世界已经与西方决裂。接下来会发生什么 | 大使 Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iva-hr9KMc
2024 年 7 月 20 日 采访
迄今为止对新世界秩序最有力、最有见地的分析！由大使 Chas Freeman (傅立民) 撰写。这是您唯一需要的 2024 年世界政治大师班。
它基于大使 Freeman 于 2024 年 7 月 10 日在剑桥高管领导力课程上对中国与会者发表的演讲。您可以在他的主页上阅读这篇文章和他的其他作品。强烈推荐！https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the...
据我所知，Chas Freeman 是第一个想出如何在概念上正确掌握“基于规则的国际秩序”的人，即尝试实施“法治”，而不是国际法（在联合国下）的普遍主义方法，即“法治”。精彩的分析。
弗里曼大使还详细讨论了中国的崛起、国际秩序与中国政治理念的联系，并对我们在后冷战时代这个美丽新世界中的处境进行了精彩的描述。让我告诉你，多极化并不是你想象的那样。
对于那些不想等到大结局的人，他的结论是这样的：
“简而言之，我们正在目睹一个统一的、西方主导的全球秩序的终结，取而代之的是次全球层面上各种合作和竞争的混乱局面。类似的事情也导致了欧洲“三十年战争”的毁灭性混乱。那是一种由战国组成的混乱，很像秦统一之前的中国或阿育王之前的印度的历史。但“三十年战争”以《威斯特伐利亚和约》的签订而告终，建立了一个尊重文化多样性的多个主权国家之间的和平共处体系。其结果被铭记在“和平共处五项原则”中。
你们这一代和下一代中国、西方和世界其他国家面临的问题是，我们能否复制这种结果，结束我们陷入无政府状态的局面。我们需要建立在相互尊重领土完整和主权、互不侵犯、互不干涉内政、宽容、平等和合作互利的基础上的和平。如果我们做不到这一点，我们面临的风险不仅仅是繁荣，还有我们的生存。”
在未来的世界秩序中生存
https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the-world-order-to-come/#_ftn1
Chas Freeman 2024-07-10
剑桥高管领导力项目对中国与会者的讲话[1]
大使 Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS，退休)
布朗大学沃森国际和公共事务研究所访问学者
通过视频，2024 年 7 月 10 日
一个新的世界秩序正在形成。许多人称之为“多极”，但最好将其描述为“多节点”。[2]“极点”是两点之间线的末端。但新兴秩序是一个三维网络，而不是二维轴，甚至不是轴的集合。“节点” [节点] 是许多不同大小和强度的连接在不同向量上起源、终止和相交的地方。多节点是对目前正在出现的地缘政治几何的更准确描述。
在新兴的、陌生的国际体系中，各国以多维（而不仅仅是双边背景）和多种且往往不一致的方式相互互动和联系。一个国家可能与与其具有很大经济相互依存关系的国家存在不良的政治关系或军事对抗。
这是对当前中美双边关系的恰当描述。或者，尽管两国的意识形态相似，但中越关系也是如此。或者，就像美国与越南的关系一样，重大的意识形态差异可能与蓬勃发展的经济关系和适度谨慎的地缘政治合作共存。
这是最近中日两国总理与韩国总统在首尔会晤的精神。未来我们将在关系中看到更多这种复杂性。
令反华或反美狂热分子沮丧的是，仅凭双边互动无法理解或预测中国或美国的国际利益和愿望。两国之间以不同的方式相互联系，并且与其他国家和国家集团有着复杂的互动。这些国家和集团以自己的方式与其他国家和集团联系在一起。中美关系虽然重要，但它只是北京和华盛顿在国内外互动和行为背景的一部分。
经过一个半世纪的衰落，中国今天再次成为亚太的中心。历史上第一次，中国也成为一个世界强国——一个在管理人类每个领域和活动时都必须承认和解决其利益和偏好的国家。在其全面的全球和地区影响力方面，中国现在与美国相似。截至 2024 年，没有其他大国有资格这样做。
但在后冷战环境中，地区和中等强国正在蓬勃发展。
日本是全球经济强国，目前正谨慎地恢复亚太地区政治和军事事务的主导地位。
俄罗斯拥有全球军事影响力，但在能源领域以外的全球贸易和投资中并不是主要参与者。
印度是南亚霸主，但目前在该地区以外的影响力很小。
