Things came thick and fast last week. Everything, however, was overshadowed by the circumstances in Minneapolis. US protests have meanwhile spread nation-wide and become violent, and Donald Trump’s tweets about the shooting have only fuelled the anger in the streets. The national guard has been mobilised to disperse crowds and prevent looting, curfews imposed, and California has declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles County.
Long-simmering divisions are breaking out in America, and it couldn’t come at a worse time in history. Presidential elections are meant to be held in a few months time. The bulk of the virus-induced hit to the economy is only to come going into summer. America First is in peril. And the world is watching in awe and horror how Washington’s hypocrisy unfolds. Smug questions on social media to stand with the angry people of America, as America claims to stand with the people of Hong Kong…
… as in sweep outside your own door first before you lecture others about the Western liberal democratic system. It was to be expected. The Trump administration’s belligerence against swathes of the world is back-firing now. No matter what punitive sanctions or tariffs are to be imposed on Hong Kong on the basis of the new security law allegedly destroying the city’s freedom if they ever will be, the Sinophobic hysteria seems to be at its pinnacle, and the Chinese will stubbornly stay their course.
Washington now has its hands full with domestic issues and trying to heal the country above all else. The question is will this development make America more or less dangerous for the rest of the world. To be sure, it will be harder to find a foreign culprit for Minneapolis than it was for the health crisis, but Trump has been known to lash out in all directions before. To be perceived as weak is not exactly his White House’s trait.
However, will America’s so-called allies honour the battle cries to exert maximum concerted pressure against China? Some are probably more easily lured into submission than others. The UK seems to be getting the message and has reversed its earlier plans to welcome Huawei’s participation in the buildout of the British mobile network. Canada already sold its soul when it signed the new USMCA trade agreement and left all external trade decisions at the mercy of Washington.
Looking beyond, though, Australia has just been threatened to be cut off from the Western alliance if they didn’t join in condemning Beijing and stop every and any Belt and Road projects in their jurisdiction. Canberra is caught between a rock and hard place and has so far played the role of a US vicarious agent as best possible, but what is a government to do if 1/3 of the country’s exports is dependent on China. It’s a fine line to walk on, and compromises will have to be made.
The Philippines and other nations in South East Asia have been warned against adopting Huawei’s 5G. Equally here, do we really think any of them will side with America because a few US warships keep crisscrossing around the South China Sea? Trump’s abolition of TPP as his first official act as president has sealed the deal and will be memorised. ASEAN has since predominantly voted with their feet. The spike in trade with China should be testament enough.
Even Israel has been put on notice not to engage with Chinese tech. The ties between Jerusalem and Washington are no doubt ironclad, but engagement with China is key for Israel and can hardly be prohibited. Which leaves Europe, or rather the EU… blind allegiance to the transatlantic alliance is no longer an option, it appears, particularity in light of likely enforcement of the America First doctrine. Ultimately, commercial interests will veer a part of Europe toward China and a hoped-for Eurasian integration.
Probably to deflect from the riots raging across the nation more than anything else, Trump’s Twitter feed has been packed with the successful SpaceX launch, his ominous fight against the very social media company, a one-word tweet CHINA! that was a little curious, and a gracious call for an in-person G7 summit at the White House and Camp David as a sign of global normalisation in the wake of the health crisis. Of all people, however, Angela Merkel declined the invite with a half-hearted reference to the very crisis.
It did not go down well with the president. He must have hoped that he could use the G7 to build a bigger coalition against China. Merkel apparently didn’t want any of it. Shortly thereafter, Trump blasted the G7 as being outdated. Without precedence and most likely any coordination with the members, he concluded that the current mix of countries no longer represented what was going on in the world and suggested adding four other countries: Russia, India, Australia, and South Korea.
Such brute diplomatic force to veer the global community to US partners deemed to be more cooperative on Washington’s foreign policy objectives may equally backfire and not worth the flattery. Russia might view its return to the G-group that it had been expelled from in 2014 as a validation, but will they betray their blossoming relation with Beijing? Hardly. More thumbscrews for Australia? India siding with America? Really? And South Korea gambling their commercial dependence on China? Hmm.
Don’t be surprised if all this means we are nearing an inevitable expiry date of America’s sole superpower status, as gut-wrenching as that may be for the Washington establishment. A combination of grave incoherences in a society meant to serve as a global model, experimental fiscal and monetary policies that have reached a point of no return, and a strategy of abandoning a proven international order by arm-twisting the rest of the world will accelerate the move into a multipolar environment.
One of the biggest losers in this process could be Mike Pompeo who has been the architect of mapping out this aggressive diplomatic offensive and the mouthpiece delivering messages and threats all around. As an ambitious ex-CIA and current secretary of state, he is assumed to nourish presidential ambitions after a second Trump term. If his primary objective of derailing the Chinese economy and crippling Belt and Road suffered a major setback, that might be hard for him to come back from.
