One Belt, One Road | Eurasian Century Unstoppable

There has never been a period in which China’s diplomats were more active on the global stage.
Under President Xi, the Chinese leadership has substantially stepped up its foreign policy
ambitions, heavily expanding the scope of its activities in the region and its global reach.
By altering long-standing traditions of relative restraint and adjusting key foreign policy
priorities, Beijing is engineering a new course in global affairs. Enlarge map.

Moritz Rudolf (Oct 04, 2016) - In autumn 2013, Chairman of the CCP and President of the PRC, Xi Jinping, announced the “One Belt, One Road (OBOR)” initiative. This core element of a more pro-active Chinese foreign policy comprises of the land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt”, and the “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century”. The OBOR initiative by far exceeds the development of linear connections between Europe and Asia. In fact, Beijing strives to establish a comprehensive Eurasian infrastructure network. Trans-regional corridors are to link the land and sea routes. As the primary investor and architect of the Eurasian infrastructure networks, Beijing is creating new China-centred pipeline, railway and transport networks. In addition to this the Chinese leadership is focused on the expansion of deep-sea ports, particularly those in the Indian Ocean.

With the OBOR the Chinese leadership is primarily pursuing three main goals: (1) Economic diversification; (2) Political stability and (3) the Development of a multi-polar global order. From an economic perspective, China strives that the development of new trade routes, markets and energy sources will result in growth impulses and at the same time reduce dependencies. Projects linked to the OBOR are to once again fill the order books of Chinese SOEs which are presently suffering from over-capacities. Furthermore, with the expansion of the Eurasian transport infrastructure Beijing aims to lay the foundations for China-centered production networks, for instance with Chinese companies relocating production to South-East Asia. Politically speaking, the Chinese leadership hopes that the OBOR initiative stabilizes Beijing’s western Provinces, as well as the neighboring trouble spots, like Pakistan or Afghanistan. As China finances most infrastructure projects Beijing is also able to increase its political influence. Many countries along the Silk Roads depend on Chinese infrastructure investments.

The overarching goal is to be an active part in the establishment of a multi-polar world-order. China seeks to play a constructive role in the reform the international system. The OBOR-Initiative is intended to be the foundation of a new type of international relations. The Chinese leadership speaks of the establishment of a “community of common destiny”. Core elements are more connectivity in Eurasia, “win-win-cooperation”, “mutual progress and prosperity” as well as upholding the UN principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. So far, the OBOR-initiative has not been embedded in an overarching international framework and primarily is a concept, a meta-strategy. It is still unclear whether the initiative will be realized through a bilateral or multilateral process. The Chinese leadership speaks of an inclusive process, which means, that all involved parties are invited to shape and promote the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century” in line with their own economic interests. First steps of institutionalization are already emerging. The recently established AIIB and the Silk Road Fund serve to finance the projects. In May, China and Russia agreed to link the Silk Road Initiative with the Russian Far East Development Program for Siberia. In addition to this Moscow and Beijing agreed to link the Eurasian Economic Union with OBOR. Moreover, in June Hungary and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly promote the Silk Road Initiative.

A brilliant plan: Xi Jinping’s ambitious strategic initiative – an adaptation of the historical
Silk Road – could sow the seeds for a new geopolitical era. Enlarge map.

While central banks continue to "print" liquidity, now at a pace of nearly $200 billion per month, they are
unable to print trade, perhaps the single best indicator of deteriorating global economic conditions. The
latest confirmation comes from China: In 2015 China’s import growth slowed starkly, driven by both
external and domestic factors, including a rebalancing of demand. Econometric results point to weak investment
and rebalancing as the main causes of the import slowdown. Spillover effects from China’s rebalancing are
estimated for some 60  countries using value-added trade data, and are found to be more negative on Asia and
commodity exporters than others (HERE).

William Engdahl (Oct 11, 2016) - The totality of the strategy behind Xi Jinping’s Eurasian One belt, One Road rail, sea and pipeline initiative (OBOR), which is moving quietly and impressively forward, is transforming the world geopolitical map. In 1904 a British geographer, Sir Halford Mackinder, a fervid champion of the British Empire, unveiled a brilliant concept in a speech to the London Royal Geographical Society titled “The Geographical Pivot of History”. That essay has shaped both British and American global strategy of hegemony and domination to the present. It was complemented by US Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 work, “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History”, which advocated “sea power,” stating that nations with domination of the seas, as the British Empire or later the USA, would dominate the world.

