Rebalancing the Scales: U.S.-China Competition and the Struggle for Agency in the Global South

The geopolitically driven competition between China and the United States is forging a new world order of international relations. Whereas the Global North is fixated on ideological alignment and system competition, most of the Global South is handling this new reality with pragmatism and agency. From infrastructure transactions and digital connectivity to vaccine diplomacy and military training programs, the two powers are competing for establishing lasting influence in African, Latin American and Southeast Asian countries and economies. Nonetheless, this competition is not happening in a vacuum as it is engaging with colonial legacies, economic dependency, and uneven development, which threaten to turn the Global South into a domain of contestation, not cooperation.

With regards to China’s strategy, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative, it has been focused mainly on grand infrastructure investments and soft loans. This has enabled Beijing to develop close connections in regions previously low on the priority lists of Western powers. On the other hand, the United States has attempted to reclaim its dominance through alliances based on governance, democratic institutions, and resisting authoritarianism. However, both strategies tend to shortchange local priorities as well as recipient states’ agency, which may lead to the Global South becoming a passive recipient of great power agendas, rather than a local force deciding its own destiny. This dynamic is reflective of deeper issues in the international system given that International financial institutions, aid donors, and diplomatic alliances have for decades functioned on a paradigm of highly concentrated decision-making power by a small group of dominant powers. Conditionalties attached to aid packages, preferential trade agreements, and debt instruments have thus reflected major dependency patterns instead of empowerment of the States in the Global South. The competition from today’s U.S.-China rivalry is in danger of consolidating this status quo by simply substituting one dominant power for another rather than creating a more balanced international system. The Global South is well aware of this reality as from Brazil and Indonesia to South Africa and Kenya, states are more actively asserting their presence on the global stage. For instance, through involvement in the BRICS grouping, advocating for African Union admission to the G20, or promoting regional integration channels, states in the Global South are proving that they are not just onlookers. Nonetheless, short of structural changes to global governance and a modification of the manner in which both Washington and Beijing act abroad, the agency of the Global South could remain merely symbolic and not substantive.

The U.S.’ and China’s leadership must understand that transactional alliances in the form of loans, military aid, or single-shot summits are inadequate as well as realizing that a recasting towards locally based, long-term partnerships is absolutely necessary. For the U.S., this implies a move away from democratic values rhetoric and a doubling down on quality infrastructure, climate resiliency, and equitable trade partnerships, which should be aimed at fostering local industry and local institutional capacities. Furthermore, Washington needs to promote technology transfer and intellectual property sharing in the domain of green energy and digital connectivity, in order for nations in the Global South to be able to acquire sovereignty-based capacities, instead of being reliant on foreign suppliers.

Conversely, China should address the rising issues of debt sustainability, transparency, and environmental considerations of its investments. It needs to carry out meaningful consultation with local communities, promote co-ownership of projects, as well as African-Asian-led institutions as opposed to imposing itself on them given that development that is grounded in national plans and honours local know-how is considerably more sustainable compared to top-down strategies that are driven by expediency and spectacle at the expense of sustainability. Moreover, both of these powers, as well as the international community at large, should attempt to promote changes in global governing institutions to empower the Global South. The World Bank, IMF, and WTO must be reformed in order to bring them in line with contemporary economic realities as well as to provide equal representation and regional institutions such as the African Union, ASEAN, and CELAC need to be afforded a greater presence in multilateral negotiations as well as in efforts at tackling global and regional crises.

In conclusion, with the escalating U.S.-China rivalry, the Global South stands at a crossroads. Despite being drawn into another Cold War dichotomy is a danger, there is also the chance to remake the international system as a truly multipolar, inclusive, development-centered system. Decision-makers will need to shift from competition to cooperation, from paternalism to partnership if they are to capture this moment. Only then can the Global South become a force for global change, not simply a recipient of it.

By The World Forum on Peace and Security