Why Russia Is Enormously Under-Rated

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Written by Eric Zuesse

The speculations in the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) that Ukrainian troops and NATO weapons and guidance will achieve victory against Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine are receding (if not already disappearing) down the memory-hole of U.S-empire propaganda; and, so, the time has arrived for an analysis of that memory-hole itself, to see what has been forgotten or else never known to the public.

As I have previously documented, Russia has achieved, ever since Putin came into power in 2000, a rate of economic growth that is almost as steep as China’s, and vastly higher than America’s or any of America’s colonies. The stagnation now is in The West, not in The East. And the growth is especially in China and Russia. But the U.S. regime resolutely refuses to acknowledge Russia’s success. Even more, it refuses to acknowledge America’s decline (which is blatant). And even more than that: it hides the fact that the imperial regime, U.S. Government itself, is doing as well as it is, only by exploiting its European colonies and Japan (America’s biggest colony in The East), which are therefore doing even worse than America itself is. This is the traditional result in any empire — exploitation of its colonies — and it’s certainly the case regarding every one of America’s colonies except South Korea (whose economy is unique in the American empire, for performing better than America’s does — though still not as well as the global average).

The reason why South Korea is performing better than the imperial power isn’t yet clear, but all of the at least major nations in the empire are performing significantly worse than the global average; and both China and Russia (the two major Asian powers) are performing significantly better than any of those U.S.-empire nations is — and significantly better than the global average.

As to which nations are democracies, and which are dictatorships, the only nation that has been empirically studied in depth on that question is the United States, which in all of the studies shows as being very clearly a dictatorship by its super-rich (wealthiest 0.01%, and especially by its almost a thousand billionaires), no democracy at all. Furthermore, a NATO-affiliated poll taken in 53 countries during 2022, asked in each country whether they agree with the statement, “My country is democratic,” and the highest percentage who said Yes amongst all of the 53 countries surveyed was China, at 83%. 2nd-highest was Vietnam, at 77%. The U.S. was worse than average, and was tied at #s 40&41, out of the 53 nations, with Colombia, at 49%. Barely less than half its citizens said that they live in a democracy. Tied for #s 44&45 were Peru and Russia, at 46% each. So: if America — which is the only country that has been scientifically analyzed to determine whether it is a democracy, and it has consistently been found NOT to be — is less of a dictatorship than Russia is, it’s only slightly less of a dictatorship than Russia is.

Moreover, the United States has a higher percentage of its people living in prisons than does any other country on the planet — it is authentically #1 on that, at 639 prisoners per 100,000 residents — whereas Russia is #25 on that, at 341. China is #117 (tied with Tajikistan) at  only121. (Vietnam has 128 per hundred thousand, slightly worse than China.) So: on that measure, Russia isn’t nearly as bad as America, and China is significantly better than both. America is the world’s top police-state. But we already know that it is a dictatorship.

Furthermore: on 8 December 2023, Gallup headlined so as for their article to get as few viewers as possible, “Russian Life in 6 Charts”, and reported actually a number of key realities that the U.S. regime wants its public not to know, such as that “Russians See Economic Uptick and Brighter Living Standards Ahead” “Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs to Record Heights” and in Russia “Most Are Satisfied With Personal Freedoms, More Divided on Media” and “Feelings of Safety Reach Record High Among Russians” and also “Russians’ Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs; U.S. and Germany Flat.”

This last one might have been showing that whereas 71% of Chinese answered Yes to “Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of [your country]?” the comparable percentage regarding the people in Germany was 10%, and the comparable percentage regarding U.S. was 6%. However, (in accord with the need by Gallup — a frequent U.S. Government contractor — to hide instead of draw public attention to, information that the regime wants the public not to know), Gallup left unanswered there what the phrase “U.S. and Germany Flat” actually meant. It probably meant only that Russians disliked Germany’s leadership and disliked America’s leadership even more — and that Russians (NOT Chinese) rated China’s leadership 71% favorably. Gallup’s report said nothing about how Russians view Russia’s own leadership. Probably the reason for this is that the U.S. regime doesn’t want the public to know that the reason that Putin has been winning re-elections ever since 2000 is that his leadership of Russia has been stellar, easily beating that of the U.S. or any U.S. colony (‘ally’).

