The processes that are unfolding will take a lot of time to complete, perhaps even a generation or longer, so expectations of a swift transition to full-blown multipolarity should be tempered.
The recent SCO Leaders’ Summit in Tianjin drew renewed attention to this organization, which began as a means for settling border disputes between China and some former Soviet Republics but then evolved into a hybrid security-economic group. Around two dozen leaders attended the latest event, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who paid his first visit to China in seven years. Non-Western media heralded the summit as an inflection point in the global systemic transition to multipolarity.
While the SCO is more invigorated than ever given the nascent Sino-Indo rapprochement that the US was inadvertentlyresponsible for, and BRICS is nowadays a household name across the world, both organizations will only gradually transform global governance instead of abruptly like some expect. For starters, they’re comprised of very diverse members who can only realistically agree on broad points of cooperation, which are in any case strictly voluntary since nothing that they declare is legally binding.
What brings SCO and BRICS countries together, and there’s a growing overlap between them (both in terms of members and partners), is their shared goal of breaking the West’s de facto monopoly over global governance so that everything becomes fairer for the World Majority. To that end, they seek to accelerate financial multipolarity processes via BRICS so as to acquire the tangible influence required for implementing reforms, but this also requires averting future domestic instability scenarios via the SCO.
Nevertheless, the BRICS Bank complies with the West’s anti-Russian sanctions due to most members’ complex economic interdependence with it, and there’s also reluctance to hasten de-dollarization for precisely that reason. As for the SCO, its intelligence-sharing mechanisms only concern unconventional threats (i.e. terrorism, separatism, and extremism) and are hamstrung to a large degree by the Indo-Pak rivalry, while sovereignty-related concerns prevent the group from becoming another “Warsaw Pact”.
Despite these limitations, the World Majority is still working more closely together than ever in pursuit of their goal of gradually transforming global governance, which has become especially urgent due to Trump 2.0’s casual use of force (against Iran and as threatened against Venezuela) and tariff wars. China is at the center of these efforts, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll dominate them, otherwise proudly sovereign India and Russia wouldn’t have gone along with this if they expected that to be the case.
The processes that are unfolding will take a lot of time to complete, perhaps even a generation or longer, due in no small part to leading countries like China’s and India’s complex economic interdependence with the West that can’t abruptly be ended without dealing immense damage to their own interests. Observers should therefore temper any wishful thinking hopes of a swift transition to full-blown multipolarity in order to avoid being deeply disappointed and possibly becoming despondent as a result.
Looking forward, the future of global governance will be shaped by the struggle between the West and the World Majority, which respectively want to retain their de facto monopoly and gradually reform this system so that it returns to its UN-centric roots (albeit with some changes). Neither maximalist scenario might ultimately enter into force, however, so alternative institutions centered on specific regions like the SCO vis-à-vis Eurasia and the AU vis-à-vis Africa might gradually replace the UN in some regards.
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Different views on the role of BRICS were discussed in Brazil.
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
The XVII BRICS Summit has come to an end in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The summit had an ambiguous aspect. On the one hand, good results were achieved in the area of trade and in the advancement of multilateral cooperation. On the other hand, the meeting between the leaders of the bloc failed to deepen the multipolar agenda established in previous summits.
The Summit took place on July 6 and 7 and brought together delegations from all member and partner countries, as well as representatives of candidate, interested states. The event was preceded and accompanied by several parallel multilateral forums, where state officials, businesspeople and experts discussed mutually beneficial conditions for new agreements and partnerships in various sectors.
In their speeches, the representatives of each country emphasized their demands and common interests with other members and partners of the bloc, thus allowing the needs of each side to be presented in a common platform for cooperation. In this way, the summit played an important role in multilateral dialogue and in the development of friendly relations between member and associate countries.
In the same vein, the Summit reinforced the previously established project of advancing de-dollarization. All sides agreed to deepen discussions on the creation of alternative payment systems within BRICS, strengthening direct trade in national currencies as well as creating the BRICS Currency as a store of value for the bloc. In this sense, the meeting was successful in expanding the financial and commercial ambitions of BRICS.
