For President Vladimir Putin, currency is power. His pre-SCO summit announcement that Russia-China trade is now almost entirely in rubles and yuan demonstrates his strategy of wielding non-dollar trade as a potent geopolitical weapon against the West.
This move directly attacks the source of America’s global financial might. By creating a large-scale, functioning alternative to the dollar system for settling hundreds of billions in trade, Putin is actively working to dethrone the king of currencies. He explicitly links this to countering the “hegemony of the US dollar.”
This weapon serves both defensive and offensive purposes. Defensively, it protects Russia’s economy from the “discriminatory sanctions” that rely on the dollar system for enforcement. Offensively, it chips away at US influence and provides a path for other countries to gain their own financial sovereignty.
At the Tianjin summit, Putin will be encouraging others to adopt this weapon. He is making the case that true multipolarity is impossible without monetary multipolarity, and the successful Ruble-Yuan axis is his primary proof of concept.