Bipolar

The peril of a catastrophic US debt default notwithstanding, Joe Biden made his way to Hiroshima to attend the G-7 summit. He shortened his travel, however, cancelling a meeting of the “Quad” countries in Australia and a visit to Papua New Guinea.

The G-7 is now composed of the top seven industrial nations (excluding China), all of them with democratic political systems. It used to be G-8, until Russia was disinvited after seizing Ukrainian territory in 2014. This was the beginning of Russia’s isolation from the rest of the world.

Because this meeting is being held in Hiroshima, the Japanese government is pushing its anti-nuclear weapons advocacy. But also because this meeting is being held in Asia, the US will be pushing its agenda of containment against China. Most of the other participants, it seems, are more engrossed with the crafting of a common policy on artificial intelligence (AI) – technology that has been rapidly evolving the past few months.

The G-7 countries are opposed to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. They have backed up that opposition by cooperating on a wide array of economic sanctions intended to punish Moscow. Last month, Japan surprised the world by inviting the NATO to set up a coordination office in Tokyo. This is a sharp departure from its long-standing pacifist foreign policy and sends a strong signal about the solidarity of the democratic countries vis-a-vis the autocratic regimes in Moscow and Beijing.

Coinciding with the G-7 meeting in Hiroshima, China hosted what it calls the “China-Central Asia Summit” in the historic city of Xian. The summit meeting, presided over by Xi Jinping, was attended by the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These nations were all formerly part of the ill-fated Soviet Union and considered to be within the Russian sphere of influence.

Russia, however, is a dwindling power. The economic sanctions imposed on her will take a long-term toll. The Russian economy, despite its awesome natural resources, will be lagging behind the technological race.

The grinding war in Ukraine demonstrates how far behind in military technology Russia has fallen. With its nuclear weapons arsenal, Moscow will still try to throw its weight in other nations. Russia will continue to imagine itself a superpower – even if it has become reduced to a pariah state, a larger version of its loyal ally North Korea.

Analysts see the “China-Central Asia Summit” as an effort by Beijing to rein the former Soviet Asiatic republics into its own sphere of influence – displacing a weakened Russia. China can never be faulted for lacking in foresight.

Over the past dramatic year, it has become clear that China has emerged as the senior partner in its alliance with Moscow. She has a strong economy, although growth could be hampered by its demographics. She has invested sufficiently in modernizing her armed forces. Learning from Putin’s strategic mistakes, Beijing is not about to engage in a military adventure over the Taiwan question.

China, to be sure, has its own “lebensraum” issues. Recall that the Nazis believed they needed more “living space” for Germany’s development. They began invading their neighbors.

China is obsessed with annexing Taiwan, an island with a strategically important technological and industrial base. She has been projecting her immense naval power onto the South China Sea. She tried to win control of an indebted port in Sri Lanka. She was negotiating with a tiny Pacific country for military basing rights.

Chinese diplomacy has been hyperactive the past few months. Beijing brokered reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran earlier this year. Well before that, China has been hosting African leaders in Beijing.

The “China-Central Asia Summit” is a continuation of all these efforts. But the leaders attending the Xian meeting appear to be more interested in acquiring China’s powerful surveillance technologies that she uses for social control. At least they are demonstrating affinity with Xi’s authoritarian vision for the future.

The Cold War was supposed to have ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990. But the dynamic shaping a bipolar world appears to have resurged over the past few years.

There is a deepening chasm between the industrial democracies and the authoritarian states. But the other side is no longer led by an exhausted Russia. Beijing is claiming the mantle of leadership over the opposite pole. Gathered around this pole, however, are some of the most distasteful autocracies such as North Korea, Belarus and Iran.

The US, for its part, is not standing idle while Beijing pursues a strategy of remaking the world (or at least part of it) after its own image. The US has curtailed exchange of high technology with China and is now subsidizing its own microchip industry. Washington has supported its Asian allies in their own efforts to deter Chinese assertiveness. Her Indo-Pacific strategy seeks to bring India’s growing economic power to bear on the effort to contain China’s sphere of influence.

The Philippines, of course, is a medium power caught in the dynamic of big power politics. Over the past year, Manila has leaned more distinctly towards the US by expanding military cooperation with our only defense treaty ally.

Officially, we are calling on both the US and China to “manage” their rivalry responsibly. But we do realize that we have to lean on the US or face Chinese expansionism by ourselves.

While we have officially adopted a One-China policy, we prefer Taiwan to continue prospering as a self-determining economy. While we officially endorse Japan’s pacifist policy, we really hope she will help in the region’s defense.