by Philip S Golub, 7 March 2022
LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE
cc Michel Temer
On 2 March, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a non-binding resolution ‘[deploring] in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine’ and deciding that ‘the Russian Federation shall immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.’ 141 countries endorsed the resolution, five voted against and 35 abstained. Most observers have emphasised Russia’s international isolation, but insufficient attention has been paid to the Global South, significant parts of which abstained from the vote: Angola, Burundi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda in Africa; China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Asia (Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan did not vote). In the Middle East, Algeria, Iran and Iraq also abstained. A number of Latin America countries voted the resolution but nonetheless critiqued the sanctions imposed on Russia (Brazil and Mexico).
Abstention is not synonymous with support for Vladimir Putin and positions are evolving as the trail of death and destruction wrought by the Russian war machine spreads. But the voting pattern shows that the picture painted by Western media and governments of a world united against lawless authoritarianism is not accurate. (1) Together, the abstaining countries account for around half of the world population, and their choices cannot be simply ascribed to a shared authoritarian ethos (just as the choice of autocrats such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who voted the resolution but has been seeking to overturn the 1923 Lausanne Treaty that defines Turkey’s borders from the Black Sea to the Aegean, cannot be ascribed to respect for democratic norms and adherence to international law).
Together, the abstaining countries account for around half of the world population, and their choices cannot be simply ascribed to a shared authoritarian ethos
National motives are diverse. Countries such as India or South Africa have longstanding economic and institutional ties to Russia and, like Uganda and other countries of the Global South, uphold traditional policies of non-alignment. Others such as the sub-Saharan African francophone states, who have gradually become detached from Europe, are seeking to ‘appease a public opinion in which anti-French discourse in particular and anti-Western discourse in general is on the rise’. (2) Poisoned relations with France and recently forged security ties with Russia explain Mali’s vote. Iran, which has strong reasons to uphold the UN charter’s prohibition on wars of aggression, does not want to compromise a relationship that serves in part to counterbalance US power in the Middle East and the Gulf. Cuba also abstained, despite deep ties to Russia, due to its own powerful reasons to uphold the charter’s clauses on non-aggression.
Notwithstanding differences, there are two interrelated themes in abstainer discourses: the first is a shared assumption that the US and Europe bear some responsibility in the current conflagration for having promoted NATO expansion and neglected Russian security concerns; the second, the idea that the world no longer revolves exclusively around the ‘West’ (the Euro-Atlantic system, the Anglosphere and US Treaty Alliance partners in East Asia). Both readings are at the core of current Chinese diplomacy, which has given Russia de facto – though increasingly lukewarm – support while refraining from endorsing the invasion (the PRC has not recognised the Russian Federation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea). The Chinese case is of great import.
During the first days of fighting, the PRC blamed the United States, describing it as the ‘culprit’ of the crisis for having promoted NATO expansion eastwards, in line with the 4 February joint statement of Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin during the Beijing Olympics that ‘both sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologised cold war approaches.’ As fighting escalated, Beijing’s discourse became more nuanced, with official expressions of ‘extreme concern’ over civilian casualties and offers of mediation to achieve a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia (2 March). On 3 March, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, expressed serious disquiet, saying, ‘The situation has evolved to a point which China does not wish to see…it is not in the interest of any party’. (3) The PRC has yet to distance itself clearly from Russia, keeping its markets open and offering indispensable oxygen for a Russian economy stumbling under the weight of stringent sanctions. But, as Japanese observers note, ‘concerns are growing (in Beijing) that if China allows itself to be dragged further to the “Putin Theatre”, its national interests will be undermined’. (4)
The PRC is unlikely to abandon Moscow, whose deepening dependency will give Beijing long-term leverage over a weakened Russia. Nor can it condone a war that threatens its global projects
Putin’s war of conquest risks destabilising China’s patient efforts to transform ‘the global governance architecture and ‘rewrite the rules’ (5) through the construction since 2013 of Sino-Centric transcontinental economic linkages across Eurasia (the Belt and Road Initiative, BRI), Southeast Asia, Oceania and Africa (21st Century Maritime Silk Road), and the creation of new international institutions of economic governance (the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai and co-founded with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa; and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), also headquartered in China). Until the war, China viewed Russia, whose intellectual and political elites include an influential fraction of ‘Eurasianists’ who look more to the East than the West, (6) as a useful, necessary but subordinate component of these global rebalancing efforts. Useful, because China relies on Russian energy (coal, oil and gas) and agricultural exports as well as the procurement of some military technologies; necessary because Russia is a major actor in key areas of the BRI; subordinate because the relationship is characterised by deep asymmetries, China being the greater of the two powers by far.
