Atlanticist Politico outlet recently issued quite a jealous article
<https://tinyurl.com/2gcm22zu> about "China's divide-and-rule tactics"
with regard to European powers. Another, conservative uninterventionist
American outlet reasons <https://tinyurl.com/2nmacvdn> that America has
lost the chance to create a well-coordinated bloc of the Western powers
against China because of "the fallout from the Russo-Ukraine war", as
the Europeans now don't want more heavy burden for themselves.

Here's a British-made report "A World Divided. Russia, China and the
West" <https://tinyurl.com/2dy8glzp> (PDF), 2022-10. It's questionable
to what extent their data are credible and accurate, but I believe it's
acceptable for basic estimates.
Inter alia, two pictures there are telling.
- (Page 4) Figure 2: Positive view of Russia, 2022
- (Page 18) Figure 16: Positive perception of China, 2022

Their data show that China has notably more sympathizers in Africa and
in South America, but there are also nations where popular sentiment is
notably more in favor of Russia, and these ones are among the China's
geographical neighbors. These include the major (post)nomadic steppers,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, plus India and Vietnam in south
Asia, plus also somewhat Indonesia in southeast Asia. There are certain
reasons and legacies for sentiments, and there may be a controversial
discussion about what defines the sentiments, but it's not what I seek
to focus on.

The point is that the pictures show certain complementarity. Without
China, the Atlanticism could more easily pressure the nations in Africa
and S. America to better support anti-Russia policies. In turn, if it
succeeds to undermine Russia then the Asian nations mentioned above can
be more easily drawn into America-led alliance "to contain" China.

Generally, popular sentiment within a nation and national government's
policies is not necessarily a congruent thing, even if the government
is considered democratic. In a "free market society" all you need is to
give enough money to those who will make a propaganda changing popular
sentiment. In East Europe, one could watch well such pro-Atlanticist
social manipulation techniques since the 1990s. Given that Moscow is
now deeply stuck in the Ukraine and less able to manage other things,
one can expect the Atlanticism would become much more enthusiastic to
infiltrate its agents and bribe politicians / mass media where Russian
influence was traditionally present. China might become more attentive
to such countries, enhance monitoring, diplomatic efforts to prevent
developments of Atlanticist-ran networks there, as such buildups would
be no good neither for China nor for Russia, nor for the whole Eurasia.

On Monday, November 21, 2022 at 5:13:55 PM UTC, Oleg Smirnov wrote:
> Atlanticist Politico outlet recently issued quite a jealous article
> <https://tinyurl.com/2gcm22zu> about "China's divide-and-rule tactics"
> with regard to European powers. Another, conservative uninterventionist
> American outlet reasons <https://tinyurl.com/2nmacvdn> that America has
> lost the chance to create a well-coordinated bloc of the Western powers
> against China because of "the fallout from the Russo-Ukraine war", as
> the Europeans now don't want more heavy burden for themselves.

Strange.
"Once again in Bali, China took the canny nation-to-nation approach, meeting Macron,
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Italy's Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands' Mark Rutte,
while avoiding European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council
President Charles Michel. A meeting with Michel, at least, had been widely expected in diplomatic
circles. "

Given that various heads of European states were attending, Xi, of course, had to meet them
individually. If the EU really wanted to present a united face, it should send European
Council President and European Commission President and not individual political heads.

By the way, why two European Presidents? An invitation to divide and conquer?

