RuiThinking: Start of a neo-isolationism?

World
Europe

02:38

Hi, there.

Welcome back to Rui Thinking.

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, an emerging world order is taking shape without a war. A multi-polar world without a central pivotal power is elevating multilateralism to a historic high.

The authority of the United Nations gets bypassed, and the sole superpower pulls out of almost all key multilateral frameworks that ensure fair play. Additionally, Russia and China have forged a very special strategic partnership across the Eurasian continent. These two great powers are permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The regional bloc of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization under the joint leadership and influence of China and Russia, however, promises to be open and will not bring a repeat of the Cold War confrontation between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.

What the Belt and Road Initiative aims at is an inclusive blueprint for co-prosperity. President Xi Jinping has made it very clear at the latest BRICS summit in South Africa that the G20 rather than the G7 will unite to represent the stakes of developing countries in areas of climate change, a fair financial world order, and infrastructure.

The fact that Trump is fighting on all fronts has prompted China and the EU to join hands in seeking a legal solution to the settlement of trade disputes at the World Trade Organization.

Trans-Atlantic ties are strained, and the US embassy relocation from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has angered Arabs in the Middle East. For a third time, following the Suez Canal Crisis and the 2003 Iraq War, the US leadership has been undermined within the NATO, to say nothing of the devastating trade war.

Yes, an agreement has been inked in Washington to raise the prospect of zero tariffs and help avert a trade war with Europe despite French opposition. But wealth and influence are quietly shifting from the west to the east.

What Trump has done is to roll back globalization. This won’t either prevent China’s 2025 blueprint for high technology or add to US soft power. What China’s preventive diplomacy seeks, by all means, is to avert a new cold war that results in a lose-lose situation.

Trump is likely to defeat a liberal world order on the back of protectionism and unilateralism. Will it be the beginning of a neo-isolationism rooted in George Washington’s Farewell Address and the Neutrality Acts before World War Two?

I’m Yang Rui. Bye for now.