The One Belt, One Road, by linking all the contiguous land areas of Eurasia to the related network of strategic new or enlarged deep-water ports of OBOR’s Maritime Silk Road, has rendered US geopolitical strategy a devastating blow at a time the hegemony of America is failing as never in its short history. The Eurasian Century today is inevitable and unstoppable. Built on different principles of cooperation rather than domination, it just might offer a model for the bankrupt United States and the soon-bankrupt European Union, to build up true prosperity not based on looting and debt slavery.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has 57 member states (all "Founding Members") and was
proposed as an initiative by the government of China. The bank started operation on 25 December 2015;
the capital of the bank is $100 billion, equivalent to  2⁄3 of the capital of the Asian Development
Bank and about half that of the World Bank (HERE).

The United States is the number one trading partner for 56 countries, with important relationships
throughout North America, South America, and Western Europe. Meanwhile, China is the top partner
for 124 countries, dominating trade in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Australia (HERE).

Sources of Wealth & the American System of Political Economy | Friedrich List

Friedrich List (1789–1846) was born in Reutlingen, Württemberg, in what was not yet a united Germany. As a young economics professor in the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna (1815), he worked for German unity and protective tariffs among the tiny, feudal-ruled German principalities. His German Trade and Tradesmen's Union (Allgemeiner Deutscher Handels- und Gewerbeverein) advocated a free republican constitution and the national promotion of domestic industries. List demanded protection from cheap imports from Britain’s global slave empire that were flooding German markets, fearing that the German people would end up as "drawers of water and hewers of wood for Britain." Austria's Prince Metternich regarded List as an intolerably dangerous "agitator" and arranged for his arrest and imprisonment, eventually forcing him to emigrate to the US in 1824.

 

» The power to create wealth is infinitely more important than wealth itself. «

Contrary to Metternich's intention, this led to List's most fertile period of collaboration with Americans such as Henry Carey and Henry Clay. In a speech before the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts in 1827, List threw down the gauntlet: "I herewith declare war against the system of Adam Smith on behalf of the American System of Political Economy." His book 'Outlines on American Political Economy' was written that same year.

While in the US, List opened coal mines, helped plan a canal system, designed rail transportation, and proposed the construction of a Panama Canal. He returned to Germany in 1830 and became the American Consul to Leipzig. There, he launched his program for a national railway network and became known as the "Father of the German Railways." His program for the expansion of the Zollverein (Customs Union) was implemented in 1834. In 1841, List published what remains one of the most important works in the history of political economy, 'The National System of Political Economy,' in which he launched a devastating critique of British free-trade ideology:

"The causes of wealth are something totally different than wealth itself. An individual can possess wealth, i.e., exchange value, but if he does not have the power to create more valuable items than he consumes, he will become impoverished. An individual may be poor, but if he has the power to create a larger amount of valuable items than he consumes, he becomes rich. 

The power to create wealth is therefore infinitely more important than wealth itself; it guarantees not only the possession and increase of what has been acquired, but also the replacement of what has been lost. This is even more the case with whole nations, that cannot live on pensions, than with private persons. 

Germany has been ravaged in every century by plague, by famine, or by internal and external wars, but it has always managed to save much of its productive forces, and so it returned quickly to prosperity, while the rich and powerful, but despot- and priest-ridden Spain, in full possession of domestic peace, sank ever deeper into poverty and misery. The same Sun shines upon the Spaniards, they have the same earth and land, their mines are just as rich, they are the same people as before the discovery of America and before the introduction of the Inquisition; but this people has gradually lost its productive power, so it has become poor and miserable. The North American liberation war has cost that nation hundreds of millions, but through the acquisition of national independence their productive power was strengthened immeasurably, so they could create much greater riches within a few years after the peace than they had ever possessed.

[...] The motto, 'laissez faire, laissez passer' is [...] one that sounds no less pleasant to robbers, cheaters, and thieves than to the merchant, and therefore one ought to regard this maxim with suspicion [...] This perversity, to surrender the interests of manufacturing and agriculture to the unfettered demands of trade, is a natural consequence of that theory, which universally looks only at prices, never allowing for the work required to produce, and views the entire world as one single and indivisible republic of merchants. 

This school of thought [Adam Smith's] does not see that the merchant can achieve his purpose—obtaining profits by trade, even at the expense of agriculture and manufacturing, at the expense of the productive forces—just as easily through the independence and autonomy of nations. It’s all the same to him, and it is in the nature of his business and his aspirations that he cannot give a fig about the effect that the way in which he imports or exports goods might have upon the morality, the prosperity, and the power of the nation. He imports poisons just as he imports medicines. He enervates entire nations with opium and distilled spirits. Whether he provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and livelihood through his imports and chicanery, or whether an equal number are thus brought to beggary, it means nothing to a businessman, so long as it improves his balance sheet."