Rather than leading to the long-range ‘redistribution of power in the world’ (7) sought by Beijing, the war has solidified and remobilised the US-centred alliance systems, spurred western remilitarisation, and highlighted the structural financial and economic power of the core Western capitalist states. Unless the war escalates dramatically, the PRC is unlikely to abandon Moscow, whose deepening dependency will give Beijing long-term leverage over a weakened Russia. Nor can it condone a war that threatens its global projects, and that undermines its already contested case for a possible forcible unification with democratic Taiwan.
China will thus be looking very carefully at the outcomes of the Ukraine war, which could weaken its international position, while strengthening its rivals. In theory, one would therefore expect Beijing to begin exerting greater pressure on Moscow to negotiate, but China may currently have limited influence on Russian decision-making. In the meantime, the Chinese government announced on 5 March a 7.1% increase of the defence budget, to 1.45 trillion yuan ($230bn) in 2022 (against 1.1 trillion yuan in 2018) ‘to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity amid severe external threats and an unstable security environment.’
Philip S Golub
Philip S Golub is professor of international relations at the American University of Paris. He is the author of East Asia’s Reemergence, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2016.
(1) See, for instance, Martin Wolf, ‘Putin’s war against liberal democracy’, Financial Times, 2 March, 2022.
(2) Christophe Châtelot, ‘Guerre en Ukraine : l’abstention calculée de nombreux pays africains à l’ONU’, Le Monde, 4 March 2022
(3) Cited in Katsuji Nakazawa, ‘Ukraine Crisis Throws China’s Top 7 Leaders into Disarray’, Nikkei Asia, 3 March 2022.
(4) Ibid.
(5) See Philip Golub, ‘China Rewrites the Global Rules’, Le Monde diplomatique English Edition, February 2016.
(6) For a thorough discussion of Eurasianism see Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire, Woodrow Wilson Press/The John Hopkins University Press, Washington, D.C., 2008.
(7) ‘Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development’, 4 February, 2022.
cc Michel Temer
On 2 March, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a non-binding resolution ‘[deploring] in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine’ and deciding that ‘the Russian Federation shall immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.’ 141 countries endorsed the resolution, five voted against and 35 abstained. Most observers have emphasised Russia’s international isolation, but insufficient attention has been paid to the Global South, significant parts of which abstained from the vote: Angola, Burundi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda in Africa; China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Asia (Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan did not vote). In the Middle East, Algeria, Iran and Iraq also abstained. A number of Latin America countries voted the resolution but nonetheless critiqued the sanctions imposed on Russia (Brazil and Mexico).
Abstention is not synonymous with support for Vladimir Putin and positions are evolving as the trail of death and destruction wrought by the Russian war machine spreads. But the voting pattern shows that the picture painted by Western media and governments of a world united against lawless authoritarianism is not accurate. (1) Together, the abstaining countries account for around half of the world population, and their choices cannot be simply ascribed to a shared authoritarian ethos (just as the choice of autocrats such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who voted the resolution but has been seeking to overturn the 1923 Lausanne Treaty that defines Turkey’s borders from the Black Sea to the Aegean, cannot be ascribed to respect for democratic norms and adherence to international law).
Together, the abstaining countries account for around half of the world population, and their choices cannot be simply ascribed to a shared authoritarian ethos
National motives are diverse. Countries such as India or South Africa have longstanding economic and institutional ties to Russia and, like Uganda and other countries of the Global South, uphold traditional policies of non-alignment. Others such as the sub-Saharan African francophone states, who have gradually become detached from Europe, are seeking to ‘appease a public opinion in which anti-French discourse in particular and anti-Western discourse in general is on the rise’. (2) Poisoned relations with France and recently forged security ties with Russia explain Mali’s vote. Iran, which has strong reasons to uphold the UN charter’s prohibition on wars of aggression, does not want to compromise a relationship that serves in part to counterbalance US power in the Middle East and the Gulf. Cuba also abstained, despite deep ties to Russia, due to its own powerful reasons to uphold the charter’s clauses on non-aggression.
