Daniel Marwecki Die Welt nach dem Westen. Über die Neuordnung der Macht im 21. Jahrhundert
[The World After the West. On the Reorganization of Power in the 21st Century]

Daniel Marwecki is well-credentialed to analyze the post-Western and multipolar world. The German political scientist teaches international relations at the University of Hong Kong. Europe, as far as his students are concerned, plays only a minor role politically, he says. Things are different with the United States; but China, to them, seems well-equipped to face off with its American rival. For Marwecki himself, traveling between Asia and Germany “increasingly feels like commuting between the future and the past.” “Economic uncertainty, poverty, decaying infrastructure and social squalor” – that’s how Marwecki sees Germany these days. Politically, too, the country has maneuvered itself into the margins, especially with its single-minded support of Israel after October 7, 2023. While bleak in his assessment of the state of affairs in Germany, he has nothing bad to say about China. There shouldn’t be any problems with his next visa extension.

Apart from Marwecki’s disdain for some European achievements such as the rule of law and individual liberty, his assessment of the post-Western world order is certainly a reasonable one. His perspective from Hong Kong sharpens his sense of reality and acts as a counterweight to “German unworldliness.” The weakening of Germany and Europe, in economic, political and cultural terms, is inevitable in Marwecki’s view. What matters most now is how we deal with it. The decline of former colonial empires, first and foremost Great Britain and France, may be an established fact and even a welcome state of affairs. But what should we think about the rise of actors like China, India and Brazil? Marwecki emphasizes that none of these actors is likely to exercise cultural hegemony the way the “Occident” did, and they certainly won’t give us unwanted lectures on freedom and human rights. The “revolt of the others” and their rise to power will take place in myriad ways, with the East Asian “drive for industrialization,” a robust, export-oriented state capitalism, offering the greatest potential. What China has succeeded in could soon succeed in places like Indonesia as well, in his opinion. But isn’t the economic success of East Asia deeply linked to its culture of the collective? Could Europe learn from this culture – and would it want to?

Marwecki describes the rise of non-Western powers as a story of multiple emancipations. It started in the struggles for independence that culminated in the first wave of decolonization around 1960. Now a “second revolt against the West” is underway, sparked by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. From the viewpoint of China and its many friends around the world, both conflicts might be unfortunate but they don’t warrant taking sides with the West. And, anyway, who’s the aggressor? Moscow likes to see itself as an advocate of decolonization, fighting in Ukraine against American hegemony and for a multipolar world order. And the Palestinians, for their part, can count on the sympathy of the “Global South” as long as they are exclusively seen as the victims of a “colonial project” by the name of Israel.

In the post-Western world, the moral principles for which Europe is famed or infamous have fallen into disrepute. The United States, too, is realigning itself to this new world or helping to recreate it. This world will be multipolar, highly competitive and if need be militant. Daniel Marwecki emphatically rejects the “sadness” of Europe in the face of this emerging new world.