The following is the presentation by Alexander
Nagorny, now the editor of Zaftra magazine in Moscow, and an expert on
world affairs, at our conference in Frankfurt on April 13-14. I sent you Lyndon
LaRouche's keynote, The Strategic View from the United States, and
Daisuke Kotegawa's presentation, Two Lost Decades for the U.S. and Europe?,
several days ago.
Any questions or comments you may have for Mr. Nagorny
can be sent to me, and I will forward them to him.
The video of this presentation, and all the
presentations at the conference, can be viewed at http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/
Mike Billington
ALEXANDER NAGORNY:
The Chinese Dimension of the U.S.A.-China-Russia Triangle Today
Alexander
Nagorny, of Russia, is deputy editor of Zavtra weekly newspaper and a
member of the Izborsk Club. He is a historian who has specialized in relations
among China, the United States, and Russia for several decades. He delivered
this speech during the opening panel of the
Schiller Institute conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on April
13.
First of all,
I would like to express my great gratitude to the Schiller Institute, and to
Lyndon LaRouche personally, for organizing such an interesting, large, and
timely conference.
We represent
a new intellectual club formed in Russia approximately six months ago, the
Izborsk Club, which brings together various experts and specialists, with
various ideological outlooks, who are thinking about the future—about what
Lyndon LaRouche has just discussed here in such a profound and interesting
way.
The topic of
my short presentation may be situated as a continuation of the propositions set
forth by Mr. LaRouche. Its title is "The Chinese Dimension of the
USA-China-Russia Triangle Today." I think that this topic should perhaps be
somewhat expanded: The triangle should incorporate also the European Union, or
Europe as such, insofar as these are the players in international relations
which essentially determine the current political situation in the world, and
the prospects for the future that the world and mankind are facing—as Lyndon
LaRouche has just discussed.
The Korean Crisis
In order not
to give you merely dry, theoretical considerations, I would like to begin my
presentation by describing the dramatic situation taking shape in the world
today, which is being trumpeted in mass media like CNN, ABC, Euronews, and so
forth. Almost everybody is focussed on the Korean situation. Just now, before
leaving the hotel this morning, I was watching the latest news from CNN, which
reported on the special statement made by U.S. Secretary of State Kerry in
Seoul, South Korea. He said that the United States, like the entire world, is
extremely concerned about the nuclear threat from North Korea, and that the USA
is extending its hand for dialogue with North Korea, and cancelling a number of
maneuvers. Then Kerry got to the core of his speech, saying that he was now
going to fly to Beijing, and that it was the Chinese leadership, the Chinese
comrades, who should play the decisive role in settling the current crisis,
which includes the threat of a military conflict with the use of nuclear
weapons.
I think that
this episode expresses the entire situation taking shape within this big
triangle, or quadrilateral, that I'm talking about. What we see here, is that
the United States, as the hegemonic world power and the player in international
relations which has virtually an absolute concentration of military-strategic
power in its hands, and which effectively runs the policy of such international
economic policy organizations as the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, etc., was
forced to turn to the People's Republic of China—one could say, to fly to
Beijing and kow-tow to the Chinese emperors—and request that they do something,
somehow, to settle the situation between North and South Korea, in order to
prevent Pyongyang from using nuclear weapons and placing the world on the brink
of a nuclear cataclysm.
Herein, in my
view, lies the secret of Chinese diplomacy. If we follow the logic, then
certainly North Korea's high degree of dependence on China, for both energy
supplies (80-85%) and food, not to mention the technology side, has created a
situation in which the United States, although it has both military-political
and ideological power far in excess of China's, is forced to appeal to the
Chinese Emperor and plead with him to do something to help prevent a military
clash.
Now, if we
review the entire situation as it comes together, we see that this Korean crisis
has eclipsed the situation in Iran and the situation in Syria, with everything
being concentrated on this Korean segment. China thus has demonstrated that the
United States has lost face, politically. And this is something very important
in the Asia-Pacific region, where China traditionally, and continuing now today
because of its very high development rates, lays claim to the dominant
position.
Dangerous Return to Geopolitics
This episode
is a particular case, but it's one which easily allows making broader
generalizations about the world situation. What have we seen, during the past
several years? The world is returning to geopolitics. There is a resurrection of
the lines typical of the traditional geopolitical constructs known to world
politics in the 19th and 20th centuries, which had been on the back burner after
the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, when the socialist bloc lost its place in
international relations. It was in 1991 that the USA gained the ability to take
a completely new approach to world issues. LaRouche talked about this. The USA
would have been able to take the lead in addressing the global problems, which
had been so much discussed in the 1980s. Instead, the USA focussed on
strengthening its egotistical positions.
As a result,
we witnessed an entirely new alignment, especially as we entered the 2000s. This
involved, above all, the astronomical growth of the economic, political, and
military power of the People's Republic of China.
Here I should
say a few words about Russia. Although in 1991-93 Russia came under the
practically total political influence of the United States, under Putin this
situation began to change. Now, Russia has begun to play an increasingly
independent role within these geopolitical constructs.
