Washington says this decade is going to be decisive.
For what, we ask. America's answer, as revealed in a speech by United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken at The George Washington University on May 26, is: to "determine whether our shared vision of the future will be realised".
Again, we ask, what is this shared vision? Blinken's answer is it is "one where technology is used to lift people up, not suppress them; where trade and commerce support workers, raise incomes, create opportunity; where universal human rights are respected; countries are secure from coercion and aggression, and people, ideas, goods, and capital move freely; and where nations can both forge their own paths and work together effectively in common cause". Noble aspirations, but how good an example has America set for the rest of the world to follow? Between bad and very bad.
Take technology. We acknowledge the allegations against Russia and China for using technology to suppress people and not to lift them up, to use Washington's language. This is for Russia and China to answer. But they must not be mere denials. Blinken knows only too well that America's Silicon Valley, technology's birthplace, is also a seat of suppression.
Neither US President Joe Biden's administration, nor the ones that have gone before, have done much to punish tech titans such as Facebook for their role in suppressing people around the world. Myanmar and Palestine come to mind. In trade and commerce, too, the US is a poor performer. The unending tariff war with China and the sanctions on Iran speak volumes about crude commerce by the US.
Blinken, a lawyer, should know this: sanctions that are unilaterally imposed by the US without the approval of the United Nations Security Council are illegal. So are those being imposed on Russia. So we ask Blinken and Biden: is the US really interested in a rules-based world order? Evidently no.
Universal human rights, the third pillar in America's vision, is in a dismal state as well. Here, too, allegations are plenty against Russia and China. Again, we tell the two: go beyond mere denial. Because mere denials keep the allegations alive. But the US isn't free of such allegations either.
America's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and its complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israelis are enough to put it in the hall of shame. Not only is the International Criminal Court blocked from investigating US war crimes in these countries, but the US Congress has passed laws that make war crimes trials in its courts impossible. Yet, the US tells the world it respects a rules-based world order.
No, this isn't a rules-based world order. What it really is a hegemony of one, with US allies as supporting actors. Here countries are not secure from coercion and aggression. It is a "you-are-with-me-or-against-me" world. We saw how the US, Britain and the European Union went around coercing India and others to join them against Russia.
How could people, ideas, goods and capital move freely (another pillar in America's so-called "shared vision") in this world? The US tells us it wants a world "where nations can both forge their own path and work together effectively in common cause". Here is how. The US should stop being a hegemon and start submitting itself to the rules-based world order.