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00:00Hello, Tell Us Your English presents a new episode of China Now, a web media's production
00:14that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian giant.
00:18In this first segment, China Currents dives into the top stories of the week, including
00:22Trump's threat to BRICS countries and also the completion of the world's largest pipeline
00:27between China and Russia, among others.
00:29Let's see.
00:34China Currents is a weekly news talk show from China to the world.
00:38We cover viral news about China every week and also give you the newest updates on China's
00:43cutting-edge technologies.
00:45Let's get started.
00:55Welcome to China Currents, your weekly news report on what's happening in China.
01:00I'm Lisa.
01:01In this episode, Trump threatens BRICS countries with 100% tariffs, which made Chinese laugh.
01:07China completes the world's largest gas pipeline with Russia.
01:12China launched first overseas atmospheric background station in Antarctica.
01:17BBC's Xinjiang-related fake news grilled Uniqlo in China.
01:21First, let's look at how Trump is going to tank the US economy.
01:25On the 30th of November, Trump publicly threatens BRICS nations, warning them against pursuing
01:31de-dollarization or creating a new international currency.
01:36He stated that failure to comply would result in a 100% tariff.
01:41Trump also claimed that there is no chance that the BRICS will replace the US dollar
01:45in international trade, and if they tried, it would mean saying goodbye to selling into
01:51the wonderful US economy.
01:53However, three key factors contradict with him.
01:56First, in terms of bilateral transactions, according to a report by Russia's TASS news
02:02agency, the banking network of Iran and Russia were officially connected on the 11th of November,
02:08allowing users to use Iranian bank cards at ATMs within Russia to receive funds in rubles.
02:15The governor of the Central Bank of Islamic Republic, Mohammad Reza Farzan, stated,
02:20We have entered into a currency agreement with Russia and fully removed the dollar.
02:25Now we only trade in rubles and riyals.
02:28He also mentioned that the financial authorities of the two countries have agreed on exchange
02:32rate to be used for foreign trade transactions.
02:36At the 2024 BRICS summit, Putin also stated that nearly 95% of trade between Russia and
02:41China is settled in rubles and RMB.
02:45According to Reuters, in 2023, the bilateral trade volume between China and Russia reached
02:50$240 billion, hitting a new record.
02:55Second, in terms of cross-border payment system, multiple BRICS members are establishing new
03:00systems, each with the potential to replace the US-dominated SWIFT system.
03:06China launched its cross-border international payment system, CIPS, as early as 2015.
03:12As the end of September this year, 1,566 banks and financial institutions from 117
03:19countries have joined the system.
03:21Notably, after Russia was removed from the SWIFT system, CIPS processed 6.6 million transactions
03:28in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 50%.
03:32Russia also, at this year's BRICS summit, introduced its BRICSPay system, which employs
03:37a decentralized cross-border messaging system developed by St. Petersburg State University.
03:44In this system, each participant manages their own nodes, ensuring that no single country
03:49can impose extraterritorial control over another financial system.
03:54This decentralized framework is clearly fairer than SWIFT, which, although based in Belgium,
04:00operates under US authority, enabling the US to expel participants at will.
04:05Moving to the Tehran time, Iran has also introduced a payment system called SHITAB, designed specifically
04:11for financial cooperation with Asian countries like India and Pakistan.
04:16SHITAB processed transactions in less than two seconds, making it one of the fastest
04:20payment systems in the region.
04:22Compared to SWIFT, SHITAB is more focused in its optimization and is specifically designed
04:28to better meet the needs of Asian users.
04:30Finally, saying goodbye to the US economy in 2024 might not be such a bad thing.
04:36According to the US Federal Budget Accountability Committee, as of October 2024, the US national
04:43debt has surpassed $36 trillion.
04:46The cost of servicing this debt is $82 billion, which makes up 14% of total federal spending
04:53for the 2025 fiscal year.
04:56And this is 1% higher than the US military budget.
04:59On the 27th of November, Elon Musk warned, if we don't tackle the national debt, all
05:04tax revenue will go to paying interest and there will be nothing left for anything else.
05:10If the issue isn't addressed, the dollar will be worth nothing.
