Putin's Trip to China

By Limari Navarrete-Bedford

Yesterday Russian Prime Minister and candidate for president Vladimir Putin, arrived in China at the invitation of Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao with the stated intention to boost economic ties. A developing partnership has been ongoing among the two nations for several years, with both expanding development into their vastly underdeveloped frontiers.

The day saw a string of new agreements for expanding trade between the two nations in raw resources. For instance, the Baikal Mining company which in cooperation with the the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China will develop one of the world’s largest copper fields in Udokan, containing 1.375 billion tonnes of ore and 19.95 million tonnes of copper. Another preliminary agreement was made between the Chinese Development bank and Vnesheconombank with a 1.5 billion loan to start production at Rusal’s Taishet Aluminum Smelter plant, which has a capacity of 750,000 tonnes. The most significant agreement, that of gas pricing has also been reached between Gazprom and Chinese national oil and gas company, as part of ongoing talks that have been taking place for over five years.

The Western press (if it covers this at all) chooses to highlight past differences between the two countries including cynical cultural criticisms, revealing the same makeshift line across the board. For instance from Time Magazine’s appropriately titled “Global Spin” blog from October 11th, Hannah Beech writes:

“Regular readers of stories from China's state-run Xinhua News Agency know that relations between China and nearly every country whose leader visits Beijing merit a positive appraisal.

‘Malawi treasures its friendship with China and is grateful for China's selfless support for Malawi's national development,’ gushed one Xinhua article last year...”

or from the webpage of “The Diplomat” which states:

“Despite much talk of the close relationship, the two countries appear to have little to show for it. While the energy agreement, still in talks after a decade, would make Russia China’s dominant energy supplier, it is currently supplying only 8 percent of China’s energy imports.”

They seem to be missing the past several years of growing strategic cooperation that have vastly accelerated in the recent months. So much for recent history!

The reality is that the current global system that has been geared towards the Atlantic is disintegrating. China and Russia faced with this imminent crash have accelerated their drive towards physical economic development, but even that strengthened collaboration is fragile in the face of a global economic collapse, which no stretch of the world can escape.

If the US chooses to politically open the trap door for the Obama white house, calling it curtains for a failed system of monetarism, then a collaboration between the US, Russia and China will be possible, creating a new relation among nations of the entire world. Although it will be a bumpy road, all better than humanity suffocating in the imperial quicksand.

More telling as a metaphor for what this strategic visit of Putin represents were the remarks of high level Russian official Vladimir Yakunin On October 7th, at the annual World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations in Rhodes, Greece. Yakunin is the Founding President of the conference and in this year's opening plenary he took up the nature of the flawed structure upon which the current failing system was built.

After discussing the collapse of the colonial system as it was popularly known until the end of WWII he says:

“This project was replaced by 'Globalization', which brought about such instruments as 'democracy', 'human rights', and 'finance and market economy'. Meanwhile, the globalization project, that advanced on the basis of the Euro-Atlantic consensus, creation of transnational finance, market institutions and the 'efficient' consumerist economy, constituted the third stage of colonization. It was preceded by the second stage, marked by the transfer of a substantial share of industry to third world countries in pursuit of cheap labour and access to natural resources.

The current crisis draws the line under the basic results of 'globalization'. It became obvious that the unrestrained neo-liberal economy resulted in an absolutely free virtual financial economy (the casino capitalism), totally detached from the real economy."

Yakunin is correct in stating that globalization is colonialism. As Lyndon LaRouche often cites, the current system of globalization is the fourth Roman empire, as it was manifested under the British empire with the 1763 peace of Paris concluding the seven years war. The collaboration of the nations of Russia China and the USA, without Obama would mean that empire would be brought down to its knees. But there is still more that is needed beside the destruction of the old system. What do you replace it with? Yakunin highlighted the need for a greater level of cooperation by saying:

“Even the countries that are presently developing at a most intensive rate and which possess a considerable potential for economic and civilization development, are incapable to single-handedly solve the tasks of creating the foundations for the future development of the world and to bear the strain of the search for new prospects, trends and strategies for human existence.”

Fighting for that on the level of human existence requires all humans, and cannot be done by a single nation. It is something that may not be able to be seen heard or felt, as it is a new metaphor for all mankind.

“ ‘metaphor’ is not an expression of a set of fixed objects of sense-perception; ” Lyndon LaRouche discussed in his recent writing,

“ it is a principle of action.”

The plans are drawn up for the development of Russia, China and the United states who will blaze the trail on the basis of this principle of action, and it can all be reviewed on this website. Furthermore that action is only expressed in what we humans do, so lets get it done.

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