Latest / UK Column Radio / Jerm Warfare - Pepe Escobar on the importance of BRICS

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Jerm Warfare - Pepe Escobar on the importance of BRICS · UK Column Radio

0:36
There we go. Pepe Escobar, you are on my show
0:41
few years ago and here we are in China, in the province of
0:47
Xinjiang, and I cannot believe that I'm sitting here with one
0:50
of the greatest journalists in the world.
0:53
Man, we are in Kashgar in the middle of the hustle and bustle
0:59
on the second day of Golden Week.
1:03
So this is this is a really, really special occasion.
1:06
It's absolutely fascinating and I've been longing to come here
1:10
for a long time. I couldn't come before before
1:13
COVID. This, this trip at the moment
1:17
was supposed to be 2020, yes. But now 2035 is the right moment
1:22
for several reasons. And the way it was time for the
1:26
trip was after the SCO summit in Tianjin, which was quite
1:33
something, the Victory Day parade in Beijing commemorating
1:40
the 80th anniversary of the Chinese victory over Japanese
1:46
aggression, very, very important started 1931 G And of course the
1:52
Asian chapter, the victory against Nazi fascism.
1:57
And of course, after that, it felt natural to to come to
2:01
Xinjiang, which is not not the last frontier, but one of the
2:07
Super frontiers of China in the 21st century.
2:10
In a a national development project that is started in 1999.
2:15
The Chinese started the Go West campaign in 1999 to develop
2:21
Xinjiang and Tibet, Shizhang. And we are right in the middle
2:27
of Xinjiang development in this trip.
2:29
So it's to watch it first hand and talking to Uyghurs locally
2:35
everywhere we've been from room to the capital to the top Oasis
2:41
in the north and Silk Road, the southern Silk Road, all the way
2:46
to Pamir lands very close to the China Pakistan border and the
2:51
China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
2:52
This is priceless at the moment and we're very lucky to be here
2:58
at this historical. Moment, Yeah, yeah.
3:00
So we've actually travelled all of this together and one of the
3:05
most mind blowing experiences was driving through the Taklaman
3:11
Desert 11 hours. Well, I've been dreaming of this
3:18
since for at least for 15 years, if not more when they built the
3:24
1st. Now there are, if I'm not
3:27
mistaken, now there are four roads and highways crossing the
3:30
Taclimacan. We took probably the first one
3:33
and it started in 2000 and seven, 2018.
3:37
I was already old man I because I had read all those Western
3:42
expedition in Russian and Japanese that tried to cross the
3:46
Takamakan or cross the Takamakan.
3:48
And in the case of Svenhad in the Swedish explorer, he almost
3:52
died trying to cross the Takamakan.
3:54
Everybody died, all the pack animals died except him and one
4:00
of his assistants. He spent six days and five
4:04
nights in the Takamakan without water.
4:08
This, this in scholarly circles in in the West.
4:12
This is myths. This is one of the top myths of
4:15
Western exploring of Saint John Well, but this is Western
4:19
exploring. They have been living like this
4:21
here side by side with Takamakan for over 2000 years.
4:25
For them, Takamakan is absolutely normal.
4:27
So when the Silk Roads started to develop from the beginning,
4:32
Han dynasty, 2nd century BC, they started to say, OK, we need
4:37
a trail, a northern trail, which became the Northern Silk Road,
4:42
and a southern trail which became the Southern Silk Road.
4:45
We were lucky enough to start in the northern trail across the
4:48
Tacoma and continue on the Southern trail.
4:51
So we did at least 50% of the northern and southern Silk Roads
4:56
on our trip. That's a blessing.
4:59
So I started this conversation by saying that you're one of the
5:03
greatest journalists, I think in the in the sense that you still
5:09
actually do journalism, you go somewhere, you don't sit behind
5:12
a computer. Do you think that's this is?
5:14
Never do it. Yeah, I mean, do you think this
5:16
is a problem with modern journalism?
5:18
Yeah, well, I am a nomad Pilgrim.
5:22
I consider myself an observer, A traveller, A nomad Pilgrim, a
5:30
student, especially in Eurasia. I I made a decision to move to
5:36
live in Asia in 1994. This means 31 years ago I had
5:42
already been a correspondent in the West.
5:45
I became a foreign correspondent exactly 40 years ago, in fact.
5:49
Really. Yes, this is a very long story.
5:52
I've been playing this game for very long.
5:55
My first post was London in 1985 and before I I, I am a newspaper
6:04
guy as well. I started in the newspaper
6:07
business in a big national newspaper.
6:10
So this is a, a microcosm in itself.
6:14
It's a cutthroat environment. You have to learn how to
6:18
navigate the environment. Shock of eagles, of course.
6:22
Hey, look at lots of people. The quote was has a very good
6:25
task. And we have local beer.
6:31
This is, Yeah. This is what he wanted.
6:33
You wanted the local. I did.
6:34
I did. Now you're getting it, so you
6:38
know, so, but this is the best way.
6:42
It was the best way in the past to learn how the newspaper
6:46
business works. So I learned everything about
6:50
the newspaper business inside a big national newspaper, the
6:54
freshers, how to deal with the owners, how to displease the
6:59
owners because of one of my specialities.