On a political level, there was little progress, but the bloc managed to reinforce important points already discussed at the previous summit in Russia. In the final declaration of the meeting, the member countries reiterated their support for diplomacy in resolving international conflicts, expressed concern about instability in the Middle East and called for an end to unilateral sanctions and for joint efforts to combat terrorism and rebuild countries affected by wars.
It is possible to say that the Summit failed to advance important discussions in the political sphere. Although important issues were debated and commented on in the final declaration, there was no discussion of the new challenges that have arisen for the BRICS in recent months. For example, the direct war in the Middle East, started by the Israeli aggression against Iran, brought with it a serious logistical problem for several intra-BRICS trade routes. The creation of a security system for these routes is today one of the main issues for the multipolar powers, but this issue was avoided at the Summit.
This omission is due to the ambiguous role of Brazil, the country that leads the bloc this year. Unlike countries in open hostility with the West, such as Russia, China and Iran, Brazil has a mediating role between the Western axis and the emerging powers. Not by chance, some weeks before the Summit, Lula was participating in the G7 meeting, also accompanied by Indian and South African leaders Cyril Ramaphosa and Narendra Modi – both who, like Lula, have been trying to reconcile Western and BRICS interests.
Some analysts suggest that Brazil’s ambiguous stance was the main reason why this summit was “emptier” than previous ones. In addition to Russian President Vladimir Putin not going to Rio de Janeiro after Lula failed to provide security guarantees due to the illegal arrest warrant issued by the Criminal Court of which Brazil is a member, the Chinese and Iranian leaders also did not attend the event. This absence of key figures in the current geopolitical transition process limited the Summit’s ability to discuss relevant issues.
Brazil’s insistence to reconcile Western and non-Western interests was clear at Lula’s press conference, in which the Brazilian leader openly advocated for inviting all G20 and G7 countries to join BRICS. Lula said that only in this way would it be possible to create a fruitful structure of global governance. In practice, this shows that while Russia, China and Iran see BRICS as a multipolar platform, countries like Brazil, India and South Africa still see the bloc as a mere multilateral mechanism, focused on economic cooperation and governance rather than on creating political representation for emerging states.
These divergences are normal and expected. Countries that are experiencing open hostility tend to see BRICS as a way to overcome the current geopolitical order, while countries that are not suffering attacks or sanctions still see some optimism in integration with the West. At some point, both visions of BRICS tend to merge into a common project.
Unlike Western organizations, marked by unilateral impositions, BRICS is a platform guided by consensus and mutual respect, where the opinion of each side is profoundly considered.
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The Alt-Media Community went overboard hyping up BRICS and the latest Kazan Summit.
Over a week has passed since the latest BRICS Summit in Kazan so it’s possible to assess what exactly it achieved now that the dust has settled. The primary takeaway is the Kazan Declaration, which Director General of the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Andrey Kortunov described as “a manifesto for the new world order”. His praise shouldn’t be taken lightly since he’s an archetypical realist who also earlier tempered expectations about what BRICS was capable of agreeing to.
Titled “What BRICS Cannot and What It Can Deliver”, Kortunov explained that: “BRICS cannot become a global economic integration project”; BRICS will not turn into a multilateral political or security alliance of an anti-Western nature”; BRICS is not likely to contribute a lot to resolving disputes between its members or disputes between its members and third parties”; and “BRICS will never become an analogue to G7.”
He then juxtaposed these assessments with his expectations that “BRICS can promote trade and investments among its members, as well as contribute to economic and social development of these members”; “BRICS could help to shape common non-Western approaches to global problems”; “BRICS is capable of contributing to the dialogue of civilizations”; and “BRICS can become an important source of ideas and proposals for UN, G20 and other universal bodies.”
This background places his description from the introduction into context, which will now be elaborated on. According to Kortunov, “For the first time in BRICS’ history, the Declaration sets out in detail the group’s shared vision of the current state of the international system, the common or overlapping approaches to the fundamental global problems of our time and to acute regional crises, and the contours of a desirable and achievable world order as the members of the group currently see it.”
