The Duran Podcast - Isolating China or strategic divorce

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Isolating China or strategic divorce

All right, Alexandra, let's do an update on the tariff war between the United States and China. And that is what this has become. It has become a tariff war between two superpowers. The United States is facing off against China. Every other country that was on Trump's Liberation Day, all the countries with the exception of Russia and Belarus, which were on Trump's Liberation Day tariff list. No one's even really talking about that stuff anymore. 70 countries that the U.S. is negotiating with, negotiating with Japan the other day, but even Japan was pushing back and was very happy with what's taking place. But that's a whole subplot, secondary type of story or type of news that's going on with these tariffs.

The main focus is on China and the United States. This is the big battle that we have going on. So what is the situation between these two? We did a recent program about this and we said that it's looking increasingly that we're no longer in a policy of protectionism anymore. And I think people need to understand this, that this is now becoming increasingly now a straightforward geopolitical battle between China and the United States. United States. I am going to repeat my own view here. I know some people are pushing back against this, but I don't think that was Donald Trump's intention. He has been calling for tariffs ever since the 1980s, long before China became a peer economic competitor with the United States.

I have no doubt that Donald Trump actually does believe in tariffs and does see protection of American industry as the way back for American. and prosperity. But along the way, he was drawn into this struggle with China, and now instead of the civilised, structured divorce, which it looked like he was trying to negotiate during his first term, we are now in an absolute, complete, long term, and I think it is becoming increasingly clear that this is now a long-term geopolitical conflict between China and the United States. Now, the only way that the United States can win this geopolitical conflict against China, or so the United States itself believes, is by isolating China.

So they're now trying to use the threat of tariffs and other forms of leverage to pick off trade partners from China to isolate the Chinese economy. They're putting enormous pressure on the Europeans. You read article after articles, say, you know, Europe must make a choice. It was either aligned with the United States against China or if it aligns with China against the United States and it's committing suicide and it's absurd and it's Hmong and it's all of that kind of thing. So they're putting enormous pressure on the Europeans. They're putting enormous pressure on other countries, vances off to India, for example,

trying to negotiate some kind of deal with India, which will also supposedly try to make India cut its links with China. There's been pressure on Vietnam. There's been pressure on all sorts of countries. There is only one country, in my opinion, that ultimately matters in this. And that is Russia. Because if you're talking about isolating China, what that really means is, yes, you can limit the number of countries that receive Chinese exports. But I think that there is a misunderstanding here. And I've been looking at the figures now in great detail. There is a misunderstanding about the importance of exports for the Chinese economy. There's this belief that China restricts consumption in order to export more.

China does restrict consumption to some extent, but people overlook the fact that consumption in China has increased enormously over the last 30 years as Chinese living standards have grown. So China doesn't depend on exports to anything like the same extent that it once did. apparently exports now account for something like, well, there's different arguments, but the current account, the Chinese current account, is around 2.2% of China's GDP. China does depend on imports of certain special materials. It needs to import oil. It needs to import gas.

and gas looks like it's going to become increasingly important. It's, of course, already a major producer of various important minerals and rare earths, but it still needs to import huge quantities of them from third parties. The most important of these, again, is Russia. Russia is in a position to provide all of that, in a position to provide all the food that China needs. there are gaps, soybeans being one, but even there the Russians apparently are looking to increase production of soybeans. The Russians, together with their Central Asian friends, can provide China

with cotton, all of those things that the Chinese need. So that is the real relationship that matters for China. And in order for this policy of isolating China to succeed, at least, I don't know whether it can even succeed, but for it to have any chance of succeeding, you need somehow to get the Russians to detach the Russians from the Chinese. Now, this goes all the way back to an article that I remember reading back in 2021 in the website of the Atlantic Council, which made exactly all of these points that the key country is Russia. You're going to take on China. This article was very key. I'm taking on China. If you're going to take on China, you need to detach Russia from China. And it spoke about making concessions to Russia, opening up the American economy, giving sanctions relief, allowing some concessions to the Russians in Eastern Europe, which meant, of course, Ukraine. The Russians said no. They were not prepared to go down that route. The Ukraine war followed. There was an attempted regime change. That didn't succeed. We can see that

some neocons, at least, have been again open to some kind of relationship with Russia, reopening some kind of relationship with Russia. But on their terms, the Russians, however, don't seem to be interested. The Chinese understand that this relationship, relationship with Russia is now critically important to them. Xi Jinping is on his way to Moscow in May, and the reports now are that China is now going to finally conclude that deal to import Russian gas, raw materials and other things. It's already importing Russian gas through power of Siberia 1. Both the Chinese ambassador to Russia has now basically said that power of

