Caught between America, China and Russia, many countries are determined not to pick sides. As the American-led order in place since 1945 fragments and economic decoupling accelerates, they seek deals across divides. This transactional approach is reshaping geopolitics.
One way of capturing the sheer scale and heft of these non-aligned powers is through a Russian lens. Our sister organisation, eiu, has analysed countries based on their economic and military ties to Moscow, their diplomatic stances including votes at the un
and whether they support and implement sanctions. Although 52 countries
comprising 15% of the global population—the West and its
friends—lambast and punish Russia’s actions, and just 12 countries laud
Russia, some 127 states are categorised as not being clearly in either
camp (see map).
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To get a handle on what non-alignment really means The Economist
has also looked at a narrower panel of the 25 biggest economies that
have sat on the fence on the Ukraine war, or wish to remain non-aligned
in the Sino-American confrontation, or both. The members of this
group—call them the transactional 25 (t25)—are hugely
varied in terms of wealth and political systems, and include giant India
and tiny Qatar. Yet they have some common ground. They are brutally
pragmatic and have collectively become more powerful. Today they
represent 45% of the world’s population and their share of global gdp has risen from 11% in 1992 to 18% in 2023, more than the eu’s.
Their strategy of neutrality involves big risks and opportunities.
Whether they succeed will influence the world order for decades. And
needless to say, both America and China will work to win them over.
In
the 20th century non-alignment meant different things to different
countries at different times. At conferences in Bandung, Indonesia in
1955 and Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1961, leaders presented a “third world”
apart from the West and the Soviet bloc. From the late 1960s these
countries increasingly focused on economic inequality between the
“global south” (a less loaded term for the third world) and the
industrial north. A formal institution, the Non-Aligned Movement, was
joined by nearly every African, Asian and Latin American state. With the
end of the cold war it became, in the words of an Indian academic, “a
moribund organisation in need of a decent burial”.
Today,
non-aligned countries are not defined by their membership of an
institution, but rather by their characteristics and behaviour. These
middle powers are pragmatic and opportunistic. In a recent book Jorge
Heine, a former Chilean diplomat, contends that in the 20th century
countries often passively drifted into one or other of the superpowers’
orbits. Today there is more “active” evaluation of the best means to
achieve particular ends, he says. Some call it “minilateralism” (as
opposed to multilateralism)—the targeted use of discrete alliances or
groupings, rather than lumping your lot in with one bloc.
Non-aligned
countries also usually think Western leaders are hypocrites. Some
$170bn in aid was pledged to Ukraine in the first year of the
war—equivalent to about 90% of spending on all global aid in 2021 by the
oecd’s Development Assistance Committee, a group of 31
Western donors. To the West, such generosity shows solidarity with a
fellow democracy; to others it shows that rich countries cough up if it
serves their interests. “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that
Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are
not Europe’s problems,” declared Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s
foreign minister, last year.
Such
stances are broadly in line with public opinion. A report by Cambridge
University last year found that in liberal democracies 75% hold a
negative view of China, and 87% do of Russia. But the picture is almost
the reverse among the 6bn people who live elsewhere. A gap is opening up
between how the West sees the world and how the rest sees it. In a poll
published earlier this year by the European Council on Foreign
Relations, a think-tank, a plurality of Indians (48%) and most Turks
(51%) said the future world order will be defined by multipolarity or
non-Western dominance. Just 37% of Americans, 31% of people in eu
states and 29% of Britons agreed. The West thinks it is watching a
sequel of the cold war; the rest of the world sees an entirely new film.
Wheeling and dealing
So who makes up the t25?
The diverse group encompasses some of the world’s most populous
countries and two of its largest democracies, India and Indonesia,
alongside Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which are all run by
autocrats of various flavours. Large wealth disparities exist, too. In
Saudi Arabia gdp per person is more than $27,000, on a par with some European countries, while in Pakistan it still lingers around just $1,600.
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As globalisation has spread, the trade pattern of the t25
has become multipolar. Some 43% of merchandise trade is with the
Western bloc, 19% with the China-Russia bloc and 30% with countries in
neither of those camps (see chart). Perhaps unsurprisingly given its
location, 77% of Mexico’s total trade occurs with the West; over 60% of
Israel’s and Algeria’s trade also does. More than a third of Chile’s is
with China, a higher share than any other t25 country
(but 40% of its trade involves the West). More than half of Argentina’s
trade, and almost half of India’s, is with other non-aligned countries.
Arms
imports also show a complex mesh of loyalties. India hedges its bets.
Between 2018 and 2022 its main supplier was Russia, which provided 45%
of its arms, but it got another 29% from Europe and is likely to seek
more self-reliance, with help from America. India’s rival China, which
supplies its arch-enemy, Pakistan, is out of the question. Israel,
Morocco, Saudi Arabia and South Africa look instead to America for the
vast majority of their arms imports.
