Trump's Trip To China
President Trump had planned to visit China as the victorious leader that had subjugated both Venezuela and Iran, taking full control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz; through which nearly half of China’s oil imports pass. After the quick win over Venezuela, hubris had overtaken a US administration that thought that it could quickly and cheaply trigger regime change in Iran. Instead, the administration has found itself in a quagmire with no good options. The status quo of blockades is not tenable for the world economy, retreat would deliver a huge blow to US hegemony, and escalation would plunge the world into a deep recession. With the mid-terms approaching in November, the administration cannot afford to create an economic mess that will see it losing both the House and the Senate. The impeachment of not just the president, but also members of his cabinet, may then be swiftly delivered by a victorious Democratic Party; along with extensive public investigations and the rendering of the administration to lame-duck status. All the while, China has shown itself to be very well prepared to endure a fall of even 3-4 mbpd in its oil imports.
Just prior to the trip, there have been a few niggling trade and sanctions actions by the Trump administration, perhaps in a vain attempt to gain at least some leverage in the negotiations. These will have only angered the Chinese leadership, and once again confirmed the unreliability of any agreement with the US. In addition, the Chinese have obviously won the trade war that the Trump administration started; while Chinese trade with the US fell, its trade with the rest of the world expanded. The leading Chinese “green energy” sector has also seen accelerating sales as the oil price recently doubled. It has also become more definite that Trump may have wanted to arrive in China with the murder of President Putin added to the murder of the Iranian head of state and religious leader; actions which underline the utterly perfidious nature of the Trump administration. It is a weak but treacherous US negotiating with a strong and very wary China, the opposite of what Trump had envisioned. Pointedly, Xi did not meet Trump at the airport.
Face to face, the Chinese are experts at diplomatic decorum as Xi was when he finally met Trump. Xi called for a “constructive, strategic stability”, implicitly criticizing the volatility and aggression of the Trump administration; the Empire of Chaos is inherently tactical. This was as much for global consumption as it was for the ears of Trump. A recent global survey has Israel, the US, Russia and Iran with some of the most negative ratings, while China enjoys a positive rating. Xi also forcefully stated that the Taiwan issue is internal to China and that foreign powers should tread very carefully as this is a red line for China. Trump’s opening speech was utterly full of platitudes, flattery and somewhat random musings; the wide difference in the abilities of the two leaders were very evident.
The video below covers well the dynamics of the meeting, a weak Trump meeting a strong Xi. The Chinese objective is to manage the end of the US Empire peacefully, leading to a point when the position of China is simply too strong for the Empire to challenge or undermine.
It seems that the US administration does not understand the deep nature of the alliances between China, Russia and Iran, and the role of these alliances in building and protecting a peaceful Asian hinterland. Thoughts that Xi would put any pressure on the Iranians with respect to a settlement of the US-Iran war are quite delusional. Trump’s delegation included sixteen US CEO’s of huge US companies, who need to curry favour with the Party-state to help their businesses; coming to pay tribute.
In parallel to this summit, the foreign ministers of the BRICS nations are meeting in India, with the weakness of a BRICS on full display; with an India that has turned its back on decades of good relations with Iran, a UAE that is to all intents and purposes an enemy of Iran, and an Iran at war. BRICS is a busted flush, it is BRINCSTAN (Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and the “strans”) that is the force aligned against the US Empire.
Boyd may well be right. He provides good grounds for believing that BRICS is a busted flush, a tragedy that might within the next few hours or days, prove to be the only ‘victory’ that Trump has gained by his ill-considered decisions to invade Iran and blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
One would not be surprised, therefore, to learn that the outcome of the current BRICS meeting in India is an announcement that the members will no longer interact with each other under the banner of BRICS; and/or that the wannabe full members of BRICS no longer wish to join.
However, should that not prove to be the case, it would not be a total surprise. We might discover that the glue holding the loose association together proved to be the New Development Bank.
Four of the five founding members of the NDB each contributed $10 billion to the capitalisation of the bank and each has borrowed from the bank on far more lenient terms than they could have gotten from the IMF. Moreover, since China had originally contributed $100 billion to the NDB, with a promise of more to come, it wouldn’t be a shock to find that the core of BRICS remained intact.
Moreover, in the presence of a soon to be cash strapped global economy, (my prediction) where generous borrowing terms are a rarity, we might also find many other BRICS members and partners still wanting to hang out together with a common sentiment in mind: namely, that doing so does not require them to surrender the remainder of their precious sovereignty to some overarching central body that prescribes the modes of interaction between them. While China may still embrace them, it will not be in a vice-like grip.
Keep up the good work Roger.
POTUS lost quite a bit of face at the airport on way in.