research papers about new world order

• International Peace and Security
• Higher Education and Research in Africa
• Andrew Carnegie Fellows
• Great Immigrants
• Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy
• Reporting Requirements
• Modification Requests
• Communications FAQs
• Grants Database
• Philanthropic Resources
• Grantmaking Highlights
• Past Presidents
• The Gospel of Wealth
• Other Carnegie Organizations
• Andrew Carnegie’s Story
• Governance and Policies
• Media Center

Perspectives on a Changing World Order

Perspectives on a Changing World Order , published by the Council on Foreign Relations and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, offers perspectives on China, the European Union, India, and Russia by leading scholars in foreign policy. The report is an outcome of the Managing Global Disorder project, launched by the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Preventive Action with funding from the Corporation. It explores how to promote a stable and mutually beneficial relationship among the major powers that can in turn provide the essential foundation for greater cooperation on pressing global and regional challenges.

Program: International Peace and Security

• - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

• Access provided by Google Indexer
• My email alerts
• BMA member login
• Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Search form

• Advanced search
• Search responses
• Search blogs
• The future of world...

The future of world health: The new world order and international health

• Related content
• Peer review
• Julio Frenk , executive vice president and director a ,
• Jaime Sepúlveda , director general b ,
• Octavio Gómez-Dantés , project coordinator a ,
• Michael J McGuinness , research fellow a ,
• Felicia Knaul , professor and coordinator c
• a Center for Health and the Economy, Mexican Health Foundation, Periférico Sur 4809, Tlalpan, 14610 México, DF
• b National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico
• c Program in Health Economics, Center for Economic Research and Education, Mexico City
• Correspondence to: Dr Frenk

Introduction

Health systems in countries all over the world are undergoing intensive reforms. Internationally, the existing institutions for multilateral cooperation are facing unprecedented challenges. Many are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil their mandates. There is inefficient overlap of efforts among various multilateral organisations, while, paradoxically, there are voids of responsibility in executing some key functions. At the same time, other players, such as non-governmental organisations and transnational corporations, are gaining prominence.

Multiple forces are transforming the shape of the world and patterns of disease and health–creating a need for new institutional arrangements. Just as governments are reinventing their respective national health systems, so international health must be rethought so that it can respond effectively to the emerging challenges.

The new shape of the world

Nations no longer represent truly independent, sovereign countries. New global forces have eroded national borders, facilitating the transfer of goods, services, people, values, and lifestyles from one country to another. Countries are increasingly dependent on international trade. Transnational corporations control a large portion of the world's capital. Currencies leap from one financial market to the next, often defying national regulation. 1

Political movements also generate transnational forces that place external pressure on individual nations. Interest groups organised around issues such as sex and sexual orientation operate transnationally in order to exert change at the national level. The continuing ties among related groups in different nations produce networks of communities with similar values and customs, which operate at both the local and international levels. These act as one more force pulling towards meta-national integration.

Certain forces resisting this globalisation have recently risen to prominence. At its extremes, this process has led to the development of religious fundamentalism. Recently, some of these fundamentalist movements have sought to give their “awareness” a political expression, creating intolerant and antidemocratic currents. 2 In countries all over the world ethnic and linguistic minorities are demanding increasing autonomy, even to the extent of fracturing the integrity of a nation state. The clash between these new forms of “tribalism” and the forces of globalisation has become a major source of tension in the world. 3

As humanity enters the 21st century, its crucial challenge is to build a global civilisation based on respect for multiculturalism. Universal civilisation should seek to establish a code of mutual coexistence which respects differences while also preventing the outbreak of hostilities resulting from desperation or intolerance. 4 5

Summary points

International cooperation for world health faces unprecedented challenges

The health situation in nations is increasingly influenced by global determinants such as environmental threats, the expanded movement of people and goods that facilitates the spread of pathogens across national borders, and the trade in legal and illegal hazardous substances

After nearly 50 years of activity, the major agencies involved in international health cooperation have not responded adequately to the new picture of change and complexity

Just as national health systems across the globe are engaged in reform efforts, so it is time to reform the world health system

The first step in reform is to achieve a consensus about the essential core functions of international health organisations and about a coordinated division of labour among them

Growing complexity of health

Countries must confront a vast array of challenges in order to make their health systems meet population needs. The populations of developing countries continue to suffer from common infections, reproductive health problems, and malnutrition, which keep infant and maternal mortality at unacceptably high levels. On the other hand, they are also facing the emerging challenges of non-communicable diseases and injuries.

In the past two decades new diseases such as AIDS or new variants of old diseases have emerged and are generating a new world epidemiological profile. The AIDS epidemic is the most notorious example of these emerging infections. It is estimated that by the year 2000 there will be more than 20 million people infected with HIV, most of them in developing nations. 6

Healthcare systems absorb an increasingly large share of resources. In 1990 public and private expenditures on formal health services worldwide reached $1700bn or 8% of total world product. 7 Industrialised countries spent almost 90% of this amount, with average per capita expenditure on health care of about $1500. In contrast, developing countries spent the remaining 10%, with per capita expenditures of only $41.

In developing countries health systems must be designed to implement more efficient ways of dealing with the backlog of common infections, reproductive health problems, and malnutrition while also developing affordable and effective interventions for non-communicable problems. 8 Most countries lack adequate training for health staff and acceptable certification procedures for facilities. Sizable sums of public money are spent on tertiary level hospitals at the expense of cost effective interventions delivered at the primary level. Finally, access to basic health services and essential drugs remains a pervasive problem in rural and dispersed communities. 9

Global phenomena with health consequences

Among the most powerful global forces affecting health conditions are the international transfer of risks and liberalisation of trade. These forces work transnationally, blurring the boundaries that once shaped the nature of health at the national level (see box).

International transfer of health risks

Global environmental threats–For example, ozone depletion, caused by actions such as the use of aerosols in some countries may increase risks of skin cancer in others

Overuse of resources–Poor societies have relatively modest per capita consumption of food, fuel, and other goods compared with rich countries, but as developing nations harness the power of their markets and increase their consumption patterns they too will pose a threat to the earth's environment

Cross border movement of people–Nearly 20 million people are currently displaced by war, environmental crisis, or economic collapse, 10 and over 400 million people will travel internationally this year, contributing to the international spread of infections and disease

Trade in harmful legal products–Tobacco use is rising as a result of widespread marketing campaigns, and by the year 2050 annual tobacco related deaths will reach 12 million 11

Traffic of illicit drugs–Worldwide consumption of heroin and cocaine has grown 10-fold in the past 20 years

Diffusion of medical technologies and treatment policies–Developing nations rely heavily on imported medical technology, some of which has adverse health effects and is unnecessarily costly

The world health system

National governments can no longer deal on their own with the determinants of health that arise from interactions at the global level. The technologies to satisfy health needs are being produced and traded through global processes that often transcend the regulatory capacity of individual governments. The right to quality health care is incorporated into the global movement for human rights, and governments are facing increased demands for better services.

International health organisations seem to be the ideal vehicle for contending with health problems that go beyond the capacity of national health systems. Current international health agencies, however, were designed for a different world, where few problems needed global action. One single organisation could manage world health affairs, especially given the clear priorities that characterised that time. Today, the world is a different place. The development of international health agencies has not kept pace with the evolution of new health challenges, and some agencies have adopted functions that exceed their original mandates.

As a result, international health agencies are being pressed by their member states to adopt new organisational structures, redefine their basic priorities, and develop new forms of international cooperation in order to meet the health challenges of the next century. The reform of national health systems finds its logical extension in the reform of the world health system. As products of the era after the second world war, the agencies forming the world system have developed human, organisational, and technological capacities that have enabled them to fulfil such ambitious goals as the eradication of smallpox. As this century comes to a close, however, they are experiencing a serious crisis. The efficacy of international health agencies has been diminished by lack of coordination, overlapping mandates, and the duplication of efforts.

