ChessMonopoly (Part 2)

On the visits by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chinese President Xi Jinping

Master, how do we defeat the enemy?

Well, by doing nothing – except waiting.

While we develop our strengths,

he develops his weaknesses.

While we let the springs of life flow,

he lets them run dry.

While we are the water,

he becomes hard as stone.

While we control the direction,

he controls the directions.

While he speaks of freedom,

we take our freedom.

The enemy defeats himself, and

the flood will pour over the stones.

In late January, ChessMonopoly put forward the argument that war between the U.S. and China is not imminent but has long since begun – not in the traditional form of open military confrontation, but through the containment of China’s geopolitical influence, the U.S.’s undermining of China’s resource security, and China’s response to this, such as by restricting the supply of rare earth elements. Ukraine, Venezuela, Greenland, and Europe did not appear in this context as separate crisis zones, but as pieces in a comprehensive geopolitical game in which economic pressure, sanctions, resource policy, media power, trade wars, and military threats are intertwined. My analysis of the nature of American politics in The Other Side of the Coin and my New Year’s wishes for 2023, in which I elaborate on the dimensions of modern warfare as a further development of the concept of Network Centric Warfare, may help in understanding this perspective.

People around the world were probably rubbing their eyes in disbelief: What had this summit between the leaders of the world’s two most powerful industrial nations actually produced – besides pretty pictures, grand words, and a White House statement that has already labeled itself “historic”? President Trump reportedly reached agreement with President Xi on issues intended to strengthen stability and trust worldwide. Mentioned are strategic stability, fairness, and reciprocity; joint statements on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and North Korea; and the establishment of new trade and investment councils. That sounds like world politics on a grand scale. Yet it remains to be seen whether this describes substance – or whether diplomatic platitudes are meant to appear more significant than they actually are due to the grandeur of the stage.

The statement becomes particularly concrete where American successes are listed: Boeing aircraft, agricultural purchases, beef, poultry, rare earths, and critical minerals. This is politically exploitable at home and by no means economically insignificant. But does that alone make it a historic agreement between two major powers? It is striking that the statement describes in great detail what is supposed to benefit American workers, farmers, and industry, while it is barely discernible what the Chinese counterpart consists of. That is precisely the sore spot: an agreement is not a one-sided victory announcement, but rather a visible understanding between different parties. As long as it remains unclear what China stands to gain from this package, the claimed reciprocity also requires explanation.

The findings become even more interesting when compared with the Chinese narrative. The Chinese Foreign Ministry speaks of “constructive strategic stability,” but the emphasis shifts significantly: The focus is not on American gains, but on containing the conflict between the great powers, the equality of the negotiations, and the formula of mutual benefit. Where Washington counts victories, Beijing speaks of consultation on equal terms. Where the White House addresses specific American industries, China emphasizes the joint management of relations, the limitation of competition, and the handling of differences. This is not merely a matter of style. It shows that both sides are using the same meeting to advance different political narratives.

Perhaps this is precisely where the true message of this summit lies. For Washington, it is meant to prove that Trump can persuade China to make concessions. For Beijing, it is meant to show that China is not yielding to the United States, but rather standing opposite it as an equal power. The American statement reads like a list of achievements; the Chinese one like a manifesto of strategic self-assertion. Between the two texts, then, there is less a contradiction than a gap: one side lists gains, the other preserves status, face, and interpretive authority. Perhaps that is precisely what the agreement is: not the resolution of major conflicts, but a provisional understanding to continue managing them – with enough concrete substance for Washington and enough symbolic equality for Beijing.

The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin reads differently. Here, the focus is not on individual economic gains, nor on the question of which sector, which state, or which industry stands to benefit directly. Rather, the Chinese narrative frames the visit as a confirmation of a mature strategic relationship: thirty years of strategic partnership, twenty-five years of a treaty on good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation, a relationship said to be based on equality, mutual respect, and “win-win” cooperation. This is not the language of a deal, but of endurance. Where Washington counts results, Beijing, in relation to Moscow, counts history, reliability, and institutionalized closeness. The visit is thus portrayed less as a breakthrough than as a reaffirmation of an already existing political state of affairs. According to the Chinese account, both sides also agreed to further extend the Treaty on Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.

In practical terms, the visit was by no means empty, yet the very nature of the sources is part of the assessment. The Chinese side officially speaks of twenty cooperation documents signed in the presence of both presidents, covering areas including the economy and trade, education, science, and technology. At the same time, Beijing cites further fields of practical cooperation: energy, resources, transportation, investment, innovation, and cultural exchange. International reports on the Russian account frame the package as larger, citing more than forty documents or agreements covering the economy, energy, transportation, and international cooperation. This alone reveals a shift: Beijing documents events in a controlled and institutional manner; Moscow needs the larger package, the greater impression, the larger number.