There
is no coherent governing body that represents non-aligned countries and
their interests. None is expected to emerge. Instead a variety of
disparate organisations, such as the g20, provide platforms of varying effectiveness for the major non-aligned countries. The brics
group of countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—is a
forum for middle powers that wants to expand: it is discussing whether
to let Iran and Saudi Arabia join. At un climate talks a broader group of more than 130 countries, including China, has negotiated together.
Despite
their differences, the non-aligned countries share a common aim: to
make expedient deals in a fluid environment. For two decades many were
able to simultaneously build relations with the West, China and Russia.
No longer. The West is imposing sanctions on Russia and restricting
Chinese access to technology.
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For
many this is a grave threat. Sanctions on Russia saw energy and food
prices soar globally, prompting a backlash across the non-Western world.
More recently Janet Yellen, America’s treasury secretary, has
encouraged American companies to move their supply chains into friendly
states. Investment shifts are under way (see chart). Beijing and Moscow,
meanwhile, are drawing closer together. New research by the imf notes that since 2018 geopolitical alignment, measured by similarity in un voting patterns, has become ever more important in determining the location of foreign direct investment. Under the imf’s scenarios for fractured trade, the impact in emerging markets could be more than twice as bad as in advanced ones.
But
many in the non-aligned world bet that they can win from economic
decoupling and political fragmentation, by hedging their relations
between the big powers and by influencing other countries themselves. To
understand this transactional strategy, look at the approach of some of
the big countries caught in the middle. Brazil is a good case study. It
opposes what Mauro Vieira, foreign minister, calls “automatic
alignments”. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who began his second stint as
Brazil’s president in January, sees President Joe Biden as an ally on
climate change; at their meeting in Washington, dc, in
February they re-established joint environmental institutions abandoned
under Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s predecessor. America classes Brazil as a
“major non-nato ally”, a legal status that entitles enhanced co-operation with America’s armed forces.
Yet
Brazil is also hedging between the superpowers. Like others in its
region, it has declined Western proposals to give old Russian-made
equipment to Ukraine in exchange for new arms. Lula’s arrival in Beijing
on April 14th will underscore China’s economic importance. Trade
between Brazil and China was nearly $153bn in 2022, a 37-fold increase
in two decades. Partly this reflects how Brazil took advantage of
tit-for-tat us-China tariffs to increase agricultural exports to China at America’s expense.
Brazil
is also making forays of its own. Lula will soon visit Africa to revive
Brazil’s influence there. During his first stint in office, trade with
Africa rose from $6bn in 2003 to $25.6bn in 2012, and South Africa was
welcomed into the brics bloc. Then Lula’s predecessor made no visits to Africa. Lula evidently thinks it worthwhile to renew the effort.
India’s
fear of China has pushed it closer to the West in some respects. In
March the prime minister of Japan, which like India, America and
Australia, belongs to the “Quad”, an Indo-Pacific security forum,
visited Delhi in a landmark visit. In the 2021-22 financial year India’s
trade with America overtook that with China. Yet India still purchases
weapons and cheap oil from Russia and is unlikely to break its
longstanding ties unless Vladimir Putin’s regime were to use nuclear
weapons.
Practical, not partisan
Like
Brazil, India is asserting itself more abroad: only China imports and
exports more with sub-Saharan Africa. The average annual stock of fdi from
India was $0.8bn in 2004 to 2008 (less than half of Sweden’s) but $31bn
a decade later (more than Germany’s and Japan’s combined). Last month
India hosted representatives from 31 African countries for war games.
India promises to use its chair of the g20 this year to be the “voice of the global south”.
Turkey
also wants more clout across the global south. It has security
agreements with 30 African states and its defence exports to Africa rose
more than five-fold from 2020 to 2021. Advisers to Turkey’s president
say the “New Turkey” can select its partners. That may explain its
ostensible neutrality over the war in Ukraine, which Turkey has used to
leverage its ties to Russia. Turkish exports to Russia reached $7.6bn in
2022, a 45% increase on the previous year.
Saudi
Arabia is reducing its reliance on its historical ally, America, by
tilting towards China, which is now the kingdom’s largest trading
partner. Consider decisions this month and in October by the
Organisation 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 Co-operation
Organisation, a Eurasian talking shop. China says it wants to establish a
free-trade deal with the Gulf “as soon as possible”.
Gulf
countries’ relations with Africa were once confined to energy,
agriculture and the politics of the Horn of Africa. Today Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates hunt for minerals deals; dp
World, a Dubai-based ports operator, is emerging as a critical logistics
firm on the continent; and Qatar is playing novel diplomatic roles.
Last month it was involved in brokering the release of Paul
Rusesabagina, a jailed Rwandan dissident (and the inspiration for the
film “Hotel Rwanda”).
