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Let’s cut to the chase: BRICS is in deep coma. Blown up, at least temporarily, by India – which happens to host the BRICS summit later this year. Talk about horrendous timing.

India has betrayed, sequentially, both full BRICS members Russia and Iran. By sealing its alignment with the Epstein Syndicate, New Delhi has proved, without the shadow of a doubt, not only that it’s untrustworthy: more than that, its whole lofty rhetoric of “leading the Global South” has collapsed – for good.

BRICS will have to be completely revamped: even Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov will have to reach this inescapable conclusion. The original Primakov triangle, “RIC”, once again dies another day. Even if India is not expelled from BRICS – it could be suspended – “RIC” will necessarily have to be translated as Russia-Iran-China, or even “RIIC” (Russia-Iran-Indonesia-China).

When it comes to where we stand on the Grand Chessboard, Prof. Michael Hudson synthesizes it: “The great enabling fiction is gone. America is not protecting the world from attack by Russia, China and Iran. Its long-term aim of controlling the world oil trade requires ongoing terrorism and permanent war in the Middle East.”

Whatever happens next, ongoing terrorism across West Asia will remain – as in the Epstein Syndicate, out of pervert impotence and sheer rage, unleashing a Black Rain over the civilian (italics mine) population of Tehran because Iranians refused to go for regime change.

Moreover, the heart of the matter until at least the mid-century is more crystal clear than ever. Either the Exceptionalist system of international chaos prevails. Or it will be replaced by Global South-driven equality, with China leading from behind. 

This is a two-part analysis on key BRICS interplay related to the war on Iran. Here we focus on China. Next we will focus on Russia and India.

Don’t shoot! I’m Chinese owned!

Clueless MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) speculation about US intel “suggesting” China is preparing to help Iran is, once again, evidence of how Chinese sophistication total evades the puny “analyses” emanating from Barbaria.

First of all: energy. China and Iran follow a $400 billion, mutually beneficial 25-year agreement that essentially interlocks energy and infrastructure investment.

For all practical purposes, the Strait of Hormuz is blocked because of panicky Western insurance withdrawal. Not because Tehran blocked it.

China receives 90% of total Iran crude oil exports; that represents 12% of total Chinese imports. The key point is that China still has access to Iranian exports as well as Saudi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Iraqi exports: that’s because the strategic partnership Tehran-Beijing is iron-clad, meaning that Chinese-bound tankers can cross the Strait of Hormuz back and forth.

Beijing-Tehran negotiated a bilateral safe passage, operational since last Friday, in what for all practical purposes is a multilaterally-closed crucial maritime corridor. It’s no wonder that more and more tankers are now texting on their transponders the magic words Chinese Owned (italics mine). That’s their naval diplomatic passport.

Translation – and that’s a mega-game-changer: the end of the thalassocratic hegemony of the Empire of Chaos.

“Freedom of navigation” in selected maritime connectivity corridors now means “a deal with China”. Chinese owned, OK; but not European, Japanese or even South Korean.

What Tehran gets, in spades,is high-tech Chinese help for the war with the Epstein Syndicate. And that started even before the war.

The Chinese intel gathering Liaowang-1, a next generation SIGINT (signals intelligence) and space tracking vessel, for weeks has been navigating near the coast of Oman, providing Iran with real-time electromagnetic intel on the Epstein Syndicate’s naval and aerial movements.

That accounts to an enormous degree for the pinpoint accuracy of most Iranian strikes.

The Liaowang-1, escorted by Type 055 and Type 052D destroyers, carries at least five radar domes and high-gain antennas, accurately tracking at least 1,200 air and missile targets simultaneously using deep neural network algorithms. The range of its sensors is roughly 6,000 kilometers.

The beauty is that those sensors can equally track a Chinese satellite or an American carrier.

Translation: China is helping its strategic partner without firing a single shot, just by sailing a neural network processing surveillance platform in international waters.

So yes: China is recording the war, live, 24/7.

Complementing the Liaowang-1, over 300 Jilin-1 satellites record literally everything, constituting a massive ISR database of the Empire of Chaos in action.

There won’t be any official confirmation either from Tehran or Beijing. But Chinese real-life intel, relayed on Beidou, was certainly crucial for Tehran to totally destroy the US 5^th Fleet infrastructure in Bahrain – a comprehensive radar, intel and database center and the backbone of US hegemony in West Asia.

This chapter of the war, tackled right at the beginning, reveals how Tehran went to the jugular when it comes to smashing the imperially designed power play of controlling strategic chokepoints and energy transit, thus denying Chinese access to them.

As stunning as it sounds, what we are watching, in real time, is Iran denying key maritime chokepoints, ports and naval connectivity corridors to the Empire of Chaos. For the moment, that’s Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Soon it may be, with the help of the Yemeni Houthis, also the Bab-al-Mandeb.

Now that’s a max game-changer profiting not only China but also Russia – which needs to keep its maritime export routes open.

Got money, go East

Now let’s follow the money. China holds $760 billion in US Treasury bonds. Beijing has ordered its whole banking system to sell their Treasures like there’s no tomorrow, and simultaneously hoard gold.

China and Iran already trade in yuan. From now on, the BRICS lab experimenting with alternative payment systems must reach escape velocity. That involves all mechanisms being tested – from BRICS Pay to The Unit.

Then there’s the incoming money exodus. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait are already “reviewing” every deal – dodgy or otherwise – they have struck with Washington. Collectively, they control no less than $2 trillion in US investments: Treasury bonds, Silicon Valley tech stakes, real estate, the works.

A tsunami of cash is beginning to invade East Asia. The favorite destination, as it stands, is Thailand – not Hong Kong. That will come – and once again, it will immensely profit China as Hong Kong is one of the key nodes of the Greater Bay Area, alongside Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

China’s strategic and commercial crude reserves  are enough for up to 4 months. Apart from that, imports of crude and natural gas can be increased, by sea and by pipelines, from Russia, Kazakhstan and Myanmar.

So a mix of enough strategic reserves; several supply sources; and “demand-side shift from oil to electricity” qualify once again as Chinese resilience. The blockade of Hormuz may break the West. But it won’t break China.

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The U.S.-Israeli war primordially is being waged to create Israeli hegemony across West Asia.

At one level, the conflict is an existential battle, fought out between Iranian missile and intercept capabilities, versus those of the U.S. and Israel.

Conventional thinking has been that this was a no-brainer contest: Iran would be outmatched by U.S. technology and firepower, and forced to capitulate.

Iran’s military humiliation, plus the decapitation of its leadership, would result – it is presumed – in an organic upsurge of populist resentment that would overwhelm the Iranian State, and roll it back into the western sphere.

On the plane of the purely bilateral struggle – as the war enters the fourth day – Iran sits in the driving seat. The State has not crumbled, but rather is visiting drone and missile carnage on to American military bases across the Gulf, and is striking Israel with hypersonic missiles, armed (for the first time) with multiple steerable warheads.

At this point, Iran is on the verge of exhausting Gulf interceptor stockpiles entirely – and too, has eaten deeply into Israeli-American dwindling air defence reserves through Iran initially prioritising older missiles and drones that deplete air defences. Iranian high-end missiles flying at speeds above Mach Four are proving largely impervious to Israeli air defences.

The U.S. intelligence-led assassination of the Supreme Leader has proved to be a cardinal error. Rather than precipitate a collapse of morale, it led instead to massive outpourings of support for the Islamic Republic. To evident surprise in Washington, it has also fired-up Shi’a across the region with calls for jihad and for revenge for the killing of a revered Shi’a religious leader. Tel Aviv and Washington badly misread the terrain.

In sum, Iran is resilient and holding its ground for the long-term against the U.S., whose calculus was grounded in a quick ‘shoot and scoot’ war – a strategy largely imposed by paucity of munitions. The Gulf monarchies are wobbling. The Gulf ‘brand’ – Prosperity, big money, AI, beaches and tourism – likely is over. Israel too, may not survive in its present state.

The geopolitical ramifications, however, extend far beyond Iran and the Gulf States. Iran’s selective closure of the Hormuz Strait, and the destruction of Gulf port facilities more widely, tells another tale.

Take Iran’s particular focus on destroying the U.S. Fifth Fleet’s infrastructure at Bahrain. The Fifth Fleet forms the backbone to U.S. regional hegemony – as laid out here:

“Approximately 90% of the world’s oil trade passes through these areas, and U.S. control guarantees the linked energy supply chains. The fleet also covers three vital strategic chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. And its HQ is not just a port. It’s a comprehensive radar, intelligence and database centre”.

Iran has succeeded in destroying the radars and much of Bahrain’s port logistic and administrative infrastructure. It is systematically driving U.S. forces out of the Gulf.

The war on Iran is not projected just for the U.S. to add Iranian resources to the U.S. energy ‘domination portfolio’, as per the Venezuelan model. Iran, last year, represented only about 13.4% of total oil imported by China by sea — not a crucial component.

