We are witnessing a period of great change
in world politics. The old power structures still dominate daily politics but
are no longer unchallenged. New ideas for a post-liberal order appear on the
horizon.
The world order has indubitably entered an
“interregnum” where, as Antonio Gramsci wrote, the masses “no longer believe
what they used to believe previously.” Doubts and skepticism proliferate over
the success of globalization, the idea of liberal progress and Francis
Fukuyama’s influential theory that the collapse of the Soviet Union would lead
to global dominance for democracy and market capitalism.
To Out-Think Beijing, Washington Will Need to Adopt Visionary Planning
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Two developments amplify the growing
feeling disorientation in politics, economics and academia. Firstly, as the
sociologist Bruno Latour puts it, the globe has grown too small for the demands
of modern globalization and optimization. Tangible climate change affects
everyone, clearly highlighting the limits to liberal modernization.
Secondly, the Western liberal narrative of
progress has lost its momentum. Since the financial crisis of 2008, fractures
have appeared in the US-led global economic system, with growing social
inequality, privatization of digital markets and increasingly sharp political
polarization.
In the words of the conservative political
theorist Patrick J. Deneen, liberalism has failed because it was too
successful. Equally pertinently, the political scientists Helge Jordheim and Einar
Wigen note that the centuries-old self-image of Europe — and
even more so the United States — as the global motor of political, sociocultural
and economic progress is fading. In its place are contemporary experiences of
crisis, stagnation and a world decidedly out of balance.
Dystopia and Nostalgia in Dealings with
China
These threats to the liberal world order come into stark focus in the debates over the rise of China. Washington regards China under President Xi Jinping as the decisive disruption and the power it most needs to contain. In this interpretation, the two powers are spiraling into a “new era of great power competition” as Beijing also stands its ground. Today, the Chinese leadership distinguishes openly between the institutionalized forms of the international order — in which China engages actively — and the underlying values of (what they see as) the US-dominated Western liberal world order, which Beijing emphatically rejects.
These perspectives ramp up the pressure on
US politicians to take rapid and decisive action. This may encourage
dystopianism: The rise of China is seen as sealing the inevitable decline of
the United States and Western values, making it necessary to prevent China’s
rise by any means possible. Or it may foster nostalgia and a wish to revive the
confidence of a bygone era.
Both perspectives ultimately imply a need
to “put China in its place.” This promotes assertions of strength and even more
prominently the idea of decoupling from China, as well as a very clear
distinction between friend and enemy. The result is a climate of discussion
where political polarization is presented as inevitable, which in extremis
always also includes the real possibility of armed conflict between the US and
China.
Tolerance of Ambiguity
The sense of inevitability in this era of
global interregnum, especially in relation to the growing rivalry between the
two great powers, obscures the view of (and increasingly also blocks the desire
for) alternatives. Where could the way out lie?
First of all, it is crucial that these
tectonic shifts in world politics are not just occurring around us: Germany and
Europe are themselves part of these changes. Secondly, China, and especially
the Communist Party, is not going to develop — in economic, political, social
or cultural terms — as the United States (or the European Union) might wish.
The central question is therefore whether Europe can accept China as a
permanent part of the world order without the Chinese leadership signing up to
Western values.
If we conclude that it can, European actors will have to deal with the contradictions with which China confronts us. The sociologist Andreas Reckwitz describes this as a tolerance of ambiguity. In contrast to Washington’s demand for decoupling, tolerance of ambiguity is apparently the harder task. Yet it also draws a line under the politics of polarization that tends to hinder diplomacy more than it helps. For Europe, the question is ultimately less about being for or against the United States or China, but instead in the medium term creating new, productive structures of order in which core European values remain central.
*[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in March 2020. SWP advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]
The views expressed in this article
are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial
policy.
