China, Russia take up globalism mantle from U.S.

UNITED NATIONS — Days after U.S. President Donald Trump denounced globalism before world leaders at the United Nations, China and Russia positioned themselves Friday as defenders of internationalism that are keeping promises when Washington is backing away from them.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi denied his country was trying to eclipse the U.S. as a world leader, but his speech at the U.N. General Assembly was a stark contrast to Trump’s “America First” message. It came amid rising tensions between the U.S. and China, which Trump accused this week of interfering in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. China denies the claim.

Russia is also facing U.S. accusations of election meddling, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced as “baseless,” but didn’t dwell on.

His country has been working to make itself a counterweight to Washington’s global influence, and Lavrov used his speech to lash out at U.S. policies in Iran, Syria and elsewhere and vigorously defended multilateral organizations such as the U.N.

“Diplomacy and the culture of negotiations and compromise have been increasingly replaced by dictates and unilateral” moves, Lavrov said. In a swipe at U.S. and EU sanctions over Russia’s own activities abroad, he said the Western powers “do not hesitate to use any methods including political blackmail, economic pressure and brute force.”

Lavrov and Wang were hardly the only leaders to defend the concept of multilateralism at this week’s U.N. gathering of presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and other leaders. But coming in the wake of Trump’s proclamation that Americans “reject the ideology of globalism,” the Chinese and Russian speeches sounded a note of rebuttal from competing powers.

Taking up the mantle of multilateralism isn’t without self-interest for Russia and China.