Will China And India Lead The Next Wave Of Globalisation?
Advertisements
Globalisation is supposed to be in retreat. How, then, do you reconcile the following? Since 2005, the number of travellers crossing international borders each year has risen by around half, to 1.2 billion. The number of people using the internet has soared from 900,000 to more than 3 billion. By 2020, their ranks are projected to exceed 4 billion, while the number of connected digital devices is forecast to more than triple, to nearly 21 billion. Global data flows, which have exploded by tenfold over the past decade, to 20,000 gigabits per second, are also projected to triple by 2020.
For better or for worse, the globalization train has long since left the station, and the idea that one can turn it back is utterly naive. Whatever might have been done differently before US President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972 is no longer possible. The fate of China, and its role in the world, is now in the hands of the Chinese and their leaders.
The world needs India’s sustained rise, as much as India needs the world. Our desire to change our country has an indivisible link with the external world. It is, therefore, only natural that India’s choices at home and our international priorities form part of a seamless continuum. Firmly anchored in India’s transformational goals, Modi says at the opening of the Second Raisina Dialogue.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening plenary of the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos. Here are 10 quick takeaways from the 50-minute address, which touched upon globalization, protectionism, world economy and China’s development among other subjects.
Anti-globalisation has gone global, and its apostles offer comfort and deliverance in a shared language of nationalism and xenophobia. Trumpism is partly a response to international competitive pressures, and so is the Xi phenomenon, with its triumphal message of a nation once humiliated by the West now gloriously ascendant.
Tens of thousands of people from all around the world had come to see the miracle happen. A giant Chinese ship carrying an astonishing 9,000 containers approached the locks. And then it happened. Seven years after the works were first started, and 102 years after the opening of the first canal, the new, expanded Panama Canal quite literally opened its doors. The crowd cheered, the ship passed through. The canal was open for business.
Realpolitik made a comeback in 2014. In the immediate post-Cold War-era, during those years when America enjoyed its unipolar moment, international politics as it had been usually understood seemed to have been eclipsed. The world began to focus more on the liberalization and globalization of the world economy, the spread of democracy, and the threats posed by non-state actors.
It’s about time that diplomacy adapted to modern times. Information is no longer privy only to embassies. Today, many private intelligence firms, think tanks, and NGOs have better access to quality sources than experienced diplomats do. And the idea that diplomats should exclusively represent their governments in other countries is now obsolete.
In a report last year, the Pew Research Center noted a marked increase in legal restrictions on the practice of religion around the world. The report found that “The share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose from 31% in the year ending in mid-2009 to 37% in the year ending in mid-2010” and that three quarters of the world’s population live in countries with “high government restrictions on religion.”
