On January 20, 2026, a speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, caused a major stir. Prime Minister Carney stated that “there is a rupture in the world order” and pointed out that the behavior of great powers is shaking the existing international order. He went on to argue that middle powers must cooperate with one another and work to build a new world order.

The most noteworthy point in his speech was that he effectively acknowledged that the so‑called “rules‑based international order,” which was said to have existed until now, was in many respects built on fiction. He likened this to the way the communist system under the former Soviet Union had sustained itself, saying, “The strength of a system derives not from its veracity but from the collective will of people to behave and act as if it were true.” Furthermore, while admitting that countries like Canada had prospered under this “order,” he also said, “We knew that the story of an international, rules‑based order was partially false. We knew that the strongest countries have exempted themselves when it suited them, that trade rules have been enforced asymmetrically, and that the stringency of the application of international law has depended on who the defendant or the victim happens to be.”

Looking objectively at events over the past few decades, it should be obvious that the so‑called “rules and values” asserted by the United States, Canada, and their allies were in fact a fiction. However, political leaders in the Global North and the mainstream media have, for decades, used their influence over the information environment in many parts of the world to construct and constantly maintain the illusion of such rules and values. The Japanese media are no exception.

This article revisits the fictitious nature of the so‑called “rules‑based international order” and explores the past and present role of Japanese news organizations in sustaining it.

Carney speaking at the Davos meeting (Photo: World Economic Forum / Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0])

What is the “rules‑based international order”?

To begin with, what this “rules‑based international order” specifically means has been unclear from the start. Usage of the term surged around the time when the United States and its allies launched an invasion of Iraq in 2003 in clear violation of international law. This invasion followed, by four years, the large‑scale bombing the U.S. and its allies carried out against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the name of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That bombing campaign too was a violation of international law and used force to change the country’s borders.

This sequence of events suggests that the phrase “rules‑based international order” was used either to refer to an order separate from international law or to divert attention away from international law. This order has been led by the United States and its allies, and its meaning has been defined in line with those countries’ interests. In recent years, there has also been a view that the term is used as “a tool for distinguishing the U.S. from a more assertive Russia and China.”

It is no coincidence that the idea has emerged that the “rules‑based international order” is now in the process of collapsing. When the current U.S. administration essentially abandoned the elaborate fiction it had long repeated as justification for U.S.‑led and allied military interventions around the world—namely that they were “defending democracy and human rights”—it became clear that this order was on the verge of breaking down. More importantly, however, this rupture has meant that attacks that were once directed at the Global South are now being directed at allies in the Global North as well. The clearest example is the Trump administration’s moves to gain control of Greenland.

Global North countries have not, until now, actively treated this rupture in the “rules‑based international order” as a problem. For instance, when the U.S., together with Canada and France, backed a coup in Haiti in 2004 and kidnapped democratically elected president Jean‑Bertrand Aristide, no cries were raised over a crisis of order. Nor was there an outcry in 2011, when U.S. allies in NATO joined the Obama administration in a campaign of bombing to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power, after which he was killed, or when that same administration expanded its use of bombing and drone assassinations in other countries. Likewise, when under the Biden administration the U.S. actively supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza, no “rupture of the order” was recognized. Democracy, human rights, and international law, it seems, have not served as yardsticks for this “rules‑based international order.”

British and American troops aboard a military transport aircraft in Afghanistan, 2012 (Photo: Corporal Andy Benson (RAF)/MOD / Wikimedia Commons [Open Government Licence])

As Canada’s prime minister acknowledged, this kind of “order” functioned because middle powers in the Global North benefited from it. Canada was one such country and at times was directly involved in violations of international law. As noted above, the Canadian military was complicit in the 2004 kidnapping of Haiti’s president. The primary motive behind this intervention is seen as dissatisfaction with the Haitian government’s move to raise the minimum wage for workers. The wage hike risked affecting companies—including in Canada’s apparel industry—that outsourced production to Haiti and similar countries.

Similarly, the Japanese government has relied on the U.S. for its security and has consistently supported U.S. administrations. When the U.S. has violated international law, Japan has tended either to be supportive, as during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or uncritical, as during the bombing of Iran in 2025. While it sometimes mentions the need for diplomatic solutions, such calls are limited.

Media that sustain the fiction

As GNV articles have analyzed in the past, the Japanese media have played a major role in sustaining the illusion of a “rules‑based international order.” They have continued to portray the United States as a defender of democracy and human rights, or as the “world’s policeman.” Such portrayals have persisted despite the U.S.’s long history of military interventions in other countries, overthrowing democratic governments, and supporting dictatorial regimes that violate people’s human rights.

