What Happened to “the West”?

As America Drifts Away From Its Allies, a Less Peaceful World Awaits

Stewart Patrick

September 18, 2025

The Peace Statue near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 2018Joshua Roberts / Reuters

It has become commonplace to speak of living in a “post-Western world.” Commentators typically invoke the phrase to herald the emergence of non-Western powers—most obviously China, but also Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and the Gulf states, among others. But alongside the “rise of the rest,” something equally profound is occurring: the demise of “the West” itself as a coherent and meaningful geopolitical entity. The West, as understood as a unified political, economic, and security community, has been on the ropes for some time. Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president could deliver the knockout blow.

Since the end of World War II, a tight-knit club of economically advanced democracies has anchored the liberal, rules-based international system. The group’s solidarity was rooted not only in shared threat perceptions but also in a common commitment to an open world based on free societies and liberal commerce—and the collective willingness to defend that order. The core members of this cohort included the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, the members of the European Union, and several allies in the Asia-Pacific, such as the former British dominions of Australia and New Zealand, as well as Japan and South Korea, which became integrated into the postwar U.S. alliance system and adopted the liberal principles of democratic governance and market economics. The West formed the core of the so-called free world during the Cold War. But the West outlasted that bipolar conflict and even expanded its boundaries to include a number of former Soviet bloc countries and some former Soviet republics through the expansion of NATO and the European Union.

Over the past 80 years, Western countries have created numerous institutions to advance their common purposes, most prominently NATO, the G-7, the EU, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Equally important, these countries have coordinated policy stances within more encompassing multilateral frameworks, such as the United Nations and its agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization, and the G-20.

To be sure, periodic divisions and tensions have stressed Western solidarity. Prominent examples include the Suez crisis of 1956, French President Charles de Gaulle’s challenge to NATO’s integrated command structure in the 1960s, U.S. President Richard Nixon’s abrupt suspension of dollar-gold convertibility in 1971, the Euromissile crisis of the 1980s, and transatlantic acrimony over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

But none of these episodes have tested the West’s cohesion nearly as much as Trump’s return to the White House. Since January, the president has adopted a full-throated “America first” orientation in foreign, economic, and national security policy. His vision for the U.S. role in the world is hypernationalist, sovereigntist, unilateralist, protectionist, and transactional. In contrast to his presidential predecessors, he rarely speaks about American global leadership, much less responsibility. He disdains alliances, multilateralism, and international law. He cares little about democracy, human rights, and development—and he has dismantled the U.S. capacity to promote them abroad. He repudiates his country’s role in contributing to global public goods, including open trade, financial stability, climate change mitigation, global health security, and nuclear nonproliferation. And he is the most prominent champion of the ascendant right-wing, nationalist political forces in Europe and North America, appealing to a vaguer, civilizational notion of the West and casting doubt on the abiding importance of the geopolitical West

Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a G-7 summit in Alberta, Canada, June 2025Amber Bracken / Reuters

Trump’s shifts have stunned the closest U.S. partners. “The West as we knew it no longer exists,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, declared mournfully in April. Western leaders have sought to paper over these inconvenient truths, including at their June G-7 and NATO summits, with obsequious efforts to flatter, humor, and cajole Trump.

But von der Leyen’s observation continues to echo because it resonates with what other leaders believe and say, if often sotto voce: this time it really is different. The passing of the West as a meaningful entity will come with great loss. It will leave the open, rules-bound international order adrift, without its historical anchor and main motor for progress. The liberal notions that underpinned the geopolitical West were fundamentally universal; the nationalist ones that raise up the civilizational West are instead fixated on the defense of borders and fear of others. Beyond endangering liberal principles domestically, these trends are likely to accelerate the rise of illiberal multilateralism, a bare bones international order shaped and even dominated by authoritarian great powers. To be sure, the fading of the West does provide an opening for constructive middle powers to build new networks of international cooperation tailored to the twenty-first century. But it also augurs a less peaceful, less cooperative world than the one the West helped make.

Empire By Invitation

During the Cold War, the West emerged as a coherent and unitary geopolitical actor, comprising a bloc of (mostly) democratic countries opposed to the Soviet Union and its satellites—the “East,” in common parlance—and distinct from the countries of the “global South”—a postcolonial terrain where much of the East-West global competition unfolded in bloody fashion.