05:14Chinese strategist Professor Wang Xiangshui further pointed out that, with the debt crisis
05:19severely undermining international confidence in the dollar, Trump's undergoing threats
05:24to the BRICS nation with tariffs will only speed up the downfall of the dollar dominance.
05:29The BRICS countries are pushing for the de-dollarization because the US has weaponized the dollar by
05:35using it to sanction Russia, which has undermined trust in the currency.
05:39However, Trump's 100% tariff would only further weaponize the dollar and deepening the problem.
05:45Furthermore, maintaining the dollar dominance will only delay the inevitable collapse of
05:50the US debt crisis without addressing the root cause.
05:54The real issue lies in the last 30 years of de-industrialization, which has created
05:59a gap in skilled labor and shrinking domestic supply chain, making US manufacturing less
06:04competitive and, in some cases, incapable of producing certain goods.
06:09As a result, the US struggles with export and inflation, relying on continuously over-issuing
06:14currency to sustain an illusion of prosperity.
06:18Trump's proposal to revise the US manufacturing by raising tariffs is also wishful thinking.
06:23At this point, whatever the US produces, BRICS nation can also produce.
06:28If BRICS countries respond to US tariffs with their own, they can easily replace American
06:32goods with those from China, Russia, or India.
06:35Meanwhile, many US manufacturers rely heavily on Chinese suppliers, and domestic alternatives
06:41may not be able to meet the demand.
06:44Take electric cars, for example.
06:46Tesla has four factories around the world, and according to Inside EVs, the Shanghai
06:51GigaFactory has produced over half of Tesla's global output for the past seven quarters.
06:56Tesla's Chinese partner LSED reports that more than 90% of the parts of the Model 3
07:01and Model Y made in Shanghai come from local suppliers, which really helps cut down on
07:07operating and management costs.
07:09This setup also supports the rollout of the upcoming $25,000 affordable electric car.
07:16However, if Trump slaps a 100% tariff on Chinese parts, American consumers might have to say
07:22goodbye to Tesla.
07:24On the other hand, the rise of China and other BRICS countries have been fueled by generations
07:28of skilled workers in assembly and contract manufacturing, sustained government investment
07:34in infrastructure that reduce business costs, and companies that thrive through innovation
07:39and trial and error in a competitive market.
07:43Trump's desire to undo 30 years of BRICS progress just shows his ignorance and arrogance.
07:49His previous tariff war on China resulted in over 90% of the costs being passed on to
07:54American customers.
07:56If he keeps using tariff as his main tool, the consequences are likely to be even more
08:01painful than before.
08:02If Trump truly wants to save the dollar, he should demonstrate constructive wisdom and
08:07sincerity rather than resort to destructive threats to intimidate other countries.
08:13Meanwhile, another collaboration between China and Russia will enable Chinese manufacturers
08:17to further reduce costs.
08:19On 2 December, China's single largest natural gas pipeline, the China-Russia East Route
08:25Natural Gas Pipeline, is now fully operational.
08:29Stretching over 5,100 kilometers, the pipeline is destined for Shanghai.
08:35As the coldest time of the year descends on northern China, the demand for heating is
08:39surging.
08:40Signed in May of this year, the $400 billion project involves a pipeline that will supply
08:4538 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, which is enough to meet the heating needs
08:51for a 130 million household for an entire year.
08:55In addition to securing energy supply, the project plays a crucial role in China's
09:00green transition, as natural gas produces significantly less carbon dioxide and other
09:05pollutants compared to coal.
09:07As a target to reduce carbon emission and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China is
09:12taking significant steps towards sustainability.
09:16According to Chinese state media, the gas pipeline is expected to reduce carbon dioxide
09:21emission by over 160 million tons and sulfur dioxide emission by 1.8 million tons each
09:28year.
09:29According to the International Energy Agency, China is the world's largest importer of
09:33natural gas, with its demand projected to exceed 40% of global consumption by 2024.
09:40It also reveals that China's natural gas imports surged by over 140% between 2013 and
09:472019.
09:48During this same period, data from OneEarth indicates that PM2.5 concentration in Beijing
09:54dropped by nearly 38%.
