Across the world, the spectre of war looms large. In many places it is already here. US air strikes against Isis in Syria, sporadic fighting in the Ukraine, shelling in Gaza, and China and Japan in dispute over the Senkaku Islands: all the while, the established global superpowers seem reluctant to intervene. Are we seeing a changing of the guard, away from American dominance of the world stage? If so, will this open up a power vacuum, and which countries would be looking to step into it?
Not yet, says Rana Mitter, in Part I of Drawing a Red Line, our two-part interrogation into the changing balance of global power. Not so, says Martin Jacques in Part II, who argues that we're witnessing the rapid decline of Europe and the US and the inevitable rise of China. For Mitter, though, this is still very much a story of America and how Barack Obama responds to global events. While Russia may be flexing its muscles, he argues, China is yet to formulate a coherent global vision. Mitter is a historian, author and broadcaster, and Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at Oxford. Here he speaks to the IAI about China’s tense relations with Russia, Obama’s lack of clear foreign policy, and the similarities between ISIS and Vietnam in the 1960s.
Have recent events, whether in China or Russia, changed your mind at all about US dominance?
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