At the core of global world-system wars is the confrontation between China and the United States.
And at the core of the China–US confrontation lies a new currency war: the decline of the petrodollar and the rise of the petro-yuan.
China is following the “track” of the American empire, repeating its path toward global hegemony.
Over the past 400 years, the world-system has shifted through several locations of capital accumulation centers: Genoa and Venice; then a shift to the Netherlands; next, a shift to Britain; and then to the United States.
We are now in the process of shifting to China.
Especially since China has all the necessary infrastructure to form a new global center of capital accumulation—Hong Kong.
A center of capital accumulation shapes the future structure of the world-system: who becomes the core, who the industrial semi-periphery, and who the raw-material periphery.
As a rule, the core of the world-system is also the center of global capital accumulation.
China is tired of being the industrial semi-periphery of the West. Beijing has ambitions to become one of the global centers of capital accumulation—that is, to become the core and form its own world-system.
That is why the current wars are world-systemic.
And the main task these world-systemic wars are solving is the transfer of the global currency system from the petrodollar to the petro-yuan.
In other words, world-systemic wars are like the “stages” of the “rocket” of the petro-yuan.
First stage – Pan-European world-systemic war (since 2022) – Russia moves oil and gas settlements into yuan and forms its reserves in yuan.
Second stage – Pan-Asian world-systemic war (since 2026) – the goal is to move Asia to yuan-denominated oil settlements and ensure Asian countries form their reserves in yuan.
This goal could be achieved as a result of the Pan-Asian world-systemic war.
This is facilitated by the fact that the “Technological Sparta” in the US is betting on the crypto-dollar to maintain its status as a global currency.
Oil is seen by Technological Sparta as something patriarchal and outdated.
On the other hand, the conservative MAGA group, neocons, Christian Zionists, and dispensationalists continue to advocate for the petrodollar system.
So the fight will be intense.
So far, the petro-yuan has “completed” the first stage – oil settlements with Russia and the formation of Russian reserves in yuan.
The next stage is the Middle East.
If Asia, in addition to Russia, begins settling oil in yuan and Hong Kong dollars and forming reserves in these currencies, the rise of the petro-yuan can be considered a done deal.
By the way, about the Hong Kong dollar.
Its issuance is carried out by Hong Kong banks backed by US dollars, with issuance approved by the island’s Currency Board.
The Hong Kong dollar’s rate is fixed.
Issuance backed by dollars makes the Hong Kong dollar a global currency with the largest backing in foreign reserves (48% of the money supply).
In effect, China holds a currency “neutron bomb.”
Trigger mechanism:
- Oil settlements in yuan.
- Pegging the Hong Kong dollar to the yuan instead of the US dollar.
- Converting Hong Kong dollar reserves into gold instead of dollars: gold on world markets shoots up, the dollar collapses sharply.
Why hasn’t China used this “neutron currency weapon” yet?
As long as the petrodollar exists, detonating this “bomb” would only harm its owner.
Clearly, such predictions about the petro-yuan may seem distant and futuristic.
But this is always how it happens—the new is first seen as heresy, then buried as a misconception.
If in the 19th century, British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had been told that the US, instead of Britain, would become the global center of capital accumulation, he would have merely smiled wryly in response…
