is whether Xi, armed with soft power, charisma
and lots of cash, will be able to steer, simultaneously, the tweaking of the
economic model and a Go West avalanche that does not end up alienating China’s
multiple potential partners in building the New Silk roads.
A final, super-imponderable is whether (or when, if ever) Brussels will
decide to undertake a mutually agreed symbiosis with Russia. This, vs. its
current posture of total antagonism that extends beyond geopolitical issues.
Germany, under Merkel, seems to have made the choice to remain submitted to
NATO, and thus, a strategic midget.
So what we have here is the makings of a Greater Asia from Shanghai to
St. Petersburg – including, crucially, Tehran – instead of a Total Eurasia that
extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Total Eurasia may be broken, at least for
now. But Greater Asia is a go. There will be a tsunami of efforts by the usual
suspects, to also break it up.
All this will be fascinating to watch. How will Moscow and Beijing stare
down the West – politically, commercially and ideologically – without risking a
war? How will they cope with so much pressure? How will they sell their
strategy to great swathes of the Global South, across multiple Asian
latitudes?
One battle, though, is already won. Bye, bye Zbigniew Brzezinski. Your
grand chessboard hegemonic dream is over. Author: Pepe Escobar
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