The Iran war however, is all about a bigger U.S. play: Control of strategic chokepoints, and of energy transit more generally, so as to deny China access to energy markets and so to curtail its growth.

The Trump National Security Strategy (NSS) set a goal for U.S. policy of “rebalanc[ing] China’s economy towards household consumption”.

This is American code-speak for coercing China to export less, and for it to import more through a radical economic reconfiguration to consuming more domestically — the object being to restore America’s share of global exports versus hyper-competitive and cheaper Chinese exports.

One way to impose this shift would be through tariffs and trade war. But another would be to deny China access to energy markets that it — and the wider BRICS market — requires for growth. This might be achieved, the NSS strategy hints, by constricting resource supply – i.e. by imposing naval blockades of chokepoints, by siege, and the seizure of vessels through the arbitrary sanctioning of vessels (as seen in the Venezuelan stand off.

In brief, Iran’s strikes on the Gulf may be firstly intended to convey a message that, for Gulf neighbours to align with Israel and America and against Iran, is no longer acceptable to Iran. But what Iran also seems to be doing is to attempt to wrest key sea chokepoints, ports and naval corridors from U.S. control — and to bring them under Iranian control.

In other words, to bring the seaways adjacent to the Persian Gulf under Iranian control. Such a shift would be hugely important – not just to China and Iran’s relations with China, but to Russia too, which needs to keep seaborne export routes open.

Should Iran prevail in this mammoth struggle against Israel and the Trump Administration, the ramifications would be huge. The (selective) closure of Hormuz over months, in itself, would play havoc in European gas markets, as well as possibly trigger a debt market crisis.

Further, the breaking of the ‘Gulf Brand’ as a safe investment haven will likely see the dollar devalue, as investors search for alternative geography in which to situate their assets.

The U.S.’ Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity corridor across the South Caucasus will likely bite the dust. This likely will induce India to return to — and stay with — Russian oil imports, and impact on India’s relations with Israel.

Beyond the geo-political reconfiguration as a result of the war, the geo-financial architecture will change significantly too.

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We now can see more clearly the Trump Administration’s chosen path: In the wake of Davos and Munich, we have some light – both on Trump’s towering ambitions, and the means by which he hopes to achieve them. It may nonetheless be too late. Past policies shackle America’s future. Russia acting alone may not be able to burst Trump’s bubble, but China, Russia and Iran together can and might.

At Munich, Marco Rubio laid out the context to an unashamedly brash ambition: His premise is grounded on the view that decolonisation was effectively a sinister communist plot that destroyed 500 years of Western empires:

“For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe”.

“But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come”.

His gist is that such anticipated decline was a choice, and it is a choice Trump refuses to make:

“This is what we [the U.S. and Europe] did together once before, and this is what President Trump and the United States want to do again now, together with you [Europe] … We do not want to be shacked by guilt or to be the caretakers of managed decline … Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future. And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children”.

There it is plainly set out: The U.S. is intent on restoring western Dominance. That past age can be recovered, Rubio insisted.

“We did together once before … We defended a great civilisation … We can do [it] again now, together with you”. Or we can do it alone. The choice is Europe’s to make.

All the actions that the imperial powers once did in the past, Trump plans to revive, in a jarring ‘might makes right’ nihilism. Ben Shapiro and Stephen Miller both echo the ‘vibe’:

“There is no such thing as international law. It is nonsense. You know what international law really is? Law of the jungle”.

What could put a halt to this ambitious Trumpian enterprise of upending law, asking no one’s permission to act? Lacking any other measure beyond cultivating a Nietzsche-esque Will to Power. What might stand in its way?

Well … China. China, together with Russia, Iran and the BRICS more widely might stand in the way. And as always, Hubris – alone in herself – can lead to downfall. Recall how Treasury Secretary Bessent said of China’s riposte to U.S. tariffs: “A big mistake … they have a losing hand … they’re playing with a pair of twos”. Hubris.

America is indeed shackled by its past decisions: Its skew to a financialised economic model; its bipolar economic and political construct; its dependency on external supply lines; its uncontrolled spending profligacy; its debt mountain and the choice to pursue an AI model that will put many of the western Middle Classes out of a job, all mitigate for ‘project failure’.

In practical terms, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been off-loaded onto the Europeans who repeatedly fail to present any political or security solution to the issue; they simply demand a continuation to a conflict that Ukraine is badly losing. Ukraine becomes Europe’s financial albatross now.

China is whatAmerica’s new posture is all about: Strangling the Chinese economy through trade ‘war’; a naval blockade to choke off its energy corridors; militarising the First Island Chain; seizing tankers and destroying Chinese supply lines. Blockades on Venezuela, Cuba and Iran are all linked. If dollar hegemony cannot be maintained, then Trump is determined to achieve U.S. energy dominance.

The Trump Team is replete with China ‘hawks’, military hawks and trade hawks. But China knows what the U.S. plans – and has prepared. For now, Team Trump is focussed on separating the fronts: The U.S. cannot fight both Russia, China and Iran. So it is ‘Iran First’, then a weakening of Russia – plus a tightening of blockades and sieges around China.

Michael Vlahos, who taught war and strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, however, observes that:

“China represents today a military force that is the opposite of that which faced the U.S. in the Pacific in 1941. [AT that time] Japan, in terms of its military effectiveness and the size of its Navy, [wa]s really the equivalent of the U.S. and U.S. Navy today – whereas China is the equivalent of the U.S. as it was in 1941”.

“In other words, China has all the capacity to build and produce planes and ships. It has 200 times the ship-building capacity of the U.S. And the U.S. is in a position where today it cannot even maintain and repair the ships it has. If you look at American warships, they are covered in rust. It’s shameful”.

Yet the U.S. already has lost the more consequential war – the financial war.

Both Bessent and Rubio are following the same playbook, which economist Sean Foo calls “Neocon Basics 101”:

“The harsh reality for Bessent (and Trump) is that China’s trade surplus has reached an incredible $242 billion in Q4 last year – equivalent to 4.4% of GDP”.

The other side of the coin to this U.S. trade deficit is that whilst China’s trade with the U.S. is down by over 20% almost every month versus a year ago, with the rest of the world (including Africa and Asia), China’s exports are Up – and growing strongly.

Recall that Trump earlier had insisted that China would be forced to ‘eat’ the tariffs that he had imposed on it. That didn’t happen.Overwhelmingly those tariffs were passed on to the U.S. consumers and importers. China simply pivoted to exporting to everywhere other than the U.S. China today is both highly self-sufficient and competitive — America is neither.

Traditionally the U.S. covers such trade deficits in two ways — “Either Washington begs the Federal Reserve to print money; or they issue more financial assets [i.e. Treasuries]”, notes Foo. Normally, the Treasury would indeed issue Bonds or Bills to cover the deficit, but China is buying neither —

“This leaves the U.S. facing a structural trade deficit that will add $1.4 trillion to the U.S. annual deficit over the next decade. Which means that, instead of just borrowing $1.9 trillion this year, the U.S. will eventually need to borrow $3.1 trillion by 2036. And this is annual borrowing”.

“So, the value of all these debt-assets (U.S. bonds) is also collapsing [interest rates are rising]. It’s a big reason why the U.S. has to go around the world and shake down allies for money. There’s literally no spare cash to reinvest or subsidize industries directly. The U.S. is essentially broke”.

“All China needs to do is continue running a big current account surplus and the U.S. debt situation will get worse and worse. China’s surplus keeps growing larger because China also has capital controls. The money earned by Beijing stays mostly within the country and they strategically invest it elsewhere”.

“Trump, [for the moment], is surviving on foreign companies and countries shifting production to the U.S. So far there’s half a trillion dollars’ worth of investment pledges from global companies. But if China continues to control global trade, all these companies could simply U-turn their commitments”.

“Bessent’s solution is for China to consume more – and sell less to the world. But there’s a problem with that statement. Even if China consumes more, that doesn’t mean they will buy more U.S. goods. It’s not a 1:1 correlation here. A lot of goods the U.S. sells, China can replace domestically. They can always source it from elsewhere at a cheaper price, as well. There’s really no urgency from the Chinese side to buy more stuff from Trump’s economy”.

The heart to the Trump strategy is that he needs for China to give up global market share in order to give space for U.S. exports to grow globally, but U.S. goods are not competitive. Therefore the dollar would have to be further devalued to make U.S. manufacturing capable of capturing a greater share of global export markets.

China is just too competitive, argues Sean Foo:

“The U.S. is running out of cards to play, which just points to a bigger crisis in the dollar. The bond markets – and everything financial going forward”.

The fear, he explains, is that: “Trump is going to debase the dollar to spend more. That Trump [is] going to goose up the numbers by making big government even bigger. Now, the scary thing is that he might not have a choice here. The labour market isn’t just wobbling. Under the tariff war regime it’s outright collapsing. It’s even worse than we all thought. Now, the collapse totalled 2.1 million jobs over the last 3 years. It’s even worse than the ‘08 housing crisis that only saw losses of 1.2 million”.

