Heine Discusses Active Non-Alignment and India’s Potential with The Wire India
Ambassador Jorge Heine, former professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies and diplomat, was in conversation with Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire India. They discussed the concepts behind his two recent books, Active Non-Alignment (2023) and The Unaligned World (2025), which both unpack the histories, motivations, and realities which inform the current Active Non-Alignment movement.
The Non-Alignment movement, started in the 1960’s and recently updated for the 21st century, encourages countries of the Global South, such as Asia, Latin America, and Africa, to consider using the current competition between the United States and China for their own benefits. By not fully aligning with one or the other, they are able to focus on their individual national needs, reserve resources, and global influence. Heine shared his hope for such opportunities, “The Global South has raised its voice significantly and has become very much a reference point for countries around the world, and with an economic heft and political clout that the old world did not have.”
Heine elaborated on current state of the literature on Active Non-Alignment,
We have set forth that Active Non-Alignment is an non-idealogical project, that it is not of the left or the right. It provides a guide to action, a compass, to navigate the troubled waters of national affairs that we’re living in today… it is a very down-to-earth, practical guide to action that purports to provide governments with the tools to make the very difficult choices they have to make.
Scholars have critiqued that this may be useful for larger countries, but smaller countries can’t use it. However, in the case of Ecuador, after they had been denied their proposals for free trade agreements by the U.S. in 2022, they then went to China and were able to come to a free trade agreement that came into effect in 2024. This set the tone for Ecuador’s leaders seeking opportunities from China that the U.S. is not providing right now. By not choosing sides, countries are able to navigate this complicated power competition and “play the field” to their benefit.
Seeing itself as a leader of the Global South, Varadarajan expressed his curiosity of what India can do to support other countries in exercising influence of world affairs. Heine shared India’s many advantages, among them being its size, location, and history, and that there is “enormous room for India to play a much larger role in the world than it has until now”. However, India has been a sort of reluctant leader and must invest in more engagement with smaller countries in the Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in addition to large or medium-sized countries. Because of its history of peaceful resistance, respected institutions, spiritual leadership, and early adopter of non-alignment, it’s possible to position itself as a leader with opportunity for goodwill, if it so chooses.
Watch the full discussion on Youtube.
A former research professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Jorge Heine is a diplomat, international relations scholar, and lawyer. He has served as an ambassador of Chile to China, India, and South Africa. Heine has written over fifteen books, including The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition (2025), which provides insights on how the Global South can navigate the changing diplomatic landscape amid the U.S.-China rivalry.