The core of List's argument is straightforward: surrendering everything to the "invisible hand" of the market amounts to an anarchistic conception of freedom that deliberately refuses to distinguish between theft and productive investment. From this perspective, the British doctrine of free trade had already been challenged by thinkers such as Gottfried Leibniz and Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the seventeenth century, Alexander Hamilton in the eighteenth century, and, again, Henry Carey, Sergei Yulevich Witte, and many others in the nineteenth century.

In more recent times, however, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) became a fervent follower of the Austrian School's economic liberalism. She had read Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom with enthusiasm and subsequently argued that social spending was tantamount to socialism. One simplification followed another: free trade became synonymous with freedom. The October 1986 "Big Bang" was presented as Thatcher's great blow for financial freedom: the sudden and radical deregulation of London’s financial markets. With the abolition of capital controls and the enormous bonuses paid to executives, financial elites from around the world were able to operate with unprecedented freedom in London. London became the largest financial center in the world, accompanied by spectacular growth in the newly deregulated financial sector.

In the US, the deregulation of infrastructure and the systematic reduction of investment in the real economy were promoted by certain Rockefeller protégés of the Mont Pelerin Society and were ultimately set into place under President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981). The process was accelerated significantly under Ronald Reagan (1981–1989). Three decades later, much of the US' industrial and productive employment had disappeared. The example of Detroit became a subject of study for Asian anthropologists examining the collapse of urban culture in a formerly major industrialized nation.

Free trade and deregulation, the argument continues, have produced devastating consequences wherever they have been implemented on a large scale. They contributed to the conditions underlying the current global crisis, which the author characterizes as being orchestrated by a financial oligarchy centered in Wall Street, the City of London, Paris, Frankfurt, Riyadh, and Doha. According to this view, these financial interests employ institutions and mechanisms associated with the Federal Reserve, ECB, IMF, WTO, UN, and NATO to generate enormous profits for a small minority while producing misery and failed states for the many.

At the same time, countries participating in institutions and initiatives such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Union, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are presented as evidence that economic growth and human progress remain possible in the contemporary world. Students of Leibniz, Colbert, and Hamilton, as well as List, Carey, and Witte, continue to advocate the use of state power to create wealth through industrial production, regulate the financial sector, expand high-quality public education and scientific research, strengthen healthcare and productive investment, and establish and protect the social and economic rights of working people and their families.

Hybrid Warfare & Strategic Stalemate in China–US Competition | Jin Canrong

Structurally speaking, China–US relations are certainly not good. The logic is quite simple: the world is changing significantly, and China is the variable, while the US is the leader of the original order. Naturally, the US is not pleased. [...] Whether it's Biden or Trump, both consider China their only opponent. This is very critical. America’s power is still greater than ours.

Jin Canrong (金灿荣), leading scholar of China-US relations, American politics, and foreign policy;

CCP strategist; Professor and Associate Dean, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China.

[...] China–US relations entered full competition in late 2017, when the US began to wage a hybrid war against China. It is called a hybrid war because multiple tactics are employed: trade war; industrial war (denying chips and pushing Chinese companies to relocate industries); financial war (aggressive interest rate hikes to extract Chinese capital); legal battles; media campaigns (such as accusations of genocide in Xinjiang); and biological warfare allegations, including SARS and COVID-19 claims.

» Siding with the EU to split the West. «
The China-US Competition, Jin Canrong, August 19, 2025.

[...] There are also sovereignty issues concerning Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the East and South China Seas, as well as opposition to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through new alliances, like AUKUS (US, UK, Australia) and the Quad (US, India, Australia, Japan).

[...] The first phase involved US offensives and China’s strategic defense; now, we have entered a strategic stalemate. The key to strategic alignment is domestic management. The US faces high debt, declining manufacturing, and internal challenges, while China confronts economic performance issues, social conflicts, and a rapidly falling birth rate. Addressing domestic challenges strengthens both nations’ positions abroad.

[...] The US strategy toward China involves territorial ambitions (Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal), aligning Russia, reorganizing allies (Europe, Japan, Canada), and increasing defense spending to ensure allies can act independently. China, meanwhile, has abandoned its low-profile policy, focusing on active defense and strategic deterrence.

[...] Since last year, China’s defense policy has changed. China has moved from passive strategy to assertive action. Strategic stalemate depends on addressing domestic issues first, then external threats. For external alignment, China should coordinate with the EU to balance the West, manage neighboring relations, and continue Belt and Road and BRICS initiatives. This roughly represents the current positions of both parties.