This bipolar arrangement was not the international system the United States had envisioned during World War II, when American postwar planners drafted blueprints for an open international order based on universal membership, multilateral principles, and great-power comity and cooperation, especially as embodied by the newly minted United Nations. The confrontation with the Soviet Union foiled these best-laid plans and led the United States to adopt a policy of containment. If there were indeed “two worlds instead of one,” as the U.S. diplomat Charles Bohlen concluded in 1947, when Moscow imposed total control in Eastern Europe, the United States had little choice but to unite the “non-Soviet world . . . politically, economically, and in the last analysis militarily.”

The doctrine of the containment of communism thus gave birth to a more concretely geopolitical—as opposed to nebulously civilizational—West, soon embodied in new institutions such as NATO, an integrating Europe, and the OECD. The West became an order within an order, a club of market democracies nested within a more encompassing global system populated by large membership organizations such as the UN, the World Bank and the IMF, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Over time, this inner order came to include a more diverse array of market democracies, most notably Japan, which were not Western in any traditional cultural sense but embraced liberal political and economic principles. When some analysts today refer to the “global North,” they are speaking of that inner order.

A shared attachment to democracy, as well as capitalism, underpinned Western solidarity. The preamble to the Treaty of Washington (1949), which established NATO, pledges members of the alliance to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” Cynics may dismiss such language as sentimental window-dressing, but they are wrong. These commitments tangibly affected allied behavior, shaping how Western countries understood their national interests, communicated with one another, and settled occasional disputes, so that, for instance, the notion of war among members of the inner order became inconceivable. To be sure, this cohort often valued democracy more among fellow members of the West than they did among the countries of the developing and postcolonial world, particularly those whose publics were tilting leftward.

Beyond shared ideals, Western allies could take comfort in Washington’s consensual leadership style, which softened the reality of U.S. dominance. President Dwight Eisenhower endorsed this orientation in his first inaugural address, in January 1953, in language that today appears to be from a bygone era: “To meet the challenge of our time, destiny has laid upon our country the responsibility of the free world’s leadership. So it is proper that we assure our friends once again that, in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the stimulus of emergencies.” To the degree that the United States enjoyed an imperium within the West, it was, in the historian Geir Lundestad’s words, an “empire by invitation.”

The West is now splitting apart.

The West persisted as a meaningful geopolitical concept and entity even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its concomitant East. It would have been natural for a club that formed in opposition to the Soviet Union to lose definition after that rival disappeared. But at least during the 1990s, the cohort did not fragment into competing blocs and rivalries or produce efforts to undercut American unipolarity. Indeed, there was a widespread if naive expectation that the world’s community of market democracies—the West, in other words—would inexorably expand to encompass more of the world, as other countries embraced liberal, universal values and the normative architecture of the open, rules-based international order.

These hopes would not be borne out. Instead of the universalization of the West, the world saw the rise of the rest, a diverse array of major and regional powers bent not only on raising their voices in international institutions but also, in some cases, on challenging the organizing principles of those institutions. More gradually and subtly, the West began to take on a more civilizational dimension, a process accelerated by the September 11 attacks and the ensuing “war on terror” and the crises of mass migration and subsequent nativist outrage in the 2010s.

Despite these challenges, Western solidarity itself held firm, even after Trump’s tumultuous first term. The community of advanced market democracies revived during the administration of President Joe Biden, confident not only in U.S. security guarantees but in Washington’s broader commitment to liberal principles and the vision of an open, rules-based international order. By and large, Western governments continued to follow Washington’s lead, because they regarded the United States as a stable investment and were confident that if the going got tough, the United States would have their backs and would bail them out. It was an arrangement built on trust, underpinned by a commitment to common values, shared rules, and mutual obligations.

A House Divided

Eight months into Trump’s second term, that trust has now been shattered. At their G-7 and NATO summits in June, U.S. partners gamely tried to paper over growing frictions, including about Trump’s imposition of heavy tariffs, browbeating of allies to ramp up defense expenditures, and unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Bowing and scraping, the assembled leaders praised the president for his boldness, glossing over the reality that his relentless bullying is a profound departure from the consultative style that has long set relations among Western countries apart from run-of-the-mill diplomacy.

The closest U.S. allies can no longer take Washington’s security guarantees for granted. The president’s bombast and capriciousness have led many European countries to increase their defense spending—a positive outcome, to be sure, and not inherently at odds with the notion of a unified, geopolitical West. But Trump has also alienated allies and revitalized long-floundering EU efforts to pursue strategic autonomy, which would allow the bloc to not only punch at its weight militarily but also pursue an independent geopolitical path. In the Asia-Pacific, too, allies worry about the United States suddenly canceling their insurance coverage. As Trump assaults the rules-based multilateral trading system with sweeping tariffs, U.S. allies are likewise moving to diversify their commercial options and engage with more reliable partners, remodeling the global trading system in the process.

