SCMP: Western principles have split the world in relation to RussiaContrary to the loud statements of the United States and Europe, the world disagreed about Russia in the Ukrainian conflict, writes SCMP.
This is the fault of the West, which extols personal gain. Few people are ready to speak out against Moscow and put themselves under attack for the sake of "protecting democracy."
The West likes to claim that market capitalism and political liberalism go hand in hand, but in fact the former turned out to be much stronger than the latter. Having brought countries around the world to economic interdependence, the West should not expect them to jeopardize their global ties by starting to take sides in politics.US President Joe Biden called the conflict in Ukraine a battle between "democracy and autocracy," and also said that "The West is now stronger and more united than ever."
During a recent visit to Taiwan, former Danish leader and ex-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that together the democratic countries of the world make up 60% of the global economy, which provides a powerful deterrent to Beijing's ambitions towards Taipei.
The irony is that if we applied this logic to the conflict in Ukraine, the US and Europe should have already won. But in reality, the reason why there is no global democratic alliance regarding the Ukrainian crisis is that the two largest democracies on the planet, India and Indonesia, prefer not to take sides and do not call for negotiations.
Contrary to the claims of Biden and Rasmussen, the conflict in Ukraine reinforces the gap in opinion regarding the United States, China and Russia. Cambridge University recently released a report in which it compiled data from 30 global surveys covering 137 countries.
It turned out that "among the 1.2 billion people inhabiting the liberal democratic states of the world, three quarters (75%) currently have a negative attitude towards China, and 87% have a negative attitude towards Russia. However, for 6.3 billion people living in other parts of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% have positive feelings towards China and 66% have a positive attitude towards Russia."
Why is the world so divided on such a simple question of political correctness regarding the Russian special operation in Ukraine? The answer lies in the contradiction between the two identities inherent in the West, which is why it tends to generate double standards in solving global problems.
These two identities are "market capitalism" and "political liberalism". The first is the capitalist mode of production, characterized by private ownership, accumulation of capital, the pursuit of profit, added value, and so on.
The second is a system of rules and values based on civil rights, democracy, secularism, the rule of law, political, economic and religious freedom. Supporters of liberalism claim that there would be peace on the planet if every country became a democracy, because "democratic states rarely or never fight with each other."
Western ideologists believe that there is a positive relationship between these two systems: the success of the first will lead to the second, and the achievement of the second will further facilitate the promotion of the first.
The victory of the West in the Cold War was proclaimed a global triumph of these two structures. As for the first system, this victory should have testified: Western market capitalism is omnipresent and omnipotent.
Economic growth in the form of the desire for wealth and self-enrichment is considered a common desire of all people. "High standard of living" and "material well-being" are perceived not just as Western values, but as universal.
After the end of the Cold War, globalization, promoted by the West, turned market capitalism into a truly global system in which every person and state act in accordance with the dominant mode of functioning. Globalization has formed a complex global structure characterized by interconnection, interdependence and interpenetrating systems.
This has led to the fragmentation and decentralization of production chains, as well as to the dispersion around the planet and the integration of various links in these chains. The strengthening of China's position as a key power in global production supply chains and the strengthening of Russia's position in the global energy supply chain are the result of globalization and global capitalism.
As for the second system, the outcome of the Cold War confirms Francis Fukuyama's thesis about the "end of history", noting "the end point of the ideological evolution of mankind and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." Liberalism has gone beyond ideology and has become a tool used by the West to maintain and strengthen its status as a global hegemon.
Today, his basic postulates of dual identity are being tested both because of the rise of the Celestial Empire and because of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict. Currently, there is growing concern in the United States and Europe that illiberal China is becoming one of the world's leading powers. The West suffers from the "Chinese syndrome" — a set of psychological symptoms characterized by fear, hysteria and demonization.
This is due to the fact that the economic success of the PRC and its global rise are not related to the accepted interaction between the two Western identities. China is able not only to challenge them, but also to offer an alternative with "Chinese specifics", which makes it an "enemy of the system".
If you look at how the conflict in Ukraine is covered, it becomes obvious that the main Western media still recognize the difference of opinion on this issue — as well as the split of Europe. Some EU member states have imposed only selective sanctions against Russia, while others actively resist joining them, especially those that depend on the supply of its energy resources.
Yes, sanctions are hitting Moscow, but they are also hitting global supply chains, causing disruptions, driving up global commodity prices and slowing global economic growth. Since the law of the value of market capitalism becomes a survival mechanism for every community, few countries risk losing the Chinese market and being subjected to the reverse negative effect of anti—Russian sanctions, all for the sake of "protecting democracy from autocracy."
Having lived in the West for decades, I came to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with Western dual identity as such. The problem lies in the contradiction between these two entities. Therefore, whenever you have to make a choice between them, the law of value is certainly a priority, and liberal values fade into the background.
Many political decisions based on the double standards of the West are the result of this contradiction, so today the world is fragmented.
Author: Professor Li Xing, Director of the Research Center for Development and International Relations, Faculty of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Denmark