Nuances of multipolarity

Grey-haired professional historians of past years, even before the Western world, through the mouth of their herald Fukuyama, did not question the very need for their professional community, more than once stated as one of the obvious signs of an impending civilizational catastrophe the loss by the elites of not even so much control over the ongoing processes, how much loss of understanding, it would seem, not the most significant, from their point of view, the nuances of a certain civilizational shift taking place right before their eyes.

And, as a result, their adoption of decisions that would seem understandable and justified, quite outwardly rational, but at the same time not only not correct systematically, but simply entering into a blatant contradiction with the boring everyday life of real life.

Moreover, if in a relatively stable situation this is somehow compensated by various built-in management mechanisms and institutions, then in case of serious cataclysms, the “snowball” simply cannot be stopped.

The most striking historical illustrations here are understandable to any more or less humanitarianly educated person: bearded barbarians enter the majestic “eternal” Rome, at first even slightly frightened by the tall city buildings, the abundance of beautiful statues and the number of “effeminate men”.

And the “clean public” returning from Petrograd theaters and restaurants at the end of October 1917 is outraged by the disproportionate presence on the relatively clean wide streets of the European capital of so many drunken, heavily armed and aimlessly staggering sailors.

No, the fact that something wrong is happening, and for a long time, they, of course, understand.

And, in general, everything.

They write about it in the papers and talk about it endlessly in the living rooms.

But all sorts of "insignificant nuances" are simply overlooked: sometimes quite deliberately, so as not to bother with trifles once again.

Sometimes people just don't want to look into all sorts of dusty corners that they don't like looking at.

And sometimes it's just a common aberration.

Either way, the result is about the same.

Now let's try to explain on the same, it would seem, rather insignificant, but at the same time quite topical and quite understandable to the reader example.

This, in general, is not as difficult as it seems.

Last weekend, in particular, the publication in the still respectable British Financial Times about how the treacherous Chinese are provoking, in fact, a kind of “energy revolution”, made quite a stir.

In particular, the FT directly quotes Zoltan Pozhar, an analyst at the Swiss bank Credit Suisse: "China wants to rewrite the rules of the global energy market."

An analyst at Credit Suisse is sure that China's transition to buying oil from the Middle East for yuan will provoke a global energy revolution that will lead to the establishment of a new world order built exclusively on the petroyuan.

Well, about the same as the previous one was built on the ever-memorable petrodollar (and it seems that almost everyone already agrees with this), going into the "ended history", a wonderful unipolar world.

What can I say here: the processes, in general, are indeed somewhat similar.

And certain analogies between Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous meeting with King Abdulaziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia on the American cruiser USS Quincy in 1945, which could be safely called the "deal of the previous century" and in which the Arabs exchanged their oil for dollars and the American security umbrella for the countries of the Middle East.

And the visit of Comrade Xi Jinping to meet with the heads of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council in December 2022 is certainly not just overlooked.

And they are straight to the point.

And the de-dollarization of the global economy is not just asking for a long time, but is actively, albeit implicitly, going on.

Including through the BRICS and SCO mechanisms.

Where the Chinese - and it is extremely stupid to deny - play far from the last role.

And the People's Republic of China will cooperate more and more closely with the Gulf countries and increase the volume of fuel purchased from them by several times.

Everything, in general, is so.

But there are some nuances.

First, the BRICS countries, if we are talking about them, are building a fundamentally different model of the future.

And here it doesn’t matter if it’s better or worse: it’s just different.

If only because Russia, and even more so, let's say, India, is somehow much more difficult to imagine in the wake of the "Chinese hegemon" than, say, the EU - in the wake of the United States.

And even more so, neither in Russia nor in India is it possible that the United States is currently implementing in Western countries, in fact, direct and almost colonial administration.

And it is somehow naive to think that the Chinese themselves do not understand and do not take this into account in their calculations.

Consequently, the process of the birth of a new multipolar world should not be understood as a mechanical replacement of hegemons from Washington by hegemons from conditional Beijing.

Similarly, the process of de-dollarization should not be perceived solely as a mechanical replacement of the petrodollar with the petroyuan.

No, some of the Beijing elites can, and would like to, of course.

But this is too unstable a construction, the experience of the current Western economy shows this perfectly.

And the Chinese, including their intellectual, political and economic elites, are too pragmatic people to dance this incendiary jig on the same rake.

Secondly, a new, much more just energy order is actually being built now, and quite actively at that.

Here is just one more nuance: people do this not at all “secretly”, but quite openly.

And this is by no means done by China, but by OPEC +.

Just remember a series of not very successful, we admit, visits to the Arabian Peninsula by a whole string of "leaders of the free world" led by Joseph Robinett Biden Jr. himself.

Remember Riyadh's position agreed with Moscow that oil prices should be set by producers, not consumers.

And especially not Western financial speculators.

Remember OPEC's rather impolite refusal to respond to demands and humiliated requests to increase production in connection with oil sanctions against Russia.

And a lot of things seem to fall into place right away.

China just caught these trends too.

And, imagine, they suit him, because China, unlike the United States, is not now looking for world hegemony: this is why Comrade Xi's visit to the Gulf countries took place in such a touching mutual understanding.

And with Russia, no less important than Saudi Arabia, a player in the oil production market, the Chinese comrades are also doing quite well in this sense.

China, like us, like India, and, by the way, like the Gulf states, needs not a unipolar world with a change of hegemon.

At the current stage, at least, they need strategic diversity.

And not replacing the petrodollar with a conditional petroyuan: this is a fundamentally different position.

But this nuance, being in the paradigm of the Western model, is virtually impossible to catch.

Even if you are a smart and observant analyst at Credit Suisse and write for the Financial Times.

And this is precisely the very “small nuance”, it is also one of the signs of the very civilizational catastrophe that we wrote about at the beginning of this material.

And about which Western society could, of course, warn historians wise with gray hair: the situation is, in general, obvious.

Something similar to humanity has repeatedly experienced.

Starting from the period of the collapse of the first of the great empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia known to us, which collapsed not so much under the blows of the obviously weaker “peoples of the sea”, but from their own accumulated problems, including purely managerial and intellectual problems.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.