Global reset: COVID-19, systemic rivalry and the global order

• Main Authors: Michael Dunford, Bing Qi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-12-01
• Series: Research in Globalization
• Subjects: Global development; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Productivity slowdown; Economic depression; New industrial revolution
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590051X20300101

The rise of China was closely associated with the strategic opportunity offered by a wave of globalization dating from the 1970s. As China grew, western growth was not restored. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the unipolar moment, the world confronted a succession of crises that western countries struggled to handle. In this world in which China's continuing rise was already perceived as a strategic challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic was met with further examples of liberal capitalist governance failure. Notwithstanding attempts to preserve western hegemony and a western liberal world order, the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate and intensify existing trends towards a global reset, a shift in the centre of economic gravity to Asia, the arrival of a multipolar world and new global development paths.