BY Veniamin Popov The gap between the Western world and the countries of the Global South is getting wider

 

Tensions are rising in the world. Mostly as a result of Western powers’ provocation of fresh conflicts and the rekindling of old ones in order to retain their control.  Their aim is clear: to continue profiting from human suffering, to scare people, to subjugate countries as vassals within the neocolonial system, and to ruthlessly plunder their resources.

Developing nations are strenuously starting to defend their national interests because they no longer wish to accept their oppressed position.

Some well-known Western economists believe that extreme inequality is the primary issue facing modern civilization. A leading expert on the subject, Branko Milanović, reported in the July-August 2023 edition of the Foreign Affairs magazine, “Across the globe, but especially in the wealthy economies of the West, the gap between the rich and the rest has widened year after year and become a chasm, spreading anxiety, stoking resentment, and roiling politics.”

In mid-July this year, the new head of the World Bank, speaking at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in India, warned that the growing gap between rich and poor countries could lead to worsening poverty in developing countries: “The Global South’s frustration is understandable. In many ways they are paying the price for our prosperity.”

More than 3.1 billion people, or 42% of the world’s population, were estimated to be unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021, up 134 million from 2019. In 2022, 2.4 billion people were estimated to lack reliable access to food, 783 million people experienced hunger, and 148 million children had stunted growth.

While this is going on, Western nations continue to have a condescending attitude toward those who live in developing nations. They seek at all costs to keep things unfair by using their hegemonic positions in global banking. According to the United Nations, Africa loses almost $90 billion annually due to unlawful financial flows, primarily as a result of erroneous price transactions within multinational corporations, or 3.7% of its gross domestic product. Large-scale media efforts are being run in the meantime to persuade African nations, for instance, “Africans and Americans alike must face the reality that there are no Africa-only solutions to the layered crises afflicting the Sahel,” or in other words, they need the cooperation of the West. An article in the New York Times on August 14 of this year makes this clear.

Developing nations are vehemently rejecting the dominance of the West and its unjustified meddling in the internal affairs of other governments. Pakistan is passing through a deep crisis of domestic politics due to the fact that Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Moscow in February 2022 and met with President Putin. As a result the US had effectively given Islamabad an ultimatum, demanding that Imran Khan be removed from office by 2022. Under Washington’s pressure, he was not just fired, but also arrested so that he could not run in the new parliamentary elections. Given Imran Khan’s reputation in the nation, the US’s apparent blackmail and coercion won’t help their credibility in this largest Muslim nation at the moment, which has more than 200 million citizens.

The issue surrounding the events in Niger, a West African nation with a population of 26 million, is currently getting worse. Even those Africans who want to restore the powers of the ousted president have criticized the American move to openly pressure the new authorities of this African state by sending US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland there promptly.

It is interesting to note that the harsh anti-Russian campaign of the Western powers has not only not been supported by developing nations but also has the opposite effect: a growing number of developing nations are attempting to join the BRICS association, whose summit begins on August 22 in South Africa and at which 23 states have already formally announced their attendance.

The Russia-Africa Summit held in St. Petersburg in July 2023 and attended by 49 African nations is additional evidence that the global power structure is shifting.

It is worth noting that developing countries are beginning to vigorously defend their interests.

Former British colonies in the Caribbean, including Barbados, Jamaica, and others, have called for colonial powers to give reparations to these peoples on August 1, 2023, which would mark the 200-year anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. At least 12.5 million people were ruthlessly kidnapped from Africa between the 15th and the 19th centuries and used as slave labor.

India is adamant about pressing for compensation from Britain for 150 years of colonial oppression, exploitation, and plunder this year.

It is important to note that Indian authorities are working to replace the Penal Code and other legislation from the colonial era.

Even Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, acknowledged that “the Western conviction about the war and its importance is matched elsewhere by skepticism at best and outright disdain at worst,” which is the result of a great deal of frustration, if not outright anger, over the West’s poor handling of globalization since the end of the Cold War.

Studying in America was once seen as a tremendous benefit by young Saudis, but this has changed in recent years due to declining morals, cultural values, and threats to personal safety. More than 100,000 Saudis have attended colleges and universities in the US, but the number of Saudi students going there is steadily decreasing. The Emirati newspaper Gulf News reported in April this year, “Parents and grandparents of college students point to what they see as a disturbing decline in social mores, lawlessness and threats to personal safety, and a gradual deterioration in cultural values and ethics.”

On August 8 of this year, The New York Times reported that an increasing number of nations disagree with US foreign policy. Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomatic advisor to the United Arab Emirates president, was quoted as saying that “Western hegemony is experiencing its last days.”

