{"id":11530,"date":"2022-07-22T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T07:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2022\/07\/glo\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T22:13:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T19:13:49","slug":"evaluation-of-the-global-environment-rise-of-china-russia-west-confrontation-and-emerging-threats-sener-akturk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2022\/07\/evaluation-of-the-global-environment-rise-of-china-russia-west-confrontation-and-emerging-threats-sener-akturk\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluation of the Global Environment: Rise of China; Russia-West Confrontation; and Emerging Threats – \u015eener Akt\u00fcrk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DOI<\/strong>: 10.13140\/RG.2.2.21362.79042<\/a>
E-ISSN<\/strong>: 2718\u00ad-0549 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is the rivalry between China and the United States the primary fault line and the organising principle of the new world order?<\/em><\/strong>
By late 2021, the new organising principle of the emerging world order indeed seemed to be the rivalry between China and the United States. From the very beginning until the very end of his tenure, U.S. President Donald Trump (2016-2020) clearly targeted China as the main threat to US security while seeking unusually close relations with Russia. Those focusing on and perhaps exaggerating the idiosyncratic features of the Trump presidency were overlooking that his predecessor, Barack Obama, also sought \u201creset\u201d with Russia and<\/em> \u201cpivot to Asia.\u201d Moreover, Trump\u2019s successor, Joe Biden, established AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) as a new security formation to contain China in September 2021, which, unsurprisingly, infuriated the Chinese leadership (Ward and McLeary 2021). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly,\nthe Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), also known as \u201cthe Quad,\u201d which\nbrings together Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, includes joint\nmilitary exercises among its participants and issued a statement on the spirit\nof the Quad in March 2021 (White House 2021), and held its first Quad Plus\nmeeting with South Korea, New Zealand, and Vietnam. Initially, Biden also\nsought a rapprochement with Russia when under his presidency U.S. waived the\nsanctions on Russia\u2019s Nord Stream 2 pipeline (BBC 2021). In short, instead of a\nradical break during the Trump presidency, it is very much possible to observe\nmany efforts at rapprochement with Russia and containment against China\nthroughout Obama, Trump, and Biden\u2019s administrations, which arguably failed.\nEncircling and containing China as the priority and enlisting Russia\u2019s\nassistance in such a strategy was the course of action leading Realist scholars\nto recommend to the United States for more than two decades (Mearsheimer 2001;\n2016). Symbolically, too, 2021 was the 30th<\/sup> anniversary of the\ndissolution of the Soviet Union, since the Belavezha Accords that legally\ndissolved the Soviet Union were signed between the Russian president Boris\nYeltsin, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, and the Belarusian president\nStanislav Shushkevich on December 8, 2021, which in many ways laid the\nfoundation for the post-Cold War order (Rutland 2016). At least many observers\nthought so until only two and a half months after this anniversary, when Russia\nbegan a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Russia\u2019s invasion\nof Ukraine refocus the United States and the Western alliance on containing\nRussia as the primary threat instead of China?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>If Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine results in\nrefocusing the United States and the Western alliance on containing Russia as\nthe primary threat to global security, a significant realignment of world\npolitics around the Chinese threat may have been averted or at least postponed.\nSince much of the media coverage of international events since February 2022 is\noverwhelmingly focused on Ukraine, one might think that Russia indeed reclaimed\nits status as the primary threat in the eyes of the Western alliance. On the\nother hand, while the United States and the Western allies did not militarily\nintervene, and they did not even threaten or suggest that they may militarily\nintervene to stop Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden unequivocally\nstated that the \u201cU.S. would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan.\u201d\n(Restuccia, Thomas, Chin 2022) Thus, it is possible to conclude that despite\nRussia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the US is still focused on China to the point of\nthreatening to intervene if China attempts to invade Taiwan, whereas it refused\nto intervene during Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014 or the\nRussian invasion of the rest of Ukraine that began in February 2022. It is an\nopen question whether there is a red line for the United States or the rest of\nthe Western alliance regarding Russian expansionism in Europe, within or beyond\nUkraine. Of immediate concern is the status of Moldova, where the breakaway\nregion of Transnistria has been under Russian military protection for almost\nthree decades. Numerous observers, such as the Director of U.S. National\nIntelligence Avril Haines, among others, suggest that Russia is seeking to link\nRussian-occupied Crimea and Transnistria by occupying the remainder of\nUkraine\u2019s Black Sea coast, including the regions of Kherson, Mykolaiv, and the\ncritical port city of Odesa (O\u2019Brien 2022). Almost the entire area (oblast) of\nKherson has been occupied by Russia by the end of May 2022, with incursions\ninto the Mykloaiv region and sporadic missile attacks combined with a naval\nblockade on Odesa lending credence to this speculation. The Russian occupation\nof the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine, followed by an incursion into\nMoldova, would have dire consequences for the European and global security\nenvironment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might also ask why Russia does not prioritise (or at least publicly\ndoes not seem to care much about) the Chinese threat to its east, in Siberia in\nparticular, and instead overwhelmingly focuses on the threat from the West.\nRussia\u2019s self-perception as a European great power and Russia\u2019s recurrent fear\nof \u201cfalling behind\u201d European and Western competitors, which arguably\ncontributed to the Bolshevik Revolution, among other significant outcomes in\nRussian history, maybe one of the reasons for Russia\u2019s overwhelming focus on\nthe Western threat, which then has more to do with self-perception and identity\nrather than the actual balance of power in Russia\u2019s immediate neighbourhood.\nWhat will happen to Russia in the wake of a possible defeat in Ukraine is an\nintriguing question, and one may surmise that it will become more of an Asian\npower with the loss of its influence over Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linking the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the emerging threat from the\nrise of China, the U.S. \u201cSecretary of State Antony Blinken said\u201d that \u201cthe\nBiden administration aims to lead the international bloc opposed to Russia\u2019s\ninvasion of Ukraine into a broader coalition to counter what it sees as a more\nserious, long-term threat to global order from China.\u201d (Lee 2022) This prioritisation\nwas based on the assessment of not just intent but also capabilities, as\nBlinken stated in the same speech very recently: \u201cChina is the only country\nwith both the intent to reshape the international order -and, increasingly, the\neconomic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.\u201d (Lee 2022)\nThe strategy of countering China and Russia simultaneously, as stated most\nrecently by Blinken, raises several further questions: Does China benefit from and\/or\nsupport Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine? Does China intend to occupy Taiwan soon?<\/em><\/strong> Does China see the Russian\ninvasion of Ukraine as a positive precedent for its goal of \u201creunification\u201d by\nannexing Taiwan?<\/em> Summing up all these questions, is Russia a long-term ally or adversary of China, given their implicit\ncompetition in Siberia, Central Asia, and elsewhere?<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is reasonable to suggest that China benefits from Russia\u2019s invasion\nand Ukrainian resistance in the short term for various reasons. First, the centre\nof attention for the security concerns of the Western alliance moves away from\nChina and the Asia-Pacific and towards Eastern Europe, where it has\nhistorically been. Second, Russia becomes more dependent on China as\ninternational sanctions further isolate Russia from the global economy. For\nexample, China can buy an even larger share of Russia\u2019s oil, natural gas, and\ngrain, probably at much lower prices than would have been the case in the\nabsence of Western economic sanctions on Russia. Third and relatedly, many\nRussian oligarchs and others with transferable wealth can move their\ninvestments to China instead of Western countries to evade imminent or\npotential sanctions. Fourth, as the Russian military is increasingly weakened\nin a war of attrition on the Ukrainian front, Chinese military strength\nrelative to Russia will continue to improve. China was already unrivalled\neconomically among all its neighbours and nearby polities in Asia, but as late\nas 2019, Russia\u2019s military strength was ranked second in the world after the\nUnited States but ahead of China (Akt\u00fcrk 2020, Table 3). However, with the\nrapid decline in Russia\u2019s economic and military power due to the war in\nUkraine, Chinese military power will most likely surpass Russia’s and will soon\nbecome unrivalled across Asia. Such a development will have vast consequences\nfor the global security environment. China is very likely to attempt to annex Taiwan\nwithin the next quarter-century at the latest since the current leader of\nChina, Xi Jinping, explicitly stated that \u201c\u2018China\u2019s complete reunification\u2019 