{"id":54637,"date":"2015-03-09T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=54637"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:01","slug":"what-brics-plus-germany-are-really-up-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/03\/what-brics-plus-germany-are-really-up-to\/","title":{"rendered":"What BRICS Plus Germany Are Really Up To?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pepe<\/a>

Pepe Escobar<\/p><\/div>\n

Winston Churchill once said, \u201cI feel lonely without a war.\u201d He also badly missed the loss of empire. Churchill\u2019s successor \u2013 the \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 \u2013 now faces the same quandary. Some wars \u2013 as in Ukraine, by proxy \u2013 are not going so well.<\/p>\n

And the loss of empire increasingly manifests itself in myriad moves by selected players aiming towards a multipolar world.<\/p>\n

So no wonder US \u2018Think Tankland\u2019 is going bonkers, releasing wacky CIA-tinted \u201cforecasts\u201d<\/a> where Russia is bound to disintegrate, and China is turning into a communist dictatorship. So much (imperial) wishful thinking, so little time to prolong hegemony.<\/p>\n

The acronym that all these \u201cforecasts\u201d dare not reveal is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). BRICS is worse than the plague as far as the \u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 that really control the current \u2013 rigged \u2013 world system are concerned. True, the BRICS are facing multiple problems. Brazil at the moment is totally paralyzed; a long, complex, self-defeating process, now coupled with intimations of regime change by local \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 minions. It will take time, but Brazil will rebound.<\/p>\n

That leaves the \u201cRIC\u201d \u2013 Russia, India and China \u2013 in BRICS as the key drivers of change. For all their interlocking discrepancies, they all agree they don\u2019t need to challenge the hegemon directly while aiming for a new multipolar order.<\/p>\n

The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) \u2013 a key alternative to the IMF enabling developing nations to get rid of the US dollar as a reserve currency \u2013 will be operative by the end of this year. The NDB will finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects not only in the BRICS nations but other developing nations. Forget about the Western-controlled World Bank, whose capital and lending capacity are never increased by the so-called Western \u201cpowers.\u201d The NDB will be an open institution. BRICS nations will keep 55 percent of the voting power, and outside their domain no country will be allowed more than 7 percent of votes. But crucially, developing nations may also become partners and receive loans.<\/p>\n

Damn those communists<\/strong><\/p>\n

A tripartite entente cordiale is also in the making. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in China next May \u2013 and \u2018Chindia\u2019 will certainly engage in a breakthrough concerning their bitter territorial disputes. As much as Delhi has a lot to benefit from China\u2019s massive capital investment and exports, Beijing wants to profit from India\u2019s vast market and technology savvy. In parallel, Beijing has already volunteered economic help to Russia \u2013 if Moscow asks for it \u2013 on top of their evolving strategic partnership.<\/p>\n

The US \u201cpivoting to Asia\u201d \u2013 launched at the Pentagon \u2013 is all dressed up with no place to go. Bullying Southeast Asia, South Asia and, for that matter, East Asia as a whole into becoming mere \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 vassals \u2013 and on top of it confronting China \u2013 was always a non-starter. Not to mention believing in the fairy tale of a remilitarized Japan able to \u201ccontain\u201d China.<\/p>\n

Isolating the \u201ccommunist dictatorship\u201d won\u2019t fly. Just watch, for instance, the imminent high-speed rail link between Kunming, in Yunnan province, and Singapore, traversing a key chunk of a Southeast Asia which for Washington would never qualify to be more than a bunch of client states. The emerging 21st century Asia is all about interconnection; and the inexorable sun in this galaxy is China.<\/p>\n

As China has embarked in an extremely complex tweaking of its economic development model, as I outlined here<\/a>, China\u2019s monopoly of low-end manufacturing \u2013 its previous industrial base \u2013 is migrating across the developing world, especially around the Indian Ocean basin. Good news for the Global South \u2013 and that includes everyone from African nations such as Kenya and Tanzania to parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America.<\/p>\n

Of course the \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019, business-wise, won\u2019t be thrown out of Asia. But its days as an Asian hegemon, or a geopolitical Mob offering \u201cprotection\u201d, are over.<\/p>\n

The Chinese remix of Go West, Young Man \u2013 in fact go everywhere \u2013 started as early as 1999. Of the top 10 biggest container ports in the world, no less than 7 are in China (the others are Singapore, Rotterdam, and Pusan in South Korea). As far as the 12th Chinese 5-year plan \u2013 whose last year is 2015 \u2013 is concerned, most of the goals of the seven technology areas China wanted to be in the leading positions have been achieved, and in some cases even superseded.<\/p>\n

The Bank of China will increasingly let the yuan move more freely against the US dollar. It will be dumping a lot of US dollars every once in a while. The 20-year old US dollar peg will gradually fade. The biggest trading nation on the planet, and the second largest economy simply cannot be anchored to a single currency. And Beijing knows very well how a dollar peg magnifies any external shocks to the Chinese economy.<\/p>\n

Sykes-Picot is us<\/strong><\/p>\n

A parallel process in Southwest Asia will also be developing; the dismantling of the nation-state in the Middle East \u2013 as in remixing the Sykes-Picot agreement of a hundred years ago. What a stark contrast to the return of the nation-state in Europe.<\/p>\n