欧洲拥有全球经济影响力，但过于分散，即使在其所在地区也难以果断采取行动，更不用说超越该地区了。
英国和法国在它们以前的帝国领地上保留着强大但正在消退的知识和文化影响力。
阿拉伯世界缺乏凝聚力，仍然无法有效地管理自己的事务，更不用说管理其他国家的事务了。
巴西、埃塞俄比亚、德国、印度尼西亚、伊朗、墨西哥、尼日利亚、波兰、沙特阿拉伯、南非和土耳其在其地区的实力不断增强，但缺乏决定性的全球影响力。
所有国家都在寻求提高战略自主权。没有一个国家愿意屈服于中国、美国或任何其他潜在的霸主。
因此，国际体系及其动态现在由大国竞争决定的说法经不起推敲。这是美国对美国在军事以外的所有全球领域逐渐丧失主导地位的一种特殊反应。在一个不再由冷战时期的两极秩序主导的世界里，所有国家都有权力——有能力做出改变，并按照他们认为的利益行事。
世界并不认同拜登政府坚持认为历史最终会以民主与专制之间的大战告终的猜想。美国对民主意识形态的痴迷并非源于外国颠覆美国宪政民主的努力，而是源于国内正在侵蚀民主和法治的因素。宪政民主只能在国内建立和维持。它不能因为外国拒绝效仿而瓦解。
宪政民主的先决条件包括法治与自由的结合
言论自由。西方发明的这一组合在历史上使知情的公民能够进行辩论，以便他们能够就政府的规则制定提出建议并表示同意。如果美国正在变得不那么宪政，而变得更加专制，那么这对像我这样珍视欧洲启蒙运动价值观的人来说是令人不安的，但这是美国人做出的决定的结果，而不是中国、俄罗斯或任何其他外国势力的操纵。
西方的“法制”概念与中国法家的“以法治国”理论截然不同，后者现在几乎在各地都事实上取得了进展。“法制”是一种制度，统治者以及公民、机构和实体都对公开颁布、平等执行和独立裁决的法律负责。 “法治”赋予假定明智的统治者权力，让他们制定不公开的规则，这些规则可以根据具体情况进行修改，以产生预期结果，并且不会限制统治者自己的决定或行为。
“法治”由韩非子最明确倡导，它提出了一种治理体系，在这种体系中，统治者的决策可以而且通常应该秘密进行，并通过明确的愚民政策（使公民无法知晓）来实现，这样他们就无法挑战统治者的命令。这种制度将任何与官方认可的叙述不一致的观点定义为必须压制的“虚假信息”。它否定正当程序，屈从于政治权力和特权，并允许有选择地应用规则，基于谁对谁做了什么，而不是做了什么以及是否正确。
这些是截然不同的治理概念，世界各国对哪种治理最有效和最可取有不同的看法。这些意识形态差异很重要。它们体现在各国对国际交往的不同态度，以及对国内政治制度的优点和合法性的看法上。百花齐放，百家争鸣。“百花齐放，百家争鸣。”正如一位伟大的改革家曾经说过的，“以实践为真理的唯一标准。”
国际法是西方社会致力于法治的思想遗产。它是国际共识的产物，或由国际共识创建的联合国等机构的产物，这些机构被授权制定规则来规范主权国家的行为或它们之间的互动。它与法治相似，因为它代表着社区价值观，不是单个国家或国家集团专断的产物，是公开宣布的，拥抱国家主权平等的概念，并为非暴力解决争端建立了标准和授权的准司法机制。
国际法的目的是保护弱者免受强者的侵害。这就是为什么当今国际法的最大拥护者是那些缺乏权力或野心将自己的政治或经济偏好强加于他人的国家。
具有讽刺意味的是，鉴于美国在推动国际法方面的历史作用，华盛顿现在所倡导的“基于规则的秩序”是“法治”的现代版本。韩非子会承认并赞同它。它假设美国——或者美国加上前帝国主义强国俱乐部“七国集团”——可以制定规则，随意修改规则，免除规则，并决定对谁适用或不适用规则。全球大多数人认为这一体系不合法，他们更喜欢基于《联合国宪章》和国际社会决定的体系。
与此同时，二战后建立的全球治理机构正在瓦解。联合国系统无法有效应对战争和国家崩溃、全球变暖、大规模移民、流行病、种族灭绝、物种灭绝、核扩散以及人类生存面临的其他挑战。安理会陷入瘫痪。世界贸易组织等监管机制在促进全球繁荣和全球经济扩张方面发挥了关键作用，但现在正受到攻击和崩溃。《联合国宪章》和国际公约曾经约束国家行为，使世界变得安全且可预测，但现在却越来越受到蔑视。
与宪政民主一样，对国际法的尊重正在退却。目前尚不清楚它是否会被“法治”或无政府状态所取代，正如修昔底德所写的那样，“强者为所欲为，弱者遭受他们必须遭受的苦难”。遗憾的是，修昔底德不会对乌克兰、巴勒斯坦、联合国或海牙国际法院发生的事情感到惊讶。
如果我们不能修复联合国，我们就必须更换它，就像我们修复过国家联盟一样。
