Majorityrights Central > Category: Globalisation

Andrew Auernhemer a.k.a. “Weev”

Weev has been a figure associated with WN for several years now and at MR since at least 2010.

I had given him something of the benefit of the doubt as being on our side, since he was on friendly terms with MR prior to my coming here. Weev was well liked by Søren Renner, who, among other gestures of affinity, posted this sad video at Majorityrights, showing Weev explaining his side of the story around the time of his prosecution, just before going to jail for the ATT hack.

Only a few remarks about Weev stand out from what Søren told me, otherwise I had only a general feel of Weev’s place with regard to WN, based on the impromptu “briefing” that Søren gave me about him and then from what limited attention I paid to Weev after Søren departed MR.

Weev emerged from jail and posted photos of himself proudly showing-off his swastika emblazoned chest. I was disgusted with him for that and for his cooperation with The Daily Stormer. I was also disgusted with Søren for his appreciation of Angln’s approach at The Daily Stormer and I wanted to flush out what mutual position the three might occupy. I posted this picture here at MR, Weev with giant swastika tattoo on chest - - it did serve to get Søren to respond: Søren struck me as both hypersensitive in his response on the one hand and impervious on the other, given the fact that I was not exactly exposing anything heretofore a secret. If they think that this is such a sound approach then it seems to me that it could be easily defended by such I.Q. powerhouses. In fact, Søren departed MR and ended contact with me, suggesting that I was taking it too seriously (while maybe he was the one who was being too sensitive).

But anyway, coming back to the few remarks that Søren had made about Weev. Søren said that “Weev is a Jew’ but he’s OK.”

I didn’t carry much weight at MR at that time and didn’t feel it my prerogative to throw any around. I’d say that I went into a sort of denial about it, but really, with Weev in particular going to jail, he wasn’t going to be much harm to us no matter what or how he was.

I liked Søren, quirky, cartoon character sort of guy that he is, and excuses for this remark were swimming only semi-consciously in the back of my head. Maybe he didn’t mean to say that Weev is a literal Jew, but this was Søren’s way of saying that Weev s “a bit of an a-hole, but OK” - an a-hole who is on our side, if not our a-hole.

Or maybe Weev is only a little bit Jewish of his genetic background, but is really on our side. Even at the time I tended to be very skeptical that people who were any part Jewish could be on our side; but again, he was going to jail and therefore of no immanent threat.

Maybe he isn’t Jewish at all and Søren is just showing off his I.Q. snobbery; or that he will make an exception for a Jew if he is a Wittgenstein or a Weev inasmuch as their “genius” is useful for our side. I don’t think these types of Jews will act reliably in our interest, but in this situation, Søren’s predilection seemed good natured, funny and fairly harmless. Even though Søren could have some susceptibility to favor I.Q. over racial distinction, the importance of the distinction from Jews was fairly well buffered - it wasn’t going to easily float past me, anyway. GW thought Weev is a Jew, though I’m not sure how he came to that opinion.

At any rate, Søren’s participation at Majorityrights decreased during the time of Weev’s incarceration. I was a bit sour on him for his appreciation of The Daily Stormer angle but he was more than welcome by me to post and otherwise participate. I had been and have been busily trying to build up an alternative platform from the standard right-wing, “Hitler and Jesus are us, Jews are White like us too, and should be included if they want.”  I am serious about this platform not taking on that nonsense. So, when Søren suddenly reappeared with a few gratuitously disagreeable remarks and this silly post, I decided to make a post calling to account those popular WN figures - Duke, Anglin and Weev apparently looking to redeem Hitler.

As he hadn’t in years, Søren came on to Skype to chat with me, saying that I was too backward looking, that I was taking it too seriously and that I shouldn’t have brought Weev into it; then he removed me from his Skype contacts and that was the last I heard from him.

OK, before too long Weev re-emerges in the right-wing after coming out of jail, now with a Swastika on his chest and as a big hero of the The Daily Stormer et al., presumably. I didn’t pay much attention to him at The Daily Stormer since that tent of the alternative right-wing tentosphere is fairly circumscribed, buffered buffoonery. However, I started to catch wind of Weev making the rounds of the tentosphere.

