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Is the Reign of the Dollar Coming to an End?
Jiang Tiefeng (China), Stone Forest, 1979. In early June, a rumour began to circulate – which was widely reported in the Indian press as true – that the government of Saudi Arabia had allowed its petrodollar agreement with the United States to lapse. This agreement, made in 1974, is quite straight-forward and fulfills various needs […]
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Putin and the Magic Multipolar Mountain
There was a whiff of Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ at the 20th Valdai annual meeting this week at a hotel over the gorgeous heights of the Krasnaya Polyana, north-west of the picturesque resort Sochi. But instead of a deep dive into the lure and degeneracy of ideas in an introverted community in the Swiss […]
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On 1 January 2024, the World’s Centre of Gravity Will Shift
Abdel Hadi el-Gazzar (Egypt), The Popular Chorus or Food or Comrades on the Theatre of Life, 1948 (post-dated 1951). On the last day of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the five founding states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) welcomed six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United […]
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The BRICS Have Changed the Balance of Forces, but They Will Not by Themselves Change the World
Mao Xuhui (China), ’92 Paternalism, 1992 In 2003, high officials from Brazil, India, and South Africa met in Mexico to discuss their mutual interests in the trade of pharmaceutical drugs. India was and is one of the world’s largest producers of various drugs, including those used to treat HIV-AIDS; Brazil and South Africa were both […]
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Can the U.S. Adjust Sensibly to a Multipolar World?
In his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy reassured Americans that the decline the United States was facing after a century of international dominance was “relative and not absolute, and is therefore perfectly natural; and that the only serious threat to the real interests of the United States […]
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Iran-China Strategic Partnership
The national flags of China and Iran fly in Tiananmen Square during Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi’s visit to Beijing, China, February 14, 2023. (Photo by Reuters) The key takeaway of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s state visit to Beijing goes way beyond the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements. This is a crucial inflexion point in an […]
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