Amid the confrontation between the United States and China, a reconstructed multilateralism can rein in the great powers.
We have come out of the period when the world was dominated by the United States, which became the sole superpower after the fall of the Berlin wall. This domination was marked by strong US unilateralism and concomitant weakening of the multilateral system. The spectacular rise of China has brought us back to a multipolar world.
The confrontation between these two giants however entails enormous risks, although a real decoupling of economies and a return to a 1950s-style cold war seem impossible. This impasse offers an opportunity to propose to the countries of the ‘global south’ an alliance to reform and strengthen the multilateral system. The aim would be to keep the superpowers in check, so that their confrontation does not degenerate, and to face up collectively to the major global challenges posed by the ecological crisis.
In western countries, there have been regular complaints recently that the ‘rules-based international order’ established after the second world war is being called into question by the rise of China and the actions of Russia. And there can be little doubt that the renewed imperial ambitions of Russia under Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s China are endangering world peace and the sovereignty of their weaker neighbours. The utter absence of scruples or respect for the most fundamental human rights on the part of these two leaders, and their allies in North Korea and Iran, is indeed cause for the gravest concern in Europe and the rest of the world. But this is no reason to embellish the past in retrospect.
The world dominated by the US, when it was the sole superpower, had little to do in reality with a rules-based order anchored in the multilateral system. Having given birth to the United Nations and its related organisations and hosted them in New York, the US has for a very long time been one of the most contemptuous of its constraint. It has never really agreed to submit to such multilateral rules.
American unilateralism
By refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the US wasted 20 years of global climate action. To break the deadlock, we had to make do with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which provides only for non-binding measures and is clearly not adequate. For many years, the US has also been blocking the operation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), by refusing to appoint new judges to its Dispute Settlement Body, the heart of this machine for regulating world trade.
The US has consistently refused too to submit to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. Nor has it ratified the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court and its nationals are therefore not subject to its jurisdiction either.
In 2017 the US left the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—having ceased all funding from 2011, following the admission of Palestine—and in 2020 the then president, Donald Trump, announced it would withdraw from the World Health Organization. Under Joe Biden, though, the US returned to UNESCO last July—to counter the growing influence of China—and the WHO decision was reversed.
The dollar’s global monetary power is the result of the incomparable size and liquidity of the American financial market. But the US has never been a strong supporter of extending the powers and resources of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to regulate world finance and currencies.
In short, the world dominated by the US after the fall of the wall was marked by American unilateralism, reinforced by unchallenged military superiority. Its zenith was the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003. Successive Israeli administrations, in particular, clearly understood this, favouring the American alliance while flouting international law and treating the UN as an enemy.
But the foundations of this domination are disappearing. The economic and military superiority of the US is threatened by the rise of China, a country with a population of 1.4 billion, against which 330 million Americans may find it difficult to compete in the future. Hence the growing tensions between these superpowers.
Europe’s strategic choice
Against this backdrop, Europeans are faced with a strategic choice: allow the pendulum to swing between the unilateral US domination hitherto and the unilateral Chinese domination of tomorrow, backed by the Russia-Iran-North-Korea axis, or take advantage of the interregnum to try to build a genuinely multilateral system. This must be capable of forcing the most powerful countries to respect the basic rules laid down in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The European Union has long taken a view different from the US on these issues. After the two world wars of the 20th century and the end of the colonial empires, it never aspired to world leadership. Today, a European leader who would assert such an ambition would hardly trigger more than amused smiles or raised eyebrows in the rest of the world (even if a few nostalgic French or British politicians may still occasionally cherish such a hope). Nobody fears the establishment of European domination of the world any more.
Since its creation, the EU has always been the good pupil of the multilateral system. It has supported the UN and its various agencies, it has believed in the fight against climate change and implemented the Kyoto Protocol, it has dreamt that the WTO would bring order and discipline to world trade, it has hoped that the IMF would be able to regulate and stabilise world finance and currencies, and so on.
A credible offer
The EU is therefore credible—infinitely more so than the US, at least—in proposing to the countries of the global south that they take advantage of the current balance of power to build together a revamped multilateral system with real capacity for action. Otherwise, China and its allies will establish their sway, as with the birth of the BRICS network.
The enormous pressure of the ecological crisis, demanding stronger multilateral action, is keenly felt by everyone—but particularly in the countries of the south, often the worst affected. And there is no shortage of major players in the world, including India, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Nigeria, that do not want to have to align themselves with one or other of the superpowers and are instead looking for ways to protect themselves from their appetites and excesses.
If Europe’s offer is to be credible, though, it needs to be clear about the sacrifices this implies. The multilateral system set up after World War II gave Europeans a place, within the UN Security Council and in other institutions, which has become frankly disproportionate. For example, the convention that the director of the IMF be a European (and the president of the World Bank an American) can no longer be sustained.
Also implied is a greater financial commitment by Europe (and other developed countries) to multilateral collective action. The decrepitude of the post-war multilateral system is not just the fault of the US: Europe too has not done what is required to ensure the countries of the south have their rightful place.
There is a real risk that Europe will be one of the first victims of the clash between the superpowers if nothing is done to provide a compelling framework for them. But if it is prepared to make the sacrifices required, Europe has a role to play in favour of a renewed and strengthened multilateralism. By devoting sufficient energy to this, it would be doing itself, and humanity as a whole, a huge favour.
Originally published in French by Le Nouvel Observateur
'William Desmonts' is a senior French official.