The West’s efforts to impose a purported rule-based order and teach “non-traditional values” in the minds of the populace are viewed as abhorrent in many countries of the Global South. Due to Uganda’s anti-gay legislation, the World Bank recently declared that it had halted loans to that country. The bank stated that Uganda’s anti-LGBT bill “fundamentally contradicts the values of the World Bank Group.” This kind of blatant coercion causes legitimate outrage.

The American movie Barbie has been sharply criticized in several Arab countries for promoting nontraditional orientation. The State of Kuwait declared that it banned the Barbie movie in order to uphold “public ethics and social traditions.” Lebanese Minister of Culture has asked the Ministry of Interior to take all necessary measures to prevent the movie from being shown in their country.

The Algerian authorities banned the screening of the said movie “for propaganda of Western deviations.”

All Muslim countries strongly condemned the actions of the authorities of Sweden and Denmark, who allowed the burning of Holy Qur’an. This kind of action will clearly do nothing to enhance the respect of Western powers in the countries of the Global South.

A multipolar world is gradually emerging, and this trend has accelerated following the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. The majority of nations are prepared to protect their national interests, traditions, culture, and way of life. New economic and political centers are emerging. The most obvious example of this trend is the rising interest among nations from all parts of the world in joining organizations such as BRICS and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization).

 

Veniamin Popov, Director of the “Center for Partnership of Civilizations” in MGIMO (U) MFA of Russia, Candidate of Historical Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

 

https://journal-neo.su/2023/08/31/the-gap-between-the-western-world-and-the-countries-of-the-global-south-is-getting-wider/

 

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Бренд с франшизой 

Саммит в ЮАР показал, как дальше будет развиваться БРИКС

 

Fyodor Lukyanov: Contrary to Western claims, BRICS has an ideology and here’s what it is

The South Africa summit showed how the non-Western group will evolve over the coming years

 

Speaking at the end of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reassured those wondering what the acronym would sound like after the addition of six new letters: "Everyone is in favour of keeping the name the same, it has already become a brand". Whether he knew it or not, the diplomat had made an important point. The brand has taken on a life of its own, even though as an entity it no longer exists.

It has given way to a new form. Continuing the metaphorical theme, we can say that the BRICS of the original model have transferred the franchise to another creation.

Until this month, BRICS was a group with the possibility of transforming itself into either a more or less structured organization or instead becoming a free-form community. The second option was chosen. 

BRICS enlargement has been talked about for a long time. But discussions seemed pointless because there were no criteria for it to happen. The structure is deliberately informal, with no charter, procedures or coordinating bodies. Thus, classic diplomacy has been at work – with direct negotiations, without the involvement of international institutions – to reconcile national interests. The only platform where decisions are taken is at meetings of the leaders of the member states, and if they agree amicably it works. This is how the new states were invited — it was discussed and decided. 

Of course, the selection caused confusion — why them, what is the logic? But there was none, it was just agreed.

 

This is a momentous event. It is not about the number and quality of the host powers, but about the choice of development model. Until now, BRICS has been a compact group whose members, for all their differences, have been united by their ability and willingness to chart an independent course, free from external constraints. There are few states in the world that can boast of this — some lack sufficient military and economic potential, and others already have commitments to other partners. But the five more or less fit the bill. For this reason, BRICS was seen as a prototype of a structure that would be a counterweight to the G7 (behind which there is a rigid Atlantic unity). Hence the expectation that BRICS would deepen and institutionalize interaction by creating common structures and gradually become a unified force on the world stage.

But such calculations were unfounded. Not so much because of the differences between the countries, but because of their size, which does not imply self-restraint for the sake of anyone, including like-minded people. The idea of giving BRICS a clear anti-Western bias was also incorrect – with the exception of Russia, no member now intends to pursue antagonism with the West. All in all, the BRICS-5 would have remained a promising and very symbolic prototype without the prospect of becoming a working model.

The forthcoming BRICS-11 – and beyond – is a different approach. Enlargement is hardly compatible with full-fledged institutionalization, because it would be too complicated. But there is no need for that; the expansion of the community's borders is now self-evident. Criteria are not essential. So what if Argentina or Ethiopia are in debt and have almost none of the things that were originally considered to be the hallmarks of the BRICS? But they, and probably some other candidates in the next wave, are expanding the sphere of non-Western interaction.

This, by the way, is the only condition for an invitation - non-participation in Western military and political coalitions.

The other parameters are conditional.

China is the main proponent of enlargement. The new configuration is convenient for a power that promotes the slogan of an unspecified "common destiny" without commitments. The BRICS franchise is more in line with global trends than the previous type of BRICS. A rigid framework is unpopular; most countries in the world want a flexible relationship with maximum scope so as not to miss opportunities.

