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