Paradoxically, this duplication takes place while certain essential functions are not being carried out (see box). The failure of international health agencies to perform these and other functions represents a major obstacle to social wellbeing as well as to economic development.

Essential functions neglected by international health agencies

International monitoring of emerging diseases

Setting standards to protect consumers' health against potential abuses arising from international commerce

International coordination for controlling the transfer of health risks

Coordination of research efforts and technological development

Design of information systems to facilitate elaboration of health policies at national as well as global levels

Accumulation of knowledge about cost effectiveness of medical technologies and interventions

Creation of a process for shared learning about experiences of reforming national health systems

Many of the problems affecting the world health system arise from a variety of limitations that are internal to each agency, most notably the World Health Organisation (WHO). Established in 1948, the WHO is primarily dedicated to the “attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health.” 12 It has advised member states on technical health matters, financed the training of health professionals, and worked to influence the development of health policy. Despite its achievements, the WHO has been under increasing scrutiny by commentators, who point to a number of shortcomings. Firstly, the WHO's activities are disparate and often uncoordinated. Secondly, the agency's priorities often follow donors' preferences and the amount of available resources, rather than rational evaluations of health problems. 13 Thirdly, the effectiveness of its regional structure has been called into question. 14 15 Fourthly, the organisation is facing competition and new challenges to its traditional role in leading international health iniatives. 16

Disposed communities still suffer poor access to basic healthcare.

BETTY PRESS/PANOS PICTURES

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Part of these challenges arise from the growing pluralism that characterises international health care. In addition to the WHO and its regional offices, there are several specialised United Nations agencies and programmes participating in health related activities, such as Unicef, United Nations Development Programme, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, and Unesco. At the same time, multilateral development banks have achieved a growing financial and technical presence in the international health field. 17 Another new set of influences in the global health field are non-governmental organisations, a broad term encompassing a variety of non-profit making groups that devote themselves to a specific cause through research, building awareness, or direct action. Finally, there are the transnational private companies responsible for the worldwide production of goods and services that are related to health care.

Reforming the health system

Until now, the variety of groups working on international health care have not been able to develop an effective world health system with the capacity for concerted action. Just as national health systems must confront reform, the disarticulated world health system must reinvent itself to meet the challenges of the future.

The agenda for reform is indeed broad, as it includes key issues like redefining mandates, identifying priority functions, redesigning structures of governance, developing efficient mechanisms of coordination, and adopting reliable means of assuring accountability in each agency. Among these issues, one of the most controversial is identifying priority functions, which is also a prerequisite for effectively dealing with the other issues. At the moment, there is little consensus about the core functions of international health organisations. In fact, there seems to be a broad spectrum of views with respect to the scope of responsibility that international health agencies should assume in the coming years.

At one end of the spectrum is the “essentialist” point of view, which seeks to identify the core functions for which international organisations have a comparative advantage over national entities. What functions can the international health system perform better than individual countries–either because it can be more cost effective or because these functions fall outside the sovereignty of any one nation? The essentialist identifies those functions where international collective action is needed either because they require production of international public goods or management of externalities that transcend the borders of any given nation. According to this point of view, five core functions meet such criteria (Jamison D, personal communication) (see box).

The essential five core functions of international health agencies

Surveillance and control of diseases that represent a regional or global threat

Promotion of research and technological development related to problems of global importance, including establishment of mechanisms for sharing information

Development of standards and norms for international certification

Protection of international refugees

Fulfilment of a moral imperative to act as an agent of assistance and an advocate for extremely vulnerable populations that have no other recourse

At the other end of the spectrum is a view that assigns a much more expansive role to international health organisations. Based on arguments of social justice and the transferability of experiences, this view identifies several functions in addition to the essential core. These include redistribution of resources from rich to poor countries, political advocacy in favour of certain national health policies, direct regulation of transnational corporations, and intervention in planning or implementing national health projects.

Building a consensus about the functions of international health organisations is a prerequisite for designing the structural reforms that will best allow those organisations to fulfil their mandates.

Conclusions

World health has reached a moment when strategic definitions are required. The 50th anniversaries of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation serve as a reminder that it is crucial for the international community to take stock of past achievements, examine present performance, and articulate a vision for future development.

A consensus must be reached about the core functions that international health organisations must perform in order to respond to the new realities. The consensus on essential functions must then guide the design and implementation of improved institutional arrangements. International organisations have projected the year 2000 as a milestone towards one of the most ambitious goals of humanity–health for all. The achievement of this objective will depend on the ability of the international community to create an effective world health system.

This paper is adapted from a background document for an informal meeting on the current state and future role of international health institutions, which was held at the National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico, on 3-4 February 1997. The meeting, which was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and organised by the National Institute of Public Health and the Mexican Health Foundation, served as the regional follow up to the Pocantico Retreat held a year earlier on the same topic. We are grateful for the valuable comments of the participants of the Cuernavaca meeting. Before the discussion of the paper there, we benefited from interaction with Lincoln Chen, Seth Berkeley, Catherine Gwin, Gill Walt, and Dean Jamison. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors.

• WHO Ad Hoc Committee on Health Research Relating to Future Interventions Options.
• World Health Organisation.
• 12. ↵ World Health Organisation . Basic documents . 39th ed. Geneva: WHO, 1992.

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, the new world order and global public administration: a critical essay.

Comparative Public Administration

ISBN : 978-0-76231-359-4 , eISBN : 978-1-84950-453-9

Publication date: 22 December 2006

The concept of a New World Order is a rhetorical device that is not new. In fact, it is as old as the notion of empire building in ancient times. When Cyrus the Great conquered virtually the entire known world and expanded his “World-State” Persian Achaemenid Empire, his vision was to create a synthesis of civilization and to unite all peoples of the world under the universal Persian rule with a global world order characterized by peace, stability, economic prosperity, and religious and cultural tolerance. For two centuries that world order was maintained by both military might and Persian gold: Whenever the military force was not applicable, the gold did the job; and in most cases both the military and the gold functioned together (Frye, 1963, 1975; Farazmand, 1991a). Similarly, Alexander the Great also established a New World Order. The Romans and the following mighty empires had the same concept in mind. The concept was also very fashionable after World Wars I and II. The world order of the twentieth century was until recently a shared one, dominated by the two superpowers of the United States and the USSR.

Farazmand, A. (2006), "The New World Order and Global Public Administration: A Critical Essay", Otenyo, E.E. and Lind, N.S. (Ed.) Comparative Public Administration ( Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 15 ), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 701-728. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0732-1317(06)15031-9

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

We’re listening — tell us what you think

Something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

• Student Opportunities

About Hoover

Located on the campus of Stanford University and in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution is the nation’s preeminent research center dedicated to generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security, and democratic governance. 

• The Hoover Story
• Hoover Timeline & History
• Mission Statement
• Vision of the Institution Today
• Key Focus Areas
• About our Fellows
• Research Programs
• Annual Reports
• Hoover in DC
• Fellowship Opportunities
• Visit Hoover
• David and Joan Traitel Building & Rental Information
• Newsletter Subscriptions
• Connect With Us

Hoover scholars form the Institution’s core and create breakthrough ideas aligned with our mission and ideals. What sets Hoover apart from all other policy organizations is its status as a center of scholarly excellence, its locus as a forum of scholarly discussion of public policy, and its ability to bring the conclusions of this scholarship to a public audience.

