It has been the contention of this writer since the 1980s that Russia and China are fundamental rivals, regardless of pragmatic alliances. The “fraternal” relations that supposedly existed between two nominally “communist” states beneath the facade of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance did not mitigate the centuries’ long animosity, and this erupted into a “hot war” during the 1960s with the Sino-Soviet border clashes.[1] Indeed, the Sino-Soviet friendship treaty, far from being a display of comradeship, relegated China to the status of a colony.[2] The manner by which China showed it did not intend to renew the treaty was to invade Vietnam in 1979, a provocation aimed at Russia, which had signed a treaty with Vietnam in 1978.[3] Likewise, the Shanghai Co-Operation Organization is about as enduring and deep as the Hitler-Stalin Pact. The Shanghai axis is regarded by China primarily as a means of promoting its own interests in Central Asia and the Far East, and operates to keep Russia in a subordinate position; an inversion of the former Sino-USSR relationship.[4] Under this arrangement, China has gotten everything its own way, including the settling of territorial disputes with Russia and Vietnam to the disadvantage of the latter two. Now current military actions by Russia in the Far East are showing the world that the Sino-Russian accord in an historic aberration.

Ka-52 Alligator Deployed to Far East

An article appearing on the website of the authoritative DefenceNet on the deployment of Russia’s new Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters shows the ancient Sino-Russian distrust has not been resolved by signing pieces of paper. The deployment sends a message to China not to take Russia for granted as lacking will, or to assume that China will be able to keep encroaching on Russia’s Far East. The DefenceNet report reads:

Russia shows as the main threat to China

Russia for the first time in decades, since the Soviet Union today placed newly weapon systems in Sino-Russian border area of Manchuria, demonstrating that modified Russian defense doctrine: The main threat to Russia is now officially China. Russia will put its new attack helicopters Ka-52 Alligator, and also a new high-capacity military aircraft Su-35S in the Far East.

So far, the new defense systems in Russia have always been in the European part of Russia.

The two-seater helicopters of the type in production since 2008 and so far have produced 12 helicopters for testing. The tests are said to have been completed and attack helicopters began to be produced at a rate of two per month.

Also started has been the production of fighter aircraft Sukhoi Su-35S. After completing the tests the aircraft was declared “4.5 generation fighter.”[5]

Apart from the Shanghai Co-Operation Agreement, which is the linchpin of the supposed Sino-Russian accord, there is the Collective Security Treaty Organization, initiated by Russia in 2002, which does not include China, and is regarded as an anti-China alliance.[6] As for Russian’s concern about its Far Eastern region vis-à-vis China, Putin warned a decade ago: “If we don’t make concrete efforts the future local population will speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean.”[7] There is nothing historically organic about Sino-Russian accord, and the realists of both Russia and China know it.

US Factor

Russia seeks a return to the multi-polar world. The USA of course aims to retain its position of global hegemony. It is assumed that the greatest potential geopolitical rivalry is between the USA and China. However, historically, a breach in Sino-Russian relations is a more likely course, especially given the scenarios for conflict through such factors as drought, flooding, and the control of water resources that are likely to lead to conflict in the near future over the entirety of the Asian region, and impacting in a major way on Russia.[8]

The verbal conflict between the USA and China played out on the world stage occasionally, if something other than shadow-boxing, might more likely reflect a dichotomy at work within the US power-structure, between “neo-con” and globalist factions, the latter dominated by financial interests headed by Rockefeller and Soros. It is erroneous to see the US power establishment as a monolith, rather than as several factions, whose aims are sometime in accord, sometimes in conflict. Even “neo-con” verbal combat with China is likely to be muted by the fact of and there being an historic friendship between Israel and China, which is seldom obvious.[9]

The US foreign policy establishment centered on such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission has historically been pro-China. The globalists are hopeful that China will be incorporated into a “new world order,” unlike Russia, which has—apart from a brief interregnum under Gorbachev and Yeltsin—taken “a wrong direction”[10] that can only probably be rectified, in their eyes, via a “color revolution.” US-China relations on the other hand are symbiotic, according to historian Niall Ferguson:

Far from being strategic rivals, these two empires have the air of economic partners. The only question is which of the two is the more dependent, [sic] which, to be precise, stands to lose more in the event of a crisis in their amicable relationship, now over thirty years old….[11]

Many commentators have noted the very muted, even quiescent reaction of China to recent American interventions. Fewer have appreciated the extent to which China now helps underwrite American power.[12]

The Rockefeller dynasty has led the pro-China policy for decades. The “Pacific Asian Group” of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission includes representatives from China.[13] However, Rockefeller interests in China go back well prior to the Trilateral Commission, to the Asia Society. The Asia Center New York office states that John D. Rockefeller III founded the Society in 1956.[14]

When David Rockefeller returned from a visit to China in 1973, he enthused that “The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in history.” Rockefeller was accompanied by a five-member delegation from his Chase Bank Group. He went on to praise the “sense of national harmony” and “more efficient and dedicated administration”, “whatever the cost of the revolution.”[15] The same year he founded the Trilateral Commission with Russophobe Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski[16] as the North American Director.