 

Reference:
Jin Canrong (August 19, 2025) - The China-US Competition.

Make Chimerica Great Again | Mitchell Presnick

Forget about the G7 and G20. The truly important focus is the US and China, and what we do together. First of all, we are moving into a multipolar world. This means that the US and China will be peer competitors, but there will also be other important countries rising and becoming more influential over time, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia. 

 

» Donald Trump is probably the most pro-China President in US History. 

President Trump said that the US and China could solve all the world’s problems, and he is right. «
Mitchell Presnick.

 

We have this multipolar world, and within this context, we are going to see the formation of the G2. Forget about the G7 and G20. The real focus is the US and China and what we do together. President Trump said that “the US and China could solve all the world’s problems”, and he is right. He specifically said the US and China; not the US, China, BRICS, and the developing world. If China and the US are working together, everyone else—over 200 countries—will be aligned with one or the other, or both in some cases.

This, I believe, is the world order that is coming. I think it is going to be net positive for the world because it will provide more opportunities for countries that have been ignored. Africa did not get much attention until China entered and began developing business and resource opportunities there. Now, Africa is receiving a lot more attention from everyone. The same is true for Latin America. The US has been dominant in this hemisphere since the early 1800s, and yet Latin America and South America have struggled to develop. Objectively, it is clearly in the interest of South America for China to get more involved and help develop infrastructure there.

This might even encourage the US to do the same, which would be a net positive for South America. It would also create business opportunities, because one thing people don’t understand about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is that every time China builds a railway, road, port, or airport in a developing country, it is also creating the foundation for a middle class who will later buy other goods from China. In other words, it's like brand building for Chinese industry. China, as a brand, is being built in these countries. People there will become familiar with Chinese cars, well-built roads, and high-quality products. As these consumers develop, they will naturally be more inclined to buy Chinese goods, which are well-priced and of good quality. This is something I think the US also needs to be doing.

Reference:
Mitchell Presnick (March 6, 2025) - Donald Trump, Probably the Most Pro-China President in US History.

Digital Yuan Reshaping Global Trade And Power | G. Valiachi & S. Murugan

The global financial order is witnessing a seismic shift, and at its epicenter is China’s digital yuan. The recent launch of the Digital RMB Cross-Border Settlement System (CIPS) by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is more than just a technological breakthrough—it is a geopolitical maneuver with far-reaching implications for global trade, financial sovereignty, and the dominance of the US dollar.

The Digital Yuan’s rise is not merely a financial evolution

—it is a recalibration of global power structures.

 

Will the rest of the world, particularly the West, adapt to this new reality, or will they be left navigating a financial ecosystem where China dictates the rules? One thing is certain: the era of uncontested dollar dominance is coming to an end. The world must prepare for a future where digital currencies, led by China's digital yuan, reshape global finance in ways we are only beginning to comprehend.

A Disruptive Technological Edge: For decades, international transactions have relied on the SWIFT system, where dollar-dominated settlements often take 3-5 days to clear, involving multiple intermediary banks and high transaction costs. China's digital RMB, powered by blockchain technology, has completely upended this model. With settlement times reduced to just seven seconds and handling fees slashed by 98 per cent, the efficiency gains alone are compelling enough for emerging markets and strategic trade partners to make the switch. The first successful real-time settlement between Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi using digital RMB has already demonstrated its disruptive potential. By bypassing SWIFT and eliminating reliance on correspondent banks, China has effectively engineered an alternative financial network—one that reduces the influence of US-dominated monetary systems and reshapes the global trade paradigm.

» Settlement times reduced to just seven seconds and handling fees slashed by 98 per cent. «

Digital RMB vs SWIFT.

Redefining Financial Sovereignty: The ramifications of this development extend beyond mere efficiency. For years, the US has wielded its control over the SWIFT system as an instrument of economic coercion, particularly through sanctions. The digital RMB offers an alternative, allowing countries under Western financial pressure—such as Iran and Russia—to conduct transactions without US oversight. This is already materializing: six ASEAN nations, including Malaysia and Singapore, have incorporated the RMB into their foreign exchange reserves, and Thailand has completed its first oil trade settled in digital yuan.

The Global De-dollarization Trend: The cross-border RMB settlement volume in ASEAN exceeded 5.8 trillion yuan in 2024, a staggering 120 per cent increase from 2021. As China strengthens its digital payment network, the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency faces an existential challenge.

» Over 87 per cent of the world’s countries are now digitally integrated with the RMB settlement system. «

China’s Digital Silk Road expands its influence through digital infrastructure projects.

