West’s ‘500-year dominance’ ending – Lavrov

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The West’s 500-year domination is coming to an end, to be replaced by “a new polycentric world,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in a video presentation to the Doha Forum on Sunday.

The minister expressed sadness that some “circumstances” prevented him from attending the annual high-profile event in person and hearing the debates.

“But I assume that you were discussing the multipolar world, which is emerging after 500 years of domination of what we call the ‘collective West,'” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The US and its allies’ hegemony was “based on a diverse history, including ruthless exploitation of peoples and territories of other countries,” he said.

According to the minister, the West suggested that it could use the model of globalization, which it had been building for centuries, to maintain its dominance. “However, other countries, using exactly the principles and instruments of the Western globalization, managed to beat the West on its own turf, building the economies on the basis of national sovereignty, on the basis of balance of interests with other countries.”

New centers of economic growth and political influence have been emerging, “changing the balance of power in the world, and not to the West’s liking,” he said.

To counteract this type of development, the US and its allies have “sacrificed” globalisation in recent years in favour of the so-called ‘rules-based world order,’ Lavrov added.

“The rules were never published, were never even announced by anyone to anyone, and they are being applied depending on what exactly the West needs at a particular moment of modern history,” he went on to say.

According to the FM, such an approach is most visible “in various conflicts, which the West ignites all over the world,” including the one in Ukraine. “Everything is done to maintain hegemony.” Domestic involvement, sanctions against all competition principles, regime change, and, of course, direct military operations, as seen in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.”

“Is there a single place where the US intervened with military force, where life has become better? I think you know the answer,” Lavrov told the forum participants.

According to the diplomat, new formats like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, African Union, and others will become “the bricks of the new polycentric world.”