The liberal international order has not crumbled yet

Since 2017 when Donald Trump took office, the “liberal international order” erected in 1991 has
under serious challenges: the United States’ relative decline, the Trump administration’s
isolationist policy, and on top of that, the outbreak of COVID-19. These challenges have plagued
that order, evidenced by its dysfunction. Against this backdrop, its endurance in the upcoming
time is questionable. Nevertheless, the liberal international order has not collapsed yet. It will
even revive, and endure in the post-pandemic era.

The victory of Democrat in the US

Internally, Western countries are making effort to reform their order. This can be clearly seen in
the US – the world democracy’s leader. Joe Biden’s victory against Donald Trump may be a
positive signal for the US and the global democracy. As a strong advocate for values including
democracy, multilateralism and international trade, at no doubt, President Biden will be opposite
to Trump in his policy. Indeed, during his first 100 days, Mr.Biden has implemented some
meaningful things. Regarding the pandemic, he has a stricter approach than his predecessor’s:
Mandatory mask wearing, a $1.9-trillions bill, historical vaccination campaign, to name a few.
All of Biden’s actions have been so far effective, as the new cases and deaths are steadily
declining, and the number of vaccinated people is substantially high. His efficiency may help
him regain American people’s trust on the future of American democracy and governance
system.

In terms of foreign policy, President Biden has some radical changes compared to that of Trump.
At first glance, Biden embraces multilateralism much more than his predecessor, with the hope
of saving the American global leadership. He supports Washington’s participation in
international institutions, for example WHO, Paris Agreement and several multilateral
commitments. In tandem with this, Biden values the US’ alliances and strategic partnership as
vital instruments for the US’ hegemony. Unlike Trump’s transactional approach, Biden
prioritizes early and effective engagement with allies to tackle regional and global issues,
especially major ones like NATO, G7. In Asia, he also seeks for further cooperation with
traditional allies such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand. In addition, Biden is deepening
partnership with Vietnam, Singapore, India and ASEAN countries as well.

More importantly, President Biden’s policies towards the US’ competitors and “rogue states” are
far different from Trump’s. Granted, with China, Biden adopts a more flexible and multilateral
policy. His administration looks to cooperate and compete with China, implying a different
trajectory of the US-China relationship in the upcoming time. Instead of unilaterally dealing with
China as Trump did, Biden has been forging relations with Asian allies to contain China. With
regard to Iran, Washington is now working on the Iran Nuclear Deal with other six parties. This
promises a potentially positive future on the relations of Iran with the US and the West. The
bottom line is, a radical change in Biden’s foreign policy is a clear message to the world that the
US will still try to save the liberal international order and make this world safer for democracy.

The European Union is recovering

Things are happening in the same pattern in Europe. European leaders are also closely
cooperating, to defeat COVID-19. That said, they are ardently supporting multilateralism, which
is key to overcome the pandemic. So far, the EU has spent billions of dollars in vaccine research,
distribution and in humanitarian support, demonstrating its solidarity in its battle against
COVID-19. As such, when EU leaders can successfully lead their bloc out of the current crisis,
they might be able to reform this currently plagued institution in the post-pandemic era. Not only
seeking further intra-bloc cooperation, but also European leaders are working with other global
major actors to substantiate the global battlefront against COVID-19. Recently, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged her country and China to jointly develop COVID’s vaccine in
an open, transparent way. To a further extent, she also urged to maintain good bilateral
partnership with China, regardless of two sides’ differences.

Similarly, the EU has been putting the Transatlantic relationship among the priorities of its
foreign policy agenda. After Biden’s election, the European Commission has proposed
refreshing the US-EU alliance and establishing a Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council,
an informal tech alliance with the US to prevent China from dominating this critical sector. The
Transatlantic relationship is perhaps one of the pillars for the liberal international order, given its
long history. In the last decades, this axis has been damaged by numerous issues, from economic
to security. Thus, a fresh Transatlantic relationship is conducive to the re-emergence of this
order. In this respect, the EU’s effort to strengthen the Transatlantic alliance, despite being
questionable in terms of feasibility and outcome, is still paving the way for the revival of liberal
international order.

Non-Western world is struggling

The dynamics outside the Western world is also changing in a more favorable direction. Many
non-Western countries, once were effective in combating against the pandemic, are now
struggling with a greater threat. Taiwan, once was praised as the model of containing COVID-
19, is currently facing another wave of pandemic. Other successful stories, let us say Thailand,
Japan or South Korea, are questionable of being able to maintain their momentum. The fact is,
during this new wave, these countries are relatively inefficient in implementing stronger
measures and getting people vaccinated. This inefficiency questions these countries’ model of
governance effectiveness in helping them contain COVID-19.

These dynamics are not only the case for individual countries but also major non-Western blocs.
The clearest example is the BRICS. Except China, all other countries in this bloc are
tremendously suffering from the pandemic, and far from recovering quickly. Their failure in
dealing with the virus undermines their previous effort in establishing their position as a major,
effective bloc, not to mention building a new, non-Western international order. The same is true
with ASEAN, when the COVID-19 sharply divided this organization. There are countries doing
well with controlling the pandemic such as Vietnam, Singapore. However, the Philippines and
Indonesia are unable to do so. This fragmentation makes this bloc suffering from institutional
sclerosis without having any coherent COVID-19 policy. Therefore, non-Western blocs and
countries are far from being able to come up with any better international orders than the current
one.
There have yet been any non-Western values that are more universal than Western ones. This is
crucial, as its existence and endurance mainly depends on Western values' universality. These
values have been embraced by many countries for a very long time so they cannot be easily
changed. On the other hand, non-Western values are not as highly embraced as Western ones.
China, is initiating numerous projects and agreements to spread its values around the world to
make the world more "Chinese". Nonetheless, Beijing has yet been able to realize this dream. Its
projects have been notorious for a large number of problems related to environment or local
corruption. Besides, it is raising strategic uncertainty in the region with its increasing
militarization, particularly on the South China Sea. These movements have turned China into a
“malevolent” power, hindering its process of disseminating values to the world.

Meanwhile, Western values, regardless of having been declining, are proven to be benevolent.
Most recently, it is Western countries that have successfully developed good COVID-19
vaccines to save themselves and the world from this unprecedented health crisis. Non-Western
countries, for instance China and Russia, have developed their own vaccines. Yet, these vaccines
are relatively less effective than Western-produced ones. The success of Western-produced
vaccines is attributed to the Western values. Democracy, liberty, lassaiz faire are values that help
Western countries or ones embrace such things able to produce massive amount of effective
vaccines, and more broadly to develop a strong science and technology foundation. Producing
and distributing vaccine for the rest of the world would make the West become a savior, which is
good for saving the liberal international order.

Without doubt, the liberal international order has been in its worst time since 1991 when it
reached its heyday. It has been hit seriously by its own founding members, and the COVID-19
took it again by storm. Simultaneously, there are emerging actors trying to replace that dominant
international order. Notwithstanding these hindrances, given what it has brought to this world so
far, the liberal international order will not die. Instead, most countries will jointly save it,
because they have been benefitting from this order for a long time, and will be so in the future.
The order’s founding members are recovering, and cooperating closely to reform it, and there are
no better international orders that can replace the existing one. For these, the liberal international
order would re-emerge as a dominant form of ordering this world after the pandemic.