All posts by : riyaJ

A debt trap. A dispute at sea. A trade threat. An anomaly. A friend of Russia. The many names China has been called in recent years doesn’t require much reiteration, because they are already so engrained in our minds; either by label-repetition, international media-unison and perhaps also because of China’s Achilles’ heels – limitations with the English language and Western expression. 

Meeting with Chinese counterparts over the last month, I only had one question. Why don’t they fight the provocation much harder? And moreover fight it in public spaces rather than behind closed diplomatic doors where the risk for facts to be eluded and stereotypes resorted to being much higher. A case in point is perhaps the blatant press leaks to a closed door diplomatic meeting at the G20; a clear unapologetic breach of pacta sunt servanda. 

The problem at its core was this, that in the telling of the story of China to the world, agency was often in the hands of a few in the Global North, who often presented a purposefully one-sided and dimensionally-lacking version of the country. Points presented were often not untrue, but very purposefully misrepresented. How could they be okay with this? The answers I received can only be described as profound at best. 

My interlocutors, not privy to the Western critical lens that perhaps I myself am victim to, would not waste our meeting on West-bashing. Instead what I found was understanding rooted in respect toward counterparts – regardless of whatever part of the world those counterparts were from, and an assured confidence that in this game of story telling, that time, would ultimately tell the most truthful story. 

The interactions, to a great extent quantify the cultural tapestry that makes up Chinese characteristics to development; where Sri Lanka may have a five-year plan and Switzerland may have a 25-year plan, China sees the future in millennia. But is China correct to believe that the fullness of its story will be told, without urgency in the here and now for that correction to be forced? It begs the question of what the status quo is on that story being retold. There are some indicators that can be looked at for this purpose.

Redefining ‘made-in-China’

For one thing the connotation of what ‘made-in-China’ means is changing at accelerating velocity. The Chinese automobile manufacturer BYD for instance is viewed as the company to beat when it comes to transport-decarbonisation. Neck-to-neck and often ahead of companies such as Tesla. And while general publics are unaware of BYD’s presence around the world, the company is credited with the tech and manufacturing of electric buses that run in over 70 countries, including the iconic double decker buses that run in London. Its technological lead in lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, has caused other EV manufacturers around the globe to up their game, with BYD ranking 212 on the 2023 Fortune Global 500 list, ascending 224 positions within a year, making it the fastest-growing Chinese company on the list. 

Following behind in battery R & D, is CATL, another Chinese manufacturer which offers nearly every battery type made by BYD, and also collaborates with Western brands that have become synonymous in consumers’ minds with luxury and dependability; BMW, Ford and Toyota to name a few. Chinese companies have long viewed such collaborations and partnerships with pride, both out of recognition of its own achievements and that of foreign partners, but there appears to be hesitance on the part of Western counterparts to generally cite Chinese tech and recognise that beneath the cover of what looks intrinsically Western, is made-in-China products and tech. With the rise of companies like BYD this is bound to change, one informed consumer at a time. 

Green economies

Electronic Vehicles however are only one part of China’s move toward green technologies. It’s estimated that the country is actively promoting green and low-carbon transformation more fiercely that European or American counterparts, with energy transition investments reaching around $ 546 billion in 2022, about four times more than that of the United States. What’s interesting about the Chinese model, is that the economic advancements that come hand-in-hand with such policies, aren’t limited for China’s reaping alone. For instance Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF recently noted that a 1% increase in China’s economic growth contributes to around a 0.3% increase in productivity for other Asian economies. The percentages and data assist to better understand why Western narratives and cultural provocations rarely fracture China’s bilateral relations with global south countries.

But perhaps because production and manufacturing output has always been part of how the world views China, it may be important to also assess the other areas in which the country is active, yet not globally recognised, or is still misrepresented. 

