Caught between the United States, China and Russia, many countries are determined not to choose sides. As the US-led order since 1945 fragments and economic decoupling accelerates, they are trying to reach prudent compromises across divisions. Such a transactional approach is reshaping geopolitics.
One way to capture the magnitude and weight of these non-aligned powers is to do it from the Russian point of view. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has analyzed countries based on their economic and military ties to Moscow, their diplomatic positions (including voting at the United Nations), and whether they support and apply sanctions. Although 52 countries that make up 15% of the world's population (the West and its friends) condemn and punish Russia's actions, and there are only 12 countries that praise Russia, some 127 States fall into the category of those that do not want to opt clearly by neither side (see map).
To get an idea of what non-alignment really means, at The Economist we have also looked at the smallest group of the 25 largest economies that have either stayed out of the Ukraine war or want to remain non-aligned in the Sino-Sino confrontation. US. The members of that group (let's call them the T-25, the transactional 25) are highly diverse in terms of wealth and political systems, and include gigantic India and tiny Qatar. However, they have things in common. They show resounding pragmatism and have collectively grown more powerful. Today they represent 45% of the world population; and its participation in world GDP has gone from 11% in 1992 to 18% in 2023, more than the European Union. The strategy of remaining neutral on some or all of the major geopolitical divides carries enormous risks and opportunities. Whether or not they succeed will influence the world order for decades. And it goes without saying that both the United States and China will do everything possible to attract them to their side.
In the 20th century, nonalignment meant different things to different countries at different times. At the Bandung (Indonesia) conferences in 1955 and Belgrade (Yugoslavia) in 1961, the promoters presented a “Third World” differentiated from the West and the Soviet bloc. Beginning in the late 1960s, these countries increasingly focused on economic inequality between the “Global South” (a less implicated term for the Third World) and the industrial north. Almost all the African, Asian and Latin American states joined a formal institution, the Non-Aligned Movement. With the end of the Cold War, that movement became, in the words of one Indian academic, "a dying organization in need of a decent burial."
Today, non-aligned countries are not defined by their membership in an institution, but by their characteristics and behavior. Those middle powers are pragmatic and opportunistic. In a recent book, Jorge Heine, a former Chilean diplomat, argues that in the 20th century countries slid passively into one superpower orbit or another. Today, the best means to achieve certain ends is evaluated in a more “active” way, he affirms. Some call it “minilateralism” (as opposed to multilateralism); that is, the use of alliances or discrete groupings to achieve results in specific areas, instead of uniting one's luck to a single bloc.
Non-aligned countries also tend to view Western leaders as hypocrites. Ukraine was promised $170 billion in the first year of the war, equal to 90% of all aid spent in 2021 by the OECD Development Assistance Committee, a group of 31 Western donors. For the West, that generosity is a show of solidarity with a sister democracy; to others, it shows that rich countries throw away money as long as it serves their interests. “Europe has to abandon the idea that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's problems,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's foreign minister, said last year.
These positions broadly coincide with those held by public opinion. According to a Cambridge University report last year, in liberal democracies 75% have a negative opinion of China, and 87% of Russia. However, the picture is almost the reverse among the 6 billion people who live elsewhere. A gap is opening between the way the West sees the world and the way others see it. In a poll published earlier this year by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a relative majority of Indians (48%) and a majority of Turks (51%) said that the future world order will be defined by multipolarity or dominance. not western. Only 37% of Americans, 31% of those polled in the European Union and 29% of Britons agree with that forecast. The West believes it is seeing a sequel to the Cold War; the rest of the world sees a whole new movie.
Who are the T-25? That diverse group includes some of the most populous countries in the world. It includes the world's largest democracies, India and Indonesia, along with Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, all ruled by autocrats of various kinds. There are also large wealth disparities. In Saudi Arabia, GDP per capita is over $27,000, at the level of some European countries, while in Pakistan it is still around $1,600.
As globalization has spread, the pattern of trade for the T-25 has become multipolar. About 43% of merchandise trade is with the Western bloc, 19% with the China-Russia bloc, and 30% with non-Western bloc countries (see chart). Perhaps not surprisingly, given its location, 77% of Mexico's total trade takes place with the West; the same also happens with more than 60% of the trade of Israel and Algeria. More than a third of Chile's trade is with China, a larger share than any other T-25 country (but 40% of its trade is with the West). More than half of Argentina's trade, and nearly half of India's, is with other non-aligned countries.
Arms imports also show a complex web of loyalties. India hedges its bets. Between 2018 and 2022, the main supplier was Russia, which supplied 45% of its weapons, but obtained another 29% from Europe and is likely to seek more independence, with help from the United States. India's rival China, which supplies its great enemy Pakistan, is out. For their part, Israel, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and South Africa rely on the United States for the vast majority of their arms imports.
