PUTIN: The cui bono test does not fit

To begin with, everyone agrees that Putin is a brilliant strategist and politician.  Against all odds, Putin has so far brought Russia from the brink of utter poverty, disintegration, and disaster.  One has just to watch him improvising a press conference, calmly, competently, and tirelessly, to realize that one is dealing here with a real, almost forgotten, specimen of a lost art: superb statesmanship.

So, we need to ask ourselves:  What could Putin gain from the killing of Nemtsov?  On first sight, it might appear that he had plenty to gain, for the two were clearly at odds about the future direction of Russia.  But with an 85% popularity rating-by far the highest of any politician on our war-ridden planet-Putin has no need to assassinate his opponents.

March 1 (2015) Moscow demonstration in memory of Nemtsov. On cue, the Western media did not miss the occasion.

Moreover, according to the facts put forward by a CIA-sponsored publication, and despite attempts to lionize the likes of Kasparov and Nemtsov in the Western captive media, Nemtsov was a political small potato who posed no threat whatsoever to the immensely popular Putin. Thus, Wikipedia tells us: “In the parliamentary elections of December 2003 the Union of Rightist Forces, whose list was headed by both Nemtsov and Chubais, received just 2.4 million votes, or 4% of the total, thus falling short of the 5% threshold necessary to enter Parliament and losing all of its seats in the State Duma.”  Nemtsov didn’t even manage to get elected as mayor of Sochi, winning a mere 14% of the vote in the 2009 mayoral elections of that city.  Putin would have to be not only ruthless but insane to order the killing of such an obviously unpopular fifth columnist.

Putin likewise must have been aware of the assassination of the late Alberto Nisman (1963-2015), the chief prosecutor of the 1994 car bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires.  Did President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner benefit from that probable assassination?  Did she gain anything at all from Nisman’s death?  The obvious answer is that she did not.  Nisman was a mere irritant to begin with, a confidant of the American government in charge of investigating a tragic event that took place many years before the Kirchners assumed power.  Moreover, owing to Nisman’s death, Cristina’s position has weakened considerably.  The murder has led, among other things, to demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of gullible Argentines who listen, watch, and believe their CIA-owned mass media. 

Given the Argentine experience, would an acknowledged grandmaster of political strategy shoot himself in the foot by ordering the killing of a minor irritant?  Does Putin need to kill a man who says that Crimea should effectively belong to Russia’s enemies and would-be disintegrators -despite the overwhelming votes of the people of Crimea, despite the arbitrariness of Crimea ever belonging to Ukraine, despite Crimea’s critical importance to Russian security?  Could a former advisor to Ukraine’s IMF-owned former President Yushchenko  ever pose a threat to the patriotic and popular Putin?

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s well, and contrary to everything we hear in the Western CIA-owned media, it would be totally out of character for Vladimir Vladimirovich to order the assassination of political opponents.  Over the years, Putin had to put up with any number of home-grown traitors, who had deliberately or naively forgotten the entire history of Western crimes against Russia, and who had been dead-set on resurrecting the disastrous, servile, Yeltsin era.   And yet there is no evidence, solid or circumstantial, that Putin had ordered the assassination of dissenting voices. 

Or to give another of many examples:  In 2008, one suspects, Putin would have liked to continue serving as president of the Russian Federation.  And yet, despite his probable wishes, despite the fact that Russia needed him, he chose to play by the rules and ceded the presidency-and at least some powers-to Medvedev.  Does that sound like a man who would assassinate a misguided or bribed unpopular opponent?

“Over the years, Putin had to put up with any number of home-grown traitors, who had deliberately or naively forgotten the entire history of Western crimes against Russia, and who had been dead-set on resurrecting the disastrous, servile, Yeltsin era…”

So, even if no candidates presented themselves for the role of Nemtsov’s would-be assassin, it would appear highly unlikely that President Putin would have been stupid enough, and heartless enough, to serve in that role.

The cui bono fits

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut our story does not merely end in the exoneration of President Putin, for a likelier assassin readily presents itself: America’s shadow government.  That government is either directly involved in Nemtsov’s assassination, or used one of its proxies to carry it out (the list of proxies is certainly as long as it is hideous, and includes MI6, Mossad, the Saudi dictatorship, Ukrainian Nazis, Muslim henchmen such as Al Qaeda and ISIS-none of which would have hatched such a plan without the knowledge and sponsorship of the CIA).

