Navalny’s death has deepened the tension between democracy and authoritarian rule. international

News of Alexei Navalny’s death spread like a frightening, dramatic lightning bolt through the rooms of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel, the traditional headquarters of the Munich Security Conference, on Friday, just when the forum brings together hundreds of thousands of people in the Bavarian capital each year. Political and military leaders around the world were preparing for the launch. Many have since wondered what the Ukrainian president said on the main stage the next day,…

News of Alexei Navalny’s death spread like a frightening, dramatic lightning bolt through the rooms of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel, the traditional headquarters of the Munich Security Conference, on Friday, just when the forum brings together hundreds of thousands of people in the Bavarian capital each year. Political and military leaders around the world were preparing for the launch. Many have since wondered what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the main stage the next day: “Putin wanted to send a message to all of us.” A message of complete confrontation with the West, whose leaders have in the past called for respect for Navalny’s physical integrity, and complete contempt for democracy.

Putin is not alone in that conflict. Iran supplies drones to it. North Korea, ammunition. As far as we know, China does not provide arms, but it provides economic oxygen through trade, including technical products needed for the Russian war economy; and political oxygen, through multiple top-level meetings and joint declarations that call for a new world order while reaffirming that democracy and human rights are relative concepts. Ukraine has condemned that Beijing helps Moscow in its cyber attacks.

And of course, the conflict we are talking about is not just about Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen characterized it this way in her speech at the Munich conference this Saturday: “This is not just about Ukraine, but about sending a signal to others. The question is whether democracy will prevail in the world and whether we will be able to protect our values. The answer should be yes,” he said.

“Putin’s war is a war against a rules-based world,” Zelensky said. “I hope this will not become the world of tomorrow,” he said, making a sad reference to Zweig’s memoirs.

What is clear is that today the whole world is watching what will be the fate of Putin’s aggression, what resistance will be offered by the fifty democracies supporting Ukraine – the response of which von der Leyen talks. Everyone will draw conclusions and they will definitely be greatly influenced by whether Donald Trump wins the presidential election to be held in the United States in November.

A pulse beyond Ukraine

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Putin himself has clearly said that the fight is not only about Ukraine. “This is not a regional conflict and this is not an attempt to establish regional geopolitical balance. “This issue is broader and more fundamental and relates to the underlying principles of the new international order,” the Russian president said at the latest Valdai Forum.

Putin traveled to Munich in 2007 to warn of the same thing, that the current world order did not work for him, that he rejected the primacy of the United States. And he made it clear that he was ready to challenge that status quo. Bush’s America, which had illegally invaded Iraq, decided to move to open NATO’s doors to Ukraine and Georgia. Putin took to the streets disrespecting the freedom of the countries whose future he considers his sphere of influence. In fact Against both in the face of considerable inaction on the part of the West. And this led to today’s unbridled conflict.

Amid the challenge launched by Putin, the closing of ranks between autocratic regimes is clear, but that does not mean they are an uninterrupted unitary pole. Nor is there a more united European pole.

China’s chief foreign policy representative Wang Yi tried in Munich to present his country as a stable power in the turbulent context. “The main message I bring is that China is a responsible actor and will serve as a strong stabilizing force. It will do this by promoting cooperation among major powers.” Beijing has a keen interest in the stability of the system that allows it to prosper. At the same time, riding on the back of its new prosperity, it has become more assertive under Xi Jinping’s long rule.

Don’t marginalize China

Beyond the reassuring message, Wang’s intervention revealed worrying cracks. “Anyone who tries to marginalize China in the name of risk-reduction policies will be making a historic mistake,” he stressed. Meanwhile, both the US and the EU are actively working to reduce their dependence on China. On the other hand, when conference President Christophe Huysgen asked whether it would not be appropriate for Beijing to increase pressure on Moscow to stop its aggression, Wang dryly replied that he rejected “any attempt to place blame” on China in this sense. Rejected. , Meanwhile, bilateral trade between the two countries will exceed $200 billion in 2023, breaking records.

The harmony is clear. “We are experiencing a phase of change unparalleled in 100 years. When we are together, we lead that change,” Xi told Putin as he said goodbye after a meeting last March, perhaps not realizing that the brief conversation was much more than just sitting in an official car. Was recorded earlier.

Amid this conflict between democracies and authoritarian regimes, the West is having great difficulties in recruiting new partners. The Munich Security Conference made it clear how its position in the conflict in the Middle East exposes it to projecting a destructive image of double standards on the global stage that harms it.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of “the establishment of a Palestinian state that guarantees Israel’s security as an imperative, more urgent than ever”. The head of US diplomacy has reiterated in recent weeks that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack is causing immense suffering to Palestinian civilians. But the world sees well that the United States did nothing in the past to guarantee the creation of that state. And today, while he mourns civilian deaths, he continues to supply arms to Israel. In a statement, the EU called on Israel not to escalate the Rafah offensive in southern Gaza. But it does not review the terms of its relations with the country led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Of course, Putin’s aggressive war, without any justification, is different from Israel’s reactive war after the Hamas attack. But decades of oppression, illegal occupation and colonization of land, and Western inaction in the face of the brutality of the Israeli response have left it starkly exposed to criticism for hypocrisy. The illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not help either.

A large group of countries, called the Global South, largely refuses to unite. These include full democracy, fragile democracy or authoritarian rule. Many of them regret the ongoing conflict in the Northern Hemisphere, which has a negative impact on them, while at the same time they try to take advantage of the competition between powers to achieve better returns.

That competition, that conflict is going on. It does not have the ideological component of the Cold War, but it is clearly, as then, an impulse of power expressed today between a group of authoritarian regimes who demand an order that is compatible with them and those democracies. Position of prominence since World War II.

Navalny’s death is emblematic of this pulse, which has slightly widened the gap in the democratic world between those who express regret and those who prefer to look the other way. By the way, China declined to comment, saying that this is an “internal matter” of Russia.

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