“We, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change, just as President Nixon wanted. We must induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity.
We must start by changing how our people and our partners perceive the Chinese Communist Party. We have to tell the truth. We can’t treat this incarnation of China as a normal country, just like any other.”
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to bloviate on a litany of sins that the Chinese government is guilty of, and various politicians and media outlets continue their nonstop propaganda about how evil Russia is, it is clear that the goals is to keep Americans perpetually indoctrinated with the idea that these two nations are incorrigible enemies.
This is consistent with the National Defense Strategy (NDS) of 2018, which states that the main threats facing the United States in the foreseeable future are Russia and China. And while the terminology of “great power competition” is thrown around, there is emphasis placed on the implicit clash of values with the U.S.-led west, with several references to the “free and open international order” that these two nations are putatively in violation of.
This shares some continuity with the Neoconservative-inspired Wolfowitz Doctrine of the early 1990’s, which granted Washington the right to forcibly determine what values and political framework the rest of the world should adhere to while maintaining hegemony over the world. The Democratic Party has embraced similar foreign policy ideas. Even the “progressive” wing, represented by Bernie Sanders, touted a need to take on the world’s “authoritarians” who were threatening the enlightened west.
All societies throughout modern history have had to prioritize various issues that impact national survival and their populations: the balance between the individual and the collective good, or the impact of change vs group instability, democracy versus economic development, etc. Different societies have resolved these issues in different ways, with varying results.
But the United States, with its triumphalist attitude at the close of the Cold War, decided that its way of life had been judged to be inevitable for everyone in the world. This was summed up in Francis Fukiyama’s The End of History. Western, especially American, political values and norms have been assumed to be the only correct way to resolve the most basic questions of organized life, regardless of whether a country has had any meaningful experience with western values. If a country disagrees or chooses to prioritize differently, they have been deemed backward or illegitimate.
This leaves no space for pluralism, negotiation or peaceful co-existence. Instead, it leads to a world in which conflict is inevitable and differences are irreconcilable. Constant war and the threat of war, especially with the three most powerful players on the world stage – the U.S., China and Russia – having nuclear weapons arsenals at their disposal, makes this an immoral and unsustainable framework.
For over three weeks straight, thousands of residents of the far eastern city of Khabarovsk have taken to the streets in protest of the removal and arrest of the local governor, Sergei Furgal, a member of the right-wing LDPR party who beat out the United Russia-favored candidate for the post in 2018. Protesters initially demanded that Furgal be released or at least tried locally rather than in Moscow where he is currently imprisoned. Protests swelled after Putin appointed an outsider, Mikhail Degtyaryov (but also a member of the LDPR party), to replace Furgal. However, the number of demonstrators in recent days appears to be decreasing.
Furgal was arrested for involvement in the murder of several entrepreneurs from 2004-2005. According to a July 16th Interfaxreport, the Russian Investigative Committee, which is overseeing the case has claimed “irrefutable proof” of Furgal’s guilt via its spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko:
“At this stage, the investigation already has irrefutable evidence of Sergei Furgal’s involvement in organizing the murders of entrepreneurs Yevgeny Zorya and Oleg Bulatov, and an attempt to murder Alexander Smolsky,” Petrenko told Interfax on Thursday.
The crimes were committed in the Khabarovsk Territory and in the Amur Region in 2004-2005, she said.
“Considering the gravity of the offences committed and the liability under the relevant Russian Criminal Code article, it’s for the court to decide whether statutes of limitation may apply. But the investigators have no doubt that Furgal participated in the murders as the immediate organizer,” Petrenko said.
This is supported by the evidence collected, including forensic expert reports, materials obtained in police inquiries, witness statements, and other information, she said.
“The work on uncovering the crimes was never interrupted but complicated badly due to the fact that most individuals aware of what happened were intimidated. They refused to give detailed testimony against Furgal or his accomplices,” Petrenko went on to say.
