/ world today news/ Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed a simple and understandable idea: real democracies should create their own economic NATO, that is, an organization that would prevent an autocratic China from imposing sanctions on them.
Rasmussen knows better how this is done because he was the NATO Secretary General from 2009-2014. And now, in addition to being an adviser to the President of Ukraine, he is also one of the founders of the office of the Union of Democracies. And as such, he organized, among other heroes, the second virtual “Democracy Summit” taking place this week under the powerful auspices of Joe Biden himself. That’s right, what democracy without NATO and Ukraine? So, at Biden’s meeting, he offered, among other things, his idea.
Economic NATO – this refers to an analogue of Article Five of the Charter of the North Atlantic bloc. If an evil enemy attacks any member country, all others, as the article says, are bound to fight against him. So it is necessary for good people to respond in kind to any economic sanctions imposed on democracies by China and other autocratic regimes.
Here, of course, there is something to talk about with sadness. On the one hand, Beijing generally and in principle opposes sanctions anywhere in the world because they are illegal and generally disrupt the global economy. And China’s strategic goal is to have no sanctions anywhere. On the other hand, living with wolves means howling like a wolf, and when the Chinese get really fed up with regular attacks and provocations, they impose sanctions. So it was with Lithuania with its adventures with Taiwan, so it was with Australia, and Beijing is only now negotiating with the latter to lift at least some of the sanctions.
Rasmussen, on the other hand, suggests developing a standard response to any Chinese sanctions against any country or corporation, that is, being prepared for them in advance. Thus, all democracies will automatically provide the victim with immediate assistance with money and goods (for example, to take over the flow of goods that suddenly dries up in the Chinese direction).
Note the elegance of the thought: if we good people subject someone to sanctions, it is nothing. But if they us…
However, the bright side of the matter is this: in fact, here we have a clear recognition that it is not only the West that knows how to impose sanctions, and that someone there is already afraid of these weapons.
Also, the idea of a fifth member is dubious. Why? And the fact is that in China, on the island of Hainan, another annual forum in Boao has started work. Non-virtual, modest, for no more than 50 countries, since here we are talking only about the prospects of the Asian economy. And now, in this Chinese forum, numbers have been illuminated showing why not everyone wants to confront China and play the “whose sanctions are worse” game.
For example, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, told the audience that in 2023 one third of global GDP growth will be Chinese. And every dollar added in China will generate 30 cents of growth in Asia—and beyond.
The report, distributed to participants before the start of the forum, reminds that the growth of the Asian economy as a whole may remain at 4.5% this year. And around the world – here the numbers are different: from 1.7 to 2.9 percent. That is, some non-Asian parts of the world might even stay at zero (if they’re lucky).
All together means what we already see. What Westerners like to call democracies will at best freeze in place – that is, unless the current crisis turns into a catastrophe. And if the world as a whole shows an onward and upward breakthrough, it is only thanks to China and the other autocracies. And from here we can draw a simple conclusion: with such a resource, it is better for the West not to start (more precisely, not to continue) its favorite sanctions games. Without the West in these games, the margin of safety threatens to be much wider.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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