Surely by now you know the Cognitive Dissonance Shuffle - when the players act according to the scripts we have given them, the AMC proclaims "So It Begins!"
When the players don't follow the script, then it's a headfake.
"Russia will never dare to tell India how to deal with China and we will never dare to tell China how to deal with India: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
'Russia values its relationship with both India and China. When Russia says multipolar world, it means it. Russia does not interfere in regional affairs and neither should America'"
It's time for those who defended Pepe's false claim that Russia was responsible for the Modi-Xi Summit in Kazan to give it up.
Clinging to that will only lead to one becoming more divorced from objective reality.
It now requires not only assuming that the Russian Ambassador was in on this "master plan" or whatever, but also Peskov too.
What's more likely: a "5D chess master plan" or those two officials telling the truth?
Absolutely no evidence has since emerged to even remotely lend credence to what can now be described as Pepe's bonafide conspiracy theory that he dishonestly passed off as fact.
Everyone can believe whatever they want, but they're only discrediting and lying to themselves if his conspiracy theory becomes part of their worldview. I think it's ridiculous.
Yes, I do exclude that scenario for the reasons that I explained. I don't believe in indulging wishful thinking fantasies without any proof in support of them.
What you suggested is a QAnon-like conspiracy theory that's challenged by the objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that there were 21 prior rounds of military talks between those two and thus requires us to believe that they achieved nothing at all.
There's no reason to believe Pepe, a Brazilian journalist who's infamous for his sensationalism and has been caught peddling many lies before, over the Russian Ambassador.
The fact is that some here in Russia are practicing a controversial soft power strategy that relies on creating artificial realities about their own country's policies by implying that officials are lying and only a handful of elite Russian-friendly foreigners are privileged with the truth.
I don't believe that's realistic, but it appeals to a lot of people in today's post-truth era. It's very risky and in my view counterproductive.
Russia should be confident that its official policies are good enough to win hearts and minds without misportraying them as something that they aren't in order to convince people to support it on what are literally false pretexts.
I know of no other country in which state and state-adjacent figures and institutions promote the notion that their country's policy is literally the opposite of what officials claim it to be.
If it hadn't been for you and others being exposed to the false claim that Russia mediated, which you came across from someone who you trust (Pepe), then I very much doubt that you'd instinctively question what the ambassador said if the latter's words were all that you heard on this subject.
On what basis would you or anyone else do that? Ingrained distrust in Russia despite, as far as I can tell, being friendly towards the country and supportive of what it officially wants to achieve in the world? If so, then isn't that exactly what the West wants, for Russia's supporters to doubt its officials and assume that they're always lying?
The only difference here is that the speculative lie is spun as something good, noble even, while the West presents all speculative lies as something bad, usually to cover up a dark truth (ex: denying alleged war crimes and meddling). Do China's supporters instinctively question everything that the CPC says? Do Iran's question the Ayatollah?
Russia's are the only ones in the world to do that, and it's because many have been indoctrinated through the soft power strategy that I now call "Potemkinism" into believing that it's something that it's not, which is why all "politically inconvenient" facts from official and authoritative sources like the ambassador are instinctively rejected.
Frankly speaking, many Russian supporters are "programmed" at this point and can't "deprogram" themselves without challenging that which they took for granted for what has been years in some cases (many were drawn to Russia after 2014's Crimean reunification/Donbass Conflict or 2015's Syrian intervention).
To accept that you've been fooled isn't something that many people can do, but take Russian-Israeli relations. You might be one of the many who assume that Putin is secretly anti-Zionist and therefore working closely with Iran behind the scenes to militarily liberate Palestine, but that's debunked his proud lifelong philo-Semitism as I documented here:
I already know how you'll react if you're convinced that he's an anti-Zionist: "They're old quotes!", "He changed his mind after last October!", etc. Well now, actually he's continued supporting Israel, so much so that Israel is now comfortable with Russia playing a real mediation role in ending the regional conflict:
It would NEVER do that if it truly thought that Putin was a secret anti-Zionist allied with Iran behind the scenes and trying to militarily liberate Palestine. I know, I know, you might claim like many indoctrinated people do that "He psyched out the Zionists!", well no, he didn't, the only one who was psyched out was you if you believe that conspiracy theory.
We're at the point where Putin can say something and "Non-Russian Pro-Russians"(NRPRs) will instinctively believe he's lying as part of some "5D chess master plan" if what he says is "politically inconvenient" and challenges their conspiracy theories.