This new approach is acceptable to Russia. It is unrealistic to turn BRICS into a battering ram against Western hegemony. But it is in Russia's interest to expand the sphere of interaction by bypassing the West and gradually creating appropriate tools and mechanisms. In fact, it is in everyone's interest, because hegemony no longer warms anyone's heart, it only limits opportunities.

Success is not guaranteed; enlargement may lead to the automatic addition of new countries on a formal principle. But in general, the soft separation of the West and the non-West is an objective process for the coming years.

Thus, the popularity of the BRICS franchise will grow.

 

This article was first published by Profile.ru, translated and edited by the RT team

 

https://www.rt.com/news/582111-brics-has-an-ideology/

 

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Jeffrey Sachs Interview - BRICS Enlargement Tensions or Opportunities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPzlQNUfstc

 

Jeffrey Sachs Interview - BRICS Enlargement Tensions or Opportunities #jeffsachs #jeffreysachs #interview Jeffrey Sachs is a well-known American economist, academic, and public policy analyst who has made significant contributions to the fields of sustainable development and economic development. He has held various prestigious positions throughout his career, including serving as the director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and as a special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals. Sachs has authored numerous books and articles on topics related to economics, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. Website: jeffsachs.org

 

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By Kit Klarenberg / MintPress News

 

Documents passed anonymously to MintPress News reveal the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a notorious CIA front, is laying the foundations for a color revolution in Indonesia.

In February 2024, citizens will elect their President, Vice President, and both legislative chambers. Current maverick leader Joko Widodo, widely beloved by Indonesians, is ineligible for a third term, and NED is preparing to seize power in the wake of his departure. This operation is conducted despite the leaks indicating Jakarta’s foremost intelligence agency has expressly warned U.S. officials to stay put.

The paper trail is a stunning insight into how NED operates behind the scenes, from which obvious inferences can be drawn about its activities elsewhere, past and present. By the organization’s own reckoning, it operates in over 100 countries and disperses in excess of 2,000 grants every year. In Indonesia, these sums have helped extend the Endowment’s tendrils into various NGOs, civil society groups, and, most crucially, political parties and candidates across the ideological spectrum.

This broad spread bet goes some way to ensuring U.S. assets, one way or another, will emerge victorious next February. However, a veritable army of NED operatives on the ground is also primed to challenge, if not overturn, the results should the wrong people win. Personal grants – in other words, bribes – from the Endowment have already secretly been distributed to Indonesians for staging anti-government protests.

What skullduggery NED has in store for election day isn’t certain, although sparks are assured to fly. At the very least, these documents amply reinforce what Endowment cofounder Allen Weinstein openly admitted in 1991:

“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

 ‘THE JOKOWI EFFECT’

Joko Widodo – popularly known as Jokowi – is something of a rockstar. The first Indonesian leader not drawn from the country’s established political or military elite since its hard-won independence from the Dutch in 1949, he was born and raised in a riverside slum in Surakarta. From there, he fought to become mayor of his hometown in 2005, then governor of Jakarta in 2012, then President two years later.

Every step of the way, Widodo has battled bureaucracy and corruption while pursuing programs to deliver universal healthcare, economic growth, radical infrastructure development, and material improvements to the lives of average citizens. Such is his domestic popularity that analysts routinely speak of the “Jokowi Effect.” After the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle named him their presidential candidate in 2014, their vote share leaped 30% in that year’s legislative election.

Widodo’s candidacy also reportedly stimulated Indonesia’s stock market and Rupiah currency due to his sparkling political and economic record. One might think burnishing the country’s finances to such a degree through sheer force of personality would make him an ideal leader from Washington’s perspective. Yet, the President has also prioritized “protecting Indonesia’s sovereignty” and limiting overseas influence in Jakarta. Moreover, he pursues an intensely independent foreign policy, much to the U.S. Empire’s chagrin.

Widodo has encouraged leaders of Muslim states to reconcile and pushed for Palestinian independence. His Foreign Minister visits Palestine but refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. He has also distributed sizable aid to oppressed Muslims abroad. Most egregiously, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he flew to both countries and urged their leaders to seek peace. When Jakarta hosted the G20 Summit that year, he invited not only Zelensky but Putin to attend despite fierce Western criticism.

In many ways, Widodo emulates the rule of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first President, from 1945 to 1967. His policies, domestically and internationally, were explicitly anti-imperialist. At home, he prevented Western exploitation of his country’s vast resource wealth while maintaining cordial relations with both East and West and personally championing the Non-Aligned Movement, members of which eschewed both power blocs to pursue an independent path.

