By GILBERTO LOPES*

As in a great chess match, the world is witnessing a confrontation in which its future is at stake

E4, played Karpov, in the move with which he opened the third game of the 1984 World Chess Championship. C5, responded Kasparov, with a Sicilian Defense, in what would be his first defeat in a clash of titans, resolved after 48 games, with a controversial victory for Karpov.

It was a different tournament. Today, the tournament is different. As in a great game of chess, the pieces move in the opening game that will define the future of the world order, between two formidable adversaries: the United States and China. Donald Trump made his first move in Riyadh on February 18, when his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

E4, move Trump

The United States' objectives in the meeting with Moscow were listed by Marco Rubio at the end of the meeting. The first is to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries, which had reached practically non-existent levels, as described months ago by Sergei Lavrov.

The expulsion and restriction of the activities of Russian diplomats, the closure of consulates, the suspension of all relevant contacts between the foreign ministries of the two countries, among other measures, have reduced relations to an unprecedented level. In order to begin normalizing these relations, they decided to re-appoint ambassadors and gradually lift the restrictions imposed on Russian diplomatic and consular activities in the United States, which were the subject of reciprocal measures by Moscow. Sergei Lavrov noted that the meeting did not discuss issues on which the two countries hold divergent positions.

The second was to discuss the basis for negotiating an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. For the Russians, this means not only an end to the war, but also an agreement on what they consider to be the causes of the conflict: NATO’s eastward expansion, the violation of the rights of Russian populations in Ukraine, the end of a regime they accuse of being neo-Nazi, among other measures. Finally, a proposal with much broader scope, with limits that are difficult to specify: exploring the possibilities of cooperation, both in business and in geopolitical matters. “If this conflict comes to an acceptable end, there are enormous opportunities for us to establish partnerships with the Russians geopolitically, on issues of common interest, and economically, on issues that will allow us to improve our relations in the long term,” said Marco Rubio.

The head of the Russian investment fund, Kirill Dmitriev, estimated the losses of US companies that left Russia as a result of sanctions imposed by the West since 300 and especially since February 2014 at $2022 billion. Sergei Lavrov also expressed a strong interest “in resuming consultations on geopolitical problems, including conflicts in different parts of the world, where both the United States and Russia have interests, and in removing artificial obstacles to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation.”

This is an agenda that could cover a wide range of areas of bilateral relations, including the disarmament negotiations that have been abandoned and that would lay the groundwork for lifting the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States. Naturally, the development of this agenda is conditional on an agreement to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which should resolve sensitive issues such as the delimitation of new borders between the two countries, the security guarantees required by Ukraine, the costs of rebuilding the country, and the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia.

Donald Trump’s statements calling Volodymyr Zelensky “incompetent” and expressing frustration with Ukraine’s position on the Riyadh summit indicate his diminished willingness to consider Kiev’s demands. In any case, these will not be Kiev’s demands alone, agreed to by a European Union that is in any case still astonished by the changes that have occurred on the scene since Donald Trump came to power.

Donald Trump will not have an easy time at home either, where he will face opposition even from Republicans who are wary of his rapprochement with Moscow. As Fyodor Lukyanov, research director of the Valdai Club and one of Russia’s leading scholars on international affairs, has said, this war is not just about Ukraine, or even about Russia; it is the result of the collapse of “the liberal world order.”

The new scenario has caused great anxiety in Europe, where none of its major powers – Germany, France and England – have a solid political or economic framework from which to offer an alternative to their allies. This anxiety is the result not only of the change in US policy, but also of a “long-standing hostility towards Russia”, as Zhang Hong, a researcher at the Institute of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recalled.

Profiling the Middle Game

Christoph Heusgen, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, described the outcome of this year’s meeting, which took place from February 14 to 16, as a “nightmare.” In tears, he ended his speech by saying that President Trump seems to live “on another planet.” He was referring to the relations established by the United States with Europe, one of the foundations of the global political order after World War II and the Cold War. A turnaround in these relations was announced by Vice President J.D. Vance in his speech at the conference, with particular relevance to the negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine.

When everything is still uncertain about the progress of these negotiations, when it is still impossible to envision an agreement, or to see the objectives of the Americans more clearly outlined, it seems to me that the most ambitious is the proposal for geopolitical and economic agreements. In a article published on February 20, Dimitry Trenin, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations and a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), concludes that Trump seems to have realized that his predecessors – Joe Biden and Barack Obama – made miscalculations that ended up pushing Moscow into China's orbit.

An effort to reverse this situation would explain the rapprochement and the proposed geopolitical and economic agreements. But Trenin says something else: Russia is under no illusions. A ceasefire agreement may be under negotiation, but a broader agreement seems unlikely. Trump and his team seem to believe that Russia, weakened by the war, is desperate for an agreement. “That is a mistake,” he warns.

Dimitry Trenin’s article helps to put some ideas in order. One of them is that China is the real target of Donald Trump’s policies. What is happening, then, is the implementation of a policy that seeks to break the alliance between Russia and China, and thus bring Moscow back closer to Washington, to correct the outcome of the policies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If this is the case, it will be one of the boldest and most ambitious moves on the international scene. A move that will place Vladimir Putin before the most important political challenge of his political life: choosing his place in the confrontation between the United States and China, where the rules that will govern the world political scene in the coming decades will be defined.

C5, responds to China

In this game, it is important not only to listen to what Beijing has to say, but also to see when and how it says it. The next move on this board was the meeting of Russian and Chinese foreign ministers on February 21 at the G20 summit in South Africa (which Secretary of State Marco Rubio chose not to attend).

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had expressed in South Africa his willingness to deepen the agreements reached by the heads of state of the two countries. On the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin telephoned Xi Jinping, while European leaders met in Kiev with Volodymyr Zelensky and announced new sanctions against Russia and the renewal of military aid to Ukraine. China insisted on the need for all parties involved to be included in the negotiations at some point, and for the conflict in Ukraine to be resolved through dialogue, “taking into account the concerns of all countries for their security and respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”.

Asked whether China is concerned that a resolution to the Ukraine conflict will allow the United States to concentrate more military resources in the Asia-Pacific region, or whether it is concerned that peace in Europe could facilitate greater US military deployment in Asia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said China has repeatedly explained its position on the Ukraine crisis: "We hope all parties will work together to resolve the root causes of the crisis, establish a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and achieve long-term peace in Europe," he said.

A complex formula that will not be easy to put into practice. At the same time, he stressed that China has always believed that the Asia-Pacific region should be a suitable arena for the development of all countries, rather than becoming a stage for geopolitical confrontations between major powers.

On February 14, during a roundtable discussion at the Munich Security Conference, Singapore’s defense minister, Ng Eng Hen, said that the assumptions adopted in the years following the end of World War II “had radically changed.” From an Asian perspective, he added, the United States was no longer seen as a force with “moral legitimacy” but as something akin to “a landlord demanding rent.” Will the outcome of the formidable match of 1984 now be rewritten? We will have to wait for its conclusion.

*Gilberto Lopes is a journalist, PhD in Society and Cultural Studies from the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). Author, among other books, of Political crisis of the modern world (uruk).

Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.

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