Oh man! What a line that is!
Haha! Haha!
Kurosawa?! Wasn't he the one who directed, The Seven Samurai?
Guess Escobar the film critic review is thumbs down for the The Seven Imbeciles of EU, or something like that.
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Oh man! What a line that is!
Haha! Haha!
Kurosawa?! Wasn't he the one who directed, The Seven Samurai?
Guess Escobar the film critic review is thumbs down for the The Seven Imbeciles of EU, or something like that.
US watches as China, Latin America deepen ties
Many in the US prefer to destabilize the region rather than allow it to become a protagonist in a possible new world order
By MARCO FERNANDES
APRIL 7, 2022
Less than a week after the start of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, senior director of Western Hemisphere affairs at the US National Security Council, in an interview with Voice of America (a State Department asset), stated that “the sanctions against Russia are so robust that they will have an impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia, and that is by design. So Venezuela will start feeling the pressure; Nicaragua will start feeling the pressure, as will Cuba.”
A recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, which by way of the Council on Foreign Relations serves unofficially as a kind of discussion forum of the US State Department, titled “The Eurasian nightmare,” defended the thesis that Washington has no choice but to fight Russia and China at the same time.
However, Gonzalez hints that the Joe Biden administration’s strategy not only contemplates attacking the main front in the East (Moscow and Beijing), but also opens a front in the South – secondary, but important – against three Latin American countries that have challenged Washington the most in recent years (Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba).
The Southern front, however, may be broader than what Colombia-born Juan Gonzalez makes clear.
On March 24, the commander of the US Armed Forces Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee. She said that although Russia is the “more immediate threat” in Latin America and the Caribbean, China would pose a diplomatic, technological, informational, and military challenge to the United States.
Richardson had given similar testimony in the House of Representatives about two weeks earlier, where she also stated that without “US leadership,” Chinese influence in the region could “soon resemble the self-serving predatory influence it now holds in Africa.”
She refers to the advance of the Belt and Road Initiative across the African continent since 2013, responsible for unprecedented tens of billions of dollars in Chinese investment in basic infrastructure (energy, telecommunications, ports, railroads, highways, etc) in exchange for the natural resources China needs to feed its industry, which is responsible for 28.7% of all manufacturing produced in the world and consumed globally.
General Richardson’s statements are based on two principles. First, that the United States views Latin America and the Caribbean as its “back yard,” expressed in the Monroe Doctrine since 1823 and put into practice in countless military invasions, coups and, more recently, hybrid wars against peoples and governments not aligned with Washington.
President Biden recently said that “Latin America is not our back yard,” but rather that it is “America’s front yard.” Latin Americans do not want to be anyone’s yard, whether front or back.
The second principle behind Richardson’s remarks is that the United States believes that the foreign policy of the region’s governments should be defined by Washington.
China in Latin America
In 2000, the US Congress set up the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which offers Congress its assessment of China on US national security. Last November, the commission’s report had an important chapter on the relations between China and the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report worried about China’s support for what it termed “populist” governments from Argentina to Venezuela. It remarked on the increase in the region’s trade with China: from $18.9 billion (2002) to $295.6 billion (2020), in addition to its growing importance as a source of loans, financing ($137 billion from 2005 to 2020) and direct investments ($58 billion between 2016 and 2020).
Thanks to this investment, China was able to assist the region in lessening the impact of the 2008 financial crisis; the investment created jobs (1.8 million between 1995 and 2016) and decreased poverty (falling from 12% in 2002 to 4% in 2018). Chinese vaccines rushed in during the pandemic, and Latin American commodity exports to China dampened the burden of the Covid recession.
The US-China Commission worried about the increased connections between China and the region in telecommunications and transportation networks. Huawei’s leadership in fifth-generation (5G) telecom in the region as well as Sino-South American partnerships in the development of satellites (21 launched in joint ventures, most of which were with Argentina) are offered as examples.
The commission also expressed alarm that China’s control or influence over ports in the region, particularly in the Caribbean, since these could in the future be used for military purposes (although there is no indication of any such military use by China or by the Latin American and Caribbean states).
Washington’s cold war
Washington’s hard-right elements reacted to this report with speed. In February, US Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, both Cuban-Americans, introduced the Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act of 2022 in Congress.
This bill, drawing from the commission’s recommendations, proposes that the US government directly challenge China’s role in the region. It characterizes the existence of China and Russia in the region as a “harmful and malign influence.” The bill is vague and short on details.
Evan Ellis, a professor at the US Army War College whose testimony was part of the commission’s report, wrote a report in January for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The report, “Preparing for Deterioration of the Latin America and Caribbean Strategic Environment,” points to the revival “of a particular model of leftist authoritarian populism” in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The new governments, he writes, have developed links with China to help them over the Covid recession. The United States, Ellis argues, cannot mobilize sufficient resources for investment in the region because Congress is divided and because the private sector is unwilling to take on this mission.
