Professional Documents
Culture Documents
One of the primary geo-political shifts in recent years has been the
rapport that has seemingly developed between two historic enemies, Russia
and China. Discord between the two powers goes back to the centuries-long
duration of the Mongol occupation of Russian territory, and subsequent
annexation of Chinese territory by Imperial Russia. This historic conflict was
not mitigated by the triumph of Communism in China, despite the
proclaimed aim of world proletarian solidarity.
However, in recent years Russia and China have developed trade and
diplomatic relations. Most significantly, Russia has been China’s main supplier
of arms (followed by Israel). Chinese and Russian leaders have sought accord
in the face of what they consider US global hegemony following the collapse
of the Soviet bloc.
It is the thesis of this paper that the accord between Russia and China
will not hold, any more than the “fraternal relations” between the two when
both were nominally “Communist”. The author believes there will eventually
be conflict between Russia and China over land and resources. As shown in
* Address for communication: P.O. Box 1627 Paraparaumu Beach, New Zealand, 5252.
other articles, Asia is replete with potential crises over land and resources,
1
many of which could erupt into regional conflagration .
In the 1960s, when Chinese “Communists” dissolved their “fraternal
relations” with the USSR and resorted to the old ethnic rivalries, American
journalist Harrison Salisbury wrote a prophetic book on geopolitics The
Coming War Between Russia & China.2 Salisbury’s predictions seem to have
been proven wrong in recent years with the new Sino-Russian accord, yet
developments now indicate that his predictions are unfolding, and precisely at
the time he foretold they would – the 21 st Century. Now another book,
although not subscribing to the expectation of a war, is being published that
nonetheless shows the rising tensions. It is Russia and China; Axis of
Convenience: Moscow, Beijing and the New Geopolitics, by diplomat Bobo
Lo.3
Salisbury’s Thesis
The present writer has long held that a Russo-Chinese accord would not
hold, but rather there would be conflict with the possibility of war. I wrote in
1983:
The split between Russia and China over Communist ideology is a mere
façade, and practically irrelevant. The real split is historically and racially
based. We can trace the Russo-Chinese split back to 1229 when the
Mongol ‘Golden Horde’ of Genghis Khan invaded Russia. The Mongols
ruled Russia for 250 years. Even as late as the 18th C. Mongols still ruled
the Lower Volga and the Crimea. This centuries- long Mongol rule has
resulted in an ingrained… fear of Eastern conquest.4
1
Appendix: I The Coming War in Asia..
2
Salisbury Harrison E., The Coming War Between Russia & China, Pan Books,
London, 1969. Salisbury was assistant managing editor of The New York Times, and a
veteran journalist in Russia and Asia. He was the first American journalist to visit Hanoi
during the Vietnam War.
3
Bobo Lo was second-in-charge at the Australian embassy in Moscow in the late 1990s
and is now director of the China and Russia programs at London's Centre for European
Reform.
4
Bolton K. R., The Washington-Peking-Tokyo Axis: Threat to NZ’s Survival, Realist
Publications, NZ, 1983.
About this, Chang and Halliday remark that “Deng was certainly
5
Chang J., Halliday J., “Saved by Washington,” Mao – the Unknown Story (London:
Jonathan Cape, 2005), 304-311.
6
Chang, Halliday, ibid., 310.
7
Chang, Halliday, ibid., 362.
8
Chang, Halliday, ibid., 368.
9
Chang, Halliday, ibid.., 368.
10
Chang, Halliday, ibid. 369.
11
Chang, Halliday, ibid., 397.
The USSR never had any desire to assist China to superpower status.
The Soviet policy towards China was to secure a united front between Chiang
and Mao to fight the Japanese. The supposed treaty of friendship between
Mao’s China and the USSR signed in 1950 was one of Chinese subjugation.
The Chinese soon turned their attention to securing the return of areas
regarded as having been stolen by Imperial Russia.
Salisbury states that in 1952 a college textbook was published, A Short
History of Modern China, which includes a map depicting China with 19 th C.
borders, designating 19 regions ‘lost to a European power.’ These stretch
from India to Indo-China. Five other regions were taken by Russia, in
addition to Mongolia and Tibet being incorporated into China. Mongolia
and Tibet were shown as territories of China. Ten years later China moved on
its claims with confrontations on the borders of India, Outer Mongolia and
Russia.
In 1964 A Concise Geography of China was published. This shows
China’s borders being settled with all neighbours, except for Russia. Frontiers
between Sinkiang and Kazakhstan, and along the Amur and Ussuri rivers are
designated “undefined national boundary”.
In 1964 Mao told a delegation of Japanese socialists:
There are too many places occupied by the Soviet Union. About 100
years ago, the area to the east of Lake Baikal became Russian territory
and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka and other areas
have become Soviet territory. We have not yet presented our account for
this list.
In 1960 there were 400 border clashes between Russian and Chinese
troops; in 1962 more than 5000; in 1963 more than 4000.
The biggest clash came on 2 March 1969 when Chinese forces attacked
Russian troops on the disputed uninhabited island of Zhenbao (Damansky
in Russian) in the Ussuri River. The incident was contrived by Mao as a show
of defiance. A Chinese elite unit ambushed Soviet troops, killing 32. The
Russians responded on the night of 14-15 March, brining up heavy artillery
12
Paine S C M, Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier, NY, 1996.
Dr Paine is an expert on Russia and Asia and has studied in Russia, China, Taiwan and
Japan. She is associate professor of policy & strategy at the US Naval War College.
and tanks, and firing missiles 20 kms into China. Around 60 Russians and
800 Chinese were killed during the engagement. A CIA aerial photograph
showed the Chinese side had been shelled so extensively as to look like a pot-
marked moon landscape.
Mao was taken back by the massive Russian response and worried over a
Soviet invasion.
On 13 August the Russians attacked at the Kazakhstan-Xinjiang
border, surrounding and destroying Chinese troops deep inside China. Mao
hurriedly ordered earth defences to be constructed should the Russians drive
for Peking. 13
At this time, the Russians intended to drive home their offensive to the
point of nuclear attack, but were rebuffed by the USA when approval was
sought. The journalist Victor Louis, associated with the KGB and Moscow’s
emissary to Taiwan, stated that Russia intended bombing China’s nuclear test
site and setting up an alternative leadership structure to take over China.14
The revelations of a top Nixon aide go further: Pres. Nixon’s chief of
staff H R Haldeman revealed in The Ends of Power that for years the
Russians had been warning the US that China mustn’t be allowed to build a
nuclear capacity. In 1969 the Russians approached the USA for a joint strike
against China. Nixon rejected the Russians, but was informed that they
intended to proceed anyway. He warned Russia that the USA and China
shared common world interests, and would send 1300 airborne nuclear
weapons to Russian cities. The Russians backed down. 15
Salisbury’s thesis was that a food-population crisis, which is periodic
throughout China’s history, would result in China’s seeking living space and
resources in Russia. Salisbury states China will not sit back and starve with the
lands of Russia beckoning. “They will – and must – fight.”
