- 7 weeks ago
- #considerthis
Must countries choose sides as US-China rivalry and geopolitical tensions intensify? Can a renewed Non-Aligned Movement give the Global South greater strategic autonomy in a world dominated by competing powers? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Professor Emeritus Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Research Adviser for Khazanah Research Institute, who was a keynote speaker at the Penang Peace Dialogue 2026 in Georgetown, Penang.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and then we consider what you know of the news
00:17of the day.
00:18I'm here in Georgetown at the Jen Hotel in Penang for the Penang Peace Dialogue 2026
00:24at which my guest is a speaker, Professor Emeritus Jemokwame Sundram, who is Research Advisor at Kazanah Research Institute.
00:34Welcome back to the show. It's been a while since I've had you on and I'm quite keen to speak
00:39to you about the session that you will have at the Penang Peace Dialogue.
00:43You're calling for a renewed non-aligned movement, a 2.0 version, so to speak.
00:49So can we begin by the fact that some people or some viewers today who hear the term non-aligned
00:56movement, they think of the Cold War.
00:59So when you say you're calling for a renewed version, what does that entail exactly?
01:04Well, you're quite right that it is reminiscent of the Cold War, but it is also reminiscent of how it
01:11reminds us about how things have changed
01:13and how things, after changing, nonetheless remained similar.
01:19So the First Cold War begins around 1947 and George Marshall, Secretary of State, famously declared the First Cold War.
01:33And that Cold War resulted in a number of institutions, most of which have not survived.
01:44Nobody remembers them except for one, the most important one, namely NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
01:51And today we now have a situation where NATO basically calls the shots, not only as far as security is
02:04concerned,
02:05but also as far as peace or whether or not there will be peace.
02:09And the allies of the United States will not speak out when there are violations.
02:16For example, last year alone, during the first year of the Trump second presidency, 10 countries were bombed.
02:26And except for the usual, those countries would normally complain about such things, there were very few others.
02:36Partly because, in a sense, the US continues to enjoy a veto at the Security Council and two of its
02:44allies,
02:45particularly Britain, as well as France, are also there.
02:49So together, they are able to prevent their adversaries from doing anything they would like to do.
02:58Now, we now have a situation where, after those bombings last year,
03:06we now have a protracted war, a protracted hot war, namely what has happened since the 28th of February this
03:13year.
03:14And after more than half a year now, this war doesn't look as if it's ending soon.
03:19And so, where do developing countries stand?
03:24Developing countries, quite understandably, aspire for what will call the Sustainable Development Goals.
03:32There has been very little progress on the Sustainable Development Goals after the declaration in the year 2015.
03:38And for all intents and purposes, we see things actually getting worse as far as the Sustainable Development Goals are
03:47concerned,
03:48particularly very little progress on poverty, very little progress on hunger, very little progress on a range of other things.
03:57And of course, things are getting much, much worse as far as planetary warming is concerned and so on.
04:04So, we have a situation now where the developing countries no longer have voice.
04:13And developing countries as a whole have no interest in seeing the world go to war.
04:20The developing countries would like conditions of peace, which is often a precondition for economic development, employment, etc.
04:29So, developing countries have a strong vested stake in ensuring this.
04:36Now, right now, without much voice, because the major international institutions are dominated by the West,
04:43it is left for the developing countries to have an organisation of their own.
04:47Now, the only organisation which fits the bill was NAM.
04:53But NAM basically has become increasingly sidelined since the end of the First Cold War.
05:00So, NAM still exists today, right?
05:02On paper.
05:02On paper.
05:03So, Uganda is the chair of NAM, 120 countries still active.
05:07So, when you talk about revival or renewal of NAM 2.0, what does that mean for the existing institution?
05:19What it basically means is that there has to be a decision by the leaders to commit to a limited
05:27agenda
05:28on which they can all continue to unite.
05:30And I would put it to you that the most viable agenda is sustainable development.
05:37And to achieve sustainable development, if you look at the sustainable development goals,
05:42obviously, peace is a precondition.
05:44You are not going to have any development if the world is at war.
05:48And right now, we have seen a huge diversion of limited resources for purposes of war.
05:57Can we talk about that?
05:58The rise of the military-industrial complex, the militarisation of this world.
06:06What has happened to the global peace architecture, so to speak, that was put in place?