There is no coherent governing body that represents the non-aligned countries and their interests. Neither is expected to emerge. Instead, a number of disparate organizations (such as the G-20) provide platforms of varying effectiveness for the major non-aligned countries. The BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is a forum of middle powers that wants to expand: it is debating whether to allow the accession of Iran and Saudi Arabia. At the United Nations climate talks, a broad group of more than 130 countries (including China) have negotiated together.
Despite their differences and the absence of a formal grouping, the non-aligned countries share a common goal: to reach advantageous agreements in a fluid environment. For two decades, many have been able to simultaneously forge relationships with the West, China, and Russia. It's not like that. The West is imposing sanctions on Russia and restricting China's access to technology.
For many countries it is a serious threat. Sanctions on Russia skyrocketed energy and food prices around the world, prompting a backlash in non-Western countries. Recently, Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, has encouraged US companies to move their supply chains to friendly states. Those investment shifts are already underway (see chart). Beijing and Moscow, for their part, strengthen their ties. New IMF research shows that since 2018 geopolitical alignment, measured by similarity in voting patterns at the United Nations, has become increasingly important in determining the location of foreign direct investment. Under IMF scenarios for fractured trade, the negative spillovers could more than double in emerging markets compared to advanced ones.
Now, many in the nonaligned world are banking on the fact that they will gain from economic disengagement and political fragmentation, being evasive in dealing with the great powers and asserting their own independent influence. To understand that compromise strategy, let's look at the approach of some of the big countries caught in the middle of the fray. Brazil is a good example. He opposes what Mauro Vieira, Minister of Foreign Affairs, calls "automatic alignments." Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who began his second term as Brazil's president in January, sees President Joe Biden as an ally on climate change; at their February meeting in Washington, the two reestablished the joint environmental institutions abandoned under Lula's predecessor. Brazil is also considered by the United States to be a "major non-NATO ally," a legal status that entitles it to greater cooperation with the US military.
However, Brazil is also trying to follow its own course by avoiding the superpowers. Like other countries in the region, it has declined Western proposals to give Ukraine old Russian-made material in exchange for receiving new weapons. Lula's arrival in Beijing on April 14 will underscore China's economic importance. Trade between Brazil and China amounted to almost 153,000 million dollars in 2022, which means that it has multiplied by 37 in two decades. In part, that situation reflects the way in which Brazil has taken advantage of the US-China tariff escalation to increase agricultural exports to China at the expense of the United States.
Brazil is also making inroads of its own. Lula will visit Africa shortly to reactivate Brazil's influence on that continent. During his first term, trade with Africa went from 6 billion dollars in 2003 to 25.6 billion in 2012, and South Africa was welcomed into the BRICS bloc. Then Jair Bolsonaro, Lula's predecessor, did not visit Africa. Obviously, Lula believes that he is worth renewing the effort.
India's fear of China has brought it closer to the West in some ways. In March, the prime minister of Japan (which, like India, the United States and Australia, belongs to the Quad, an Indo-Pacific security forum) visited Delhi on a historic visit. In the fiscal year 2021-2022, India's trade with the United States exceeded that with China. Yet India continues to buy cheap oil and arms from Russia and is unlikely to break deep-seated ties unless the Putin regime uses nuclear weapons.
Like Brazil, India is also establishing itself more abroad. Only China imports and exports more than India with sub-Saharan Africa. India's average annual foreign direct investment was $800 million in 2004-2008 (less than half that of Sweden), but $31 billion a decade later (more than Germany and Japan combined). Last month, India hosted representatives from 31 African countries to participate in military exercises. And he promises to use his presidency of the G-20 this year to be the “voice of the Global South”.
Türkiye also aspires to increase its influence in the Global South. It maintains security agreements with 30 African states, and its defense exports to Africa increased fivefold between 2020 and 2021. Advisers to the Turkish president say New Turkey can choose its partners. That may explain the ostensible neutrality regarding the war in Ukraine, which Turkey has used to boost its ties with Russia. Turkish exports to Russia reached $7.6 billion in 2022, 45% more than the previous year.
Saudi Arabia is reducing reliance on its longstanding ally the United States and leaning toward China, now the kingdom's biggest trading partner. Consider the decisions made this month and in October by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (which Saudi Arabia dominates) to slash oil production. Last month, Saudi Arabia signed a Chinese-brokered deal with Iran and joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian dialogue forum. China says it wants to establish a free trade agreement with the Gulf "as soon as possible."
In the past, the Gulf countries' relations with Africa were limited to energy, agriculture and Horn of Africa politics. Currently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are on the hunt for mineral deals; Dubai-based port operator DP World is emerging as a crucial logistics company on the continent; and Qatar is playing novel diplomatic roles. Last month, she was involved in efforts that led to the release of jailed Rwandan dissident Paul Rusesabagina (and inspiration for the film Hotel Rwanda).