In 1979 the Soviet publication Soviet-Chinese Relations – What
Happened in the 60’s, stated in a realistic manner the real causes for the
Russo-Chinese conflict behind the facade of ideological rift:
The more distant goal was to call in question and, if possible, challenge
the legality of the existing borders between the USSR and China, and thus to
substantiate Mao’s statement, made during a meeting with Japan’s socialists in
13
Chang & Halliday, op.cit. 570-571.
14
Chang & Halliday, ibid., 572.
15
Haldeman H R , The Ends of Power, New York Times Books, 1978.
1964, about ‘the seizure of 1.5 million sq. kilometres of Chinese territory by
Russia’… In analysing the Maoists’ stand on the territorial questions, one
should turn to China’s history and consider the expansionist aspirations of
the Chinese emperors and the chauvinistic claims of the Chinese nationalists
who dreamed of the return of the ‘golden age’ of the Chinese empire when
many of China’s neighbours were mere vassals… It is crystal clear that in
pressing their territorial claims the Maoists pursue far-reaching expansionist
aims which can be summed up as Great Han Hegemony….
Far from the USSR having been a benevolent father figure in siring a
Communist offspring that would achieve super-power status with Russia arms
and technology, and that would stand side-by-side with the USSR in
confronting the imperialist powers and bringing Communism to the world,
China had been relegated to the status of a colony. The bitterness endured
long past Mao’s demise.
Towards the end of his life, Mao changed tactics and sought an alliance
with the USA, which the American ruling and business elites had long sought.
The USSR became the common threat that would be contained by a
Washington-Peking Axis. Despite the apparent thawing of the ‘cold war’
between Russia and China initiated recently by Putin, the main focus for
China’s power comes from a symbiotic economic relationship between the
USA and China. This will be considered further.
China’s Territorial Ambitions
China’s expansionary aims are not necessarily necessitated by the demand
for ‘living space’ or lebensraum in the conventional sense, at least not for the
moment, although Salisbury raised the prospect in the advent of a
food/population crisis.
China, as we’ve seen, has been expanding economically and this has
resulted in the migration movement of Chinese nationals following economic
penetration. The advance has been relatively peaceful and subtle, as in the
case of the Russian Far East.
However, Bobo Lo’s contention as to the peaceful economic expansion
of China notwithstanding, China has in the years since Mao shown itself
ready for shooting wars over strategic territory and even as shows of force
towards its neighbours.
Despite the proclamations and treaties aimed at showing China’s ‘good
neighbourliness’ towards Russia, Central Asia and India, China continues to
USSR..16
China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1979 was therefore intended as a direct
provocation to the USSR, which had signed a defence treaty with Vietnam in
1978, itself aimed at China. This Soviet-Vietnamese alliance made Vietnam
the "linchpin" in the USSR's "drive to contain China."17
The rift between China and Vietnam became apparent when thousands
of ethnic Chinese began to flee Vietnam during 1978. Territorial disputes
over the Spratly Islands, and Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, increased
Sino-Vietnamese tensions.
Elleman states that far from China having faced a defeat in Vietnam
because of its quick withdrawal, the invasion was aimed at:
1. Defying the USSR, which had signed a defence treaty with Vietnam,
showing the Russians up as so-called “paper polar bears”; thereby
2. Repudiating the Russo-Chinese supposed accord which had been
nothing but an encumbrance and was due for renewal at precisely the
time of the invasion:
He points out that on February 1, 1979, China, taking advantage of the
first day it could abrogate the 1950 treaty, declared its intention to attack
Vietnam. The invasion followed in three days. The USSR did nothing,
and this made it possible for China to point out publicly that the Soviets
had failed to honor several promises to back Vietnam. China, Elleman
says, was emboldened to announce on April 3 of that same year its
intention to terminate the 1950 treaty.
Observers have thought that China’s withdrawal from Vietnam after just
three weeks, leaving disputes about the border with Vietnam unsettled,
signified Chinese military failure. But Elleman argues that the invasion had
been a strategic success, assuming that China’s actual goal was to unmask the
fraudulence of the USSR’s assurances to Vietnam about military backing.
The Soviet inaction effectively ended the USSR’s defensive treaty with
Vietnam. “Thus, Beijing did achieve a clear strategic victory by breaking the
Soviet encirclement and by eliminating Moscow’s threat of a two-frong war.18
16
Elleman Bruce, Sino-Soviet Relations and the February 1979 Sino-Vietnamese
Conflict 20 April 1996:
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/elleviet.ht
m Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/
17
Scalapino Robert A., “The Political Influence of the USSR in Asia,” in Donald S.
Zagoria, ed., Soviet Policy in East Asia (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1982), 71.
18
Elleman, op.cit.
19
Elleman, ibid.
20
Elleman, ibid.
city to serve as the axis for merging three archipelagos, including the Paracels
and Spratly, under Chinese control.
The continuing aggression towards Vietnam by China to the present day
indicates that China’s ‘good neighbour’ treaties with Russia, Central Asia and
India are expedient masquerades which will drop should China no longer be
able to achieve its objectives by diplomatic and subtle means. China covets
Vietnam’s oil and gas reserves, just as it does the resources of Central Asia and
Western Siberia. Vietnam provides the present-day example of how China
reacts when its geo-political aims cannot be fulfilled other than through war
and military coercion. China’s actions toward Vietnam provide further
indications that Bobo Lo errs in thinking the Chinese too pragmatic and
rational to ever resort to military action with Russia again.
China’s War with India
China’s border disputes with India during the period of 1960-62 left
3000 Indians dead. Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist and a
member of the elite think-tank the Trilateral Commission21 states that the
conflict not only didn’t solve the border dispute, but left permanent
animosity and suspicion, leading to each side’s building up and modernizing
its military. It is noteworthy that “China claims an entire Indian state,
Arunachal Pradesh, which borders southern Tibet and is roughly the size of
Portugal.” On the other hand, India sees China as wrongfully occupying
15,000 square miles in India’s virtually uninhabited high Himalayan plateau
of Aksai Chin.22
The Chinese are not about to let the disputed areas rest, and again there
is a lesson if it is thought that China has repudiated its claims against Russian
territory. Emmott says that despite an appearance of progress between the
two sides, as might seem plausible from the 2006 opening of a border crossing
for trade, it was in that same year that “the Chinese ambassador to Delhi
21
The Trilateral Commission was founded at the behest of David Rockefeller, head of
the banking and oil dynasty, as a think tank originally based on a merging of interests
between North America, Europe and Japan. The concept now embraces the entirety of the
Pacific Rim nations. It draws membership from the elite of business and politics. For
example, the Carter Administration had many Trilateralists, from Carter down. The
commission’s first director was Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security adviser, and
now foreign policy adviser for Democratic presidential nominee Obama. The Trilateral
Commission has expanded its membership to China.
