WE should begin by discussing a book which is important to understand the present-day situation: The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern Warfare by Nicolas Mulder, if we are to understand German-Chinese relations in an era of global South emancipation.

He explains the historic development of sanctions as a weapon of modern warfare, beginning with the first world war and described in 1919 by US president Woodrow Wilson as having an effect which was “something more tremendous than war.”

It must be noted that the US, Nato and their allies in Asia, Australia and Europe are not only conducting a proxy war against Russia by supplying weapons — increasingly heavy weapons — to Ukraine, but are also waging economic war with the aim, as stated by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, of “ruining Russia.”