News   /   IN-DEPTH   /   China   /   Russia   /   Editor's Choice

The waning dominance of the West on the global stage

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in February 2022. Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Reuters

As the underpinnings of many Western countries are being called into question, China is holding up its political and economic model as a thriving alternative.

Over the past four decades it has established its power on the global stage and is now on course to becoming the world's largest economy even sooner than predicted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But now as the world undergoes changes unseen in decades, China alongside Russia seem to be embroiled in a battle with the West in of both economic and military might, a battle in which the West seems to be on the losing side amid simmering tensions between the two sides.

The former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, asserts that the Ukraine war is an indication of the diminishing dominance of the West.

He is adamant that the dominance the West has enjoyed for so long is coming to an end as China rises to superpower status, in partnership with Russia, at one of the most significant inflection points in centuries.

What the collective West needs to take into account now is that they are not alone. They need to stop their imperialist way of approaching how they see the world.

They tend to say, the global world but when they say the global world, they only mean maybe 15% of the population.

But the problem now is that they don't have the weight they used to have and they need to take into account that you have an emergent world and they are we are living the last days of the imperialistic West.

Angelo Giliano, Financial & Political Analyst

From trade wars against China to sanctions on many countries including Russia, Iran and Venezuela, the West has in the past decade gone on a rampage against any nation not willing to abide by its rules.

But now the risky games played by the West have backfired and signs of distress are multiplying with falling currency valuation, a social crisis, inflation, poverty and much more.

Those coercive measures, however, have served to push targeted nations closer to each other, setting the foundations of a multilateral world.

In the 1960s, while the US was busy putting men on the moon, China was struggling to feed its one billion people during the decade long Cultural Revolution. The US was enjoying a favorable economic environment, but China, on the other hand, was faced with a completely stagnant and ruined economy coupled with widespread famine.

But nearly two decades later, in light of vast economic reforms, China opened itself up to private businesses and foreign investment while the dominant state owned bank turned savings into financing tools for roads, rail links and ports.

All this occurred while foreign firms were forced to work with a local partner, encouraging the transfer of technology.

Consequently, the Chinese economy grew 90 fold over the following four decades.

History clearly shows that plagues and wars either cause the downfall of a particular world order, or cause it to be rethought and whenever these disasters arise a void is created waiting to be filled by a superior nation or nations.

I think it's not about, you know, either one pole or the other. You know, it might enter into the bipolar world or ideally a multipolar world. That doesn't mean that it's going to be a complete downfall.

You know the world needs the West, (it) is not about either or, it is about how we can live together. But if the West keeps on going into this direction, it might be a downfall. Especially when you look at the economy; how are they going to manage when the dollar is not going to be the global currency?

Now dollar being a global currency makes the US, gives the US, this power to print endless paper which is backed by nothing.

So that's if we talk about downfall, well, we might have an economic downfall, because the day that the dollar is no more the global currency, hegemonic currency, then you will experience hyperinflation and it could be extremely dramatic.

Angelo Giliano, Financial & Political Analyst

In the past couple of years, not only China, but also several other sovereign nations, including Russia and Iran, demonstrated the power which can be gained through national sovereignty.

Those countries relying on the west, on the other hand, present an example of the problems that could arise by relying on the West.

With the formation of new allegiances, such as the BRICS, or the G 20, to a shift away from a unipolar world and dependency on the US, all signs indicate a shift in global order towards a multilateral world.

 


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku