Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has provoked, in addition to death and destruction, the gestation of a new global geopolitical order. Such is the impact of the Russian President’s decision to launch another era of imperial wars. His decision, which contravenes the international legal order agreed upon at the end of World War II, seeks to legitimize the seizure by an assault of territories belonging to countries legally recognized by the world community. And all in pursuit of its fantasy of building a hegemon capable of rivaling other economic and political blocs, mainly the European Union with the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, seconded by Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
Faced with the military blunder of invading Ukraine without the necessary preparations for a prolonged war, Russia turned to China in search of economic and political, but mainly military, support. That Asian country, involved in its competition with the United States and Europe, found in Russia’s desperation a necessary and valuable ally for expanding its economic and political power and its military muscle.
Taiwan is to China, what Ukraine is to Russia. They are edible cakes to the growing voracity of expanding powers, especially considering that Ukraine and Taiwan are, in peacetime, formidable economic machines, both in agriculture and in the generation of advanced AI technology, industry, and finance. That, aside from the value they bring from their geographic location.
No country in the world escapes the effect of this shift in economic, political, and military alliances on a global scale. A second cold war is beginning to unfold before our eyes in real time. This makes it urgent to understand its possible scope and impact regionally and in our country.
During the so-called Cold War, many countries in the world opted for a policy of neutrality in the face of the competition between the socialist and capitalist worlds. They did not want to become the surrogate battlefield of the giants, as happened to Vietnam, Korea, Angola, Congo, Cuba, and many others.
The grouping of neutral countries found a home in the Non-Aligned Movement. The conflict between the socialist and capitalist blocs aroused ideological passions because of the dispute over the economic model best adapted to the world’s needs and the form of governance best suited to each case. Governments anxious not to get caught up in the proxy wars of the time had market economies, with more or less state intervention in regulating or producing goods.
The end of the Cold War closed the debate on socialism and capitalism. Today the world is a market economy. China and Russia are market economies with a wealthy bourgeois class but subordinated to the political leadership of the State and the ruling party. Therefore, the dispute of this new axis against the West is not strictly ideological but rather about economic predominance and its resulting political and military power.
If the East-West dispute is not ideological, then what is its basis? The struggle for hegemony in the markets seeks to control the origin and sufficient supply of raw materials, food, and water, as well as the minerals needed to supply current technological development. Minerals for electric vehicles, ensuring electric power supply lines, space exploration, and military and intelligence control of new frontiers of human exploration. The competition for scientific knowledge is the great battlefield between powers, especially between the West and China. Whoever has the knowledge controls the world.
Russia is a weak competitor in scientific discoveries since its development in this field is poor and backward. But it always defends its place at the world table because it has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. It is a compelling argument.
The war in Ukraine remains at the center of this process of realignment of forces worldwide. Russia and China say they yearn for peace and accuse the West of promoting war. This is despite the minor detail that it was precisely Russia that initiated the war of territorial aggression to seize Ukraine illegally. Obviously, China supports Russia’s claim of territorial occupation because it longs to do the same with Taiwan.
Brazil allies itself with China and Russia in its false desire for peace in Ukraine and questions the fierce appetite of the United States to arm the Ukrainians. AMLO implicitly supports Russia and insists that the United States is a declining power and China a rising one; Russia is grateful for Mexican support, and the Russian Foreign Ministry announces that it enjoys a grand alliance with Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. However, Russia does not offer investment for economic development in Latin America, and China has an extractivist interest in our region. China seeks raw materials all over the world.
At the same time, the Presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia stop at the White House to seek Washington’s support for their domestic economic tribulations. Brazil and Colombia do not have majorities in their Congresses, the Argentine government is on the verge of losing power, and Mexico is rapidly reaching a boiling point.
Mexico is undoubtedly the most erratic and aberrant case in the entire region. On the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Mexican Ambassador to the UN says one thing, and the President says the opposite. While the President calls on the United States to expand its trade agreements internally, he hinders the economic relationship. He declares the United States as an intrusive power, while China is, for him, the world’s future. He makes alliances with Latin American dictatorships and boycotts meetings with Biden until he receives his “special” invitation to the White House. He does not travel to meet other leaders and waits in his palace, assuming they will visit him. Only those who need money come, like the Cuban, who has reached four times.
In the face of bloc confrontation, neutrality may be an option for Latin American countries. But in a world where the dispute is for goods and services and not for ideologies, governments have to define themselves around the interest of each market. Brazil may have a close relationship with China because it buys its soybeans and other raw materials and is home to a sizeable Chinese population.
On the other hand, Mexico sells 80% or more of its products to the United States, while almost 30 million Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, or Americans of Mexican origin live in the neighboring country. These are qualitatively different situations. These conditions do not give rise to ideological fantasies of other times but to public policies anchored in reality.
Today, confrontations between nations and blocs of countries arise from the growing need for scarce raw materials and water, goods, and skilled and unskilled labor. Ideologies imprint a different character on each nation, where disputes between democratic societies and autocratic regimes are accentuated.
Neither Brazil nor Mexico can be neutral regarding their markets’ interests and their people’s welfare. Brazil looks to China, and Mexico looks to the United States. And those looks define which side they will be on when counting which bloc represents the majority interest of each nation.
I doubt that China’s autocratic regime represents the interest of most Brazilian people, but Lula says it does.
The liberal and democratic system of the bloc of countries that support Ukraine does represent more clearly the aspiration of the Mexican people and matches our economic interests. That is what our government could celebrate instead of wanting to walk against Mexico’s economic and political reality.
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