China is much too smart to entangle themselves in the axis of this or the axis of that - a product of the fevered imaginations of the West. Instead they will work behind the scenes with the Russkies, Iran, North Korea or whoever to further their own interests. They will continue to dominate the strategic space of rare earths, renewables and eventually AI - watching and waiting while the erstwhile "most powerful democracy in the world" continues to shoot itself in the foot.
A worrying article, and in passing did not Russia start WW2 on Germany’s side?
I find it genuinely surprising that China hasn’t helped Russia or Iran more than it has. Until China actually does more to defend its client and vassal states then the US will still be the global super power.
So refreshing to read an FT article that isn’t about the impending stock market crash.
Wait. Did you say something about the impending outbreak of global war!
While we're giving groups of countries names, how about the US and its ME ally taking the name "axis of endless war crimes"?
(Edited)
The vultures are circling a dying US. It was declining before Trump, but he has committed the coup de grace. The world is certainly changing, but hopefully China will put its trade interests and manufacturing dominance first. It may be down to Xi to keep Putin under control. Netanyahu is a loose canon and will hopefully end up in jail by the end of this year. As for the middle powers, we must not get pulled in to make things worse. After all, the one good thing which Trump has done is to release us from any obligation to aid the US.
I back Ukraine, but I can't help thinking the skirmish with Iran is not worth the risk.
Completely agree with you.
Not much Iran can do about it other than stopping shipments via Black Sea.
Ukraine want to drag in as many countries as possible on their side. Extremely risky (as usual) escalations from them as usual.
It’s called establishing escalation dominance
As soon as the horror of our 21st Century plague (Covid Nineteen) began to lift and we started coming out onto our streets to rebuild....that was the precise moment the madman Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine.
Hit them at their weakest was the obvious strategy.
How vile are the workings of the diseased mind, those minds created from ignorance and fear, whether Putin, Trump, or an unknown murdererer from the streets.
Light over darkness.
Love over hate.
Sanity over greed.
Right- ‘Trump’, now considered along side a mass murder- Putin..? Deranged thinking. Show some (real) love & a sound mind, if you could..
Still.... It's nice and sunny....
It doesn't help when there's a clown running one of the superpowers and a small pariah state controlling its foreign policy.
Utter madness, is Zelensky starting a proxy war on Iran. We know he doesn't do anything without permission of the US, EU and the British.
At a time when we should be addressing climate change, food security, human rights, our ruling class have stopped all pretence and succumbed to imperial nostalgia.
Iran is rightly attacking UAE, KSA as they are backing USA by allowing the attacks to take place from their territory.
I suspect Ukraine is thinking similar
At a time when we should be addressing climate change, food security, human rights,
It must be nice to be able to entertain such utopian dreams.
Are you sitting by a swimming pool having imbibed several cocktails?? I can only hope that’s the case for your sake!
The world has moved on and now is all about hard power. It’s just taking a while for the Left and velléitaire Europeans to wake up and smell the coffee!
These feckless souls have eschewed hard power and now they are largely sidelined while more assertive powers control the global agenda.
Not this again
China have no interest in playing the US Empire game of being the rules enforcer around the world. They don't have ability nor is there really desire for the rest of the world to trade one master for another. Could the modern world function without a unipolar rules enforcer is another question? Whether that would be a multi-polar world where the major power divvy up their regions as Trump want or something else.
There is no formal alliance between the “axis of adversaries”. But China, Russia, North Korea and Iran do share common aims.
However, none of them trust each other. It’s a fragile alliance of convenience.
Indeed - its what ultimately killed the Axis in WWII, they didn't really trust each other and did nothing to coordinate war aims.
> There is no formal alliance between the “axis of adversaries”. But China, Russia, North Korea and Iran do share common aims. All four countries want to hasten the decline of American power and to dominate their neighbourhoods.
The American leadership is doing their part to hasten this too.
Axis of adversaries now includes the nice part of Europe and essentially the entire global south considering we all want the decline of american power
(Edited)
The Military - Industrial Complex is on the march.
Everywhere.
Scary.
(Interesting that 4 regime leaderships are trying to preserve themselves through war - Xi, Jung, Putin and Trump.)
Five, if you add Netanyahu, and also notable is 4 out of 5 of them are over the age of 70.
How could you miss out Trump's puppeteer?
Pre-Trump, you might have been able to make an argument that Chinese dominance of it's near abroad was always inevitable but that it would never be a global peer-competitor to the US because of the combination of slowing growth, geography and and an unavoidable inability to build international alliances and institutions in the US mould.
Since then America has destroyed it's alliance system while Chinese economic growth, though faltering, has surged in the areas that matter most for hard power (AI, advanced manufacturing and energy). I guess Americans can take a shred of comfort that Donald can't change geography.
You are ignoring what hard power is. It isn't economy it is military strength and projection. It is ridiculous the amount of US bases, military spending, etc around the world, no one comes close nor would anyone allow Chinese bases into their countries. China can also only function as a result of this, given you need a force to ensure contracts/global trade happens to agreement and alongside this all the enabling financial infrastructure is US/western.
No one wants to use Chinese currency as they manipulate it. Dollars are still the most useful currency to hold and give you access to best investment opportunities.
(Edited)
Donald Trump wants Europe to spend more on defence.
Trump has been massively successful in persuading Europe to do this, succeeding where Obama, Clinton and the Bushes had failed when "asking Europe nicely".
Trump's success has boiled down to using unorthodox and slightly silly ruses like pretending he was going to invade Greenland or cut off support for Ukraine. That such tactics worked will doubtless be noted by future US presidents when it comes to dealing with Europe. Sticks clearly work better than carrots when herding European cats.
By persuading Europe, particularly Germany, to start investing in military power, Trump has strengthened the West, contrary to the claims of the sort of person who gets hired by legacy media organisations.
"Truly, the greatest act of generalship is to make everyone think you are a noisy mound of orange blubber who starts unnecessary wars and then loses them"
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