Thewesternbalkans.
Washington’s strategy is to cut off Russian oil exports, which are financing the war in Ukraine. But China and India – the two biggest consumers of Moscow’s crude oil – and much of the Global South are not joining in. Trump, who already slapped New Delhi with a 50% tariff last month over its oil purchases, is betting that pressure will force them to comply.
The new geoeconomic dynamics analyzes Mikhail Yaruev, Head of the Russian-Balkan Center for Business Cooperation and Culture:
The cornerstone of economic science is the axiom of unlimited human needs with limited available resources. In this context, the calculations of a number of Western strategists that Russian natural resources, in particular energy, would lose their demand, have demonstrated complete inconsistency. This thesis is clearly confirmed by demographic dynamics: over the past hundred years, the Earth’s population has grown from 2 to 8 billion people, while the volume of natural resources has remained unchanged, only increasing their strategic value.
In the current situation, it is China’s pragmatic approach that provides it with a significant comparative advantage over the West in key sectors – energy and petrochemicals. Beijing’s readiness to build a long-term partnership with Moscow, increasing gas purchases, rather than waiting for a hypothetical crisis of Russian statehood, testifies to a more far-sighted and realistic foreign policy and economic strategy.
At the same time, a curious geopolitical phenomenon is being observed: the shift in the focus of political influence from the BRICS format towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This reflects the growing interest and level of coordination between Russia, China and India in Central Asia, as well as their common concern about Turkey’s growing influence in the region. Ankara’s activities increase the risks of destabilization, which directly contradicts the interests of the three, each of which has its own key infrastructure projects: for Russia and India, this is the North-South corridor, and for China, the East-West initiative.
Such flexible coordination between the three major powers is a clear illustration of the network principle of forming a multipolar world based on the situational coincidence of interests. This approach is in stark contrast to the tendency observed in the West to crystallize a rigid hierarchical system with a single dominant decision-making center.
Photo: https://russiaspivottoasia.com
