https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-fever-why-china-should-prepare-worst/5835081
War Fever: Why China Should Prepare for the Worst
Washington is positioning its assets at chokepoints across Central Asia to block critical rail corridors that link Beijing to Europe. It’s part of a US plan to isolate China from western markets following an outbreak of hostilities in Taiwan.
The destruction of Nordstream is the key to understanding how Washington plans to deal with China. The pipeline effectively erased the geographic borders between Russia and Germany creating a de facto free trade zone that spanned the continents and increased the prosperity of both trading partners. The arrangement anticipated a much larger commons area that would extend from “Lisbon to Vladivostok”, in fact, that was Vladimir Putin’s explicit goal. Washington saw this as a threat to its regional hegemony and set about to scuttle the partnership and the pipeline. As we pointed out in an earlier article:
In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration decided to destroy Nordstream, because Nordstream was the main artery linking the two continents together into a mutually beneficial relationship that operated independent of the United States. Thus, Nordstream was a clear threat to the unipolar world and the “rules-based order”.
Bottom line: Nordstream had to be destroyed.
The question is: What does the Nordstream incident tell us about Washington’s plans for China?
What we’ve shown is that Washington is prepared to take radical action to defend its hegemony in Europe. But, of course, Germany was not the only victim of Biden’s attack. It was also a blow to Russia which not only suffered serious economic losses, but was also effectively blocked from western markets. Russia was clearly the more important of the two targets because it was Russia that challenged the central tenet of US foreign policy, which is “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”
The quote above is excerpted from the Wolfowitz Doctrine that has appeared in numerous foreign policy documents including President Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy. The words have been slightly tweaked in newer iterations, but the meaning remains the same. The US is going to prevent any “hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.” In practice, this means that Russia cannot engage in commercial activities with its neighbors if those activities are perceived to pose a threat to US regional preeminence. In the case of Nordstream, the Biden administration was quite clear that they thought the pipeline was a problem; they even admitted as much. And the only reliable way to eliminate the problem, was to blow it up. This is the logic that precipitated the sabotage of Nordstream.
But what does this tell us about Washington’s “China policy”?
It tells us that US powerbrokers are going to identify emerging threats in Central Asia and then remove those threats by hook or crook. And, while China does not have large supplies of natural gas and oil to sell to Europe, it is creating a vast network of China-to-Europe freight corridors that have economically integrated the Eurasian landmass while linking to major capitals across the EU. This far-flung cobweb of newly-laid track has put Beijing at a decided advantage over the US in local competition and is rapidly reinforcing its position as regional hegemon. Once again, we need to remember that the United States is fully-committed to preventing the re-emergence of a rival in the region it considers vital to its national security, that is, Central Asia. And, yet, China’s rapidly expanding freight rail system creates just such a rival. Take a look:
The China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT)
A crucial precursor to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and arguably its most prominent flagship project, the China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT) has already run through its first decade of 2011-21. With 82 routes currently connecting nearly 100 Chinese cities to around 200 cities across 24 European countries and more than a dozen Central, East, and Southeast Asian countries, the CEFT has formed a vast transcontinental freight system spanning both ends of Eurasia. While only 17 freight trains ran from China to Europe in the CEFT’s inaugural year of 2011, 60,000 trains cumulatively will have traversed the Eurasian landmass and its maritime margins by October 16, 2022….Eurasia’s Freight Infrastructure vs. Russia’s War in Ukraine, Global Affairs
Here’s more:
Any large-scale transport system takes a long time to develop and mature. The CEFT may be an exception in that it has expanded rapidly and extensively over a mere decade, from a few places into arguably the world’s largest logistics network linking hundreds of cities across the vast continent of Eurasia, as the most prominent flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013….
As the CEFT runs into its second decade, it has already sent around 60,000 trains cumulatively between Europe, China, and parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia by October 2022. Every day now, around 40 freight trains carrying hundreds of containers and other forms of cargo shipments run east and west across Eurasia, with extended rail-sea and rail-river intermodal shipping across the Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean seas and along the Rhine and Yangtze Rivers. Connection Meets Disruption: The China-Europe Freight Train and the War in Ukraine, The European Financial Review
So, while the United States was waging its wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, China was opening-up a state-of-the-art railway corridor that shortened the distances between capitals, reduced the overall price of manufactured goods, increased the profits of its trading partners, and built-up good will among its neighbors. And, yes, freight trains are a centuries old technology but—as we’ve seen—that old technology can dramatically impact economic development when it is put to good use. More importantly, it can significantly affect the distribution of global power which poses a serious threat to the existing order. And that is why Washington is so worried.