Strategic Integration: The digital yuan’s role extends beyond financial transactions; it is a foundational pillar of China’s broader economic expansion strategy. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), already a monumental undertaking spanning over 140 countries, now has a digital counterpart in the “Digital Silk Road.” By integrating the digital RMB with Beidou satellite navigation and quantum communication, China is creating a seamless trade infrastructure that enhances efficiency by 400 per cent. This convergence of digital currency and physical trade infrastructure fundamentally alters the balance of economic power. European car manufacturers are already settling Arctic route freight costs in digital RMB, and Middle Eastern energy traders have reduced settlement costs by 75 per cent. If this momentum continues, the dollar-based financial order could soon become a relic of the past.

The Future of Global Finance: With over 87 per cent of the world’s countries now digitally integrated with the RMB settlement system, China has successfully built a financial architecture that challenges traditional banking norms. The total volume of cross-border digital RMB transactions has already surpassed $1.2 trillion, and this figure is set to grow exponentially as more nations join the digital currency bridge test. Meanwhile, the US and Europe remain embroiled in regulatory debates over digital currency frameworks. The Federal Reserve’s hesitancy on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and the European Central Bank’s slow progress on the digital euro underscore the West’s lack of preparedness for this revolution. While Washington deliberates, Beijing executes.

Quoted from:
Ganesh Valiachi and Soundarya Murugan (March 29, 2025) - The End of the Dollar Era? 

China’s Digital Yuan Is Reshaping Global Trade And Causing Financial Power Shift.

» China is no longer playing by the old rules. It’s a war for the future of global finance. «

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, April 14, 2025.

Why Time Is on Iran, Russia and China's Side | Michael Hudson

Time is on the side of Iran, Russia, and China and increasingly works against the US and its allies. The longer the confrontation persists, the greater the pressure on highly indebted Western economies. As in Russia's past wars against Napoleon and Germany, the decisive advantage need not come from military strength alone, but from an external force that steadily erodes the enemy's capacity to sustain the conflict. Today, that force is the global financial and economic system.

"General Winter"—Russia's eternal ally against her enemies.

The US has contained the oil price shock by releasing oil from its strategic petroleum reserves and encouraging other countries to do the same, despite the major disruption to Persian Gulf exports. But this buys time, and only by depleting reserves and leaving less room for further intervention. The stakes are high because higher energy prices quickly feed into diesel, aviation fuel, fertilizer, transportation, and food costs. With the US midterm elections approaching, Washington is therefore racing the clock to contain prices as its economic buffers diminish.

Weaponizing Survival: Energy, Food, and Sovereign Debt Pressure

Iran's strategic advantage is to avoid escalation while letting economic pressure accumulate. A similar dynamic is developing around Russia and Ukraine, where disruptions to grain exports risk compounding the energy shock. About 27% of global grain trade moves through the Black Sea; Ukraine's harvest is coming in while warehouses are full, and Russian attacks on shipping and ports threaten both incoming supplies and outgoing grain. Much of Ukraine's grain normally goes to Europe, leaving Europe vulnerable to simultaneous fertilizer, food, and energy-price shocks.

 

Asymmetric warfare against Western full-spectrum aggression:

wrecking the enemy through food, energy, and debt.

The crisis need not involve major military escalation because the US and Europe are already too financially stretched to absorb a sustained increase in energy costs without wider economic damage. Higher fuel prices raise transportation, food distribution, and production costs; industries operating on thin margins can become unprofitable; and higher inflation puts upward pressure on interest rates. The resulting pressure spreads to agriculture, trucking, and the movement of crops, with particularly severe effects in the West, among US allies, and across developing economies in Asia and the Global South.

Base, Apex, and Anchor of Primakov's RIC Triangle 2.0.

 

Higher inflation and interest rates also raise the cost of servicing already-heavy debt burdens. Rising bond yields compound the problem in the US, Japan, and other highly indebted economies, while vulnerabilities associated with Japan's currency and carry trade expose the limits of available policy responses. The fundamental vulnerability is therefore debt: governments must increasingly choose between supporting households and industry and servicing accumulated debt.

Sanctions Threaten America's Financial Power 

This pressure also threatens the financial system that has enabled the US to exercise global power for decades. Washington has relied not only on military force, but also on its control of the dollar, international payments, global banking, and the oil trade. By weaponizing sanctions against Iran and threatening Chinese, Asian, and other banks involved in Iranian oil transactions, the US is encouraging those same countries and institutions to reduce their dependence on the dollar. Financial coercion could therefore undermine one of America's principal instruments of power.

 

» We lie, we cheat, we steal. «

murder, slaughter, genocide: children, women, heads of state; weapon, drug, organ, child

trafficking; well poisoning; pedophilia; hijacking; torturing; counterfeiting; looting; piracy; bribery...