He then immediately added that “While the document does not provide specific timetables for individual tasks or roadmaps for specific areas of work, it does cover a number of key objectives that the group should or could pursue over the next few years.” In his assessment, “there is a clear balance between the security and development agendas”, which he considers to be a deliberate choice “to maintain its very broad mandate” instead of focusing on purely economic and financial affairs.
He thus surmised that “BRICS intends to position itself as a multitasking laboratory of global governance, where new algorithms of multilateral cooperation and innovative models for solving the world’s major economic and political problems can be tested, including trade, finance and strategic stability.” To that end, BRICS is balancing between reforming the Western-centric world order and creating alternative institutions, and it’s the latter which excites the group’s enthusiasts the most.
Before proceeding, however, it’s important to clarify a few matters. Putin declared prior to the summit that a common BRICS currency isn’t currently being considered and then he said during the event that Russia isn’t fighting against the dollar. Kremlin spokesman Peskov later added that BRICS as a whole isn’t trying to defeat the dollar either and that their financial messaging service won’t be an alternative to SWIFT. These policy reminders bring the analysis around to discussing the group’s three main initiatives.
Sputnik published a handy guide here about BRICS Bridge, BRICS Clear, and BRICS Pay, which are correspondingly a financial messaging service, an independent blockchain-based depository system, and a cashless payment service. As was earlier written, they don’t aim to replace their Western antecedents but simply to create alternatives for others to use in order to hedge against the risk of the West one day weaponizing these existing platforms against them like they did against Russia from 2022 onward.
None of them have yet to be rolled out, but progress was made on their creation and eventual implementation during the summit. The same goes for Russia’s proposals to set up grain and precious metals exchanges, which could in theory help form the foundation for a new currency or at least a common unit of account that some have simply called “the unit”. This could consist of a combination of commodities and a basket of members’ currencies, but it’ll likely take years to agree upon, if ever.
Much more successful was BRICS’ bestowing of partnership status on around a dozen countries, though no official list has yet to be published, but some countries like Cuba already celebrated receiving this status while others like Venezuela were upset that they didn’t get it (in this case due to Brazil’s veto). Even so, it was explained last month that “BRICS Membership Or Lack Thereof Isn’t Actually That Big Of A Deal”, namely because any country can voluntarily coordinate their financial policies with BRICS.
In other words, while this distinction is prestigious and being snubbed like Venezuela was by Brazil is thus a deep insult, it doesn’t really matter whether any country participates in discussions on financial multipolarity processes as an official member, observers as a partner, or hears about the outcome afterwards. All cooperation is voluntary so anyone – be they a member, partner, or non-associate – can either implement BRICS’ proposals or decline if they feel that they don’t meet their national interests.
Seeing as how one’s ties with BRICS therefore don’t really matter either way, the group’s partnership expansion is thus purely symbolic, which means that nothing of tangible significance was agreed to during last week’s summit. The same came be said about every prior summit apart from the Fortaleza one in 2014 where members agreed to create the New Development Bank (NDB), which is the only tangible manifestation of BRICS’ efforts to create alternative institutions, but it’s also clearly imperfect.
NDB President Dilma Rousseff confirmed in July 2023 that “The NDB reiterated that it is not planning new projects in Russia and operates in compliance with applicable restrictions on international financial and capital markets.” Simply put, the NDB that Russia itself co-founded complies with the US’ sanctions against it, thus making this less of a real alternative to Western institutions and more of a complement. That might also have to do with China, where it’s based, complying with most Western sanctions.
China has been more cautious about provoking the US’ threatened secondary sanctions than India due to it being considered by the US to be a systemic rival, the perception of which it doesn’t want to inadvertently confirm, hence why it’s complied with so many of the sanctions so far. In fact, Russia’s Special Presidential Representative for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyor Khakimov revealed last week that his country can’t even pay its dues because the bank is located in China and they also only use dollars.
