Rich Berdan
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States competed for global supremacy numerous times by waging proxy wars around the world; Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Angola being the most notable. Today, Russia has been relegated to a secondary power position with China taking the lead in the East to dethrone the US as the reigning world power. Russia’s operation in Ukraine is what can be seen a superpower proxy war between the United States and China.
The crisis in Ukraine is but a small part in China’s 100-year plan to become the world’s ruling superpower. While Russia’s special military operation was never an intended part of the design, China pivoted and capitalized on a gold-plated cloak and dagger snare to further expedite America’s military and economic decline, as well as its ability to exert power in the latter part of China’s blueprint.
In the three weeks leading up to Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering his forces into Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Putin at the Beijing Winter Olympics in a meeting that concluded with a 5,000-word joint statement declaring a “no limits” partnership between the two nations.
Former Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China Yang Jiechi declared, “The Chinese side is willing to work with the Russian side to continuously implement high-level strategic cooperation between the two countries, safeguard common interests and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction. The relationship between the two countries has always been on the right track, and both sides firmly support each other on issues relating to their core interests.”
On September 9, 2022, before the September 15 Samarkand Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, Li Zhanshu, China’s Communist Party No.3 member of the Politburo Standing Committee met with Putin in Vladivostok. Zhanshu was quoted as saying, “We see that the United States and its NATO allies are expanding their presence near the Russian borders, seriously threatening national security and the lives of Russian citizens. We fully understand the necessity of all the measures taken by Russia aimed at protecting its key interests, we are providing our assistance.”
The assistance is most evident in China’s disregard for Western sanctions and them bankrolling Russia’s economy to continue its endeavors in Ukraine by purchasing discounted oil and gas. China’s crude oil imports from Russia has sored 55% from the previous year, while liquified natural gas imports are up 22%. These actions presented an opportune moment for China to indirectly attack the United States by further bleeding out the US Treasury and depleting available weaponry required for other wars, while also creating a boon for Chinese refineries, expanding their margins on heavily discounted oil.
Russia has now taken back its position as a top supplier to the world’s major oil importers, indicating that Moscow is able to find buyers despite Western sanctions. It should be noted that India, who purchases most of its military arms from Russia, has filled the demanded gap caused by Europe cutting off Russian oil supplies, with the greatest growth of oil imports increasing from less than a million tonnes in the first quarter of the year to nearly 8.5 million tonnes of oil in the second quarter. While India’s actions may be an act of economic expediency, one may question where their allegiance truly lies, unlike China, Iran, and North Korea, whose support is out of question.
While Xi Jinping may respect the legitimacy of Russia’s actions to protect its national interests and security in the face of external forces, he has a greater interest in having a bird’s eye view of China’s greatest costs of war—the loss of human life and the impact it may have on the economies of the parties involved. Perhaps more importantly, China is interested in studying the psychological exhaustion of a people’s will to fight, as would happen if, say, China decides to uphold its territorial claims in Taiwan and elsewhere. Xi Jinping’s indirect approach of using Russia’s conflict with Ukraine as a proxy for its issues against the US became a necessary evil to observe China’s two main rivals dislocate each other.
The 100-year plan requires a strategy which would be capable of subduing enemies of state through a patient maze of distractions and tactics that would eventually overwhelm America’s will to resist China but do so with the smallest amount of economic and human loss. In the art of war, Sun Tzu’s principle to avoid large losses was clear: a perfect strategy would be, therefore, to produce a decision without any serious fighting.
Moving directly against the US in a war is unpredictable and would cause considerable domestic and internal strife, and therefore a flexible plan was devised like that of sprawling branches bearing fruit in numerous directions. The goal is to create conditions where the US is forced to conclude its defeat as inevitable before shots are even fired.
Rather than facing raw power, China cajoled America to align their economies following President Nixon’s seismic 1972 visit known as “the week that changed the world” and largely altered the balance of power between the US, China, and the Soviet Union.
While Nixon, a shrewd strategist, sought to leverage the Chinese as a powerful new ally in his efforts to thwart the Soviets, the Chinese Communist Party had their own reasons to open relations with the US. China was concerned that its heavily militarized Soviet neighbor was planning to expand their territory across Asia.
Nixon’s intentions to pivot China against the Soviet Union by creating a third corner in a triangle of power essentially became the accelerant that ignited China’s silk road status into something of a superpower. China would first act as a supporting role to the US, neutralizing the superpower on its northern border while patiently taking note of its American partner’s weak points.
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The US became smug in its hegemonic position, believing that China required a special trading nation status with minimal import duties, a naïve notion which would democratize a country stuck in the economic backwoods. Fast forward in the 100-year plan and China has nearly caught up to the US economy following the 2008 Financial Crisis, the compounding debt ceiling collapses, and US overextending itself in multiple spectacles of war throughout the Middle East and Asia.
China’s next indirect tactical move was to purchase large amounts of US debt, peg the yuan to the American dollar, and subsequently reap the benefits of global markets that are willing to trade in a stable Chinese currency. China’s purchase of US Treasuries further inflated the dollar and in return provided American corporations and consumers more buying power to purchase massive amounts of cheap Chinese goods to supercharge their economy. The West became reliant on China’s huge and inexpensive labor market to supply the world with virtually all their demands in finished products, medicines, technology, and raw materials for production.
The windfall provided the Chinese Communist Party with the capability to all but buy out the world’s poorest country’s natural resources, build out trading routes, condense their mass population into manufacturing hubs, facilitate the currency markets, and hold multi-national corporations and countries hostage to one’s future prosperity by setting the rules of engagement under the domineering rule of the regime.
China now has more purchasing power than the United States, and by 2030 they are expected to surpass the US and become the dominate economic superpower. The hammer came down hard following the coronavirus outbreak across the planet; the US began wildly printing money for both the American Rescue Plan and for the war in Ukraine, causing a merciless spike in the CPI inflation rate that will choke America’s ability to service the incredible debt load. One can add the self-inflicted wounds and distractions of the country’s acutely divided political discourse, growing crime and drug related issues, and an increasingly inferior education system which fails to produce necessary future skills in its people.
On military readiness, China is well on its way to compete with the US. China’s build-out of naval bases, advanced technology, and training exercises has increased its capability where it is now likely too late for America to declare war. On the other side, the US military budget is failing to support necessary growth and maintenance. The missions abroad, whether the failed withdraw from Afghanistan leaving a vacuum for China to fill, or the billions of dollars being sunk into Ukraine, are dragging on American resolve. The US naval warships now number only 296 with 39 scheduled for decommissioning, whereas China has increased its fleet to 355 ships and expanding to 420. China’s capability is now far reaching with technology to attack America’s electrical grid or satellites providing eyes in the sky, and missile advancements to take out American carriers.
Is America’s fate as a declining superpower no different than the historical cycle of superpower predecessors that eventually overextend and collapse under their own weight, as was the case with the Soviet Union or the British Empire? Is China’s 100-year plan to subdue the enemy succeeding as Russia and the US deplete themselves in Ukraine? Will America rally itself to find a way back to its soul superpower status, or is it too late?
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