China's Central Economic Work Conference, Pax Sinica and the global order
- By Sumantra Maitra
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 2, 2016
The mainstreaming of the Chinese currency, and the recognition of the Yuan as a global currency signifies, more than anything, the economic health of China on which world hopes are pinned. These economic factors, more than anything, should signify the liberal fundamental economic order is healthy and is actually much more inclusive that it was decade earlier.
If one glosses over the economic argument, one will realize, the Douthat analysis is not as much a lament of the world order passing, as a lament over the loss of Pax Americana. However, these have never been the same, and it was a mistake to even think they were. The order itself is not dying, and world is not descending into total disorder, just mutating.
The threats to the order are not suicidal. The populist parties in Europe and U.S. are all rallying against loss of sovereignty and micromanagement in the EU, and it's really economic sovereignty that has a direct correlation with job losses in Europe. All the anti-migrant rage is really over this, more than societal.
If one looks at the other side of the ocean, both the Republicans and Democrats are running on a Nativist anti-trade agreement, as the chief argument is, again, related to Asian giants stealing American jobs.
In the Middle East and Africa, masses are fleeing towards an imagined better future, leaving a dark, stagnated continent where the economic future is bleak. The generational jihadis in the West are a bunch of depressed lost boys and girls who never saw proper jobs and have never taken responsibility for their lives.
In the sea of civilization, the eventual tide changed from Pax Britannica to Pax Americana quite smoothly after WWII. In Asia, perhaps we'll see a Pax Sinica in the future, only time will tell. However, what one can welcome is there's no great power, and certainly not China and/or India is rising up with a declared goal of destabilizing the established order.
China's recent Central Economic Work Conference is a testimony of that mainstreaming and burden sharing of global economy. American analysts in the 1990s constantly asked China to be a part of responsible global citizenry, with shared economic prosperity, and they should now welcome the prospect when it is actually approaching reality, rather than lamenting a loss of alleged global hegemony.
Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm
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