Armstrong Economics Blog/China Re-Posted Feb 28, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
BRASILIA, BRAZIL – NOVEMBER 13: (RUSSIA OUT) Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) greets Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) during their bilateral meeting on November 13, 2019 in Brasilia, Brazil. The leaders of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa have gathered in Brasilia for the BRICS leaders summit. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
Russia and China have aligned in recent years both financially and politically. Russia recently showed support for China during the Beijing Olympics as other world leaders declined to send even their diplomats. Earlier in the month, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping unified in their opposition to NATO expansion and stated that there are “no limits” to the China-Russia partnership.
According to the Carnegie Moscow Center, as reported by Business Insider, trade has dramatically increased between Russia and China. In 2004, the two nations traded $10.7 billion, but now exchange $140 billion between the two. As for the leaked instructions, the Chinese Communist Party is studying Russia’s Ukraine invasion for tips. “In the future, China will also need Russia’s understanding and support when wrestling with America to solve the Taiwan issue once and for all,” the post noted. Alliances have been formed and Russia and China are now standing as a united front against the West.
On February 10, President Joe Biden stated that he would “work like the devil to bring gas prices down.” That was short-lived. By February 22, Biden announced that gas prices will continue to rise. “Defending freedom will have costs for us as well, and here at home. We need to be honest about that,” Biden stated to deflect the blame.
Biden continued: “But as we will do — but as we do this, I’m going to take robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy not ours. We’re closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. We’re executing a plan in coordination with major oil producing consumers and producers toward a collective investment to secure stability and global energy supplies. This will be — this will blunt gas prices. I want to limit the pain to the American people fueling at the gas pump. This is critical to me.”
Then there is the Keystone XL Pipeline Project that was terminated in June 2021 after President Biden revoked the permit as soon as he took office. The climate change crowd declared this a major victory, blindly ignoring the consequences. The climate change advocates have also caused fracking to become a moral issue, preventing an increase in domestic production.
Once nations are unable to purchase gas from Russia, they will turn to the Middle East and elsewhere, which will tighten global reserves. Rising energy prices will contribute to inflation, and transportation costs will rise. The West has lost control over the energy crisis in its bid to burn down the world to Build Back Better.
COMMENT: Marty, I can see why you have been an adviser to governments. You said sanctions never work. Biden has come out and admitted they did not prevent anything. Who is making these decisions in governments? The Keystone cops?
REPLY: Even in the case of Iran, Erdogan was secretly laundering money for Iran selling gold into the market to allow them to circumvent sanctions. The sanctions imposed on Russia for taking Crimea are still in place. They produced nothing. It becomes a dog and pony show pretending that sanctions will be a deterrent or end something. I have NEVER seen even one instance where sanctions ever worked. They have, on the other hand, been taken as an act of war.
We have a Panic Cycle in the Russian Ruble the week of March 7th. Note the Long-Term turning point was due this week and last week was the Double Directional Change signaling that indeed the trend was shifting. Our model picked up February as a turning point in Japan with high volatility in March with a Directional Change.
Imposing sanctions and removing Russian banks from SWIFT, in addition to freezing Russian shares trading in the West, will fail to do anything. In fact, Western brokers and bankers will now avoid anything to do with Russia. Companies like Sberbank, Gazprom, and others are now on the “restricted securities” list. We are looking at diverse funds who invested in Russia are now trapped and Russia and now just void all obligations to the West.
These political morons are clueless about cross-border investments and capital flows. Biden did not bother to look but the US has the biggest investment in Russia according to the statistics released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The data clearly shows that the US was the largest investor in Russia and accounts for 8.9% of the Russian economy which is almost $40 billion.
While people speculate that there will be a massive run of Russian banks, they are also not looking at the damage removing Russia from SWIFT will mean to foreign investors. Russia now escapes all foreign liabilities.
The object of the new restrictions against Russia’s Central Bank is to limit the Kremlin’s ability to access the more than $600 billion in reserves hoping to cause a crash in the Ruble that will unleash a free fall, triggering spiraling inflation there. But Putin is smart. He can back the ruble with gold only for domestic use in effect reversing the strategy of FDR who confiscated gold domestically.
The sanctions have not been a deterrent. China and Russia have been moving to create an alternative to SWIFT which has become a political weapon. We are looking at the collapse over even SWIFT in the years ahead due to political abuse.
