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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The writer is the executive director of the New America think-tank and editor of the FT
For nearly two decades, China has adhered to the doctrine of “peaceful rise,” a concept developed by state adviser and intellectual Zheng Bijan. China’s desire to increase its power and prosperity by integrating into the international system, without posing a threat to other nations, was emphasized.
The strategy worked: from the 1990s to the mid-2010s, China’s GDP and global influence grew spectacularly. Xi Jinping, however, changed course. Beginning in 2017, he launched a series of tactics that became known as “wolf warrior diplomacy.” Chinese diplomats have become more determined to defend Chinese interests. And in a few short years, the Chinese government has managed to undo much of the goodwill generated by years of peaceful rise.
In 2023, Xi stepped down. But this aggressive advancement of Chinese interests has worsened the world situation, creating lasting mistrust and convincing many of China’s partners to hedge their bets by strengthening relations with the US.
Now, US President-elect Donald Trump and his merry band of tech titans are embracing their own brand of Wild West diplomacy, enhanced by a dose of Silicon Valley swagger. His characteristics are supreme self-confidence, disregard for rules of any kind, and willingness to make deals with anyone anywhere as long as they achieve immediate personal interest.
Trump himself lives in a world of self-awarded superlatives, which resonate with his new friends from California. Many people who have achieved power and unimaginable wealth through technological innovation assume that America’s superiority over other countries is as obvious as the technology sector’s superiority over the rest of the American economy. It’s the future and they control it.
Such attitudes seem certain to create a regular stream of incidents and mini-crises with other countries. Yet based on China’s experience, the issue will not be this or that outrage, but a steady accumulation of statements and actions that gradually permeate the domestic politics of other nations, changing coalitions in consequential ways.
As Xi revealed, Beijing’s cruelty and brash assertion of rights have strengthened China hawks in the US and the EU and sowed suspicion among China’s former supporters. The long-term damage to relations between Washington and Beijing was the result not only of Trump’s actions during his last term, but also of a profound shift in the attitudes of former Obama officials who entered the Biden administration and built on many of Trump’s anti-China policies.
The push for American technological supremacy will especially embolden those in other countries who already want to counter the grip of the big American tech companies. The EU has been fighting the power and reach of these companies for more than a decade. The new Trump administration, following Meta’s refusal to deploy its AI in the EU, is likely to force a showdown that will provide the necessary impetus to create an integrated European defense technology and market.
In countries like Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Indonesia, even where current leaders are friendly to Trump, Washington’s continued pressure to open markets and improve terms of trade in favor of American companies will alienate domestic entrepreneurs and exporters.
The US, like China in the years of the wolf warrior, will increasingly be known for breaking and circumventing domestic and international rules. Demands that everyone else “pay” for US military protection could increasingly look like a global racket.
The emerging middle powers, which can now play a much more independent role on the global stage than they did in the 20th century, are unwilling to be pawns in the US-China competition. They will instead insist on asserting their own national interests in the same way that Trump wants to put America first.
The George W. Bush administration eschewed international rules and processes in favor of “coalitions of the willing.” Since then, Republican unilateralists have been followed by Democratic multilateralists who have spent years repairing the damage to US global relations and creating new informal alliances and coalitions.
This cycle, however, eroded confidence in the reliability of the US as a partner and ally. Add a heavy dose of arrogance and insult, and the damage caused by America’s next era of wolf warrior diplomacy could be permanent.
