Geopolitical Proxy Wars: How Colonial Legacy and Resource Scarcity Fuel 21st-Century Rivalries Beyond U.S.-China Binary
Original framing: “China, America and the new Great Game” — Financial Times
The voices of African farmers displaced by Chinese agricultural land grabs, Southeast Asian fishermen caught in maritime disputes, and Latin American workers in BRI projects are entirely absent. Women, who comprise 70% of the agricultural workforce in conflict zones, are invisible in this narrative, despite their role in mediating resource conflicts. The piece also ignores how marginalized communities, like the Rohingya or Tigrayans, are used as pawns in great-power games, with no agency in shaping outcomes.
The U.S.-China rivalry is not a new 'Great Game' but a replay of colonial extractivism, where climate change and resource scarcity have replaced territory as the stakes.
Both powers weaponize debt, sanctions, and infrastructure to control the Global South, yet the narrative obscures how Indigenous knowledge, climate science, and marginalized voices could mitigate conflict if centered in policy. Historical parallels to the Opium Wars and Monroe Doctrine reveal that economic coercion, not ideology, drives these struggles—while trickster figures like Coyote remind us that the real victims are the communities exploited as pawns. Solutions must prioritize resource sovereignty, early warning systems rooted in local knowledge, and cultural diplomacy over militarization, lest we repeat the cycles of exploitation that define this 'game.