Sukarno’s bold refusal to bow to imperial interests made him a thoroughly marked man. In 1965, he was ousted in a blood-spattered military coup sponsored by the CIA and MI6, ushering in 30 years of an iron-fisted military dictatorship led by General Suharto. Over one million people were killed through politically motivated massacres, executions, arbitrary imprisonment, and savage repression. Even the CIA describes his purge of leftists as “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

Widodo is now preparing to leave office, his constitutionally-mandated terms over, and personal approval ratings at all-time highs. His departure creates a clean political slate, which NED is eager to fill. Mercifully, a repeat of the intelligence agency-orchestrated slaughter that brought Suharto to power decades ago appears unlikely. But the leaked documents obtained by MintPress News make clear the U.S. Empire is preparing to pull off another coup in Jakarta under the aegis of “democracy promotion.”

This has been NED’s raison d’etre since inception, in 1983. The organization was explicitly founded by senior CIA spooks and U.S. foreign policy apparatchiks to serve as a public mechanism for the Agency’s traditional clandestine support for opposition groups, activist movements and media outlets overseas, which engage in propaganda and political activism to disrupt, destabilize, and displace ‘enemy’ regimes.

NED’s malign meddling over the years is too lengthy to list here. But recently, this has included sponsoring a failed uprising in Cuba, funneling money to separatist protesters in Hong Kong, and attempting to topple the Belarusian government. Having floundered in these insurrectionary adventures is evidently no deterrent to trying again in Indonesia now.

 ‘PERSONAL BRANDING DEVELOPMENT’

The leaked files are weekly briefings dispatched from the Indonesian office of the International Republican Institute (IRI) back to headquarters in Washington during June, July and August 2023. IRI is a core component of NED, which typically works with another, the National Democratic Institute, on regime change operations abroad. The pair are innately linked to their respective namesake political parties at home.

These briefings provide updates on administrative issues, local political developments, staff activities, press clippings, and IRI’s progress on fulfilling the objectives of its NED grant in Indonesia “to improve the capacity of emerging political party leaders to assume leadership positions within the parties and act as agents of change in support of increased internal party democracy, transparency, and responsiveness to citizens.” The last available Endowment grant records, from 2022, show the Institute was given $700,000 for this.

Every week, IRI reported its “outreach” to “emerging leaders” in the country – graduates of NED training programs, now prominent members of dozens of political parties, and local NGOs and civil society organizations. Many are running as candidates in 2024, having been taught campaigning and voter engagement strategies and to challenge results by the Endowment.

One of IRI’s “emerging leaders” was recorded as “carrying out internal party reform in his party” and “always appearing” prominently in its ranks. He was recently trained in launching legal disputes over the forthcoming election’s results, which “resulted in his being trusted as a candidate” by the party.

Another boasted to his IRI handlers that he “continues to socialize himself to the public regarding his candidacy either in person or through social media” and had recently appeared on popular radio and T.V. shows. He credited training provided by the NED-funded Association for Election and Democracy (Perludem) for “his personal branding development in politics” and ability to “serve as public speaker and engage with media.”

Perludem publishes regular US AID-financed journals, which “provide recommendations and references for improving electoral governance and democratic and political processes in the Asia and Pacific region.” It also convenes regular Emerging Leader Academy (ELA) events, where the individuals named in the IRI documents are groomed and learn “message development,” among other electioneering skills.

One graduate told IRI she had “started to share and disseminate information regarding her plans to run as a legislative candidate” and was “now increasingly active on social media.” With “tools she received from ELA, she hopes to attract more young voters, especially first-time voters.” Another was reported to have “again strengthened his role in the party’s internal body” and be personally “training prospective witnesses at polling stations” to monitor proceedings on election day.

Right down to the school level, youth political engagement was of evident significance to IRI and its cadre of political operatives. Accordingly, on July 1, Perdulem hosted an event, Make Election Great Again!, where attendees were taught the fine art of “identifying the strategic role of students in the 2024 election.”

IRI’s vote-meddling capabilities were significantly enhanced on July 12, when its operatives attended an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Google. A panel featured two opposition politicians, journalists, and researchers, who warned “dis/misinformation” could affect the 2024 election and, terrifyingly, result in a similar figure to Widodo becoming President. A local polling expert presented data from a recent survey conducted by his firm on how trust in political parties impacts voter preferences.

 ‘ACHIEVED MILESTONE’

One of the leak’s most tantalizing excerpts is in a briefing note from June 28 this year. It records how IRI representatives met with high-ranking members of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, including its Political Officer, Ted Meinhover. He “conveyed U.S. concerns” about the 2024 elections, in particular how Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto’s “electability” had “increased dramatically,” meaning he “stood the highest according to the polls.” Meanwhile, former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan’s ratings were “on the decline.”

