Much discussion of new international organizations has accompanied the recent examination of global governance reform in the light of the completed US Presidential election and now the global financial meltdown.  There is much contention over the nature of reorganization.

There appears to be three distinct models that advocates of global governance reform have raised.  The first is: the ‘Universalist model of the UN – everybody gets in, everybody has a voice.  This universalist consensus model is modified at least in the security realm (but not only)  by the Security Council that sits atop the universalist Continue reading →

The MGI Project, begun in 2007, is the joint initiative of the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy section – led by Carlos Pascaul,  the Center on International Cooperation at New York University – led by Bruce Jones, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University – led by Stephen Stedman.  The Project has recently produced it’s major Report – A Plan for Action: A New Era of International Cooperation for a Changed World: 2009, 2010, and Beyond.  This Report will be followed by a book from the three directors, out sometime this year, entitled, Power and Responsibility: International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats.  The Report and the Project is directed to, as the Plan suggests, “[to] build international support for global institutions Continue reading →

For some time now, as the financial storm clouds approached, various analysts have touted the view that the emerging markets and the rising powers – China, India, Brazil and Russia, and others – are increasing decoupled from the United States and the sub-prime threat. Now that the financial meltdown is upon us, I suspect those who argued such a line would be happy to take it back (Note Dani Rodrik’s disdain for decoupling as well in his blog post ‘The Other Shoe Drops‘.)

Now it is not to say that these Rising Powers are bound to find themselves in the situations they faced in say 1997 or 1998, but they are all being buffeted in different ways by the gales of this widening financial meltdown.  Contagion is upon us Continue reading →

At one time, not that long ago, writing about or advocating global governance in China was a sensitive matter.  Much has changed.

Just as China’s international policy has moved from an almost exclusive emphasis on bilateralism to growing regional and global governance, global governance and China’s role in multilateral contexts has become an acceptable subject for China’s inernational relations experts.

It’s why the focus of Wang Zaibang’s 2007 article is so interesting.  Entitled, ‘China and Global Governance,’ this Continue reading →

In a rather ‘crowded’ little piece (meaning that there are a number of currents flowing through the article), Niall Ferguson of Harvard, Oxford and Hoover Institution fame, has declared ‘Chimerica’ at an end.  As Niall points out in his article in the new journal Standpoint  out of the UK, the growing financial crisis puts this most important driver of global growth at risk.  Chimerica which has represented one-third of GDP and over the past 6 years 50% of global growth, is threatened by the credit and liquidity crisis of Wall Street.

Niall begins his declaration of Chimerca’s demise, a term he suggests was birthed by himself and German political scientist, Moritz Schularick with a trip through Chongqing Sichuan, China – arguably the largest city in the world – with a tale of enormous infrastructure building.  This tale of Chongqing presumably is to highlight the Chinese government’s continuing flow, if not flood, of public expenditure especially in China’s west.

The Chongqing description is a reminder that public financing in China is a key component of economic growth, and presumably now a substitute and alternative to American export trade.  It is also a warning that China and its economic planners pay scant attention to China’s environment.  Niall compares the public infrastructure and the motivation behind this palnning is the worst excesses of Stalinism and Soviet industrialization with all its consequences.

Niall’s article chronicles the geopolitical consequences of the demise of Chimerica and more directly the financial meltdown in the United States.  First he points out that high indebtedness and slow growth is the enemy of a reserve currency.  He suggests the financial turmoil may well require years of workout and consigning therefore the US to sustained slow growth.  With the alternative available – the euro – the United States may pay a much greater penalty than just slow growth.

With slower US growth and presumably sustained greater Chinese growth, the second geopolitical consequence, according to Ferguson will be a more rapid convergence between the US and China with China closing the GDP  gap not in 2040, as predicted by Goldman Sachs in its report in 2003, but 2027.

And a further geopolitical consequence is the likely growing presence in the globe – Africa, Latin America and Asia – of China, and possibly some others, in search of secure commodity sources. With the growing demand on commodities – for sure oil – but also minerals and foodstuff – China will be out there as a new Great power presumably.

Niall leaves the reader to wonder whether the future of US-China relations will be troubled by Great power rivalry. Maybe, but maybe Chimerica is not a ‘chimera’ as Niall so cutely ends.  Indeed China and America may not be as decoupled from the United States as Niall would like us to believe.  The symbiotic closely coupled relationship of the two may be much tighter than suggested in this article.  Niall may be ‘jumping the gun’ on China’s Great power status.