It remains striking, however, how little is quantified publicly. The total value of the agreements is unknown. The Chinese side does point out that bilateral trade has exceeded the $200 billion mark for the third consecutive year and grew by nearly twenty percent in the first four months of 2026. This underscores the material significance of the relationship. But it does not replace an assessment of the newly concluded agreements themselves. Unlike the White House statement on Trump and China, in which Boeing aircraft, agricultural purchases, market access, and specific raw material issues are explicitly cited as American successes, the Russian-Chinese results remain broader, more sectoral, and less tangible. They indicate direction and consolidation, but hardly any verifiable economic figures.

The most critical issue remains energy – and that is precisely where the limitations of the visit become apparent. Russia would have had a strong interest in being able to showcase the long-negotiated breakthrough on Power of Siberia 2. According to Reuters, this pipeline is intended to deliver up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Russia to China via Mongolia and is particularly important for Russia because access to European energy markets has been severely restricted since the war against Ukraine. Yet the major deal failed to materialize: While Reuters reports a general understanding regarding the route and construction method, it also notes that price, timeline, and key contract details remain unresolved; no official oil or gas contracts were announced during the visit. The fact that Gazprom shares came under pressure after the meeting – in part due to the continued lack of a pipeline deal – shows that the markets did not view the visit as a clear breakthrough in energy policy.

Beneath the surface of this demonstrative closeness, however, an imbalance remains. Russia bears the heavier burdens: it needs China as a market, as political backing, and as a way out of Western isolation. China benefits from Russian raw materials, alternative supply routes, and strategic relief, but commits itself only to the extent that it does not jeopardize its own room for maneuver vis-à-vis the U.S. This explains why the partnership, while officially appearing to be a relationship of equals, seems materially more asymmetrical. Moscow seeks recognition as an equal great power; Beijing treats Russia more as an indispensable but not equally strong partner.

This leads to a sobering conclusion: Putin’s visit yielded many agreements, but no major deal publicly quantified. It strengthened the Russian-Chinese relationship politically, institutionally, and symbolically; but publicly, at least, it fulfilled neither Russia’s desire for a decisive breakthrough in energy policy nor the deeper desire for genuine equality. China offers Russia proximity, a platform, and strategic backing, but not at any price. Russia can frame the visit as a counterpoint to isolation. China demonstrates that it engages with Russia without allowing itself to be bound by Russia.

Be brave: Analyze today and shape tomorrow –

ideally in a way that also serves the day after tomorrow.

Otherwise, you’ll have to live with the consequences tomorrow

of what you failed to address today.

Just as you’re already experiencing today.

So what did these two meetings achieve in the global game of Chess-Monopoly? Trump’s visit was less about resolving the conflict than about attempting to contain it, exploring mutual interests, and keeping escalations under control without abandoning the fundamental strategic rivalry. Putin’s visit, in turn, strengthened the symbolic and institutional closeness between Moscow and Beijing, but did not yield any discernible breakthrough that would have decisively bolstered the multipolar approach against U.S. hegemonic ambitions. In this respect, the narrative that China is the real winner of these two visits is certainly cast into doubt.

Certainly: The U.S. efforts are hitting China at a thoroughly sensitive juncture. On its journey since 1949 – when life expectancy was 28 years and the illiteracy rate stood at 80% – to becoming the world’s second-largest economic power today, it has undergone a significant transformation that I have classified as humanity’s greatest civilizational achievement. The Chinese leadership’s promise of prosperity to its own people – expressed in the goal of the “Chinese Dream” (Zhongguo Meng), namely the transformation into a fully developed, prosperous, modern, and strong socialist country by the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic in 2049, as well as in the slogan “Common Prosperity” (Gongtong Fuyu), through which social inequality is to be reduced – depends primarily on China’s continued success in the global market.

However, China cannot ignore the fact that the U.S. has significantly intensified its efforts to curb China’s development. This conflict finds a significant continuation in the war against Iran, which violates international law. Under the guise of the “nuclear weapons issue,” the goal is not only to gain access to Iran’s natural resources and contain its influence in the Middle East – but also to give free rein to Israel’s expansion and to gain even greater control over the Middle East as a geopolitical hub. In addition to weakening the strategic axis of China, Russia, and Iran, the aim is specifically to exert influence over China’s energy security. While Venezuela accounts for 4 percent of China’s crude oil imports, Iran already accounts for approximately 14 percent.

This is precisely why the meeting was not a breakthrough. Following the summit, Reuters reported a lack of major progress, a fragile trade truce, and that even the economic outcomes remained, in part, provisional. Compounding this, U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent spoke openly within the G7 framework about wanting to confront China with data on imbalances and export distortions. This is the crucial point: The U.S. wants relief, but not an end to the rivalry; it wants business and pressure at the same time. Beijing, in turn, wants stability, but not at the cost of its own strategic erosion.