It is quite
clear that this rebirth of geopolitics is based on egotism on the part of the
players in international relations. Under these conditions, each participant in
these complex geometrical constructs—the triangle or the quadrilateral—is
seeking his own benefit and attempting to achieve it, directly or sometimes
indirectly (as in the case of Syria, where the USA and Europe are essentially
smashing the secular state in order to shape a completely new situation
regarding energy supplies to Europe).
This narrow
egotism characterizes just about every player. This is an obstacle to any
attempts at finding a common approach to solving the global problems Lyndon
LaRouche was talking about. After all, it's difficult to believe that such
diverse players in international affairs as China, Europe, and the USA could be
brought together around a single program. Yet the need for such a single program
is absolutely clear and is hanging over the head of mankind.
Because of
this, we can say with absolute certainty that the rise of this geopolitical
thinking impedes the possibility of finding a common program. If we look at the
countries involved, we can see that, in order to find a common position, the
United States will need to give up its orientation toward maintaining de facto
hegemony in both the military-political and the economic domains. All the
countries in question will need to reconsider those positions and principles
which are based on national egotism, in their relations with their neighbors.
And what LaRouche mentioned is extremely important: to reject the now dominant
theories of monetarism and liberalism in international economic
relations.
Is it
possible to bring about the rejection of these things? It seems to me that this
will be difficult to achieve.
Effects of the 'Asia Pivot'
Look again at
the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States has announced the
Asia pivot, that they are shifting the center of gravity to the Asia-Pacific
region. What does this mean for Beijing and the Chinese comrades? It means that
they are beginning to sense that the United States, slowly but surely, is
creating a system of restraints and counterweights, which in effect is a system
for the military-political and military-strategic isolation of China.
China views
this situation from the standpoint of the fact that the United States may, at
any moment, cause a cut-off of hydrocarbon fuel and energy supplies to China,
thus strangling the Chinese economy and creating socially unacceptable
conditions for the existence of the Chinese people. From this standpoint,
Beijing naturally has to look for a way out of this situation—some kind of
guarantees. They need to look for a way to break out of the harsh system being
constructed at the present time. This is the motivation for China's seeking
involvement in major economic projects in Central Asia, in countries like
Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and the bid by the People's Republic of
China to achieve an abrupt spurt in relations with the Russian
Federation.
It was no
accident that the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping made the Russian Federation the
destination for his first foreign trip. A number of fairly important agreements
were concluded. Even more important is what was discussed behind closed doors,
and what Xi and Putin would have agreed upon. Naturally those talks would have
revolved around how successfully to defend their interests, as much as possible,
in the face of American and European pressures.
Thus, what we
see coming together, perhaps gradually, is new blocs. Without question, the
creation of this new geopolitical system is driven by the inflection points in
the economic and financial crisis, and much will depend on what happens with the
culmination of the second wave of that economic and financial crisis. Very
unpredictable scenarios and alliances are entirely possible. But it is
absolutely clear that if each of the players fails to overcome its national
egotism, then the natural process by which international relations, and these
new blocs, become chaotic, may quite easily not only place the world on the
brink, but actually plunge us into military-political clashes, perhaps starting
at the regional level, and moving to a mega-regional level.
Move Toward Strategic Cooperation
In this
setting, I believe that our conference has a very important role to play, and
that, to a significant degree, it can demonstrate to the leaders of the major
geostrategic centers, that it is necessary to move in a completely different
direction: not toward construction of this new bloc scheme, but rather toward
strategic cooperation projects, for which each country could contribute the
financial, human, and cultural-ideological resources it possesses.
It seems to
me that this kind of an approach, this kind of new political thinking—I don't
like to use that term because of its association with Gorbachov, and we know how
Gorbachov's experiment ended up in Soviet Russia, but, nonetheless, the need
persists precisely for this—is something which Putin does have a certain sense
of, and he is attempting to find points of tangency with Europe, with the United
States, and, above all, with the People's Republic of China.
I view
Putin's, and Russia's, relations with the European Union with a fair degree of
skepticism, especially after the situation that developed in Cyprus, when
Germany in effect stabbed Putin in the back. I think that he will not forget
this, in shaping his approach to Chancellor Merkel, although outwardly he will
maintain his diplomatic smile. But life has demonstrated that Russia's approach
to relations with Germany will not be what it might have been, had a more
civilized approach been taken.
As for
relations between the United States and Russia, it is also difficult to discern
great positive prospects. The proposal Washington is now making for radical
nuclear strategic and tactical force reductions are essentially unacceptable for
the Russian Federation, insofar as they affect the very foundations of our
security. After the Soviet military machine was shrunk and effectively broken,
our nuclear missile forces are left as the clearest guarantor of the
inviolability of Russia's borders. Therefore, while the situation with
Washington will of course go forward in the form of diplomatic contacts and
smiles, at the same time both sides will be preparing for the worst-case
scenario.
In that
context, the proposals Lyndon LaRouche was talking about could break this ice,
if each of the participants were to adopt an absolutely and fundamentally new
approach to the most important aspects of their statecraft. In this sense, I
repeat that this means giving up American hegemonism, and, for regional powers,
giving up their national egotism. And it means a new approach to how the world
economy is organized.
Translated from Russian by
Rachel Douglas
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