The Japanese media are sometimes critical of illegal U.S. actions abroad, but on the whole they tend to be highly understanding. For example, in reporting on the 2026 kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, they have consistently referred to the incident not as an “abduction” but as a “detention.”

The Japanese media also sometimes bend reality to the limit in order to cast the U.S. in a favorable light. This phenomenon was also evident when, after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration decided how to handle the assets of the Afghan central bank that had been frozen by the U.S. government. The U.S. seized half of the 7 billion U.S. dollars it held and announced that it would return the other half as “humanitarian assistance.” Japanese coverage of this issue barely mentioned the fact that the U.S. had appropriated half of the funds, and all headlines of related articles in major outlets presented the episode as news about U.S. “humanitarian assistance.”

Media scrum (Photo: Microgen / Shutterstock.com)

The Japanese media showed interest in the Canadian prime minister’s remarks in Davos in 2026. However, they did not use the occasion to reconsider their previous narratives. In coverage of Carney’s remarks, there was almost no discussion of his claim that the “rules‑based international order” had been fiction in many respects from the outset. One Asahi Shimbun article did mention the recognition that it was a “fiction” sometimes used to suit the interests of major powers, and the paper’s digital edition published the full text of the speech, but the content of multiple articles on the speech focused mainly on the collapse, or current “rupture,” of the “order” that had previously been thought to exist. The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun did not touch on this point at all and confined themselves to reporting as if a “rules‑based international order” had once actually existed and were merely failing to function now.

Which “table” is being referred to?

Another suggestive line in the Canadian prime minister’s speech in Davos was: “Middle powers must work together and act. If we are not at the table, we will be on the menu.”

What exactly is the “table” he is referring to? It is interesting that the discussion of the collapse of the “rules‑based international order” took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The forum can certainly be described as one “table” where global issues are discussed. The annual meeting is held as a venue that ostensibly hosts “discussions to address global challenges and set priorities.” In reality, however, it is clearly designed as a forum for the powerful and the wealthy. Most of those in attendance are powerful government leaders and CEOs of large corporations, and to enjoy the privilege of sitting at the “table,” one must pay a hefty participation fee. The fact that people from Africa and Latin America together account for less than 10 percent of participants reveals a great deal about how the “global challenges” taken up at the meeting are chosen.

The G7 and G20 are also “tables” that attract strong interest from the Japanese media. These are groups set up specifically to bring together the world’s wealthiest countries for discussions aimed at tackling issues in line with their shared interests. The economic clout of these countries gives them agenda‑setting power that extends beyond the meetings themselves, and what is decided in such forums can influence other, broader venues of international politics.

These groups, however, are far from representative of the world, a fact the Japanese media tend to forget. For example, when Japan hosted the G7 summit in Hiroshima in 2023, the government stressed the importance of listening to Global South countries and working with them. A handful of Global South countries were invited and allowed to take part in some discussions, but they were not given decision‑making power. The Japanese media did not question the obvious: a summit of just a few of the world’s richest countries is hardly an appropriate forum for building effective ties with the Global South. They simply parroted the Japanese government’s emphasis on the need for cooperation between the G7 and the Global South. An analysis of coverage from this period showed an unprecedented surge in use of the term “Global South,” but the change proved to be temporary.

United Nations General Assembly (Photo: Patrick Gruban / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 2.0])

The world does have a highly global and representative “table” where global issues are discussed: the United Nations. The UN has many flaws, but it provides various bodies, specialized agencies, and forums where all the world’s countries can gather, deliberate, and make decisions. The Japanese media’s interest in this institution does not appear to be very high. This trend is evident from the fact that they have done little coverage of the financial crises facing the UN and its specialized agencies.

For example, despite the fact that the number of displaced people worldwide has doubled over the past decade, the severe funding shortfalls faced by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have received almost no coverage in the Japanese media. Similarly, the media have rarely addressed the surge in the number of people facing food insecurity (which has doubled since 2019) or the funding crises at UN agencies that provide food assistance to these populations.

Media fascinated by power and wealth

A survey of Japanese international news coverage shows a strong focus on countries that sit at exclusive “tables” such as Davos and the G7, and on issues those countries deem important. The United States, for example, is at the center of Japan’s international reporting and plays a central role in shaping how Japanese outlets frame the world. Coverage of the U.S. alone accounts for 25 percent of the international news provided by Japan’s mainstream media. Moreover, reports on events and issues in other regions of the world are often framed through U.S. involvement and perspectives.