There are all sorts of rumors that the US has biological weapons installations in Ukraine and Putin has been targeting them for destruction. I have found no truth to this from reliable information. It would also be totally illogical to attack such facilities for that would unleash any such biological weapons that would then also attack Russian troops and carry it home to Russia. You cannot blow up a biological weapons lab. That would unleash who knows what and it could even kill Fauci because he could say – “What lab?
War is rarely what is reported in the newspapers. Here we have the West all blaming Putin and asserting that he is the aggressor. War is always created by politicians – not the people. There are intermarriages in Ukraine. In this case, the Minsk Agreement which was supposed to have been brokered by France and Germany was started in 2014.
In Ukraine, politicians refused to allow the independence of two Russian states. During the Soviet Union, Russians migrated to various regions. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Minsk II agreement was to allow local elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on their future status in Ukraine. Make no mistake about it, if Western Canada decides to leave and become independent, Trudeau would also send in military forces. The same would be true in a separatist movement that takes hold in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, or Italy. This is a matter of human rights that people ignore.
I do not believe in 19th-century Imperialism where politicians carve up territory ignoring the wishes of the people. This to me is also a deep violation of human rights. Donetsk and Luhansk should have been allowed to vote and decide their own fate. It is a throwback to imperialism to say that was our border under the Soviet Union so it is mine – which is the real words of politicians.
Back in December 2021, the refusal to negotiate on the Minsk Agreement to allow election by Ukraine, probably at the direction of the West, has merely placed the entire nation of Ukraine at risk. There has been plenty of time – 8 years
We really have to wonder if the West misled Zelensky or is he really this incompetent not to have noticed that the entire West withdrew which was a signal to Putin Ukraine is yours. Putin demanded that Ukraine not be allowed in NATO. They refused to concede that point yet everyone fled Ukraine. Something just does not add up. If you were standing behind Ukraine, you do not flee. That was the signal to not stop with Donetsk and Luhansk. Why refuse to relinquish those two provinces when there was no defense for Ukraine as a whole?
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 25, 2022 | sundance | 306 Comments
There’s a New York Times article getting attention today, as the article frames a narrative of the U.S. intelligence community and diplomatic offices trying to get China to influence Russia away from invading Ukraine.
However, as with all NYT reporting of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the information within the article must be viewed through a different prism to understand the real motives being discussed.
Never ascribe to incompetence, that which can be explained by intent.
The Deep State narrative, what the NYT reports, begins thusly:
WASHINGTON — Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.
Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord — and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.
The previously unreported talks between American and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow’s plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.
This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy spokesman, Liu Pengyu, answered an earlier request for comment a half-day after this article was posted online, saying, “For some time, China has actively promoted the political settlement process of the Ukraine issue.” (read more)
The article goes on to say that China shared the information with Russia, and then outlines how Russia and China are the geopolitical partnership in the modern era. However, here’s the part where the motive and deep state angles are missed.
Do not view the details of this article outline through the prism printed by the intelligence apparatus; instead, view this article through the prism that U.S. intelligence and State Dept operatives were planting information into China, knowing it would be shared with Russia.
Obviously, anyone who follows geopolitical events already knows that China and Russia are partners against the west. Why would the U.S. intelligence apparatus think China would not share the details of the intelligence and/or seek to block Russian intents? The short answer is, they wouldn’t.
The White House, U.S. intel and Dept of State would know, to a guaranteed certainty, that any information they shared with China would get directly delivered to Russia. All information the United States would share (think ‘seed’) with China, would therefore be intended to get to Russia.
As a consequence, if the White House, CIA, State Department or U.S. intelligence community wanted to provoke Russian aggression, they would purposefully put that provocation material into the hands of the Chinese. THAT is the main takeaway from the New York Times article.
The U.S. intelligence apparatus was seeding information to Russia via China for three months prior to the triggering point.
What that provocation intelligence contained is unknown, but the U.S. delivering it through a third party is now confirmed.
It’s all a competing disinformation, manipulated information and propaganda warfare folks. Do not take any claim, any construct, any narrative from any side, at face value. This is where the underlying alignment of U.S. media becomes critical.
After Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power in early 2014 during the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, the chairman of parliament Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed to the role of acting president. The Ukrainian people were very upset for they believed that there would be no real change. You MUST draw a line between what the people did and what the West did afterward. These people who attribute everything to an all-powerful CIA plot have NO personal knowledge of anything and spew out their opinion as if it were fact. The whole “Fuck the EU!” comment by Victoria Nuland phoning with Geoffrey Pyatt was reported on February 7th, 2014 and it only illustrates that there were efforts to gain control of the situation in Ukraine, but it does not demonstrate that the CIA organized the revolution from the start. Yanukovych fled Ukraine on February 22, 2014, just about 3 months from the beginning of the protests.