09:56Moreover, northern China is rich in sunlight and wind resources, allowing electricity generation
10:02in these areas to become less reliant on coal and other fossil fuels.
10:06According to the government's website, China's domestic solar power capacity is projected
10:11to double by 2026, reaching 1,000 gigawatts.
10:15By 2030, the total instilled capacity for solar and wind energy could exceed 3,030 gigawatts.
10:23China is also advancing the environmental agenda in Antarctica.
10:27On 1 December, China launched its first overseas atmospheric background station in Antarctica.
10:34The station is designed to measure baseline or background concentration of various atmospheric
10:39components.
10:40Given that polar regions are remote from direct local pollution sources, they provide ideal
10:45locations for collecting baseline atmospheric data on pollutants.
10:50This data is crucial for distinguishing between natural and human-induced changes in the atmosphere.
10:55By understanding the natural viability of atmospheric constitutions in these regions,
11:01scientists can better assess the extent of human impact on climate change.
11:06Polar regions are considered amplifiers of global climate change.
11:10The observational data collected at the station offers unique geographic advantages and significant
11:16scientific value, aiding in the monitoring of changes in the temperature and atmospheric
11:21substance.
11:22For example, the fluctuation data of the annual average concentration of PM2.5 is reflective
11:29of the long-term observation results of the atmospheric background station.
11:34It is also worth noting that 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of China's polar exploration.
11:40Moving on, on 28 November, the BBC produced a report titled,
11:46Uniqlo does not use Xinjiang cotton for sets, which swiftly thrust the Uniqlo brand into
11:52the spotlight of public outrage in China.
11:55The report begins by quoting Uniqlo's founder, Tadashi Yanai's statement that China is a
12:00crucial market for Uniqlo, not just for customers, but also as a major manufacturing hub.
12:07Notably, Uniqlo retail locations in China have already surpassed that of its domestic
12:13market in Japan.
12:14Yanai even expressed optimism that the number of outlets could grow from the current 900
12:20to 1,000, to as many as 3,000 in the future.
12:24However, during the BBC interview, which lasted about 10 minutes, the host abruptly raised
12:30a sensitive issue related to supply chain reform and human rights.
12:34Specifically, the question addressed whether Uniqlo uses cotton sourced from Xinjiang.
12:39Yanai responded with, not using, and reiterated Uniqlo's commitment to maintaining political
12:46neutrality, bringing the discussion on the topic to a close in 30 seconds.
12:51However, in its subsequent coverage, BBC chose to emphasise Yanai's response in Xinjiang
12:56cotton, and also included insight from Isaac Stonefish, CEO of Strategy Risk and former
13:03Asia Editor of Foreign Policy, who stated not a single large company can remain political
13:09neutral anymore, and suggested that Tokyo will continue to align more closely with the
13:15United States on this issue.
13:18However, the reality is much more nuanced than these reports imply.
13:22In a separate interview, Yanai explicitly remarked that efforts by Japanese fashion
13:27retailers to decouple from Beijing are unwise, emphasising that the importance of China
13:33and its management of factories remains unchanged.
13:37Earlier in 2021, Yanai openly declined to comment on whether Uniqlo uses Xinjiang cotton.
13:44He explained that his aim was to maintain neutrality between the US and China,
13:49rejecting what he termed America's attempt to compel companies to plead alliance in these disputes.
13:55For years, Western media has frequently hyped allegations of so-called forced labour in Xinjiang,
14:01pressuring companies to take a stance and attempting to disrupt Chinese-related industries.
14:07A Chinese content creator found significant discrepancies in the wording between the
14:12English and Japanese versions of the coverage of this interview.
14:16For instance, the Japanese headline is titled Uniqlo's President's Goal and Prospects,
14:21while the English one focuses on cotton.
14:24This approach not only destabilised global market and supply chain,
14:28but also detriments customers worldwide.
14:32Many netizens in China expressed dissatisfaction with Uniqlo and called for a boycott of the brand.
14:39Some comments suggest that Uniqlo's attitude and the statement made by
14:43Tadashi Yanai came across as arrogant.
14:46In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated,
14:50Cotton produced in China's Xinjiang region is among the best in the world.
