It is testimony to the complete faith in their self-created delusions that Atlanticist policymakers believed since the 1970s that a stronger China under the CCP would serve US-EU interests. Technology and capital were lavished on the country even after the original reason for backing it, getting its assistance against the USSR, perished in 1991. Only President George W. Bush understood that unhindered rise of China would be a threat to the US and the EU. That once 9/11 took place. From then onwards, until the second term of President Barack Obama, the “What’s good for the PRC is good for the US” school held sway. Osama bin Laden’s terror attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon awakened in the CCP the potential of the Wahhabi movement as an effective diversion that could keep Washington and its EU partners tethered to the Middle East and the Terror Archipelago, thereby giving the PRC unbridled latitude in pursuing their interests in Asia in particular. The Sino-Wahhabi alliance took deep roots. This alliance had begun in the 1970s, with the warmth shown by General Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan towards Beijing. GHQ Rawalpindi understood the need for Pakistan to get close to China to jointly hobble India. So what that the lucrative US-sponsored alliances that Pakistan had joined since the 1950s were explicitly against communism? Given the coming together of Washington and Beijing to take on Moscow, such a partnership was welcomed in Washington. Later, that country traded information to the Chinese side about the US side, and vice-versa. Pakistan’s assistance to China as a source of information about US weapons platforms was of particular value since the 1990s, although these days, even some within the Washington Beltway appears to have understood that GHQ Rawalpindi has anchored itself firmly in the PRC camp. Given the close, if closet, ties between the Wahhabi International and the CCP, the shift away from the USSR-US Cold War 1.0 to Cold War 2.0 has been unwelcome to both, especially the newfound US focus towards India. It is a relief to both Pakistan and China that President Joe Biden appears to have returned his country back into the groove of the earlier Cold War. Bureaucracies are reluctant to surrender their rationale and privileges, and it is no surprise that NATO, which was formed to prevent the USSR taking direct kinetic action against its members, has continued largely in its original form despite the collapse of that superpower. The alliance needed to configure itself totally to meet changing reality, but failed to do so. Neither did an Asian version of NATO get formed, with not just west Europe but Washington being convinced that the original construct was sufficient. Instead, what took place was NATO’s continuation of the policy of regarding Russia as the enemy, and the Atlantic remaining as the primary theatre of significance rather than the Indo-Pacific. NATO was proving to be less than useful in a changing security environment but such heresy was refuted not only by the Atlanticist lobby in the US but the separate and well-funded Sino-Wahhabi lobby operating across both shores of the Atlantic. The combination of the two has helped ensure that attempts at a shift of focus to an Asian NATO remained stillborn. The consequence is that Biden’s 2021 retreat from Afghanistan has been followed by a still more disastrous shift back to Cold War 1.0. For long the White House refused to accept that a PRC unconstrained from emerging as a technological superpower poses a much bigger threat to the US than the USSR ever did. The CCP leadership by contrast was fully aware of this reality, and from the start understood that a parting of ways with the US was inevitable. Unlike successive US Presidents who signed on to the Wall Street axiom that an empowered China was ideal for US interests, the Chinese leadership from Mao onwards understood the gravity of the contradictions between the interests of both, all the while hiding such views and biding their time. Only much later was the CCP strategy of displacing the US as the centrepoint of global geopolitical gravity outed by Xi Jinping early into his term in office as CCP General Secretary. Vladimir Putin understands that the relationship between Moscow and Beijing is a marriage of convenience that lacks any fundamental congruence on the evolving imperatives of the 21st century. Xi’s China seeks to displace Putin’s Russia as the primary influence even in theatres where China was scarcely visible, such as Central Asia or the Middle East. A slow takeover of Siberian territory is taking place through demographic change caused by migration from China. The US President seems to believe that China would assist him avoid the very contingency that would most meet CCP interests, which is locking NATO into the developing European quagmire. In contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fully aware of Sino-Russian faultlines, hence his friendly policy towards Putin’s Russia. The policy of reverting back to Cold War 1.0 being followed by Biden has made the Sino-Russian alliance stronger than it ever was. Xi should thank Biden for such selfless promotion of PRC interests. MDN