Let me start writing this piece with my statement that “I hate all wars, and particularly the ongoing war in Ukraine because this is the sibling’s killings between the two great East Slavic nations”. Yet, I admit that I must support Russia as a major power of the world today and in the future for the sake of the world equilibrium and global multilateralism. Moreover, this war dragging on for seven months in Ukraine was manipulated to break out simply by the Anglo-American axis since they had aroused Russia to open the first shot.
There is no question that today’s world or a globalized world has been influenced and even transformed tremendously by the West or more precisely by Europe which started global expansion with advanced guns, deadly drugs and all sorts of ideas. For obvious reasons, they conquered the world step by step and then laid down the rules, norms and codes for all diverse nations and cultures. For good or bad, all the world today can communicate easily in English and through the technologies initiated from Europe. Focused on the practice of international relations and foreign affairs where sovereign states interact with each other, all of them have accepted the permanent embassies, international laws, summit conferences and the doctrine of balance of power, all of whom had been practiced in Europe for centuries before they reached out beyond.
However, it is by no means that the West or the ruling powers like the United States and its core allies, no matter where they are, e.g. in the West or in the East like Australia, have legal rights to dictate other countries to obey against their own interests. Moreover, it is notorious that the United States and Britain have for many times made laws and rules and then changed or break them for the sake of their own interests or in the name of the common values. This is the fundamental reason that the Anglo-American elite policy makers have been so arrogant and ignorant to push forward the unilateral world order. One salient case is that the AUKUS pact is an outrageous violation of international consensus of non-proliferation of the nuclear weapons and the related materials.
It is true that the West has been obsessed with the victory during the Cold War in which the former Soviet Union came to the end unexpectedly. For sure, there have been ample arguments over the core roots of a nuclear superpower’s collapse so rapidly and also so peacefully. This article opines that what made the Soviet Union fail primarily due to its domestic leadership and overstretched foreign policy rather than the superiority of the West over the Soviet Union. Particularly the former Soviet Union had a very limited diplomatic depth to maneuver to compete with the West. For example, India and the majority of the developing countries were too weak and too dependent on the West in overall items such as FDI, technologies and even manufactured goods. Then China was not only hostile towards the Soviet Union but also was eager to receive all core assistances from the West including Japan and the four little tigers in East Asia.
However, after three decades since the end of the Cold War, there is a new paradigm with new centers of power and new alliances emerging, not centered in the West, and that the nations of the Global South will not be bludgeoned into submission by the West. Given this, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a good case to show that radical transformation of the entire architecture of international relations has accelerated and then the development of a multipolar and more democratic and fair world order has entered its active phase. Accordingly, the SCO summit reaffirmed the “fact that the movement toward a multipolar world is the main strategic development line in global politics.” The nations that belong to the SCO are those that firmly believe that the modern world must be polycentric and based on the generally recognized norms of international law and the principles of equal and indivisible security with the central coordinating role of the United Nations and the UN Charter. As President Putin put it at the Samarkand Summit that the resistance to the move toward a multipolar world comes from those nations that are “trying to preserve their dominant role in international affairs and to control everything”—in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The policies of these “global leaders” may have worked for a while, “but this cannot continue forever; it is impossible.”
Historically, the ruling power like the Anglo-American axis have tried to strengthen their position by imposing illegitimate sanctions and exerting pressure in all areas, including many innocent countries which have been caused poor and stagnant. Consider this, Russia along with the majority of the South need to further promote the unifying interstate agenda, contribute to the search for effective responses to the numerous challenges and threats of our time and help settle acute regional conflicts. Once again, taking the SCO as the case, it has come of the age over the past two decades. There is no question that the SCO is now the largest regional cooperation organization in the world. Over half of the world’s population lives in its member states, accounting for about 25% of the global GDP—and those states have a powerful intellectual and technological potential and a considerable part of the global natural resources. In addition, it is scheduled that the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, and India have numerous side meetings with the representatives from other member states of BRICS, the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Troika of the GCC during the ongoing UNGA general debate.
In contrast, the United States and Britain have worked desperately to isolate Russia while continuing the weapons flow to Ukraine as they want to fight Russia until the last Ukrainian soldier. To that end, the U.S.-led West will continue to do what it has been doing without thinking of the possibility of making peace between the two Slavic nations. In the eyes of the Anglo-American elites, other nations are simply the pawns in the geopolitical game. Yet, that is not enough since the Western media have been hysteric to attack any person and particularly leading figures whom bravely challenge the West politically, socially, culturally and ideologically. As it is well noted that the Western media cover the Ukrainian war on a daily base while creating a reverse Pygmalion Effect that “aims to produce the worst outcome for Putin who has been described “mentally ill and a psychopath since childhood, lacking normal empathy.” Accordingly, “Putin will be dead in two years as he suffers from ‘several grave diseases.” What a childish game in the democratic and liberal West!
Since last June when the NATO summit, the U.S.-led Western alliance has clearly defined Russia as “the biggest and most direct threat to the security of the Alliance and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region… because it aims to destabilize the countries of our east and south, in the far north.” Meanwhile, it is also noted that the NATO is not only looking at China as an honorable competitor but as a source of threat no less dangerous than Russia. It is true that it does not see China as a direct military threat to the alliance, as is the case with Russia, but it sees, at the same time, that ‘the declared ambitions of China, and its adoption of a wide range of political, economic and military tools to increase its global presence and demonstrate strength, and its use of malicious methods it aims to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, strategic materials, and supply chains, and use its economic influence to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence, etc., which constitute a direct threat to the interests, security, and values of the Alliance. What is more arrogant and ignorant statement is that “the deepening of the strategic partnership between China and Russia is incompatible with the West’s values and interests,’ and therefore should be confronted with due firmness.” Given this mentality and hysteria among the Anglo-American elite, it is understandable that the West opines that this is the historic opportunity for the West to humble Russia and then to dictate China to follow their will like one century ago.
Today China and Russia are not only nuclear powers and have substantial strategic assets, but also responsible and rational UNSC members. To the peace and prosperity for all nations, they will work along with the Global South to recreate a multilateral world order according to international laws and norms on which the UN Charter is based. Both China and Russia seek no hegemony in the world or the region, yet they have strong will and sufficient strength to end any hegemonic order of the West.