14:54And emphasised,
15:06In the same interview, Tadashi Yanai also told the BBC that
15:21Of course, the BBC did not mention this in their report.
15:24And that is all for today.
15:26Thank you for watching this episode of China Current.
15:28If you have any thoughts or comments about our show, please reach us at the email address below.
15:33We look forward to hearing from you and see you next time.
15:44We have a short break now, but we'll be right back with more China Now.
15:47Don't go away.
15:51Welcome back to China Now.
15:59This week, Thinkers Forum receives political studies professor Rarika Desai
16:04and philosopher and politologist Alexander Dugin to better understand today's world.
16:09Let's have a look.
16:09So I've entitled my talk, Crisis of Western Imperialism, Opportunity for the World Majority.
16:24You can doubt that the world's inherited institutions of international economic governance
16:30erected after the Second World War are in profound crisis.
16:34Sanctions, populism, friend-sharing, de-risking, the deepening division of the world into two
16:41opposed camps, trade wars, technology wars, and wars pure and simple, like the ones that are
16:48going on precisely in this neighborhood, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Ukraine and elsewhere.
16:56These are among the proliferating causes.
17:00The crisis is said to be one of multilateralism, by which is meant the practice of international
17:07negotiation among a large number of the world's countries, if not all of them,
17:13to conclude common agreements for mutual benefit.
17:18Those who label the crisis in this way call for revitalization of this practice.
17:25However, multilateralism is actually thriving.
17:30The world majority, that is to say the bulk of the world which is not included in the
17:35West, have tired of waiting for the imperialist West in its current dangerously petulant half
17:43to demonstrate its much-doubted multilateralism and is getting down to the business of negotiating
17:49a still-expanding set of alternative institutions, whether of trade or credit or investment or
17:56payments.
17:57And there is more to come in the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan later this month.
18:04The United States led West by contrast, and I will use the term to refer to the imperialist
18:11core of the world economy, as it was when the capitalist imperialism peaked in 1914,
18:19plus a small number of hangers-on that it has acquired since, as most clearly seen in
18:24a map of the countries that is imposing sanctions on Russia today.
18:27So this US-led West, which has for so long arrogated to itself the title of the keeper
18:33of the flame of this multilateralism, appears hell-bent on destroying the institutions it
18:40touted as its major achievements.
18:42Until recently, whether by weaponizing the dollar system, undermining the institutional
18:48core of the World Trade Organization, which is its dispute settlement mechanism, or bending
18:53the IMF's rules, for instance against lending to a country at war, not to mention turning
19:01key United Nations agencies into playgrounds of corporate and Western NGO power.
19:09It's high time we woke up to the real content of the crisis.
19:12The structures of international economic governance burst after the Second World War
19:17were not pure and simply the work of multilateralism, but rather the vector sum of opposed forces
19:26and opposed principles.
19:28What do I mean by that?
19:30On the one hand, we had the United States.
19:33It sought to replace Britain as the managing segment of the world economy since the early
19:3920th century, when it sensed that British power was waning.
19:44Having botched its first attempt to do so after the First World War, and according to
19:49its own leading intellectuals, I'm thinking of Henry Luce, the publisher of Life and Time
19:53magazines, got a second chance with the Second World War, it came to the negotiations at
20:00Bretton Woods and elsewhere, seeking supranational rules, essentially world laws, itself masquerading
20:08as world state, that is, the United States saw itself as essentially the substitute for
20:13the world state.
20:15And these ambitions, which the United States had already nursed by then for several decades,
20:20are the true origin of the theory of US hegemony, not any real state of affairs waiting to be
20:27theorized.
20:28The United States, at Bretton Woods and elsewhere, and this historical conjuncture, sought to
20:35transform the rest of the world into the equivalent of domestic territory, making national states
20:43redundant, fusing the world economies into a seamless whole for the benefit of US corporations,
20:50including by diminishing its allies' empires.
20:55As Karl Polanyi put it in a remarkably insightful article in 1945, the United States wished
21:02to return to a pre-1914 system of universal capitalism, when in fact, as he put it in
21:09his great book, The Great Transformation, it had collapsed once and for all and could
21:15not be brought back to life.
21:17This is what had happened in the 30 years crisis of 1914 to 1945.