Meinhover lamented how Indonesian law restricts parties with less than 20% of seats in parliament from fielding Presidential candidates. If that “threshold” were removed, “there will be more candidates in the election, and the U.S. will have more options,” he declared. Still, Washington “needs to maintain friendly relations with all parties to safeguard U.S. interests in Indonesia, no matter how the election plays out.”

Meinhover added the Embassy had “been active in outreaching” leaders of the local Labor party and Indonesia’s Trade Union Confederation “to know about their plans to protest” a law on job creation recently signed by Widodo. Fearing the legislation will “dampen foreign investor enthusiasm” in the country, “the U.S. firmly supports activities opposed to it.”

Accordingly, the Embassy secretly suggested to Labor party chiefs they could exploit “the opportunity” of Indonesia’s Independence Day on August 17 “to launch protests” against the job creation law and Meinhover’s hated “Presidential Threshold.” Strikingly, a U.S. diplomatic apparatchik present mentioned Jakarta’s State Intelligence Agency (BIN) had “recently warned” the Embassy “not to interfere” in the 2024 elections.

Meinhover said this had motivated the Embassy to “continuously support” IRI’s cloak-and-dagger activities to “further implement U.S. policies while avoiding Indonesian regulations.” So it was, a July 8 – 14 briefing noted, the Institute contacted Labor party leaders and a welter of Indonesian labor organizations – to which IRI “continuously provide small grants” – and discussed “plans to organize protests” against the job creation and Presidential threshold laws “in late July or early August.”

Those protests went ahead on August 9 at Jakarta’s Constitutional Court and State Palace. Local media coverage of the events was duly recorded in an IRI briefing, which also noted that the Institute “provided a third grant” of 1,000,000 Rupiah to the Pandeglang Labor party’s executive chair for the effort. They reportedly “appreciated IRI’s support for their activities.” The briefing added, “The protests went well and [were] brought to a successful close.”

A week later, Institute staffers again provided “support” to the Labor Party’s Pandeglang chapter to “successfully” protest against the two laws. The executive chair received a further personal grant of 5,000,000 Rupiahs “for this achieved milestone.” While this amounts to $330, it can hardly be considered an insubstantial sum in local terms, given that 50% of Indonesia’s population earns less than $800 monthly.

Other briefings indicate several Indonesian organizations and individuals receive direct payments from IRI for achieving specific “milestones,” Perludem among them. In a perverse irony, the February 2021 edition of the organization’s journal featured essays on topics including “political financing and its impact on the quality of democracy,”; “the urgency of preventing illicit political party fundraising,”; “a disproportionately unequal playing field: challenges to and prospects for campaign finance law”; and “accountability and transparency of political party financing” across Asia Pacific.

Eighteen months later, Perludem launched an app helping Indonesians “understand how electoral boundaries are drawn” and allowing users to “create their own versions of boundary delimitation or drawing/redrawing of electoral districts as they deem appropriate by universal standards and principles.” Who or what funded this seditious venture wasn’t stated.

 ‘BUDGETS ARE TIGHT’

One can only imagine the righteous furor that would erupt if documents revealing Chinese or Russian government agents, including Embassy staff, were secretly grooming politicians and civil society actors in foreign countries while covertly encouraging and bankrolling the activism of opposition parties and trade unions in conscious, deliberate contravention of national “regulations.” However, such activity is par for the course for U.S. diplomatic missions everywhere – and indeed, NED.

It’s also worth noting that the Endowment’s outlay in Indonesia is relatively modest. One weekly briefing even mentions how budgets “across IRI’s three projects” in the country “are tight for the foreseeable future.” The Institute’s Indonesian party leader training operation aside, the nature of the two other ventures is unclear from the leaked documents. But, according to figures published on NED’s website, the organization spends less than $2 million in Jakarta annually.

Usually, the sums involved are vastly higher. For example, over the 12 months leading up to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, NED pumped around $20 million into the country. Still, Western journalists, politicians, and pundits aggressively rubbished all suggestions that insurrectionary upheaval was anything other than an expression of popular will, resulting from surging yearning for liberalism and democracy by the overwhelming majority of citizens. They have done so ever since.

This is despite contemporary polls never showing majority Ukrainian support for Maidan, or E.U. and NATO membership; President Viktor Yanukovych remaining the most popular politician in the country until his last day in office; every actor at the forefront of the protests, including the individual who started them, receiving NED or USAID funding; leaders of U.S.-financed organizations in the country openly declaring their desire to overthrow the government in the years prior; the Maidan demonstrations being riddled with hardcore nationalists.

