Foreign Digest: Russia and China

Russia: The Russian Federation threats to invade Ukraine are among the ways Russia’s machinations have been causing economic harm. Russia is already harming Ukraine particularly through economic intimidation, cyberattacks, and false bomb scares, among the many types of rogue behavior Russia engages in under ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin. Russia has already invaded Ukraine, not only in Crimea in 2014, but additionally, as Russians forces have been aiding ethnic Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The tyrant Putin’s modus operandi is to threaten or attack foreign States, and then claim that the threatened States’ interest in pursuing alliances with the West to defend themselves thereby constitutes some kind of a threat to Russia. However, Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO is no threat, as the alliance is strictly defensive. Putin simply fears not being able effectively to re-constitute the Soviet Union, his long-term project. China: Argentina agreed to join Communist China’s “Belt and Road” initiative that seeks economic and infrastructural influence around the world. In exchange, China expressed support for the false Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands. The British territory, which was never settled by Argentines or their Spanish forbears, voted overwhelmingly to remain British. The United Kingdom successfully defended its sovereignty over the Falklands in 1982, after an Argentine invasion. Communist China, whose Belt and Road initiative would be labelled as “imperialism” by Marxists were it conducted by free Western States, criticizes the British for “imperialism,” but supports Russia’s threats to invade more Ukrainian territory.