the 'great person'

does everything change with a new person?

Two national leaders in countries we watch closely changed within twenty-four hours yesterday, one voluntarily. Dr. Tsai Ing-wen, two term president of the Republic of China, surrendered the presidential palace to William Lai (Taiwanese names are notoriously different from those on the mainland where the surname always precedes the given while Taiwan does it both ways, often with a ‘western’ or more familiar name thrown in to make it even harder) following his election last December. Earlier in the day Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi perished, along with the Foreign Minister, when their heliocopter crashed on a domestic flight in poor weather.

Will either change at the top fundamentally alter the concerns in those regions?

Most likely not much, if at all.

Americans—and perhaps others but I know Americans better—think so often about individuals and the impact they have in world affairs, whether on the battlefield, in the Oval Office, or in some international negotiation. Being mindful that just yesterday I encouraged each of us to thank a teacher of any sort for the impact he or she had, I don’t believe the ‘great man’ (we are getting to a point where women make at least as great a deal so we really ought revise that to ‘great person’) theory applies most of the time.

Of course Jesus Christ became the face of a global faith as did Buddha or Mohammed. Martin Luther nailed a letter with protests on a church door, leading to the creation of Protestant faiths, the Lutheran Church in particular. His namesake Martin Luther King, Jr., advanced both the causes of civil rights and peace during his thirty-nine years. Julia Child brought French cooking to America’s attention as did Joan Nathan with Jewish food. Caitlin Clark, Mia Hamm, Chris Evert, and Simone Biles, among others, brought sports to new heights in following women and well as men. You get my point.

Foreign affairs is different because the units of analysis differ. I confess that a number of vastly important individuals altered the course of history but they represent a fractions of the transfers of power. The overwhelming majority of the latters become pretty similar continuations of previous trajetories because individual leaders are embedded in the systems where they operate. Turns out it is hard to shift national security strategy, primarily because the interests that strategy in Uganda or Italy seek to protect generally remain constant.

When Chen Shui-bian assumed the presidency in Taiwan twenty-four years ago today, Jiang Zemin’s CCP worried Chen would declare independence, forcing the mainland to conduct a war it neither wanted to take on at that point (preferring to focus on economic growth) nor was prepared for, by all external indications. Upon Chen’s unceremonious departure from the presidency (and escort to a jail cell because of corruption), the record shows that various forces constrained him from acting on any predilection to declare Taiwan independent. He won the presidency as a pluralist rather than majority victory with 39% of the vote because the previously ruling Guomindang party, split into two factions.

Chen made noises about independence but his election, like so many around the globe, was because of domestic issues rather than achieving permanent separation from the mainland. His fellow Democratic Progressive Party members recognised maintaining the islanders’ standard of living outweighed their willingness to provide financial support for the required military expansion to confront Beijing; the Guomindang controlled the legislature, offering him no assistance. Additionally, Chen’s stance and provocative rhetoric alienated supremely crucial supporter President George W. Bush who chastised the Taiwanese president in thinly-veiled remarks with the CCP Premier standing by his side. Finally, Beijing offered no hope for Chen’s desires when it enacted a draconian Anti-Succession Law early in Chen’s second term.

Examples do exist of presidents in this country moving the debate on policy but I would argue those moves are of emphases rather than complete reorientation, with a couple of caveats. President Jimmy Carter certainly pushed human rights far more aggressively as a national interest than any prior administration but not the exclusion of everything else. Indeed, most definitions of U.S. administrations before and after Carter have emphasised physical security of the homeland, then economic prosperity as our enduring interests, thus commitments.

Following the 9/11 attacks, physical security at home morphed into a broader idea of projecting our values as an interest but that manifested the Neoconservative emphasis on American exceptionalism and remaking the world to our liking more than the beliefs of any single individual. Additionally, the values argument become a slippery slope by which U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq morphed once the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, respectively, fled from office. In neither case did the U.S. intent to extend our way of life and governing succeed on the ground.

Harry Truman introduced a startling amount of change to the U.S. security architecture and belief system but he was merely one voice, albeit in the White House, seeing the U.S. position in the world radically differently after 1945. What is now known as the ‘post-World War II system’ (I detest the term ‘liberal world order’ as it’s neither liberal nor orderly nor completely inclusive best I see it) had American fingerprints all over it but also had buy in from the leaders of several other states, notably Britain and France, among others. Yes, these states were desperate to recover from the horrors of two devastating wars within two generations but still embraced this new configuration under U.S. strength so Truman nor even his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt could take full credit for the global realignment.

