Putin's winter fairy tale

[royalscot]

Putin's winter fairy tale - BBC News


Vladimir Putin's position on Syria and Ukraine may have been criticised in the West, but Russia's president is adored and admired by many at home, as Steve Rosenberg discovers on a visit to Volokolamsk.

 

[prove-all]

Deals of the Century

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping inked a gargantuan gas supply
agreement worth $400 billion. Less than six months later, they did it again. On November 9, they signed
another tentative agreement worth a sum of similar immensity.

It is hard to comprehend the size and significance of these deals. To start with, they are
the two largest business transactions in human history.

Kang Wu of FG Energy said the China-Russia energy deals “will really cement their relationship
in a big way, and the political implications are huge.”

One of the most immediate huge implications is that, with this second deal, China will
eclipse Europe to become Russia’s largest and most strategic natural gas consumer.

Thus, Moscow will be able to punish the European Union by cutting off its gas flows
at less cost to the Russian economy.

Europe’s already weak economy would then be certain to see energy costs skyrocket,
forcing Europeans to scramble for pricey alternatives in the middle of what forecasters
expect to be an unusually cold winter.

In addition to those two mega energy deals, Putin and Xi signed 17 other
“major bilateral business agreements” at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit in Beijing that ended on November 12.

This followed 38 other major deals in October worth tens of billions of dollars.


The U.S. also has an alarming trade deficit with China. In 2013 alone,
America bought $318.7 billion more from China than China bought from America.
Since 2000, the total trade deficit has topped $3.2 trillion.

With China firmly behind him, Putin threatened in August to use nuclear weapons
to take control of Ukraine.

In September, he sent a naval convoy to reopen a military base in the Arctic to back his claims to
the energy riches under the ice cap. In November, he sent warships to Australia’s northern maritime
border and issued plans to send long-range bombers to patrol the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean,
very near America’s territorial waters.

He has also taken opportunities to disown the dollar in international transactions, undermining
its status as the world’s reserve currency. And a new Russian military doctrine to be published
in December openly designates the U.S. as a “threat” and an “adversary.”


The Russia-China axis is no longer merely a forecast. It is here, and it is changing the world.
The world now faces the most serious crisis since World War ii, and it is thanks in part
to America’s broken will and mismanaged power.

“But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him?…” (verse 44).
Using the modern nation of Israel as our reference point, look north and east on a map.

You will come to Russia and China!

 

[prove-all]

Moscow is ready to provide a $5 billion state loan to Tehran for joint infrastructure projects,
according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian state lender Vnesheconombank will also
lend another $2 billion to Iran for 35 proposed infrastructure projects.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agreed on the projects after President Putin’s
visit to Iran on Monday—this was Putin’s first visit to the nation in eight years.

The projects will include high-tech areas such as energy, port facilities, and railway electrification,
according to Putin. After discussions with the ayatollah, Putin also indicated
that Russia would continue nuclear power cooperation.

“We will give as much assistance as possible to the implementation of the relevant action plan within
the framework of the Iranian nuclear program approved by the UN Security Council,” Putin said.

 

[prove-all]

Don’t Worry, Putin, Asia HasYour Back

“Backing Russia is in China’s interests,” said the Global Times, a mouthpiece for China’s Communist
Party, on March 5. “Russia’s resistance against the West has global significance. Supporting Russia
consolidates China’s major strategy. …

We shouldn’t disappoint Russia when it finds itself in a time of need.”
Backing Russia is in China’s interests - Global Times

The Chinese government’s official Xinhua news agency also placed the blame of the Ukraine crisis
squarely on the West, and said Putin’s actions were justified.
Commentary: The West's fiasco in Ukraine - Xinhua | English.news.cn

So far, Beijing has restrained itself from intensive cheerleading for Putin, and has instead
presented its support for him somewhat softly. That’s because, although the Chinese celebrate
Putin’s willingness to defy the West, they don’t want to damage economic relations with
their largest trade partner—the European Union.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9580.33074.146.0/asia/china/the-great-mart

By siding with Putin, China can expect Russia to back Beijing as it pushes to “do a Ukraine”
of its own in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

China could suffer some short-term economic setbacks by refusing to side with the West,
but the Chinese esteem it a small price to pay in exchange for diminishing U.S. power
and simultaneously making the invasion of a sovereign nation less of a 21st-century taboo.

