TheReturnofGreatPowerRelations:WhatCanMiddlePowersDo?

With China's inexorable economic ascendancy and the election of President Trump for his second term, the world order has changed profoundly. The Trump administration has made it clear that the world has returned to great power relations. Trump refers to the ‘G2’ between the United States and China as the basis on which global affairs will be managed. But while these changes appear to have been abrupt, in reality the world order has over the past decade been bifurcating into two bounded orders. One is the traditional Western alliance led by the United States, comprising nations mainly with competitive political systems and which have tended to share values such as universal recognition of human rights. The other, led by China, has more authoritarian forms of political and social organisation, and place greater weight on economic development over more traditional human rights concerns. These orders are not closed blocs but are given coherence by their own sets of institutional arrangements. They can and do cooperate on issues of mutual concern over the global commons, but they also compete.

With the return of a world order based on great power competition, middle powers must reexamine and redefine their relationships with great powers to protect and advance their interests. Middle powers have an abiding interest in trying to hold the multilateral system together, but the reality is its effectiveness usually relies on the participation of the great powers. The demise of the WTO highlights the challenges for middle powers in the now highly contested international system. But while middle powers are constrained by the need to attract greater power acquiescence in, if not always active support for, agreed rules, they do have agency.