REMEMBER when we used to sit around, reflecting on ways to improve global governance?

Well, as US President Donald Trump disengages from the world, he provides other nations with a golden opportunity to take the lead in fashioning a really new world order, including new ways of dealing with global challenges, reforming and galvanising multilateral institutions and creating new networks and coalitions.

Power has been moving from the West to the Asia Pacific for several years, new nations are rising in Africa and Latin America and there is widespread recognition that international organisations are not really reflecting this transformation.

We have known for some time that our way of doing things has to change. There are long-standing demands for an overhaul in voting rights in multilateral organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give emerging countries a stronger voice.

There has even been talk of reforming the United Nations Security Council to bring in India and Japan.

But the world has been hesitating. The United States did not like the idea of a revamp and while the European Union recognised the need for some change it was uncertain about how to go about it.

So the talks went on and on and the global governance structures creaked and creaked but the established powers hummed and hawed and tried to defend the status quo.

We have our chance now. President Trump is putting “America First”, does not like global organisations, is not convinced of the need for Natp and seems to like the idea of a disintegrating European Union.

He is thumbing his nose at the UN, doesn’t seem to believe in climate change, is planning increases in US trade tariffs and much more.

Certainly President Trump is determined to make the US more insular, transactional, and narrowly interest-driven. Gone is any mention of global leadership, the promotion of universal values, or the defence of a “free world.”

Like many, I mourn the loss of US leadership and championing of liberal democratic values and important issues like democracy, rule of law and human rights.

But America’s retreat from the global stage also provides the rest of the world with an opportunity to develop other plans for international cooperation, another vision for living together in the 21st Century.

China has certainly understood the message — and understood it fast.

Significantly, even as Trump rages against globalisation and takes the US into a new era of isolation and protectionism, Chinese President Xi Jinping has outlined his own vision of economic globalisation and a world committed to free trade.

“Last week was surreal,” writes Jean-Pierre Lehmann, an expert on Asia and world trade. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Xi made an appeal for openness, inclusiveness and finding trade-offs between efficiency and equity, firmly rejecting the zero-sum view of the world economy: “We must remain committed to free trade and investment. We must promote trade and investment liberalization. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war,” he solemnly declared.

Three days later, on Jan 20, Trump gave an inaugural address “so bombastic it would have made the late Hugo Chavez jealous”, Lehmann comments, adding: “the xenophobia was flagrant...and though no countries were specifically named, China was clearly the major target.”

While the Chinese leader spoke of cooperation, Trump insisted: “We will follow two simple rules: buy American and hire American.”

The US president has already cancelled US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated under his predecessor. He has announced his intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Furthermore, he has made highly punitive threats against Mexico (imposition of a 35 per cent tariff) and China (imposition of a 45pc tariff).

However, even as Trump pulled the US out of the TPP, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made clear he was ready to press on with the trade pact with a Chinese rather than US at the centre.

Similarly, as the new American president signed an executive order known as the “global gag rule”, which bars international non-governmental organisations that perform or promote abortions from receiving US government funding, the Dutch government said it would help set up an international abortion fund to stop “dangerous backroom procedures and higher maternal mortality”.

Importantly, the lack of US leadership on liberal values thrusts the EU into the global spotlight. Could this be the moment that the EU sheds its inhibitions and comes into its own as an unabashed, confident and powerful global actor?

The EU is certainly on the right track. The last few years have seen the EU stepping up its engagement in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East even though discord remains on key issues like relations with Russia.

But significantly, with the US absent, the EU has an opportunity to push ahead with its commitment to a global order based on international law, which ensures human rights, sustainable development and lasting access to the global commons.

As the EU’s global security strategy released last year insists, these commitments translate into an aspiration to transform rather than simply preserve the existing system.

The EU has so far been more than happy to play second fiddle to the US, shadowing Washington on most international issues, waiting for the US to make up its mind before taking a stance.

But Trump’s presidency offers Europe an opportunity to grow up and mature, morphing into a global actor in its own right.

An autonomous Europe would be a great, unexpected gift by Trump to the rest of the world. There are some signs that the EU could be ready to pick up the gauntlet. But China appears to be moving faster.

—The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2017