Two coiled springs explain why so many countries in the global South and East side with Russia on Ukraine
Timothy Garton AshSource:
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Tell me your Ukraine and I will tell you who you are. The Ukrainian crisis is a political Rorschach test, not just for individuals but also for states. What it reveals to us is not encouraging for the West. It turns out that Vladimir Putin has more admirers around the world than you might expect for someone using a neo-Soviet combination of violence and the big lie to dismember a neighbouring sovereign state. When I say admirers, I don't just mean the governments of Venezuela and Syria, two of his most vocal supporters. Russia's strongman garners tacit support, and even some quiet plaudits, from some of the world's most important emerging powers, starting with China and India.
During a recent visit to China I kept being asked what was going on in Ukraine, and I kept asking in return about the Chinese attitude to it. Didn't a country which has so consistently defended the principle of respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of existing states (be they former Yugoslavia or Iraq), and which itself has a couple of prospective Crimeas (Tibet, Xinjiang), feel uneasy about Russia simply grabbing a chunk of a neighbouring country?
Well, came the reply, that was a slight concern, but Ukraine was a long way away and, frankly speaking, the positives of the crisis outweighed the negatives for China. The United States would have another strategic distraction (after Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and Iraq) to hinder its 'pivot' to the Asia-Pacific region and divert its attention from China. Cold-shouldered by the West, Russia would be more dependent on a good relationship with Beijing. As for Ukraine, which already sells China higher-grade military equipment than Russia has so far been willing to share with its great Asian ally: why, the new Ukrainian authorities had already quietly assured the Chinese authorities that Beijing's failure to condemn the annexation of Crimea would not affect their future relations. What's not to like in all that?
Beside this realpolitik, I was told, there is also an emotional component. Chinese leaders such as Xi Jinping, who grew up under Chairman Mao, still instinctively warmed to the idea of another non-western leader standing up to the capitalist and imperialist West. 'Xi likes Putin's Russia', said one well-informed observer. Chinese media commentary has become more cautious since Putin moved on from Crimea to stirring the pot in eastern Ukraine. The nationalist Global Times, which last month spoke of 'Crimea's return to Russia', now warns that 'Ukraine's eastern region is different from the Crimea. Secession of the region from Ukraine strikes a direct blow to territorial integrity guaranteed by international law'. (But then, Putin is not aiming at outright secession: just a Finlandised Greater Bosnia, a neutral country with a version of 'federalism' so far-reaching that the eastern regions would become Bosnia-style entities, within a Russian sphere of influence.)
However, this growing concern did not apparently cool the warmth of the welcome given to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Beijing on Tuesday. President Xi said that relations between China and Russia 'are at their best' and have played 'an irreplaceable role in maintaining world peace and stability'. The Chinese Foreign Ministry pronounced China-Russia to be the 'major-country relationship that boasts the richest contents, the highest level and the greatest strategic significance'. Cry your eyes out, USA. And Beijing looks forward to welcoming President Putin for a major summit next month.
It is not just China. A friend of mine has just returned from India. He notes that, with the likely electoral success of Narendra Modi and the growth of India's own 'crony capitalism', liberal Indian friends fear that the world's largest democracy might be getting its own version of Putinismo. In any case, India has so far effectively sided with Russia rather than the West over Ukraine. Last month, President Putin thanked India for its 'restrained and objective' stance on Crimea. India's postcolonial obsession with sovereignty, and resentment of any hint of Western liberal imperialism, plays out - rather illogically - in support for a country that has just dramatically violated its neighbour's sovereignty . An Indian satirical magazine even suggested that Putin had been hired as 'the chief strategic consultant for India in order to bring a once-for-all end to the Kashmir issue'. Oh, and by the way, India gets a lot of its arms from Russia.
And it is not just India. Russia's two other partners in the so-called BRICS group, Brazil and South Africa, both abstained on the UN General assembly resolution criticising the Crimea referendum. They also joined Russia in expressing 'concern' at the Australian foreign minister's suggestion that Putin might be barred from attending a G-20 summit in November. The Russian ambassador to South Africa expressed appreciation for its 'balanced' attitude.