亚全球机构成员不够普遍、凝聚力有限、权威不明朗，而且没有能力解决全球性问题，这些亚全球机构正日益取代二战后国际社会建立的全球机构和法律框架。遗憾的是，我国不会领导改革这些机构或维护国际法的努力。因此，其他国家必须尽其所能。
美国对失去经济和政治主导地位的无奈反应是采取贸易和投资保护主义政策，并将其外交政策军事化。但保护主义和军国主义都不能也不会“让美国再次伟大”。它们都不是解决霸权过度扩张的答案——“十个手指按十个跳蚤”——一种既徒劳又有害的荒谬努力。
实际上，华盛顿没有采取“改革开放”的政策，而是采取了工业便秘和绝食的全国性政治经济战略。由于无法与中国的电动汽车、电池、太阳能电池板或风力涡轮机竞争，中国禁止这些产品进入美国市场。这似乎是对来自更具活力的外国经济的先进技术带来的竞争挑战的前所未有的回应，但事实并非如此。
将美国无法竞争的产品拒之门外，重现了清朝中国在 1793 年遭遇工业革命时的拙劣反应。那一年，在视察了英国大型贸易代表团向朝廷呈献的各种创新产品后，乾隆皇帝放弃了利用西方工业实力为中国谋利的机会，自满地说他和中国已经“拥有了一切”，同时又居高临下地补充说，他和中国“不看重奇特或精巧的物品，也不需要这种外国制造品。”
这种傲慢自大的态度，拒绝承认开放中国与崛起的西方进行贸易或与外国科学家、技术人员、工程师和数学家合作的好处，导致了经济停滞、军事失败和内部混乱。最终，北京试图维护的主导地位和地区“中国和平”被推翻。对优质商品和服务关闭大门，使中国的竞争劣势和根深蒂固的平庸得以延续，而不是促进自我完善。
显然，过度自力更生可能会适得其反。闭门造车——试图关起门来自己制造一切——是一种失败的政治经济策略。正如一句粗俗但中肯的谚语所说：“拉不出屎来不要站着茅房”——“如果你不能制造出屎来，就不要在户外厕所里放屁。”没有理由相信，华盛顿对经济充满活力、创新能力日益增强的中国所提出的挑战的僵硬反应会导致不同的结果。
中国目前生产了世界制成品的 36%，其国内购买力比美国大三分之一。两个世纪以来，中国首次拥有了令人信服的自卫能力，但中国对世界的主要挑战主要不是军事上的。美国的军事回应无法克服这些挑战。尽管如此，美国还是选择了几乎完全军事的回应来应对中国重返财富和权力。将投资转移到与中国和俄罗斯的无休止的战争、军事建设和军备竞赛上，导致美国国内基础设施恶化、教育水平下降、对科学研究和公共卫生的投资减少以及债务增加。
在核时代，没有一个大国希望与另一个大国结成不可调和的敌人。但华盛顿目前就是这样对待北京和莫斯科的。与此同时，核升级威胁显然已不再是核大国之间常规战争的有效威慑。俄罗斯是世界上武装最强大的核大国，但美国已在乌克兰与其展开了一场注定会失败的代理人战争。印度和巴基斯坦尽管拥有核武库，但仍在相互交战。但升级到核级别的风险非常严重。等到核大国面临它认为是生死攸关的失败威胁时，你就知道了！
值得注意的是，79 年来，没有哪个大国的海军打过一场大战。自 1950 年（74 年前）以来，没有发生过重大的两栖登陆。自 1954 年在朝鲜，当时尚处于萌芽阶段的中国空军和俄罗斯驾驶的朝鲜飞机与美国空军展开混战以来，同等竞争对手之间再没有发生过直接的空战。那是 70 年前的事了。西方缺乏除叛乱之外的所有战斗经验。
除了俄罗斯和乌克兰，其他地方都没有意识到技术如何改变战争
西方的军事力量在反对基于一厢情愿的政治姿态方面几乎没有取得任何进展。所有西方军队都配置为与技术落后且没有空军或海军的对手作战。所有西方军队都设想短期内取得胜利的战争，而不是长期的消耗战。没有一个西方经济体拥有工业激增能力或耐力来赢得与“同等竞争对手”的消耗战。
中美围绕台湾的战争可能会决定台湾的地位，但即使如此，也会导致中美之间长期的敌对状态。通过核交换进行的消耗战或灾难性的相互毁灭可能是不可避免的。如果发生这样的战争，唯一可以肯定的是台湾的繁荣和民主将被摧毁，其半导体和其他先进技术出口将被消除，中美两国都将失去各自的大部分海军和空军。有人说，核战争是打不赢的，也不应该打。出于多种原因，中美台海战争也是如此。
美国现在习惯性地用非战争强制措施来代替外交对话。制裁和排斥已经取代谈判成为美国应对与其他国家分歧的首选方式。但在国际关系中，就像在战争中一样，一个人永远不应该失去与对手的联系。同理心——知己知彼——对于外交成功和战场胜利都是必不可少的。
美国及其西方伙伴现在经常使用单边制裁来孤立国家及其经济，剥夺它们使用贸易结算机制的权利，冻结或没收它们的政府资产，禁止它们获取技术，限制它们的出口和投资，禁止与它们进行交易，并禁止向它们的官员和公民发放签证。制裁会引发怨恨，助长制裁对象的顽固性，同时扭曲市场，并在制裁持续的过程中产生既得利益。他们只会巩固问题，而不是解决问题，但他们拥有一批忠实的追随者，尤其是在我的国家。
