BRICS: agrees that BRICS cannot compete with the US dollar, but argues that it can weaken confidence in USD anyway. 🇷🇺 & 🇨🇳 — not natural allies, 🇨🇳 is much closer to 🇺🇸, but being forced into relationship of convenience due to dual US pressure.

🧵 This guy @xueqinjiang’s classes from last year, predicting a US/Israel-Iran conflict, are doing the rounds, but I’ve been watching some of his other videos and I’m consistently surprised. This is a high school class, at a prestigious high school in Beijing, many of whose students intend to go to university in the US. There’s nothing in these videos that is a surprise to me, but what’s shocking is that they’re teaching actual serious geopolitics to 17 year olds to prepare them for the world. This kind of information and analysis is something that is not easily accessible in the west, given the extreme levels of media propaganda that obscures it today. The fact that the actual elected leaders of some western counties don’t seem to understand this basic stuff, to their own detriment, is a testament to how badly things are. It took me years of listening to different sides, watching global events closely, and reflecting on it all, to figure out how to understand geopolitics. Even though this kind of analysis is generally accepted in IR academia, even there it is under serious onslaught by both leftist and neocon propaganda. I want to post a few clips from his class about Russia’s strategic position, which touches on China, Taiwan, Israel, Iran, the EU, and then ends up in a detailed historical analysis of the geopolitics and geoeconomics of WW2. In the first clip, he outlines an accurate synopsis of Putin’s strategy with regard to Ukraine, and the attrition of NATO cash and materiel:

In the next segment, @xueqinjiang discusses the role of Russia if the US is dragged into a war in Iran: to not get engaged kinetically but to threaten to extend its nuclear umbrella if the US uses tactical nukes in Iran. At the same time, predicting DPRK will take advantage.

Very interesting and telling segment from @xueqinjiang — the complex relationship of 🇺🇸 and 🇨🇳 — whether a detente is possible, the reasons for US anxiety over Taiwan, China’s gold purchases, US debt. Concludes that China’s geopolitical situation is “really bad”, implies that the CCP have painted themselves into a corner. This is a school operated directly by the 🇨🇳 Ministry of Education (!)

Taiwan — @xueqinjiang paints a very sympathetic view of 🇨🇳 here, naturally, but his conclusion that losing face is the biggest thing the 🇺🇸 has to lose if 🇨🇳 invades Taiwan is correct. It would be the strongest signal that the 🇺🇸 empire is unable to defend its stated commitments.

The topic of this lecture is “Putin’s Strategic Imagination”, and outlines the myriad of trouble that the US empire finds itself in, all of which being taken advantage of by the US’s adversaries, especially Russia.

Last clip — @xueqinjiang argues that Putin appears to be a strategic genius, but says that he inherits a long history of strategic imagination among Russian leaders. The rest of the lecture is a deep dive into WW2 geopolitics, focusing on the US, Japan, and the USSR.

Again, there’s not anything here that I haven’t heard, and I disagree with him on a number of serious points, but overall this is a solid realist analysis of world events. And they’re teaching this to high school kids. Are we cooked, chat?

Full video here:

Unrealistic on N Korea options. N Korea much smaller population than SK. Can not realistically threaten SK even without US backing unless backed by China.

US is now Authoritarian enough for this to make sense. Trump birthday parade with tanks in capital, looming civil war.... US is halfway there.

“In the next 3-4 years: The Ukraine war does not end. Putin will find a way for it to drag on. 2nd thing: Iran takes the initiative against the United States. 3rd thing: North Korea becomes much more belligerent.” Jiang Zueqin teaching Western propaganda in Beijing is surprising.