China wants to change, or break, a world order set by others

FOR MOST of human history, great powers and strong men have been free to inflict horrors on the weak with impunity. For almost eight decades, however, all but a few rogue states have aspired, or paid lip service, to a different world order.

This order was founded in revulsion at the industrialised, racially justified savagery of the second world war. Guided by the ambition “Never Again”, the winners, led by America, drafted conventions that defined unpardonable crimes against humanity, and sought to impose costs on those committing them. Recalling the economic disasters and human miseries that paved the way to world war, the framers of this order built the UN and other international institutions to promote co-operation and development.