Conflict mediation

In the last year the country has shown that it is serious about its role as a mediator in conflict resolution, not only with the Ukraine-Russia conflict but also within the context of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Even French President Macron noted that his Chinese counterpart had shared ‘important words’ on the Ukraine crisis, and expressed his belief that China could play a major role in finding a path to peace. Its efforts last year in brokering a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia could have ushered in stability to regions including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain, had the severe escalation of tensions not taken place in Gaza. China’s emphasis on negotiation and peaceful coexistence is part and parcel of its historic cultural expression; for instance, with its observer status within the Non Aligned Movement, the country has maintained strong links with the organisation, alongside NAM’s founding pillars being almost identical to the 5 principles of peaceful coexistence contained in the Panchsheel, a 1954 codification of the Chinese government’s foreign relations principles. 

Conclusion: Perspective matters

The areas of work mentioned in this article are significant to understand what China really is, yet somehow, international publicity of it remains scarce or lacking all together. Whether or not mass international media will move past political ideology and the one-size-fits-all measurement in this sense, is yet to be seen. But China appears to continue doing what it does best – move forward. And this perspective, whether for China, or any other country of the Global South, remains vital.

This article explores the discourse of the Ukraine crisis from the perspective of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), recalling some of the movement’s focal pillars that find their roots in the cultural and historical makeup of its member states. It looks at recent efforts of NAM members within the context of peace talks and bilateral relations and further presents a reflection on why NAM members are better equipped to create progressive conditions within that space.

Lastly, it explores why such efforts are often misconstrued by Western governments and media.

A few weeks ago, 7 African leaders (heads of state of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Comoros and Egypt, alongside top officials from the Republic of Congo and Uganda) travelled to Russia and Ukraine, in what can thus far be described as the largest collective push toward brokering even a semblance of peace talks in over 16 months.

In a comparative perspective, the African peace mission is the opposite of NATO interactions.

Others have done their part, notably Türkiye, brokering the now defunct Black Sea Grain Export deal. This, while juggling tragic natural disasters, a US official’s distasteful hint at possible support toward regime change, a presidential election, its consequential run-off and a worsening economic situation. Although important to note that for now, Türkiye’s balanced stance within NATO appears void in light of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s revelation on negotiations between Ankara and Washington.

Other players still have contributed important trajectories in the domain of the last 16 months, that have perhaps re-shaped some of the more cliched POVs of world affairs. China, for instance, has emerged this year as a credible and serious mediator in conflict resolution, not only with Ukraine-Russia but with Iran and Saudi Arabia too. Even the most ascetic of its usual critics conceded to that point, with French President Macron noting that his Chinese counterpart had used ‘important words’ on the Ukraine crisis, and expressed his belief that China could play a major role in finding a path to peace.

This view stands in contrast to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s perception of China’s stance, levelling directives that Beijing must take a clearer stance in the war and saying that “neutrality means taking the side of the aggressor, and that is why our guiding principle is to make it clear that we are on the side of the victim”.

In a similar vein, the NY Times reported that President Biden was seeking more allies against, what it called ‘increasingly aggressive governments’ in Moscow and Beijing. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US was depicted in the international press as Washington’s ‘pomp-filled’ wooing and pageantry in the possible hopes that India would reconsider its non-aligned stance against Russia, and, perhaps more interestingly, against China. Liberal US media outlets, including the New York Times, are clearly unable to fathom why India, which it described as sharing certain enmity for China, would not subscribe fully to Washington’s strategy and perspective for dealing with the Chinese.

This assessment is important because, since World War II, it has often been the West’s rule, and not its exception, to reduce non-aligned policies of Global South states in their bilateral and multilateral relations with states that the West at varying times considers ‘the aggressors’.

This rule often permeates into diplomatic language, as has perhaps been the case with the United States’ rhetoric on the Indo-Pacific Strategy and more recently with the QUAD. Emphasis is often placed on ‘shared values’ between partners and allies, drawing invisible but palpable lines for non-partners. Lines that justify semantics like that of President Biden’s labelling of President Xi Jing Ping a ‘dictator’ recently, at the end of what had otherwise been seen as a promising visit of Secretary Blinken to China.

