Pablo Hiriart
MADRID.- Last week’s demonstration of diplomatic, military, and economic power by the Chinese government marks the end of an era that we believed to be glorious, promising, and invincible after the fall of the Soviet bloc. Equality before the law, checks and balances on power, democracy, human rights, and freedoms are no longer universal values because China has been able to impose the idea that any political regime is acceptable. Donald Trump removed the United States from the leadership of the free world and punished its allies.
In France, President Macron is juggling to stay afloat. His British colleague Keir Starmer is sinking below 20 percent approval, and Zelensky lacks the ammunition to defend himself against the Russian invasion. Perhaps he should accept the “ride” he was offered at the beginning of the war. They are among the last liberal leaders in the West. All three are brilliant, but they are under fire from the political and tariff artillery of the United States. And in the disrespectful showcase of political horse-trading, Orbán, Le Pen, Farage, Sheinbaum, Bukele, Fico, Ortega, Petro, and other destroyers of democratic systems, equality before the law, and liberal principles are growing stronger.
Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on India, his natural ally against Chinese communism, and threw the most populous country—and fourth or fifth largest economy in the world—into the arms of Xi Jinping. Unbelievable. Instead of increasing punishment on Russia for the war against Ukraine, Trump imposed exorbitant tariffs on a friendly nation, India, for buying oil from Russia. Adding insult to injury, Trump welcomed the head of the Pakistani army, who had just fought India with weapons provided by China.
The Indian prime minister had not set foot in China for seven years, and there he was last week alongside his new friend Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and other authoritarian leaders gathered under the umbrella of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has become an anti-NATO bloc. Donald Trump had nothing to say in response to the meeting of 26 leaders in China, except for a joke on social media. When the magnitude of what was happening in China was explained to him, he took a theatrical measure: he changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
His “friend Vladimir” signed an agreement with the Chinese and Mongolian presidents to build a new gas pipeline (Power of Siberia 2) that will carry 50 billion cubic meters per year, with a 30-year contract and preferential prices. The Power of Siberia 1 will increase the flow of gas. Cooperation between the world’s leading consumer (China) and the number one producer of these resources (Russia) was secured. And that was just one of the 22 documents signed by Xi and “Trump’s friend,” Vladimir Putin. Narendra Modi and the Chinese leader agreed to reactivate trade, ease restrictions on Buddhist pilgrimages (an extremely thorny issue), and renew their friendship… against the United States and what that country represents.
Following the diplomatic event, the military challenge to the United States, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Europe commenced. The parade in Tiananmen Square (where the democratic hopes of young Chinese people were crushed in bloodshed in 1989) was impressive, with the worst of the madmen with nuclear weapons, Kim Jong-un, arriving in an armored train. The parade was not of troops and weapons for defense, but of the military muscle of a country that can say, as Xi did: “Humanity must choose between peace and war… dialogue or confrontation, win-win outcomes or a zero-sum game.”
The world order led unquestionably by the United States is over. The epicenter of the transformation shaping the 21st century has shifted to Beijing. Washington has relinquished its moral authority to lead on values such as democracy, separation of powers, and human rights. With his anti-immigrant delirium and crocodile prisons, his attack on his Athens (the universities), his judges, his autonomous institutions, the carte blanche given to a criminal like Netanyahu, his support for the hooligans of anti-politics in Europe, his commercial extortion of his friends… what does Trump have to say to the authoritarians gathered in China? A joke on social media. That’s all he’s got. Well, one flashy act but with no real substance (the renaming of the Department of Defense).
Cars carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles—nuclear ones—submarine drones, drones designed with artificial intelligence that accompany fighter jets in flight, hypersonic missiles that are very difficult to intercept, electronic warfare platforms… all paraded through Tiananmen Square. With the United States diminished, China is beginning to fill the space left by Trump. It already has the alliances and weapons to challenge the United States. It seems inevitable that we are turning the page on the liberal principles championed by the West and the world order that protects peaceful coexistence between nations and respect for human dignity.
It seems.
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