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世界已經與西方決裂。接下來會發生什麽 | 大使 Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iva-hr9KMc
2024 年 7 月 20 日 采訪
迄今為止對新世界秩序最有力、最有見地的分析！由大使 Chas Freeman (傅立民) 撰寫。這是您唯一需要的 2024 年世界政治大師班。
它基於大使 Freeman 於 2024 年 7 月 10 日在劍橋高管領導力課程上對中國與會者發表的演講。您可以在他的主頁上閱讀這篇文章和他的其他作品。強烈推薦！https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the...
據我所知，Chas Freeman 是第一個想出如何在概念上正確掌握“基於規則的國際秩序”的人，即嚐試實施“法治”，而不是國際法（在聯合國下）的普遍主義方法，即“法治”。精彩的分析。
弗裏曼大使還詳細討論了中國的崛起、國際秩序與中國政治理念的聯係，並對我們在後冷戰時代這個美麗新世界中的處境進行了精彩的描述。讓我告訴你，多極化並不是你想象的那樣。
對於那些不想等到大結局的人，他的結論是這樣的：
“簡而言之，我們正在目睹一個統一的、西方主導的全球秩序的終結，取而代之的是次全球層麵上各種合作和競爭的混亂局麵。類似的事情也導致了歐洲“三十年戰爭”的毀滅性混亂。那是一種由戰國組成的混亂，很像秦統一之前的中國或阿育王之前的印度的曆史。但“三十年戰爭”以《威斯特伐利亞和約》的簽訂而告終，建立了一個尊重文化多樣性的多個主權國家之間的和平共處體係。其結果被銘記在“和平共處五項原則”中。
你們這一代和下一代中國、西方和世界其他國家麵臨的問題是，我們能否複製這種結果，結束我們陷入無政府狀態的局麵。我們需要建立在相互尊重領土完整和主權、互不侵犯、互不幹涉內政、寬容、平等和合作互利的基礎上的和平。如果我們做不到這一點，我們麵臨的風險不僅僅是繁榮，還有我們的生存。”
在未來的世界秩序中生存
https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the-world-order-to-come/#_ftn1
Chas Freeman 2024-07-10
劍橋高管領導力項目對中國與會者的講話[1]
大使 Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS，退休)
布朗大學沃森國際和公共事務研究所訪問學者
通過視頻，2024 年 7 月 10 日
一個新的世界秩序正在形成。許多人稱之為“多極”，但最好將其描述為“多節點”。[2]“極點”是兩點之間線的末端。但新興秩序是一個三維網絡，而不是二維軸，甚至不是軸的集合。“節點” [節點] 是許多不同大小和強度的連接在不同向量上起源、終止和相交的地方。多節點是對目前正在出現的地緣政治幾何的更準確描述。
在新興的、陌生的國際體係中，各國以多維（而不僅僅是雙邊背景）和多種且往往不一致的方式相互互動和聯係。一個國家可能與與其具有很大經濟相互依存關係的國家存在不良的政治關係或軍事對抗。
這是對當前中美雙邊關係的恰當描述。或者，盡管兩國的意識形態相似，但中越關係也是如此。或者，就像美國與越南的關係一樣，重大的意識形態差異可能與蓬勃發展的經濟關係和適度謹慎的地緣政治合作共存。
這是最近中日兩國總理與韓國總統在首爾會晤的精神。未來我們將在關係中看到更多這種複雜性。
令反華或反美狂熱分子沮喪的是，僅憑雙邊互動無法理解或預測中國或美國的國際利益和願望。兩國之間以不同的方式相互聯係，並且與其他國家和國家集團有著複雜的互動。這些國家和集團以自己的方式與其他國家和集團聯係在一起。中美關係雖然重要，但它隻是北京和華盛頓在國內外互動和行為背景的一部分。
經過一個半世紀的衰落，中國今天再次成為亞太的中心。曆史上第一次，中國也成為一個世界強國——一個在管理人類每個領域和活動時都必須承認和解決其利益和偏好的國家。在其全麵的全球和地區影響力方麵，中國現在與美國相似。截至 2024 年，沒有其他大國有資格這樣做。
但在後冷戰環境中，地區和中等強國正在蓬勃發展。
日本是全球經濟強國，目前正謹慎地恢複亞太地區政治和軍事事務的主導地位。
俄羅斯擁有全球軍事影響力，但在能源領域以外的全球貿易和投資中並不是主要參與者。