Three quarters of a century passed before a genuinely revolutionary voice appeared in Donald Trump. He did not invent the movement rejecting globalism but recognized it as burgeoning political anger. Trump enacted little between 2017 and 2021 since he never focused on legislating change, preferring to assume the president could ‘make it so’ a la Star Trek movies. He lacked concrete policies to disrupt the global system. His preference for transactions rather than more coordinated actions failed to alter the policy world though it reinforced both growing American mistrust of the post-WWII system and doubts among allies, partners, and enemies about our commitments.

Any president of the United States operates within a system, in our case with clearly delineated checks and balances. While we worry about the erosion of those constraints, they are actually significantly greater than in most other countries. Yet even elsewhere, societal limitations on an individual’s capability to make a dramatic breakout from the existing patterns are pretty robust as long as the rule of law operates.

The rule of law may be a national system or within some subset of the country’s governing elite. President Raisi’s death in Iran won’t throw the nation into chaos as his position was not most powerful figure in the country. In a theocratic state, jockeying for position occurs within the religious establishment, more often than not behind closed doors. The mullahs of Iran will decide who succeeds Raisi with the most powerful voice that of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s position, in conjunction with those recognising his religious interpretations above others, still needs support of imams in the Shi’ite religious leadership. Put otherwise, Raisi did not nor does even Khameniei operate in a vacuum but the unit of analysis is that upper tier of religious men in that nation.

Similarly, outsiders asks whether Xi Jinping is more powerful than Mao. That relative question is a parlour game but what matters is that Xi appears still to be operating within the CCP. He still holds Party meetings, issues work reports, and attends closed door sessions such as the annual retreat at Beidahe. The roughly 100 million members of the Party matter far more than the remaining 1.39 billion Chinese citizens because it is a Party-led government. Xi’s focus of power, however, is within the Standing Committee of the Polituro, the real insiders who clawed their way to the top with networks below them. If China’s governing party sounds overly bureaucratic, it is intended to just so as to prevent someone from going rogue. We do not have, at least according to public sourcing, any visibility into the decisionmaking of the Party at any level, except for the often accusatory and turgid statements issued by CCP spokespeople. Xi has introduced new tools for China around the world, such as the Belt and Road, in places new for their attention but they are largely places where we have shown little interest, if any. Xi’s intention remains unswervingly the same as Mao’s: to glorify and maintain the rule of the CCP as it reclaims China’s ‘due respect’ globally. Xi acts in more places but his actions are not that different from anyone proceeding him.

Xi seems highly unlikely to act without Standing Committee support. While he has purged most competitors over his decade in power, every single individual within the Chinese leadership has a support relationships, guanxi, known to the members but opaque to us. Maintaining equilibria between those relationships is its own form of rule of law, even though China rules by law against its citizens and others.

Does this column mean that a true revolutionary figure cannot change the world? Absolutely not. The revolutionaries tend to be egotistical opportunists who seize the slightest option to aggrandize their power, satisfying outlying voices in society. Hitler was such a figure, brought to power legally on the shoulders of a national movement. Mao found a vacuum in a China still suffering from the collapse of the Qing dynasty, warlordism, and a corrupt Guomindang under a petulant leader determined to get personal respect rather than national cohesion. Both Hitler and Mao were indeed revolutionary in that they changed the trajectory of history with their assumption of power. One cannot ignore their maniacal streaks born of insecurities as well, contributing to their determination to reverse personal grievances portrayed as national humiliation.

While both ought to have been constrained by the legal frameworks of their countries, both overturned the law for to assure unchecked power. The world has seen others who might have aspired to such nakedly aggressive power but rarely succeeded. Peter the Great or Napoleon did but was operating in a radically different era so I don’t include them in the modern era.

Of course history can change on a dime but most of life is, whether at the individual level or as a nation, patterns of repeated behaviour rather than fundamental, shocking change. Law is a societal contract to preclude most of those radical realignments but sometimes it too fails.

In sum, there are many things to worry about tonight across the Taiwan Strait or east of Hormuz but the change in governments probably are not among them as of today.

Would you agree to this? Why or why not? What examples would you raise to support or dismiss this column? I genuinely would love to hear so please let me know.

Thank you for your time today. If you think this valuable to others, please feel free to circulate. I especially thank the subscribers who commit their resources to this column every day and to whom I am indebted for inspiration.

Be well and be safe. FIN