Midweekly Overview
Estimated Reading Time: 4 mins, 12 sec.
Russia offers to send its peacekeepers to Washington D.C.
Jokes aside, what happened in D.C. today was celebrated in the halls of power of our adversaries.
Russia and China had a field day.
Russia benefited far more.
Unlike transparently totalitarian and undemocratic China, its system is based on faking legitimacy.
What Putin’s former strategist [and at one point potentially second most powerful person in Russia] Vladislav Surkov used to call ‘‘managed democracy’’.
A potemkin village - a theatre of democracy.
Whereby controlled opposition, semblance of free elections, [coupled with significant electoral fraud if needed] and control of the media would add some weight of semi-legitimacy to the Kremlin’s rule.
Of course, deep down most Russians are in fact aware of the bitter reality. But appearances and ceremonies add plausible deniability to the authoritarian Kremlin.
This system worked well until 2011 ‘‘Bolotnaya’’ protests - where Russian urban class protested the obviously rigged legislative elections.
Since then, Kremlin had to hide behind ‘‘whataboutism’’ -a crude version of moral relativism and cynicism.
Identifying minor electoral irregularities in established democracies, adding absurd exaggerations and packaging them as ‘‘democracy is not perfect. It happens everywhere. But let’s keep working to make our country better’’.
For a long time these ridiculous claims served to confuse and muddy the picture.
That is until today.
After today’s shenanigans in our Congressional chambers, these claims will become far more than tactics of confusion and cynicism - they will actually serve to convince large portions of Russians [and natives of other authoritarian states] that no democracy is in fact perfect - that it is ok to be ‘‘imperfect’’.
Today’s incident will also hamper America’s ability to use soft power in spreading democracy.
And spread democracy it must.
Not for idealistic reasons [although those are in itself convincing enough to many statesmen] but for desirable realpolitik outcomes.
Democratic states are simply less likely to fail and fall into anarchy and power vacuums- transforming themselves into breeding grounds for terrorism that then threatens America.
Stronger liberal democracies are more likely to stand up to organized crime [and stop the drug/human trafficking flow into the U.S. - talking to you Mexico]
Stronger democracies are potential allies:
They are accountable to their electorate - ordinary people largely seek prosperity and liberty and are thus more likely to chose America over Russia or China.
They are also better to do business with.
American corporations are not bullied into transferring IP sensitive materials when they operate in EU instead of China.
America must guard its soft power. It must always remain a paragon of liberal democracy. What happened today was discouraging.
But do read former Sec Mattis’s statement. That stuff was savage! [and quite eloquent actually].
China tries [and fails] hiding its contempt for the U.S.
China’s Foreign Minister and State Councillor, Wan Yi said that the relationship with the U.S. reached a ‘‘new crossroads’’.
That apparently things could get back to good terms after a period of ‘‘unprecedented difficulty’’.
He then insisted on the existence of an opportunity to “open a new window of hope and begin a new round of dialogue’’.
Ok so far so good. Pleasant sweet nothings.
But then he follows with:
‘‘If Washington learns lessons, the conflicts between the two sides could be resolved.’’
Learns lessons.
Let that sink in… ok so who is teaching the lessons? China?
What is this?
A teacher/student relationship?
China’s constant attempt to frame the relationship in the power terms - in always implying their dominance, is a sign of restlessness and inability to hide their contempt towards America.
China is rather conspicuously annoyed that it still needs some pretense of civility - that it is still not powerful enough to openly challenge America.
Wan Yi then concludes with the following diplomatic gem:
‘‘We know some people in the United States are apprehensive about China’s rapid development, but the most sustainable leadership is to constantly move forward yourself, rather than block the development of other countries,”.
To which I would add two things:
1) correction: all people [that matter].
2) ‘‘Move forward yourself’’? instead of ‘‘blocking the development of other countries’’?
Ok great..
In that case, stop with all that IP theft of American tech companies, stop ruining Hong Kong, and give up on Taiwan invasion plans.
Start with those, then maybe we can take your words a bit more seriously.
Xi Jinping’s further consolidation of war powers
Legislative amendments in effect from January 1, render the State Council obsolete in military policy and decision making.
Newly introduced laws, empower the Central Military Commission [headed by Xi Jinping] with authority to mobilize civilian resources.
First note is clear: Xi Jinping is consolidating power.
But why now? When tensions with Taiwan rise with every day?
Is he worried that his leadership may not be fully on board with steps that he might take in the foreseeable future?
There is a little risk of an outright rebellion - Xi’s grip on power is rather too tight for that eventuality to ever take place.
However, even a debate or a [more likely] ‘‘vigorous discussion’’ in the state council, could damage his authority by challenging his decision-making.
Now, that danger is minimized.
Secondly, some alarming additions to the legislation.
Terms such as [national] ‘‘disruption’’ and ‘‘protection of development interests’’ are added as grounds for mobilization and deployment of troops/reserve forces.
So two obvious questions arise:
1) will the ‘’disruption’’ be used as an excuse to intervene in Taiwan? Which China regards as part of its territory?
2) what exactly is ‘‘development interest’’?
What if a ‘‘Belt and Road’’ initiative infrastructure project was under threat?
Would that qualify as ‘‘development interest”?
Alarming developments that need to watched very closely by the U.S. and its regional allies.