If we are liberals, we presumably believe in and defend liberty. Or do we? Now? Still? The liberal economic order crashed ten years ago with the result, on the one hand, that liberals have lost confidence and, on the other hand, that the enemies of liberty have gained in assertiveness.

The enemies I have in mind are the real and undisguised ones. In China, Xi Jinping has used his first term to tighten all the reins of dictatorship and to give his rule the underpinning of a new ideology of aggressive nationalism, under his slogan of the “China Dream.” In Russia, Vladimir Putin has completed a Kremlin-orchestrated kleptocratic consolidation, steered Russia away from a possible path towards democracy, and given his regime the underpinning of a fascistoid ideology under the slogan of “Eurasianism.”

Both these regimes, that of Xi in China and of Putin in Russia, are openly and unapologetically anti-liberal. Xi boasts of the “China model” that it is superior to democracy in effectiveness and has taken to promoting it to others. Putin speaks the language of enmity – Europe, the European Union, democracy, liberalism are enemies out to get Russia – and has made himself the bully in the international schoolyard. These are regimes in which liberty does not enter into the equation of governance and which are on a mission to outcompete (in China’s case) and destroy (in Russia’s case) the liberal opposition.

Both do that in part by undermining the liberal order in democratic countries. Russia is active in America to disrupt democratic procedures and stimulate social unrest and antagonism. European populism, wherever it rears its head, gets Russian encouragement. China uses its economic and ideological power to coerce businesses, universities, media, civil society groups and governments in Oceania, Asia, Europe and America to kowtow to its eminence and stay silent on anything critical of oppressive practices.

Both also operate in disregard of international law and norms of decency. Russia’s modus is denial – of any responsibility for the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs in Syria, of any responsibility for the shooting down of a civilian flight over Ukraine, at the cost of 298 lives, of any responsibility for political assassination (attempts) with illegal chemical weapons on British soil. China is building artificial islands in other countries’ waters in the South China Sea, and putting military bases on them, in contravention of international law and a ruling in the Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, and of previous commitments.

These regimes are now successful both domestically and internationally. At home, they do have opposition and therefore never relax oppression, but by and large their populations are accommodating to the fact of autocracy. In both cases, nationalistic ideology is deployed to do its usual magic of disguising oppression. Abroad, they are up against, if that is the word, Trump, Brexit and a European Union in crisis, which is to say next to no liberal leadership. Democracy itself is going illiberal, with the leader of the free world delighting in the company of dictators and on undermining established allies.

And we liberals individually? Do we still believe in liberty? Is liberty still the defining core of our value system? Are we still geared to defending it? Do we recognise that liberty is under attack and is eroding? Where is the liberal voice up against assertive and aggressive authoritarianism?

The world is in commotion. Where are the liberals?