LAST WEEK, in a pretty and highly curated parade, Chinese leader Xi Jin Ping proclaimed a new world order defined by the usual his talking points: Multi-polarity and a new, egalitarian globalization.
I couldn’t help but think that Xi was trying to imitate George Bush Sr., and doing so poorly.
For one thing, multi-polarity is defined by different super powers and power blocks that are either hostile or ambivalent to another, while globalization can be described as the world falling under one bloc or hegemon, which allows for open free trade and travel. These two things are mutually exclusive. Either you have one or the other.
But of course, Xi and the China Communist Party (CCP) probably don’t care. Of all the countries in the world, it was them that have economically benefited from America’s unipolar/globalist moment. So they naturally want to keep that process going, but with them in charge this time. And the Chinese believe that they can create an egalitarian globalization.
This is laughable because this was how the Americans had originally presented globalization to the world. The idea was that we all engage in the free market of goods, labor and ideas under the aegis of the “Rules-Based Order.”
But that was not how globalization happened, partly because certain countries took advantage of the global free market to gobble up market share, and partly because many countries had interests which conflict with globalization.
The only reason it lasted this long was because the Western World prioritized what it saw as global institutions over its national interests. To put it another way, the Western world subsidized globalization.
If China wants a new globalized order, it will have to do the same, and I don’t think they can. China will have to open their markets, eliminate monetary devaluation, accept the free market, abandon economic nationalism, etc. to make globalization work. Even within their own BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc, Chinese trade and investment is tariffed by Russia and India.
The point here is that the CCP cannot even create a knock-off version of globalization. They were a client, not its patron, and Xi is delusional if he thinks he can create an order that is both multipolar and globalist./PN