If the political will was present, then China would have devised a workaround by now instead of dragging the issue on for so long that Khakimov felt compelled to complain to the public about it, which just goes to show how strictly China is complying with the sanctions inside BRICS and even the SCO. To be sure, bilateral trade continues to grow so some alternative channels have been created, but they’re seemingly segmented based on industry (ex: energy, tech) and don’t facilitate payments to others like the NDB.
Reflecting on everything that was shared, both Kortunov’s insight and that which followed, the latest BRICS Summit was symbolic just like every prior one apart from 2014’s that led to the creation of the clearly imperfect NDB. BRICS’ purely voluntary nature means that it’ll never become what its enthusiasts expect since there are too many asymmetries between its members. There’s also no realistic chance of BRICS making compliance with its proposals mandatory either since that would lead to its dissolution.
These observations greatly limit what BRICS could foreseeably achieve, but they don’t rule out the creation of more alternative institutions like those represented by BRICS Bridge, BRICS Clear, and BRICS Pay. Grain and precious metals exchanges are also possible, but in those cases, only on the basis of minilaterals within BRICS that are then given the group’s branding after everyone else agrees. A common BRICS currency or a common unit of account is a much longer-term goal that’s unobtainable for now.
The disappointing precedent established by the NDB’s compliance with US sanctions makes one worry about just how much of a true alternative the abovementioned institutions that Russia seeks to also co-found will be. There’s no doubt that Russia learned from that experience so nobody should assume that it already invested the time and resources required for creating these new institutions without first devising a way to prevent them from sanctioning it too, but it remains to be seen how this will work.
The conclusion is that it’s a lot easier to talk about creating truly alternative institutions than actually doing so, which means that BRICS will likely just remain a talking club, or a “multitasking laboratory of global governance” as Kortunov diplomatically described it. That’s not to downplay the group’s role since it’s important for major and developing non-Western countries to discuss pressing issues of the evolving world order, especially economic-financial ones, but that’s not the same as what enthusiasts expected.
At the end of the day, the Alt-Media Community went overboard hyping up BRICS and the latest Kazan Summit, only for nothing of tangible significance to emerge from the first since 2014’s decision to create the clearly imperfect NDB that later sanctioned Russia while the second had no tangible outcome at all. The latter did indeed lay the basis for creating more alternative institutions, although it’s unclear when they’ll be unveiled and how Russia will ensure that they don’t sanction it like the NDB ended up doing.
The Kazan Summit therefore wasn’t a failure, and in fact, it succeeded in its only realistic goal all along of gathering its members and partners together to discuss ways to voluntarily accelerate financial multipolarity processes such as through the increased use of national currencies. The outcome was always going to be more symbolic than tangible due to the group’s purely voluntary nature, though some observers had false expectations and thus feel bitter, but now they know what BRICS is really about.
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It appears that the dominance of the US dollar is over as more countries divest from it and now Saudi Arabia has informed the Biden Administration that they won’t renew the petro-dollar agreement on June 9th.
Screenshot
Keep in mind that this agreement is what has kept the dollar artificially inflated since the 70s when this arrangement was first agreed upon. This also kept the dollar as the world’s default currency and of course the USA used it to punish nations who didn’t want to tow the US line. Now the world appears to be done with it as more nations divest from it and agree to trade in their own currencies. Here is more on that subject from Winepress News.
In the month of May, BRICS founding members China and India made significant strides in moving further and further away from the U.S. dollar in domestic and global trade. Now they and other allied nations are doing the same by exiting the dollar for trade and imports.
India, in agreement with Nigeria – which is seeking formal BRICS membership – is strengthening its economic ties together with a local-currency debt settlement.
Their agreement, overseen at the second session of the India-Nigeria Joint Trade Committee (JTC) held in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, also includes local currency trade for energy, pharmaceuticals, and transportation.
Nigeria is India’s second largest trading partner. ‘Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $11.8 billion in 2022-23. In 2023-24, bilateral trade stood at $7.89 billion, showing a declining trend,’ RT noted.
