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Sunday, April 14, 2024

Russia beats US at its own game: France, Japan, and IMF lament the United States in St. Petersburg

News Analysis |

Under the pretext of Salisbury Spy poisoning incident, the United States along with its European allies tried to bring down Russia, to make it pay for the hurdles it has been causing toward US solo geopolitical flight, by means of diplomatic isolation. Russian diplomats serving in embassies and consulates were asked to leave the country and the action was reciprocated by Russia on the same lines.

The United Kingdom wanted a formal explanation about how a nerve agent, of alleged Russian origin, was found in the body of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and her daughter Yulia’s body. However, Russia decided not to succumb to such bullying which had no solid bases, hence no explanation came.

In a bid to make “America Great Again”, he has made it lose the influence it already possessed over global statecraft.

The world could not help but notice and applause the success with which Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned the whirlpool of isolation anticlockwise, toward the United States itself. He was sitting in the middle and nodding, at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, when long-term US allies, France and Japan, were bashing the policies the United States has been pursuing lately.

Most infuriated of all was the French President Emmanuel Macron who made reference to how he tried to persuade President Donald Trump to stay in the International Climate Accord, not to back out of Iran nuclear deal and refrain from the opening embassy in the Jerusalem. But no heed was given to his opinion and was turned down each time.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan lambasted United States for walking out of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade agreement between Pacific states, and said that his country will still be the part of TPP, with or without the US. Japanese Prime Minister also went on to state the lack of post-WWII settlement between Russia and Japan because of some disputed islands which remained the bone of contention for too long between both countries.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who has served previously as the finance minister of France, was critical to US tariff policies citing that such actions are precisely the reason which leads the global economic boat to hit the rock bottom. She went to say that to counter the growing trade deficit, imposing tariffs is a strange way to proceed and it is not going to help in the longer run. It should be kept in mind that excessive imposition of tariffs by nation states was one of the primary reasons behind The Great Depression, in the first half of 20th century.

When President Putin had the opportunity to speak, he talked about how the US is trying to distort the rules of world order, the ones it is expected and trying to police itself. “The current situation in the world is such that everybody is playing soccer with the rules of judo,” Mr. Putin said. “So what we have is neither soccer nor judo. It’s chaos.”

Russian diplomats serving in embassies and consulates were asked to leave the country and the action was reciprocated by Russia on the same lines.

Beginning his fourth term in office as Russian President, he had laid down his plan for economic prosperity. Increasing life expectancy, cutting poverty and, improbably, displacing Germany as the world’s fifth largest economy is what precisely he aims to achieve. “Nobody is saying today how we are going to achieve every percentage point of this growth, even though such ambitious targets have been set,” said Aleksei L. Kudrin, an economic adviser to Mr. Putin, and an occasional critic of his economic policies.

Surprisingly, it was only China which took a neutral discourse with respect to the United States. The vice president of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Qishan, appeared to be the most diplomatic of all, saying China could learn from America. “America is the only global superpower, in soft power and in hard power,” Mr Wang said.

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It is not easy to say whether the crack in the historic western alliance wall can be regarded as the success of President Vladimir Putin’s effort to fight the odds or it is the policies of President Trump which have made America stand at this juncture. In a bid to make “America Great Again”, he has made it lose the influence it already possessed over global statecraft.