On Balance | 2022 brought Western democracies together, but internal divides remain

Is it too early to predict that 2022 was the beginning of the end of the democratic recession that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken keeps warning us about? Was it the year that autocracy began to collapse under its own weight?

The most obvious indicator is Russian President Vladimir’s Putin’s vastly diminished position following setbacks in Ukraine. Instead of swallowing Ukraine, he’s made the world wonder why Russia was granted a higher geopolitical stature than its economy would justify owing to a now-disproved perception of military invincibility.

Beijing’s about-face on what was one of the world’s strictest Covid-19 containment regimes, too abrupt to be anything based on science or epidemiology, is another case in point. Given the Chinese government’s history of meticulous planning ahead of any changes capable of causing instability, we’re left to conclude that – for the first time in recent history – popular grievances forced Xi Jinping’s government into retreat.

Its decision to step back and let Covid-19 rampage through the country without stockpiling vaccines, antivirals, pain relievers or other basic medication ahead of time was not, in the philosophy often attributed to Deng Xiaoping – “crossing the river by feeling the stones”. The move was a dive off a cliff in hopes that the water was deep enough.

Iran’s hardline leaders, whose supply of drones to Russia underscores how much Tehran has drawn closer to Putin, are also on their back feet amid an uprising over their government’s atrocious treatment of women.