Commentary
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent summit with Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping is just the most recent reminder that the U.S. proxy war on Russia has been an utter disaster for the United States and its allies.
The intimate, day-to-day role Washington has played in the war has hurt the United States and its allies. A non-exhaustive list includes dealing severe damage to Europe’s economy, pushing Ukraine to the brink of becoming a dysfunctional rump state under a de facto U.S. policy of fighting its proxy war to the last Ukrainian, helping Iran advance its national interests, depleting the West’s military supplies, providing impetus for the world to move away from the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, creating higher energy prices in the United States and Europe, and forcing Russia into a tighter relationship with China.
Given the United States’ decades of effort to undermine and weaken Russia and its current historic levels of sanctions on Russia, Mr. Putin has no choice but to create tighter ties with China. And the recent summit sent very strong signals that China is not letting pressure from the Biden administration stop Beijing from strengthening its ties with Moscow. This case was symbolized by Xi’s very rare show of affection demonstrated by his “very deliberate embrace of Putin for the cameras.” Given Xi’s near dictator status, the embrace not only emphasized a positive personal relationship with Mr. Putin but also emphasized the Chinese regime’s commitment to its large and militarily powerful, nuclear-armed neighbor with whom China shares a 2,615-mile border.
Along with the geopolitical benefits that such a partnership brings to Russia, which is under siege by the United States and most of its allies, Russia is able to generate much-needed cash by supplying China with military technology as well as cheap oil and gas. China, for its part, while not directly providing weapons to Russia, is providing Russia with materials necessary for weapons manufacturing, including semiconductor chips, navigation equipment, jet parts, ball bearings, and much more.
Collectively, the China–Russia alliance is potentially the most powerful military bloc in the world with a military-industrial capacity many times that of NATO. I use “potentially” as a qualifier because it is unclear what exact set of circumstances would cause China’s military to come to Russia’s aid and vice versa. But at the minimum, it seems likely that the failing U.S. proxy war on Russia has greatly increased the chances that Russia would formally support China in any war with the United States over Taiwan.
Therefore, the benefits accruing to China go far beyond military technology and cheap oil as the U.S. NATO expenditures in pursuit of dealing Russia a strategic loss are weakening their ability to contain China. Indeed, Hertiage Foundation research fellow Michael Cunninghan said, “The CCP hopes to emerge as the conflict’s greatest beneficiary, and it’s happy to let Russia, Ukraine and Ukraine’s arms suppliers—especially the United States—pay the tab.”
Hence, even as the United States and Europe continue to go further into debt to support a war that is destroying Ukraine and strengthening Russia, China continues to reap the benefits of more than $300 billion per year in trade deficits with the United States while working to undermine the United States through such initiatives as BRICS and its massive Belt and Road Initiative.
While it will take more than a few years for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) initiative to displace the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency of choice, its members already represent 45 percent of the world’s population. With many more countries interested in joining, its influence will continue to grow rapidly. One of the main reasons countries are so eager to join BRICS Plus is to lessen the power the United States wields in using its reserve currency dominance to punish countries that violate U.S. interests and goals—including goals and interests many would consider “woke.” And many countries have not been happy with U.S. sanctions on Russia that have dealt collateral damage to many other countries.
Because being the world’s reserve currency allows the United States to get the best possible interest rates on servicing its $35 trillion of national debt, the very significant and rapidly growing challenge to U.S. dollar dominance will, at some point, increase the interest rate the United States pays. This will add to the $800 billion-plus in interest payments that U.S. taxpayers pay yearly.
Consequently, the U.S. proxy war against Russia has not only failed to meet any of its goals, but also, in pushing China and Russia closer together, severely damaged U.S. interests, increased the cost of living for U.S. citizens, and been a huge win for communist China.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