by\n\u2018resolving the Taiwan question\u2019 will be achieved by 2049, the centenary of the\nfounding of the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d (Erickson 2019, 74) Since Russia\nis extremely unlikely to clash with China over the latter\u2019s attempt at annexing\nTaiwan, it is possible for the US-led Western alliance to simultaneously face a\nrevisionist Russia seeking to annex parts or all of Ukraine in Eastern Europe\nand a revisionist China seeking to annex Taiwan in East Asia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some may critically note that China\u2019s population did not increase but\nrather declined for the first time in 60 years (Peng 2022). However, China\nstill accounts for over one-sixth of the world\u2019s population. If population decline<\/em> becomes a problem, the\ngovernment may adopt various pro-natalist policies just as many West and East\nEuropean countries, including Russia, have done. I would also note that there have\nbeen alarmist reports and predictions about an imminent and drastic decline in\nGermany\u2019s population since the 1970s (at least). Yet, more than 40 years later,\nGermany reached and surpassed 80 million people and remains the most populous\nnation within the European Union by a large margin. In short, alarmist\npredictions about \u201cpopulation decline\u201d in advanced industrial great powers have\nbeen widespread and somewhat exaggerated. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much more than the differing views on China, the invasion of Ukraine\nexposed the radical differences in various Western states\u2019 attitudes vis-\u00e0-vis\nRussia and thus, led many to question the existence of a Western alliance\naltogether: Is there a Western\nalliance as of 2022? More specifically, are France and Germany primarily interested\nin containing and rolling back Russia\u2019s military-political interventions beyond\nits borders, or are they seeking a rapprochement with Russia even in the\naftermath of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine?<\/em><\/strong> Very different\nattitudes vis-\u00e0-vis Russia prevailed already well before the latter invaded\nUkraine: For example, both France and Russia supported the Libyan warlord\nHaftar against the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in\nTripoli, and Germany continued to deepen its energy dependence on Russia with\nnew pipelines, and both countries opposed plans to offer a Membership Action\nPlan for Georgia and Ukraine\u2019s NATO membership as far back as in the Bucharest\nSummit of 2008. Even months after the invasion began, French president Macron\n\u201csaid that the West should not \u2018humiliate\u2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin in\nUkraine\u201d and suggested \u201cthat Ukraine cede some of its territories to Russia to\nhelp Putin save face.\u201d (Galindo 2022) Both Macron and German Chancellor Olaf\nScholz have been accused of timidity in the face of Russia\u2019s invasion of\nUkraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

European and broader Western disunity in the face of Russia\u2019s invasion of\nUkraine brings back another concern that predated 2022 and was expressed with a\ncatchy neologism coined during the Munich Security Conference in February 2020:\nWestlessness<\/em> (Munich Security\nConference 2020). At the conference, while European leaders were much more\nconcerned about \u201cthe state of Western unity,\u201d in line with the grand strategic\nshift discussed above in this discussion paper, \u201cthe size of the Chinese threat\nto the Western community was perceived as much more pronounced by US\nrepresentatives than their European peers.\u201d (Munich Security Conference 2020)\nThe transatlantic divide in interpreting the global environment and the emerging\nthreats is captured in great part in this contrast: \u201cWestern disunity\u201d,\nespecially in the aftermath of the United Kingdom\u2019s exit from the European\nUnion, the so-called \u201cBrexit,\u201d haunts European policymakers, whereas the US\nstill perceives the world locked in a contest between the West and the Rest. As\na major development symptomatic of fundamental disagreements within broader\nEurope, Brexit alone should have been sufficient to challenge the existence of\na unified West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the\npreferences and the role of the United Kingdom in the aftermath of Brexit?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>A very influential report formulated and\nendorsed by a commission after Brexit that included leading policymakers from\nAustralia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South\nKorea, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States suggested \u201ca new UK\nstrategy in the Indo-Pacific Region,\u201d titled, \u201cA Very British Tilt.