印度是南亞霸主，但目前在該地區以外的影響力很小。
歐洲擁有全球經濟影響力，但過於分散，即使在其所在地區也難以果斷采取行動，更不用說超越該地區了。
英國和法國在它們以前的帝國領地上保留著強大但正在消退的知識和文化影響力。
阿拉伯世界缺乏凝聚力，仍然無法有效地管理自己的事務，更不用說管理其他國家的事務了。
巴西、埃塞俄比亞、德國、印度尼西亞、伊朗、墨西哥、尼日利亞、波蘭、沙特阿拉伯、南非和土耳其在其地區的實力不斷增強，但缺乏決定性的全球影響力。
所有國家都在尋求提高戰略自主權。沒有一個國家願意屈服於中國、美國或任何其他潛在的霸主。
因此，國際體係及其動態現在由大國競爭決定的說法經不起推敲。這是美國對美國在軍事以外的所有全球領域逐漸喪失主導地位的一種特殊反應。在一個不再由冷戰時期的兩極秩序主導的世界裏，所有國家都有權力——有能力做出改變，並按照他們認為的利益行事。
世界並不認同拜登政府堅持認為曆史最終會以民主與專製之間的大戰告終的猜想。美國對民主意識形態的癡迷並非源於外國顛覆美國憲政民主的努力，而是源於國內正在侵蝕民主和法治的因素。憲政民主隻能在國內建立和維持。它不能因為外國拒絕效仿而瓦解。
憲政民主的先決條件包括法治與自由的結合
言論自由。西方發明的這一組合在曆史上使知情的公民能夠進行辯論，以便他們能夠就政府的規則製定提出建議並表示同意。如果美國正在變得不那麽憲政，而變得更加專製，那麽這對像我這樣珍視歐洲啟蒙運動價值觀的人來說是令人不安的，但這是美國人做出的決定的結果，而不是中國、俄羅斯或任何其他外國勢力的操縱。
西方的“法製”概念與中國法家的“以法治國”理論截然不同，後者現在幾乎在各地都事實上取得了進展。“法製”是一種製度，統治者以及公民、機構和實體都對公開頒布、平等執行和獨立裁決的法律負責。 “法治”賦予假定明智的統治者權力，讓他們製定不公開的規則，這些規則可以根據具體情況進行修改，以產生預期結果，並且不會限製統治者自己的決定或行為。
“法治”由韓非子最明確倡導，它提出了一種治理體係，在這種體係中，統治者的決策可以而且通常應該秘密進行，並通過明確的愚民政策（使公民無法知曉）來實現，這樣他們就無法挑戰統治者的命令。這種製度將任何與官方認可的敘述不一致的觀點定義為必須壓製的“虛假信息”。它否定正當程序，屈從於政治權力和特權，並允許有選擇地應用規則，基於誰對誰做了什麽，而不是做了什麽以及是否正確。
這些是截然不同的治理概念，世界各國對哪種治理最有效和最可取有不同的看法。這些意識形態差異很重要。它們體現在各國對國際交往的不同態度，以及對國內政治製度的優點和合法性的看法上。百花齊放，百家爭鳴。“百花齊放，百家爭鳴。”正如一位偉大的改革家曾經說過的，“以實踐為真理的唯一標準。”
國際法是西方社會致力於法治的思想遺產。它是國際共識的產物，或由國際共識創建的聯合國等機構的產物，這些機構被授權製定規則來規範主權國家的行為或它們之間的互動。它與法治相似，因為它代表著社區價值觀，不是單個國家或國家集團專斷的產物，是公開宣布的，擁抱國家主權平等的概念，並為非暴力解決爭端建立了標準和授權的準司法機製。
國際法的目的是保護弱者免受強者的侵害。這就是為什麽當今國際法的最大擁護者是那些缺乏權力或野心將自己的政治或經濟偏好強加於他人的國家。
具有諷刺意味的是，鑒於美國在推動國際法方麵的曆史作用，華盛頓現在所倡導的“基於規則的秩序”是“法治”的現代版本。韓非子會承認並讚同它。它假設美國——或者美國加上前帝國主義強國俱樂部“七國集團”——可以製定規則，隨意修改規則，免除規則，並決定對誰適用或不適用規則。全球大多數人認為這一體係不合法，他們更喜歡基於《聯合國憲章》和國際社會決定的體係。
與此同時，二戰後建立的全球治理機構正在瓦解。聯合國係統無法有效應對戰爭和國家崩潰、全球變暖、大規模移民、流行病、種族滅絕、物種滅絕、核擴散以及人類生存麵臨的其他挑戰。安理會陷入癱瘓。世界貿易組織等監管機製在促進全球繁榮和全球經濟擴張方麵發揮了關鍵作用，但現在正受到攻擊和崩潰。《聯合國憲章》和國際公約曾經約束國家行為，使世界變得安全且可預測，但現在卻越來越受到蔑視。
與憲政民主一樣，對國際法的尊重正在退卻。目前尚不清楚它是否會被“法治”或無政府狀態所取代，正如修昔底德所寫的那樣，“強者為所欲為，弱者遭受他們必須遭受的苦難”。遺憾的是，修昔底德不會對烏克蘭、巴勒斯坦、聯合國或海牙國際法院發生的事情感到驚訝。
如果我們不能修複聯合國，我們就必須更換它，就像我們修複過國家聯盟一樣。