• Scott Atlas
• Thomas Sargent
• Stephen Kotkin
• Michael McConnell
• Morris P. Fiorina
• John F. Cogan
• China's Global Sharp Power Project
• Economic Policy Group
• History Working Group
• Hoover Education Success Initiative
• National Security Task Force
• National Security, Technology & Law Working Group
• Middle East and the Islamic World Working Group
• Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group
• Renewing Indigenous Economies Project
• State & Local Governance
• Strengthening US-India Relations
• Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group
• Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region

Books by Hoover Fellows

Economics Working Papers

Hoover Education Success Initiative | The Papers

• Hoover Fellows Program
• National Fellows Program
• Student Fellowship Program
• Veteran Fellowship Program
• Congressional Fellowship Program
• Media Fellowship Program
• Silas Palmer Fellowship
• Economic Fellowship Program

Throughout our over one-hundred-year history, our work has directly led to policies that have produced greater freedom, democracy, and opportunity in the United States and the world.

• Determining America’s Role in the World
• Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
• Empowering State and Local Governance
• Revitalizing History
• Confronting and Competing with China
• Revitalizing American Institutions
• Reforming K-12 Education
• Understanding Public Opinion
• Understanding the Effects of Technology on Economics and Governance
• Energy & Environment
• Health Care
• Immigration
• International Affairs
• Key Countries / Regions
• Law & Policy
• Politics & Public Opinion
• Science & Technology
• Security & Defense
• State & Local
• Books by Fellows
• Published Works by Fellows
• Working Papers
• Congressional Testimony
• Hoover Press
• PERIODICALS
• The Caravan
• China's Global Sharp Power
• Economic Policy
• History Lab
• Hoover Education
• Global Policy & Strategy
• National Security, Technology & Law
• Middle East and the Islamic World
• Military History & Contemporary Conflict
• Renewing Indigenous Economies
• State and Local Governance
• Technology, Economics, and Governance

Hoover scholars offer analysis of current policy challenges and provide solutions on how America can advance freedom, peace, and prosperity.

• China Global Sharp Power Weekly Alert
• Email newsletters
• Hoover Daily Report
• Subscription to Email Alerts
• Periodicals
• California on Your Mind
• Defining Ideas
• Hoover Digest
• Video Series
• Uncommon Knowledge
• Battlegrounds
• GoodFellows
• Hoover Events
• Capital Conversations
• Hoover Book Club
• AUDIO PODCASTS
• Matters of Policy & Politics
• Economics, Applied
• Free Speech Unmuted
• Secrets of Statecraft
• Pacific Century
• Libertarian
• Library & Archives

Support Hoover

Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoover’s mission and values.

What is MyHoover?

MyHoover delivers a personalized experience at  Hoover.org . In a few easy steps, create an account and receive the most recent analysis from Hoover fellows tailored to your specific policy interests.

Watch this video for an overview of MyHoover.

Log In to MyHoover

Forgot Password

Don't have an account? Sign up

Have questions? Contact us

• Support the Mission of the Hoover Institution
• Subscribe to the Hoover Daily Report
• Follow Hoover on Social Media

Make a Gift

Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society.

• About Hoover Institution
• Meet Our Fellows
• Focus Areas
• Research Teams
• Library & Archives

Library & archives

Events, news & press.

The New World Order

The political emergence of Eurasia has major implications for U.S. foreign policy.

In The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann’s masterful novel about Europe on the eve of World War I, Hans Castorp—a young German engineer and the sometimes hapless hero—is depicted as torn between two mentors. One, from Italy, pulls him toward the West and the principles of humanism, progress and liberty, while the other, from Central Europe, pulls him toward the East, the site of tradition, irrationality, and reaction. From our 21st-century perspective, that the proponent of the West hails from Italy while his eastern adversary only from Central Europe seems geographically narrow, hardly reflecting the globalized space to which we have become accustomed. Nonetheless, the tug of war between enlightenment and romanticism, progress and tradition, West and East, is remarkably familiar.

Mann’s exploration of this gray zone between East and West, and their overlap, comes to mind while reading Bruno Maçães’s fascinating new book, The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order. Maçães served as the Portuguese Europe Minister from 2013 to 2015, and this volume reflects his deep thinking about the profound reorganization of space and power on a global scale that is underway. At stake is neither the end-of-history illusion, according to which liberal democracy and free trade were to become universally embraced, nor the clash-of-civilizations prediction, although certain elements of both pervade his thinking. In any case, his “new world order” is certainly not the one that President George H.W. Bush famously announced in his 1991 address to Congress, an order “where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind—peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law” in the context, of course, of American supremacy.

Instead, Maçães presents something quite different, reminiscent of Hans Castorp’s quandary and indicated by the ambiguity of the key term in the book’s title “Eurasia.” Maçães’s argument is about nothing less than the emerging unified space across the land mass of Europe and Asia, and the complexity of the dynamics within it. His book is enriched by reports of his travels across Eurasia. He is a keen observer of cultural detail and he presents vivid accounts of different locations he has visited, from Azerbaijan to Heixazi Island on the easternmost border of Russia and China, to illustrate his overarching claim. But it is the claim itself, the emergence of a unified supercontinent, that deserves special attention because of its important strategic implications.

Maçães reviews the genealogy of the terms, Europe and Asia, and their derivation from European mythological narratives. Europe sought its identity by imagining an Asian alternative. Yet this terminological inquiry only takes us so far. Various geographical efforts to find a neat line of demarcation between two continents never prove conclusive, and one consequence of this spatial fuzziness is the perpetual question as to how to determine an eastern border of the European Union: Is Turkey European? What about Ukraine? There may have been political and economic reasons to try to include these polities within the EU (that moment has surely passed), but the rationale could never have been some crisp geographical demarcation.

If there is a border between Europe and Asia, one might in fact find it precisely in the conflict zones of Turkey and Ukraine—but also surely in Syria, once part of a French influence sphere but now the target of Russian ambitions. To this one could add the current anxieties in and around the Visegrad countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. As much as they are surely European by virtue both of tradition and location, they are displaying greater discomfort with the demands of the European Union, and some of them are therefore turning toward the East. Ascribing a country to a European West rather than to an Asian East is hardly a precise science. The 19th-century Austrian statesman who put an indelible imprint on the map of Europe after the upheavals of the French Revolution famously asserted that Asia begins in the eastern suburbs of Vienna.

Maçães tellingly titles his important first chapter “The Myth of Separation.” The effort to establish a clear division between two continents is doomed to fail to provide a convincing account of the processes that crisscross the landmass. One western self-description has grown particularly untenable: Europe’s habit of flattering itself as the privileged site of progress and dynamism, while denigrating Asia as the backwater of tradition and indolence. That contrast hardly comports with the rapidity of technological advancement in China, Japan, South Korea and India, compared to the proceduralism and resistance to change that has come to characterize the EU. Rather than see Europe (or the West more broadly) as the natural home of modernity, counter-posed to tradition, Maçães makes a case for validating multiple modernities. All countries are modernizing, but the process is not linear, and different states, building on diverse traditions and circumstances, can end up with values and structures quite different from the EU.  Replicating Europe is not the single formula for modernization. It follows, then, that if Europe cannot achieve the flexibility to accommodate other cultural formations, it runs the risk of turning inward, shutting itself off from the world, in the manner of pre-modern China and Japan.  

There are three key actors in the potential supercontinent of Eurasia: China, Russia, and the EU.  Aspirations for extensive economic cooperation and even integration are hardly new, and Maçães quotes European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he proposed analyzing “possible options to bring the European Union and the [Russia-led] Eurasian Economic Union closer together” because he had “always found the idea of an integrated trade area linking Lisbon to Vladivostok to be an important and valuable objective.” Of course, that was before the annexation of Crimea, the invasion of Ukraine, and the onset of the sanctions regime.

While that impasse effectively blocks any EU initiative to collaborate with Russia, other plans to integrate the landmass have emerged in both Moscow and Beijing. A specifically Eurasian vision has historical roots in Russian culture, and it has taken on a reinvigorated urgency as the divide from the West has amplified in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. This program is not simply a matter of a revanchist effort to recreate the power sphere of the Soviet Union, although that nostalgia definitely appeals to certain parts of the Russian population and its leadership. More importantly, however, the agenda involves the insistence on the distinctiveness of a Russian identity, culture, and even mission in the world that resists integration into the values of the West, its liberalism, secularism and universalism.