The Indian commerce and industry ministry said in a statement:
Both sides agreed to the early conclusion of the Local Currency Settlement System Agreement to further strengthen bilateral economic ties.
These include resolving of market-access issues of both sides, and cooperation in key sectors such as crude oil and natural gas, pharmaceuticals, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), local currency settlement system, power sector and renewable energy, agri- and food processing, education, transport, railway, aviation, MSMEs [Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises].
More recently, India and China have agreed to ditch the dollar to trade with Maldives in local currencies.
According to Business Today, the Maldives plans to launch India’s RuPay service “to bolster the Maldivian Rufiyaa”, per a senior minister of the Maldives. Minister of Economic Development and Trade Mohamed Saeed talked about the soon launch of India’s RuPay while also announcing how both India and China have agreed to use local currency in bilateral trade.
As you can see India and China are exiting out of the US dollar very quickly which in turn tells us that the Saudi Arabia deal is huge! This is the death knell for the US dollar and everyone outside of USA is well aware of it, but the US media is silent on this issue outside of a few crpyto publications.
Will the US economy crash right away? No, probably not but the effects will be felt as the US economy has stagnated and is now in a viscous stagflation cycle.
According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) outlook, India and China are poised to see the highest economic growth this year with other BRICS members not too far behind, while the U.S. and other G7 nations are projected to have stagnate growth.
It’s just a matter of time before the US economy crashes and shocks the world even though it shouldn’t be a shock at this point. All one has to do is look at rising food prices, the crashing car markets, the businesses that can’t pay their rent (48% last month) and the rising crime rates and you can see the writing on the wall. The problem is that nobody wants to face the reality that it’s over for the U.S. and the West. God’s wrath is coming soon and there won’t anything left to be “made great again”.
Prayed up and prepped up, time is VERY short!
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NDB seeks to counter the influence of Western-dominated multilateral banks – Bloomberg.
Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
The strengthening of ties between the BRICS bank and Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, is undesirable for the West as it again signals another advancement in the de-dollarisation of the global economy. In the last week of May, Saudi Arabia held talks to join BRICS’ New Development Bank as its ninth member, a decision that is not only economic but also with political motive.
Saudi Arabia’s benefit from joining the NDB is clear, given the potential for increased trade, especially Saudi exports. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest oil suppliers, and BRICS countries produce many different goods. Therefore, such cooperation can be considered mutually beneficial. Saudi membership in the NDB will expand the internal market of the BRICS countries, which means opening new opportunities for economic development in these countries.
As Bloomberg reported on May 30: “The New Development Bank, the lender created by the BRICS group of nations, will widen its membership as it seeks to boost its capital and counter the influence of Western-dominated multilateral banks.”
Saudi Arabia is the biggest economy in the region, and its neighbour, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is already a member of the NDB. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has also expressed interest in joining BRICS. The BRICS summit in South Africa in August will discuss expanding the grouping, which could open the path for the Arab country to join.
“In the Middle East, we attach great importance to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and are currently engaged in a qualified dialogue with them,” the NDB told the Financial Times in a statement.
Talks with Saudi Arabia come as the NDB prepares to formally evaluate its funding options, which were questioned after the West imposed sanctions on Russia following the launch of its special military operation in Ukraine.
Membership will likely be granted as it would strengthen Saudi Arabia’s bonds with BRICS countries, especially when the country is pursuing closer relations with all powers, particularly China. Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a “new era” in the countries’ ties when he visited Saudi Arabia in 2022. Most importantly, Beijing in March brokered a historic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations, something which irked Washington.
The NDB has lent $33 billion to more than 96 projects in the five founding members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — but the bank has expanded its membership to include the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bangladesh. Although Egypt and Bangladesh represent major emerging markets and economies, Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, would represent another rich shareholder in the NDB.
“[Fundraising options are] the most important thing at the moment,” said Ashwani Muthoo, director-general of the NDB’s independent evaluation office, which was established last year.
Muthoo declined to comment on the Saudi accession talks but said the board wanted to examine alternative instruments and currencies to bring in resources, something that Saudi Arabia can offer.