亞全球機構成員不夠普遍、凝聚力有限、權威不明朗，而且沒有能力解決全球性問題，這些亞全球機構正日益取代二戰後國際社會建立的全球機構和法律框架。遺憾的是，我國不會領導改革這些機構或維護國際法的努力。因此，其他國家必須盡其所能。
美國對失去經濟和政治主導地位的無奈反應是采取貿易和投資保護主義政策，並將其外交政策軍事化。但保護主義和軍國主義都不能也不會“讓美國再次偉大”。它們都不是解決霸權過度擴張的答案——“十個手指按十個跳蚤”——一種既徒勞又有害的荒謬努力。
實際上，華盛頓沒有采取“改革開放”的政策，而是采取了工業便秘和絕食的全國性政治經濟戰略。由於無法與中國的電動汽車、電池、太陽能電池板或風力渦輪機競爭，中國禁止這些產品進入美國市場。這似乎是對來自更具活力的外國經濟的先進技術帶來的競爭挑戰的前所未有的回應，但事實並非如此。
將美國無法競爭的產品拒之門外，重現了清朝中國在 1793 年遭遇工業革命時的拙劣反應。那一年，在視察了英國大型貿易代表團向朝廷呈獻的各種創新產品後，乾隆皇帝放棄了利用西方工業實力為中國謀利的機會，自滿地說他和中國已經“擁有了一切”，同時又居高臨下地補充說，他和中國“不看重奇特或精巧的物品，也不需要這種外國製造品。”
這種傲慢自大的態度，拒絕承認開放中國與崛起的西方進行貿易或與外國科學家、技術人員、工程師和數學家合作的好處，導致了經濟停滯、軍事失敗和內部混亂。最終，北京試圖維護的主導地位和地區“中國和平”被推翻。對優質商品和服務關閉大門，使中國的競爭劣勢和根深蒂固的平庸得以延續，而不是促進自我完善。
顯然，過度自力更生可能會適得其反。閉門造車——試圖關起門來自己製造一切——是一種失敗的政治經濟策略。正如一句粗俗但中肯的諺語所說：“拉不出屎來不要站著茅房”——“如果你不能製造出屎來，就不要在戶外廁所裏放屁。”沒有理由相信，華盛頓對經濟充滿活力、創新能力日益增強的中國所提出的挑戰的僵硬反應會導致不同的結果。
中國目前生產了世界製成品的 36%，其國內購買力比美國大三分之一。兩個世紀以來，中國首次擁有了令人信服的自衛能力，但中國對世界的主要挑戰主要不是軍事上的。美國的軍事回應無法克服這些挑戰。盡管如此，美國還是選擇了幾乎完全軍事的回應來應對中國重返財富和權力。將投資轉移到與中國和俄羅斯的無休止的戰爭、軍事建設和軍備競賽上，導致美國國內基礎設施惡化、教育水平下降、對科學研究和公共衛生的投資減少以及債務增加。
在核時代，沒有一個大國希望與另一個大國結成不可調和的敵人。但華盛頓目前就是這樣對待北京和莫斯科的。與此同時，核升級威脅顯然已不再是核大國之間常規戰爭的有效威懾。俄羅斯是世界上武裝最強大的核大國，但美國已在烏克蘭與其展開了一場注定會失敗的代理人戰爭。印度和巴基斯坦盡管擁有核武庫，但仍在相互交戰。但升級到核級別的風險非常嚴重。等到核大國麵臨它認為是生死攸關的失敗威脅時，你就知道了！
值得注意的是，79 年來，沒有哪個大國的海軍打過一場大戰。自 1950 年（74 年前）以來，沒有發生過重大的兩棲登陸。自 1954 年在朝鮮，當時尚處於萌芽階段的中國空軍和俄羅斯駕駛的朝鮮飛機與美國空軍展開混戰以來，同等競爭對手之間再沒有發生過直接的空戰。那是 70 年前的事了。西方缺乏除叛亂之外的所有戰鬥經驗。
除了俄羅斯和烏克蘭，其他地方都沒有意識到技術如何改變戰爭
西方的軍事力量在反對基於一廂情願的政治姿態方麵幾乎沒有取得任何進展。所有西方軍隊都配置為與技術落後且沒有空軍或海軍的對手作戰。所有西方軍隊都設想短期內取得勝利的戰爭，而不是長期的消耗戰。沒有一個西方經濟體擁有工業激增能力或耐力來贏得與“同等競爭對手”的消耗戰。
中美圍繞台灣的戰爭可能會決定台灣的地位，但即使如此，也會導致中美之間長期的敵對狀態。通過核交換進行的消耗戰或災難性的相互毀滅可能是不可避免的。如果發生這樣的戰爭，唯一可以肯定的是台灣的繁榮和民主將被摧毀，其半導體和其他先進技術出口將被消除，中美兩國都將失去各自的大部分海軍和空軍。有人說，核戰爭是打不贏的，也不應該打。出於多種原因，中美台海戰爭也是如此。
美國現在習慣性地用非戰爭強製措施來代替外交對話。製裁和排斥已經取代談判成為美國應對與其他國家分歧的首選方式。但在國際關係中，就像在戰爭中一樣，一個人永遠不應該失去與對手的聯係。同理心——知己知彼——對於外交成功和戰場勝利都是必不可少的。
美國及其西方夥伴現在經常使用單邊製裁來孤立國家及其經濟，剝奪它們使用貿易結算機製的權利，凍結或沒收它們的政府資產，禁止它們獲取技術，限製它們的出口和投資，禁止與它們進行交易，並禁止向它們的官員和公民發放簽證。製裁會引發怨恨，助長製裁對象的頑固性，同時扭曲市場，並在製裁持續的過程中產生既得利益。他們隻會鞏固問題，而不是解決問題，但他們擁有一批忠實的追隨者，尤其是在我的國家。
美國製裁和保護主義的淨效應是讓世界比以前各部分的總和還要差。美國在貿易和投資方麵的新立場：
用基於國家安全偏執的地緣政治風險判斷取代比較價格和質量作為商業決策的基礎，從而降低全球經濟效率、增長和繁榮。
使缺乏競爭力的國內寡頭企業（目前主導著美國經濟）免受生產更好、更便宜產品的競爭壓力。
剝奪美國生產商經濟上可取的生產投入，並鎖定通脹。
用零和經濟權力競賽取代國際貿易中的準司法爭端解決機製。
破壞全球貨幣儲備和貿易結算係統，鼓勵形成競爭性的貨幣集團和兌換機製。
將世界分裂為多個相互隔離的政治和經濟集團，限製與其他集團或國家的貿易和投資流動，損害全球繁榮和經濟效率。
構成進一步停滯和技術衰退的支點，而不是重新實現美國工業化的現實方法。
推動世界試圖通過軍事而非外交手段解決問題，其中大多數問題無法在戰場上解決。
美國政治精英將其在貿易和投資方麵的新立場描述為鞏固聯盟關係，同時抵禦來自外國的不公平競爭。但從全球角度來看，正在發生的事情是：
中國、印度、日本和俄羅斯等文明國家的複興。
伊斯蘭世界的複興不斷加強。
法國和其他歐洲大國重申戰略自主權。
巴西、埃塞俄比亞、印度尼西亞、韓國、墨西哥、尼日利亞、沙特阿拉伯和南非等新興中等強國的崛起。
東盟成為全球經濟中一個重要的獨立因素；以及非洲開始意識到其巨大的人口和經濟潛力。
這看起來更像是七國集團撤退到防禦堡壘，而不是重申大西洋文明的全球中心地位。它有可能將西方置於未來的邊緣而不是中心，隨著平行的國際社會和秩序的出現，西方在人類進步中先前的主導作用被邊緣化。世界範圍內的意識形態轉變以及大西洋世界各國因失去自信而采取的行為加劇了西方與全球大多數國家事實上的孤立。
這種趨勢包括基督教、印度教、伊斯蘭教和猶太教的宗教狂熱興起，以及社會規範的根本轉變
西方社會的行為。盡管世界上許多國家都重申了傳統價值觀，但西方精英卻推崇性別流動性、享樂主義和所謂“覺醒主義”的其他方麵，這種主義不寬容地要求容忍長期以來普遍認為不道德的行為。
與此同時，美國和七國集團繼續堅持其他國家采用西方似乎正在拋棄的治理和規則模式。美國及其七國集團盟友的國內分裂、不穩定和頹廢在自相矛盾和無效的海外言論和行動中得到體現。全球大多數人認為，歐美在烏克蘭和巴勒斯坦戰爭等問題上的行為明顯是虛偽的，基於雙重標準，並以掩蓋可見現實的敘述為理由。西方曾經殖民或統治過的國家不再願意在世界事務中追隨西方的腳步。
簡而言之，我們正目睹統一的、西方主導的全球秩序的終結，取而代之的是次全球層麵上各種合作與競爭的混雜。類似的事情也導致了歐洲“三十年戰爭”的毀滅性混亂。那是一種由戰國組成的混亂，很像秦統一之前的中國或阿育王之前的印度的曆史。但“三十年戰爭”以《威斯特伐利亞和約》的簽訂而告終，建立了一個尊重文化多樣性的多個主權國家和平共處的體係。其結果被銘記在“和平共處五項原則”中。
對於你們這一代和下一代中國、西方和世界其他國家來說，問題在於我們能否複製這一結果並結束我們陷入無政府狀態的境地。我們需要建立在相互尊重領土完整和主權、互不侵犯、互不幹涉內政、寬容、平等和互利合作的基礎上的和平。如果我們做不到這一點，我們麵臨的風險將不僅僅是我們的繁榮。我們甚至會冒著失去生存的風險。
[1] 本次講座是去年演講“分裂的世界”的後續，可在 https://chasfreeman.net/a-world-divided/ 閱讀。
[2] 我非常感謝弗吉尼亞大學外交事務名譽教授布蘭特利·沃馬克 (Brantly Womack) 的這一見解，該見解已在劍橋大學出版社 2023 年出版的《重新定位亞太》中進行了描述。
The World Is DONE With The West. Here's What's Next
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iva-hr9KMc
2024年7月20日 Interviews
The most powerful and insightful analysis of the new world order yet! By Ambassador Chas Freeman (傅立民). This is the only master class of 2024 world politics you will need.