Yet currently the real powerhouse behind Eurasia is not Russia but China—with a population ten times greater and a “Belt and Road” initiative to develop infrastructure and trading relationships from Indonesia to Europe, with China as its de facto center. A particularly salient moment in Maçães account involves a discussion concerning Belt and Road with Chinese interlocutors who claimed that the initiative is solely about cooperation, with no political agenda at all. Maçães’s suspicion of a hidden geopolitical agenda on the part of China, they claimed, merely reflected his “western” thinking, fundamentally different from the Chinese mindset that values harmony above all. Maçães is indeed suspicious of the implications of Belt and Road: “When it comes to the division of labour along the value chains of industrial production, […] national interests of countries in the regions of the Belt and Road may differ, or even contradict each other. In such cases, observers should be under no illusions that China, as the promoter of the initiative, is uniquely placed to pursue its interests.”

Maçães identifies tensions between the Russian and Chinese goals. The nature of potential collaboration between them remains unclear. Russia is unlikely to enjoy the role of junior partner; according to Maçães, an understanding circulates in the corridors of power in Beijing that Russia, with its natural resources and vast, underpopulated space, will become China’s Canada. Meanwhile Europe’s affection for Eurasia, despite the sanctions that currently constrain connections to Russia, is hardly broken; witness the eagerness of the Europeans to stoke commercial relations with Iran and of course with East Asia.

Eurasia will take shape, most likely on Chinese terms. Therefore it is important to think through the strategic consequences for the United States. Maçães underscores two important points. First, a global competition is emerging in which the rules-based order of liberal democracy and free trade, developed following the World War II, is undergoing a significant modification characterized by a more robust pursuit of national interest by major powers. This changing international field demands greater realism and self-assertiveness. Second, globalization has generated new forms of strategic vulnerability by enhancing interdependence in trade as well as in cybernetic networks. A change in the nature of conflict has ensued: supply chains and websites have become battlefields. We need stronger defense in these dimensions, but an offensive strategy as well.

Maçães’s analysis of Eurasia has urgent implications for U.S. strategy. For most of American history, geography has been a blessing, with two oceans providing natural protection. The Monroe Doctrine established a space that has largely been immune to foreign meddling that could threaten American security. This western hemispheric location has also required the United States to thrive as a maritime nation, trading with the world, and benefitting from and protecting the freedom of the seas.

Now, however, it is vital that the western hemisphere not become a trap. It is not in the national interest of the United States to be shut out of a potentially integrated Eurasia, with its major markets and populations. Therefore, American strategy should involve pursuing a balance of power agenda in Eurasia, reminiscent of England’s stance from the 16th to the 20th centuries toward efforts by Spain, France, and Germany to dominate the continent. Such a strategy means identifying cleavages among the major Eurasian actors and treating them as opportunities for American engagement. It also means strengthening ties to those countries on the outside of a potential Chinese-Russian condominium: Japan, South Korea, and India, as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries. Indeed, this account provides the proper framework within which to formulate U.S. policy toward the Muslim world that stretches across Eurasia. Finally, the increasing competitiveness in the international arena demands a shift in American mindset toward a willingness to give priority to national interest. In particular, the United States has to play an active role in shaping the outcome of the Eurasian project so that the conclusion is not inimical to U.S. concerns.

View the discussion thread.

Join the Hoover Institution’s community of supporters in ideas advancing freedom.

Articles on New World Order

Displaying all articles.

As the world’s conflicts spread, should you be digging a bunker? How to think about the future of war

Mark Lacy , Lancaster University

‘America First’ is no more, but can president-elect Biden fix the US reputation abroad?

Gorana Grgić , University of Sydney

Ancient texts encouraged hope and endurance when they spoke of end times

Kim Haines-Eitzen , Cornell University

Debate: Getting real about foreign bribery

Matt R. Lady , Université de Strasbourg

Defrosting relations with Russia and debunking ‘grand narratives’

Moritz Pieper , University of Salford

Four scenarios that could give the world hope in 2017

Nicolas Tenzer , Sciences Po

November 9 2016: the day the 21st century began

Why the BRICS coalition still matters

Oliver Stuenkel , Fundação Getulio Vargas

Globalism, refugee crisis is fueling xenophobia

Donald Critchlow , Arizona State University

Related Topics

• Donald Trump
• Global perspectives
• Peace and Security
• Syrian crisis
• The Conversation France
• United States
• Vladimir Putin

Top contributors

Chargé d'enseignement International Public Affairs, Sciences Po

Professor of History, Arizona State University

Associate, German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Doctorant en droit / chercheur associé, Université de Strasbourg

Associate Professor of International Relations, Fundação Getulio Vargas

Professor of Early Christianity, Cornell University

Senior Lecturer, Department of Government and International Relations and US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Senior lecturer, Politics, Philosophy, and Religion, Lancaster University

• X (Twitter)
• Unfollow topic Follow topic

China’s Rise, World Order, and the Implications for International Business

• Research Article
• Published: 03 March 2021
• Volume 61 , pages 1–26, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

• Robert Grosse   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2239-5555 1 ,
• Jonas Gamso 1 &
• Roy C. Nelson 1  

46k Accesses

17 Citations

13 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

It is increasingly clear that China’s economic and political power rivals that of the US. This is potentially a serious problem for multinational companies, since China’s rise could lead to more US–China trade conflict and disruption of supply chains, threatening new and ongoing foreign direct investment, and drawing other countries into the jostling for power. However, we argue that globalization is not necessarily endangered by China’s emergence as a comparable power to the US. The US and China both have vested interests in maintaining the open economic order, and these two countries are each providing the global public goods that incentivize economic openness among other countries of the world. In this paper, we develop a theory corresponding to this argument and provide evidence that globalization has not declined even as the global distribution of power has shifted. While global integration is likely to persist, disruptive skirmishes between the US and China will occur with some regularity. Therefore, we suggest that international company strategies today should focus more on risk management related to policy shifts stemming from China’s rise and less on achieving least-cost global supply chains. We present a risk management framework for this purpose.

Similar content being viewed by others

De-globalization, International Trade Protectionism, and the Reconfigurations of Global Value Chains

Trade policies, firm strategies, and adaptive reconfigurations of global value chains

On the future of international joint venture research

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Scholars and commentators increasingly see China as a global superpower (Anngang 2012; Cao and Paltiel 2015 ; Fish 2017 ) and China’s rise is widely understood to be ushering in a new global power distribution (Maher 2016 ; Shifrinson 2018 ; Tunsjø 2018 ; Zeng and Breslin 2016 ; Xuetong 2019 ). Footnote 1 China has the world’s second largest economy, trailing only the United States (International Monetary Fund 2020 ). It was the world’s leading exporter and second largest importer in 2018, the last year for which data were available (World Bank 2020a ), and its foreign aid provision and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) have also grown over the last decade (Dreher et al. 2018 ; Kolstad and Wiig 2012 ; Wang and Zhao 2017 ). Accompanying China’s economic rise has been an escalating assertiveness geopolitically (Liao 2018 ) that reflects China’s growing hard power (Robertson and Sin 2017 ; Tayloe 2017 ) and soft power capabilities (Shambaugh 2015 ).

In short, there is now a strong case to be made that the world has entered an era in which the US and China are approximately equally powerful. This is a marked contrast from the post-World War II era, during which the US dominated in the realms of economy, security, and technology (Ikenberry 2005 ). China’s emergence as a comparable power to the US raises concerns, since “realist” international relations theory suggests that such a trend will lead to a collapse of globalization as countries reject economic openness in favor of economic nationalism (Mearsheimer 2019 ). In contrast, we argue that China’s rise does not have to result in reduced international economic integration, and so we present a first research proposition to explore this issue:

Proposition 1:

China’s rise will not promote de-globalization, though it will lead to jostling for power between the US and China .

