Jeffrey Sachs on China's "Historic" Push for Multipolar World to End U.S. Domination

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman in New York

joined by democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez in Chicago hi Juan hi Amy and welcome to all of our

listeners and viewers across the country and around the world China is facing criticism in Europe

after China's ambassador to France questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet States under international law

during a television interview the Baltic countries Lithuania Latvia Estonia

condemned the remarks and summoned Chinese envoys to explain beijing's official position the Chinese foreign

Ministry walked back the ambassador's comment saying quote China respects all countries sovereignty Independence and

territorial integrity The Diplomatic spat comes as China is making headlines across the globe though

maybe not so much in the United States for its diplomatic efforts in late

February China released a 12 point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine on March

10th Iran and Saudi Arabia announced they would restore ties as part of an

agreement brokered by China days later in mid-march Chinese president Xi

Jinping hosted the Brazilian present Luis inacio Lula de Silva to talk about

Ukraine trade and moving away from the U.S dollar Xi Jinping then met with French

president Emmanuel McCall in Beijing during macomb's visit she spoke about

the roles of China and France in world affairs

the world today is undergoing profound historic changes as permanent members of

the U.N security Council and major countries with the tradition of Independence China and France as

promoters of the multi-polarization of the world and the democratization of international relations have the ability

and responsibility to transcend differences adhere to the comprehensive strategic

Cooperative Partnerships between China reciprocity development and progress

practice true multilateralism and maintain World Peace stability and

prosperity while in Beijing the French President Emmanuel macron suggested France and European nations should not

become a vassal of the United States when it comes to Taiwan

France supports the single China policy and the search for peaceful solution to the

situation for that matter it's Europe's position it's a position so it has always been compatible with the role of

an ally but it's precisely why I'm stressing the important of strategic

autonomy Ally doesn't mean being a vassal um it's not because we do things

together that we can't think alone that we're going to follow the people in that are the toughest in a country that's

allied with us when we look at the facts France has lessons to be received from no one be either in Ukraine and saw hell

or in Taiwan China's continued its diplomatic Outreach by offering last week to hold

talks between Israel and Palestine to look more at China's recent diplomatic actions we're joined by

Jeffrey Sachs director of the center for sustainable development at Columbia University and president of the UN

sustainable development Solutions Network he's also served as advisor to three U.N secretaries General and

currently serves as a sustainable development Solutions Advocate under Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez his

latest article published is headline the need for a new U.S foreign policy

Professor Sachs thanks so much for being with us all of the Diplomatic gestures of China

you know the meeting with macron in Beijing with Lula in Beijing brokering

this deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia now offering not only to negotiate

between Ukraine and Russia but Israel and Palestine this hardly gets attention

in the United States India but around the world the headlines are far more

there are far more headlines about this talk about the significance of this and

you if you see a direct parallel between all the Headway that China is making and

increasing U.S hostility towards China thanks Amy very good to be with you and

indeed this is a a crucial topic and as president Xi Jinping said in that

meeting with macron this is a it is a historic Watershed that the world is

living through right now uh what China is after if we view it from China's

perspective is what was also said true multilateralism and what that means are

true multi-polarity another term that they use and that means they don't want

a U.S led World they want a multi-polar world and the basis of that is that the

United States is 4.1 percent of the world population China is 17.5 of the

world population China's economy is comparable to the U.S economy and indeed China is the lead

trade partner for much of the world so China is saying we're there to alongside

you we want a multi-polar world we don't want a U.S led world and while the

United States sometimes talks about a rule-based order

the fact of the matter is that the U.S Grand strategy if we can use that term

of the grand strategists of the U.S state

see our grand strategy in the United States as being dominance and I often

refer to a an article that I think is very clear uh succinct and revealing by

a former colleague of mine at Harvard University Robert Blackwell and esteemed

ambassador of the United States who wrote in 2015 and I'll quote from the

article since its founding the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and

maintaining preeminent power over various Rivals first on the North

American continent then in the Western Hemisphere and finally globally

well China doesn't want the United States to be the preeminent power it

wants to live alongside the United States Blackwell writing in 2015 uh said

China's rise is a threat to U.S preeminence and he laid out a series of

steps that the Biden Administration actually is following almost step by

step what Blackwell laid out already back in 2015 is that the United States should

create quote new preferential trading Arrangements among U.S friends and

allies to increase their Mutual gains through instruments that consciously exclude China there should be a

technology control regime to block China's strategic capabilities a buildup

of quote power political capacities of U.S friends and allies on China's

periphery and strengthen U.S military forces along the Asian rimland despite any Chinese