A Nod From India

The day after China cleared the path with that Global Times piece, its neighbor to the south
followed down it. “There are legitimate Russian and other interests involved [in Ukraine]”
a senior Indian official said. “We hope … there is a satisfactory resolution to them.”

The statement represented a sharp break between India and the West,
which took many analysts off guard.

But Moscow and Delhi have been comrades for decades, especially since 1974 when
India conducted nuclear tests and the Soviet Union emerged as the only major nation
to support its right of “self-defense.”

India is now returning the favor by supporting Russia. India also feels the increasing
threat of China’s expanding power since many of Beijing’s recent incursions have been
into Indian territory. India also sees, with greater clarity every week, that the U.S. cannot
be counted on to counter China’s rise.

So, Indian leaders are taking steps to ensure that they have friends in the neighborhood.
Their decision to back Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was motivated by that goal.

 

[prove-all]

Russia and Japan?

For seven decades, relations between Russia and Japan have suffered due to a dispute over the status of an island chain off Japan’s north coast, known in Japan as the Northern Territories, and in Russia as the Southern Kurils. The dispute has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from signing a postwar peace treaty (though the two sides did sign a Joint Declaration in 1956, which ended the “state of war”).

Will World War II Finally End for Russia and Japan?

But on February 7, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to resolve the argument and to sign
a peace treaty that will finally bring a formal end to all aspects of World War ii for Russia and Japan.
https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/japan-pm-pledges-resolve-island-row-russia-071310193.html

“As I have agreed with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, it is abnormal that Japan and Russia
have not concluded a peace treaty,” Abe said at a meeting in Tokyo. “I am determined to continue
working tenaciously on this issue … concluding a peace treaty with Russia.”


Officially, Japan is still dependent on the United States for its national security.

But Tokyo sees that in recent years the American security blanket has become like a
moth-eaten coat: robust in appearance but of compromised integrity. Abe appears to be
working to knit a Japan-Russia alliance before someone applies pressure on
that U.S. blanket and fully exposes its tattered condition to the world.

Japan has sided with the West in condemning Putin’s conquest of [Crimea].
Yet Tokyo has refused to join Western powers in imposing economic sanctions on Russia,
and even decided to proceed with high-level Japan-Russia military talks underway this week.

Why the two-faced behavior? Because, in between Russia and the United States,
Tokyo feels caught between a rock and a hard—or actually a soft—place.

Cognizant of how soft and militarily anemic the U.S. has become, Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe has spearheaded a historic turn toward Russia. Thawing the decades-old iciness
between Tokyo and Moscow is among the highest priorities of his foreign policy,
and he has already made strides toward that end.

Since coming to power in 2012, Abe has held five meetings with Mr. Putin—
more than he’s had with any other head of state.

Last month, while leaders of the U.S., UK, France and Germany were notably absent,
Abe attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“I have been saying for a long time that Japan and Russia have the bilateral relations
with the greatest latent potential anywhere,” the Japanese leader said after the ceremony.

So, here is the explanation for Japan’s two-faced behavior. Japan sided with the West
rhetorically because Tokyo is still officially dependent on America for security, and
because Japan doesn’t want to let Putin set a precedent that could allow China to
invade islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing without Western retribution.

But Japan refused to take action against Putin—such as economic sanctions or canceling
the military talks—because Tokyo sees that the American security blanket Tokyo has
been reliant on is now like a moth-eaten coat.

Prime Minister Abe apparently wants to knit a Japan-Russia alliance before someone applies
a little pressure on that U.S. blanket and fully exposes its tattered condition to the world.