There has been a rise of political nationalism in the latter half of the 2010s (Snyder 2019 ). This has been accompanied by some degree of economic protectionism (Fajgelbaum et al. 2020 ), raising alarms among business leaders (Edgecliffe-Johnson and Waldmeir 2018 ). Much has also been made of the ongoing US–China trade war and hostility by US leadership toward the international institutions tasked with supporting economic globalization (Brown and Irwin 2019 ). However, these concerns may be overblown, as world tariff levels remain low by historical standards (Russ 2019 ), international trade and investment remain at or near their peaks, and the incoming Biden Administration may be more supportive economic globalization.

In fact, there are significant reasons to suspect that China’s rise will not usher in an era of protectionism and deglobalization. In the analysis that follows, we theorize that a world order in which China and the United States constitute a “G-2” can be conducive to the continuation of global economic integration. Maintaining a relatively open world economy is in the national interests of both of these countries. For that reason, both have committed themselves to international and regional economic agreements to help sustain that outcome. As long as both the US and China see the maintenance of the globalized world as being in their interest, each will adhere to the norms supporting globalization and help those norms to endure. In this sense, as we will explain further below, they will act as “ dual hegemons.” As we demonstrate in our analysis, the evidence supports this expectation, such that economic globalization has persisted even as China has become a superpower on (or near) par with the United States.

Even so, China’s rise and the changing global power dynamics that are accompanying it carry significant risks for international business. The new order brings changes to the nature of globalization: Skirmishes between China and the US may disrupt supply chains, threaten new and existing FDI, and include the establishment of new trade barriers. While we do not expect these changes and conflicts to cause a decline in net global integration, we argue that multinational firms need to evaluate and manage the risks that will occur as a result of changes in the nature of globalization.

Just dealing with China has been a risk for foreign businesses, because of the Chinese government’s protectionist tendencies. For example, China requires foreign auto manufacturers to have local partners with at least 50% ownership, as with Volkswagen and GM in their joint ventures with Shanghai Automotive. The government has also shown its disapproval of moving information across borders, as in the case of Amazon Web Services being essentially shut out of the market, and Google and Facebook being severely restricted and banned, respectively. And these policies predate the China–US trade war, which further threatens US-based businesses in China as well as Chinese business going overseas, particularly to the United States. The trade war has resulted in tariffs being imposed on a wide range of products, from steel and aluminum imports into the US to agricultural products exported from the US to China.

While the recent US–China trade tensions are likely to die down, the emerging world order is sure to create more frequent risks for companies engaging in international business, making risk management a priority going forward. A risk management strategy can be sketched broadly by looking at the methods available to MNEs for this purpose. Companies can explore the establishment of production and distribution facilities located outside of the two main protagonist countries. For example, electronics could be assembled in Vietnam or in Thailand rather than only in China; and Mexico or Colombia could be used for additional assembly of electronics, autos, and textiles. Companies also can diversify their business activities such as sales and input purchases into additional countries, again to reduce the dependence on the two main protagonists. A wide range of steps could be taken to mitigate the risks, from the use of insurance contracts for insurable risks to partnering with local companies in the US and China to reduce the liability of foreignness. So, we present a second research proposition:

Proposition 2:

MNEs need to develop risk management strategies to deal with the US-China competition that will occasionally produce trade barriers and other policy interventions .

The remainder of our analysis proceeds as follows. In Sect. 2 , we discuss China’s rise and demonstrate that US and China are approximately equally powerful hegemons. Next, in Sect. 3 , we introduce our theory, which posits that global economic integration will persist through an era in which China and the United States are each global superpowers, drawing on theories of international relations. In Sect. 4 , we present the evidence so far, which suggests that little shift in global economic engagement can be attributed to China’s rise. In Sect. 5 , we discuss in more detail the implications for multinational enterprise (MNE) strategies and we lay out a framework for managing this geopolitical risk. Finally, we note challenges to long-term stability in a world with two global superpowers.

2 Changing Power Dynamics in the Twenty-First Century

China’s rise is, perhaps, the single most important economic and political phenomenon in the twenty-first century. It has implications for global security (Toje 2018 ), for international development (Gallagher and Porzecanski 2010 ; Lin 2018 ), for global governance (Beeson and Li 2016 ; Economy 2018 ), and for human rights (Gamso 2019 ), among other things. While China’s status in international trade is especially noteworthy, it is also growing by other measures of international power. China’s growing clout in international production and financial markets are evident in terms of its global leadership in overall manufacturing, in the offshore assembly of electronics and textiles, and its growing financial leadership through owning the world’s four largest banks. China is also growing in global leadership through development of new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the recently signed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and its Belt and Road initiative (Soong 2018 ). The Belt and Road scope is pictured in Fig.  1 .

One (land) belt and one (ocean) road initiative. Source: OECD 2018 , p. 11

In terms of total market size, China is nearly as large as the US and much larger than any other country, whether measured in current dollars or in purchasing power parity dollars. In 2019, US GDP was $US 21.4 trillion, while Chinese GDP was $US 14.1 trillion in nominal terms and in purchasing power parity terms, Chinese GDP was $US 27 billion. In terms of company competitiveness, China had 119 Fortune Global 500 companies and the US had 121 in 2019. In terms of innovation, measured as R&D spending in the country, the US led the world by far with spending of $US 581 billion in 2018, while China was second with $US 293 billion, and both countries were far ahead of the third leader, which was Japan at $US 193 billion. Footnote 2 Table 1 presents a comparison of China and the US in terms of some key economic/business indicators.

China has also modernized the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in order to counter potential invasion (Montgomery 2014 ), while asserting its dominance over the South China Sea (Morton 2016 ; Thayer 2011 ; Turcsányi 2018 ). Likewise, China has become a major producer of science and technology, owing to public investment in the sciences such as the 2006 Medium to Long Term Program of Science and Technology (MLP) and Made in China 2025 initiative (Cao et al. 2006 ; McBride and Chatzky 2019 ; Xie et al. 2014 ). Taken together, this expansion of Chinese power suggests the emergence of a new world order, in which there is a roughly equal distribution of power between the United States and China.

While the US and China are rivals on some political issues (Scobell 2018 ), they do not necessarily have different visions for the global economy, as both operate open economic policy regimes, even with some significant differences in structure (for example, China has many more state-owned companies than the handful in the US). Moreover, there is an economic symbiosis, in which each country offers features that are helpful to the other. China offers low-cost manufacturing capabilities that complement US design of manufactured goods and a market for selling them. The US offers manufactured goods that are not made in China to the Chinese market, plus ones assembled in China but developed in the US, as well as primary products such as agricultural and mining goods, and also a wide range of services. And of course, the US offers China the world’s largest market for selling Chinese goods and services.

3 Global Stability in a Two-Hegemon World

The modern era of globalization coincided with the era of US hegemony, and US support for the global economic order was crucial for its success and its persistence. Despite occasional protectionist policies, the US offered global public goods that compelled other countries to trade and invest with the US and with one another (Kindleberger 1973 ). These public goods included the provision of global security, which reduced transaction costs for traders around the world, a large import market to absorb goods produced abroad, and lending facilities that helped to promote development and financial stability in developing countries, so long as those countries remained open to international trade and investment.

There were challengers to US dominance in the years after WWII, with the Soviet Union being especially noteworthy, but they were not ultimately able to match US power or to credibly challenge the open economic order that US leadership established after WWII. While the Soviet Union never presented a viable economic threat to US dominance of the capitalist global economy, its nuclear capabilities allowed the Soviet Union to present a military threat to the US that led to a bipolar balance of power in the years after WWII. The result was the Cold War, with tensions, hostilities, and sometimes outright minor skirmishes. But the overwhelming threat of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) if either side were to strike first deterred each country from engaging in more aggressive behavior, which prevented more major conflict from occurring (Brennan 1971 ; Schelling 1966 ).

