Ditching Russian oil will be ‘catastrophic’ for global markets, Moscow warns – Banning oil supplies will send prices to unprecedented records, Russia believes
Removing Russian oil from the market would make energy prices skyrocket to over $300 per barrel of oil, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Aleksandr Novak, said on Monday, adding that Russia is not dependent on the West and can “reroute” its supplies elsewhere.
The European officials are “once again seeking to put all the blame for their own recent energy policy shortfalls on Russia,” Novak told journalists, adding that “Russia has nothing to do with the current price hike on market volatility.”
Russia has been a “reliable partner” for Europe for many decades, Novak has said, adding that Moscow has been supplying the European nations with roughly 40% of their gas needs. The deputy prime minister made his comments after gas prices in Europe hit record highs of almost $3,900 per 1,000 cubic meters while the price of Brent crude oil surpassed $130 per barrel for the first time in a decade.
China pushes back against the US in the Pacific – Beijing has warned the US against creating an Indo-Pacific version of NATO and supporting Taiwan 中國在太平洋反擊美國——北京警告美國不要建立印太版的北約和支持台灣 by Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
While China has made it clear that there is no direct correlation between Ukraine and Taiwan, noting that Taiwan is an integral part of China, its silence on Russia’s use of force should give pause to those who may doubt Beijing’s willingness to resort to similar action when it comes to defending its own territorial claims.
As the US and NATO struggle to deal with the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, has issued a warning to the Biden administration not to repeat the mistakes made in Europe by attempting to create a Pacific version of NATO to contain and constrain China. Wang’s comments were made at his annual media conference as China convened the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislative body, in Beijing on Monday. Calling such plans “perverse actions” that “run counter to the common aspiration of the region for peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes,” Wang declared that if they were implemented by the US, “they are doomed to fail.”
Wang also criticized the US for expanding its ties, including military cooperation and weapons sales, with Taiwan. Such policies, Wang warned, “not only push Taiwan into a precarious situation, but will also bring unbearable consequences for the US side,” adding, somewhat ominously, “Taiwan will eventually return to the embrace of the motherland.”
China has made no secret about its claim to Taiwan, or its ambition to make good on that claim through any means necessary, including military force. While the prospects of any near-term military action by China against Taiwan have been viewed as remote, the Russian offensive in Ukraine has caused many observers to reconsider that position.
The Chinese concerns are not imaginary, but rather drawn from a direct reading of the guidance published by the Biden administration in the Spring of 2021. “Our democratic alliances,” President Joe Biden declared in his interim national security strategic guidance, “enable us to present a common front, produce a unified vision, and pool our strength to promote high standards, establish effective international rules, and hold countries like China to account.”
“That is why we will reaffirm, invest in, and modernize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and our alliances with Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea—which, along with our other global alliances and partnerships, are America’s greatest strategic asset,” he added.
A plain reading of that text clearly shows that the US was pursuing a NATO-like alliance in the Pacific solely focused on the issue of “holding China to account.” It is in this light that one must view partnerships such as the “Quad”, a military partnership between the US, Japan, India, and Australia, and the newly constituted AUKUS alliance composed of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US. Both organizations exist solely to coordinate a military response to China’s expansive presence in the Pacific region.
As if to drive home the point that it will not stand by idly while the US conspires against it, Chinaannounced on Friday it was conducting a week-long military exercise in the South China Sea, near the territorial waters of Vietnam. While the scope and scale of the exercise is limited—encompassing a six nautical mile radius—its messaging was clear: China is prepared to use force, if necessary, to defend its disputed territorial claims in the region. The announcement of the exercise came on the heels of a series of military moves near Taiwan, where the transit of a US naval vessel through the Taiwan Strait was countered by the sortieing of Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone.
Many experts and observers were surprised by Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine. When it comes to China’s readiness to go to war over Taiwan, there should be no such uncertainty. This point was driven home by none other than the Chinese Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang,in comments made to the US media on January 28. “The Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States,” Qin Gang said. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in the military conflict.”
Qin Gang’s comments were made a week before Russian President Vladimir Putin met with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing, where they issued a 5,000-word joint statement reaffirming “their strong mutual support for the protection of their core interests, state sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan,” it reads.
The fact that Russia signed on to such a statement knowing full well that China had committed to the use of military force to defend its claims regarding Taiwan underscores the seriousness of the Russian-Sino joint statement and helps explain Chinese silence when it comes to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which run afoul of China’s long-standing objection to military intervention.
China knows that any military action against Taiwan would bring with it economic retaliation on the part of the US and its allies. Like Russia, however, China holds significant cards in its hand, and any Western effort to punish it with economic sanctions would bring about a response which could cripple the economies of those targeted. Moreover, any military action against Taiwan would, in and of itself, have dire global economic consequences, especially in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. Any military conflict involving Taiwan would have a crippling impact on the global electronics market, dependent as it is on the computer chips produced by Taiwan.
The relationship between Russia’s action on Ukraine and any move by Beijing against Taipei, or active defense of its South China Sea territorial claims, is real. While the conflict in Ukraine is thousands of miles away from either Taiwan or the South China Sea, the lessons on how the West is reacting to Russia’s attack are, without question, being closely studied by the Chinese leadership with an eye on how the West might respond to any future Chinese military action.
National Endowment for Democracy Deletes Records of Funding Projects in Ukraine By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Mar 07, 2022
Deletion needed to preserve big lie of an unprovoked Russian invasion
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot founded in the early 1980s to advance “democracy promotion” initiatives around the world—has deleted all records of funding projects in Ukraine from their searchable “Awarded Grants Search” database.
The archived webpage captured February 25, 2022 from 14:53 shows that NED granted $22,394,281 in the form of 334 awards to Ukraine between 2014 to the present. The capture at 23:10 the same day shows “No results found” for Ukraine. As of right now, there are still “No results found” for Ukraine.
Searching using “Ukraine” as a keyword (as opposed to a “Project Country” in the original captures) yields “No results found.” Searching for the titles of the funded projects listed in the last “intact” web capture yields no results.
Additionally, the current database search criteria have been restricted, previously funding from 2014 to present could be searched, currently only 2017 to present is searchable per the drop-down menus. There are multiple news reports before February 25 corroborating this $22,394,281 amount. […]
The post National Endowment for Democracy Deletes Records of Funding Projects in Ukraine appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.
In Peace and Solidarity, Chris Agee Executive Editor CovertAction Magazine
My friends said a new movie produced in Ukraine – “The Comedian” is at a theatre in US soon. It is about how a CIA foreign agent ruin his country. 我的朋友說一部烏克蘭新電影《喜劇演員》即將在美國上映. 這是關於一名美國中央情報局的外國特工如何毀了他的國家.
Johnson Choi Biz 