\u201d (Policy\nExchange 2020) The Commission was chaired by the former Prime Minister of Canada,\nStephen Harper, and the report’s foreword was written by the former Prime\nMinister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. The report can be interpreted as an attempt to\ncreate a broadly liberal democratic bloc of countries to contain possible\nChinese expansionist threats. The reports emphasise that the UK\u2019s \u201ccritically-important special relationship with the United\nStates is increasingly affected by American grand strategic decisions and\nconcerns related to China, whether directly as with the Huawei case, or\nindirectly as a consequence of new US military-economic policies that focus on\na \u2018free and open Indo-Pacific\u2019\u201d (emphasis in the original, Policy Exchange\n2020, 20). In short, post-Brexit, Britain appears to be on board with a new US\ngrand strategy aimed at containing China, as the initiatives such as AUKUS and\nhigh-level strategic formulations such as the Policy Exchange <\/em>report suggest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Russia, which used\nto be considered the second or the third military power globally, is being\nsignificantly weakened due to its invasion of Ukraine, which country or\ncountries are likely to rise as the other major powers following China and the\nUnited States soon?<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>France and the United\nKingdom, the other two members of the United States Security Council (UNSC),\nare unlikely to become the third and fourth major powers in what appears to be\nan increasingly multipolar world, primarily due to the limited size of their\ncore states with a relatively small territory (between quarter-million and half\na million square kilometres) in comparative perspective and their current\npopulations around 67 million each. On the other hand, despite these\nlimitations of their size (demographic, territorial, and other), France and the\nUnited Kingdom are still able to project military power worldwide across\nnumerous seas and oceans, in part due to their overseas territories, a concrete\nlegacy of their recent imperial past. As for new great powers that have the\npotential to eclipse the old European great powers, Brazil, with a territory\nlarger than eight million square kilometres of territory and a population\nexceeding 200 million, and India, with a territory larger than three million\nsquare kilometres and a population exceeding 1.3 billion, are more likely candidates\nto be new great powers and potential regional hegemons in South America and\nSouth Asia, respectively. Power, however, is always relational, and the\nexistence of the United States in North America and the existence of China\nnorth of the Himalayas might suffice to stymie any hegemonic aspirations Brazil\nand India might have or develop over time, respectively. It is also essential\nto bear in mind that many states around the world (perhaps even the majority)\nare neither formally allied with the United States nor with China or Russia, an\nimportant fact that we may lose sight of in analyses that excessively focus on\nEurope, East Asia, or the Middle East, three regions of supreme significance\nfor the U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Chinese rivalry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            <\/em>Another\nmajor puzzle with regards to the global environment in the near future is\nwhether Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine will result in a negotiated settlement\nthat includes recognition of any border changes in favour of Russia or not. If,\nfor example, any territory such as Crimea that Russia militarily occupied and\nannexed is internationally recognised as part of Russia in a peace settlement,\nthis may serve as a precedent for many other attempts at annexation through\noccupation elsewhere around the world. In a nutshell, the proverbial Pandora\u2019s\nBox may be opened to break the taboo of border changes through annexations if\nCrimea (or any other Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory) is legally recognised\nand accepted as Russia\u2019s territory in a postwar settlement. In short, if the Russian\ninvasion of Ukraine ends with a settlement that internationally recognises\nCrimea (and perhaps even other Ukrainian territories) as part of Russia, this\nwould likely open the gate for other annexations elsewhere.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The questions regarding the future status of annexed territories and de\nfacto states constitute only one dimension of the heated debates and\ndiscussions about the crisis of the liberal international order (Ikenberry\n2018; Mearsheimer 2018). According to leading Neorealist critics, the liberal\ninternational order was \u201cbound to fail,\u201d in part because the unipolarity in the\nglobal distribution of power that it relied on ended around 2016: \u201cthe world became multipolar in or\nclose to 2016, and\u2026 the shift away from unipolarity is a death sentence for the\nliberal international order, which is in the process of collapsing and will be\nreplaced by realist orders.