Xi Jinping's Deadly Silence

A 17-year-old teenager from Irpin, on the outskirts of Kiev, was traumatized as her mother and 15-year-old sister were raped and beaten to death by three Russian soldiers who passed over and over as if they were beer cans and then discarded. She, whose identity remains safe, was warned with a macabre cynicism that she was too ugly to be outraged. But his nightmare did not end when the life of his sister and mother died out before his eyes: he had to stay with their corpses for four days. This story was repeated (repeated) systematically in every village where invading troops attack the local population like cannibals.

The case - one of hundreds - was exposed by Lyudmila Denisova, the Ombudsman for Human Rights of Ukraine. The young woman is now psychologically assisted on a daily basis. Surely he will never manage to erase the deep scar that Russian forces caused in his life by brutally murdering his family in his presence.

On February 4 - exactly 20 days before Russia invaded Ukraine - Vladimir Putin flew to Beijing to sign with Xi Jinping an extensive document in which they sealed something more than a political agreement: a pact of blood, of famiglia. At that meeting, in addition, the Russian head of state informed the host that he would take Ukraine by storm. His ally listened to him attentively, understood the terms, shared the objectives and nodded. He asked him only one favor: that the military excursion - which the West had been warning about for months - should be once the Winter Olympics that would take place in the Chinese capital were over. I didn't want blood to dirty his party.

Brotherhoods, Putin and Xi signed a document that they proudly presented to the world. In it, they not only questioned the values of the West, but also sought to rewrite history and, above all, the concept of democracy. Synthetically, they argued that the construction of the term was an invention of certain countries but that it did not correspond to the culture of other nations. In other words, each administration must define what democracy is or is not according to its own parameters. A way to justify their eternal permanence in power and prevent other new figures from appearing that threaten their structure. “Only citizens of the country can decide whether their State is democratic,” the text says in one of its paragraphs. A strange idea in countries where no one can raise their voice to say whether the most basic human rights are respected there.

What was signed on February 4 was much more than a list of intentions. Two months after the start of the Russian military attack on Ukraine, Xi shows himself to be a strong and unconditional ally of Putin. This is despite some diplomatic distractions that Beijing carried out in the past 60 days to show itself as an active promoter of peace or a state that respects the sovereignty of other countries. Some were delighted that the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could convince his Kremlin peer to reach a definitive truce that would end the rapes that hundreds of Ukrainian women and girls suffer daily.

But in China, the authorities are replicating the same narrative that Moscow spreads to its citizens. They reiterate that this is a “special military operation”, that there is a “conflict” in Ukraine, that the responsibility for what is happening lies with the West, NATO and the United States. The arguments would seem funny if the context were not gloomy. The Global Times newspaper - a propaganda body of the CCP - published on April 20 an unusual editorial in which it asked from the title: “Does peace have any chance with more US military aid to Ukraine? ”. For the Xi regime, Kiev should lay down its arms and surrender unconditionally. Volodymir Zelensky has no right to defend himself or protect his people or to ask for weapons, his main and most desperate concern.

What kind of mediator asks that the victim stop defending himself and does nothing to make the aggressor desist from his attacks? Chinese diplomacy will show itself to the world as a banner of peace when it is certain that Russia has already achieved its objectives. Not before. It's part of the blood pact. Xi thus becomes the fundamental instrument of the invasion. So far, the second world economic power is showing itself to the public as a supposed spectator of the greatest war conflict of the 21st century only to intervene in favor of Moscow.

But the February 4 agreement had something else between the lines: permission to violate the sovereignty of other countries whatever the reason, the argument, the justification or the way to achieve it. Ukraine was violated under countless excuses enumerated by the Kremlin. From “denazification” to the threat of entry into NATO, which would pose a risk to Moscow's security. When Beijing talks about the United States and its weapons, it supports this last account.

