From the War in Ukraine to the G20 in Bali

The Elysée Palace has announced that Emmanuel Macron and Western leaders will meet Xi Jinping at the G20 in Bali, which will be dominated by the war in Ukraine, despite Vladimir Putin's absence. The polarisation between Europe and Russia is on the verge of a decoupling not seen since the end of the Soviet Union, as a result of Putin's break with the Primakov Doctrine and an attempt to neutralise the French-German motor in Europe.

 The Russian deadlock of anti-Westernism

Since the war in Syria and the annexation of Crimea, the coherence of Russian foreign policy was known as protection of its military interests, justification of interventions by the notion of just war and protection of Russian or Russian-speaking ethnic communities abroad. But Russia's military invasion of Ukraine was evidence of a radical change in Vladimir Putin's conception of Russia's international relations with the world, marked by the collusion between the "turn to Asia" and messianic neo-Eurasianism, which confirmed the end of the Primakov doctrine, perceived as too compliant with the West despite its anti-American bias. Indeed, Yevgeny Primakov already explained in a speech on 13 January 2015 that the Donbass should remain Ukrainian, unlike Crimea, and was opposed to any Russian armed intervention in this region, including in case of blocking the Minsk Agreements, due to the fear of losing Europe to the US. The renewal of Russian power, Eurasian in nature according to Primakov, was only possible through the simultaneous movement of normalising relations with the United States and Europe and developing relations with China and its neighbours. However, the deviation of non-Western alterity, defended in the Primakov doctrine, by Vladimir Putin's anti-Western discourse can only lead to the downfall of Russia as a Eurasian power, which will not be beneficial to either Europe or Asia.

Western unity battered but regained

In Europe, the war in Ukraine does not cause the political centre of the EU to move further East or North. However, the Russian military aggression has opened the way for an unprecedented shift within the EU in France's political strategy and Germany's economic strategy towards Russia. In this regard, the influential Brussels-based think tank European Policy Centre (EPC) published an article on 7 March 2022 on the shared responsibility of France and Germany. These continuous attacks forced France to back away from keeping up a dialogue with Putin for a negotiated peace and imposed the end of energy security through Russian gas on Germany, worsening the imbalances inherent in the French-German motor: inequality in the face of the gas energy crisis, unconcerted protectionist measures, divergence on the role of NATO and the United States in European autonomous defense. Yet the war in Ukraine has brought the primacy of politics over economics in international relations back to the forefront of French and German public debate with renewed vigour. Although the West has taken note of a world where it can no longer impose its rule in international relations, known as the moment of Westlessness at the Munich Conference in 2020, the war in Ukraine has restored its ideological unity where Joe Biden's Democracy Summit had failed in December 2021.

Building a multipolar world on the primacy of politics

Over the next five years, it will be difficult for China to play on strategic opportunities with European countries. But the return of the primacy of politics in France, such as the concept of a Europe-power, may open up new possibilities for dialogue with China, particularly through minilateralism. The meeting between Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron on 15 November is an important step towards building strategic trust and not just seizing strategic opportunities. At the G20 in Bali, China, as a permanent member of the P5 and one of the main leaders of the countries of the South, and France have the opportunity to work together to convince the participating countries to affirm their support for the principle of territorial integrity and thus avoid the trap of an artificial divide between the West and the Global South, the main victim of which will be the dialogue on reform of the international system and multilateralism.

Although Vladimir Putin is not going to the G20 in Bali, Russia had already proposed a solution through the voice of Primakov by distinguishing non-Western alterity from the trap of anti-Westernism. Yevgeny Primakov, born in Kiev, was inspired by the theory of convergence to build a future for post-Soviet Russia that would take its share in the shaping of a multipolar world. Recognising the impossibility of a decisive victory through the military or economic annihilation of the adversary, be it Russian, Chinese, European or American, this political legacy for multilateralism is more relevant than ever at the G20 summit in Bali for all countries that are thinking about the contribution they can make to a multipolar world inhabited by partners with equal rights.