And would the U.S. regime want the American people to know that whereas in America, Joe Biden’s leadership gets only a 39% job-approval rating, and historically going back to America’s worst-ever President Truman in 1945, American Presidents have averaged only a 50% job-approval rating from Americans, Putin, ever since he came into power has averaged a 75% job-approval-rating from Russians (and it’s even higher now at 80%)? So, instead, the U.S. regime’s propaganda-media hide that reality, and pretend that Putin is a ‘dictator’. And they hide all of the facts that were in this Gallup article and headlined it as “Russian Life in 6 Charts” — which is less interesting than any of those facts are.

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So: what IS the job-approval-rating of China’s leader, Xi Jinping? On 20 December 2014, The Diplomat headlined “The World’s Most Popular Leader: China’s President Xi” and reported:

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation co-sponsored a survey on global perceptions of international leaders. The results, released this month, were based on polls of citizens in 30 countries around the world, who were asked about their familiarity with and approval of 10 world leaders. According to the survey, Chinese President Xi Jinping had the highest approval rating, both at home and abroad. Xi earned a composite 8.7 rating (out of 10), beating Russian President Vladimir Putin (8.1) for the top spot.

Both Putin and Xi had astonishingly high domestic approval ratings, with Xi at 9 out of 10 and Putin at 8.7 (for comparison, U.S. President Barack Obama scored 6.2). International perceptions, however, set Xi and Putin apart. The Russian President scored only a 6 when being evaluated by foreigners, dead last among the 10 leaders included in the survey. Xi got a 7.5, just edging out Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 7.3. Xi was viewed particularly favorably in Asian countries (except Japan and Vietnam), as well as Africa.

Of course, that was being reported just a few months after America’s Obama regime had grabbed Ukraine in a bloody coup that he hid behind mass anti-corruption demonstrations in Ukraine in February 2014; so, since the U.S. propaganda-factory had been portraying Putin instead of Obama as the global villain, the low international approval-rating for Putin is understandable.

After the propaganda against China starting with the Trump regime in 2017, America’s Pew Research Center reported on 27 July 2023 its polling in 24 countries, mainly U.S. colonies, concerning the person’s “confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” and found that mainly they had “none at all” and the 24-country median was 74% hostile toward him. Propaganda (such as from the Trump and Biden White House) can cause a political leader’s (such as Xi’s) polls (such as in U.S.-and-‘allied’ countries) to turn upside-down virtually overnight.

The Chinese Canadian Xiaoming Guo headlined on 29 September 2022, “What is the approval rating for Chinese president Xi Jinping?” and wrote:

There are no approval ratings in China domestically. China does not depend on polls to govern. The west does not depend on polls to govern either. The west depends on polls for election campaigns. The politicians of the west depend on polls to design their campaign strategies for attracting more ballots. They are, in essence, not leaders but echo to polls. They are populists. When the west says they are leaders, they actually manipulate public opinions through polls, statistics, and rhetoric. They manipulate public opinions so that voters believe in what is not necessarily true.

Xi, on the other hand, is a true leader who just does whatever is good for the people, regardless of what kind of poll is. Xi accomplished a few things that win the hearts of the Chinese people. One of them is cracking down on corruption. It is a significant turn. …

But Western polling firms have polled in China on how the citizenry feel about their Government. I headlined on 24 March 2023, “How Nations’ Citizens Rate Their Own Government” and reported from the Edelman Trust Barometer: For “Trust in Government,” China ranked #1 at 91%. For “Trust in Media,” China ranked #1 at 80%. For “Trust in Business,” China ranked #1 at 84%. U.S. scored around 40% in each, and Russia scored around 30% in each. Just about the only thing that Russians trust is the nation’s leader — which the U.S. and its colonies want to “regime-change.” They want to do to Russia and to China what they did to Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.; and, so, the propaganda-media are demonizing (for “regime-change”) Putin and Xi. 

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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