China’s Red October

 

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, CCP, will be held in the fall of 2017. The exact date has not yet been announced, but late October is a reasonable estimate. This will be the most important CCP meeting since the death of Mao Zedong and the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s.

Communist societies such as China have a dual or parallel government structure. On one side is a normal government with a president, vice premier, cabinet ministers and other subordinate posts. On the other side is the CCP leadership consisting of a General Secretary, Politburo Standing Committee, Politburo, and Central Committee.

The seven-member Politburo Standing Committee runs the CCP. The General Secretary is the single most powerful person in the leadership. The conventional government is controlled by the CCP, which holds the real power.

Greece to Escape West’s Chokehold by Joining BRICS Bank – European Lawmaker

Last week, Russia invited Greece to become the sixth member of the BRICS New Development Bank.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — Greece could climb out of the debt hole created for it by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank if it accepts Russia’s proposal to join the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), Sofia Sakorafa, a member of the European Parliament from the Greek ruling Syriza party, told Sputnik on Monday.

Putin signs law on ratification of $100 billion BRICS New Development Bank deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying the deal establishing the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), according to a document published on Monday on Russia’s official website for legal information.

The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) was set up to challenge two major Western-led giants – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. NDB’s key role will be to serve as a pool of currency for infrastructure projects within a group of five countries with major emerging national economies – Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

Russia moves closer to ratifying agreement on BRICS New Development Bank

MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Russia’s government has submitted to the lower house of parliament a draft federal law on ratifying an agreement on the New Development Bank (NDB), operated by BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), a decree published on the cabinet’s website said on Wednesday.

China’s development bank plans test rising power’s strategic shift

In an influential speech in 2005, then-US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick called on China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community. To optimists, China’s recent efforts in creating high-profile international development banks shows that it is gradually embracing that role.

China signed an agreement in July with the four other BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa – to create the New Development Bank (NDB) to provide loans and liquidity to member nations. Just three months later, Beijing pioneered the effort to create an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to finance development projects in the region. Twenty nations as diverse as Qatar, India, Singapore and Thailand signed on as founding members. China plans to provide the majority of the capital required to finance the new bank’s operations, with the headquarters located in Beijing.

The US and its allies view the China-backed AIIB with deep suspicion. It is an open secret that Washington has successfully pressured Australia and South Korea to refrain from joining the new development bank. What explains such hostility toward the Chinese effort to take a larger role in regional and global governance?

The Alliance of the Threatened

BERLIN/WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Own report) – The EU and USA have expanded their sanctions against Russia and – in addition to individuals – have now also placed important Russian companies on their lists. Washington has restricted dealings, for example, with Rosneft and the Gazprombank. Brussels has announced the possibility of preventing EU companies from doing business with Russian companies and is planning to list them by the end of July. German business circles are protesting. They have already suffered billions in losses. Experts are warning that, with its sanctions against Russia, the West may experience, in the economic arena, an overreach similar to that experienced by the US in the military arena with its war on Iraq. With the power of the West obviously waning, it has already become noticeable that even close allies are defecting. Observers explain this with the Crimea conflict: NATO countries had been unable to retain the Crimea within the reign of its allied Ukrainian government; therefore it seems that an alliance with NATO countries would no longer be a reliable assurance against ones enemies. Defections can be noticed in Asia and Latin America, not least of all because of the recent founding of the BRICS development bank, rivaling the US-dominated World Bank. Russia and China are among the founders of this bank.