On the opposite, it appears that evidently our world is barely changing into extra interconnected. Last 12 months, international commerce hit a report $28.5 trillion, up 25% year-on-year and 13% increased than in 2019, earlier than the pandemic struck. For all of the speak of decoupling, U.S.-China commerce swelled greater than 20% final 12 months, to $687.2 billion. Even with battle in Ukraine, international commerce is forecast to develop in 2022, albeit at a slower tempo.
Cross-border funding additionally surpassed pre-pandemic ranges final 12 months, swelling to $1.65 trillion. China, particularly, is extra built-in into the worldwide financial system than ever. In 2021, its overseas direct funding inflows rose by a 3rd to an all-time excessive of $334 billion. In the primary quarter of this 12 months, they grew by greater than 25% year-on-year.
Travel has been slower to get well and worldwide commerce as a proportion of worldwide GDP has fallen since its peak in 2008. At the identical time, globalization is evolving and surging in different, non-physical dimensions as nicely.
Monthly international information visitors soared in the course of the pandemic and is forecast to succeed in 780 exabytes by 2026, up greater than three-fold in comparison with 2020. Half 1,000,000 new individuals hook up with the Internet every day.
We are extra immersed in a worldwide sphere of photos and concepts than ever. Billions are watching what the New Yorker has dubbed “the first TikTok war” unfold by way of satellite tv for pc photos and livestreams from civilians and troopers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has harnessed the applied sciences of digital globalization, charming the world with selfie movies and addressing a number of nationwide parliaments by Zoom, one thing that may have been troublesome to think about earlier than the pandemic.
Why then achieve this many pundits nonetheless assume globalization is dying? In half, they seem like fixated on a selected set of U.S.-centric neoliberal concepts about globalization that prevailed after the Cold War.
One central perception is what New York Times columnist David Brooks calls “convergence globalization” — the concept that as international locations grew to become extra globalized and developed, they might develop into “more like us in the West.”
In actuality, as students Heather Berry, Mauro F. Guillén, and Arun S. Hendi report in a research cited by Brooks, “Over the last half century, nation-states in the global system have not evolved significantly closer (or more similar) to one another along a number of dimensions.” Globalization has not led to Americanization.
To the opposite, globalization is changing into much less American and extra, nicely, international.
While the U.S. was on the helm of worldwide commerce earlier than 2000, at the moment two-thirds of nations commerce extra with China. Since Trump turned his again on the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact and the World Trade Organization, the locus of multilateral commerce liberalization has shifted to Asia.
In international finance, whereas the greenback nonetheless reigns supreme, its share in international foreign money reserves fell from 70% in 2000 to 59% in 2020. Sanctions are accelerating efforts by Russia and different international locations to develop alternate options to the U.S. greenback and the SWIFT interbank messaging system.
In the cultural sphere, American popular culture faces rising competitors from alternate options comparable to Bollywood, Okay-pop, and Turkish cleaning soap operas. Last 12 months, the top-selling musical act (BTS) and hottest present on Netflix (Squid Game) had been South Korean, whereas the world’s most downloaded app (TikTookay) and largest style retailer (Shein) had been Chinese. Thus, whereas international flows proceed to develop, they’re comparatively much less mediated by Washington, Wall Street and Hollywood.
The second neoliberal assumption about globalization shattered by the battle in Ukraine is the assumption that market liberalization would launch a virtuous circle of peace, prosperity and openness, entwining the financial pursuits of states till battle between them grew to become unthinkable.
This thought will not be fully incorrect. But it fails to acknowledge that connectivity is a double-edged sword and that folks care about issues apart from cash.
As Mark Leonard writes in “The Age of Unpeace,” it’s more and more clear that connections which have knit the world collectively — from commerce to migration, international finance and the web — can be weaponized and develop into a supply of battle.
Around the world, governments are paying extra consideration to how globalization can threaten nationwide safety, residents’ pursuits and the surroundings. To mitigate these dangers and make globalization extra palatable, many are shifting away from Washington-style laissez-faire insurance policies to a extra hands-on method of “managed globalization.”
The European Union is a pioneer on this regard, adopting new guidelines on cross-border flows comparable to its General Data Protection Regulation and the forthcoming carbon border adjustment tax. China’s “dual circulation” mannequin may be seen as a type of managed globalization that seeks to harness its advantages whereas lowering publicity to exterior uncertainty. Even the U.S. is pushing for extra proactive measures to handle transnational flows, comparable to a worldwide minimal tax on multinationals.
This heralds a extra measured method to globalization that takes long-term resilience and political realities into consideration, not a wholesale retreat to autarky. We have entered a part of worldwide integration pushed by new forces, one which will likely be extra numerous and extra managed than the one which got here earlier than. And that needn’t be a foul factor.
More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:
• For Infosys, the World Is No Longer Flat: Adrian Wooldridge
• How to Be a Winner From De-Globalization: John Authers
• EU Versus China: Is There a Global Marketplace?: Lionel Laurent
This column doesn’t essentially replicate the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its homeowners.
Wang Huiyao is founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing and vice chairman of the China Association for International Economic Cooperation.
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