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US-China relations
Opinion
Anthony Rowley
Anthony Rowley

Macroscope | US efforts to rally friends with ‘shared values’ against China could backfire

  • The West’s efforts to split the world into rival economic blocs will spark a new wave of global protectionism which will leave everyone poorer
  • Whether the West calls it de-risking or decoupling, the underlying impulse is still a desire to maintain US and European supremacy

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US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks at the closing news conference of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Ministerial meeting in Detroit, Michigan, on May 27. The United States, Japan and 12 other Indo-Pacific nations have agreed to strengthen supply chain resilience for critical items. Photo: AFP
Anthony Rowley

Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true, was the theme of one of Aesop’s fables from many years ago. It is taking on pointed relevance now as one part of the world seeks to distance itself from the other, risking unintended consequences in the process.

There are increasing signs that assumptions of “shared values” propagated by US-led Western powers will rebound against them to the point where their own international influence is overwhelmed. Institutional shifts plus a new wave of global protectionism could hit home with a vengeance.
The biggest threat to the global economy now – apart from the growing prospect of military conflict between superpowers breaking out – is perceived to be that the world could split into rival blocs. Yet this process of potential disintegration could go even further and see individual countries retreating behind national economic barriers.
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Recent developments in the tale of how the West has reacted with something resembling pique rather than confidence and communal spirit to China’s economic might show that the Global South has weapons with which to fight back.

Western nations have been struggling to muster a response since the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. Beijing followed that up with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the “BRICS bank”, now renamed the New Development Bank (NDB), whose original members were Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
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The Belt and Road Initiative largely received a cool reception from Western nations when it was launched. Meanwhile, the AIIB hardly received a warm welcome from the world’s other multilateral development banks.

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