It is based on a speech Ambassador Freeman gave to Chinese Attendees at the Cambridge Executive Leadership Program, on July 10, 2024. You can read the essay and his other writing on his homepage. Highly recommended! https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the...
Chas Freeman is to my knowledge the first person who figured out how to conceptually correctly grasp the "Rules Based International Order", namely as an attempt of conducting "Rule by Law" as opposed to the universalist approach of International Law (under the United Nations), which is the "Rule of Law." Brilliant analysis.
Ambassador Freeman also discusses in detail China's rise, the connection of international order with Chinese political concepts, and he gives a fascinating account of where we are at in this brave new world of the Post Post-Cold-War. And let me tell you, multipolarity is not what you think it is.
And for those who don't want to wait till the grand finale, here is his conclusion:
"In short, we are witnessing the end of a unified, Western-dominated global order and its replacement by a hodgepodge of collaborations and rivalries at the sub-global level. Something similar happened to cause the devastating chaos of the “Thirty Years’ War” in Europe. That was a disorder composed of warring states, much like the history of China before the Qin unification or India before A?oka. But the “Thirty Years’ War” ended in the establishment in the Peace of Westphalia of a system of peaceful coexistence between multiple sovereign states that respected their cultural diversity. Its result is memorialized in the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
The question for your generation and the next in China, the West, and the rest of the world is whether we can replicate that outcome and end our descent into anarchy. We need to craft a peace based on mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, tolerance, and equality and cooperation for mutual benefit. If we cannot not do this, we risk more than our prosperity. We risk our very existence."
Surviving the World Order to Come
https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the-world-order-to-come/#_ftn1
Chas Freeman 2024-07-10
Remarks to Chinese Attendees at the Cambridge Executive Leadership Program[1]
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By Video, 10 July 2024
A new world order is coming into being. Many call it “multipolar,” but it is better described as “multi-nodal.”[2] A “pole” is the end of a line between two points. But the emerging order is a three-dimensional network, not a two-dimensional axis, or even a collection of axes. “Nodes” [節點] are places where many connections of diverse sizes and intensities originate, terminate, and intersect on differing vectors. Multi-nodal is a more accurate depiction of the geopolitical geometry that is now emerging.
In the emerging, unfamiliar international system, countries interact and connect with each other in a multidimensional – not just a bilateral context – and in multiple, often inconsistent, ways. A nation may have poor political relations or military confrontations with countries with which it nonetheless has a lot of economic interdependence.
This is a fair description of the current Sino-American bilateral relationship. Or, for that matter, Sino-Vietnamese relations, despite the two countries’ ideological similarity. Or, as in the case of U.S. relations with Vietnam, major ideological differences may coexist with a flourishing economic relationship and a modest amount of cautious geopolitical cooperation.
This was the spirit of the recent meeting of the Chinese and Japanese premiers with the president of the Republic of Korea in Seoul. We will see more of this sort of complexity in relationships in future.
To the dismay of anti-Chinese or anti-American zealots, the international interests and aspirations of China or the United States cannot be understood or predicted by reference solely to their bilateral interactions. Each connects to the other in varying ways, and each has complex interactions with other countries and groups of countries. Such countries and groupings connect in their own ways to still others. Important as the Sino-American relationship is, it is only part of the context in which Beijing and Washington interact and behave at home and abroad.
After a century and a half of decline, China is today once again at the center of Pacific Asia. For the first time in history, it is also a world power – a nation whose interests and preferences must be acknowledged and addressed in the management of every human domain and activity. In its comprehensive global and regional influence, China now resembles the United States. As of 2024, there is no other great power with a claim to do so.