I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm just disappointed at how many people have been irredeemably influenced by "Potemkinsim". I'd arbitrarily estimate that the vast majority of NRPRs support what is objectively a non-existent Russia.
They think it's something that it's not, and many of them will never accept official facts from authoritative sources which disprove whatever it is that they hitherto believed. It's deeply disappointing but also mildly frustrating too.
Do you have any idea all the work that goes into formulating, implementing, and articulating a policy? How many people are involved? And then diehard NRPRs assume that it's all a hoax because someone told them something else.
Ok. In my humble opinion, the main thing here is that something positive and of great geopolitical importance happened: a border de-escalation deal between China and India. How this deal came into being is, after all, only of secondary importance.
I agree with you that the outcome is more important than the process in this case, but falsehoods have a tendency to pile up and create the foundations for dogmatic worldviews if they aren't debunked in time.
I'm not sure if you remember or came across it, but from 2015 onwards, most of the Alt-Media Community claimed that Russia's intervention in Syria was aimed against Israel.
This led to many NRPRs imagining that Russia truly is anti-Zionist and secretly allied with Iran against Israel, which became fundamental to their worldview and is why they angrily resist anything that contradicts it.
To this day, they'll react to all of Putin's praise of Israel by shrugging their shoulders and pretending it's to "psyche out the Zionists", as if Israel is so easily fooled but random anons on social media know the secret truth.
I don't understand why folks like you don't appreciate the importance of clarifying the facts about Russian policy. Why should people continue believing in lies and use them as the foundation of their worldviews?
Do you know how difficult it is to formulate and implement policy? And how disrespectful it is to Russia's diplomats to insist that they're all a bunch of liars who don't really mean what they say and do?
And entire branch of the Russian government is discredited on a regular basis by NRPRs, it's beyond absurd, and NRPRs are the only people who do this. You never see pro-Iranians or pro-Chinese doubting the Ayatollah or Xi.
Just because a source is publically funded, does that necessarily mean that it cannot be a platform for different, even competing agendas ? After all in the US, media outlets are "privately" funded but appear to be channeled into specific agendas supporting a particular faction embedded in the vast government apparatus.
You're right, and I explained what that competing agenda is: the calculated creation of an artificial reality about Russian policy by members of Russia's global media ecosystem for what they truly believe to be the strategic purpose of improving its soft power.
The problem though is that many of Russia's friends and foes alike believe that everything published by its publicly financed media aligns with official policy, but that's not the case like I proved in this instance.
I very strongly believe that Russia's policies as they objective exist are sufficient for advancing its soft power interests and therefore disagree with manipulating perceptions about them. I don't believe that people should like a country based on a false understanding of its policies.
Its not sound logic to assume that media analysis that contradicts official Russian statements are necessarily false and that Russian officals are necessarily telling the truth. If needing a mediator could effect the perception of either Chinese or Indian prestige, that would provide a compelling reason for offical denials even if such mediation occurred. I think your emotionally hostility to the "amc" clouds your objectivity, propelling you to denounce them at every turn even if all you possess is a discrepancy in reports without any direct evidence to speak to the matter at hand.
1. I'm not "assuming" that the official Russian statement is always correct: I argued why those in doubt should defer to the Ambassador's words, citing what he previously said on the issue.
2. You're only arguing in defense of the conspiracy theory because you were exposed to it. Had you not been, then I very much doubt that you'd question the Ambassador's words.
3. There's no "emotional hostility": you seem personally offended by my critiques of the AMC, likely because the shoe fits. I simply detest liars and call them out. You don't have to read me.
4. Wrong again: I as a PhD-credentialed MGIMO (run by the Russian MFA) expert on South Asia (my dissertation was on Russian-Pakistani ties) have the right to question this conspiracy.
5. You embody one of the AMC's top problems: arrogant conspiracy theorists who spit in the face of facts and experts whenever their narrative is shattered by inconvenient facts.
I confess that I still cannot be convinced that Russian diplomacy played NO role. HOWEVER, I also believe that there are enough reasons for both Xi and Modi to take a conciliatory posture as both have enough domestic issues to worry about. For CCP China, the domestic business is much more difficult and it is nearly impossible to find a bright spot. For India, the domestic business is slightly better however, American pressure is still high; domestic population growth and unemployment are still high; and trouble-making neighbors or troubled neighbors are still all around, continued neutrality between the G7 and BRICS is theoretically optimal but practically difficult, to say it lightly. India did not want this border episode nor did India cause it. If it can be finished, at least for a while, it is a good news. So for all the long face of Modi, I think he is happy this episode is over. I think another episode will come whenever Chinese leaders need to distract their domestic audience.
