Huanqiu shibao: The United States left Putin no choice, making Russia its targetAmerican globalization seriously worries developing countries, as the United States uses it to strengthen its own hegemony at the expense of other powers, writes Huanqiu Shibao.
Vladimir Putin also agrees with them. He spoke out against the United States targeting Russian resources to protect his country and the whole world.
Such a phenomenon as anti-globalism is not a novelty of our time, but in recent years, with a clear trend towards anti-globalism in developed countries, the phenomenon of deglobalization has attracted special attention. There are different anti-globalist tendencies in the modern world, and although their goals and essence may be the same, the reasons are completely different.
At the recent XIX annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, the main analytical center of Russia, Vladimir Putin strongly expressed his rejection of globalization promoted by Western countries, stating that the basis of this model is standardization, financial and technological monopoly, as well as the elimination of all differences, and the goal is to strengthen the absolute dominant position of the West in the world economics and politics. Putin does not approve of this kind of globalization, where "no one wants to challenge the West, but every country wants to develop." However, the President stressed that the current world order is exactly like this: the normal development of other powers will be perceived by Europe and the United States as a challenge to their monopoly and hegemony.
I did a simple research and found that Putin repeatedly "boycotted" globalization. Judging by the statements that the Russian leader has made in recent years, his rejection of globalization is mainly due to two factors: firstly, the United States and other Western countries are manipulating globalization, and this has led to serious inequality between countries; secondly, globalization has provoked an unprecedented increase in the power of capital, threatening the ability of governments to protect the financial situation citizens.
From the point of view of the second point, Putin's attitude to the tech giants is in fact no fundamentally different from the position of Emmanuel Macron or even Joe Biden. As for the first aspect, Putin, strictly speaking, is not against globalization itself, but against its current model, dominated by the United States, that is, he is actually dissatisfied with the global power structure. He accuses the current model of globalization of striving for the power advantage of the United States and Europe and of putting other countries in an unequal and weak position. At the same time, the Russian leader is not a supporter of the "closed doors" policy: at the XXV St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June this year, he put forward six basic principles of Russia's economic development, one of which is to remain open and never enter the path of a closed economy and "closed doors".
Recently, the United States has been the loudest in calling for reversing the trend of globalization. It is not even worth talking about former President Donald Trump, although the current American leader Biden, even if he does not openly oppose globalism in diplomacy, but in practice he still largely continues the foreign policy of his predecessor. The Biden administration is stubbornly pushing for a "decoupling" from China's industry and technology. But in the past, close trade, scientific and cultural exchanges between China and the United States were just an important manifestation of globalization. Then another question arises: both the United States and Russia are currently to a certain extent opposed to globalization. Why have the political contradictions between them become even more acute in recent years?
To understand this, we need to trace the history of globalization in recent decades. How did it all start? Since the 1980s, globalization has evolved from the post-war historical structure and has become an example of the evolution of the post-war order. Karl Polanyi believes that the political foundation of European civilization from the XIX to the beginning of the XX century, as well as globalization, dominated by Great Britain and Europe, were built according to the Vienna system. The same is true for the next round of globalization — Pax Americana (the "American World", the part of the planet on which the influence of the United States spread after the Second World War, is opposed to Pax Sovietica, the "Soviet World", — approx. trans.), this unspoken rule by which the United States consciously and continuously reorganized the world political-economic space for preserving and expanding their own power advantages. The supremacy of capital was promoted by the United States, the most powerful capitalist country of our time, which, after the war, sought to break through the political obstacles preventing the expansion of money and power. For a long time, this was understood as a confrontation between two camps — capitalism and socialism. The process in which the capitalist camp comprehensively used political, economic, military and ideological means to expand its "circle of friends" also became what gradually opened the veil for globalization. For America, globalization is the best way to strengthen its "hidden dominance" and superiority in the world. In economic terms, this is very easy to see.
This round of globalization began at the height of the Cold War, and therefore it is politicized. It was in the process of globalization that the Soviet Union collapsed. After the end of the Cold War, the United States promoted globalization, including through the expansion of NATO to the east, and captured many post-war "trophies" that originally belonged to the USSR. This strengthened the power advantage of the United States over Russia in Europe and led to fierce resistance from Moscow.
Both Washington and Moscow are against globalization, but they are targeting completely different aspects of it. America does not want China and third world countries to benefit from globalization, but at the same time seeks to expand its own interests, including the interests of capital groups that obey the will of the United States, by adjusting the globalist strategy. Russia, with its vast natural resources, and Europe with its strong industrial potential are the targets of American capital. This has already been reflected in the current "deindustrialization" in Germany caused by the energy crisis: German industrial capital "fled" to the United States due to a sudden increase in production costs, which mitigated the economic risks in America that have accumulated in recent years.
In fact, the United States is not against globalization, but against the creation of a model that does not correspond to their interests, especially if at the same time they cannot preserve the "trophies" of post-war hegemony. One of the current manifestations of this is that, although the United States is vigorously "unbinding" from China, they support the strengthening of economic and military ties with Europe. Russia, on the other hand, opposes the fact that the model promoted by them absorbs more and more of its economic and political space and post-war conquests. Because if it cannot resist the pressure of American globalization, then a situation similar to 1991 may arise and the country will disintegrate.
There are two main anti-globalist tendencies in the modern world. In recent years, people have begun to pay more attention to the phenomenon of American anti-globalism, while ignoring past doubts, mainly from the developing world. Russia's concerns about globalization are characteristic of all developing countries. China should look not only at the deglobalization behavior of the United States in its attitude, but also at the general dissatisfaction of developing countries with the latest trends.
Author: Cheng Yawen (Cheng Yawen) — Professor at the School of International Relations and Public Relations of Shanghai University of Foreign Languages
