There is a distinct possibility of an enormous war breaking out in the next few years over a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. To prevent such a catastrophe, the world’s leading democracies need to establish an alliance formidable enough to deter China from any such use of force.
The international situation at present bears some alarming similarities with the prelude to World War II. There has been a contest between democracy and autocracy, with autocracy advancing and democracy going slowly backwards for the past 20 years, according to Freedom House.
Russia in 2022 launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This has galvanised the West into action to support Ukraine, supplying it with arms and ammunition, most recently via the ‘coalition of the willing’. Finland joined NATO in 2023, Sweden in 2024. The EU has discussed how to beef up its communal defence and security forces.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to control the South China Sea. China is building up its armed forces for taking control of Taiwan as fast as possible. Xi has told the armed forces to be ready to go by 2027, according to US intelligence. If China does act, the US may well respond militarily, possibly with Japanese, Philippine and Australian help. Once such a war began, we would hardly know how far it might spread or when it would stop. With Russian involvement, it might be a third world war.
The most effective way to deter China from moving on Taiwan is for the democracies around the globe to form a united front: some sort of global alliance. Together, the major democracies have more than half the world’s GDP and around two-thirds of global military spending. If united, this should be enough to overawe and deter the autocracies from continuing their aggression. In the worst case, it should be enough to defeat them on the battlefield if they continue their aggression.
The democracies have indeed been taking urgent steps in this direction. Existing partnerships and alliances are being expanded. India, Japan, Australia and the United States have formed the Quad, and Australia, Britain and the US have formed AUKUS. Japan has strongly increased defence spending and has formed new defence cooperation agreements with the US and Australia.
But we still need to build a new global institution – an alliance of democracies – to form an unchallengeable bulwark and deterrent against any further aggression by the autocracies. What can be done in the near term to help bring this about?
The best plan would be to start with a small core group of middle power democracies. In a landmark address at the World Economic Forum in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for just such collaboration between middle power democracies.
A possible starting point is the D7 group, as proposed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He is a former prime minister of Denmark, former secretary-general of NATO and founder of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation. The D7 group would consist of the EU plus Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. It could begin as merely an informal group along the lines of the G7. Rasmussen lists six areas of common interest where the group could be active. Rasmussen envisages that the D7 could eventually develop into a broader security partnership among middle powers.
The EU has already formed security and defence partnerships with Japan, South Korea and Australia. The D7 group could agree quite soon to create a formal alliance of democracies by means of a treaty. The treaty could then be opened to other democracies around the globe – and the US would ideally join as soon as possible.
Even better would be the formation of a world security community of democratic nations following the European model. This would provide a convenient forum for making collective decisions between like-minded democracies, covering not only mutual defence, but also a common approach to other global problems, such as free trade, climate change and so on. One can envisage the community enlarging and evolving over time.
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