Some excerpts from the article:

 The problem is that the US economy has become dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of US Treasury securities. China today is the largest holder of dollar reserves in the form of US Treasury paper worth an estimated US$825 billion. Were Beijing to decide to exit the US bond market, even in part, it would cause a dollar free-fall and collapse of the $7 trillion US real-estate market, a wave of US bank failures, and huge unemployment. It's a real option, even if unlikely at the moment.

Hu, though, didn't waste time or tears over the Bush affront. He immediately went to Saudi Arabia for a three-day state visit where he signed trade, defense and security agreements. This is no small slap in the face to Washington by the traditionally "loyal" Saudi royal house.

Hu signed a deal for Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) of Saudi Arabia to build a $5.2 billion oil refinery and petrochemical project in northeastern China. At the beginning of this year, Saudi King Abdullah was in Beijing for a full state visit.

Since the Franklin D Roosevelt-King Ibn Saud deal giving US Aramco and not the British exclusive concession to develop Saudi oil in 1943, Saudi Arabia has been regarded in Washington as a core strategic sphere of interest.

Hu then went on to Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya, all regarded as US spheres of interest. And only two months ago Rumsfeld was in Morocco to offer US arms. Hu is offering to finance energy exploration there.

Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, said, "The US's long-term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance."

Washington had based its strategy on Kazakhstan being its key partner in Central Asia. The US wants to expand its physical control over Kazakhstan's oil reserves and formalize Kazakh oil transportation via the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, as well as creating the dominant US role in Caspian Sea security. But Kazakhstan isn't playing ball. President Nursultan Nazarbayev went to Moscow on April 3 to reaffirm his continued dependence on Russian oil pipelines. And China is making major energy and pipeline deals with Kazakhstan as well.

To make Washington's geopolitical problems worse, despite securing a major US military basing deal with Uzbekistan after September 2001, Washington's relations with Uzbekistan are disastrous. The US effort to isolate President Islam Karimov, along the lines of the Ukrainian "orange" revolution tactics, is not working. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Tashkent late last month.

As well, Tajikistan relies heavily on Russia's support. In Kyrgyzstan, despite covert US attempts to create dissensions within the regime, President Kurmanbek Bakiev's alliance with Moscow-backed Prime Minister Felix Kulov is holding.

In the space of 12 months, Russia and China have managed to move the pieces on the geopolitical chess board of Eurasia away from what had been an overwhelming US strategic advantage, to the opposite, where the US is increasingly isolated. It's potentially the greatest strategic defeat for the US power projection of the post-World War II period. This is also the strategic background to the re-emergence of the so-called realist faction in US policy.