But doing so would not only reduce the value of its reserves as the dollar weakened it would also jeopardize US demand for Chinese imports, leading to job losses and instability in China.

So Russia s attempts to bring these countries to heel are likely to continue and remain a bone of contention and conflict.

If France is brought to its knees and Germany doesn t stand by its partner unwaveringly and with everything that it has to offer, the European catastrophe will be complete.

A decade after the 1998 crisis brought Russia to its knees, its leaders boasted that the country could weather the 2008 financial crisis.

This owes much to the humiliations that Russia suffered when the end of communism forced its economy to its knees, and to Western short sightedness about Russia s fundamental strengths and resilience.

On April 25, two videos went viral on social media showing a teenage girl in Anxin being forced to knee down. Another girl dressed in black slaps her on the face, pulls her hair, kicks her and beats her with a rod, forcing her to take off all her clothes.