Heine on the Ascension of Active Non-Alignment Amid U.S.-China Rivalry
Ambassador Jorge Heine, Research Professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Interim Director at the Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future in a new opinion piece for Business Day deliberates on how several developing economies are leveraging active non-alignment (ANA) to navigate the fierce competition between Washington D.C. and Beijing. With the simmering tariff war amidst the superpowers as well as drastic changes to the U.S. foreign policy, a new world order is likely to be underway. Heine asserts that countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with their adoption of ANA are prioritizing national interests without jeopardizing their relationship with the contemporary imperia of the East and the West.
“The term was originally coined in 2020 as a Latin American response to Trump’s pressures on the region during his first term, a time of a serious economic and health crisis and when countries in the western hemisphere were being cajoled to choose between Washington and Beijing.”
The ongoing U.S.-China relations might be reminiscent of the Cold War era to an observer, but Heine unpacks how they are fundamentally different. He clarifies that Russia back then was limited in terms of its trade and fiscal endeavors due to its closed economy as opposed to China’s fairly open market, possessing high purchasing powers and primary trade partnerships with numerous countries. This automatically makes China a formidable contender for trade and foreign investment, intensifying the race for global glory and key alliances.
ANA has already become an integral component of South Africa’s foreign policy, and many other countries in the Global South including Brazil, Honduras, Kenya, Angola, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam are following suit. Heine further explains that ANA operates as a tool for these developing economies to secure improved negotiation outcomes centered around their respective national interests rather than the other way around.
“This means playing the field but also hedging your bets, covering your back, equivocating and sending mixed signals in response to pressures from the Great Powers, and not letting yourself be cajoled into taking sides in this dispute. Active nonalignment is the best way to deal with situations of high uncertainty in which betting on the wrong horse can spell disaster.”
With the U.S. and China at loggerheads, Heine asserts that victors in the Global South “will be those who see opportunities in this great power competition and use them for their own benefit.”
To read the full piece, click here.
Prof. Jorge Heine is an international relations expert, a lawyer, and a diplomat. He has served as ambassador of Chile to China, India and South Africa, and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. He has written 18 books and his latest publication The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition, co-authored with Carlos Fortin and Carlos Ominami delves deeper into the return of non-alignment in its new form. Additionally, Heine has been a consultant to several organizations including the United Nations, the Ford Foundation, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Trinidad & Tobago Ministry of and External Affairs.