I alerted to two things additionally in the WaPo article. First, this paragraph, I had to read this paragraph three times to understand it:
Trump’s directive, a senior administration official said, also included instructions to diplomats and officials to bring up North Korea in virtually every conversation with foreign interlocutors and urge them to sever all ties with Pyongyang. Those conversations have had significant success, particularly in recent weeks as North Korea has tested another nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, officials said.
The last sentence: "significant success...particularly...as North Korea has tested another nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles"(?)
Isn't that special. Why would Xi kowtow like that? One reason is fear. The most frightening word to Zhongnanhai is chaos 混沌 and there is fucking 混沌 afoot on the Korean peninsula, right on China's border!
"The Chinese people have finally stood up," Mao Zedong said at inauguration of the People's Republic of China. If, however, the DPRK is "totally destroyed" by Trump, Xi Jinping will be seen to have kowtowed. Causing the deligitimization of both Xi and the CPC, the end of Xi and perhaps the end of CPC rule. It would be 混沌. Exactly what Putin wants.
Trump’s directive, a senior administration official said, also included instructions to diplomats and officials to bring up North Korea in virtually every conversation with foreign interlocutors and urge them to sever all ties with Pyongyang. Those conversations have had significant success, particularly in recent weeks as North Korea has tested another nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, officials said.
The last sentence: "significant success...particularly...as North Korea has tested another nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles"(?)
The writers meant that the relentless pressure on other diplomats had led to more and more painful sanctions against the DPRK.
The penultimate goal of Putinism/Trumpism is to convince that they have won. To define "success". Note that the source for this article is a "senior administration official." "Success" is now being defined by Trump as getting more sanctions! The ultimate goal, stopping Kim's nuclear program, is no longer the goal. That is what they do: move the goal posts of "success" to a point they can reach, dumb down the definition so that the word is drained of all external reference. It's a "success." Period. Declare victory and go home.
Second:
Xi promised [Trump's visit] would be a “special, wonderful and successful” event.
China and Russia moved closer together during the Obama years, hell they conducted joint anti-West military exercises in September, but there is the false appearance of a real opening in the Korean Crisis for the U.S. to peel China away. (This would be to the detriment of the PRC, the CPC, and to Xi personally.) U.S. intelligence has concluded unanimously that Putin's goal in his war on the U.S. is to destabilize, to put the American regime's legitimacy into question, to foster, in the one word that has been used most frequently, "chaos", China's greatest fear.
Putin's war is not limited to the U.S., it has included similar attacks in Western Europe. And it includes China, with whom Putin's Soviet Union fought real "hot" wars. Putin's goal is to deligitimize the CPC and to throw China into 混沌. The Korean Crisis serves Putin's interests. Trump, his agent, is serving Putin's interests. The crisis has raised in Xi Jinping that greatest of Chinese Communist fears while keeping Xi oblivious to the ancient Chinese fear of encirclement. Focusing on America's presence in Korea and on the survival of the Chinese client state in the DPRK, Xi does not see Donald Trump as the "agent, witting or unwitting, of the Russian Federation," hence does not see the bear encircling on his eastern and northern borders.
"The Chinese people have finally stood up," Mao Zedong said at inauguration of the People's Republic of China. If, however, the DPRK is "totally destroyed" by Trump, Xi Jinping will be seen to have kowtowed. Causing the deligitimization of both Xi and the CPC, the end of Xi and perhaps the end of CPC rule. It would be 混沌. Exactly what Putin wants.