As we have shown, China now, even more than the Soviet Union, is a viable challenger to US dominance, not just militarily, but economically as well. We argue, however, that just as the bipolar balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union led to a relatively stable outcome, albeit with significant tension and minor skirmishes, a similar outcome will prevail now between the US and China. These days it is not the threat of mutually assured destruction that prevents more aggressive behavior on both sides, but, as others have noted, the threat of “mutually assured recession” if either side were to engage in actions that could result in an outright trade war, or even worse, the destruction of the liberal economic order. For this reason, we expect both the US and China to provide support for globalization, even as they vie for global power.

3.1 A Theory of Dual Hegemonic Stability

According to the international relations theory of hegemonic stability in the tradition of Kindleberger ( 1973 ), the hegemon is understood to provide public goods that, in turn, encourage and facilitate economic openness among weaker countries. These public goods include an import market for producers around the world, lending facilities for countries in crisis, and international security, which reduces transaction costs for traders and investors. Kindleberger argued that public goods provision will become difficult where two or more states are bargaining with comparable leverage, due to collective action problems (Olson 1965 ). Thus, by his estimation, economic globalization will collapse as unipolarity wanes, much as it did in the early twentieth century.

However, scholars have noted that multiple states can provide public goods, should they see the benefits of doing so (Lake 1993 ; Snidal 1985 ). Within this context, it is perfectly plausible that China and the US can act as ‘dual hegemons’. We argue that to promote their own national interests, each will provide public goods that facilitate free trade, such as support for the multilateral trade regime, lending to countries in crisis, and providing large import markets. That said, in order for two states to provide public goods that advance the same outcome—that being an open global economic order—it is necessary that they both have a common perspective on how the global order should look and act. In other words, they must both support the international ‘regime’.

Krasner defined regimes as “principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given area of international relations” (Krasner 1983a , p. 2). As a Realist, Krasner argued that states pursuing their own self-interests could create and use regimes to help attain objectives that they perceived to be in their national interest, such as continued economic openness. For example, as the hegemon, the US persuaded other countries to become contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) free trade regime, which required that they adhere to the GATT’s principles of reciprocity and non-discrimination in trade, encouraged them to use the GATT’s dispute settlement process to resolve contracts in a multilateral way, and commited them to regular ‘rounds’ or multi-year negotiations to reduce barriers to trade. This clearly served US national interests because it made US trade relations with other contracting parties to the GATT more stable, predictable, and open. Once the regime was established, however, it would exert an influence of its own on the behavior of countries that joined the regime, making it easier for them to comply with the rules of the open global economy for a time at least, even after the hegemon’s power declined (Krasner 1983b ).

Keohane used a modified version Realist rational actor model to explain why countries would continue to support the free trade regime even in the absence of US hegemony. He argued that as the relative power of the US diminished, countries that were part of the regime would continue to adhere to its rules, norms, and operating procedures, and it would continue to constrain their behavior, in part because it served the national interests of these governments to continue to belong to the regime (Keohane 1984 ). While Keohane agreed with the Realist view that countries would pursue their own national interests, he argued that this did not prevent them from cooperating in adhering to the trade regime, or even changing the rules in a cooperative way, if needed, to create a modified regime. Regimes could help reduce uncertainty about other governments’ actions, thereby creating an environment more conducive to cooperation. If countries had at least some idea about how their trading partners would behave, then it would be easier for them to perceive that cooperating with each other to maintain an open global economy could be more beneficial to their long-term, overall national interests than responding to every trade dispute with retaliation.

Building on these concepts, we argue the United States and China are today acting as dual hegemons . Both have benefited from economic globalization and now, to advance their own national interests, both are committed to the principles of free trade and open foreign investment, despite some deviations from those principles on both sides (e.g., Steinberg and Josling 2003 ; Wu 2017 ).

China began opening its economy to imports and FDI in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. China reaped the benefits of the free trade regime as it prospered in the 1980s and 1990s. For this reason, it sought officially to become a permanent and full-fledged member of the regime, a goal it fulfilled when it became a full member of WTO in 2001. In that step the country cemented its commitment to an open trade regime, while domestically the economy continued to open further to domestic private-sector businesses and foreign investors (Garnaut et al. 2018 ).

As China adopted the norms of the open international order founded by the US, it became a beneficiary of that system. Within this context, China should see benefits in bolstering the norms of the system under which it has flourished. Therefore, it would not be in China's interest to implement policies that could threaten the open economic order. Likewise, the US should similarly continue to support the system that it established and has led, since it has benefitted the US itself as well as the other members of the system. Therefore, neither China nor the United States should take actions that could threaten this situation, for example by causing a destructive trade war with each other. Of course, the trade war started by the Trump Administration has led to Chinese retaliation—but despite the verbal and political positioning, US-Chinese trade had not declined dramatically prior to COVID 19. Footnote 3

By the same token, both countries should take efforts to provide the sorts of public goods that promote the open economic order. This dual willingness and ability to provide the public good of supporting the global open economic system has been demonstrated by both the US and China. The US took on this role after World War II and has not renounced this position despite ups and downs of populism at various times along the way, especially after 9/11 and during the Trump Administration. China has continued to increase its openness over the years after 1978, and has demonstrated a willingness to support other countries in trade, finance and FDI through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS Bank (now called the New Development Bank), and the Contingency Reserve Agreement.

The challenge to this system comes when one or both countries no longer see benefits to supporting it. The WTO can prevent protectionist backsliding by securing commitments to its rules and by providing a forum for governments to settle trade disputes. However, if one or both of the hegemonic powers renounce their obligations or take actions that significantly weaken the WTO, then there are few formal safeguards to prevent economic disputes from escalating into intensive protectionism. Worryingly, the Trump Administration has taken efforts to undermine the WTO and the multilateral trade regime more generally (Petersmann 2019 ; Skonieczny 2019), leading many scholars and analysts to declare the Post-WWII world order as dying or dead (Kagan 2017 ; Mearsheimer 2019 ; Walt 2016 ).

In practice, however, it is not clear that ‘Trumpism’ has undermined the global trading system. For example, his argument that “NAFTA is the worst trade deal ever” (e.g., Gandel 2016 ; The Economist 2017 ) led to its replacement by a renegotiated treaty (USMCA) in 2019 with very similar conditions, adding a higher local content requirement for automobile assembly and some additional labor protections. Likewise, Trump’s harsh criticism and rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017 has been replaced by his effort to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with Japan and the continuation of existing bilateral treaties with other countries involved (e.g., Peru, Chile, and Australia). Additionally, in 2020 Gallup polls showed US people favor trade more than ever, suggesting that trade openness will persist going forward, Footnote 4 and the incoming Biden Administration is likely to show less overt hostility to the WTO or to existing US agreements.

At the same time China is opening up its financial services sector. New rules announced in January of 2020 allow foreign banks full ownership of their operations in China, and remove the limit on the size of their activities (Xinhuanet 2020 ). In March of that year, both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were permitted to take majority ownership of their securities businesses in China (Yang 2020 ). China also has begun opening up the automobile market to foreign firms. In 2018 the Chinese government announced that electric vehicle production could be 100% foreign owned, and that by 2022 passenger vehicle production will be fully open to foreign ownership (Shirouzu and Jourdan 2018 ). In short, despite frictions between the two countries, openness to trade and investment have not declined in recent years. Footnote 5

Even if the US or China were to step back in their commitments to the WTO, there are hundreds of regional trade agreements (RTAs) that can fill the void in the multilateral trade regime left by a potentially weakened WTO (Murphy and McLarney 2018 ). RTAs began emerging in large numbers in the mid-1990s, as it became clear that successful WTO negotiations would be rare in the coming decades (Crawford and Laird 2001 ). These RTAs reduce tariffs between members, but also often provide many additional features that build upon existing WTO rules, such as robust intellectual property rights rules, dispute resolution mechanisms for trading partners, and investor protections (Hofmann et al. 2019 ). This patchwork of agreements covers even more countries than the WTO, and these agreements reinforce and even enhance WTO-level commitments. In doing so, they provide an extra guardrail against sharp protectionist backslides from the US, China, or other powerful states.

