ARM WRESTLING GAME BETWEEN CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES

Xi Jinping's latest visit to Putin (they have met 40 times during their respective terms) [1] and Chinese mediation for Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-establish diplomatic relations after breaking them 7 years ago, have reaffirmed Beijing's position as the superpower that it is not willing to submit to the hegemony of the United States, and that it can dispute that position.

Washington has tried to corner China through military alliances such as the one established with United Kingdom and Australia (AUKUS), strategic ones such as the Indo-Pacific with Japan, India and again Australia; and with the European Union and NATO to increase the presence of both organizations in the Pacific.

Likewise, Washington has launched an offensive to try to stop Chinese technological progress, by banning Chinese companies in the West (Huawei and Tik Tok) and blocking the technological and commercial exchange of semiconductors with Chinese companies.

It is clear that the strategic competition of the United States with China has to do with world hegemony, with its intention to maintain its dominance over the rules that prevail in international relations and with its decision that no country or group of countries, be it China, Russia or the European Union, must try to dispute that privileged position that it obtained after the Second World War and after the end of the First Cold War (we are already in the second).

Until now, the West and the countries allied with the United States in the East have accepted their subordination to Washington, even at the cost of great sacrifices, such as those that the European Union and NATO members have had to make, to continue the war in Ukraine, with the aim of dealing a “strategic defeat” to Putin; and maintain economic sanctions that have affected both Europe and Russia, with the aim of destroying the Russian economy, something that they have not even remotely achieved.

The population of European countries view, with uncertainty and growing fear, that the war in Ukraine against Russia is stalled, without either country being able to declare victory; but meanwhile, the Europeans continue to pay the highest costs of energy, food, as well as more spending on weapons, both to transfer it to Ukraine (without any payment), and to feed the armed forces of their countries; and also, having to accept in them millions of Ukrainians who have fled their devastated country.

In the United States, the stratospheric amount of money that Washington has given to Ukraine (more than 100 billion dollars), practically without any control mechanism, which raises doubts about its good use in one of the most corrupt countries in the world; and the budget for the United States armed forces, which is already close to a trillion dollars, is increasingly questioned by the population, since such an amount of money is not easily allocated internally to improve health, education, basic infrastructure, public safety, etc.

However, the lobbies of the military-industrial-security complex: the lobby for Israel, the "hawks" of the Pentagon; the neoconservatives and the interventionist liberals, as well as the media aligned with these interests (the main television networks and the most important newspapers in the country); and, the "think tanks" that live from these wars, they are not willing to let the "will of the people" get in the way of their goal of defeating Putin in Ukraine, and if possible, bringing about regime change in Moscow. .

As well as to contain China, until the United States manages to recover the lost ground in economic, technological and even military matters (Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles are more advanced than American ones), for which the world cannot wait in the next years a "truce" in this second Cold War, but quite the opposite; an intensification by the United States of the arms race, of the provocations to China, Russia and Iran, and of the determination to keep the West and the rest of the vassal countries of Washington, aligned with these priorities, regardless of the political, economic, social and environmental costs that cause the planet.

[1] https://portal.ieu-monitoring.com/editorial/a-new-chapter-of-friendship-op-ed-by-xi-jinping-prior-to-his-visit-to-russia/403231?utm_source=ieu-portal