Moscow and Beijing will create alternative financial institutions to American ones.
So far, within the framework of bilateral interaction, however, no one excludes their subsequent globalization.
At the video summit held on December 15 between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the parties discussed various topics.
Military cooperation, trade, the Beijing Olympics, Biden with his "summit of democracies."
At the same time, one of the most resonant topics was the withdrawal of Russian-Chinese economic and financial relations from Western control.
“Particular attention was paid to the need to intensify efforts to form an independent financial structure to service trade operations between Russia and China.
This means creating an infrastructure that third countries would not be able to influence, ”said Yuri Ushakov, aide to the Russian President.
The readiness of the leaders to increase the share of national currencies in mutual settlements and expand cooperation to ensure access for investors went to the same treasury.
The importance of creating an independent financial infrastructure can hardly be overestimated. The fact is that American power relies not so much on aircraft carriers and missiles as on the global financial and economic institutions controlled by the United States. Dollar, IMF, SWIFT bank transfer system. And now the United States is using this control in order to actually blackmail other states. In particular, the Russian Federation is regularly threatened with disconnection from SWIFT, creating a problem for currency conversions - in general, this is a whole string of threats within the framework of the concept of "hellish sanctions".
Moscow, of course, foresaw this possibility, and for several years now it has been trying to create its own alternative institutions. The system of interbank transfers within the country and the Mir payment card are far from the only examples of gaining financial sovereignty. However, firstly, they are rather internal Russian instruments (that is, they will not allow the West to bring down the market in the Russian Federation, but will not prevent its isolation from the world), and, secondly, the pace of financial sovereignty is still not as large-scale as it should be. ...
Whether it is China with its huge market and financial capabilities, where sovereignty has been pursued for a long time and successfully. Recently, the Chinese authorities have even started testing the digital currency. Therefore, it is not surprising that Beijing has become an excellent example and partner in these matters. For several years now, the Russian Federation has been cooperating with the PRC in creating an independent financial system - and, apparently, at the talks, Putin and Xi started talking about transferring this cooperation to a new level. "The video meeting was a signal to Washington that Russia can rely on its strong relationship with China if the West imposes new tough financial and economic sanctions in the event of an attack on Ukraine," writes The Washington Post.
The question is, why does China need this?
After all, until recently, Chinese businessmen and even government agencies were not particularly eager to challenge the United States by helping their Russian colleagues get out of sanctions?
There are several reasons.
First, the more complicated US-China relations become (and the tendency towards aggravation is obvious and, apparently, irreversible), the more important Russia is in China's eyes.
Its resources, technologies, stability on the Russian-Chinese border, joint actions of Beijing and Moscow in the Central Asian space.
All this, however, is possible given a stable state of the Russian economy and the protection of the Russian Federation from the most severe variants of American sanctions pressure.
And also the confidence of Russian business that cooperation with China will not lead to bankruptcy and isolation.
To date, there is no such confidence.
Second, in recent years, China has been trying to demonstrate its readiness to use the instruments of pressure that it has acquired thanks to economic and technological development. An example of such readiness was, in particular, the introduction of full-scale trade sanctions against the "white country" - Australia, which felt that it could offend the PRC. Now it is important for China to demonstrate that it can create truly alternative to Western global financial institutions - much more important and large-scale than the already existing Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Demonstrate - and (this is third) thereby pull up other partners. Countries that fear dependence on American-controlled financial institutions and are looking for a real (and not declarative) alternative to them. “Almost everyone in the West is already scared to imagine a new bipolar world where China will have the same financial capabilities as the United States. And with the introduction of the digital yuan into circulation, Beijing will probably gain strategic advantages over the heavily debt-ridden dollar system of payments, and even tied to the sanctions war. Many will make a choice in favor of the Chinese scheme of payments: Central Asia, Africa, Latin America, "- said the well-known Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska.
However, as they say in China, the journey of a thousand li always begins with the first step.
And if Beijing wants to go the way to a bipolar world (or at least to a world where China will be a real alternative to the United States), then Beijing needs to take the first step.
Demonstrate decisiveness and, together with Moscow, prove in practice their superpower capabilities.
Forcing America to admit the inevitable in the form of Chinese greatness and sovereignty.
"The United States must learn to respect the key interests of China and Russia," says The Global Times.
In fact, this is, of course, a challenge to America.
So those American experts who assumed that at the meeting Putin and Xi would discuss how to test Biden's will and determination were right.
The only question is how Biden will answer.
Some Republicans are convinced that in no way, that their Democratic president is weak and indecisive.
“During the Trump administration, we were engaged in containment.
You have not seen that Russia put pressure on Ukraine, and China - on Taiwan.
Now this pressure is happening - simply because they (Moscow and Beijing -
GM
) feel the weakness of America, ”says former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
However, she forgets that this weakness arose precisely due to excessive pressure, including sanctions.
Thus, in fact, it is not so much Moscow and Beijing as the United States itself that is the real creator of the Russian-Chinese "Entente".
And not only financial.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.