So let us begin our indictment by asking:  Who could possibly expect to benefit from Nemtsov’s assassination?  We have seen already that this murder could on balance harm President Putin and his project for Russia.  On the other hand, the men in the shadows who constitute the real government of the USA (one of these of men alone, David Rockefeller, has certainly more power, by far, than the combined executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the American government).  These bankers, generals, and spooks, are clearly pursuing world domination.  For them, Russia is what Carthage was to Rome’s Cato the Elder.  Russia under Putin’s leadership is acting forcefully, fearlessly, and yet moderately in world affairs, and has recently stopped the conquest of Syria and the transformation of Crimea into an American military base. 

These shadowy figures clearly want Putin out of the way.  If nothing else works, sooner or later they will surely assassinate him, but such a step would involve some unwelcome risks.  After all, unlike Chile’s Allende, Italy’s Moro, Congo’s Lumumba, Venezuela’s Chavez, Indonesia’s Sukarno, America’s Franklin Roosevelt, Walter Reuther, at least six members of the Kennedy clan, and thousands of other friends of the people everywhere, Russia has an impressive arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles.   Given this bloody, incontestable history of assassinations of world leaders, given moreover Russia’s nuclear arsenal, is it not likely that the masters of the CIA would try to bring Putin down in a more subtle way? 

And the Men in the Shadows have nothing to lose from such a gambit.  Nemtsov’s assassins were almost certainly top professionals.  In the unlikely case of exposure, they could be readily liquidated.  And, in the still more improbable event of tracing the plot to the CIA, there will be no outrage in the West—because virtually all sources of information in that part of the world are controlled by the CIA and its allies.

To continue our exploration of Boris Nemtsov’s death, we can next turn to history.  Is America’s shadow government capable of killing their friends, agents, and servants when such cold-blooded murders serve its long-term objectives?  The entire historical record is chockfull of precisely such examples.  Here, let us focus on just three recent incidents.

With much fanfare, the American government and its servile media (and Boris Nemtsov of course) immediately-and with no trace of supporting evidence–blamed Russia or Novorossiya freedom fighters for the tragic downing of a Malaysian airplane and its 298 passengers over Novorossiya airspace.  Following an extensive and immediate baseless media barrage, it gradually came to light that this was a CIA-orchestrated false-flag event, leading the western media to drop the subject.  If the CIA can order their Ukrainian puppets to kill 298 innocent men, women, and children to advance their agenda of world conquest, couldn’t they kill their Russian agent Nemtsov to advance that very same agenda?

The Western media had a field day instantly blaming Putin for the MH17 shootdown, traced to Kiev and quite possibly a CIA false flag. Above, one of countless cartoons, editorials, and “news reports” on the subject. 

Then we have another CIA success story, the so-called Maidan coup of 2014.  Everyone knows by now that this was a CIA-sponsored event.  We even know the price tag: 5 billion dollars (we may note in passing that CIA fascist coups d’état are subject to inflationary pressures too-in 1953, it only cost $100,000 to overthrow the [fledgling] Iranian democracy).  As well, to remove the elected president of Ukraine from power, the CIA had Ukrainian snipers killing their own paid protesters in order to successfully turn Ukraine into a fascist dictatorship—and a thorn in Russia’s side.  If they can kill their comrades in Kiev, can’t they likewise kill comrade Nemtsov in Moscow?

In Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine, Right Sector hooligans display Nazi symbols every chance they get. But the Western media always manages to miss them.

For another example of American spooks’ subtlety and willingness to kill their own agents in order to smear their enemies, let us again recall recent events in Argentina.  In the 1970s and 1980s, the CIA had successfully installed or strengthened vicious dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia.  The list of atrocities of these American-sponsored thugs is chillingly long.  Besides tortures, censorship, and fake nationalism, the Southern Cone’s dictators ceded everything to Western interests and brought misery and unemployment to ordinary citizens.  By the turn of the present century, Argentines had enough and managed to kick out the lackeys, oligarchs, and traitors who ruled over them. By 2003 these imperial collaborators were replaced, first, with President Nestor Kirchner.  After Kirchner’s untimely death at age 60, his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the presidential elections and continued her husband’s policies.  Despite vicious Western-owned media campaigns against the Kirchners, despite oligarchic opposition at home, the Kirchners have managed to partially defy the Men in the Shadows, pursue semi-independent policies, and bring greater prosperity and liberty to their countrymen. 

