In Actuality, a Unified West Does Not Exist

The media has reported on Sergey Lavrov’s statement that the era of the West’s domination has ended. New centers of influence are appearing in the Asia-Pacific region.

The well-known political analyst and professor, Oleg Matveychev, comments on this news:

According to statistics, China accounts for 15 percent of world GDP, and if you add India’s GDP, in aggregate you almost have America’s. After all, in the Asia-Pacific region, there’s also Malaysia, Singapore and so on. I don’t mention Japan because it’s not a sovereign country but rather under the thumb of the United States. To a large extent, that goes for South Korea as well.

Russia is just around the corner, and there’s also South America. These are the SCO and BRICS countries, comparable to the G-7 in terms of economic power and even more so in terms of demographic potential. Incidentally, when the G-7 gathered, the Chinese leader called it a club of debtors, and indeed, the statistics on their debts are appalling: Japan’s debt is about 200 percent of its GDP, U.S. debt exceeds 100 percent of its GDP, while the debt of the remaining members of the G-7 is around 100 percent.

Meanwhile, the BRICS countries have low debt. Besides, the G-7’s GDP growth is being stimulated with borrowed funds, which once again leads to an increase in debt, whereas in the BRICS countries, including Russia, self-sustained growth is taking place.

Western countries can be likened to an old aristocracy. You remember the well-known plot of Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” or Ostrovsky’s “Money to Burn”: The landowner has a title, a house, an estate and so on; he calmly goes into debt and in the end, his whole fortune is mortgaged up to the hilt.

There are no sources of self-development, and then the landowner is replaced by the bourgeoisie, which on account of its labor and enterprise overtakes the aristocracy. The BRICS countries are the world’s workshops with machine manufacturing, agriculture, etc., while the West is given credit for old times’ sake and gives the impression of prosperity, but it’s merely window dressing.

At the same time, I would like to say that in actuality, a unified West does not exist and Lavrov didn’t put it quite right. America would like to appear in full agreement with Europe, but in reality they have different interests. The U.S. together with the U.K. have always considered themselves an external player on the chessboard and Europe, with its geopolitical strength, has in past centuries stood up to sea-based and island states.

Europe would do well to make common cause with Russia and Eurasia as a whole. And when we use the term “West,” we are playing into the hands of the United States, which would like there to be such a term. We should, on the contrary, say that Europe and America have different interests and that at present, they are in direct opposition.