With Weev at a safe distance now and making rounds on common subject matter, it was worth a listen to some of what he might have to say at this point. Since he is from Arkansas and has experienced blacks, it is quite reasonable to believe, in accordance with all indications, that Weev is sincere in his dislike of them - he has some sincere common interest with WN. Hell, if he is acting, he does a good job of it and of articulating grievances with Jews too.

But any man who causes the name of a website called “Gay Ni****s of America” to appear on the front page of the website of US presidential candidate (and US president to be) Barack Obama, cannot be all bad. lolllzzzzllllolllzzzzzz indeed.

  On February 11, 2007, an attack was launched on the website of US presidential candidate (and future US president) Barack Obama, where the group’s name was caused to appear on the website’s front page.

As another one coming to Dana Anthiochus’ leaky border between White and non-White interests, Weev came to talk with Dana on 25 September 2015 about computer technology, his concerned advice on race and state-of-the-art warfare.

I insisted that Kumiko have a listen with me, and render a critique, as these concerns bear upon her expertise. We developed an outline which I will post below. A Weev article has been long on the back-burner, but has become relevant now with Dennis Fetcho’s experience and criticism, if not exposure of Weev.

Though a right-winger himself, Dennis Fetcho has some interesting things to say.

He did a podcast of his own and one with Nick Spero recently to discuss Weev. Fetcho finds Weev’s covering stories risible - Weev being a Christian identitarian concerned with White interests and so on. “Christian Identiy?’, Fetcho says, “before he was a Mormon, he doesn’t know what he is.” But of the fact that that Weev is Jewish and that he was always on “the enemy side” Fetcho is confident. Weev apparently made Fetcho’s life hell, attacking and damaging his websites as he apparently would do any site that was “anti-Semitic.”

Fetcho maintains further, that Weev was not prosecuted by the U.S. Government singularly for hacking A.T.T. as he maintains, but because he was a nuisance who had done the same thing to many people, hacking and trolling them relentlessly as a part of a team that caused many innocent people significant problems.

Now we have Weev’s triumphant return to White Nationalism, with him presenting himself as a cult hero if not integral to their right-wing sites and aspirations. He is treated like a “hero” at The Daily Stormer and other alternative right sites for his recent print station hacking stunt - at least he claims it as his handiwork; Fetcho doesn’t believe that he acted alone to cause the printers at some American universities and some in China to print-out a poster with an anti-Jewish statement, and declaring world wide “White supremacism” with two large swastikas on each side of the text. Fetcho makes the point that this is barely newsworthy. I concur and did not run the story at MR and would not have if not for the implications of Weev’s detrimental involvement with WN.

           
    Weev, “I chose the swastika image because it is a symbol universally recognizable to all printers.”

What good does it do to create a “problem” of printing out anti-Semitic posters with Swastikas, proclaiming global White supremacism into print stations at the heavily Jewish American universities and in China?

It is perfect public relations - for the ADL.

Universities are not known for their skin head types, nor are book worms likely to be roused to enact global Nazism. The universities are replete rather with empowered Jewish folks, who can proclaim that they have a growing problem with anti-Semitism, need to clamp-down and need more assistance from the State.

This kind of vainglory printing-out in China works against projects like MR’s, to build regional alliance between Asia and Europe.

My reaction from the onset would suffice without any elaborate conspiracy. Our eminently noble cause of White sovereignty is only harmed by association with Nazism and “supremacism.” It will only harm Whites, set us against each other and turn-off normal Whites, needless to say how non-Whites would react.

No White advocates were talking in terms of “White supremacism” until Weev brought it back in his talk with Dana Antiochus.

No concerned White advocates subscribe to White supremacism because it is at odds with the separatism to which we aspire - attempting to dominate others is at odds with separatism. In trying to resurrect this concept of “White supremacism” Weev is attempting to brand us with a term as surely as he has branded himself with a corny tattoo as if to brand and represent us with it. He would libel us by associating our cause with the term that Jewish groups have been trying to smear White advocates with for decades - despite the fact that nobody, except for Weev now, promotes the term.