 

The oil trade is particularly important because Persian Gulf and OPEC oil have long been key channels of US financial influence. Oil revenues recycled through US banks, dollar assets, and the American financial system have reinforced the dollar's central position. Driving oil producers, buyers, and financial institutions away from that system therefore risks undermining the very mechanism Washington has used as a global economic choke point.  

 

Trump offered billions to Iran's military. 
Iran: "Leave before it's too late!"

Iran's strategy exploits this contradiction. If its own oil exports are blocked by sanctions and trade restrictions, the implicit threat is that broader oil exports may also be disrupted, forcing other countries to choose between accepting higher energy costs and resisting the sanctions regime. Iran cannot defeat the US militarily, even though it can attack US bases in the Middle East; its leverage instead lies in imposing costs on the wider system and forcing other countries to decide how they will respond.

China and the Emerging Alternative

China is relatively well-positioned to withstand such pressure because of its large oil reserves, coal resources, and extensive investment in solar power and other energy alternatives. The broader question is how China, Russia, Iran, Asia, and the Global South will respond if continued US sanctions keep driving up energy and commodity prices. Their incentive will be to develop mechanisms that insulate their trade from unilateral US financial coercion. 

Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China, presenting his
landmark 2009 proposal, "Reform the International Monetary System," 
to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Gold provides one possible reserve asset outside the dollar system. Countries have increasingly added to their gold reserves while maintaining relatively stable dollar holdings; the European Union now holds more reserves in gold than in dollars. China and Russia have also developed alternatives to Western payment infrastructure. China's and Russia's independent clearing systems reduce their reliance on SWIFT, while Iran has experimented with cryptocurrency payments despite the US seizure of Iranian cryptocurrency assets.  

 

The issue therefore goes beyond creating a BRICS currency. What is required is an alternative international architecture for payments, reserves, and lending, capable of financing trade without depending on the dollar, SWIFT, the IMF, or other Western institutions. China, because of its enormous financial reserves, is uniquely positioned to provide the financial capacity that such a system would require. Russia and Iran could contribute oil, with Russia also contributing grain.

The Cost of Dedollarization

Such a system could fundamentally reshape the post-1945 financial order. Countries facing rising energy, food, fertilizer, and chemical costs would increasingly face a choice between supporting domestic industry and households and servicing dollar-denominated debt. As balance-of-payments pressures intensify, governments would have to decide whether scarce resources should go toward subsidizing industry, protecting families from higher heating and food costs, or continuing to pay foreign creditors. The incentive to prioritize domestic stability would accelerate dedollarization and weaken the financial mechanisms through which Washington has historically exercised global influence.

More sanctions, guns, butter, servicing debt, or collapse?

 

China, Russia, and Iran could therefore form the foundation of an alternative monetary system: Iran contributing oil, Russia oil and grain, and China financial reserves. Such a system could remove or weaken several of the instruments of influence established after World War II to structure global trade and finance in America's interest, including control over the dollar, oil, food, and seaborne trade. 

Keynes's Alternative to the Dollar System

The alternative need not be another dominant national currency at all. The argument instead returns to John Maynard Keynes's 1944 proposal for an international clearing institution based on a supranational unit of account called the bancor. Keynes proposed a system designed to manage persistent international surpluses and deficits rather than forcing debtor countries into destructive austerity. The institution would manage intergovernmental debts, allowing countries with temporary imbalances to obtain temporary liquidity while preserving their capacity to become economically self-sufficient.

 

Keynes maybe wasn't all wrong.

The critical difference is that surplus countries would also share responsibility for global imbalances. Keynes argued that the persistent accumulation of surpluses and claims by creditor countries necessarily creates corresponding deficits elsewhere. If debts become so large that repayment requires destroying a debtor’s economy, those debts should be written down—and the corresponding creditor claims written down as well. The US rejected this approach in 1944 because it was then the dominant creditor and had little incentive to accept a system that could reduce its accumulated claims.

 

Keynes's proposal was shaped by the German reparations and transfer debates of the 1920s. His central argument was that a debtor cannot repay indefinitely by suppressing wages, transferring resources abroad, and selling its assets without destroying its own productive economy. A loan made without regard to the borrower’s ability to repay ultimately becomes a bad loan. The same logic, he argued, applies internationally: forcing debtors into permanent austerity can produce depression rather than repayment.

 

The proposed international institution would create an accounting unit based on a combination of gold and member currencies rather than a conventional national currency. It would manage international surpluses and deficits and provide liquidity for temporary imbalances. When accumulated claims became impossible to service without undermining a country’s productive capacity, the system would permit debt reduction rather than compel economic destruction.