One might still argue many Maidan protesters were animated by legitimate grievances. Yet, the leaked trove raises serious questions about the “agency” of anyone in direct or even indirect receipt of NED funding. The papers amply show individuals and organizations on the ground anywhere can be stirred to activism at the local U.S. Embassy or Endowment chapter’s express behest at any time in return for even a small “grant.”

It is wholly inconceivable Indonesian labor groups would otherwise have protested Widodo’s job creation law or restrictions on how many Presidential candidates can run were it not for the former potentially harming Western investors and financial interests in Jakarta and the latter limiting Washington’s choice of puppets in the country. How many other anti-government agitators around the world, be they protesters, trade unionists, journalists, or otherwise, are similarly acting to “achieve milestones” agreed in secret with NED is anyone’s guess.

From Washington’s perspective, the importance of ensuring a pliant government is installed in Indonesia cannot be understated. With U.S. military chiefs openly discussing war with China in the very near future, the region must be populated with client states that can aid and abet that world-threatening effort. Similar initiatives are undoubtedly underway across the entire Asia Pacific. As such, it has never been more critical that NED’s activities everywhere are scrutinized, if not outright banned.

 

https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/07/leaked-cia-front-preparing-color-revolution-in-indonesia/

 

 

MEANWHILE:

 

Premier Li Qiang, who is in Indonesia to attend the East Asia Summit, witnessed the final stage trial run of the $7.3 billion Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway on Wednesday. The 142-kilometer railway connects the Indonesian capital of Jakarta to the city of Bandung. It is a flagship project of China-Indonesia collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative framework.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Indonesia. This year also marks the 10th year of President Xi Jinping proposing in Indonesia the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road which, together with the Silk Road Economic Belt, makes up the Belt and Road Initiative.

China and Indonesia have agreed to deepen high-quality cooperation, with their enhanced strategic mutual trust and strong friendship setting an example of mutual respect and mutual benefit for other developing countries to follow.

Sino-Indonesian cooperation, a typical example of how China has developed overall cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has four characteristics.

First, the two countries continue to align their development policies. The success of synergizing Indonesia's Global Maritime Fulcrum strategy and China's Belt and Road Initiative in 2018 has resulted in the deepening of bilateral economic cooperation. The two sides have decided to introduce projects that reflect policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and stronger people-to-people relations.

Second, that bilateral trade and investment have grown rapidly is evident from the fact that China is now Indonesia's largest trading partner and export market. China's official data show that in 2022 bilateral trade reached $149.1 billion, up 19.8 percent year-on-year. Also, China was the second-largest source of investment in Indonesia in 2022 with $8.2 billion, according to the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board.

Third, the two countries have made good progress in many landmark cooperation projects including the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Corridor, and the "Two Countries, Twin Parks".

And fourth, China and Indonesia have maintained regular communication and cooperation on regional and global issues. China attaches great importance to ASEAN playing an active role in regional cooperation, while Indonesia adheres to the one-China principle and supports China's strengthened cooperation with ASEAN.

The two countries are important members of regional groupings including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Besides, they have taken similar stances on major global issues including the reform of the United Nations and international financial institutions, the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations, energy and food safety, global governance and fighting climate change. And they have cooperated in multilateral organizations such as the G20.

Also, the two sides have maintained a good relationship over the past decade thanks to their frequent high-level exchanges, cooperation potential and similar development policies. President Xi and Indonesian President Joko Widodo have met several times over the past years and their consensuses on several issues have helped promote bilateral relations.

Moreover, both countries carry forward the Bandung Spirit of unity, friendship and cooperation, which was first advocated at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 1955.

While attending the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in 2022, President Xi and President Joko Widodo reached an important consensus on jointly building a China-Indonesia community with a shared future and agreed to use the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Sino-Indonesian comprehensive strategic partnership as an opportunity to open up new areas for high-level cooperation.

On July 27, Joko Widodo visited China and attended the opening ceremony of the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games in Chengdu, Sichuan province. During his meeting with President Xi, he said Indonesia is willing to strengthen strategic communication with China and jointly safeguard regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.

In that spirit, the two sides should make efforts to forge a new pattern of cooperation. They need to integrate their comprehensive strategic partnership and development policies, especially because the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by Xi have injected positive energy into their high-quality cooperation.

However, the two sides should not only strengthen cooperation in fields such as infrastructure, energy, minerals, manufacturing, investment, fishery, food security, medicine and health, but also focus on emerging industries such as new energy, the digital economy and smart cities to improve their positions in the global industry chains.