It does no good to Whites, but it does however, serve the interests of the ADL. It divides Whites, turns off normal Whites to our cause, creates the notion that Jews need more state protection on their side, etc.

Coming back to Dana Antiochus’ 25 Sep 2015 talk: Weev pushed the envelope of violence, declared world wide “White supremacism” the way forward and the intimidating idea that drone warfare would make the normal means of fighting for your people obsolete.

My initial impression that this was just a right-winger giving the right-wingers at Renegade what they want - a new Swastika tattoo, some Jew, Jew, Jew, unanimity with Uncle Adolf and you’re good to go.

With Fetcho’s intervention, however, Auernheimer looks more like a provocateur than the friendly rogue, Weev.

Andrew Auernheimer, a.k.a., “Weev”, the suspicious friend of The Daily Stormer and TRS, just so happens to be their Johnny on the spot when their sites have problems.

Fetcho claims that Weev does have some Jewish background, which we (GW and I, DanielS) have reason to suspect as well.

Fetcho maintains that the US government didn’t go after Weev for the singular hacking of ATT accounts incident as he claimed, but rather because he was hacking and harassing innocent people all over the place, including Fetcho relentlessly.

Fetcho renders plausible arguments against Weev’s “great hack” of the printer stations at several universities, and apparently in China as well. He asks first, whether he really did this this by himself? Then takes the premise to what follows by saying that this is not a newsworthy story on its face value (I agree, and had not run it at MR). It accomplishes little of positive value, but does create a “problem” for the Jewish laden universities that requires them to provide a “solution” of clamping down on hate speech. This is an attendant benefit to our enemies by associating WN with Nazism and “supremacism.”

And that is the large point that I believe Fetcho has got very right - there is a close approximation of Zero White advocates who have been claiming “White supremacism” and yet what Auernheimer has been doing re-vitalizes the Jewish smear line of “White supremacism” along with the Nazi association in order to discredit WN and turn people off.

Moreover, what sincere White Nationalist would hack Chinese printers to announce “global White supremacism” ? Most probably none.

But a Jewish sponsored troll, trying to prevent Chinese and White cooperation just might.

Who is served by associating “White Nationalism” with The Daily Stormer, Nazism and “Supremacism” ?  Jewish groups are served.

Here is the Nick Spero “Circus Maximus” show in which Weev is discussed in the third hour: The first two hours are Lee Rogers, the third hour Dennis Fetcho. Lee Rogers is your standard anti-Jewish right-winger, not much new but no harm if you can ignore his “holohoax” line and his falling on the AH side of the false either/or; moving to hour three, Dennis Fetcho has interesting things to say about Weev.

Again, Fetcho is a right-winger, with those foibles, including the pro-reich, “it was all a holohoax”, 9-11 and all that usual boring right-wing stuff, but the things he is saying about Weev gather sense.

He talks about Weev on his own show as well:

Apr. 2, 2016

  Hour 1
  Garbage World of Hackers

  Hour 2
  Weev and ADL Crafted Messages

Beware of the right-wing: they are full of fools and foolers.

On black hat hacking at red ice.

Weev on identifying companies with unknown liabilities

Weev tells his side of the story to RT

Weev on why he trolls

Weev on the difference between trolling and hacking

Here is an outline of Kumiko’s initial take on Weev’s discussion - with Antiochus, 25 September 2015 - on computer tech, race and state-of-the-art warfare. Since these topics square with her expertise on all counts and with our concerns on all counts, her opinion is quite relevant. This is just an outlne that I took down as dictation from what we gathered at the time (last September).

Weev on the players and the technological transformation of war: “it will be massively a-symmetric and robotic.”

1. Showing ATT its vulnerabilities was a good turn; but revealing the data to (((Gawker))) was tactless.

2 Don’t talk to the police! Weev should not have talked to the police.

3. “Black hat” is the wrong term to self ascribe, it underscores an unduly negative angle that adversaries would attribute to Weev - he should not cop to that, but rather identify as a “Gray hat.”

