http://thehill.com/opinion/554...xus-against-the-west/

>>... This marks the first major attempt by Russian corporations to issue yuan-denominated bonds since the invasion of Ukraine severed Moscow from Western capital markets. Sanctions have cut off Russian access to dollars and euros, forcing the Kremlin to seek out new avenues of financing.
By securing AAA ratings from Chinese credit agencies, both Rosatom and Gazprom have paved the way to tap the world's second-largest bond market. If successful, they will set a precedent for other sanctioned Russian companies, and possibly for firms from the wider BRICS bloc or Global South, to bypass Western finance entirely.
Such a move would undermine the efficacy of sanctions while simultaneously boosting the role of the Chinese currency in global markets. The symbolism is heightened by the participation of Gazprom - a company blacklisted by the U.S. for financing Russia's war now receives Beijing's blessing to raise funds in yuan. That decision, combined with the simultaneous approval of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project, highlights how energy and finance are becoming twin pillars of the Sino-Russian alliance. Power of Siberia 2 will funnel massive quantities of Russian gas into China.
Rosatom's role adds a further strategic dimension. During his visit, Rosatom's chief executive Alexei Likhachev declared that his company was prepared to help China surpass the U.S. in nuclear power capacity. Russia has already built four reactors in China and is constructing four more.
China's leadership has made clear that it intends to win the race for artificial intelligence dominance. Vast, stable, low-carbon energy supplies will be critical to powering the data centers and supercomputing infrastructure. If China can marry Russian nuclear expertise to its AI ambitions, the result will be a structural energy advantage in the very competition that Washington views as defining the twenty-first century....

... For Washington and Brussels, this development exposes the limits of their economic coercion. Sanctions are effective only so long as targeted countries lack alternatives, and alternatives are being built. It also foreshadows the construction of a parallel financial architecture for the Global South. During his Beijing visit, Putin called for developing countries to create a "common financial infrastructure." Yuan-denominated bonds for sanctioned companies may be the first bricks in that foundation. If BRICS members and other emerging economies begin to view Chinese markets as a safe haven, the dollar's central role will gradually erode.

The challenge to dollar dominance is not hypothetical. Although the yuan still accounts for a small share of international reserves, its use in trade settlements has been steadily rising. China already settles a growing proportion of its energy imports in yuan. If companies like Gazprom, whose revenues were once tightly linked to Europe, now anchor their financing in yuan, the global energy-finance nexus will shift. The more energy contracts, nuclear projects, and infrastructure deals are denominated in yuan, the less central the dollar becomes....<<

This is where the things that happen next will define our place in the world on many many levels.


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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.