US-led old order weakens under weight of CRIK's influence
China's challenge to American primacy, it's believed, will be the defining contest of the century. While this may be true, a far more dangerous contest is afoot between what seems to be a crumbling old order (US-led West) and a rivalrous new Axis that is struggling to be born — China-Russia-Iran-North Korea (CRIK).
Award winning journalist John Pilger tells us that Mao in 1944 had made an appeal to Washington, «China must industrialise, this can only be done by Free Enterprise. Chinese and American interests fit together, economically and politically. We cannot risk crossing America; we cannot risk any conflict». He received no reply. Mao's successors decided to join the system and beat the US at its own game — capitalism & innovation — and are now with its bete noire Russia challenging the American-led order.
Iran and North Korea have strengthened this New Axis. The evolving powerplay has created the precise construct that Henry Kissinger had once warned: a Bear-Dragon tandem that is in delightful synchrony. The New Axis has not only performed well in the Ukrainian and West Asian theatres of war, but is also looking towards the Global South (125 countries, 80% of the global population, 40% of global GDP) as its wider field of play.
CRIK is not merely seeking a seat at the table, it's determined to design one for itself. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have met more than forty times. They are combining their power to speed what they believe is America's inevitable decline.
The Sino-Russian relationship seems to