22
Emmott Bill, Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will
Shape Our Next Decade (Allen Lane, 2008).
Russia's anxiety trades partly on an old fear that Chinese hordes are
itching to take back the resource-rich and under-populated regions of Siberia
that Russia annexed from Qing Dynasty China.
”The Russians are spooked by the idea you have 110 million people in
just three northern Chinese provinces and 6 to 7 million people in the
Russian Far East," says Bobo Lo, author of the forthcoming Axis Of
Convenience: Moscow, Beijing And The New Geopolitics. "They feel no
matter how sweet the political relationship, nature abhors a vacuum and
therefore as soon as China feels brave or confident enough to move into the
Far East, it will."
23
Emmott, ibid.
24
Garnaut J., “Russia on edge as China grows,” Sydney Morning Herald, June 9, 2008.
migrants settling on the Russian side of the border, thus changing the entire
ethnic composition of the region and putting its Russian identity in question.
Russia's demographic decline – to the tune of just under a million
citizens a year – is a constant theme in Putin's pronouncements. The
Russian president is desperately looking for ways to balance against a
possibly gathering Chinese threat.25 [Emphasis added].
China is presently taking over the Russian Far East by stealth, through
commerce. Tensions are arising, and one day will erupt. Where will the USA
stand? Other states in Asia will be drawn into such a conflict. India is
traditionally aligned to Russia, Pakistan to China.
Central Asia & Shanghai Cooperation Organization
A Voice of America analysis26 of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization provides some relevant background about Sino-Russian
relations, and alludes to the potential areas of strain and discord.
The parties to the Sino-Russian accord, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) formed in 1996, were first known as the "Shanghai
Five," bringing together Russia, China and three Central Asian states:
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, three countries sharing borders with
Russia or China or both. In 2001 the regional arrangement formally became
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Bobo Lo says Beijing is the driving force behind the SCO. He says that
being part of SCO allows China to expand its influence in Central Asia. He
states that being part of a regional co-operation organisation allows China to
portray itself as a responsible good neighbour, allowing Beijing to expand its
influence without suspicion. He considers the SCO as China’s creation.
Because of the SCO, China is in Central Asia able to do what what it most
probably couldn’t do through dealings with just Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Instead of “spooking” either of those smaller countries, China can act
through “a nice pan-regional context,” acting as a good regional and even
25
Trenin, Dmitri,”Pirouettes and priorities: distilling a Putin doctrine,” The National
Interest, Dec. 22, 2003. Trenin is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and Director of Studies at the Carnegie Moscow Center. The Carnegie
Endowment is a long-established globalist think tank influential in US ruling circles, along
with other inter-locking think tanks and Foundations, such as the CFR , Trilateral
Commission, Ford Foundation, et al.
26
de Nesnera Andre, Russia and China focus on Central Asia, Washington, 12 June
2008, Voice of America, http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/2008-06-13-
voa23.cfm
international citizen. Lo says “the Chinese see the SCO as a way of sanitizing
their entry into the region."27
De Nesnera writes that although Russia and China are presently in
accord over wishing to minimise US influence in Central Asia, both continue
to have their own ambitions that are even now coming under strain. He
quotes Columbia University’s Robert Legvold as pointing to at least a
temporary mutual deference: “In the most important respect, China is
deferential to Russia by not really challenging Russia's historically primary role
in the area. But because of the dynamism and strength and size of the
economy, inevitably the shadow of the Chinese economy in Central Asia is
growing and being felt by the Russians… And there is an uneasiness in
Russia about the sheer magnitude of growing Chinese economic influence in
the area”.28 [Emphasis added].
Bobo Lo indicates that the present Sino-Russian agreement regarding
the countering of the US presence in Central Asia is not going to obliterate
the historical roles both see themselves playing as the dominant power in the
region. De Nesnera cites Lo as saying that China and Russia “have very
different visions of what a post-American world order and particularly
regional order in Central Asia would look like. Russia really wants, in a way,
to return to the old status quo. Now it knows it cannot be the old Soviet
Union again, so it's not going to try that. But it still sees itself as the leading
power in the region. It has a sort of a sense of historical, strategic
entitlement… The Chinese, however, think they have just as much right to be
in the region. So they are actively, really actively, pushing their political,
security and, above all, economic interests in the region..29 Lo considers the
two nations direct competitors.
De Nesnera concludes that analysts will be watching to see what extent
the Russian and Chinese rivalry manifests itself in Central Asia:
Bobo Lo, in an interview with a Russian think tank called Open
Democracy, explained his perspective on Sino-Russian relations, which
provides further insight.30 The interview began with the the interviewer noting
that Bobo Lo does not believe that the Russian apprehension over a Chinese
27
Bobo Lo, op.cit.
28
de Nesnera, op.cit.
29
de Nesnera, ibid. Quoting Lo.
30
Bobo Lo, Russia-China: Axis of Convenience, 20 - 05 – 2008,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/user/511394
31
The purpose of Open Democracy Russia, as described on its website, is to engage in
debate about Russia’s place in the world. www.opendemocracy.net/russia/russia_about
32
George Soros, the currency speculator, operates an array of think tanks, fronts and
foundations across the world, aimed at breaking down traditional cultures and opening up
protected economies to globalisation. Agenda include liberalisation of abortion and drug
laws, for example. Generally operating under the Open Society Institute, Soros’ networks
played pivotal roles in undermining the Soviet bloc by backing Solidarity in Poland, and in
Czechoslovakia, for example, and are very active in the old Soviet Republics. Soros’ activities
include “training future leaders” through the “Internet Access and Training Program” in
Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Soros’
networks funded and organised the “colour revolutions” in Georgia and the Ukraine. (See
George Soros’ World Revolution: How the currency speculator funds New Left revolutions,
Renaissance Press, NZ). Soros was a major backer of Obama for the US presidency, along
with numerous other luminaries. Soros is investing heavily in China, along with the other US
global coporations; for example: Grand China Air, Chinese car manufacturing. During an
interview with the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Soros stated
that, . "I'm not looking for a worldwide recession. I'm looking for a significant shift of power
and influence away from the US in particular and a shift in favour of the developing world,
particularly China.":
(http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/previousdetail.php?id=125401, Bankock
Post, Jan. 23 2008.
the European part of Russia.” Even the Soviets considered the Far East “a
European outpost, not part of Asia.”