“Trump is really caught in a quandary. Either he U-turns the trade war or he commits to a much weaker dollar and even bigger deficit spending. We probably know what he’ll do, right? He’ll spend, spend, and spend. And this is one trade war that the U.S. can’t afford to lose. We are beginning to see the entire U.S. system cracking. This hyper financialized economy is buckling under its own weight. And the most immediate crisis today is the AI bubble popping, risking multiple implosions. There’s a reason why 64% of Americans feel the economy is not doing well: It’s doing poorly. China has the cards”.

The Hubris is to believe that the American market is exceptional and that no one can afford to be excluded from it – but that is exactly what China is purposefully doing.

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No one ever lost money betting on major farce taking over every Munich (In)Security Conference. But the 62^nd edition this past weekend did send the Stupidity-O-Meter off the charts.

First of all, the context:

The “rules-based international order” was always a sham and it has now collapsed, as announced in Davos.

Eurasia vs. NATOstan has metastasized into Empire of Chaos, Plunder and Permanent Strikes (with NATO as minor sidekick) vs. the Primakov Quartet, RIIC (Russia-India-Iran-China) and the Global South.

The complex context of course opened the gates for a parade of out of context vociferating nullities, including; the Bratwurst Goldman Sachs Chancellor; the Toxic Medusa in Brussels; that ghastly Estonian with the IQ of a dismembered worm; an array of British twats; and of course the sweaty sweatshirt terrorist actor in Kiev.

But pride of place should belong to little gusano Marco Rubio, who blatantly called for Western supremacy, Europe included, to steal Global South wealth – again. As in Europe helping the US on a re-colonization drive, disguised as “restoration”.

Predictably, the assembled EUrochihuahuas applauded with torrents of yappin’ the spokesman for His Master’s Voice, expressing their sense of “solace” and “reassurance”; after all the neo-Caligula envoy did not threat to invade, annex or sanction anyone – at least for the moment.  He even got a standing ovation.

So this is how the indebted-to-oblivion Empire of Chaos and its minions plan to reverse “the West’s managed decline”; to revive “the West’s age of dominance”; and to “renew the greatest civilization in human history”. The Global South has been warned.

China’s Wang Yi was there – but his words of common sense were drowned. No Russians – of course; the recurrent theme of every MSC is to blast Russia like Kingdom Come. And no Iranians – of course, with the exception of the Clown Shah.

Needless to add, there was absolutely no link whatsoever established between the horrors of the Epstein dossier and that death cult in West Asia.

Omnipresent battlefield ahead

Munich has nothing to do with “dialogue”, much less “security”. It is essentially a schmooze fest for the industrial-military complex; heavily tax-subsidized warmongering think tanks; all sorts of harcore militarists; and gutter – mainstream – press.

It will be quite enlightening to hold Munich in contrast to the back-to-back kabuki unrolling this week on Iran and Ukraine – conducted on the imperial camp by those real estate Bismarcks, Witkoff and Kushner. There are no illusions whatsoever – in Tehran or in Moscow.

Neo-Caligula is in fact absolutely terrified because the death cult in West Asia put him between a heavy rock and a very hard place.

He can’t find an acceptable “deal” that allows him to declare victory on Iran over a nuclear agreement that he, himself, destroyed in the first place during Trump 1.0. Iran won’t accept capitulation on any front, especialy because the three fronts – no nuclear enrichment, minimalist ballistic missile program, and no support for the Axis of Resistance – were framed by the death cult in West Asia.

So the only way out is war, as war criminal Netanyahu impressed on neo-Caligula face to face in the White House. There’s no way the US can get away with a “win” scenario – and they were all gamed. Iran has all it takes to make neo-Caligula’s massive armada look like the doomed Spanish Armada.

On Ukraine, proverbial Russian patience is demonstrating signs of strain. Lavrov has been on the record stating that the level of reconciliation and where that process currently stands between Trump 2.0 and Russia has gone nowhere.

At the same time, the SMO – 4 years in effect next week – seemks to be no closer to a serious conclusion. There are only two stark options:

1.Even if there is some sort of peace brokered by US-Russia negotiators, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the Kiev-NATO axis will stop attacking Russian targets, terror-bombing cities and villages, and of course impose “European troops” in a dodgy DMZ.

2.That leaves the really realistic option: to go all the way. That may take years.

Russia must be prepared for extra pain.

Neo-Caligula – surrounded by rabid neo-cons and fierce industrial-military complex interests – will be forced to tighten the oil trade blockade on Russia.

The US for all practical purposes continues to run the proxy war against Russia. US forces in Europe are split between 80% in the office and 20% in the field. US satellite systems get the coordinates for strikes against Russian targets across the Russian Federation; these are processed in Germany by those “in the office” and then transmitted to US advisors on the ground in Ukraine. These are the guys who insert the coordinates in HIMARS. None of that will change in the foreseeable future.

The path towards 5th Generation War will accelerate. We are entering the next stage of an “omnipresent battlefield” – as defined way back in 1999 by PLA colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui.

EUrochihuahuas, meanwhile, will make a play for the Black Sea. The Romanians want to set up a European Maritime Security Hub for the Black Sea based on the port of Constanta. That will become a key military infrastructure, part of the EU Black Sea Strategy adopted in May last year.

Predictably, there’s a direct link to connectivity corridors.

EU military will be in theory “protecting” the Middle Corridor – or Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. That’s one of the key logistics corridors of the New Silk Roads between China and Europe, bypassing – what else – Russian routes.

The writing is on the wall for Russia. All the way to Odessa – or bust.

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The ship of friendship

China and ASEAN have established themselves as an element of stability in a turbulent world, where power is increasingly fragmented and rivalries are on the rise. Despite regional tensions, mistrust, and the recent increase in militarization, their relationship has remained solid, supported by economic pragmatism, constant institutional dialogue, and cooperation aimed at the equitable distribution of benefits. The “ship of friendship,” evoked by both sides in recent years, is not just a diplomatic slogan, but represents a flexible and resilient system of regional cooperation, with implications for an increasingly polarized world order.

The path has not been without difficulties. Maritime tensions in the South China Sea, political differences, and external pressures have tested mutual trust. However, China and ASEAN have demonstrated institutional capacity in separating disputes from broader strategic objectives. The negotiations for a Code of Conduct, while complex and imperfect, testify to this pragmatic approach: the focus is on conflict management rather than ideal solutions. It is diplomacy based not on idealism, but on a shared strategic maturity.

Economically, the partnership has had a transformative impact. China has been ASEAN’s main trading partner for over ten years, and ASEAN has become China’s largest trading bloc, surpassing the European Union. The entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s largest free trade agreement, further strengthens this interdependence at a time when protectionism is growing elsewhere. The fact that China operates through ASEAN-led institutions, rather than circumventing them, reinforces regional centrality and institutional complementarity. Cooperation has also yielded concrete results in the infrastructure sector.

The China-Laos railway, the modernization of ports in Malaysia and Indonesia, and industrial parks in Thailand and Cambodia are tangible examples of physical connectivity. Despite some controversy, these projects address key challenges for ASEAN’s development: high intra-regional trade costs, logistical shortcomings, and the need for industrial modernization. The challenge now is to make this connectivity sustainable, inclusive, and transparent.

The evolution of the Belt and Road Initiative, with a greater focus on “smaller and more targeted” projects, suggests a growing sensitivity to public opinion. In reality, this is not a one-way relationship. ASEAN has maintained the partnership on its own terms, safeguarding its strategic autonomy and avoiding taking sides in the competition between major powers, in favor of multilateralism.

The “centrality of ASEAN,” while an intangible concept, carries significant weight because it guides the debate and contains external ambitions. China has adapted to this format, preferring to interact through ASEAN-promoted bodies such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Soft power also plays a crucial role in this relationship.

People-to-people exchanges have intensified thanks to student programs, media cooperation, cultural events, and tourism promotion, helping to keep security issues in the background. The growing popularity of Chinese and Southeast Asian films, music, and cuisine in their respective markets testifies to a mutual familiarity that formal diplomacy could hardly create. It is precisely these people-to-people relationships that keep the “ship of friendship” afloat when political relations go through difficult times. However, there are reservations, especially from some ASEAN members, about possible over-dependence on China in strategic and infrastructure sectors.

Concerns about debt sustainability, environmental impact, and workers’ conditions remain sensitive issues. Western powers, for their part, view the region’s rapprochement with Beijing with apprehension, interpreting ASEAN’s balancing strategy as alignment rather than thoughtful pluralism. The long-term strength of the China-ASEAN relationship will depend on the ability to avoid this binary logic. It is not based on rigid alignment, but on a balance based on mutual accommodation.

