The world had taken the ideas of democracy and freedom for granted (Getty Images Plus)
From Xi to Modi to Trump, a global shift reflects growing acceptance that not all nations – or ideologies – are equal.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
End of equality and the century of political correctnessEnd of equality and the century of political correctness
Author Ivan Veljanoski has said, “equality is an illusion”. Since the First World War, until the meteoric rise of China, the world believed that it was politically correct to make pious proclamations about equality, of individuals and of nations. Tiny nations with barely 10,000 people were declared equal to behemoths with more than a billion people and given equal vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations.
There was the other side of this coin in the Security Council. Before 1971, tiny Taiwan had veto power, while China and India, the two most populous countries, were bereft of this privilege. Even today, France and the United Kingdom continue to enjoy this power while much more populous India is denied that status.
This political correctness went only so far but it remained the norm of choice until the phenomenal rise of China.
The harm of treating democracy and authoritarianism as equals became too clear to be ignored.
The circumstances leading to the rise of the United States and China as global powers, though separated by more than a century, are uncannily similar. In 1898, US support for the independence of Cuba from Spain resulted in the disruption of the global equilibrium that had allowed the United States to prosper in isolation. Similarly, China’s break from the USSR and hence from the Comintern, ended China’s isolation from the West. This was followed by a visit from Richard Nixon, opening up China and its enrichment through the large consumption capacity of the West. Deng Xiaoping foresaw the potential of China being perceived as a rival and gave the politically correct injunction to the Chinese, to hide their strength and bide their time.
Xi Jinping ignored Deng’s advice and resorted to the display of politically incorrect “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, threats to smash the heads of rivals on a great wall of steel and flaunting the “fact” that China is large and other countries are small. Working from a position of power, China signed secret and unequal Belt and Road Initiative contracts with small nations and when the projects met their obvious fate, seized the much smaller countries’ vital assets.
Xi enforced a cancel culture against Western companies and film stars and imposed trade bans for utterances deemed politically incorrect. Simultaneously, while itself stealing intellectual property rights and plying influence on Western politicians, China and the left worldwide swore by political correctness and a rule-based global order.
Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Brazil in November 2024 (Alex Ferro/G20)
The far-right camp saw the reality of imposition of political correctness only on rivals and completely discarded this charade. The abandonment of political correctness came as a shock to a world enamoured with it for more than a century. That century had seen the denial of inequality among nations, protection of the rights of the criminals to the detriment of the interests of their victims, ignoring the rise of rogue regimes and non-state actors, and the glorification of illegal migration – until it became unbearable.
The far-right denied the concept of equality between the criminal and the victim, the lazy and the hardworking, the citizen and illegal migrant, democracy and the lack of it. This new paradigm was quickly adopted by the masses who had been denied the ability to air these views due to the threat of labels like fascism and racism. The change saw the rise of rightist governments in various countries of Europe and in India and the strengthening of far-right groups, many of which have come closer to seizing power. The foundation of their ideology is the axiomatic belief in the abandonment of the idea of equality that had prospered under the threat of accusations of Islamophobia, racism, jingoism, and fascism.
Narendra Modi and Donald Trump at the White House in February answering press questions (White House Photo)
The world had taken the ideas of democracy and freedom for granted despite increasing dependence on China. The absurdity of that assumption – of independence and freedom in spite of dependence – was not hidden from anyone, but political correctness prevented its expression. The Covid-19 virus, the role of China’s secrecy leading to its becoming a pandemic, and the continuous refusal of China to allow an international probe into its origins, showed that dependence on an undemocratic regime for critical inputs in the economic sphere would certainly lead to threats – not only to the economy but to the national security – and thus pose a threat to democracy itself.
From that vantage point, the harm of treating democracy and authoritarianism as equals became too clear to be ignored.
Perhaps for the first time, it is being shown that the two ideas – absence of political correctness and rejection of the illusion of equality – can coexist with democratic governance. Despite the noise from the political left that there is a threat to the US democracy from Donald Trump’s policies, that cannon-mouthed leader has been frequently check-mated by the judiciary, the opposition, and members of his own party. His unabashedly politically incorrect foreign policy seems to work, and when it does not, he is politically incorrect enough to beat a retreat. His counterpart in India, Narendra Modi, heaped with criticism from leftist rivals, is going strong after 11 years and has not prevented judicial and media scrutiny of his actions. Both have loudly derided their rivals as smaller entities and have confronted them, coming out none the worse for it.
All this is giving a quiet burial to the illusion of equality that had deluded the world for more than a century.
About the author
R. N. Prasher
Born in 1949 in India and living there ever since, R. N. Prasher has post-graduate degrees in physics and economics and a degree in Law. His work experience varied from teaching physics in a college to 34 years in the highest civil service of India, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.