The Council on Foreign Relations began to lay the groundwork for the recognition of China during the 1960s, which had to be done without making it look at though Taiwan was being betrayed.[17] CFR historian Peter Grosse proudly cites CFR luminaries Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance in their pivotal roles of opening up Red China, inaugurating a process that made China a world power:

Kissinger, acting as Nixon’s national security adviser, embarked on a secret mission to Beijing in 1971, to make official, exploratory contact with the communist regime. Nixon himself followed in 1972. The delicate process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the United States and China was completed in 1978 by Kissinger’s successor as secretary of state, Cyrus R Vance, a leading Council officer before and after his government service.[18]

Continuing the Rockefeller-China legacy is the apparently enigmatic[19] Nicholas Rockefeller. A profile of Nicholas Rockefeller states of his China connections:

Nicholas’ China practice includes transactions with China’s largest banks, energy companies, communications entities and real estate enterprises as well as with China’s principal cities and leading provinces. He was chosen as a board member of the Central China Construction and Development Commission and as a director of the Xiwai International School of Shanghai International University. He has appeared numerous times on CCTV and other China media.[20]

There is also doubt that Nicholas Rockefeller “co-authored” a book with banker Patrick DeSouza, Rockefeller’s name not appearing as the co-author, thereby again suggesting that Nicholas Rockefeller is a myth. However, the fact is that DeSouza edited the book that is a collection of essays by members of the CFR. DeSouza has served on the National Security Council under President Clinton and is a Fellow of the CFR. As for Nicholas Rockefeller and the DeSouza book, Nicholas wrote Chapter 19, “Middle Market Capitalism in China”, pp. 347-356. The book moreover is described as “A Council on Foreign Relations Book.” Nicholas Rockefeller was one of the CFR members selected to contribute to this important CFR compendium. Nicholas, so far from being “mythical,” is a major US player in China and an influential figure in foreign policy think tanks.

In addition to the Rockefellers, the Soros Empire has become an important factor in the globalist power structure. George Soros, it might be significant to note, is often reported to be at loggerheads with the neo-con faction, which might be an example of the dichotomy existing between neo-cons and globalists in the US Establishment. Soros, like the Rockefellers, is a pro-China enthusiast and seeks the incorporation of China into a “new world order.” A report of an interview by Soros with the London Financial Times in 2009 states:

Billionaire globalist George Soros told the Financial Times during an interview that China will supplant the United States as the leader of the new world order and that America should not resist the country’s decline as the dollar weakens, living standards drop, and a new global currency is introduced.

Asked what Obama should discuss when he visits China next month, Soros stated, “This would be the time because I think you really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, financial world order,” adding that China was a reluctant member of the IMF who didn’t make enough of a contribution.

“I think you need a new world order that China has to be part of the process of creating it and they have to buy in, they have to own it in the same way as the United States owns…the current order,” said Soros, adding that the G20 was a move in this direction…

Soros said the world would have to go through a “painful adjustment” following the decline of the dollar and the introduction of a global currency. Reading between the lines, he essentially threatened to kill the dollar completely if the United States did not get on board with the global currency.

Soros predicted that China would become the new engine of the global economy, replacing the U.S., and that this would slow economic growth and reduce living standards. Soros characterized the United States as a drag on the global economy because of the declining dollar.[21]

The following month Forbes reported that, “George Soros is pouring money into Chinese stocks. That’s because the billionaire believes China will emerge as the big winner after the global financial crisis passes, while the United States will lose the most in the long run from the recent turmoil….”

Soros is keen to invest in China. To understand more about China’s latest social and economic developments—and to help him spot out investment targets—he recently met some Chinese scholars and experts in Budapest, where he was born in 1930.… China is likely to be a “positive force” in the global economy, Soros said, while the United States will be “limping along.”[22]

The internationalist faction based around Soros and Rockefeller interests has no motive in wanting “regime change” in China or any geopolitical shift that will destabilize China. It is Russia that does not fit into the “new world order,” and the natural bulwark against Russia is China, as in the days of the “Cold War.” More recently, Soros reiterated the rise of China as the up-and-coming factor in the “new world order,” stating: “China has risen very rapidly by looking out for its own interests. They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well.”[23] Therefore, according to Soros, there needs to be a shift in attitude among Western states that will encourage China to play its full, even dominant, part in a new international system.