21:22And the world, as Polanyi saw it, had objectively inclined towards planned economies and sought
21:29multilaterally derived international rules and norms that would enable and foster them.
21:36This universal capitalism that it sought, the United States deployed the extraordinary
21:41dominance that it had acquired over the world's economy as the only ally which, while suffering
21:48no war damage, expanded its economy and loan portfolio as never before, as supplier of
21:56war material and credit to its allies.
21:59You see here a chart of US growth since the 1870s to about 2000, and the two big peaks
22:05you see there are the two world wars.
22:07You can see that the two world wars were the thing that really expanded the US economy.
22:12It's no wonder that the US economy is so addicted to wars.
22:18So that was the United States on the one hand.
22:20The opposed force was the rest of the world, which consisted of the United States' war-torn
22:26allies as vulnerable to economic collapse as to the charms of communism in an age when
22:32Uncle Joe was more popular in Europe than Uncle Sam, both at home and, of course, also
22:38in the sprawling empires of Europe.
22:42There was the Soviet Union and East European communist countries with their planned economies.
22:47And then there were the demands of the rest of the world, whether these countries were
22:52independent, as in Latin America and much of West Asia, or soon to be independent in
22:57Asia and Africa.
22:59And these demands were for industrialization and development.
23:03None of these three categories of countries could withstand the sort of liberal economy
23:09the United States sought to create without suffering economic damage and subordination.
23:15And they had no intention of doing so if they could help it.
23:19The story of the establishment of the structures of international economic governance after
23:24the Second World War is intelligible only if we understand that they were the outcome
23:30of an ongoing clash between these two principles of US supranationalism, sometimes helped by
23:37its allies and sometimes hindered by them, and the multilateralism of the rest of the
23:43world.
23:44The best way to understand US supranationalism is to understand it as economically cosmopolitan.
23:51The German mercantilist Friedrich List used this expression in the mid-19th century to
23:57describe the sort of world order as envisaged by the then-dominant capitalist country, Britain.
24:03Designed for the benefit of British capital, a world opened up through formal or colonial
24:10or informal semi-colonial control for its commodities and capital, and to supply it
24:17with cheap commodities and labor.
24:19To this, List opposed the international world.
24:22So the cosmopolitan world is on the left here.
24:25It has no borders.
24:26It is simply a world over which the privileged, which can be controlled from London or New
24:33York or what have you.
24:34List, however, proposed a different type of world.
24:38To List, the world was international, a world of nation-states, because he understood, as
24:45well as many others, including the United States' own Alexander Hamilton and mercantilists
24:51like Henry Carey, like Marx, like Keynes, and like today's development state thinkers,
24:56that a world in which some nations have already industrialized and therefore can command world
25:03markets, the only way for further industrialization, which is key to development in other nations,
25:12the only way for them to escape the fate of being subordinated to the dominant capitalist
25:17countries, of being their hewers of wood and drawers of water, is through the use of protection
25:24and the entire slew of policies.
25:27Infant industry protection, industrial policy, directed credit, export promotion, subsidies,
25:35tariffs, capital controls, among others.
25:38While such state-directed industrialization projects may fail, indeed we can see from
25:44the record of post-war attempts to develop in the third world that there is absolutely
25:48no guarantee that they will succeed.
25:51No development is possible without them.
25:55This was as true in the late 19th century, when Germany, the United States itself, and
26:01Japan industrialized, as it was after, when the Soviet Union did, and in the mid and late
26:0820th centuries, when European economies and Japan recovered, or in the 60s and 70s, when
26:14South Korea and Taiwan province industrialized, as it is true today, as we see from China's
26:22industrialization.
26:23I will say, parenthetically, that it will be very useful to bear in mind that the word
26:28globalization is used in China in a very different way than it is used in the rest of the world,
26:35especially in the US-led world.
26:37In the latter, it means basically free markets and free trade, whereas in China it means
26:43more trade through managed trade.
26:45The suppression of this truth, the truth that Liszt identified, has been the overriding
26:51ideological mission of the West.
26:54If the ruling ideas of any society are the ideas of the ruling classes, the ideas that
27:00serve their interests and maintain their power, then the ruling ideas about a world order
27:05would understandably tend to be those of the dominant powers, that is, there being no world
27:11state.
