Many Chinese people who grew up in the 1990s will not only remember Jiang Zemin for overseeing China’s entry into the World Trade Organization but also for introducing them to the film Titanic.

Within two weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies have collectively imposed a series of sanctions to isolate Russia’s financial system. Recent stringent Western sanctions are a stress test of Russia’s de-dollarization initiatives and an emerging nondollar financial system. Besides de-SWIFTing Russian banks, Western sanctions have targeted the assets of the Russian central bank and sovereign wealth funds, the Russian Ministry of Finance, and Russian oligarchs. These punitive measures effectively wiped out the thirty-year post-Cold War Western financial engagement with Russia. I have discussed a Russia-China de-dollarization partnership in the Foreign Affairs article titled The Anti-Dollar Axis. It seems that Putin’s Russia has more partners for de-dollarization in Asia, such as India.