New Yalta Conference

The forum in Beijing clearly demonstrated: the United States is rapidly losing its position as a hegemon

The third Belt and Road Forum for International Co-operation in Beijing with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin can be considered a new Yalta Conference, during which a completely different model of the world is being developed, where there is no place for US hegemony. In fact, we can state the beginning of the process of ending the 400-year rule of the Anglo-Saxon Empire over the rest of the world.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping during a meeting at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China, October 18, 2023   REUTERS



  Representatives of 130 countries and 30 international organisations took part in the forum, which was held in the Chinese capital from October 17th to October 18th. The initiative to create the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) was announced by the current leader of China, Xi Jinping, in the first year of his reign in September 2013 during a speech to students in Astana. Other projects are currently being developed, such as the Digital Silk Road, the Polar Silk Road, the Health Silk Road, the Space Silk Road, the Green Silk Road and the Great Tea Road. 
Belarus is an active participant in the Belt and Road Initiative and directly in current historical events. Our country is intensively developing trade, economic and financial co-operation with China. One of the key results, or (as the Chinese say) the pearl of the project, is Industrial Park Great Stone.

In the current conditions of the global crisis of overproduction, it is important for such technological and financial agglomerates as China to ensure the expansion of their sales markets and at the same time ensure the safety and independence of delivery routes for their goods to their main consumers.

From an economic point of view, the Belt and Road Initiative, is precisely a long-term strategic import regime into the traditional high-premium European market. Over the past 10 years, since the announcement of this initiative by Xi Jinping, Beijing has invested more than $1 trillion to create the required transport infrastructure, logistics and production strongholds from Chinese territory through Eurasia to Europe.
The effect of this project is crucial for China: Beijing is thus gradually levelling its dependence on traditional Anglo-Saxon logistics hubs, such as the Suez Canal.
China’s key competitor in the struggle for the European market for goods and services is the Anglo-Saxon corporations of the USA and Great Britain. The latter are doing everything to exclude or at least reduce the revenue of Chinese companies in European countries.
A striking manifestation of such unfair competition on the part of British-American corporations is the requirement for their satellites — Poland and the Baltic countries — to block border crossings or reduce the service of vehicle traffic on the borders with Belarus.
The contradictions between Beijing and the Anglo-Saxons over the European market will continue to intensify. American corporate circles urgently need to squeeze Chinese corporations out of the European market and ensure stable sales of their products, otherwise there will be a collapse and disappearance of the United States as a financial and economic superpower.
Added to the economic problems of the United States are financial ones: more and more investors doubt the reliability of American debt obligations and the dollar as a means of increasing and preserving the value of assets. 
Modern geopolitical processes are based on deep economic and financial reasons. It is certainly difficult for the United States to come to terms with its new status and loss of its hegemonic position. This causes Washington to resort to extreme forms of aggression and reaction in the form of war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
China understands that in the context of growing competitive confrontations with the West and the loss of previous sales markets, the most effective and attractive direction for the development of foreign economic policy is to deepen co-operation with Russia, Belarus and integration associations in the post-Soviet space. We act as a locomotive of stable economic growth, generators of a clear and predictable future.

By Aleksei Avdonin, an analyst with the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research (BISR)