The media mostly reports stories about the new anglo military alliance against China, the forthcoming Quad summit in Washington, the coming new cold war with Beijing without pointing out the single most important thing: it represents the total collapse of the 21st century dream of a ‘rule based global world order’ and a reversion to the old competitive rivalry between civilizations and nations.
The most obvious casualty is ‘climate change’. Without the cooperation of China the programmed de-industrialization of the world cannot proceed. Gone too is the former readiness to offshore production, a victim of the covid pandemic and the national security requirement to avoid dependence on potential foes.
The irony is that it fell to Joe Biden to bury the global world that his term — Obama’s symbolic 3rd term — was supposed to bring to fulfillment. China has hammered the last nail into the coffin. Joe may be sitting in the White House but he is, through some colossal cosmic turnabout, living in a world Trump anticipated. Inevitably Joe is doomed to spending the rest of his term explaining why the next few years will not be about climate change, gender politics, entitlements and critical race theory but about a reunion of the former members of the British Empire.
For the rest of us the sense of bait-and-switch is no less profound. This may not be the 21st century we signed up for, but it’s the only one we’ve got.