The Winter Olympic Games Of Diplomacy – OpEd

In 1967 a spectacular edition of the Venice Film Festival awarded the Silver Lion to two films that should be reshot today with a modified title.

Marco Bellocchio told us that “China is Near”. Jean-Luc Godard, on the other hand, presented us with “La Chinoise”: To complete the triptych, the golden lion was given to “Belle de jour” by Luis Buñuel, which cinematically cleared the pleasure of sex even for women.

It was the boring and parasitic city bourgeoisie that was threatened by China, in the form of a family too rich and too satisfied with its benefits to make an effort to understand the times.  The bourgeoisie, when it does not make revolutions, relying on bankers and popular classes, is convinced that the last order achieved will remain there forever. See the USA today. Bellocchio told them not to delude themselves because China (metaphor for society totally different, see USA again) was near. Instead it was the entire selfish and intellectually frozen society that was attacked by China by Godard. There are images from that film that incredibly perfectly anticipate those of the French May. The crowds, the posters, the intellectuals in the lead. They are so similar that it is as if Godard had had the opportunity to take a peek at the imminent future.

But why recall those two magnificent films?  Because both should be shot again with the titles, “Asia is near” or “L’Asiatique”. 

Asia, with its almost 5 billion individuals, compared to just over a billion subjects in the whole of the West, has gone to technology school and today, or at least soon, is almost able to achieve the “Made all at home” goal that President Trump would like to achieve for the USA. So, “Asia is near” is a reductive metaphor for the Olympic Games of the dipolmatic cold: there is much more.

The Leader of the Olympic Cold diplomacy

The standard-bearer of the Winter Olympic Games of the diplomatic frost is undoubtedly the President of the country to whom the entire Western world owes its recovery after the tragic Nazi-fascist disaster. Without its factories that produced cannons as cherries, tanks and fighter planes as medlars and bombs of all kinds and sizes as doughnuts, today we would not be at the Cold Olympics but we would be at the continuation of that of Berlin where a phenomenal American black man (Jesse Owens) humiliated the Fuhrer by winning all the competitions in which he participated. Too bad that on the return ship and in the USA itself, Owens was subjected to practices of integral racism, and was never mentioned by the American President.

The bad guys’ blackboard and… of the good

Has the flag of tariffs been raised by President Trump, only against some? No. It is against everyone: Inscribing the competitors on the blackboard, good and bad, in which in the “good” area there is only him, and bad there are Mexico, Canada, India, Europe and of course China. Russia is missing, but this is because that nation, with the exception of Boeuf à la Stroganoff and the extraordinary Borscht soup of the Russian Tea Room (authentic delights of thought), has nothing to export except nuclear warheads (among which indirectly available. 1700 in reserve – 2700 withdrawn but able to explode – 1,500 ) of which the USA is amply equipped, they have 5 thousand too.

The two gold medals: Canada and the EU

On “Day One” of these Olympics of diplomatic cold, President Trump instituted tariffs for Mexico, Canada, Europe, China, Brazil, etcetera etcetera, because in the following days no one escaped the fury of the tariffs, except Cuba and Iran, which were given special treatment that goes far beyond tariffs.

And so it was that the Olympics of cold diplomacy were born. And so it was that all coutries entered the new race. 

Perhaps unexpected for the speed of reaction, but largely predictable, practically all nations have looked to ASIA and there are already two gold medals: Canada and the European Union. The first turned to China, irritating President Trump beyond measure who said “but how do we put tariffs and you shoot elsewhere”? And then he promised retaliation of up to 100% to the new PM Carney. Note that the Canadian PM should be grateful to Trump for his election. Immensely inferior in the polls to his conservative competitor Poilievre, the current PM was elected when the conservative leader’s popularity plummeted when his friend (?) Trump declared that Canada should become a state of the United States. The Canadians did not like this and Carney was elected. An excellent banker, from the school of Goldman Sachs, a university of central bankers, also attended by talented Mario Draghi, as soon as he was elected, Carney immediately turned to China with agreements of incredible importance, including military ones. In Davos, the Canadian PM also invited all the middle powers to connect with each other with the slogan, “if you are not a guest, you are on the menu”.

For the moment there are no military implications for the other gold medal, the EU, which has turned to India instead of China – but soon it will have to do so – signing an excellent agreement and for Italy also of immense dietary scope. Italians love spaghetti, but if the USA doesn’t buy any more, to maintain the current level of sales in the morning instead of the classic croissant they should take spaghetti with cappuccino.

With the reduction of 96% of duties between the European Union and India, the current trade of about 130 billion euros, it is proposed to reach 300 billion euros per year by 2032. In my opinion, this figure will be largely exceeded if an educational bridge were to be built “two ways” student-managers. It is what can be called the new Silk Road proposed as an integral part of the new GDP Knowledge, already adopted by the Indian government.

Carney Effect 

These agreements will certainly change, and soon trade flows will open up new highways with Asia, and that in itself is a good thing. The Diplomatic Cold Olympics will become a world asset.  The world we leave behind is a bad, violent and provincial world.  A century of massacres and violence has imposed one-way trafficking. India and China must be warmly welcomed to the European and Canadian trade table with the formula of commercial and cultural reciprocity. 

But there is a component that the promoters of this winter Olympics of diplomatic frost have perhaps not considered. If trade flows move voluminous than from the USA to Asia, what is the need to continue to use the dollar as the base currency of exchange? Are we sure that the proponents of the Olympics of Diplomatic Frost have considered their push to de-dollarize the economy? 

We will see in the continuation of these Olympics if the dollar will not run the risk of being ousted by the gold medals.