Opinion | Amid US-China rivalry, middle powers are coming together to build bridges

Warm exchanges between Biden and Xi in Bali did not thaw the frosty Sino-US relationship, as Washington continues its campaign against autocracies

Yet concerns about the repercussions of this struggle are leading middleweight powers in Southeast Asia and Europe to seek a less confrontational path

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 3:30am, 14 Dec 2022Updated: 3:55am, 14 Dec 2022

After the 2022 summit season in Southeast Asia, the US and China remain locked in a geopolitical tussle. But a middle-power movement is taking shape that could help prevent the tense rivalry from breaking into a world war.

In the November US midterm elections, Americans voted to deny the Republican Party a “red wave”, handing President Joe Biden a rare electoral success.

Buoyed by this domestic victory, Biden travelled to the G20 Summit and struck a cordial note with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who had also just consolidated his rule at home. But the warm exchanges in Bali did not thaw the frosty Sino-US relationship.

In fact, the ongoing geopolitical reconfiguration remains tense. America is determined to ward off any challenges to its global dominance. But Biden’s campaign to defend the free world, framed as a battle of “democracy versus autocracy”, is in danger of trapping the world into a protracted state of conflict.

The Ukraine crisis, for instance, has reached a critical juncture. In the war against autocracies like Russia, is there room for negotiated peace?

On China, Biden’s strategy is to rally like-minded allies to contain its Asian rival. But it remains unclear how and to what extent an autocratic China can and should be tamed. Would containing Beijing include defending Taiwan? A military conflict across the Taiwan Strait would surely plunge an already crisis-plagued world into greater turmoil.

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