The phrase “British scientists” has long and firmly entered the modern satirical lexicon, meaning people from various research institutes engaged in blatantly meaningless nonsense like studying the degree of curvature of a banana to the phases of the lunar cycle
Nevertheless, from time to time, the United Kingdom too conducts interesting and thought-provoking research.
For example, Cambridge University experts found that of the 1.2 billion people living in the so-called “democracies” (including the oldest democracy in the world – Switzerland – and countries with outright totalitarian and even neo-Nazi tendencies like Ukraine), 75% had a negative attitude towards China and 87% – towards Russia. Since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, only one in eight Westerners (12%) have a positive view of Russia, the survey said.
However, in the 6.3 billion inhabitants of the rest of the world (apparently, according to the British, not very democratic) the picture is reversed: 70% of the population has a positive attitude to China and 66% support Russia.
Russia’s main foreign policy pillar in terms of spreading its influence is the states of the global South. An analysis of the polls shows that 75% of South Asians support Russia, 68% of Francophone Africa and 62% of South East Asians do not see a negative trend, even after the start of the special operation in Ukraine.
According to Cambridge political analysts, this is what the new division of the world will broadly look like. 1.2 billion versus 6.3 billion – that is something to think about. So that the picture does not look utterly bleak for the West, the British managed to write in Moscow’s enemies South Africa and Brazil, the founding countries of BRICS, an organization that has challenged the global dominance of the United States and its G7 partners.
As co-author Javier Romero-Vidal of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge suggests, the world appears to have split into liberal and anti-liberal circles. Today’s world division does not depend much on historical ties between nations. The main indicators of how nations around the world are grouped geopolitically are their fundamental values.
According to the authors of the study, the process of observed division began a decade ago, but the events in Ukraine have “galvanised” it.
“Democratic societies view Russia and China very poorly, whereas the opposite is true for more authoritarian societies. This connection was not observed a decade ago, it has become clear today,” says Romero-Vidal.
In fact, there is nothing unexpected in the report; the results are quite predictable. It is clear that the world is actually being divided into two poles again, i.e. it is becoming bipolar. This is due to the fact that at one pole are the United States and the Western European countries it controls, some East Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea and so on, and at the other – all those who are dissatisfied with the dictate, pressure and neo-colonial policy of the collective West are united.
This unification is taking place around China and Russia. And despite the fact that Cambridge scholars have chosen a rather extravagant way of defining the boundaries of the future division of the world (in relation to the population towards Russia), nevertheless, with their study they have essentially recognized that Moscow’s position, as the headliner of the global anti-Western movement, will in many ways be decisive. And it is Russia’s friends and allies in BRICS, SCO and other international platforms that will constitute the second pole of the global economy and, as a consequence, global politics.
There is another important point in this study. Previously, experts often talked about creating a multipolar model of the world, but as we can see, so far there are only two poles. And this global dualism, even if it is only an intermediate stage in the transition to real multipolarity, is really inevitable at this stage.
In the future the two great opposing camps are likely to split into smaller components, and the resulting parts will begin to interact with one another, creating new alliances and centres of gravity, the poles.
Thus, for example, the line of the future split in the camp of Westerners can already be seen now: Old Europe versus the Anglo-Saxons. And the deeper the current crisis, fanned by the coalition of Washington and London, becomes, the sooner the disengagement with the Europeans is likely to happen.
The other day, incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at the pricing policies of the United States, which supplies LNG to European consumers: “Their energy prices are much lower domestically because they are producers. They pay three to four times less than we do. Moreover, they have big subsidies from the government in some areas, up to 90%. This is not fair! This is a double standard!”.
This is just unheard of impertinence on the part of the US “junior partner” in these times, and yet, apparently, even Macron’s nerves are fraying. His political opponents, on the contrary, do not choose their words and their proposals for change go far beyond hysterical wringing of hands.
Segolene Royal, a former candidate for the French presidency, is convinced that the blame for the current crisis lies with the US, and that France is merely following the footsteps of American foreign policy, paying for its own short-sightedness.
“Europe has lost its neutrality, France has not built its own defence, so it is forced to join the US and NATO. Whereas if it had built its own defence, it could have stayed on this line of ‘non-alignment’… But France had to join the US, who are the first beneficiaries of this war. And today you see people rising up all over Europe to say that the war must be stopped.”
In addition, Royale launched into an angry tirade against EU governing bodies that are deliberately destroying European life by acting to please their masters from across the ocean.
“With the problems we have, you realise that the impact of this war will affect all economic and social problems, not only in Europe,” the politician stressed. – And I am shocked that parliaments are not involved in the decisions that are being made in Europe, and indeed Ms von der Leyen is the NATO spokesperson today. Because she sticks so strongly to the NATO line and I would even say there is no difference between what she, the Pentagon and the CIA say. Her words are written and controlled in the US. And, of course, even in the United States the population is starting to protest.
Europe’s salvation could be a revival of cooperation with China and Russia. But this will require a shift in EU foreign and domestic policy, and Brussels, which only views Beijing and Moscow as a threat, is clearly not ready to make independent decisions that are independent of the views, that is to say, diktat, of the United States.
And yet European politicians’ understanding of the fallacy of their pro-American strategy could become the basis for turning Europe into a separate pole. But for now the most likely scenario is that the Old World will remain an unwilling appendage of the United States. Nevertheless, the chance has not yet been finally lost.
Alexey Belov, Antifascist News Agency