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Could Russia become a vassal state? Famed “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb seems the think so.
A vassal state is a region or country where the ruler owes allegiance to a larger or more powerful state. Russia, said Taleb is i the first stage of becoming one for China.
“Phase I of the transformation of Russia into a Chinese vassal state. Not necessarily a bad thing for stability as Pax Sinica may come with some adult supervision of the Kremlin,” he tweeted.
He continued, “Of course, subjugation starts by bowing to the owner’s currency.”
Taleb is a Lebanese-American author, mathematician and statistician. His research mainly focuses on problems of uncertainty, probability, and randomness.
His 2007 book, “The Black Swan,” was named one of the 12 most influential books since World War II. The book explores his black swan theory, which is a successful strategy he utilized as a derivatives trader.
Taleb isn’t the only one to predict this fate for Russia. So does, John Dobson, a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently Visiting Fellow at the University of Plymouth.
Recently in an article for the Sunday Guardian Live, he wrote, “Russia is indisputably the junior partner to a more powerful China, a country obsessed by correcting historical humiliations and retaining its position of global leadership. And here there is a certain irony as China turns the tables on Russia.”
According to Dobson, there has been a shift in the relationship between the two countries.
“When Chairman Mao Zedong visited Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the winter of 1949, he was very much the junior supplicant. Stalin packed him off to wait for weeks in his snow-bound No 2 dacha, 27 kilometers outside Moscow, and when the two Communist leaders did get to business, Stalin bullied his way to a very favorable deal that put Mao on the hook to buy Russian arms and heavy machinery with a loan on which Beijing would have to pay substantial interest,” he wrote.
But the power structure has changed. He notes, “Now it’s the Russian President who goes to Beijing pleading for help. Slowly but surely, Russia is becoming a vassal state of China.”
Photo: Nassim Nicholas Taleb http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pictures.htm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taleb_mug.JPG
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