Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, September 7, 2022. /CFP
Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the keynote speech at this year's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok where he correctly diagnosed the cause of global chaos. Instead of the international community coming together after the COVID-19 pandemic to emerge stronger and more closely integrated than ever before like well-wishers across the world hoped would happen, it's been ruthlessly torn apart by what he described as the collective West.
According to him, the U.S. led these destructive processes in order to deliberately destabilize the global recovery, which it was motivated to do by a desperate desire to delay the inevitable decline of its unipolar hegemony and the emergence of a multipolar world order. To that end, it's employed a combination of illegal sanctions and conventional military threats, which President Putin regards as counterproductive to everyone's interests, including those of the collective West and its own people.
The Russian leader also described the ideological motivation behind this, which he said is to force their socioeconomic and political models onto all others regardless of the costs. Quite hypocritically, he noted, this same bloc of countries openly violates the principles of their own "rules-based order." Not only has this crazed drive to preserve their fading dominance failed, but it's also ruined their economies, with him pointing to the EU as a perfect example of this.
The larger consequences of this self-inflicted damage are reverberating throughout the world before everyone's eyes, President Putin explained, as Western currencies lose their traditional role as reliable means for conducting international transactions. The entire structure of the global economic-financial system has thus been shattered despite the hard work that was invested into building it by all stakeholders over the centuries.
Instead of responsibly recalibrating their policies in a pragmatic effort to salvage some of this system, Western countries are resorting to their discredited colonial impulses that deserved to remain in the dustbin of history. As proof of this, President Putin pointed out how this summer's Turkish-brokered grain deal resulted in almost all of Ukraine's newly-unlocked grain exports going to the EU and thus depriving the Global South of much-needed foodstuffs, which threatens to catalyze more crises.
A view of the House of the Russian Government and Smolensky Metro Bridge across the Moskva River, Moscow, Russia, August 22, 2022. /CFP
Nevertheless, even this isn't sufficient to stave off the inevitable decline of the West's unipolar hegemony since the Russian leader predicts that this will actually only accelerate it. By contrast, his country remains comparatively more stable after having preserved its sovereignty, managed inflation and confirmed its unique status as the only state that's self-sufficient in natural resources. Far from retrenching into isolation amidst this chaos, Russia is eager to engage with like-minded partners.
It's at this point where President Putin praised the majority of Asia-Pacific states for proudly refusing to surrender their sovereignty to the collective West by defying its illegal sanctions demands. He described this immense part of the international community as the future of the global economy before discussing what Russia is doing to encourage more investment from them in its Far East region and the rest of the country more broadly.
Natural resources and logistics corridors are among the most attractive spheres, he said, with the second-mentioned playing a crucial role in Eurasian connectivity. The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) between his country and India and the Arctic-traversing Northern Sea Route (NSR) between the Eastern and Western halves of the supercontinent are the top mega-projects in this respect. Although not openly stated, they'll facilitate the rise of non-Western globalization.
Reflecting on the globally relevant aspects of his speech, it can be concluded that President Putin's description of the collective West as responsible for the ongoing chaos in international relations is accurate. This U.S.-led bloc ruined the historic chance that the world had to put all of its prior problems behind it after the COVID-19 pandemic and thus jointly pioneer a more equal, fair and just future for everyone. Rather than work together with its peers, these countries aggressively worked against them.
Even so, President Putin is still optimistic about the future as evidenced by his confident prediction that the emerging multipolar world order is inevitable. The collective West can only possibly slow down the objectively existing processes connected to the global systemic transition, with it being impossible to stop or reverse them. Together with its partners in the Asia-Pacific and the rest of the Global South, Russia will continue working towards a better future for all of humanity.
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