It is now clear that the 7st century heralds the birth of a new world order. The undefinedness and instability accompanying this process are spreading across the planet and the West is reacting to it either with fear or nostalgia for the old forms of nationalism, which brought benefits in the past and which, of course, will not bring them now. Even for the most incorrigible optimists, the "Group of XNUMX" summit in Quebec at the beginning of June became proof that the geopolitical West is collapsing and losing its global importance, and that the main destroyer of the world order, which was created and led by America, is none other than the US president. Of course, Donald Trump is to the greatest extent a symptom, not the cause, of the disintegration of the West. But he greatly accelerated that process.
Historians of today's problems in the West go back to the moment of the end of the Cold War, when the bipolar world order was replaced by economic globalization, which made possible the emergence of new powers, such as China. In the decades that followed, America apparently came to see its tried and tested alliances as a burden rather than an asset.
This concerns not only Europe, Japan and South Korea, but also the first neighbors of the USA - Canada and Mexico. Trump's decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports led to a deep rift between the US and Canada at a summit in Quebec, and their rift over trade will of course have much wider political ramifications.
European and North Atlantic countries have dominated the global economy for four centuries. Now that is no longer the case. The new geography of global governance, which was formed as a result of the shift of the center of gravity of the world economy from the transatlantic region to the Asia-Pacific region, does not match the concept of the geopolitical map of the XNUMXth century, let alone the XNUMXth.
The United States remains the world's leading power, but China has emerged, both as a new and an old geopolitical power. With a population of 1,4 billion people and a huge domestic market, China is already challenging America's world leadership in economics, politics and technology.
Anyone who has been in the corridors of power in Beijing knows that the Chinese leadership has its own map of the world. On that map, China ("the Middle Kingdom") is in the center, while Europe and the USA are at the ends, left and right respectively. In other words, the US and Europe (that strange set of small and medium-sized nation-states) are already divided and marginalized.
In the beginning, the USA reacted to the geopolitical changes of today's century intuitively, by "returning to Asia". After all, America has long been present on both the Atlantic and the Pacific; and, being the last great power, it has the ability to prevent historical changes in geopolitics while protecting its interests.
Europe, for its part, has somnabulously wandered through the current period of historical inrerregnum. The majority of Europeans decided to sink into self-analysis, old insults and sweet fantasies about the XNUMXth century when they ruled the world. This narrow view of the world is supported by events such as the election of Trump and the Brexit referendum.
However, instead of dwelling on Trump's eccentric behavior, we do better to remember that today's global trends emerged before he became president. It is about the fact that the policy of "return to Asia" was introduced by former US President Barack Obama. Trump just continues it, for example, with the recent meeting with North Korean President Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
Trump's policy creates serious threats not because it represents a strategic reorientation of the US, which in any case was already happening, but rather because it is contradictory and extremely destructive. For example, when Trump calls for reducing the US military presence in the Middle East, he is simply repeating what Obama said.
But by canceling the nuclear deal with Iran, Trump has increased the possibility of war in the region. And by doing his best to reduce North Korea's international isolation, and getting virtually nothing in return, he has strengthened China's position in the Far East.
The global trade war started by Trump is equally self-destructive. By slapping tariffs on America's closest allies, he is practically pushing them into China's arms. If European and Japanese exporters to the US encounter protectionist barriers, what other option is left for them other than conquering the Chinese markets? Europe, deprived of North Atlantic support, has no choice but to turn to Eurasia, regardless of Vladimir Putin's militarism, which he has shown in Eastern Ukraine, and his attempts to influence the outcome of elections in Western countries.
In addition, even if the US had not started implementing protectionist policies, Japan would sooner or later have to come to terms with the growth of China's economic power. The last chance to prevent China's ascendancy disappeared when Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which could have acted as a border against American-controlled China.
In the end, the "return to Asia" will take place according to completely different scenarios on the two shores of the Atlantic. The absence of a common American-European policy, aimed at supporting transatlantic cohesion, will lead to the West quickly sinking into oblivion. With the US looking West across the Pacific Ocean and Europe looking East towards Eurasia, the only winner will be China. Therefore, the real strategic danger of the Trump era is not only that the world order is changing. It is that Trump's policy is guaranteed to promise to "make China great again".
The author was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany 1998-2005; he played a key role in the founding of the German Green Party, whose leader he was for almost 20 years
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2018.
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