27:12These ideas also tend to be useful in perpetuating their dominance, in particular by mystifying
27:18the real sources of national wealth and power.
27:22To retrieve this truth and propagate it, I have proposed geopolitical economy as a new
27:28way of understanding world affairs.
27:31And this is a book I wrote in 2013 and a very important quote of Marx, which you will see
27:37the significance of as I talk.
27:40Not only does geopolitical economy take the division of the world states into nation-states
27:45and national economies, and between imperialist countries and those resisting them seriously,
27:52but it regards both divisions as structurally necessary to capitalism.
27:58It returns to Marx's original understanding of capitalism as contradictory value production,
28:04which is forgotten by most Western Marxists and most Marxist economists who derive their
28:10understandings from Western Marxism.
28:13So it returns to Marx's original understanding of capitalism as contradictory value production
28:18and his understanding of international relations as the relations of producing nations, hence
28:25not geopolitics and geoeconomics, but geopolitical economy.
28:31It considers imperialism to be rooted in the contradictions of capitalism.
28:35It considers anti-imperialist resistance by those nations that capitalist imperialism
28:41would subordinate as inevitable and as therefore expressing the contradiction of capitalist
28:49international relations.
28:51It considers, like Marx, both nations and classes to be agents of history, contrary
28:57to so much Western Marxism, which does not take account of nations at all.
29:03Marx says here, if free trade, as he said this in 1848 at the height of the version
29:08of Marxism, which is generally touted by so-called Western Marxists as being globalist
29:15before its time, he says, if free traders cannot understand how one nation can grow
29:20rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder these same gentlemen refuse to understand
29:26how within one country, one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.
29:31This shows that for Marx, nation and class were two agents side by side working together
29:36to make history.
29:38A geopolitical economy further considers the resulting dialectic or struggle between imperialism
29:44and anti-imperialism to be the principal motor that has driven the evolution of the capitalist
29:50world order since its beginnings.
29:53We can also think of it as a struggle between what Trotsky called uneven development, which
29:59privileges imperialism, and combined development, which constitutes a response to it in the
30:06form of state-led development.
30:09Between the denial of development, which is the essence of imperialism, and the pursuit
30:14of development, which is the essence of anti-imperialism, between the complementarity that imperialist
30:21countries would impose between their own high-value production of technologically sophisticated
30:27goods and the low-value production of the subordinated world, and the latter's efforts
30:33to establish a similarity of productive structures.
30:39Further, geopolitical economy argues that in the contest between these two forces, the
30:45anti-imperialist side has tended to prevail, slowly but also steadily, making the world
30:53ever more multipolar, and that this meant that though some sort of British dominance
30:59was inevitable because Britain was the first industrial power, it was also short-lived
31:04and unrepeatable, and that the United States had the misfortune of being able to attempt
31:10to emulate that sort of dominance only after the world had already become multipolar, and
31:17hence had already made such attempts unsuccessful.
31:21And of course, the US was also fated not just to face challenges from other capitalist countries,
31:29but also from socialist ones.
31:31Geopolitical economy finally considers the anti-imperialist resistance of national states
31:36no less essential to advancing humanity along the path to socialism, or a vision of egalitarian,
31:42prosperous, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful, cooperative world under any other
31:48name.
31:48If you don't like socialism, you can call it whatever you like.
31:51So it considers this anti-imperialist resistance as being as important as the struggle of classes,
31:58women, peoples, struggling against exploitation and oppression, an understanding which we
32:04and my colleagues and I, my friends and I, also managed to voice in the manifesto of
32:09the International Manifesto Group, entitled Through Pluripolarity to Socialism.
32:15The geopolitical economy of the post-war system of international economic governance
32:22was the result, therefore, of the clash between US supranational cosmopolitanism and the rest
32:28of the world's multilateralism aiming to accommodate their need to breach liberal principles in
32:35the interest of recovery, socialism, and development.
32:39The principal parameters of the outcome of this clash can be briefly listed.
32:44The US desire to construct a liberal world order of the pre-1914 sort could not be fulfilled.