But regional and middle-ranking powers are flourishing in the post-post-Cold War environment.
- Japan is a global power in economic terms and is cautiously returning to a leading role in the political and military affairs of Pacific Asia.
- Russia has global military reach but is not a major player in global trade and investment outside the energy sector.
- India is the hegemon in South Asia but currently has little influence beyond that region.
- Europe has global economic reach but is too disunited to act decisively even in its own region, still less beyond it.
- Britain and France retain strong but receding intellectual and cultural influence in their former imperial domains.
- The Arab world has no cohesion and remains unable to manage its own affairs effectively, still less those of others.
- Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Türkiye are growing in power in their regions but lack decisive global clout.
All seek to increase their strategic autonomy. None is willing to subordinate itself to China, the United States, or any other potential overlord.
So, the assertion that the international system and its dynamics are now defined by great power rivalry will not withstand scrutiny. This is a peculiarly American reaction to the progressive loss of U.S. dominance in every global domain other than the military. In a world no longer dominated by the bipolar order of the Cold War, all states have agency – the power to make a difference and to conduct themselves as they perceive their interests to dictate.
The world does not share the Biden administration’s insistent conjecture that history is culminating in a great battle between democracy and autocracy. America’s obsession with democratic ideology arises not from foreign efforts to subvert constitutional democracy in the United States but from internal factors that are eroding democracy and the rule of law domestically. Constitutional democracy can only be built and sustained at home. It cannot be dismantled by foreign refusal to emulate it.
The prerequisites for constitutional democracy include the combination of the rule of law with freedom of speech. This Western-invented composite has historically enabled debate among an informed citizenry so that they can advise and consent to government rulemaking. If the United States is becoming less constitutionalist and more authoritarian, as it is, this is disturbing to those who, like me, treasure the values of the European Enlightenment, but it is the result of decisions made by Americans, not manipulation by China, Russia, or any other foreign power.
The Western concept of the “rule of law” (法製) is quite different from the Chinese Legalist theory of “rule by law” (以法治國), which is now almost everywhere de facto gaining ground. The ‘rule of law’ is a system in which rulers as well as citizens, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated. “Rule by law” empowers a presumptively wise ruler to make rules that can remain unpublished, that are alterable on a case-by-case basis to produce desired results, and that do not constrain the ruler’s own decisions or behavior.
“Rule by law,” as most clearly advocated by Han Feizi (韓非子), proposes a system of governance in which decisions by the ruler can and often should be made in secret and enabled by an explicit policy of keeping citizens uninformed (愚民政策) so that they cannot challenge their ruler’s dictates. This system defines any view inconsistent with the officially approved narrative as “disinformation” that must be suppressed. It repudiates due process, is subservient to political power and privilege, and allows the rules to be applied selectively, based on who did what to whom rather than what was done and whether it was right or wrong.
These are quite different concepts of governance, and the world’s nations differ on which is most effective and desirable. These ideological differences matter. They manifest themselves in nations’ varied approaches to international interactions as well as in their views of the merits and legitimacy of domestic political systems. So be it. 百花齊放，百家爭鳴. “Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend.” As a great reformer once said, “practice is the sole criterion of truth” – “以實踐為真理的唯一標準.”
International law is the intellectual legacy of Western societies committed to the rule of law. It is the product of international consensus or of institutions like the United Nations created by international consensus that have been empowered to make rules governing the actions of sovereign states or interactions between them. It resembles the rule of law in that it represents community values, is not the product of the arbitrary dictates of a single nation or group of nations, is openly declared, embraces the concept of the sovereign equality of states, and has established standards and authorized quasi-judicial mechanisms for the non-violent resolution of disputes.
The purpose of international law is to protect the weak against the strong. That is why its greatest champions today are nations that lack the power or ambition to impose their political or economic preferences on others.
Ironically, given the historical U.S. role in promoting international law, the “rules-based order” now promoted by Washington is a modern version of “rule by law.” Han Feizi would recognize and approve of it. It supposes that the United States – or the United States plus the club of former imperialist powers called the “G7” – can make the rules, alter them at will, exempt themselves from them, and determine to whom else they do or do not apply. This system is rejected as illegitimate by the global majority, which much prefers one based on the United Nations Charter and the decisions of the international community.
Meanwhile, the institutions of global governance created after World War II are disintegrating. The United Nations system has been unable to concert an effective response to war and state collapse, global warming, mass migration, pandemics, genocide, species extinction, nuclear proliferation, and other challenges to human existence. The Security Council is paralyzed. Regulatory regimes like the World Trade Organization have played a crucial role in fostering global prosperity and the expansion of the global economy but are now under attack and crumbling. The UN Charter and the international conventions that once constrained national behavior and made the world somewhat safe and predictable are now ever more widely flouted.
