Peter Bills: Crisis of leadership ought to alarm West

As the Western world loses faith in its leaders, China is rising with an authoritative President at the helm

As the Western world loses faith in its leaders, China is rising with an authoritative President at the helm

If ever you wanted to see the quintessential passing of an era, a single image seemed to define it better than any at the recent G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea.

A meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his American counterpart Barack Obama offered a fascinating contrast in image, body language and composure.

The Chinese leader sat there with a steely glare at the cameras that told of his power. His suit was smart and authority oozed from every pore.

But Obama, shifting slightly in his chair, looked uncomfortable, ill at ease. A nervous grin flashed occasionally across his face.

The scene ruthlessly encapsulated the changing of fortunes for these two great nations. As the Chinese Empire rises inexorably, fuelled by a flood of exports, the American Empire seems in decline. Massive debt levels (principally to China), recession, unemployment, social ills at home - wherever you look in America, problems seem omnipresent.

Obama's woes seem to rise daily. Humiliated in the mid-term elections, he increasingly looks in danger of becoming a lame duck President for the remainder of his term.

And if the Republicans can find a candidate of credibility, it seems very likely the middle ground that rushed to embrace Obama might defect to the soft-right.

In a sense, Obama is paying the price all leaders in the Western world are paying. There is a growing disenchantment with the political classes in most Western democracies.

Britain, Ireland, France, the US, Greece, Italy - all their leaders, recent past or present, are suffering from a crisis of confidence.

People no longer believe in those leading them; witness the appalling verbal assaults on former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown leading up to his election defeat and Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowan for his handling of the economic crisis. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has had his effigy burned in the streets.

This crisis of leadership ought to alarm. Weak, craven leadership beset Germany, France and Britain in the inter-war years from 1920 to 1938. The cost of that became apparent. Where vacuums form, extremists emerge.

In bad times, shrewd guidance from the top is essential. Instead, what too many countries of the Western world have seen are their politicians milking the system for their own advantage, indulging in party politics and cronyism.

Is it any wonder there is widespread disillusionment? Is it a surprise that China's brutally effective autocracy begins to seem a more effective system than the corrupt and tired democratic model with tainted leaders the Western world offers right now?