Subdue the Enemy without Fighting That is China’s gifted strategist Sun Tze’ ideal. He says in his “Art of War”, “Fighting and winning each and every of a hundred wars is not the best of best. Subduing the enemy without fighting is the best of best.” 不戰而屈人之兵，是中國天才戰略家孫子的理想。 他在《孫子兵法》中說：“百戰百戰，百戰不殆。 不戰而降敵為上策。”
Now, wise leaders of powerful states certainly have beaten their brains on a way to subdue their enemy without fighting as fighting may lead to casualties and damages very unpopular nowadays.
When Russia President Putin planned to invade Ukraine, he was afraid of NATO military interference as it might trigger a large-scale war he could not win. He had to first subdue NATO without fighting. If NATO does not interfere, Ukraine would be militarily isolated and easy for Russia to conquer.
Perhaps for that purpose, Putin visited China before his invasion. As a result, China has kept its pressure on Taiwan by keeping on sending warplanes near Taiwan. That costs China nothing as China has after all to train its air force. What China has to do is but to choose the training site near Taiwan.
The trick works well. NATO led by the US as the only world hegemon should certainly have sent its troops and those of its allies and friends including NATO members to defend Ukraine just like what it did in Desert Storm to drive away Iraqi aggression troops and defend Kuwait. However, the US fears that China may take the opportunity of West’s trouble in Europe to take Taiwan by force and thus started a world war. As a result, NATO has openly made clear it would not be militarily involved in the war. Russia has thus subdued NATO troops without fighting and would have free hands to invade militarily isolated Ukraine.
In return, the West led by the US tried hard to subdue Russia without fighting by severe sanctions. However, such severe sanctions have not subdued Russia and thus stopped Russian invasion. The US then believes that Russia has not been subdued by severe sanctions as it has Chinese support to reduce the injuries that may be caused by the sanctions.
With such mentality, US Biden Administration sent U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan to hold talks with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on March 14. According Reuters’ report “U.S. raises concerns about China aligning with Russia at meeting it calls ‘intense’” today Sullivan “raised concerns about China’s alignment with Russia in a seven-hour meeting with Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi as Washington warned of the isolation and penalties Beijing will face if it helps Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.”
The report says “Officials of the United States and other countries have sought to emphasize in recent weeks that siding with Russia could carry consequences for trade flows, development of new technologies and expose China to secondary sanctions.” The threat of secondary sanctions play precisely into China’s hands. China may use the threat to ask its trade partners to use Chinese Currency RMB or EU’s currency Euro in their trade with China and thus gradually remove US dollar’s dominance in international trade.
This blogger believes the removal of US dollar’s dominance that constitutes US financial hegemony is the major goal behind Russia’s open goal of Ukraine invasion as removal of US world hegemony has been the major cause and goal of Russia-China de facto alliance.
Therefore, Russia has played delay tricks in invading Ukraine precisely in order to allow West’s severe sanctions to play to their full so as to enable China to expand the use of its currency and international payment system the CIPS to the maximum.
In fact, Sullivan’s threat is but an empty one. The US simply lacks munition to make things difficult for China. The US has already taken as severe measures as possible in its trade and tech war and so-called competition with China.
The report says that by defying U.S. restrictions on exports to Russia Chinese companies may be “cut off from American equipment and software they need to make their products,” but have they not been cut off from such equipment and software now due to US trade and tech wars.
The US must be sober to see that China is now the world’s-largest exporter and the European Union’s largest trading partner, larger than the US. China is now economically stronger than the US. So that the report is objective in saying, “Any pressure on Chinese trade could have economic effects on the United States and its allies.”
Therefore, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency, China’s Yang Jiechi told Sullivan that Beijing was committed to promoting negotiations to resolve the Ukraine conflict, i.e. it disregards US and others sanctions as it believes sanctions are ineffective.
There will certainly be a solution of the issue by negotiations as sanctions have failed to subdue Russia. Ukraine as the weak one in the war will certainly suffer, but China may use its influence to help Ukraine get better terms. By so doing it may draw Ukraine into its camp and use it as a foothold for expansion of its Belt and Road initiative into eastern and central Europe.
As pointed out in my previous post, China will be the winner however the Russia-Ukraine war ends.
Comment by Chan Kai Yee on Reuters’ report, full text of which may be viewed at https://www.reuters.com/world/us-warn-china-perils-aiding-russia-rome-meet-2022-03-14/
Johnson Choi Biz 