\u201d (Mearsheimer 2019, 8-9) From such a perspective,\nit may be no coincidence that the UK\u2019s exit from the European Union and Trump\u2019s\nelection to the US presidency both took place in 2016, a critical turning point\nin world history after which the collapse of the US-led liberal international\norder accelerated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A central element in the\ncrisis and collapse of the liberal international order has been the deep\ndisagreements on \u201cfirst principles\u201d, the a priori<\/em> values which different\nactors at every level of the international system (states, societies, groups,\nindividuals, organisations, etc.) hold (Mearsheimer 2018). From the definition\nand structure of the family to the notions of religion and permissible\nreligious rituals, there are profound and seemingly insurmountable differences\nin the values held dear by different segments of humanity. Any effort to impose\na particular understanding of \u201cthe good life\u201d by any actor, be it the United\nStates, European Union, China, or Russia, is indeed \u201cbound to fail\u201d\n(Mearsheimer 2019) and has repeatedly failed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep disagreements over different\nconceptions of the \u201cgood life\u201d are also reflected in differences over different\nconcepts of democracy. The most acute, consequential, and world-historical\nevent where these differences became relevant has been the Arab Spring, a\nseries of anti-authoritarian uprisings that shook Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria,\nYemen, Bahrain, and Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq, among others. For example,\nTurkey, the oldest competitive multiparty democracy in the Muslim world, had a\nradically different attitude vis-\u00e0-vis the Arab Spring than the Western and\nespecially European powers. \u201cAgainst the background of the EU\u2019s unwillingness\nto continue membership negotiations after 2005, the Arab Spring provided Turkey\nwith an opportunity to reaffirm its newly-found democratic identity and to\nbecome the leading advocate of democracy across the Middle East.\u201d (Akt\u00fcrk 2017,\n88) While the US and other Western powers supported democratisation in the\nMiddle East at least rhetorically in the first year or two of the Arab Spring,\nthey eventually embraced the old and new dictatorships in the Arab Middle East,\nwith the 2013 military coup in Egypt serving as a turning point. Turkey, in\ncontrast, doubled down on its opposition to the Egyptian and Syrian military\ndictatorships led by el-Sisi and al-Assad, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Radical changes in interstate\nmilitary threats are not the only emerging or potential threats in the current\nglobal environment. New pandemics, food and water shortages that may lead to\nfamines, terrorism, demographic imbalances and mass population movements, and\nthe shrinkage of habitable land due to climate crises, including global\nwarming, may be counted among many non-military and unconventional potential\nthreats at present. The coronavirus pandemic was a global stress test in many\nways. Many international academic journals in the social sciences devoted\nentire special issues to examining the cross-national impact of the pandemic,\nin part inquiring as to which states and societies survived the pandemic with\nthe least damage and why (International\nOrganization<\/em> 2020; Nationalities\nPapers <\/em>2022; Problems of\nPost-Communism<\/em> 2022). Simple binaries such as democracies versus\nautocracies, conservatives versus liberals, religious versus secular, and advanced\nindustrial versus developing countries, do not seem to correlate with and\nexplain the relative success and failure of different countries in tackling the\npandemic challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What might be the next\nmost significant unconventional security threat?<\/em><\/strong> Food\nshortages and potential famines might be the next significant unconventional\nsecurity threat, as numerous publications have recently pointed out. As in the\ncase of the coronavirus pandemic, China is singled out as the main culprit for\nsuch a global food shortage. Thus, such a disaster may also have geopolitical\nrepercussions for the emerging Sino-American competition worldwide. In late\nDecember 2021, Nikkei Asia<\/em> reported\nthat \u201cChina hoards over half the world\u2019s grain, pushing up global prices\u201d and\nspeculated that \u201ctesty ties with U.S. and Australia could be prodding China to\nboost food reserves\u201d (Watanabe and Munakata 2021). As such, the Chinese\nhoarding and the consequent hikes in food prices that are pushing some\ncountries to the brink of famines have geopolitical origins since China fears\nthat its new geopolitical adversaries -Australia and the United States- which\nare also two of the largest agricultural producers and exporters in the world,\nmight use food supplies to punish China in the near future. Two weeks later, Bloomberg <\/em>reported that Chinese hoarding\nis partly responsible for the rising food prices worldwide, reaching their\nhighest level in a decade (Minter 2022). These concerns were voiced, and\ndecade-long price peaks were reached already before<\/em> Russia invaded Ukraine, which is particularly concerning\nsince Russia has been the leading exporter of grain worldwide, and Ukraine has\nalso been a significant source of grain for Europe and the world. In April\n2022, the Economist<\/em> also emphasised\nthat geopolitical concerns such as the \u201crows with Australia and Canada have\nmade Chinese officials worry that copious amounts of grain the two countries\nsupply might one day be cut off.