They should also strengthen coordination in order to address regional and global issues amid the fast-changing and turbulent global landscape because their cooperation is facing some challenges at home and abroad. For example, some Western media outlets and anti-China forces have been hyping up the "China threat" theory, smearing the Belt and Road Initiative and trying to stir up troubles in the South China Sea to drive a wedge between China and ASEAN and sabotage their cooperation.

China is the biggest economy in the Asia-Pacific region, and Indonesia is the biggest economy in ASEAN and its only G20 member. China supports ASEAN to maintain its strategic autonomy and unity, while Indonesia helps China better cooperate with ASEAN, promote regional integration and build an Asian community with a shared future. As such, it is in the mutual interest of both sides to safeguard regional development and play bigger roles in maintaining regional peace and stability.

The author is an associate researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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Veniamin Popov

The West must realize that the world has become multipolar

 

The 15th BRICS summit in South Africa came to an end on August 24. It resulted in a Declaration, which states that all of these nations will cooperate to build a global order based on equality, respect, and consideration for each other’s interests. The association has accepted six new members, and it will soon accept 15 additional states that have applied to join. It is known that 20 more developing countries are exploring increasing their engagement with the BRICS.

In simple terms, the struggle to create a new, more just world order has entered a significant new stage. In this regard, three points should be highlighted.

1. This is a new trend in international affairs: developing countries’ desire for stronger solidarity in order to withstand incessant Western pressure and protect their interests more effectively.
2. With the addition of new members, BRICS is quickly becoming an association of all major civilizations of the contemporary world, with the exception of the West. With the inclusion of Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, the current arrangement expresses the interests of all major civilizations; the Muslim world of nearly 2 billion people plays an increasingly important role in world affairs. In this sense, eminent American political scientist Samuel Huntington’s prediction is coming true: the West, having turned against Islam, will eventually turn against all major, leading civilizations.
3. All further developments in international relations will highlight the modern world’s growing divisions: the collapse of Western nations will become more obvious, while the position of the Global South will continue to strengthen swiftly.

By the mid-1980s, it was evident that the advanced capitalist countries were in deep trouble. All of these trends were most clearly reflected in the relevant Club of Rome report. It emphasized that capitalism in its current forms is essentially obsolete: rich, powerful corporations parasitically rely on emerging economic phenomena to avoid paying taxes; the wealth gap is enormous and obvious; and it is getting harder and harder to stop the destruction of nature on Earth due to the greed of the largest monopolies.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, in 1991 provided a kind of counterbalance to the avarice of the wealthy comprador bourgeoisie and offered an alternative to the exploiting ambitions of the leadership of the Western nations.

The “golden billion” countries, particularly the United States, decided that they could impose their will on all other countries on our planet during this time, basically laying the groundwork for a unipolar world. The numbers speak for themselves: in 1990, there were 66 billionaires on the globe with a total fortune of $370 billion; in 2023, the number of these rich people has increased to 400 with a total capital of $4 trillion.

All of these processes, sadly, occur at the same time that the intellectual quality of the Western elite is deteriorating. At the end of the 20th century, the brightest young people in developed nations tended to choose either business (for quick personal enrichment) or science, where interest was stronger.

Typically, politicians were “low-performing students” who sought to stand out through their manipulations, impudence, and allegiance to the wealthy.

The inequality of this wealth distribution took on such horrific forms that workers in various countries gradually began to become increasingly involved in the struggle to safeguard their interests. By starting its special military operation in Ukraine, Russia has taken the initiative in this process. The ferocity with which the Western powers have joined and are currently engaged in a fight against Moscow demonstrates that the political elites in these nations are aware of the cost of Russia’s success in the Ukrainian crisis.

But Russia itself struggled to accept its new historical position since, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country’s authorities thought that the West would take them in and help them with their economic problems. To put it mildly, the calculation was significantly flawed, but it required a series of mistakes for this seemingly obvious fact to surface. Many believed that Russia’s transition to capitalism was effectively building the framework for strong ties with industrialized nations, and Moscow’s considerable nuclear arsenal was considered a guarantee of this potentially profitable cooperation.

As ideological divisions appeared to vanish at the time, the Russian government made efforts to forge positive relations with both the United States and Western Europe, even if it meant making certain sacrifices.

Only the most perceptive Russian scientists understood that, owing to the very nature of the West, fulfilling this goal was unachievable; they claimed that we essentially desired a cabin on the Titanic before it sank.

It required several years of thorough research to come to the conclusion that the Western powers were not interested in working together on an equal footing and consistently demonstrated that Moscow was a junior partner who should merely follow the directives of Washington leaders.

