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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

The writer is chief executive of the New America think-tank and a contributing editor to the FT

For nearly two decades, China has followed the doctrine of “peaceful rise”, a concept created by state counselor and intellectual Zheng Bijan. It emphasizes China’s desire to grow in power and prosperity by integrating into the international system, without threatening other countries.

The strategy succeeded: from the 1990s to the mid-2010s, China’s GDP and global influence increased dramatically. Xi Jinping, however, is changing course. Starting in 2017, he launched a set of tactics known as “wolf warrior diplomacy”. Chinese diplomats have become more assertive in defending China’s interests. And in a few short years the Chinese government has succeeded in undoing much of the goodwill built up during the years of peaceful ascent.

In 2023, Xi backed down. But this aggressive advance of China’s interests has aggravated it in the world, created lasting mistrust and convinced many of China’s partners to hedge their bets by strengthening ties with the US.

Now, US president-elect Donald Trump and his merry band of tech titans have adopted their own brand of Wild West diplomacy, augmented by a dose of Silicon Valley swagger. Its hallmarks are supreme self-confidence, a disregard for rules of any kind and a willingness to negotiate with anyone anywhere as long as they pursue immediate self-interest.

Trump himself lives in a world of self-proclaimed superlatives, which finds a ready echo in his new friends from California. Many of the people who have risen to power and unimaginable riches behind technological innovation believe that America’s superiority over other countries is as evident as the superiority of the technology sector over other parts of the US economy. This is the future, and they control it.

Such attitudes seem certain to create a regular stream of incidents and small crises in other countries. However, based on China’s experience, the issue is not this or that anger, but the steady accumulation of statements and actions that have gradually penetrated the domestic politics of other countries, shifting coalitions to consequences that way.

As Xi has discovered, Beijing’s allegiances and bald assertions of entitlement have strengthened the hand of China hawks in the US and the EU, and sowed doubts among China’s former supporters. The long-term damage to relations between Washington and Beijing is the result not only of Trump’s actions in his last term in office, but also a profound change in the views of former Obama officials who entered of the Biden administration and established many of Trump’s opponents. -China policies.

The push for US technological supremacy, in particular, will encourage those in other countries who are already looking to challenge the stranglehold of the big American technology companies. The EU has been fighting the power and reach of companies for more than a decade. The new Trump administration, after Meta’s refusal to deploy its artificial intelligence in the EU, is likely to force showdowns that will provide a much-needed boost to the creation of integrated European technology and markets in defense.

In countries such as Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Indonesia, even where the current leaders are friendly to Trump, the constant push from Washington to open markets and improving the terms of trade in favor of US companies is isolating. local traders and exporters.

The US, like China in its wolf warrior years, is increasingly known for breaking and circumventing domestic and international norms. Demands that everyone “pay” for American military protection can be seen as a global extortion racket.

The rising middle powers, which today can play a more independent role on the global stage than in the 20th century, are not ready to become pawns in a US-China competition. Instead, they will insist on pushing their own national interests in the same way that Trump wants to put America first.

The George W Bush administration eschewed international norms and processes in favor of “coalitions of the ready”. Since then, Republican unilateralists have been followed by Democratic multilateralists who have spent years repairing the damage to US global relations and creating new informal alliances and coalitions.

This cycle, however, has led to a loss of confidence and trust in the reliability of the US as a partner and ally. Add a heavy dose of arrogance and insult, and the damage caused to the next era of American wolf warrior diplomacy will be permanent.