History offers a warning about unchecked power. As Donald Trump reshapes US foreign policy, the risks of personal rule and predatory hegemony are becoming harder to ignore.

Mark Beeson

How times change. For many years one of the standard criticisms of the Chinese system of governance, both in ancient times and in the present, was and is the ‘ bad emperor problem’. When so much power is concentrated in one person, what happens if you get a leader that is mad, bad or simply corrupted by the exercise of unchallengeable power?

For over 2000 years from the Qin to the Qing dynasty, China has suffered at the hands of leaders who were often corrupt or incompetent, eventually leading to the end of dynastic system itself at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This wasn’t the end of China’s problem with megalomaniacal leaders, of course. Mao Zedong emerged from the rubble of the old order, but eventually he, too, succumbed to the intoxicating influence of unbridled power and unleashed the (not-so) Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, during which tens of millions died.

Xi Jinping has certainly centralised power and overturned precedents to continue his rule, but with the noteworthy recent exception of the senior ranks of the military, purges and disappearances are uncommon. Even independently-minded captains of industry have been incorporated into existing power structures, rather than eliminated.

Thus far no one is suggesting that Donald Trump’s second incarnation will result in the sorts of horrors that distinguished the Cultural Revolution –barring an accidental nuclear war, of course – but there’s a growing chorus of opinion that, at best, his cognitive facilities are in decline, and at worst he’s already showing signs of outright madness.

The most forthright and persuasive example of the latter thesis has been provided by Stephen Walt. Walt is a respected international relations scholar, and the journal Foreign Affairs is one of the most influential policy-oriented journals in the world. If you’re going to sound off about American foreign policy this is the place to do it.

Walt argues that Trump has transformed the United States from the notional foundation of the rules based international order – from which even rivals like China benefited – into a ‘predatory hegemon’. Trump’s version of hegemony is designed “to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.”

If this sounds like something else from Chinese history, that’s because it is. At least China’s version of the tributary system had some real benefits and relatively modest costs for lesser powers, not least a stable regional order and access to China’s advanced culture and ideas about effective governance.

In the Trumpian tributary system, by contrast, any benefit accrues almost exclusively to the United States, or more accurately perhaps, Trump’s inner circle of sycophants, cronies and titans of the tech world. States like Qatar (luxury jet), Switzerland (1kg gold bar), South Korea (gold crown), and even organisations like FIFA (peace prize) have spared no expense or self-respect in an effort to ingratiate themselves with America’s utterly shameless, self-obsessed, egomaniacal emperor.

Perhaps if it was ‘only’ Trump’s desire to monetise the presidency for his family and friends that was at stake we might all roll our eyes and just wait for his departure. Even assuming he doesn’t run again, though, his predatory regime may do incalculable damage to the old order he despises in the meantime. As Walt points out, “European states will be pressured to embrace the Trump administration’s commitment to blood and soil nationalism and its hostility to nonwhite and non-Christian cultures or religions.”

Given that the European Union, for all its current problems, is the best example of ‘middle powers’ cooperating effectively that the world has ever seen, this would be a major setback for progressive politics everywhere. Any hope of standing up to coercive great powers, as Mark Carney suggested in his recent, widely noted speech, looks forlorn.

When supposedly prominent and effective middle powers like Australia cannot make even the mildest criticism of the world’s most consequential and dangerous rogue power, the chances of a coalition of the concerned forming in opposition to Trumpian megalomania are not good. Indeed, Australia’s has developed its own unique form of tribute by bailing out American (and British) shipyards as part of the disastrously ill-conceived AUKUS project.

Trump’s not noted for his grasp of history, but someone should point out that dynasties generally end badly. Hopefully, American democracy will reassert itself, and his administration will be disempowered at the mid-term elections – if they happen. Failing that, perhaps America’s defence forces will remember their commitment to the constitution and civilian authority and refuse to become a weapon of domestic repression.

Alarmist? I certainly hope so. But not even America is immune to the damage a bad emperor can do.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/02/americas-bad-emperor-problem/

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