7:02
And of course I wanted to. I wanted to be a foreign
7:06
correspondent from the beginning.
7:08
Why? Because it's that ideal mix in
7:15
the mind of a serial nomad to travel the world and tell the
7:20
world what you see on the spot, which was the purpose of the old
7:26
school foreign correspondent, which is my, let's say,
7:30
dwindling and disappearing profession.
7:33
I'm one of the last ones. Yeah.
7:35
Most of my friends and colleagues older than me,
7:39
they're all dead, practically no exceptions.
7:43
And many of my age, they're retired.
7:46
I have some very good friends in Europe.
7:49
They retired in disgust. They were working for some of
7:52
the major European papers and then one day they said some of
7:55
them sued their newspaper. They were lucky enough at least
7:59
to get some compensation. Some just left because they
8:02
couldn't stand it anymore and others left because they knew
8:05
they they could not exercise their profession like in the old
8:10
days. In my case, I was extremely
8:14
lucky because I made the transition to online media
8:18
relatively early in 2025 years ago.
8:21
That's early. There, that's very early.
8:23
And when you look at the arc of, of the media business, right.
8:28
So in 2000 itself, I joined the Asia Times in Hong Kong.
8:34
So I stayed with them for 20 years on and off. 2000.
8:40
Yes, I joined in late 2000. OK, but this is interesting.
8:44
So very, very soon after you joined, if I have my timeline
8:49
correct, 911 happened. That must have changed a lot of
8:54
things. Jeremy have no idea really.
8:58
This would take a whole day here in the bazaar trying to explain
9:02
the shock for the media business and the shock for this little
9:08
tiny website in Hong Kong that nobody knew about because they
9:11
were relaunched at the time when I joined.
9:17
It's interest for our audience to to have a little bit of the
9:20
background of Asia Times. They started as a big newspaper
9:23
in 1985. I remember very well, I was in
9:27
Singapore and one day in Singapore I saw this beautiful
9:31
old school newspaper, black and white photos splashed on the
9:36
front page, wonderful typologist say, well, why are these guys?
9:42
And then when I looked around, I said printed in Bangkok,
9:46
Singapore and Hong Kong was like, wow, Gee.
9:49
So when I start to get information about them, I
9:52
learned that they are, let's say, their mission.
9:58
We're going to fight the Wall Street Journal, Asia and the
10:02
Financial Times here in Asia. And we're going to win because
10:05
we're going to tell the Asia story, which was the biggest
10:08
story of the 1980s and 1990s from an Asian point of view,
10:14
with some Westerners as well. The guys who set up the paper,
10:18
they were a mix of ties. There were two two ties,
10:23
especially in one German American.
10:26
They set up Asia Times and the guy who owned Asia Times, Sonde
10:31
Lin Tomgu will later became very good friends.
10:34
He was a media entrepreneur and also had he was a mini.
10:38
He had a mini empire in Thailand.
10:41
The problem is this was 19951997, the Asia financial
10:48
crisis started, which was when you think about it, historic,
10:55
was crazy. I had spent one month in Hong
10:59
Kong covering the Hong Kong handover.
11:02
The night of the Hong Kong handover, when the Brits left,
11:08
we went to a club called 1997 and we partied all night long.
11:13
But we had an 8 O clock morning flight to CNN in China, so we
11:20
went straight to the airport. I was with a Singaporean
11:23
girlfriend and this was the day that the bat crisis started and
11:28
the Asian financial crisis started.
11:30
So when the financial crisis started, I was here in China and
11:34
I was doing the old Silk Road from Xi'an and I came here for
11:42
the first time in 1997. So when I and then I came back
11:47
again in 1998. So when I looked at cash guard
11:50
compared to what I had seen 25 years ago, I almost had a heart
11:53
attack. Yeah, because.
11:57
You said it looks, it looks a bit more like Disneyland.
12:00
Yes, there is a Disneylandification process.
12:05
The one of the good things, at least that we learned here is
12:08
that where we are in the Old City, at least I wouldn't say
12:13
most, but a great deal of the original Old City homes were
12:18
preserved and we asked around a lot.
12:21
The owners are still here and in many cases they rent their house
12:26
or part of their house for businesses.
12:29
This is the good part. And others that were offered
12:33
compensation by the government to move or live somewhere else.
12:35
Probably they got a good deal and they are living somewhere
12:38
else in Kashgar. But Can you imagine you and our
12:42
audience what it was travelling in Xinjiang in 1990, seven,
12:48
1998, before 911 and in a relatively, relatively no
12:54
totally free manner. I didn't have to show my
12:58
passport anywhere. I just jumped into a train at
13:03
the moment. Slow trains, back of a Jeep,
13:07
local buses and all that with no problem.
13:10
Now is a bit tighter. There was practically no
13:13
security at the time, which is something that later on the
13:17
Chinese started to pay attention because these Uyghurs, there
13:21
were more or less more or less no, they were completely
13:26
brainwashed by Salafi jihadism financed by Persian Gulf
13:31
monarchies. They would sooner or later
13:34
provoke extreme trouble in China, which by the way LED in
13:38
2001, in June 2001, three months before 911, to the creation of
13:44
the SEO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which
13:48
in the beginning was Russia, China and three century Asian
13:52
stands. And in a very Chinese way, they
13:55
had to fight against what they called the three evils,
13:59
terrorism, extremism and separatism.
