Lula Shocks the World with his Surprising Stand on Global South, Ukraine, and Russia!

But in his first six months in officeBrazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – now in his third consecutive term – has made a major effort try to bring peace to the conflict in Eastern Europe. This is included Talks with US President Joe Biden in Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and in a conference call with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There was also a “shuttle diplomacy” from Lula’s chief foreign policy adviser – and former foreign minister – Celso Amorim visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow And welcomed his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovin Brasilia.

One reason Brazil has been able to meet with so many parties involved in the conflict is because of the nation made a point of not taking sides in war. Brazil is committed to what my colleagues are doing Carlos Fortin And Carlos Ominami and me called”active nonalignment.” By this we mean a foreign policy approach in which countries from the Global South – Africa, Asia and Latin America – refuse to take sides in conflicts between great powers and focus exclusively on their own interests. It’s an approach taken by The Economist marked as “How to survive a split in the superpowers.”

The difference between this new “non-alignment” and a similar approach adopted by nations in the past few decades is that this is happening at a time when developing countries are in a much stronger position than they used to be, and emerging powers are emerging among them. For example, the gross domestic product in relation to the purchasing power of the five BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, IndiaChina and South Africa – has overtaken by the G7 group of advanced economies. This growing economic power gives active non-aligned countries more international clout, enabling them to forge new initiatives and form diplomatic coalitions in ways previously unthinkable. For example, would João Goulart, who served as Brazil’s President from 1961 to 1964, tried to mediate in the Vietnam War like Lula does with Ukraine? I think to ask the question is to answer it.

Neither neutral nor disinterested

The growth of active nonalignment has been fueled by increased competition and what I see as… beginning of the second cold war between the United States and China. For many countries in the Global South, maintaining good relations with both Washington and Beijing has been vital to economic development and trade and investment flows.

It is simply not in their interest to take sides in this growing conflict. At the same time, active non-alignment should not be confused with neutrality – a legal status under international law That comes with certain duties and responsibilities. Being neutral means not taking a stance, which is not the case with active non-alignment.

Active non-alignment is also not about maintaining the same political distance from the major powers. On some issues — democracy and human rights, for example — it’s entirely possible that active non-aligned politics could take a closer stance on the United States. In other areas – such as international trade – the country could side with China.

This form of non-alignment requires an extremely finely tuned diplomacy that examines every matter for its merits and makes decisions on the basis of state art.

Unsubscribe around the world

As for the war in Ukraine, that means not supporting either Russia or NATO. And Brazil is not the only country in the Global South to take this position, despite being the first country to try to negotiate a peace deal.

Over Africa, Asia And Latin Americahave several important countries refused to side with NATO. Most prominent among them was India, despite its closer ties with and accession to the United States in recent years Four-page security dialog – or the “Quad”, a group sometimes referred to as “Asian NATO” – with the US, Japan and Australia, refused to condemn the invasion of Russia of Ukraine and has significantly increased its imports of Russian oil.

India’s non-aligned status is likely to be on the agenda over time Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks with Biden on his forthcoming visit to Washington.

In fact, India’s position is that largest democracy in the worldshows that the war in Ukraine is far from reflecting that the most important geopolitical divide in today’s world is between democracy and autocracy, as Biden has arguedshows that the actual divide exists between the Global North and the Global South.

Some of the most populous democracies in the world next to India – countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, South AfricaBrazil, Mexico And Argentina – have refused to side with NATO. Almost no country in Africa, Asia and Latin America has supported the diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia.

Although many of these nations voted in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine More than 140 Member States have done so repeatedlyNobody wants to turn what they see as a European war into a global war.

How the “great powers” ​​react

Washington apparently was surprised of this reaction, after portraying the war in Ukraine as a choice between good and evil – one with the future of the “rules-based international order” at stake. It was similar with US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during the Cold War with the Soviet Union called the non-aligned movement “immoral”..”

Russia has seen the new non-aligned movement as an opportunity to strengthen its own position vis-à-vis Foreign Minister Lavrov criss-crossing Africa, Asia and Latin America to underpin Moscow’s opposition to sanctions. China, in turn, has intensified its campaign to improve the situation International role of the yuanHe argued that the US dollar’s weapon against Russia only confirmed the dangers of relying on it as the world’s primary currency.

But I would argue that active non-alignment depends as much on regional multilateralism and cooperation as it does on these high-level meetings. A recently South American Diplomatic Summit The Brasília meeting convened by Lula – the first such meeting in ten years – reflects Brazil’s awareness of the need to work with neighbors to implement its international initiatives.

Think local, act global

This need for joint action is also driven by the economic crisis in the region. In 2020, Latin America experienced its worst economic downturn in 120 years with regional GDP Average decrease of 6.6%. The region also recorded the highest COVID-19 death rate in the world responsible for nearly 30% of global deaths spared from the pandemic despite making up just over 8% of the world’s population. In this context, being caught in the middle of a great power struggle is unattractive, and active non-alignment has caught on.

Beyond the incipient US-China Cold War and the war in Ukraine, the resurgence of nonalignment in its new “active” incarnation reflects a widespread disillusionment in the Global South with what was past known as the “Liberal International Order” has existed since World War II.

This order is seen as increasingly frayed and unresponsive to the needs of developing countries on various issues international debt And Food inspection To migration and climate change. For many nations in the Global South, calls to maintain the “rules-based order” seem to serve only the foreign policy interests of the great powers and not the global common good. In such a context, it is perhaps not surprising that so many nations actively refuse to be drawn into an “us versus them” dynamic.

George Heine is interim director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University.

This article was republished by The conversation under a Creative Commons license. read this original article.