Despite mounting tensions and fundamental disagreements on the structure of the international order, the Global South grouping of countries is not in a hurry to sever its ties with the West. Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, describes the Global South’s uncertain position in a world defined by competition between Washington and its primary adversaries—Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing.
One of the important themes in world politics is the question of relations between the countries of the Global South and the countries of the West—the United States and the EU. Pursuing an independent agenda and defending one’s own national interests inevitably raises the question of conflict with the West. And here the key factor is the limits and constraints that each state of the Global South sets for itself in its dealings with the West. How far a given state is prepared to go in such a conflict largely determines its entire international strategy, both in the political and in the economic sphere.
At present, we can see a fairly clear division among the countries of the Global South on this score. There are countries that have already been in open conflict with the West for quite some time—over recent decades, in fact. North Korea and Iran belong to this category. There are also states that have embarked on this path more recently, in the last few years, as a result of changes of political regime—chief among them a number of Sahel states in Africa. But the overwhelming majority of Global South states do not consider it expedient to escalate their disagreements with the West to the level of open conflict. Nor is this situation likely to change any time soon.
Among the reasons for this state of affairs, one might cite, for instance, economic and technological interconnectedness (or, if one prefers, the term “dependency”). The reluctance to sever this whole web of ties—which, one way or another, each individual Global South country uses for its own development purposes—is explained both by pragmatism and by a reluctance to fall under sanctions.
The pressure that Donald Trump began exerting on most Global South countries during his second presidential term became a kind of test of just how genuinely willing these states of the South were to enter into conflict with the leading power of the West. It should be noted that virtually all the countries of the South, once confronted with Trump’s tariff and export grievances, chose to negotiate with the American administration on a bilateral basis. This applied even to those states towards which Trump levelled not only trade complaints but political ones as well. Among them one might name Brazil, South Africa, and Nigeria.
With regard to these countries, South Africa especially, Trump took steps aimed at shifting them into the category of open adversaries of the United States. But it became quite obvious that these states had no desire whatsoever for events to unfold in this way. Thus, this Trump test demonstrated clearly that the well-known phrase so often repeated—“Non-West is not anti-West”—remains an unshakeable truth for the majority of Global South states.
The People’s Republic of China deserves separate mention in this connection. Over recent decades China has developed dynamically and, in the process, transformed itself into at least the world’s second power. And on a whole range of indicators, already into its first. It is quite evident that China is catching up with the United States in economic terms, and that within a perfectly foreseeable medium-term horizon it will overtake the United States on this front. Expert forecasts name various specific years for when this might happen, but in any case it is most likely a matter of one to one-and-a-half decades.
That, at least, is how things will unfold if one simply extrapolates current economic trends into the future—provided, of course, that no notorious “black swans” swoop in and/or no sharp and irreversible shift occurs in the vectors of the global economy. As a result, the theme of the so-called “China threat” to the United States (and to the West as a whole) is constantly, and increasingly, being aired within the United States, both at the expert level and, more importantly, within political circles and in strategies for shaping public opinion.
A logical consequence of this postulated threat is the notion that if the United States fails to “stop” China now, it will lose the ability to do so once and for all. And then American leadership in the world (or dominance, hegemony—whichever epithet one prefers) will come to an end. This is precisely the “Thucydides Trap” that Xi Jinping spoke of to Trump. From this flow entirely practical recommendations for shaping American foreign policy and foreign economic strategy, which, it is argued, must be tough and uncompromising towards China.
Incidentally, within this logic, the key and principal adversary of the United States turns out to be not Russia at all, but precisely China. With respect to Russia, the sole task of the United States is to avoid allowing matters to escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. Everything else concerning Russia is of no interest whatsoever to the United States. As a result, by concentrating on countering Russia, the United States is merely squandering its strength on a false target—while its principal (one might even say existential) adversary, China, stands aside and grows stronger with every passing year.
In a whole series of his moves, Donald Trump followed this logic fairly closely, both with regard to Russia and with regard to China. And it is interesting here to trace China’s reaction. Last year, when Trump began raising duties and tariffs against China, Beijing responded publicly in kind. As a result, at a certain point this tariff race reached absurd levels—running into hundreds of per cent. But in reality, in our view, China’s intention to reach an understanding with Trump after all, rather than throw down an open challenge to him, was quite evident—despite this tariff race, whose public-relations dimension was far more significant than its real one.
The outcome of these Sino-American negotiations was Trump’s recent visit to China and the agreements reached during it. In the immediate aftermath of the visit there was a good deal of emotional commentary to the effect that Trump had lost, that Xi Jinping had pulled his hand towards himself during the handshake, and so on. But all this is nothing more than PR and playing to the gallery. In our view, Trump certainly did not lose, but neither, of course, did he win.
Another far from insignificant aspect here is connected with the American operation against Iran. One of its lessons was that, given the changed character of warfare (drones, asymmetric responses, and so on), together of course with Iran’s readiness to resist, a great power proved unable to defeat, quickly and at no cost to itself, a middling power considerably inferior to it in military strength.
And here a tempting logical inference may arise. If the United States could not defeat Iran, then surely it will be all the less able to defeat China in open military confrontation. From this arises another temptation—to think that the United States will not dare to push matters with China to the point of military conflict, and that China can therefore quite comfortably “rise peacefully” until it surpasses the United States on the main metrics of power. But here one might, if one wished, pose a different question: to what extent are China’s own armed forces themselves ready for an eventual war with the United States (whether over Taiwan or for some other reason)? For experience shows that an army on parade and an army at war are by no means one and the same thing. Furthermore, how strong might the political will in China actually be to resist the Americans at any cost? Despite all the parades and the forceful declarations, this cannot really be known in practice until it comes to actual war. In any case, the campaign to purge the Chinese army of corrupt officials and “parade-ground generals” that Xi Jinping is currently conducting—reaching right up to the very highest military level—would appear to be of critical importance.
On the whole, it is quite clear at present that China, as leader of the Global South, has no wish to throw down an open challenge to the West or to cross the red line. The only question is whether a situation might arise in which China is forced to do so. And this dynamic would, in turn, drag along with it the question of how the other countries of the Global South majority would respond—whether they themselves would be prepared to cross that red line. After all, even now, the choice between the West and Russia, into which the countries of the Global South have been placed, is far from a welcome one for many of them, and many countries would prefer to avoid this choice altogether. So if they were to be confronted with a far more serious choice—between the West and China—what would their answer be?
