PUBLISHED
February 15, 2026
KARACHI:
For much of the past decade, China, as we have come to know it, has been cast as the principal villain of the global order — blamed for the spread of Covid-19 and accused of pursuing policies said to defy Western norms of human rights. The rhetoric was sharp, the scrutiny was constant. However, since Donald Trump’s return to power in January 2025, that hostility toward Beijing appears to have softened, if not entirely receded.
By default or by design, the Trump administration came prepared to treat long-term friends as foes and foes as foes, positioning the United States itself as the principal disruptor of a world order that had, until then, operated with relative predictability — from trade to alliances to major collaborations even on conflicts. This change was expected from the moment Trump walked into the Oval Office. He threatened — and in some cases imposed — crushing tariffs on partners, including Canada, vexed European allies, and practically any country he judged to be treating the United States ‘unfairly’. While no one has fully understood what Washington might have gained from such “my way or the highway” policies, the consequences have clearly and effortlessly benefited Beijing in multiple, unintended ways.
For Europe, long America’s most steadfast ally in every scheme and sin, few shocks were greater than being slapped by Trump’s tariffs — and if that insult wasn’t enough, it was then confronted with the idea that the United States might use force to seize Greenland. In making the case for such a takeover, Trump not only ridiculed Europe but belittled its leaders and their capacity to resist any US attempt on the Danish territory. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable,” he declared. Although he later softened his stance at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, European leaders were left, if not openly, then privately questioning the reliability of their most important partner.
It was against this backdrop that Canada’s Mark Carney laid bare just how fragile the Western grip on the global order had become in his own Davos speech. Drawing on an essay by Václav Havel, the writer, dissident, and first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia, Carney reminded his audience that communism survived “through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.” He hinted at similar patterns in today’s world — the gap between the rhetoric of a so-called rules-based order and the reality on the ground has been largely ignored. In an era of weaponized interdependence, he cautioned, “you cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.” This, he argued, is not a transition but a rupture.
The Canadian leader went further, insisting that the old order is not coming back, and that nostalgia, he said, is no strategy. He offered hope, too: “We believe that from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, more just.” But what is sobering is how real that hope is — and whether it will ever translate into a strategy.
For much of what Carney conveyed in that speech, he was right. The prime minister’s new approach to foreign policy can perhaps be summed up in one line: “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” That, according to the BBC, was his response when asked about the deal struck with China, nearly a year after he had labeled Beijing “the biggest security threat” facing Canada.
Experts see this as a clear pivot in Ottawa’s China policy, driven less by ideology than by the relentless unpredictability of its relationship with Washington, its largest trading partner. In many ways, it is a sharp break from decades of assuming the US as Canada’s unshakeable protector and China as its principal threat.
Recent polling for the Munich Security Conference, as reported by the Financial Times shows that Canada is far from alone in reconsidering its ties with the US. Data collected for the Security Index suggests that Trump’s first year back in the White House has produced a surge in people across the West — and in key emerging markets — who now see Washington as a threat rather than a guarantor. Canadians, the survey found, registered the largest jump.
The reasons are familiar — tariffs, threats, and public displays of unpredictability, from punitive trade measures to the audacious rhetoric of taking over Greenland. Unsurprisingly, Canadians are now almost as likely as Chinese citizens to view the US as a security threat. Across the board, the survey shows how Trump’s confrontational style, predatory foreign policy, and tendency to treat international relations like a high-stakes real estate deal have swung a wrecking ball through America’s traditional alliances and unsettled opinion in emerging economies, whether through aggressive trade measures, surprisingly warm ties to Moscow, or unilateral interventions that upend long-standing norms of global governance.
The survey, conducted in November among 11,099 respondents in the G7 plus Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, captures attitudes before flashpoints like the US raid in Venezuela and the Greenland threats. But subsequent polling confirms the unreliable trend — trust Washington is slipping. YouGov data from last month shows 84 per cent of Danes now view the US unfavourably, up from 70 per cent just months before. In nearly every country surveyed, the Financial Times reported that fewer people now see the US as an ally. Not exactly a revelation, all things considered.
Meanwhile, China’s image has shifted in unexpected ways. In countries such as South Africa, Italy, Canada, and even India, Beijing is now seen as less of a threat than a year ago.
