'Now is the time for the free world to stand up for our values' , Benedict Rogers

Let us banish kowtow and come together to forge a just and lasting peace across the world

The world is facing increasingly dark and dangerous times. The international rules-based order that has limited and prevented global conflict for eight decades is under unprecedented pressure.

The free world — which has looked to the United States (US) for leadership and security for the past eighty years — has to recalibrate.

The fiery arguments in front of television cameras on Feb. 28 between the US president and vice-president and the courageous war leader of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky, were not only unseemly, undignified and unsettling, they were succour to every tyrant who wishes to undermine, weaken and destroy the free world, from Beijing to Moscow, from Pyongyang to Tehran.

The free world must recover its unity, composure, and courage and pull back from the brink — and fast.

Zelensky’s meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, followed by an audience with King Charles III on March 1, as well as the summit of European leaders in London on March 2, are all very welcome and good steps in a better direction.

Starmer and the king, perhaps with some help from Italy’s Georgia Meloni, now have to use their good relations with the Trump White House to heal the rift and build a bridge between Washington and Kyiv.

Fractures in the free world’s alliance must be healed rapidly before our enemies have a chance to exploit them.

But the free world must also learn to multi-task and to think beyond Europe, for while Ukraine is uppermost in minds and headlines, it is by far not the world’s only conflict.

Indeed, while eyes have been focused on the Oval Office, London, and Zelensky, Chinese ships have been menacingly circling Australia and New Zealand. To use a Churchillian expression, this is an antic from Beijing up with which we should not put.

For Europe, Ukraine proffers the most immediate existential crisis because if Vladimir Putin wins in Ukraine, he won’t stop there. The Baltic states, Poland, Scandinavia, and beyond are all in danger.

But for the world, Ukraine is a totem pole, forecasting the future.

If Putin is thwarted in his ambitions there, dictators elsewhere will receive a clear message to think twice about expansionist aggression.

But if he wins and is allowed to get away with his war crimes and crimes against humanity with impunity, every other dictator in the world will be emboldened.

In particular and most seriously, Xi Jinping will take Moscow’s success in Ukraine as a green light to advance on Taiwan — with ramifications for the world that will far outweigh the costs and consequences of the Ukraine war.

Similarly, Kim Jong-un — whom Donald Trump tried to befriend towards the end of his first term — will also be emboldened to make mischief.

Within a week of President Trump’s inauguration, North Korea launched a strategic under-water cruise missile, and Kim has pivoted from his alliance with Beijing to a close bond with Moscow.

North Korea has sent at least 10,000 troops to support Putin’s war in Ukraine, thousands of whom have been killed. It is an illustration of Kim’s barbarity and insecurity that Pyongyang will not receive the corpses of its dead soldiers for fear it might provoke an uprising.

Pyongyang is sending its troops into Ukraine as fodder for Putin’s war against the free world, and it has not an ounce of compassion about what happens to those men.

That is the mentality we are up against. This is an existential fight between humanity and barbarity, democracy and authoritarianism, legitimacy and criminality. It’s a fight between life and liberty on the one side and death and destruction on the other.

How the second Trump administration handles North Korea — as a threat to global peace and security, as one of the world’s worst human rights violators, and as a part of Putin’s war in Ukraine — will help determine our security.

President Trump said soon after his inauguration that he would reach out again to Kim, noting that “he liked me.”

But superficial personal chemistry — though helpful in diplomacy — is not enough to ensure global peace and security. And if he does reach out to Kim, will North Korea’s appalling crimes against humanity be on the table for discussion, and will accountability for these crimes be part of the solution?

And then there’s the world’s most forgotten but one of its most egregious human rights tragedies, Myanmar.

Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, told the UN Human Rights Council that “the human rights situation in Myanmar is among the worst in the world.”

He described “a litany of human suffering that is difficult to fathom” and painted a picture of “conflict, displacement, and economic collapse” that have combined “to cause pain and misery across the country” with “civilians paying a terrible price.”

At least 15 million people face hunger in Myanmar this year, and two million or more are at risk of famine. Over 3.5 million people are displaced. Hunger is reaching “catastrophic levels.”

This comes at a time when the US has frozen international aid, and the United Kingdom, to increase defense spending, has cut its aid budget.

Schools, hospitals, clinics, homes, places of worship, and displacement camps have been bombed, and thousands of people, including women and children, have been killed.

And it may have slipped the world’s notice that the leader of Myanmar’s illegal regime, who seized power in a coup four years ago, General Min Aung Hlaing, is visiting Moscow this week to meet with Putin.

It is time to wake up to the importance of Myanmar and North Korea, both as human rights and humanitarian crises as well as geopolitically strategic crises.

Naypyidaw and Pyongyang could easily be disregarded as rather bizarre Orwellian backwaters. Min Aung Hlaing and Kim Jong-un could easily be dismissed as slightly amusing, eccentric, marginal figures.

But in reality, what happens in Myanmar and North Korea matters hugely to the rest of the region and, as a consequence, to the world.

This time around, North Korea’s human rights crisis cannot be ignored — it must be front and centre of any dialogue, if there is to be one.

About a week ago, I addressed the British Parliament, hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on North Korea. “The path to peace and security in the world passes through Kyiv, Pyongyang, and Taipei,” I said.

North Korea and Myanmar, human rights in China, the genocide of the Uyghurs, the atrocities in Tibet, the crackdown in Hong Kong, and the threats to Taiwan are all deeply interconnected, I said in conclusion.

If we are to pull back from the brink, prevent calamity, and defend our values, then we must pursue peace through strength and justice, not peace through capitulation, surrender, and kowtow.

Dictators — whether it is Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or Kim Jong-un — are bullies, and there is only one way to treat bullies: stand up to them. I hope the policy-makers in Washington, DC, across Europe, and Westminster will grasp that and act before it is too late.

Peace — throughout Asia, across Europe, and around the world — is possible. But only if accompanied by justice and security. A ceasefire might buy some time to rebuild and recover, but it also allows time for the aggressor to re-arm.

Only a genuine, lasting peace, with safeguards, is worth pursuing. Peace can only be achieved if free societies — from Washington, D.C. to London, Paris, and Berlin, from Canberra and Ottawa to Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei — stand up and stand firm.

Ultimately, this isn’t a war over land, territory, or resources, though they play a part. No, it’s a war about values.

Do we want to live in free and open societies in which governments are the servants of the people and are accountable to them, or closed, repressive, and authoritarian ones in which governments dictate every aspect of our lives?

Do we want to live in societies in which we can speak freely, or those in which we will expect the midnight knock on the door, arrest, imprisonment, torture, and slave labor for expressing our belief?

I know which I prefer.

As Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope St. John Paul II made so abundantly clear, true peace can only be achieved through strength. That is as true today across Asia, Europe, and the world as it ever was.

Now is the moment for the free world — collectively — to stand up for our values.

Let us banish the kowtow and ensure that we defend freedom. Together. That way, we can forge a just and lasting peace for us all.

This article was published in UCA News on 3 March 2025.