In a global context marked by new divisions and declining confidence in traditional multilateralism, the relationship between China and ASEAN offers an interesting, albeit imperfect, model of regional cooperation. It demonstrates that openness and competition can coexist; that connectivity and sovereignty are not necessarily at odds; and that cooperation can thrive even without political uniformity.

The “ship of friendship” is not sailing toward a utopia, but continues its journey guided by common interest and anchored in mutual respect. In an era of division and turbulent waters, this is already a path worth taking.

Ethnic, historical, and cultural continuity

Relations between China and Southeast Asia, moreover, are not limited to the contemporary political-economic dimension, but are rooted in a historical, cultural, and ethnographic fabric that has been layered over more than two millennia. The ethnographic similarities between the two areas are the result of migratory movements, trade, religious diffusion, and processes of cultural hybridization that have progressively built an interconnected space along the land and sea routes of East and Southeast Asia.

From an anthropological point of view, a first element of continuity is represented by the spread of populations of Sino-Tibetan and Tai-Kadai linguistic origin. The Tai peoples, now the majority in Thailand and Laos, are generally believed to have originated in the southern regions of China, particularly Yunnan and Guangxi, from where they gradually migrated between the 8th and 13th centuries AD. These movements are attested to both by Chinese sources from the Tang dynasty (618–907) and by comparative linguistic evidence. Similarly, the Zhuang peoples of Guangxi share linguistic and cultural affinities with the Tai groups of mainland Southeast Asia, highlighting an ethnographic continuity that predates the formation of the current nation states.

A further connecting element is the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, one of the most significant migratory phenomena in Asian history. Already during the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), there were maritime trade contacts with the kingdoms of Southeast Asia, but it was mainly between the 10th and 15th centuries, under the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, that Chinese communities began to settle permanently in the region’s ports. The expeditions of Admiral Zheng He (1405–1433), which visited Malacca, Java, and Sumatra, represent a symbolic moment in this interaction. By the 19th century, with European colonial expansion and the integration of Southeast Asia into the global economy, Chinese migration accelerated significantly: between 1850 and 1930, millions of Chinese, mainly from Guangdong and Fujian, settled in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam (it is estimated that over 30 million people of Chinese origin reside in Southeast Asia, constituting one of the most important diasporas in the world).

Culturally, the similarities are evident in religious practices and value systems. Although not a religion in the strict sense, Confucianism has profoundly influenced the Vietnamese elite since the era of Chinese domination (111 BC–939 AD). The imperial examination system, introduced in Vietnam in 1075 under the Lý dynasty, was modeled on the Chinese system and helped to structure a bureaucratic class inspired by Confucian principles. Buddhism, which spread from China to Southeast Asia alongside flows from India, also fostered cultural convergence: Mahāyāna Buddhism, dominant in China, had a significant presence in Vietnam, while in areas such as Thailand and Myanmar, the Theravāda tradition established itself, while maintaining doctrinal and iconographic exchanges with the Chinese world.

Ritual practices, ancestor worship, and certain forms of family organization represent further points of contact. In many Sino-Southeast Asian communities, especially in the urban societies of Malaysia and Singapore, a syncretic combination of Chinese traditions, local beliefs, and Islamic or Christian influences can be observed. This syncretism reflects a process of cultural adaptation that has not erased common roots but has reworked them in plural contexts.

Historical affinities can also be found from an economic and social perspective. Chinese merchant networks in Southeast Asia have historically functioned through clans, dialect associations, and family ties, structures that find correspondences in local forms of community organization. During the British colonial period, for example, the Chinese kongsi in West Borneo (18th–19th centuries) were truly autonomous political and economic entities, demonstrating a capacity for integration and self-government that influenced the regional balance of power.

No less significant are the genetic and material interactions documented by archaeology. Chinese ceramic finds at sites in northern Vietnam and the Malay Peninsula, dating back to the Tang and Song periods, attest to the circulation of goods and technologies. Similarly, agricultural techniques such as intensive rice cultivation in complex irrigation systems show parallels between the Yangtze basin and the Mekong and Chao Phraya plains, suggesting transfers of agronomic knowledge.

Redefining regional maps, or zones of influence

Let us now translate all this into political terms. China is well aware that its regional location forces it to secure stable and well-established hegemony, which is why the shift towards ASEAN is part of the implementation of its security strategy.

The ethnographic similarities between China and Southeast Asia are not the product of a simple unidirectional influence, but rather the result of a long history of mutual interaction, migration, and adaptation. The long history of ties, brotherhood, but also local conflicts is an excellent common ground for discussion for the construction of shared projects. The current tone of diplomacy and the shared interest in national protection and security against Western aggression guarantee the possibility of a courageous alliance. Of course, China cannot ignore the marked American presence in the area, especially in Taiwan and the Strait of Malacca, so it will have to carefully consider each step in order to defuse possible tampering and establish genuine cooperation aimed at shared success, with a view to a peaceful future.

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We’ve got a thing, and that’s a-called radar love
We’ve got a wave in the air

Radar love

Golden Earring, Radar Love

Neo-Caligula continues to bet in what could be defined as The Strategy of the Weaponized Debtor.

HONG KONG – Persia and China go back a long – historical – way. Focus for a moment just on the 7^th century, in peak Silk Road times, when the two great poles of development were Sassanian Persian and Tang China, always on good mutual terms, and sharing a key common interest in Eurasia trade.

Now jump to the 21^st century, when China is the great trading/geoeconomic power on the planet, and Iran is one of the very few sovereigns left.

This week marks the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution – followed with great interest by Chinese intellectuals since the early years of Deng Xiaoping in power, when the new Iran theo-democracy proclaimed its foreign policy of “Neither East nor West”.

Now, Iran is one of the key poles of the Beijing-engineered New Silk Roads, as well as a top member of the two multipolar multilateral institutions, BRICS and the SCO.

Chinese intellectuals can easily empathize with the fact that even under decades of ultra-harsh sanctions, Iran has managed to construct itself as a tech power – in several areas such as drone technology, ballistic missiles, nanotechnology and medical equipment.

The strategic partnership works in multilevel ways – and the most sensitive are of course invisible. For instance, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier this week confirmed that Tehran briefs Beijing – and Moscow – in detail on the murky indirect negotiations with the US in Oman about a possible new nuclear deal.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi for his part met with Chinese and Russian ambassadors in Tehran after he visited Beijing and was present at the talks in Oman.

That’s strategic coordination at the highest level.

Then there’s the “unseen”.

We’ve got a wave in the air

No official confirmation, by Tehran or Beijing, of course: these are national security issues for both parties. But it’s practically a done deal that Beijing is actively supplying high-quality intel and state of the art radar technology to Tehran.

This revolves around the movement of state of the art scientific radar vessel Ocean No. 1.

China deployed a Type 055 destroyer and a Type 052D destroyer in the Sea of Oman to escort Ocean No. 1 – which is in all probability tracking the movement of US Navy ships and submarines, and sharing this information with Iran. And the spectrum may go way beyond radars.

Ocean No. 1 is China’s first comprehensive oceanographic vessel specialized in deep-sea scientific research, equipped with advanced imaging and mapping systems for the seafloor, and capable of collecting long-range environmental data.

It works very much like the US RC-135. Sensors can capture electronic emissions (radio frequencies, radar, communications) from nearby ships and aircraft, including COMINT (communications intelligence) and ELINT (electronic intelligence of non-communications signals).

Translation: Iran not only now knows where US Navy submarines are positioned, but their communications are also intercepted.

So here we have the PLA Navy quietly positioning a Type 055 destroyer – widely regarded as the most capable surface combatant on earth – off the Gulf of Oman, sailing with a Type 052D as well as the Liaowang-1, a space-tracking vessel built to observe what navies prefer to keep hidden.

The Type 055 integrates dual-band radar, goes for over-the-horizon tracking, it’s on persistent surveillance mode and exhibits the kind of sensor fusion that turns Iranian missiles from shooters into snipers.

Additionally, the Chinese military are publishing satellite images of US bases across West Asia – including a brand new THAAD battery deployed in Jordan.

So now, in a nutshell, we have the complex, multi-layered Iranian ballistic missile arsenal – complete with multi-warheads and hypersonics – totally integrated with Chinese battlespace intel.

Everyone remembers how in May 2025, Chinese satellites gave Pakistani forces an absolutely decisive battlefield advantage over India.

Putting it all together, it’s clear that a surprise attack by neo-Caligula’s “massive armada” is now a no-go. That may be self-evident for anyone in the Beltway with an IQ over room temperature. But certainly not for the warmongers crammed in that death cult in West Asia.

Just like a recent series of Russian Il-76 flights to Iran, there have also been a series of Chinese flights – in many cases several times a day.

