VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
The recent Australian Banking Association (ABA) Conference received a report from the assistant governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Brad Jones, which addressed 'challenges to international cohesion, which had re-emerged for a number of years'. (1) The peak trade association is highly influential inside the corridors of power in Canberra and other provincial cities across Australia. The report, therefore, can be taken in that light.
The assessment provided an insight into recent global developments, which were based on a comparison with the so-called New World Order of yesteryear. The immediate period following the previous Cold War, was marked by the US placing itself at the centre of the global economy with three main considerations: to enhance security by maintaining a strong defence capability and promoting co-operative security measures, to open foreign markets and spur global economic growth, and to promote US-style democracy abroad. (2)
The ABA report referred to the three main security considerations as being responsible for having 'greased the wheels of global finance and trade'. (3) It was marked by capital being flung to the four corners of the global economy from international financial institutions largely controlled by the US, with longer-term implications for hegemonic positions. A surge in the use of financial sanctions in recent years “meant that financial institutions were increasingly exposed to ‘significant legal and business risk’ if they wanted to engage in cross-border trade and investment.” Threats from technology and cyberspace were now much more common.
Over the last two decades, developments have not followed the planned projections; in fact, the US seriously miscalculated its potential global reach. It failed:
Global GDP growth (annual %)
1994 - 3.4 %
2024 - 2.9 % (4)
Recorded global economic growth has continued to drop on the annual basis, as the tide has turned, with countries once on the periphery of the world economy now grabbing centre space. Countries once regarded as onside with the US are now swinging toward trade organisations, including BRICs and the Gulf Co-operation Council, which has raised serious security considerations as shown with the recent US war with Iran.
Economic statistics from elsewhere in the global economy, reveal the US has already been pushed away from its central position. Studies of the development have revealed that while the US still maintains 59 per cent of global foreign exchange reserves, it has been seriously challenged by the BRICs trade body, and others. (5) In fact, it has been noted that the BRICs 'has established financial institutions to bypass Western-controlled systems' (6) The
US-petro-dollar has been seriously challenged by countries using other currencies. (7)
And with the growing economic turmoil, came political and diplomatic considerations. The ABA report, for example, used terminology including reference to 'challenges to international cohesion … a … fragmenting of cross-border capital flows, increasing evasion of sophisticated sanctions and weakening the public-private coordination'. (8)
The nightmare scenario for the US, however, was initially placed onto the agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos, nearly two decades ago. The annual global financial forum, in January 2008, for example, received a report that while the US maintained control of about a third of the world's financial assets with a US$56.1 trillion share, the emerging markets of the recently globalised world economy held US$26.3 trillion; the growth rates of the latter were twice as dynamic as the former. (9)
The report, marking the origins of a general trend, nevertheless, fell on deaf ears. Influential decision-makers in international financial institutions were more inclined to make a fast buck, rather than consider the longer-term implications of their policies, which they foisted upon allies: de-regulation, privatisation, liberalisation.
Economic statistics from the period in question reveal those on the receiving end of the vast flows of capital, thrived; they continue to do so.
Studies of various regions of the global economy have revealed that in the period 2014-24, for example, the economies of Latin America experienced a 52 per cent growth rate, their counterparts in the Asia-Pacific region expanded by 50 per cent, double that of the US and Euro-zone. (10)
Alarm in Washington about the former, and the fate of their already decrepit Monroe Doctrine, was addressed in a recent Congressional Report which found China had become a major player, not only in BRICs, but also in what the US regarded as their Latin American 'backyard'. (11) Government departments in Washington which should have been assessing the developments, remained blissfully ignorant for creating the very economic conditions for their own demise. Arrogance, would appear a very appropriate term, for describing such negligence on their part.
A recent diplomatic statement from US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, has revealed the scale of the problem arising for the US; the diplomatic terminology is worthy of scrutiny. Reference to 'strategic industries migrated abroad', did not pay attention to the race-to-the-bottom mindset of globalisation, whereby constant cost-cutting pushed whole industries into emerging economies to maximise the rate of profit. (12) Reference in the statement, likewise, to 'critical supply chains concentrated in unfriendly jurisdictions', has provided a clear indication of the already changed balance of forces which has taken place due to globalisation. (13)
Much of the buffoonery accompanying the Trump presidential administration, moreover, is best assessed in the light that it reflects the most aggressive side of both Washington and the Pentagon. Policies are based upon the pretext of a last-ditch position with stormy scenarios looming on the horizon; the recent US diplomatic statement, for example, made reference to an assessment based upon the premise that 'other countries began to exploit our dependence as leverage. Now is the time to correct this'. (14) Significant obstacles to the US diplomatic position, however, lie in their way. It is unlikely to change.
Studies conducted by the BRICs, for example, have found it has already managed to control over half of global financial assets. (15) Its National Development Bank, furthermore, has been described as a 'cornerstone for South-South co-operation, financing projects in local currencies that challenge the dominance of the US dollar in global finance'. (16) Reliable sources have revealed BRICs has already reached a 35.6 per cent share of the global economy. (17) The US, in contrast, has continued to drop in significance:
2025 – 12.9 %
2026 – 12.8 %
2030 – 12.2 % projection (18)
And with the slow economic demise of the US has come the inevitable political and diplomatic considerations about longer-term viability.
The fact the ABA report also drew attention to the problem of Cold War spies and warnings from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network about Chinese military intelligence personnel using Western social media platforms to 'recruit Western targets', was not a coincidence. (19) It would all appear a throw-back to the previous Cold War, marked by a preoccupation of the 'enemy within' and fifth columnists hell-bent on undermining Australia. Attempts, by Canberra, to systematically strengthen class and state power are best assessed in that light; the mentality remains based in the notion of 'they have spies, we have agents'. Declassified documents from the period provide mind-boggling facts about the uses and abuses of power and intelligence-gathering techniques. They make a sobering read.
In conclusion, the ABA report has provided a glimpse of the dominant thinking inside the corridors of power in Canberra and Australia's provincial cities; it can be regarded as significant it has been accompanied by a similar report which revealed that only a minority of Australians now even trust decision-makers in Washington. (20) Traditional US hegemonic positions have been challenged.
The tide has turned, and keeps turning: We need an independent foreign policy!
1. Don't repeat post-Cold War error: RBA, Australian, 18 June 2026.
2. Report: US President Clinton to Congress, 21 July 1994.
3. Australian., op.cit., 18 June 2026.
4. GDP Growth (annual %), World Bank Group.
5. BRICs and the shift away from dollar dependence, Chicago Policy Review, University of Chicago, 8 October 2025.
6. Ibid.
7. Two years ago, Saudi Arabia quietly cancelled the 'petro-dollar, Fortune, 7 April 2026.
8. Australian, op.cit., 18 June 2026.
9. Davos salutes SWFs in a celebration of global capitalism, Australian, 29 January 2008.
10. Rethinking the rules for growth, McKinsey / Boston Consulting Group, 17 June 2025.
11. 'Pulling Latin America into China's orbit', US Congressional Report, 28 February 2026.
12. Five core principles drive US economic statecraft, Australian, 25 June 2026.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. BRICs financial assets surpass $60 trillion, teleSur, 4 July 2025.
16. Ibid.
17. Expansion of BRICs, Bank of France Bulletin, Number 250, Article 2, 26 February 2024.
18. US % of global GDP, World Economics, World Economics Research, London.
19. Australian, op.cit., 18 June 2026.
20. See: In an 'unsafe' world, we no longer trust US, Australian, 23 June 2026.