美国制裁和保护主义的净效应是让世界比以前各部分的总和还要差。美国在贸易和投资方面的新立场：
用基于国家安全偏执的地缘政治风险判断取代比较价格和质量作为商业决策的基础，从而降低全球经济效率、增长和繁荣。
使缺乏竞争力的国内寡头企业（目前主导着美国经济）免受生产更好、更便宜产品的竞争压力。
剥夺美国生产商经济上可取的生产投入，并锁定通胀。
用零和经济权力竞赛取代国际贸易中的准司法争端解决机制。
破坏全球货币储备和贸易结算系统，鼓励形成竞争性的货币集团和兑换机制。
将世界分裂为多个相互隔离的政治和经济集团，限制与其他集团或国家的贸易和投资流动，损害全球繁荣和经济效率。
构成进一步停滞和技术衰退的支点，而不是重新实现美国工业化的现实方法。
推动世界试图通过军事而非外交手段解决问题，其中大多数问题无法在战场上解决。
美国政治精英将其在贸易和投资方面的新立场描述为巩固联盟关系，同时抵御来自外国的不公平竞争。但从全球角度来看，正在发生的事情是：
中国、印度、日本和俄罗斯等文明国家的复兴。
伊斯兰世界的复兴不断加强。
法国和其他欧洲大国重申战略自主权。
巴西、埃塞俄比亚、印度尼西亚、韩国、墨西哥、尼日利亚、沙特阿拉伯和南非等新兴中等强国的崛起。
东盟成为全球经济中一个重要的独立因素；以及非洲开始意识到其巨大的人口和经济潜力。
这看起来更像是七国集团撤退到防御堡垒，而不是重申大西洋文明的全球中心地位。它有可能将西方置于未来的边缘而不是中心，随着平行的国际社会和秩序的出现，西方在人类进步中先前的主导作用被边缘化。世界范围内的意识形态转变以及大西洋世界各国因失去自信而采取的行为加剧了西方与全球大多数国家事实上的孤立。
这种趋势包括基督教、印度教、伊斯兰教和犹太教的宗教狂热兴起，以及社会规范的根本转变
西方社会的行为。尽管世界上许多国家都重申了传统价值观，但西方精英却推崇性别流动性、享乐主义和所谓“觉醒主义”的其他方面，这种主义不宽容地要求容忍长期以来普遍认为不道德的行为。
与此同时，美国和七国集团继续坚持其他国家采用西方似乎正在抛弃的治理和规则模式。美国及其七国集团盟友的国内分裂、不稳定和颓废在自相矛盾和无效的海外言论和行动中得到体现。全球大多数人认为，欧美在乌克兰和巴勒斯坦战争等问题上的行为明显是虚伪的，基于双重标准，并以掩盖可见现实的叙述为理由。西方曾经殖民或统治过的国家不再愿意在世界事务中追随西方的脚步。
简而言之，我们正目睹统一的、西方主导的全球秩序的终结，取而代之的是次全球层面上各种合作与竞争的混杂。类似的事情也导致了欧洲“三十年战争”的毁灭性混乱。那是一种由战国组成的混乱，很像秦统一之前的中国或阿育王之前的印度的历史。但“三十年战争”以《威斯特伐利亚和约》的签订而告终，建立了一个尊重文化多样性的多个主权国家和平共处的体系。其结果被铭记在“和平共处五项原则”中。
对于你们这一代和下一代中国、西方和世界其他国家来说，问题在于我们能否复制这一结果并结束我们陷入无政府状态的境地。我们需要建立在相互尊重领土完整和主权、互不侵犯、互不干涉内政、宽容、平等和互利合作的基础上的和平。如果我们做不到这一点，我们面临的风险将不仅仅是我们的繁荣。我们甚至会冒着失去生存的风险。
[1] 本次讲座是去年演讲“分裂的世界”的后续，可在 https://chasfreeman.net/a-world-divided/ 阅读。
[2] 我非常感谢弗吉尼亚大学外交事务名誉教授布兰特利·沃马克 (Brantly Womack) 的这一见解，该见解已在剑桥大学出版社 2023 年出版的《重新定位亚太》中进行了描述。
The World Is DONE With The West. Here's What's Next
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iva-hr9KMc
2024年7月20日 Interviews
The most powerful and insightful analysis of the new world order yet! By Ambassador Chas Freeman (傅立民). This is the only master class of 2024 world politics you will need.
