Opinion | 2023 was a year of reckoning
By Tom Fowdy
We are now in the final days of the year 2023. It has not been a positive year by any means, that is because the general political situation of the world continued to deteriorate and linger in uncertainty, while the global economy has been lackluster.
The year started with optimism as China announced an end to its zero COVID policy, a hardline stance that sought to resist a global trend for several years, but ultimately became too self-defeating and costly. It was predicted as Beijing opened its gates that China's economy would roar back and drag up the world, however, it revealed deeply embedded scars as the country in fact underwhelmed in a global climate that continued to be challenging.
Things only got worse as the United States descended into extreme hysteria over a Chinese Weather Balloon, which soon became referred to unquestionably as a "spy balloon" in the mainstream media, and created such a firestorm the Biden administration capitulated to political pressure that shot it down, prompting a total freeze of US-China relations, a connotation of how tense things have become between the two powers. Things would later move into a détente, but they did not feel any more amicable, especially as the Philippines under Ferdinand "Bong Bong" Marcos Jr. flipped its foreign policy back towards the US and made the South China Sea a hotspot again, even as the Taiwan issue has faded.
On other fronts, the war in Ukraine has continued without any signs of ending. I had stated back in January that 2023 would be the defining year of the war, and of course, the mainstream media spent the first half of it incessantly hyping up Ukraine's pending "counteroffensive" overloading one-sided propaganda that Kiev's victory was inevitable. As I predicted, that did not happen, and entrenched Russian defenses, as well as hard lessons learned, saw Ukraine make no progress. As that happened, the mood of the war shifted dramatically, with Western countries unwilling to commit the support they once did.
But despite this, things would only get worse as the year went on, even as US-China tensions alleviated in the meantime. Starting in October, the Islamist group Hamas decided to initiate an all-out invasion of Israel from the Gaza strip and in doing so, opened up another large-scale war. Tel Aviv naturally retaliated by pursuing an apocalyptic bombardment of the Gaza strip and affirming a goal to remove Hamas from power whatever the cost. The scenes of carnage provoked outrage around the world, as Israel of course committed atrocities without consequences, all while the west continued to take a moral high ground over issues like Xinjiang.
That conflict is still ongoing and has provoked a new wave of terrorism, unrest, and instability around the world, including a confrontation with the Houthis in Yemen who have relentlessly targeted Israeli shipping. Likewise, Venezuela, once a target for regime change by the United States, sensed geopolitical space for itself amidst the deteriorating global environment and affirmed its territorial claims to a huge swathe of neighboring Guyana. However, given sanctions have been alleviated already and its geographic proximity to America, it seems unlikely at this time Maduro would risk an all-out invasion of another oil-producing state on the US's doorstep, and has rather used it as diplomatic leverage.
All of the above of course, paints a pessimistic picture of how the world has become, making 2023 a year of reckoning that ultimately be pivotal in determining the future trajectory of many global issues, from the Middle East to Ukraine. The US is embroiled in a power struggle with numerous competitors, both great powers and regional ones, who seek to oust its intrusive presence from their respective peripheries, producing a myriad of conflicts in the process. The key worry however for most, is whether the situation with China, be it Taiwan or the South China Sea, will explode into a kinetic conflict and have even more devastating repercussions than the other two.
In this case, we enter the year 2024 with high nerves and a lack of optimism. We can only wish for an alleviation of geopolitical tensions, calls for peace and a stable and certain global economy, but that is far from the priority of the US as it seeks to maintain its hegemonic position at all costs. We live in an increasingly modern and integrated world, but it is also more like pre-1914 than at any time well, since in a century to that era itself…
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | Deck the halls with media sensationalism, the subject of Christmas in China
Opinion | Top Gear, or top Hysteria - The propaganda push on Chinese EV's
Comment