While we should take China's new global role with a pinch of salt, one thing should be clear to all: global governance is in shambles. The recent failure of the G7 meeting in Taormina, Sicily, with the lack of agreement on measures to tackle climate change and the refugee crisis, is only the latest event to signal a breakdown of international cooperation. The unipolar world order of American hegemony is over.
This is not necessarily bad news: the so-called Pax Americana has been anything but peaceful, ushering in an endless string of wars that have inflamed the Middle East. But the risk of moving from a unipolar to an anarchic world system is real. A system where powers vie for influence - in Eastern Europe or in the South China Sea - in a zero-sum game of opposed national interests always one step away from catastrophe. [...]
Multinational corporations are increasingly able to play one state against the other to drive a fiscal bargain all but unimaginable for small and medium enterprises. Well beyond Apple's infamous 0.005 percent Irish tax rate, the scandal stretches to a majority of the largest corporations - from the furniture of Ikea to the toothpaste of Procter&Gamble. Only international cooperation can put a break to such practice. Yet, progress is stalling, at both European Union and global level, with the G7 failing spectacularly to take a position on the issue despite pressure from the Italian hosts. [...]
There is a risk. We should not forget that the policy mix supported by Angela Merkel's Germany over the long years of European crisis - rebranded "austerity" - has brought Europe to the brink of collapse. Nor should we be fooled by Macron's youthful personality, when he seems to be supporting the same market-friendly economic policies that have led to the crisis in the first place.
Without a serious policy rethink - such as a comprehensive New Deal to put the continent back to work and a profound democratisation of EU institutions - Europe's path towards greater integration risks becoming a fast-track to disintegration. This would be a shame for Europe as much as for the world.
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