Interestingly, more Indians now see China as an ally than a threat, despite the long history of border clashes between the two countries. But India is not alone in adjusting to this new global reality. The start of 2026 has seen a flurry of high-profile visits to China — some from its staunchest critics. Emmanuel Macron of France made the trip, as did Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, becoming the first British leader in nearly a decade to set foot in Beijing.
Macron struck a cautious note on the fragility of the international order as he met Xi Jinping in Beijing, against the backdrop of mounting tensions between the US and Europe.
“We are facing the risk of the disintegration of the international order that has kept peace for decades,” Macron said after talks with the Chinese leader. “In this context, dialogue between China and France is more essential than ever. We have areas of convergence, we have disagreements, but we have a responsibility to overcome them… for an effective multilateralism in which we believe.”
Xi, for his part, framed the partnership as both a national and global imperative, urging Macron to “hold high the banner of multilateralism” and keep external interference out of the bilateral relationship — a veiled reference to Washington’s aggressive stance under Trump.
A month after Macron’s visit, Keir Starmer touched down in Beijing, emerging from nearly three hours with Xi Jinping glowing about his “warm and constructive” talks. Differences, the British premier, told the press, were discussed behind closed doors, all within the framework of a revitalized London–Beijing relationship. Back home, the opposition was quick to accuse the prime minister of “kowtowing” to Xi, but Starmer insisted that cultivating better ties with China serves the national interest in a world increasingly defined by uncertainty.
Not long ago, one of their own, Tory leader Lord David Cameron, hailed UK–China relations as a “golden age,” an era when China was welcomed into the most sensitive corners of the British economy — from 5G networks to nuclear power stations — only for the UK to later pull back and rethink under pressure from Washington. This is a familiar pattern among Western governments, or as one expert put it, the “little West” — Europe, including Brexit Britain (minus Hungary), and Canada — loving China when the US is to be feared, and turning against it when Washington’s ties warm.
If we’re being honest, those ties may never return to what they were after January 20, 2025 — the day Donald Trump reclaimed the White House. It was not just the mood in Washington that shifted, the country’s global calculus changed with it. What followed was a far more transactional, and potentially volatile, attempt to reorder relationships and the world.
American political scientist Stephen Walt has a phrase for this turn – a “predatory hegemon.” In a conversation with the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman, he described it as a state powerful enough to structure every relationship — allies included — so that it consistently secures the greater share of the gains. All great powers seek advantage – that is hardly controversial. What sets a predatory hegemon apart, according to Walt, is its indifference to the distinction between friend and adversary. In Trump’s playbook, that approach is the same — extract more than you concede, treat partnership less as solidarity and more as leverage. And the fatigue is already visible. In just twelve months of his presidency, America’s allies appear worn down by the constant renegotiation of terms, the sense that every engagement comes with a price tag and a reminder of who holds the upper hand.
While some experts, in their drive for optimism — which has been in short supply for a while — may say that the US could return to being a reliable ally once Trump is out of office, that is nothing more than a fallacy. There seems to be little room to return to the old ties.
America’s allies are already beginning to find their voices and rediscover their courage. Carney’s speech at Davos was just one example. So was Starmer’s condemnation of Trump’s denigration of the sacrifices made by British and allied troops in Afghanistan. If that was not enough, the speaker of the Polish parliament refused to sign a petition calling for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — another Polish lawmaker rightly reminded the world: “The times when Nero, under threat of punishment, demanded recognition for his musical talents have been regarded as the beginning of the decline of the Roman empire.”
All that said, the writing on the wall is clear – the world is reconfiguring fast, and old assumptions about allies, adversaries, and global priorities no longer hold. In this, while the US appears to be an unstable predatory hegemon in Walt’s words, China, effortlessly, appears more stable and reliable in its dealings.
Even if there is faint hope that Washington might one day return to its old patterns, the emerging consensus is that the Trump presidency is far from a temporary anomaly. On the contrary, he channels forces within America that will far outlast his presidency. In short, there is no returning to the status quo ante — neither abroad nor at home. Here history offers a lesson — from Richard Nixon’s opening to China to Bill Clinton’s embrace of economic integration, the world ultimately will have to learn to work with China, not against it. And it is far from too late to start that course correction.
