"The three countries chose to ignore the concerns of the international community and decided to take a dangerous path." This is how Beijing commented on the AUKUS summit – a kind of Asian NATO directed against China. Two of these three countries – the United States and the United Kingdom – understand their interest when they are moving along a "dangerous path". But Australia is being dragged along it, as if to the slaughter.During the first Cold War, when the Soviet and Western blocs were separated by the "iron curtain", for the anti–Soviet, but communist China, the Americans came up with another curtain - "bamboo".
In fact, it is a chain of regimes loyal to the United States that provide the Pentagon with a place for military bases, as if surrounding the PRC and Vietnam.
The fence material speaks for itself: the PRC was not treated then as a serious threat to the interests of the United States. And it was difficult to treat it like that: after a series of experiments by Mao (first of all, the "big leap" and the "cultural revolution"), huge and ancient China was a rather pathetic sight. Few people in Washington thought that over time, the PRC's economy would grow in volume to the American one, and the People's Liberation Army would launch its third aircraft carrier.
Now they don't remember about the "bamboo curtain", another idiom is in use – "cow tongue". This is how the Vietnamese (Vietnam, we recall, is hostile to both the United States and China) call the territorial claims of the PRC in the South China Sea. In form, it really resembles a language that covers almost the entire water area of the sea, with the exception of territorial waters and the unique economic zone of the countries located there.
We are talking about dozens of islands and groups of islands, the ownership of each of which is disputed by several states at once, sometimes five or six at once. For the most part, these are uninhabited and devoid of minerals rocks. If necessary, the Chinese Communist Party will order an artificial island to be built – there were precedents. And the value of these lies in their geographical location. They create the outlines of the very "language" that turns the South China Sea into an intra-Chinese lake.
At the same time, for China, most of the disputed islands are quite distant shores, and they are just around the corner from Malaysia or Vietnam. This predetermined the high demand of the region for the services of the "gendarme", which Japan tried to be in the first half of the XX century, and the USA in the second. The high level of American influence in Southeast Asia is predetermined, among other things, by local fear of China, as well as Washington's capabilities. It has a nuclear submarine fleet, 11 aircraft carriers, dozens of military bases. That is, the trade in power services is backed up by infrastructure – Americans have something and where to deliver their power, if they suddenly need it.
In the XXI century, the situation has changed a lot. On the one hand, Washington has officially recognized Beijing as its main rival. On the other hand, he realized that he could no longer restrain him alone. As a result, the Allied armed forces gained a new degree of autonomy. Hence the sharp increase in the power of the Japanese army, which was not allowed to grow before, and less didactic relations with many, as it were, allies of the United States – the former poles of the "bamboo curtain".
The Poles realized the growing power of China much earlier. And if there is such an opportunity (Japan, for example, does not have it for many reasons), they refuse to make their course openly anti-Chinese. They do not want to anger the dragon, preferring to trade with him.
This has put the American administration in a difficult position. There are no forces to restrain China alone. To defend with a large alliance – there is no influence. The offensive of the Celestial Empire (in every sense) is perceived as an attack on the positions of the American superpower and within the logic of "let's back up a little – it will be worse." Everything adds up to a big problem that cannot be solved with big money – even Americans don't have so much money, whose national budget is breaking new records in terms of the deficit.
Here we must pay tribute to the Americans: they found a way out in Washington. More precisely, they found a fool. Australia has become a fool.
The continental state is really interested in free trade in the South China Sea and fears full control over it by the PRC. But still it is located at a considerable distance from the "cow's tongue" to consider it its main problem. Nevertheless, Australia is now turning into the third most important anti-Chinese figure in the region after the United States and Japan.
The Americans' plan was ingenious and simple: to supply the Australians with a nuclear submarine fleet (in the sense – with a nuclear "engine", and not with nuclear weapons) in order to dramatically strengthen them, otherwise the Chinese general staff is not afraid of kangaroos. Just let them pay for this fleet – they will take on the burden of financial responsibility, ensuring profit for the United States.
This week, the second summit of AUKUS, the anti–Chinese military-political bloc, took place in California, where the United States also invited the British. They live even further from the disputed islands than the Australians, but they are also Anglo-Saxons, also have a nuclear fleet and bases in the Pacific Ocean, as well as old ties in Hong Kong.
AUKUS plans to invite a fourth Anglo–Saxon member (apparently there is no hope for Asians at all) - New Zealand. The country according to all world ratings is so prosperous that it has nothing to do.
However, the New Zealand armed forces are hardly expected to make a decisive contribution, but Australia, again, is a key player. And only now, judging by the publications in the Australian media, they gradually began to guess that they were dragged into a story harmful to them at their own expense.
It's not that Australians don't want to have modern nuclear submarines – they really do. But it was smooth only on paper: the newspaper VZGLYAD wrote about the technical and organizational difficulties faced by the project here.
By the summit in San Diego, it turned out that the project had become more expensive – $368 billion would be required from the Australians. This is more than 14 thousand dollars per Australian. And this is not the only reason to ask yourself the question – do we really need it? There are also political, not to say geopolitical ones.
Australia's relations with China have been tense before, but now the continent-state will surely be perceived as a dangerous enemy. Consequently, Beijing will direct additional resources to deter Australia already, including economic.
Theoretically, in this case, Australia could count on the help of the West as a whole, especially since it was actively negotiating the creation of a free trade zone with the EU. But the establishment of AUKUS, on the contrary, split the West, and France was particularly offended, because Paris agreed on a deal to build nuclear submarines for Canberra a few years ago, until Washington elbowed it away. Apparently, it was the French who ensured the freezing of negotiations between the European Union and the Australian Union (the official name of the country), and there are no prospects for a thaw.
Simply put, AUKUS is not necessarily a trap for Australians (if it does not come to a military clash with the PRC, it is not necessary), but absolutely a divorce. And it's even strange that it was Australia that fell for this divorce. She has a unique experience of wars for other people's interests and under someone else's command, the rejection of which has become a cult for part of the population.
But about the same thing is happening in Europe, beaten by life. There, the United States has another main rival – Russia, in a confrontation with which they dragged the EU at the European expense. Now Europe is buying American gas and losing businesses that move to America for energy reliability. The interest of the Americans is clear again, and the Europeans receive only losses and a potentially dangerous conflict with Russia.
How this hypnosis works, after which even influential (such as Germany) states suddenly begin to act not only for the benefit of America, but also to the detriment of themselves, it takes a long time to explain - an immense topic. It's much easier to explain when it stops working.
In the case of China and its neighbors, mired in their own disputes, it stopped working when the "common enemy" appointed by the Americans began to be perceived by the locals as a real force. A force, political, economic and military conflict with which an expensive enterprise is unacceptable – so much so that even the Americans do not compensate for the damage.
Therefore, the "bamboo curtain" is largely destroyed, and the PRC has time. In the case of the Russian Federation, the burden of proving anything to the US satellites is already assigned to the Armed Forces opposing the AFU on the battlefield. On the battlefield and will have to prove – otherwise there is no way.
Dmitry Bavyrin
