Geopolitics and Markets Review – 27th March 2023

China And Her Search For Peace and Power

The Xi-Putin Meeting

As Xi starts his third term as Chinese President, he travelled to Russia to meet Putin on his first overseas visit since re-election.

The key takeaways from the meeting reconfirmed key trends we are seeing in the currencies used for international settlements. Those countries tightly knit in the multipolar world order camp, such as China and Russia, are distancing from US dollar payments.

The war in Ukraine was also discussed between the two leaders. China released its proposed peace plan in February that wasn’t received well by the Western countries. There was no discussion of the withdrawal of forces in the paper, and Putin stated that the Chinese peace plan could work, but only when the West and Ukraine come to the table. Russia needs to paint the war it started over a year ago as a victory. And Ukraine was attacked and believed it shouldn’t lose territory to Russia that was taken aggressively. This stalemate will continue until either side is backed into a corner and taking any deal or sacrifice to end the war becomes a more attractive offer than continuing the fighting.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

After the West accused China of being too neutral and not condemning the Russian invasion, they released the peace plan to show their main aims of a peaceful resolution. They further confirmed this with the peace deal brokered in the Middle East last week. The rise of the multipolar world order led by China and Russia is gaining traction, and other countries are aligning closer to China and Russia to hedge the potential of this new global system with the current US-led system.