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Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19 in Beijing in June 2020.
Transatlantic rebalancing
Let’s start with the Global West. Because the U.S. no longer has the moral influence it once had, nor the economic, if not military, superiority that was theirs during the Cold War, the balance among the biggest members of the Global West is greater than it was right after World War Two.
It is not necessarily that there is “more Europe” or “more Asian West” behind countries like Japan or South Korea. It is that there is less of America. When he was describing “The post-American world” in a book published in 2008, Fareed Zakaria, the American journalist and essayist from India, emphasized not the decline of the U.S. but the rise of the “Others”, with China at the front row. It is true that the publication of his essay coincided with the Beijing Olympic Games.
If today there is a kind of rebalancing between Europe and the U.S., wouldn’t it be first and foremost because America is not what it once was? Even if Europe is taking more than small steps in the right direction? The latest developments of the Ukrainian war illustrate this.
Fear and resilience
At the European Council summit held in Iceland a few days ago, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands took braver and more forward positions than the U.S. by supporting the delivery of fighter jets F16 to Kyiv, pushing Washington to get rid of its initial reservations.
United in the face of the Russian threat, the Global West is less united in its rivalry with China. In terms of emotions, the Global West carries a message fluctuating between fear and resilience. The fear of decline and of losing control over its future, but also the desire to preserve, if not extend, the democratic and liberal values that are its own.
Senegalese President Macky Sall, United States President Joe Biden, and Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, pose for a photo at the US-Africa Summit Leaders in Washington, December 2020.
Moscow under Chinese wardship
The second pole, that of the Global East, behind China and Russia (should Iran be added?) is much more imbalanced than the Global West can be. In fact, there is always more China and less Russia.
We are witnessing a complete and spectacular reversal of the balance that existed between the two countries in the 1950s and 1960s. And the war in Ukraine has only sped up the subjugation of Russia by China. As if Beijing was finally achieving in its relationship with Moscow what Moscow had completely failed to do in its relationship with Ukraine: putting de facto its big Western neighbor under its wardship.
Yesterday too, the USSR and China were carried by a socialist project, an optimistic ideal of course contrasting with reality. Today, authoritarianism, if not authoritarian temptation, acts as a doctrine in both countries, even if their absolute cynicism is draped in the cloak of the humiliation inflicted on them by the West yesterday, or the day before that.
A new global giant
We could summarize world geopolitics as a confrontation between the Global West and the Global East, as if it were another Cold War. But apart from the fact that China has essentially replaced the USSR — and that Beijing, unlike Moscow, is a multidimensional power, not just a military one — this vision of a bipolar world does not show a reality that has become infinitely more complex.
Today’s Global South, despite its extreme diversity, is “much more” than the simple non-aligned movement of yesterday. And that is for economic and strategic, as much as demographic, reasons.
The difference is above all expressed by the emergence of a new global giant, India. A country which is at the heart of the attention of Americans, Europeans and Russians alike. At the instigation of Narendra Modi — as much as in spite of him and his religious nationalism — India is progressively becoming aware of its cards and the weight it is taking in the world’s business.
A whole new world
A bridge between East and West, India is most of all becoming the uncontested leader of the South, which it was not fully at the time of the non-aligned. Nehru’s India then had to share this position with Sukarno’s Indonesia, Nasser’s Egypt and Nkrumah’s Ghana. Being non-aligned during the Cold War meant refusing to choose between the socialist East and the capitalist West, two models from the Western World.
In this new tripolar world, we no longer hold all the cards.
Today, the choice is more positive. It is that of a South ready to take revenge on yesterday’s colonial and imperial West. In the vision of the South, the hope of the future competes with the resentment of the past.
What should the West do in front of the emergence of this tripolar world? Above all, become aware of its arrival. It is not only in the context of our confrontation with Russia that we must do everything to rally the Global South to our interests and values. It is necessary to understand, with a mixing of humility, realism and ambition, that in this new tripolar world, we no longer hold all the cards, as was the case for centuries.
It is no longer a question of preaching to others values we don’t practice anymore (or that we do badly). But to find again that exemplarity that should be ours when it comes to democracy.
- The Post-Western World Is Still A Messy Place ›
- Russia, Ukraine And The West's Double Standard On International Law ›
- Why The New World Order Is Taking So Long To Get Here ›
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