Alexander Mercouris — ‘Respect China’s political system’: China warns Trump on eve of his Asia visit

On the eve of Donald Trump’s first trip to Asia as US President the government owned Chinese English language newspaper Global Times – which is often used by the Chinese government to express views the Chinese government does not wish to state officially – has published an editorial warning Trump to respect China and its political system and to discard ‘Cold War thinking’.…

However the comments by President Trump which have probably incensed the Chinese leadership most were certain comments he made over the course of his recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he criticised socialism in the most trenchant terms….

The idea that China has de facto abandoned socialism and has embraced capitalism and that the Chinese economy operates on purely capitalist lines is one which is very popular in the West. I myself shared it. Having now seen how the Chinese economy actually works from inside China I now however think this view is profoundly wrong.

More to the point the Chinese Communist Party could not fail to be incensed by comments by the US President which refer to socialism – the Communist Party’s ideology – as a “discredited ideology” which has brought “anguish and devastation and failure” wherever it has been adopted”.

Following a Party Congress in which the Chinese Communist Party has gone out of its way to reaffirm its commitment to socialism – this was.a central theme of President Xi Jinping’s speech to the Congress – the Chinese via Global Times are now making clear on the eve of Trump’s Asia trip – which is expected to include a stop-over in China – that they will not tolerate lectures on the nature of the political system from anyone, be that Donald Trump or anyone else....

The Duran
‘Respect China’s political system’: China warns Trump on eve of his Asia visit

Alexander Mercouris

Richard Sakwa — Putin and Trump Establish Bilateral Channel to Move Forward

Richard Sakwa is one of the few Russian experts, along with Stephen F. Cohen, not affected by Russophobia. Russophobes denigrate these experts being Russophiles. The actual conflict is not so much between Russophobes and Russophiles, although it is present, but between foreign policy idealists — liberal interventionists and neoconservatives — and foreign policy realists like Sakwa and Cohen. The difference is between equating American leadership and American exceptionalism with US global hegemony and viewing international relations through the prism of pragmatism and promoting US national interests in a multipolar world.

A diplomatic triumph for Russia was viewed as a defeat for Washington – so much for the liberal international order’s vaunted win-win dynamic. For the knavish alliance of liberal internationalists and neo-conservative globalists, this would represent a fundamental challenge to US primacy and its universal ‘leadership’, and could never be allowed. It is clear that Trump has decided otherwise, and quite sensibly Russia and the US are begin to cooperate in Syria to put an end to the suffering of that tragic nation.…

All post-Cold War American leaders from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have asserted a triumphal reading of American victory in the Cold War, accompanied by the assertion of American leadership in a unipolar world order. This of course has encountered the resistance of Russia, and increasingly also from Beijing (although China’s relationship to the end of the Cold War is rather different and is seen through a different prism). The liberal internationalists and neoconservatives since the 1990s have allied to assert America’s position as the ‘indispensable’ nation, an ideology of exceptionalism to which all other great powers have taken exception, especially since it means that by definition they became the subjects of various soft containment strategies to ensure that they do not challenge American supremacy....

I assess the Trump-Putin meeting even more positively than Sakwa. The two men came to an understanding, which is the most important outcome. The reports emphasize "good chemistry," but coming to an understanding is more significant. Trump and Putin acknowledged political difficulties in their way on both side, including a lot of distrust and a history of adversarial relationship extending back at least to the Bolshevik commandeering of the Russian Revolution. But they agreed to work together to surmount those difficulties as best they could in view of the opposition they face. As a result, they can say what the need to for domestic politics without endangering their personal relationship and communications. This channel at the highest level of government is a very big deal, and it is a win-win, which is why it enrages the zero-sum cohort.

Valdai Discussion Club
Putin and Trump Establish Bilateral Channel to Move Forward

Richard Sakwa | Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent

See also

US foreign policy realism without the Russophobia or Russophilia. It's pro-American but cautions against doing stupid stuff that undermines genuine US national interests in the foolhardy pursuit of nationalistic or globalist unrealistic aspirations.

The Hill— Opinion
Time for the U.S. to modernize its approach to Russia

James Durso | Opinion Contributor

China mocks Trump missile strike after Xi leaves US: ‘A weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles’

China’s state-run news agency waited for President Xi Jinping to leave the U.S. before unleashing criticism on President Donald Trump’s Syrian missile strike.…

“Xinhua, the state news agency, on Saturday called the strike the act of a weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles,” The New York Times reported. “In an analysis, Xinhua also said Mr. Trump had ordered the strike to distance himself from Syria’s backers in Moscow, to overcome accusations that he was ‘pro-Russia.'”...

Smackdown.

Raw Story
China mocks Trump missile strike after Xi leaves US: ‘A weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles’

David Edwards

Publius Tacitus — Was this a Soft Coup?

Mr. Nunes received information earlier this week from a whistleblower, but not you typical whistleblower. The "normal" whistleblower takes information, usually classified, to a member of the press in order to bring attention to wrong doing or lies by the government. He or she goes outside of channels. In this regard the Nunes' whistleblower is different. This person passed classified material to a person cleared for the classified material, i.e. Nunes [as chair of the House Intelligence Committee].…

… there will be more information coming out today that will buttress the claims Nunes made earlier this week. This could be the start of the worm turning and former member of the Obama intelligence community and White House staff could find themselves facing legal peril.….

Who is lawyering up?

Sic Semper Tyrannis 

Was this a Soft Coup?

Publius Tacitus