New information coming from China, Iran, and Venezuela has confirmed one long-held suspicion: they no longer fear The United States of America. A recent report written by Jonathan Saul of Reuters has revealed that a logistics firm owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) listed as China Concord Petroleum Co, or CCPC has become a “central player” in the illicit oil trade between China, Iran, and Venezuela in open defiance of U.S. sanctions.
Analysts say that this serves to “highlight the limitations of Washington’s system of restrictions,” as Saul wrote. But it highlights something far more fundamental: The United States under the Biden-Harris regime does not project power or respect in the world. As China’s most senior foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Anchorage in April,
“The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”
It appears that China wasn’t just talking, their actions now reflect their judgment that the U.S. Government is in no position to stop them from doing anything.
According to Reuters, the Chinese are now moving a massive amount of Iranian and Venezuelan crude to six Chinese refineries aboard a fleet of 14 tankers with a capacity of 28 million barrels.
“China received a daily average of 557,000 barrels of Iranian crude between November and March, or roughly 5% of total imports by the world’s biggest importer, according to Refinitiv Oil Research, returning to levels last seen before former U.S. President Donald Trump re-imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018.”
“China’s imports of Venezuelan crude and fuel averaged 324,000 barrels per day (BPD) in the past year to end-April, according to cargo-tracking specialist Vortexa Analytics, below pre-sanctions levels, but still more than 60% of Venezuela’s total oil exports.”
CCP Officials Show Disdain for “Unilateral Sanctions”
In response to journalists’ questions about the role of CCP owned companies in the trading of sanctioned oil Chinese officials were flippant, even dismissive.
“China maintains normal, legitimate trades with Iran and Venezuela under the framework of international law that shall deserve respect and protection,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said
“China strongly opposes unilateral sanctions and urges the United States to remove the ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ on companies and individuals.”
America’s Adversaries forming “Axes of Resilience” to Sanctions
According to GCaptain.com, Jude Friedlander, who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center told the press,
“It shows there are limitations as to what U.S. sanctions can do especially when you target multiple like-minded or selectively like-minded actors like oil traders. So, you incentivize these alternative axes of resilience,”
These nations forming “Axes of Resilience” are just the beginning. The international diplomatic situation is returning to the way it was under Barack Obama when a “Red-Line” in Syria meant nothing to Bashar Al-Assad and when Vladimir Putin’s Russia carved the Crimean peninsula off of Ukraine and stirred civil war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with few meaningful consequences.
A world devoid of The United States’ might as a counterbalance to the craven ambitions of our global opponents is an incredibly unsafe world to live in. As long as this is “Joe Biden’s America” then it is China, Russia, and Iran’s world to play in.
To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill yet again: Amerca’s hour of weakness is the world’s hour of danger.