{"id":1428580,"date":"2023-09-21T03:40:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T07:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1428580"},"modified":"2023-09-21T03:40:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T07:40:00","slug":"escobar-russia-north-korea-stage-strategic-coup-against-western-hegemony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/escobar-russia-north-korea-stage-strategic-coup-against-western-hegemony\/1428580\/","title":{"rendered":"Escobar: Russia, North Korea Stage ‘Strategic Coup’ Against Western Hegemony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Russia, North Korea Stage ‘Strategic Coup’ Against Western Hegemony<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Pepe Escobar,<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u200bIt will take ages to unpack the silos of information inbuilt in the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last week, coupled with the \u2013 armored – train-keeps-a-rollin\u2019 conducted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un straddling every nook and cranny of Primorsky Krai.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u200bThe key themes all reflect the four main vectors of the New Great Game as it\u2019s being played across the Global South: energy and energy resources; manufacturing and labor; market and trade rules; and logistics. But they go way beyond \u2013 exploring the subtle nuances of the current civilizational war.<\/p>\n

Key statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to delegates at the Eastern Economic Forum:<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f The global economy continues to change, primarily because the West is tearing down the system of financial relations;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f Amid the destruction of the financial system by the West, the list of countries that are ready to cooperate not based on Western conventions, but for all humanity, is expanding;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f The dynamics of investment in the Far East is three times faster than for all of Russia in its entirety;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f Most regions in the Far Eastern Federal District still face energy shortages, and this is a problem; a large-scale update of this industry is needed;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f It is necessary to expand logistics routes in the Far East, including the Northern Sea Route;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f High-speed highways will pass through Siberia, the Far East to the Pacific Ocean;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a comprehensive action plan to be prepared by 1 March for the development of the air complex of the Far Eastern Federal District;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f Constantly enhancing the conditions for doing business in the Far East is a must;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f The global economic situation has invigorated our work in the Far East;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f The restriction of payments in dollars has driven all countries to set their sights on payments in national currencies, while trust in the West is being eroded;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f Today, logistics chains for the supply of goods have almost recovered, and by the same token, this is due to the exchange rate;<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0f We must come to an agreement with the business community, so that they understand that it is safer to work in Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n

So Vladivostok presented\u2026<\/p>\n

– A serious debate on the surge of anti-neocolonialism<\/strong>, presented for instance by the Myanmar delegation; geostrategically, Burma\/Myanmar, as a privileged gateway to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, was always an object of Divide and Rule games, with the British Empire only caring about extracting natural resources. This is what\u00a0\u201cscientific colonialism\u201d\u00a0<\/em>is all about.<\/strong><\/p>\n

– A serious debate on the concept of the civilization-state<\/strong>, as already developed by Chinese and Russian scholars, applied to China, Russia, India and Iran.<\/p>\n

– The interconnection of transport\/connectivity corridors<\/strong>. That includes the upgrading of the Trans-Siberian in the near future; a boost for the Trans-Baikal \u2013 the world\u2019s busiest rail line \u2013 connecting the Urals to the Far East; a renewed drive for the Northern Sea Route (last month two Russian oil tankers sailed from Murmansk across the Arctic to China for the first time; ten days shorter than the Suez Canal route); and the coming of the Chennai-Vladivostok channel, which will be connected to the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC).
\n\u200b
\n– The common Eurasia payment system<\/strong>, discussed in detail in one of the\u00a0key panels<\/a>:\u00a0Greater Eurasia: Drivers for the Formation of an Alternative International and Monetary and Financial System<\/em>. The immense challenge to set up a new payment settlement currency against\u00a0\u201ctoxic currencies\u201d\u00a0<\/em>instrumentalized amid relentless Hybrid War. In another panel, the possibility of a timely BRICS and EAEU joint summit next year has been evoked.<\/p>\n

All Aboard The Kim Train<\/strong><\/p>\n

The genesis of Kim Jong Un\u2019s train journey to the Russian Far East – coinciding with the Forum, no less – is a masterful strategic coup that was in the works since 2014, at the time of the Maidan.<\/p>\n

Xi Jinping was still in the beginning of his first mandate; he had announced the New Silk Road exactly ten years ago, first in Astana and then in Jakarta. The DPRK was not supposed to be integrated into this vast pan-Eurasian project that would soon become China\u2019s overarching foreign policy concept.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0DPRK<\/a>\u00a0then was on a roll against the Hegemon, under Obama, and Beijing was no more than a worried spectator. Moscow, of course, was always focused on peace in the Korean Peninsula, especially because its geopolitical priorities in 2014 were Donbass and Syria\/Iran. The last thing Moscow could afford was a war in Asia-Pacific.
\n\u200b
\nPutin\u2019s strategy was to send Defense Minister Shoigu to Beijing and Islamabad to calm it all down. Pakistan at the time was helping Pyongyang to weaponize their nuclear arsenal. Simultaneously, Putin himself approached Kim, offering serious guarantees<\/strong>: we\u2019ve got your back if ever there is an attack by the Hegemon supported by Seoul. Even better: Putin got Xi himself to double down on the guarantees.<\/p>\n

\u200bThe categorical imperative was simple: as long as Pyongyang did not start any trouble, Moscow and Beijing would be by its side.<\/p>\n

A sort of calm before any possible storm then set in \u2013 even if Pyongyang continued to test their missiles. So over the years, Kim\u2019s mindset changed; he became convinced that Russia and China were his allies.<\/p>\n

The DPRK’s geoeconomic integration into Eurasia was seriously discussed in previous, pre-Covid editions of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. That included the tantalizing possibility of a Trans-Korean Railway linking both North and South to the Far East, Siberia and the wider Eurasia.<\/p>\n