opposition this has become the Biden foreign policy China knows it China

really is pushing back but what's very important and interesting to understand

and we've seen it clearly in the Dynamics involving the Ukraine war most of the

world also does not want the U.S as the

as the the global preeminent power most of the world wants a multi-polar world

and does is therefore not lined up behind the United States sanctions on

Russia and so forth and this was also the message of President Lula visiting

China saying to president XI ji ping we as Brazil

also want multi-polarity true multi-polarity and we want peace

for example in the Russian Ukraine war that is based on not a U.S perception of

dominance say nato enlargement but rather a piece that reflects a

multi-polar world this is real it's happening all over the

world and the the fact of the matter is the reason why this is a historic

Watershed is that the underlying economics and technological change have

made it so the the U.S is no longer the dominant World economy and the G7 which

is the U.S Canada Britain France Italy Germany and Japan is actually smaller

than the brics countries in economic size which is Brazil Russia India China

and South Africa so we really are in fact in a multi-polar world but in

ideology we're we're in a conflict uh Jeffrey Sachs I wanted to ask about

that uh you mentioned the bricks of the the uh the the brics bank that is now in

China uh and the president Lula has named Wilma Rousseff as the as the head

of the Brinks back its importance in terms of this multi uh multi-polarity of

in the world economies the the the potential for even the creation of

alternative uh of major currencies to the dollar as a result of the brics

alliance the impact of that uh on uh world affairs

this is a big deal and in fact the United States is withdrawing it doesn't

know it necessarily our politicians don't understand this but our politicians are withdrawing from the

world financial and monetary scene and opening up the space for a completely

different kind of Interest international finance I'll give you an example the the U.S was the creator of the World Bank

but now the U.S Congress won't put new money into the World Bank and because of

that the world bank's actually a quite small institution's got a big name but it's a quite small institution in the

financial scheme of things the U.S won't put more money in the Congress says no

why should we waste our money internationally and so forth and we get a lot of hubbub about that so China and

the rest of the brics say okay we'll make our own Development Bank and they establish the new development bank or

sometimes called the brics bank based in Shanghai and that's just one of the

institutions that is really changing the scene there's the Asia infrastructure Investment Bank aiib based in Beijing in

fact there is as president Lula uh said and it's happening also in the context

of the Ukraine war a move away from the use of the dollar which the United

States has thought well that's that's our race in the whole you know that is our ultimate hold on things because we

can use sanctions we can use our financial control to keep other

countries in line but other countries are saying not so much will trade in

Redmond B we'll trade in Rubles we'll trade in rupees we'll we'll trade in our

own National currencies and they're quickly setting up alternative institutions to do this the United

States doubles down we will confiscate your reserves we will if you don't follow and the other countries are

saying you know if you want to go through the UN and get

really multilateral rules or with you

but but if you want uh to just impose the rules we won't follow along and so

we have this very funny expression called a rule-based international order the United States government uses it

every day but what does it mean who writes the rules and what most of the

world wants in fact is rules written in a multi-polar or multilateral setting

not rules written by the United States and a few friends and allies

I wanted to ask you uh you've been an advisor to uh to the United Nations for

uh quite often the issue of how much longer the permanent members of the

security Council can keep the number to five because clearly Brazil and other

countries of the global South have been saying the U.N needs to be reformed and countries from Latin America

specifically Brazil and Africa should have representation on the U.N security

Council permanent members yes you know the P5 the permanent five

which is the United States China Russia France and the United Kingdom was the

World War II Victor group in 1945. they

wrote Into the rules of the UN incidentally that they would be the permanent Security Council Members and

have a veto over any change in the U.N Charter so it's it's really a group that

gave itself uh power that the other

188 countries of the world look on and say what is this we need change I I

would say the country that is most amazed and frustrated by this in fact is

India India is now the most populous country in the world the United States

has 335 million roughly in the population uh

Britain France uh roughly 60 million India 1.4 billion not on the security

Council a nuclear power a world superpower the president of the G20 this

year really not happy about that uh Brazil

the large largest economy of South America similarly uh not on the security

Council so this has been an issue for more than 20 years the P5 in various

ways have blocked uh particular countries but added up the P5 have said

you know what this is our club we want to stay as the permanent five but I think as we really face the reality of a

it's not just a post-us dominated world but actually a

post-western dominated world because it was the U.S as the dominant power among

the so-called West which means the U.S Britain European Union uh and honorary

Western membership Japan let's say but we're post-western as well as post-us

indominance and these International institutions will need to change or they

won't function in the 21st century and if they don't function it's actually a

disaster for us if they didn't exist we'd have to make them because we need them to function so we also need to

renovate them I wanted to talk about China negotiating

these various agreements um let's turn to Brazil's president Luis

enacio Lula de Silva speaking before his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping

what does Putin want Putin can't keep Ukraine's territory maybe we don't even

discuss Crimea but he will have to rethink what he has invaded also zielinski can't have everything he wants

to demand NATO will not be able to set itself up at the border so this is something we have to put on a table

foreign I think this war has dragged on for too

long Brazil has already criticized what it had to criticize Brazil defends each

nation's territorial Integrity so we disagree with Russia's invasion of Ukraine because it looks like

um Ukraine is on the verge of a major counter-offensive against Russia and in

order to do this needs massive support from Western countries meaning military weapons can you talk about

what China's role is here the peace plan it has put forward but also these other

deals that China is helping to negotiate like the success the successful

rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran and then with their uh what they're

suggesting about Israel and Palestine president Lula uttered in a few words

the core of this issue that our most of our media dare not explain to the

American people and that is the expansion of NATO this is a war fundamentally about the

