Western analysts think there is only one place on Earth to chart the future of the world: Washington.
It may have been true in the past, but not any more. The so-called rules-based old world order is broken, and it needs an urgent replacement.
What is happening in Gaza alone is evidence enough of how broken the old world order is. Rogue state Israel is being licensed by its Western allies to go on a rampage of genocide.
They know that their weapons are being used to massacre women and children. Hospitals, doctors, nurses and even ambulances are bombed, not indiscriminately but purposefully.
As expressly stated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist ministers in speeches, the Zionist regime wants to “clear” the Palestinians from Palestine. They even lure the famished to food aid centres but only to shoot them dead.
The rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are ignored by Israel and allies alike. What is worse, they either threaten courts of law to drop the case or impose sanctions.
A rogue state is now an untouchable one. Only possible in a depraved old world.
A new world order is certainly needed. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has a vision of one, which he shared in a public lecture in China‘s Tianjin University titled “Sovereign Interdependence: Building a Shared Future in Asia”.
By sovereign interdependence, he means allowing nations to “remain fully themselves — sovereign in choice, in voice and in destiny” while still being open to flows of trade, investment, talent and technology.
To Anwar, the next world order will be written in Asian ink. Why not? Asia is home to close to 60 per cent of the world’s population, or 4.8 billion people. If this is not about choice, voice and destiny, what else is?
There is a convergence between Anwar‘s idea of sovereign interdependence and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of global governance initiative, announced more or less around the same time in China. Call it a confluence of ideas.
Both will agree that there are ideals in the United Nations Charter, but by some sleight of hand by a few, the vision of a just and equitable global governance was never allowed to surface.
The UN’s membership of 193 nations means multilateralism, never governance by a few. Or worse, governance by one, under which weaponisation of trade and geopolitics thrive.
This isn’t a multipolar world order; it is governance by one in the name of a rules-based world order.
There would have been no need for a new world order had the old one led by the 30-odd Western countries respected the choice, voice and destiny of less powerful sovereign nations. Instead, they subjugate the rest with their Western whims and values.
If we understand Anwar’s idea of nations being sovereign in choice, in voice and in destiny and Xi’s global governance initiative correctly, Asia will join other nations of the Global South to craft the new world order.
South Africa long ago said no to apartheid. It is saying the same to apartheid in Israel.
Now Asia joins other nations of the Global South to say no to apartheid-like world order.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
