In a pointed reference to the Chinese leadership by name, the Russian state news agency Tass took note of Beijing’s criticism of the US aggression against Venezuela. Unsurprisingly, Tass quoted a third party, Karin Kneissl, former Austrian foreign minister and the current head of the G.O.R.K.I. centre at St. Petersburg State University — a well-known echo chamber  of the Kremlin establishment — to flag  that China’s president Xi Jinping kept mum on the topic. 

Kneissl herself showed understanding for Xi’s reticence lest he’d have been expressing a personal reaction, considering that “Still it is a personalised policy that Trump pursues. It means that if someone wants to respond to it, they will actually have to do the same. At the end of the day, we see statements from the Chinese Foreign Ministry and press releases from various other places, but what has really happened?” 

Kneissl pointed out that Brazilian President Lula beat his ineffectual wings in the void in vain because he was acting “alone.” Kneissl also took a swipe at the BRICS grouping to underscore it’s a toothless grouping. In her words, “We talk about BRICS a lot, but BRICS is a forum, not an organisation. BRICS has no mechanisms. Dozens of seminars and conferences are held, but it is still just a platform for dialogue… there is no BRICS secretary general who could say: ‘We will now take some action.’ There is simply no way of doing so.” 

That was an unkind cut since Russia and China had plentiful opportunity to mould BRICS as an anti-imperialist platform but let it pass with great deliberation. 

Coincidence or not, the Tass interview with Kremlin interview with Kneissl appeared within the week of a ‘good conversation’ between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday with his American counterpart Marco Rubio during which they discussed “trade, critical minerals, nuclear cooperation, defence and energy.” 

Apparently, the US aggression against Venezuela didn’t even........

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