The Yeltsin-Jiang offer was to help the
West create "rational and thoughtful reform of the UN [that] is
conductive to strengthening its authority and role in the world."
That offer was directed at the West’s efforts to create global
governance, a euphemism for world government. The offer was conditional,
however. They demanded each have the right to "safeguard[e] national
unity and sovereignty and territorial integrity" over Taiwan and the
oil-rich former republics of Russia.
The offer and condition in the joint
statement was carefully placed in the context that Russia and China
strongly "oppose the momentum presently preventing the establishment
of a just multi-polar structure for international relations." The
statement strongly implied the U.S. was "forcing the international
community to accept its uni-polar" dominance.
Until February 20, warm words of praise,
partnerships and equality were spoken at press conferences. On February 16
acting president Vladimir Putin, and Lord Robertson, Secretary General of
NATO, issued a joint statement that Russia and NATO are ready and willing
"to facilitate the construction of a stable and indivisible Europe
for the sake of all its peoples." Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also
said: "We see each other as important strategic partners which
co-operate in the interests of security in the European continent and the
entire world."
That all changed, however, on February
20 following negotiations between China and the U.S. led by one-worlder
Strobe Talbot. By February 21, extreme hostility suddenly entered the
rhetoric from China and Russia. China declassified a top-secret military
strategy document that threatened to blow the U.S. off the face of the
earth if we interfered with its efforts to take back Taiwan. China
claimed, "So far we have built up the capability for the second and
third nuclear strikes and are fairly confident in fighting a nuclear
war." The report even claimed China could conquer Taiwan in three
days.
On February 22 Russia openly said it
would attack the Republic of Georgia if it didn’t stop helping the
Chechen rebels. On March 2 China and Russia announced that they were
"deepening and extending the content of the Sino-Russian strategic
partnership" developed during the Yeltsin-Jiang Summit on December
9-10, 1999. While the details of that partnership, called the Military
Cooperation Treaty, have yet to be made public, the agreement is designed
to end the "unipolar" dominance of the U.S. over the rest of the
world.
The negotiations that had seemed so
promising in early February had collapsed, leading to a game of global
chicken between the West and Russia and China over the southern Russian
Republics, Taiwan and the Spratly Islands. Verbal attacks by China on
Taiwan reached crescendo prior to the presidential elections on May 18.
After Chen Shui-bian won the presidency,
China issued Taiwan an ultimatum--Chen must accept the
"one-China" principle by his inauguration on May 20, or China
would attack shortly thereafter. A secret Pentagon Report had been
leaked on March 31 stating that Taiwan was indeed vulnerable to an attack
by China, making such an attack seem feasible.
By April 19 China quietly let it be
known that it had established military fortifications on the hotly
contested Spratly Islands between Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
If this goes unchallenged, as it has so far, it will provide China the
ability to control the trade and military shipping routes of the South
China Sea. Conversely, NATO began to force its influence into Ukraine,
Georgia and Azerbaijan, culminating on April 27 when NATO announced that
Georgia would join NATO. At the same time the West in general, and the
U.S. specifically, made an all-out effort to entice the Central Asia
republics east of the Caspian Sea into the Western camp, apparently in an
effort to lock Russia out of what it views as its own oil.
By mid-April, events in Russia and China
were reaching critical mass. With nearly 300,000 Russian troops poised
just north of Azerbaijan and Georgia, and another 300,000 troops being
positioned in Belarus along the Polish border, on April 21 Putin quietly
threw down the gauntlet and issued a sharp warning for the West to stay
out of Russia’s oil rich republics. At the same time, however, he also
extended an olive branch. Putin opened the door to the possible
cooperative exploitation of the oil resources with the West by
"defining the balance of the interests of the state [Russia] and
[oil] companies."
At the same time, Putin began to draw
the Russian republics back into the fold. On May 1 the Central Asian
republics of Kyrgyzstan, the region’s most democratic and pro-Western
state, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan stunned the West by serving
notice to Washington that they were aligning themselves with Russia, not
the West. This was quickly followed on May 5 with an announcement by Putin
that Ukraine was joining the ongoing reunification of Russia and its
western republic of Belarus. Putin had successfully outmaneuvered the West
in securing all but two of its southern republics.
The two republics still in question are
Georgia and Azerbaijan. These two republics have been at the center of the
bitter West-Russian firestorm since 1991. The West has been negotiating
with Azerbaijan and Georgia to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to
western Georgia. From there the oil would either be shipped across the
black sea to Bulgaria where it would be piped across Kosovo to Albania and
the Adriatic Sea, or a pipeline would be built south from Georgia across
Turkey to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. Russia believes
that the Kosovo bombing was Slobodan Milosevic’s punishment for saying
no to the West for this pipeline.
Since his inauguration on May 7, Putin
has consolidated his power over the far-flung Russian republics by
dividing Russia into seven administrative regions. He will soon have the
ability to fire recalcitrant presidents of any republic. And, by May 22,
he stunned the world by putting together a fully operating government–something
that should have taken months to do.
Both Russia and China (and North Korea)
are in a position where they can make war or peace. All three nations have
two foreign policies in place. One to develop international trade if peace
prevails. The other to militarily take what they want, if peaceful
resolution is not possible, while positioning themselves to become major
world traders following what they believe will be a limited war.
The choice between peace and war now
seems to be in the West’s court. Indeed, the West seems to be in a more
conciliatory mood. Nothing more has been said about Georgia joining NATO.
On May 19, U.S. Secretary of State Berger and newly confirmed Russian
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov exchanged the first really warm words
since the February 20 collapse of negotiations. In addition, China
suddenly reversed its policy 180o on May 22 when it announced
it believed " Beijing could do business with Chen and would be
patient as his policies toward the mainland took shape." These very
recent developments seem to suggest that a new deal may be in the making.
The key for Russia will be Azerbaijan
and Georgia. If these two vital republics continue to hold out, Russia
will be forced to act. Similarly, while Taiwan is not actively seeking
independence, neither are they adopting China’s definition of the
"one China" principle. Since Chinese President Jiang Zemin
announced on May 4 he would retire in 2002 and have the Taiwan issue fully
resolved by that time means action has to happen now to meet his
self-imposed deadline.
What is most disturbing is not what we
do know, but what we don’t know. We don’t know, for instance, the
details of the Yeltsin-Jiang Military Cooperation Treaty. We do know,
however, it is a global strategy to neutralize America’s dominance over
the world. Discerning the Times Digest is concerned it may be an
agreement to launch simultaneous attacks against Azerbaijan-Georgia and
Taiwan making it more difficult for the U.S. to deal with. Especially if
North Korea attacked South Korea at the same time.
Of greatest concern, however, is the new
military doctrines of both Russia and China. Although it is less certain
with Russia, the military doctrines of both countries now permit terrorism
using weapons of mass destruction against a superior force in order, as
Russia states, "to repulse armed aggression [when] all other means of
resolving the crisis have been exhausted."
This raises the horrifying prospect that
they would use these terrorist weapons in the U.S. to throw America into
chaos thereby keeping us from coming to the aid of Taiwan, South Korea or
Azerbaijan-Georgia. By blaming the terrorism on Osama bin Laden, they have
an excellent chance of succeeding.
That monstrous scenario assumes, of
course, that Russia and China believe they have to use military means to
take back Georgia-Azerbaijan and Taiwan. Only Russia, China and North
Korea know for sure.
The lives of perhaps millions of
Americans hang on what these nations do. If ever there was a time to pray,
this is it. V mc