14:03
And this started in Shanghai, you know.
14:06
You know, it was in a gang, a small pagoda in a garden in
14:09
Shanghai, something very low key at the time.
14:12
Three months later. The gangs 9/11 happened in the
14:15
gangs. Exactly.
14:17
And all that I, I, I tell you all that because this links
14:21
directly with the Asian Times when I joined, like I, I told
14:26
you, was this tiny website in Hong Kong.
14:29
There were two or three people in Hong Kong in a small room,
14:33
and three people in Thailand in Bangkok in a beautiful palace by
14:40
the river owned by our our protector Somdi.
14:46
And then we were, this was a struck of luck, but also it has
14:51
to do with journalistic instincts.
14:54
I was in Afghanistan before 911 and our Karachi correspondent,
15:00
Salim, a wonderful guy. After 911, we were working in
15:04
tandem. Salim was in Karachi and I was
15:06
in Islamabad, Peshawar. And we're talking everyday what
15:09
we were doing. And then we started to get this
15:11
huge audience in the West special say, look, there is this
15:16
tiny little singing Hong Kong, There are two guys over there.
15:19
They're in the middle of everything.
15:20
We're lucky because we were here before.
15:23
So and this made the popularity of Asia times, especially in the
15:28
West, Canada and let's say Asia hands everywhere.
15:33
Everybody who spoke English or read in English starts to read
15:36
us because we were in the middle of the whole thing.
15:39
Pakistan tribal era is Afghanistan.
15:42
So this was like I told you, it was a struck of luck.
15:46
But at the same time, I had been to Afghanistan before and this,
15:51
this why I was here in 2001 before 911, because I was trying
15:55
to interview Masood, Commander Masood in Pangier Valley.
16:00
I was with my British photographer, wonderful friend.
16:04
He was living in New York doing fashion photographs.
16:06
Say, Jason, come on, drop this thing.
16:08
Let's go to Afghanistan together.
16:10
You're going to become a photojournalist.
16:12
And he became a photojournalist in our two trips, Afghanistan,
16:17
really the first one when we crossed Afghanistan, Pakistan,
16:20
Jason shot some amazing stuff. You can find it on his website,
16:25
Jason Florio. So you're just natural?
16:27
It's natural. Exactly.
16:28
It was waiting for him to, you know, turn his career upside
16:33
down and become an on the road photojournalist.
16:38
And then our second trip one year later, we had a contact in
16:43
New York linked to Masood. He told the guys in the Pazir,
16:48
look, there are these two foreigners coming to interview
16:51
the commander, please. And that's just to get there.
16:55
It it's a novel how we got to the Pangaea Valley.
16:58
But in the end we made it via Tajikistan.
17:01
We stayed there for one week. We went to see the prisoners of
17:05
war, Uyghurs, Chechens, some Arabs as well, in Masood's
17:12
prisons. He gave us his last.
17:17
It became his last written interview before he was killed.
17:20
After that he went to the front line.
17:22
He gave an interview to a radio in France and he was killed on
17:26
9/9, two days before 911. And it's interconnected.
17:32
The killing of Masood was interconnected with 911.
17:37
So after that, our Asia Times, OK, we, we, we, we had our
17:42
journalistic place in world media, which coming from a a
17:47
very small website in Hong Kong was quite something like a gift,
17:53
a gift from a higher power. You right if I if I remember
18:00
correctly shortly after 911 a book called Globalistan.
18:05
Yes, Globalistan was published in 2007.
18:09
He was a political, a political travel book He had he had
18:16
everything on it, but especially at the beginning of the War on
18:21
Terror and the War on Terror on the ground in Afghanistan, in
18:25
Iraq. So from Central South Asia to
18:29
West Asia. And this was based on on the
18:31
road journalism. But yes, the.
18:33
Term War on Terror. What does that mean?
18:36
Exactly. It was called at the time GWAT.
18:40
I don't know if you remember that Global War on Terror.
18:42
That was the official terminology.
18:44
Gwat Well, when we think that this was proclaimed on the day
18:52
of 911 by Rumsfeld, by Cheney, by Bush, after they had a
19:01
fateful meeting, if I'm not mistaken, it started at 11 in
19:04
the morning in in the White House and presided by Cheney, by
19:11
the way, because Bush, as you remember, was turning around,
19:15
right? And this was quite only after,
19:18
after a few hours when they had absolutely no evidence of what
19:22
really happened. They had only a few hours to
19:24
concoct a story, which by now we know, all of us know there is an
19:30
absolute myth, an absolute nonsense.
19:33
But at the time the planet was forced to abide by those War on
19:40
Terror rules. So the beginning of this
19:43
Millennium started with 911. So, and many of us were on the
19:48
ground following the global War on Terror said, well, is the
19:52
rest of the, the, the century, it is going to be like that.