U.S attempt to expand a U.S military Alliance to Ukraine and to Georgia

Georgia's a country in the caucuses also on the Black Sea the U.S strategy going

back decades has been to surround Russia in the Black Sea with Ukraine Romania

Bulgaria turkey and Georgia all NATO members surrounding Russia and its naval

fleet in the Black Sea with a naval fleet that has been the Black Sea naval fleet of Russia since 1783. Russia has

said this is our red line and it has said that for decades and it said this

clearly in 2007 before George W Bush Jr had the I'll call it the harebrained

idea to announce in 2008 and force NATO to announce that Ukraine will be a

member of NATO and this is what president Lula was saying and what president what president

XI ji ping of China has been saying we can't have a war that is essentially a

proxy war between Russia and the United States over the expansion of

the U.S military Alliance right up to a 1200 kilometer and more border with

Russia which Russia views and I would say understandably views as a fundamental national security threat to

Russia keep some space keep some distance that's president Lula's meaning

that's what China means when it says in its peace plan we want a peace plan that

respects the security interests of all parties what that is is code word for

saying make peace end the war but don't expand NATO right up to the border the

American people have not heard an explanation of this all along it's shocking to me because as a close

Observer of this for 30 years this has been the Casas bellai and yet our

newspapers won't even report the background to this but this is why China

South Africa India Brazil are saying we

want peace but we don't want NATO expansion as the meaning of so-called

peace we want the big superpowers to give each other some space and some

distance so that the world isn't on a knife edge that's exactly what president Lula was saying and it's exactly what

the meaning of the Chinese peace initiative is is to say yes absolutely

make peace protect Ukraine's sovereignty and its security but no to Nato

expansion but the Biden Administration won't even discuss this issue that has been the major failing and the reason

why we have not been able to get to the negotiating table in my opinion even

when zielinski said in March 2022 maybe not NATO maybe something else Russia and

Ukraine were close to an agreement and the United States into being with Ukraine and said we don't think that's a

good agreement because the U.S neocon so-called have been pushing for NATO

enlargement as the core of this issue but this goes back to the more General point for us which is that what is at

stake in Ukraine and over Taiwan and many other issues from the point of view

of China or Russia or other countries including Brazil now Saudi Arabia Iran

and others is whether the U.S does what it wants to do or whether the U.S

respects some limits based on what other countries say well this is what we think

so that we need true multi-polarity not U.S dominance alone rules written by all

of us not rules written just by the United States and Jeff sacks we only have a few uh

about a minute left but I was wondering if you could comment on the the parallels between this expansion of NATO

further and further uh East in Europe uh this year marks the 200th anniversary of

the Monroe Doctrine of President Monroe declaring to all the European powers that the Western Hemisphere was off

limits to them coming to attempting to move their forces and their militaries

into Latin America and for these past 200 years Latin America has essentially

been uh the major sphere of influence of the United States uh and yet here we are

saying that Russia has no right to declare that it's immediate uh the

countries in on immediately its borders uh cannot uh cannot uh welcome in uh

NATO troops well yes a little empathy would go a long way would have spared us actually a

lot of Wars but for Americans it would be useful to think suppose Mexico made a

military alliance with China with the United States say well that's Mexico's right what are we going to do about it

or might there be actually an invasion in short order or something like that I

would strongly advise to China and Mexico don't try it at home don't experiment with this but the United

States government refuses that empathy because in other words refuses to put

itself in the position of the other side that's the fundamental arrogance of thinking that you determine the rules of

the world the problem with arrogance is not only the comeuppance from it but you can't

you stumble into terrible crises that you don't even understand because the United States has not been allowed the

public has not been allowed to even think from the perspective of the other side so the analogy is is actually a

very very clear analogy it is what China and Russia and others say all the time

is why have those double standards why don't we actually deal with each other

with mutual respect not with the rules that you write we want to thank you Jeffrey Sachs for

joining us director of the center for sustainable development at Columbia University president of the UN sustainable development Solutions

Network we'll link to your new article the need for a new U.S foreign policy uh

Professor Sachs was speaking to us from Cordova Spain