EAST’s RISE IRREVERSIBLE, WEST SPEEDING UP OWN DECLINE Via Indiscriminate Sanctions

The president emphasized the historic shift of decision-making centers from the West to the East.

“Asian economies have been rising substantially over the past decades, which means the axis of power is shifting towards the Asian continent,” says Alexander Clackson, founder of Global Political Insight, a UK-based think tank.

“This trend is likely to continue. For now, most Asian countries are happy to continue cooperating with Russia through trade. It is likely that Russia will aim to position itself alongside China as the leader of new world structures that are not Western-centric and incorporate developing and emerging nations.”

Speaking at the EEF on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin emphasized that the role of dynamic, developing states and regions of the world has significantly increased.

Countries of the Asia-Pacific have become “new centers of economic and technological growth, points of attraction for personnel, capital, production,” the Russian president noted.

The West’s attempts to retain its power through unilateral sanctions, unfair trade mechanisms and outright threats have only accelerated the world’s shift from the Western-centric order to multipolarity, according to Putin.

“Such a change occurred after the rapid development of Asian economies, to which the West contributed to a large extent,” says Dragana Trifković, director of the Center for Geostrategic Studies, Serbia.

“The transfer of production from the West to Asia, in order to obtain higher profits for Western companies, was strategically a key factor that led to the economic primacy of Asia, primarily China. Such a process is not reversible, and it also initiated other processes that led to the transition to a multipolar world order.”