19:56
Is this going to be a new American Century ruled by their
20:00
War on Terror or the way they see the War on Terror didn't
20:02
last long, as you know, and our audience now knows, right.
20:07
But during the 2000s, that was it.
20:10
And when Obama came to power in 2009, in 2008, I spent the whole
20:18
of 2008 in the US. Mostly on the road.
20:21
But in the United States and many of us, I would say all of
20:27
us, we were fooled because we believe that Obama would end the
20:31
War on Terror. And he still won the Nobel Peace
20:33
Prize. And he got a Peace Prize.
20:38
You know what was the first foreign policy decision of the
20:43
Obama regime, if we can call it? In early 2009, when he got to
20:49
power, he ordered a search in Afghanistan.
20:53
And then we all saw all we have been.
20:57
Won't get fooled again. To quote The Who we were fooled
21:01
again. Meet the new boss, same as the
21:04
old boss. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in
21:06
in 2016 Obama authorized something like 26,000 bombings
21:11
in the middle. East, you're absolutely correct.
21:14
In fact, he bombed, he bombed 7 countries, which was more than
21:19
Bush did. Bush one and Bush 2.
21:23
Can you believe that now we can, because in retrospect, and now
21:26
we have the whole, we have all the records to support our
21:29
analysis. So we were fooled.
21:33
Meet the DEW boss the same as the old boss.
21:36
But the global War on Terror metastasized into the pivot to
21:42
Asia. This was very, very important
21:44
for all of us covering foreign policy.
21:47
This was in the the beginning of Obama one, It was a State
21:52
Department invention. The guy who invented it was Kurt
21:55
Campbell. He was #2 at the State
21:56
Department at that time. Hillary Clinton said it was her
21:59
idea. Bullshit.
22:00
She stole it from Kurt Campbell. She wrote a huge piece on
22:04
foreign affairs. People think to Asia, we're
22:07
going to start a new Silk Road. You know what I'm talking about
22:10
this because this was the American version of the Silk
22:15
Road, Hillary actually said. We are going to start a new Silk
22:20
Road and the focus of our Silk Road is going to be Afghanistan.
22:26
She said that. She said that she wrote about
22:29
this and this is beyond absurd. First of all, because
22:33
Afghanistan was already trying to expel the Americas at the
22:37
time. The Taliban would never accept
22:40
being ruled by the Americas and they were not surrounded.
22:46
Afghanistan was surrounded, was totally isolated.
22:49
There was no trade between Afghanistan and their Central
22:52
Asian partners or Russia and China for that matter.
22:55
And the Americans jump in and we're going, we're going to make
22:58
the new Silk Road. Well, this typical stupidity of
23:02
people who don't know about geography and history and on the
23:05
ground realities of course, but this marked a transition towards
23:10
this pivot to Asia, which later on became what we are seeing
23:17
now, which under the Trump, not much under Trump one, but now
23:23
under Trump 2, it's a war against several of the most
23:28
important actors of Eurasia and linked to the Silk Roads.
23:33
There is a trade, economic, technological war against China.
23:38
There's a superpower war against Russia.
23:41
There's a war of trying to exterminate Iran under the
23:46
Islamic Revolution. So this is a war against BRICS
23:51
as a war. Against BRICS.
23:52
Yes, go ahead. With the help of Israel with
23:55
regards to Iran. In fact, it's the same war,
23:57
Jeremy. It's it's the at the moment, the
24:01
way it's configured that Trump the Trump Nyahu administration,
24:07
it's the Zionist Axis war against the emerging global
24:12
South and the top actors of the global S will happen to be in
24:17
many cases, the top actor in BRICS.
24:20
We are both we were born in two countries who are BRICS members
24:24
and against the SEO. So the top enemies is not by
24:28
accident. The existential threats to the
24:30
United States recognized by the the industrial military complex
24:35
and the national security doctrine in the US are Russia,
24:39
China and Iran. So this is how we metastasize
24:43
from the global War on Terror was never against branches of
24:50
Islam, or in fact the way it was configured at the time was a war
24:54
against Islam itself. So when?
24:56
They This was not the real enemy.
24:58
It never was. The real enemy is big powers in
25:02
your Asia, and we are in the largest.
25:05
This is the largest power in your Asia.
25:08
So it's no one that the Americans want to.
25:10
So basically they want to destroy.
25:11
When I asked you about the phrase War on Terror, the word
25:13
terror means this region that you that you're just referring
25:17
to. Now it does, but but they don't
25:20
apply at terror anymore. They, they, their terminology is
25:26
malign actors. So China, Russia and Iran are by
25:32
definition malign actors and they want to go against the
25:37
interests of the United States, which means that they are
25:40
against us. It's the same you're with us or
25:43
against us, pronounced by Bush himself right at the beginning.
25:47
In fact, he's screenwriters, right.
25:51
And now we have now we're naming names and naming nations in this
25:57
street. They know very, very well.
26:00
Of course, the Chinese are much more sophisticated than
26:05
everybody else. They know that the United States
26:08
wants to go against them, no holds barred, and they are
26:11
preparing themselves for it. Sooner or later, there will be a
26:14
conflagration. The Russians, because they are a
26:19
nuclear superpower and a hypersonic superpower, they can
26:24
take their time. And the Russians are excellent
26:26
observers. They don't say much.