It is based on a speech Ambassador Freeman gave to Chinese Attendees at the Cambridge Executive Leadership Program, on July 10, 2024. You can read the essay and his other writing on his homepage. Highly recommended! https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the...
Chas Freeman is to my knowledge the first person who figured out how to conceptually correctly grasp the "Rules Based International Order", namely as an attempt of conducting "Rule by Law" as opposed to the universalist approach of International Law (under the United Nations), which is the "Rule of Law." Brilliant analysis.
Ambassador Freeman also discusses in detail China's rise, the connection of international order with Chinese political concepts, and he gives a fascinating account of where we are at in this brave new world of the Post Post-Cold-War. And let me tell you, multipolarity is not what you think it is.
And for those who don't want to wait till the grand finale, here is his conclusion:
"In short, we are witnessing the end of a unified, Western-dominated global order and its replacement by a hodgepodge of collaborations and rivalries at the sub-global level. Something similar happened to cause the devastating chaos of the “Thirty Years’ War” in Europe. That was a disorder composed of warring states, much like the history of China before the Qin unification or India before A?oka. But the “Thirty Years’ War” ended in the establishment in the Peace of Westphalia of a system of peaceful coexistence between multiple sovereign states that respected their cultural diversity. Its result is memorialized in the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
The question for your generation and the next in China, the West, and the rest of the world is whether we can replicate that outcome and end our descent into anarchy. We need to craft a peace based on mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, tolerance, and equality and cooperation for mutual benefit. If we cannot not do this, we risk more than our prosperity. We risk our very existence."
Surviving the World Order to Come
https://chasfreeman.net/surviving-the-world-order-to-come/#_ftn1
Chas Freeman 2024-07-10
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
By Video, 10 July 2024
A new world order is coming into being. Many call it “multipolar,” but it is better described as “multi-nodal.”[2] A “pole” is the end of a line between two points. But the emerging order is a three-dimensional network, not a two-dimensional axis, or even a collection of axes. “Nodes” [节点] are places where many connections of diverse sizes and intensities originate, terminate, and intersect on differing vectors. Multi-nodal is a more accurate depiction of the geopolitical geometry that is now emerging.
In the emerging, unfamiliar international system, countries interact and connect with each other in a multidimensional – not just a bilateral context – and in multiple, often inconsistent, ways. A nation may have poor political relations or military confrontations with countries with which it nonetheless has a lot of economic interdependence.
This is a fair description of the current Sino-American bilateral relationship. Or, for that matter, Sino-Vietnamese relations, despite the two countries’ ideological similarity. Or, as in the case of U.S. relations with Vietnam, major ideological differences may coexist with a flourishing economic relationship and a modest amount of cautious geopolitical cooperation.
This was the spirit of the recent meeting of the Chinese and Japanese premiers with the president of the Republic of Korea in Seoul. We will see more of this sort of complexity in relationships in future.
To the dismay of anti-Chinese or anti-American zealots, the international interests and aspirations of China or the United States cannot be understood or predicted by reference solely to their bilateral interactions. Each connects to the other in varying ways, and each has complex interactions with other countries and groups of countries. Such countries and groupings connect in their own ways to still others. Important as the Sino-American relationship is, it is only part of the context in which Beijing and Washington interact and behave at home and abroad.
After a century and a half of decline, China is today once again at the center of Pacific Asia. For the first time in history, it is also a world power – a nation whose interests and preferences must be acknowledged and addressed in the management of every human domain and activity. In its comprehensive global and regional influence, China now resembles the United States. As of 2024, there is no other great power with a claim to do so.
