Philip Stephens: The decline of the West is self-inflicted, and no one else is blamed

Recently, Philip Stephens, deputy editor-in-chief of the Financial Times, wrote an op-ed commenting on the reasons for the decline of Western democracies. In the article, he argues that Western democracies can no longer guarantee social fairness, leading a large number of people to turn to populism, thus bringing serious crises to Western society, and China is just a scapegoat for the failure of Western systems. Although the China issue is not the focus of the author's discussion, there are still many biased words to describe China, which the Observer Network does not agree with. Philip Stephens, a veteran and committed liberal believer, wrote the column for the Financial Times for 25 years, his last before retiring.

【Text/Philip Stephens Translation/Observer Network by Guan Qun】

Let us call this era the "age of optimism." Twenty-five years ago, when this column first appeared, the world was the domain of liberalism. The Soviet communist system collapsed, the United States declared that the world had entered a unipolar era, and China joined the ranks of market economies. European integration has dispelled the nationalist hordes. The United Kingdom has since been known as "Fashion England".

Even if you think that the wheel of history hasn't stopped moving forward, you can easily tell that the 21st century is promoting the development of democracy and a liberal economic order.

The world is now shaped by the anticipated collision between the United States and China, the contest between democracy and authoritarianism, and the clash of globalization and nationalism, and today's policymakers around the world are grappling with it. Britain was once again the sick man of Europe. If that still doesn't sound pessimistic enough, you can add to the man-made and deadly threat of global warming.

The Financial Times published this article

The simple explanation for this is that the irreducible naivety of the West put itself in trouble in the 1990s. The victory of the Cold War blinded the West. At that time, the standard of living of Westerners was still improving. Before Facebook came along, there were still people who fantasized that the Internet was an extinct global community. In fact, human instinct is to see the future with the eyes of the present. Doesn't history develop in a straight line?

In this regard, Europe's decline is not unprovoked. Together with the neoconservatives of the United States, liberal internationalists on the European continent have promoted a great cause of promoting democracy. The United States has guns, and the strength of the European Union is its own "standard.". Well, most of the world was supposed to be Europe.

Since then, the world has taken a backsliding world, with the U.S.-led post-Cold War world order giving way to resurgent great power rivalry, Europe's far-right and far-left populists using nationalism as a weapon against European integration, and mercantilists competing for national economic sovereignty. In an era of "strongman" dictatorship, democracy is on the defensive.

Today, Western policymakers risk making another big mistake of seeing China as the most serious challenge to the old system. We have been told that the United States and its allies must focus on eliminating this threat. What we need to do is deploy more submarines in the South China Sea.

Given Beijing's military prowess, this view is very confusing. It's also a stealing of pillars, creating an excuse not to confront the truth about the West since the 1990s. Yes, China is growing faster than anyone can imagine. But the decline of Western democracies is largely caused by the West itself.

The U.S. choice to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq forms part of the story. The wars were meant to show American power, but these costly and unpopular wars highlighted the limitations of the "Pan-American Peace." The world's only superpower has vowed to reshape the Middle East. The result was the opposite, as we saw last month at the fall of Kabul, when Washington was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in a hurry. The rest of the world has seen what is happening there.

However, compared to the devastation caused by the 2008 global financial crisis, the U.S. failure in the Middle East is insignificant. Historians will document the financial crash not only as an economic event, but also as a major geopolitical event — a moment of mortal blow to Western democracies.

Long before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the failure of laissez-faire economic systems was evident. Under the dual pressures of technological progress and open markets, the incomes of the non-wealthy have stagnated for a long time. It is also clear that the fruits of globalization have been reaped by the rich and the super-rich. Although the wood is in the boat, the crash is actually a well-planned fraud.

Some people want to find out why Donald Trump won the presidential election, Britain will vote to leave the EUROPEAN Union, and populism will be rampant in Europe, but they don't have to do anything more. The misdeeds of the financial sector and the government's decision to pass on the costs of the crisis to the working class and the lower middle classes have all done a fatal toll on the legitimacy of democracy.

Like populists in other countries, Trump understands that voters' respect for the existing political system is rooted in a contract. The public's belief in democratic institutions, as well as in the rule of law and in State institutions, is based on the notion that the system will at least respect the principle of fairness. Reforms to promote equity have emerged since the financial crisis, but there is no sign that the Reforms in the West are deep enough.

There is nothing wrong with the ideals cherished by post-Cold War optimists. Without liberal democracies and rules-based international systems, it will be difficult for us to see the world functioning well. But what optimists have missed then, and that China observers are now ignoring, is that within the West, people's trust in democratic institutions is gradually losing. Admittedly, China is a potential threat. But if Trump can be re-elected, the threat will be more serious than the China threat.

History may conclude that the over-optimism of the 1990s contrasts with the over-pessimism of the present. This is a judgment I intend to leave to others to do. For a political commentator, 25 years in the same position is long enough. So, this article is the last column I wrote. I will continue to publish occasionally as a contributing editor of the Financial Times, but beyond that work, I intend to better understand history.

(The Observer Network is translated by Guan Qun from the Financial Times)

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