So, what can we expect from the Biden administration? Surely, they’re not going to roll over and play dead. There must be a plan for countering China’s rapid takeover of Asia and its impressive penetration of European market, but what is it? This is from Politico:
Russia’s war in Ukraine is derailing Beijing’s flagship New Silk Road project. The infrastructure strategy aims to promote freight trains running from China, across Russia and then through Ukraine or Belarus on to the European Union. Now Ukraine is in a bloody war, while Belarus and Russia have been hit hard with sanctions.
“The Ukraine war has completely totaled the China-Europe rail express phenomenon for now,” said Jacob Mardell, an analyst focusing on China’s infrastructure grand plan, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, for the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
The slowdown in growth is in large part due to traders no longer wanting their goods to pass through Russia via the Silk Road’s northern route, lest they run into legal trouble. Russian Railways are under EU and U.S. financial sanctions, and it’s tricky to insure products being transported through Russia because of the war and sanctions’ “chilling effect,” according to Kristian Schmidt, who leads land transport policy at the European Commission.
But there is a rail alternative linking China to Europe that bypasses Russia: A corridor running south of Russia, from China to Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea, and then through Azerbaijan and Georgia, known as the Middle Corridor...
In May, Maersk announced it was launching new services on the Middle Corridor. The Danish logistics giant, which has halted freight services through Russia, now sends goods by rail from China, through Kazakhstan, then across the Caspian sea to Azerbaijan, and then on to the Georgian port of Poti on the Black Sea. From there, cargo is loaded onto its network of feeder vessels that can carry it to Constanța in Romania….
The Middle Corridor is now “the only real alternative” to the route crossing Russia, DG MOVE Chief Henrik Hololei said at an event in June. Ukraine war shakes up China-Europe railway express, Politico
Let’s see if I got this right: A significant portion of China’s freight (along the northern corridor) has been blocked due to sanctions (on Russia). So, the only viable alternative is the “Middle Corridor” ..”across the Caspian sea to Azerbaijan” which is currently experiencing an uptick in violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Even more suspicious is the fact that on September 25, diehard neocon Samantha Power unexpectedly visited Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and delivered a statement in which she emphasized the Biden administrations support for country. Not surprisingly, she also called for an “international presence” on the ground which suggests an eagerness on the part of the US and NATO to get involved in yet another foreign territorial dispute. Check it out:
Samantha Power, the United States Agency for International Development administrator, said in Yerevan on Monday that there must be international presence in Nagorno-Karabakh to assess whether Azerbaijan is implementing its commitments…
“All parties must allow an international humanitarian assessment and humanitarian presence to be there, to see whether Azerbaijan is fulfilling its commitments, and for these organizations to be able to report to the international community,” she added.
Power arrived in Armenia with U.S. Undersecretary of State Yuri Kim on mission on Monday to “deliver a message from President Biden,” she said, adding that she presented a letter from the U.S. President to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan when the two met earlier in the day. Top U.S. Official Calls for International Presence in Artsakh, Asbarez
Veteran geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar summed it up like this:
Relations with Moscow are deteriorating fast. Yerevan – a juicy strategic target – is being taken over by the Hegemon (Washington) and its vassals. It’s not an accident that Yerevan hosts the second largest American embassy in the world.
So only one thing is certain: the Transcaucasus will continue to be on fire….
We are convinced that the Armenian leadership is making a huge mistake by deliberately attempting to sever Armenia’s multifaceted and centuries-old ties with Russia, making the country a hostage to Western geopolitical games. We are confident that the overwhelming majority of the Armenian population realizes this as well.” Nagorno-Karabakh is no more, Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture
What does it all mean?
It means the US has already picked sides in complicated, regional dispute because it wants to put-down roots in the Central Asia theatre. It also means that the US wants combat troops deployed to an area that can serve as a chokepoint for China’s freight service to Europe. Once again, the US cannot prevail in its war against China unless it is able to weaken China via sanctions, isolation and perhaps military confrontation. That’s the way the US typically approaches these matters. (RE: Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea) Washington is positioning itself to either block or sabotage China’s trade-flows to Europe just like it sabotaged the flow of Russian gas to Europe. It’s the same policy.
