china and russia are mad as hell and they aren't gonna take it anymore;

When Russia launched its Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February 2022, no one imagined that this war would ignite a global fire that is destroying the U.S.-led International Order that has ruled the world since the end of World War II. I know I did not understand that the very foundations of U.S. international economic and foreign policy would be crumbling so rapidly and so pervasively. Four of the top six countries in terms of wealth from natural resources are now uniting against the United States as a consequence of the war in Ukraine. Though number 6 on the list, China is a big factor on the global stage and ain’t going away..

Let’s start with China. China keenly watched the Western led effort to destroy the Russian economy with sanctions, to erase Russian culture and influence from the world stage and to replace the government of Vladimir Putin and realized that it was next on the chopping block. It did not help matters that anti-Chinese rhetoric in the United States reached unprecedented levels of vitriol, with China being routinely described as an enemy of the United States by prominent politicians from both parties.

China’s expectations that the United States would honor the One China policy negotiated with Richard Nixon in 1972 were obliterated as Washington went out of its way to intimate that Taiwan is an independent nation. It was not just idle talk. In 2022, then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led a delegation to Taiwan over China’s strenuous objections only to be followed a year later by the current Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, welcoming Taiwan’s current President to the United States. That insult was preceded by the U.S. shooting down a Chinese balloon, which China insisted was a weather platform while Washington claimed it was spying. All of this has had a cumulative effect and is producing a sea change in U.S./Chinese relations that is altering the economic, diplomatic and military status quo. To put it simply, this is like the iconic scene in the movie NETWORK — the Chinese are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore..........more........