The Sino-American Battle for Eurasia

It’s long been known that control of the vast Eurasian landmass and its resources is the key to global hegemony. Every empire that’s had its day in the sun as the dominant global power has held sway over this region. Since 1945—after Bretton Woods declared the US Dollar (USD) as the worlds new reserve currency, supplanting the British Pound Sterling, and with the US conquering the Germans in Western Europe, the Japanese in Asia, and the Italians in Africa—the American empire has had a geopolitical hold over Eurasia and has subsequently used this power to dominate the order of global affairs. What the Chinese and Russians are trying to do is break US geopolitical control over Europe, Asia and the Middle East. With the intent being to forge a new global order backed by the Chinese Yuan and organizations like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as global infrastructure projects like the Belt and Road Initiative. Under a guise of supposed “multipolarity.” Chinese planners have gotten far more assertive in international affairs, posing the most serious threat to American global dominance in history. China’s foreign policy prerogative under President Xi Jinping speaks of being “proactive, determined, united, and striving for achieving while daring to fight.” This is the current doctrine guiding Chinese policy.

Contrast that with Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy which had reigned supreme for decades. This policy emphasized being “calm, hiding capacities, biding time, keeping a low profile, and never claiming leadership.” The two could not be more different and Xi’s rule has signaled a departure from low profile policy making. Meanwhile, China’s most vital partner Russia has been making waves in their own right with the full scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year. This was Russia acting on their own regional interests that were directly threatened by the US, but China has a vested, and often understated, interest in Russia achieving a favorable outcome in Ukraine. If China wants to beat back American hegemony, they’re going to need the Russians to be a formidable foe for the West. Russia and China have greatly expanded relations over the course of the last decade-plus. They have over 80 bilateral protects together that will bring new pipelines and trade corridors throughout Eurasia. Not to mention the Russians selling more oil and gas to China than ever before and expanding joint military ties. This will only increase.

The American empire has long feared the convergence between the Russians and Chinese, foreseeing such an occurrence as an existential threat to US global hegemony.

But this is exactly what happened in April 1997 at the Kremlin. Boris Yeltsin hosted Jiang Zemin and both jointly declared commitment to a multipolar world free from from global hegemony. Denouncing the monopolization of world affairs, obviously directed at the US. However, at the height of the unipolar moment (American empire as the sole superpower), there was little either could do about it. Forgoing (for the time) interior development and central Asian expansion, the Chinese focused on export oriented manufacturing concentrated in their coastal special economic zones. Russia, in the meantime, expanded its oil and gas footprint into Europe with a dozen natural gas pipelines. By 2011 the Russian-German Nord Stream project was brought online and a decade later Europe was buying half its gas from Russia, contributing to 40% of Moscows state revenue.

But this strategy of interdependence contradicted Russian territorial objectives.

NATO and EU (American empire)

encroachment on their frontiers brought increased tensions, especially regarding Ukraine. When the pro-Russian government was ousted in the US-backed Maidan Revolution (best understood as a grassroots revolution that metastasized into a soft US coup in reality), this prompted Moscow to invade and conquer Crimea to ensure Black Sea access and control, as well as to back the pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine (the Donbas). This was the real start of the War in Ukraine. The US wasted no time slapping sanctions on projects like Nord Stream, even threatening to end the pipelines entirely. In these events the US found common ground with their Eastern European counterparts who feared geopolitical marginalization as the pipelines would bypass their countries entirely. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine saw sanctions dramatically intensify, bringing a massive European deficit in EU and Russian trade. But after the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged in September 2022, Russian gas deliveries fell off a cliff. With the absence of proper news investigating, let’s examine this sabotage more closely for clarity and context.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NORD STREAM PIPELINES?