China's Potential Role

China could potentially build such an international payments system around productive investment rather than creditor extraction. Its investments in ports, railways, infrastructure, and the Belt and Road Initiative could increase borrowers' productive capacity and ability to earn foreign exchange, enabling them to repay principal and interest rather than forcing them into austerity and privatization. The argument is that, unlike Western financial systems, China has the capacity to structure such financing primarily on geopolitical and developmental grounds rather than purely for financial returns or capital gains.

 

The central question is whether China itself could avoid becoming another creditor power with the capacity to weaponize its currency. The historical lesson, however, is that other countries did not necessarily expect the US to weaponize the dollar in the 1950s and 1960s, yet it eventually did. The same concern could apply to the yuan. The proposed solution, however, is not simply to substitute one national currency for another, but to create an international clearing mechanism that limits any single country's ability to accumulate unlimited financial power.

The End of the Post-1945 Order

The broader conclusion is that the post-1945 financial order may be approaching a structural break. The present conflict is no longer simply a military conflict; it is increasingly a contest between competing economic systems: a creditor-driven and highly financialized model and an industrial, state-directed model represented by China and parts of Asia. The existing system may not contain mechanisms capable of managing this transition. Instead, the world could fracture into parallel financial and economic systems, with the struggle over the future economic order ultimately displacing the narrower conception of a military or civilizational conflict.

Reference:

Michael Hudson (August 20, 2026) - Why Time Is on Iran, Russia and China's Side.

The Civilization-State | Alexander Dugin

The special military operation (SMO) is unanimously agreed by competent experts in International Relations to be the final and decisive chord in the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world. The main actor of a multipolar world order is neither a nation-state (as in the realist theory of International Relations), nor a unified World Government (as in the liberal theory of International Relations). It is the Civilization-State. Other names for it are Great Space, Empire, Ecumenism.

 

 » Your aim must be to take All-under-Heaven intact.
Thus your troops are not worn out and your gains will be complete.
This is the art of offensive strategy. «
Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

The term Civilization-State is most often applied to China. Both ancient and modern China. As early as ancient times, the Chinese developed the theory of 'Tianxia' (天下), the Celestial Empire, according to which China is the center of the world, being the meeting place of the unifying Heaven and the dividing Earth. And the Celestial Empire may be a single state, or it may be broken up into its components and then reassembled. In addition, Han China itself acts as a culture-forming element for neighboring nations that are not directly part of China - primarily Korea, Vietnam, the Indochina countries and even Japan, which is quite independent.

The nation-state is a product of the European New Age and, in some cases, a post-colonial construct. The Civilization-State has ancient roots and uncertain shifting boundaries. The Civilization-State sometimes pulsates, expanding and contracting, but always remaining a constant phenomenon. Contemporary China behaves strictly according to the principle of Tianxia in international politics. The One Belt, One Road Initiative is a prime example of how this looks like in practice. And China's Internet, which cuts off any networks and resources that might weaken the civilizational identity at the entrance to China, demonstrates how the defense mechanisms are built. The Civilization-State may interact with the outside world, but it never becomes dependent on it and always maintains self-sufficiency, autonomy and autarchy. Civilization-State is always more than just a state in both spatial and temporal (historical) terms.

Russia is increasingly gravitating toward the same status. After the beginning of the SMO this is no longer a mere wishful thinking, but an urgent necessity. As in the case of China, Russia has every reason to claim to be a civilization. This theory was most fully developed by the Russian Eurasians, who introduced the notion of a 'state-world' or — which is the same thing — a 'Russian world'. Actually, the concept of Russia-Eurasia is a direct indication of the civilizational status of Russia. Russia is more than a nation-state (which the Russian Federation is). Russia is a distinct world.

» The Civilization-State always maintains self-sufficiency, autonomy and autarchy. «

 

[…] A multipolar world consists of states-civilizations. This is a kind of world of worlds, a mega-cosmos that includes entire galaxies. And here it is important to determine how many such States-Civilizations can even theoretically exist? Undoubtedly, this type includes India, a typical Civilization-State, which even today has enough potential to become a full-fledged actor in international politics. Then there is the Islamic world, from Indonesia to Morocco. Here the fragmentation into states and different ethno-cultural enclaves does not yet allow us to speak of political unity. Islamic civilization exists, but the question of its assembly into a Civilization-State is rather problematic. Moreover, the history of Islam knows several types of Civilization-States — from the Caliphate (the First, Umayyad, Abbasid, etc.) to the three components of Genghis Khan's Empire converted to Islam (the Golden Horde, the Ilkhan and Chagatai ulus), the Persian Safavid Empire, the Great Mogul state, and finally, the Ottoman Empire. The borders once drawn are still relevant today in many respects. But the process of gathering them into a single structure requires considerable time and effort. The same situation is also true for Latin America and Africa, two macro-civilizations that remain rather divided. But a multipolar world will somehow push integration processes in all these zones.

