My Take | Even the West no longer thinks Western values are universal
- Collectively, the West is still the richest and militarily the most powerful, but confidence in its historical mission and destiny has evaporated and, with that, the unconditional applicability of its values and beliefs
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,/ Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;/ But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,/ When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth!” – The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling
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When I was in university and the Asian tiger economies were just starting to roar in the 1980s, political leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamad started promoting what they called “Asian values”, that is beliefs, practices and norms that they claimed, underpinned the region’s success.
They were mercilessly hounded. Western critics said there were no such things as Asian values, and Lee and Mahathir were just trying to justify Asian authoritarianism. There were only “universal values”, many said and still say today, which of course were all of European origins. Western values were universal while Asian values were at best of limited value and at worst were of no value except for political propaganda.
How times have changed. Lately I notice the talk of values is back on the lips of Western politicians while commenting on foreign threats, but especially “the China threat”. However, their rhetoric has fundamentally changed. It is now our (Western) values vs theirs. I did a quick Google search and immediately came up with some juicy quotes, all from the past two months
An official document laying out Canada’s new Indo-Pacific strategy said: “China is looking to shape the international order into a more permissive environment for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours.”