Escobar, Putin & Miller--Year End Future Prospects

Russian President Putin sat down for a rear-ending chat with is long-time ally Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s CEO to discuss the year’s doings. (For those not familiar with Gazprom, I highly suggest this current bio.) Miller’s report has some wow highlights. Yet, what makes this an intoxicating article is Pepe Escobar’s report, “Russia – China Are on a Roll,” where it’s possible to see the drive of Gazprom and the rest of Russia’s industrial base teaming with China’s similar motivation. First, the chat between associates:

Vladimir Putin: Alexey Borisovich, how are you?

Alexey Miller: Mr President, everything is in working order.

Gazprom reliably supplies our Russian consumers with gas during the autumn-winter period. The country has passed its first winter peak. The first half of December in the area of the unified gas supply system in Russia turned out to be cold, and the whole week was generally in many regions of Russia with abnormally cold temperatures. And it should be noted that Gazprom has fully met all the requests and needs. On December 8 and 13, we delivered 1 billion 717 million cubic meters of gas from the unified gas supply system to our consumers. Vladimir Vladimirovich, this is a historical record for the entire history of the Russian gas industry in terms of the volume of deliveries in the winter period, in the month of December.

December 8 was the coldest day this winter, with the average temperature in the unified gas supply system zone being minus 17 degrees. In many regions, really abnormal temperatures were observed, because minus 17 is, of course, the average temperature. It was very cold on the Middle Volga, it was very cold in St. Petersburg in particular, especially in the first decade. The first decade in St. Petersburg was one of the coldest in the entire history of weather observations in St. Petersburg. Supplying a huge megacity is, of course, a very important, priority task, and we, of course, have reliably provided our Russian consumers with gas.

Vladimir Putin: What about our foreign partners?

Alexey Miller: Mr President, during the autumn-winter period, we work very constructively and in a neighborly way with our partners. Frosts also came to Uzbekistan in December, and our Uzbek friends and colleagues asked to increase gas supplies to Uzbekistan in an amount that exceeds twice our daily obligations under the signed contract. Currently, we supply Uzbekistan with the maximum technically possible volume of gas that can be delivered via the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline in December.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, the pipeline was commissioned by three presidents, and you opened it on October 7. Indeed, of course, for Uzbekistan, in particular, the possibility of gas supplies via the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline in reverse mode is a very important factor in passing the autumn-winter period. And we, accordingly, already have such technical capabilities - we supply gas to Uzbekistan in full at the request of our Uzbek colleagues.

On December 23, Vladimir Vladimirovich, we set a historic record for daily gas supplies to China, the largest volumes. We are also currently delivering daily volumes to China that exceed our contractual obligations. This year, gas supplies to China will be one and a half times more than in 2022. And in 2025, we will meet our contractual obligations: in 2025, gas supplies to China will amount to 38 billion cubic meters.

Vladimir Putin: Excellent. Congratulations!

A. Miller: As for all your instructions on gasification and gas supply to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as for the pre-gasification program, I am ready to report that in 2023 we completed 50 percent more work than in 2022. This is what concerns pre-gasification.

At the beginning of 2024, about 1 million 150 thousand contracts will be concluded, and the number of contracts is growing literally every day. For these contracts, the technical possibility of bringing the pipe to the site boundaries has already been provided. 875 thousand households – gas has already been supplied to them up to the border of the plot, and 500 thousand households of them have already received gas.

Next year, we plan to further increase the pace of our work on pre-gasification and gasification of the country. We have allocated a record amount of 270.3 billion rubles for this purpose. This is 33.5 billion rubles more than this year. And the level of gasification in the country as of January 1, 2024 will be 89 percent, but out of one hundred percent of technically possible network gasification in the Russian Federation.

In 2023, I can say that more than 400 settlements will be supplied with gas, and 2,900 kilometers of main gas pipelines will be built. Therefore, your goal of achieving one hundred percent gasification in the Russian Federation by 2030 will be absolutely fulfilled.

Vladimir Putin: Excellent.

Gazprom also performs social functions. You have a lot of sponsorship through different channels, you run different programs. Are you continuing this work?

Alexey Miller: Yes, Mr President, we are continuing this work. This year, Gazprom has built 115 social sports facilities as part of the Gazprom for Children program. And the most important thing is that this year a unique complex was introduced, which we implemented on your behalf. This is the Academy of Martial Arts in the federal territory "Sirius". This is the largest facility under the Gazprom for Children program for all the time we have been implementing it.

Vladimir Putin: Absolutely unique.

Alexey Miller: It is unique not only from the point of view of the Gazprom for Children program, but it is also unique in the world. Because this facility is the largest facility for sambo and judo in the world. Even in a country like Japan, where judo is a national sport, there is nothing like this. And this is the largest and most modern object.

Vladimir Putin: I was in the Kodokan. You can compare it. You're absolutely right. In general, the program has been implemented by Gazprom since what year?