This tendency is also evident in the strong interest major Japanese outlets show in the Eurasia Group’s annual ranking of the world’s “top 10 risks.” NHK, for instance, has devoted considerable attention to this ranking. Yet almost all the “risks” it highlights are issues directly concerning the U.S., its European allies, and its main competitors (China and Russia). Given that the Eurasia Group is a firm “dedicated to helping investors and business decision‑makers understand the impact of politics on foreign markets,” this narrow view of global challenges is hardly surprising.

Gap between rich and poor, Mumbai, India (Photo: Swauli / Shutterstock.com)

By contrast, the Japanese media almost never cover other rankings and reports released at the start of each year on the main challenges facing the world. The International Rescue Committee’s annual assessment of humanitarian crises, the “Emergency Watchlist,” for example, has ranked Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis for three years running. There is also virtually no coverage of Oxfam’s annual reports on global inequality, which are released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos. Oxfam’s 2026 report revealed that billionaire wealth has grown at a record pace and that “the world’s 12 richest billionaires now own more wealth than the poorest half of humanity.” Japan’s major newspapers have reported on neither of these publications.

GNV data have consistently shown that coverage of low‑income countries as a whole is chronically scarce. One analysis statistically demonstrated that the higher a country’s poverty rate, the lower the likelihood it will be reported on in the Japanese media. Another study has shown that the media have consistently failed to report adequately on the massive and rapid expansion of global inequality, particularly the widening gaps following the COVID‑19 pandemic.

The Global South on the menu

On the surface, the Canadian prime minister’s metaphor of the “table” reflects a fear of being removed from the place where the world’s “meal” is divided up and consumed. In a broader sense, it is also a claim that middle powers are being treated unfairly by the so‑called great powers. At the same time, however, it can be read as an acknowledgment that the vast majority of the world’s countries (those in the Global South) have long been placed “on the menu.” In other words, Canada fears being treated like those countries it has exploited, along with other middle powers, in order to enjoy its own benefits.

There is no end to examples of how Global South countries are treated in this way. Sometimes a major power acts with the explicit aim of toppling a particular government and does so in ways that harm that country’s population. At the same World Economic Forum in 2026, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S.’s “maximum pressure” on Iran had “worked; the economy collapsed in December,” and he called this “a very good thing.” The U.S. government has for many years used similar tactics against many other countries, particularly Cuba, where the U.S. blockade has continued for decades. A study published in The Lancet in 2025 estimated that unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union caused approximately 564,000 deaths per year between 2010 and 2021. Neither these remarks nor these research findings have been covered by the Japanese media.

Bessent being interviewed at Davos (Photo: World Economic Forum / Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0])

More broadly, the exploitation of people in Global South countries for profit has been widespread and routine. These exploitative practices are mainly carried out by powerful corporations and are often protected and promoted by their home governments. The rules and power imbalances surrounding trade and finance have enabled rampant unfair trade in resources and unfair labor in production. Governments in the Global South and workers with little bargaining or pricing power rarely enjoy the benefits of their own resources and labor. The Canadian government has promoted the expansion of activities by Canadian mining companies abroad, with the result that its firms have come to dominate this sector globally. The industry has been repeatedly criticized for siphoning off wealth at the expense of people in the countries where the minerals are located.

In addition, tax havens enable tax avoidance and evasion on a massive scale by draining profits from the Global South and hiding them offshore. Attempts by Global South countries to tighten regulations in order to improve this situation have so far been blocked by the governments of Global North countries that benefit from the system. The Japanese media also rarely report on such efforts or on international conferences aimed at correcting these problems, such as the UN Financing for Development (FfD) conferences.

In conclusion

Japan, like Canada, appears to be concerned about being removed from the “table” and losing the right to enjoy the “meal” that is currently on the “menu.” Above all, it wants to avoid finding itself on that “menu.” It is understandable that Japanese media, which seek to view the world through the lens of Japan’s national interests, would regard this as an important concern. At present, however, they continue to depict the pursuit of those interests as if it constituted a benign or even charitable “international order,” while turning a blind eye to how the world actually works. In the end, such reporting may not even serve Japan’s own interests.

Workers in a gold mine, Indonesia (Photo: mohamad halid / Shutterstock.com)

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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