African
countries have long looked to both superpowers. The West has generally
been their preferred source of “software”: support for schooling, health
and, should a government want it, human rights. China offers
“hardware”: bridges, roads, ports—and the loans to build them. Between
2007 and 2020 America’s main development agency lent less than a tenth
of the total of China’s two major development banks ($1.9bn v $23bn) for
sub-Saharan African infrastructure projects.
In
some parts of Africa the West’s promises to ensure security have rarely
seemed as hollow. “Americans need somewhere for their troops and agents
to sleep. But the security relationship does nothing for 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, comprising Russian mercenaries, now helps
prop up the ruling junta.
The
non-aligned countries want to avoid taking sides. But the big powers,
America and China, are keen to draw them into their orbit. Beijing sees
asserting leadership of the global south as a way of bolstering its
resistance to American pressure. It positions itself as a model for
others within a broad family of developing countries. It draws a
contrast with the West, which it says prefers smaller clubs (like the g7). “China shows up where and when the West will not,” says Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s outgoing vice-president.
Eastern friends, western pals
China
is the main trading partner of around 120 countries and the lender of
first and last resort for many. Between 2007 and 2020 it provided more
infrastructure financing in sub-Saharan Africa than the next eight
lenders combined. It will be pivotal to resolving sovereign-debt crises.
Analysis of 73 developing countries by the imf notes
that in 2006 China held just 2% of this group’s external debts, with the
mostly Western “Paris club” group of creditors accounting for 28%. By
2020 the respective shares were 18% and 10%.
Those
in the West have reason to roll their eyes. China’s “win-win” rhetoric
masks its ruthlessness. “Banking on Beijing” (2022), by Bradley Parks of
AidData, a research outfit, and co-authors, shows how China uses its
economic tools for political ends. It often skews its funding towards
incumbent leaders’ home districts—and is more likely than the West to
lend to corrupt and autocratic countries. AidData also finds that a 10%
increase in voting similarity with Beijing at the un is
associated with an increase in Chinese projects in that country. Chinese
loans come with unusually strict clauses on confidentiality and
collateral. But Chinese development projects are associated with boosts
to gdp per person, notes Mr Parks.
In
the face of China’s efforts, America and its allies are trying to
recalibrate their message to the non-aligned world. America understands
that other countries’ consent bestows legitimacy on the international
order it leads. “Countries don’t want to choose, and we don’t want them
to,” Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security adviser, told the Washington Post
earlier this year. America is pursuing diplomacy in places it has
neglected. Kamala Harris, America’s vice-president, Ms Yellen and Antony
Blinken, its secretary of state, have all visited Africa in 2023. Mr
Biden will soon follow.
America has
also bolstered security partnerships with influential non-aligned
countries. In November Lloyd Austin, its defence secretary, met his
Indonesian counterpart for the fourth time; in January American and
Indian officials agreed to deepen co-operation on cutting-edge defence
technologies. In total America maintains 88 defence “partnerships”
(excluding formal alliances such as its one with nato), though some are limited in scope.
Though America and the eu have in recent years launched rival schemes to the bri,
the perception remains that, if you want infrastructure that can help
transform your economy, your first call is to Beijing. After Ms Harris
released a soundtrack featuring African artists to accompany her recent
visit to the continent, one senior African official noted, dryly, that
Chinese visitors bring loans and engineers while Americans bring
playlists.
A political paradox
The
Biden administration is widely seen as embracing a two-tier foreign
policy: first come relations with its core democratic allies in Europe
and Asia (which it hopes might one day include India)—and then those
with creaking global institutions. These mediate meet the needs of a
broader group of countries, including most non-aligned ones, whether on
development, debt relief, security or finance.
That
presents three challenges. First, Western unity must hold. Yet that is
not a given. During his recent visit to China Emmanuel Macron, France’s
president, said that Europe’s states should not become “followers” of
American policy on Taiwan, nor “adapt to the American rhythm”.
The
second is that China can undermine global institutions by, for
instance, opting for bilateral debt relief rather than fully
participating in co-ordinated efforts. Chinese creditors’ obstinacy at
the imf is hampering what flexibility it can offer to countries struggling with debt.
The
final challenge concerns the mistrust of the West that is fed by its
broken promises. Take climate finance, for example. In 2009 rich
countries said they would channel $100bn to poorer ones per year by
2020; the annual total has never been higher than $85bn.
By
drawing on their liberal values and shared history, America and its
allies were able to rally behind Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. They
have shown newfound resolve against authoritarian China, too. The risk
is that this coming together deepens the estrangement of the global
south from the international order. It would be a tragic result if, in
uniting the West, America alienates the rest.■
Correction (April 12th): The map in this piece was changed to sort an error in the categorisation of some countries.