Instead of US-China decoupling, 2020 should bring acceptance of different development models

The much-touted ‘end of history’ marked the emergence of a multipolar world in which a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to development will not work

We must find ways to accommodate ‘developmental diversity’ while upholding the institutions that support international cooperation

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A Chinese worker sews flags for US President Donald Trump’s “Keep America Great!” 2020 re-election campaign at a factory in Fuyang, Anhui province, China, on July 24, 2018. Decoupling the US and Chinese economies will be complicated and trigger reverberations around the world. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:30pm, 8 Jan 2020Updated: 8:30pm, 17 Feb 2020

US President Donald Trump recently announced that China and the US will sign the much-anticipated “phase one” trade agreement in Washington on January 15. This is a positive note on which to open the new decade, raising hopes for a timely end to the damaging trade war. However, in the long run, it will take more than a single trade deal to sustain an open global economy.

We live in a multipolar world where it is clear there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to development. At the same time, the world is more interdependent than ever, bound by global value chains, cultural ties and transnational challenges.

To make a success of the coming decade, we must bridge these realities and find ways to accommodate different development models while boosting international cooperation through a mindset that seeks “harmony amid difference” in the course of globalisation and development.

Any thoughts of “decoupling” between China and the US should be banished, as this would hurt not only both countries but the entire global economy.

Workers make men’s suits at a garment factory in Hanoi in May 2019. Economic globalisation has made the world more interdependent. Photo: AFP

Three decades ago, the end of the cold war led some to predict that all nations would eventually converge on the West’s particular brand of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism.

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