In a world rapidly moving beyond the unipolar dominance the United States enjoyed after the Cold War, global power dynamics are undergoing a profound realignment. What once looked like a distant geopolitical rivalry with China has evolved into a strategic contest for influence over energy resources, trade routes, geopolitical alliances and future-facing industries such as electric vehicles (EVs) and critical minerals.
By Prof. Kennedy Marufu
At the heart of this competition lies a stark contrast in how Beijing and Washington pursue influence, and profound questions about whether the United States, anchored in old paradigms of coercive leverage and military projection, can adapt to a world where China’s patient, economically driven soft power is gaining ground.
China’s Patient Strategy vs. U.S. Cold War Mindset
Beijing’s approach to foreign relations and economic integration emphasises long-term partnerships, infrastructure development and economic interdependence rather than direct confrontation. This strategy aligns with China’s historic priority of ensuring stable access to resources and markets, reflected in initiatives like the Belt and Road, which have woven Chinese interests deeply into Africa, the Middle East, and Eurasia. In contrast, U.S. policy frequently echoes Cold War–era thinking: assertive sanctions, military interventions, and zero-sum attitudes toward rival powers.
This divergence has clear implications in regions critical to global energy. In Latin America, for example, Washington’s renewed interest in Venezuela, home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves, underscores this ideological tug-of-war. Recent U.S. military-led efforts to dislodge the Maduro regime are aimed not only at political reorientation but at rerouting Venezuelan crude away from China and back into U.S. refineries, potentially increasing American imports by hundreds of thousands of barrels per day and reshaping trade flows that have over recent years favoured China and its partners.
Yet even here, the U.S. gambit reveals its limitations: decades of mismanagement, sanctions and infrastructure decay mean that boosting Venezuelan output to meaningful levels will take years, if not decades, and during that time, Beijing has already diversified its energy imports across the Middle East, Russia and Africa.
BRICS, De-Dollarisation and the Petrodollar Challenge
Perhaps the clearest structural challenge to U.S. economic primacy is unfolding through the expansion of BRICS, the bloc originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, into a broader coalition that now includes major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran. This expansion significantly amplifies the group’s share of global oil and gas reserves and production, diluting the geopolitical heft once wielded by Western coalitions.
At the same time, energy trade is increasingly shifting away from the U.S. dollar, long the backbone of global oil transactions since its institutionalisation in the 1970s, towards alternative settlement mechanisms such as China’s petroyuan and other local currencies. Analysts suggest this shift could erode the petrodollar’s dominance by a significant margin as BRICS members increasingly price and settle energy trade in non-dollar terms.
A world where the dollar’s share in oil trade shrinks is not a distant theoretical scenario; it is unfolding in real time. Reduced reliance on U.S. currency undermines Washington’s ability to enforce sanctions and leverage financial networks against adversaries, compressing space for the U.S. to incentivise or punish states purely through economic means.
The Middle East and the “Axis of Unity”
The Middle East remains a central theatre in this struggle. Historically dominated by U.S. security arrangements and petrodollar-linked financial systems, the region is experiencing shifts that reflect broader multipolar trends. China’s diplomatic role, exemplified by its mediation of the Iran-Saudi normalisation accord, illustrates Beijing’s preference for quiet influence over overt militarisation. This soft-power approach fosters cooperation with major oil producers, even as Washington maintains its network of alliances and military bases in the region.
Moreover, the so-called “Axis of Unity” between Iran and Venezuela, rooted in shared resistance to U.S. pressure and collaboration on energy production and swaps, further complicates the geopolitical landscape. These relationships underscore the emergence of partnerships that bypass Western dominance altogether, emblematic of a broader trend toward strategic autonomy among Global South states.
Russia’s Role and the Ukraine War
Efforts by the United States to isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine have backfired in unexpected ways. Rather than weakening Moscow’s position, sanctions have deepened Russia’s economic and strategic integration with China and other BRICS partners, driving energy and trade networks that increasingly function outside Western channels. Russia’s enduring influence in energy markets and Eurasian political structures highlights the complex interplay between geopolitical rivalry and the quest for multipolar balance.
Europe’s Dilemma and the Ukraine Factor
Europe’s role further illustrates how the contest with China and Russia extends beyond ideology into economic dependency. European reliance on Russian energy before 2022 underscored the continent’s vulnerability to geopolitical shocks, prompting policy shifts toward diversification, yet the continent remains ambivalent in reconciling economic ties with geopolitical imperatives. An EU that is economically interlinked with China but politically aligned with U.S. strategic priorities encapsulates the fragmentation of Western cohesion in this multipolar era.
In Ukraine, the conflict has accelerated efforts to decouple from Russian energy, yet it has also pushed EU states to seek alternative suppliers and technologies, underscoring Europe’s strategic dilemma: supporting geopolitical objectives while navigating economic interdependencies that cannot be positioned neatly in a Cold War frame.
Africa, Minerals and the New Resource Race
Beyond oil, the struggle for strategic supremacy has moved into the realm of critical minerals, essential inputs for clean energy and high-tech industries. China has systematically invested in Africa’s lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earth sectors, building supply chains that feed its manufacturing juggernaut and underpin future industries like electric vehicles. This dominance in critical materials reinforces Beijing’s leverage in the global economic system.
In contrast, U.S. efforts to build alternative supply chains have been slower and more fragmented, often hindered by regulatory bottlenecks and competing domestic priorities. As a result, China’s advantage in both resource access and processing capacity remains formidable, reinforcing its ability to shape the technological and economic contours of the 21st century.
Conclusion: Adapting to a Multipolar World
The strategic competition between the United States and China is not merely a replay of Cold War rivalries; it is a confrontation between different paradigms of power. Beijing’s preference for soft power and economic entanglement has created durable partnerships across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, challenging the traditional levers of American influence. Washington’s reliance on coercive tools and zero-sum thinking, while delivering short-term tactical gains, risks undermining its long-term strategic positioning in a world where economic resilience and geopolitical partnerships define influence.
If the United States is to remain a credible leader in this emerging multipolar order, it must move beyond relics of Cold War doctrine and reinvent its foreign-policy playbook, emphasising cooperation, economic integration and adaptive diplomacy that recognises the autonomy of rising powers rather than attempting to contain them. Only by acknowledging the complexity of today’s global landscape can Washington navigate its own strategic challenges and avoid being outpaced in crucial arenas of power and influence.
Prof. Kennedy Marufu is a lecturer of International Relations and the Global Economy at the University of Zimbabwe.