06:11The United Nations and all of the things that we believed in in terms of the global order
06:17to protect peace after the Second World War.
06:20And as you mentioned in the beginning, which I loved, we have seen history, we know the lessons of history,
06:25but we are now seeing it repeat itself.
06:27So, what does the current, I guess, conflict landscape tell you about where we are in the erosion of the
06:35global peace architecture?
06:36I think if we think about the word architecture, I think many people would fail an architecture examination if they
06:48think about what exists.
06:50But you are absolutely correct that one could think about the multilateral institutions which emerged from the end of World
06:58War II.
06:59It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who famously called for the first United Nations Conference on Reconstruction and Development.
07:12There was no United Nations at that time in 1944, but he nonetheless used that word because that was his
07:18dream,
07:20his intention to replace the League of Nations, which was basically a League of Imperial Nations, of Colonial Nations.
07:28And he realized that that was going to be over.
07:31So, there was an urgent task of rebuilding, especially the West and Japan after World War II.
07:39But together with that, there was also a very important task of getting the old colonial order behind us
07:46and moving on with development.
07:49And so, that was why the conference was called the International Conference on Reconstruction and Development.
07:57Now, that, unfortunately, that dream and his wishes unfortunately died with him.
08:04And after he died in early 1945, before the end of the war,
08:11the others who took over from him did not share his aspirations.
08:17I mean, his wife, his widow, continued to try to talk about it.
08:20And that's why Malaysia, for example, issued a stamp in the 1960s,
08:27lionizing Eleanor Roosevelt.
08:28Really? Oh, yeah. Wow.
08:30You know, recognizing her role in establishing human rights and so on and so forth.
08:35But, unfortunately, there has not been a comparable recognition about the crucial role of the United Nations and so on.
08:44And we have seen how the United Nations has come to be selectively used and abused by major powers ever
08:52since.
08:55Things have gotten worse in recent period, especially after the end of the First Cold War in the early 1990s.
09:02There has been very little regard, and increasingly you see the United Nations being ignored,
09:10except when it serves particular interest to cite the United Nations in support or whatever.
09:17Just the term, the non-aligned movement, I think when it came about it was choosing between the US and
09:23the Soviet bloc.
09:24In the landscape today, are the competing power centers still the same?
09:30Is it still the US and Russia, China?
09:33What's the same, what's different?
09:36And are the tensions of when NAM first was conceptualized, are they the same tensions that we're seeing today?
09:44Just the core of those tensions.
09:47Unlike Bill Clinton, when he was president, he wanted to engage with China.
09:53We have seen since the end of the Obama presidency, but especially in the last decade or so,
10:03an intensification of the antagonism with China.
10:07And so one could say that there is a new Cold War existing between the US and China.
10:19China does not accept that.
10:21China continuously does what many people jokingly refer to as Tai Chi to avoid that.
10:34So is it just one-sided?
10:36From one perspective there is a Cold War?
10:39Yes.
10:39From the US perspective?
10:41Well, they don't call it a Cold War, but for all intents and purposes it's pretty much that.
10:46Now, what Europe has done has been that they have engaged and embraced China, sorry, the US, in order to
10:56get US support against Russia.
11:00Now, Russia is a pale shadow of its former self.
11:03But nonetheless, that's the unifying mantra for Europe.
11:10And so although President Trump blows hot and cold as far as Ukraine is concerned, for example,
11:17Europe is very much committed to that.
11:19And so one country, there were two European countries which said that they were still neutral.
11:27After one was Sweden and the other one was Austria.
11:33Of course, Switzerland continues to remain in a special status.
11:37So both, Sweden has now given up being, has declared that it's no longer neutral.
11:43It is decisively with Europe.
11:46So now we have a situation where almost all the whole world and Austria, of course, has a very conservative
11:52presidency right now,
11:54leadership right now, but Austria retains its neutral status.
11:59So Europe, for all intents and purposes, has declared itself as part of this new Cold War.
12:05And it's basically sort of imposed forth to the US.
12:10We will come on board with you.
12:12We will do what you want as long as you support us against Russia.
12:20So this is a situation which has emerged partly because NATO, contrary to what was understood, did not dissolve when
12:32the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.
12:34And it continues to exist and has taken on a new mandate of its own.
12:39So in this situation, it becomes important for developing countries, not just to be neutral, that's not good enough unfortunately,
12:47but actually to be actively pacifist.
