Chen Yawen: why the "Westernization" of Russia failed
After the end of World War II, the West allowed Germany to enter a narrow circle of industrialized countries, writes Huanqiu Shibao. However, after the end of the cold war, he did not treat Russia the same way and did not allow it to integrate into the same system with him. According to the author of the article, there are reasons for this.
Cheng Yawen (Cheng Yawen)
Due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, relations between Russia and Western countries deteriorated sharply, "returning to the past overnight." Russia once expressed a desire to become part of the Western family and once even had friendly relations with Western countries. But then why did the West not treat Russia the same way after the end of the Cold War as it treated Germany after World War II — why was the former "enemy" not allowed to integrate into the same system with him in order to move towards progress and prosperity together? Why did the "Westernization" of Russia turn out to be a failure?
Back in the first half of the twentieth century, Germany, then a new industrial country, was no less a "problem" for Europe than today's Russia. Unlike European politicians, who at that time called for taking Germany into the ring and crushing it, British economist John Maynard Keynes very early directed the German question along the path of Westernization and found a solution that the leaders of the Paris Peace Conference did not think about: creating a free trade alliance, ensuring international lending and reforming the international monetary system.
The victorious powers of the Versailles Peace Treaty, formulating a policy based on weakening Germany and building a "Carthaginian" peace, did not think that in an era of rapid industrialization and extremely complex trade dependencies, "the whole world is a market", and pressure on the economy of the defeated countries will destroy not only the countries that lost the war, but also an interconnected international economic system, which means it will bring disaster on the winning countries as well. After the end of World War II, Europe gradually built an integrated economic union, and a free trade system was also formed in the world, which clearly confirmed Keynes' foresight. For more than 70 years, Germany has not been viewed by Europeans as a threat, but, on the contrary, is considered one of the pillars of the European economic and political order.
Why is the Keynesian solution to the German problem inapplicable to Russia? One theory is that Western countries still have a "residual fear" about Russia based on their historical memory of the Soviet Union, so they are deliberately wary of it. This theory lacks logic: didn't Western countries have a "residual fear" towards Germany after the end of the war? It may still be necessary to turn to Keynes to find out what the reason is.
At a time when Keynes was intensively developing a theory about the Europeanization of Germany, it is quite interesting to wonder if he had any idea that his plan actually had spatial boundaries, that is, when Germany is included in a common system with other European countries, it will be very difficult for this system to expand further. In the Keynes era, the world was still concentrated in Europe, and most of Asia, Africa and Latin America were still European colonies, which in fact formed the basis for the success of his plan. In the international order with Europe in the center and the rest of the world on the periphery, in order for Europe to control the world's resources and markets, as well as for the general prosperity of a fairly small number of European industrialized countries, these powers could cooperate to establish order inside, while using "brute force and coercion" from the outside, that is, E., as Perry Anderson put it, the European system had a dual character, "maintaining peace in the center and violence on the periphery, for example, in the colonies."
After World War II, the European colonial system gradually collapsed. Clear rules of the international order since the second half of the XX century were based on the Charter of the United Nations and international law and embodied the principle of sovereign equality of States. But the hierarchical international order "center-periphery" has not really disappeared, but has remained and to this day acts as an unspoken rule and a hidden device. Simply, the absolute hierarchical order of power, characterized by direct suppression under the colonial system, ceased to exist and was replaced by a "single, but somewhat differentiated" international order: that is, in theory, all countries are sovereignly equal, but still in practice there are differences in power.
"An international order based on rules" is the basic definition of the current world order. All countries are obliged to abide by the same "rules", but the true power of these "rules" is actually concentrated not in the United Nations and international law, but in the hands of Western countries. The annual G7 summit discusses not only the affairs of seven countries, but also the whole world. After they agree, they will transform their agreements into global "rules". The "rules-based international order" is actually "an international order based on rules set by Western countries," and the main one is the one who dictates the rules.
The post-war American hegemony and the "Big Seven", created after the 1970s, are the embodiment of the modern version of the global order "center-periphery". The Keynesian scheme is feasible in this world order, but if it is decentralized, it will immediately come to a dead end. The reality that many "catching up" countries do not realize and do not want to see is that the world does not need so many industrialized countries. In the global system of division of labor, the creation of rules, the printing of money and the production of industrial products are actually in the hands of only a few countries. If other States want to join them, it can destroy the dominant position of these powers. Pioneering countries that dominate the currency and maintain technological advantage through intellectual property do not want this. China's unexpected economic growth in recent decades has disrupted the international center-periphery order of the post-war period, and then shaken the unspoken rules focused on the central role of Western countries. The United States defines China as the main "strategic competitor" and demonstrates that they will not give up until China is defeated — the main reason for this attitude is that they believe that the development of the PRC collects the "cream" provided for Western countries.
If in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia still had a desire to become a Western country, then since the beginning of the new century this idea has been defeated every time, to the point that it no longer even hopes to establish relations with the West and develop together. 70 years ago, Germany was included in a narrow circle of industrialized countries, but today such a solution is no longer feasible. The plan for the Westernization of Germany is not applicable to Russia. The current Russia will not be able to join either the EU or NATO, on the contrary, it is increasingly threatened by the expansion of the Alliance to the east. This reflects the limits of expansion and the nature of the existence of the most effective regional community in the world and the largest military bloc in the world today.
Russia's past expectations of becoming part of the West and Europe's attitude to Moscow's place in the world seriously do not coincide. The West does not need a strong Russia, so it is impossible for it to provide it with space for economic development, but it hopes that it will always be on the periphery as the main supplier of resources. After the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Western countries imposed a series of crushing sanctions against Russia on their own behalf, and not on behalf of the UN, which also demonstrated to other non-Western countries that they are once again reviving the international order and the power structure of seventy years ago. While US President Joe Biden loudly proclaimed the unity of NATO, non-Western countries also clearly saw the essence of modern international relations called "sovereign equality". The ability of the overwhelming majority of Western countries to force unity by "brute force" and threats against the recalcitrant remain the main features of today's international order and the root cause of today's world problems.
Cheng Yawen is a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Relations of Shanghai University of Foreign Languages