26:29
When they say something, they mean it.
26:31
You better take them at their word.
26:34
They don't lie and they are extremely patient and they know
26:38
that whoever is in power in the US, the American elites, they
26:43
want to destroy Russia and Iran is a much more.
26:47
Let's say that Iran could be identified as the weakest link
26:51
in this triad, but not that weak as they proved when Israel tried
26:57
to exterminate their regime. Let's put it this way.
27:00
But I mean, this then LED to your next book, Empire of Chaos,
27:03
isn't that right? I wrote about this in the Empire
27:08
of Chaos book, which was published in late 2014.
27:13
Yes, in fact, it was launched in Beijing.
27:17
Is that right? That's so cool.
27:19
January 2015, we launched the Empire of Chaos in a super cool
27:25
bookshop in Beijing, and it was very pleasant to see because
27:29
there were a lot of Visio Times readers there and they were
27:32
saying, look, we have been reading Asia Times since
27:34
forever. People living in China or living
27:37
in Hong Kong or businessmen moving around Asia and all that.
27:41
And Empire of Chaos was more or less describing On the ground
27:46
was a series of columns, most of them on the ground, the Obama
27:52
era, which was preparing the terrain for where we are now.
27:56
In fact, this pivot to Asia is we need to fight against the
28:01
Eurasia of powers over there in their own terrain.
28:05
So that's where we are now. And that's getting more serious
28:09
by the minute. But.
28:10
When you talk about the Empire of Chaos, the Empire you're
28:13
referring to is essentially the United States.
28:16
But not only the empire is essentially the United States,
28:21
but it's Atlanticist, as we see in the war on Ukraine.
28:27
So we can define NATO as the big RoboCop of the Empire of Chaos.
28:34
And you have the subdivisions and you have the, let's say, the
28:39
political arms. We can define the EU as the EU
28:44
functions today as the political arm of NATO because the
28:48
decisions are not made in Brussels by the European Union
28:52
or in Strasbourg, the parliament in Strasbourg or whatever they
28:56
or in the European Commission, which is also in Brussels.
28:58
The decisions that call come from Washington.
29:02
So, so this is how the system works, decision making.
29:05
Washington goes to NATO in Brussels, from NATO in Brussels
29:08
goes to the European Commission. That toxic Medusa, I don't need
29:15
to spell her name. You all our orders, you all know
29:17
who that is. She receives her orders directly
29:21
from NATO and then these orders go to the European capitals.
29:25
And in the case of London's more complicated because London is
29:28
NATO but London's not the EU, doesn't matter.
29:31
London is still we can say, the most active member of NATO and
29:37
very important, the Super rabbit roosophobic member of NATO.
29:43
It's not by accident that Sergey Lavrov, the greatest diplomat of
29:47
our Times, Now he's saying openly yes, the Brits are openly
29:51
at war against us, NATO and EU are at war against Russia.
29:55
Well, I mean it was MI Six that that drove the the pipeline
29:59
attack. You mean the north string?
30:02
Yes, It's a very complicated story generally.
30:08
OK, for the record, I am a big admirer of Seymour Hersh.
30:14
He was one of my journalistic mentors when I was still in
30:18
college. I said, I want to work like this
30:20
guy for obvious reasons. We don't need to explain it.
30:24
PSI is amazing. PSI has a Rolodex the size of
30:28
Pluto. You know, he can call anybody in
30:30
DC and say, look, let's see over there.
30:33
What's your take? Can you point me to somebody who
30:36
was at that meeting or so everybody talks to PSI and the
30:41
way he presented it, even if it was based in essentially one or
30:46
two sources, top sources, but these sources were at the secret
30:51
meetings that approved Let's destroy Nordstrom.
30:57
I have not seen a single serious evidence contradicting size
31:03
story. So his story is still
31:06
journalistically. He he he he cracked the case
31:10
based on his connections in in DC and the guy who leaked that
31:16
to him, he had no interest to lie because the guy was by in
31:21
principle. This guy from the beginning said
31:23
this is complete madness, this is totally absurd.
31:26
And he was against this. So that's why he leaked it to
31:28
side and because he was an insider and he was at all these
31:31
meetings when we read Sy's report, it's all there.
31:35
So in journalistic terms, this is beyond huge.
31:39
And of course, as we all know, they try to bury this story
31:44
everywhere. And the Europeans are still
31:45
trying to bury the story of this.
31:48
I act with the Ukrainian. I feel that stupid.
31:52
So this was serious because it was even announced live by the
32:03
autopen administration. Let's put it this way, if
32:06
something happens, we have ways to to finish off N stream, which
32:11
they did. But when you asked about MI 6,
32:15
MI 6 is involved in every sort of covert operation against
32:20
Russia, especially not necessarily against China.
32:22
Yes, against China they are because they are involved in
32:26
these we good liberation movements.
32:30
That's most CIA, but there's also MI 6, but MI 6 is more
32:33
concentrated in Central Asia and Afghanistan and against Russia.