…It must be pointed out that Lo, contrary to Salisbury, does not believe
there will be a military confrontation between Russia and China, but does
nonetheless definitively state the underlying tension between the two. The
interviewer asks Lo, “Traditionally, the Russians have felt acutely threatened
by China. Is that diminishing in the light of the new economic opportunities
opening up in the Russian Far East?” In response, Lo repudiates the thesis
that there will be Russo-Chinese military conflict and the threat of invasion,
but rather states that the rivalry will take the form of geo-political and
realpolitikal manoeuvring. He believes that Russia will be increasingly
marginalized in the region’s and the world’s decision-making as China comes
to the fore. This favors China, making an invasion of Russia unnecessary,
especially since the Chinese believe they would lose in such a war. It is
noteworthy that Lo also thinks the Chinese will not want to take over the
Russian Far East demographically either, since the Chinese have long thought
of those areas as “a barbarian outland.”
Yet Lo does not deny the demographics that could see China’s excess
population seeking lebensraum at Russian expense, as China’s population
expands and Russia’s declines. While analysts such as Lo look in rationalistic
terms, they cannot deny that it is perception that is of significance, that
rational factors are not as significant to historical dynamics as the irrational,
the instinctual. He cites the common figure that northern China has 110
million people (and thinks it is probably more), while there are just 7 million
Russians to the east of Lake Baikal. The total populations of the two
countries are vastly different: 1.3 billion Chinese to 142 million Russians.
Moreover, the Chinese numbers are increasing, while the Russian are falling.
The Russians are fully conscious of the disparity.
Just the same, Lo says the Russians have a much better feeling toward
the Chinese than they did a few years ago. The result is paradoxical: China
ranks first among the countries friendly to Russia, but the average Russian
strongly opposes bringing in Chinese to ease Russia’s labour shortage. “At the
street level,” Lo says, “attitudes towards the Chinese remain
unreconstructed.”
When Lo turns his attention to the crucial role of Central Asia in the
relationship between Russia and China, he sees that they have very different
goals there. Russia sees it as a place to assert its regional leadership, whereas
China wants itself, Russia and the United States to constitute three “strategic
principals” there. China, after a couple of centuries of staying out of Central
Asia, “wants back in the game” – but inoffensively, especially toward
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. That is why it wants “to act under the cloak of
pan-regionalism,” such as under the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement. Note
that China is comfortable with an American presence in Central Asia. This is
very different from the Russian attitude. This would seem to go back to the
historical relationships between Russia, China and the USA.
What China primarily wants in Central Asia, Lo says, is peace and
stability, which will help quiet separatism in China, especially among the
Uighurs, who occupy Xinjiang province in far-western China. For such
stability, China cultivates ties with regional elites. It sees increased economic
interdepence as conducive to stability.
When Lo states that stability is the principal aim of the Chinese in
Central Asia, it appears that he is underestimating the potential for direct
confrontation between Russia and China, on the assumption that that
stability in Central Asia will endure indefinitely, aggravated by a myriad of
sources for conflict throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. Lo states that
the apparent Sino-Russia accord of the present is uneasy. He states that
China seeks to develop “new sources” for energy in Central Asia. It seems
reasonable, then, to ask whether there will be direct conflict between Russia
and China in that region over the question of resources and Chinese
incursions presently being undertaken by subtle means.
Lo continues by describing the contending nature of two pacts, that of
Shanghai (the SCO), and that of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation
(CSTO) created by Russia in 2002 (to which China isn’t a party) as basically
an an anti-Chinese alliance. The two pacts are in competition with each other.
According to Lo, China’s primary concerns are not in Central Asia, but
in the United States and the Asia-Pacific region, with the control of its sea-
lanes to oil sources. Elsewhere,Lo states that China’s military outlook is
presently being directed south, not toward the north. They’ve centered their
attention on building their fleet of Kilo submarines and Sovremennyy
destroyers so that they can both “project power” in the Pacific and the South
China Sea, and “protect the sea lanes through which 80% of their oil imports
pass.” Right now, China obtains about half of its oil from the Middle East,
another quarter from Africa, and the remainder from an assortment of other
countries. Trade for energy from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
are important to the diversification it seeks.
It has been hard for the Chinese to obtain energy from Russia. Russia
has supplied gas to Europe since 1967, mostly from Russia’s sources in
western Siberia, and receives top dollar from Europeans (as compared to the
Chinese’s constant pursuit of discounts). Accordingly, most of Russia’s
pipelines extend toward Europe, where it sees an expanding market. Europe
needs oil and gas, and Russia funds more than half of its federal budget from
the revenue.…
Later, Lo reiterates that he does not believe that there will be military
confrontation between Russia and China, and alludes to Russian paranoia.
Again this assumes that the insatiability of China in regard to resources, and
the potential for major crises in the entire region, will not develop beyond
economic rivalry and subtle demographic shifts to actual military conflict. We
have already seen border conflicts between Russia and China during the
1960s and 70s over ancient land disputes, at a time when both supposedly
shared a common ideology, and both supposedly stood against the capitalist
world. These appearances were deceptive. History rose above ideology.
He considers the Russians detached from reality in their “obsession with
the security of the Russian Far East” (RFE), since the Chinese hardly give
any military priority to the area. Further, he argues that the Chinese
leadership knows that China can best become a superpower through peace.
Military confrontation would likely bring a loss and the destruction of the
Communist government. The Chinese, he says, are pragmatic.
Despite rejecting the notion of a coming war between Russia and China
as per Salisbury, Lo definitively states that there will be tension arising
between Russia and China as the latter seeks to extend its influence into
Central Asia. He also sees Russia in alliance with Europe.
Russian Far East: Economic and Demographic Expansion
As seen from the above, China is pursuing its goals in Central Asia under
a facade of “good neighbourliness”. The same strategies are being pursued in
the Russian Far East. Despite the apparent accord between Russia and
China, from the high level diplomacy and trade, to commerce of Chinese
traders crowding out the markets of the Russian Far East, Putin, the architect
of Russo-Chinese relations, does not hide his concern about China.
Putin has warned for years about the demographic expansion of China
relative to the demographic decline of Russia:
President Vladimir V. Putin warned last year that the spread of Asian
influence in the Russian Far East placed Russia’s very existence at stake.
“If we don’t make concrete efforts,” he said, “the future local population
will speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean.”33
Russian gun emplacements are crumbling now but the invasion is under
way anyway: Chinese built the town’s few new apartments, China
Telecom connects the cellular phones, and Chinese traders hire busloads
of jobless Russians to tote Chinese-made clothes and electronics through
the Chinese-built border crossing. Maybe 1,000 of the 11,000 or so
residents are Chinese, too.