Siberia 2 is almost agreed and will be finalized very soon. I personally would not be surprised. I'm not predicting it, but I would not be surprised if we get an agreement on power of Siberia 2 when Xi Jinping is in Moscow. The strategic mistake, the catastrophic strategic mistake of the conflict in Ukraine was pushing Russia and China together. Yes. End of story. Correct. Yeah.

And so understanding that you've pushed Russia and China together, or you can make the argument that you accelerated the alliance, the de facto alliance of Russia and China, they don't call it an alliance, but that's pretty much what it is in a way. This would have prohibited you. as the United States, understanding this, from launching this tariff trade war with China. I mean, the fact that this happened, until this can be resolved, until you can resolve things with Russia, you can't really go after China, can you? Well, that's right, which perhaps brings us back to why the idea was to try to gain peace in Ukraine in the first hundred days of Trump's presidency.

The idea was you needed those 100 days to sort out the relationship with the Russians. That would then distance the Russians from the Chinese. You get all of these great trade agreements done with the Russians and then you could slap the tariffs. China launch your economic war on China and all would be well. Yeah, but can ask you a question? A question on that? If that was, I mean, that is the strategy, but you would think that if that is the case and

your main target now has become China, you would not look to try and, and you would not go with the Kellogg plan, is what I'm trying to say. Basically, you would say, you know what, Russia, what do you guys want? We'll give it to you. And for you, Ukraine would be irrelevant as the United States. It serves no interest to you anymore because what you're saying is we're going after China now. We absolutely need Russia on side, or at least to a certain extent, we need to somehow normalize relations with Russia if we're going to take on China. So, you know, Ukraine, well, you know, we tried to take out Russia first by Ukraine.

It didn't work. Now we're pivoting to China. Whatever Russia wants with Ukraine will give it because we can't get out of, we can't go after China without getting out of the mess that we're in with Project Ukraine. Well, there are people who've made exactly that point in the United States. Steve Bannon is one. Now, Steve Bannon has always been hostile to China for various reasons. Not consistently so.

I mean, he's spoken sometimes about China in rather more sympathetic ways. But he's consistently said that what the United States needs to do is sort out issues with Russia so that he cannot basically sever this relationship with China. And it shouldn't have wasted its time in trying to broker a peace agreement in Ukraine. There's a complete waste of time and energy and resources. Just end this connection to Ukraine, let Ukraine take care of itself, establish that relationship with Russia and isolate China that way. I think that was the plan.

Now, the trouble is, in Washington, nothing ever really works like this because there are all of these different competing factions there. There's the Neocon factions, which don't want to make those sort of concessions to the Russians, the substantive concessions. They want, they, they, they want, they also, they're already too invested in Ukraine anyway to simply pull out of it. They think that pulling out of Ukraine would be a major blow to US prestige. They think the Russians are much, much weaker than they really are. They persuade themselves that the Russians are desperate to get back into a good relationship with the United States, that they're under enormous pressure and their economy and all

of that kind of thing. And they also make the assumption, this is very common amongst Americans, by the way, that the Russians are very, very restless about being dominated by China to the extent so that they are, so that they are looking for some means to escape China's embrace. So they come back. These people come back and they say, well, look, look. look, we don't really need to go all the way that Steve Bannon says, we can get a deal with the Russians, but we don't sell them everything. We don't give handover Ukraine to them. We get the deal done, and it's a deal that looks reasonable to us, which of course the Russians will accept.