12:51Talk to me about that because I'm glad that you raised that.
12:55I was struggling with the distinction between non-aligned and neutrality.
13:02And now you've brought in another word, actively pacifist.
13:07So talk to me about the differences between all these principles.
13:11Okay, non-alignment was a position which many countries took, not wanting to get dragged into the Cold War.
13:24Okay, so that's the original reference to non-alignment.
13:29And today, that would be pretty much the same, except that the Cold War has not been declared.
13:38And depending on who you're talking to, China is the number one antagonist, and sometimes for the West,
13:47and for some others, Russia is the number one antagonist.
13:52Russia is a pale shadow of its former self.
13:56It's not able to muster much.
13:58But it has a lot of residual nuclear capacity from the first Cold War.
14:04Because at that time, it was all about deterrence.
14:08Okay, if I have as many guns as you do, I have as many missiles as you do, then we
14:15can agree on a stalemate.
14:17This is the situation.
14:18Now, I'm not saying that that whole period was useless, because the rivalry between the Cold War rivals did have
14:25some good effects.
14:26For example, in 1979, the Soviet Union challenged the US, let us work together to abolish, to get rid of
14:38smallpox.
14:39And within a decade, smallpox was history.
14:42It didn't exist anymore.
14:44And that could have been achieved, and that was achieved.
14:49But today, we do no longer have that kind of benignness.
14:52So, when President Trump 2.0 comes in, and he says, I want you to increase your spending, the NATO
15:02partners, from less than 2% to 5% of GDP.
15:09All the Europeans said was, yes sir, but, and of course Mark Rutter, the Secretary General of NATO said, calls
15:19him daddy.
15:20But basically, it was not a question of negotiating that, but rather of just buying time.
15:30Okay, give us a bit more time than what, and Trump, quite understandably, takes the view that it is necessary
15:40to do so urgently,
15:41because otherwise, you know, things won't get done.
15:45So, you know.
15:46So, when we come back to, so that was non-alignment.
15:50Sorry, so neutrality basically is a declared position, particularly in Europe.
15:59Again, within the context of the Cold War, it was more European type of discourse, about staying neutral between…
16:08Well, I think of the Asian, the ASEAN principles of ZOPFAN, the zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, right?
16:17That's not a novel idea for many people here in this area, neutrality.
16:22Exactly.
16:23But what about active pacifism?
16:27Unfortunately, right now, what we see, despite ZOPFAN 1973, over half a century later, there are three, four countries in
16:40ASEAN, 11,
16:42which have basically declared themselves allies for military purposes.
16:47And we have a very dangerous situation.
16:50We have a dangerous situation because, as you know, for the last half year, everybody has been talking about choke
16:57points besides Hormuz.
16:58And the biggest choke point of all is the Straits of Melaka.
17:03And, you know, and we already have about half a dozen Western countries besides Japan and Australia, all involved in
17:14the Taiwan Straits.
17:15They all have battle-ready ships in the Taiwan Straits.
17:21And, you know, all you need is a trigger.
17:26And sometimes these triggers can happen accidentally.
17:30Wars happen sometimes with no expectation that they would escalate.
17:34As in World War I, the assassination of Archduke Franz Joseph was not expected to create a war.
17:43And so, you know, one should not think that wars are, you know, that you can have a minor war,
17:49you can control the war.
17:51Orchestrated.
17:52Yeah, yeah.
17:52Cannot be controlled sometimes.
17:54Yeah.
17:54And there have been people who are prepared to take risks.
17:57I mean, Mrs. Thatcher famously, for example, was in very serious trouble.
18:01She was not expected to get re-elected until the Falklands War was initiated in 1982.
18:11Yeah.
18:13And President George W. Bush was doing very badly in the polls until the Iraq War happened.
18:23There's quite a pattern there.
18:25Yeah.
18:26So there is a temptation, especially for the US powers, to have a little war, manageable war, not too big,
18:34but just enough.
18:36And all this basically also means business for the military industrial complex, the question you raised earlier.
18:43As much as President Roosevelt wanted a peace, and you can see this, for example, in the artwork at the
18:54United Nations building, and so on and so forth.
18:57But ever since then, you have seen, it was just a decade and a half later that President Eisenhower warned,
19:07as he was stepping down, about the military industrial complex.