4. Should not say German patriots are setting fire to refugee camps or that he wants to kill blacks just because they are black.

5. His idea of robotic and drone war is problematic - it does Not render traditional forces obsolete. In certain circumstances you want troops in there in certain circumstances you don’t.

For another significant point of criticism, there are more ways to counter robot and drone technology than Weev is taking into account.

Kumiko has other assessments and critiques of his politics and computer abilities: where he is mistaken, where he could do better.

6. Very important: you still need popular sentiment on your side. It is not enough, especially not nowadays, to think in terms of warfare being so asymmetrical that just one percent or a small percent can fight and win.

7. His view on Christianity, newly reconsidered as it may be, could be reasonable enough: reminiscent of Bohrmann.

8. He is correct that it should not be a false either/or between universalistic Christianity, Jews and Islam. They are all beyond the pale.

9. His association with Anglin and other right wingers is dubious. NS Germany was leftist at its inspiration, onset and groundswell.

10. Assad never offered nor had any intention of stepping down. Russia made a duplicitous offer to take Assad down in exchange for keeping its port but The US decided to try to take him down themselves. The results were still bad but the motives were different than Weev made it out to be.

Regarding Auernheimer’s assessment of the inexorable link between Isis, Israel, The US - the deal with Iran indicates that business interests and geopolitics can override Israeli interests

11. He overstates the exclusivity of White accomplishment in computer technology.

12. His troll of Obama’s website with “Gay n*****s of America” was very funny.

Dugin/Stark interview: Beginning concession to White Post Modernity

Whereas he used to have a completely botched notion of post modernity - mixing-up what should be the antidote to modernity and liberalism with liberalism itself - it now appears that we are improving Dugin’s understanding - viz., that modernity is the problem and the essence of liberalism.

His ideas in this talk are largely amenable and well considered.

His proposition that the state is a bit too much of an artifice to suffice by itself and that there needs to be a hypothesized realm, as we would say, beyond the physically verified moment, which girds and orients a people, is also well considered.

However, now that we are getting him to a better understanding of “post moderntiy”, viz. White post modernity, we need to get him to a better understanding of biological reality and “racism.”

Anti-racism is the quintessential modernist liberal notion; it is a Cartesian farce: It has been proposed as innocent but it is not -

Anti-racism is prejudiced, it is not innocent, it is hurting and it is killing people.

For “racism” is a necessary concept in a benign form, which is not supremacism nor a singular conclusion to aggrandizement and annihilation of an opposing people (as YKW propose and liberals might accept as a definition). It is in fact, a practical concept that is practiced by ordinary people everyday of necessity, as a non-Cartesian requirement of the human condition, of being in the world - one must discriminate in human-sized categories, including social classification - of one’s own people and of other peoples - to form a coherent basis of ones own and to form a basis of human ecologies for our systemic coherence, social accountability, warrant and agency.

These classifications are “hermeneutic”, that is to say that they are not absolutely empirically based in every moment, as the taken-for-granted and the state of partial knowledge - faith, if you will - must subsist behind the working hypothesis.

Call it a working hypothesis, call it faith, call it rules, call it narrative, call it taken for granted, call it the partly unknown, call it a mystery, a quest, an adventure, some of that as you must, some of it you might, as it has practical function to ensconce the under-determining facts of the empirical; but I have believed and continue to believe that a sacred overlay, in orientation and guidance of a people is a good idea.

I believe that it is a hermeneutic notion nevertheless, which is itself accountable to deal concretely with biology, sex and genetics, mediating toward fairness and justice in regards to this social capital - otherwise, without this empirical accountability, this “spiritual” realm will be the realm of evil charlatans.

“Third Worlders”, “Non-Whites”,  “Asians”... There are DIFFERENCES THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

                      “Third World immigration is the real culprit” - TNO

               
                tari-huli images from this site.

               
               
                Photo: Dabiq/Corbis

  Observe the DIFFERENCES, they are NOT TOO COMPLICATED TO DISCERN
               
                   

(Photo: Joshua Roberts—Reuters)

With his address to AIPAC, Trump lost the characteristic equivocalness in his manner of speaking: he brought-out his trump card - unequivocal pandering to Israel ..as we knew he would.