Iran not only has invested a fortune in the C4ISR front but has already switched most of its arsenal to BeiDou and bought a lot of Chinese radars. Translation: Iran is switching to Chinese tech for target acquisition. So no more blackouts like during the start of the 12-day war in June – when Iran was saved in the first 48 hours by Russian technicians.

Exit “doom loop”, enter the new Five-Year Plan

China sharing high-tech with Iran is a matter of national security. Iran is a key energy supplier as well as a key node of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in West Asia. Beijing simply cannot allow a true sovereign like Iran being destabilized by the Empire of Chaos, Plunder and Permanent Strikes.

This foreign policy stance – with serious high-tech overtones – is mirrored by domestic moves – especially now on the eve of the Year of the Fire Horse.

It’s immensely significant that President Xi Jinping earlier this week inspected the National Information Technology Application Innovation Park in Yizhuang, in southern Beijing. There he met several business leaders such as Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun.

The visit was all about advanced sci-tech development – AI included: the core issue at the heart of the new five-year plan which is going to be fully approved next month in Beijing.

This Innovation Park was established in 2019, hosting about 1,000 companies working on central processing units (CPUs), operating systems, databases, AI, quantum information, 6G and intelligent hardware.

The 15^th Five Year Plan (2026-2030) is extremely ambitious. Three key goals: accelerate domestic demand and consumption; prevent runaway asset inflation and debt-led consumption; and make sure that finance should not be driven away from social utility.

The main points were agreed at a Central Economic Work Conference in December. It’s all about money applied to productive capitalism – a concept that bypasses the Empire of Chaos. Last month, at a work conference of the People’s Bank of China, it was agreed that the way to go is via a looser monetary policy towards “high-quality economic development”.

This means that Capital in China from now on should be redesigned to circulate rather than accumulate; consumer finance should expand but without turning households into leveraged balance sheets; and institutions should be focused on flow rather than hoarding.

That’s the blueprint of a system geared towards high-quality growth and controllable inflation.

Now compare all of the above with trademark American cognitive dissonance. Cut to the Wall Street Journal – reduced to the role of puny Murdoch family rag – inflicting on its readers an autopsy of the Chinese economy titled “A Doom Loop of Deflation”.

As much as “doom loop” is a childish fiction, the WSJ still has not understood that Beijing gave the green light to its Big Tech – Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance – to import US semiconductors as long as they buy similar quantities of domestic chips, mostly Huawei’s Ascend series.

This has nothing to do with “doom loop”; this is Beijing orienting its companies – which as the WSJ blasts, are “in crisis” – on how to finance their tech independence.

And that directly connects to the pragmatic use of AI in China: to improve the electric grid; manage automated ports and terminals – as I just saw last week in Chongqing; coordinate large scale logistics; and yes, equip their state of the art scientific research vessels.

And that brings us once again – in a not so doomed loop – to Iran. Neo-Caligula continues to bet in what could be defined as The Strategy of the Weaponized Debtor.

What we have essentially in Iran is an economy nearly strangled by “maximum pressure” sanctions, which by the way never violated any nuclear commitments, and a recent victim of a rude regime change attempt, still framed as a key target.

Because to destabilize Tehran means seriously destabilizing China’s energy and trade policy, and blow up BRICS from the inside.

The best minds in Beijing and Shanghai clearly see what’s in play. China is in effect a top creditor under threat by the weaponized debtor, now prone, in desperation, to hijack any real assets it can get its metal paws on, from energy to rare earth metals.

Beijing though is not intimated – far from it. One of the key planks of the new Five-Year-Plan is that China is focused on turbo-charging its new industrial powerhouse machine, based on efficient AI and very competitive companies, and thus migrate in record time to all key high-tech spheres: real assets that will eventually prevail over the weaponized US dollar.

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Opportunities found, opportunities lost

Economic and trade relations between Russia and India are a structural element of their strategic partnership, which has evolved over decades in response to global geopolitical changes and internal economic development needs. From the post-Soviet period to the present day, bilateral trade has grown considerably, reaching historic levels despite external pressures due to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after 2022. In recent weeks, however, American pressure has led New Delhi to cool its relations with Moscow. What will become of this historic alliance?

Let’s start with some data. Bilateral trade between the two countries reached $68.7 billion in 2024-2025, marking a significant increase over previous years and reflecting intensified trade in key sectors such as energy, fertilizers, chemicals, and raw materials. This dynamism was mainly driven by India’s imports of Russian crude oil and energy products, which accounted for the largest share of total imports from Moscow. At the same time, India increased its exports to Russia, albeit on a relatively modest scale compared to imports, with supplies of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, steel products, and marine products.

This trade asymmetry has prompted both sides to explore new payment settlement mechanisms and the use of national currencies to reduce dependence on the Western financial system and mitigate the effects of sanctions-related restrictions.

To date, cooperation has been institutionalized through various permanent dialogue and negotiation structures. There are two main bilateral commissions: one dedicated to Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological, and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC), and another to Military and Technical-Military Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC). These commissions meet regularly to coordinate sectoral cooperation programs. At the 3rd Annual India-Russia Summit (New Delhi, December 2025), leaders adopted a roadmap to increase trade volume to $100 billion by 2030, with a strong focus on both deepening existing agreements and exploring a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Russia is a leading member. There were also initiatives to facilitate logistics and trade corridors, an alliance that is a real structural investment in the Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor and the North-South International Corridor. All these instruments have always represented a strategy aimed not only at consolidating current trade flows, but also at building a broader platform for economic cooperation that can reduce dependence on routes and infrastructure dominated by Western powers.

It is precisely in the energy sector – perhaps the most ‘urgent’ for India – that the most delicate part and the target of attack by the United States of America is played out. In addition to oil, energy cooperation includes civil nuclear energy projects, such as the Kudankulam power plant, developed with Russian technology and financing, as well as initiatives in the renewable energy and energy transition sectors. In terms of oil, India has moved from importing 2.5% to 30% of its annual needs.

Trump’s move

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new trade agreement with India, accompanied by a statement that New Delhi would gradually abandon Russian oil in favor of U.S. and Venezuelan oil, has sparked a wide-ranging debate on the real feasibility of such an energy shift.

According to Trump, the reduction in tariffs on Indian goods from 50% to 18% would be linked to the Modi government’s commitment to reorient its crude oil imports. However, neither the Indian authorities nor the Kremlin have officially confirmed such a commitment, leaving room for political and operational uncertainties.

Access to discounted oil has guaranteed Indian refineries high margins and helped to contain domestic energy inflation. U.S. pressure – including sanctions against large Russian companies and the threat of secondary sanctions – has gradually reduced the volumes purchased, but has not eliminated them. A total interruption would lead to an increase in global prices and a negative impact on Indian growth, as well as a significant increase in the national energy bill.

The possibility of replacing Russian crude oil with Venezuelan crude oil presents further challenges. Although Venezuela has the largest proven reserves in the world, its current production is limited and insufficient to fully compensate for Russian volumes destined for India. In addition, Venezuelan crude oil is heavier and has a high sulfur content, requiring complex refineries and costly processing. Transportation costs would also be higher, as Venezuela is geographically much further away than Russia or the Middle East. Without substantial discounts, Venezuelan oil would risk being less competitive than Russian Urals, which is traditionally offered at lower prices than Brent.

India is pursuing a diversification strategy, expanding imports from OPEC countries, particularly Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as well as from the U.S., but international competition for energy supplies and geopolitical volatility make a rapid and complete replacement of Russian oil complex. In the short term, therefore, a total pivot appears economically costly and technically problematic, suggesting that New Delhi will continue to balance energy pragmatism, geopolitical pressures, and security of supply.

Prospects for continuity

Self-sufficiency in relations between Russia and India has become an established feature over the course of their nearly 80-year shared history. Both countries are major players on the international stage, and it is difficult for outside actors to influence their political paths. This was the case during the Cold War, when the USSR contributed to the strengthening of the Indian state. The same happened in the following period, during Russia’s most difficult years, when cooperation with India helped it overcome a long economic crisis. A new test began in 2022, following the serious deterioration of relations between Moscow and the so-called “collective West.” Contrary to predictions of a collapse in bilateral trade due to the risk of secondary sanctions, India’s role in Russia’s foreign economic relations has grown significantly. It is significant that the joint statements of the leaders of the two countries focused on concrete economic goals, almost entirely avoiding political abstractions.

Nevertheless, Russia and India are unlikely to remain immune to the profound changes taking place in global politics, which today originate mainly in North America. The traditional image of the United States as the most conservative actor in international relations, interested in preserving a “rules-based world order,” is rapidly eroding as a result of Washington’s own choices. Until recently, the U.S. consistently supported free trade, while today it is waging a trade war against dozens of countries, allies and rivals alike. Yesterday, it promoted the game of coalitions, carefully building alliances around its own initiatives, while today it adopts a harsh tone even towards its closest NATO partners. Once the leader of globalization, it now recognizes its decline. U.S. foreign policy no longer produces only risks, but above all uncertainty: with risks, at least the options are clear, while uncertainty makes them unclear.