 

Russia's New Foreign Policy Doctrine:
(1.) Free from ambiguity and understatement.
(2.) No more compromise.
(3.) Carthage must be destroyed.

March 31, 2023. 

 

Now the most important thing: what to do with the West? The Theory of a Multipolar World in the nomenclature of theories of International Relations in the modern West is absent. Today the dominant paradigm is liberalism, which denies any sovereignty and autonomy at all, abolishes civilizations and religions, ethnicities and cultures, replacing them by a forced liberal ideology, the concept of 'human rights', individualism (in the limit leading to gender and transgender politics), materialism and technical progress elevated to the highest value (Artificial Intelligence). The goal of liberalism is to abolish nation-states and establish a World Government based on Western norms and rules. This is the line pursued by Biden and the modern Democrat Party in the US, as well as most European rulers. This is what globalism is all about. It categorically rejects the Civilization-State and any hint of multipolarity. That is why the West is ready for war with Russia and China. In a sense, this war is already going on in Ukraine and in the Pacific (the problem of Taiwan), but so far with the support of proxy-actors. 

» The Westphalian system of the sovereignty of nation-states has long since become obsolete and ceased to function.
In its place will be erected a continental system of ' large spaces' (in the Schmittian sense), where individuals
are integrated in the social whole based on the insoluble bond of kinship and common tradition. «  

Ejaz Akram, Zhang Weiwei, and Alexander Dugin.

 

In the West there is another influential school—realism in International Relations. Here the nation-state is considered a necessary element of the world order, but only those who have achieved a high level of economic, military-strategic and technological development—almost always at the expense of others—have sovereignty. While liberals see the future in a World Government, realists see it in an alliance of major Western powers setting global rules in their own interests. Again, in theory and practice, a Civilization-State and a multipolar world are categorically rejected. This creates a fundamental conflict already at the level of theory. And the lack of mutual understanding here leads to the most radical consequences at the level of direct collision.

In the eyes of multipolarity supporters, the West is also a Civilization-State or even two—North American and European. But Western intellectuals do not agree with this: they have no theoretical frame for this—they know either liberalism or realism, and no multipolarity. However, there are exceptions among Western theorists, such as Samuel Huntington or Fabio Petito. They—unlike the vast majority—recognize multipolarity and the emergence of new actors in the form of civilizations. This is gratifying because through such ideas it is possible to build a bridge from supporters of multipolarity (Russia, China, etc.) to the West. Such a bridge would at least make negotiations possible. 

 

» Let NATO fight. Russia is prepared. «
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, June 20, 2023.

Want more war? Have it. The Rest Against The West.  

As long as the West categorically rejects multipolarity and the very notion of the Civilization-State, the conversation will be conducted only at the level of a clash of rough power—from military operations to economic blockade, information and sanction wars, etc.

Quoted from:
Alexander Dugin (2022) - The Civilization-State.

 

 

See also:

Alexander Dugin (April 07, 2023) - Russia's New Foreign Policy Doctrine. The Concept of Foreign Policy As The Apotheosis Of Multipolarism And The Catechism Of Sovereignty.
Zhang Weiwei, Alexander Dugin & Ejaz Akram (2022) - What is a Civilizational State? (video)

Martin Jacques (2022) - Civilisation-State versus Nation-State (video).

Matthew Kroenig (2022) - Washington Must Prepare for War With Both Russia and China. 
Alexander Dugin (2021) - The Theory of a Multipolar World.

Alexander Dugin (2009) - The Fourth Political Theory.

Alexander Dugin (2005) - Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism.
Alexander Dugin (1997) - Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia. 

Bruno Maçães (2020) - The Attack of the Civilization-State.

 Bernard-Henri Lévy (2019) - The Empire and the Five Kings. America's Abdication and the Fate of the World.

TPR (2016) - One Belt, One Road — Eurasian Century Unstoppable.

Zhang Weiwei (2011) - The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State.

Ejaz Akram (2009) - Ideals and Realities of Regional Integration in the Muslim World. 

John Mearsheimer (2001) - The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 

Samuel P. Huntington (1992) - Clash of Civilizations.  

Carl Schmitt (1950) - The nomos of the earth in the international law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum.