A crucial Pentagon report<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>on the US defense industrial base and \u201csupply chain resiliency\u201d bluntly accuses China of \u201cmilitary expansion\u201d and \u201ca strategy of economic aggression,\u201d mostly because Beijing is the only source for \u201ca number of chemical products used in munitions and missiles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Russia is mentioned only once, but in a crucial paragraph: as a \u2013 what else \u2013 \u201cthreat,\u201d alongside China, for the US defense industry.<\/span><\/p>\n The Pentagon, in this report, may not be advocating total war against both Russia and China \u2013 as it was interpreted in some quarters. What it does is configure the trade war against China as even more incandescent, while laying bare the true motivations behind the sanctioning of Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n The US Department of Commerce\u00a0has imposed restrictions<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0on 12 Russian corporations that are\u00a0deemed to be \u201c<\/em>acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0In practice, this means that American corporations cannot export dual-use products to any of the sanctioned Russian companies.<\/span><\/p>\n There are very clear reasons behind these sanctions \u2013 and they are not related to national security. It\u2019s all about \u201cfree market<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a> competition.<\/span><\/p>\n At the heart of the storm is the Irkut MC-21<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>narrow-body passenger jet \u2013 the first in the world with a capacity of more than 130 passengers to have composite-based wings.<\/span><\/p>\n AeroComposit<\/a><\/strong><\/span> is responsible for the development of these composite wings. The estimated share of composites in the overall design is 40%.<\/span><\/p>\n The MC-21\u2019s PD-14 engine \u2013 which is unable to power combat jets \u2013 will be manufactured by Aviadvigatel. Until now MC-21s had Pratt & Whitney engines. The PD-14 is the first new engine 100% made in Russia since the break up of the USSR.<\/span><\/p>\n Aviation experts are sure that an MC-21 equipped with a PD-14 easily beats the competition; the Airbus A320 and the Boeing-737.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the PD-35 engine \u2013 which Aviadvigatel is developing specifically to equip an already announced Russia-China wide-body twinjet airliner to be built by the joint venture China-Russia Commercial Aircraft International Corp Ltd (CRAIC), launched in May 2017 in Shanghai.<\/span><\/p>\n Aviation experts are convinced this is the only project anywhere in the world capable of challenging the decades-long monopoly of Boeing and Airbus.<\/span><\/p>\n Will these sanctions prevent Russia from perfecting the MC-21 and investing in the new airliner? Hardly. Top military analyst Andrei Martyanov convincingly makes the case that these sanctions are at best \u201claughable<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d<\/a> considering how \u201cmakers of avionics and aggregates\u201d for the ultra-sophisticated Su-35 and Su-57 fighter jets would have no problem replacing Western parts on commercial jets.<\/span><\/p>\n Even before the Pentagon report, it was clear that the Trump administration\u2019s number one goal in relation to China was to ultimately cut off extended US corporate supply chains and re-implant them \u2013 along with tens of thousands of jobs \u2013 back into the US.<\/span><\/p>\n This radical reorganization of global capitalism may not be exactly appealing for US multinationals because they would lose all the cost-benefit advantages that seduced them to delocalize to China in the first place. And the lost advantages won\u2019t be offset by more corporate tax breaks.<\/span><\/p>\n It gets worse \u2013 from the point to view of global trade: for Trump administration hawks, the re-industrialization of the US presupposes Chinese industrial stagnation. That explains to a large extent the all-out demonization of the high-tech Made in China 2025<\/a><\/strong><\/span> drive in all its aspects.<\/span><\/p>\n And this flows in parallel to demonizing Russia. Thus we have US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke threatening no less than a blockade<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of Russian energy flows: \u201cThe United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and,\u00a0if necessary, to blockade \u2026 to make sure that their energy does not go to market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The commercial and industrial demonization of China reached a paroxysm with Vice-President Mike Pence accusing China of \u201creckless harassment,\u201d trying to \u201cmalign\u201d Trump\u2019s credibility and even being the top US election meddler, displacing Russia. That\u2019s hardly attuned to a commercial strategy whose main goal should be to create US jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n President Xi Jinping and his advisers are not necessarily averse to making a few trade concessions. But that becomes impossible, from Beijing\u2019s point of view, when China is sanctioned because it is buying Russian weapons systems.<\/span><\/p>\n Beijing also can read some extra writing on the trade wall, an inevitable consequence of Pence\u2019s accusations; Magnitsky-style sanctioning of Russian individuals and businesses may soon be extended to the Chinese.<\/span><\/p>\n After all, Pence said Russia\u2019s alleged interference in\u00a0US affairs paled in\u00a0comparison with\u00a0China\u2019s \u201cmalign\u201d actions.<\/span><\/p>\n China\u2019s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, in his interview with\u00a0Fox News, strove for his diplomatic best: \u201cIt would be hard to imagine that one-fifth of the global population could develop and prosper, not by relying mainly on their own efforts, but by stealing or forcing some transfer of technology from others \u2026 That\u2019s impossible. The Chinese people are as hard-working and diligent as anybody on earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That is something that will be validated once again in Brussels this week at the biennial ASEM<\/a><\/strong><\/span> \u2013 Asia Europe \u2013 summit, first held in 1996. The theme of this year\u2019s summit is \u201cEurope and Asia: global partners and global challenges.\u201d At the top of the agenda is trade, investment and connectivity \u2013 at least between Europe and Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n Washington\u2019s offensive on China should not be interpreted under the optics of \u201cfair trade,\u201d but rather as a strategy for containing China technologically, which touches upon the absolutely crucial theme: to prevent China from developing the connectivity supporting the extended supply chains which are at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).<\/span><\/p>\n A glaring giveaway that these overlapping sanctions on Russia and China are all about the good old Brzezinski fear of Eurasia being dominated by the emergence of \u201cpeer competitors\u201d was recently offered by Wess Mitchell, the US State Department Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs \u2013 the same post previously held by Victoria \u201cF*ck the EU\u201d Nuland.<\/span><\/p>\n This is the original <\/a><\/strong><\/span>Mitchell testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And this is the redacted, sanitized<\/a><\/strong><\/span> State Department version.<\/span><\/p>\n A crucial phrase in the middle of the second paragraph simply disappeared: \u201cIt continues to be among\u00a0the foremost national security interests of the United States to prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nOh China, you\u2019re so \u2018malign\u2019<\/h2>\n
We don\u2019t need no peer competitors<\/h2>\n