Foreign Policy[24] editorialized that:

Mr. Soros even went so far as to say that at times China wields more power than the U.S. because of the political gridlock in Washington. “Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States,” he said, a hard statement for him to make because he spent much of his life donating to anti-communist groups in Eastern Europe.[25]

What Foreign Policy editorial writers are unlikely to understand is that it is not “communism” to which Soros and other luminaries of international capital are opposed, but those types of “communism” that do not accommodate their designs, while other types of communism, such as the Chinese, are not only acceptable but beneficial; just as international capital will support or oppose, according to pragmatic or dialectical interests, democracy and dictatorship, “Left” and “Right.” Any desired change in China will be hoped for in a less dramatic manner than the “regime change” “color revolutions” that Soros, et al, have instigated in the former Soviet bloc states in order to surround Russia. A “return to authoritarianism” and the “wrong direction” maintained by Russia under Putin are the primary threats to this globalist paradigm.

Conclusion

As far as the Sino-Russia situation goes, in any conflict between the two the globalists will be pushing for the US to align again with China against the old bugbear, Russia. In the not too distant future, water will become a cause of conflict more so than oil, and crises scenarios, including the return of ancient rivalries and simmering territorial disputes, will re-emerge across the entirety of the Asian region, impacting in a major way on Russia and her traditional allies, including India. The recent Russian military deployment of attack aircraft in Russia’s Far East, a wealthy region of historic contention, and feeling the pressure already from China, is symptomatic of the historical animosities that are barely subdued under the façade of superficial “co-operation treaties.”

Notes

[1] K R Bolton, “Sino-Soviet-US Relations and the 1969 Nuclear Threat,” Foreign Policy Journal, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/05/17/sino-soviet-us-relations-and-the-1969-nuclear-threat.

[2] K R Bolton, “Russia and China: an approaching conflict?,” Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, Summer 2009, p. 158.

[3] Ibid., pp. 163-164.

[4] Ibid., p. 168.

[5] DefenceNet, May 24, 2011, http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20290&Itemid=52

Translation of Greek text.

DefenceNet is described as: “The website www.defencenet.gr , belonging to media production and defense applications, DefenceNet Media and is the first news portal to traffic in Europe and one of the leading sites on National Security, Defense Finance and geostrategic. … the group … are the most recognized analysts and researchers with important work at the Institute for Defense Analysis (IAA) of the Ministry of National Defense.

[6] K R Bolton, “Russia and China: an approaching conflict?,” op. cit., p. 172.

[7] M Vines, Chinese Creating a New Vigor in Russian Far East,” New York Times, September 23, 2001.

[8] K R Bolton, “Water Wars: Rivalry over Water Resources a Potential Cause of Regional Conflict in Asia,” World Affairs, Spring 2010, Vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 52-83.

[9] K R Bolton, “Chinese TV Series Lauds Israel: The Alliance Between China and Zionism,” Foreign Policy Journal, August 18, 2010, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/08/18/chinese-tv-series-lauds-israel-the-alliance-between-china-and-zionism.

[10] Jack Kemp, et al, Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should do, Independent Task Force Report no. 57 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006) xi. The entire publication can be downloaded at: http://www.cfr.org/publication/9997.

[11] Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise & Fall of the American Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 261.

[12] Ibid., p. 262.

[13] The Trilateral Commission: About the Organization: http://www.trilateral.org/about.htm.

[15] David Rockefeller, “From a China Traveller”, New York Times, 10 August 1973, p. 31.

[16] See: Arthur Lepec, “Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Empire’s Adviser: The outrageous strategy to destroy Russia,” Voltairenet.org, http://www.voltairenet.org/article30038.html.

[17] Peter Grosse, Continuing The Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996, (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006). Chapter: “‘X’ Leads the Way.” The entire book can be read online at: Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/index.html.

[18] Ibid.

[19] “Enigmatic” because there has been doubt expressed by “sceptics” as to whether he actually exists, a question that can quite readily be answered by referring to his influential involvement with the Rand Corporation and the CFR:

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Advisory Board of RAND, the Corporate Advisory Board of the Pacific Council on International Relations, the Board of the Western Justice Center Foundation, and the Central China Development Council and has served as a participant in the World Economic Forum and the Aspen Institute. He also serves as a director of the Pacific Rim Cultural Foundation, and is a member of the boards of visitors of the law schools of the University of Oregon and of Pepperdine University. http://www.nicholasrockefeller.net/

[21] Paul Joseph Watson, “Billionaire globalist warns Americans against resisting new global financial system, Soros: China Will Lead New World Order,” Prison Planet.com, October 28, 2009

[22] Vivian Kwok and Robert Olsen, “Soros Turns To China,” Forbes, November 13 2009, http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/13/soros-china-investments-markets-equity-billionaire.html

[23] Joshua Keating, “Soros: China has better functioning government than US,” Foreign Policy, November 16,2010,

[24] Not to be confused with Foreign Policy Journal.

[25] Joshua Keating, op. cit.