Erdenechuluun Luvsan (Mongolia) on Multipolarity
Speech at 1-st Global Multipolarity Conference
Erdenechuluun Luvsan – former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia - speaks for the Global Conference on Multipolarity (29.04.2023).
Хүндэт оролцогчид оо,
Эрдэнэчулуун миний бие Монгол орноос олон улсын энэхүү чуулга уулзалтад оролцож байгаадаа баяртай байна.
Уважаемые участники, Прежде всего, хочу выразить благодарность инициаторам международного онлайн -- мероприятия -- организациям Бразилии, Турции, России, Китая и Международного движения Русофилов за приглашение выступить на этом мероприятии по тематике многополярного мира. Я ограничусь некоторыми политическими аспектами, предложенными нам вопросами о многополярности. Как я понимаю, на форуме отсутствует синхронный перевод и с вашего позволения я продолжу свое краткое выступление на английском языке.
Dear participants,
It would probably be an overly gross understatement if I say that we live in a highly complex and rapidly changing world.
There's little doubt that the fundamental changes which shook the world during the last decade of the 20th century triggered an overpowering movement toward democracy, freedom and justice.
At that point in time, there has been a palpable sense of euphoria that the world scene will in no time change for the better, that the acute political and security problems, such as curbing the arms race, specific steps toward nuclear and conventional disarmament will free enormous resources for development, for the betterment of living conditions of peoples around the world, for the fight to preserve our planet for our posterity.
To our great regret, those expectations were not destined to come to fruition. Bipolar world order that has, for several decades, ensured a fragile balance of power between the two opposing political and military alliances, turned into a unipolar world with a single most powerful country -- the United States at the head. A mortal enemy of NATO the Warsaw Pact was there no longer. And one would probably reckon that an only proper and sensible reciprocal gesture on the part of the West would be the dissolution of NATO. But what happened instead. With 12 members at the start back in 1949 it has, surprisingly, grown to embrace 31 countries. The world had expected that NATO would not expand to the East and pose a threat to Russia. As I recall vividly, at that particular time the US at the very high level repeatedly assured President Gorbachev that NATO shall not move an inch toward East. And what happened instead. NATO is in the doorsteps of Russia. A very short memory indeed, isn't it. The US took advantage of the weakened Russia at that time and broadened its sphere of influence on the European continent. Then, how can we talk about trust if one is playing tricks and is trying to outsmart the other. It would be naive to think that such a trick will go unnoticed. And the consequences usually will not be kept waiting.
What happened in the ensuing years is not very hard to see.
Russia, with its enormous human and natural resources, is assuring itself on the world stage again. And the political and economic developments in this country, despite serious pressures in the form of external economic sanctions, could not put Russia on its knees. There's little doubt that this momentum will be held quite definitively in the foreseeable future.
I am tempted even to add here that the intended purpose of the sanctions may have had a counter effect.
Furthermore, the emergence of autonomous powerhouses in different parts of the world is making an overriding impact on the very structure of international relations which is seen in the distinctive shift in the division of world power. The unipolar world is, in many ways, becoming irrelevant, a matter of the past.
China, our southern neighbor, has become the 2nd largest economic power in the world. It is simply a matter of time for it to outrun the one and only superpower. It has been developing large development projects by reaching out countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and its own continent Asia.
India, the largest democracy in the world, is playing an ever-increasing stabilizing role in world affairs.
Centers of gravity are appearing on other continents, namely Africa and Latin America.
Thus, a new world configuration is taking shape in the form of a multi-polar system that will, from now on, determine the course of events of world affairs in the years ahead.
Having said that, I wish to say that the European continent, which had seen the horrors of two world wars during the past century, became again a theater of military confrontation.
Due to time constraints, I would refrain from making lengthy comments and focus on couple of points that I believe are of primary importance.
History teaches us that if we wish to live in peace we need to recognize the right of others to live in a secure and peaceful environment. In today's world it has become an imperative. Technological advances have given us such means that their use will bring the world to the brink of extinction. And we have seen it in the last days of the Second World War when the world witnessed the horrific consequences of the use nuclear weapons.