If one insists, there may be suspicions about Russia's Foreign Ministry played the "Alibaba Trick" in the sense that in the past, Alibaba suppressed sales before 11/11 (by raising prices across the board). They count sales from a few days before 11/11 to a few days after 11/11 and claim the total sales were all for one day. I also heard news about fake orders taken then cancelled. But whether Alibaba did this or individual sellers did this is up to your imagination. The truth about this India-China detente can be observed further.
As for India's import of US weapons, please note that India did not get US weapons at a cabbage price, at least not always. India has not received US weapons for free. So you have to consider pricing. If Russian missile technology costs only 10% of US missiles, then an equal amount of purchase does not mean an equal alliance or dependency. Besides, India has lots of surplus in trades but not so much to buy (per domestic policies to cultivate domestic manufacturing) The same could be used to excuse Taiwan's frequent weapons purchase for obsolete US weapons at astronomical prices. However, other reasons seemed to exist as well.
Less we forget a few facts about the Buffalo Overlord of India (Modi). He is responsible for genocide in 2003/2004. India is #2 weapons buying client of the US. Modi is hugging buddy with Neo-Nazi Zionists like Benjamin Netanyahu. Modi is a fascist Hindu icon of India. And Modi is not even 1/4th educated when placed next to people like Putin and Xi Ping. Totally bogus this confederacy of thugs, just like their enemies in the West.
Those claims are irrelevant to my fact check, and they have absolutely zero influence on Russian policy in this regard. India is still Russia's #1 arms client, Putin is close friends with Bibi, and Putin has praised Modi (who he also considers a close friend) on multiple occasions.
India is still America's #1 arms client. Your fact check hardly matters, when the entire thing is based on cheap energy shared between a bunch of thugs, much like their opponents in the West. This geopolitical speculative generation is a great surrogate activity. Carry on...
Surely by now you know the Cognitive Dissonance Shuffle - when the players act according to the scripts we have given them, the AMC proclaims "So It Begins!"
When the players don't follow the script, then it's a headfake.
UPDATE:
"Russia will never dare to tell India how to deal with China and we will never dare to tell China how to deal with India: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
'Russia values its relationship with both India and China. When Russia says multipolar world, it means it. Russia does not interfere in regional affairs and neither should America'"
https://x.com/i/web/status/1858803769670271384
It's time for those who defended Pepe's false claim that Russia was responsible for the Modi-Xi Summit in Kazan to give it up.
Clinging to that will only lead to one becoming more divorced from objective reality.
It now requires not only assuming that the Russian Ambassador was in on this "master plan" or whatever, but also Peskov too.
What's more likely: a "5D chess master plan" or those two officials telling the truth?
Absolutely no evidence has since emerged to even remotely lend credence to what can now be described as Pepe's bonafide conspiracy theory that he dishonestly passed off as fact.
Everyone can believe whatever they want, but they're only discrediting and lying to themselves if his conspiracy theory becomes part of their worldview. I think it's ridiculous.
But can you exclude the scenario that Russia did indeed mediate, but kept officially silent about it, in order not to hurt both sides' feelings?
Yes, I do exclude that scenario for the reasons that I explained. I don't believe in indulging wishful thinking fantasies without any proof in support of them.
What you suggested is a QAnon-like conspiracy theory that's challenged by the objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that there were 21 prior rounds of military talks between those two and thus requires us to believe that they achieved nothing at all.
There's no reason to believe Pepe, a Brazilian journalist who's infamous for his sensationalism and has been caught peddling many lies before, over the Russian Ambassador.
The fact is that some here in Russia are practicing a controversial soft power strategy that relies on creating artificial realities about their own country's policies by implying that officials are lying and only a handful of elite Russian-friendly foreigners are privileged with the truth.
I don't believe that's realistic, but it appeals to a lot of people in today's post-truth era. It's very risky and in my view counterproductive.
Russia should be confident that its official policies are good enough to win hearts and minds without misportraying them as something that they aren't in order to convince people to support it on what are literally false pretexts.
I know of no other country in which state and state-adjacent figures and institutions promote the notion that their country's policy is literally the opposite of what officials claim it to be.
If it hadn't been for you and others being exposed to the false claim that Russia mediated, which you came across from someone who you trust (Pepe), then I very much doubt that you'd instinctively question what the ambassador said if the latter's words were all that you heard on this subject.