The inescapable impression, here and elsewhere in the region, is of a land
clinging tightly to its essential Russianness – and slowly losing its grip. Along
a stretch of Russian borderland as big as Western Europe, demographics,
economics and, for the first time, history are all working against Moscow.
[Emphasis added].
Wines states that the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the subsidies
the state had provided for the Far East, and the economic collapse has been
offset by China, worrying even those Russians – up to Putin – who had
sought a Russo-Chinese accord to counterbalance the USA. He says “Mr.
Putin’s fear is that Chinese economic expansion will crowd out Russian
33
Wines M., “Chinese Creating a New Vigor in Russian Far East,” NY Times,
September 23, 2001.
34
Wines, ibid.
commerce and political power unless Moscow repopulates and rebuilds this
ravaged region first. But precious few Russians want to move here, and
money for rebuilding is scarce.”
In a brilliant strategy of psychological warfare aimed at wooing Russians
into embracing Chinese overlordship, the Chinese have built a model city,
albeit one that does not reflect the reality of the Chinese peasant. Wines
writes that Russians in Zabaikalsk see a delightful city right across the border,
and that a ten minute drive further into China brings one to the city of
Manshouli, today “a forest of skyscapers” that serves as “a staging area for
Russian trade.”
Russian Far East: China’s Lebensraum
What more glaring admission can there be that China has designs on
Russian territory that have not diminished since the Sino-Russian friendship
treaty, but rather have received new impetus via the supposed Sino-Russian
rapport? The lands and oil of the Russian Far East beckon. Chinese farmers
presently rent and cultivate land in the Russian Far East due to the shortage
of land in China.
In the Primorsky Krai35 region, some 30,000 Chinese have permanent
residence. The region is a disputed territory, with rich land that was not
cultivated until the arrival of Russians in the beginning of the 17 th Century.
Treaties in 1858 and 1860 moved the Russian border south to the Amur
and Ussuri Rivers (which were to become sites of conflict during the 1960s
and 70s), giving Russia possession of the region.
Primorsky Krai's economy is the most successful in the Russian Far East.
Food production is the most important sector, particulartly fish
processing. The annual catch constitutes one half of the Russian Far East
total. Agriculture is important, and includes the production of rice, milk, eggs,
and vegetables.Grain, soybeans, potatoes, and vegetables are the prime
elements in agriculture.. The breeding of livestock, especially sheep, is well
developed. The timber industry has an annual yield of about 3 million cubic
meters and is the second largest in the Russian Far East.
Machine manufacturing is the second most important element of the
economy, and half of the output is to service the fishing industry and
shipyards.. The construction materials industry supplies the whole Russian
35
Russian Maritime Province.
Far East.
The region generates more electricity than any other Russian Far East
administrative division.
The defence industry is also important; with naval vessels and military
aircraft production.
The railway infrastructure is twice the Russian average, and is connected
with China and North Korea
The coastal location makes the region an important maritime trade and
defence route into the Pacific. Primorsky Krai-based shipping companies
provide 80% of marine shipping services in the Russian Far East.36
Primorsky Krai is the largest coal producer in the Russian Far East.
Among the other minerals found here are: tin, tungsten, lead, zinc, silver,
gold, fluorspar ore (containing rare minerals such as beryllium, lithium,
tantalum and niobium), and Russia’s largest supply of boron ore (boron
being used in textiles, aerospace materials, smelting, control of fission in
nuclear reactors, rocket fuels, jet engines, and hundreds of others uses)37 .38
As the Russian Far East becomes increasing reliant on Chinese
investment and as the Chinese population expands and the Russian declines,
a future food-population crisis in China could see the Russian Far East as
China’s lebensraum to be taken by force. The Russian Maritime Region,
Primorsky Krai, is a rich prize in both land and minerals. Tibet was invaded,
colonised and turned into a “special economic zone” by China for the
control of the many mineral resources there and the water sources for much
of Asia. In any one of a number of crisis scenarios that could afflict China and
Asia generally, the Russian Far East would be irresistible.
Treaty with Mongolia Aimed at Russia
China sees Mongolia as an integral part of its territory, despite present
declarations about “good neighbourliness”. Mongolia has long been coveted
by China. Mongolia’s historic relations with Russia have been to offset China.
China has in recent years displaced Russia in Mongolia, which was
previously a Soviet protectorate. China is pursuing its integration of Mongolia
via diplomatic means. The friendship treaty with Mongolia can only be
36
Primorsky Krai, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primorsky_Krai
37
Boron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron
38
Natural resources of Primorsky Krai:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Primorsky_Krai
The Soviet control of Mongolia was secured under the humiliating 1950
Sino-Soviet treaty, and Elleman states, accordingly, that Soviet control of
Mongolia was one of the ongoing contentions between Russia and China. He
39
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peoples Republic of China, I.” Sino-Mongolian Relations
in Brief,” http://chinese-embassy.org.za/eng/wjb/zzjg/yzs/gjlb/2742/default.htm
40
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peoples Republic of China, II Political Relations,
http://chinese-embassy.org.za/eng/wjb/zzjg/yzs/gjlb/2742/default.htm
Mongolia, like Tibet, is mineral rich. Its wealth includes: coal, copper,
molybdenum, iron, phosphates, tin, nickel, zinc, wolfram, fluorspar, gold,
uranium, and petroleum. Mongolia is a rich prize; one that has been lost to
Russia.
41
Elleman B., op.cit.
42
Bolton K. R., The Menace of China in the Pacific, Renaissance Press, 2004.
43
Appendix I The Coming War in Asia.
44
Yermukanov, Marat, “China obstructs River Management Talks with Kazakhstan,”
February 17, 2006 Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation,
http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370793.
The Jamestown Foundation is a US-based think tank specialising in the analysis of the
affairs of the republics of the former USSR, and is staffed by academic specialists. Eurasia
Daily Monitor is the Foundation’s publication. Marat Yermukanov is a journalist working for
the Russian-language private newspaper Panorama Nedely in Petropavlovsk, North
Kazakhstan.
While Bobo Lo states that China has entered the Shanghai accord with
Russia and Central Asian republics to secure its aims while appearing to be a
‘good neighbour’, Yermukanov reports that China has shown its aggressive
hand in its determination to secure the water resources of Central Asia and
Russia. By building a canal between the Black Irtysh and the Karamai River
in China, the Chinese “dramatically lowered the water level in the river” and
adversely impacted crop production in East Kazakhstan, Pavlodar and
Karaganda. As for Russia, Yermukanov explains the ominous implications:
“Such a move could also cause a severe drought in Russia's wheat-growing
Omsk region.”
