Tony Blair: The era of Western dominant is coming to an end

The former British prime minister said Western powers must increase their defence spending to preserve their military primacy.

He said that Vladimir Putin's invasion “brutal and unjustified<1> in Ukraine indicated that the West could no longer expect the world's automatically major powers to adhere to accepted international standards.

“As a result of Putin's actions, we can no longer rely on the Chinese leadership to behave in a way that we consider rational”, he said.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying China will try to force Taiwan into the near future. But we can't base our policy on the certainty that they won't,” said Blair.

He said this century's greatest geopolitical change will come from China, not Russia.

“We are approaching the end of the Western political and economic dominance,” he said.