US Vice-President J.D. Vance’s speech at the recently concluded Munich Security Conference was an unexpected stab in the back for America’s appalled allies. Without any talk on how to end the war in Ukraine, he accused European capitals of betraying their values and ignoring concerns over immigration and free speech.
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His comments prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to say that “decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending”.
Along with US President Donald Trump’s talk about taking over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal, cuts to foreign aid and withdrawals from the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, Vance’s speech naturally begs the question: what comes next?
In the first month of his second term in office, Trump and his lieutenants have done more damage to America’s image than all his predecessors combined. For those who know China’s modern history, this looks like the American version of the catastrophic Cultural Revolution.
If this is the sunset of Pax Americana, it is also the dawn of a new era. The theme of the 61st Munich Security Conference was “multipolarisation”. Compared with the themes of past conferences such as “Westlessness” and “Lose-Lose”, which are expressions of emotions, multipolariasation points to the direction of the future. To reflect this reality, more Asian and African delegates have taken part in this Eurocentric conference in recent years.
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If the US withdraws from the international system, China is moving in like a guardian of the rules-based order. In Munich, as a sharp contrast to Vance, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for an equal and orderly multipolar world, saying China would be a factor of certainty in this system.