Strategic Culture Foundation.
This week saw a frenetic foray by the Biden administration to provocatively wind up tensions with Russia and China. Lamentably, judging by European acquiescence, the Americans can claim some success in their nefarious aim. But such “success” is a dangerous slide toward conflict, a baleful dynamic that the sycophantic leaders of the European Union are facilitating.
President Joe Biden has said, rather disingenuously, that he is not seeking confrontation with Russia nor China. But it is difficult to conclude otherwise from the statements and actions of this president and his top officials since he occupied the White House two months ago.
His secretary of state Antony Blinken – America’s most senior diplomat – arrived in Europe this week in what was the first in-person meeting for European and NATO leaders with the Biden administration. The week kicked off with the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union unveiling coordinated sanctions against China over alleged human rights abuses.
Blinken accused China of “genocide” against its Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang province. That claim is based on dubious information, which Beijing has rejected as “false distortions” and a cynical pretext for intervening in its internal affairs. Nevertheless, Washington and its allies have launched a broadside of provocative allegations against China, claiming to uphold “Western values”.
What hallowed “values” might they be? Perhaps, criminal wars of aggression? Or violating international law by bombing sovereign countries based on lies, assassinating foreign leaders, racist policing of their own ethnic minorities, torturing truth-tellers like Julian Assange, blocking the supply of vaccines to the rest of the world in the midst of a pandemic?
Meanwhile, Blinken met with NATO members for a two-day summit in Brussels where he condemned Russia for “aggression” and “threatening Euro-Atlantic security”. That’s nice, coming from the nation that has unilaterally torn up several nuclear arms control treaties, thereby bringing back the specter of global annihilation.
It is patently evident that the Biden administration is pursuing a deliberate policy of antagonizing both Russia and China. The American president and his envoys make big talk about “values” and “rules-based international order”. But the ulterior agenda is trying to preserve Washington’s presumed hegemony by thwarting the emergence of a multipolar world. By necessity, that involves the United States trying to demarcate the world into “us and them” camps from demonizing designated rivals. This zero-sum, or winner-takes-all, mentality is a wellspring for militarizing international relations. In that way, the US is aiming to corral Europe and other allies into dependence on American “protection”. In short, it is a policy of fomenting insecurity and tensions.
The upshot is execrable. For not only are international relations gratuitously thrown into disarray rather than engendering badly needed cooperation to solve humanity’s numerous problems, but the logic is also one ultimately of war. Biden and his lieutenants may say they do not want military confrontation but that is precisely where their logic is leading to. It is criminal.
Pathetically, too, European politicians – many of them unelected, highly paid bureaucrats like European Council head Charles Michel and foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell – talk about “strategic autonomy” and asserting “independence”. This is while they rush to show servile alignment with Washington’s reckless and wanton policy of inciting tensions with Russia and China.
A particularly poignant example of European servility was when secretary of state Blinken warned Germany that it may face American sanctions if it completes the Nord Stream 2 gas project with Russia. Speaking as if he were the energy commissioner for the EU, Blinken declared: “President Biden thinks that Nord Stream 2 is a bad idea and a bad deal for Europe, for us and for the [NATO] alliance.”
Yet in spite of this brazen interference in European trade affairs, what does the EU do? It obliges Washington by imposing fresh sanctions on Moscow and Beijing. Those sanctions are cutting off Europe’s own interests with regard to Russia and China, both of whom are retaliating with counter-sanctions. In the case of China, a sanctions tit-for-tat may end up wrecking a landmark investment deal that was signed only three months ago after seven years of negotiations. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is potentially a major gain for European exporters to the world’s biggest consumer market. When it was signed there was much protest from the Biden administration fearing that the EU was moving towards greater strategic economic partnership with China. The fact that Team Biden this week succeeded in undermining the EU-China connection is a blatant illustration of what is the geopolitical calculation in Washington. It is also an astounding illustration of European self-flagellation and subordination to American ambitions. A European elite is making decisions based on twisted Cold War ideology and prejudices to benefit the United States, not the people of Europe. And yet this elite talks about upholding “democratic values”!
President Biden followed up Blinken’s foray in Europe with a videoconference with EU heads on Thursday. Biden dialed down the hostile rhetoric towards Russia and China owing to the fact that Europe is mired in problems from a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden’s aides probably realized that making a big deal about Russia or China during his virtual transatlantic meeting would come across as inappropriate given the more urgent circumstances. However, the strenuous efforts to engage with Europe – or as the White House euphemistically puts it, “revitalize alliances” – demonstrate that the planners in Washington are placing big bets on driving a wedge between Europe and Russia, China. This is because such a divisive strategy is seen by the Americans as vital to pursuing their ambitions for maintaining US dominance.
Before his virtual backslapping summit with EU leaders, Biden held his first formal press conference at the White House. He pronounced that there was a historic challenge between “democracy and autocracy”. And he named Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as the enemy “autocrats”. This is nothing but an attempt by the American establishment to create a new Cold War. Instead of “democracy and communism” the contrived divide is now with alleged “autocracy”, and Washington is endeavoring to carve the world into this false dichotomy in order to create a narrative and mission to justify its desired dominance.
Biden asserted that China wanted to supplant the United States as the world’s leader, as if that in itself is a crime.
China’s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, rebuffed Biden’s insinuation of evil intent. In an interview with CNN, he responded with eloquence and equanimity, saying: “Our goal is to meet the growing aspiration of the Chinese people for a better life. Our goal is not to compete with or replace any other country. This has never been our national strategy.”
The Chinese diplomat added: “What today’s world wants, and what tomorrow’s world would want, is to join efforts by all countries to build a community of nations for a shared future. We don’t think any attempt to divide the world into different camps or even build a confrontational military approach, we don’t think this kind of approach is a solution. Actually, this is a problem in itself.”
On Biden’s self-serving historic choice purportedly between “democracy or autocracy”, the real juncture for the world today is much more grave. It is between conflict or cooperation, and ultimately war or peace.
It is increasingly obvious who the warmongers are.
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