We are unlikely to learn any concrete details in the immediate. The way the sabotage of these pipelines was relegated to media silence speaks volumes. It was easily one of the most significant events of the broader Russo-Ukrainian War and it’s hardly been talked about nearly two and a half years since. In my opinion, if the Ukrainian diving instructor (known only as “Volodymyr Z”) they’ve been looking to arrest was actually involved, he may wind up “committing suicide” in prison Epstein style. It will likely turn out that investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was largely correct about the US Government being involved but was unable to produce any real evidence. The most likely scenario, in my view, is that this was a covert CIA-MI6 operation where the Americans and British (Kyiv’s most staunch allies) trained and helped the Ukrainians on it. Mercenaries, covert operations, plausible deniability, etc.

If we are to find out exactly what happened, it’ll most likely be in a tell-all book someday or once the events aren’t deemed a “National Security” threat any longer—once it doesn’t matter anymore, when no one cares any longer, 25-50+ years later, etc. I deeply fear that we are entering an era where these kind of events will become more commonplace. It seems that in the geopolitical and international landscape of today that these kind of actions are generally simpler, involving smaller networks of perpetrators, and less risk of detection, leaks, and betrayal. As it becomes more standard for both domestic and international law to be flouted—seen most horrifically in Ukraine, Artsakh, Sudan, DR Congo, and Gaza—this both invites more such actions and makes it increasingly likely that their eventual exposure won’t lead to any consequences.

For instance, there was absolutely zero possibility that the US Government was going to let bin Laden come to trial, as he surely would’ve exposed American arms dealing and support for terrorist organizations in a way that would’ve been unacceptable. However, I think if this Ukrainian man was involved, is put on trial and shows up with receipts that he was hired by the US or it’s allies, it won’t be more than a day before people like Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity and other mainstream political commentators will be saying, “You know, we have to work with bad guys sometimes. We worked with al-qaeda to destroy ISIS. We know we worked with bin Laden in the 80’s to fight Soviet occupation, this is how international policy works.” Corporate media will make sure this is all excused. But it should be clear that the ultimate objective with the pipeline sabotage was to disrupt Russia’s oil flow and negate their leverage over Europe. This can only have realistically been achieved by someone who had the kind of power and access to create a terror cell, as well as the ability to carry it out, and then effectively destroy any public curiosity about it. Meaning, in all likelihood, heads of the US Government.

However, with plausible deniability up the command chain, as mentioned, we’ll likely never know unless there’s a book about it, leaks a la the Iran-Contra affair, or when and if it’s no longer deemed ‘Top Secret.’ Most conspiracies are everyday practices but they can happen in the traditional sense, as seen in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the deliberate sinking of the USS Maine, etc. Now, while I don’t think this is the way things will ultimately play out, but if Russia is severely weakened economically by the end of the war, and if the consensus in the corporate controlled public sphere is that this is a good thing, then I could see Washington being more open about it. Hell, we may even get a proudly written memoir like we got from Seal Team Six after the assassination of bin Laden. More likely is that this Ukrainian national they’re scapegoating may end up dead before testifying, or the media will simply act like it’s unimportant or was a positive overall action. It ultimately really depends on how serious the Europeans are about investigating it. Given the hush nature of the investigation and the fact that Sweden and Denmark abruptly ended their own inquiries, I don’t think they are too serious about getting to the bottom of things. For obvious reasons—they are US neo-colonies and part of the American empire.

It’s also very possible that the US/EU are looking to manufacture support for withdrawal from the war in Ukraine. This could explain the sudden political interest and support in investigating the Ukrainian they’re accusing of the sabotage. They may be willing to throw him and others who were similarly involved in the planning and carrying out the operation under the bus in the hopes of generating sufficient public and international support for withdrawal. It could very well be that they’re looking for a way out of the war in Europe because they need Western resources in the Middle East and East Asia, where the real threats to American imperial power are. The US is staring down the barrel of a possible all out war in the Middle East with the Iranians in the next few years and a possible US-China War over Taiwan or the South China Sea. They’ll need boat loads of military assets if they want to win these potential conflicts. They may also be thinking enough damage has been done to Russian industry, military capacity and the like, so now it’s time to wind this war down and focus on preventing Iranian and Chinese expansion primarily. The war in Ukraine has been a distraction for the West, much to China’s delight who want to expand their own power while bringing Russia further under their control.