Notwithstanding differences, there are two interrelated themes in abstainer discourses: the first is a shared assumption that the US and Europe bear some responsibility in the current conflagration for having promoted NATO expansion and neglected Russian security concerns; the second, the idea that the world no longer revolves exclusively around the ‘West’ (the Euro-Atlantic system, the Anglosphere and US Treaty Alliance partners in East Asia). Both readings are at the core of current Chinese diplomacy, which has given Russia de facto – though increasingly lukewarm – support while refraining from endorsing the invasion (the PRC has not recognised the Russian Federation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea). The Chinese case is of great import.
During the first days of fighting, the PRC blamed the United States, describing it as the ‘culprit’ of the crisis for having promoted NATO expansion eastwards, in line with the 4 February joint statement of Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin during the Beijing Olympics that ‘both sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologised cold war approaches.’ As fighting escalated, Beijing’s discourse became more nuanced, with official expressions of ‘extreme concern’ over civilian casualties and offers of mediation to achieve a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia (2 March). On 3 March, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, expressed serious disquiet, saying, ‘The situation has evolved to a point which China does not wish to see…it is not in the interest of any party’. (3) The PRC has yet to distance itself clearly from Russia, keeping its markets open and offering indispensable oxygen for a Russian economy stumbling under the weight of stringent sanctions. But, as Japanese observers note, ‘concerns are growing (in Beijing) that if China allows itself to be dragged further to the “Putin Theatre”, its national interests will be undermined’. (4)
The PRC is unlikely to abandon Moscow, whose deepening dependency will give Beijing long-term leverage over a weakened Russia. Nor can it condone a war that threatens its global projects
Putin’s war of conquest risks destabilising China’s patient efforts to transform ‘the global governance architecture and ‘rewrite the rules’ (5) through the construction since 2013 of Sino-Centric transcontinental economic linkages across Eurasia (the Belt and Road Initiative, BRI), Southeast Asia, Oceania and Africa (21st Century Maritime Silk Road), and the creation of new international institutions of economic governance (the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai and co-founded with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa; and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), also headquartered in China). Until the war, China viewed Russia, whose intellectual and political elites include an influential fraction of ‘Eurasianists’ who look more to the East than the West, (6) as a useful, necessary but subordinate component of these global rebalancing efforts. Useful, because China relies on Russian energy (coal, oil and gas) and agricultural exports as well as the procurement of some military technologies; necessary because Russia is a major actor in key areas of the BRI; subordinate because the relationship is characterised by deep asymmetries, China being the greater of the two powers by far.
Rather than leading to the long-range ‘redistribution of power in the world’ (7) sought by Beijing, the war has solidified and remobilised the US-centred alliance systems, spurred western remilitarisation, and highlighted the structural financial and economic power of the core Western capitalist states. Unless the war escalates dramatically, the PRC is unlikely to abandon Moscow, whose deepening dependency will give Beijing long-term leverage over a weakened Russia. Nor can it condone a war that threatens its global projects, and that undermines its already contested case for a possible forcible unification with democratic Taiwan.
China will thus be looking very carefully at the outcomes of the Ukraine war, which could weaken its international position, while strengthening its rivals. In theory, one would therefore expect Beijing to begin exerting greater pressure on Moscow to negotiate, but China may currently have limited influence on Russian decision-making. In the meantime, the Chinese government announced on 5 March a 7.1% increase of the defence budget, to 1.45 trillion yuan ($230bn) in 2022 (against 1.1 trillion yuan in 2018) ‘to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity amid severe external threats and an unstable security environment.’
Philip S Golub
Philip S Golub is professor of international relations at the American University of Paris. He is the author of East Asia’s Reemergence, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2016.
(1) See, for instance, Martin Wolf, ‘Putin’s war against liberal democracy’, Financial Times, 2 March, 2022.
(2) Christophe Châtelot, ‘Guerre en Ukraine : l’abstention calculée de nombreux pays africains à l’ONU’, Le Monde, 4 March 2022
(3) Cited in Katsuji Nakazawa, ‘Ukraine Crisis Throws China’s Top 7 Leaders into Disarray’, Nikkei Asia, 3 March 2022.
(4) Ibid.
(5) See Philip Golub, ‘China Rewrites the Global Rules’, Le Monde diplomatique English Edition, February 2016.
(6) For a thorough discussion of Eurasianism see Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire, Woodrow Wilson Press/The John Hopkins University Press, Washington, D.C., 2008.
(7) ‘Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development’, 4 February, 2022.
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