When it comes to the actions of the US and China, it is worth drawing on the comparison between chess and Go – between checkmate and territory. In chess, the goal is to checkmate the opponent’s king; in Go, it is to enclose more territory than the opponent. The German strategy toward China puts it even more precisely: “Unlike chess, Weiqi is not about checkmating the opponent, but about securing advantageous positions and defending so-called ‘liberties.’” Historically, China’s strategic instinct has been less focused on abruptly eliminating the opponent than on gradually gaining territory, connections, and options for action.

It is precisely this Chinese patience that is now reaching its limit. At the same time, signs of China’s determination to overcome these limits are beginning to emerge. For what the West often labels as competition, deterrence, or “de-risking” increasingly appears, from Beijing’s perspective, as a systematic undermining of conditions for development: pressure on markets, supply chains, access to technology, sea lanes, and, not least, on China’s partners. This new toughness became particularly evident in early May 2026. For the first time, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce invoked the existing legal framework against unjustified extraterritorial measures and prohibited the recognition, enforcement, or compliance with certain U.S. sanctions against five Chinese companies in connection with Iranian oil. The rules themselves had been in place since 2021; what was new was their concrete application in a sensitive geopolitical arena.

This was more than just an administrative act. It was a signal that Beijing is beginning not only to assert its sovereignty but also to put it into practice in areas where restraint had previously prevailed: in the third-party relationships of Chinese companies that Washington seeks to subject to its sanctions regime. In Chinese idiomatic expression, this is captured by the phrase jie ling hai xu xi ling ren: Whoever hung the bell on the tiger must also take it off again. It identifies not only the source of the problem but also the responsibility for its consequences: Washington created the extraterritorial reach of its sanctions; Beijing is now beginning to no longer accept this reach as the norm.

From this perspective, it becomes clear why Russia and Iran do not appear as secondary players in this analysis. For China, Russia is not merely an energy source but strategic depth: a continental counterweight, a stabilizing factor in the Eurasian region, and an actor that prevents Washington from penetrating Europe and East Asia according to the same pattern. Iran, in turn, beyond all moral and regional controversies, is for China above all a key factor in ensuring energy security and a strategic partner in the “New Silk Road” project. Thus, anyone who systematically weakens Russia’s or Iran’s room for maneuver affects not only regional conflicts but also China’s development trajectory.

Therefore, China must recognize: If you want to remain water, you must not allow yourself to be forced into the rhythm of the stone. However, if China, in the face of aggressive American action, proceeds according to the adage “Wash my fur, but don’t get me wet” and fails to take a clearer stance on Russia – for example, by deciding to finance Power of Siberia 2 and by strengthening Russia’s position to achieve true equality – as well as on Iran, it will weaken its strategic space and allow the U.S. to dictate the terms of the game. Paris Saint-Germain serves as an illustration: with Messi, Neymar, and Mbappé, the club never managed to win the Champions League. Only when all the players put the team above all else did success come – and perhaps it will soon again.

This inevitably brings BRICS and SOZ into focus. They allow for consolidation without formal bloc ties, alternative spaces free of imperial grandstanding, and transactional capacity even when Western sanctions, tariffs, and security logics constrict traditional room for maneuver. If China views its commitment to these as a safeguard for its own development path, it cannot help but see itself, without exaggeration, as part of a team. One of its essential tasks then consists of strengthening the team down to its weakest link and increasing its resilience against what is to come – in order to be sufficiently robust itself. Beijing must translate its own logic more consistently into political action: otherwise, it runs the risk of succumbing when the time comes. Water remains water – supple, patient, sensitive to space. But water that does not protect its tributaries, its partners, and its spaces becomes stagnant. In light of current developments, the phase of defensive territorial gain must be followed by the more active securing and development of space.

Every era has its own challenges.

You have to recognize them and face them head-on.

Looking at the other side, one negative trend is so obvious that it’s almost easy to overlook: the West’s exorbitant, unchecked arms race. The U.S. remains the military core of this bloc: in 2025, its military spending stood at $954 billion, according to SIPRI; more than one trillion dollars has already been approved for 2026, and the budget proposal for 2027 targets up to 1.5 trillion dollars. Europe is following suit: SIPRI estimates the real increase in European military spending in 2025 at 14 percent, with European NATO member states collectively spending 559 billion dollars. Added to this are the political targets: NATO estimates for 2025 place the Allies at or above the two-percent threshold, while the EU is laying the financial groundwork for a longer-term arms buildup with “ReArm Europe / Readiness 2030.”

Through a creative variety of Russophobic, Islamophobic, and Sinophobic arguments, enemy stereotypes and threats of attack are manufactured to justify political decisions and pacify the population regarding debt, social cuts, and economic weakening. In purely factual terms, however, rearmament initially signifies an admission of a real loss of power, as colonial and neocolonial behavior is increasingly reaching its limits. This loss of power is met with an expansion of military and geo-economic force. Humanity – as the bearer of education, technical breadth, social cohesion, and judgment – takes a back seat to the logic of armament, deterrence, and bloc resilience.

