World is splitting, centring around Washington & Beijing

NEW DELHI: The Russian invasion of Ukraine and a series of Covid-related shutdowns in China do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common. Yet both are accelerating a shift that is taking the world in a dangerous direction, splitting it into two spheres, one centred on Washington, D.C., and the other on Beijing, author Michael Schuman wrote in The Atlantic.

As the 21st century has worn on, however, only those with rose-tinted glasses can still foresee this future, as political confrontation, economic nationalism, and cultural nativism resurface. Deteriorating relations between the US and China, combined with Beijing's heightened strategic and economic ambitions, have already ushered in renewed great-power competition and an ideological struggle between liberal and illiberal global norms, Schuman said.

"And now diplomatic fallout from the Ukraine crisis is ricocheting around the world in unanticipated ways, while the strain of the lengthening coronavirus ordeal has the potential to alter the international economic map. As the Russian invasion continues, and China sticks to its zero-Covid strategy, the likelihood of these tensions solidifying competing blocs is only increasing," he added.

China's leaders have already been unwinding their ties to the world. In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has set in motion policies aimed at creating a new Pax Sinica-an altered world order built by Beijing.

With a newly aggressive foreign policy, Xi has come to see the US as China's chief strategic and economic adversary, and the US-led global system as a constraint on Chinese power.

He has taken steps to decrease his country's reliance on (and thus vulnerabilities too) the US and its allies, stressing a "self-sufficiency" campaign to ensure that China controls the production of items key to the economy by securing supply chains and replacing imports with homegrown alternatives, including microchips and jumbo jets.

His Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), ostensibly a development program to build infrastructure in needy nations, is in reality designed to promote Chinese political and business influence in emerging countries and bind them to China through trade, finance, and technology.

In Beijing's eyes, the Ukraine crisis is likely proof positive that Xi's course is the best for China's future. We can't know with certainty what he and his top policymakers are thinking, but it is safe to assume that they are looking at the stiff sanctions imposed on Russia by a strengthened Western alliance system with trepidation.

The fact that the war in Ukraine has alerted the US and Europe to the new threats they face from aggressive authoritarian powers is also contributing to the emerging split by reinvigorating the transatlantic democratic alliance. As NATO solidifies in Europe, in Asia the Quad, a partnership that includes Australia, India, Japan, and the US, is coalescing into a China-containment club. Simultaneously, Beijing's continued support for Moscow is forming the axis of an anti-West coalition, which already includes other destabilizers such as Belarus and North Korea, Schuman said.

"Economically, too, Beijing and Moscow are looking to each other to decrease their reliance on the West and its allies: China has long sought to wean itself off the dollar, an exercise Russia is undertaking in real-time. Technologically, the lines are being drawn more starkly. China has already separated itself from the global internet with the Great Firewall and is investing heavily in its chip, AI, and electric-vehicle industries to overtake the technological leadership of the US and its friends in Europe and Asia."

As the global divergence continues, however, countries will gravitate toward one side or the other, and (as during the Cold War) not necessarily on clear ideological grounds. Vietnam, fearful of rising Chinese power, is open to American overtures, while Pakistan, a Cold War ally of Washington's that is now heavily linked to China through Belt and Road investments, has effectively become a client state of Beijing.

"Changes in governments and leaders could prevent what seems an inexorable slide into a new world. Barring that, though, what could emerge are two semi-distinct spheres, with tighter economic ties within than between them. Each will use different technology and operate on different political, social, and economic norms. Each will likely point their nuclear missiles at the other and compete in a zero-sum game for power and influence," Schuman said. (IANS)

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