POKING THE RUSSIAN BEAR, PRODDING THE CHINESE PANDA

Teasing large animals always comes with an equally large element of risk. The goal is to get the beast to respond to being provoked and then hit it harder with a view to taming it, conquering its spirit and so making it docile and easier to control.

But what if the spirit of the animal in question is unusually strong and the wit of its brain has an equally strong capacity making it a harder conquest than the trainer is used to? What if it has the capacity to read the behaviour of its tormentor in such a way that it can calculate appropriate responses that can turn the tables on this relationship?

The USA, UK and their allies have long believed they were the sole equivalent of lion-tamers whose function was to tame and subdue the savage beasts of this world (as they saw them), the godless savages, the hapless primitives and lesser races whose resources they sought to plunder. Historically, using their relative strength, great cunning, malleable mentalities and highly self-interested motivations, they had found it rather simple to do this. However, those times of easy conquests had come to an end.

The previous eras, whereby entire races and nations could be “civilised” by the ruthlessly power-wielding white race, where whole peoples could be subjected to various degrees of genocidal conduct, colonisation, subjugation, slavery and exploitation could no longer be relied upon to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed. Something had to be done, new methods had to be developed and different psychologies had to be applied as their targets became more powerful despite all their efforts.

Russia and China have refused to become docile creatures responding to western elite will with anything approaching the level of alacrity required. In fact, they have shown every sign of putting up increasingly fierce resistance to the beatings of one kind or another their would-be trainers have employed. As is sometimes said, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. And, as we are talking of reasoning beings with the human capacity for complex thought, thought processes honed by bitter experience in the near and far past, the sticks required to beat them have begun to unite them.

To a significant degree, the methods used to poke the bear and prod the panda in recent years have become more subtle. Talking softly, with great cunning, while always carrying a supremely big stick has once again come into fashion after a period when bringing beasts to heel to the point of death by brutal force was the favoured mode of operation. These bloodsports ultimately proved too expensive for the cash-conscious trainers of the West.

Now psychological torture, hoping for the death of resistance by a thousand cuts was the direction of travel. Acting in a way akin to schoolyard bullies where the use of verbal attacks to stimulate unwary responses opening the door to new, pre-planned attacks is seen as more economical and potentially highly effective. Poking and prodding while keeping a captive home audience onside by creating the impression that the wrongdoing is all on the other side, has proven quite effective.

Will the tide turn, however? Is the home audience still overwhelmingly convinced by the cover stories that they are endlessly exposed to that are cynically designed to keep their logical functions and sense of justice in check? Is the fabric of the endlessly one-sided blame game becoming a little threadbare? Can Putin, Xi, Russia and China possibly be such forces of endless evil, painted matt black time after time in a process of demonization resembling the worst of all Fifties B-movie screenplays? Are western audiences beginning to look at the past track records of those posing in the West as virtual saints?

The track record of genocide, exploitation and the ruthless manipulation of great power to dominate, use and control other races and nations is plain to see. That it has become opaque using a gloss enabled by the great wealth expropriated from the races and nations the West abused is no guarantee that this condition will prevail. Western states are in a condition now of precipitous decline. The grand illusion of invulnerable sanctity is beginning to leak badly. The brutal methods used in recent years have stimulated a fresh examination of those who posit themselves as supremely well-motivated, selfless servants of humankind. Their use of lies has caused a questioning of the verity they claim as the superior arbiters of global justice.

Will the poking of the Russian bear and the Chinese panda bring the western elites the applause of the global crowd? Will they continue to applaud the illusion of sanctity portrayed by the so-called human-rights preserving, democratic values upholding white hat-wearing trainers who strut so confidently still on the world stage? Or will its boards soon be soaked in the blood some clearly lust for… but not of the targets they came to see tamed, but instead that of their tormentors, now lying slack-jawed and glaze-eyed before them.

Will the poking of the Russian bear and the Chinese panda bring the western elites the applause of the global crowd? Will they continue to applaud the illusion of sanctity portrayed by the so-called human-rights preserving, democratic values upholding white hat-wearing trainers who strut so confidently still on the world stage? Or will its boards soon be soaked in the blood some clearly lust for… but not of the targets they came to see tamed, but instead that of their tormentors, now lying slack-jawed and glaze-eyed before them.