And, that’s just ‘for starters’, because the ultimate goal of the policy is to “de-couple” from China entirely which will have catastrophic effects on the global economy but will (supposedly) preserve the primacy of western elites and their exalted “rules-based order.” This is an excerpt from an article at Freight Ways:
In 2022, the Word Trade Organization (WTO) warned about a worst-case scenario it called “long-run decoupling” that involved the “disintegration of the global economy into two separate blocs”….
Geopolitics is cleaving global shipping systems into two, with the U.S. and EU leading one side and China and Russia leading the other, and some countries trying to stay in the middle, play both sides and keep their options open….
Geopolitics has also caused a bifurcation in the tanker fleet, a physical manifestation of the decoupling scenario laid out by the WTO….. The splitting of the fleet seen in tanker shipping is also apparent, albeit to a much lesser degree, in container shipping…
“How do you take the proportion of global trade that moves through the South China Sea today and say, ‘OK, we’re just going to stop that because there’s a live war going on?’” said Paul Bingham, director of transportation consulting at S&P Global, in an interview with FreightWaves last year.
America remains extremely dependent on containerized imports from China. U.S. Customs data shows that imports from China represented 30% of total U.S. imports in 2022.
…. Add it all up and it looks like cargo flows and shipping fleets are on a path toward fragmentation.
As the WTO warned in its new world trade outlook, released Wednesday,
“Fragmentation … remains a significant threat, which could hinder
economic growth and reduce living standards over the long term.”
China-Russia vs. US-EU: How global shipping is slowly splitting in two, Freight Waves
This excerpt should give readers a good idea of what to expect in the future when the US provokes a war in Taiwan as it did in Ukraine. The knock-on effects will not be a slight uptick in inflation accompanied by moderately-higher interest rates, but a greatly-accelerated global realignment away from the United States followed by the crashing of equities markets, the loss of reserve currency status, a severe and protracted economic slump, and a catastrophic plunge in living standards.
Readers who follow news about China closely, know that elite powerbrokers in the West have already decided that the only way to preserve their grip on global power is to goad China into attacking Taiwan so they can implement the riskier elements of their strategy.
And what are the riskier elements of their strategy?
To prevent China from accessing western markets or transacting business in western currencies. To seize China’s foreign reserves and freeze its accounts in foreign central banks. To ban all foreign investment and block China’s access to hard cash. To set up chokepoints in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and Central Asia all of which would be used to stop the flow of manufactured goods to China’s trading partners. And, finally, block all oil shipments from the Middle East to China. Take a look:
As the dominant power in the Middle East, the United States maintains a great deal of leverage over China, which is dependent on the region for its energy needs. In the event of a conflict between China and the United States, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) could direct U.S. military forces to block energy shipments to China, thereby preventing the country from accessing resources to fuel its economy and military forces...
There are several maritime oil transit chokepoints in the region, including the Suez Canal, the Bab al-Mandab, and the Strait of Hormuz. Any disruption to these chokepoints could significantly affect countries that depend on the region’s oil….
“Seventy-two percent of all Chinese oil is imported,” Kurilla explained. “That can make them vulnerable.”...
Among China’s oil imports, about half comes from the Middle East. For some time, Saudi Arabia has been China’s largest source of oil imports, only to be recently surpassed by Russia….
During previous eras of great power competition, the United States has been willing to move against oil-dependent rivals. One precedent for the current situation is U.S. action against Japan in the months prior to U.S. entry into World War II. Months before Japan launched its attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor, the United States cut off oil exports to Japan, putting the country’s economy and military power at risk. U.S. officials made the move knowing that it might lead to war….
A particular focus of any U.S. military action would be the Strait of Hormuz, the region’s major oil transit chokepoint. Nearly all of China’s energy imports from the Middle East are shipped through the strait.
“Ninety-eight percent plus goes through by ship,” Kurilla said. “That makes them vulnerable.”…
“I believe CENTCOM is literally and figuratively central to competition with China and Russia,” Kurilla said. “We’ve been there in the past… We’re there today, and we’ll be there in the future.” How the US could cut off Middle East oil to China if it wanted, Responsible Statecraft
“Strategic Denial”?
The foreign policy BrainTrust has put a plan in place that will be activated following any Chinese retaliation to US provocations in Taiwan. By necessity, the plan will include the denial of access to western markets and the blocking of critical resources to China. Western powerbrokers believe that they can derail China’s expansionist Belt and Road project and deliver a withering blow to its economy without triggering a nuclear conflagration. That, of course, is left to be seen.In any event, the transition to a multipolar world will not be peaceful, which is why China should prepare for the worst.
