After four years of Trump and after the act of sedition and 6 January attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC ... before the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20 ...
My diary - Energy Policy, Pandemic and Free Market Pricing
How did these decisions pan out once Old Fox of interventions, Joe Biden took over the reigns in the Oval Office ...
After landing a sucker left hook on Macron's face, Joe tells Emmanuelle don't screw the United States ever again ...
EU-27 to Tackle Economic Powers US and China | Oct. 21, 2021 |
America fills void left by Chancellor Merkel ...
Selling out the European Union ... PM Mark Rutte's visit to Boris Johnson shrouded in secrecy. Wished I was the fly on the wall in Downing Street 10 ... [17-09-2021]
PM Mark Rutte travels to London today to visit his friend and Conservative colleague Boris Johnson ... it's about Afghanistan he says. 🤥 Hard to believe as his caretaker Cabinet was shaken by vote of censure in Dutch lower house yesterday affecting both the FM Kaag (D66) and Defense minister Bijleveld (CDA). Both are leading politicians of parties still supporting the caretaker government. Sigrid Kaag resigned to work full time as MP and key player in the formation talks ongoing for six months after the election.
He lost two key figures of his cabinet due to failures on withdrawal from Kabul and leaving interpreters with family and human rights workers behind. Handling of visa and papers were in chaos as staff had left with the first evacuation flight. Rutte has no soul of decency and serves his party's populist agenda on immigration and with priority less taxation for multinationals. Problems are not solved ... where is our Dutch leader? His heart is in corporate welfare, not the hard working people of main street Rotterdam or Groningen.
After Afghan defeat, Central Asia is up for grabs
China's Xi says trade with Russia expected to hit new records in the coming months | CNBC - June 17, 2022 |
Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized his country's commitment to trading with Russia, despite Western sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
"Today our cooperation between Russia and China [is] rising," Xi said, according to an official English translation carried by Russian state broadcaster RT. He cited Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing in early February.
The Chinese leader was speaking via video at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum's plenary session, which Putin opened with a speech over an hour long.
The official Chinese state media readout of Xi's remarks did not mention "new records" in trade between China and Russia. The readout did call for the removal of trade barriers and greater cooperation with other countries, including Russia.
In both the Chinese readout and RT's translation, Xi emphasized how China's economic potential has not changed and talked about the further development of the Belt and Road Initiative.
h/t Cat World POWs BRICS XV Summit
Can Russia-Iran-India Get INSTC Going?
Why the International North South Transport Corridor connecting India to Russia has become hot property
Chabahar Port's utility and significance is tied to the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which connects Indian ports to those of the Russian Federation through a 72,00 km long multi-modal transport corridor, including shipping, road and rail, through Iran and the Caspian Sea.
This connectivity project originally conceived by India, Iran and Russia in 2000 has been a long time in the coming. It was only last year that the first freight travelled from Russia to India via the corridor. Yet, its importance can be gauged from the fact that in the interim ten more countries officially joined it - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Oman, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Syria, and Ukraine. More countries have evinced interest in joining the INSTC.
The war in Ukraine has opened up new opportunities for the INSTC. Unprecedented sanctions on Russia have deepened cooperation with Iran. Both countries have recently signed an agreement for the construction of the Rasht-Astara Railway along the INSTC.
Secondly, the sanctions on Russia, whose territory served as a transit zone for many Central Asian countries, as well as for China, has led to the rise of alternate trade routes like the Middle Corridor. China has also halted all BRI-related work in Russia.
All this has spurred greater commitment from Russia to accelerate infrastructure development both on its territory, and eliminate legal and logistical hurdles that currently prevail along the corridor. A session on the INSTC at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this year concluded that freight traffic along the corridor will continue to grow to projections of 6.5 million tonnes by 2030.
INSTC Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Oman, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Syria, and Ukraine
Assessing the Status of India-Eurasia Connectivity Projects | ORF - Feb. 2023 |
Although many connectivity projects have been in the pipeline for decades, little progress has been made, primarily due to geopolitical factors. The non-viability of access routes through Pakistan and Afghanistan continues to be an obstacle and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Pakistan has blocked the strategic, economic, and cultural interests of both regions by refusing to facilitate connectivity via its territory. For instance, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, which has the potential to meet South Asia's energy needs, has been stalled since 2006 due to heightened security concerns.
Perhaps under China's influence, Pakistan has continued to create roadblocks for India in establishing strong trade and economic relations with the Central Asian/Eurasian countries. Hostility between India and Pakistan benefits China's hegemonic pursuits in Eurasia through its much-hyped Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Indeed, Beijing has sought to expand its commercial footprints in Central Asia, strategically located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe.
