On January 16, CGTN held an online forum – Insights & Impact: Emerging toether form the pandemic. Joined by six internaitonla journalists and econmists from five continents, the panel discussed China’s COVID-19 policy adjustments and the outlook for the international community after this change.
The consensus: The world is changing, and the international community needs to embrace a multipolar world and reshapes globalization in this new reality with a pragmatic approach.
After China adjusted its COVID-19 policy and the first batch of tourists arrived in Thailand, Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul personally welcomed them at the airport. Supachai Wuthichuwong, senior reporter at Thailand’s Manager Media Group, commented in 16th’s forum that the minister is “pragmatic” and “learning to adapt the policy to suit the situation” since 30 percent of Thailand’s GDP is generated by the tourist industry and Chinese tourists account for almost half of Thailand’s tourists.
The experts echoed the sentiment and pointed out that the current world faces a challenge brought upon by the globalization produced by a unipolar system. The “old globalization,” according to Willima Jones, the Washington Bureau Chief for Executive Intelligence Review in the United States, is that it was based on “shareholder value” and has proven to be a failure filled with exploitation and widening gaps between the rich and the poor. “What China is trying to push, and other countires I think are very supportive of that, is trying to have a globalization which countries can work together as equal partners and the mutual benefit in which everybody has a share,” he said.
The former director of economic and business policy for the mayor of London John Ross, referring to the success of the trading regime of ASEAN and the diversity of political systems in East Asia, said that these countries have agreed that they are not going to go along with attempts to create tenion. Ross believes that this is why they are successful economically with lowest inflation and fastest growth.
“On the other hand, in Europe, you’ve got absolute chaos at the present time. You have the highest inflation for 40 years. You’ve got a major war. This is due to the policies of going along with the United States, the expansion of NATO, which is what’s behind the Ukraine war. You couldn’t have a big, more polar opposite. And it’s the unipolar situation that has created the chaos in Europe,” Ross argued.
How to reshape the global community? Daryl Guppy, a national board member of the Australia-China Business Council, said that “the first and most difficult step is to put aside those aspirations for hegemony. We are moving into a multipolar world. The intitutions of global governments need to recognize these changes. ” The United States may feel some discomfort in this process, but “globalization is unstoppable,” Guppy asserted.
China and the United States are the two biggest players in globalization and they should work together for the development of people around the globe, according to Muhammad Furqan Rao, Head of China Desk at the Associated Press of Pakistan.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as Rao said, both China and the U.S. played roles in supporting other countries. According to him, China provided vaccines to the world and specifically 5 million doses to his home country Pakistan. Similarly, the U.S. also supplied vaccines to the world. “If both countries will work together, then that would be the better for the globalization. Otherwise, the conflict is not better, I think, for the whole world,” Rao said.
“Whenever we turn down the tendency of dictating to other countries of the world, the world we have more peace,” said Ikenna Mba Emewu, editor in Chief of the Africa China Economy Magazine. The internet, as described by Emewu, has become “glue that binds the whole world.” “Globalization has come to stay,” he said.
