How does the economic model affect the country's defense? Will the current US hegemony dominate the developed countries in a number of regions? What relations with China are most favorable for Russia from the point of view of its defense capability? Is a close union possible between our countries, their economies and the defense industry structures? A well-known Russian economist, publicist, radio and TV host Mikhail Khazin reflects on this in an interview with the “Military-Industrial Courier”.
- Mikhail Leonidovich, the point of view is that the accumulating US treasury obligations, China buys security for itself is quite common. Reserves become insurance against American aggression. How do you think this is a simplified understanding of the question or is it incorrect in principle?
- The problem of China is that, apart from the US Treasury bonds, it simply does not have reserves. He attempted to purchase tangible assets, ports, factories in the United States, but nothing came of it. The United States did not make this deal. By the way, they did the same with Russia. Americans are very tight control access to their own modern technology.
- The attitude of the United States to China is well known. At the level of geopolitics, it is spelled out in the American national security strategy. About the same as China refers to the United States, nothing is known or almost nothing. Can we simulate this relationship based on the available information?
- For the United States, no geopolitical rival of comparable power is unacceptable. They are basically unable to talk for a long time with someone on an equal footing. China’s attitude to the United States is also very negative. Between these two countries, we see the most brutal geopolitical rivalry. Both those and others are trying to seize the markets of the European Union: the USA - by developing the Atlantic partnership, China - by implementing its project of the new Great Silk Road. The events in Ukraine, the prerequisites of a potential explosion in Central Asia, are being shaped - behind all of this are American attempts to keep China out of Western Europe by land. There is a struggle for the position of Russia. How will it end? There are good reasons to believe that in the current situation the United States will for some time abandon the idea of global domination due to the fact that it is economically unrealizable today. This will be possible in the case of the coming to power of Trump. As for China, he actually abandoned the idea of becoming a world hegemon and focused on a regional project. The indirect evidence of this conclusion is the fact that China took for granted the decision of the largest European bank, the British HSBC, to abandon the idea of moving its headquarters back to Hong Kong and leave it in London.
China is parting with the idea of global domination. Here frank nationalists came to power, who are going to deal primarily with internal affairs.
- In the UN Security Council, China always votes the same way as Russia on all matters of principle. How can this be explained?
- This is due to the fact that both our country and China today are geopolitical balances of the United States. In Russia, domestic economic policy is fully controlled by pro-American forces, but the external one is under the control of the president, who, like the Chinese leadership, is building a model of opposition to the United States. At the same time, China and Russia are not close allies in reality. For the first of these countries, the second is economically too weak. In addition, as I have already said, the pro-American “fifth column” dominates the economic sphere in the Russian Federation. This makes it impossible to establish a truly partnership with China.
“At the same time, Beijing harshly criticizes Russia's economic policy, especially the activities of our government.” We can recall the December article "Xinhua", dedicated to the visit of Medvedev. Do Chinese comrades hear in Moscow and how do they react to their position?
- While not react. Our government is not interested in Chinese criticism. The Russian Cabinet listens only to the opinion of Washington. As for Putin, he obviously knows about Beijing’s position, but the head of state has its limitations. First of all, he understands that Russia is not yet ready for direct confrontation with the United States. Unlike China, which has arguments against the States. They were presented a few years ago when the Chinese shot down their own satellite. Russia began to present arguments only during the operation in Syria. In response, she received counterarguments. At the direction of Washington, the Russian Central Bank brought down the domestic economy, as a result, the economic recession has increased three to four times. So Russia today can only counter the US passively.
- In the Chinese economy, primarily in the financial sector, mining and processing of minerals, defense and space industry, the state corporations play a huge role. As far as can be judged by the main indicators, they act very effectively. Unlike the Russian, who look pale against the background of their neighbors. What do you think is the secret of the economic success of Chinese state corporations? Affecting the leading and guiding role of the CCP?- In China, there is still a global planning system. Moreover, it is much more complicated than the one that existed in the USSR, because in China the State Planning Committee is only a part, a structural unit of the General Staff, which links geopolitical and economic structures into a single whole. In Russia, there is no central planning system, departments oppose each other. Higher authorities do not demonstrate interest in the development of key industries. So, the Central Bank and the government are doing everything to ensure that the engineering industry could not function normally. It is difficult to expect in such a situation at least the minimum efficiency of a particular industry.
- Who and how controls the Chinese economy? Is it true that the Central Military Council of the People's Republic of China is responsible for strategic planning and its head is in fact the first person of the state?
- The control system in China is different than in Russia and the United States. China is a very clan state, in the Communist Party there are three large groups competing with each other. Conditionally we call them communist (it is associated with the name of Jiang Zemin), a group of pro-American reformers Hu Jintao - former members of the Komsomol and nationalists headed by Xi Jinping. At the last 18 CCP Congress, the combined forces of the communists and nationalists very strongly pressed the pro-American grouping. For the first time in many years, Hu Jintao did not get the post of head of a group of military advisers, having left the post of general secretary of the Communist Party.
Now in China is extremely tense domestic situation. He was also affected by a serious economic crisis, which, in my opinion, is a mirror of the American one. It is unclear how this will end.
- China is a multinational state, and that is always not easy to govern. It is believed that the CPC plays a unifying, cementing role in the Celestial Empire. Or are there other - spiritual, mental - braces?
- Calling China a multinational state is an exaggeration. Because the overwhelming majority of the population are Han Chinese. Another thing is that South and North China are very different. South Chinese are similar to Vietnamese, while northern people are more like you and me, probably influenced by a mixture of Manchus and other nations. Although they all perceive themselves to be Chinese. In ideological terms, the postulates of nationalism. For all that, the Chinese do not yet have that basic ideological scheme, according to which they will build their development further. If you look at history countries, while the Chinese time is not linear, as we have, but periodically, it turns out that before they always took someone's ideologies. The Chinese now love to refer to the most successful period in their history of the Tang dynasty, when the Christian scheme was adopted as the basic ideological construction. At that time, Nestorian communities in Central Asia were quite numerous. There are suggestions that China is seriously considering how to strengthen some Orthodox line in its worldview. This does not mean that they are ready to make a clone of the Orthodox Church. Everything will be a little different.
- I do not think that they are ready to abandon Confucianism ...
- Let's not confuse the idea with a confession, a church. Patriarchy they absolutely do not need. They need an idea.
- We all remember the song "Moscow - Beijing": "Russian and Chinese are brothers forever, the unity of nations and races is growing ..." Is a long-term geopolitical union of Russia and China in the XXI century possible?
- Not today. But within the framework of a certain Eurasian project, yes. But this has a lot to do. Now - alas! - no one does ...
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