32:40
The fact that they are going more and more covert CIA and MI
32:45
6 because they know that Russia and China, they are too powerful
32:49
for them. So the only way that they see it
32:52
long term, OK, let's try to subvert little by little
32:55
incrementally and all that. And I guess Iran, they're going,
32:59
you know, full speed ahead and they go, if they do it against
33:04
Iran, they're going to get not one bloody nose, serial bloody
33:08
noses, but they still want to go against Iran again.
33:11
Well. That'll be Israel, that'll get
33:12
the bloody nose. Essentially, yes, But if the
33:15
Americans help Israel get ready, the Iranians nowadays, well,
33:23
those of us who have visited Iran recently and talked to IRGC
33:28
generals or the best think tank analysts and all that, now Iran
33:35
is not afraid of anything. They know they will be attacked
33:37
again. They might even be attacked
33:40
again and again. And.
33:42
They're powerful now. Exactly.
33:43
And but they are ready. They, they have not shown all
33:47
their weapons. And for instance, when we
33:50
visited the IRGC Aerospace Development Center in the
33:59
outskirts of Tehran, in our case, we were a small group, we
34:02
did that in April, sorry, April, in May, which was one month
34:07
before the Israeli attack, they showed, they showed us what they
34:11
have, but they didn't show the, the secret weapons.
34:14
And now we know that they have some extra stuff which is
34:16
absolutely lethal. So if the Zionist access tries
34:20
something could be even within the next few weeks, there's a
34:25
strong possibility, wow, this is going to be.
34:29
But you know how exceptionalists think now they think they're
34:33
invulnerable. They are a mix of arrogance and
34:38
ignorance is unique. As we all know, we members of
34:43
the Global S, we know that very well.
34:45
I just want to clarify something because this can easily easily
34:50
be misconstrued as a hatred for all things in America or the UK.
34:55
It's not that OF. Course it's not Jeremy.
34:59
All of us, many of us analysts, we are Americans or people who
35:04
lived in the US and learned to love, to love the US on the
35:08
ground. In my case, I learned to love
35:11
the United States by living there and by travelling.
35:16
I've probably been to 40 states at least, if not even more.
35:19
And on the road, I am an on the road guy.
35:22
Yeah, so I had a car and I went everywhere, literally.
35:25
And America, the American population is good.
35:29
It's a great people. And they're from.
35:31
Everywhere but it's the government.
35:33
So there is an enormous distinction between great
35:37
people, American citizens everywhere in the Deep South, in
35:42
the Midwest, in the Southwest, which I geologically, we can
35:47
even compare the Southwest of the West with Saint John.
35:51
Yes, some of the landscapes are real.
35:54
It's the same landscape, the same.
35:56
Beautiful with that wow, that sing in the sea, which is a very
36:01
provincial town. The sea is very raw, crude.
36:06
People are not very sophisticated.
36:08
You have a few intellects, but basically they are a bunch of
36:11
dumb bureaucrats talking to each other.
36:14
You go to a restaurant in DC, especially those restaurants
36:17
near the Capitol Hill, they are talking to each other.
36:21
You go to the the big hotels, it's the same thing.
36:25
There are meetings, they are talking to each other.
36:26
So it's very provincial. Their view of the world at large
36:31
is virtually 0. In most cases it's less than 0,
36:38
So what do you expect? You know, they see the world
36:41
through that, you know, Little cubicle in their minds, you
36:45
know? And they don't realize how
36:46
powerful this whole Euro Asia region.
36:49
Is they don't realize how powerful China has become and
36:53
now they are freaking out. They are being overtaken
36:57
technologically by China and in every possible domain.
37:02
It's when China launched the made in China 2025 project 10
37:07
years ago, which was literally yesterday.
37:10
The Chinese very, you know, sophisticated, very common and
37:13
say, OK, we want to become either the leader or among the
37:17
top two or three in these 10 high tech domains.
37:23
They're already leaders in 7 to 8 and soon they're going to be
37:26
leaders on the 10th of them in 10 years.
37:30
Sure. How can you do that?
37:32
Only if you have a centrally planified economy with five year
37:37
plans, subsequent five year plans, for instance, the Chinese
37:41
have the whole thing mapped out at least until 2035 as we speak.
37:47
And you follow your, your limits, the agenda guidelines,
37:54
etcetera. You fulfill this, but it's
37:56
meritocratic. If you have mistakes, you go
37:59
over the mistakes. If you have challenges from
38:03
foreign powers, like sanctions against Huawei, for instance,
38:06
Huawei is even more powerful than it was under Trump once
38:10
when they were slapped in horrible sanctions.
38:12
Huawei is a powerhouse today that the the Americans have no
38:16
idea. Well, I mean even even whole
38:18
pile of American products are made here like Apple.
38:22
Absolutely. Tell.
38:24
Tell me about and now that this moderately prosperous Chinese
38:31
society that we saw on the road, on our trip, for instance, in
38:35
small towns and cities everywhere across Sinjiang, with
38:40
their state-of-the-art SU VS their state-of-the-art
38:44
smartphones, their state-of-the-art hotels, which
38:48
are better than anything the West has to offer for excellent
38:52
prices. This elite or this rarefied
38:58
oligarchy centered in DC with some points in New York and
39:03
such, they have no idea about that.
