How should democracies engage with authoritarian regimes?

[TopBadger]

We've seen now with Russia that all our commercial engagement with them has ultimately done little to advance Russia from the clutches of authoritarian dictatorships. If he could, Putin would crush western democracy.

Its the same with China. They are modernising with help from the west, but Xi would turn on us in a heartbeat if he felt he could get away with it.

These powers have no respect for a global rules based order with a democratic core.

Does the west now need to take a long look at how it engages with authoritarian regimes, perhaps tying trade to democratic process and seeking to become self sufficient in the interim?

[Little waster]

Does the west now need to take a long look at how it engages with authoritarian regimes, perhaps tying trade to democratic process and seeking to become self sufficient in the interim?

TBF we’ve recently changed strategy with our pivot to the alt-right Trumpian/Brexiteer approach of obsequious grovelling, collaboration and outright treason in exchange for cash, electoral interference and the withholding of Kompromat.

We really need to see how this form of “patriotism” pans out first.

Luckily Johnson appears fully committed to this path.

[WFJ]

We've seen now with Russia that all our commercial engagement with them has ultimately done little to advance Russia from the clutches of authoritarian dictatorships. If he could, Putin would crush western democracy.

Its the same with China. They are modernising with help from the west, but Xi would turn on us in a heartbeat if he felt he could get away with it.

These powers have no respect for a global rules based order with a democratic core.

Does the west now need to take a long look at how it engages with authoritarian regimes, perhaps tying trade to democratic process and seeking to become self sufficient in the interim?

The first problem is how you would define democracy, where you would set any threshold that must be reached for trade, and how can all countries who make up the West, and their constantly changing ruling parties, agree which countries pass this threshold. Russia is nominally a democracy, just an extremely flawed one. Should we trade with Hungary, Israel, India, Pakistan or many other flawed democracies?

Then there's the question of where we get the oil from.

[monkey]

We've seen now with Russia that all our commercial engagement with them has ultimately done little to advance Russia from the clutches of authoritarian dictatorships. If he could, Putin would crush western democracy.

Its the same with China. They are modernising with help from the west, but Xi would turn on us in a heartbeat if he felt he could get away with it.

These powers have no respect for a global rules based order with a democratic core.

Does the west now need to take a long look at how it engages with authoritarian regimes, perhaps tying trade to democratic process and seeking to become self sufficient in the interim?

The cynic in me says that The West has never really cared about how Authoritarian a dictator is when it's in our interest to engage or even outright support, and the notion that their people would gain freedom through trade was just a fig leaf to make us feel better about that.

[Bird on a Fire]

We've seen now with Russia that all our commercial engagement with them has ultimately done little to advance Russia from the clutches of authoritarian dictatorships. If he could, Putin would crush western democracy.

Its the same with China. They are modernising with help from the west, but Xi would turn on us in a heartbeat if he felt he could get away with it.

These powers have no respect for a global rules based order with a democratic core.

Does the west now need to take a long look at how it engages with authoritarian regimes, perhaps tying trade to democratic process and seeking to become self sufficient in the interim?

The cynic in me says that The West has never really cared about how Authoritarian a dictator is when it's in our interest to engage or even outright support, and the notion that their people would gain freedom through trade was just a fig leaf to make us feel better about that.

Yes, I think history is pretty clear that The West will happily engage with, support and even install authoritarian regimes - generally of the right, rather than the left - when its in the interest of their hegemony. Spain, Portugal, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc etc.

One strategy would be for The West to actually start upholding the values it professes to. The US could recognise the International Criminal Court. The US, UK and France could stop abusing their UN Security Council vetoes to protect rogue states engaged in illegal occupations, and stop providing military aid to such countries. They could come up with some consistent set of criteria for applying sanctions, rather than, say, punishing Cuba but aiding Saudi Arabia. The World Bank and IMF could undergo reforms to be more democratic, so they stop functioning as cudgels to further The West's economic agenda.

Because at the moment there's too much plausible deniability when a regime like Russia says "but you do it too!" Obviously Russia and China are actually worse, but optics are important in politics. And there's no consistency - The West can't convincingly complain about Russia's treatment of dissidents while welcoming Jamal Khashoggi's killers to the table, nor about Xinjiang when they're fine with Gaza, nor about Russia attempting regime change on spurious grounds after Iraq, etc etc.