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http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/we-are-witnessing-one-of-the-greatest-financial-market-crashes-in-history-right-now
We Are Witnessing One Of The Greatest Financial Market Crashes In History Right Now
History is starting to repeat itself. In 2008, bond prices crashed before stock prices did. Here in 2023, bond prices are crashing again. In fact, we are currently witnessing one of the greatest financial crashes in U.S. history at this moment. Of course most Americans have absolutely no idea that this is happening. Most Americans don’t know anything about the bond crash that is causing a tremendous amount of fear in the financial community right now, and that is because the big news networks aren’t talking about it too much. But it is serious. Since the peak of the market, 10 year bonds are down 46 percent and 30 year bonds are down 53 percent…
Losses on longer-dated Treasuries are beginning to rival some of the most notorious market meltdowns in US history.Bonds maturing in 10 years or more have slumped 46% since peaking in March 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s just shy of the 49% plunge in US stocks in the aftermath of the dot-com bust at the turn of the century. The rout in 30-year bonds has been even worse, tumbling 53%, nearing the 57% slump in equities during the depths of the financial crisis.
We haven’t seen anything like this in many years.
As bond yields go up, bond prices go down.
And the last time the yield on 10 year bonds rose to this level was “just before the 2008 financial crisis”…
At the center of the storm is the 10-year Treasury yield, one of the most influential numbers in finance. The yield, which represents borrowing costs for issuers of bonds, has climbed steadily in recent weeks and reached 4.8% on Tuesday, a level last seen just before the 2008 financial crisis.
We are witnessing the exact same pattern that we witnessed in 2008 and during other financial panics.
Bonds crash first, and then stocks crash later.
I have warned over and over again that high interest rates were going to have an absolutely devastating impact on our system, and now it is staring to happen.
Our banks are going to be in so much trouble. They were already sitting on hundreds of billons of dollars in unrealized losses, and the spike in bond yields in recent weeks has pushed that number even higher.
Meanwhile, mortgage rates continue to soar…
Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey released Thursday shows the average rate for the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 7.49%, up from 7.31% last week and from 6.66% a year ago.
The rate for a 15-year mortgage also climbed, averaging 6.78% after coming in last week at 6.72%. One year ago, the rate on a 15-year fixed note averaged 5.9%.
These high rates are absolutely paralyzing the housing market.
Millions of potential buyers have been forced to the sidelines, because high rates have made housing “unaffordable” in 99 percent of all U.S. counties…
Housing prices are growing more unaffordable even with the astronomical rise in mortgage rates, putting ownership out of reach for millions of Americans.
That’s according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM, which examined 572 U.S. counties and determined that median home prices in 99% of those areas are out of reach for the average income earner, who makes about $71,214 annually.
“The latest trend continues a two-year pattern of homeownership getting more and more difficult for average U.S. wage earners,” the report said.
The home prices that we are seeing today are absolutely insane.
Recently, a 565 square foot house in West Hollywood “sold for a whopping $1.1 million”…
A miniature home in Los Angeles’ West Hollywood neighborhood recently sold for a whopping $1.1 million despite only offering 565 square feet inside.
The 1924 Craftsman-bungalow – settled on a 2.240 square foot lot – is tucked away behind a row of hedges and located just across the street from a fire station.
I couldn’t imagine paying that much for a glorified closet.
But apparently someone out there had money to burn.
Of course most homes are not selling at this point.
In fact, sales of existing homes have fallen by about a third over the past year.
So something has got to give.
Either the Federal Reserve has got to dramatically reduce interest rates or home prices have got to fall.
And the Federal Reserve is not planning to reduce interest rates any time soon.
Unfortunately, Fed officials keep talking about the possibility of raising them even higher.
So a lot more pain is coming, and the American people are getting restless.
If you can believe it, a recent Rasmussen survey discovered that more than half of all U.S. adults believe that we will experience “another Great Depression” within the next few years…
Despite claims by President Joe Biden about the strength of America’s economy, most Americans still think we’re headed toward another Great Depression.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of American Adults believe it is likely that, over the next few years, the United States will enter a 1930s-like depression, including 21% who say a major depression is Very Likely. Thirty-six percent (36%) don’t think another Great Depression is likely over the next few years, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 11% are not sure.
