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I wouldn't fault European leaders. Economics rule at the end of the day. They purchased their energy from Russia because it was the cheapest. Nuclear and LNG gas cost 2X as much. China will continue to purchase Russia oil and gas (likely at a discount now), and as a result will be able to continue selling products for less than their U.S. and European competitors.
This is a gross oversimplification that ignores the last few years' realities. Manufacturing plastics, and powering factories and equipment, is only one piece of the pie. China has been suffering issues with labor for some years now: the rising cost of it, the dwindling number of people willing to work in manual labor, the stratospheric cost of real estate relative to income, etc.
One of the big reasons China has managed to undercut other nations is because of government subsidies to flood the market with products, and since China's economy is experiencing a lot of problems at the moment as well as usual from its trading partners, it's less able to do this than it used to be. Also, the government is much less inclined to do this as it was over the last two decades because they are now dealing with the end result of binging on debt and speculation.
It's also worth mentioning that China and Russia are fairweather friends who are primarily looking to partner as a foil towards mutual adversaries. Both will still be looking to get their piece of the pie, and will still gladly take advantage of or screw the other over given the opportunity. It also reminds me, to an extent, of the relationship between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: both viewed the other as inferior and themselves as the rightful master of global power, and eventually would have come to loggerheads over territory and resources had they achieved their goals. Russia and China share a border, have come to blows in the past, and the areas where they desire to exert control and influence overlap.
Nor I, dreading this resumption of Cold War politics. Eastern European countries have an understandable fear of Russian aggression now well-demonstrated by this Ukrainian 'adventure.' Romanian friends would tell me that Americans in particular profoundly underestimated the threat Putin posed to regional stability. Looks like they were right.
The NATO countries who saw the collapse of the Soviet Union Made a big miscalculation in that afterwards, there was a collective "Yay! We won! *grand score plays, credits roll*" from the leaders of Western Europe, the US, and many of our global allies. We've been cruising on that for 30 years now; the arrogance of many of the leaders and elites who seemed to somehow think that nothing bad could come from outsourcing nearly all manufacturing to China, acquiescing to forced technology transfers, treating Russia and China's blatant disregard for economic, military, and political agreements, ignoring espionage, etc.
Too many people seemed to get locked into believing that China and Russia were still in the same places they were in the 1990's and could never catch up or gain enough ground to challenge the West on any front. We all can see now that has backfired spectacularly.
The Eastern European nations who joined NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's stagnation in the 90's, and then Putin's rise to power, knew exactly what was up and sought out NATO membership and closer relations with the West not for prestige, but as a bulwark against what they viewed as the imminent eventuality of Russian aggression.
The good thing - I feel crass saying "good," considering the amount of human suffering and loss the last month has seen - is that while it's been shown that Putin's willingness to go to war to achieve his goals has been revealed not to be bluster, the strength of his military and ability to carry those goals out has been revealed to be just that, and he truthfully has no way to turn that around in a time span that NATO nations couldn't maneuver around. Similar to how a couple years ago, China's "we don't need you, you need us" economic bullying was shown to be a facade, so has Russia's mythology of unstoppable ground forces and unstoppable air power.
It sounds like Macron is trying to find a way for Russia to end the war without it looking like a colossal failure for Russia. The longer the war goes, the harder that is going to be, though.
The video and transcript were a month before the war started. France got Russia's position unfortunately the USA/NATO did.
Could be the beginning of the end of NATO. Not this year, but after a period of time.
Biden strategy so to speak is to strangle Russia economically long term regardless of the fate of Ukraine and its people. It is apparent that Biden gave Vlad "all you can kill" permit on Ukraine. Needless to say to such ingenious long term plan is flimsy, wishful and unlikely while Ukrainian loses are real and immediate. The Russian regime counts on the fact that 8 billions of the resource hungry mouths want to get fed and provided for thus support for Ukraine is not only not comprehensive (even now), it is doomed to fade. Biden might think that he cleverly avoided a "world war" by charging Putin a "fee" for all you can kill buffet in Ukraine but everybody else will view it as yet another American defeat.
it is doomed to fade. Biden might think that he cleverly avoided a "world war" by charging Putin a "fee" for all you can kill buffet in Ukraine but everybody else will view it as yet another American defeat.
I can't believe I agree with you! Alert the presses! LOL
"Few of the Russian corpses appear to be ethnic Russians, instead they are ethnic minorities. White bands on their uniforms distinguish them from regular Russian troops. "These aren't real Russians," another Ukrainian fighter said as we passed bodies by the road. "They don't know why they are here," he said.
For the Ukrainians, this is seen as a good thing. Ethnic-minority Russian troops have weaker allegiance to Moscow, they say. One senior Kharkiv figure told me, "We don't fear Chechens, it's the Russians in Moscow restaurants who are afraid of them."
Last edited by chacho_keva; 03-26-2022 at 01:50 PM..
"Few of the Russian corpses appear to be ethnic Russians, instead they are ethnic minorities. White bands on their uniforms distinguish them from regular Russian troops. "These aren't real Russians," another Ukrainian fighter said as we passed bodies by the road. "They don't know why they are here," he said.
For the Ukrainians, this is seen as a good thing. Ethnic-minority Russian troops have weaker allegiance to Moscow, they say. One senior Kharkiv figure told me, "We don't fear Chechens, it's the Russians in Moscow restaurants who are afraid of them."
So the Russians have a method of distinguishing which "Russian" soldiers aren't actually ethnically Russian? Well that just flies in the face of what some posters claim is a big Kum Ba Ya where all the "lesser folks" are on equal standing when they "become" Russian.
So many fabrications have been floating around here for the last 8 years. Taking it all with a grain of salt.
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