But regional and middle-ranking powers are flourishing in the post-post-Cold War environment.
- Japan is a global power in economic terms and is cautiously returning to a leading role in the political and military affairs of Pacific Asia.
- Russia has global military reach but is not a major player in global trade and investment outside the energy sector.
- India is the hegemon in South Asia but currently has little influence beyond that region.
- Europe has global economic reach but is too disunited to act decisively even in its own region, still less beyond it.
- Britain and France retain strong but receding intellectual and cultural influence in their former imperial domains.
- The Arab world has no cohesion and remains unable to manage its own affairs effectively, still less those of others.
- Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Türkiye are growing in power in their regions but lack decisive global clout.
So, the assertion that the international system and its dynamics are now defined by great power rivalry will not withstand scrutiny. This is a peculiarly American reaction to the progressive loss of U.S. dominance in every global domain other than the military. In a world no longer dominated by the bipolar order of the Cold War, all states have agency – the power to make a difference and to conduct themselves as they perceive their interests to dictate.
The world does not share the Biden administration’s insistent conjecture that history is culminating in a great battle between democracy and autocracy. America’s obsession with democratic ideology arises not from foreign efforts to subvert constitutional democracy in the United States but from internal factors that are eroding democracy and the rule of law domestically. Constitutional democracy can only be built and sustained at home. It cannot be dismantled by foreign refusal to emulate it.
The prerequisites for constitutional democracy include the combination of the rule of law with freedom of speech. This Western-invented composite has historically enabled debate among an informed citizenry so that they can advise and consent to government rulemaking. If the United States is becoming less constitutionalist and more authoritarian, as it is, this is disturbing to those who, like me, treasure the values of the European Enlightenment, but it is the result of decisions made by Americans, not manipulation by China, Russia, or any other foreign power.
The Western concept of the “rule of law” (法制) is quite different from the Chinese Legalist theory of “rule by law” (以法治国), which is now almost everywhere de facto gaining ground. The ‘rule of law’ is a system in which rulers as well as citizens, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated. “Rule by law” empowers a presumptively wise ruler to make rules that can remain unpublished, that are alterable on a case-by-case basis to produce desired results, and that do not constrain the ruler’s own decisions or behavior.
“Rule by law,” as most clearly advocated by Han Feizi (韩非子), proposes a system of governance in which decisions by the ruler can and often should be made in secret and enabled by an explicit policy of keeping citizens uninformed (愚民政策) so that they cannot challenge their ruler’s dictates. This system defines any view inconsistent with the officially approved narrative as “disinformation” that must be suppressed. It repudiates due process, is subservient to political power and privilege, and allows the rules to be applied selectively, based on who did what to whom rather than what was done and whether it was right or wrong.
These are quite different concepts of governance, and the world’s nations differ on which is most effective and desirable. These ideological differences matter. They manifest themselves in nations’ varied approaches to international interactions as well as in their views of the merits and legitimacy of domestic political systems. So be it. 百花齊放，百家爭鳴. “Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend.” As a great reformer once said, “practice is the sole criterion of truth” – “以实践为真理的唯一标准.”
International law is the intellectual legacy of Western societies committed to the rule of law. It is the product of international consensus or of institutions like the United Nations created by international consensus that have been empowered to make rules governing the actions of sovereign states or interactions between them. It resembles the rule of law in that it represents community values, is not the product of the arbitrary dictates of a single nation or group of nations, is openly declared, embraces the concept of the sovereign equality of states, and has established standards and authorized quasi-judicial mechanisms for the non-violent resolution of disputes.
The purpose of international law is to protect the weak against the strong. That is why its greatest champions today are nations that lack the power or ambition to impose their political or economic preferences on others.
Ironically, given the historical U.S. role in promoting international law, the “rules-based order” now promoted by Washington is a modern version of “rule by law.” Han Feizi would recognize and approve of it. It supposes that the United States – or the United States plus the club of former imperialist powers called the “G7” – can make the rules, alter them at will, exempt themselves from them, and determine to whom else they do or do not apply. This system is rejected as illegitimate by the global majority, which much prefers one based on the United Nations Charter and the decisions of the international community.
Meanwhile, the institutions of global governance created after World War II are disintegrating. The United Nations system has been unable to concert an effective response to war and state collapse, global warming, mass migration, pandemics, genocide, species extinction, nuclear proliferation, and other challenges to human existence. The Security Council is paralyzed. Regulatory regimes like the World Trade Organization have played a crucial role in fostering global prosperity and the expansion of the global economy but are now under attack and crumbling. The UN Charter and the international conventions that once constrained national behavior and made the world somewhat safe and predictable are now ever more widely flouted.