Such hedging behavior is consistent with public sentiment. Opinion polls in Europe reveal cratering approval for the United States and dwindling confidence in the transatlantic alliance. In the spring of 2025, only 28 percent of respondents deemed the United States to be a “somewhat reliable ally”—down from more than 75 percent a year before.

One institutional casualty of Trump’s disengagement from the West is the G-7. From its origins in the 1970s, the G-7 has been a symbol of Western solidarity and a pillar of global economic governance, uniting the most important advanced market democracies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the EU. Although many wrote its obituary during the global financial crisis, when it risked being eclipsed by the G-20, it came roaring back to life in 2014, when the Western members of the then G-8 ejected Russia for supporting secession in eastern Ukraine and annexing Crimea. Trump, however, has repeatedly criticized Russia’s expulsion and made no secret of his disdain for the G-7—even quitting its 2018 summit in a huff. Many observers now refer to the body as the “G-6 plus one.” This U.S. estrangement from the G-7 risks depriving its members of something that the more heterogeneous G-20 can never provide: a like-minded club in which the world’s leading market democracies can harmonize policy stances consistent with their commitment to an open, rules-bound world based on shared liberal principles.

Caught between Trump’s unilateralism and misgivings about China, Western middle powers are beginning to explore new, flexible partnerships with rising middle powers in the developing world, part of a broader trend toward an international system defined by “multi-alignment,” in which countries pursue maximum flexibility in their diplomatic, economic, and security relationships rather than align consistently with particular great powers or blocs. Indeed, this is precisely what is happening, with the EU and its individual members trying to craft tighter commercial ties and closer diplomatic links with countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa.

The Fading Of The West

During his first term, when he was constrained by institutionalists, Trump occasionally invoked the concept of the West. Speaking in Warsaw in July 2017, the president declared that “the fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” Given his actual conduct in office, which has involved cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other autocrats, it is clear that Trump understands the West not as a Cold War–era geopolitical entity undergirded by common threat assessments and a commitment to liberal values but rather in its older, ethnonationalist, and more amorphous connotation as a common civilization based not on liberal political principles but shared geographical and historical roots.

The West is now splitting apart, as its meaning drifts from one of geopolitical and ideological solidarity toward a more civilizational concept, particularly in the United States, and confidence in the transatlantic and other alliances erodes. As its internal divisions come to the fore, it seems fair to question the coherence and utility of the category itself. There is irony in this predicament. For years, critics in the United States and Europe have been skeptical of the catchall concept of the global South, dismissing it as an impossibly broad label to apply to a diverse collection of more than 100 postcolonial and developing countries. What explanatory purchase could the term possibly afford, given the varied histories, cultural inheritances, political institutions, economic circumstances, strategic orientations, and regional ambitions of the cohort it purports to encompass?

The question today is whether the geopolitical West as a category merits similar skepticism. The once taken-for-granted strategic and ideological solidarity among the United States and other major market democracies has frayed. The unmaking of the West has not been Trump’s doing alone. Nor is it a case of simple bifurcation, with the United States heading off in one direction as its erstwhile partners head in another. Across most advanced democracies, electorates are increasingly polarized, resulting in dwindling support for the political center and the delegitimization of moderate parties and governments. Cosmopolitan progressives and conservative nationalists are at each other’s throats, including over the very meaning of the West.

These tensions came to a head publicly and prominently at the Munich Security Conference in February. There, U.S. Vice President JD Vance outraged his largely European audience by depicting “woke” restrictions on the free speech of the continent’s far-right political parties as a greater threat to Western freedom and security than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the heart of his critique was a blood-and-soil conception of the West, one rooted—like Vance’s concept of the American nation itself—not in a devotion to the shared political principles of the Enlightenment but in a civilizational identity and an organic sense of place.

Instead of the universalization of the West, the world saw the rise of the rest.

