Top Tweets for #NonAlignment

No civilian should die in wars. Our approach is that every life is as precious as our own. We jealously guard our non-aligned policy while ensuring that humanitarian values and the saving of lives remain our top priority. What the world urgently needs today is peace. There is a real risk of a severe global economic crisis, and entire societies are facing serious and complex challenges. We call upon all parties to demonstrate a firm commitment to peace. As a state, Sri Lanka stands ready to support every step toward ending hostilities. All our actions are aimed at saving lives and ensuring that humanity prevails.

WOW!!! Never thought we would hear this level of honesty from a Western leader, and certainly not Canada, given the direction of Canada in the past 25 years. Canada's shift towards multialignment is quite clear - and this level of honesty from Carney on Western "fiction" about the old order will be warmly welcomed in much of the Global South: "We knew that the story about the rules-based order was partially false... We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused and the victim. This fiction was useful [because of the goods provided by American hegemony]... So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."

BREAKING: Massive anti-U.S., pro-Greenland protests have erupted in Copenhagen. Let that sink in, one of America’s closest allies is publicly protesting out of fear we might invade their territory. So much for the claim that “the world respects the U.S. under Trump.” The reality? It’s the opposite.

By Edward Luce [extract, link provided] THE WORLD UNTIL RECENTLY believed that US-China decoupling was on the way. It turns out that most countries are now scrambling to de-risk from America. As Jay Powell, Federal Reserve chair, or Denmark, one of America’s most loyal allies, can attest, pacifying Donald Trump only gets you so far. It buys time but is no substitute for having protection against a rogue superpower. We are thus in the early stages of an accelerating process of US de-risking. Social distancing from the world’s hegemon is a painful business, especially if you are an ally. Yet America’s friends are those most urgently in need of it. Their place in the sun rested on the world America made. The jolt to European and Asian allies is thus correspondingly greater. . PLEASANT SHOCK TO CHINA But America’s repudiation of the “liberal international order” is also a shock — although in many ways a pleasant one — to China, its chief adversary. China is now auditioning to be the main provider of global public goods, including stability. As world leaders converge on Davos, most of the chatter is about coping with Trump, who is bringing half his cabinet. A quieter China will be there to pick up the pieces. In that respect, today is zero sum. A loss to America is a gain for China. Countries in America’s hemisphere, including Canada, are moving closer to Beijing. Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, is stopping in China before heading to Davos. As goes Carney’s itinerary, so goes global diplomacy. Countries are de-risking in two main areas. The first is economic. Carney is again out front. Almost three-quarters of Canada’s exports go to the US, a number they aim to reduce to below 50 per cent. A lot will divert to China and India... . NUCLEAR OPTIONS Dumping Treasuries is the financial version of the nuclear option. The actual nuclear option also looms in geostrategic hedging. It has not escaped the notice of America’s adversaries that Trump speaks nicely about nuclear North Korea. Were Venezuela a nuclear state, Nicolás Maduro would not now be sitting in a Brooklyn jail. . [This is an extract from the FT today. Worth reading the full article, which is linked below.]