So, if there’s a plausible case against Furgal for multiple murders, one might ask, why the protests against his arrest? Naturally, the situation is more complicated than the western corporate media is making it out to be with their predictable line of this being strictly about dissatisfaction with Putin who is presumably taking his political revenge on the governor. Russia-based journalist, Bryan MacDonald, who lived for 2 and 1/2 years in Khabarovsk, wrote a good backgrounder on the conditions and atmosphere in Khabarovsk at the time that Furgal won his governorship:
In the end, it was a landslide. Nationalist opposition candidate Sergei Furgal of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) defeated President Putin’s man Vyacheslav Shport by a margin of almost 70 percent to just under 28 percent in the race to become governor of Khabarovsk. Meanwhile, contests in Vladimir, Khakassia and Primorye also delivered setbacks to the ruling party, United Russia.
But don’t get too excited – or worried – just yet, depending on your political preferences. These were regional elections, fought mainly on local issues, involving personalities barely known in Moscow but well-known in their own backyards. Small town heroes, or villains, as it were….
…The district’s capital, Khabarovsk, is a city of around 600,000 where Moscow is frequently seen as more of a hindrance than a help. That’s partly down to distance (8,400km by car, eight hours on a plane, or six days on a train) but it’s also a reaction to observing increasingly well-heeled Asian neighbors. Although this part of Russia is itself prosperous, boasting the highest wages in the country.
Because the world looks very different from Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. While Moscow and St. Petersburg gaze out upon the rest of Europe and feel reasonably content, the Far East is surrounded by some of the most dynamic economies in the world. And it’s hard not to feel jealous.
On the other side of the Amur river lies China, Japan is across the sea, and South Korea is “down the road.” But the Kremlin is far away. And it’s common to meet people in the Far East who have never been west of the Urals but know their way around the backstreets of Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai or Bangkok.
MacDonald goes on to explain how the increase in the retirement age fueled disgust at the Kremlin-backed United Russia party in 2018 as most Russians support the welfare state policies established in the 20th century. Read the full article here.
Another article by Kirill Shamiev from July 23rd, also provides a good comprehensive analysis of the protests and their context. Here he describes the history of governance of the Khabarovsk area in the post-Soviet era leading up to Furgal’s election:
The Khabarovsk Region has long been considered the patrimony of regional elites. The first head of the region, Victor Ishayev, emerged in regional politics in the late 1980s, becoming the director of the Khabarovsk Aluminium Plant and first deputy chairman of the executive committee of the Khabarovsk Regional Council of People’s Deputies. Ishayev remained governor from 1991 to 2009, becoming a kind of ‘father’ of the region. He survived the ‘gangster era’ of wild capitalism. He became a loyal supporter of Vladimir Putin. Then, he served as an envoy and minister for the development of the Far East for another five years. Yet in 2019, Ishayev was arrested and charged with fraud (facing up to 10 years in prison). In July 2020, the case was reclassified as embezzlement and sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office to be referred to court.
The mayor of Khabarovsk, Alexander Sokolov, who served continuously since 2000, became a key associate of Ishayev. Back in 1989, Sokolov became the First Secretary of the Khabarovsk City Committee. In the second half of the 1990s worked as the General Director of Khabarovsknefteprodukt, the largest distributor of petroleum products in the region. In 2018, Sokolov retired from politics. But a year later, he was back in the news. The Navalny Headquarters in Khabarovsk released an investigation, disclosing Sokolov’s ownership of houses in the U.S. and the Bolshekhekhtsirsky Nature Reserve, as well as apartments in Moscow and Khabarovsk. Many protesters remembered this as an example of Sokolov’s corruption and his ‘betrayal’ of the region. In the view of the Far Easterners, a mayor of a city with 600,000 inhabitants cannot legally own houses in the United States. This fact is perceived as a token of obvious corruption and lack of regional patriotism.
The Ishayev-Sokolov tandem controlled the Khabarovsk region for 20 years. In the 1990s politicians’ local ties were an advantage in the context of de-institutionalising political power in the country and surging crime. In the end, though, these qualities turned out insufficient as the situation in the country began to stabilise. The change in the post of governor in 2009 did not help the region. In his 10 years in office, Vyacheslav Shport was unable to achieve higher-than-average growth rates. His negative rating was so high that Shport’s portrait was vandalised several times and covered with spittle in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, his home city.
