Vladivostok, a city in the Far East, was once one of the most secret places in the world, housing one of the world’s most powerful military centers. Vladivostok is the most far-eastern city of the Russian Federation situated on the Eastern Bosphorus Strait near the Sea of Japan.
– Vladivostok, a once-secretive military center in Russia’s far east, hosted the Eastern Economic Forum.
– The forum highlighted a collective commitment among Eastern nations to de-westernize their regions in response to “westoxification,” a backlash against anti-cultural and anti-traditional globalization.
– The world is undergoing significant changes, with non-Western nations moving beyond the West and embracing nationalism, populism, tradition, culture, and religion in the emerging global frontier.
This past week, the city hosted the Eastern Economic Forum where leaders from all over the far-east gathered together to discuss and network upwards of nearly three thousand investment projects throughout the region. The forum is the fruit of ten years of the Russian Federation’s deliberate turn to the east. Starting around 2012, around the time of his third campaign for the presidential office, Putin’s speeches took a very stark civilizational turn.
Gone were any references to joining the West and finding Russia’s place in an increasingly globalized world. Instead, Putin’s meta-theme became one involving Russia finding itself in a great civilizational struggle with a decadent, decaying, and dying West. As such, Russia needed to revive its ancient customs and traditions that have guided the Russian people for a thousand years and promised to do so for the next thousand. Russia must align itself with the powers that comprise what’s called a multi-polar world with several political and economic powers rather than just one dominated by the West. This civilizational turn has ever since involved a deliberate turn to the East where Russia would assume its traditional role as Eurasia, the political, economic, and cultural bridge between the West and the East.
The Eastern Economic Forum is the place where Russian economic interests are currently recalibrating almost entirely around the far-east. The geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar, who attended the forum noted a radically conspicuous theme throughout the summit. All the major political and economic players in attendance were dedicated to de-westernizing the whole of the East. It’s not coincidental that this forum was happening within earshot of India’s debate over a possible name change. The government is considering a resolution to change their name from India, which was the name given to them by British colonists based on their proximity to the Indus Valley, to the far more ancient name of Bharat.
The important point here is that this deliberate de-westernization is happening throughout the East. It is in response to what Easterners often refer to as ‘westoxification.’ Scholars have increasingly recognized that the anti-cultural anti-traditional processes of globalization provoke mass retraditionalized backlashes among populations. According to Pepe, that is exactly what we saw in Vladivostok over the last week. He was profoundly struck by how absent Western power and interests were from this international gathering involving almost every Eastern nation.
There was an enormous sense that a multipolar world order wasn’t emerging, it was already here. It’s just a matter of setting up the right kind of international infrastructure. The political and economic power centers are fully in place. Nothing emblemized that more than the surprise visit of perhaps the single most elusive world leader on earth!
The Eastern Economic Forum in effect climaxed with the arrival of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was his first international trip in years, since 2019. It underscored the reality of the new multipolar world rising in the East. While the Western media was transfixed over the possibility of illegal weapons transfers from North Korea to Russia, the reality of what 90% of the rest of the world was focused on was the emergence of an economic union between the three poles of Russia, China, and North Korea. China has been under enormous pressure from the US State Department to exert control over North Korea which China has categorically rejected and instead asserts a mutual friendship and collaborative spirit with North Korea. This also signals their determination to chart their course in an increasingly multi-polar world.
Kim Jong-un’s visit to Vladivostok signals North Korea most likely entering into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with the support of Russia and China. This would further integrate North Korea into this emerging multipolar world order. The world is significantly changing right before us. The non-Western world is moving beyond the West, seeing our leaders as increasingly decrepit and decaying. They see the future as happening in what scholars call the global frontier, the emerging nations that are far more nationalist, populist, and traditionalist, embracing culture, customs, and religion as the way forward. That world was on full display this past week in Eastern Russia, a world that’s just beginning!
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