In These New Times

Whilst it is clear that Putin seeks, above all, a Moscow-Washington partnership, it is not clear that this is incompatible with an equally strong partnership with China. Indeed, such a partnership would be the basis of Eurasian integration. Still, one would expect Washington try to drive a wedge between Russia and China. A  Trump presidency would likely engage more closely with Moscow, perhaps finally bringing to an the Cold War. Hence, his seeming indifference to NATO. But he would at rhetorically challenge China even as the Chinese buy up broad swathes of the US economy. This triangular, US-Russia-China interplay may throw some light on the mystery of Brexit: the one clear consequence of Brexit, apart from destroying the British economy and the power of the City of London, seems to be a realignment of UK foreign policy with that of Washington after tensions had arisen over British membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the lately departed George Osborne’s wooing of China as well as the accompanying Russophobia.

M.K.Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline

25th July, 2016

The scathing attack on Russian foreign policies in the Global Times newspaper on Sunday has no precedents. It goes way beyond the occasional sparring in a spirit of ‘glasnost’. Indeed, China-Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination (as it is officially described) is not at all like what it appears. (Read my article in Asia Times Russia-China entente – Lofty rhetoric, shifty discourse.)

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