Things got really ugly when Cristina balked an American judge who ordered her, the head of a sovereign nation, to pay an odious debt to politically powerful American vulture funds.  Another example of Cristina’s defiance is provided by the renationalization of YPF, an oil company.  She crossed the line, and had to be removed from power by any means necessary.

So, to protect herself, to make her assassination a bit less likely, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wisely gave an emotional speech in late 2014, telling her countrymen and the world that her defiance of America might cost her life.  That of course made it a bit difficult for her would-be assassins to do her in. 

No one should ever underestimate the professionalism and tenacity of the Central Institute of Assassinations, who most likely came up with a diabolically ingenious stratagem to overcome Cristina’s disobedience.     

Alberto Nisman, late prosecutor and quite probably sacrificial lamb in a dirty CIA false flag.

The full story of this sordid Nisman affair must and will be told elsewhere.  For now, suffice it to say that it is highly probable that the CIA solved that quandary creatively and professionally by killing one of their collaborators and a minor irritant for Cristina, a prosecutor of events that took place decades before.  And as we have mentioned, that killing had the desired effect-—aided by the Argentine prostitute media-of bringing hundreds of thousands of cynical or ignorant protesters to the streets of Buenos Aires.

Propaganda memes endorsed by the empire like “I Am Charlie” ring the world. Here, clueless Argentines properly agitated, proclaim they “are all Nisman.” Below other examples of the turmoil created by this psy op managed from afar. 

“Justice for Nisman—Let truth come forth!” And, “Enough of the Mafia!” shout the anti-Kirschner demonstrators. It is almost a certainty that such events had carefully inserted agitprop specialists egging on the crowd.

Class hatred among rightwing elements, or the terminally clueless, always near the surface, is often brutally direct. This woman simply demands “Death to the Cretin!” In Spanish “Cretina” and Cristina, the name of the president, sound alike.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]eedless to say too, unscrupulousness is entirely in character for the American government.  Rulers that killed, say, over one-quarter of a century, 2.5 million Iraqis on false pretenses, brought total chaos to this ancient and proud civilization, and left behind, forever, an environmental wasteland, are capable of any crimes whatsoever.  They would kill 1,000,000,000 Nemtsovs to achieve their goals, without once blinking an eye or suffering a single sleepless night.

So, in my view, the probability that the Russian government is behind the killing of Boris Nemtsov is close to zero, while the probability of involvement of the CIA and its allies and stooges is well over 90%.

And this, right here and now, before the dust of the bullets that terminated the life of Boris Nemtsev settles, allows us to make two predictions. 

The first prediction is this.  The captive Western media will go out of their way to demonize Putin and attribute Nemtsov’s assassination to him.  Day and night we shall be bombarded with stories of the defiant and heroic Nemtsov and the perfidious and murderous Putin.  By the time they are done, the average Westerner or Japanese will be almost as familiar with Boris Nemtsov as she had been with Lee Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, Patricia Hearst, or Osama Bin Laden.  No real evidence will be presented against Putin, for these villains understand human psychology far better than their opponents—repeat a lie often enough and you would have succeeded in smearing your opponent and justifying your plan of murdering him.

The second prediction is this.  The CIA will orchestrate anti-Putin demonstrations the world over.  We shall have anti-Putin concocted marches not only in the port city commanded by Wall Street, not only in the river city commanded by the City of London, not only in the ancient city commanded by the Vatican, but everywhere the CIA can stir up trouble.  More importantly-and this is one probable reason Nemtsov was killed – there would be demonstrations by traitorous, naïve, ignorant, or misinformed Russians.

If these predictions come true, they would lend further support to the assertion that, most likely, the CIA is behind the assassination of Boris Nemtsov.

—Moti Nissani

POSTCRIPT BY THE EDITORS:

Q.E.D.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Moti Nissani is Professor emeritus, Wayne State University, Michigan, USA and the author of Lives in the Balance: The Cold War and American Politics, 1945-1991.  His recent postings include analyses of recent false-flag events and of the state-sponsored assassinations or attempted assassinations of Aaron Swartz, Lucia and Leo Krim, Michael Hastings, and Imran Kahn.

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Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s). 

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Can Russia and China de-dollarize the world economy? Would they come to each other’s aid if one was attacked militarily? What will be the role of China in the future? An American expert on China  gives us possible answers

Crosspost with  The Saker  

The Xi Era – and the Putin Era

[box type=”bio”] Jeff J. Brown has authored numerous books on China. He has travelled to over 85 countries, and runs the website 44 Days, where you can view his complete biography. The text below is an excerpt from a longer interview with Jeff J. Brown. [/box] This article originally appeared at The Vineyard of the Saker.