32:51The United States ambition was always thwarted.
32:54It had to accept the creation of a United Nations, and though it corrupted its one nation,
33:00one vote principle with the permanent members of the Security Council, it had to its goal,
33:06had to include within those five permanent members the Soviet Union and China.
33:12And of course, the creation of such a United Nations also led the United States to create
33:18NATO as an alternative institution for the furtherance of its supranational ambitions.
33:25Though the US used its war-wrought power to prevent any alternative to the dollar, such
33:30as Bancor, issued by a multilateral international clearing union as proposed by Keynes, from
33:38being realized and left the world with no alternative to the dollar, it had to agree
33:43to continue backing it with gold, and it had to accept capital controls.
33:48It had to agree to a multilateralist ITO, International Trading Organization, and though
33:53Congress failed to approve it, the fallback GATT also operated on a multilateral basis
34:00and eventually had to not only accommodate European needs of recovery and therefore managed
34:06trade, but also further in the 1970s during the Tokyo Round, the third world's demands
34:12for a new international economic order.
34:15Though the US scored its biggest victories with the IMF and the World Bank, securing
34:20vetoes for itself in their design, they would remain relatively obscure until their heyday
34:25in the 80s and 90s, and the communist world remained outside these institutions, at least
34:31the IMF and the World Bank, which they saw as branches of Wall Street.
34:35We cannot examine the evolution of these institutions in any detail here, but two points
34:41may be noted.
34:42The third world push for multilateralism culminated in the demands for the new international economic
34:47order, or many of these demands, to be realized in the Tokyo Round of GATT negotiations.
34:53And the 1980s and particularly the 1990s witnessed a short-lived phase of US supranationalism.
35:00However, this period remained brief.
35:03By the early 2000s, people were talking about BRICS, and by the 2010s, of multipolarity.
35:09The WTO, despite its supranational proclamations, remained primarily multilateral rather than
35:15supranational, and the planned multilateral agreement on investment was never realized.
35:22So to conclude, what is today called the crisis of multilateralism is in reality a crisis
35:28of US supranationalist cosmopolitanism or US imperialism.
35:34That crisis has been long in the making and has reached something of a climax today.
35:40Though the crisis today takes a violent and conflictual form, thanks largely to the refusal
35:46of the United States and some of its allies to understand and accept the new world that
35:51is emerging with good grace, it is also allowing true multilateralism to emerge from under
35:59all these conflicts that have been caused by this refusal to accept.
36:05So with that, I will end.
36:07Thank you very much.
36:17I think that the topic that is central in your gathering in South Africa is of highest
36:25priority.
36:26To think about the place of the African continent and African countries and African people in
36:34the context of emerging multipolar world order is a central point, is a most important thing
36:44to think of, to discuss and to elaborate.
36:49Because first of all, we need to understand that world order is changing now under our
36:55eyes.
36:56The previous unipolar world order, based on the unipolarity, on the hegemony of the West,
37:05of the globalist liberalism and capitalism and colonialism, is over.
37:10The time, the epoch, the age of domination of the West is over.
37:15The rest is over.
37:17A new world order is taking shape just in front of us.
37:22It is multipolar world order.
37:25African continent should be united and should become the real independent pole of the multipolar
37:33system.
37:34It is not enough to have in Africa such big countries and powerful countries as South
37:39Africa or Nigeria or Ethiopia or the other.
37:45So there are many serious and strong African countries, but they are incomparable in front
37:53of the other poles.
37:55In order to grant to Africa the real sovereignty that could be comparable with the other pole,
38:03we need to unify Africa, and that the relevance and central place of pan-Africanist movement
38:11appears here.
38:12From the very beginning of anti-colonial struggle of African people, the best minds of African
38:19continent, Leopold Senghor, Krume, Sheikh Antediop, and many others, they dreamed about
38:27this unified Africa, Africa that will transcend the artificial post-colonial borders, cutting
38:36the tribes, the ethnic groups, the cultures, ancient African political entities, and imposing
38:44the colonial rules for the post-colonial Africa.
38:50So we need to think about how to help Africa to become independent pole, the big space,
38:59how to unite Africa on the spiritual level, on the economical level, on the financial
39:05level, on the security level.