For decades, the world’s advanced market democracies have stood together in crises, defended human rights and other liberal values, and generally sought to harmonize and coordinate their policies within both minilateral clubs and more encompassing international organizations, including the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions. The demise of the West as a reliable geopolitical unit will increasingly see the United States and its former partners acting at cross-purposes and finding themselves on the opposite sides of debates. This is not simply an inevitable function of declining U.S. hegemony in the international system. One could imagine a gradual renegotiation of leadership and burden sharing within the West, with, for instance, greater allied responsibility for collective defense. Washington’s abandonment of internationalism and any concern for liberal norms and agenda setting is leading to a divergence of values and threat perceptions among Western countries that will fundamentally break the solidarity of the geopolitical West.

This rupture is profound because it is taking place in the inner core of the world order that has existed since the 1940s. It also creates a choice for the world’s middle powers, not only in the West but also among emerging economies that have no desire to replace U.S. with Chinese hegemony. Emerging powers have long complained that they have been excluded from the global high table. The current fluid moment provides an opportunity for the likes of Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa to collaborate with advanced market democracy counterparts, such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, which may be looking for new partners in the post-Western world.

But the welter of arrangements that may arise to replace the vanished certainties of the old order will not be able to replicate that order’s greatest outcome. The West, the inner order that emerged in the crucible of the Cold War, was a zone of peace. Its members would never war with one another. In its absence, the West leaves behind a world that will be more prone to suspicion, hostility, and conflict.

_________________________

Stewart Patrick is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America With the World.

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters descend on London

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters descend on London

By SABRINA MILLER, NEWS REPORTER 17 September 2025 Daily Mail UK

holding giant balloons of US President in nappy, dragging MAGA effigies and waving placards branding him a 'fascist'

By SABRINA MILLER, NEWS REPORTER

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters descended on London this afternoon, holding giant balloons of Donald Trump in a nappy and waving effigies.

Large crowds marched on Westminster, packing Parliament Square, as the US President and his wife Melania were hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.

The event was initially billed as a demonstration by the Stop Trump Coalition of 50 organisations, angry that the UK was again hosting the veteran Republican.

But the protest quickly took on the feel of a pro-Palestinian march, with chants of 'free, free Palestine' and the distinctive black white green and red flag seeming to outnumber anti-Trump banners.

It was a much more sedate affair in Windsor, where just a handful of protesters braved the dreary September weather to make clear their opposition to President Trump, who has historically aligned himself strongly with Israel.

Indeed the smattering of demonstrators outside the Castle were outnumbered by the world's media and a large police presence.

Thames Valley Police put large barriers in place as part of security measures, with the entirety of the two-day state visit taking place behind closed doors, at Windsor Castle and at Sir Keir Starmer's countryside residence Chequers, where the Trumps are due visit tomorrow.

Meanwhile, 25 miles east of Windsor in central London, one activist made their feelings known by dragging an effigy of the President.

But the numbers were swelled by demonstrators from left-wing groups including Amnesty, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War, who waved Palestinian flags and chanted 'Stop the hate, stop the fear. Donald Trump's not welcome here' and '1234 Occupation no more. 5678. Israel is a terrorist state'.

Campaigners marched from near the BBC's Broadcasting House in Portland Place to Parliament Square while holding signs which stated: 'End the genocide. Stop Trump' and 'Resist fascism. Resist Trump'.

Some protesters carried smaller versions of the Trump baby blimp, which became a symbol of demonstration during the President's first UK state visit in 2019.

One man - who arrived at the march dressed up as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - held up a sign stating: 'War criminals for Trump'.

Rosemary Strivens, 70, who arrived wearing a Palestinian neck scarf known as a keffiyeh, said: 'We hate what is happening in America with Trump.

'We feel that democracy is threatened.

'Black people. Women. Immigrants. They are all threatened in America.

'We think he (Trump) is scum.

'I feel that Trump could bring to an end the genocide in Gaza and he hasn't done anything.'

Protesters arrived at Parliament Square shortly after 4pm, and featured a number of speeches in which references to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and former Trump ally Elon Musk were met with boos from those assembled. 

Veteran singer-songwriter Billy Bragg performed for the crowds, while former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Zarah Sultana, who have formed a new political party, also spoke.

New Green Party Zack Polanski leader said the President Trump's second state visit was 'absolutely outrageous'.

Speaking at the rally, attended by up to 5,000 people, according to the Metropolitan Police, said: 'Of course, we should have a relationship with the American president who's democratically elected, but to give him a state visit, millions of pounds spent on security, a red carpet, the pomp and ceremony of everything that's happening - that's absolutely outrageous.' 