19:11He warned the American population that the military industrial complex was a very grave danger.
19:18Because basically, you have interests which are generating military potential and so on and so forth, and it acquires a
19:28logic of its own.
19:29And right now, you have leaders in Europe, for example, Chancellor Metz of Germany, who talks about starting a war,
19:39that military Keynesianism will be the new basis for growth for Europe.
19:52That sounds terribly scary.
19:54And you have, in Stuttgart, the old Mercedes plant, which has three lines, assembly lines, producing Mercedes.
20:06Now, because of the growing antagonism with China, sales to China have gone down, and one line has been converted
20:15to producing leopard tanks instead.
20:17So, this is the kind of redeployment.
20:21It basically means there's less funds for everything else, and even social welfare of the European Western populations are being
20:31adversely affected in the US, as well as in Europe.
20:35And needless to say, in developing countries as well, because when there is an escalation there, everybody else feels a
20:42need to ramp up their own, at least defensive capabilities.
20:47So, what power do developing countries, let's bring it back to the non-aligned movement, what power do developing countries
20:56have to combat this, to reverse this tide of growing militarization and spending on the military?
21:07Well, one is to try to avoid conflicts among ourselves, and last year when Malaysia was chairing the ASEAN group,
21:17I think the Prime Minister did do something in that direction.
21:22And was quite happy to give the credit for it to President Trump, it made President Trump quite happy, and
21:30he thought bolstered his chances for the Nobel Prize for Peace, and so on.
21:36So, you know, that's the kind of thing that we need.
21:39Okay, so that's the kind of power that developing countries have, to make sure that we remain peaceful between ourselves.
21:45Yeah, that we do not get into all kinds of conflicts among ourselves for various reasons.
21:53But we need to, now, that's not good enough.
21:57That's not good enough.
21:58Because the main antagonists, the main belligerents, are not from within the region.
22:05We may not be fighting with our neighbours, we may not be fighting with, you know, more remote countries, but
22:13that's not good enough.
22:15Because everybody, others are coming into this region.
22:18I mentioned the South China Sea, and how, you know, Germany is there, the UK has one aircraft carrier.
22:29Australia is there with military potential, Japan is there as well, France is there, and so on and so forth.
22:36Besides, all this besides the US, you know.
22:42And then you have willingness of some ASEAN countries, who once upon a time declared that they believe in a
22:51zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, now making military facilities available to belligerents.
23:00And this is not good enough. So that's why we need to be actively pacifist, to try to ensure that
23:08whatever limited resources the planet has, are used for peaceful purposes rather than for...
23:13Jomo, I'm so sorry to ask you in the time that we have left, but is that realistic in today's
23:18world where we are so dependent on these powers, where we sell our minerals, our critical minerals, where we buy
23:27our trade, where we buy our technology, where we buy our defence capabilities.
23:32We're making choices of alignment every day as nation states. Is it realistic to ask nation states to be non
23:42-aligned?
23:44Individually, it is very difficult. Collectively, it is feasible. That's the major argument. That's why you need collective ability to
23:54do so.
23:55And I'm not suggesting that everybody aligns against the US or with the US. No. The point is to remain
24:05neutral on both sides, but actively seek, especially in the multilateral institutions, to promote peace.
24:16There was a deputy managing director of the IMF, for example, who in one of her last speeches before she
24:25stepped down as deputy managing director, she said that it's in the best interest of developing countries to be non
24:33-aligned.
24:34You know, I never expected anybody from the IMF to actually say that, but that's, that's, you know, that was
24:40very, very bold of her.
24:43Of course, she's no longer there. Maybe there was a price to pay. But the point is that there are
24:49many people who realise how dangerous this madness is.
24:54People in the West included. But, you know, there must be a willingness to say no. There must be a
25:00willingness to say no. And we, there's too much belligerence in the world today that we, you know.
25:06Do you think Malaysia has been brave to say no? Malaysia has been actively pacifist?
25:16Actively pacifist, not as much as I would like it to be, but I would say that Malaysia has probably
25:20been, been bolder than almost any other country in the original ASEAN.
25:28Okay. That is very encouraging to hear. And on that note, I want to thank you so much for being
25:33on the show today. Thank you for your time.
25:34Thank you for having me.
25:35That's all the time we have for you on this episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris signing off for
25:39the evening. Thank you so much for watching and good night.