Siberia

It is the Americans' intention to cut off China's access to their present African oil markets, cut off their current main source of supply from Iran, encourage them to go North and provoke a nuclear war with Russia.

That's what this explosion in China could well be about - that's being reported as an explosion at a petroleum refinery.

"The Sino-Soviet split was one of the key events of the Cold War, equal in importance to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Second Vietnam War, and Sino-American rapprochement. The split helped to determine the framework of the Second Cold War in general, and influenced the course of the Second Vietnam War in particular."

- Lorenz M. Lüthi

Siberia - "Why are the United States and China plotting to take over Siberia?" 

from Spike EP on Vimeo.

"The Polish-American intellectual Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was US President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor and an architect behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, has actually advocated for the destruction of Russia through gradual disintegration and devolution. He has stipulated that «a more decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization».

In other words, if the US divides Russia up, Moscow would not be able to challenge Washington. In this context, he states the following: «A loosely confederated Russia—composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic—would find it easier to cultivate closer economic regulations with Europe, with the new states of Central Asia, and with [East Asia], which would thereby accelerate Russia’s own development».

These views are not merely constrained to some academic’s ivory tower or to detached think-tanks. They have the backing of governments and have even cultivated adherents. One reflection of them is below.

US State-Owned Media Forecasts the Balkanization of Russia

Dmytro Sinchenko published an article on September 8, 2014 about dividing Russia. His article is titled «Waiting for World War III: How the World Will Change». 

Sinchenko was involved in EuroMaidan and his organization, the Ukrainian Initiative «Statesmen Movement» (Всеукраїнської ініціативи «Рух державотворців»), advocates for an ethnic nationalism, the territorial expansion of Ukraine at the expense of most the bordering countries, reinvigorating the pro-US Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova (GUAM) Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, joining NATO, and launching an offensive to defeat Russia as part of its foreign policy goals. 

As a note, the inclusion of the word democracy in GUAM should not fool anyone; GUAM, as the inclusion of the Republic of Azerbaijan proves, has nothing to do with democracy, but with counter-balancing Russia in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Sinchenko’s article starts by talking about the history of the «Axis of Evil» phrase that the US has used to vilify its enemies. It talks about how George W. Bush Jr. coined the phrase in 2002 by grouping Iraq, Iran, and North Korea together, how John Bolton expanded the Axis of Evil to include Cuba, Libya, and Syria, how Condoleezza Rice included Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar (Burma), and then finally he proposes that Russia be added to the list as the world’s main pariah state. He even argues that the Kremlin is involved in all the conflicts in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa, Ukraine, and Southeast Asia. He goes on to accuse Russia of planning to invade the Baltic States, the Caucasus, Moldova, Finland, Poland, and, even more ridiculously, two of its own close military and political allies, Belarus and Kazakhstan. As the article’s title implies, he even claims that Moscow is intentionally pushing for a third world war.

This fiction is not something that has been reported in the US-aligned corporate networks, but is something that has been published directly by US government-owned media. The forecast was published by the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been a US propaganda tool in Europe and the Middle East that has helped topple governments.

Chillingly, the article tries to sanitize the possibilities of a new world war. Disgustingly ignoring the use of nuclear weapons and the massive destruction that would erupt for Ukraine and the world, the article misleadingly paints a cozy image of a world that will be corrected by a major global war. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the author are essentially saying that «war is good for you» to the Ukrainian people and that some type of utopian paradise will emerge after a war with Russia.

The article also fits very nicely into the contours of Brzezinski’s forecast for Russia, Ukraine, and the Eurasian landmass. It forecasts the division of Russia whereas Ukraine is a part of an expanded European Union, which includes Georgia, Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Israel, Lebanon, and Denmark’s North American dependency of Greenland, and also controls a confederation of states in the Caucasus and the Mediterranean Sea—the latter could be the Union for the Mediterranean, which would encompass Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and the Moroccan-occupied Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or Western Sahara. Ukraine is presented as an integral component of the European Union. In this regard, Ukraine appears to be situated in a US-aligned Franco-German-Polish-Ukrainian corridor and Paris-Berlin-Warsaw-Kiev axis that Brzezinski advocated for creating in 1997, which Washington would use to challenge the Russian Federation and its allies in the CIS. 

The Soviet Union was on the brink of launching a nuclear attack against China in 1969 and only backed down after the US told Moscow such a move would start World War Three, according to a Chinese historian.

The extraordinary assertion, made in a publication sanctioned by China's ruling Communist Party, suggests that the world came perilously close to nuclear war just seven years after the Cuban missile crisis.

Liu Chenshan, the author of a series of articles that chronicle the five times China has faced a nuclear threat since 1949, wrote that the most serious threat came in 1969 at the height of a bitter border dispute between Moscow and Beijing that left more than one thousand people dead on both sides.

He said Soviet diplomats warned Washington of Moscow's plans "to wipe out the Chinese threat and get rid of this modern adventurer," with a nuclear strike, asking the US to remain neutral.

But, he says, Washington told Moscow the United States would not stand idly by but launch its own nuclear attack against the Soviet Union if it attacked China, loosing nuclear missiles at 130 Soviet cities. The threat worked, he added, and made Moscow think twice, while forcing the two countries to regulate their border dispute at the negotiating table.

He quotes Soviet ministers and diplomats at the time to bolster his claim.

On 15 October 1969, he quotes Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin as telling Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that Washington has drawn up "detailed plans" for a nuclear war against the USSR if it attacked China.

