The announcement of the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as the Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” was the cap on a week that raised crucial questions about the future nature of Western power and, with it, China’s role in the world.
In addition to the landmark news, we also saw Xi Jinping taking on a central role at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro as U.S. President Joe Biden couldn’t even make it into the group photo, the ongoing drip feed of Trump appointments, each raising striking new questions about how the apparatus of U.S. power will be wielded, and of course the yawning North-South split that, as I write, is threatening the collapse of the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan.