Zarah Sultana, who is forming a new political party with ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, also gave an address to crowds

'What we're seeing is this rolling out the red carpet for a man who absolutely does not represent British values.'

A handful of counter protesters - including members of Turning Point UK - also tried to engage with anti-Trump activists.

Two people were arrested in Windsor for incidents linked to the state visit, Thames Valley Police said.   

A 56-year-old woman, of no fixed address, was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker and using threatening or abusive language, while a 36-year-old man, also of no fixed address, was held on suspicion of public order and assault. 

Further, smaller protests are planned outside parliamentary buildings across the four nations tomorrow and Friday.

UK and US agree $42 billion tech pact to mark Trump's visit

UK and US agree $42 billion tech pact to mark Trump's visit

By Paul Sandle and Sam Tabahriti September 16, 2025

Summary

• UK's Starmer hails 'Tech Prosperity Deal' with US
• US firms including Microsoft, Google pledge big UK investments
• Pact announced as Trump's second state visit to UK gets underway

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Britain and the United States have agreed a technology pact to boost ties in AI, quantum computing and civil nuclear energy, with top U.S. firms led by Microsoft pledging 31 billion pounds ($42 billion) in UK investments.

The "Tech Prosperity Deal" is part of U.S. President Donald Trump's second state visit to Britain, which will include a day of pomp at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, hosted by King Charles and the royal family.

Britain said the pact included joint efforts to develop AI models for healthcare, expand quantum computing capabilities and streamline civil nuclear projects. It added that it would support economic growth, scientific research and energy security in both countries.

STARMER UNDER PRESSURE TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the deal had the potential to shape the future of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, and deliver growth and security.

The U.S. is Britain's single largest country trading partner, and its big tech companies have already invested billions of dollars in their UK operations.

Starmer, under pressure to reverse years of weak economic growth, now wants to pitch Britain as a destination for further investment by opting for the light touch regulation favoured by the United States in areas such as AI, as opposed to the more interventionist approach of the European Union.

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are greeted by Viscount Henry Hood, representing Britain's King Charles, as they arrive for their state visit to Britain, at London Stansted Airport near London, Britain, September 16, 2025. REUTERS/Chris Radburn 

The Trump administration has criticised European online safety laws and digital taxes, including those in Britain, but they were not part of the discussions over the pact.

US TECH FIRMS INVEST IN THE UK

Under the deals announced, chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab said it would deploy 120,000 graphics processing units across Britain - its largest rollout in Europe to date.

It is working to deploy up to 60,000 Grace Blackwell Ultra chips with UK-based Nscale, which will partner OpenAI in a UK leg of the U.S. company's giant Stargate project and tie-up with Microsoft to establish Britain's largest AI supercomputer.

Microsoft said it would invest 22 billion pounds in total to expand cloud and AI infrastructure as well as in the supercomputer, which will be in Loughton, north-east London.

Satya Nadella, chair and CEO of Microsoft, said it wanted to ensure that America remained a trusted and reliable tech partner for Britain. Its president, Brad Smith, said relations had improved hugely since the "dark days" before the UK's antitrust regulator dropped its opposition to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying he felt "enormously better".

David Hogan, vice president for enterprise at Nvidia, told reporters the investments would "truly make the UK an AI maker, not an AI taker".

Google announced a 5 billion-pound investment, including a new data centre in Waltham Cross, north of London, and continued support for AI research through its DeepMind project.

Cloud computing firm CoreWeave (CRWV.O), opens new tab said its 1.5 billion pound backing would fund energy-efficient data centres in partnership with Scottish firm DataVita, bringing its total UK investment to 2.5 billion pounds.

Other firms announcing commitments include Salesforce (CRM.N), opens new tab, Scale AI, BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab, Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab, Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O), opens new tab and AI Pathfinder, with investments ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion pounds.

Putin, Netanyahu March On

 

The Gen Z revolution spreading in Asia

Nepal is just the most recent country to have seen the ruling elite toppled by frustrated young people

Andres Schipani  in Kathmandu    FT 15-09-2025  

The streets of Kathmandu are marked by the signs of revolution. The stains of crusted blood on the pavement being washed away by the late monsoon rains; crushed china inside the ransacked residences of politicians; the stench of smoke from torched public buildings. 

But it is an inscription with black marker on a marbled wall of the charred parliament building set on fire in Nepal’s capital last week that encapsulates the moment: “From now, only Gen Z youth will be in this place. Corrupt leaders will be sent out of the country. Long Live Nepal. Long Live Gen Z youth”.

