The news about U.S.-China relations has been decidedly negative lately, particularly since U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s fiery speech criticising the Chinese government on October 4. But now, amid the trade war and continuing tensions in the South China Sea, there are glimmers of hope for a thaw.
Economic power, like any tool, can have unfortunate results if wielded unwisely, producing unwanted short-term consequences and prompting the long-term decline of U.S. economic leadership. Today, Washington is increasingly using its economic power in aggressive and counterproductive ways, undermining its global position and thus its ability to act effectively in the future.
During the past three decades, there has been a momentous change in the global economy. One of the most troubling and puzzling features — the failure of poor countries to catch up to developed countries — has seemingly been overturned.
As the consensus in D.C. shifts toward taking on an increasingly aggressive China, ideas about how corporations relate to the state will also have to change—or else undermine their new stated national framework.
The world is changing faster than ever before. With billions of people hyper-connected to each other in an unprecedented global network, it allows for an almost instantaneous and frictionless spread of new ideas and innovations. Combine this connectedness with rapidly changing demographics, shifting values and attitudes, growing political uncertainty, and exponential advances in technology, and it’s clear the next decade is setting up to be one of historic transformation. But where do all of these big picture trends intersect, and how can we make sense of a world engulfed in complexity and nuance? Furthermore, how do we set our sails to take advantage of the opportunities presented by this sea of change?
The global economy is undergoing a far-reaching transformation. Change is being driven by shifts in countries’ populations, productivity, wealth, power, and ambitions, and accelerated by US President Donald Trump’s moves to reshape supply-chain structures, alter cross-border investment incentives, and limit the movement of people and technology across borders.
Kate Raworth thinks false assumptions made by the men who began devising modern economic theory 250 years ago explain much of the inequality, environmental destruction and social injustice rampant in the world today. Correct these errors, she argues, and a new way of thinking about money could start to change the world.
As the U.S.-China competition expands across multiple domains, there are even worries that trade tensions could, over the long term, make the prospect of a military confrontation between the two more likely. Which raises the urgent question: How does this end?
Because the World Trade Organization tends to operate beneath the surface of the global rules-based trading system, it is easy for people to forget the indispensable role that it plays. But now that the Trump administration is waging a quiet war on the institution, the international community must stop taking it for granted.
Over the past decade, the world’s largest central banks — in the United States, Europe, China and Japan — have expanded their balance sheets from less than $5 trillion to more than $17 trillion in an effort to promote the recovery. Much of that newly printed money has found its way into the financial markets, where it often follows the path of least regulation.
