By John REES

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Preparations for war with Russia and complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza have set off a struggle over jobs, wages and military production

War preparation is now a reality across Europe. Within a single September week, Poland issued fresh warnings, Germany ran drills and national alerts, military exercises were held across the Baltic, and Lithuania published plans to evacuate residents of Vilnius in the event of an attack.

The Finnish government is in full cry over the prospect of war, reminding its citizens yet again that they should be ready, in mind and in practice, for the disruption it would bring.

On 18 September, French President Emmanuel Macron gathered party leaders and presidential hopefuls at the Elysee Palace to hear the heads of France’s intelligence services describe what his office called the rapid deterioration of the international situation.

Nato, meanwhile, talks ever more openly about Russian sabotage, cyber attacks, arson and drone attacks.

Many workers and citizens across the continent, though, are not convinced by the war fever.

Thousands of Airbus workers in Spain began strike action on 1 July after rejecting the company’s pay and conditions offer.

Representatives of the UGT and CGT unions said the stoppage had slowed military and commercial production and would make it harder for the company to meet its delivery target. Airbus’s eight sites in Spain produce military transport planes and parts for commercial aircraft and satellites.

As the Defence Matters website reported: “The industrial pressure is not confined to commercial aviation. Spain is central to Airbus Defence and Space, including military transport and satellite activity. European governments are asking manufacturers to increase output at the same time as companies compete for engineers, technicians and production workers.”

Supply lines are so tight that Airbus has had to hire giant Antonov An-124 heavy-lift aircraft to ferry parts from one plant to another just to keep production running.

Air Data News reported that the strike “threatens key military aircraft programmes”, noting that the Eurofighter plant near Madrid and the military transport aircraft site near Seville were both affected.

Spanish unions said about 90 percent of eligible workers took part in the stoppage on 25 August, part of an indefinite strike. The strikes were called after workers voted at plant-level assemblies to reject the company’s offer.

French unions briefed on the dispute said the three striking Spanish unions represent about 40 percent of Airbus Spain’s roughly 14,000 employees. Workers were seeking inflation-linked pay rises, the restoration of previous remote-working arrangements and sick-leave benefits.

After the intervention of Industry Minister Jordi Hereu and concessions from Airbus, the strikers paused the stoppage on 10 September, but not the movement. Two days later, around 8,000 workers from Airbus sites across Spain marched through Madrid to keep the pressure on.

On 1 October, 77 percent of those voting backed an improved offer providing for the restoration of lost purchasing power, inflation-linked pay rises and the protection of remote-working rights, a settlement that months of industrial action had forced out of the company.

The Airbus dispute shows the leverage workers hold in the very industries on which Europe’s rearmament depends.

Trains and the TUC

In Scotland, meanwhile, the rail union RMT, the drivers’ union Aslef and the white-collar TSSA have demanded that the Scottish government remove CAF, the Spanish manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, from its shortlist of contractors to build ScotRail’s new fleet of suburban trains.

The company is included in the UN human rights database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements for its role in running the Jerusalem light rail and helping to extend it into territory illegally seized by Israel.

Aslef made clear that its members would refuse to drive CAF trains, a position echoed by TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust when she urged the Scottish government to “think again”.

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay put the first minister on the spot, asking him directly: “So will the first minister agree that CAF should be blocked from this contract, and will he stand with the rail workers who have refused to drive trains produced by a company that they say profits from apartheid?”

In his response, the first minister confirmed that ScotRail was seeking advice on the contract.

For the second year running, delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a motion opposing increases in arms spending.

This year’s motion passed with even more support than last year’s, which reversed the TUC’s previous backing, advocated by the GMB and Unite unions, for higher defence spending.

Speaking in favour of the motion, Alex Gordon, a former RMT president and national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, said: “This movement is about fighting for jobs, for public services, for investment in the industries of the future that our young people, that our young workers need.

“Those industries are not military industries. The skills of the workers in the military sector are vital skills, vital skills that need to be used in civilian production.”

Ports and classrooms

Dockworkers’ unions in at least six countries are planning an international day of action and strikes on 30 October to protest against the war on Gaza and demand an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.

This coordinated mobilisation follows a strike on 6 February this year that shut down cargo operations at more than 20 Mediterranean and European ports to halt arms shipments bound for Israel.