\u201d (Economist\n2022a<\/em>) Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has been particularly threatening not\nonly for Europe but for the world as it worsened these already worrying trends\nin the global food supply. \u201cTogether, the two countries supply 12% of traded\ncalories\u201d and \u201cIndia said it would suspend exports because of an alarming\nheatwave\u201d, prompting the Economist <\/em>to\nwarn of \u201cthe coming food catastrophe\u201d in its cover story in May 2022 (Economist 2022b<\/em>). With almost 250\nmillion people \u201con the brink of famine\u201d (Economist\n2022b<\/em>) and following shortly after a 2-year-long pandemic, the next most\nsignificant unconventional global security threat may indeed be a food\ncatastrophe. This would also follow the pattern of unconventional conflicts\nbetween major powers short of interstate war and somewhat akin to proxy wars,\nwhereby the relative resolve and resilience of competing for superpowers such\nas China and the United States are tested in the face of adversity. Such a\ncompetition over food supplies would also favour emerging powers with large\narable land, fertile soil, high agricultural-industrial capacity, and large\npopulations, such as Brazil and India, as some of the traditional or historic\ngreat powers of the European core, such as France and Russia, continue to\ndecline in relative terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestic conflicts\nconcerning ethnoreligious minorities, including within some of the largest and\nrising great powers, are likely to play a greater role in shaping the global\npolitical and security environment as well as international relations in the\nnear future.<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>Two of the\nmost apparent domestic conflicts involving millions of people with vast\nhumanitarian and security risks within great powers are the persecution of\nUyghurs in China and Muslims in India. The mass internment of more than a\nmillion Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim ethnoreligious group indigenous to the\nXinjiang region of China, also known as Eastern Turkestan, attracted\nsignificant international coverage and scrutiny, although with minimal access\nto the region itself due to the totalitarian control of the Communist party-state\nthat effectively isolated the region from the world. China\u2019s very well-documented\n\u201cwar on the Uyghurs\u201d (Roberts 2020) led many scholars to justifiably \u201cfear an\nUyghur genocide in Xinjiang\u201d (Finley 2021). It is very unlikely that any\noutside power, including a relatively small middle power such as Turkey with ethnolinguistic\nand religious ties to the Uyghurs, can convince, let alone coerce the Chinese\ngovernment to change its policies vis-\u00e0-vis Uyghurs. Probably the only country\nthat may have some leverage over China in the current world system is\nundoubtedly the United States, and it remains to be seen whether the United\nStates will use that leverage in a tangible way to convince or coerce the\nChinese government to substantially change its policies toward the Uyghurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further south in India, often referred to as the largest democracy in the\nworld, Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s \u201cHindu nationalist government has cast\ntwo hundred million Muslims as internal enemies\u201d (Filkins 2019). After becoming\nPrime Minister in 2014, Modi won a landslide victory in 2019, giving him\nanother five years in power to pursue his Hindu religious nationalist agenda\n(Chotiner 2019). This was followed by sporadic anti-Muslim violence for many\nyears, with at least 34 Muslims killed in Delhi in a single episode in 2020 (Democracy Now <\/em>2020). According to some\naccounts, \u201cthe Hinduization of India is nearly complete\u201d by May 2022 poses\ntremendous risks for the roughly 200 million Muslims and millions of Christians\nwho are marginalised and persecuted in this process (Serhan 2022). The\npersecution of ethnoreligious minorities, particularly Muslims, and the\ncorresponding humanitarian, societal, and security risks are not limited to\nAsian great powers. When we turn to the major Western powers, France is usually\nsingled out as the Western great power where the Muslim minority is\nsystematically discriminated against. The vast discrimination against French\nMuslims is very much observable in the labour market (Adida, Laitin, Valfort\n2010), and French Muslims are the most underrepresented politically across 26\nEuropean countries (Akt\u00fcrk and Katliarou 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, French \u201cprisons [are] filled with Muslims\u201d (Moore 2008), and\naccording to many critics, \u201c\u2018Secular\u2019 is a French word for \u2018Anti-Muslim\u2019\u201d\n(Gobry 2018). These factors explain \u201cwhy France sparks such anger in the Muslim\nworld\u201d (Charlton 2020) compared to other Western states. As the incarceration\nrates of French Muslims and