Yermukanov states that local Russian authorities are in disagreement in
regard to the practicability of negotiations with China. However, it would
seem reasonable to conclude that those who are holding out the prospect of
negotiated settlements are merely verbalising hopes rather than likelihoods.
Although one official said the Chinese were willing to resume talks, this was
contradicted by the governor of the Omsk region in Russia, who said the
Chinese declined to negotiate a political solution to the Irtysh River dispute.
Yermukanov cites the pessimism of Sinologists in regard to China’s
willingness to negotiate other than for the purpose of stalling: “Experts
familiar with the state of affairs on the Chinese side are less optimistic about
Beijing's resolve to solve the problem of water resources in the Irtysh-Ili basin
without dragging out the talks endlessly.”
China has already begun giant projects on both the Ili and Irtysh Rivers,
and plans others, in what appears to be a disregard for the ‘good
neighbourliness’ and the aim of maintaining stability in Central Asia that
Bobo Lo contends is putting brakes on open conflict between China and its
Russian and Central Asian neighbours. Yermukanov states that the
Kazakhstan Government is not even fully aware of the situation, with some
of the hydroelectric installations not being revealed to it by the Chinese.
Yermukanov refers to the industrialisation of northwestern China’s
polluting of Lake Balkhash, and to the depletion of the Irtysh and Ili Rivers
by the increased food production in Xingjiang Uighur. He points to Chinese
mismanagement, and to the refusal of China to sign an agreement on shared
water resources. “According to the latest data, as a result of mismanagement
the annual loss of water in the Chinese section of the Ili River basin makes
up 4.4 cubic kilometres, which equals 15% of the whole water resources of
the river. That reduces substantially the amount of water inflow into Lake
Balkhash. The root cause of the problem is that until now China had not
signed the international convention on trans-border waters.…”
Further, Yermukanov ominously points to the ethnic dynamics of the
region, which he states could lead to violence. The Chinese are changing the
demographics of the region with Chinese ethnic incursions, in the name of
peaceful commerce. Yermukanov also reveals that China has territorial
designs on Kazakhstan. While Bobo Lo maintains that China is too
pragmatic and has too much to lose to continue pressing its territorial claims
on Russia as it did under Mao, its present designs on Kazakh lands give
reason for thought in regard to whether it has indeed forgone its ambitions in
regard to Russia. Yermukanow says the Kazakhs are ever more apprehensive
about the speed the Xingjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is being
developed, with a dozens of ethnicities on the border creating a densely
populated area for which there is a shortage of water. The Kazakhs are also
concerned because China still persists with claims against the territory of some
parts of southern Kazakhstan. Some maps and school texts show those parts
as Chinese territory.
In contradistinction to Bobo Lo’s references to China’s façade of ‘good
neighbourliness,’ Yermukanov states that China has held such principles ‘in
contempt’ in regard to the life-and-death survival issue of water resources. He
points out that Russia has yet to initiate a common front with Central Asia in
regard to China. However, this must eventuate as China’s continuing
encroachments on Central Asian water sources will directly and significantly
impact on Russia.
The crucial issue of water resources is a factor that Bobo Lo, for all his
perceptiveness, seems to have overlooked, and one that has significant
potential for armed conflict.
Sino-U.S. Confrontation Unlikely
In 1951, General Douglas MacArthur wrote:
There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China.
They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with
unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier
war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that
means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like
blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands
until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.45
What of the US factor in Asian and Sino-Russian affairs? Will the USA
step in and confront China, which is often seen as a geo-political rival in its
ambition to secure ports and waterways around the world? Would the USA
confront China in a showdown over Taiwan? Would the USA, perhaps in
alliance with Russia, confront Chinese incursions into Central Asia?
Any confrontation between the USA and China is unlikely. In a
confrontation between Russia and China, the USA will not intervene against
China any more than the USA was willing to assist Russia in preventing
China’s gaining nuclear capabilities.
The US attitude is unlikely to have changed from 1982 when US
National Security Adviser William Clark told Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser that Australia “would be expected to cope alone with any
local or regional conflict.” The exception would be if the USSR were
supporting an aggressive state. But China was regarded as an ally against
Russia.46 In 1983 Paul Wolfowitz, more latterly US Deputy Secretary of
Defence and president of the World Bank, when US Assistant Secretary for
East Asia and Pacific Affairs, told Chinese Premier Zhao that the US
“welcomed China’s increasing and stabilising influence in the region, which he
described as one of the more dramatic recent shifts in power play in south-
east Asia.”47
Over the course of several decades since 1983, the role of China has
certainly become far more “dramatic”.
The same business and political elites that governed the USA back then
are still running things. Their outlook towards China has been friendly since
the deposing the Chiang. As paradoxical as it appears, the USA was as
insistent that Chiang deal with the Communists, as Stalin was in regard to
Mao compromising with Chiang.48 As we have seen, it was Mao who rebuffed
the USA in favour of a debilitating treaty with the USSR.
When Mao dramatically repudiated the 1950 ‘friendship treaty’ with
Russia, he signalled by the invasion of Vietnam that he sought an alliance
45
MacArthur, Gen. Douglas, “Farewell Address to Congress,” April 19, 1951
46
The Dominion, May 29 1982.
47
Evening Post, May 3, 1983.
48
Chang and Halliday, op.cit. ch. “Saved by Washington”, 304-311.
with the USA. This was the culmination of a long-desired aim of political and
business elites in the USA, particularly those associated with the Rockefeller
banking and oil dynasty.
Chang and Halliday state that Mao had sought an alliance with the USA
as far back as 1953, when Stalin died. However, the Korean War had made
such a relationship impossible to sell to the American people. In 1969
President Nixon expressed interest in pursuing relations with China.49
It was in Korea that the USA was directly confronted by China. The
reaction was a telegram from the Joint Chiefs of Staff advising Gen.
MacArthur to prepare to evacuate and leave the peninsula to the
Communists. As the document shows, the USA was well aware that China
had directly entered the conflict.50
MacArthur considered the American policy “defeatist” and made four
recommendations:
(1) Blockade the coast of China; (2) destroy through naval gunfire and
air bombardment China's industrial capacity to wage war; (3) secure
reinforcements from the Nationalist Chinese garrison in Formosa to
strengthen our position in Korea if we decided to continue the fight for
that peninsula; and (4) release existing restrictions upon the Formosa
garrison for diversionary action against vulnerable areas of the Chinese
mainland.51
49
Chang & Halliday, ibid. 601.
