Opinion | Tianxia 2.0: how China can help shape the next world order
Davos signalled the collapse of the post-war order but not what will replace it. China can play a role in preventing a descent into anarchy
The first signal is the collapse of the post-World War II order shaped by the West – and the West’s own unravelling with it. The West has used its dominance over global discourse to construct and impose concepts it favours on the non-Western world. Yet the West itself is a Western construct, an ideological fiction whose imagined unity conceals deep internal differences.
Its identity depends on the existence of a “non-West” and the continual production of an external “other”, especially an enemy. However, this framework is collapsing for two reasons: internal differences outweigh commonalities, and growing ties between Western and non-Western countries have blurred the boundary between them.
Second, a new world has already arrived, but a new world order has not. At Davos, more Western countries appeared ready to bid farewell to the old world. The question, however, is that no one knows what comes next.
Third, what might a new order look like? There is no consensus among great or middle powers let alone among smaller states. Without a new order, any new world risks devolving into anarchy. Can a new order be consciously constructed around shared values or will it emerge “naturally”?
The collapse of the old order is also the collapse of its value foundations. No single great power – or coalition – seems ready today to construct a new global order; instead, each is building a self-centred regional one, leading to the feudalisation of international politics. A Darwinian jungle is increasingly likely.