• Anthony Blinken should be removed from his post.
• He clearly needs to learn how to deal with the Chinese.
• China now publicly backs Russia; Zelensky is now afraid of WW3.

Happy Thursday from a warm morning in Northern Italy!

When I woke up, Singapore Nancy (formerly Hong Kong Nancy) texted me about the rock-solid relationship between Russia and China.

She’s concerned about geopolitical instability, and I don’t blame her.

The mistakes our “elites” are making are needless.

Whenever I read the news, the idiocy accompanying the so-called “adults in the room” continues to stagger me.

Because I spent a lot of time in Asia, I know there are certain things you just don’t do to the Chinese. Mainland, or part of the ethnic diaspora, it doesn’t matter.

Rule Number 1 is never to make a Chinese lose face.

Rule Number 2 is always to remember Rule Number 1.

What that imbecilic Secretary of State of ours did was to take the Chinese out behind the woodshed publicly.

A Chinese delegation showed up in Moscow the following week proclaiming their “rock solid” partnership with the Russians to demonstrate how much they appreciated Blinken’s stern talking to.

It’s one of those unforced errors that anyone else working for a private company would’ve been fired for.

But Blinken will carry on. With no accountability. Like most people who work in government.

In this Rude, let’s look at what happened, why, and what may happen down the line.

Blinken Is a Policy Wonk, not a Diplomat.

Don’t, for one second, think Blinken is on the hot seat.

Like Mayor Pete, his job is safe. Not because he does it well, but because Biden needs him.

The same applies to Blinken. But Blinken has a far, far more impressive resumé than Buttigieg.

It’s not that Blinken attended Harvard University and Columbia Business School that impresses me. (The number of morons those institutions turn out nowadays is sad.)

It’s that he’s lived abroad.

After Blinken’s parents divorced, his stepfather, mother, and he moved to Paris. Blinken attended one of Paris’s most selective schools and spoke French fluently. Later, he returned to work in Paris, as well.

So you’d think he’d be a good fit for the country’s chief diplomat, which is the Secretary of State’s role.

The problem with being a diplomat is the give-and-take. And if you’re a nerd and people don’t like your ideas, you get frustrated.

I see it in a lot of bankers as well. They hate negotiating. They’d rather you just do as you’re told.

So when Blinken lost his composure with the Chinese last week, his frustration showed. Now that may have been choreographed. It may not have been.

Whatever it was, it was a mistake.

As a result, Blinken succeeded in publicly pushing China and Russia closer together.

Why did all this happen?

From The Guardian:

The US has said it believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine, prompting a direct warning against doing so from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to China’s top diplomat.

Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councilor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference during which he also rebuked China over the use of an alleged spy balloon over US soil.

In a blunt meeting, he also urged China to stop helping Russia evade the impact of sanctions. China’s trade with Russia is increasing, and it has been buying Russian oil, but probably below the US$60 per barrel price cap imposed by the EU and G7 group of states.

Warning. Rebuked. Blunt.

All words you don’t want to use when chatting with the Chinese.

It’s plain silly.

There’s one playbook everyone needs to have read before dealing with the Chinese.

It’s The Art of War.

I’ll summarize it in one word: Lie.

Here are a few more: Subterfuge. Deception. Misdirection.

That’s how they do things.

This straightforward stuff is a Western invention they want no part of.

Because as a Western diplomat scolds a Chinese one, you can rest assured that the Chinese diplomat is working out how to screw his opposite number behind his smile.

This brings us to Moscow.

Meeting in Moscow

"Our relationship has withstood pressure from the international community and is developing very steadily."

-Wang Yi, Foreign Minister of China to President Putin

The Chinese have memories like elephants. They always remember everything.

And if revenge takes 5,000 years to exact, you can be sure someone’s descendants will oversee it.

So that was the only surprise for me here.

It only took a week for Beijing to flip America the bird.

From Canada’s Globe and Mail:

This apparent show of support for the Kremlin comes after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that China was “considering providing lethal support” for Russia’s war in Ukraine, something European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said would be a “red line” for the bloc. Beijing has sought to build stronger ties with the EU, even as the war has made this increasingly difficult.

China has hotly denied it ever planned to provide weapons to Russia, with Foreign Minister Qin Gang saying Tuesday that Washington was “pouring oil on the fire.” Mr. Qin, a former ambassador to the U.S., was speaking at an event in Beijing where he presented a paper on the Global Security Initiative, a concept put forward by Mr. Xi.

Again, from The Guardian:

Putin described the international situation as “quite complicated” and said Sino-Russian cooperation was “important for stabilizing the international situation”.

Wang said, “a crisis is always an opportunity” and that the Sino-Russian relationship was “never dictated by any third parties.” Both leaders emphasized the importance of “multipolar” approaches to international affairs – a worldview that rejects what China describes as the US’s “unipolar” approach to dominating global leadership.

This is much farther and deeper than the Chinese needed to go with Russia. And they did this to show America just how much negotiating leverage it has.

Will a formal alliance be announced?

There’s really no need.

They can just team up when they need to.

Wrap Up

Antony Blinken committed a massive unforced error by talking to the Chinese like they’re some tinpot South American dictatorship.

America needs to reassess its methods when speaking with different opponents.

Not all with kowtow to America when bidden to.

And China? They’re too big and potentially divisive to mess with.

P.S. Look out for this morning’s Morning Reckoning, where I talk about Roald Dahl’s censoring.