From his talks to “the international press” regarding Jewish concerns prior to his speech and through his speech, he was unequivocal.

1) He was unequivocal in his denunciation of “racism and anti-Semitism.”

2) He was unequivocal in his prioritization for Israel’s security; their borders and identity as a Jewish state for Jewish people.

3) He was unequivocal not only in his denunciation of the Iran deal, but in saying that it must be reversed; and, in asserting that Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program must be stopped, he intimated that he is not averse to Israel’s coveted hawkish solution to dealings with Iran.

4) His unequivocal closer - for those familiar with salesmanship, the closing line of a pitch must “close” (confirm) the deal: Trump proudly asserted that he was “about to become a grandfather of a Jewish child.” Asserting his blood-ties in commitment to Jewish interests.

White Nationalists may be correct that he is the best option in buying them some time. At least he makes noises as if he is going to do something about closing U.S. borders and that he would sympathize with closing the borders of Europe as well.

But toward that end, we are having to take the word of a man who brags about his negotiating skills following these avowals to Israel and Jewish interests.

AIPAC might cooperate to some extent with our domestic issues, including our security, OUR WHITE BORDERS FOR OUR WHITE PEOPLES - U.S., Europe and elsewhere - but only to the extent that coincides with Israeli and Jewish interests more broadly; and to the extent that Trump’s and other regimes would (very incorrectly) treat Jews as if they are White; a specially protected White minority among our lands.

That is a highly suspect deal.

And in exchange for that deal come an array of foreign policies - our side, opponent side distinctions - even more suspect.

About the only consolation to be offered to those who favor Trump in the interest of European peoples is that at least in what she speaks and intends, viz. in her antagonism of Whites, Hillary is even worse. Her rhetoric is even more out of the liberal, P.C., anti-White mold: her disregard for White boundaries more brazen, her commitment to Israel as “rock solid, unwavering, enduring and forever” as ever (as emphatic, in fact), and her war-hawkishness even more flagrant. Every bit as much as Trump shored-up his pro-Israel, pro-Jewish-line..

   
Hillary shored-up her Neo-Con Credentials.

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

60 Minutes News Crew Attacked

Police decline to go into the Somali area with reporters.

Who are then greeted by assault

READ MORE...

We will analyze this excellent speech of Victor Orban. It will show why The White Left is the necessary way - it is the way of agency for European peoples - whereas the Right, including the Alternative Right, is the way of retardation, the non-agency, no account resignation to deterministic causality that will render us into the hands of our enemies; that is the reason that our enemies want to designate us as “the right” - while fools and infiltrators adopt that moniker - with the “fate” and its acceptance that Orban correctly denounces.

The right will always be retarded by its myopic abstractions beyond the human scale, feedback and accountability of our people as a social group and social groups. It is and will be thrown into hyper-relativism as a result of its lack of context for its desperate and futile quests beyond social reality - finally, in desperate recourse it will be thrown back by default of practical necessity to its only recourse, to that reality of the White Left - of Praxis, that is social group unionization, accountability and its agency.

READ MORE...

It’s all worse, more organized and more them than even you think.

I recall that the last time that the issue of a Euro-Asian alliance came up on Majorityrights, there was a contingent of commentators who did not believe that the direction that was taken at Majorityrights about this issue was reality-based.

I would ask such persons to look at this article which appeared today in the EU Observer, which is now working in cooperation with the Mission of China to the European Union.

It’s so comprehensive that there’s scarcely anything that I would add to it:

EU Observer / Emanuele Scimia, ‘China, Russia and the EU’s intermarium block’, 14 Mar 2016:

China’s geopolitics of trade passageways, expected to revive the ancient Silk Road arteries across the Eurasian continent, is producing the first collateral effect.

The potential integration of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative with a regional infrastructure scheme in Central and Eastern Europe is contributing to altering the balance of power in Euro-Russian dynamics.