The Saker: You have recently recorded three very interesting radio shows about China and Russia (see here, here and here).  Can you please summarize for us what you think the Chinese want from their relationship with Russia in the middle to long term?  While the two countries will not fuse to become one, or even form a confederacy, do you think that China would be interested in joining the Eurasian Union or negotiate some kind of open borders agreement with Russia?

The Chinese press said they all talked about synthesizing these organizations into a holistic whole. Obviously, both sides want their influence, but I am confident they will sort it out. They have to. America’s Seventh fleet is parked off China’s and Russia’s Eastern shores, the US is militarizing Japan, threatening them both, not to mention, banks of NATO missiles are all pointed their way from Europe.

For cross border relations, rail and transport bridges are open across the Sino-Russian border. Just this week, China and Russia proposed a high speed rail line between Jilin Province (in Manchuria) and Vladivostok. The largest engineering project in human history, the gas and oil pipeline system between Russia and China is being built.

All of this is going to continue to intensify and diversify. While I don’t think we will see a Maastricht Treaty, with the free movement of nationals moving from one country to another, I do foresee a day when Russia and China have a border like Canada and the US: no visa, register your passport and go through customs, coming and going. I think Mongolia will eventually be included in the deal.

The Saker: Russia and China have engaged in unprecedented joint military exercises and Chinese officials have even been given access to Russian strategic command posts. Russian and Chinese admirals have given joint reports to Xi and Putin during a video conference organized by the Russian military. Russia is now facing a direct US/NATO threat in Europe while China is threatened by the USA from Japan, Taiwan, Korea and over the Spratlys. If it ever came to a real, shooting, war between the USA and Russia or between the USA and China, do you expect that Russia and China would be willing to get involved and actively support their partners even against the USA?

Jeff J. Brown: Great question, Saker. If the US strikes either China or Russia first, it’s probably World War III and humanity ceases to function as we know it. While there is no announced treaty alliance, we have no way of knowing what Russia and China have agreed to secretly. It is also possible that China and Russia have told NATO back channels to the effect, “You mess with one of us, you deal with us both”. I’ve always wondered if that might be the case, given America’s reluctance to push the pedal to the metal in the Ukraine and the South China Sea.

The helping China and Russia wouldn’t even need to fire a shot. Just use all their technology and tricks of the trade to neutralize NATO’s satellites, radars, communications, computer systems, etc. Or either one of them could start selling off their mountains of US Treasury debt. In fact, both of them may have told Obama that if he pushes too far, they will start dumping bonds. Napoléon Bonaparte famously said that whoever is the creditor calls the shots.

Uncle Sam is like an overdosed meth freak on PCP…”

What if Russia feels the need to intervene militarily in the Donbass, or if the Americans can get the Japanese or Taiwanese to do something really stupid? Or of course, the tried and true method of manipulating history: a big, fat false flag in either region, to get the desired result? I guess we will find out the hard way. But think of it this way: the B&R/SCO-EEU/CSTO framework and all its tremendous synergies and potential, just dissolve away, if either China or Russia fell to the Western Empire. If you were Putin or Xi, would you just stand there and let the 21st century and humanity go down the drain?

Then again, both getting involved probably means WWIII and we know how the history books will probably be written as a result, if there is anybody left to write them. What is so scary about all these ponderings is that while Putin and Xi are keeping their heads down and taking care of business around the Asian continent and across the planet, America is so wantonly reckless and out of control. Uncle Sam is like an overdosed meth freak on PCP. It makes me shudder.

The Saker: It is rather obvious that both China and Russia need a de-dollarization of the world economy, but that they don’t want to trigger such a brutal collapse as to crash their own economy. This is especially true of China which is heavily invested in the US economy.  Russia is trying to slowly and smoothly pull herself out of the dollar-centered markets.  What is China doing?  Do you believe that there are plans in China to “de-Walmartize” the Chinese economy or is it still way too early for that?