50
Joint Chiefs of Staff telegram to General Douglas MacArthur, December 1950.
www.cresswellslist.com/ballots2/hst_maca.htm
51
General MacArthur to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, December 1950
had a keen interest in China since the 1920s. In 1956 John D Rockefeller
founded the Asia Society, a high-level think tank of politicians, diplomats
and business leaders, to promote economic relations with Asia.5253
The importance of Kissinger for the Rockefeller family is indicated by
the introduction he was given by ambassador Richard Holbrooke to the 50 th
anniversary gala banquet of the Asia Society honouring the Rockefellers:
To discuss the Rockefeller Legacy, not just John D. Rockefeller III, but
the whole family, there really was only one person who could do it, and
that was Henry Kissinger. Henry has been a friend of the Rockefeller
family as you all know, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, David
Rockefeller, and the rest of the family, so many of whom are here
tonight, for fifty years. He also has a very strong and deep connection to
Asia. We all know that he was the main architect of the historic opening
to China, which has resulted in so many positive achievements, and
remains one of the most complicated, if not the most complicated,
bilateral relationship we have in the world. Henry has been very gracious
to join us tonight, and I have no other duty here except to invite to the
stage former Secretary of State, Nobel Peace Prize winner, our friend,
Asia Society’s friend, Henry Kissinger.54
52
Asia Society Gala 50th anniversary dinner speeches:
http://www.asiasociety.org/support/specialevents/anniversary_dinner/galaspeeches.html
53
Other Rockefeller think tanks followed, the most important being the Trilateral
Commission, which staffed the Carter Administration, from Carter down. The Trilateral
Commission was founded specifically for the purpose of drawing the economies of America,
Europe and Asia together. Trilateralists were also to play a key role in fostering relations
with China. David Rockefeller, speaking at the Asia Society gala, alludes to his role in
developing Sino-American relations, in association with the Trilateral Commission: “Ever
since, for example, I had the good fortune to meet in 1973 with Prime Minister Zhou En-lai
and subsequently with Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin in connection with the Trilateral
Commission.”
54
Asia Society Gala 50th anniversary dinner speeches, op.cit.
55
Chang & Halliday, ibid. 602.
56
However, a united Vietnam within the Soviet orbit was not in China’s interests.
57
Chang & Halliday, ibid. 604-605.
58
Ibid., 612.
59
Ibid. 613.
be delayed a few years by the Watergate scandal which forced Nixon from
office, and resumed under the Trilateralist-dominated Carter Administration.
Carter’s Trilateralist Administration Develops Ties with China
This writer has outlined the development of relations between the USA
and China in the context of a growing military and diplomatic offensive in the
South Pacific. In The Menace of China in the Pacific60 I describe the
continuation of US-China relations under the Carter Administration, in the
aftermath of the Nixon-Kissinger regime. The Rockefeller influence, in this
instance via the Trilateral Commission, remained:
The “normalisation of relations” between the USA and China came in
1978 under the Carter Administration. Pres. Carter’s was a Trilateral
regime.
Previous groundwork had been undertaken during the Nixon
Administration through the so-called “Ping Pong diplomacy” of
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger…
After Kissinger had made the preliminary arrangements, Pres. Nixon
travelled to China in 1972.
In 1973 David Rockefeller went to China… [and] waxed lyrical about the
Mao regime writing: “The social experiment in China under Chairman
Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human
history…”61
David Rockefeller’s Standard Oil obtained exclusive rights to China’s oil
exploration; his Chase Manhattan Bank to industrial finance.
When in 1978 Taiwan was dumped and diplomatic relations formally
established under the Carter Trilateralist regime, Leonard Woodcock, an
early member of the Trilateral Commission, became first US
Ambassador to China. Apart from the Rockefeller interests, other early
globalist corporations whose chief executives were Trilateralists
included: Coca Cola, given the soft drink monopoly (J Paul Austin, a
backer of Carter), Boeing Aircraft (T A Wilson), and Mitsui Petro-
Cehmical (Yoshizo Ikeda). …
Japanese Trilateralists were also heavily involved with early dealings in
China. Mitsubishi (whose chairman Chujiro Funjino was chairman of the
Japanese Trilateral Commission Executive Committee) got the contract
60
Bolton, K R, The Menace of China in the Pacific, Renaissance Press, Wellington,
New Zealand 2004, 18-19.
61
Rockefeller D., “From a China Traveller,” NY Times, Aug. 10, 1973.
Today, global business in China is such that China Business World has
over 1000 listings of US companies just in Beijing and Shanghai
When in 2006 the US Labour organisation AFL-CIO petitioned the
Bush Administration to place economic restrictions on China in regard to
China’s labour laws, this was directly opposed by a united front of big
business associations. Their letter to Pres Bush is instructive in regard to the
continuing pro-China attitude prevalent among influential business identities.
Among the 14 signatories are: Business Round Table, Emergency Committee
for American Trade, National Foreign Trade Council, US Council for
International Business, US Chamber of Commerce, US-China Business
62
Antony Sutton, Trilaterals Over Washington, Arizona, 1978. Sutton was a research
Fellow with the Hoover Inst.
63
Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise & Fall of the American Empire, Penguin, Britain,
2004. Ferguson is Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern School of Business, NY
University, Snr. Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and Snr Fellow of the Hoover
Institution, Stanford.
Council.64 They called on Bush to reject the AFL-CIO petition to the Office
of the US Trade Representative. The attitude of one of their number,
Thomas J. Donohue, CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, was expressed
before a 2004 conference of the Asia Society: “The China genie is out of the
bottle, and there’s no putting him back – nor would we want to even if we
could.” ”65
One of the most interesting personalities of the US (globalist) elite whose
activities are intrinsically bound up with China is Nicholas Rockefeller. He is
of particular interest because in 2006 he unsuccessfully attempted to recruit
award-winning Hollywood director and documentary filmmaker Aaron
Russo to the Council on Foreign Relations, with the promise of being part of
an elite that rules what he calls “the serfs”.66 His revelations about how the
globalists seek world control, including the aim of microchipping the entire
population of the world’s “serfs,” embarrassed the global elite when Russo
exposed the discussions publicly.
This description of Nicholas Rockefeller by the Rockefeller dynasty’s
Asia Society indicates how important Nicholas is to the global business
hierarchy:
Nicholas Rockefeller is vice chairman and chief legal officer of the
RockVest Group of Investors and is involved in various banking and
commercial projects in China and worldwide.
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.
Nicholas’ China practice includes transactions with China’s largest banks,
64
Dated June 23, 2006.
65
http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/donohue04.html
66
Russo made his revelations on the Alex Jones (radio) Show in 2006, stating he was
first approached by Nicholas Rockefeller in 1999 because of his impact at the political level.