39:05
And they have nothing else to offer, not only to American
39:09
citizens and taxpayers especially, but to the rest of
39:12
the world. And that leads us to the what
39:17
does the empire of KO has to offer the Global South
39:19
especially? And what does bricks and SEO and
39:24
the new Silk Roads and infrastructure bank and the NDB
39:29
bank? What do they, what do they offer
39:32
to Africa as well? A lot of opportunities of
39:34
development loans with decent prices, building infrastructure
39:39
everywhere. So it's the the the choice is so
39:44
stark now between what the empire has to offer and what the
39:48
global majority has to offer and has to profit from.
39:53
For most nations, the the choice is very, very clear.
39:57
Unless you're a vassal, that's another story.
40:01
I've seen a lot of criticism towards bricks saying that it's
40:04
very flimsy, it isn't really anything.
40:08
What? What are your?
40:09
Views. You have no idea, Jeremy, during
40:12
when bricks started and bricks started to gain a little more
40:16
traction in the late 2000s, early 2000 and 10s.
40:20
You mentioned the word bricks in Washington, New York.
40:23
It's a it's a joke, it's a talk shops thing, irrelevant and all
40:28
that. Now that now, now they're
40:30
starting to get the picture, especially after the bricks
40:33
summit last year in Kazan and in the case of SEO, the SEO summit
40:37
this year in Tianjin here in China, Now they're taking it
40:41
seriously and they are terrified because people who still have a
40:46
brain above room temperature, to quote our friend Martiano, is
40:51
one of his greatest expressions. People who still have a brain
40:54
above room temperature in DC, now they're starting to say yes,
40:57
these people are getting together and they don't need us.
41:03
BRICS, SEO and most of the global S they don't need.
41:06
They don't need the US for anything.
41:08
Yeah. So I mean, an example of that
41:09
might be Russia and China not even trading with the US dollar
41:13
of. Course and they are at 90%.
41:16
Soon they'll get to 100. Everything is in rubles and
41:18
yuan. And when you go to those forum
41:21
in Russia, the top 2 forums, Saint Petersburg in June and
41:26
Vladivostok in September, the leadership, the business
41:31
leadership of Russia is all there.
41:33
And a great deal of the business leadership of China, India,
41:38
Emirates, West Asia, they're all there as well.
41:41
And they're discussing business. And this has nothing to do with
41:45
the United States. And obviously you see very few
41:47
Americans, if you see any, and Europeans and Europeans.
41:51
I was in in Vladivostok before I came to China over a month ago
41:55
or so. I was expecting at least a
41:59
relatively large American delegation after they start
42:01
talking Russia and US. No, practically 0 American
42:05
businessmen were there. So they were outside of all the
42:08
deals that were being clinched hour after hour.
42:11
They clinched over $80 billion of deals in three days, so.
42:14
What do you see happening? What I mean, give me a bit of a
42:18
prognosis. No, not a prognosis.
42:20
What's the last minute? Jeremy, I don't do crystal
42:23
balls. This is something you learn on
42:25
the road. Yes, because the the surprises
42:28
are so cosmic in many cases we cannot predict.
42:33
Well, let me let me give an example.
42:34
I I see now South Africa, my country with a large amount of
42:40
Chinese cars coming in. Yes, and they're great Yeah.
42:44
I think my next car will be Chinese because it is just it is
42:48
better priced and it's just coming in with so much more
42:51
stuff now than the the European cars which were great at one
42:55
stage, but. At one stage, at one stage
42:57
anymore and they are overpriced. And they're overpriced.
42:59
And they're losing. They will probably lose all the
43:02
European market if they were not so protected.
43:06
You know, like Fiat or Mercedes or Peugeot in France when you
43:11
compare them to the Chinese counterparts.
43:14
Come on. Yeah, it's it's ridiculous.
43:17
So do do you see BRICS acting as some sort of resistance against
43:21
NATO or these separate entities? It's it's different because it's
43:25
not a military alliance. It's still the best definition
43:29
is by is by Lavrov, Lavrov. In fact, when he talked to us
43:35
last year, Lavrov said we should not turn bricks into a very
43:41
organized, stratified organization.
43:45
So he likes it decentralized, he likes.
43:47
It decentralized and lose and the fact that everybody has a
43:52
voice, you can speak your voice, you know, in the round tables
43:55
anytime you want the members and the partners, they listen to the
43:58
partners. There are 10 partners among
44:01
bricks and some are ultra important.
44:03
The SE Asians are very, very important.
44:06
There are two Central Asians, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, also
44:09
very important. And everybody has a voice, the
44:11
Africans. The Africans have a voice.
44:14
It's as important for them to listen to the Africans than to
44:17
listen to Russia or China. So this is what Lavrov likes
44:20
about it because it's a a really democratic multilateral
44:23
institution. We could argue that from now on
44:28
bricks has to be more structured because the challenges now are
44:33
wow massive, especially in terms of de dollarization, which they
44:39
never call de dollarization. Why?
