우크라이나 사태로 본 국제역학관계의 지각변동(SCMP)

 

최근에 브라질의 유력 대선주자인 PT(노동자당)의 룰라가 우크라이나 사태에 대해 러시아만큼 미국도 책임이 있다고 해서 국제적으로 언론의 이목을 끌었다. 표면적으로는 두 나라에게 다 책임을 둔 것으로 보이지만, 실질적으로는 미국을 비난한 것과 다름이 없다. 전쟁이 몇 달간 지속되는 지금 전쟁 억제력이 있는 미국에서 무기만 조달할 뿐 방관하는 것으로 보이며, 무엇보다 러시아의 우크라이나 침공 전에 미국이 전쟁을 적극적으로 막지 않았다는 룰라의 주장이었다. 미국을 중심으로 하는 서구 세력 및 그의 동맹국과 준동맹국들은 미국의 이라크침공때 그랬듯, 미국 정부의 주도적인 입장 발표아래 연일 계속되는 주요 언론들의 반러시아 및 러시아 악마화의 여론전으로, 러시아 비난의 수위를 높여왔다. 

그런데 아래 기사에서 보듯 전쟁이 장기화되는 상황에서 BRICS 국가들의 입장이 전혀 친서방적이지 않은 것이 노골적으로 드러나고 있다. 러시아는 당연히 전쟁 당사국이며 중국은 대만문제로 미래의 러시아 입장이 될 가능성이 아주 크므로 그렇다고 하겠지만, 러시아와 브라질 그리고 남아공의 입장이 상당히 중립적으로 돌아섰다는 것이 주목할 만하다. 특히 이번전쟁으로 인플레이션과 식량 및 에너지 대란 사태를 겪으며 각국의 국민 달래기에 총력을 다하고 있는 상황에서 미국이 전쟁을 방관하고 있고, 어떤 면에서는 재래식 무기만 지속적으로 보내면서 전쟁의 장기화를 부축이고 있는 것으로 보는 것 같다. 

바이든 정부에 들어서 아프간 주둔 미군 철수가 매끄럽지 않게 이루어지면서 국제사회에서 팍스아메리카나의 체면을 구겼고, 중국과의 계속되는 패권경쟁에서 주도권을 확실히 잡지 못하는 형세다. 그리고 이에 따라인구및 경제의 대국들인 BRICS는 더 이상 미국의 영향력에만 머물기를 바라지 않는 것으로 보이는 징후들이 드러난다. 아래 글에서 말하듯 최근의 미국의 눈치를 보지 않고 인도까지 참여한 BRICS 회의와 이에 대응한 바이든의 아시아 방문 외교가 그 한 예로 볼 수 있겠다. 세계의 힘의 균형이 어떻게 바뀔지 지금은 명확히 알 수 없지만, 세계대전과 냉전 이후 절대강자인 미국이 주도한 평화의 30년의 시기가 어쩌면 허물어져가고 있는 것은 아닌지 세계는 두려움의 눈으로 상황을 지켜보고 있다. 

원문

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3179576/how-western-sanctions-economic-pressures-are-feeding-brics?module=opinion&pgtype=homepage

 

A BRICS summit meeting held by videoconference on September 9, 2021. The five countries represent nearly half of the world’s population. Photo: Press Information Bureau via AP

 

The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met virtually for the BRICS summit recently, the first since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

This summit was unique for a number of reasons. First, there had been growing speculation that India would not attend because of its differences with China and warming ties with the United States.

 

Second, the summit brought together the five nations to discuss security and responses to global crises, among other issues, just as three of them – Russia, India and China – were facing crises at home. India is facing double-digit inflation growth, China has been forced into strict Covid-19 lockdowns and Russia’s war on Ukraine has brought its own economy to its knees.

Third, China has proposed an expansion of the BRICS grouping to include other emerging economies. Interestingly, foreign ministers or their representatives from Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand joined this year’s summit.

 

Putting an end to the rumours, India did attend the summit and its policy of multi-alignment remains unshaken. However, the other two developments signal the group’s rapidly growing significance and show an attempt to create an alternative bloc to the post-war Western system.

The actions of BRICS nations, individually more than collectively, such as helping countries in need and resisting Western criticism of their foreign policies, suggest a growing desire for a parallel mechanism.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands with other leaders at the 2016 BRICS summit in Goa, India. Photo: AP

The impact of rising commodity prices, including for wheat and crude oil, is being felt more sharply in the poorer economies of the Global South than in the West, and there has been growing sentiment that the rise was a product of the West’s unilateral sanctions on Russia, leaving countries across the Global South to fend for themselves.

Most recently, India supplied petrol and diesel to Sri Lanka, which is battling unrest and bankruptcy. At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, when China, India and Russia rushed to supply vaccines to the Global South, the US held back and the Biden administration took time to find methods to circumvent the Trump administration’s ban on vaccines exports.

Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s riposte to media questions last month about his county’s position on Ukraine was a clear sign that New Delhi was not going to jump on the Western bandwagon any time soon.

Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar speaks to the media in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 28. At the Raisina Dialogue held earlier, he said: “In terms of Afghanistan, please show me which part of the rules-based order justified what the world did there.” Photo: EPA-EFE

Similarly, decades ago, India agreed to supply Brazil with cheaper generic drugs for Aids treatment after price talks broke down with US drug maker Merck & Co. Brazil’s HIV/Aids crisis could have been much worse if not for India’s timely help.

Over the past two decades, while the West has courted India through trade, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and other multilateral groupings, its position as a former colony and a leader of the non-aligned movement make an allegiance with the West unlikely.

Similarly, Brazil’s policy of having its feet in both worlds may not change any time soon. In the past, its socialist leadership has influenced its friendships and partners. While President Jair Bolsonaro’s cozying up to former US president Donald Trump, and therefore towards America and the West, should not be discounted, Brazil did not cut ties with China or dance to the tunes of the West.

As its foreign minister made clear recently, it will not be joining the West in condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

China is the leader of this movement. Other than offering vaccine diplomacy, China’s diplomats have hit out at what they see as the West’s hypocrisy on human rights, including Australian military misconduct in Afghanistan, and the US “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China is often the first to establish diplomatic relations with countries shunned by the West, the latest being the Taliban’s Afghanistan. China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative runs predominantly across the developing world, providing much-needed infrastructure and investment.

South Africa is no different from the other four in that it has not buckled under Western pressure to condemn Russia.

As for Russia, it continues to have the most to gain from strengthening groupings such as BRICS. Given its economic isolation and military losses, the ailing nation cannot afford to lose partners in the Global South that have either stood at its side or have abstained from voting against it in multilateral platforms.

While the cause of supporting postcolonial societies could be a galvanising force, the China-India border dispute could become a perennial threat to any coordinated BRICS effort. Nevertheless, the likes of the New Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have so far been able to go about their work, shielded from bilateral disputes.

A day after the BRICS summit concluded, US President Joe Biden made his inaugural visit to Asia. He has a tough job trying to sell his Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) to a part of the world that already has two massive trade blocs – the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The IPEF, which is merely a framework without provisions for access to the US market, may not be the most enticing offer for Asian nations after Biden’s promise that “America is back”.

In the next few months, as the global economy goes on a tumultuous ride, the appeal of Biden’s economic framework and the role of BRICS in global affairs will become clearer.

Akhil Ramesh is a fellow at the Pacific Forum