Like constitutional democracy, respect for international law is now in retreat. It is unclear whether it will be displaced by a version of “rule by law” or by an anarchy in which, as Thucydides wrote, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Sadly, Thucydides would not be surprised by what is happening in Ukraine, in Palestine, at the United Nations, or at the International Court at the Hague.
If we cannot fix the UN, we must replace it, as we did the League of Nations. Sub-global institutions with less than universal membership, limited cohesion, uncertain authority, and no demonstrated capacity to address planetwide problems increasingly substitute for the global institutions and legal frameworks created by the international community after World War II. Sadly, my country will not lead the effort to reform these institutions or to preserve international law. Therefore, others must do this as best they can.
America’s distraught response to its loss of economic and political primacy has been to adopt protectionist trade and investment policies and to militarize its foreign policy. But neither protectionism nor militarism can or will “make America great again.” And neither is an answer to hegemonic overextension – “trying to squash ten fleas at once with all ten fingers” – “十個手指按十個跳蚤“ – an absurd effort that is both futile and debilitating.
In effect, in place of “reform and opening,” Washington has adopted a national politico-economic strategy of industrial constipation and hunger strike. Unable to compete with Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, or wind turbines, it is barring them from the U.S. market. This may seem like an unprecedented response to the challenges posed by competition from advanced technology originating in a more dynamic foreign economy, but it is not.
Walling out products with which the United States cannot compete recapitulates the bungled response of Qing China to its encounter with the industrial revolution in 1793. In that year, having inspected the wide range of innovative products presented at his court by a large British trade mission, the Emperor Qian Long [乾隆] dismissed the opportunity to leverage Western industrial prowess to China’s advantage, saying complacently that he and China already “[possessed] all things,” while condescendingly adding that he and China “set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and [had] no use for [such foreign] manufactures.”
This smugly arrogant refusal to recognize the merits of opening China to trade with a rising West or to collaborate with foreign scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians led to economic stagnation, military defeat, and internal disorder. It culminated in the overthrow of the very primacy and regional “Pax Sinica” that Beijing sought to preserve. Shutting the door to superior goods and services perpetuated China’s competitive inferiority and entrenched mediocrity rather than promoting self-improvement.
Obviously, when self-reliance is overdone it can backfire. 閉門造車 – trying to manufacture everything yourself behind closed doors – is a losing politico-economic strategy. As the coarse but pertinent saying: 拉不出屎來不要站著茅房 – advises: “if you can’t crank out the crap, don’t fart around in the outhouse.” There is no reason to believe that Washington’s constipated response to the challenges posed by an economically dynamic and increasingly innovative China will lead to a different result.
China now produces thirty-six percent of the world’s manufactures, and its economy is one-third larger than America’s in terms of domestic purchasing power. For the first time in two centuries, China has a convincing self-defense capability, but China’s major challenges to the world are not primarily military. An American military response to them will not overcome them. Still, the United States has chosen an almost exclusively military response to China’s return to wealth and power. Diversion of investment to forever wars, military buildups, and arms races with China and Russia has led to deteriorating U.S. domestic infrastructure, declining educational standards, disinvestment in scientific research and public health, and rising debt.
In the nuclear age, no great power should wish to make an implacable enemy of another. But that is how Washington is currently treating both Beijing and Moscow. Meanwhile, the threat of nuclear escalation is demonstrably no longer an effective deterrent against conventional warfare between nuclear powers. Russia is the world’s most heavily armed nuclear power, but the United States has become engaged in a losing proxy war with it in Ukraine. India and Pakistan have fought each other despite their nuclear arsenals. But the risk of escalation to the nuclear level is serious. Just wait till a nuclear power faces a threat of defeat it regards as existential!
It’s worth noting that no navy of any great power has fought a major battle in seventy-nine years. There have been no major amphibious landings since 1950 (seventy-four years ago). There have been no direct air battles between peer competitors since 1954 in Korea, when the embryonic Chinese air force and north Korean planes piloted by Russians engaged in dog fights with the US Air Force. That was seventy years ago. Western combat experience against all but insurgencies is lacking.
Everywhere but in Russia and Ukraine, awareness of how technology has changed warfare has made little headway against political posturing based on wishful thinking. All Western militaries are configured to fight opponents with inferior technology and no air forces or navies. All envisage short, victorious wars, not protracted wars of attrition. No Western economy has the industrial surge capacity or stamina to win a war of attrition against a “peer competitor.”
A Sino-American war over Taiwan might decide the island’s status but, even it did, it would lead to protracted hostility between China and the United States. A war of attrition or catastrophic mutual destruction through a nuclear exchange might prove unavoidable. The one certainty, should such a war occur, is the destruction of Taiwan’s prosperity and democracy, the elimination of its semiconductor and other advanced technology exports, and the loss by both China and the United States of the greater part of their respective navies and air forces. It is said that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. For many reasons, the same is true of a Sino-American war over Taiwan.