Emergence of China as independent player in region marks pivotal change from 1920s and 1930s (Photo: Bernd Thaller)

Beijing maintains that the Eurasian landmass exists as an “integral whole” and that Central and Eastern Europe play an important role in its strategy to link the Chinese eastern coast and Western Europe through land and sea-based passages.

In line with this vision, on 23 February, during a meeting in Zagreb with Croatian prime minister Tihomir Oreskovic, representatives of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission stressed that China was interested in connecting the “Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative” and the Belt and Road project.

The Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative was first laid out by Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic in September 2015. In her view, it should work as a framework for enhanced cooperation in the political, economic and security realms among 12 European Union countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In particular, this Croatian-sponsored plan of regional integration aims to promote concrete projects on infrastructure development, so as to improve trade connection and energy independence on the eastern flank of both the EU and Nato.

When in October last year Chinese president Xi Jinping held talks with Kitarovic in Beijing, he welcomed the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative, underlining that the development of a north-south corridor in Europe, based on the ports of Adriatic and Baltic nations, was complementary to China’s Silk Road strategy.

Intermarium

Beijing could in fact exploit the favorable position of Adriatic, Baltic and Black Sea ports to link the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road - the overland and sea-going sections of the Belt and Road, respectively - through a longitudinal and intermodal corridor in the heart of Europe.

Kitarovic keeps repeating that its project is not directed against Russia.

Yet, it is doubtful that the Kremlin buys the Croatian president’s reassurances. And it cannot be otherwise, if Moscow looks at Europe’s map.

The Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative has in fact startling similarities with the Intermarium (or “the land between the seas”), an alliance of states from the Baltics to the Black Sea - and potentially down to the Balkans - that in the 1920s and 1930s Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski tried in vain to create to prevent German and Russian expansionism.

Today, Polish president Andrzej Duda has resumed Pilsudski’s geopolitical thinking, overtly endorsing the formation of a modern Intermarium, which in large part coincides with the bloc of states included in the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative.

Russia will inevitably oppose any move that leads to increasing cooperation among the states of Central and Eastern Europe, viewing it as an effort to separate the Russian territory from Western Europe. But, the problem for the Kremlin is that now, unlike in the interwar period, there is China that acts as an independent variable in the eventual creation of an Intermarium grouping.

China’s cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe countries (the so-called China+16) has been underpinned by both its recent accession to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and its push to build synergies between the Belt and Road scheme and the EU $393 billion investment plan.

Particularly, Beijing and Brussels are focusing on improving their infrastructure links through the establishment of a Sino-European connectivity platform.

Baltic region

Ultimately, China and the EU are working to set up corridors between the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), Brussels’ plan to upgrade Europe’s transport system, and the Belt and Road. The Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative should fit into this China-Europe infrastructure mechanism.

On a visit to Latvia on 19 February, Chinese National Development and Reform Commission vice chairman Ning Jizhe voiced his government’s interest in boosting the container train traffic from China to the Baltic region and Northern Europe and investing in both the Rail Baltica project and the port of Latvian capital city Riga.

Rail Baltica is a high speed rail project, under the TEN-T initiative, that will link Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, with an extension into Germany; Riga seaport is instead at the northern end of the proposed Baltic-Adriatic Corridor, yet another TENT-T artery.

Thus, China is betting big on the Baltic ports, as also proved by China Merchants Group’s intention to expand the existing Klaipeda seaport, in Lithuania, and turns it into a new transport and logistics center within the Belt and Road scheme.

Chinese plans to reboot Klaipeda seaport should be viewed in combination with Beijing’s interest in building up the Croatian port of Rijeka, the southernmost tip of the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative, and, more importantly, with the potential connection between the new iron Silk Road and the Baltic coast.

The iron Silk Road is a China-Europe land-sea express line connecting Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Illichivsk with Western China via Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

This Euro-Asian transport passageway has been operational since January and has a considerable strategic relevance, given that it circumvents the Russian territory.

Weakening Russia

Ukraine is currently in talks with Lithuania and Belarus for linking the iron Silk Road and the port of Klaipeda. If the three countries succeed in carrying out their project, Russia will definitely lose its position as a transit space for the Sino-European trade.