Like constitutional democracy, respect for international law is now in retreat. It is unclear whether it will be displaced by a version of “rule by law” or by an anarchy in which, as Thucydides wrote, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Sadly, Thucydides would not be surprised by what is happening in Ukraine, in Palestine, at the United Nations, or at the International Court at the Hague.
If we cannot fix the UN, we must replace it, as we did the League of Nations. Sub-global institutions with less than universal membership, limited cohesion, uncertain authority, and no demonstrated capacity to address planetwide problems increasingly substitute for the global institutions and legal frameworks created by the international community after World War II. Sadly, my country will not lead the effort to reform these institutions or to preserve international law. Therefore, others must do this as best they can.
America’s distraught response to its loss of economic and political primacy has been to adopt protectionist trade and investment policies and to militarize its foreign policy. But neither protectionism nor militarism can or will “make America great again.” And neither is an answer to hegemonic overextension – “trying to squash ten fleas at once with all ten fingers” – “十个手指按十个跳蚤“ – an absurd effort that is both futile and debilitating.
In effect, in place of “reform and opening,” Washington has adopted a national politico-economic strategy of industrial constipation and hunger strike. Unable to compete with Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, or wind turbines, it is barring them from the U.S. market. This may seem like an unprecedented response to the challenges posed by competition from advanced technology originating in a more dynamic foreign economy, but it is not.
Walling out products with which the United States cannot compete recapitulates the bungled response of Qing China to its encounter with the industrial revolution in 1793. In that year, having inspected the wide range of innovative products presented at his court by a large British trade mission, the Emperor Qian Long [乾隆] dismissed the opportunity to leverage Western industrial prowess to China’s advantage, saying complacently that he and China already “[possessed] all things,” while condescendingly adding that he and China “set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and [had] no use for [such foreign] manufactures.”
This smugly arrogant refusal to recognize the merits of opening China to trade with a rising West or to collaborate with foreign scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians led to economic stagnation, military defeat, and internal disorder. It culminated in the overthrow of the very primacy and regional “Pax Sinica” that Beijing sought to preserve. Shutting the door to superior goods and services perpetuated China’s competitive inferiority and entrenched mediocrity rather than promoting self-improvement.
Obviously, when self-reliance is overdone it can backfire. 闭门造车 – trying to manufacture everything yourself behind closed doors – is a losing politico-economic strategy. As the coarse but pertinent saying: 拉不出屎来不要站着茅房 – advises: “if you can’t crank out the crap, don’t fart around in the outhouse.” There is no reason to believe that Washington’s constipated response to the challenges posed by an economically dynamic and increasingly innovative China will lead to a different result.
China now produces thirty-six percent of the world’s manufactures, and its economy is one-third larger than America’s in terms of domestic purchasing power. For the first time in two centuries, China has a convincing self-defense capability, but China’s major challenges to the world are not primarily military. An American military response to them will not overcome them. Still, the United States has chosen an almost exclusively military response to China’s return to wealth and power. Diversion of investment to forever wars, military buildups, and arms races with China and Russia has led to deteriorating U.S. domestic infrastructure, declining educational standards, disinvestment in scientific research and public health, and rising debt.
In the nuclear age, no great power should wish to make an implacable enemy of another. But that is how Washington is currently treating both Beijing and Moscow. Meanwhile, the threat of nuclear escalation is demonstrably no longer an effective deterrent against conventional warfare between nuclear powers. Russia is the world’s most heavily armed nuclear power, but the United States has become engaged in a losing proxy war with it in Ukraine. India and Pakistan have fought each other despite their nuclear arsenals. But the risk of escalation to the nuclear level is serious. Just wait till a nuclear power faces a threat of defeat it regards as existential!
It’s worth noting that no navy of any great power has fought a major battle in seventy-nine years. There have been no major amphibious landings since 1950 (seventy-four years ago). There have been no direct air battles between peer competitors since 1954 in Korea, when the embryonic Chinese air force and north Korean planes piloted by Russians engaged in dog fights with the US Air Force. That was seventy years ago. Western combat experience against all but insurgencies is lacking.
Everywhere but in Russia and Ukraine, awareness of how technology has changed warfare has made little headway against political posturing based on wishful thinking. All Western militaries are configured to fight opponents with inferior technology and no air forces or navies. All envisage short, victorious wars, not protracted wars of attrition. No Western economy has the industrial surge capacity or stamina to win a war of attrition against a “peer competitor.”
