Is the world order heading for a tectonic shift? And, if yes, what will that shift be like?
These are the questions that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz posed in an article in the American magazine Foreign Affairs, published almost immediately after his lightning visit to China. The word that Scholz uses to describe the shift is “Zeitenwende” or “game-changer”, but the tone of the article is more in tune with Euro-pessimism of the kind expressed by French President Emmanuel Macron, reflecting the current Zeitgeist or “spirit of the time” in Western democracies.
Scholz speaks of a “multipolar” world order but does not say where his imaginary poles are located. He then proceeds to depict what could only be described as a one-and-a-half pole system in which the one pole is constituted by the United States as “the decisive power of the 21st century” with the European Union and the “Anglo-Saxon” world, that is to say, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, plus Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in tandem. Together they represent “liberal democratic capitalism.” The remaining half a pole is the People’s Republic of China, which Scholz regards as a successful example of “autocratic capitalism”.
