Revenge of China and geopolitics

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It’s easy to forget that early in Joe Biden’s presidency he made a bridge-building offer to Vladimir Putin. During the 2020 campaign, Biden barely mentioned Russia as America’s geopolitical rival. China caught everyone’s attention. At the Geneva summit with his Russian counterpart in June 2021, the US President did everything possible to boost Putin’s arrogance, even calling Russia a great power.

A few weeks later, Biden withdrew the remaining US forces from Afghanistan in a debacle that threatened to define his presidency.

In retrospect, it is clear that two unrelated events – Biden’s positive mood music towards Russia and his withdrawal from Afghanistan – strengthened Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. In Putin’s view, the West was unlikely to react more decisively to the planned annexation of Ukraine than it did to Crimea in 2014.

Such misunderstandings have been a feature of geopolitics for centuries.

In this case, the consequences of Russia’s mistake in Ukraine – and the West’s unexpectedly unified response – are likely to reverberate for years, if not decades. Sixteen months into Russia’s “special military operation,” the world faces a greater threat of great power conflict than the most dangerous points of the Cold War.

Talk of reviving the liberal international order – a state of global existence that was never the way its apathetic detractors believed it to be – looks increasingly bizarre. The world is moving towards a new type of great power rivalry. But comparisons with its 19th-century predecessor are at best confusing. That long period of the so-called Pax Britannica ended in tragedy in World War I. Today’s world cannot afford a direct confrontation between its two competing giants, the US and China.

The challenge facing the US and its Western allies is threefold.

The first is to maintain Western unity against Putin. It has got the biggest relief from next year’s US election. Rarely has a US presidential election involved so many different possible outcomes for the state of the world. If Biden is re-elected, the world can expect some continuity in US foreign policy until 2028. If Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, returns to power in 2025, it could destroy Western unity.

Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. That prospect, and that alone, is motivation enough for Putin to continue his war on Ukraine for another 18 months in the hope that Trump will come to his rescue.

That specter is nearly impossible for America’s European allies to defend against. His fate and that of Ukraine rests in the hands of the American voter.

The second challenge for the West is to forge a common front on China without falling into direct confrontation. Unlike the war in Ukraine, which must eventually reach some sort of chaotic conclusion, the rivalry between the US and China is an endless project. For the purposes of strategic planners, this leads to no natural conclusion.

This is where history stops providing much guidance. Other than Armageddon, there is no scenario in which the US or China will emerge as the sole hegemon of the world.

This presents a unique challenge to a West that has been educated in Manichean conflicts that result in one side or the other claiming victory. This will require unusual strategic patience and skill. To paraphrase Deng Xiaoping, China’s former paramount leader, the West must cross the river by feel for the stones, except that the far bank of the river will never be fully visible.

This year, President Xi Jinping accused the US of trying to “suppress, control and surround” China. Biden emphasizes that he aims to cooperate with Beijing where possible, compete where necessary, and compete if there is no other option.

Tackling the threat from China is a major challenge. It is clear that a Trump victory next year could upset Biden’s complex US-China balancing act.

The West’s third challenge is to find solutions to the existential threats facing humanity, starting with global warming. Even without taking revenge on geopolitics, it will be an uphill climb. But the war in Ukraine and rising tensions with China have made it more complicated.

The global South is a major area of ​​competition for influence between America and China. It is also the main victim of the consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Energy and food price inflation resulting from the war and the West’s subsequent sanctions on Russia, coupled with rising US interest rates, have brought the global South to the brink of a new debt crisis.

Overall, these challenges can seem insurmountable. But the West can do well by doing well. The more relief it can provide to the global South – in the form of green energy financing, debt relief and pandemic resistance – the better the West will fare on the geopolitical front.

The so-called New Great Game with China is a zero-sum competition. The best way to limit China’s reach is for the West to offer solutions to the growing problems of the rest of the world. On paper, the path to election looks clear. In practice, has the West been able to take it?