Even though they may not understand the specifics, most Americans can feel that something has gone horribly wrong.
But things didn’t have to turn out this way.
You see, the truth is that we didn’t learn our lessons from the last financial crisis.
Instead of fixing the system, we created bubbles that were even bigger.
Now that bonds have crashed, it is just a matter of time before stocks crash too.
And we are headed for an economic meltdown of epic proportions.
The months and years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging.
So I hope that you have been preparing for difficult times, because the nightmare that many of us have been warning about has already begun.
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https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/comes-the-dancing-skeleton/
Comes the Dancing Skeleton
“We’ve conflated politics and bad mental health until they are indistinguishable.”
By some hidden working of unseen forces, legions of ghouls and demons are bursting out of the ground in every other front yard of small-town America. Supposedly hard-up working-class people go all-out constructing Halloween shrines to the totem figures of decay and death, as in some depraved cargo cult competition aimed at hastening our country’s descent into chaos. The end can’t come soon enough, seems to be the message. Something in the zeitgeist is prompting us to do this.
Year to year, these morbid displays of slavering werewolves, hooded skeletons, grinning mummies, pirate corpses, horned devils, giant spiders, flapping crows, and glowing skulls far surpass in scale the once-exuberant displays of Christmas time — as if to say the celebration of horror and terror has way more meaning in America these days than the message of peace-on-earth, angels-on-high, the boundless generosity of Santa Claus, and the humble birth of a loving god. Kind of reminds you of what Mr. Dylan said more than a half-century ago: “…he not busy being born is busy dying.”
This Halloween month, America looks super-busy preparing for the death of something, maybe itself. Surely many now live in terror of the malevolent blob that the US government has become, led by a very paragon of ghouls, “Joe Biden.” This week, the blob declared in a “leak” to Newsweek magazine, that supporters of Donald Trump, the Golden Golem of Greatness, are now officially deemed to be enemies of the state. So, the blob that has lately subsumed the state, explicitly targets Trumpists (the MAGA crowd) for wholesale persecution, cancellation, de-personing, and incarceration. That is, opponents of the blob regime organizing for the coming election will be systematically neutralized and / or liquidated, taken off the game-board one way or another, by any means necessary.
The blobistas would do well to take heed of those Halloween lawn displays. A stupendous, howling rage is building across this land in revolt against the blob’s monumental insults to a once proud and productive people. Soon, that plastic totem army of stock mythological monsters cavorting in the front yards will be superseded by real flesh-and-blood Americans aiming to shred the blob and scatter its quivering tatters to the four winds — as John F. Kennedy once remarked of the CIA in 1962, before it killed him in retaliation.
Coincidentally, a scion of the JFK generation now running for president on an as-yet-to-be-specified independent party seeks to do exactly what his uncle promised to do. As you gaze on this developing battlefield, you will now see two sizable armies marshaling against the unholy hosts of blobbery — Mr. Trump’s MAGAs and Bobby Kennedy’s emerging division representing the old stoic virtues betrayed by vicious blob tyrants. The plausible outcomes on this battlefield are in flux thirteen months before the election. But it looks a little like the blob is outflanked; hence, its growing desperation.
The psychodrama in the House of Representatives this week looked like a possible inflection point in the blob’s war against the American people. Mr. Gaetz evicted the quisling Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rather brave gambit, opening up the possibility of unifying his party against the programmatic wickedness of the post-Covid-19 era — the suicidal spending, the insane and unnecessary Ukraine proxy war, traitorous refusal to control the southern border, the official DOJ lawfare waged against half the citizenry, the disgusting official censorship campaign, and the ongoing criminal conspiracy between the pharma companies, the US public health officialdom, and shadowy globalist forces embedded in the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and scores of sinister multinational organizations ranging from George Soros’s Atlantic Council to the Sinaloa Cartel.
In the background of all that — a true-life horror — lies the crumbling bond market, the foundation of the money-and-banking system that is supposed to support the on-the-ground economy that produces things of value like food and roofing shingles. The bond market is wobbling badly. As rates rise, banks’ collateral melts away and they go bust, liquidation moves to stock markets, derivatives implode, and the vast reservoirs of capital vanish. There’s your stealth true Halloween psychodrama sneaking up on the scene. Gradually, then all at once, the quarreling nation finds itself stone broke, and even the blob shrinks from the scene in horror.
It will be hard to gaslight the country anymore when that happens. That will be the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton.
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