In 1955, leaders from Asia and Africa gathered in Bandung to make a bold declaration that newly decolonised nations would not be pawns in the Cold War. Neutrality, at that moment, was not a retreat from responsibility, but a defiant stance against the bipolar world order: a strategic assertion of sovereignty and dignity in an age of empires.

Seventy years later, that notion of neutrality no longer carries the same meaning. The ideological cleavages of the 20th century may have softened, but the global architecture of power remains rigid. Today’s world is marketed as multipolar, but in practice, it is a stage for old patterns in new costumes. Emerging powers have arrived, yes, but they’ve joined, not dismantled, an international system still structured by hierarchy and dependency. Global capitalism has not unravelled; it has simply evolved to accommodate new centres of gravity. In this reconfigured terrain, the Global South remains structurally constrained: disadvantaged in trade, marginalised in technology, peripheral in finance, and often voiceless in global narratives.

The 2025 flare-up in the U.S.–China trade war offers a stark reminder. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese goods, framed as a defence of American industry and a response to the fentanyl crisis, was met by Beijing’s own retaliatory tariffs of 125%. This is not just economic tit-for-tat; it is a symbolic clash over who will dictate the rules of the global economy. And as always, the Global South pays the highest price for a battle it did not choose.

Tariffs and sanctions have become the weapons of a new era; tools of coercion dressed as policy. And in a system rigged by asymmetric leverage, developing countries are rarely more than collateral damage. Export routes choke. Currencies plummet. Economies dependent on large markets find themselves exposed, with no shield and no say. In this context, neutrality is not a shield, it is a trap. It strips states of the political leverage they need to navigate an increasingly volatile world.

Yet rejecting neutrality does not mean rushing into ideological allegiance. We are not in 1955. Today’s landscape demands strategic alignment, not romantic alignment. What the Global South needs is not to “pick sides,” but to build capacity, the ability to engage with all powers while maintaining agency. The task is not ideological purity, but geopolitical agility.

This is not opportunism; it is long-view pragmatism. China, at this moment, offers opportunities that many in the Global South cannot afford to ignore. Its engagements tend to be less intrusive and more transactional. Through initiatives like Belt and Road, digital trade corridors, and development banks, China presents an alternative model of cooperation; less moralistic, more tangible. Compared to the paternalism of the IMF or the liberal conditionalities of the World Bank, Beijing’s approach is refreshingly post-Western.

Across Africa, China invested over $4.6 billion in a single year, with Angola receiving the bulk and the remainder spread across over 30 projects in agriculture, energy, manufacturing, and mining. In Southeast Asia, it is reshaping supply chains by relocating manufacturing to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. In Latin America, Chinese capital now builds railways, ports, and energy hubs from Brazil to Ecuador. So expansive is this footprint that even the European Union has scrambled to respond, unveiling its own €300 billion “Global Gateway” as a counterweight to Beijing’s growing reach, even within Europe itself.

This is the context in which the Global South must redefine its strategy. The answer is not sterile neutrality, but active, autonomous engagement. It must master the art of dual diplomacy, engaging great powers without surrendering to them. In an interdependent world, sovereignty is no longer about isolation: it’s about managing entanglement with skill.

Vietnam, Mexico, and Turkey show what this looks like in practice, turning geographic vulnerability into strategic leverage through diversified partnerships, pragmatic diplomacy, and clear domestic agendas. Sovereignty today is not achieved by avoiding conflict, but by navigating it with clarity and purpose.

Too often, however, the fundamental failure is internal. Many developing countries enter the global arena without a clear agenda, a coherent voice, or the institutional capacity to bargain. They don’t negotiate, they receive. They don’t shape outcomes, they absorb consequences. And without a developmental strategy grounded in technological capacity, research investment, and industrial policy, foreign engagement becomes little more than dependency dressed as diplomacy.

In this light, alignment with China or with anyone must begin at home. The issue is not who we align with, but how. The Global South is not in search of a new patron. It is in search of balanceand a platform from which to speak in its own voice.

Beyond development finance and infrastructure, the Global South must claim its place as a producer of global ideas. On issues like energy transition, data sovereignty, and financial reform, developing countries bring lived realities and moral claims distinct from those of the North. They know that “green transitions” without funding are just new forms of carbon colonialism. They know that a digital world run by Western or Chinese corporate oligopolies will only reproduce old inequities. The moment calls not only for a shift in alliances but a reimagining of what global justice looks like.

In such a world, neutrality is not just insufficient: it is dangerous. Silence has a cost. Those who do not speak will be spoken for. Those who do not define their interests will be defined by others.

In 1955, neutrality was a declaration of agency. In 2025, it risks becoming complicit in a global order that still privileges a few. The choice is not East versus West, it is between capitulating to the old system or helping shape a new one.

The Global South does not need guardians. It needs room to define its own future. In that space, China is a valuable partner, not because it lacks ambition, but because it does not insist on a singular vision of power.

But partnership means nothing without preparation. Opportunity favours those who arrive ready. The Global South must come to the table not as passive beneficiaries, but as actors with strategies, demands, and ideas.

In the end, the future will not be written by the strongest, but by those bold enough to challenge the script. Neutrality will not get us there. It is not a strategy, it is a deferral. And deferral is a luxury we can no longer afford.

If the Global South is serious about shaping the future, it must stop being the backdrop to someone else’s story. It must become the author writing with its own pen, in its own voice, with the courage to choose a side, not between powers, but between passivity and purpose.

Note: A version of this article in Indonesian language was previously published in Kompas on April 23, 2025, under the title; "Global South dan Ilusi Netralitas" and is accessible here