This
year's G20 summit is the ultimate mirror of modern reality. An
uncontrolled clique of oligarchs who collide with each other for
world domination, against the background of black smoke and
protesters' rage.
When Merkel
made a few years ago the latest arrangements to hold the G20 summit
in Hamburg, she believed she had completed a brilliant pre-election
fiesta for the upcoming German elections. Being a host to the club of
the world's most powerful leaders who are talking behind closed doors
is a very German way of demonstrating power.
But as
Hamburg's sky was blacked out by the protest conflict with the police
- which had to call for backup when the 20,000 conscripts began to
lose control of the situation - the chancellery's pre-election card
was smudged. And these were not the only fumes that shadowed the
dream of Merkel. Even the German Spiegel magazine implicitly accused
her of joining a non-institutional and uncontrolled power group that
replaces the UN.
At a
different wavelength, but equally aggressive, the Anglo-Saxon
Economist presented her as a threat to the global economy, due to the
huge surpluses accumulated by Germany, which distorted not only the
European but also the global economy. In fact, the British magazine
called her to raise directly public spending and wages (!),
presenting Berlin's policy as equally destructive as the economic
isolation of Donald Trump. And all this happened even before the
beginning of the contacts between the leaders.
The first
major news came with the ceasefire in Syria, which Trump and Putin
agreed on the sidelines of the session. After a fictional controversy
over the supposed interventions by Russian hackers in the US
elections ('played' by Trump for the eyes of the liberal,
hysterically anti-Russian, American press), the two leaders disagreed
about North Korea, but seemed to find a path of conciliation in the
Middle East.
This
development is expected to escalate the conflict between the two
fronts of the US economic elite: on the one hand, the forces
represented by Trump demand a moratorium on the confrontation with
Moscow to focus their aggression on China, and on the other, the
dominant parts of the military-industrial establishment who want to
keep the fronts open both in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe.
It should be
noted that as these lines were written, Reuters claimed that Putin's
aircraft, returning to Moscow, made 500 km bypasses to avoid passing
over NATO member countries, such as Poland and the Baltic States -
information that appears to resemble one of the most tense moments of
the Cold War.
The real
important issue of the G20 summit was, of course, the definition of
new economic blocs and their inter-relationship at a global level.
The simplistic perception "Trump supports protectionism and
Merkel the free market", promoted by the international media,
does not explain the extremely complex grid of relationships that was
imprinted before and during the session.
The US has
come to talks with the so-called 'nuclear bomb' of world trade, the
threat of drastic restrictions on steel imports - a decision
primarily targeted the Asian economy but also causing similar
tectonic earthquakes and reactions in Europe as well. European
capitalism (see Berlin and Frankfurt) was prepared for the conflict
with separate contacts between Merkel and EU officials with the
political and economic leadership of China and Japan. The Chancellor
welcomed the Chinese initiative entitled "one zone, one way",
a program of hundreds of billions of dollars to build energy and
freight transport infrastructure from China to Central Asia, Russia,
Europe and the Middle East. The United States faces this plan as an
existential threat, something that can be seen every day through the
escalating provocation against Chinese sovereignty in the Southern
China Sea.
Responding
to Berlin and Brussels openings to Asia, during the session, Trump
made sure to send a clear message, preparing Europeans for the major
trade deal with Britain in the post-Brexit era.
The first
day of contacts ended with Merkel trying to hide the fierce
confrontations at a meal under Beethoven's sounds. At the same time,
diplomatic missions struggled all night to draw up a joint communiqué
in which it would not appear that the planet enters one of the most
important periods of instability after the end of the Second World
War.
During all
these intrigues, however, the leaders were not alone. The 100,000
protesters who went out in the street with a slogan (among others)
"shut down capitalism," were not a mere observer. Despite
the hundreds of arrests and dozens of injured people in serious
condition in hospitals from the inhuman brutality of the German
police, the protesters forced the G20 leaders to move terrified with
their helicopters as their motorcades were threatened by the rage of
the gathered.
This year's
G20 summit is the ultimate mirror of modern reality. An uncontrolled
clique of oligarchs who collide with each other for world domination,
against the background of black smoke and protesters' rage. All
against everyone inside the conference centers, and all of us against
them in the streets.
Article
by Aris Chatzistefanou translated from the original source:
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