The world needs Russian oil and gas | South China Morning Post
Friday, July 22, 2022 6:24 PM
It’s the second-raters that stir up hell; first-rate people wouldn’t.—Dorothy Parker
Friday, July 22nd, 2022
Dear Friends + Interlocutors,
As I recall, “blowback” was defined by the CIA as the unintended and/or unforeseen adverse consequences of U.S foreign policy. We can certainly see that in Washington’s current adventure in Ukraine.
In fact, this may be the supreme example to date, and there has been quite a record of major and minor train wrecks, as noticed by cognoscenti who follow such things.
Let’s start from ground zero. Vlad Putin did not roll out of bed one morning and decide to order Russia’s armed forces to invade innocent, hapless Ukraine. It is not even necessary to be a foreign affairs cognoscenti to realize that this entire tragic affair has “made-in-Washington” written all over it.
In the immediate run-up to Prez Putin throwing up his hands on February 24th, one could almost casually observe that Washington was doing everything it could (while loudly proclaiming just the opposite) to ensure that no honest negotiations would be entered into between Moscow, Kiev and their next door neighbors in Europe.
After all, please remember that Washington had already shown its hand by slamming the door shut on the 2014-15 Minsk accords. Washington simply instructed its deluded European vassals to walk away from the signed-and-delivered Minsk II, and let things slide.
This annoying fact alone would give Vlad pause about negotiating with the Europeans or Kiev. À quoi bon? Washington’s foreign-policy marplots were always lurking in the background with a monkey-wrench, ready to throw it in.
Now comes this instructive item via Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post, alerting us to a hilarious and egregious blowback from Washington’s triumphal post-invasion sanction regime.
If Washington’s imperious demands to boycot Russian oil had actually been followed, then Europe and the U.S. would be in even worse shape than they currently are!
From the article...
Item: “...the United States and the European Union should thank China and India rather than castigating them for buying cheap oil and gas from Russia.”
Item: “The massive embargo promised by the US and the EU on Russian energy sources did not materialise, fortunately. If they had succeeded, prices today would have been ruinous for many more poor nations, as some already are in a dire situation with today’s prices.”
Item: “As argued by economist Huang Yukon of the Carnegie Asia Programme, “...if the two Asian giants [China and India] actually stopped buying crude oil from Russia and relied more on Middle Eastern producers, the competing demand coming from Europe would result in soaring prices and chaos in global energy markets”.
Item: “...As Huang wrote: “The Western alliance should not even try to persuade China and India to stop buying energy resources from Russia…. the oil and gas that Europe is no longer buying needs to be made available to other major customers, or energy prices will ratchet up to politically destabilising levels. The Western allies cannot have it both ways.”
Sanction the world, ruin the world. The monkey-wrench from Washington bounces every-which way.
Patrick
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By Alex Lo, SCMP, July 21st, 2022
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3186114/world-needs-russian-oil-and-gas?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3186114The world needs Russian oil and gas
The West should thank China and India for keeping a lid on high energy prices by buying Russian resources; otherwise, as a prominent economist has argued, prices would be even more destabilising, if not ruinous, especially for low-income countries
As the war in Ukraine drags on, finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries meeting in Bali were unnerved by an “alarming increase of food and energy insecurity” and a slowdown in the global economy. Meanwhile, major central bank chiefs around the world fret about rising inflation.
In this context, the United States and the European Union should thank China and India rather than castigating them for buying cheap oil and gas from Russia. The conventional wisdom is that those who buy from Russia are funding Vladimir Putin’s war and are therefore complicit.
That view might have been viable if Western unity had held and the war could have ended quickly with Russia’s defeat. Now, with each passing week, both conditions look increasingly unsustainable.
Instead, the stability and growth of the world economy have been seriously damaged, and low-income countries are most dangerously exposed. The massive embargo promised by the US and the EU on Russian energy sources did not materialise, fortunately. If they had succeeded, prices today would have been ruinous for many more poor nations, as some already are in a dire situation with today’s prices.
As argued by economist Huang Yukon of the Carnegie Asia Programme, “if the two Asian giants [China and India] actually stopped buying crude oil from Russia and relied more on Middle Eastern producers, the competing demand coming from Europe would result in soaring prices and chaos in global energy markets”.
The double standards of Washington have meant that it keeps criticising China’s “support” for Russia even though its own mid-level officials have admitted the country has by and large avoided challenging US-EU sanctions.
And while China is now the biggest buyer of Russian energy, India was the first to jump into the market, back in May. But in trying to lure New Delhi into an anti-China coalition, Washington’s criticism has been mute, at least in public.
As Huang wrote: “The Western alliance should not even try to persuade China and India to stop buying energy resources from Russia. By reducing its own energy dependency on Russia, the EU gains more flexibility in dealing with Putin.
“But the oil and gas that Europe is no longer buying needs to be made available to other major customers, or energy prices will ratchet up to politically destabilising levels. The Western allies cannot have it both ways.”
But that’s the problem, because Brussels and Washington – but especially the latter – have insisted on being entitled to having it both ways since day one. In the end, they will end up with a badly damaged world economy and a victorious Russia.
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