Yanukovych was an oligarch and his police were shaking down businesses and forcing them to pay his two sons. He was running Ukraine the same way oligarchs ran Russia. You obey their commands or you die. If you had a business that was really doing well, Yanukovych and his sons would confiscate it. That is what caused the people to rise up, it was nothing the CIA managed to do. I had personal friends on the barricades. I was deeply concerned for their safety and was in regular contact offering my advice.
I can tell you that the West installed the leaders thereafter and the people were told if they dared to revolt against them, they would lose all support from both the EU and the USA. The puppet president, Oleksandr Turchynov served as the acting president from February 23 until June 7, 2014, and was the only person in Ukrainian history to serve in the role. During his tenure, Turchynov was addressed as “acting president” by other Ukrainian politicians and the media.
This was followed by a questionable 2014 election which took place on May 25th, with businessman Petro Poroshenko claiming to have won just over 54% percent of the vote. Yulia Tymoshenko was the runner-up with around 13%. Poroshenko was sworn in as president on June 7th, 2014. Poroshenko was a Ukrainian billionaire businessman known as the ‘Chocolate King’. However, our direct sources at the time in the East made it plain that they were unable to vote as the polling stations were destroyed by the pro-Russian terrorists/tourists. Those who would have voted in the East may have voted for Poroshenko because the general feeling was they needed a President who would have a majority vote with no run-offs to prevent civil war.
Nonetheless, Poroshenko was also a seasoned politician. He has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine’s National Bank. He is pro-West for economic freedom. The fact that he was a billionaire who has created businesses rather than inherited them or filled his pockets like Viktor Yanukovych, was good for he was seen as someone who would not rob the treasury and b beyond potential bribes. Yanukovych was not poor, but he was not a businessman in reality. Still, Ukraine’s east remained caught in a torrent of violence that was maturing into a civil war that we are really seeing today. This was a major challenge that tested Poroshenko who had promised to navigate between Russia and the West. But the fighting continued as the separatist rebellion in the Donets Basin continued. Poroshenko said at the time:
“The first steps of our entire team at the beginning of the presidency will concentrate on ending the war, ending the chaos, ending the disorder and bringing peace to Ukrainian soil, to a united, single Ukraine,” at a victory rally Sunday. “Our decisive actions will bring this result fairly quickly.”
Poroshenko has also said he wants to lead Ukraine to closer ties with the European Union. During his speeches, Poroshenko on numerous occasions has called the war in East Ukraine a “Patriotic War”, yet did not initiate implementation of martial law. Nevertheless, the violence that prevented many citizens in eastern Ukraine from voting, demonstrates the old anti-democratic attitude there. It is their way or no way – sheer dictatorship. Separatists in the region had vowed to disrupt the vote, and they largely succeeded in shutting that down knowing they would lose. If the vote would have been for leaving Ukraine at the time, then they would have made sure the people voted. But that was not the case.
Putin said a day before Ukraine voted that Russia would “cooperate with the authorities that will come to power as a result of the election,” but he added that he continued to consider Yanukovich the legitimate president of the country. Eventually, on June 18, 2015, Yanukovych was officially deprived of the title of President of Ukraine retroactively.
Poroshenko set up an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands to shelter his taxes from the sale of his company. Leaked documents from the Panama Papers from 2016 revealed that Poroshenko registered the company, Prime Asset Partners Ltd, on August 21st, 2014. He denied any wrongdoing and his legal firm, Avellum, overseeing the sale of Roshen, Poroshenko’s confectionery company, said that “any allegations of tax evasion are groundless”. The anti-corruption group Transparency International believes that the “creation of businesses while serving as president is a direct violation of the constitution”. His name was cited in the list of politicians named in “Paradise Papers” allegations.
This allegation of tax evasion arose during the 2019 election which took place on March 31st, with a run-off on April 21st. As a result of this election, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and comedian with no prior political experience became the sixth President of Ukraine with 73% of the popular vote in the run-off against the incumbent Petro Poroshenko.
Within months of the election, on December 20th, 2019, Ukrainian law enforcement raided both Poroshenko’s party headquarters and gym on the orders of President Zelensky who has turned out to be ruthless and a questionable head of state. The raid was intended to eliminate any possible influence of Poroshenko going forward. It was used to launch criminal investigations focused of alleged theft of servers with classified information and tax evasion which is now always called money laundering. Zelensky outright accused Poroshenko of state treason, aiding terrorist organizations, and financing terrorism due to allegedly organizing the purchase of coal from separatist-controlled areas of Ukraine together with pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Poroshenko denied the allegations, calling them “fabricated, politically motivated, and black PR directed against [Zelensky’s] political opponents”.
