US officials wanted to attend Yekaterinburg as observers. They were told no
by Michael Hudson
Challenging America will be the focus of meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia,
on Monday and Tuesday for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev and other leaders of the six-nation Shanghai Co-operation
Organisation. The alliance comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan
and Mongolia.
The attendees have assured American diplomats that dismantling the US
financial and military hegemony is not their aim. They simply want to
discuss mutual aid – but in a way that has no role for the US or for the
dollar as a vehicle for trade among these countries.
The meeting is an opportunity for China, Russia and India to "build an
increasingly multipolar world order", as Mr Medvedev put it in a St
Petersburg speech this month. What he meant was this: we have reached our
limit in subsidising the US military encirclement of Eurasia while also
allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies and real estate in
exchange for paper money of questionable worth. "The artificially maintained
unipolar system", Mr Medvedev said, was based on "one big centre of
consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one
formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing
assets and risks".
. . . Mr Medvedev concluded his St Petersburg speech: "What we need are
financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political
issues and motives, and particular countries, will not dominate."
. . . Foreigners see a financial system backed by American military bases
encircling the globe. The IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and
other Washington surrogates are seen as vestiges of a lost American empire
no longer able to rule by economic strength, left only with military
domination. They see this hegemony cannot continue without adequate revenues
and are attempting to hasten the bankruptcy of the US financial-military
world order. If China, Russia and their allies have their way, the US will
no longer live off the savings of others, nor have the money for unlimited
military spending.
US officials wanted to attend Yekaterinburg as observers. They were told no.
It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.
[There needs to be a general acceptance that the current model has failed.
The brakes-off, deregulate or die, privatise or stagnate, lunch is for
wimps, greed is good, what's good for the financial sector is good for the
economy model--John Lanchester, "It's Finished,"
London Review of Books, May 28, 2009]
[It is the first formal step by our major trading partners to replace the
dollar as the world's reserve currency. If they succeed, the dollar will
dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will
skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that
will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal
services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds.--Chris Hedges, "The American Empire Is
Bankrupt," truthdig.com, June 14, 2009]
[ . . . despite hopes by BRIC nations for a more diverse system, the dollar
remains for now the undisputed king of currencies.--Dan Molinski, "Dollar
Declines; BRIC Nations Want Diversity," wsj.com, June 16, 2009]
[In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf
Arabs are planning - along with China, Russia, Japan and France - to end
dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including
the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified
currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including
Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. . . .
The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to
Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts
involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait
and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar
reserves. . . .
The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018. . . .
Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil
producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after
Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded
Iraq.--Robert Fisk, "The demise of the dollar," Independent,
October 6, 2009]
[Without the slave trade and colonization, Europe could never have made the
kind of breakthrough it did (p27). . . . we should see the last two
centuries in which economic power became concentrated in a relatively small
part of the world's population, namely Europe and North America, as
something of an historical aberration (p29).--Martin Jacques, "When
China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a
New Global Order," Penguin Press HC, The (November 12, 2009)]
["The best victory is to win without actually fighting. Supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."--Jon Basil
Utley, "Sun Tzu and
America’s Way of War," antiwar.com, February 3, 2010]
[The day will come when the confidence in the dollar will be greatly diminished
worldwide. Under those conditions the tremendous benefits that we in the United States
have enjoyed as the issuer of the reserve currency will be reversed.--Ron Paul, "A Green Light for the American Empire,"
ronpaulinstitute.org, March 14, 2015]