The idea of an “Anglosphere” is suddenly in vogue. Not too long ago, it was the revival dream of English-speaking racists, imperialists and warmongers. Now, it has gone mainstream and respectable.
Last August, The Wall Street Journal ran a much-debated op-ed, “It’s Time to Revive the Anglosphere: The UK should form a new union with Canada, Australia and New Zealand to work as a global partner of the US”. This week, the Financial Times’ usually sensible Gideon Rachman wrote a piece titled, “Why the Anglosphere sees eye to eye on China: A group of English-speaking nations is taking a more confrontational approach to Beijing”.
The usual justification is that an Anglosphere needs to be revived – perhaps like the old British Empire? – because of the rise of an increasingly assertive, dangerous and irresponsible China. That is a good rallying cry: Blame China. That almost always works.
But that’s only a third of the story. What is almost always left unmentioned are the other subplots. One is the decline of an increasingly assertive, dangerous and irresponsible United States. The other is the rise of an increasingly independent and assertive post-Brexit European Union.
Irresponsible America
Older readers may recall how the Nixon administration killed off the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, which helped underpin Europe’s post-war economic recovery and prosperity. That decision – as well as the oil shock of 1973 – triggered a period of high inflation for the global economy throughout the 1970s
The idea for an alliance of English-speaking nations stems from profound weakness, not strength
Or the Plaza Accord under the Reagan administration, which contributed mightily to ending Japan’s post-war economic “miracle” and ushered in two decades of economic and social dislocation for the Japanese.
With a friend like Uncle Sam, who needs enemies? That’s why the Japanese and Europeans will always hedge their bets and are far less committed to fighting or “containing” China than getting what they can from it. Like everyone else, they want to play both sides.
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- Why the Anglosphere sees eye to eye on China
Why should anyone be surprised that the European Union now wants a free-trade deal with China, under the so-called Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, in defiance of Washington? It would be surprising if it had followed the other “Five Eyes” nations of the British Commonwealth, which do need US support if they are not to be relegated to third-rate powers and treated as such by China.
Unlike the Europeans, they have no choice but to side with the US.
Independent Europe
Some people like to talk knowingly about “the West”, like it was something coherent over two millennia – “from Plato to Nato”. No such entity or continuity exists or existed. If some foreign scholars and ideologues – and it’s often hard to distinguish between the two these days – question the coherence of a millennial China, “the West” makes even less sense.
For people of my generation (I was born in the mid-1960s), “the West” or “the free world” was more like a creation or counterforce to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact of Eastern European countries. European “Atlanticism” only made sense when western Europe had to face a dangerous enemy from the East. It had no choice but to be dependent on US protection from across the ocean. That calculus has long ended. Rising European independence follows logically from the death of Atlanticism.
One of the great works on European history was The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918, by British historian A.J.P. Taylor. It shows, among other themes, how Britain was always torn between continental Europe and isolationism (= empire outside Europe). That is a theme that continues to this day, from the Euroscepticism of Margaret Thatcher to Brexit.
After Brexit, Britain has no choice but to attach itself permanently to the US.
At purchasing power parity, China’s output per head is currently a third of the US’ and half of the EU’s. It has been calculated that it only needs to rise to half of the US level for the Chinese economy to become as big as the US and EU combined.
In this sense, the call for an Anglosphere stems from profound weakness and decline, not strength.