“No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarisation of ports and strategic infrastructure from [the] EU,” the unions said in their statement. “Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.”

The signatories include CGT FNPD in France, Enedep in Greece, LAB in the Basque Country, Liman-Is in Turkey, ODT in Morocco, and Orsa Porti and USB in Italy.

The next generation, at least in Germany, seems even less enthusiastic about the prospect of a new European war. More than 45,000 school students across the country walked out of class in late September to protest against plans for compulsory military service, after hundreds of young men were summoned for medical examinations.

The School Strike Against Conscription initiative said demonstrations took place in more than 100 cities after the German defence ministry began calling in 18-year-old men for medical screening. Service itself remains voluntary for now, but the screening is compulsory.

Students took to the streets demanding a halt to the forced checks, the repeal of the new military service law and an end to what they call a step-by-step return to the draft.

This is now the ground on which European politics is being fought. It is a contest between a political establishment obsessed with war and preparations for war, and millions of workers across the continent unwilling to pay for rearmament with their wages, jobs and living standards.

These are the opening shots in that battle.

Original article:  middleeasteye.net

By Yang Xuefeng

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At present, under the impact of factors such as deep adjustments in the global balance of economic power, frequent geopolitical crises, the “weaponization” of finance, and the accelerating pace of technological progress, the existing international monetary system is unable to cope with complex and rapidly changing external challenges and is undergoing continuous evolution.

I. Stylized Facts: The Basic Landscape of the Current International Monetary System

In the process of global de-dollarization, the international monetary system has shown a trend of evolving from the hegemonic system of unipolar dollar dominance formed after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system toward a parallel pattern of multipolarization, regionalization, and digitalization. The dollar’s core position remains, but its hegemonic status is gradually being eroded.

1. Reserve Currency: De-dollarization Continues to Deepen, and a Multipolar Coexistence Pattern Is Gradually Taking Shape

Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the dollar’s reserve share has declined from 69.74% in 2000 to 56.42% in 2025, with a clear long-term downward trend. Even though there were periodic rebounds during this period, the long-term downward trajectory remains unchanged. This long-term non-cyclical decline can be explained by central banks’ construction and rebalancing of reserve portfolios based on market efficiency and asset security under the existing institutional system.

The trend toward diversification of reserve currencies is becoming increasingly obvious. In the process of building diversified reserves, central banks have included non-traditional international currencies in their portfolios, broadening the options for international reserve currencies. The share of non-traditional international currencies in international reserve currencies has risen from 2.48% in 2017 to 6.13% in 2025. Although the absolute share is still not high, it has increased by nearly 1.5 times.

The substitution effect of gold reserves is significant. From 2022 to 2025, global central banks’ net gold purchases exceeded 4,000 tons, and official gold reserves surpassed U.S. Treasury bonds for the first time. The logic behind this is both the increased demand for central bank asset allocation under the trend of weakening dollar credit and a strategic reconstruction of sovereign states’ control over financial assets under financial sanctions.

2. Settlement Currency: Dollar Settlement Is Retreating, and Local Currency Settlement Is Rising Trendily

In 2025, the dollar accounted for 56% of global trade settlement. Its dominant position remains, but its leading advantage is declining. The dollar’s advantage in trade settlement comes from the dollar-denominated and dollar-settled system for mainstream global commodities (such as crude oil, gold, copper, soybeans, etc.), especially the petrodollar system. This system has provided strong support for the dollar in maintaining its core position in the international monetary system.

Although the petrodollar system has been impacted in recent years, and some oil-producing countries, oil-consuming countries, and countries subject to U.S. sanctions have continuously advanced de-dollarization in oil settlement—for example, China and Russia use renminbi and rubles in oil settlement, and China and Saudi Arabia use dollars and renminbi in oil settlement—the scale of non-dollar oil settlement is still too small compared with global petrodollar settlement to shake the dollar’s oil settlement position. However, de-dollarization of oil settlement means the reconstruction of the oil settlement system, that is, the transition from a dollar monopoly settlement system to a multi-currency coexistence settlement system. In the long run, the shift in the balance of currency settlement, or in other words the substitution of other currencies for the dollar, will continue to continuously shake the dollar’s trade settlement position.