It is recalled that Mikhail Mishustin said on a visit to China in May that Moscow saw “one of the bank’s main goals” as defending the bloc from “illegitimate sanctions from the collective West”. This fact interests Saudi Arabia as it breaks from servitude to the US to become a sovereign Middle/Regional power instead.
It is recalled that China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in October 2022 that BRICS leaders agreed on expanding the bloc and expressed support for the discussion on the standards and procedures of expansion. Wang also noted that China would work with other BRICS members to jointly advance the expansion process so that more partners will join the BRICS family.
By being first accepted into the NDB, Saudi Arabia’s path to joining BRICS would be opened. As said, Saudi Arabia will likely join the NDB as the banks have a strong will to expand their membership, which will signal the Arab country’s eventual accession into the bloc.
Dilma Rousseff, the bank’s president, said at the NDB’s annual meeting in Shanghai on May 30, “The world is going through a transformation process and it’s not about one currency against any another one. NDB will continue seeking funds in the dollar market but also in the Asian market.”
The fact that the NDB is comprised of the most powerful and richest countries outside of the Western bloc has Washington concerned as it poses the greatest challenge to dollar hegemony. With the current level of the NDB project funding in local currencies at 22%, the bank is well on course to meet its goal of 30% by 2026. This percentage will only continue to grow as the years pass, and the addition of Saudi Arabia will contribute to this effort. Thus, the Middle Eastern country will actively participate in de-dollarization.
Somewhat surprisingly, despite increased NATO pressure, Macron has not only refused to take back his statements, but has even reiterated them, openly declaring that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal … [or] mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves.”
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
It’s hardly breaking news that the European Union is essentially a giant collection of vassals of the United States. Ironically enough, as the bloc effectively doubled in size since the (First) Cold War, its sovereignty has proportionately gone down. Washington DC largely accomplished this by propping up staunchly pro-US EU members. One such country is certainly Poland, as Warsaw consistently supports American interests in the EU. And while it could be argued that this is largely thanks to Poland’s virtually endemic Russophobia, the most recent episode with French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China clearly indicates that Warsaw’s foreign policy framework is as American as it could possibly be.
Late last week, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki slammed Macron’s “controversial” comments on Beijing, made just after he met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Morawiecki openly mocked the French President’s call for “strategic autonomy”, which also included follow-up comments about the EU “not being a direct US vassal”. Such rhetoric isn’t unheard of, particularly from France, but the question remains how exactly honest and straightforward it is. However, even a semblance of anything that could remotely be seen as “anti-American” is virtual “heresy” in Warsaw, which explains its harsh reaction to this. Morawiecki equated even just cordial EU-China ties with “cutting off relations with the US”. His exact words were:
“European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn’t it? But it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing the ties with the US. Short-sightedly they look to China to be able to sell more EU products there at huge geopolitical costs, making us more dependent on China and not less. Some European countries are trying to make with China the same mistake which was made with Russia – this dramatic mistake.”
According to AFP’s reporting, Morawiecki also (implicitly) slammed both France and Germany for their allegedly “lukewarm” support for the Kiev regime and “warned” about China’s breakaway island province of Taiwan:
“You cannot protect Ukraine today and tomorrow by saying Taiwan is not your business. I think that, God forbid, if Ukraine falls, if Ukraine gets conquered, the next day China may attack – can attack – Taiwan… …I do not quite understand the concept of strategic autonomy if it means de facto shooting into our own knee. Western European nations have grown accustomed to a model based on cheap energy from Russia, high-margin trade with China, low-cost labor from Eastern Europe and security for free from the United States. Now their modus vivendi collapsed in ruins so what do they do? They want a quick ceasefire, armistice, in Ukraine, almost at any price. Some politicians in Western Europe are thinking, ‘Ukraine, why are you fighting so bravely?'”