For all these reasons, it makes perfect sense from the perspective of the US State Department to force Ukraine to reject Russia’s peace offers back in Spring

2022. Taking a deal to give Russia most or all of the Donbas to end the war makes the most sense if your objective was to save Ukrainian lives and reach what has always been the most likely scenario anyways, as we see with Trump’s overt attempts to end the war without consulting Kyiv and, in all likelihood, making peace offers to Moscow for access to the rare earth minerals that are now mostly located in Russian-occupied lands of Ukraine. This war is largely being viewed as a loss for Washington, but that framing surmises that US goals were to fully liberate all of Ukraine, while the real intention was always to grind down Russia to the point that it obviously does not pose the same level of threat anymore, while giving other regional countries an excuse to join NATO, and in turn severing European ties to Russian energy so the US and its other neo-colonies could fill the void. Once you factor in proper context, then it should be easy to see the war has been a great success for US planners. The war in Ukraine, for America, has always been about blunting Moscow’s expansion into Europe and weakening Russian power. Period.

CHINA, RUSSIA, AND EURASIAN POWER

With Russian ties to Europe in energy being severed, they’ve now replaced those westward oil and gas industries with physical infrastructure going towards China. Moscow and Beijing are aiming for around $300B in annual trade by the end of next year, with this likely to only increase. Not to mention Russian oil and gas exports to China being absolutely vital to having kept Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine going. China and Russia are clearly developing what many call the US-British alliance—a “special relationship.” Though, given Russia’s increasing reliance on China and the sheer difference between the two in terms of economic and military power, Russia is very obviously the junior partner.

A new land grain corridor will also connect Russian grain to Chinese markets. This will dodge the Black Sea route and reduce Chinese dependence on North American and Australian imports. China will also be expanding its vehicle imports to Russia and collaborating on several aircraft and science projects. However, the biggest integration between the two is certainly in energy policy. China’s demand for energy will fill the European void and continue to absorb Russian supplies. Spearheading this energy transition are the Power of Siberia pipelines overseen by Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation. Gas deliveries began on Line 1 in 2019 and have drastically increased since Russia invaded Ukraine. An expansion south to Hong Kong is expected to follow. Line 2, meanwhile, will be a direct replacement for the previous European supplies that the Russians no longer export. By 2030 Russia plans to have replaced nearly all its lost oil and gas exports to Europe.

Besides energy, the surging bilateral trade is increasingly being settled in Chinese Yuan rather than USD. We’re really beginning to witness the start of what some are calling “de-dollarization” across the world, but most noticeably in Russia and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. In Russian currency markets, the dollars share of trade has been cut in half the last few years while the Yuan has increased to roughly half of all transactions. The increasing ties between Beijing and Moscow have also shattered any taboos about Chinese economic expansion into Central Asia. Chinese exports to Central Asia have more than tripled the last few years and continue to rise with the bulk related to investment in energy, minerals, and rail transport. Expanding on these gains, Xi also unveiled a regional development plan during a meeting with the Central Asian Presidents a couple years ago. Beijing’s Central Asia policy will focus on trade, investment, “cultural exchange,” and the blueprint is linked with security cooperation. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan themselves represent over $100B in Chinese imports.

Central Asia is a lucrative market that China seeks to tap. In case it’s not clear, but what China is doing is slowly but surely taking over the declining Russian sphere of influence or empire (including Russia itself), as the US did with the UK during WWII and the immediate post-war years. It’s very clear that the two are converging in a marriage of convenience. As mentioned, for China to challenge America’s global preeminence, they need the Russians. Whereas Russia needs China if they wish to maintain their status as a global power (Russia only has the 11th largest economy in the world these days). Both have begun to, more or less, explicitly back one another’s regional ambitions. In years past, Moscow would ignore US policy in Asia and Beijing would pay little mind to Europe being in Washington’s pocket, but now there’s far more public sympathy and understanding between Russia and China regarding grievances with the American empire. Take, for example, the AUKUS alliance between the US-UK-Australia to arm the Australians with nuclear powered submarines essentially aimed at China. Moscow opposes the pact as Western efforts to encircle Eurasia via groups like NATO, ANZUS, FIVE EYES, and the QUAD.

Another area of shared regional ambitions is China piggybacking its Arctic interests onto Russia’s, which has many ports in the Arctic Circle. By mid century, the North Pole could be primarily ice free, which would mean quicker sea routes, potentially halving shipping times. The Chinese and Russians are attempting to harness the natural resources of Eurasia into a completely new global order and dynamic. Another area of vital importance to accomplish this is the Middle East where the US has long dominated. China and Russia’s most trusted ally in the Middle East is Iran, though both have substantial trade relations with other countries in the region. Iran’s goal in the Middle East is to beat back US influence and expand its own, which is also what China and Russia want. The biggest reason for USD hegemony in the global market is the vastly important US-Saudi relationship and the fact the world’s primary energy suppliers trade in America’s currency. Rest assured that currency domination is the real reason the Chinese want to mend relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia—to drive a wedge between the Americans and Saudis, thus dramatically weakening the USD if America loses control of its Saudi Arabian neo-colony.

The US needs Iran as the mortal enemy of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states under the blanket of American empire. This is one of the primary pretexts for US security in the region, ensuring corporate America’s flow of raw materials. If Iran mends ties with the Saudis, this would open the door for much more regional cooperation, thus weakening American influence. China has also been discussing the possibility of trading oil in Chinese Yuan instead of USD, which would be a major blow to the dollars preeminence in global markets. Where these increasing tensions in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East will end up cannot be known, but the US won’t give up the key to global hegemony willingly. The Battle for Eurasia and Neo-Cold War is already underway, though the flashpoint for its hot war (WWIll) could take place anywhere from Taiwan, Korea, South China Sea, Ukraine, or the Middle East. We’re at a precipice in history where the world’s greatest powers are converging behind one another and seeking to maintain the current global order on one hand with the other powers intent on forging a new dynamic.

Though geopolitics is tying China and Russia together, there remains some potential in the future for issues between the two. Such tensions could emerge over China’s inroads and expansion in Russia’s sphere (empire) in Central Asia or it’s increasing influence over Vladivostok. A new bilateral deal from the last couple years allows goods from China to pass through the city tariff free, and Chinese nationalists have long craved to bring the city back under Sino control after it was illegally annexed by the Russian empire in the 1850s. Because the demographics in this part of Russia tend towards China, this could be a point of contention in the future. For the moment, however, China and Russia are content to push forward together. In the grand scheme, Russia’s European aspirations are dead, with American imperialism further entrenched in Europe than ever before. That being said, Russian aspirations in Asia have been given a new life.

Russia’s relationship with the Chinese is going from one of convenience to one of necessity. Like other healthy junior partner relations, it has been enabled by strategic concessions in Central Asia and the Far East, and comes as both have shared interests that run diametrically opposed to US policy. The containment strategy being deployed by the US is destined to clash, and in fact already is in many respects, with ever expanding Chinese power. When, where, and how remains to be seen. Russia, like the British in the decade that followed WWII, is a declining power and empire. Increasingly reliant on China, though due to Russia’s massive size, resource wealth, and nuclear capabilities, they retain a fair amount of political autonomy, despite cultural and media support for China being stringent. Russia doesn’t retain all of its autonomy but enough, and that’s a bargain Moscow’s elites are willing to make. Because though politics is known as the world’s second oldest profession, it closely mirrors the first.