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Welcome to a new world. It will be divided between the great rising power, China, and the superpower, the United States. The coronation crisis has accelerated competition and has increased the intensity of a long-lasting conflict.
Let’s look at the “small” image. President Trump and his allies in Congress are urgently looking for an alibi to justify the disastrous treatment of the virus. Where China’s leadership has excelled, Trump is now pressuring American intelligence to “verify” his own theories about the origin of the crown. At the same time, it has ordered the imposition of sanctions on China. According to the main American newspapers, even the unilateral cancellation of the US debt with China is being studied, which is unlikely, since it would dethrone the dollar once and for all from its hegemonic position.
China is also stepping up its rhetoric and its own propaganda. It certainly has a responsibility because the global alarm did not sound on time, nor did it give a complete picture of the intensity and danger of the virus.
Everything indicates that China will be at the center of the United States electoral campaign. The “yellow fever” will prevail, because that is the only way out for Trump. But because there are real problems hurting the American middle class, Biden will follow suit. The danger of a trade war and the escalation of protectionism is real and possibly catastrophic.
Let us now turn to the “big” picture. China has set ambitious goals that serve them with dedication and without the inherent difficulties of the American system. It is systematically exerting its influence at a time when the United States is in a phase of introversion and dissolution of post-war institutions and ties to the rest of the world.
We live in an era of artificial intelligence. The world will divide in two. In countries that will use Chinese technology and data, and in those that will be based on Americans or Westerners. Since everything will be based on artificial intelligence, dependence will be absolute. The same is true of the dilemmas posed by the United States and China, “with us or with others.” We see it in stiff competition around the 5G system, as the United States requires that other Western countries not adopt the Chinese system, even if it has no other integrated system to propose. The dilemmas will intensify and relate to everything, and the world will become more and more like the bipolar world of the Cold War.
And Europe? Ideally, you would like Chinese money without political dependency on them and the United States’ umbrella of protection without Trump-type blackmail. They both look amazing now.
Perhaps this world that is being formed is more stable. On the other hand, the planet needs cooperation between the United States and China because new threats, from climate change to pandemics, demand it.
The truth, however, is one. Neither Greece, Italy nor Germany can face this new world on their own. Financially, the sizes are overwhelming. I still remember a statistic I read in a book. China produces a “Greece”, the equivalent of Greek GDP, that is, every four months.
European countries are relatively small players. This will only change if Europe decides to take itself seriously and decides that moderate power is not enough to take it seriously at the table where world power is redistributed.
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