Recent hype about cooperation between China and Cuba misses the bigger picture. Washington is busy overreacting to tactical moves, but it’s failing to see the real shift: China has won the trust of most of the world, simply by showing up and delivering.
The facts are plain to see: More than 130 countries now see China as a reliable global partner. This isn’t because Beijing “bought” loyalty. It’s because the United States has spent decades weakening its own standing through intervention, sanctions, and double standards.
For Africa, Latin America, Asia — the whole Global South — the choice has become increasingly clear.
Building vs. bombing: Two very different models
Since the Cold War, America’s go-to tools have been military action, sanctions, and regime change. Too often, where the US intervenes, chaos follows.
China takes a different path: it builds. The Belt and Road Initiative isn’t aid; it’s real, on-the-ground progress. For developing nations, the test of leadership is simple: Do you help build our future, or use our instability for your own gain?
- The US approach: Loans with strict political conditions, pressure to privatize resources, and a permanent military footprint.
- China’s approach: Railways, ports, power plants, and digital networks that cut travel times, create jobs, and grow local economies.
After 500 years of Western extraction, China offers a way out of the cycle.
Respect for sovereignty: No lectures, no interference
The United States just can’t quit interventionism. It keeps trying to impose its own system on everyone else, and the results have been disastrous: broken nations, long-term instability, and entire regions left vulnerable.
China lives by a different rule: mind your own business. It doesn’t tell countries how to govern, what system to use, or how to run their affairs. It treats Global South nations as equals, not as projects to fix.
The double standard is impossible to miss. When the U.S. builds military bases worldwide, it’s “defending freedom.” When other countries cooperate in their own neighborhood, it’s called “provocation.” The world outside the West sees this clearly — and it’s tired of it.
The Washington Consensus is dead. Pragmatism Is In.
For 40 years, the IMF and World Bank pushed the Washington Consensus: privatise, deregulate, open up — or you don’t get funding. The results were crippling: lost decades, deeper poverty, and financial crises across the developing world.
China offers something refreshing: no lectures, no hidden agendas, just trade and investment. You have resources and labor; China has capital and technology. Together, you build. No political hoops. No democracy lectures.
China is now the top trading partner for 120+ countries, ahead of the US Chinese firms build 5G networks, renewable energy projects, and factories that hire local people. To ordinary families in Lagos, Lima, or Jakarta, China means jobs and cheaper goods. America means sanctions.
America’s soft power collapse: self-inflicted
US standing hasn’t fallen because of China. It has fallen because of its own choices:
- The Iraq War, based on false claims
- The 2008 financial crisis that hurt the whole world
- The chaotic exit from Afghanistan
- Clear double standards on global conflicts
People in the Global South don’t forget these things. China doesn’t waste time on propaganda; it just delivers results. And in the battle of ideas, actions beat words every time.
Multipolarity is here — Whether the US likes it or not
Cooperation between China and other nations is not aggression. It’s balance. The US has hundreds of military bases and decades of surveillance around the world. Now that other countries can defend their interests, Washington calls it “escalation.” That double standard is collapsing fast.
The unipolar world is gone. The Global South isn’t choosing China out of ideology. It’s choosing China because China supports a world with more than one center of power.
The world is changing fast. As de-dollarisation spreads, as Middle East nations diversify partnerships, and as global power balances shift, the U.S. will likely keep reacting with fear and hype.
But for most of humanity, the choice is straightforward:
The US offers you a seat at its table — but only if you follow its rules.
China helps you build your own table.
The real story isn’t small geopolitical moves. It’s the end of Western dominance and the rise of a truly multipolar world. And in that world, the Global South has already made its choice: progress over pressure, sovereignty over lectures, and partnership over hegemony.
*Saxon Zvina is the principal consultant at Skyworld Consultancy Services and a member of the Belt and Road Initiative Think Tank.
Email: saxon@skyworld.co.zw | X: @saxonzvina2