The world order will be up for grabs for the next 50 years, and the biggest reason why is China.
China is seeking to regain what it once was until a few hundred years ago, the most powerful economic region in the world, said Daniel Franklin, the executive editor and acting U.S. editor of The Economist magazine.
He spoke at the 3rd Annual Hanseatic League of Universities Conference at Florida Gulf Coast University on Tuesday afternoon. His topic: The world in 2050: Big Trends That Will Shape the Future.
He broke his talk into five topics – war and peace, the new economic order, globalization, AI and climate change. China dominated most topics.
What happens with China and Taiwan in the next 20 years is what people are focused on, he said. It’s where a conflict between China and the United States could play out.
“You find a lot of geopolitical thinkers hard pressed to bet that it won’t happen, so that’s the one to be most concerned about,” he said.
“China’s rise since the late 1970s has been truly remarkable, 800 million people lifted out of poverty. The most rapid development in human history.”Daniel Franklin, executive editor, The Economist magazine
The geopolitical policy is how to create the conditions to make it less likely to occur. The countries need more connections than what is happening now.
The economic balance of power is moving closer to the eastern part of the world, he said. The U.S. still is the number one economic power, but China is rising quickly.
“China’s rise since the late 1970s has been truly remarkable, 800 million people lifted out of poverty,” Franklin said. “The most rapid development in human history.”
The big question is if China will pass the United States as the number one economic power. The financial institution Goldman Sachs, in 2010, predicted China would reach parity with the U.S. by 2026 and be 15 percent bigger by 2060.
Those predictions have changed for a number or reasons, Franklin said. The Chinese population is aging quickly, and productivity is slowing because of government policies.
The new predictions say China won’t reach parity until 2036.
The U.S. isn’t going to be “left in the dust,” by China, he said, but “you are looking at a power that’s going to be matching it increasingly and has to be considered as a near peer and competitor … economic, but also geopolitical and military, as well.”
Franklin suggested that globalization will slow down because of the rivalries among world powers. He called it “slowbalization.”
He said what’s important is where and how countries select their trade and intellectual barriers.
“So, the art of this over the next 20-30 years is to maintain the maximum level of international cooperation and international exchange that is compatible with national security concerns,” he said. “And the more that you have the less likely the kind of conflict to spill over into actual war.”
Some other highlights of the talk:
- Worries about artificial intelligence destroying jobs is overblown, but it will be a huge disruptor.
- Regulators will struggle to keep pace with creating regulations for AI.
- More countries are likely to have nuclear weapons by 2050.
- India will surpass China this year as the world’s most populous country. It will have large growth opportunities in the next two decades if the country’s politics don’t get in the way.
- Africa will have a huge opportunity in the next 50 years. Franklin compared to Asia of the last 50 years.
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