The demonstrations in Nepal have been called the protest of “Gen Z” — which generally refers to people born between 1997 and 2012 — after young people, some in school uniforms, took to the streets against what they saw as an ageing and crooked political elite.

After two days of deadly and destructive protests, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned last Tuesday. The police said on Friday that the death toll from the turmoil had reached 51 nationwide, with almost 1,400 injured. 

The initial rallies were sparked by a government ban on leading social media platforms but became a tipping point of long-standing sentiment against politicians and their families seen as corrupt. 

“We were just there to revolt against corruption,” says Anjali Shah, a 24-year-old law student who saw some of her fellow protesters being shot at with live bullets by the police. “We felt that they can ban us online but we can still be on the streets demonstrating against the government, demanding to know where our taxes are going, how they are having these lifestyles with a public servant’s salary while we struggle.”

Nepal, where the median age is 25, below the Asian average of 32, embodies a growing regional trend where elder leaders of Oli’s generation clash with disenfranchised, ambitious and often unemployed young people who are fed up with politics as usual and a lack of opportunities. 

It is just the latest domino to fall. Amid a dire economic crisis in Sri Lanka in 2022, tens of thousands of protesters, mainly youngsters, converged on Colombo, the commercial capital, and over-ran the presidential palace. Then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, now aged 76, fled the country on a military aircraft for the Maldives. In Bangladesh two years later, students from Dhaka University led an enormous popular uprising that eventually forced the country’s authoritarian ruler, 77-year-old Sheikh Hasina, to flee to India.

Indonesia briefly looked like it might be next last month. Students took to the streets over news of members of parliament rewarding themselves with lavish housing allowances of $3,000 per month — 10 times the minimum wage in the capital Jakarta — at a time of broader economic weakness. President Prabowo Subianto, 73, was able to stem the unrest by scrapping parliamentary perks and firing his finance minister.

A soldier stands guard outside the government’s main administrative building in Kathmandu last week. Despite promises of a new Nepal after the 2006 uprising that brought about the end of the monarchy, the republican era failed to bring stability to the country © Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

The common factors in all these insurrections are ageing and entrenched political classes in Asian developing economies where the younger generation sees the spoils of growth reverting back to elites and not improving their own lives. Youth unemployment in these countries is high, as are corruption levels. Although each set of protests is unique and specific, some experts see them as connected. 

“Across the region the Gen Z are signalling to the political leaders that they want change. These young people also don’t have the same reverential attitude towards political leaders that perhaps the elder generation had,” says Shafqat Munir, senior fellow with the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies in Dhaka. “Today’s Gen Z are very global in their outlook, they see what happened in other countries. The internet for them is not just a means of communication but literally their lifeblood that can ignite a firestorm.”

Nepal’s Marie-Antoinette “let them eat cake” moment came from social media itself.

Weeks before the ban, videos were circulating on Instagram and TikTok purporting to show the expensive cars, handbags and vacations enjoyed by politicians’ offspring, with hashtags such as #NepoKid and #NepoBabies.

The images of apparently extravagant lifestyles among the families of the powerful proved incendiary in a country that ranks 107th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption index and where the per capita income is $1,400 a year — lower than all of its South Asian neighbours, barring Afghanistan, according to World Bank data. 

“Citizens don’t have salt. But you have to eat on gold and silver plates,” reads an Instagram post showing the offspring of some senior Nepali politicians drinking champagne. 

Law student Shah says: “The starting point of this movement was a social media trend of exposing the ‘Nepo Kids’, politicians’ children having lavish lifestyles and showing that off on their own social media, while we are struggling with not having safe drinking water, no jobs, no opportunities in a country that has very high levels of corruption.” 

Some of the protesters on the streets of the Himalayan nation wedged between India and China are too young to remember the last time Nepal was convulsed by protests that delivered radical change. The 2006 uprising paved the way for Nepal’s former autocratic king to end the country’s 239-year-old monarchy. 

But despite promises of a new Nepal, the republican era failed to bring stability to a country scarred by 10 years of civil war. It has had more than a dozen governments in the years since and many of the same political actors have remained on the stage — including Oli, a four-time prime minister, building up the frustrations from the new generation that grew up seeing their hopes of reform crushed by an old guard.

