The outrageous Western sanctions imposed on Russia have woken up China and other countries. Trade in national currencies has soared, while measures to disengage from overreliance on the US and Western economies have begun. The West is no longer a reliable partner, especially one controlled by the US.
The Sino-Russian Laboratory for Assessing the Consequences of Intercountry Trade Wars used China’s National Supercomputing Centre to test the world’s top economies’ ability to resist sanctions. The findings were interesting. The US will withstand the strongest sanctions, closely followed by China and Russia. Germany will suffer the worst, closely followed by South Korea, Mexico, France, and the UK.
The findings suggest that the US, China, and Russia can withstand potential sanctions based on their significant natural resources, human capital, and scientific and military potential. A multipolar world is the best outcome for everyone except the West. The US and Western hegemony are like dictatorships compared to an ideal world of multipolarity. BRICS is rapidly becoming the balance of power in our one-sided world.Â
Since the record began, the Russian economy has absorbed sanctions like no other country. In the early days of the Ukraine invasion, the West pumped its shoulders, believing its hegemony over the world’s financial system and the leverage it could pull around the world would cripple the Russian economy. Not even the Russians thought then that their economy would sustain the onslaught. Other BRICS members and non-aligned Western countries now understand that it is possible to challenge the West’s unipolarity.
Two precedents were set here. The Russian economy has demonstrated its resilience to sanctions. Also, it demonstrated that the West’s dominance is no longer as effective as it was just a decade ago. The following two decades will see a world of de-dollarisation, decoupling from the West, and shifting towards a more even sphere. This is good news for Africa and the global south.
By Ikechukwu ORJI
