US efforts to rally friends with 'shared values' against China could backfire: media

HONG KONG -- US efforts to rally friends with "shared values" against China could backfire, and the West's efforts to split the world into rival economic blocs will spark a new wave of global protectionism, reported the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based English-language daily.

Whether the West calls it "de-risking" or "decoupling," the underlying impulse is still a desire to maintain US and European supremacy, Anthony Rowley, a veteran journalist specializing in Asian economic and financial affairs, wrote in an opinion piece for the daily.

Rowley noted that there are increasing signs that assumptions of "shared values" propagated by US-led Western powers will rebound against them to the point where their own international influence is overwhelmed, and institutional shifts plus a new wave of global protectionism could hit home with a vengeance.

The biggest threat to the global economy now is perceived to be that the world could split into rival blocs, Rowley observed.

Recent developments in the tale of how the West has reacted with something resembling pique rather than confidence and communal spirit to China's economic might show that the Global South has weapons with which to fight back, according to the article.