{"id":39223,"date":"2018-05-10T13:30:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T03:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39223"},"modified":"2018-05-10T13:24:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T03:24:11","slug":"human-rights-and-the-fate-of-the-liberal-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/human-rights-and-the-fate-of-the-liberal-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Human rights and the fate of the liberal order"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Many experts have proclaimed the death of the post\u20111945 liberal international order, including the human-rights regime set forth in the 1948\u00a0Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The cover of Foreign Policy<\/em> recently displayed the white dove of human rights pierced by the bloody arrows of authoritarian reaction.<\/p>\n

According to \u2018realist\u2019 international relations theorists, one cannot sustain a liberal world order when two of the three great powers\u2014Russia and China\u2014are anti-liberal. Writing in Foreign Affairs<\/em>, Yascha Mounk<\/a> and Roberto Stefan Foa argue that the era when Western liberal democracies were the world\u2019s top cultural and economic powers may be drawing to a close<\/a>. Within the next five years, \u2018the share of global income held by countries considered \u201cnot free\u201d\u2014such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia\u2014will surpass the share held by Western liberal democracies\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are several problems with this argument. For starters, it relies on a measure called purchasing power parity, which is good for some purposes, but not for comparing international influence. At current exchange rates, China\u2019s annual GDP is $12\u00a0trillion, and Russia\u2019s is $2.5\u00a0trillion, compared to the United States\u2019 $20\u00a0trillion economy. But the more serious flaw is lumping countries as disparate as China and Russia together as an authoritarian axis. There is nothing today like the infamous Axis of Nazi Germany and its allies in the\u00a01930s.<\/p>\n

While Russia and China are both authoritarian and find it useful to caucus against the\u00a0US in international bodies like the United Nations Security Council, they have very different interests. China is a rising power that is highly intertwined with the international economy, including the\u00a0US. In contrast, Russia is a declining country with serious demographic and public health problems, with energy rather than finished goods accounting for two-thirds of its exports.<\/p>\n

Declining countries are often more dangerous than rising ones. Vladimir Putin has been a clever tactician, seeking to \u2018make Russia great again\u2019 through military intervention in neighbouring countries and Syria, and by using cyber-based information warfare to disrupt\u2014with only partial success\u2014Western democracies. A study of Russian broadcasting in Ukraine found that it was effective only with the minority that was already Russia-oriented, though it was able to produce polarising and disruptive effects in the political system. And the revival of Cold War\u2013style information warfare has done little to create soft power for Russia. The London-based Soft\u00a0Power\u00a030 index<\/a> ranks Russia\u00a026th. Russia has had some success cultivating allies in Eastern Europe, but it is not part of a powerful authoritarian axis such as existed in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

China is different. It has announced its willingness to spend billions to increase its soft power. At meetings in Davos in\u00a02017 and Hainan in\u00a02018, Xi Jinping presented China as a defender of the existing international order, but one with Chinese rather than liberal characteristics. China does not want to overturn the current international order, but rather to reshape it to increase its gains.<\/p>\n

It has the economic tools to do so. It rations access to its huge market for political purposes. Norway was punished after the dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Eastern Europeans were rewarded after they watered down European Union resolutions on human rights. And Singaporean and Korean companies suffered after their governments took positions that displeased China. The Chinese government\u2019s massive Belt and Road Initiative to build trade infrastructure throughout Eurasia provides ample opportunities to use business contracts to wield political influence. And China has increasingly restricted human rights at home. As Chinese power increases, the global human-rights regime\u2019s problems will increase.<\/p>\n

But no one should be tempted by exaggerated projections of Chinese power. If the\u00a0US maintains its alliances with democratic Japan and Australia, and continues to develop good relations with India, it will hold the high cards in Asia. In the global military balance, China lags far behind, and in terms of demography, technology, the monetary system and energy dependence, the\u00a0US is better placed than China in the coming decade. In the Soft\u00a0Power\u00a030 index, China ranks\u00a025th, while the\u00a0US is third.<\/p>\n

Moreover, no one knows what the future will bring for China. Xi\u00a0has torn up Deng Xiaoping\u2019s institutional framework for leadership succession, but how long will Xi\u2019s\u00a0authority last? In the meantime, on issues such as climate change, pandemics, terrorism and financial stability, both an authoritarian China and the\u00a0US will benefit from cooperation. The good news is that some aspects of the current international order will persist; the bad news is that it may not include the liberal element of human rights.<\/p>\n

The human-rights regime may face a tougher environment, but that is not the same as a collapse. A future US\u00a0administration can work more closely with the\u00a0EU and other like-minded states to build a human-rights caucus. A\u00a0G10, comprising the world\u2019s major democracies, could coordinate on values alongside the existing\u00a0G20 (which includes non-democracies such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia), with its focus on economic issues.<\/p>\n

Others can help. As Kathryn Sikkink points out in her new book, Evidence for hope<\/a><\/em>, while US\u00a0support has been important to human rights, the\u00a0US was not always very liberal during the Cold War, and the origins of the regime in the 1940s owed much to Latin Americans and others. Moreover, transnational rights organisations have developed domestic support in numerous countries.<\/p>\n

In short, we should be concerned about the multiple challenges to liberal democracy during the current setback to what Samuel P. Huntington called the \u2018third wave<\/a>\u2019 of democratisation. But that is no reason to give up on human rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many experts have proclaimed the death of the post\u20111945 liberal international order, including the human-rights regime set forth in the 1948\u00a0Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 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