Jeff J. Brown: Let’s face it, Saker, when the US dollar economy collapses, it could easily trigger WWIII. It is going to be that cataclysmic. And when it does happen, Israel knows they can start counting the days when the gates of Jerusalem change hands for the 45th time, in that city’s heralded 5,000 year history. Israel is at least as out of control as the US, maybe even more so. Their 200-300 undeclared nukes would surely make a mess of Mother Earth and what they started would surely trigger WWIII, with all the depressing outcomes to go with it.
…
So I think Baba Beijing [Xi Jinping], as well as everybody else in the world, Russia included, are hoping that the Western financial house of smoke, mirrors and cards can keep going on for as long as possible. Why? Because like ants harvesting for the winter, BRICS, CELAC, NAM and all the other anti-Empire coalitions are working feverishly to organize, plan, implement, found and institute as many entities, agreements and systems as possible, to soften the eventual economic Armageddon.

Great examples include the Sino-Russian CRIFT (anti-SWIFT), UCRG (anti-big three credit agencies), BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Banco del Sur, PetroCaribe and on and on. Just today, China announced that it is setting up the world’s largest gold fund ($16.1 billion), with 60 countries already signed up, to develop gold mining and commerce along, where else – the Asian continent’s Silk Roads, which Admiral Mahan’s ghost can only dream about controlling.

About the Chinese economy de-Walmartizing itself: ironically, to get over the need to drive the economy based on exports and capital investment, Baba Beijing is doing everything in its power to increase internal consumption. Environmentally, with 1.3 billion citizens, that’s kind of a frightening thought, if the Chinese try to imitate the US model of gluttonous, Hampshire hog overconsumption. But the key words in Xi’s Chinese Dream are, “moderately prosperous, socialist society”.

I believe Xi, with all his upbringing about frugality and simplicity, finds American “shop till you drop” consumerism to be a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. After 35 years of the Deng Era, with its crass, US-style materialism, Xi is setting a new philosophical course for the Chinese nation: the very Buddhist mantra of “less is more”. A jet ski, a Harley and a SUV in the three-car garage are not going to buy you inner peace and happiness, nor is the newest model BMW or Hermes handbag.

“The key words in Xi’s Chinese Dream are, “[a] moderately prosperous, socialist society”…

The Saker: There are regular rumors and speculations about a new joint reserve currency to replace the dollar.  Some speak of a Ruble-Yuan currency, others of a “BRICS” currency, possibly back by gold.  This rumors are strengthened by the fact that both Russia and China have been and, apparently, still are buying all the gold they can.  Is there support in China for such a “gold-backed BRICS currency basket”?

Jeff J. Brown: China and Russia are the two largest gold miners in the world. They are both buying gold at a prodigious rate (although I have not checked Russia’s purchases since the Western oil-ruble gambit was put into play). It is no secret that China wants to have as much gold as the US’s supposed 8,500MT. China’s gold reserves are a state secret, but estimates are Baba Beijing has somewhere around 3,500MT, maybe a little more.

China will be required later this summer to officially declare its gold reserves, in order to have the renminbi considered as a currency in the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDR) basket. I think they will want to be able to say they have more gold reserves than #2 Germany, which officially has 3,400MT (if only the Bundesbank could get it out of American vaults, which seem to be having a hard time coughing it up).

BRICS leaders (2013), representing China, Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

There is a talk of the “Brisco”, a BRICS currency. The new BRICS NDB will help make that vision become a reality. That would pull in Russia and China together for trade and financing, along with India, Brazil and South Africa. Russia has apparently just invited Greece to join BRICS too, and would have not done so, without consulting the other members first.

Yuan-ruble trade will increase exponentially, when the gas and oil pipelines start flowing in 2018, with CRIFT and UCRG humming at full speed. But I don’t think Russia and China are envisioning a “Ruyuan” binational currency. There is just not enough critical mass there. The Brisco seems much more fungible and international.

The Saker: Lastly, what kind of future do you see for China in the next couple of decades?  Where is this country headed and what kind of role do you think it sees for itself in the future world?

Jeff J. Brown: For hundreds of years, China had the world’s largest economy. Finally in 1872, in the depths of opium addiction, coolie slavery trade and extractive colonialism, it fell from its longstanding pinnacle, against the rapidly expanding settler/colonial American Empire. So, China is accustomed to greatness. Becoming the world’s biggest Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) economy last year just feels natural around here, and that Century of Humiliation was simply a nadir not to be repeated.

China had the world’s greatest naval fleet 200-300 years before Europe, possessed gunpowder and invented firearms. They sailed all up and down the Asian, African and Middle Eastern coasts and into the Indonesian archipelago, long before Columbus. Unlike the West, it only wanted one thing: win-win trade and cultural exchanges.