Shamiev points out that Furgal earned some popularity with his policies and approach to the governorship:
As a governor, Furgal quickly won popularity after solving obvious yet acute problems and thanks to his unprecedented political openness. Furgal helped to achieve a sharp reduction in the number of deceived shareholders, provided free meals to schoolchildren from low-income families, and focused on building boiler houses, local airports, roads and medical infrastructure in remote areas of the region. All these changes came with active information campaigns: video recordings of meetings; voters included in online receptions on Instagram; and Furgal being personally accessible. Furgal’s style of governance was quickly embraced by voters and praised by experts. In a region where everyone knows everyone else, his simplicity and openness stood out in Russia, becoming yet another factor reinforcing his popularity.
A couple of more analyses worth reading: Gilbert Doctorow’s, which discusses the idea of the Khabarovsk protests being motivated – at least, in part – due to residents’ disapproval of Moscow’s increasing partnership with China since Furgal was popular and represented a nationalist party; Mary Dejevsky has written about Putin’s “hands off” approach to the protests, letting them generally play out, and not making claims of foreign interference.
*Note to readers: I am starting to work on a larger research project that will be taking up my time over the next couple of weeks. Consequently, blog posts during that time will likely be more sporadic and less in-depth.
Monument of Peter the Great, St. Petersburg, Russia
The Russian government has been forced to moderate its goals for the National Projects, with Putin having signed a “July Decree”on the 21st that set 2030 as the new date to accomplish a scaled back version of the program. According to BNE Intellinews:
They outline five development goals: 1) maintaining the population, its health and wellbeing; 2) creating possibilities for self-fulfilment and development of talents; 3) comfortable and safe living environment; 4) effective labour and successful entrepreneurship; 5) digital transformation.
One of the previous goals, to make Russia one of the five largest global economies, has been removed. The new decree also omits clear targets on labour productivity but maintains the goal of halving poverty levels from the current 12.3%.
The government will now have to adjust the National Projects platform to the new decree by October 30 and come up with a consolidated 2030 economic development plan.
According to the document, life expectancy, which was 73.4 years in 2019, should reach 78 years in ten years’ time….The document also sets other important goals. These include plans to make sure that the number of workers employed in small and medium-sized businesses climbs to 25 m[illion], and that capital investment expands by at least 70% compared to 2020. Similar expectations cover non-commodity and non-energy exports, too.
The executive order signed by Putin can be viewed here.
Remember when the late John McCain said that Russia was just a gas station masquerading as a country? Some of you may also be aware that Rising! co-host Saagar Enjeti recently referred to Russia on social media as a “third-rate dying petro-state.” Which goes to show that strident anti-Russia sentiment is truly bi-partisan. According to statistics from the Russian government, Russia made more money this past spring from exporting gold than exporting natural gas. RTreported:
According to the statistics, in April and May, Russian mining companies sold 65.4 tons of gold abroad worth $3.55 billion. Russian gas exports for the same period stood at $2.4 billion. According to the CBR’s preliminary assessment, in general, for the second quarter of 2020, exports of gas brought Russia $3.5 billion in revenue – less than that from gold exports in just two months.
Last week, the Kiev government and the rebels in east Ukraine reached a ceasefire agreement that has now reportedly gone into effect. The OSCE SMM reported the following terms:
Issuance and enactment from 00:01hrs (Kyiv time) on 27 July 2020 by the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the leadership of the armed formations of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of, and compliance with, for the whole period until full comprehensive settlement of the conflict, the respective ceasefire orders containing the following ceasefire support measures:
ban on offensive, reconnaissance and sabotage operations, as well as ban on operation of any types of aerial vehicles of the sides;
ban on firing, including sniper fire;
ban on the deployment of heavy weapons in and around settlements, primarily at civilian infrastructure, including schools, kindergartens, hospitals and public premises;
the effective use of disciplinary actions for ceasefire violations and notification of them to the TCG Coordinator who shall inform all of its participants about it;
creation and involvement of a coordination mechanism for responding to ceasefire violations through the facilitation of the JCCC in its current setting;
retaliatory fire responding to an offensive operation* is only permissible if it occurs at the order made by the respective leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the leadership of CADLR armed formations after an unsuccessful attempt to make use of the above-mentioned coordination mechanism. The TCG shall be notified of the issuance of such orders.
the above-mentioned measures may not be, fully or in part, disavowed by any other orders, including secret ones.