The United States now habitually substitutes coercive measures short of war for diplomatic dialogue. Sanctions and ostracism have displaced negotiation as the preferred American response to disagreements with other countries. But in international relations, as in warfare, one should never lose contact with one’s adversary. Empathy – 知己知彼 – [“knowing yourself and knowing your opponent] is as indispensable to success in diplomacy as it is to victory on the battlefield.
The United States and its Western partners now routinely use unilateral sanctions to isolate countries and their economies, deny them access to trade settlement mechanisms, freeze or confiscate their government assets, bar their access to technology, curtail their exports and investments, prohibit transactions with them, and bar the issuance of visas to their officials and citizens. Sanctions create resentment and fuel the recalcitrance of their targets, while distorting markets and creating vested interests in their perpetuation. They entrench rather than solve problems, but they have a devoted following, especially in my country.
The net effect of American sanctioneering and protectionism is to make the world ever less than the previous sum of its parts. The new U.S. stand on trade and investment:
- Substitutes geopolitical risk judgments based on national security paranoia for comparative price and quality as the basis for business decisions, thereby reducing global economic efficiency, growth, and prosperity.
- Exempts uncompetitive domestic oligopolies – which now dominate the American economy – from competitive pressures to produce better, cheaper products.
- Deprives U.S. producers of economically desirable production inputs and locks in inflation.
- Replaces quasi-judicial dispute settlement mechanisms in international trade with zero-sum contests of economic power.
- Undermines global monetary reserve and trade settlement systems and encourages the formation of competing currency blocks and exchange mechanisms.
- Divides the world into multiple segregated political and economic blocs, restricting trade and investment flows with other blocs or countries to the detriment of global prosperity and economic efficiency.
- Constitutes a pivot to further stagnation and technological decline, not a realistic approach to reindustrializing America.
- Drives the world toward attempted military rather than diplomatic solutions to problems, most of which cannot be resolved on the battlefield.
The U.S. political elite portrays its new stance on trade and investment as consolidating alliance relationships while fending off unfair competition from foreigners. But from a global perspective what is happening is:
- the resurgence of civilizational states like China, India, Japan, and Russia.
- the strengthening renaissance of the Islamic world.
- the reassertion of strategic autonomy by France and other European powers.
- the rise of new middle-ranking powers like Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
- the emergence of ASEAN as a significant independent factor in the global economy; and
- the beginning of Africa’s realization of its tremendous demographic and economic potential.
This looks more like a G7 retreat into a defensive citadel than a reassertion of the global centrality of Atlantic civilization. It risks placing the West on the fringe rather than at the center of the future, marginalizing its previously dominant role in human progress as parallel international communities and orders emerge. The de facto isolation of the West from the global majority is exacerbated by worldwide ideological shifts as well as by behavior driven by the loss of self-confidence by the nations of the Atlantic world.
The trends at work include the rise of religious zealotry in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism as well as radical shifts in the norms of social behavior in Western societies. Even as much of the world reaffirms traditional values, Western elites extol the virtues of gender fluidity, hedonism, and other aspects of so-called “wokeism,” which intolerantly demands tolerance of behavior long universally considered to be immoral.
Meanwhile, the United States and the G7 continue to insist on the adoption by other countries of models of governance and rules the West itself seems to be abandoning. The domestic divisions, instability, and decadence of the United States and its G7 allies find expression in self-contradictory and ineffectual statements and actions abroad. The global majority sees Euro-American behavior on issues like the wars in Ukraine and Palestine as transparently hypocritical, based on double standards, and justified by narratives that belie visible realities. The countries that the West once colonized or dominated are no longer prepared to follow its lead in world affairs.
In short, we are witnessing the end of a unified, Western-dominated global order and its replacement by a hodgepodge of collaborations and rivalries at the sub-global level. Something similar happened to cause the devastating chaos of the “Thirty Years’ War” in Europe. That was a disorder composed of warring states, much like the history of China before the Qin unification or India before A?oka. But the “Thirty Years’ War” ended in the establishment in the Peace of Westphalia of a system of peaceful coexistence between multiple sovereign states that respected their cultural diversity. Its result is memorialized in the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
The question for your generation and the next in China, the West, and the rest of the world is whether we can replicate that outcome and end our descent into anarchy. We need to craft a peace based on mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, tolerance, and equality and cooperation for mutual benefit. If we cannot not do this, we risk more than our prosperity. We risk our very existence.
[1] This lecture is a follow-on to the previous year’s talk, “A World Divided,” which can be read at https://chasfreeman.net/a-world-divided/.
[2] I am indebted to Brantly Womack, Professor Emeritus of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia for this insight, described in Recentering Pacific Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