Despite the German Foreign Minister, Washington and a smattering of Western press – for Global South states, the familiar writing has always been on the wall: Pick a side – ours or the aggressor’s! It’s a passive-aggressive ultimatum that you’re either with us or against us.

And before we can even begin to deconstruct this coerced polarization of camps that has become part and parcel of the North’s relations with the South, it is perhaps more important to disentangle the purposeful and erred linguistic substitution of ‘neutrality’ with the accurate designation of ‘non-alignment’, and the differentiation of the two.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), with its deep roots in the decolonization struggle, understood the implications of them-us narratives, and whose purpose they served. Most NAM member-states fell, of course, within the category of “them” during colonization (and some may argue,they still do).

For NAM members, however, it is the promotion of mutual interests and cooperation that takes precedence over side-picking. It’s friendly relations over cliquey differentiations, and mutual respect over the need to paint international-order positions and policies in easy black or white. For those who followed the struggle of the decolonization movement and founding of the NAM, the current context of world affairs within the discourse of Russia should come as no real surprise: all 7 peace-mission African states are members of the Non-Aligned Movement, as is India.

China, with its observer status within the NAM, has strong links with the movement, with the NAM’s founding pillars being almost identical to the 5 principles of peaceful coexistence (1954) contained in the Panchsheel, a codification of the Chinese government’s foreign relations principles also today.

Even Türkiye, with its historical reservations during the formation of the NAM, has expressed its solidarity with the movement’s work; Türkiye’s foreign minister in 2021 reiterated the validity of the NAM’s work in a multipolar world where he said that challenges were becoming more complex; his words were like a precursor to the reality awaiting the world in 2022 with both the Ukraine crisis and the global economic crisis that would follow.

Among the 10 Principles of the Bandung Founding Conference (1955) was the movement’s pacta sunt servanda pledge toward settlement of international disputes by peaceful means, in conformity with the UN Charter, a pledge that, as illustrated by the African peace mission or via India-China diplomatic relations, members inculcate.

The movement has consistently stressed that it aims to promote peaceful coexistence between nations, regardless of their political, social or economic systems. NAM members have special capacities precisely because of this enshrined principle of friendly relations with all states and not just with those that share similar values.

If third-world approaches to international law liken the West’s hegemony within the international system to an understanding of ‘the white man’s burden’, then the opposite can be true of what the NAM can accomplish. For if the former is based on a perceived moral obligation to civilize, then the states being looked at will always be seen as requiring civilizing; they are “aggressors” or “dictators” always ‘developing’ – yet never arriving to or meeting the invisible measure set for it by that hegemony.

Through the lens of the NAM, states are seen as equals, not greater or lesser, but burdened with their gaps and shortcomings within differing contexts. Contexts that can only be genuinely addressed and understood from within. This is possibly what makes NAM states the most suitable mediators for this present time, with an approach that could allow both Russia and Ukraine to be at the table without consideration of a conflict of interest, or hidden agendas.

Where neutrality takes a back seat and no side, non-alignment actively strives for friendly relations and peace.

During the Cold War, non-aligned policies succeeded in making the world a far less aggressive place than it potentially had the capacity to become, but that story often goes untold, in the face of a narrative of two superpowers with their finger on the MAD trigger.

Perhaps this time around, the viewpoints of the 7 African leaders, or perhaps even the nuances of China-India relations, may be given more amplification – in the media yes, but also in the understanding of the public, alongside the consideration of how multilateral forums such as the NAM differ radically in their diplomatic relations and perception of other nations from those of the Western world.

If a peace mission is genuinely what the international so-called community is seeking, instead of more destruction now and in the future, it is imperative to recognise the radical difference that mediators – in spite of their experience of being labelled, name-called and othered – can make. It’s therefore time to stop twisting their arms and enable their genuinely different but competent mediation as a road toward sustainable conflict resolution and peace.