As early as the beginning of 1970's, that is some 50 years ago the two most powerful nations of the world, the United States and the Soviet Union have come to realize that there can never be a winner in a nuclear war.
Since then this realization has found its specific expression in international legal documents. A good number of important agreements aimed at preventing the nuclear war, limiting and reducing the existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons, preventing the spread of such weapons, prohibiting nuclear-weapon tests, prohibiting chemical and bacteriological weapons were signed and ratified. To our great dismay some of the extremely important disarmament agreements have, in the past few years, been unilaterally abandoned by the US.
The results of decades-long and painstaking efforts have been erased. In today's political environment it would probably be naive even to hypothesize about the possibility for major Powers to sit down and start talking to each other on issues of world-wide concern.
My pessimistic remark was prompted by the ongoing highly charged rhetoric that effectively invalidates the possibility of countries concerned to sit and talk.
Having said that, I wish to refer to an issue which has everything to do with the international situation at hand. I am talking about the principle of equal security. This is a basic prerequisite for a stable world order. All the countries seem to support this principle.
Let's refer to one of the latest documents adopted by the European countries themselves. I have in mind The Charter for European Security adopted at the highest level in Istanbul in November 1999 which unequivocally says that "each participating State has an equal right to security that they will respect the rights of all others in these regards, that they will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States. They also reaffirmed their resolve to build their relations in conformity with the concept of common and comprehensive security. We also know that this fundamental principle has been reaffirmed in other international documents.
When one looks at the grave situation in Europe and in Ukraine in particular, and the underlying reasons that led to the military confrontation in that country shouldn't we remind ourselves about the ready-made promises by the United States to Russia. American scholars and military experts contend, and rightly so, about a possible reaction by the US if it finds at its doorsteps Russian missiles. Does it not remind us about the Cuban missile crisis back in 1962 which nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Everyone knows what happened then, what John Kennedy, the then President of the United States did in order to prevent the presence of Soviet mid-range missiles 90 miles away from its borders. Why don't we try to draw a parallel between those two events and see what comes out of it. I personally don't see any difference.
From the statements being made by NATO officials it is clear that the West is still unwilling to abandon its idea of bringing Ukraine into the confines of this military alliance. Another point that I wanted to make concerns agreements signed in Minsk, Belarus. The entire world has been closely following the events there. 4 countries Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany at the highest level worked out the text of those agreements. It took some painstaking effort as I recall. And the international community breathed with a sense of relief that the situation in Ukraine will change for the better.
To our great dismay, this was not going to happen. Ukraine's President later said that he was not going to implement Minsk agreements. I am pretty sure that many people and countries around the world were taken aback by such a statement.
But then things were cleared up by the recent statement by the former Chancellor of Germany Mme Angela Merkel. She said in her interview to German weekly Die Zeit in Dec. 2022 that " The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time ", that " It also used this time to become stronger, as you can see today ". It further goes on to say that Merkel confirms that NATO wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare militarily.
I hope it would not be out place if I refer to what was said by the Foreign Minister of South Africa Mme Naledi Pandor about international rules and international law in her talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States. She said, and rightly so, that "It is very comfortable for some people to use international rules when it suits them. But they don't believe in them when they don't suit them... They don't apply the rules equally in all circumstances". She went on to say that "You can't say that when Ukraine was invaded, sovereignty is important. But it was never important for Palestine ".
To add to the above -- what was done with the Minsk agreements is, in fact, in my considered view, dealt a deadly blow to the entire system of international relations the negative ramifications of which will, probably, be felt in the years to come.
As is well known, the relations between and among nations are based on trust. Trust is a core component of any international agreement. Without trust it would be difficult if not impossible to talk about the sustainability of any relations between nations. And this core issue of trust is now being put to test.
I hope that common sense will in the end prevail and parties to the conflict will sit down at the negotiating table. It would be in the interests of all the European countries, as well as the world at large.
I understand that Russia is ready to do so. It is now the turn of the other party to make its move.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Спасибо за внимание.
Анхаарал тавьсанд баярлалаа.
