The Duran Podcast - Putin and Xi Jinping, Belt and Road summit

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Putin and Xi Jinping, Belt and Road summit

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the One Belt One Road Summit taking place in China. Putin is there. Lavrov is there. Orban is there. The only European leader or the EU leader to go to China, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. The only one from the EU to go, you would imagine that all the EU leaders would be there or send someone to this. to the summit. But that's where we are in the world.

Anyway, a big summit taking place in China while the rest of the world seems to just be crumbling. It seems, or at least the collective West seems to be crumbling. What are your thoughts? Well, I'm going to put it slightly differently. I'm going to say most of the world is not going to be in Beijing talking about this particular conference. And the part of it is crumbling, which is the increasingly marginal part,

which is the West, of course they're staying away. I mean, once upon a time, and not very long ago, one person who you would have been expected to see in Beijing at a conference like this, for example, was the Prime Minister of Greece. I mean, Greece made a very serious effort to work its way into a good relationship with China to build up its role, the role of Greece and the Belt and Road,

port of Pyrdas, as we know, was partly owned by China for a time. So, you know, it was the kind of thing that Greece would once upon a time have attended. Now, of course, we are not attending it. And it's not in our interests, in my opinion, to stay away. But in some ways, it simplifies things. It clarifies what's going to happen. And I think that we are starting to see gradually the evolution of the belt and road. Now, Putin gave a monument.

mentally vast interview to the Chinese media before he travelled. And he said lots of things. He spoke about, you know, he's very warm and a good relationship with Xi Jinping. He said all sorts of things about Xi Jinping, very complementary things. He said he wasn't going to be even more complimentary about Xi Jinping because he thought of Xi Jinping as such a good friend that if he started praising Xi Jinping, he'd be praising himself. And he found that an embarrassing thing.

to do. I thought that a very interesting use of words because it showed the identity now, the level of identification between the Chinese and the Russians that is now taking place.

I mean, they absolutely do see themselves as a single team. And judging from Putin's interview, what you're going to start to see is that the Russians

the Chinese rather I'm going to now focus much more than they have up till recently on developing their economic linkages with Russia you're going to start to see you're already starting to see

China starting to establish an economic footprint increasingly in Russia you spoke many times about the large numbers of Chinese cars that you see in Russia. But the word is there's going to be many more joint projects, much more development by China of transport rings through Russia, through the northern sea route, through, you know,

railways, development of the North, the Arctic, oil and gas, lithium, apparently, this assumed to be very big lithium deposits in Russia. those sort of things. And it's going to become the main focus. So a massive integration of the Chinese and Russian economies. And that, it seemed to me, was pretty much what Putin was basically saying. So Russia, China coming together. Some people will say that Russia is becoming part of greater China. I don't think that's a fair description, but one way or the other, a big economic block at the core of the Belt and Road involving the Russians of the Chinese and the Central Asian states is now starting to emerge. It'll be a more coherent block than the

original Belt and Road was, but I think that is the direction it's going to be taken. and Putin of course he arrives in Beijing he meets with Orban one European leader as you say who goes he's first meeting there with a foreign leader with another leader was not with Xi Jinping

it was with Orban and of course the Vietnamese president is also there now Vietnam recently hosted Biden Biden Biden went to Vietnam and was attempting to sort of pull Vietnam away from China. Well, as we see the Vietnamese have turned up in Beijing

with a massive delegation, they're also speaking with the Chinese, and of course their first big meeting has also been with Putin. So you can see that all of this is now starting to link up and come together. And I think, I've said this many times, times, I said it before, I think that this is the train that has now left the station. I don't think there's anything

that the US can do, that the West can do, to pull this train back, and there's been these long articles that have been appearing in the US foreign policy, media, this sort of neocamp press, but, you know, people like

Thomas Graham, for example, he's now written another long piece in Politico of all places, saying that, you know, we must try to persuade the Russians to distance themselves of the Chinese, that they're going to become part of greater China, that we've got to respect Russia's strategic autonomy. He doesn't explain at all what that actually practically means,

but you know, we've got to find some way of working with the Russians and so as not to have them, you know, commit more deeply to China. I think that people like Mr. Graham are just too late. I mean, you know, 10, 20 years ago, this might have carried some traction. Today, especially with Joe Biden and the White House, there's no way that the Russians are going to change course. And I don't think it's going to change course even when Putin goes. I think this is now hardwired in and it's too late for anything to change it.

Yeah, does one belt, one road stop at Budapest? Is that the final destination of one belt, one road? Well, I think Orban's trip there is interesting. Yes. And if you look at the geography, maybe even conflict in Ukraine, I mean, what do you make of that? Well, I don't think it does. And I think both the Russians and the Chinese would want to see it. expand further west. I noticed, by the way, that in his interview with the Chinese, Putin again

spoke about greater Eurasia. It was greater Eurasia when it was first coined by the Russians, sometime around 2015, 2016, was supposed to include Europe, the European states. And of course, his first meeting was with Orban. So I think eventually they will try and persuade other central and East European countries, especially, to join in. But, you know, Hungary is starting, Slovakia, perhaps beyond that. Serbia, obviously, all of those places. But the one thing I don't think they're interested in anymore is the European Union. The original idea was the European Union, its institutions,

would be invited to participate and to join in. But I don't think the Russians or the Chinese any longer think that. Yeah, but, okay, Serbia are not a European Union, but Hungary is. Absolutely, yeah. Even though Hungary has quite a difficult relationship with the current European Union. So is this a hedge on Hungary's part as well? Or, I mean... Absolutely.

Are we seeing something that could be forming? Yeah, we are seeing something that could form. A smaller, greater Eurasia, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, eventually. and you know if enough central and east european countries eventually elect to go in this direction which they might do i mean it isn't just slovakia and hungary i mean Romania is another possibility for example very bad economic situation there or so i'm told and you know it could be that they might also

eventually start to be pulled back in and you're absolutely right to say i mean you know this only makes sense if there is a Chinese-Russian resolution of the issue of Ukraine as well. So it could be, all of this is going to come together and happen one day. And by the way, I should also make it clear that the Chinese are not giving up on the other parts of the Belt and Rome. They're not losing interest in Syria and Iran and in maintaining good relations with the African states. But the core of it is going to be China, Russia.

and they will keep open doors to countries in the West, in central and eastern Europe especially, hoping that one day they will step in, you know, Bulgaria, Croatia, another country that's been apparently thinking about this. But in the meantime, they won't just wait for those countries, they will go ahead, build up. the infrastructure, build the railways and the roads and all of those things. Provide China with strategic depth by ensuring that it has unrestricted land access to Russia's

supplies of oil and gas and food, lithium and whatever, give Russia's strategic depth because Russia can import manufactured goods and other things from China and that will strengthen both of these two countries and at the same time it will put them in a better position when the moment comes

if they really do want to pursue openings in Europe and in other places because they have that strategic depth they'll be in a better position to do it all right we will leave it there the duran dot locals.com we are in rumble odyssey but shoots telegram rockfin and twitter x and go to the duran shop 20% off use the code the duran 20 take care