It was, in part, a reflection of a superficial comprehension of recent history and the fundamentals of Russian civilization. Russia is a distinct, independent civilization that would be appropriately referred to as Eurasian because we have incorporated numerous, occasionally extremely dissimilar characteristics of both European and Asian cultures.

Poor knowledge of socioeconomic history did not allow for clear conclusions that the two civilizations, Western and Russian, are based on fundamentally different ideas.

For nearly 500 years, the West has accumulated its wealth by violently exploiting developing countries’ resources, imposing its dictates on them, and attempting to keep them under its control by any means, from blackmail to military intervention. The events in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan are the most visible manifestations of this doctrine.

The current international tensions are explained by the goal of the United States and its allies, whom it took over, to govern the entire world and impose its unipolar system in order to continue collecting “tribute” from humanity, that is, to live in the neocolonial paradigm, when the West existed by exploitation; they aim to remove anyone who does not agree with this method and the West’s dictate, standing for honest cooperation, equal interaction, and respect for each other.

However, the expansion of the economic, military, technological, and scientific capabilities of the major developing nations, especially BRICS and others, has caused the balance of power to start shifting in recent years in favor of these countries. And this process will only gain momentum.

The relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have improved after several years of tense relations through the mediation of China. The founding of the core of a new group of developing nations in South Africa demonstrates that many global political problems may be resolved without the involvement of the West. BRICS leaders have also repeatedly stressed that their group is not an anti-Western bloc and that its members are prepared to cooperate on an equal basis with Western nations.

The fact that more and more nations in the Global South are starting to openly challenge Western hegemony is also significant. “In fact,” the Saudi newspaper Arab News wrote in August this year, “there have been growing voices recently criticizing Western democracy, saying that the model is going through an internal crisis and that it is losing sight of many of the values on which it was built.” The Western form of democracy has been criticized in numerous works, which also foresee its impending demise as a transnational model “that non-Western countries could follow and emulate.”

According to the article’s author, it is undesirable to judge a nation’s development and fairness through the lens of Western democracy; the time of Western supremacy should be fully abandoned because the globe of today is shifting toward a multipolar one.

The world is currently becoming more fragmented; in other words, the West is progressively pitting itself against the nations of the Global South.

As regards the long term development, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva recently stated in Foreign Affairs magazine: “While estimates of the cost of fragmentation vary, greater international trade restrictions could reduce global economic output by as much as 7 percent over the long term, or about $7.4 trillion in today’s dollars. That’s equivalent to the combined size of the French and German economies and three times sub-Saharan Africa’s annual output. There are signs that cooperation is faltering. As the Chart of the Week shows, new trade barriers introduced annually have nearly tripled since 2019 to almost 3,000 last year.”

Unilateral sanctions policies disrupt established supply chains. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, believes that such activities run the risk of leading us down a perilous path that might devastate the global economy and lead to a less affluent and safer world.

The criticism of the West’s behavior has become louder and more meaningful. A September 1 article on Al Jazeera’s website notes: “As many as 828 million people – or 10 percent of the world’s population – go to bed hungry each night… Some people in the Global South who are afflicted by war, starvation, oppression, or poverty set out on risky treks over the desert and the sea in search of safety and wealth in the Global North because they believe their suffering will never end. However, Western powers, who take pleasure in being the creators of the fundamental notion of human rights, consider these refugees as adversaries rather than taking action to preserve their rights.”

All of this is proof of the “endless hypocrisy of the Global North.”

The author concludes his piece by saying the following: “We can only develop a more inclusive, diverse approach to defining and protecting the fundamental rights of every human being by moving away from the West’s hypocritical use of human rights as a discriminatory principle in international politics.”

In a meeting with French ambassadors abroad following the recent BRICS summit, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that the Global South no longer wants to rely solely on the West and is becoming more self-reliant.

The American elite is also starting to show signs of realism. On September 1 of this year, the New York Times published an article with the headline “American Power Just Took a Big Hit.” According to the author, this hit represents the growth of BRICS, which stands in for the decline of American hegemony. Sarang Shidore, the author, acknowledges that Biden’s theory of “democracy versus autocracy” has already been discredited. He advocates for a more realistic worldview, rejection of conventional concepts of American exceptionalism, and relearning the practice of cooperation.

This is a fascinating article, because prior to this, America’s preeminent political science publication had exclusively studied all events through the lens of how the US could better protect its leadership.

There is every reason to believe that the shift in power will occur at a faster rate. Additionally, given that the United States is already grappling with its own intractable domestic issues, Russia’s success in the special military operation in Ukraine will force American political elites to reevaluate their foreign policy stance.

 

Veniamin Popov, Director of the “Center for Partnership of Civilizations” in MGIMO (U) MFA of Russia, Candidate of Historical Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

 

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