For decades, the Washington foreign-policy establishment thought itself invincible, foolishly believing that its liberal-globalist vision would inevitably become the world’s standard protocol.
Now, however, a competing vision — led by China and Russia — is rapidly gaining ground and threatening to make not just the D.C. establishment, but the United States as a country, irrelevant.
One by one, nation after nation is forsaking the U.S.-led world order and entering the column of the Russo-Sino alliance.
Africa has been an ongoing project in western humanitarianism with questionable returns. In 2022 alone, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) gave over $6 billion in multi-sector humanitarian assistance to Africa.
Despite this, Africa is increasingly becoming a fertile ground of recruitment for new allies to Moscow and Beijing.
Recent developments demonstrate South Africa’s drift toward Russia and China.
As Breitbart News reported, the South African electoral commission collected disclosures from all of the nation’s political parties during the last quarter.
It turns out the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), took 15 million rand ($826,000) from United Manganese of Kalahari Ltd., a mining company linked to Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg — who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) accused ANC of letting these donations influence its position on the Russia-Ukraine War. The South African government has taken a stance of neutrality, and the country twice abstained from UN resolutions condemning Russia.
“This explains what the ANC government’s approach to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is because it’s on the receiving end of millions of rands in donations from Russian oligarchs. It flies in the face of South Africa’s quest for and respect for human rights as the light that guides our foreign policy,” DA spokesman Solly Malatsi said to Voice of America News.
And as The New American previously reported, South Africa last month hosted joint military exercises with Russia and China.
TNA’s Anthea Pollock previously wrote how China is winning over many African nations:
Many Africans view Europe as a self-serving continent that has deliberately “misunderstood” what Africans have wanted or needed through the centuries, and they view Westerners in general as being under the misguided notion that the “dark continent” is a passive, helpless entity to be exploited — a trove of natural resources and cheap labor.
On the contrary, for at least the last decade, China has effectively portrayed itself as a safe and favored economic partner for African countries wishing to emulate the Asian nation’s rapid development. However, China’s traits of “new colonialism” and inhumane tendencies are slowly being unveiled to Africans with each passing day.
It remains to be seen whether outrage with Beijing’s “new colonialism” will be enough to dissuade African countries from rejecting Chinese business funding and medical aid, especially given Africa’s long resentment against the west.
And just as China is leveraging long-running resentment against Europeans to gain support in Africa, Russia is likewise playing to many countries’ long-held resentment against U.S. hegemony in order to win them over to its side.
This can be seen in Eastern Europe, where Putin has varying levels of support from leaders in countries such as Hungary and Croatia.
But Russia is also successfully playing this card in global hotspots such as the Middle East, where anti-American animosity is especially high. Putin is particularly using this tactic to make allies out of regimes that Washington has turned into international pariahs, such as Iran.
In fact, Moscow has now become the number-one foreign investor in Iran.
In addition, Russia is striving to win over countries which have typically been seen as friendly to the United States. Moscow has now started exporting diesel to Saudi Arabia and welcomed an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran restoring relations between the two nations.
Russia has also carefully moved to add India to its column, helping it build up its military and becoming India’s fourth-largest source of imports — especially crude oil.
Ultimately, much of the appeal of the Russo-Sino alliance has been a reactionary one stemming from Washington’s own blunders. Through its incessant interventionism, war-mongering, and sanction-diplomacy, the United States has made enemies of a large swath of the international community. Not surprisingly, these nations are all too happy to join a new world order that provides them with economic and military security from Washington’s punitive actions.
In short, Washington has itself to blame; its long train of neoconservative internationalism has resulted in many burned bridges and the creation of enemies where it should have had allies.
In addition, Putin and Xi have intelligently taken the opposite approach to Washington, which seeks to force its vision of diversity, open borders, LGBT acceptance, and “democracy” on all the world. Russia and China don’t demand their allies completely reshape their societies; they simply ask to scratch each other’s backs when it comes to trade and war.
Nations that inevitably want to preserve, not erase, their identities and socio-political systems are naturally drawn to the appeal of a system in which they aren’t forced to become carbon copies of liberal New York or California or else face the economic and military wrath of Washington.
