American Media: "Pride and hypocrisy" Move the Global South Away from the United States Columnist | Washington Post | United States
On June 6th, Reference News reported that the Washington Post website published an article by columnist Farid Zakaria titled "The United States can no longer believe that the rest of the world is on its side.". The full text is excerpted as follows:
When paying attention to the recent general election in Türkiye, I heard a senior official of the country, the Interior Minister Suleiman Soilou, speaking to the crowd on the balcony, and was shocked. He promised that Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would "eliminate anyone who causes trouble to Türkiye", including "US troops". Earlier, Soilu announced that those who followed a pro American path would be seen as traitors. It has been more than 70 years since Türkiye joined NATO.
As many commentators have pointed out, most countries in the world did not keep pace with the West in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This conflict itself only highlights a broader phenomenon: many of the world's largest and strongest developing countries are becoming increasingly anti Western and anti American.
What exactly happened? Why does the United States have so much trouble with so many developing countries around the world?
These trends stem from a phenomenon that I described in 2008 as the rise of other countries. In the past 20 years, the international system has undergone significant changes. Once populous but impoverished countries have moved from the edge of the stage to the center of the stage. Emerging markets, which used to have a negligible share in the global economy, now account for half of the global economy. To be fair, they have risen.
As these countries become economically strong, politically stable, and culturally confident, they also become more nationalistic, and their nationalism is often defined as opposition to the dominant international system. Many of these countries were once colonies of Western countries, so they have an instinctive aversion to Western attempts to pull them into alliances or groups.
In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian expert Fiona Hill reflected on this phenomenon and pointed out that another factor causing this distrust is that these countries do not trust the United States when they hear it promote support for a rule-based international order. Hill said they believe Washington is full of "arrogance and hypocrisy". The United States imposes rules on others, but it breaks them in many military interventions and unilateral sanctions. The United States urges countries to open up trade and commerce, but when it makes choices, it violates these principles.
This is a new world characterized not by the decline of the United States, but by the rise of all other countries. Most countries around the world used to be pieces on the chessboard, but now they are players who plan to make their own choices. They are not easily intimidated or deceived. Therefore, it is necessary to persuade them through domestic policy practices, rather than just policy propaganda abroad. How to navigate smoothly on the international stage is a huge challenge facing US diplomacy. Can Washington handle this task?