“The state continued to be unresponsive to the ordinary citizens’ concerns, and the prime ministers, and the political elite, continued to behave like they were the new kings, thinking no one could challenge them,” says Amish Raj Mulmi, a Kathmandu-based political writer and author of All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn to China. “This frustration, this rage, blew up this week, as it had in other countries where discontent among the youth was widespread, as in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and recently Indonesia.” 

In Bangladesh, the upheaval began with a protest against a job quota system in public service seen to favour the then-ruling Awami League party. 

“But very quickly, it became clear that this was about something much larger,” says Nahid Islam, leader of Bangladesh’s National Citizen Party, which formed out of the student groups that led the “Monsoon Revolution” last year. “It was a rejection of a fascist political settlement, of entrenched corruption, and of an old style of politics that no longer served the people — only the regime’s loyalists and a ruling dynasty.” 

There, as in Nepal, a heavy-handed response by authorities inflamed the situation. Police and security forces violently suppressed protests, shooting live ammunition into crowds and targeting students. Some 1,400 were killed, yet demonstrators continued to take to the streets despite the danger. 

Similarly in Indonesia, protests escalated after a police vehicle ran over and killed a 21-year-old motorcycle ride-hailing driver near one of the demonstrations in central Jakarta while he was delivering. 

“[His death] just poured oil to the fire as it symbolised how the rich and powerful are running over the weak and poor,” says Achmad Sukarsono, an associate director at consultancy Control Risks.

Much like in Nepal, he says, Indonesian lawmakers’ out-of-touch behaviour, corruption scandals involving government officials and the social media-driven culture that “glorifies showboating of elite status even when protests were already happening across the country just pushed public anger to boiling levels”.

At least 10 died in the demonstrations, which saw several regional parliament buildings set on fire. Angry mobs broke into and looted the homes of then finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, and several MPs.

“If parliamentarians are exercising their role as representatives of the people, they will be more sensitive to the real pains that people are suffering,” says Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a professor at the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia, but they are “living in their own little bubble”.

Countries in south and south-east Asia typically have larger than average shares of young people, according to UN figures. In 2023, people aged 15 to 24 made up one-fifth of Nepal’s population, above the global average of 15.6 per cent, for example.

A young population should be an economic boon, bringing innovation, technological skills, new ideas and an energetic workforce. Yet in parts of Asia the supposed demographic dividend remains unseen. Not enough jobs are being created to absorb what could be a productive workforce.

According to estimates from Nepal’s department of foreign employment, some 700,000 Nepalis a year have left the country recently in search of a better future, mainly to rich countries in the Gulf, draining out a population of 29mn.

Remittances sent back by migrants working abroad have been “central” to Nepal’s economic growth, according to the World Bank, but have “not translated into quality jobs at home, reinforcing a cycle of lost opportunities and the continued departure of many Nepalis”. 

According to the UN’s International Labour Organization, more than 80 per cent of the workforce in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal is informally employed. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, with Sri Lanka’s jobless rate among people aged 15 to 24 being about 22 per cent last year, while Nepal’s stood at 21 per cent — higher than the global average.

“The discontent of the youth in parts of Asia is primarily due to the corrupt and authoritarian character of the regimes, but it also reflects socio-economic frustration,” says Christophe Jaffrelot, a South Asia expert with Sciences Po in Paris. “Inequalities are increasing everywhere, between the super-rich and impoverished middle-class young people affected by joblessness.”

But those youth have grown into a force to be reckoned with. In Bangladesh, they created the National Citizen party, which will participate in next year’s election and has pledged to draft a new democratic constitution for the country if elected.

In Sri Lanka, the youth vote was crucial to the surprise election last year of leftist outsider Anura Kumara Dissanayake to the presidency. The 56-year-old had promised to end corruption and remove privileges from the country’s elites.

The common links between the Gen Z is our age group and dissatisfactions. We got somehow influenced by our neighbours

In Nepal, representatives of the Gen Z groups managed on Friday to secure the appointment of a former chief justice, Sushila Karki, who is seen as untainted by corruption, to take over the reins of a caretaker government, in an attempt to fend off those trying to sequestrate their Himalayan revolution.

The streets are now calm in Kathmandu. While a maze of military checkpoints stand in between the shells of burnt-out cars and what’s left of government buildings smoulder, youngsters are “trying to rebuild our country right now”, says Sudan Gurung, one of the leaders of the ‘Gen Z’ movement.

Things have already started: at Karki’s behest, the president quickly dissolved parliament and called for a fresh general election, set for March.

