The fundamental challenge facing the United States and the West today is not how to adapt to an Asian Century. It is how to live in a world with many illiberal regimes and resist the illiberal pressures at home.
During the Cold War, it was arguably more simple in that there were very few economic relations between the West and the communist regimes. Non-communist illiberal regimes were aligned with the West in their opposition to communism.
But today, we live in a world with liberal and illiberal regimes and many shades of gray in between. One of the greatest worries is the illiberal shift in the United States and European countries like Hungary, which is in part fostered by illiberal regimes’ infiltration and influence operations.
Moreover, there are very substantial economic relations between liberal and illiberal regimes. Further, both liberal and illiberal regimes have a shared interest in tackling global issues like climate change, pandemics and cyber-security through a rules-based world order.
Many illiberal regimes are contravening key elements of the rules-based order and trying to bend the rules-based order in an illiberal direction.
Responding to illiberalism
There are many issues that the United States and the West need to address in responding to illiberalism:
1. The West needs to work together cohesively and not allow itself to be manipulated by illiberal states. One of the positive aspects of the Ukraine war has been the West’s collective response. But this cohesion will always be fragile, especially given Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency.
2. We must ensure that economic and other cooperation with illiberal states does not strengthen them, as has surely been the case with China’s rapid development.
Sanctions have a role to play here, even if countries can find a way around them. It is also imperative not to compromise national security for economic gain, as Germany appears to want to do.
Holding illiberal states to account
3. We cannot let illiberal states get away with “blue murder.” The West’s reaction to Russia’s seizure of Crimea and quasi-war in the Donbas region of Ukraine was very weak and may have encouraged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Similarly, there was virtually no meaningful response by the United States to China’s occupation of the South China Sea. In addition, even during the Ukraine war, the United States and the West have been too careful and slow, too fearful of provoking an escalation, in providing arms to Ukraine.
We seem to have forgotten that the objective of war is victory — or at least creating the conditions for a favorable peace agreement or armistice.
4. More serious efforts, including by the corporate sector, are necessary to counter interference/influence operations, espionage, intellectual property theft, cyber-attacks, etc by illiberal states.
Facilitating democratization
5. We should also foster the development of political alternatives in illiberal states. Democratization in countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Czechoslovakia and others, was facilitated by trade unions, the church and student and other civil society groups.
Unfortunately, in both China and Russia, the illiberal regimes have eliminated all political alternatives. Illiberal states routinely accuse the West of promoting “regime change,” even where it is not. So, there is no reason to hold back in fostering political alternatives.
Strengthening the rules-based order
6. We must work hard to strengthen the rules-based world order and resist efforts to undermine this order. Russia’s actions against Ukraine and elsewhere, along with China’s occupation of the South China Sea, are clear violations of sovereignty
But under the presidency of Donald Trump, the United States undermined the functioning of the World Trade Organization, NATO and other international organizations. European countries must also take national defense more seriously – recent efforts to increase military spending are welcome but hardly sufficient.
7. Illiberal leaders like Vladimir Putin should not be given a veto over Western foreign policy, such as NATO and EU membership. In 2008, Ukraine and Georgia should have been unconditionally offered NATO membership rather than the ambiguous formula adopted to please Putin.
We should also endeavor to stop China from blocking Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization.
Conclusion
Resisting illiberal forces in our own countries is imperative but extremely difficult. Politics and the media are very polarized, and elites in many countries suffer from a lack of trust. But fostering more cohesive and equal societies with a sense of social justice would help.
Good and strong leadership would also help. Historically, the United States has had excellent leaders like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But today, such leadership is most regrettably lacking.
What is also necessary is an honest and dispassionate recognition that initiatives like Brexit, which were driven by illiberal forces, have been a failure.
The United States and other Western countries are taking measures to tackle the challenge of living with illiberal regimes. However, it is difficult to see whether these measures are sufficient or form part of an overall coherent strategy.