What the West faces here is the uncoiling of two giant springs. One, which has been extensively commented upon, is the coiled spring of Mother Russia's resentment at the way her empire has shrunk over the last 25 years – all the way back from the heart of Germany to the heart of Kievan Rus.
The other is the coiled spring of resentment at centuries of Western colonial domination. This takes very different forms in different BRICS countries and members of the G-20. They certainly don't all have China's monolithic, relentless narrative of national humiliation since Britain's Opium Wars. But one way or another, they do share a strong and prickly concern for their own sovereignty, a resistance to North Americans and Europeans telling them what is good for them, and a certain instinctive glee, or Schadenfreude, at seeing Uncle Sam (not to mention little John Bull) being poked in the eye by that pugnacious Russian. Viva Putinismo!
Obviously this is not the immediate issue on the ground in Ukraine, but it is another big vista opened up by the east European crisis. In this broader, geopolitical sense, take note: as we go deeper into the 21st-century, there will be more Ukraines.
Timothy Garton Ash is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, where he currently leads the freespeechdebate project, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His latest book is Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name
A good analysis, maybe to add: The USA and Great Britain have lost their credibility to be an anchor of democracy and freedom in the world after all the NSA and GCHQ scandals, spying on each and every citizen, even on politicians in 'friendly' countries, wiretapping Internet cables owned by American companies and the attempt of their governments to downplay this scandal and to silence critical media like the Guardian. So, not surprising that Russian cannot be seen as the bad guy when there is no good guy any more. I think Putin made a coup by granting Snowden asylum in Russia - it did did much more for Russia's image in the world than the dozens of billions of dollars spend/wasted for the Olympic games.
(Comm. Parrisson, 23 April 2014 09:29)
Putin's mooves against Ukrainia are at the edge of legality...One could say at the dark side of the edge.
Yet his popularity is not a proof of his geopolitical skills (altough he is skilled) but an index of how much the world is fed-up with the US policy.
No matter what putin does, his mooves are seen as a major act of resistance to the US policy that many people in Africa, Asia and Muslim world are waiting for.
(Coco, 24 April 2014 13:37)
As usual, those in the west see Russia as the aggessor when clearly it is the peacekeeper and defender of the homeland. There is no Ukraine and there never has been; it has always been Kievien Rus! Any attempts of the region to be anything else have always resulted in instability and civil unrest. The real culprit here is Washington and it's blinky cronies who keep egging the Kiev junta on toward its own destruction.
(Dana Roskovich Botkin, 26 April 2014 15:14)
Who is NATO, who is America? Bullies, that's who. Keep your noses out of other countries. Bravo to Putin to take a stance to these aggressors. If Srbija did the same we would not have what we have today, a mess in the former Jugoslavija. Srbija needs to take a stance and do the same as Putin with Kosovo & Metohija.
America (nato) need to be sent to Hague and be trialled for the bombing of Beograd (that is an act of terrorism) also for supporting and training the Muslims in Bosna/Kosovo. America then talks about the War on terror, absolute hypocrites. Look what they did to Iraq and many other countries. America used their own people to fight, for what? Their own business interests! War is war and cannot be one sided. The Bosnians, Croats and Serbs all did the same. No one speaks about the ethnic cleansing of Serbs out of Croatia. Look at statistics, how many orthodox people lived in Croatia prior the war in 1991 and how many now. Open your eyes people. The back then Jugoslavs all lived as brothers regardless of religion until the west through a spanner in the works.
Now the west again is throwing a spanner in the works with the Russian/Ukranian crisis. I hope it doesn't turn out to be another replica of what happened in the Balkans. If Putin stands his ground and has other countries to back him then it won't. America, are you frightened to have the former Soviet Union rebirth? Clean your own mess up, you have a lot of it.
(Dana, 4 May 2014 01:29)
If every leader that had the power to invade other countries and annex their wealthiest regions, under the pretext of protecting minorities of the mother country, were to do so, it would be a recipe for world war and empire. Perhaps Serbia would do well, reassembling into something like Yugoslavia. Perhaps Turkey or Austria and Hungary would obliterate Serbia. Or perhaps it would just be an indecisive fight unto eternity. What is clear from the thought experiment is that the might is right rules of Putin are a global catastrophe.
(Theo Horesh, 20 May 2014 10:16)