“The common links between the Gen Z is our age group and dissatisfactions. We went out to protest against corruption and demanding accountability and transparency from politicians,” says Yatish Ojha, another Gen Z demonstrator. “We got somehow influenced by our neighbours in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”

The 25-year-old Ojha acknowledges that, in the capital, “we never thought we were going to overthrow the entire political regime within two days”.

Additional reporting by A Anantha Lakshmi in Jakarta

Major right-wing, anti-immigration march in London

Over 100,000 take part in major right-wing, anti-immigration march in London

Several Israeli flags and MAGA hats seen at demonstration organized by far-right firebrand Tommy Robinson, as some protesters mourn slain US activist Charlie Kirk

By Agencies and ToI Staff 13 September 2025

Anti-immigration and right-wing protesters walk through central London waving flags during a 'Free speech' march, on September 13, 2025. (CARLOS JASSO / AFP)

LONDON — Over 100,000 protesters marched through central London on Saturday, carrying flags of England and Britain, for a demonstration organized by the firebrand anti-immigrant and anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.

Police have said they will have a huge presence in the British capital. A “Stand Up to Racism” counter protest is also due to meet nearby, following a highly charged summer in Britain that has seen protests over immigration and free speech.

By midday, tens of thousands of protesters were packed into the streets south of the River Thames, before heading toward Westminster, seat of the UK parliament.

Demonstrators carried the Union flag of Britain and the red and white St George’s Cross of England, while others brought American and Israeli flags and wore the MAGA hats of US President Donald Trump.

They chanted slogans critical of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and carried placards, including some saying “send them home.” Some attendees brought children.

“We believe the number of people in attendance at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration is around 110,000,” London’s Metropolitan Police said, noting it used a combination of CCTV and police helicopter footage for its estimate.

‘We believe in Tommy’

Robinson has billed the Unite the Kingdom march as a celebration of free speech. Protesters also chanted slogans mourning Charlie Kirk, the American conservative activist shot dead on Wednesday.

“Hundreds of thousands already pack the streets of central London as we Unite as one for our freedoms,” Robinson said on X.

“Bring your smiles, flags, and patriotic pride. No masks, open alcohol, or violence,” he added in another message.

Robinson, a far-right firebrand, boasts a string of criminal convictions and a big online following after years of spearheading a fervent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant movement.

The 42-year-old — whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — has long been a familiar sight at far-right rallies in England, but his influence was thought to be waning after various legal and other woes.

He describes himself as a journalist exposing state wrongdoing and counts US billionaire Elon Musk among his supporters. Britain’s biggest anti-immigrant political party, Reform UK, which has topped opinion polls in recent months, has kept its distance from Robinson, seemingly due to his criminal convictions.

“We want our country back, we want our free speech back on track,” said Sandra Mitchell, a supporter attending the rally.

“They need to stop illegal migration into this country,” she said. “We believe in Tommy.”

Speakers included French politician Eric Zemmour and Petr Bystron of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Far-right commentator Katie Hopkins and controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson also featured.

The event came just over a year after anti-immigration riots swept several cities, which Robinson was accused of helping to fuel with incendiary online posts.

There have been months of rising tension around asylum seekers coming to Britain on small boats across the Channel, as well as growing accusationsthat  Britain is becoming hostile to free speech.

London’s Metropolitan Police has said it will have more than 1,600 officers deployed across London on Saturday, including 500 brought in from other forces. In addition to policing the two demonstrations, the force is stretched by high-profile soccer matches and concerts.

Right-wing protesters march through central London waving flags on September 13, 2025. (CARLOS JASSO / AFP)

“We will approach them as we do any other protests, policing without fear or favor, ensuring people can exercise their lawful rights, but being robust in dealing with incidents or offences should they occur,” said Commander Clair Haynes, who is leading the policing operation.

Haynes said police were aware of a record of “anti-Muslim rhetoric and incidents of offensive chanting by a minority” at previous protests, but said London’s communities should not feel like they have to stay at home.

Last Saturday, nearly 900 people were arrested at a London demonstration against a ban on the protest group Palestine Action.

Immigration has become the dominant political issue in Britain, eclipsing concerns over a faltering economy, as the country faces a record number of asylum claims. More than 28,000 migrants have arrived in small boats across the Channel so far this year.

Red and white English flags have proliferated along streets and been painted on roads. Supporters call it a spontaneous campaign of national pride, but anti-racism campaigners see a message of hostility to foreigners