Who’s Not Following the Rules-Based International Order?

In English, the word “mantra” comes from Buddhism but today means a frequently repeated statement or slogan. When I think of the Biden administration’s mantra on China, it’s that China doesn’t follow the “rules-based international order”. So why was it that when it comes to the recent tragic events in the Middle East that 14 of the 15 Member States of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), an entity at the pinnacle of the rules-based international order, tried on numerous occasions to pass a unanimous resolution condemning the violence on both sides and calling for an immediate ceasefire, that only the United States repeatedly blocked it?

All of us have been taught early in life the wisdom of Winston Churchill who said that “I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.” And so it is the case here too. Top Biden administration officials said that they were engaged in personal mediation behind the scenes diplomacy and that they didn’t believe getting the UNSC involved first would be constructive despite the fact that many other UNSC nations echoed the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ spokesperson who said that “any international situation will always benefit from a strong and unified voice from the Security Council.” Churchill’s words pin-pointed the hypocrisy with singular accuracy.

By continuing to shun the rules-based international order that was repeatedly poised to act early on, the go-it-alone quixotic effort of the U.S. delayed the ceasefire for more than a week and by doing so allowed the horrific carnage to needlessly continue unabated. I have little doubt that this wasn’t so much about the best way to halt the cascading humanitarian tragedy, but that this month China was the UNSC’s rotating chair.

Not only was the U.S. blindsided by the violence, but any successful UN intercession would have dramatically exposed the lie that China doesn’t participate in the rules-based international order. There was Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the UNSC chair not only using his bully pulpit to provide needed leadership for trying to end the immediate violence, but going further to proposing a four-point action plan for once and for all resolving the long festering catastrophe.

China has increasingly gone all-in to embrace the institutions that constitute the very bulwark of today’s rules-based international order, contributing high level leadership and funding to them, including in peace-keeping operations in which some Chinese have made the ultimate sacrifice.

During the crisis, China’s leadership was nothing short of exemplary. Chairing the UNSC, Wang Yi pinned the blame on the U.S. for impeding the UNSC’s work and called on it to approve the resolution which the U.S. has serially blocked. He urged the UNSC to reconfirm the long-sought, but elusive, two-state solution that China has consistently championed and urged the parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible. If this isn’t participating in the rules-based international order, I frankly don’t know what is!

I also think the US intransigence had several other dimensions. One was to play for additional time to allow Israel to destroy as much of Hamas’ infrastructure as possible and this was achieved but at the cost of additional lives lost on both sides of innocent men, women and children.

Another was that having recently affirmed Trump’s so-called Abraham Accords, the Biden administration found its hands tied in this unexpected, untimely and unwelcome conflict. This is because the author, who was way out of his league, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, saw the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum as merely a “real estate” dispute. In fashioning the Accords, which are now unlikely to stretch beyond its four Arab signatories, it was falsely assumed that the rights and concerns of the Palestinians were irrelevant and therefore they could be not merely ignored, but thrown under the bus. Due to this simple-minded, erroneous assumption, hundreds of lives have been lost, thousands have been maimed, and billions of dollars of homes and other properties are damaged beyond repair.

This regional conflict isn’t the last one, only the latest. U.S. actions to prevent the premier rules-based international organization from effectively calming the situation make it clear that these aging post-World War II institutions are long overdue for a top-to-bottom review and reform to enable them to more effectively deal with contemporary problems in our 21st century world, so as not to be blocked by a lone rule-violator.