>
> Here's a British-made report "A World Divided. Russia, China and the
> West" <https://tinyurl.com/2dy8glzp> (PDF), 2022-10. It's questionable
> to what extent their data are credible and accurate, but I believe it's
> acceptable for basic estimates.
> Inter alia, two pictures there are telling.
> - (Page 4) Figure 2: Positive view of Russia, 2022
> - (Page 18) Figure 16: Positive perception of China, 2022
>
> Their data show that China has notably more sympathizers in Africa and
> in South America, but there are also nations where popular sentiment is
> notably more in favor of Russia, and these ones are among the China's
> geographical neighbors. These include the major (post)nomadic steppers,
> Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, plus India and Vietnam in south
> Asia, plus also somewhat Indonesia in southeast Asia. There are certain
> reasons and legacies for sentiments, and there may be a controversial
> discussion about what defines the sentiments, but it's not what I seek
> to focus on.
>
> The point is that the pictures show certain complementarity. Without
> China, the Atlanticism could more easily pressure the nations in Africa
> and S. America to better support anti-Russia policies. In turn, if it
> succeeds to undermine Russia then the Asian nations mentioned above can
> be more easily drawn into America-led alliance "to contain" China.
>
> Generally, popular sentiment within a nation and national government's
> policies is not necessarily a congruent thing, even if the government
> is considered democratic. In a "free market society" all you need is to
> give enough money to those who will make a propaganda changing popular
> sentiment. In East Europe, one could watch well such pro-Atlanticist
> social manipulation techniques since the 1990s. Given that Moscow is
> now deeply stuck in the Ukraine and less able to manage other things,
> one can expect the Atlanticism would become much more enthusiastic to
> infiltrate its agents and bribe politicians / mass media where Russian
> influence was traditionally present. China might become more attentive
> to such countries, enhance monitoring, diplomatic efforts to prevent
> developments of Atlanticist-ran networks there, as such buildups would
> be no good neither for China nor for Russia, nor for the whole Eurasia.

On Monday, November 21, 2022 at 5:13:55 PM UTC, Oleg Smirnov wrote:
> Atlanticist Politico outlet recently issued quite a jealous article
> <https://tinyurl.com/2gcm22zu> about "China's divide-and-rule tactics"
> with regard to European powers. Another, conservative uninterventionist
> American outlet reasons <https://tinyurl.com/2nmacvdn> that America has
> lost the chance to create a well-coordinated bloc of the Western powers
> against China because of "the fallout from the Russo-Ukraine war", as
> the Europeans now don't want more heavy burden for themselves.

Uninterventionists certainly makes more sense.

"To deal adeptly with the emerging new world order, America needs to take a step back
and re-evaluate its place in the world. It must ask what its priorities are, and which of
these can realistically be achieved. Most of all, America must recognize that China, Russia,
and the rest of the BRICS+ are not going anywhere anytime soon. Over the next decade
their power and influence will continue to grow. The United States does not possess an on-
off switch with which it can shut this growth of power and influence down, so its only
rational choice is to set priorities and try to achieve them through subtle and skillful
diplomatic work.

The alternative is that America looks for simple solutions to complex problems: that American
leaders remain unable to imagine a world in which great power dynamics change and instead
become fixated with simpler problems that they can leverage to pick fights to try to reassert their
flagging dominance. This was the path that Anthony Eden went down in 1956. Unable or
unwilling to accept Britain’s place in an American-led world of competing nationalisms, Eden
became fixated on the Suez question. Suez became a humiliating tombstone for Britain. Taiwan
could end up being the same for America."

>
> Here's a British-made report "A World Divided. Russia, China and the
> West" <https://tinyurl.com/2dy8glzp> (PDF), 2022-10. It's questionable
> to what extent their data are credible and accurate, but I believe it's
> acceptable for basic estimates.
> Inter alia, two pictures there are telling.
> - (Page 4) Figure 2: Positive view of Russia, 2022
> - (Page 18) Figure 16: Positive perception of China, 2022
>
> Their data show that China has notably more sympathizers in Africa and
> in South America, but there are also nations where popular sentiment is
> notably more in favor of Russia, and these ones are among the China's
> geographical neighbors. These include the major (post)nomadic steppers,
> Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, plus India and Vietnam in south
> Asia, plus also somewhat Indonesia in southeast Asia. There are certain
> reasons and legacies for sentiments, and there may be a controversial
> discussion about what defines the sentiments, but it's not what I seek
> to focus on.
>
> The point is that the pictures show certain complementarity. Without
> China, the Atlanticism could more easily pressure the nations in Africa
> and S. America to better support anti-Russia policies. In turn, if it
> succeeds to undermine Russia then the Asian nations mentioned above can
> be more easily drawn into America-led alliance "to contain" China.
>
> Generally, popular sentiment within a nation and national government's
> policies is not necessarily a congruent thing, even if the government
> is considered democratic. In a "free market society" all you need is to
> give enough money to those who will make a propaganda changing popular
> sentiment. In East Europe, one could watch well such pro-Atlanticist
> social manipulation techniques since the 1990s. Given that Moscow is
> now deeply stuck in the Ukraine and less able to manage other things,
> one can expect the Atlanticism would become much more enthusiastic to
> infiltrate its agents and bribe politicians / mass media where Russian
> influence was traditionally present. China might become more attentive
> to such countries, enhance monitoring, diplomatic efforts to prevent
> developments of Atlanticist-ran networks there, as such buildups would
> be no good neither for China nor for Russia, nor for the whole Eurasia.