China’s drive to integrate the Central and Eastern Europe countries into its Silk Road strategy has the potential to further weaken the grip of Russia on its western neighbourhood.

While there is not much Moscow can do to halt Beijing’s engagement in the European post-Soviet space, its only hope is that historical mistrust among potential participants, combined with harsh competition among them for more Chinese funds and investments, may sink the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative, as well as any other prospective Intermarium-style alliance.

Emanuele Scimia is an independent journalist and foreign policy analyst. His articles have appeared in the South China Morning Post, the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, Deutsche Welle, and The Jerusalem Post, among others.

It was possible to see this coming from a long way off.

For example:

The National Interest / Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen, ‘China’s Inadvertent Empire’, 24 Oct 2012:

[...] China also is bolstering cross-border traders who are the economic lifeblood of the old Silk Road. Sitting atop it all is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which offers an umbrella for China to demonstrate that its regional activities are undertaken with the acquiescence of neighboring powers.

The driver is economics, seen most clearly in China’s heavy purchasing of large mineral and hydrocarbon sites across the region. In Kazakhstan, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has gone into partnership with the local, state-owned enterprise (SOE) KazMunaiGaz to secure 4 percent of China’s oil imports from Kazakhstan. Turkmenistan currently accounts for almost a third of China’s imported natural gas—mostly coming through the speedily built China-Central Asia pipeline, which in 2011 brought some 15.5 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas to China. CNPC aims to send 24.1 BCM this year and eventually get the flow up to 65 BCM. Further, CNPC secured the rights to develop an oil field in Amu Darya in northern Afghanistan, upriver to a project it already is exploiting in Turkmenistan. According to Kabul analysts, this field, a small one for a company as large as CNPC, is a kind of toe in the water for the Chinese SOE to prepare for future contracts in the hydrocarbon-rich area.

It is not only oil and gas that Chinese firms see in Central Asia. State-owned mining firms Jiangxi Copper and the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) partnered to invest near $4 billion to exploit the Mes Aynak copper mine southeast of Kabul. And while Chinese firms have been less visible on recent mining tenders in Afghanistan, they doubtless noted the U.S. Geological Survey’s estimate of nearly a trillion dollars worth of minerals in the country. Furthermore, Chinese mining firms have won concessions to mine for gold in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

But while this natural wealth will help feed China’s insatiable demand for resources, it won’t necessarily help develop Xinjiang. That will require the development of infrastructure across Central Asia. Crippled by aging Soviet infrastructure, the region is a blank canvas for outside developers. China is not the only player around. South Korea has a notable presence in Uzbekistan, while Turkish and French firms dominate the Turkmenistan market. But it is notable to see Chinese firms developing roads leading in and out of Xinjiang. The road from Kashgar to Osh in Kyrgyzstan through the Irkeshtam Pass was built by the China Bridge and Road Company. Chinese workers in distinctive green military greatcoats with shiny buttons could be found earlier this year directing trucks of dirt to complete the road’s final stretches. Other roads can be found in Tajikistan with crews of Chinese repairing parts from Dushanbe toward the Afghan border. Dual-language Russian-Chinese signs mark the workers’ presence. More notable in Tajikistan is the only toll road in the country, going north from Dushanbe to Khujand, built by a Chinese firm and broken up by a shoddily designed Iranian tunnel at the Shahriston Pass. This soon will be replaced by a Chinese-built tunnel.

China also has sought to help develop the region’s rail systems. A train line is being built from China through Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan. Other train networks are being developed to strengthen links with Kazakhstan, including a high-speed train to be exported there from China. Other infrastructure elements are being spearheaded or supported by Chinese firms, including gas metering in Uzbekistan, telecoms across the region and hydropower developments in Tajikistan.

Various forms of funding have emerged. Primary among them is the use of linked loans or lines of credit provided through China Export-Import Bank. Often granted with provisions guaranteeing that Chinese firms get the contracts, these loans are breeding a growing number of Chinese train carriages in the region as well as Chinese road crews. In addition, Chinese firms often are the winning bidders in projects tendered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Regional ADB officials openly praise the Chinese companies and their work. The ADB’s Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program dovetails with China’s road-building aim of connecting the underdeveloped region with its wealthier neighbors. But China wants this infrastructure to be oriented in its direction rather than toward Afghanistan, as the ADB would prefer.