Despite this uncertain context, Russia and India show a certain solidity. The long and steady work carried out over the years to strengthen their sovereignty is bearing fruit. Both have developed autonomous financial systems. Digitalization is proceeding in all sectors, based on national software and platforms. The armed forces have been modernized. In areas where self-sufficiency is not possible or convenient, the two countries have significantly diversified their suppliers and partners. All this has been achieved without alliances against third parties. While remaining very different in terms of social and economic structure, the result is similar: in an increasingly unstable world, Russia and India present themselves as independent, capable, and responsible actors.

An important consequence of the changes in American policy is the prospect of a possible solution to the Ukrainian crisis, where the Trump administration considers it unlikely that Russia will give up its fundamental interests, making negotiation and compromise the only viable option. Thirty years ago, India showed similar determination in pursuing its nuclear program, which was eventually accepted as a fait accompli despite U.S. sanctions. If the negotiations on Ukraine lead to peace, relations between Moscow and New Delhi would benefit from a more favorable international environment. However, this will not change the rivalry between Russia and the West, nor the weight of economic sanctions, which are set to remain a structural factor in the long term. Their scope is such that it will be impossible to lift them quickly, and the stability of any agreements remains uncertain, especially in view of possible changes in the U.S. administration.

Russia and India will have to rely primarily on their own resources and their established bilateral partnership, as well as on the strengthening of organizations such as BRICS and the SCO. Together, they can make a significant contribution to addressing security challenges in Eurasia and beyond. In all likelihood, strategic patience will once again be required, a quality that both nations have demonstrated in abundance.

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From the beginning

Chinese historians define contemporary China as a “civilization-state,” that is, the result of a long historical process based on centuries of interaction between regions characterized by different ethnicities and cultural traditions. Each of these has contributed to the formation of a shared political, legal, and administrative culture, as well as to the development of a common spiritual and artistic dimension.

This historical path ultimately prevailed over the centrifugal forces that had generated conflicts and wars between different areas of the territory, finally leading them, in the 2nd century BC, to accept the existence of a single political and administrative center. This unification took place around a particularly advanced legal system, developed by the region that at that time imposed itself on the others: the kingdom of the Qin dynasty, which had already structured a highly centralized state model.

Under the Qin dynasty, the writing system was also standardized, making it possible to collect and systematize the main philosophical and religious currents that had developed in previous centuries, in particular Confucianism and Taoism. These traditions provided the ideal framework for imperial unity. Despite subsequent phases of political fragmentation, this conceptual framework made it possible to rebuild the state-civilization with which modern China still identifies today.

During the 20th century, under Maoism, the Chinese state underwent an evolution that was in some ways similar to that experienced by Russia under the Soviet regime. In both cases, the attempt to replace ancient spiritual roots with a materialistic vision, aimed at highlighting the contradictions and social inequalities inherited from feudal structures, led to the experience of socialism.

In hindsight, however, it is clear that this experience was also the product of an ideological grafting carried out in Russia by circles that, as early as the late 18th century, aimed to dismantle national sovereignties. The result was a system fraught with contradictions, largely serving the geopolitical interests of a West dominated by oligarchic elites, whose objectives had fueled the colonial expansion of the British Empire.

Subsequently, both in Russia and China, the crisis of this social organization, based essentially on the Marxist conception of historical materialism, became apparent. This crisis was due to the inability of this paradigm to prevent phenomena such as corruption and hyper-bureaucratization, which end up alienating citizens from the state and giving officials and administrative apparatuses disproportionate power, often exercised to the detriment of the collective interest.

Civilization, what else?

In the absence of a civilization understood as a shared ethical and philosophical heritage, without a spiritual background that recognizes the individual as a center endowed with a sovereign personality and capable of conceiving, in ethical terms, one’s own good and that of others, any political system is doomed to decline.

A social group that aims to reform the structure of society and the state in a positive sense, once it has achieved its objectives, cannot preserve the cohesion necessary to build a stable community if it does not have a solid ethical-philosophical foundation. It is for this reason that materialism, on an ontological level, is incapable of guaranteeing such cohesion.

The shift undertaken by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is precisely an attempt to correct this distortion. Both have recognized the need to restore to their respective national communities the original spirit that shaped their civilization, the inspiring principle that made it a resource not only for themselves but for all of humanity.

It is in this context that the question of soft power emerges. Many Western analysts tend to interpret China’s traditionalist orientation as a tool for global projection aimed at competing with Anglo-American hegemony. From this perspective, the recovery of an ethical dimension to politics, including in international relations, would be motivated solely by calculations of convenience.

The same observers, however, recognize that Confucianism, being historically and anthropologically well defined, would be ineffective as a tool of global soft power, as it is unable to transcend the boundaries of identity that Anglo-Saxon soft power manages to overcome through cancel culture and woke ideology.

This apparent contradiction actually confirms the authenticity of the change undertaken, aimed primarily at resolving the internal tensions generated by the Chinese model of market socialism. At the same time, it reinforces the idea of a genuine desire for international cooperation, in which the concept of a “shared destiny” is not simply a propaganda slogan, but a concrete principle on which to build equal and mutually beneficial relationships based on a win-win logic.

Sooner or later, the West will have to recognize that the new multipolar order was not created to compete with the West, but to stop its race that risked dragging the world into the abyss.

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Slowly but surely

The post-Cold War vision of a U.S.-led global system – liberal in outlook, capitalist in structure, and technocratic in style – has long been hailed as universally applicable. Built around international institutions and trade frameworks designed in Washington, New York, and Geneva, this order promised prosperity through integration and stability through alignment. Today, that promise is fading. As the United States turns inward, uses trade as a strategic weapon, and distances itself from multilateral obligations, conditions are increasingly ripe for a reconfiguration of the global order – one that is less Western-centric, less doctrinaire, and more attuned to the development priorities of Asia and the Global South.

This transformation cannot be explained solely by American fatigue or renewed isolationism. Rather, it reflects the cumulative result of long-standing dissatisfaction among developing countries that have disproportionately absorbed the costs of a model of globalization that has rarely delivered equitable or balanced benefits. For much of the Global South, the liberal economic framework has translated into market openness without guarantees, austerity without productive investment, and institutional reforms that have eroded rather than strengthened sovereignty.

The crisis of 2020, global changes, and recurring financial instability have only intensified these complaints, highlighting the vulnerabilities of a system whose benefits have proven to be unequal and temporary. Against this backdrop, rising Asian powers, particularly China, India, and the ASEAN economies, are increasingly unwilling to accept rules that they have had little say in shaping. Instead, they are promoting alternative approaches to growth, governance, and global engagement.

These approaches favor state-led development strategies, digital autonomy, industrial planning, and cooperation among developing countries. In contrast to the Washington Consensus, they are based on pragmatism, multipolar interaction, and diversity, rather than political conditionality or uniformity.

New routes offer hope

China’s role is particularly visible in this shift. Through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the expanding BRICS framework, Beijing has sought to create alternative – and increasingly legitimate – venues for infrastructure financing, trade facilitation, and diplomatic exchanges. While critics rightly question the strategic intent and debt sustainability of some Chinese-backed projects, it is equally clear that these efforts have filled gaps left by Western reluctance. For many states in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, China is now seen less as a disruptive force and more as a pragmatic and responsive partner.

India, meanwhile, is positioning itself as a strategic counterweight, not by imitating the Chinese model, but by championing an inclusive multilateralism rooted in the development concerns of the Global South. Through its G20 presidency and leadership in initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance and BIMSTEC, New Delhi has presented itself as an advocate for climate equity, technological equity, and resilient supply chains.

India’s emphasis on strategic autonomy and its refusal to be drawn into rigid blocs of major powers reflect a broader aspiration within the Global South for a new style of leadership that combines national interest with innovative normative thinking. While many of their neighbors are caught up in the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, ASEAN countries, often marginalized in the narratives of the great powers, are quietly articulating one of the world’s most dynamic models of regional integration. Structures such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) promote an open regionalism focused on connectivity, digital trade, and regulatory coordination, without requiring political alignment. In this sense, ASEAN’s gradualist approach offers a practical model for a post-American order: decentralized, flexible, problem-oriented, and largely non-ideological.

However, this emerging architecture has clear limitations. Cooperation in the Global South remains uneven, and many states still lack the institutional capacity or fiscal space to meaningfully shape global norms.

Moreover, the U.S. withdrawal is not taking place through a controlled transition, but through a rupture, creating power vacuums that are often filled by zero-sum struggles for influence rather than constructive alternatives. Such dynamics risk not only fragmentation, but also the return of spheres of influence that threaten the sovereignty and multilateralism that the Global South seeks to defend.