39:07So we need greater Africa as the new pole of multipolar world.
39:13And in order to do that, we need first of all to help to the African peoples to decolonize
39:19them finally, because after political decolonization, the colonial presence of the ex-colonial powers
39:27is still here in the mind of African people.
39:31So there is a kind of colonization of minds, because colonial power coming out from Africa,
39:38they have left here their political ideas, liberalism, nationalism, their economical
39:45system, capitalism, market society, their cultural patterns that are now embedded in
39:51the anti-human tradition of LGBT, post-humanism, and so on.
39:58And so the ex-masters and slave traders of the West, they are still controlling the African
40:09minds, political, cultural, social, economic minds, ruling Africa in the indirect way.
40:18So in order to get free, to free, to liberate Africa from the colonial heritage, you need
40:26to make the final, final move for African liberation and decolonization of mind.
40:34And decolonization of mind could not happen only in one African country, taken separately.
40:41So in order to re-establish the dignity of African culture, our tectonic African culture,
40:48we need to work together, to bring together different African people, and to create greater
40:53Africa, basing on African spirit, on African idea of anti-colonial, post-colonial, and
41:00somehow pre-colonial identity.
41:03You know that your people, African people, suffered many, many years, the centuries from
41:09the Western colonialism.
41:11So many dead, so many enslaved people, so many suffering, violence, rape, humiliation
41:18of African identity.
41:20And you have passed through all these proofs, and now it is time to revenge.
41:27But the revenge should be repetition of the same attitude as the colonial masters have
41:34exercised against your heroic and rich, spiritually rich people.
41:39It is not African way to respond.
41:41I think the best revenge of Africa is to make Africa great, greater than before, to unite
41:49Africa, to show the example of flourishment and prosperity, of independent African pole,
41:57civilizational state of Africa.
42:00So I think that will be the revenge, if you show your ex-colonizers the best, the better
42:08way out of the present global crisis that the West is drowned in.
42:15So I think to restoration of the African greatness, the African dignity, that will be the best
42:24answer for those who tried to keep the African population as the slaves, as the subhuman,
42:33making genocide.
42:34For example, I could not without tears read about genocide of Khoisan people in Southern
42:41Africa, because the Anglo-Saxons and somehow Germans as well, they have totally eradicated
42:47the autonomous population, and how many Bantu people and other people, all people of Africa,
42:53how much you suffered from this colonization.
42:56It is impossible.
42:58It is incredible.
43:00And the West could not recognize fully its crime, because they tried to control still
43:06to impose their rules, their principles, their values in African continent, and they
43:12don't help in their reality to the African revival.
43:18And they still exploit that special African character, very mild, very subtle, in order
43:26to continue to exploit African people, in order to liberate Africa and to create its
43:33place, its natural place, organic place in the multipolar world.
43:41We need to liberate Africa from any, any kinds of colonization, and first of all, from colonization
43:49of mines.
43:50In that sense, Russia, as the country that never participated in colonial adventure of
43:56the West, never had any colony in Africa, Russia stays now at your side.
44:05We support you fully, and I hope and I believe that the same attitude will be confirmed from
44:12all our multipolar friends, from China, making many efforts to revival African economy, African
44:20industry, transport system.
44:22The same attitude we expect from India, from Islamic states, from Latin America.
44:28So the multipolar club, it is full of the friends of the Africa, sincere and faithful.
44:37And I think that together we will overcome, and we, with Africa and relying on Africa,
44:44we will create the multipolar world.
44:47So the African continent should be united in the transport systems, and maybe making
44:53its own currency, an African currency.
44:55We need to find the new identity to unite different ethnical and religious and cultural
45:02groups of Africa.
45:03So we need to make this African unity inclusive and not exclusive.
45:09We need to accept all kinds of identities, all kinds of traditional values of different
45:14tribes, ethnic groups, nations.
45:16And I think that is the challenge.
45:20We need to make Africa economically sovereign, culturally independent from all the rest.
45:28And when there are the friends, real friends of Africa, African people will be very grateful
45:35for them.
45:39This was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present and future.
45:44of the Asian giant.
45:45Hope you enjoyed it.
45:46See you next time.