the endemic protests demonstrate, the marginalisation\nof French Muslims, the largest Muslim minority in the Western world, will\nlikely continue to be a political and societal soft underbelly and a security\nrisk in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, there is a near-consensus that the global environment in\nthe 21st<\/sup> century, and perhaps even beyond, will be characterised by\nthe competition between rising China and the United States. Apart from the high\nrisks of a conventional military conflict between the two superpowers over\nChina\u2019s possible attempt to annex Taiwan, probably sometime before 2049, there\nare other unconventional risks of global proportions concerning a food\ncatastrophe and famines worldwide because China hoarded grain and other\nessential foodstuffs. Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is exacting a heavy toll on\nthe Russian military and the economy, which was already under stress for the\nlast eight years due to the international sanctions on Russia\u2019s occupation and\nannexation of Crimea in early 2014. Western disunity, as evidenced by the\nremarkably different attitudes toward Russia among some EU member states,\ncombined with the UK\u2019s new global strategy after Brexit, which includes the\n\u201cIndo-Pacific with a British tilt\u201d in synch with the US strategy of containing\nChina, are important elements of the current global environment. New powers\nfrom the Global South with large arable and fertile lands, agricultural and\nindustrial capacity, and very sizeable populations, such as Brazil and India, will\nlikely play a more significant role in the future. Rising food prices due to\nincreasing demand from China lead to risks of famines worldwide, and the\ndiscrimination and marginalisation of very sizeable ethnoreligious minorities\nin several great powers, including China, France, and India, also pose\nseemingly domestic risks that may nonetheless have international spillover\neffects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>
\n
Assoc. Prof. \u015eener Akt\u00fcrk, Ko\u00e7 University<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

\u015eener Akt\u00fcrk is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Ko\u00e7 University. He is a scholar of comparative politics, with a focus on comparative politics of ethnicity, religion, and nationalism. After completing his BA and MA at the University of Chicago and his PhD in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Government at Harvard University. His book, Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2012) received the 2013 Joseph Rothschild book prize from the Association for the Study of Nationalities. His articles were published in World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, Mediterranean Politics, Social Science Quarterly, European Journal of Sociology, Nationalities Papers, Problems of Post-Communism, Turkish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Osteuropa, Theoria, Ab Imperio, All Azimuth, Insight Turkey, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Central Eurasian Studies Review, Perceptions,<\/em> and various edited books. He is the recipient of Peter Odegard Award, Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant, Baki Komsuoglu Social Sciences Encouragement Award, Kadir Has Social Sciences Prize, TUBA Young Scientist Award, BAGEP Science Academy Award, and TUB\u0130TAK Incentive Prize.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This paper was originally presented at the Global Leadership Forum workshop on “Peace and Stability in the Neighbourhood”, co-organized by the Global Academy and the School of Government and Leadership (ULMER), Bah\u00e7e\u015fehir University, at Zifin Hotel, Giresun, on June 11, 2022, and supported by GA_Panorama, Cifal \u0130stanbul, and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To cite this work:<\/strong> \u015eener Akt\u00fcrk, \u201c Evaluation of the Global Environment: Rise of China; Russia-West Confrontation; and Emerging Threats \u201d, Panorama<\/em>, Online, 22 July 2022, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2022\/07\/22\/glo\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Copyright@UIKPanorama.<\/em>All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this work belongs to the author(s) alone, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, the Editorial Board or the editors of the Panorama<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DOI: 10.13140\/RG.2.2.21362.79042E-ISSN: 2718\u00ad-0549 Is the rivalry between China and the United States the primary fault line and the organising principle of the new world order? By late 2021, the new organising principle of the emerging world order indeed seemed to be the rivalry between China and the United States. From the very beginning until the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":9191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[497,505],"tags":[601,634,656,621,638],"class_list":["post-11530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-world","tag-china","tag-confrontation","tag-english","tag-russia","tag-west"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}