2023 in retrospect: The multipolar world is already here

Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst, and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The year 2023 has been one of quite monumental changes. For me personally, it's also been a landmark year of getting travel – especially after such pleasantries were halted for several years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to what's reflected in the news media, the general feeling around the world has shifted tremendously and, oftentimes, in diverging directions.

One summary I can say about my travels this year is that the "multipolar world" that's so often talked about, as if it's an emerging entity meant to swallow American hegemony, is already here. Despite the ubiquity of American culture and the penetration of American capital around the world, there are, in reality, numerous worlds with different cultural contexts and shared histories. 

Certainly, a number of geopolitical events have come this year that are tilting the world away from Washington's unilateral control over global affairs, what with the revolutions in the Sahel against Western imperialism, the expansion of the BRICS, and the Israel-Palestine conflict, to name but a few. 

Yet, for most of the world, these events are rather abstract. I had the opportunity to visit most of the emerging (and existing) poles around the world this year, and the general atmosphere is obvious, whether it's oppressive or blissful. I'll dive into my impressions of the EU, China, Russia, the U.S., and South America.

Beginning with the European Union, where I've lived for the past five years, the situation is very clearly headed in a bad direction. European social democracy may as well not be functional, as austerity packages, one after the other, are finding their way through national parliaments. The age of retirement is going up, inflation is going up, and so are taxes. The old model of economic growth – cheap Russian energy imports pumped into a rich value-added industrial sector – is untenable, primarily due to the conflict in Ukraine.

Heading to China, it was the complete opposite. Visiting bustling cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong may as well have been a leap forward in time in addition to a several-thousand-kilometer journey. People seemed genuinely happy, and all of the macabre images of China that I was told since I was a kid growing up in the U.S. were either lies or no longer true, whether because of the media's exaggeration or Beijing's triumph against absolute poverty.

David Fishman, a Shanghai-based American consultant for the Lantau Group, who focuses on China's energy sector, but who is also known for his wit on X (formerly Twitter), shared his insights with me. "What I see from here is a West that looks increasingly stagnant… politically, economically, perhaps even culturally. In China, we are carefully navigating the post-COVID-19 economic recovery while simultaneously performing open heart surgery on the real estate sector… things are shaky but holding together, and not falling apart, and the cracks are being fixed. I feel in the U.S., things are going in the other direction… things are shaky and holding together, but the cracks are getting longer," he reckoned. 

In the autumn, I was able to partake in an international delegation, part of Russia's 'New Generation' program, to Moscow and see various exhibitions related to the country's national achievements and opportunities for young people. While this was, indeed, a biased experience, I also speak Russian and went off the tour quite often. What I saw was not a nation under siege and isolated but one that was standing tall and even prospering under pressure.

"l would say this was the year that Russia's latent economic autonomy started to become unmistakably manifest. And that proves that decoupling from the West is by no means a death sentence," Henry Johnston, a Moscow-based American financial analyst, summed up.

Visiting the U.S. this year, as it has been for several years now in a row, felt like entering a black hole – of human connection, prosperity, and, most of all, hope. No one I have spoken to under the age of 40 has had anything good to say about the United States of America for several years. Most recently, this year, I briefly visited Miami, and despite the sunshine and nice weather, it was not enough to vanquish the thick fog of despair that has fallen over the nation.

But this was only a stop on the way to South America, in particular, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. The situation there is extraordinarily complex, with traditional U.S. allies like Peru experiencing massive turmoil while more independent countries like Bolivia have an air of hope. It is hard to make a summary assessment of South America, but it can be said that it is a place of extremes and unpredictability – but also dynamism. 

"The situation in South America is on a knife's edge. It's not the sort of slow decline you see in Europe or the U.S. South America can choose to embrace the new, multipolar world, or it can stay in the same cycle of decisions that have impoverished it for decades. A decision needs to be made immediately, but, ultimately, that decision is in our hands," Ollie Vargas, a Bolivian journalist, told me.

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