Somewhat surprisingly, despite increased NATO pressure, Macron has not only refused to take back his statements, but has even reiterated them, openly declaring that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal … [or] mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves.” Macron’s recent “controversial” statements have sent shockwaves across the political West. And while they’re hardly a clear indicator of a major strategic shift in French foreign policy, as the country still supports the Kiev regime through weapons shipments that are killing the people of Donbass, they are quite an unpleasant surprise for Washington DC planners hopeful of sustaining their strategic siege of China in the Asia-Pacific, an effort that requires pan-Western support.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers. The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction… …If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” Macron said at the time.
This and the fact that the French President said “the great risk facing Europe right now is that it gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy” is quite indicative of so-called “old” Europe’s desire to maintain at least some degree of strategic relevance. However, it’s quite difficult to take the “old” EU seriously in the matter of Taiwan when it’s been so religiously following Washington DC’s diktat on Ukraine for well over a decade. Despite clear and open frustrations with the US profiteering that has been “bleeding dry” the increasingly cash-strapped EU for over a year now, the bloc still continues its self-defeating subservience. As long as the EU participates in Washington DC’s crawling aggression against Russia, the desire to stop being US vassals will be nothing but that.
With this advance, Brazil will become the first country in South America to launch a pilot of a sovereign digital currency.
Roberto Campos Neto, President of the Central Bank of Brazil, confirmed in the last hours that the pilot test of the digital real will be launched this year. As explained by the official during an event, the new digital currency of the central bank ( CBDC ) will be available in the second half and will have a fixed supply.
This is a way to create currency digitization without creating a break in bank balance sheets. This project should have some kind of pilot in the second half of the year ”, said the BCB president.
On the other hand, Campos Neto spoke briefly about how he sees the Brazilian crypto ecosystem. As he slipped, cryptocurrencies are seen as forms of investment rather than as a means of payment, something that could change only with a greater increase in local and global adoption.
In that sense, the country commanded by Jair Bolsonaro works on a bill to regulate the crypto market, which refers to a clear definition of what status digital assets have and defines control jurisdictions in government agencies.
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Facing severe domestic problems and protests, it remains to be seen whether or not Macron will be able to push some of his bold goals, which also depend on a lot of intra-European political articulation.
Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
French President Emmanuel Macron, leading a large delegation, and accompanied by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, arrived in China last week on April 5 for his three-day state visit. There, he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, as well as NPC chief Zhao Leki. I’ve been writing on how multi-alignment and non-alignment are emerging trends within the Global South. The French leader’s latest trip to Beijing indicates that such a trend could emerge within Europe itself – but there are challenges.
France and China have signed various cooperation deals in the energy field, particularly wind and nuclear energy, according to an Elysee palace’s statement. On April 6, Airbus chief executive, Guillaume Faury, who took part in Macron’s delegation, agreed to build a second assembly line at its Chinese factory. The agreement was announced in spite of intense American pressure on Europe to isolate Beijing. This is a reminder that China’s markets are still critical for European businesses. In spite of her “hawkish” rhetoric, even Leyen herself recently dismissed any notion of “decoupling” Europe’s economy from the Asian giant.
These trade developments were accompanied by Chinese courtship and have potential geopolitical implications. As part of its “strategic autonomy” concept, Paris has been pushing a non-confrontation approach regarding Beijing to “de-risk” relations with it. Macron’s strategic thinking is far more ambitious than that, though.
Last year, for the first time in over a decade, Paris took over the Council of European Union’s presidency (January – June 2022). This period was marked by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for the creation of a European Defence Union. During the first half of 2022, Leyen also announced the “Summit on Defence”, under the French Presidency. In post-Brexit EU, France is the only nuclear power and boasts of possessing the most combat-ready armed forces in the bloc. According to Swasti Rao (Associate Fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center), the French President has repeatedly stressed that the Strategic Compass is “the closest thing the EU has to a military doctrine and akin to NATO’s Strategic Concept” to set EU’s alliance goals. She adds that setting up a system for European collective defense is a long-standing Macron’s ambition.