There have been rumblings that the remixed Sykes is Obama and the remixed Picot is Putin. Not really. It\u2019s the \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 that is actually acting as the new Sykes-Picot, directly and indirectly reconfiguring the \u201cGreater Middle East.\u201d Former NATO capo Gen. Wesley Clark has recently \u201crevealed\u201d what everyone already knew; the ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh fake Caliphate is financed by \u201cclose allies of the United States,\u201d as in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel. Compare that with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon admitting that ISIS \u201cdoes not represent a threat to Israeli interests.\u201d Daesh does the unraveling of Sykes-Picot for the US.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 actively sought the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and especially Libya. And now, leading the House of Saud, \u201cour\u201d bastard in charge King Salman is none other than the former, choice jihad recruiter for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Afghan Salafist who was the brains behind both Osama bin Laden and alleged 9\/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.<\/p>\n

This is classic \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 in motion (exceptionalists don\u2019t do nation building, just nation splintering). And there will be plenty of nasty, nation-shattering sequels, from the Central Asian<\/a> stans to Xinjiang in China, not to mention festering, Ukraine, a.k.a Nulandistan.<\/p>\n

Parts of Af-Pak could well turn into a branch of ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh right on the borders of Russia, India, China, and Iran. From an \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 perspective, this potential bloodbath in the \u201cEurasian Balkans\u201d \u2013 to quote eminent Russophobe Dr. Zbig \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d Brzezinski \u2013 is the famous \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia and China, meanwhile, will keep betting on Eurasian integration; strengthening the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and their own internal coordination inside the BRICS; and using plenty of intel resources to go after The Caliph\u2019s goons.<\/p>\n

And as much as the Obama administration may be desperate for a final nuclear deal with Iran, Russia and China got to Tehran first. China\u2019s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tehran two weeks ago; stressing Iran is one of China\u2019s \u201cforeign policy priorities\u201d and of great \u201cstrategic importance.\u201d Sooner rather than later Iran will be a member of the SCO. China already does plenty of roaring trade with Iran, and so does Russia, selling weapons and building nuclear plants.<\/p>\n

Berlin-Moscow-Beijing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the German question.<\/p>\n

Germany now exports 50 percent of its GDP. It used to be only 24 percent in 1990. For the past 10 years, half of German growth depended on exports. Translation: this is a giant economy that badly needs global markets to keep expanding. An ailing EU, by definition, does not fit the bill.<\/p>\n

German exports are changing their recipient address. Only 40 percent \u2013 and going down \u2013 now goes to the EU; the real growth is in Asia. So Germany, in practice, is moving away from the eurozone. That does not entail Germany breaking up the euro; that would be interpreted as a nasty betrayal of the much-lauded \u201cEuropean project.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the trade picture unveils is the reason for Germany\u2019s hardball with Greece: either you surrender, completely, or you leave the euro. What Germany wants is to keep a partnership with France and dominate Eastern Europe as an economic satellite, relying on Poland. So expect Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to face a German wall of intransigence. So much for European \u201cintegration,\u201d it works as long as Germany dictates all the rules.<\/p>\n

The spanner in the works is that the double fiasco Greece + Ukraine has been exposing. Berlin as an extremely flawed European hegemon \u2013 and that\u2019s quite an understatement. Berlin suddenly woke up to the real, nightmarish possibility of a full blown, American-instigated war in Europe\u2019s eastern borderlands against Russia. No wonder Angela Merkel had to fly to Moscow in a hurry.<\/p>\n

Moscow \u2013 diplomatically \u2013 was the winner. And Russia won again when Turkey \u2013 fed up with trying to join the EU and being constantly blocked by, who else, Germany and France \u2013 decided to pivot to Eurasia for good, ignoring NATO and amplifying relations with both Russia and China.<\/p>\n

That happened in the framework of a major \u2018Pipelineistan\u2019 game-changer. After Moscow cleverly negotiated the realignment of South Stream towards Turk Stream, right up to the Greek border, Putin and Greek Prime Minister Tsipras also agreed to a pipeline extension from the Turkish border across Greece to southern Europe. So Gazprom will be firmly implanted not only in Turkey but also Greece, which in itself will become mightily strategic in European \u2018Pipelineistan\u2019.<\/p>\n

So Germany, sooner or later, must answer a categorical imperative \u2013 how to keep running massive trade surpluses while dumping their euro trade partners. The only possible answer is more trade with Russia, China and East Asia. It will take quite a while, and there will be many bumps on the road, but a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing<\/a> trade\/commercial axis \u2013 or the \u201cRC\u201d in BRICS meet Germany \u2013 is all but inevitable.<\/p>\n

And no, you won\u2019t read that in any wacky US \u2018Think Tankland\u2019 \u201cforecast.\u201d<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar, from Brazil, is the roving correspondent for Asia Times\/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the author of <\/em><\/em>Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2007), <\/em>Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2007), and <\/em>Obama does Globalistan<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2009). His new <\/em>book is Empire of Chaos<\/a>.<\/em> He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winston Churchill once said, \u201cI feel lonely without a war.\u201d He also badly missed the loss of empire. Churchill\u2019s successor \u2013 the \u2018Empire of Chaos\u2019 \u2013 now faces the same quandary. Some wars \u2013 as in Ukraine, by proxy \u2013 are not going so well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}