While inaugurating the BRI in Kazakhstan in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that all Central Asian countries should take an innovative approach and collaborate with China in setting up "an economic belt along the Silk Road". Additionally, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship BRI programme with US$62 billion-worth of investments in energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan, has added to India's geostrategic, geoeconomic, and security concerns. CPEC spans through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and violates India's sovereignty, resulting in strong opposition from New Delhi.
Russia Competing with China for Central Asia
INSTC: Eurasia's inclusive connectivity corridor | Aug. 11, 2023 |
Meanwhile, China has been pushing its BRI with the help of Pakistan and trying to entice some Central Asian countries to utilize China Pakistan Economic Corridor (BRI's flagship project). Pakistan's China funded deep sea port at Gwadar, which is located merely 72 km east of Chabahar, is seen as a counterbalance to the Chabahar Port. Gwadar port is a critical component of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). China might, in future, also seek to use the port in Gwadar as a military base.
China, together with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is trying hard in linking Central Asian countries with BRI, particularly in the realization of the Trans-Afghan rail line project involving Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan which is seen as an extension of CPEC. At present, the project seems to be delayed inordinately due to many apprehensions of the stakeholders in Central Asia.
The reason behind Central Asian countries being extremely motivated to be involved in the BRI is their need for financial resources for development, besides that they, being land-locked, have no access to sea to develop trade. Since the Ukraine, the Central Asian states are trying to open various connectivity corridors including INSTC and Chabahar Port. Moreover, with the US reevaluating its options and role in the region following its withdrawal from embarrassing defeat in Afghanistan.
China now has a greater opportunity to increase its footprint. China is nudging all the Central Asian countries to use Af-Pak corridor and the Karachi port to access the sea. The Trans-Afghan Railway is one such imitative to lean towards China sponsored economic activities. China also used the recently held China-Central Asia Summit to push its BRI agenda. It sought to promote integration and construction activities in Central Asian countries under the BRI umbrella.
The Belt and Road Initiative: Reshaping economic geography in Central Asia? | May 2020 |
Work on TAPI gas pipeline starts in Afghanistan's Herat province | China Xinhua News |
Ahead of inauguration of work for the TAPI project, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in his speech described the essential Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project as a "corridor of development" and stressed for regional cooperation.
A ridiculous Western oriented analysis of the Afghan campaign, its goal and defeat ...
Russia and America's overlapping legacies in Afghanistan | momentary Brookings Institution |
🔻🔻🔻
Xi Jinping calls for the 'normalization' and assimilation of Uyghur autonomous region | Le Monde |
Visiting Xinjiang, the Chinese leader called for the 'social stability' of the province, which has been the scene of an intense crackdown that has interned over 1 million Uyghurs and Muslim minorities in re-education camps.
On his return from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Johannesburg, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a brief stopover in Xinjiang on Saturday, August 26. It was an opportunity to celebrate the "hard-won social stability" in the Uyghur autonomous region and to call for the "normalization" of politics there. In his speech, delivered to the senior members of the Communist Party and reported by state broadcaster CCTV, Xi stressed "that the priority is to maintain social stability" and "use this stability to guarantee development." Xinjiang, China's northwesternmost region, is the scene of an intense crackdown, with over 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities interned in "re-education" camps.
This short visit is the Chinese leader's second since launching the "Yanda" ("strike hard") campaign in 2014, following a series of attacks attributed to Uyghur separatist activists.
Xi Jinping calls for protection of `hard-won stability' in Xinjiang visit | Al Jazeera |
Opposing view of Xinjiang dilemma for Beijing
Violent Paternalism: On the Banality of Uyghur Unfreedom |
By Darren Byler
Since 2016 over one million Chinese civil servants have been ordered to spend a series of weeks visiting assigned Turkic Muslim "relatives." These mostly Han urbanites have been tasked with instructing Uyghur and Kazakh farmers in political ideology and subjecting them to tests of Chinese nationalism and Han cultural assimilation.
When they occupy the homes of their Turkic "relatives" they assess whether or not they should be sent into the mass "reeducation" camp system. Drawing on ethnographic field research, interviews and state documents, this essay argues that the systematic normalization of state-directed violent paternalism has produced a new kind of banality in Turkic minority experiences of unfreedom.
Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement
Islamophobia, xenophobia, nationalism and assimilation ... in the EU we have a different approach to people of color ... discrimination, racial violence or simply denying entry to our "Garden". Populism, misogyny and white supremacy marches on.
Islamic terrorism: Kunduz suicide bomber attack by Xinjiang separatists in 2021
Uyghur Freedom Fighters and Kunduz Mosque Attack | Oct. 10, 2021 |
China report mentioned by me, refers to the Israel option of treating Palestinians as "terrorists" with the approval of Western democracies, no impunity.
Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang | April 30, 2021 |
Every scholar and scientist with an agenda can find funding for a reasonable living wage. Independent journalism is under threat of becoming extinct.
See my recent diary ...
Subscribe to the Rules Based Order or Else | Aug. 8, 2023 |
