When Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un travelled to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, felt compelled to send a message. “Looking at President Xi standing alongside the leaders of Russia, Iran, [and] North Korea in Beijing today, these aren’t just anti-Western optics,” she said. “This is a direct challenge to the international system built on rules.”
Such appeals to what is often described as the “rules-based order” are a dime a dozen in the West. Whether it’s the EU bureaucracy, the Elysée, the US national security apparatus or Congress, European and American officials like to contrast their cast-iron commitment to this “order” against the revisionists—like Putin or Xi—who are challenging some of the most fundamental norms of the international system. If they repeat their favoured catch-phrase enough times, they seem to believe, they can galvanise the West into rebuilding a world of stable borders, predictable rules, and respected international organisations.
The European Union, at least, is beginning to see reality: if there was ever such a thing as the international rules-based order, it’s going extinct. “We are witnessing the erosion of the rules-based international order and fracturing of the global landscape,” the EU’s new Strategic Foresight Report warns. “From the United Nations to the World Trade Organisation, key pillars of the global order are under stress… A return to the previous status quo seems increasingly unlikely.”
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