Are China and the US missing opportunities?
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E-mail Beijing Review, January 6, 2016
I believe that today's major power rivalries are, to a large extent, part of a prolonged ending of the Cold War. Though the world has moved on, there will always be those who cling to old ways and pretend that all new problems were just variations of those of the past.
Third, on the economic front, we found divergence in both growth and cooperation. In 2015, the U.S. economy picked up significantly. As the United States registered a quarterly growth rate of 2-3 percent, it brought down unemployment and maintained its lead in innovation. Such a performance stood out in the Western world where other economies did not fare so well. However, it has been generally noted that the momentum gained by the world's largest economy has done little to boost global recovery. On the other hand, people have been worried about the possible "spillover" effect of the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate hike, waiting for the other boot to drop. (The U.S. Federal Reserve decided on December 16, 2015, to raise benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, the first in nine years since 2006.) Some have described the U.S. recovery as "sucking vitality from the rest of the world" as is seen is happening at the cost of capital reversal and market decline in Europe and emerging economies, and could actually weaken the prospects of a global recovery.
At the same time, the Doha round of the World Trade Organization's multilateral trade negotiations appears to exist in name only. The United States, in order to maintain dominance in global economic affairs, has pushed harder on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements to set new rules without including all the major economies. One cannot help but suspect that the United States, instead of tearing walls down, is building new ones. Does that mean that in the future the global economic order will again move toward exclusive blocs?
Fourth, on the cultural front, while globalization has enabled the free, open and convenient flow of people, the results of such openness are now being examined. It seems that the trends of cultural divergence and cultural convergence are struggling with each other. According to the World Tourism Organization, tourists around the world make more than 1.1 billion visits every year across global destination. In 2014, the Chinese people alone made over 100 million overseas visits. With so many globetrotters, how to keep them safe is a big challenge for every government.
Developed countries have long upheld the banner of human rights, which are also the core principle of their refugee and immigration policies. However, such values are being challenged when confronting terrorism and extremism. European countries are reflecting upon whether they are able to deliver on what they have preached. However, if we shut the doors of communication among different regions and groups and allow "deglobalization" to become the mainstream of this era, will the world be divided again? And how is that a safer world?
Globalization gained full speed following the end of the Cold War. Capital, technology, talents and labor have been flowing from the developed centers of Western countries to other areas. China is a beneficiary of this trend as it has enjoyed its reform and opening-up goals on the back of globalization and has established itself as a crucial part of global wealth accumulation.
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