We speak with acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello on the Global South’s response to the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Bello says there’s hesitation from many world leaders to take an active role in the crisis, arguing that there is a lack of explicit national interests and a general suspicion the U.S. provoked the invasion to take advantage of the subsequent backlash against Russia. He says people in the Global South realize that ever since the Soviet Union fell apart, ”NATO and the U.S. tried to take advantage of it in an aggressive eastward expansion of NATO right onto the countries that would border the Soviet Union.” Bello also expresses fear the U.S. may try to stoke tensions with China over Taiwan, saying, “China’s not interested at this point in any sort of military conflict that would jeopardize what is its big reputation right now of peaceful economic diplomacy.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.