Becoming aware of these truths is essential. The West is not losing power merely because others are rising. It loses power above all where it squanders its own resources: through rearmament instead of renewal, enemy stereotypes instead of self-examination, distraction instead of education, and the stoking of fear instead of the development of capabilities. Its response to China cannot consist of making the world even more closed off. It must consist of making its own society capable of development once again.

For otherwise, a glaring weakness intensifies: Western-style democracy, once a civilizational advance against the law of the jungle, contradicts itself where it conceals exploitation, resource depletion, and social impoverishment behind rhetoric of freedom. Out of a lack of respect for human beings and their means of subsistence, the West is currently undermining the very potential that would enable it to remain competitive through peaceful means: its human capital. Instead of strengthening the cognitive, personal, mental, social, physical, and technical capabilities of the population across society, the prevailing social model treats them primarily as a cost factor. Instead of promoting cognitive diversity to strengthen innovative capacity and resilience, it is being severely weakened by distraction, media simplification, and consumerist sedation.

While the West thus loses its moral and social cohesion from within and robs itself of its competitiveness, it simultaneously creates the conditions for its competitors to mobilize their human resources. Iran does not grow weaker when Western promises manifest as bombs, sanctions, and civilian casualties; Russia does not grow weaker when its own population interprets Western pressure as an attack on its very existence; and China does not grow weaker as long as it can convey to its people the prospect of advancement, prosperity, and national rejuvenation. It is precisely here that the dangerous misjudgment lies: those who seek to break other societies from the outside may end up strengthening their internal cohesion.

Therein lies the real irony. The West is trying to contain China, but at the same time, this policy is accelerating the consolidation of those spheres into which China can retreat and which it can strengthen. It is countering Russia’s strategic reach and thereby increasing its dependence on China. It is subjecting Iran to constant pressure, making its stability all the more relevant to Beijing. It calls for resilience yet narrows its own room for maneuver by translating competition less and less into productive renewal and more and more into security-oriented management. Therein lies a fundamental strategic error: It is not toughness that matters, but direction.

Thus, the earth is indeed spinning faster, and the momentum is currently coming primarily from the West. Not because the West has grown stronger, but because it is increasingly translating its restlessness into pressure. It is precisely this pressure that pushes the world further east – deeper into alternative forums, deeper into the necessity of gaining new freedoms to escape systematic constriction. If this succeeds, the old Chinese patience will not be refuted, but strengthened. Then the opponent will defeat itself through the consequences of its own actions. Then the water will no longer merely flow around the stone. Then it will begin to become direction.

We have to step off the path

in order to get back on track.

In the same way, the West must break free from systemic constraints and stop trying to compensate for its loss of power through rearmament, aggression, and the creation of enemy stereotypes. It might find a methodological inspiration for this in none other than Elon Musk, a maverick par excellence. He feels constrained by the game of chess; he wants to add new dimensions in order to dominate by mastering the wealth of variations. He limits himself through the goal: Yet that does not devalue the method of increasing complexity so that some things become simpler.

Applied to this, it means: The West must make itself a pioneer of civilizational progress and dominate the Sixth Kondratieff.

If the bulk of work consists of intangible mental labor – that is, work that takes place in the realm of the mind – and if, as a result, a lack of knowledge and negative (malicious) behaviors limit its impact, then the scarcity factors of the Sixth Kondratieff are virtues that are not sufficiently embedded across society. These virtues must take root in society to the extent that they are truly beneficial. Just as a steam engine, a car, or even a computer consists of several parts, the foundational innovation of the Sixth Kondratieff must be a concept comprising a number of individual projects, through which the virtues already existing in the realm of thought are brought into the real world and anchored in such a way that they enable every individual, from within society, to develop and exert an influence in accordance with their own path. And so the opportunity for the West under discussion can also be expressed as follows: to combine the humanization of the ape with democracy and to provide the Sixth Kondratieff’s foundational innovation for this purpose. Not to lead the peoples into the Promised Land like Moses, but to motivate and empower them to penetrate deeper into the conceptual space, so that from there they may act nobly, helpfully, and well in the real world: to process impulses, seek ideas and alternatives, develop visions, question things, recognize connections, and engage with their own thoughts and actions. With all the implications for psychosocial health, climate protection, easing global tensions, dealing with technological progress, overcoming challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and much more.

And so we come to my Aphorisms for the humanization of the ape. There is no other path – except, perhaps, that of civilization’s gradual or rapid demise.

The Earth is spinning faster,

and the impetus for this comes from the West.

It propels the East further eastward,

ultimately bringing it to the West.

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