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[Zmeselo]

Top German wolf warrior wants China to end war the West sponsors

It’s unlikely Annalena Baerbock will convince Beijing during her visit to toe the line of Washington, Nato and force Moscow to capitulate in Ukraine


Alex Lo

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/ar ... t-sponsors

14 Apr, 2023

When a former peacenik makes a religious conversion to American-style neoconservative interventionism, she can be more gung-ho than your average Pentagon general.

Here we have Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s warrior foreign minister, who is going to Beijing to tell China to behave and follow instructions – or else.

China bears a special responsibility for world peace,

she said ahead of her trip.

The role that China plays with its influence vis‑a‑vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.

At the top of my agenda … is our interest in bringing the war on our European doorstep in Ukraine to a swift, lasting and just end.

I am sure she will find a receptive audience in Beijing by issuing a direct threat before starting her visit.



The leader of the Greens, the once peace-loving lefty party of Germany, Baerbock has openly declared that her country, along with Nato and the United States, is fighting a war against Russia.

This is what she said at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, on January 24:

We are fighting a war against Russia … We can fight this war only together.

Let me include the whole passage lest someone accuse me of quoting out of context:

Yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks. But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together, and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia, and not against each other.

Obviously, Ukraine needs more military support, but not only by one country like mine or the US, by all of us. We can fight this war only together.

The day after her speech, Berlin announced it was sending 14 cutting-edge Leopard 2 tanks – and would allow other countries to send theirs as well – to Ukraine. Earlier in January, she visited the front lines in eastern Ukraine to rally for more Western weapons.

So, let me wrap my head around her warning against China. The collective West has been sending endless weapons and military training, along with the provision of real-time intelligence on Russian troop movements and targets, but it is China’s responsibility to get Russia out of Ukraine.

Beijing has supplied no weapons or intelligence to Moscow’s war machine and is the only world power to have offered something that resembles a peace proposal.

Baerbock reminds me of an internet meme a while back:

Sorry, but I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

It seems she is so mesmerised by the awesomeness of her Churchillian war-rallying cries she can’t be bothered to gauge how she sounds to others.

She is probably too used to adulation and cheerleading –

Germany is waking up to its historic responsibility

blah, blah, blah – at Nato headquarters and in Washington.

Her country is now at the forefront of the European Union’s military resurgence, led by a former peacenik.

There is the minor problem, though, that most people in the EU want the war to end quickly by starting negotiations. According to a December poll conducted by the Project Europe Research of Szazadveg, a Hungarian think tank, an overwhelming 82 per cent of people in the EU agreed with the statement that

Russia and Ukraine should be forced into peace talks to end the war.

Somehow the majority voices don’t count in Europe – despite repeated surveys showing similar results and mass rallies across the continent – when it comes to prosecuting the war in Ukraine.

It’s hard not to conclude Baerbock’s China trip is more window-dressing to show Western warmongers like her are reasonable people, and it’s the Chinese who won’t play to the tunes of Washington and Nato to force Moscow to capitulate.

As a greenie, she might have helped Mother Earth by saving her trip and its carbon footprint from her state jet to China.

[Zmeselo]

Summers Sees 'Troubling' Signs of Fading US Influence

By: Chris Anstey

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ify%20wall

14 April 2023



Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned of “troubling” signs that the US is losing global influence as other powers align together and win favor among nations not yet aligned.

There’s a growing acceptance of fragmentation, and — maybe even more troubling — I think there’s a growing sense that ours may not be the best fragment to be associated with,

Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin.

Summers was speaking on the sidelines of the spring meeting of global finance chiefs in Washington, where the key theme has been a warning about “fragmentation” of the world economy as the US and rich-world allies aim to reshape supply chains away from China and other strategic competitors.

Somebody from a developing country said to me, ‘what we get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States is a lecture,’

said Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg TV.

Simultaneous to the spring meeting in Washington, hosted by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the president of Brazil — the world’s No. 12 economy — was visiting China, showcasing those two nations’ tightening relations.

The semiannual Washington confab also follows a shock move by Saudi Arabia, Russia and other members of the OPEC+ group to cut crude-oil output — complicating the task for the US, euro zone and other developed nations battling to rein in inflation.

Deepening links between the Middle East and Russia and China — which recently brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran — are

a symbol of something that I think is a huge challenge for the United States,

Summers said.

We are on the right side of history — with our commitment to democracy, with our resistance to aggression in Russia,

he said.

But it’s looking a bit lonely on the right side of history, as those who seem much less on the right side of history are increasingly banding together in a whole range of structures.

Washington will need to consider how to address this new challenge, he added. The structures of the IMF and World Bank will also be a key longer-term issue, he said.

If the Bretton Woods system is not delivering strongly around the world, there are going to be serious challenges and proposed alternatives.

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https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/04 ... dominance/






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