Western multinationals have limited time to adapt their strategies and regain their momentum before these new competitors can further consolidate their presence in key markets.

Most, if not all, Western multinationals avoid direct business with North Korea because they fear US Treasury penalties.

At the same time, those Western multinationals that might invest have met with enormous complications, especially in Russia but also in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Chinese companies view Africa as an open market, neglected by Western multinationals, that they can cultivate with their trademark low-priced goods.

Image-conscious Western multinationals are increasingly cautious about buying from factories that abuse workers, although some advocacy groups say that even greater vigilance is needed.

Western multinationals also have advantages in distribution, logistics and branding.

Invariably, too, Western multinationals acted as corrupted undertakings in order to lay their hands, for a song, on vital national industries such as mining and raw materials.

None of this has happened, and the aim is still to protect the interests of large Western multinationals.

Everything else is really just peripheral and unconnected with the real situation in Russia, and reflects the egoistic interests of the Western multinationals.

And maintaining contractors who have had the rug pulled out from under them once before is a stroke of management genius on the part of the Western multinationals.