A brief meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali between the Canadian prime minister and the Chinese president resulted in a brief admonishment session. A moment that many hastened to call the humiliation of the Prime Minister by the President, of Canada by China. However, there are still many unanswered questions, including how someone as skilled as the Chinese leader could let a camera “fly” a moment like this, or whether the staging is skillful — or even just timely. The only certainty: in the diplomacy of the bully and in an asymmetrical relationship, humiliation serves as an example for those who would risk opposing a dominant power.
However, the notion of humiliation is neither painless nor trivial. It is sometimes even the engine of a revenge policy, the founding myth of a movement, the cornerstone of a decision-making process. History is dotted with these moments of which the Treaty of Versailles has become the archetype. And it still defines certain contemporary positions. In Turkey, Erdogan invokes the humiliating dismantling of the “sick old man of Europe” after the First World War to justify a foreign policy that breaks with the West.
Putin has made the humiliation suffered in 1990, when NATO came to settle on his doorstep, the heart of his policy of invading Ukrainian territory. The People’s Republic of China itself has embraced as its founding narrative the “century of humiliation” (1839-1949) at the hands of foreign powers—a narrative corroborated for example by the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war in Yugoslavia. Humiliation was also the engine and the instrument of the Islamic State group, which used the hashtag #SykesPicotOver extensively.
Bully diplomacy
One should not, explains political scientist Robert E. Harkavy, underestimate the role of “national humiliation” in the quest for revenge in international politics. This is also what the French president put forward, to the great displeasure of the Ukrainians, when he explained to the allies that Russia had to be left a way out, that it was necessary to be careful not to “humiliate”. It is obvious, respond its detractors, that there is a whole palette of colors between degradation and compromise.
For Bertrand Badie, who has published a book on the subject, humiliation is a pathology that plagues relations within the international system, to the point of fueling the asymmetry of relations between powers and altering the cardinal notion of equality between states. Professor Badie, like Dr. Evelin Lindner, who conducts her research on dignity and humiliation, believes that the solution lies in multilateral governance of the planet. Conversely, in an international system that is crumbling, recourse to humiliation becomes more usual, because it is less sanctioned by the norms, the law, or even simply the opprobrium of the international community.
Marie Durrieu, who has published a book on the role of humiliation and respect as variables of international negotiations in major conflicts in the Middle East, also analyzes the heavy legacy of Trump to Biden in this area. Because through his practices, the former president used humiliation as an instrument of his diplomacy of bully. He has, explains Durrieu, humiliated Iran by denouncing the Iranian nuclear agreement, by ordering the assassination of General Soleimani – flouting Iraqi sovereignty in passing – the Palestinians by moving the United States embassy to Jerusalem , the Kurds in Syria abandoning them to their own fate, Angela Merkel refusing to shake his hand when they met in 2017, Prime Minister of Montenegro Dusko Markovic pushing him to stand in front of him in the photo at the NATO summit in 2017, Theresa May, then Prime Minister, arguing that Boris Johnson would make an excellent head of government, during his visit to England in 2018, or Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly paid the price of the morgue condescending from the Republican President.
Humiliation as a mode of governance
Trump praised those who were defined as enemies of the country, humiliated his allies, and these practices have permanently damaged the reputation of the United States in the world and contributed to further weakening the liberal international system. The use of this tool, whether to invoke or impose humiliation, therefore represents a real risk, because these emotions, explain Khaled Fattah and KM Fierke, ultimately fuel asymmetric political violence.
But humiliation is Trump’s narrative, whether it’s demeaning his opponents or uplifting white America and restoring dignity to the so-called “deplorables” belittled by Hillary Clinton. There is behind the principle of “America First” as he defended it and still defends it, this notion of humiliating abuse by others, by the system, by the elites, by the allies. The humiliation suffered and imposed therefore becomes a mode of governance. It is possible when the institutions, and the checks and balances no longer work. When decency is no longer the lowest common denominator of political life. It is the prevalence of this process over the next two (six?) years that many experts fear, and the trivialization of its use.
Because the same is true in international relations: humiliation and humiliating practices are the result of lame multilateralism and narcissistic leaders. They help to further fuel the instability of the system, which then exacerbates the need for revenge and the decoupling of the world. We must therefore see the event in Bali as the symptom of a system that is eroding, of a Chinese superpower that wants to ensure that it maintains a middle power in its place, and of an American power that aspires to remain a leader when his reputation is significantly damaged.