A multipolar world order is in the making and that’s good for international peace

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Beijing is becoming the center of global diplomacy. In the last couple of months, it has hosted a number of international leaders including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as well as the foreign ministers of Central Asia.

During their stay, heads of state and diplomats from diverse continents and regions emphasized accepting China’s role in global affairs; warned of getting “caught up in crises”; sought to improve connectivity and strengthen relations with Beijing across the areas of economy, investment, trade and peace and pursued digital revolution and regional security with the Chinese support.

These realignments signal a trend is taking shape in which countries are seeking to lessen their over-reliance on the US-dominated world order in terms of their autonomy and economy. This global tilt is driven by the Biden administration's approach to compete with China, expand NATO, prolong the Ukraine war and raise the world's dependence on America. 

Seeing the White House's objectives as belligerent, not just Global South’s but also Europe's view of the US as a warmonger and China's as a peacemaker is gathering momentum. While Macron questions whether it's in Brussels' interest to "accelerate" a crisis on Taiwan, expecting China to play a “major role” to bring back peace on the European shores, Spain's Sanchez has described Beijing as a “top-tier global actor.”

What has forced Europe to review its perspective on Beijing is Chinese President Xi Jinping's role as a "global statesman" after facilitating the successful peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Beijing's proactive peace diplomacy clearly has struck a chord with almost everyone within the Middle East and North Africa, where the regional factions and states welcomed the development, and beyond.

Beijing’s credentials as a peace mediator in the Gulf stoked fears in the US about the failure of American war diplomacy, end of the US-led world order and the advent of Beijing as the leader of the Eurasian bloc. This distress will intensify in the coming months as the US influence in Central Asia continues to decline and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dubs his conversation with Xi as "meaningful" with the appointment of an ambassador in Beijing. 

As part of a last-ditch effort, Czech President Petr Pavel came to insulate the US from diplomatic isolation by casting doubts on China's sincerity to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, alleging it was in Beijing's interest to "prolong the status quo." But his attempt to pass the buck of the conflict on China and camouflage America's war-ridden and conflict-staging history was exposed once he promoted the Biden administration's mantra of an alliance of democracies to counter Beijing.

Through decades, especially after the end of the cold war, the US delegated itself the authority to violate the sovereignty of every small country at will with the sole objective to export its governance model under the banner of liberal internationalism in a bid to impose its world order of liberal hegemony through an interventionist foreign policy of seeking world dominance. 

All four key elements of the US extensive involvement in world affairs including ensuring Washington's global leadership and “prevention of emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia,” one that the country’s policymakers do not often state publicly, as well as NATO expansion covet the world dominance by containing China and threatening Russia, giving America unrestrained access to usurp global resources.

China’s active role in international affairs and Beijing’s transformation as the world’s “diplomatic capital” is a challenge to the US global leadership for this peace diplomacy threatens to replace a world order that’s built on wars and interventions across regions and offers a peaceful alternative to all countries.

Factors such as “extraterritoriality” and the outsized role of the US dollar are contributing to this novel phenomenon. America’s leverage to unceremoniously terminate any country’s access to a dollar-dominated payment system has created a stir everywhere. The US weaponization of its currency pushed the countries to reassess their policy of relying too heavily on the greenback, paving the way for the creation of a new multipolar international currency system, and urging states to gradually inch out of the dollar trade-and-finance system.

More recently, America is being isolated from key international developments owing to its core belief that peace in the world goes against its national interest and that wars and conflicts are the only way to retain the US influence and hegemony. This hostile mindset, backed by ceaseless arrogance, led to the formulation of doctrinaire policy that resulted in US deadly invasions and left millions of less-developed regions in undreamed-of political, economic and humanitarian crises.

But an evolving international consensus is now challenging the US war narrative of making countries its "vassal" states through economic and military power projection. In a changing world, countries seek to jettison their dependence on the US and do not want someone else to control their destiny. This transition from war to peace could take some time to transpire but would bode well for the global economy and security.