"[The United States] has clearly indicated that China's interests are closely related to theirs and they have mapped out detailed plans for nuclear war against us," Kosygin is said to have told Brezhnev.

That same day he says Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, told Brezhnev something similar after consultations with US diplomats. "If China suffers a nuclear attack, they (the Americans) will deem it as the start of the third world war," Dobrynin said. "The Americans have betrayed us."

The historian claims that Washington saw the USSR as a greater threat than China and wanted a strong China to counter-balance Soviet power. Then US President Richard Nixon was also apparently fearful of the effect of a nuclear war on 250,000 US troops stationed in the Asia-Pacific region and still smarting from a Soviet refusal five years earlier to stage a joint attack on China's nascent nuclear programme.

The claims are likely to stir debate about a period of modern history that remains mired in controversy.

Mr Liu, the author, admits his version of history is likely to be contested by rival scholars. It is unclear whether he had access to special state archives but the fact that his articles appeared in such an official publication in a country where the media is so tightly controlled is being interpreted by some as a sign that he did have special access.

China to send 700 combat troops to South Sudan

China is to send 700 combat troops to South Sudan in what analysts describe as a significant shift from its stated policy of non-interference in African conflicts.

The first Chinese infantry battalion to take part in a UN peacekeeping mission will be equipped with drones, armoured carriers, antitank missiles, mortars and other weapons, “completely for self-defence purpose”, state media reported.

China is Africa’s biggest trade partner but has taken an arm’s length approach to the continent’s myriad of political and military disputes. But it has been unusually proactive in diplomatic efforts to pacify South Sudan, where it has invested heavily but where civil war has slashed oil production by a third.

Richard Poplak, an author and journalist studying Beijing’s influence on the continent, said: “This does seem to announce a new era in the way China is engaging with Africa. It runs contrary to China’s foreign policy of, ‘We don’t interfere’. It’s an enormous renunciation of that.”

Poplak, who has visited 18 African countries including South Sudan for a forthcoming book, added: “It comes down to interest. The Chinese have poured billions and billions into South Sudan, so many resources that it’s almost baffling. This is a shift in realpolitik: you can’t just talk all the time and not carry a big stick. The Chinese have realised that.”

China is the biggest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN security council and currently has more than 2,000 posted around the world. But nearly all are engineers, medical and transport workers and security guards.

Poplak said it has previously sent small contingents of elite troops to Mali and South Sudan to guard its personnel but that the new infantry battalion would be of a different order.

However, China would still have far less military presence in Africa than other major powers, at least for the time being, he said. “I don’t think they will be anything as visible or machinelike as France or America but they’ve realised that as well as white hats they need blue hats.

“It’s not possible for anyone here or anyone in Beijing to say where this ends. It’s a precedent and any precedent is a dangerous precedent.”

A rally for the departing Chinese battalion was held on Monday in the city of Laiyang, Shandong province, according to the official Xinhua news agency. An initial contingent of 180 soldiers will fly to South Sudan next month, with the rest of the battalion following in March.

“The 700-strong infantry battalion included 121 officers and 579 soldiers. Forty-three members have participated in peacekeeping missions before. An infantry squad composed of 13 female soldiers will participate in a peacekeeping mission for the first time,” Xinhua reported.

The UN has more than 11,000 peacekeepers in South Sudan, which became independent from Sudan in 2011. Oil accounts for more than 90% of the new country’s foreign revenues.

Fighting broke out in December last year when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup. The fighting in the capital, Juba, set off a cycle of retaliatory massacres across large swaths of South Sudan, claiming thousands of lives and pushing the country to the brink of famine. Oil-producing regions have endured some of the worst violence.

The state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said last Sunday it had signed a deal with the government in Juba to increase production. The CNPC said it would use heavy oil recovery technologies in “stabilising and increasing crude output”.

On Monday, Ethiopia’s prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, said South Sudan’s leaders could face punitive sanctions from their neighbours as a “last resort” if peace talks fail to end the war. Negotiations in Addis Ababa have led to several ceasefire deals but each has been violated within hours.

A 2011 report by the NGO Saferworld found that, despite its stated neutrality, China is gradually using diplomatic means to push for the resolution of certain conflicts. It also said the Asian power is becoming a major supplier of conventional arms to African states and has increased its contributions to UN peacekeeping missions twentyfold since 2000, with the majority based in Africa.

China's motive in South Sudan? - Al Jazeera English

China may be Africa's biggest trade partner, but it has generally taken an arms length approach to the continent's conflicts and domestic difficulties.

China is now committing 700 combat troops to South Sudan to help bring peace to the world's newest nation. And on Monday, it sent Wang Yi, the foreign minister, to help mediate talks between South Sudan's warring factions.

China has invested billions of dollars in South Sudan, particularly in its oil production.

However, Yi rejects accusations that China has its own agenda. Speaking during talks across the border in Sudan's capital Khartoum, he said: "China's mediation of South Sudan issues is completely the responsibility and duty of a responsible power, and not because of China's own interests."

Fighting began in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup.

Oil-producing regions have endured some of the worst violence, with output drastically reduced.

So can China help bring peace to South Sudan? Can it work with both sides? And are there underlying motives for China's involvement?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Joseph Ochieno - writer for the New African magazine and commentator on African affairs.

Sanusha Naidu - specialist in African international relations and the rise of emerging powers in Africa.

Source: Al Jazeera