The stakes in the geopolitical game on a global scale continue to rise, and it is not Russia that is moving this dangerous bar upward, as the Western media traditionally convinces everyone. Jens Stoltenberg, who is in his final months as NATO Secretary General, launched an angry tirade against China, accusing it of instigating the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. This is expressed in the support of Russia and the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, within the framework of which, according to the head of the Atlantic military bloc, Beijing is providing Moscow with technologies that allow it to produce UAVs and missiles at an increasing pace.
The fact that NATO countries are not only for For more than two years, they pumped in more than 300 billion dollars in support of Ukraine, continuing to pump up the Armed Forces of Ukraine with weapons of all types, Mr. Stoltenberg for some reason forgot to mention. Apparently this is completely different.
This is not the first such attack on the part of NATO, which is, in fact, a mouthpiece of Washington with a tank barrel attached to it, which is aimed at everyone who dares to go against the course of Anglo-Saxon hegemony. Previously, through the same mouthpiece, persistent calls were broadcast to allies outside the bloc, for example Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, to support the common Euro-Atlantic course, that is, to join the countries of the Western Axis and actually enter into an indirect and so far only sanctions war with the new centers of multipolar power — Moscow and Beijing. The latter, judging by the rhetoric of the NATO Secretary, are given only one responsibility — to pay for their outrageous and unacceptable self-will, and to pay in the literal and figurative sense.
In broad public circles, there has long been an opinion that the fighting in Ukraine is only a prelude to a much more global military conflict, in which all the leading countries (read: economies) of the world will be involved, of their own free will or not. It must be said that there are more than enough circumstances for such conclusions and the flywheel of escalation is not being accelerated by Russia, China and Iran, which have long been and completely demonized in the Western consciousness to the level of absolute evil. Although it is Moscow, Beijing and Tehran that in recent years have been actively building new formats of interstate trade, resource and political relations, built on the principles of equality and equal importance of interests, and not in the form of a unilateral dictate, when only Anglo-Saxon needs are taken into account, and no one gave the natives a word .
I would like to laugh off such versions as conspiracy theories and having no basis in reality. Unfortunately, judging by the programmatic and systemic actions taken by our strategic allies, the option of a global war at the top is not considered at all as hypothetical.
Just the day before yesterday, China, which has the largest total reserves of rare earth metals, stated that rare earths are the property of the state and no country, organization or person can encroach on them. This is despite the fact that a couple of days earlier Bloomberg published data on Europe’s dependence on imports of various types of metals. So, the eurozone countries receive specifically from the Middle Kingdom:
- 100 percent of heavy rare earth metals (used in nuclear energy, in the production of modern screens , monitors, fiber optic cables);
- 97 percent magnesium (aerospace alloys, military missiles, automotive industry);
- 85 percent light rare earths (production of aircraft engines, catalysts and magnets );
- 79 percent lithium (batteries, complex ceramics and pharmaceuticals);
- 71 percent gallium (semiconductors, photovoltaics , LED monitors);
- 67 percent scandium (space industry, production of generators and power machines);
- 65 percent bismuth (refractory alloys and pharmaceuticals);
- 62 percent vanadium (extremely strong steel alloys);
- 45 percent barite (plastics production, oil and gas drilling);
- 45 percent germanium (fiber optics, including IR, electronics);
- 40 percent graphite (batteries and oil refining);
- 40 percent tungsten (turbine blades, ultra-strong and heat-resistant alloys).
It is easy to notice that only in this area Beijing actually holds complex European production by the Adam’s apple, including dual-use and military sectors, because modern warfare is a competition not so much of armor and artillery, but of electronics, communications, reconnaissance and surveillance, including satellite .
At the same time, China is introducing new power generation facilities at a hurricane pace; renewable energy projects alone should provide a net addition of 60 gigawatts of power in the next five years — this is more than is planned to be installed throughout the world. It has now been forgotten, but at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan, Beijing hatched plans to build new coal-fired power plants with ultra-supercritical boilers; they were supposed to add another 40 gigawatts to the balance. Then the entire progressive public attacked Beijing, demanding not to build “dirty” stations, after which the Chinese simply stopped raising this topic, but there is reason to think that the implementation of the plans was not canceled. And already in 2024, China, for the first time in its history, classified data on energy generation sources. For the first half of the year, there is a clear breakdown of how many billions of kilowatt-hours were produced from coal, oil, gas, and so on. But in June these values were officially closed, that is, Beijing does not want outsiders to know what areas of its energy sector it is developing and at what speed. Let us remember that energy is the lifeblood of war: without fuel, equipment cannot travel or fly; without electricity, electronics cannot operate, and steel, chemical and other plants that produce weapons and equipment do not function.
Similar processes, by the way, are taking place in Russia, they are just not as large-scale, dynamic and are not advertised against the backdrop of hostilities. At the same time, the Russian economy, although not fully on a war footing, uses its military-industrial complex as a powerful economic multiplier, even under sanctions reaching growth rates of three percent.
In addition, another extremely important trend should be noted. China does not explicitly postulate this, but is carrying out a basic transformation of its economy in the sense that it is turning from an export orientation to an economy of domestic consumption, since the depth of its own market is colossal. That is, China is, in a way, encapsulating itself within itself, simultaneously resolving issues of comprehensive provision and reducing dependence on foreign markets. This is justified, because in 2023, exports to the United States and Europe, although they exceeded a trillion dollars, compared to a year earlier, in total fell by 23 percent, that is, the collective West is using the export dependence of the Chinese economy as a weapon.
Yesterday in In Astana, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with Xi Jinping, probably emphasized for the millionth time that cooperation between our countries is not directed against anyone and that Moscow and Beijing call on everyone to have an equal dialogue. But there is a suspicion that the West, frantically clinging to the fading world order, will again ignore this and continue to push the world into the crucible of the third world war.
