The East, led by China, seems better positioned by the day to compel U.S. cooperation in the new world order that China is determined to engineer. The U.S. won’t remain the hegemonic nation we once were. But we’d reap great benefits from cooperating—and risk great damage if we don’t.
China’s most critical project is the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, which connects more than 150 countries via massive infrastructure creation, including rail and roads, sea-based shipping lanes, ports, and investments in telecommunications. BRI countries span Asia, Africa, and even include Latin American countries. Together these countries account for more than 70% of the world’s population and have a combined GDP that represents 50% of global GDP.
With per-capita GDP in these countries below that of the more highly developed countries, their potential for growth is greater. This puts China in the sweet spot of being able to account for a disproportionate percentage of global growth. Its investments in BRI countries provide the infrastructure that is critical for growth while hooking these emerging economies directly into China’s supply chains and export markets. Since 2013, more than $1.4 trillion has been spent on BRI infrastructure, with annual rates accelerating.
The Middle East—and in particular, Iran (and to a lesser extent, Yemen)—is crucial to China being able to fulfill its BRI goals. That’s because of Iran’s uniquely favorable geographic position, directly between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Central Asia always has been pivotal to world trade, and that remains as true today as ever.
Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz gives it control over all traffic out to the Arabian Sea, including the passage of oil from the Middle East to everywhere else. Yemen has the potential to create havoc in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aden. To get its oil out, Saudi Arabia needs to use one of these critical passages. (It could use the Suez Canal, but that would require paying Egypt; moreover, the Suez Canal isn’t sufficiently big to accommodate larger ships.) Given the Middle East’s importance to China, it’s worth noting that both Iran and Yemen seem to have seen an influx of technologically superior weaponry that they were unlikely to have developed on their own.
Central to China’s drive towards a new world order is China’s push to create a new global monetary architecture, not one in which the yuan replaces the dollar but rather a gold-centered system. China’s recent moves to create a physical market for gold are bringing this new system closer. It will leave the U.S. facing a stark choice: cooperate and adapt to the new system, or risk systemic collapse. We believe that China very much wants the U.S. to participate, in the interests of global stability that will benefit China and the world as a whole.
The popular geopolitical YouTube channel, The Duran, recently pointed out that China has tightened export controls on key drone components. China may be leveraging its industrial supply chains to try to bring about a broader peace. Without access to these Chinese parts, manufacturing drones for the war in Ukraine will become far more costly, and Ukraine will lose its arguably most important weapon, which it has used on the battlefield and to target Russian refineries and civilian warehouses. Eliminating drones would make Ukraine’s defeat simply a matter of time. It also would mean an end that would be on Moscow’s terms.
All of this must be factoring into the upcoming meeting next month between Xi and Trump. There have also been rumors, first reported on Bloomberg, that Witkoff and Kushner are once again preparing to meet with Putin, at a time not yet scheduled. But the pieces for a major peace deal may be falling into place. That peace will most likely involve as much sovereignty as Russia can tolerate in Ukraine. Maybe it is too optimistic to say that peace between Russia and Ukraine could be a prelude to peace between Europe and Russia. But if you’re going to dream, peace is a pretty good thing to dream about.
China’s ultimate goal seems to be a united world capable of addressing the existential problems facing the planet as a whole. America—ever more isolated from the rest of the world—seems to be the major obstacle standing in the way. Let’s hope that we reverse course and choose to become part of that more united world.
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