How real is the Rift?

by Eric Hendriks

A RIFT IS SAID TO BISECT EURASIA. THERE IS THE PART OF EUROPE THAT BELONGS TO THE WEST AND UPHOLDS AN AMERICA-CENTRIC LIBERAL ORDER. ON THE OTHER SIDE STAND EURASIA’S CIVILISATIONAL STATES: RUSSIA, TÜRKIYE, INDIA, AND CHINA, WHICH DOUBT WESTERN MOTIVES AND STRIVE FOR MULTIPOLARITY.

Every time has its geopolitical imaginings, and the Rift is the one that most captured our imagination. In this view, the political world subdivides into liberal freedom and authoritarianism; or, in the counter framing, Western hegemony and civilisational challengers.

Ukraine should keep fighting. These respondents agreed that “Ukraine needs to regain all of its territory even if it means a longer war.” This statement got 34 percent approval among American respondents, meaning that Americans are only slightly more likely to be pro-Ukraine ‘hawks.’

The diverging international responses to the Russo-Ukrainian War bring the Rift to the fore, regardless of Biden’s rhetorical insistence that “The world stands with Ukraine.” A European Council on Foreign Relations report on attitudes toward the War finds a “United West, divided from the rest.” Based on polls from fifteen countries, the report concludes that Westerners largely agree that the West “should help Ukraine win.” In contrast, “citizens in China, India, and Türkiye prefer a quick end to the war even if Ukraine has to concede territory.”

But this general conclusion, which comes from the report’s introduction, is not supported by the underlying data. The data shows, for example, that 23 percent of Chinese respondents believed

Yet, in high politics, too, there are misgivings about the Rift image. The Chinese government protests the “Cold War mentality” that informs it. In his February 21-essay on the Chinese news site Guancha, diplomat and geopolitical analyst Zhou Bo argues that it is unfair that Western rhetoric lumps China together with Russia in a club of “authoritarian revisionist countries” (专制的修正主义 国家). Zhou, a delegate for China at the 2023 Munich Security Conference, explains that China is different. “The attitude of Russia and China toward the world order diverge: Russia is ‘nostalgic’ and resistant to globalization and the world order, but China is not. China is a defender (捍卫者), not a destroyer (破坏者), of the world order.”

So how real is the Rift? As real as we make it. Vital are the actions of political and intellectual leaders, who can throw ropes to the other side and pull the world together—or do the opposite.

May the bridge builders outbuild the bridge burners.

The author is a Dutch sociologist, senior fellow at the Danube Institute, and former Peking University postdoc. He studies theories of world order.

ONE YEAR AFTER THE START OF THE WAR, AN INCREASING NUMBER OF COUNTRIES ARE SIDING WITH RUSSIA

NOTABLE COUNTRY POSITIONS SHIFTS SINCE 2022