On Monday, November 21, 2022 at 5:43:47 PM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Monday, November 21, 2022 at 5:13:55 PM UTC, Oleg Smirnov wrote:
> > Atlanticist Politico outlet recently issued quite a jealous article
> > <https://tinyurl.com/2gcm22zu> about "China's divide-and-rule tactics"
> > with regard to European powers. Another, conservative uninterventionist
> > American outlet reasons <https://tinyurl.com/2nmacvdn> that America has
> > lost the chance to create a well-coordinated bloc of the Western powers
> > against China because of "the fallout from the Russo-Ukraine war", as
> > the Europeans now don't want more heavy burden for themselves.
> Strange.
> "Once again in Bali, China took the canny nation-to-nation approach, meeting Macron,
> Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Italy's Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands' Mark Rutte,
> while avoiding European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council
> President Charles Michel. A meeting with Michel, at least, had been widely expected in diplomatic
> circles. "
>
> Given that various heads of European states were attending, Xi, of course, had to meet them
> individually. If the EU really wanted to present a united face, it should send European
> Council President and European Commission President and not individual political heads.
>
> By the way, why two European Presidents? An invitation to divide and conquer?

"The Europeans always had to accept that they were going to be fighting for the crumbs in terms of the timetable. U.S. President Joe Biden spent three and a half hours with Xi, while France's President Emmanuel Macron had to be content with (a still perfectly respectable) 43 minutes. "

I am a little surprised Xi and France's President Macron did not talk more.
Germany is the economic leader of the EU but France often plays the role
of EU's political leader. And Macron is young. He is likely to get more
influential in French as well as EU politics over time.

> >
> > Here's a British-made report "A World Divided. Russia, China and the
> > West" <https://tinyurl.com/2dy8glzp> (PDF), 2022-10. It's questionable
> > to what extent their data are credible and accurate, but I believe it's
> > acceptable for basic estimates.
> > Inter alia, two pictures there are telling.
> > - (Page 4) Figure 2: Positive view of Russia, 2022
> > - (Page 18) Figure 16: Positive perception of China, 2022
> >
> > Their data show that China has notably more sympathizers in Africa and
> > in South America, but there are also nations where popular sentiment is
> > notably more in favor of Russia, and these ones are among the China's
> > geographical neighbors. These include the major (post)nomadic steppers,
> > Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, plus India and Vietnam in south
> > Asia, plus also somewhat Indonesia in southeast Asia. There are certain
> > reasons and legacies for sentiments, and there may be a controversial
> > discussion about what defines the sentiments, but it's not what I seek
> > to focus on.
> >
> > The point is that the pictures show certain complementarity. Without
> > China, the Atlanticism could more easily pressure the nations in Africa
> > and S. America to better support anti-Russia policies. In turn, if it
> > succeeds to undermine Russia then the Asian nations mentioned above can
> > be more easily drawn into America-led alliance "to contain" China.
> >
> > Generally, popular sentiment within a nation and national government's
> > policies is not necessarily a congruent thing, even if the government
> > is considered democratic. In a "free market society" all you need is to
> > give enough money to those who will make a propaganda changing popular
> > sentiment. In East Europe, one could watch well such pro-Atlanticist
> > social manipulation techniques since the 1990s. Given that Moscow is
> > now deeply stuck in the Ukraine and less able to manage other things,
> > one can expect the Atlanticism would become much more enthusiastic to
> > infiltrate its agents and bribe politicians / mass media where Russian
> > influence was traditionally present. China might become more attentive
> > to such countries, enhance monitoring, diplomatic efforts to prevent
> > developments of Atlanticist-ran networks there, as such buildups would
> > be no good neither for China nor for Russia, nor for the whole Eurasia.