3. Payment Currency: Position Remains Solid, but Payment Infrastructure Is Becoming Multi-threaded

Data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) for May 2026 show that the dollar accounted for 50.73% of global payments, a slight increase from 50.49% at the end of 2025. On the one hand, this comes from dollar trade settlement. Dollar trade settlement must be realized through dollar payments for funds to land; as much dollar trade settlement as there is corresponds to as much dollar payment. On the other hand, the dollar accounts for nearly 90% of global trade financing, slightly more than 80% of global trade financing, and together with the safe-haven demand for dollar assets, these financial transactions greatly support the dollar’s payment share.

Although the dollar’s share in international payments has not yet changed significantly, the global cross-border payment system, namely the two-tier architecture system mainly composed of SWIFT and the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS), is being impacted by multi-threading. These shocks come from security demands arising from the abuse of the global cross-border payment system in geopolitical conflicts. With the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, the United States used its control over the global cross-border payment system to cut off Russia’s dollar settlement channel in order to strike its economy. Sovereign states have reassessed the risks of relying on a single global cross-border payment system and urgently need to seek safe and alternative cross-border payment systems, such as discussions among BRICS countries on the feasibility of the “BRICS Bridge” payment platform, China’s acceleration of building the renminbi cross-border payment system, and the euro area’s acceleration of promoting the launch of the digital euro. As safe and alternative global cross-border payment systems are gradually implemented and used, a multi-threaded pattern of the international payment system has initially taken shape.

II. Theoretical Logic: The Internal Mechanism of the Evolution of the International Monetary System

Today, international currency is developing along a trend of diversification, but its institutional foundation still belongs to the Jamaica system. Compared with the Bretton Woods system, the Jamaica system made two important adjustments: first, it reset the monetary anchor and abolished the fixed parity between gold and the dollar, replacing the “gold anchor” with a “fiat credit anchor.” While completely freeing the dollar’s issuance, it also solved the problem of gold runs; second, exchange rate arrangements became diversified, and member countries could arrange exchange rates independently, thus resolving the problem of speculative currency attacks under fixed exchange rates. Through this institutional arrangement, the “Triffin Dilemma” under the Bretton Woods system—the dilemma between increasing dollar supply to meet global liquidity demand and maintaining the fixed dollar-gold parity—was broken. However, the Jamaica system produced a “new Triffin Dilemma,” namely the contradiction between meeting the dollar demand for international liquidity and maintaining dollar credit.

The U.S. current account deficit exports dollars, and capital flows back to the capital market, forming a perfect cycle. This cycle is basically the solution to the “new Triffin Dilemma.” However, its cornerstone is maintaining dollar credit. The maintenance of dollar credit is the result of multiple dimensions working together, such as monetary policy independence, financial market depth, fiscal deficit scale, foreign policy stability, financial sanctions, and the level of fintech development. Changes in various factors will affect dollar credit to different degrees. In recent years, U.S. foreign policy and financial sanctions have become the main drivers weakening dollar credit.

First, U.S. anti-globalization policies have damaged the nodes of the dollar credit network. President Trump implemented a series of anti-globalization policies, such as imposing tariffs, withdrawing from international organizations, and building exclusive small circles. To some extent, the implementation of these policies restricts the development of global trade liberalization and promotes the reshaping of the global trade landscape. The dollar is a beneficiary of global trade liberalization. The market fragmentation and rising protectionism brought about by changes in the trade landscape objectively loosen the path dependence effect dominated by the dollar’s network externalities and narrow the scope of the dollar’s use. As a result, its share in pricing, payment, and settlement is gradually compressed, whether in the use of the dollar in bilateral trade between the United States and other countries or in the use of the dollar in trade between countries other than the United States.

Second, financial sanctions have shaken the cornerstone of dollar credit. The manifestation of financial sanctions is the weaponization of the dollar, that is, the United States uses its dominance over international dollar clearing and control over U.S. Treasury bonds to long-term implement sanctions against Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries, such as freezing dollar assets and cutting off dollar clearing channels (removing them from the SWIFT system), to achieve its geopolitical policy goals. The weaponization of the dollar means that the dollar assets held by various countries have no security at all. Once the security attribute as a global public good is stripped from the dollar, dollar credit becomes worthless. Therefore, the United States’ abuse of dollar hegemony not only causes other countries around the world to lose confidence in dollar credit but also prompts them to think about rebuilding the future international monetary order. The rational choice in thinking about how to reduce dependence on the dollar is to choose an international currency that can replace the dollar and has sufficient security attributes. This is also the fundamental reason why “de-dollarization” has become a global consensus.