To avoid this outcome, emerging powers in Asia must go beyond simply filling vacuums and actively design frameworks. This involves much more than bilateral agreements or infrastructure financing. It requires the joint development of new standards in data governance, green finance, labor protection, and debt restructuring. It also means investing in institutions, not only in financial bodies and regional blocs, but also in research centers, legal mechanisms, and multilateral platforms that reflect the priorities and values of the majority of the world.

The stakes are considerable. As Western economies struggle with political polarization and strategic fatigue, the credibility of the liberal order continues to decline. If Asia and the Global South fail to respond with coordinated and cooperative initiatives, the result will not be a better alternative, but a more unstable and contested global landscape.

The United States is not disappearing from international affairs, but it is no longer the sole author of the global script. Filling the resulting space are Asian powers and coalitions from the Global South that once occupied the periphery of the global normative system and now seek to reshape it. This moment is not revolutionary, but evolutionary, yet evolution requires direction.

Whether the future international order becomes more just, more pluralistic, and more sustainable will depend on the ability of emerging powers to convert dissatisfaction into design and aspiration into structure. For India, China, and Southeast Asia, the challenge is not just how to lead, but how to lead differently, prioritizing equity, resilience, and pluralism.

South-South integration

Far from remaining on the margins, the Global South occupies the center of this transition. Home to over sixty percent of the world’s population and an ever-increasing share of global production, it represents both the aspiration for inclusion and the reality of exclusion. However, prevailing narratives of power continue to privilege the institutional legacy of the North over the lived realities of the South, creating a structural imbalance that can no longer be sustained by rhetoric or short-term assistance.

This intellectual contrast mirrors the challenge facing much of the global South: containment strategies must give way to coexistence, and coercion must be replaced by connectivity.

Multipolarity is not a destination in itself, but a system to be managed, requiring sensitivity between different cultures and political traditions. Without evolving into genuine pluralism, it risks becoming a battleground of multiple hegemonies rather than a cooperative order of equals.

Beneath the shifting geopolitics lies a deeper and more enduring fault line: the inequality between North and South. Developing countries have a combined public debt of more than $29 trillion, but account for less than a fifth of global GDP and just 10 percent of global research and development. The digital divide reinforces this imbalance: some two billion people remain disconnected from the digital infrastructure that underpins modern citizenship.

This is not only an economic imbalance, but also an epistemic one, silently determining which perspectives influence global politics. The United Nations World Social Report 2025 warns that such disparities fuel insecurity, mistrust, and declining confidence in multilateral institutions. If left unaddressed, they risk transforming multipolarity into a stratified and unequal disorder.

Asia-led forums have recently offered insights into how to correct this imbalance. At the Boao Forum for Asia 2025, leaders from the Global South argued that the right to development is not a privilege but a prerequisite for a legitimate global economy. They called for reform of international financial institutions and insisted that innovation be treated as a global public good rather than an exclusive asset. Inclusion, as was clear from the discussions, is no longer an optional generosity, but a structural necessity for stability.

A similar tone emerged at Valdai 2025, where participants from the South emphasized the importance of action over aid, advocating a shift from debt dependency to sovereign innovation. A shared moral logic emerged from these conversations: prosperity without participation is empty, and participation without equity breeds instability.

The fatigue of post-Cold War institutions has made one fact inevitable: multilateralism must adapt or decay. Inclusive governance, once central to the UN Charter, has been overshadowed by transnational alliances and ad hoc coalitions. Since 2020, more than half of new global security initiatives have emerged outside the UN and Bretton Woods systems.

We are facing a “modular multilateralism,” made up of flexible partnerships based on functions rather than rigid hierarchies. Such an approach would allow developing countries to collaborate on specific challenges – food security, digital standards, disaster response – without waiting for the consent of distant institutions. Reform must also extend to the ethical and intellectual foundations of multilateralism. Legitimacy should derive less from numerical voting power and more from the quality of inclusive deliberation. A multipolar system that merely renames old monopolies would only update inequality rather than overcome it.

The imbalance between North and South is perhaps most pronounced in emerging technologies. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology are redefining power faster than diplomatic norms can respond. About 70% of artificial intelligence patents come from five advanced economies, while the entire developing world accounts for less than 5%. Without sustained investment in local skills and research, the South risks becoming a digital periphery, consuming value created elsewhere.

The challenge is not only to narrow the gap, but also to design ethical systems that ensure transparency, accountability, and distributive fairness.

The underlying message was clear: the future global order will be shaped less by data ownership than by how data is used for the benefit of humanity.

Three priorities stand out:

Institutional equity: Reform of global financial, trade, and technology regimes must ensure genuine representation, not token inclusion.

Pluralism of knowledge: Intellectual monopolies should give way to a diverse culture through open access, multilingual research, and South-South think tank networks.

Ethical governance: emerging technologies and climate interventions require moral frameworks as robust as legal ones, an area where the Global South can offer leadership based on shared human values.

These goals are not idealistic, but urgent. Without them, multipolarity risks slipping into fragmentation, with many centers of power and few shared goals.

Power has already begun to redistribute itself; the real question is whether guiding principles will follow. If competition can be transformed into coordination and hierarchy into partnership, the 21st century may yet fulfill the unfinished promise of the 20th.

Ultimately, this is the ethical vocation of multipolarity: to ensure that the changing geometry of global power is accompanied by an equal respect for human dignity.

The old order is crumbling. What will replace it will not be determined by the absence of the United States, but by the determination and action of those who are ready to take its place. The world is no longer waiting for permission; it has begun to move on its own.

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Three serious events dominated the international news at the turn of the year. First, in the early hours of December 29, 2025, the Ukrainian government attacked with 91 drones on the residence of President Vladimir Putin in the Novgorod region, according to the Russian defense minister. The national defense system intercepted all the drones. One of them was hit in the tail, preserving the information from its navigation system. The Kremlin shared the collected data with the US authorities. Kiev denies the accusations.

The attack occurred shortly after Donald Trump indicated “that the Ukraine peace process was nearing its conclusion, following his meeting with Vladimir Zelensky and a phone call with Putin on Sunday.” According to Russian authorities, the attack was not limited to an assassination attempt on the Russian president, but “against President Trump’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.” As Belarusian President Lukashenko stated, Kiev did not act alone. London also has responsibility for the attacks.

Second, in Southwest Asia, also at the end of December 2025, due to devaluations of the Iranian currency and significant inflationary effects, amid a severe economic crisis in Iran that has dragged on for years because of sanctions imposed by the United States, merchants in Tehran began peaceful demonstrations. To the surprise of analysts and the Iranian government, these quickly turned into a wave of highly violent protests across the country.

Openly, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, admitted involvement, applauded the events, and “claimed it has agents embedded with the protesting crowds.” Tehran acknowledged that foreign forces seek to transform legitimate protests into violent urban battles. In turn, on January 2, 2026, Donald Trump announced on his social media that the United States was ready to act at any moment to defend the protesters. On the same day, Tehran responded by threatening all US positions in the region in reaction to “any potential adventurism.” The strong offensive capability of Iran anchored this position, developed by the country, based on hypersonic missiles, whose destructive power came out in the Twelve-Day War against Israel and the United States. As reported by Israeli Channel 12, in response, Tel Aviv is considering launching a simultaneous war against Iran, Lebanon, and the West Bank.

Third, in the early morning of January 3, 2026, a United States aircraft violated Venezuelan airspace and carried out a significant attack on different points in the capital, Caracas. Their main target was the military base where President Maduro and his wife were located. They were kidnapped and taken to New York and, in practice, became prisoners of war. In this operation, more than 100 people died, including 32 Cubans who were part of the Venezuelan president’s personal guard. Subsequently, Trump demanded full access to Venezuelan oil, in addition to stating that the US would govern Venezuela until a proper transition was implemented. The following day, he broadened the scope of his targets. He made direct threats to three other countries, Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia, which, along with Brazil, condemned the US action, denouncing it as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.

In response to the US violence, on January 4, the Venezuelan Supreme Court recognized Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim president to guarantee the continuity of the government in the face of the kidnapping and imprisonment of President Maduro. Delcy is an essential figure in Chavismo. She was Minister of Communication and Information, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, most recently, Minister of Economy and Petroleum.

These three serious events of the current situation, concentrated in time but dispersed across the global space, must be interpreted in light of the new US geo-strategy, whose parameters had already been indicated by Donald Trump during the 2024 election process; made explicit at the beginning of his new term through some pronouncements and actions; and finally, systematized in the latest National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December 2025.

As described in another article, there is an ongoing attempt to redesign Grand Strategy of the United States by redefining its most important challenge in the international arena. In detriment of Russia, the United States has come to view China as the main threat to its security and global interests and, consequently, seeks to create distance between Russia and China. It is an effort to reconfigure the central core of the great powers.

Pursuant to the NSS 2025, the United States’ failure to address Chinese projection over the past few decades, due to excessive preoccupation with Russia, constitutes a historical error. “President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China (…) China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage. American elites – over four successive administrations of both political parties – were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or in denial.” (NSS 2025, p. 19).