The fruits of this road and rail construction are seen in the markets of Kara-Suu in Kyrgyzstan, Barakholka in Kazakhstan or as far as Türkmenabat’s bazaars in Turkmenistan, just across the border from Uzbekistan. Sprawling fields harbor truck trailers with doors cut in them so merchants can peddle goods to local buyers. Traders in Uzbekistan report using Chinese roads and rail links to get goods from Guangzhou and Urumqi to their markets, while in Dushanbe the aptly named Shanghai Market offers a shrunken version of this model focused mostly on home construction. This trade includes such goods as air conditioners, televisions and knickknacks of the kind commonly associated with China. Xinjiang traders and truckers are largely responsible for this back and forth, which is helping expand China’s market presence in Central Asia, opening up Xinjiang’s markets and providing employment in the region.

Taken as a composite, this may appear to be a coherent strategy, but there is little evidence that it was developed consciously as a grand plan in Beijing. Beyond the Xinjiang development program, the other main area of Chinese concentration has been the SCO, a somewhat half-baked organization initially formed to resolve regional border disputes. For Beijing, the ideal would be for the organization to become a vehicle through which it can direct China’s economic investments in the region. Beijing policy makers have advanced notions of creating an SCO development bank and an SCO free-trade zone. At the latest summit in Beijing, China pledged $10 billion in regional support through the organization. But this eagerness is not shared by other SCO members—in particular Russia, which sees China’s rise in Central Asia as a direct threat to its interests. [...]

How might Russia try to frustrate these developments? The Russians know that the resources under Siberia are the key to realising their aspiration of being a great power in Asia, but it is the case that China is also the main foreign investor in Siberia now.

China has been testing the willingness of people to defend boundaries in all regions that it is adjacent to, namely, those of the United States, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, Central Asia, the Northern Korean peninsula, and the Northern Sea route in the Arctic Zone. Yet the only areas where China has managed to make a long-lasting strategic breakthrough are those areas in which it is detrimental to Russia. Russia has been the single biggest loser in this equation.

How should this be appraised in the broadest sense? The lesson is simple. The development of productive forces, the economic sphere, is what ultimately drives history. Things which appear to be accidents of history, are revealed as non-accidents once a long enough time scale is considered. On a long enough time scale, the course of history will tend to run parallel with the course of economic development.

Given that China became ‘a workshop of the world’, which is to say, a key element of the supply chain for every manufacturing power in East Asia, Western Europe, and the Americas, it was almost a certainty that this would create a scenario where there could potentially be strategic gains for China to pursue. Whichever boundary in the region was controlled by the weakest economic player, would become the ‘path of least resistance’ for Chinese economic expansion.

We’ve heard about the so-called ‘strength’ of Russia’s ‘Eurasianism’, which is espoused by Vladimir Putin and Kremlin advisers such as Aleksandr Dugin. The idea that Russia’s ‘Eurasianism’—a ‘Eurasianism’ which has nothing to do with Asia and everything to do with providing rhetorical cover for Gazprombank’s interests and the retrograde rent-seeking interests of (((Russian oligarchs))), ex-Stalinist gangsters, landlords, and clergy—would somehow be sufficient to improve Russia’s fortunes. We’ve also heard that the social reproduction of this supposed ‘strength’ would be presided over by the furrowed brows of Russian Orthodox priests and their thunderous moral injunctions.

And in the eyes of some, it seemed almost to be true. But was that the end of the story? No. Strong words must be backed by productive force if they are to be effective, and ultimately, a higher form of production will tend to triumph over a lower form.

It is for that reason which Russia now finds itself being increasingly denied the preponderance over the post-Soviet space that it so craved. The development of productive forces in East Asia is overcoming the force of Vladimir Putin’s fanciful speeches about ‘Eurasianism’, and it will also overcome all Abrahamic clerical-landlordist tendencies.