In the early 1980s, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping coined the term “socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” which appears to translate as “total control for the Communist Party in a capitalist economy.”

after the fate that befell the country in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the coming of the Europeans. The imperial powers arrived, the British among them, and carved the country up into spheres of influence. It was, and is, the greatest humiliation the Chinese suffered since the Mongol invasions. This is a narrative the Communist Party

A few outside observers thought the postwar years might bring liberal democracy to China. It was wishful thinking akin to the naive nonsense Westerners wrote during the early days of the recent Arab Spring, which, as with China, was based on a lack of understanding of the internal dynamics of the people, politics, and geography of the region.

Nevertheless, the Yellow River is to China what the Nile is to Egypt—the cradle of its civilization, where its people learned to farm, and to make paper and gunpowder.

From the Grand Principality of Muscovy, through Peter the Great, Stalin, and now Putin, each Russian leader has been confronted by the same problems. It doesn’t matter if the ideology of those in control is czarist, Communist, or crony capitalist—the ports still freeze, and the North European Plain is still flat.

Russia loses about $2 billion in revenue for each dollar drop in the oil price and the Russian economy duly took the hit, bringing great hardship to many ordinary people,

LNG is unlikely to completely replace Russian gas, but it will strengthen what is a weak European hand in both price negotiation and foreign policy.

This is an economic battle based on geography and one of the modern examples where technology is being utilized in an attempt to beat the geographic restraints of earlier eras.

On average, 25 percent of Europe’s gas and oil comes from Russia; but often the closer a country is to Moscow, the greater its dependency. This in turn reduces that country’s foreign policy options. Latvia, Slovakia, Finland, and Estonia are 100 percent reliant on Russian gas; the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Lithuania are 80 percent dependent;