He remains skeptical of US policy in the region, particularly as Chinese state-owned companies have been effectively investing in sectors such as construction, mining, energy and finance.
Ellis recommends four immediate actions, many of them part of what is known as “hybrid war.”
First, he says Washington should promote a media narrative that denounces the leftist governments and their relations with China. Second, the US should support protest movements against these governments. Third, the US must deepen its alliances with regional elites. Fourth, the US must apply sanctions to these left-leaning governments.
Two elections in the coming months could make things more difficult for the United States. In Colombia (May), the main ally of the United States in the region, leftist candidate Gustavo Petro could push the right wing out of power. In Brazil (October), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads the polls against President Jair Bolsonaro.
Ellis suspects that the arrest and imprisonment of Lula “deepened the radicalism of his leftist populist orientation.” In May 2021, Lula told the Chinese website Guancha: “It’s not possible that every time a Latin American country starts to grow, there is a coup. And in this coup, there is always someone from the US, there is always the US ambassador. It is not possible.”
Lula is not a radical, but if he is re-elected president of Brazil, he will bring a realistic attitude toward his country’s development. He has stressed the importance of rebuilding the Latin American and Caribbean regional bloc (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), both of which have been weakened in recent years.
Chinese investment and trade are already a key part of Brazil’s plans for its future, but Lula also knows that this partnership must evolve, and Brazil needs to be more than an exporter of commodities to China.
Will the United States be able to roll back the influence of China and Russia on the region? Even Ellis does not feel confident about such an outcome. Along with Rubio and Menendez, Ellis would prefer to destabilize the region than allow it to become a protagonist in a possible new world order.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.
supercat
Major
The U.S. propagandists are really arrogant!
I have seen this already. Western media and think tankers trying to sow discord and encourage anti China sentiments in targeted countries. US tried to do it with the Russia-sino ties quite blatantly as seen by US former ambassador to Russia, Mcfaul and his moronic tweeting . Now Aus is trying to encourage a rift between Indonesia and China. But after reading this piece there's alot of wishful thinking on their part. they completely ignored any discussion of meaningful Chinese investment and economic cooperation and avoiding talking about indo mistrust of Australians from their intervention in East Timor and their US led middle east adventures.
The only way I feel Aukus can seriously disrupt indo-sino is if they regime change the current moderate indo government with a more destabilizing, more radical Muslim government. But in that case it will also be more anti western
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solarz
Brigadier
Well, for one thing China can simply avoid doing what the US is doing.
The US is not actually getting away with what they're doing. Consider that only 20 years ago, the US was the unchallenged sole superpower of the world. Today, while they're still the strongest on paper, they are beset on all sides. This is happening because they did a lot of dumb things when they thought they were invincible.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Contradiction much? The new flavor of the month is disinformation. I see it being talked about in different parts of the Western news media suggesting when they accuse it, it means they don't engage in it. I saw this morning on a cable news show how they were complaining that Mandarin speaking Tiktokers are pro-Russian. So...? They talk about free speech just as long as it complies with their own beliefs. Everyone they accuse of violating free speech can argue the same for themselves. This the same why the West created the victim culture. It's not about helping victims. It's about controlling who gets to be called a victim. Westerners are calling what's happening in Ukraine the worst war since WWII. Of course since most of the wars since then in between they started. How convenient! The West is upset at China for not seeing it as seriously as they do. You see it in this forum. And then someone like me will respond to remind them of Iraq where lying creating a pretext for war which they accuse Russia is a war crime. They hate it when others think. They want you just to see everything the way they do no questions asked. It really shows how much they disdain freedom when they think they have a right to control your thoughts. And they want to be seen as the champion of human rights when Hitler can make the same argument for himself if all it takes is believing in only your own rights. It's not the act that's the crime. A crime is determined by two factors. Who commits the act and who's the victim of that act which determines whether a crime has been committed or not. See... everything the West gets to define and no one else and they claim to believe everyone is equal...?
It's not black and white. There are in very specific cases but in relative terms, China does not interfere the way US imperialists do around the globe. That's why I worry when people talk of China dropping non interference policy. China foreign policy, for a long time model themselves as something very different to the US evil empire with their 800 military bases around the world, their regime changes, either with us or against us bullying and global hegemony.
Alot of the global south is on the side of China with this. For China to start the path of emulating the US is a slippery slope IMHO. I still think their main policy of prioritizing economic trading and mutual benefits is the way to go.
Escobar on here is a funny case. I prefer the escobar on Twitter. The anti imperialist one.
I think China has powerful partners they can use as a proxy to spread their influence.
Russia for Central, western Asia and north Africa then they also have Iran in west Asia to influence the Shia crescent.
Im not super familiar or knowledgable about Afrika or south America.