But of course, they don't really take into account what the Russians are really thinking and what they're saying, because that's not what neocons do. Neocons never really interest themselves in what is being said by the other side. So that's why this whole thing has failed. It would fail anyway. There is no conceivable way that the Russians would sacrifice their relationship with China in the kind of way that some people in Washington appear to think. And they've made that clear many, many times, that they are,

fully committed to Bricks and all that it means that they don't expect sanctions on them to be lifted anyway. Putin made a big speech about this on the 18th of March when you spoke to the industrialists. I don't think enough people in Washington are listening, and that's always the trouble. I don't think anyone's listening. No. I think they're stuck in their beliefs about Russia, and they're stuck in their beliefs about China. China. Well, and in the middle of it, all, you have Trump, who, as I said, I think is pulled in all kinds of different directions. The trouble with Trump, now I get to say this, is I don't think he's the sort of person who has the ability to sit and go through all of the paperwork for 15 hours a day, working through it,

getting a real understanding of what it all means, engaging in detailed discussions with the Chinese and with the Russians, and moving the process forward. And unfortunately, the result is that just as happened during the first term, we see all kinds of shifts in direction all the time, depending on who at any particular moment has Trump's, you know, is able, I mean, Trump seems to have a tendency to go with the person he last speaks to, which, by the way, is a phenomenon I've watched. I've seen happen many, many times. Not a sign of weakness or indecision or lack of intelligence. by the way. It's a product of inexperience. You have the neocons for one are always very skilled at giving, putting together very impressive arguments. Now, what he's got is what what I think he's got to start to see is this. Firstly, to the extent that his entire strategy hinges on Russia, because it's becoming increasingly clear to me that it does. And I think he has understood that. I mean, he's got to make up with the Russians at some point, even if he can't do it now. I mean,

if he wants some leverage over China, he's got to get some kind of agreement with the Russians. But I think he's also got to also understand that all of these people who surround him, who are viscerally hostile to China, which, by the way, I don't believe he is. Just to say, I mean, he's spoken, he got on well with Xi Jinping, as he's pointed out many times. He doesn't see to have this general antipathy to China that many other people around him do. He's got to get past the point of seeing this as a kind of zero-sum game between the United States and China, a geostrategic victory over China. He's got to go back to that policy he was following in his first term of negotiating a strategic divorce. I think the Chinese are up for it, by the way. I don't think

they want to be so involved in the United States anymore. It worked for them very well in the 90s and the early 2000s. Over the last 10 years, it's given them nothing but trouble. Yeah, it's just a interesting that the plan was weak in Russia, weak in Russia, then go after China. Get rid of Russia first, then you have a clear path to going after China and getting rid of China. That was the neocon plan. And now it seems that in order to fix things, you need to make up with Russia in order to resolve things with China. Everything just turned out. in a completely upside down backwards way. Then the neocons had planned, which is always the case.

Yes. What the US needs to do is stop thinking of the world as a chessboard. This is the great mistake that is made in which you're constantly maneuvering pieces on this chessboard in some kind of very intricate game in order to. to try to sort of checkmate the other side. International relations isn't about that at all. International relations, as Rubio, by the way, appeared to acknowledge in that very first interview he gave with Megan Kelly

is about finding ways to live with people and focusing on your own country, which is to say the United States. Trying to win strategic victories against China and Russia and all of that is pointless. And it's not what the United States used to do during that period when it embraced protection in the late 19th and early 20th century, when on the contrary, at that time, the United States sought peace with all nations. Again, the apostle of protectionism, the man who perhaps much more even than Alexander Hamilton, was the person who set the United States on a policy of protectionism, Abraham Lincoln. That only was his policy whilst he was president, and it was repeatedly his policy, by the way.

But he also set it out when he said, you're just and lasting peace between ourselves and all nations. And that's the correct policy for the United States to follow today. Not one in which, you know, they worry about what goes on in, you know, one particular, you know, in Bangladesh and try to overthrow the government there or worry about what goes on in Georgia because Georgia is somehow a strategically important country or try to play China off against Russia or Russia off against China. That's a complete waste of time. All it does is that it antagonizes everybody and means that you spend so much time engaging in these intricate chess games that you lose attention from the real things that really matter, which is what is going on in the United States itself. And of course, it creates violence and chaos all around the world. world and threatens to draw you into conflicts which you should certainly want to avoid, conflicts which always have immense danger of escalating out of control.

But that thing is realism. As I said, realism is not about looking for enemies. It's trying to maintain peace with everybody. All right. We will end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, pitch you, Telegram, Rockfinite. And next, go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we were wearing in

this video update. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.