A. Miller: We have been working for more than 15 years.

Vladimir Putin: I know the responses from the regions. Thank you very much.

Alexey Miller: It's a pleasure.

Vladimir Putin: I congratulate you on the results of your work. I congratulate all gas workers on the upcoming New Year.

Alexey Miller: Thank you.

The social involvement is classic Russian/Soviet. Prior to Yeltsin, Gazprom was a 100% public utility but was subjected to partial privatization. Some of the story is at the link in the opener. As you read Pepe’s essay, recall what you’ve been reading over the last several months about Russia’s plans and motivation. When you’re done, allow yourself to contemplate. Here’s Pepe:

2023 may be defined for posterity as The Year of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. This wonder of wonders could easily sway under a groove by – who else – Stevie Wonder: “Here I am baby/ signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.”

In the first 11 months of 2023, trade between Russia and China exceeded $200 billion; they did not expect to achieve that until 2024.

Now surely that’s One Partnership Under a Groove. Once again signed, sealed and delivered during the visit of a large delegation to Beijing last week, led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and revisited and upgraded the whole spectrum of the comprehensive partnership/strategic cooperation, complete with an array of new, major joint projects.

Simultaneously, on the Great Game 2.0 front, everything that need to be reaffirmed was touched by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s detailed interview to Dimitri Simes on his Great Game show.

Add to it the carefully structured breakdown written by head of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin, defining 2024 as “the year of geopolitical awakening”, and coming up with arguably the key formulation following the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the steppes of Donbass: “In 2024, the Arab world will remain the main space in the struggle for the establishment of a new order.”

Confronted with such detailed geopolitical fine-tuning, it’s no wonder the imperial reaction was apoplexy – revealed epidermically in long, tortuous “analyses” trying to explain why President Putin turned out to be the “geopolitical victor” of 2023, seducing vast swathes of the Arab world and the Global South, solidifying BRICS side by side with China, and propelling the EU further into a black void of its own – and the Hegemon’s – making.

Putin even allowed himself, half in jest, to offer Russian support for the potential “re-annexation” of country 404 border regions once annexed by Stalin, eventually to be returned to former owners Poland, Hungary & Romania. He added that he is 100% certain this is what residents of those still Ukrainian borders want.

Were that to happen, we would have Transcarpathia back to Hungary; Galicia and Volyn back to Poland; and Bukovina back to Romania. Can you feel the house already rocking to the break of dawn in Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest?

Then there’s the possibility of the Hegemon ordering NATO’s junior punks to harass Russian oil tankers in the Baltic Sea and “isolate” St. Petersburg. It goes without saying that the Russian response would be to just take out Command & Control centers (hacking might be enough); burn electronics across the spectrum; and blockade the Baltic at the entrance by running a “Freedom of Navigation” exercise so everyone becomes familiar with the new groove.

That China-Russian Far East symbiosis

One of the most impressive features of the expanded Russia-China partnership is what is being planned for the Chinese northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

The idea is to turn it into an economic, scientific development and national defense mega-hub, centered on the provincial capital Harbin, complete with a new, sprawling Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

The key vector is that this mega-hub would also coordinate the development of the immense Russian Far East. This was discussed in detail at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last September.

In a unique, startling arrangement, the Chinese may be allowed to manage selected latitudes of the Russian Far East for the next 100 years.

As Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Polin detailed, Beijing is budgeting no less than 10 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) for the whole thing. Half of it would be absorbed by Harbin. The blueprint will reach the National People’s Congress next March, and is expected to be approved. It has already been approved by the lower house of the Duma in Moscow.

The ramifications are mind-boggling. We would have Harbin elevated to the status of direct-administered city, just like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. And most of all a Sino-Russian Management Committee will be established in Harbin to oversee the whole project.

Top flight Chinese universities – including Peking University – would transfer their main campuses to Harbin. The universities of National Defense and National Defense Technology would merge with Harbin Engineering University to form a new entity focused on defense industries. High-tech research institutes and companies in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen would also move to Harbin.

The People’s Bank of China would establish its HQ for northern China in Harbin, complete with markets trading stocks and commodities futures.

Residents of Heilongjiang would be allowed to travel back and forth to designated Russian Far East regions without a visa. The new Heilongjiang SEZ would have its own customs area and no import taxes.

That’s the same spirit driving BRI connectivity corridors and the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC). The underlying rationale is wider Eurasia integration.

At the recent Astana Club meeting in Kazakhstan, researcher Damjan Krnjevic-Miskovic, Director of Policy Research at the ADA University in Baku, gave an excellent presentation on connectivity corridors.

He referred for instance to the C5+1 (five Central Asian “stans” plus China) meeting three months ago in Dushanbe joined by Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev: that translates as Central Asia-Caucasus integration.