Iversen discusses how China is maintaining the Chinese economy for the benefit of the Chinese rather than allowing all of its assets to be up for sale to the highest bidder from anywhere like the U.S. has done.
Putin contemplating his latest plot to undermine the U.S.
They seem to come in waves. Every time I think there might be a respite in the “Russia is up to something evil narrative,” here comes another story of how Putin and those dastardly Ruskies are undermining America’s peaceful paradise from the basement of the Kremlin. It seems Putin can always spare time away from overseeing his own hellhole country to obsess about how to screw with the U.S.
I’ve noted the phases in which anti-Russia propaganda has tended to skyrocket. It started to get serious after Putin’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. The fact that Putin called out Washington’s hypocrisy and skulduggery in world affairs really got the U.S. political class’s knickers in a knot. The following year, Hillary Clinton, during her first failed run for the presidency, said that Putin had no soul because he’d been a KGB agent. John McCain, who had a front row seat to Putin’s speech, dismissed Putin as simply a corrupt KGB autocrat during his failed 2008 presidential run. McCain also had neocon Russia-hater Robert Kagan on board as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign.
There was another upswing of anti-Russia propaganda toward the end of 2013. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that some influential and self-important people in the U.S. had decided that Putin was getting too much good PR at the time: the diplomatic success of getting Syrian president Assad to give up his chemical weapons to avert any excuse for an attack from western powers, his oped published in the New York Times which was generally well-received by readers, the upcoming Sochi Olympics, etc.
This pattern of good will on behalf of Russia and its leadership apparently needed to be brought to a screeching halt. Suddenly all of the western media in lockstep started blowing up a story about a law in Russia prohibiting “homosexual propaganda” to minors. The fact that so many of the politicians and public officials who expressed their outrage at this law had a history of not saying boo about our “ally” Saudi Arabia’s habit of publicly beheading homosexuals on a regular basis (in addition to other “crimes” that would be considered minor transgressions in the west) proved that these people didn’t care one whit about the plight of homosexuals in Russia or anywhere else, but were using this as a convenient political weapon with which to beat on Russia.
Right after the Sochi Olympics, of course, is when the crisis in Ukraine – abetted by Washington – really intensified. The narrative weaved by the US/UK media was one in which Putin was the uber-villain who just woke up one day and decided to “invade” Crimea and destabilize the country on his border. Some of these attempts by the media to “prove” that Russian military forces had invaded Ukraine were debunked within days of publication. The MSM – led by the lionized NYT – also continually repeated false accusations by the State Department and US military officials of a Russian invasion or imminent invasion.
And then there was the Russiagate shitshow that we have been subjected to since 2016.
But the mainstream corporate media and the political class it represents just cannot let go of the anti-Russia narrative, no matter how many times these stories fall apart. A couple of weeks ago, it was the assertion from unnamed sources that Russia had paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, reported on by NYT and breathlessly repeated by Washington Post and other outlets. This story, too, has been thoroughly debunked by Scott Ritter, Barbara Boland, and Gareth Porter, among others.
The Russophobes, however, are still not deterred. Now there are reports that the Russian baddies are trying to steal research on a potential Covid vaccine from western countries. This is ridiculous on its face due to the fact that Russia has now gone into human trials for their own vaccine, so there is absolutely no reason for them to steal anything from anyone.
I’m beginning to wonder if the staff at the NYT and other major outlets are having an actual contest to see who can write the most absurd stories about Russia and still be able to walk around in pubic without having a pie thrown in their face.
