The top story of 2019 will continue to revolve around the myriad, dangerous economic ascent of China, the resurgence of nuclear superpower Russia and the decline of the US’s global hegemony.
Now the Great Game in Eurasia hits high gear; it’s the USA against the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Diplomatic capers, tactical retreats, psychological, economic, cyber and even outer space duels, all enveloped in media hysteria, will continue to rule the news cycle.
Be prepared for all shades of carping about authoritarian China, and its “malign” association with an “illiberal” Russian bogeyman bent on blasting the borders of Europe and “disrupting” the Middle East.
The Global South overwhelmingly begs to differ, arguing that the current “order” was manufactured and largely benefits only US interests.
The Tibetan plateau allows the People’s Republic to access the resources respectively of the Pacific Ocean to the east and those of the Indian Ocean in the west.
Chinese geopolitics predictably pays close attention to the tension between sea powers and land powers.
The People’s Republic is a great nation who possesses by nature the qualification of naval power.” We just need to compare “how industrial development allowed the West to navigate towards the Indian Ocean” while China “arrived on foot.”
The Western Pacific is linked to the national interests of the People’s Republic and is the starting point of the New Maritime Silk Road.
“One day, it does not matter when, the United States will have to retire from the rest of the world and will have to abandon the Western Pacific.”
A combination of Chinese forces in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea under a sole Western Pacific naval command. It’s easy to see where all this is pointing: reunification with Taiwan.
Beijing’s supreme goal is to effectively move the “Chinese line of control” to the east of Taiwan.
In a nutshell, China is key for the equilibrium of Eurasia. “In Europe, the fragmented zone originates in the center, in Asia, it is around China. So that presents China as the natural centenary of Asia.
Now China has Dong Feng-21D and Dong Feng-26 missiles. These are aircraft carrier killers. We attack and sink one of their aircraft carriers. Let them suffer 5,000 casualties.
This is a statement of fact, not a threat. The Pentagon knows all there is to know about ‘carrier killer’ danger. Beijing won’t stop with carrier killers, the re-branded Western Pacific and reunification with Taiwan.
It is planning the first artificial intelligence (AI) colony on earth – a deep-sea base for unmanned submarine science and defense ops in the South China Sea.
The landing of the Chang’e 4 lunar probe on the far side of the moon could even be interpreted as the most extreme extension of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
These are all pieces in a massive puzzle bound to reinforce the grip of a new – Sinocentric – map of the world, already in use by the Chinese navy and published in 2013.
Russia Insider / ABC Flash Point Future News 2019.