On what basis would you or anyone else do that? Ingrained distrust in Russia despite, as far as I can tell, being friendly towards the country and supportive of what it officially wants to achieve in the world? If so, then isn't that exactly what the West wants, for Russia's supporters to doubt its officials and assume that they're always lying?
The only difference here is that the speculative lie is spun as something good, noble even, while the West presents all speculative lies as something bad, usually to cover up a dark truth (ex: denying alleged war crimes and meddling). Do China's supporters instinctively question everything that the CPC says? Do Iran's question the Ayatollah?
Russia's are the only ones in the world to do that, and it's because many have been indoctrinated through the soft power strategy that I now call "Potemkinism" into believing that it's something that it's not, which is why all "politically inconvenient" facts from official and authoritative sources like the ambassador are instinctively rejected.
Frankly speaking, many Russian supporters are "programmed" at this point and can't "deprogram" themselves without challenging that which they took for granted for what has been years in some cases (many were drawn to Russia after 2014's Crimean reunification/Donbass Conflict or 2015's Syrian intervention).
To accept that you've been fooled isn't something that many people can do, but take Russian-Israeli relations. You might be one of the many who assume that Putin is secretly anti-Zionist and therefore working closely with Iran behind the scenes to militarily liberate Palestine, but that's debunked his proud lifelong philo-Semitism as I documented here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231008133800/https://orientalreview.su/2018/05/10/president-putin-on-israel-quotes-from-the-kremlin-website/
I already know how you'll react if you're convinced that he's an anti-Zionist: "They're old quotes!", "He changed his mind after last October!", etc. Well now, actually he's continued supporting Israel, so much so that Israel is now comfortable with Russia playing a real mediation role in ending the regional conflict:
https://www.rt.com/news/606862-israel-russia-peace-lebanon/
It would NEVER do that if it truly thought that Putin was a secret anti-Zionist allied with Iran behind the scenes and trying to militarily liberate Palestine. I know, I know, you might claim like many indoctrinated people do that "He psyched out the Zionists!", well no, he didn't, the only one who was psyched out was you if you believe that conspiracy theory.
We're at the point where Putin can say something and "Non-Russian Pro-Russians"(NRPRs) will instinctively believe he's lying as part of some "5D chess master plan" if what he says is "politically inconvenient" and challenges their conspiracy theories.
I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm just disappointed at how many people have been irredeemably influenced by "Potemkinsim". I'd arbitrarily estimate that the vast majority of NRPRs support what is objectively a non-existent Russia.
They think it's something that it's not, and many of them will never accept official facts from authoritative sources which disprove whatever it is that they hitherto believed. It's deeply disappointing but also mildly frustrating too.
Do you have any idea all the work that goes into formulating, implementing, and articulating a policy? How many people are involved? And then diehard NRPRs assume that it's all a hoax because someone told them something else.
Ok. In my humble opinion, the main thing here is that something positive and of great geopolitical importance happened: a border de-escalation deal between China and India. How this deal came into being is, after all, only of secondary importance.
I agree with you that the outcome is more important than the process in this case, but falsehoods have a tendency to pile up and create the foundations for dogmatic worldviews if they aren't debunked in time.
I'm not sure if you remember or came across it, but from 2015 onwards, most of the Alt-Media Community claimed that Russia's intervention in Syria was aimed against Israel.
This led to many NRPRs imagining that Russia truly is anti-Zionist and secretly allied with Iran against Israel, which became fundamental to their worldview and is why they angrily resist anything that contradicts it.
To this day, they'll react to all of Putin's praise of Israel by shrugging their shoulders and pretending it's to "psyche out the Zionists", as if Israel is so easily fooled but random anons on social media know the secret truth.
I don't understand why folks like you don't appreciate the importance of clarifying the facts about Russian policy. Why should people continue believing in lies and use them as the foundation of their worldviews?
Do you know how difficult it is to formulate and implement policy? And how disrespectful it is to Russia's diplomats to insist that they're all a bunch of liars who don't really mean what they say and do?
And entire branch of the Russian government is discredited on a regular basis by NRPRs, it's beyond absurd, and NRPRs are the only people who do this. You never see pro-Iranians or pro-Chinese doubting the Ayatollah or Xi.
Just because a source is publically funded, does that necessarily mean that it cannot be a platform for different, even competing agendas ? After all in the US, media outlets are "privately" funded but appear to be channeled into specific agendas supporting a particular faction embedded in the vast government apparatus.
