Friday 11 October 2019

The Not Inconsiderable Clout of the USA

While everyone gawps at the apparent Boris Breakthrough (The Grauniad has no idea what to make of it) and spiking pound (well, a bit of an uptick), here's an interesting development from a different front:
"China's CNPC has pulled out from Iran's $4.8 billion South Pars gas project, Iran's oil minister said on Sunday, after France's Total abandoned the deal last year amid looming US sanctions on Tehran"
Yes, even China.  Last year we noted the impotent attempts of the EC to assist Total in evading US sanctions against Iran; and the position remains the same: in the world of commerce, only outright pirates choose to flout US sanctions.

All this at a time where China is attempting to have its writ run over anyone daring to criticise what they are up to in Hong Kong - see this piece.  But China may not be quite ready to ignore world opinion and simply crush HK dissent.  Finessing this - its timing, and its impact on Xi's ultimate determination to retake Taiwan during his own tenure - is evidently going to be tricky.  Perhaps he's waiting for a Democrat prez: though that might be a bit of an unknown quantity ...

The struggle for global hegemony between the two superpowers is going to be a helluva 50-year firework display. 

ND

6 comments:

Thud said...

Xi will be lucky to keep his head let alone retake Taiwan.

Raedwald said...

Hmm Democratic Presidents tend to be in the pockets of the global corporates and so prefer war to sanctions (war is good for the MIC concerns). Trump is actually proving to be one of the most peaceful Presidents ever but is annoying the globalists with his use of international finance rather than cordite to pursue foreign policy. Since the US public without doubt prefer taxes on foreign cheese to having their children killed in battle, it may win him a second term.

Nick Drew said...

Yes, Xi's calculations are not straightforward

Anonymous said...

In a move almost unreported, the Chinese have been forced to sell off the container terminal at Long Beach CA, leased for 40 years in a 2012 deal.

https://www.presstelegram.com/2019/09/11/sale-of-long-beach-container-terminal-finalized-by-port-commission/

China is buying up strategic ports the way the Brits established global coaling stations and naval bases in the 1880s.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/09/06/chinas-seaport-shopping-spree-whats-happening-as-the-worlds-ports-keep-going-to-china/

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/09/642587456/chinese-firms-now-hold-stakes-in-over-a-dozen-european-ports?t=1570784525018

Anonymous said...

@ Democratic Presidents tend to be in the pockets of the global corporates

Next one may be different.

Anonymous said...

Xi cannot "retake" Taiwan because the communists never took it in the first place. He can conquer it for the first time, sure, but not retake.