Such goals face the hard fact of a de-industrialized Europe. As I wrote before, even though Washington has been waging a subsidy war against the continent, and actually benefits from Europe’s industry and energy crises, it has become an overextended and overburdened superpower. Thus, it could actually benefit from a NATOized and militarized Europe. This would allow Washington to pivot to the Pacific – that however, could backfire, with a stronger Europe pursuing strategic autonomy. In this context, China’s courtship of continental Europe’s only nuclear power makes a lot of sense. The problem, from Europe’s point of view, is that the Ukrainian conflict has made it even more dependent on Washington, and the American economic and industrial policies against the continent make any European plans of re-arming and re-industrializing itself almost impossible for now.
There have been rising tensions between the political West and China, in what has been described as a New Cold War. This was clearly exemplified by the recent balloon hysteria. There is a so-called chip war going on, and the US-led economic warfare against Beijing in fact endangers the world’s microchip industry itself and increases the risk of butterfly effects, the Asian Great Power being a key part of the globalized world. Washington has also been pushing for further sanctions against China. This is the overall context, and so it is no wonder that Beijing’s reception of France’s approach has been warm.
“I’m very glad we share many identical or similar views on Sino-French, Sino-EU, international and regional issues,” Xi Jinping told the French leader last week. Macron, in turn, told him that Paris promotes “European strategic autonomy,” doesn’t like “bloc confrontation” and believes in doing its own thing. “France does not pick sides,” he added. This pragmatic non-aligned stance is of course challenged by many European leaders – and by Washington.
During talks with Macron, Xi Jinping remarked that Beijing regards Europe as “an independent pole in a multipolar world”, according to China’s foreign ministry’s website. The Chinese leader added that Beijing “supports Europe in achieving strategic autonomy, upholds that the China-Europe relationship is not targeted at, subjugated to, or controlled by any third party, and believes that Europe will take an independent approach to developing its relations with China.” He also urged the EU to “stand against hegemonism, unilateralism and attempts to decouple economies or sever supply chains.”
Some Western observers have accused Beijing of trying to split the transatlantic alliance. In fact, that alliance’s strength has long been shaken by its own contradictions. The very coalition to support Ukraine has been facing fissures since at least the end of 2022, partly driven by domestic problems as well as American-European disagreements and there have been talks of a slow and quiet European abandonment of Kiev since at least August. Macron himself has warned US President Joe Biden that the latter’s aggressive subsidies policies could “fragment the West”. France has also clashed with NATO and the United States in a number of issues.
Facing severe domestic problems and protests over a controversial pension reform, it remains to be seen whether or not the French leader will be able to push some of his bold goals, which also would depend on a lot of intra-European political articulation.
Putin and Xi are making plans and they DO NOT include the USA. As I’ve said many times, the power structure has shifted from the West to the East and now its Russia and China’s time to rise and the USA and NATO’s time to fall. Of course world events are playing out so fast it will make your head spin so stay ready! PRAYED up and prepped up at all times!
Here is a great 5 min. video summary of the dollar dying a well deserved death and the rise of the NWO/BRICS currency. Notice the desperation in Steve Forbes’ face as he desperately defends the dollar and its reserve status. My guess is that he’s just putting on a show for the camera but maybe he really is that delusional.
Here is more on the demise of the dollar as the Association of Southeast Nations prepare to dump the dollar and trade in local currencies. It’s coming fast folks, it’s weeks or months away, not years!
Another set of nations are primed and ready to dump the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency, and to exclusively trade with their localized currencies and payment systems.
While the BRICS nations and alliance has been getting the most attention as of recent for wanting to dump the dollar (after years and years of this quietly happening underneath the noses of the Western populations), another financial alliance group is looking to do the same.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) made their intentions clear last week that they intend on doing trade with more localized currencies, and even going as far as to exclude payment giants Mastercard and VISA from the equation.
ASEAN comprises 10 different Asian nations, which include: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam; with Australia and New Zealand also working closely with this association via new a free trade agreement pact established in November, 2022. Subtract Australia and New Zealand, and ASEAN affects over 600 million people and is one of the world’s largest economies. Read the rest at Winepress News.
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