You're right, and I explained what that competing agenda is: the calculated creation of an artificial reality about Russian policy by members of Russia's global media ecosystem for what they truly believe to be the strategic purpose of improving its soft power.
The problem though is that many of Russia's friends and foes alike believe that everything published by its publicly financed media aligns with official policy, but that's not the case like I proved in this instance.
I very strongly believe that Russia's policies as they objective exist are sufficient for advancing its soft power interests and therefore disagree with manipulating perceptions about them. I don't believe that people should like a country based on a false understanding of its policies.
Its not sound logic to assume that media analysis that contradicts official Russian statements are necessarily false and that Russian officals are necessarily telling the truth. If needing a mediator could effect the perception of either Chinese or Indian prestige, that would provide a compelling reason for offical denials even if such mediation occurred. I think your emotionally hostility to the "amc" clouds your objectivity, propelling you to denounce them at every turn even if all you possess is a discrepancy in reports without any direct evidence to speak to the matter at hand.
You couldn't be more wrong:
1. I'm not "assuming" that the official Russian statement is always correct: I argued why those in doubt should defer to the Ambassador's words, citing what he previously said on the issue.
2. You're only arguing in defense of the conspiracy theory because you were exposed to it. Had you not been, then I very much doubt that you'd question the Ambassador's words.
3. There's no "emotional hostility": you seem personally offended by my critiques of the AMC, likely because the shoe fits. I simply detest liars and call them out. You don't have to read me.
4. Wrong again: I as a PhD-credentialed MGIMO (run by the Russian MFA) expert on South Asia (my dissertation was on Russian-Pakistani ties) have the right to question this conspiracy.
5. You embody one of the AMC's top problems: arrogant conspiracy theorists who spit in the face of facts and experts whenever their narrative is shattered by inconvenient facts.
I confess that I still cannot be convinced that Russian diplomacy played NO role. HOWEVER, I also believe that there are enough reasons for both Xi and Modi to take a conciliatory posture as both have enough domestic issues to worry about. For CCP China, the domestic business is much more difficult and it is nearly impossible to find a bright spot. For India, the domestic business is slightly better however, American pressure is still high; domestic population growth and unemployment are still high; and trouble-making neighbors or troubled neighbors are still all around, continued neutrality between the G7 and BRICS is theoretically optimal but practically difficult, to say it lightly. India did not want this border episode nor did India cause it. If it can be finished, at least for a while, it is a good news. So for all the long face of Modi, I think he is happy this episode is over. I think another episode will come whenever Chinese leaders need to distract their domestic audience.
If one insists, there may be suspicions about Russia's Foreign Ministry played the "Alibaba Trick" in the sense that in the past, Alibaba suppressed sales before 11/11 (by raising prices across the board). They count sales from a few days before 11/11 to a few days after 11/11 and claim the total sales were all for one day. I also heard news about fake orders taken then cancelled. But whether Alibaba did this or individual sellers did this is up to your imagination. The truth about this India-China detente can be observed further.
As for India's import of US weapons, please note that India did not get US weapons at a cabbage price, at least not always. India has not received US weapons for free. So you have to consider pricing. If Russian missile technology costs only 10% of US missiles, then an equal amount of purchase does not mean an equal alliance or dependency. Besides, India has lots of surplus in trades but not so much to buy (per domestic policies to cultivate domestic manufacturing) The same could be used to excuse Taiwan's frequent weapons purchase for obsolete US weapons at astronomical prices. However, other reasons seemed to exist as well.
Less we forget a few facts about the Buffalo Overlord of India (Modi). He is responsible for genocide in 2003/2004. India is #2 weapons buying client of the US. Modi is hugging buddy with Neo-Nazi Zionists like Benjamin Netanyahu. Modi is a fascist Hindu icon of India. And Modi is not even 1/4th educated when placed next to people like Putin and Xi Ping. Totally bogus this confederacy of thugs, just like their enemies in the West.
Those claims are irrelevant to my fact check, and they have absolutely zero influence on Russian policy in this regard. India is still Russia's #1 arms client, Putin is close friends with Bibi, and Putin has praised Modi (who he also considers a close friend) on multiple occasions.
India is still America's #1 arms client. Your fact check hardly matters, when the entire thing is based on cheap energy shared between a bunch of thugs, much like their opponents in the West. This geopolitical speculative generation is a great surrogate activity. Carry on...