The US and Chinese economies are both reliant on economic globalization, with exports constituting approximately 12% of US GDP and 20% of China’s GDP in 2018. Moreover, these countries are highly dependent on one another, with the US being China’s largest import market and China being the US’s third largest import market (World Bank 2020a ). As noted previously, just as the fear of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) provided a deterrent to war between the US and the USSR during the bipolar cold war era, the fear of “mutually assured recession” today should prevent either the US or China from taking actions that threaten the open economic order.

For these reasons, we expect that economic globalization will not suffer the sort of downturn predicted by realist international relations scholars and other observers. Instead, commitments to international organizations and agreements, as well as the threat of economic harm, should lead the US and China to support the open economic order for the foreseeable future.

3.2 Changes to Globalization in an Era of Dual Hegemons

This is not, however, to say that the character of the open economic order cannot be altered. As noted above, the US and China waged a costly trade skirmish in 2019 and the US has recently focused on restricting the access of Chinese technology firms to the US market (Pham 2020 ). It seems likely that isolated disputes such as these will occur with some frequency in the future, as the US and China each seek to limit the other’s influence. The likely result will be selective decoupling, as China finds itself partially or entirely excluded from certain sectors in the US, and vice versa. This has important implications for US companies, which might be inclined to seek Chinese investment or to build supply chains through China. While these companies will surely still seek Chinese engagement, the likelihood that disputes will flair up periodically suggests that a more diversified strategy will be necessary, even if it increases costs.

It is also likely that China and the US will each take efforts to build strategic alliances with other countries, such as through the formation of trade and investment agreements. For example, the US has offered Mexico and Canada preferential access to its market through USMCA, while China has offered countries such as Japan, Thailand, and Australia preferential access to its market through RCEP. As noted above, these agreements promote economic integration, going beyond what is agreed upon through WTO, but they also can foster trade diversion (Dai et al. 2014 ). Trade agreements are typically exempt from most favored nation (MFN) rules in the WTO, and so the proliferation of agreements with China or the US will affect trade patterns in ways that distort existing trade relationships. For example, a country like Thailand may trade more with China than with the US, even in areas where the US actually has a comparative advantage to China, simply because Thailand gains preferential access to the Chinese market through RCEP.

An additional concern about trade agreements is that they may be constructed in ways that prevent partners from forming subsequent agreements with certain countries. For example, USMCA has a clause that prevents member countries from forming trade agreements with “non-market” economies, which implicitly refers to China (Scissors 2019 ). This clause, or others like it, could be used by the US in future agreements to prevent their partners from forming trade agreements with China, and China could include similar provisions in its subsequent trade agreements to prevent partners from forming trade agreements with the US. This will not have the effect of ending trade between any of the countries involved, but it will likely lead to further trade diversion as countries such as Canada and Mexico are unable to establish agreements with China to lower trade barriers. This has important implications for supply chains, as MNEs must seek suppliers with an eye to trade diverting effects of future trade and investment agreements.

4 Economic Globalization in an Era of Dual Hegemons

As discussed above, international relations theorists in the realist tradition predicted that a decline in global integration would accompany China’s rise and earlier work shows data appearing to support this prediction (Witt 2019 ). However, we show below that, despite the massive economic opening in China and increasing competition with the US for global economic leadership, economic globalization has remained quite stable. Consider Fig.  2 , which shows the trends in world trade since before China first opened its market, in 1978.

World exports and world GDP, 1960–2018

The figure shows that the growth of global trade has plateaued in the 2010s, but that it has not declined and that it remains at or near its peak. This is true whether we look at trade as a share of GDP, as Witt ( 2019 ) does, or if we simply look at trade volume independent of GDP. We believe that the latter measure is preferable, insomuch as trade growth may be obscured by faster growth in global GDP, as occurred in the 2014–2016 period. In any case, the figure clarifies that global trade has not declined, suggesting that deglobalization has not been occurring. Footnote 6

The major drop-offs in world trade growth since the early years of the Great Depression in the 1930s have been during World War II, and then, as shown in Fig.  2 , during the early 1980s emerging market debt crisis, as well as the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis, a global economic slowdown in 2016, and most recently during the Coronavirus crisis of 2020 (not shown). These events each had short-term impacts on globalization, but they did not lead to a sustained reduction in global trade (Coronavirus notwithstanding).

The 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis illustrates this point and, in the process, offers support for our dual hegemonic stability theory framework. Caused by a malfunction of the US financial system, in which banks and investors overexposed themselves to the real estate loan market and related derivatives, this crisis spread worldwide and caused a recession in many countries. Globalization did indeed decline for that brief period during the crisis. However, this decline proved short-lived, as the US government implemented policies to bolster the global financial system, while China began lending more money to countries around the world. Consistent with dual hegemonic stability, the two global leaders each provided global public goods that prevented what might otherwise have been a dramatic decline in globalization, akin to the one that occurred in the Great Depression.

The trend in trade regulation over time is similarly at odds with the deglobalization narrative. Looking at average tariffs of major trading countries, it is evident in Fig.  3 that tariff barriers have continued to fall, from an already low level, since China joined the WTO in 2001.

Tariff rates in major trading countries

Non-tariff barriers to international trade, such as import quotas and subsidization of domestic firms to fend off imports, as well as subsidization of exports, have also remained low during the twenty-first century.

While tariffs have decreased steadily overall, there have been exceptions. The US continues to impose restrictions on steel and auto imports, as has frequently been done since Lyndon Johnson imposed steel import quotas in 1969. Ronald Reagan imposed restrictive policies in 1981 (on autos) and 1984 (on steel). Subsequent US Presidents, from George W. Bush (in 2002) to Barack Obama (in 2015) have restricted steel imports with tariffs or quotas, often as a result of claims that foreign governments were unfairly subsidizing their steel exports. These examples suggest that the Trump Administration’s protectionism is not out of line with US policy in the past, contrary to suggestions that the Administration is leading a decline of the global economic order (Walt 2016 ). Of course, the Trump Administration has implemented its share of protectionism, such as the recent ban on Huawei from selling its telecom equipment in the United States, based on a claim that Huawei was supplying or could supply information about users of the telecom system to the Chinese military (Swanson 2020 ).

For its part, China also restricts auto imports with high tariffs and subsidies for domestic producers (including subsidiaries of foreign automakers). China also keeps foreign firms out of what they consider sensitive industries such as telecommunications, and they limit foreign financial services firms to a tiny market share in China. China restricts imports of several agricultural products, such as wheat and rice—just as the United States has done for decades. In short, while both countries have exceptions to a free trade policy, over half of the products imported into both countries enter without restrictions, with an overall average tariff of 1.6% in the US and 3.4% in China in 2019 (United States Trade Representative 2020 ; World Bank 2020a ).

Considering other measures of economic openness, FDI is often seen as an indicator of countries’ willingness to allow foreign business to operate locally. The growth of FDI after World War II has been more rapid than growth of GDP for most of the period. As shown in Fig.  4 , the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009 was accompanied by a major downturn in FDI, and since then the growth of this investment has been volatile, though still positive overall. The key point with respect to globalization is that FDI has remained at or near its peak in the years since China emerged as a global power on-or-near par with the US.

