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Writer's picturePaul Hansbury

THE DICTATORS' BUSINESS

In late October, Russia hosted a BRICS summit. As the leaders of China, India, Turkey and others gathered in Kazan, the Kremlin was keen to use the event to show 'the west' that Russia is not an international pariah. 'Russia is not isolated,' asserted Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, directly challenging the belief among many US and EU policymakers that sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine would lead to Russia's isolation on the world stage.


How successful Russia's efforts have been to present BRICS as an alternative bloc in global politics can be debated. The presence of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Kazan was a boon to BRICS and to Russia's image (and prompted a predictable outcry from western states). In other respects, however, Russia has been left wanting by BRICS. It would like the bloc to have come out in formal support of its war in Ukraine and it would reportedly like quicker progress on its plans to establish a BRICS payments system to rival the US grip on global financial transactions.


A BRICS payments system would allow members of the group to de-dollarise their trade. Many onlookers in western states say that Russia's efforts to establish an alternative are failing, not least because of the technical difficulties of setting up such a system. At the same time, the existing payments system used in global trade is far from perfect. Should a BRICS payment system come to fruition it might draw other states away from using dollars in their transactions. The dollar's role in global trade gives the US enormous leverage over other states and, since all dollar trade passes through US banks, Washington is afforded snooping capabilities on global finance.


Were a BRICS payment system to come into being, it would be a significant blow to US interests and power. The US won't easily be able to sanction states like Russia if they are conducting their business out of its sight. With payments not being processed via the US, Washington simply won't know who is 'cheating' and what is being bought and sold.


The rotters' club


Anne Applebaum would agree that Russia is not isolated in the world. Autocracy, Inc., her new book, is about the kleptocratic and security networks that today's dictators rely on to stay in power. She traces the practices of, and relationships between, such states as Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, China and Russia.

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