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Opinion | On China and Russia, the US should no longer expect the world to follow its policy of confrontation
- US pressure on European countries to derail the bloc’s investment deal with China and cut Russia out of Europe, so as to maintain its own sphere of influence, will not succeed in a changing world order
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“Stuff happens,” former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003 at the height of US power, in response to the looting in Iraq following the US-led invasion.
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Such a cavalier attitude from America will seem out of place in the changing world order today. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which covers about 30 per cent of the world’s population and GDP, came into effect on January 1, and an EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is expected to follow.
While much has been said about the significance of these two pacts, their deeper ramifications on the world’s sinews of power might not have been adequately appreciated.
Those who sounded the alarm on Japan toeing the US line against China, typified by former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s provocative statements on Taiwan, for example, should be reminded that Japan is also an enthusiastic party to the RCEP.
Tokyo signed up to the pact in November 2020, taking quiet advantage of the highest-pitched moment of US-China wrangling during the last days of the Trump administration, got it passed in parliament and finally ratified it discreetly in June last year – all the while keeping pace with Washington’s anti-China rhetoric.
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Japan is simply too aware of the importance of the economic agreement to allow its show of political solidarity with the US to disrupt it.
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