African countries have long been eyeing both superpowers. The West has generally been their preferred source of “software”: support for schooling, healthcare and, should a government wish, human rights. China offers "hardware": bridges, roads, ports... and loans to build them. Between 2007 and 2020, the leading US development agency lent for infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa less than a tenth of the total lent by the two largest Chinese development banks ($1.9bn vs. $23bn).
In some parts of Africa, the West's promises to guarantee security have rarely seemed so empty. “Americans need a place for their soldiers and agents to sleep. However, the security relationship does not contribute anything to development”, explains a former adviser to an African president. "That's why we need China." In August, the last French troops left Mali after a nine-year deployment; the Wagner Group, made up of Russian mercenaries, is now helping to prop up the ruling junta.
The non-aligned countries want to avoid taking sides. However, the great powers, the United States and China, wish to attract them into their orbit. Beijing sees the assertion of leadership in the Global South as a way to bolster its resistance to US pressure. It positions itself as a model for others within a broad family of developing countries. He offers a contrast to the West, which he says prefers smaller clubs (such as the G-7). “China appears where and when the West does not,” says Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria's outgoing vice president.
China is the top trading partner for some 120 countries and the lender of first and last resort for many. Between 2007 and 2020, it provided more financing for infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa than the next eight lenders combined. It will be essential to resolve sovereign debt crises. According to an IMF analysis of 73 developing countries, in 2006 China held only 2% of that group's external debt, while the Paris Club creditor group (mostly Western) held 28%. In 2020, the respective percentages were already 18% and 10%.
Westerners have reason to be nervous. China's “win-win” rhetoric masks its ruthlessness. The book Banking on Beijing (2022) by AidData's Bradley Parks and others shows how China uses its economic tools for political ends. It often tilts funding toward districts of origin of the leaders in power, and is more likely than the West to grant loans to corrupt and autocratic countries.AidData also finds that a 10% increase in voting similarity with Beijing in the United Nations is associated with an increase in Chinese projects in China Chinese loans come with unusually strict confidentiality and collateral clauses, but Chinese development projects are associated with increases in GDP per capita, Parks says.
In the face of China's efforts, the United States and its allies are trying to readjust their message to the nonaligned world. The United States understands that the legitimacy of the international order that it leads derives from the consent of other countries. “Countries don't want to choose, and we don't want them to,” Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, told The Washington Post earlier this year. The United States is now pursuing more active diplomacy in places it had neglected. Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, Yellen and Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, have visited Africa in 2023. Biden will soon follow.
The United States has also strengthened its security alliances with influential non-aligned countries. In November, Lloyd Austin, his defense secretary, met his Indonesian counterpart for the fourth time; In January, US and Indian officials agreed to step up cooperation on cutting-edge defense technologies. In total, the United States maintains 88 defense “partnerships” (excluding formal alliances such as the one it maintains with NATO), although some are limited in scope.
In recent years the United States and the European Union have launched rival programs to the Belt and Road Initiative, but the perception remains that when you want infrastructure to help transform the economy, the first call is made to Beijing. After Harris made public the playlist of songs by African artists that accompanied her on her recent visit to the continent, a senior African official pointed out dryly that Chinese visitors come with loans and engineers, while Americans come with playlists. reproduction.
The Biden administration is seen as adopting a two-tier foreign policy: first there are relations with its main democratic allies in Europe and Asia (which it hopes will one day include India); and then there are the other relationships with the creaking global institutions. It is the latter that mediate to meet the needs of a broad group of countries (including most of the non-aligned), be it development, debt relief, security or finance.
This poses three challenges. First of all, Western unity has to be maintained. Now, that's not something to take for granted. During his visit to China last week, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said that Europe must not become a "follower" of US policy towards Taiwan, nor should it "adjust to the American pace."
The second is that China can undermine the effectiveness of global institutions by opting, for example, for bilateral debt relief instead of fully participating in coordinated efforts. The recalcitrance of Chinese creditors at the IMF is hampering the flexibility the fund can offer countries struggling with their current debt burden.
The latest challenge is the mistrust generated by the West and has been fueled by the failure to deliver on promises. Take, for example, the financing of the fight against climate change. In 2009, the rich countries said that in 2020 they would allocate 100,000 million dollars a year to the poorest countries; the annual total has never exceeded 85 billion.
Relying on liberal values and a common history, the United States and its allies have been able to stand behind Ukraine after the Russian invasion. They have also shown renewed determination in the face of an authoritarian China. The risk is that this confluence deepens the distancing of the Global South from the international order. It would be tragic if, by uniting the West, the United States alienated itself from the rest of the world.
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
