Spheres of influence: How Putin, XI, and Trump have divided up the world

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping (R) during their meeting in Moscow on July 4, 2017. [Mikhail KLIMENTIEV / Sputnik / AFP]

The third decade of the 21st Century is full of uncertainty as three leaders of top powers seem determined to destroy the post-World War II world order. The trio, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and America’s Donald Trump, have similar orientation towards society and their regions. Each was raised in the supposedly good times of ‘peace’ and prosperity which the victors designed in 1945 and which each seemingly wants to reorganise into possible spheres of interest.

Three men, each seeking to safeguard his country’s interests while stopping the possibility of another war, designed the 1945 post-World War II architecture with the United Nations as the geopolitical linchpin. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Woodrow Wilson protégé, in creating the United Nations, wanted to avoid Wilson’s mistakes in the League of Nations. Britain’s Winston Churchill’s imperialist credentials rivalled such other British imperialists as Benjamin Disraeli and David Lloyd George wanted to preserve his empire. The Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, having replaced Vladimir Lenin and imposed his version of communism, wanted protection for Russia against future invasions through Eastern Europe.

The three powers, especially at Yalta, Crimea, essentially agreed amongst themselves on how to run the world which partly explains why they gave themselves veto power at the UN Security Council. For sentimental reasons, they accommodated France and China into the exclusive veto power-wielding club. They then turned against each other in the Cold War and tried to force the rest of the world to choose sides.

For roughly 45 years, the Cold War affected how countries dealt with pressing issues and neither side can claim complete victory. The Soviet Union fragmented mainly due to internal weaknesses but also through calculated American mischief. The United States, having abandoned its war time anti-colonial stand, embarrassed itself in Vietnam, Angola, and China. Britain disappeared from the ranks of big powers only to be replaced by China which emerged from the Cold War stronger than before. This was the New China which came into being as the People’s Republic of China in October 1949 at Tiananmen Square. The UN recognised the New China in 1971, while sidelining Taiwan or the China of 1945. New China emerged from the Cold War strong.

Despite American sense of triumphalism over the Soviets and belief it could impose its will on the globe, called globalisation, it had become weak partly because it had lost credibility. This was because believability or trust is a major ingredient of power in geopolitics beyond military and technological hardware. It became weak from within even as it arrogantly concentrated on doing a Carthage on Russia while ignoring China mostly because it was Asiatic. The arrogance and policy misdirection created new fears that explained the rise of new realities.

That arrogance appears to lead to three unintended results associated with Putin, Xi, and Trump. First, it enabled Putin to lead Russia into recovery from Cold War humiliation by invoking Stalin’s 1945 fears of invasion through Eastern Europe. The deliberate NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, despite Western commitments not to do so, tended to arouse Russian nationalism which played into Putin’s hand.

Second, it enabled Xi to push for China’s mastery of the world, initially by playing geopolitical second fiddle to the United States as he consolidated power within China and then ventured into the global stage preaching ‘common destiny’. This ‘common destiny’ was appealing in the global South. It contrasted with the arrogance and racial disdain in the Conceptual West’s claim of being a ‘garden’ while the rest was jungle.

Third, internal contradictions in the United States, encouraged by the New Right, produced Trump and his creed of dominance. The Trio of Putin, Xi, and Trump seemingly reached an imperial understanding on spheres of influence in which Putin takes Eurasia, Trump dominates the Conceptual West, and Xi sweeps the Global South. They appear to succeed.