Post-pandemic world needs better globalization, not less
EVEN at a time when the novel coronavirus pandemic is sweeping the world, beef from New Zealand, red wine from Chile and detergent from Germany remain just a click away to Chinese customers.
This offers a glimpse of how globalization has led to the creation of a highly integrated world web of interdependence and altered the way of living in many parts of this closely connected global community.
The ravaging pandemic, however, has jolted global supply chains and halted much of cross-border travels.
It has also exposed once again some of globalization’s deep-seated deficiencies and prompted many in academia, politics and the press to debate whether this marks the beginning of an end to this historic process.
It is not the first time that globalization has been questioned or assaulted in times of turbulence.
Between the 2008 global financial crisis and this pandemic, sharp criticism against globalization was heard fueled by rising waves of trade protectionism and economic nationalism.
Nevertheless, being a natural process driven by the combined forces of technological breakthroughs, as well as the free flow of people and profit-thirsty capital, globalization has brought down trade and commerce barries, shrunk production costs, stimulated technological cooperation, integrated global markets and financial systems, created inestimable jobs and wealth and raised living standards throughout the world over the past few centuries.
These upsides of globalization are unmistakable and will not be wiped out by a single global crisis.
‘Wishful thinking’
Arjun Appadurai, a US globalization studies expert, argued in an opinion piece published by the Time magazine earlier this month that “globalization is here to stay” and deglobalization efforts are no more than “wishful thinking.”
Thus the international community, instead of trying to turn inward and break away from each other, should come even closer and make globalization work better for everyone.
The first task should be for countries worldwide to make global production and supply chains more risk-resilient. This pandemic will not be the last one.
Other unknown risks and new challenges are likely to emerge in the future.
Secondly, the international community should jointly enhance global economic governance and further boost global free trade.
The third front should be strengthening international cooperation so that countries worldwide can better respond to their shared non-conventional security challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fourth task is to make globalization more inclusive for all.
The pandemic has further revealed that globalization has not turned out to be a rising tide lifting all boats and that it could further widen the global gap between the rich and the poor.
The author is a Xinhua writer.