Zelensky organized on January 6th, 2022 which was to the very day of the ECM turning point, that a Ukrainian court seized Poroshenko’s property and a few days later, on the 15th, Poroshenko announced via a video message on Facebook: “I am returning to Ukraine on a flight from Warsaw at 09:10 a.m. on January 17… to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression”, despite the case against him. Following his return to Ukraine, the prosecutor’s office asked a court to imprison him pre-trial. Ultimately, the court ordered him to wear an electronic bracelet, remain in Kyiv, and hand over his passport.
The Zelensky Government of Ukraine is becoming a ruthless tyrant. He has also imprisoned the leader of the opposition Viktor V. Medvedchuk, who was the People’s Deputy of Ukraine from August 29, 2019. Medvedchuk is the chairman of the pro-Russia political organization Ukrainian Choice and an opponent of Ukraine joining the European Union. From an economic perspective, for Ukraine to join the EU would be to substitute one authoritarian government with another. Even the EU has called upon Zelensky to release Medvedchuk.
Clearly, Zelensky is unqualified to be the leader of any state. He has called on the West to impose sanctions against Russia BEFORE any invasion. “We don’t need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen, and after our country will be fired at or after we will have no borders or after we will have no economy or parts of our country will be occupied. Why would we need those sanctions then?” He is totally out of control and relies upon claims of Ukraine territory while his Language Law reduces anyone who speaks Russian to a virtual non-citizen. Imprisoning the leader of the opposition and going after the former President to solidify a one-party system is not what the Ukrainian people rose up against in 2014.
Now President Biden is to impose new economic sanctions targeting Russia after Putin deployed troops to two pro-Moscow separatist areas of eastern Ukraine that are ethnically Russian. The Kremlin announced that there were no concrete plans for a summit between the United States and Russia on the looming Ukraine crisis. Nowhere in the Western Press does anyone bother to suggest that the Russian in their states have been stripped of rights by Zelensky who has even prisoned the opposition that argues to allow those people to make a choice since it is their lives. But they have now simply become pawns in this absurd game of politics where the West needs to demonize Russia for leaders to pretend to be relevant.
Meanwhile, the stupidity of this entire crisis is that we have the most incompetent people in governments ever. Germany is to appoint Jeniffer Morgan, the former head of Green Peace, and their Secretary of State. How in the world is this climate activist qualified in military matters? Then China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the Ukrainian tensions during a phone call. “The situation in Ukraine is getting worse,” was the response from China’s foreign ministry following the call. China correctly pointed out that this entire crisis was closely related to the delayed implementation of the new Minsk Agreement where these two provinces were to be independent but Ukraine demands imperialism. If this escalates, China will be on the side of Russia and the West will lose!
The first Minsk Protocol was signed by Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the pro-Russia separatist leaders back in September 2014. Ukraine and the separatists agreed to an immediate 12-point ceasefire deal including withdrawal of heavy weapons and prisoner exchanges. But the agreement failed to stop the fighting, with frequent violations by both sides – not just the pro-Russian separatists. It was then five months later when Ukraine lost territory to pro-Russia separatists. Minsk II was then signed between Russia and Ukraine, which was mediated by France and Germany. That was then a 13-point agreement signed in February 2015. That quickly broke down because there is simply an ethnic dislike of Russians that makes no sense for Ukraine to refuse to relinquish their claims.
Moreover, Minsk II was to include the withdrawal of weapons and monitoring of the ceasefire. There were to be local elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on their future status in Ukraine. The obstinate position of the Zelensky Government is now threatening the entire world. He refuses to recognize that Moscow calls itself a mediator to help Ukraine and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics reach an agreement. Zelensky argues that point 10 of the Minsk agreement, which mentions the withdrawal of “all foreign armed forces” refers to Russia, while Russia denies having any military presence on the territories.
Russia argues that elections in the separatist republics should come before the withdrawal of military equipment, Zelensky insists on the opposite and does not want to allow the people to make a choice. There are more than 720,000 people living in Donetsk and Luhansk. They were recognized and given Russian citizenship under a simplified passport regime Russia adopted in 2019. Zelensky claims this is a violation of the Minsk accord to allow them to even apply for Russian citizenship. Zelensky simply refuses to relinquish any claim to this territory and refuses to grant any special status to these territories calling that unfeasible.