44:42
Because they know that this would be a direct affront
44:47
against the American right. So they got and as, as you know,
44:50
the Chinese are extremely subtle and the Russians, they have the
44:54
probably the best diplomatic core on the planet.
44:57
They say, no, we are in. And when you listen to Wang Yi
45:01
or when you listen to Lavrov, they're basically always saying
45:05
the same thing. We are increasing trade in our
45:08
mutual currencies and multilateral with our partners
45:12
as well. Now our objective is to trade
45:15
using our own local national currencies amongst us and
45:20
between US and our partners. This is a very sophisticated way
45:24
of saying we are dumping the US dollar.
45:27
Yes. So once again, those who have a
45:29
brain in the US, they, they can't understand, Oh my God, we
45:33
are being expelled from this huge global sales market.
45:37
Yes, you are. On a daily basis, OK, but then
45:40
if if BRICS isn't a response to NATO, then what is?
45:46
For the moment, we could argue that the SEO would eventually
45:53
become an Asian NATO. They don't want it.
45:56
If you talk once again to the leaders of Russia, China, India
46:00
and Pakistan, which are both members of the SEO, Iran member
46:04
of the SEO and the Central Asians, if you, if you follow
46:09
for instance, Tianjin was very important.
46:12
They never said that they want to become a military alliance.
46:15
It's not explicit in their charter, which is very detailed.
46:19
Tianjin Declaration. It's a very important document.
46:23
No, but we don't want foreign interference, which is a way of
46:27
saying keep them out. But we have several problems
46:33
when it comes to certain nation states.
46:36
I'll give you an example. Kazakhstan sign a deal with the
46:39
Americans to buy local motives. Why they are not buying these
46:43
local motives from China, for instance?
46:45
And the next door. Is that next door?
46:47
And Kazakhstan is a member of Belton Rd. of the new Circle
46:50
roads. Well, I'm not sure we're going
46:53
to find this response in Astana or Almaty.
46:56
Even if we ask directly, they'll never ask.
46:58
And Kazakhstan are very complicated because they tried
47:03
what in the past they described as multi vector policy.
47:07
This was under Nazarbaya. Now under Tokayev they said yes,
47:11
we have a multilateral relations and that includes the West as
47:14
well, of course, because the West, the oil companies are all
47:17
there in, in Kazakhstan. But it's complicated because
47:21
they they're hedging all the time and the Russians and the
47:24
Chinese are powerful neighbors. They look at that and I'm not
47:26
sure they are very happy with this locomotive story because
47:30
they know that this is Kazakhstan.
47:32
It's a long term contract. So you're going to have the
47:35
Americas in involved in the connectivity corridors inside
47:39
Kazakhstan, which involve Russia and China directly.
47:43
So these specific problems apply to specific nation states inside
47:49
BRICS. This can be a problem in the
47:51
long run. Saudi Arabia.
47:53
Nobody can answer this question. Is Saudi Arabia inside BRICS or
47:57
not? Nobody knows.
47:59
I probably not even the Saudis know.
48:01
That's funny. Because they received an
48:03
official invitation. They said, ah, we like it and
48:05
all that, but they never made an official announcement.
48:08
We are BRICS members. What do you what do you think?
48:14
Once again, MBS is hedging, right?
48:17
MBS is a hedger. He learned that from MBZ in the
48:21
Emirates. And who who's also a hedger?
48:25
Very complicated character. You know, some, some of my
48:29
sources between Europe and the Persian Gulf.
48:32
They know MBZ personally and it's, I would say is not very
48:38
uplifting, their portrait of MBZ, you know, and this is the
48:42
guy who thought, and we asked everything he knows about
48:45
politics, hedging all the time. And they know that if they don't
48:49
hedge, the Americans can go there and destroy them and take
48:52
their money because their money is, as we know, in London and
48:55
New York. It's not.
48:57
It's not in the Persian Gulf. Yeah.
48:58
OK, Pepper, we are being, we are being summoned to dinner, so
49:01
come in for a landing and give me a nugget of wisdom.
49:05
No, man, no wisdom. Come on.
49:06
Pilgrims have no wisdom, All right?
49:08
We, we pilgrims, we, we learn. We are literally on.
49:13
It's no wonder that my, I would say my most revered historical
49:19
figure is the guy that we met during our trip in many
49:25
instances, because he was travelling here, leaving and
49:28
coming back. Shuazhang, the monk in the early
49:33
Tang dynasty in the 7th century who left the imperial capital
49:37
Shengan to go to India to recover manuscripts and Sanskrit
49:43
and come back to China to translate them into Chinese.
49:46
This guy is my hero. He's a Pilgrim.
49:50
It's a different story. OK, by we can become a political
49:55
political analyst or reporters of foreign correspondents,
49:57
etcetera. But the way I see it, we should
50:01
keep our minds always open to learn on the ground about
50:06
everything about culture, about history, about gastronomy.
50:10
Of course we good food, which is absolutely we, we can we good
50:16
food for the rest of our lives every day.
50:18
We're going to have it now in our dinner.
50:20
Exactly. So this, this is, this is not
50:25
wisdom, this is, I would say, Commons on the road, common
50:28
sense. Basketball.
50:31
Thank you, Jeremy, it was a pleasure.