Yuriy Yakymenko, President of Razumkov Centre
Vasyl Yurchyshyn, Director of Economic Programmes of Razumkov Centre
In the mid-2010s, global geopolitics was dominated by seemingly unquestionable ideologemes about the world order and its immediate prospects. It was believed that:
— Euro-Atlantic solidarity was protected by the American “security umbrella” that would further strengthen political and economic ties across the Atlantic;
— free trade, extending to services, investments, and new technologies, would involve more countries, thus increasing the income of both transnational corporations and even countries that have long been on the periphery of world processes for centuries but could adequately respond to the challenges of global competition;
— the growing interest of investment-rich China in Europe and America’s highly absorbing markets would contribute to gradual penetration of liberal freedoms and democratic values in China;
— autocratic Russia would continue drifting towards the western way of life and absorbing material values, while increasingly losing economically to dynamic China. The possibility of a strategic rapprochement between technological China and resource-rich Russia was not seen as a threat to the established world order;
