sábado, 10 de junho de 2023

Quando a China Mandar no Mundo. Martin Jacques. «The new century dawned with the world deeply aware of and preoccupied by the prospect of what appeared to be overwhelming American power»

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The Changing of the Guard. O Render da Guarda

«(…) According to projections by Goldman Sachs, the three largest economies in the world by 2050 will be China, followed by a closely matched America and India some way behind, and then Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Indonesia Only two European countries feature in the top ten, namely the UK and Germany in ninth and tenth place respectively. Of the present G7, only four appear in the top ten. In similar forecasts, Price water house Coopers suggest that the Brazilian economy could be larger than Japan’s, and that the Russian, Mexican and Indonesian economies could each be bigger than the German, French and UK economies by 2050. If these projections, or something similar, are borne out in practice, then during the next four decades the world will come to look like a very different place indeed.

Such a scenario was far from people’s minds in 2001. Following, the United States not only saw itself as the sole superpower but attempted to establish a new global role which refl ected that pre-eminence. The neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century, established in 1997 by, amongst others, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, adopted a statement of principles which articulated the new doctrine and helped prepare the ground for the Bush administration:

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces na opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

In 2004 the infl uential neo-conservative Charles Krauthammer wrote:

On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union died and something new was born, something utterly new, a unipolar world dominated by a single superpower unchecked by any rival and with decisive reach in every corner of the globe. This is a staggering development in history, not seen since the fall of Rome.

The new century dawned with the world deeply aware of and preoccupied by the prospect of what appeared to be overwhelming American power. The neo-conservatives chose to interpret the world through the prism of the defeat of the Soviet Union and the overwhelming military superiority enjoyed by the United States, rather than in terms of the underlying trend towards economic multipolarity, which was downplayed. The new doctrine placed a premium on the importance of the United States maintaining a huge military lead over other countries in order to deter potential rivals, and on the US pursuing its own interests rather than being constrained either by its allies or international agreements.10 In the post-Cold War era, US military expenditure was almost as great as that of all the other nations of the world combined: never in the history of the human race has the military inequality between one nation and all others been so great. The Bush presidency’s foreign policy marked an important shift compared with that of previous administrations: the war on terror became the new imperative, America’s relations with Western Europe were accorded reduced signifi cance, the principle of national sovereignty was denigrated and that of regime-change affirmed, culminating in the invasion of Iraq». In Martin Jacques, Quando a China Mandar no Mundo, 2009, 2012, Temas e Debates, Círculo de Leitores, ISBN 978-989-644-196-8, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-713-992-540.

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JDACT, Martin Jacques, Literatura, Economia, China, Conhecimento,