Consequently, the former comedian Zelensky is pushing not just Ukraine into war for a matter of pride, but he is trying to deliberately bring in the United States and Europe into World War III all because of what appears to be his personal hatred of Russians for the days of Stalin. Once more, we have this Eastern European crisis that sparked World War I, in a position to create World War III. The simple solution is to let the people of Donetsk and Luhansk decide with an election whereas those living in these provinces are entitled to decide their own fate.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 22, 2022 | Sundance | 139 Comments
Former Trump campaign advisor Steve Cortes hits the center bullseye with this explanation of what is currently taking place. {Direct Rumble Link}
As Cortes outlines, the massive inflation, massive gas prices, massive economic pain for the middle class are all directly an outcome of Joe Biden energy policy, economic policy and congressional spending/mismanagement. WATCH:
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Yes, a president can and does control the price of gasoline. What can a U.S. President and administration specifically do? We have abundant U.S. energy resources. Quite literally the strongest in the entire world.
Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized.
Finish the Dakota access pipeline.
Re-approve the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
Retract the stoppage of the Keystone pipeline to permit efficient oil transport shipments from Canada.
Stop blocking the expansion of coastal oil refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama (regulatory issue), as well as Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Seaboard.
Continue to develop natural gas as a clean burning fuel.
Drive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as an export.
Continue fracking.
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Unfortunately, this would mean reversing the entire energy policy of the current administration. The existing energy inflation and high prices of oil, natural gas and gasoline are a direct and intentional part of Joe Biden policy. That policy is driven by the leftist demand for a “green new deal.”
None of the actions above require any approval from OPEC. Strategically the ‘all of the above’ approach enhances U.S. national security and diminishes the influence of Russia, China and Iran. Within six months of the above, gasoline will plummet.
Democrat policies are the driving force of inflation.
Hong Kong is taking extreme measures to fund Sinovac Biotech after announcing children as young as three may receive the vaccine. This comes after various news outlets promoted stories of young children allegedly dying from the virus, however, they are not reporting if the children had pre-existing conditions or any other illness that could have contributed to the deaths. It would not be the first time the mainstream media has lied about the number of children falling ill from COVID.
The chance of a child dying from COVID is not statistically significant. Dr. Peter McCullough, a top cardiologist who was previously world-renowned before speaking out against vaccines, has warned that the vaccine can cause heart injury. “When kids get myocarditis after the vaccine, 90 percent have to be hospitalized, they have dramatic EKG changes, chest pain, heart failure, they need an echocardiogram,” he said, adding “they need medication to prevent heart failure.”
The ingredients in the vaccine are unknown. The long-term consequences are unknown. What is known is that injecting an experimental mRNA vaccine with unknown risks into a toddler is wrong. The chance of a child dying from COVID alone is so low that it would border on being a freak accident as there is a less than 0.03% chance of death among children. Big Pharma and those profiting would absolutely love to mandate vaccines for children to attend schools. Hong Kong permitting three-year-old toddlers to gene therapy is a horrifying experiment and only time will tell of the consequences.
The Winter Olympics opened to a lackluster start with only 14 million viewers, marking the least-viewed Olympics in the ceremony’s history. Beijing permitted 150,000 live spectators to attend the games at the last minute. Although this is not a lucrative endeavor for China, the minuscule audience is a blow to its public relations campaign.
China displayed dismay over diplomats worldwide boycotting the games over genocidal abuses that the CCP vehemently denies. Some news agencies have likened the boycotts to the Moscow Olympics of 1980 that saw over 65 countries boycott the games. “Together for a Shared Future” is the official motto of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games with aims to create a “community with a shared future for humankind.”
However, viewership has declined over the years. Tokyo’s games now hold silver for the second-least viewed games after averaging 15.6 million viewers. Tokyo marked a 42% plummet from Rio’s games which saw an average of 27 million viewers.
A diplomatic boycott is offensive to the CCP, but a boycott of the people shows that the public perception is that China is the enemy. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian warned the US not to boycott the games. “The politicization of sports will damage the spirit of the Olympic Charter and the interests of athletes from all countries,” said the spokesperson, Zhao Lijian. “The international community including the U.S. Olympic Committee will not accept it.” Still, the US announced it would send athletes but declined to send diplomats. Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, and around 10 EU nations have also announced diplomatic boycotts ahead of the games.
The games last until February 20, and it is to be seen if viewership or support of the games will spike, although it does not seem likely.
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