A Sino-American war over Taiwan might decide the island’s status but, even it did, it would lead to protracted hostility between China and the United States. A war of attrition or catastrophic mutual destruction through a nuclear exchange might prove unavoidable. The one certainty, should such a war occur, is the destruction of Taiwan’s prosperity and democracy, the elimination of its semiconductor and other advanced technology exports, and the loss by both China and the United States of the greater part of their respective navies and air forces. It is said that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. For many reasons, the same is true of a Sino-American war over Taiwan.
The United States now habitually substitutes coercive measures short of war for diplomatic dialogue. Sanctions and ostracism have displaced negotiation as the preferred American response to disagreements with other countries. But in international relations, as in warfare, one should never lose contact with one’s adversary. Empathy – 知己知彼 – [“knowing yourself and knowing your opponent] is as indispensable to success in diplomacy as it is to victory on the battlefield.
The United States and its Western partners now routinely use unilateral sanctions to isolate countries and their economies, deny them access to trade settlement mechanisms, freeze or confiscate their government assets, bar their access to technology, curtail their exports and investments, prohibit transactions with them, and bar the issuance of visas to their officials and citizens. Sanctions create resentment and fuel the recalcitrance of their targets, while distorting markets and creating vested interests in their perpetuation. They entrench rather than solve problems, but they have a devoted following, especially in my country.
The net effect of American sanctioneering and protectionism is to make the world ever less than the previous sum of its parts. The new U.S. stand on trade and investment:
- Substitutes geopolitical risk judgments based on national security paranoia for comparative price and quality as the basis for business decisions, thereby reducing global economic efficiency, growth, and prosperity.
- Exempts uncompetitive domestic oligopolies – which now dominate the American economy – from competitive pressures to produce better, cheaper products.
- Deprives U.S. producers of economically desirable production inputs and locks in inflation.
- Replaces quasi-judicial dispute settlement mechanisms in international trade with zero-sum contests of economic power.
- Undermines global monetary reserve and trade settlement systems and encourages the formation of competing currency blocks and exchange mechanisms.
- Divides the world into multiple segregated political and economic blocs, restricting trade and investment flows with other blocs or countries to the detriment of global prosperity and economic efficiency.
- Constitutes a pivot to further stagnation and technological decline, not a realistic approach to reindustrializing America.
- Drives the world toward attempted military rather than diplomatic solutions to problems, most of which cannot be resolved on the battlefield.
- the resurgence of civilizational states like China, India, Japan, and Russia.
- the strengthening renaissance of the Islamic world.
- the reassertion of strategic autonomy by France and other European powers.
- the rise of new middle-ranking powers like Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
- the emergence of ASEAN as a significant independent factor in the global economy; and
- the beginning of Africa’s realization of its tremendous demographic and economic potential.
The trends at work include the rise of religious zealotry in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism as well as radical shifts in the norms of social behavior in Western societies. Even as much of the world reaffirms traditional values, Western elites extol the virtues of gender fluidity, hedonism, and other aspects of so-called “wokeism,” which intolerantly demands tolerance of behavior long universally considered to be immoral.
Meanwhile, the United States and the G7 continue to insist on the adoption by other countries of models of governance and rules the West itself seems to be abandoning. The domestic divisions, instability, and decadence of the United States and its G7 allies find expression in self-contradictory and ineffectual statements and actions abroad. The global majority sees Euro-American behavior on issues like the wars in Ukraine and Palestine as transparently hypocritical, based on double standards, and justified by narratives that belie visible realities. The countries that the West once colonized or dominated are no longer prepared to follow its lead in world affairs.
In short, we are witnessing the end of a unified, Western-dominated global order and its replacement by a hodgepodge of collaborations and rivalries at the sub-global level. Something similar happened to cause the devastating chaos of the “Thirty Years’ War” in Europe. That was a disorder composed of warring states, much like the history of China before the Qin unification or India before A?oka. But the “Thirty Years’ War” ended in the establishment in the Peace of Westphalia of a system of peaceful coexistence between multiple sovereign states that respected their cultural diversity. Its result is memorialized in the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
The question for your generation and the next in China, the West, and the rest of the world is whether we can replicate that outcome and end our descent into anarchy. We need to craft a peace based on mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, tolerance, and equality and cooperation for mutual benefit. If we cannot not do this, we risk more than our prosperity. We risk our very existence.
[1] This lecture is a follow-on to the previous year’s talk, “A World Divided,” which can be read at https://chasfreeman.net/a-world-divided/.
[2] I am indebted to Brantly Womack, Professor Emeritus of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia for this insight, described in Recentering Pacific Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