III. Response Strategies: Pragmatic Paths in the Evolution of the International Monetary System

Looking back at the continuously evolving international monetary landscape, we see that the decline of monetary hegemony is a long-term process. In this process, China’s strategic principles are: first, reduce excessive dependence on a single sovereign currency and enhance China’s cross-border payment and overseas asset security; second, China actively participates in the reform of the international monetary system and contributes Chinese wisdom to it.

1. Build and Improve the Financial Infrastructure for Renminbi Internationalization

The goal of building the financial infrastructure for renminbi internationalization is to construct an autonomous, controllable, widely covered, and efficiently cleared renminbi cross-border payment system (CIPS). The main current problem is that, in response to financial sanctions, China’s CIPS is usable but still cannot achieve complete autonomy and control. It is necessary to improve CIPS’s capacity for autonomy and control. CIPS and SWIFT are cooperative in cross-border renminbi clearing business. Under certain conditions, SWIFT can affect the normal operation of CIPS. Therefore, while using SWIFT’s global network advantages to expand CIPS network users, China should gradually enhance the technical independence of CIPS operations. At the same time, it is also necessary to fill gaps in the global layout of clearing banks. Strengthen the establishment of renminbi clearing banks in countries and regions with layout blind spots (such as Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and other blank areas) to form a “point-line-surface” full-coverage overseas renminbi clearing service network.

2. Build a Multilateral Network for the Use of the Renminbi

Currency network externalities affect the level of currency internationalization. The reason the dollar can stand out among international currencies depends more on inertial effects external to the network. At present, the renminbi’s “circle of friends” is increasingly expanding, but it more often serves bilateral renminbi settlement between China and other countries and regions. The use of the renminbi among third countries is still in its infancy, and a multilateral interconnected renminbi network has not yet formed. To promote the use of the renminbi among third countries, on the one hand, it is necessary to promote the renminbi’s functions of pricing, settlement, investment, and financing among China’s neighboring countries and countries along the Belt and Road Initiative; on the other hand, China’s neighboring countries should be taken as a breakthrough point, relying on close economic and trade ties and a convenient renminbi interconnection network, to promote the renminbi’s use as a “public good” in trade and investment among third countries.

3. Build an Open and Developed Domestic Financial Market

Although the domestic financial market has made considerable progress in opening up and market construction, the global attractiveness of renminbi assets is still clearly insufficient, due to both opening mechanism problems and financial product problems. First, further accelerate the opening of the financial market and launch more distinctive financial products open to overseas institutions to meet overseas institutions’ renminbi asset allocation and hedging needs. Second, increase the supply of high-quality financial assets. Around the “five major articles” of finance, deepen supply-side reform of the financial market, increase the supply of technology and green financial products, promote the rapid development of the panda bond market, and use high-quality financial products to raise overseas institutions’ incentive to allocate renminbi assets, thereby increasing their allocation share of renminbi assets. Third, accelerate the construction of an offshore renminbi center in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. Connect supply and demand between offshore and onshore markets, coordinate the development of offshore and onshore markets, and ultimately lay the market foundation for building a smooth domestic and international financial circulation mechanism for the renminbi.

4. Actively Participate in the Reform of the International Monetary System

The development of the international monetary system toward multipolarity objectively converges toward the coexistence of several sovereign currencies in a competitive equilibrium. As the world’s second-largest economy supported by a strong economic size, China should provide the world with safe renminbi reserve assets and an efficient and convenient global renminbi settlement network. To this end, it is necessary to further advance international financial cooperation at two levels. At the level of building a regional financial safety net, relying on the continuously increasing scale of renminbi swap agreements and the increasingly complete renminbi clearing network, inject renminbi liquidity when regional economic crises occur, and enhance the region’s ability to respond to crisis shocks. At the level of promoting reform of international financial governance, continue to promote reform of governance imbalances caused by the “veto power,” use voting mechanism reform to constrain the hegemonic behavior of hegemonic currencies, participate in the formulation of global financial rules, oppose the weaponization of financial infrastructure, and safeguard its neutrality and public good attributes.

Author: Yang Xuefeng, Associate Researcher at the Institute of World Economy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

Original article: sass.org.cn