[learn_more] [dropcap]I[/dropcap]n December 1497, when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed into the Indian Ocean, he met little opposition. Instead, he discovered a sea of enormous potential. Fortunately for the Europeans, the great Chinese armada of Admiral Zheng He no longer existed, though it had left a lasting legacy.

That legacy was the sea-routes, markets and ports of a functioning trading system first established by the Arabs and reinforced by the Ming dynasty. If China’s maritime might had still ruled the waves, Vasco da Gama and the European adventurers who followed him would have faced fierce opposition from the massive Chinese fleets and the history of European globalization in the Indian Ocean would have been very different.

Admiral Zheng He.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hy did the Chinese embark on maritime trade? Drought, floods and famine, combined with the rule of a ruthless Mongol dynasty, saw fourteenth century China wilting under the effect of on-going economic misery. But in 1368 the Ming dynasty emerged ousting the Mongol rule. Having lost some of its overland trade routes, the new Emperor turned his attention to the sea and the trading opportunities it offered and, from 1405 a period of Chinese maritime expansion began.  Emperor Zhú Di nominated the eunuch, Zheng He, to command his fleet.

Standing seven feet tall, the admiral was a Chinese Muslim who could speak both Arabic and Chinese. It was a judicious choice ‘to send a Muslim to lead expeditions into sea-lanes dominated by Arab merchant sailors and into countries that were in many cases Muslim’.

But the fleet’s purpose was neither discovery nor warfare because, ‘Ming Confucians preferred persuasion to coercion’. The fleet’s mission was one of diplomacy, to establish foreign relations, exchange gifts and impress other lands with Chinese produce and technology. It achieved this, through enforcing a system of tributes on the countries bordering the Indian Ocean including West Africa. The Treasure Fleet The Chinese fleet numbered over 300 vessels.

Treasure Boat reconstruction in Nanjing. (Click to expand.)

Compared to the tiny carracks of the Portuguese explorers, Zheng He’s treasure ships were mammoth ships, the largest measuring 440 feet in length with nine masts and four decks. Each ship was capable of accommodating more than 500 passengers, including navigators, sailors, doctors and soldiers, as well as a massive amount of cargo in its huge hold. It is not surprising that for thirty years the might of the Middle Kingdom dominated the sea-lanes of the Western Sea.

ABOVE: Inside a reconstruction of a treasure ship (Vmenkov)

But besides acts of diplomacy, the fleet was also an armada, transporting a mighty force of soldiers that could be landed at any port. It was written that the fleet was a terrifying sight to behold, striking terror into those who witnessed it and creating such fear that the enemy would capitulate without conflict. Fighting, however, was occasionally inevitable with a Treasure ship carrying up to 24 cast-bronze cannons with a maximum range of 240 to 275m (800–900ft). However, the ships were primarily considered luxury trading vessels rather than warships. But in one battle, Zheng He destroyed the pirate fleet of Chen Zuyi killing 5000 men. He also established a network of military allies. Source: Margaret Muir [/learn_more]

REGULAR ARTICLE TEXT RESUMES HERE

Other than Vietnam, China has never had imperial ambitions, nor a hegemonic drive to control the world’s resources, while enslaving the natives who owned them. It has always been, “Let’s do business”. Xi’s “win-win” diplomacy is not Potemkin fluff. Baba Beijing means what it says. Xi and Li Keqiang (China’s Premier) are crisscrossing the globe, signing billions upon billions of bilateral and regional trade, energy, aerospace, infrastructure, cultural, educational and scientific deals, all at lightning speed. But historically, this is what the Chinese have always been doing with the outside world, for the last 3,000 years: Maritime Belts and Silk Roads.

Saker, whether the West likes it or not, Napoléon’s oriental sleeping lion is back in historical form. The West has two choices: come to the negotiating table with BRICS or take our Pale Blue Dot down in a fog of nuclear oblivion. The Empire is so evil and corrupt, I’m leaning towards the latter scenario, to be honest. But I am also an eternal optimist.

Here is to hoping that some superhero, an American Vasili Arkhipov or Stanislav Petrov (they both defused potential nuclear war with the US, back in the day) can somehow short circuit the Joint Chiefs of Staff/CIA/Wall Street deep state, which has been ruling the United States since WWII, and bring humanity back from the brink.

Either way world, welcome to the Xi Era – and the Putin Era – and with fingers crossed – the Modi Era too.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWEE