Last week, China seized the opportunity of its celebration of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War to celebrate some other dubious things. It was not just the victory of the Chinese Liberation Army over the Japanese imperialists in the World War. It was also a celebration of the survival of the Communist order even if mortally wounded and weakened. It was above everything else an opportunity to exploit the current weaknesses of the Western Alliance to look forward to the emergence of an alternative world order.
In the context of the contemporary world order largely dominated by the West and its values and economic rules, it was an opportunity for China as the second largest economy in the world to rally its allies and like-minded countries to showcase and foreshadow an alternative world order as a counterweight to the prevailing Western order in culture, diplomacy, economics and noise. The North Korean delegation to the conference even came armedwith a highly sexed up video of the future of the Evil Emire, one mae more attractive to tourists and visitors. It was a plagiarized version of the futuristic adolescent utopian video bandied by Donald Trum during his first term visit to North Korea.
In other words, what China has just staged is a symbolic conclave of alternative powers in the search for a new world order. It saw a gathering of countries like China, Russia, North Korea, Turkey, Iran meet in China to showcase the outlines of an alternative world order. A very significant presence in the assemblage was India represented by Prime Minister Modi. With China and India, the demographic gravity of the China conclave in the world cannot be under rated. Economically and demographically, China and India represent the face of the world ahead.
To underline the gathering as a great power front, China staged a an impressive parade of some of its most recent military hardware and their underlying technological backbones. Russia’s Vladimir Putin grinned endlessly as he was witnessing a gathering that fits into his dream of an alternative world empire. Putin lives anddreams of the return of the Cold War era when a powerful Soviet Union stoodshoulder toshoulder with the West. Henowneeds a powerfull wealthy and belligerent China tosustain that illusion.
The alternative world order is simply defined. It is an order marked by only one political identity: it is not Western. It is not liberal democratic. Its defining political character is authoritarianism. It respects no human rights. People exist to givelegitimacy to those who confiscate power and hold on to it under guise of some “democratic” mask. Those who oppose the authoritarian despot had better write their will as the despot has only one gift for the opposition: Death or permanent exile. Its strategic aim is to counterbalance the policies, values and leadership models that have become synonymous with the West since after the end of the Second World War. In place of free trade, free enterprise and liberal democracy, these countries offer centralized economics, and authoritarian rule and a crushing repression of civil rights. In place of freedom of expression and democratic political expression, they posit controlled speech, muffled expression and limitless censorship of individual expression. Silent acquiescence is miataken for peace and order. At best, these countries offer illiberal democracy in which the views of one party and the wishes of one man prevail over and above the diversity of the multiplicity of voices and tendencies in these very large countries.
The politics of the contemporary world seems to have played into the hands of China and its oppressive allies. First is the rise and return of Donald Trump in the White House. Second is the ongoing war of territory in Ukraine between an ambitious Russia and an expansionist NATO. Russia has survived an avalanche of US and western economic sanctions with the financial support of China and direct military assistance of North Korea and Iranian arms. India’s continued purchase of Russian oil has been interpreted as a major strategic sabotage of Western interest in the Ukraine conflict. Aspunishment, Trump has slammedanaverage of 50% duty on Indian goods coming into the US. In brutal retribution, India has symbolically joined the Axis of Evil led by a cynically smiling Xi jiping.
Ordinarily the direct partisanship of China and North Korea would have defined a line of old animosity between the old West and East if indeed there was in Washington a typically American and pro -Western President. Donald Trump lives in the White House but his principal role models are authoritarians and despots. He has openly expressed admiration for Xi Jiping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Viktor Orban of Hungary and a slew of small autocrats around the world. Temperamentally therefore, Donald Trump belongs to the authoritarian universe of the antagonists of the West. Inhis leadership rolemodels anddomestic policy direction, Donald Trump is merely an applicant for enrollment into the Axis of Evil championed by China and other authoritarian forces.
Matters would have been simpler if at the level of domestic policy values Trump was Western or even American. He is not. He has instead systematically thwarted most of the values that make America distinct. His anti -immigration drive is a near maniacal crusade against immigrants, a drastic reversal of the immigrant essence of America. He has sent out armies of ICE officials to hound all immigrants. People have been yanked off schools, churches, farms, factory work places and bundled into waiting repatriation planes to be repatriated to countries they hardly know. Strange places like Uganda, South Sudan are being lobbied and paid to accept plane loads of immigrants from the US. Some of these immigrantsare crack criminals from American jails. In a few sad cases, children bornin America have been yanked off schools and playgrounds and bundled into planes waiting to head in no particular direction.
Under Trump, major cultural markers of American civilization are being disfigured and erased. The Kennedy Centre, the Smithsonian Institute are all being rid of their historical resonance. Mentions of the heritage of slavery as a foundation of American prosperity and greatness are being deliberately altered or totally erased.
Yet America has progressively defined itself in manners and worlds that make it distinct from the alterative world of the old Evil Axis. In the early days after the death of the Cold War, George Bush Jr. characterized the countries of the old left along with Iran as the Axis of Evil, a term that clearly indicated the diametrical opposition of the values of authoritarianism and arbitrariness against the Western values of freedom, free trade, liberal democracy and freedom of thought, movement and enquiry. It is doubtful if Donald Trump can be as bold as George Bush Jr. who was in every way a thoroughbred American Republican and embodiment of the core values and defining creeds of America and therefore the West.
Before George Bush jr., his father as president had summarized the defining mission and character of America as the pursuit of a “kinder gentler” nation which would wield its soft power around the world without leaving doubts that its strength lay in its soft power.
After the Bush era, Barrack Obama rode to power on the platform of an all inclusive America, a nation of immigrants from all over the world whose beauty lay in the diversity of its populace and capacities. The policy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness (DEI) was devised to accommodate the historical reality of America. It sought to give scope for every American, immigrant or home born, black, brown, white, Hispanic and Asian to come to American to pursue the American dream and give of their very best.
Above all, the greatness of American was to be sustained on the freedom of thought, enquiry and movement as originally espoused by the founding fathers. A major block of this greatness was excellence in science, technology and the humanities. Underlying it all was a freedom to inquire into every aspect of human knowledge and endeavor. The universities were the consecrated centres of this great learning.
On the contrary, Trump is somewhat confused. He is paraded as the president of America which remains the bastion of freedom and democracy all over the world. He has repeatedly expressed his admiration for authoritarian dictators all over the world as models of what he calls “strong” leadership. He has staged a massive military parade in Washington in imitation of the Chinese and Koreans.
He has embarked on a massive takeover of time honoured cultural institutions and subsumed such take over under his ideological obsession with white nationalism. Anything that looks like respect for diversity, inclusion and equity in all major national institutions is being systematically thrashed and replaced with while supremacist personnel and ideas.
These measures are all targeted at the democratic essence of the American nation. Literally everywhere and in all segments of American life, the democratic essence of the nation is under assault. The powers of state governors to decide on the most elementary aspects of the lives of their citizens are being challenged and replaced by federal fiat. The judicial branch is over burdened with cases challenging the authoritarian excesses of the Trump presidency. Never in any othe single presidential term has the powers of the president come under such systematic judicial scrutiny and open challenge,
From an ultra republican nation, America under Trump has been struggling with the outlines of authoritarianism and a creeping monarchism in which Donald Trump and his minions and hirelings are functioning more like feudal prefects than as democratic officials. Americans have had to march in several cities against the kingship traits of President Trump.
Trump’s entire doctrine of “America First” is antithetical to the pursuit of a world agenda. Nations can act to protect their national interests in matters of national security and economic protectionism but once a major power has declared a commitment to championing a global agenda, it is limited in its pursuit of national interest. A delicate balance has to be struck between national interest and the imperatives of the global agenda.
A global agenda without the soft power of aid to the afflicted, food for the hungry, medicine for the sick and compassion for citizens in distress is no better than the criminal negligence of the worst authoritarian regimes. You cannot replace pain with more excruciating pain and anguish and insist that you are championing the emergence of a new world order. This is what Trump is doing while insisting that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
In pursuit of a more martial rule, Trump has imposed martial law in major cities starting from emergencies in Los Angeles, Washington DC and soon Chicago.
The indiscriminate imposition of discriminatory trade tariffs on different countries with scant regard as to whether they are allies or adversaries. India, Mexico, Canada, most of the European Union. This indiscriminate tariff policy has further blurred the distinction between allies and adversaries and widened the market for friends for allies of the evil empire. You cannot be the champion of a different world order when your actions, policies and utterances espose and champion the values of the other world.
Taken together, all of Donald Trump’s actions, inclinations leadership preferences amount to a giant application to the cult of evil empires. Instead of positing a strong alternative to the Axis of Evil, Trump is intent on unifying the world under one authoritarian, protectionist and national umbrella. Trump’s vision is one in which the United States literally stands alone as one strong economic and military power at par with China but in a position to dictate to the rest of the world. I doubt that the thought of a hemispheric influence or global order appeals to Mr. Trump.