In practice, the Trump administration is not inventing anything new. It is reviving a vision structured by Nixon-Kissinger in the context of Triangular Diplomacy, inaugurated in 1969, when they took advantage of the radical Chinese initiative to redefine the main threat to their society, from the United States to the Soviet Union, in the midst of the Cold War. It was in this context that Washington pursued a policy of strategic rapprochement with Beijing to pressure Moscow to advance its agenda and to reinforce divisions within the communist bloc.

What is generally overlooked is that, in 1972, Kissinger himself warned Nixon of the need to reverse the equation from Washington’s perspective: to get closer to Moscow to bring Beijing into line. “I think, in a historical period, they [the Chinese] are more formidable than the Russians. And I think in 20 years, your successor, if he is as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese. For the next 15 years, we have to lean towards the Chinese against the Russians. We have to play this balance of power game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to discipline the Russians.”

The 2025 NSS is moving in the direction the former Secretary of State suggested. When addressing the Asian chessboard, the main threat to the United States becomes clearer. It identifies China as its greatest geopolitical and geo-economic challenge. “Indo-Pacific is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there – and we are.” (NSS, 2025, p. 19). As will be seen, this is the point that effectively organizes and conditions what the United States intends in other continents, therefore giving meaning to the most recent events in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.

From a military standpoint, the NSS reinforces the longstanding concept of a Chinese sea blockade, structured around island chains, formulated during the Korean War by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. It consists of two belts of military bases surrounding China, with the power to prevent its maritime access. It is for this reason that Taiwan is the central point of contention. “Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global shipping passes through the South China Sea each year, this has major implications for the US economy. Hence, deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” (NSS 2025, p. 23).

In addition, the new NSS reinforces the need to militarize the South China Sea by strengthening the first island chain. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. (…) America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the US military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.” (NSS 2025, p. 24). Finally, the document compels the militarization of the region’s strongest allies, Japan and South Korea, to deter adversaries and defend the island chains.

From an economic standpoint, the NSS 2025 confirms, on the one hand, China’s recent and significant projection onto much of the world and, on the other, the current need for the US to guarantee access to critical supply chains and materials. Combining these two points, the result for the United States becomes, first, to remove and obstruct Chinese access to strategic regions and, second, to build privileged, unlimited, monopolistic insertions. In effect, it proposes a redesign of China’s relations with other countries and territories. “(…) the United States must protect and defend our economy and our people from harm, from any country or source. This means ending (among other things): threats against our supply chains that risk US access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.” (NSS 2025, p. 21).

For Europe, the document follows the direction Kissinger suggested in 1972, of rapprochement with the Russians to pursue Chinese isolation. This aim, however, necessarily involves the reintegration of Russia into the international system; in other words, the end of both the Ukrainian War and NATO’s expansion policy, therefore the recognition of Moscow’s victory on the battlefield and, in effect, the need to negotiate a peace treaty according to Russian interests. It, in turn, implies, among other things, the neutrality of Ukraine, its demilitarization and denazification, the recognition of the Russian conquest of Crimea, and the independence or annexation of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions by Russia.

It is surprising that this proposal, radical from the perspective of US foreign policy tradition, appears explicitly in the NSS 2025. “As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states. It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 25).

It is clear that, from the United States’ point of view, the core of the problem is not exactly “making deals with the Russians,” as the star player Garrincha of the Brazilian national team would say in the 1958 World Cup, but rather making deals with its main European partners. The possibility of reinserting Russia in these terms constitutes a bomb of tectonic proportions for Europe, especially for England, France, and Germany. It is because: the US threatens to undermine NATO, weakening Europe; Europe, tutored for decades by the US via NATO, has low capacity for initiative in the military field; Russia has defeated NATO’s armaments on the battlefield and enjoys a significant strategic advantage; and there is no common threat among Russians, Americans, Chinese, and Europeans that dilutes their rivalries, apprehensions, and fears.

It is in this context that it should analyze the drone attacks on Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. The continuation of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, mediated by Washington, and even the military escalation on Ukrainian territory, are of particular interest to the British, French, and Germans to keep the United States trapped in the war effort against the Russians. Therefore, the accusations made by President Lukashenko of Belarus, based on Russian intelligence, pointing to London as sharing responsibility for the attempted assassination of the Russian president, make sense.

Similarly, regarding the Americas, Washington’s policy is conditioned by the Chinese challenge. In this sense, the NSS could not be more explicit. “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors [China] the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.” (NSS 2025, p. 15).

In general terms, the United States conceives its global projection from a position of hemispheric insularity. Dominating the American continent, especially the Greater Caribbean and its interoceanic connection – a key condition for the integration of its Pacific and Atlantic navies – is the pillar upon which it expands globally, particularly towards the fringes of the Eurasian continental landmass, the famous Rimland mentioned by Spykman. One could say this is an expansion, on a continental scale, of the old English strategy, when, in the historian Fernand Braudel’s words, England became an island after its defeat in the Hundred Years’ War in 1453. Since then, the English have embraced the insularity of the British Isles as the basis of their global projection.

What is most important to understand in this type of geostrategic conception, structured on an insular vision, is the implication for other peoples and countries present in the same fundamental spaces from which the maritime power projects itself. It is because any autonomous insertion of a country or an alliance of countries compromises the capacity of the insular powers for global expansion. Here is the primary reason, for example, for the centuries-long British violence against the Irish and Scots, as well as the various interventions and coups by the United States in Latin American countries. These spaces cannot rival or serve as a “bridgehead” for global geopolitical adversaries. It is not a matter of political-ideological, ethno-religious, or economic issues per se, but geopolitical ones. Ultimately, one could say that Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution (1953-59), in the heart of the “Greater Caribbean,” and Michael Collins in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), in the heart of the “British Inland Sea,” fought and were successful against violence of a similar nature.

Beyond natural resources, it is in this sense that the rationale behind some of the US threats to countries in the region can also be understood, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, due to their non-aligned foreign policies, and Canada and Greenland (Denmark), due to their relevant geographical positions.

In the case of Venezuela, in addition to being in the “Greater Caribbean,” the country holds the world’s largest oil reserves, 303 billion barrels, surpassing Saudi Arabia (267 billion). Additionally, following the expansion of sanctions in 2019, China became the leading importer of oil, displacing the United States. In 2023, the Chinese accounted for 68% of the country’s crude oil exports, and the Americans, 23%.

Furthermore, Venezuela has been drawing closer to Iran, Russia, and China on sensitive issues. For example, according to the Washington Post, in October 2025, Venezuela requested military assistance from Russia, China, and Iran to improve its defense systems. Caracas requested radar detectors from Beijing; radar jamming equipment and drones capable of flying up to 1,000 km from Tehran; and new missiles, as well as assistance for Su-30MK2 fighter jets and radar systems already acquired, from Moscow. A week earlier, Russia had ratified the strategic partnership treaty with Venezuela, negotiated in May of the same year, and at that time also expressed support for Venezuela’s national sovereignty and a commitment to help “overcome any threats, regardless of their origin.”

It is not difficult to see that, in addition to Chinese projection over Venezuelan oil, Caracas had been trying to develop significant defensive and deterrent military capabilities with the support of the United States’ main adversaries in other arenas. In any case, the kidnapping of President Maduro revealed the country’s vulnerability and backwardness to violence from foreign powers.

In the Middle East, the 2025 National Security Plan points to the same issue: ensuring that oil and gas reserves are available to the West and off-limits to its enemies. It also expresses concern about access to the Strait of Hormuz. “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable (…).” (NSS 2025, p. 28).

Like Caracas, Tehran’s rapprochement with Beijing and Moscow is quite delicate. In addition to possessing the second-largest gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2023; the BRICS in 2024; signed a strategic partnership with Russia in 2025; and had its diplomatic relations reactivated with Saudi Arabia in 2023 through Chinese mediation. Furthermore, Iran is structuring the axis of resistance in Southwest Asia against US and Israeli violence (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, the Iraqi Resistance, and Hamas in Palestine). Therefore, promoting a hybrid war against Iran to overthrow the government is a priority for the United States. Not surprisingly, the award-winning and well-informed journalist Seymour Hersh recently wrote that: “The next target [after Venezuela], I have been told, will be Iran, another purveyor to China whose crude oil reserves are the world’s fourth largest.”

Therefore, drone strikes, hybrid warfare, and the presidential kidnapping are directly or indirectly linked to the new Grand Strategy, whose main challenge is China. What the general public has not yet realized is that, throughout the history of the United States, every time a president has attempted a policy of non-confrontation with Russia, it has not lasted long – Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Something courageously pointed out by filmmaker Oliver Stone in an interview with the excellent journalist Abby Martin. Perhaps, for Trump, his main threat is not just China but the blowback of his policy of reintegrating Russia, victorious in the war, into the international system.