Putin decided at first to attempt an absolute seizure of the neighboring democratic nation to replace his government. It was his “Plan A”. But it failed miserably and after 40 days of intense fighting, it had to withdraw its troops in the east and south, where it radicalized its bombardments. There he now plans to hold “plebiscites” with the remaining local population to declare them independent of Kiev, the capital that he could not take. Perhaps China at that time will again speak of “nascent sovereignties”.

It is part of the “new democracy” that Russia and China dream of for the rest of the planet. The murder and systematic rape of civilians as witnessed almost live in Bucha, Irpin or Mariupol may be considered by Xi and Putin as “collateral damage”. The humanitarian crisis of the five million Ukrainians who had to leave their country, too.

The invasion also gave Xi time to think long. The risk of an invasion of Taiwan persists, although it is known that the costs will be heavy. He's got 3500 missiles aimed at Taipei. But if he decides to make the Taiwanese capital the new Aleppo or Mariupol, he will be left without the island's main economic force, which is ultimately his main motivation. The head of the regime dreams of taking over technology companies - the producers of microprocessors, above all - that are on the other side of the strait just 180 kilometers away. But an amphibious invasion would also have its costs. Especially in an army, the Chinese, which has not been in combat for more than 40 years when it failed on the border with Vietnam.

Taiwan, meanwhile, lives in permanent pre-traumatic stress. The height of that happened last Thursday when a TV presenter issued an alert warning the population that the much-feared Chinese invasion had finally begun. But it was all about a huge mistake: a poorly issued SMS aroused a chain of panic that no one stopped in time. The television station apologized for the failed one.

Beijing's threat to the democratic island is surely the most obvious. However, war is not the only way to lose sovereignty today. It does not take a conventional invasion to undermine the independence of a nation. Just as the Chinese regime learned that it will be subjected to economic sanctions similar to those imposed on Moscow if it decides to carry out a “special military operation” on Taiwan, the world should take note of what happened to Europe over the past 20 years.

That continent entered a labyrinth that it cannot get out of: dependence on Russian oil and gas. This addiction proposed by Putin - and which European leaders did not seem to care for a long time - greatly precipitated the lockdown of the current scenario in Ukraine. Warned for years, Europe now cannot find a way to escape without paying very high costs. Germany, above all, seems to have a great responsibility. Political ties with energy companies speak for themselves. Gerhard Schröder, former chancellor between 1998 and 2005, is a key link: he is the chairman of Rosneft, the Kremlin's favorite oil company, and on June 30, in St. Petersburg, he will join the board of directors of Gazprom, the largest Russian company. The latter was announced on February 4, when Putin and Xi sealed their pact to re-found a new era in Beijing.

At the end of the road, Russian generosity to Europe was not free. The sanctions that would hurt Moscow the most and that would make possible a total collapse of its economy depend, above all, on Germany and other European powers immediately cutting off their energy submission. Without that money, Putin would not be able to feed the cannibals who devastate Ukrainian populations.

This extreme submission should give thought to other rulers who were tempted in different strategic sectors by China: mining, fishing, dredging, nuclear and conventional energy, ports, space exploration, military bases, and telephony and internet (5G). In Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Beijing regime has woven negotiations with “tentable” administrations that involve the exploitation of natural resources with untransparent credits. Sovereignty could be attacked from within. The Asian giant would have the ability to cut off various supplies when required, making other nations in all parts of the world hostage to its plans. Even promoting crisis and instability. The sovereignty of these nations would become merely testimonial. It would depend on the policies and needs of the CCP. Not seeing it is ideological blindness. Or metallic temptation.

Only one alert awakens on the horizon of the head of the Chinese regime: it is the celebration of the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to continue at the top of power for another five years. You will need to show in it that China's main engine continues to run. That is, its economy. However, the numbers are not in your favor and you will need to reverse it. Its policy of COVID Zero complicates its goals. The CCP hierarchs could not afford to fail at this key link for the giant's inner harmony.

Meanwhile, Xi Jinping and the regime remain silent. A silence that also kills in Ukraine.