China-Russia is a match made in heaven, and that’s scary
See on Scoop.it – It Comes Undone-Think About It
Putin’s trip to Shanghai could mark the start of a strategic realignment comparable to the tectonic shifts that began with President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.
But they each have their own interests at heart.
Bear and dragon historically have not a comfortable bed fellow made.
This is why we need to ease up on them both, so that they’re not feeling so penned in against the West and able to accumulate so many smaller players around them.
What does this look like?
It means stopping with the obnoxious name calling against Vladimir Putin (c’mon, it’s an easy give that doesn’t cost you anything on the strategic level).
It means not encouraging Chinese students to “break the rules” (something that does not at all translate well into Chinese culture).
It means maintaining a level of civility (which is free) while working with two very powerful and very respectable societies who are presently governed by people whom we may not like (but who still carry reasonable amounts of support from their general publics, if you looked at what their publics are thinking and saying about them on the actual level).
Who cares if they’re not liberal Democracies like we are? Neither society has ever organized themselves in such a manner, and neither will.
Technically the only reason why we get our sad semblance of democracy over here is because the English feudal system was more decentralized, and we were founded from that burgher stock, unlike the French or Spanish models and colonies). We’ve also had new revolutions of thought and sentiment that have barely impacted the roots of our biological being (hence the conservatives in all of our societies who still insist on monarchical or aristocratic-like rule).
So, rule number one in basic social interactions: don’t judge, don’t assume, don’t put your own sensibilities on people who honestly will never be like us. You’re not going to save a sovereign society from themselves, unless there is MASSIVE support for those changes within a given society that will defy the bullets and prisons of the people who lead in a persistent and constant manner. Even then, they’ll only organize themselves along the old logic and sensibilities, QED, they will never have liberal democratic systems of governance like we do in this country.
You should instead RESPECT others, ACKNOWLEDGE their interests at the very least and TRY to find REASONED MIDDLE GROUND IN BETWEEN their needs and yours. Otherwise, you’re only going to antagonize and alienate them from yourself and cause them to hunker down together in opposition to us (which is exactly what’s happening right here between these two rivals).
A bad peace is forming between Russia and China. I’m sure that both will act intelligently so as to not step on each other’s respective paw and tail deliberately. However, this is no real friendship between the bear and the dragon (we need to remember this).
Therefore, let them make their agreement that’s bound to run afoul of one of their interests someday, and focus instead on righting our own positions vis a vis the entire rest of the human society who is NOT going to be Western.
What arrogant people are these who run our society who believe that they can change these old systems and logics, especially using the methods that they’re using?
Think about it.
See on blogs.reuters.com
Itcomesundone 