Russo, winner of Emmy Tony and Grammy Awards, was also a political activist, a
“constitutionalist” and “libertarian”; he died in 2007. See:
jonesreport.com/article/05_09/29russo.html
It seems that the business elite in the USA is intrinsically bound up with
the interests of China’s economic expansion. It can be said that trade relations
and investment by US corporations in Nazi Germany did not prevent war
between the two, or that the blood kinships between the royal families of
Europe did not prevent World Wart I. Therefore, the economic symbiosis
presently existing between the USA and China is not necessarily sufficient per
se to prevent the possibility of future confrontation between the USA and
China.
The factors are quite different on several levels. There is no powerful
lobby with a vested interest in war with China. Despite certain business
contacts between China and Germany68, the Third Reich was fundamentally
at odds with the international banking and trade system, with its policies of
state credit and barter69. China, on the other hand, is an intrinsic, indeed
pivotal, part of the world economic system. There is no entangling treaty or
alliance system that would see the USA confronting China in support of any
other country. As we have seen, the USA will not confront China over
Taiwan. China’s control over Tibet has made the country a ‘special economic
zone’, which allows global business to exploit Tibet’s mineral wealth; so there
is a convergence of interest there.
The USA sees Russia as a potential threat to what the Russians call the
US’s “world hegemony”. As cited previously, China is willing to see the USA
share its sphere of influence in Central Asia, whereas the Russians are adverse.
Even now, without any real strategic threat, the USA challenges Russia by
67
http://www.nicholasrockefeller.net/rand_dinner/
68
Higham C., Trading with the enemy: how the allied multinationals supplied Nazi
Germany throughout World War II, Robert Hale, London, 1983.
69
For one of the few explanations on how Nazi Germany’s banking and state credit
system operated, see Bertram De Colonna, European correspondent for NZ businessman,
baking reformer and philanthropist Henry Kelliher’s Mirror magazine, “The Truth about
Germany,” The Mirror, Auckland, NZ, April, 1938. This is quoted at length in Bolton, K R.,
The Banking Swindle, Spectrum Press, NZ, 2000. The policy was basically similar to that of
the 1935 First NZ Labour Govt., which used 1% Reserve Bank state credit to fund its famous
State Housing programme.
70
RIA Novosti, Moscow, “Russia says U.S. missile shield will harm European security”,
July 15, 2008. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080715/114016639.html For a Russian response
threatening to deploy nuclear bombers in Cuba and Venezuela,see Appendix II attached.
71
The Western folk soul is “faustian”, looking starward, into infinity. The Russian soul
looks towards the horizon; its expansive outlook is land-bound. See Spengler, Oswald, The
Decline of the West, Allen & Unwin, London, 1971, Vol. II 192-196; 295, n.1
72
However, the Chinese ideological offensive among the colonial peoples and even
among Communist parties throughout the world made little headway. See Jung & Halliday,
op.cit.
Russia is caught between East and West. When confronted by the East,
Russia plays a vanguard role for Europe. An example was the Russo-Japanese
War of 1905. However, this was also an example of the USA’s sabotaging
Russia.73
The inevitable impress of geo-politics on the relations between Russia
and China prompted the popular Gaullist scholar and journalist Dr Peter
Scholl-Latour to write:
…Despite her commitment to back ideological crackpots and charlatans
in the Third World, Moscow will inevitably end up leading the white
vanguard of Europe in Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East. As de
Gaulle once prophesied, ‘the Russians will find out one day they are
whites too.’ 74
73
Japan was funded in its war against Russia by the prominent US banker Jacob Schiff,
senior partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., while the First National Bank and National City Bank
sponsored Japanese war loans in the USA. Schiff was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun in
Japan by Emperor Meiji for his efforts.
74
Scholl-Latour, Dr P., Death in the rice fields : an eyewitness account of Vietnam's
three wars, 1945-1979, St. Martins Press, NY, 1985. Scholl-Latour is a Franco-German
academic and journalist who spent many years in Africa and Indo-China.
75
C. Northcote Parkinson, the British historian, philosopher and novelist of Parkinson’s
Law Fame
76
.Parkinson, C. N., East & West, John Murray, London, 1963, 264.
fortunate that the Russians had not been corrupted into decadence, still
possessing the sturdy stock of peasants and soldiers who could stem the tide
of aggression from Asia.77
Parkinson alludes to the belief in Victorian Britain that Russia was an
‘Asian power’, and among more recent observers that Russia had gone to the
‘Asian camp’ when it became Communist. However, Parkinson – rightly as
history shows – saw the USSR as still substantially part of Europe, despite
pragmatic policies that might turn to Asia temporarily. He observed that
although the Soviet Union might proclaim itself ‘Asian’ as part of a strategy,
“words cannot alter facts”. He cites the Russian aggressiveness in the Far
East, and in being foremost among the European Powers in suppressing the
1900 Boxer Rebellion78, something that continued to perturb the Chinese in
Mao’s time, which, as cited previously, considered the USSR as a European
imperialistic continuation of Czarist Russia.
Parkinson concludes that, “As against China, [Russia] is the new
Byzantium. The Russians have no more reason than the Byzantines to
sacrifice themselves in defence of the West. But what else can they do? The
alternative is to see the Chinese at Irkutsk, at Krzsnoyarsk, at Omsk, or
Magnitogorsk…”79 This is precisely the scenario unfolding today.
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Wines M., “Chinese Creating a New Vigor in Russian Far East,” NY Times, September
23, 2001.
Internet Sources:
Asia Society Gala 50th anniversary dinner speeches,
http://www.asiasociety.org/support/specialevents/anniversary_dinner/galaspeeches.html
Bobo Lo, Russia-China: Axis of Convenience, 20 - 05 – 2008,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/user/511394
Boron entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron
de Nesnera Andre, “Russia and China focus on Central Asia,” Washington, 12 June
2008, Voice of America:
http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/2008-06-13-voa23.cfm
Elleman Bruce, “Sino-Soviet Relations and the February 1979 Sino-Vietnamese
Conflict,” 20 April 1996:
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/elleviet.html
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peoples Republic of China
http://chinese-embassy.org.za/eng/wjb/zzjg/yzs/gjlb/2742/default.htm
“Natural resources of Primorsky Krai,”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Primorsky_Krai
Paracelspratlyislands.blogspot.com
“Primorsky Krai,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primorsky_Krai
Rockefeller, N. http://www.nicholasrockefeller.net/rand_dinner/
Soros G., (http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/previousdetail.php?id=125401,
Bangkok Post, Jan. 23 2008.
Yermukanov, Marat, “China obstructs River Management Talks with Kazakhstan,”
February 17, 2006 : Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation,
http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370793.
Further Reading:
The Menace of China in the Pacific, K R Bolton, Renaissance Press.