ACADEMY OF DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT – INSTITUTE OF SKY POLITICS

The dialectic of splits and the triangles of harmony

On 07.11.24, the elected 47th President of the United States, D. Trump, confirmed his intention to split the alliance of China and Russia, defining this task as the most important condition for restoring the greatness of the United States. His direct words on the eve of the elections were as follows: "I will have to separate them, and I think I will be able to do it. I must separate them".

To answer the question of how linkages and splits can occur in the triangle of relations between the Russian Federation – the PRC – the USA, it is necessary to note the specificity of political thought of the Mediterranean (Biblical) and the Middle Kingdom (Chinese) civilizations.

The conclusions of analysts of the European education system are based on the principle: "Whoever is not with us is against us. And the third is superfluous. There is no third option." Whereas Chinese thought overcomes the struggle of opposites by the formula: "We ourselves, our enemies, and our allies."

And if the analysis of "chess positions" primarily takes into account the quantitative side of the balance of forces: the PRC+RF as opposed to the USA, then Chinese assessments of the linkages of the three forces proceed from the factor of the quality of the correlation: the activity or passivity of the players at the card table of history.

Here it is necessary to emphasize two variants of the operation of the law of change in the linkages of three forces. In Chinese mythology, this is either "the cunning monkey gazing from the mountain at the fight of two tigers in the valley," or "the all-powerful dragon that has taken flight in the splendor of its might," namely:

■ if two forces are active and the third is passive (the cunning monkey), then the linkage of forces turns in favor of the force in the passive position.
■ if two forces are passive and the third is active (the dragon), then the linkage
of forces turns in favor of the force in the active position.

Our remarkable analysts of the European cast of mind still do not understand the basic stratagem of Chinese thought, namely that "Chairman Mao Zedong's theory of dividing the world into three parts is the greatest contribution to the treasury of Marxism-Leninism", which in 1974 was proclaimed from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly by Deng Xiaoping.

An example of this stratagem from the political practice of the PRC is the armed border conflict staged by Mao Zedong in March 1969 around Damansky Island on the Ussuri River and then at Lake Zhalanashkol on the western border in Kazakhstan.

In the times of the "Great Friendship" during the Korean War of 1950-1953, relations between the PRC and the USSR were built on a binary scheme: Stalin's USSR – the elder brother plus Mao Zedong's PRC – the junior partner against the USA with its coalition.

After Stalin's death, Mao Zedong, relying on his status as a theoretician of Marxism with Chinese characteristics and on the potential of the New China he led, laid claim to the role of leader of the Socialist camp. However, the inheritance was taken up by N.S. Khrushchev, who proclaimed a course toward peaceful coexistence of the USSR with the USA. The policy lines of the PRC and the USSR diverged. Mao Zedong accused the CPSU Central Committee of revisionism.

In 1969, by the border conflict, Mao dissociated himself from brotherhood with the USSR.
Applying the law of change in the "cunning monkey" stratagem, the PRC took the position of a third force above the fray.

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The "cunning monkey" stratagem above the fight of the two superpowers: US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism was covered by the Chinese with the "three worlds theory," which diverted scholarly analysis from understanding the secret essence of Mao Zedong's design toward the study of
a false target according to the cover legend. China's policy is always
an endless path of cunning.

The fight of the two tigers: the USA and the USSR, to the unconditional benefit of the PRC, ended with the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War.

As a result of the defeat, the USSR disintegrated. The "skin of the Soviet tiger" in the form of the republics of Central Asia went to the PRC – they entered the orbit of Chinese policy, first in 1996–2001 within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, then from 2013 within the framework of the Economic Belt of the New Silk Road strategy, and from 2023 within the framework of the Community of Shared Future with Beijing.

But the "tiger of American imperialism" also overstrained itself in the course of the Cold War. To sustain the confrontation with the USSR, the USA was forced to normalize relations with the PRC, transfer technology, and open markets. In January 1979, an agreement On Constructive Cooperation between the USA and the PRC was signed in Washington for a term of 20 years with an extension for another 20 years (until 2019).

In confirmation of the obligations taken before the Americans, in February 1979 the PRC delivered a "counterstrike for the purposes of self-defense" against Vietnam. The USSR openly sided with Vietnam. Soviet-Chinese relations reached maximum tension. And the PRC's course toward the "four modernizations" received full support from the USA.

By 2021, the PRC had eliminated absolute poverty in society and reached the level of moderate prosperity of the population (xiaokang).

In October 2022, the 20th Congress of the CPC confirmed the course toward completing socialist modernization and reviving the greatness of the nation of yellow people by 2035. A "new campaign" was also proclaimed for building up military power and creating, already by 2027 (the 100th anniversary of the PLA), an internal and international situation of "Calm China."

Thus, the 20th Congress of the CPC abandoned Deng Xiaoping's course in foreign policy—"hide your capabilities and bide your time" (the "cunning monkey" stratagem)—and from March 2023 quietly shifted the PRC's foreign policy to the "all-powerful dragon" stratagem.

However, the transition of the RF's Special Military Operation in the Ukrainian theater of operations into a protracted war of attrition, with the RF and the USA moving into a position of active confrontation, forced Xi by the end of 2023 to return the PRC's policy back to the "cunning monkey" stratagem.

The change of stratagem manifested itself in the sudden resignation of the just-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense of the PRC, as well as the head of the USA Department of the CPC Central Committee's Office, and their replacement with leaders inclined toward compromises with the USA (the head of the CPC's foreign policy course, Wang Yi).

The coming to supreme power in the USA on 20.01.25 of D. Trump with a firm intention to implement 10 radical theses of state restructuring unequivocally consolidates the active position of the USA in domestic and foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

It can be stated with great confidence that in the triad of the three forces of the new epoch, the PRC leadership will repeat Mao Zedong's stratagem, betting on the confrontation between Russia and the USA and in every way avoiding direct confrontation between the PRC and the USA.

The forecast of the PRC's position again according to the "cunning monkey" stratagem, amid active confrontation between the USA and the RF, requires noting that "we ourselves" (the PRC) overcome "our enemies" (the USA) at the expense of "our allies" (the RF). Here lies for the Kremlin a strategic trap in the "unprecedentedly high level of Chinese-Russian relations between two large neighboring powers." The essence of the trap is in the binary scheme of balance: the RF + the PRC outweigh the USA, whereas the PRC is playing out not a scheme of balances and counterweights, but a rotation in the triad of three forces.

After all, Trump's primary task to split the strategic interaction of the RF and the PRC corresponds to Brzezinski's ideologeme that "the new world order led by the USA (let's make America great again) will be built against Russia, on the ruins of Russia and at Russia's expense." Moreover, after Ryabkov's ultimatum to the USA of 15.12.21, Ukraine will act as the "ruins of Russia."

In the situation in the Ukrainian theater of operations, the Kremlin's reliance on the arsenal of missile and nuclear weapons is naive. The nuclear power USA in 1973 lost a people's combined-arms war in Vietnam.

To slip out of the traps of the war of an industrial society for territories in Ukraine, Russia must replace the game and, through the ternary harmony of the world, win the war of meanings of the new epoch of the information society.

Sky Politics knows how to do this by transitioning from even to odd according to the model of the Great Game at the card table of history.
It is only a pity that a prophet is not honored in his own Fatherland.

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Helmsman Xi Jinping in Vera Donskaya-Khilko's painting "THE LAW OF CHANGES" 2016-2017

Executed by Andrey Devyatov No976 of 17.11.2024

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