So Kim started to see the Big Eurasia Picture, and how Pyongyang could finally start to benefit geoeconomically<\/strong> from a closer association with the EAEU, SCO and BRI.<\/p>\n

This is how strategic diplomacy works: you invest during a decade, and then all the pieces fall into place when an armored train keeps-a-rollin\u2019 across Primorsky Krai.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of a Russia-China-DPRK triangle, it\u2019s no wonder the collective West has been reduced to the status of crying toddlers in a sandbox. The Hegemon\u2019s puny US-Japan-South Korea axis to counter, simultaneously, China and the DPRK, is a joke compared to the DPRK\u2019s brand-new role as a sort of Asia-Pacific Military District, adjacent to their immediate neighbor, the Russian Far East.<\/p>\n

There will be military integration, of course, in missile defense, radars, ports, airfields. But the key vector, along the way, will be geoeconomic integration. Sanctions from now on are meaningless.<\/p>\n

No one in 2014 was seeing this all play out,<\/strong> except for a very sharp analyst who coined the precious\u00a0Double Helix<\/a> concept to define the still evolving, at the time, Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
\n\u200b
\nThe\u00a0Double Helix<\/em>\u00a0perfectly explains the full-spectrum geostrategic symbiosis between two civilization-states which happen to be former empires but since the middle of the previous decade willfully decided to accelerate their mutual drive to lead the Global Majority in the path towards multipolarity.<\/p>\n

\u200bThe Road to Polycentricity<\/strong><\/p>\n

All of the above finely coalesced in the\u00a0last panel<\/a>\u00a0in Vladivostok – informally known even to the Japanese and Koreans as \u201cthe European capital of Asia\u201d, in the heart of Asia-Pacific. The debate was on a \u201cglobal alternative to Western dominance\u201d. The West, incidentally, was absolutely invisible at the Forum.<\/p>\n

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova summed it all up: the recent G20 and\u00a0BRICS summits<\/a>\u00a0had set the stage for President Putin\u2019s remarkable address to the plenary session in Vladivostok.
\n\u200b
\nZakharova alluded to\u00a0\u201cfantastic strategic patience\u201d<\/em>. That applies to the whole\u00a0\u201cpivot to Asia\u201d\u00a0<\/em>policy and boosting the development of the Far East, initiated in 2012, and now implying a full turn of the Russian economy towards Asia-Pacific geoeconomics. But at the same time, that also applies to integrating the DPRK into the geoeconomic Eurasian high-speed train.<\/p>\n

\u200bZakharova stressed how Russia\u00a0\u201cnever supported isolation\u201d<\/em>; always\u00a0\u201cadvocated partnership\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 which the Forum graphically displayed for dozens of Global South delegations. And now, under the conditions of a\u00a0\u201cdirty fight, unlawful and with no rules\u201d,<\/em>\u00a0a serious stand-off, the Russian position remains easily recognizable for the Global Majority: \u201cNot to accept dictatorship<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Andrey Denisov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, made a point to mention crack political analyst Sergey Karaganov as one of the key drivers of the concept of Greater Eurasia. More than\u00a0\u201cmultipolarity\u201d<\/em>, Denisov argued, what is being built is\u00a0\u201cpolycentricity\u201d<\/em>: a series of concentric circles, involving plenty of dialogue partners.<\/p>\n

Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl now heads a new think tank in St. Petersburg, G.O.R.K.I. As a European who ended up being ostracized by her own peers under the blatant toxicity of cancel culture, she stressed how freedom and rule of law have disappeared in Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kneissl referred to the Battle of Actium as the key passage of power from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Western Mediterranean:\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s when the dominance of the West started\u201d<\/em>, complete with all the mythology built around the Roman Empire which obsesses the Anglosphere to this day.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0sanctions<\/a>\u00a0dementia and irrational Russophobia installed at the head of the EU and the European Commission, Kneissl stressed, the notion that\u00a0\u201ctreaties must be preserved\u201d<\/em>\u00a0disappeared while\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cthe rule of law has been destroyed.<\/strong> This is the worst that could have happened to Europe\u201d<\/em>.
\n\u200b
\nAlexander Dugin, online, called for understanding\u00a0\u201cthe depth of Western domination\u201d<\/em>, expressed via hyper-liberalism. And he proposed a key breakthrough: the Western modus operandi should become an object of research, in a sort of Gramscian attempt to define what distinguishes Western ideology, and thus act towards\u00a0\u201cdeep decolonization\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u200bIn a sense this is what is being attempted by current actors in West Africa \u2013 Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger. That poses the question of who is a real Sovereign in a new world. The West, argues Dugin, is a Total Sovereign<\/strong>; Russia, as a nuclear power and prime military power defined as an existential threat by the Hegemon, is also a Sovereign.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s China, India, Iran, Turkey. These are key poles in a dialogue of civilizations; actually what was proposed by former Iranian President Khatami way back in the late 1990s, and then dismissed by the Hegemon.
\n\u200b
\nDugin remarked how China\u00a0\u201chas moved far away in building a civilizational state\u201d<\/em>. Russia, Iran, India are not far behind. These will be the essential actors steering the world towards polycentricity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 09\/20\/2023 – 23:40<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/escobar-russia-north-korea-stage-strategic-coup-against-western-hegemony<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escobar: Russia, North Korea Stage ‘Strategic Coup’ Against Western Hegemony Authored by Pepe Escobar, \u200bIt will take ages to unpack the silos of information inbuilt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1428580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1428580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1428580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1428580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1428580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}