Crossposted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7023617

For future historians reflecting on changes in the world order, 2025 could be regarded as a watershed year signalling a major global shift. The greatest challenge we face today is what Giovanni Arrighi referred to as the question of what the ‘next world’ will look like. This question reflects the prevailing systemic anxiety on a global scale and the fundamental concerns of our era.

During the Trump 1.0 era (2017–2021), despite the United States’ withdrawal from various international organisations and its overt promotion of ‘America First’, which blatantly abandoned the international responsibilities necessary to sustain its post-Cold War dominance, Europe – drawing on its lingering identity as the cradle of Western civilisation – still endeavoured to uphold the crumbling edifice of the neoliberal world order. With President Joe Biden’s election to the White House in 2021, the United States reverted to its familiar alliance-based policy playbook and strengthened its ties with Europe. Consequently, neoliberal European politicians were granted a brief respite that enabled them to relive the fading glory of Western hegemony – the neoliberal world order experienced a fleeting revival.

With the advent of Trump 2.0 in 2025, this order has suffered its final, fatal blow. At the 61st Munich Security Conference in February 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance bluntly stated that Europe’s ‘fundamental values’, including freedom of speech and democracy, were regressing, and that Europe’s greatest threat came not from Russia or China but from within.1 Vance’s remarks stunned European political elites. The United States subsequently initiated a systemic transformation of the world order. Ignoring Europe’s security anxieties, Washington unilaterally opened negotiations to ease tensions with Russia, shifting the responsibility and burden of the Ukraine crisis onto Europe. It then launched a global tariff war – including against Europe – and even laid territorial claims over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada. President Donald Trump’s whirlwind of disruptions severed transatlantic relations, reset US-Russia relations, circumvented multilateralism, and bullied countries around the world through bilateral dealings. Ultimately, the United States swept the post-Cold War neoliberal international order into the dustbin of history.

Why has the United States abandoned the neoliberal world order that it once promoted and used to dominate the world? What kind of new world order will emerge amid the rise of conservatism and populism? Against the backdrop of America’s return to conservatism and Europe’s renewed pursuit of strategic autonomy, China and Russia – two major powers bound by a comprehensive strategic partnership – are sure to deepen their strategic cooperation in this turbulent world. As permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and key pillars of the international order, what support will their strategic partnership provide for international peace, security, and stability? What governance solutions might they propose for the emerging world order?