Miskovic is paying due attention to everything that is evolving in what he defines, correctly, as “the Silk Road region” – interlinking the Euro-Atlantic with Asia-Pacific and interconnecting West Asia, South Asia and wider Eurasia.

Strategically, of course, that’s the “geopolitical hinge where NATO meets the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) connects with Turkiye and the territory of the EU.” In practical terms, Russia-China know exactly what needs to be done to propel economic connectivity and “synergistic relationships” all across this vast spectrum.

The War of Economic Corridors heats up

The fragmentation of the global economy is already polarizing the expanding BRICS 10 (starting on January 1^st, under the Russian presidency, and without flirting-with-dollarization Argentina) and the shrinking G7.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko – a key Asia hand -, talking to TASS, once again reaffirmed that the key drive for the Greater Eurasia Partnership (official Russian policy) is to connect the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) with BRI.

As Russia develops a carefully calibrated balance between China and India, the same drive applies to developing the INSTC, where Russia-Iran-India are the main partners, and Azerbaijan is also bound to become a crucial player.

Add to it vastly improved Russian ties with North Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan (a BRI and SCO member) and ASEAN (except Westernized Singapore).

BRI, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, is on a roll. I’ve just been to Moscow, Astana and Almaty for three weeks, and it was possible to confirm with several sources that trains in all connectivity corridors are packed to the hilt; via the Trans-Siberian; via Astana all the way to Minsk; and via Almaty to Uzbekistan.

Russian International Affairs Council Program Manager Yulia Melnikova adds that “Moscow can and should integrate more actively into transit operations along the China – Mongolia – Russia route” and accelerate the harmonization of standards between the EAEU and China. Not to mention invest further in Russia-China cooperation in the Arctic.

Enter President Putin, at a Russian Railways meeting, unveiling an ambitious, massive 10-year infrastructure expansion plan encompassing new railways and improved connectivity with Asia – from the Pacific to the Arctic.

The Russian economy has definitely pivoted to Asia, responsible for 70% of trade turnover amid the Western sanctions dementia.

So what’s on the menu ahead is everything from modernization of the Trans-Siberian and establishing a major logistical hub in the Urals and Siberia to improving port infrastructure in the Azov, Black, and Caspian Seas and faster INSTC cargo transit between Murmansk and Mumbai.

Putin, once again, almost as an afterthought, recently remarked that trade through the Suez Canal cannot be considered effective anymore, compared to Russia’s Northern Sea Route. With a single, sharp geopolitical move, Yemen’s Ansarullah has made it graphic – for everyone to see.

Russian development of the Northern Sea Route happens to run in total synergy with the Chinese drive to develop the Arctic leg of BRI. On the oil front, Russian shipments to China via its Arctic coast takes only 35 days: 10 days less than via Suez.

Danila Krylov, researcher with the Department of the Middle East and Post-Soviet Asia at the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, offers a straightforward insight:

“I view the fact that the Americans are getting involved in Yemen as part of a great game [scenario]; there is more to it than just a desire to punish the Houthis or Iran, as it is more likely driven by a desire to prevent the monopolization of the market and hinder Chinese export deliveries to Europe. The Americans need an operational Suez Canal and a corridor between India and Europe, while the Chinese don’t want it because these are two direct competitors.”

It’s not that the Chinese don’t want it: with the Northern Sea Route up and running, they don’t need it.

Now freeze!

In sum: in the ongoing, ever more fractious War of Economic Corridors, the initiative is with Russia-China.

In desperation, and no more than an option-deprived, headless chicken victim in the War of Economic Corridors, the Hegemon’s EU vassals are resorting to twisting the Follow the Money playbook.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has defined the freezing of Russian assets – not only private, but also state-owned – by the EU as pure theft. Now Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is making it very clear that Moscow will react symmetrically to the possible use of income from these frozen Russian assets.

Paraphrasing Lavrov: you confiscate, we confiscate. We all confiscate.

The repercussions will be cataclysmic – for the Hegemon. No Global South nation, outside of NATOstan, will be “encouraged” to park its foreign currency/reserves in the West. That may lead, in a flash, to the whole Global South ditching the U.S.-led international financial system and joining a Russia-China-led alternative.

The peer-competitor Russia-China strategic partnership is already directly challenging the “rules-based international order” on all fronts – improving their historical spheres of influence while actively developing vast, interconnected connectivity corridors bypassing said “order”. That precludes, as much as possible, direct Hot War with the Hegemon.

Or to put it on Silk Road terms: while the dogs of war bark, lie and steal, the Russia-China caravan strolls on.

Yes, Russia’s aim is to confiscate the Outlaw US Empire ‘s ability—its freedom—to act unilaterally and foment chaos globally. That aim is shared by the vast majority of nations, and they are finally acting together to attain that goal. 2024 promises to be an important if not pivotal year. So, as you relax with friends and family as we approach the new year, take comfort that although peace doesn’t seem close the Big Picture shows Humanity is actually advancing as it’s closer than ever before.

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