The China-Russia Axis And Eurasia – Analysis
By Giancarlo Elia Valori*
The profound connection between the Slavs and the Asian races has a prominent place in the long-standing tradition of the Eurasist doctrine. At philosophical and geocultural levels, it is as if the Russians still represented the “Third Rome” – that of the final reconstruction and restoration of the European civilization and its Imperium – which unites with the Asian world, that is the beginning and the end of the sapiential development of mankind.
It is worth noting, however, that these doctrines – born in a conservative context and often advocated by the counter-revolutionary “White Guard” – are currently the point of reference of what we might call the “Presidency ideology” in the years characterized by Vladimir Putin’s leadership.
Hence Eurasia as domination over the Asian Heartland – according to Mackinder’s geopolitical theories – and spiritual and political connection with peninsular Europe, as well as point for controlling all “world seas”, ranging from the Atlantic sea through the European peninsula to the Pacific sea, which washes the Eastern region of the Asian Heartland.
Eurasia is a strategic invariant.
This is the significant philosophical universe where the new Eurasist doctrine is developing which, however, suffers the inevitable distance between the European and Mediterranean peninsula and the New Continent.
Conversely, the rationale – and, indeed, the esotericism – of the Atlantic Pact is a philosophical, rather than a military project, combining the British Masonic tradition, which defined the idea of modern Empire, with the European Protestantism.
Hence the Modern values, which are embodied in the occult tradition of theosophy and the end of time pending the Last Revelation.
It is worth noting, however, that these approaches are not alien to the geopolitical, strategic and military context which designed the bilateral confrontation of the Cold War.
As already mentioned, in the current geophilosophical framework, the underlying theme is the union between the Slavs and Asian races, especially the Han Chinese.
Therefore the Heartland cultural model is that of Tradition against the destruction of the Sacred; of Wisdom against what Hegel called the “calculation-based science” (Denken als Rechnen); of the people against individualism, as well as of social economy against the atomized market.
All ideas of the spiritualist and pan-Slavist Right which today re-emerge in the Eurasian project, after the USSR collapse. All ideas which developed within the Bolshevik apparata, including the intelligence, and have spread until current times.
Ironically, these were the ideas of a saint and a mathematical genius, as well as orthodox priest, Pavel Florenskij, whom Stalin ordered to assassinate in the concentration camp of the Solovki Islands.
Before being shot dead by the secret police (GPU), the Russian mystic (another Eurasist fracture: mysticism vs. rationalism) had discovered the properties of electrical superconductivity at low temperatures.
Let us revert, however, to current and future geoeconomic equilibria in the Russian-Chinese system.
Considering the strong presence of jihadists in Central Asia, it is highly likely for Al Baghdadi’s Caliphate – territorially defeated between Syria and Iraq – to be rebuilt in Central Asia – at the junction between the Russian civilization and the Han world – on Afghanistan’s rubble and in the now critical region between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
According to the latest data, throughout Central Asia 10,000 jihadists are fighting ISIS, while 3,000 are Russian Islamic terrorists and only 800 are those coming from China.
These figures are such as to cause alarm among the various governments in the region.
It is the terrorist globalization of the Islamic jihad, which splits the Eurasian project into two, thus running away from a more dangerous Mediterranean and a now unmanageable North Africa also for the so-called “radical” Islam.
Furthermore the proximity of the new Islamist circle to the two new powers, namely Russia and China, allows the unleashing of strong ideological and religious tensions in the Chinese Autonomous Province of Xinjiang, inhabited by the Muslim Uighurs of Turkish origin, as well as the future destabilization of the Urals and Central Siberia.
Russia and China does not want anyone to interfere and intrude into the new Heartland, not only the jihad but also the other major global powers. This is the sense of tensions in Ukraine, the gateway to Asia, or in Georgia, the possible link between NATO and the Russian system.
The other option is for the United States to strengthen their bilateral dialogue with China without Russian cooperation, but the United States keep on supporting the peripheral countries’ colour revolutions – a fact which China views with utmost fear.
At economic and financial levels, early this year the Russian and Chinese Central Banks have promoted a Memorandum of Understanding for local parities and financial exchanges and trading, while the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Vneshkombanke, and the China-Eurasia Economic Fund have reached an agreement to manage the Chinese investment flows into the Russian economy, especially in Siberia and in the trans-Baikal region.
Currently the Russian Federation sells advanced weapons to China, but it does not want to create opportunities for reverse engineering, nor it intends to accept the Chinese decision not to sell Russian weapons to China’s competitors in Asia, namely India and Vietnam.
Moreover China keeps on investing in Ukraine, with as many as 15 billion US dollars for the construction of housing, while supporting the technological upgrade of Ukraine’s IT network.
Furthermore, Russia does not accept the Chinese plan to set up an investment bank for the Silk Road Initiative, thus speeding up the Chinese choice of establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which has wider geopolitical relevance and tends to dilute the Chinese power into the wider European and international context.
On top of it, Russia does not accept the Chinese plan to create different trading platforms, possibly opposed to the WTO.
At strategic level, China and Russia offer to their neighbours of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization a series of operational opportunities to achieve internal stability.
The starting point was the Sino-Russian Agreement of May 2015, in which the two countries linked the Eurasian integration to the Chinese Silk Road Initiative.
According to the World Bank, China has already invested 13 billion US dollars in Kazakhstan, as against the Netherlands which, however, have allocated 64 US dollars.
China is the main operator of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Kyrgyzstan, with 299 billion US dollars, while Russia has appropriated 161 billion US dollars.
Hence probably Russia and China want to continue along these lines, thus avoiding dangerous military implications and invasive operations on the territory of countries which are also at risk of jihad.
It is also worth recalling the TPP impact on the Eurasian economies.
As can be easily imagined, both the Pacific TTP and the Atlantic TTIP are designed to enable the United States to destabilize the Eurasian project.
Furthermore Israel has excellent economic and strategic relations with Kazakhstan, which supplies to the Jewish State a quarter of its oil needs.
Therefore the Eurasian project now reaches up to the Mediterranean while, on November 29, 2015 Israel broke off negotiations with the EU regarding the peace process in the Middle East.
About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and Khashoggi Holding’s advisor. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.
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This article was published at Modern Diplomacy