Global and regional FDI inflows, 1970–2018

Likewise, global financial flows such as international portfolio investment and foreign exchange transactions have trended upward, albeit with considerable volatility and with a decline during the Global Financial Crisis. Foreign exchange transactions, mainly in London and New York, exceeded $6 trillion per day in 2019 compared with $1.2 trillion in 2001 (Bank for International Settlements 2019 ). Global portfolio investment grew at an average rate of 44% per year during the 2010s, but it has been very volatile, as shown in Fig.  5 . It is clear that globalization has not declined by these financial measures.

Source: World Bank 2020b

Cross-border portfolio investment, 1960–2018.

International immigration flows are another measure of economic openness, involving people as the factor that crosses borders. People and capital are generally viewed as the two mobile factors of production, while land is not. And final products and services also may or may not be mobile, as measured by trade flows. It is clear in Fig.  6 that global migration flows have not decreased during the 2010s, but rather they show an increasing rate since the turn of the century.

Source: de Haas et al. 2019 , p. 888. Authors' calculations based on the Global Migrant Origin Database (World Bank) (1960–1980 data) and UN Population Division Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2017 Revision (1990–2017 data)

International migration flows, 1960–2017.

The evidence presented in this section contests the deglobalization narrative, showing instead that the global flows of products, money, and people have increased in the twenty-first century and remain near their peaks, and supporting our Proposition 1 .

5 Dual Hegemonic Stability and International Business in the Twenty-First Century

While much of the discussion above has focused on macro indicators of international openness and government policies, it all relates to business, mostly to international business. Our principal measure of openness is the amount of trade and investment taking place, and of course it is companies that are carrying out those exports, imports and investments. International bank lending and foreign exchange are mainly carried out by multinational banks, operating principally in London and New York. Footnote 7 Likewise, some international movement of people occurs within multinational firms. These indicators all show positive growth trends in the twenty-first Century, even after the Global Financial Crisis.

From a business perspective, dual hegemonic stability means that countries will maintain an open market environment of the sort that has been demonstrated to attract FDI and also international trade (Ahlquist 2006; Büthe and Milner 2008; Gamso and Grosse 2020 ). In this context, global companies will continue to engage in trade and investment around the world and do not need to dramatically reorient themselves in response to, or in anticipation of, a wave of tariff hikes or other non-tariff barriers. Supply chains can continue to function and may even deepen as China’s Belt and Road projects bring more countries into the globalized economy. Companies around the world can also expect both China and the US to remain largely open to global business, with positive implications for those firms that are interested in expanding into these markets. Of course, globalization creates losers as well as winners, and our analysis suggests that import-competing companies will not see their fortunes improve in a world of dual hegemonic stability.

That said, US–China skirmishing to build greater economic and political power will produce some policy changes that do constrain firms. Economic issues such as ‘unfair’ trade restrictions on both sides can lead to higher-cost exports if new tariffs are imposed on specific products, even though tariff barriers overall are quite low in both countries. Specific restrictions, as the US has imposed on auto and steel imports from several countries on and off over the past six decades, do raise significant barriers in those sectors. Likewise, China’s refusal to allow foreign telecom companies to provide various services in China, and precluding trans-border transfer of information from China, severely restrict leading US companies in that sector. Chinese government subsidization of state-owned companies in many sectors enables them to compete overseas with an advantage that is difficult to measure and restrain, although it is possible to deal with this challenge through the WTO.

Multinational firms interested in operating in China will continue to have to deal with the restrictions there in sectors such as automobiles, financial services, telecommunications, electric power and operation of any business that requires cross-border transmission of customer information. Constraints there have hobbled the businesses of Google, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services. Auto companies since the 1980s have faced the requirement to operate only with a joint venture partner that owns at least 50% of the company in China. This last point suggests that a strategy for other kinds of firms may be to use a joint venture partner to avoid potential limitations that the government might impose (Zhu and Sardana 2020 ). And from the opposite perspective, at least for Chinese SOEs, their performance has been better when they have foreign investors involved, such as SAIC with GM and Volkswagen and foreign listings that attract portfolio investors (Zhu et al. 2019 ).

To deal more comprehensively with these risks, we suggest a geopolitical risk management framework within which companies can design strategies to reduce the potential negative impacts of US–China government decisions. The framework is depicted in Fig.  7 .

Geopolitical risk management framework

The framework points out four categories of responses to geopolitical risks. First is to simply run the risk when it is perceived to be low or manageable. This strategy will be useful for companies that are not exposed to business activity in the US or China, or for companies that operate only domestically in the US or China. For example, European firms that operate hotels, restaurants, local professional services, and other businesses that are highly local can likely avoid the risk. The more local or regional the business and the supply chain, the more likely that the avoidance strategy can serve well.

Another aspect of this avoidance strategy to deal with US–China conflict suggests that companies should look to avoid putting their business in one of the risky countries, if that risk indeed is very significant for the particular firm or industry (e.g., US defense contractors staying away from Chinese operations, and Chinese companies such as Huawei, TikTok and other Internet companies that could transfer US information to the Chinese military staying away from the US). Many times this is not possible, but when the US-based or Chinese firm can operate in other countries, this can help reduce their bilateral risk.

A second category of response to geopolitical risk is to transfer it to a third party. Insurance is the most common mechanism to accomplish this goal. A political risk insurance policy for a US company from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) can insure its business in an emerging market against political violence including terrorism, currency inconvertibility and government interference in the firm’s business activities, including expropriation. Similar policies are available from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in the World Bank group for companies from any member country operating in an emerging market. Private sector insurance policies against political risk are available from companies such as AIG and Zurich Insurance. This category of response could serve the interests of companies that require significant capital investment in facilities in the host country, such as manufacturing companies, hotels, mining companies, and agricultural companies.

Additional means of transferring geopolitical risks to third parties include measures for guaranteeing delivery of a product that may be a part of a company’s supply chain. For example, if oil is needed for the company’s business, (deliverable) futures contracts exist that guarantee a price and the delivery of a specified quantity of oil at a particular future date (e.g., for 1000 barrels per contract at the New York Mercantile Exchange). Similar contracts exist for some other commodities and at some other exchanges as well. Options contracts and swaps for commodities provide additional sources of protection against the risk of breakdowns in a supply chain.

A third strategy dimension is to  adapt the company’s business to deal with the risk. This strategy includes setting up plants or offices or other facilities in countries other than China or the US to avoid the direct threat of government intervention. Footnote 8 A company such as Apple can contract out with other companies to provide components for their iPhones and even assembly of those phones, as Apple has done for many years. If key suppliers are in the US or China, then Apple can look to providers in third countries. For any company, if China is the location of production facilities, then adaptation could involve moving to another emerging market in Asia, from Vietnam and Thailand to India.

Chinese firms interested in operating in the US are likely to find more constraints in the way that Huawei and ZTE have experienced in telecommunications equipment and TikTok is experiencing in online video sharing. National security concerns easily could be extended to other sectors, from agricultural products to pharmaceuticals. A Chinese company in many industries would be best served by adapting its business via operating with a US partner, and maybe even operating through a subsidiary in another country such as the UK or maybe Dubai/UAE or the Cayman Islands. Populist pressures as well as national security concerns will likely make it more difficult for a range of Chinese companies to enter the US in the future.

Adapting the company’s business financially may also be beneficial, for example, by taking on local debt in the country where local assets are exposed to risk. Just balancing accounts payable and receivable for a western company in China or a Chinese company in the US could limit the exposure of assets to some extent. Broadly speaking, building up local liabilities where local assets are at risk will help to protect the company.

Many additional possibilities exist to adapt the company’s business activities so that geopolitical risk can be reduced. For both US-based and Chinese companies, finding a joint venture partner in the other country may reduce the risk of negative government policy changes toward that company (Johns and Wellhausen 2016 ), as might working with an intergovernmental organization such as the World Bank (Gamso and Nelson 2019 ). For European or emerging market-based companies, finding production locations outside of the US and China can reduce the risk, as can looking to additional markets in other countries such as the EU, India, and other large economies. Aiming directly at the government of China or the US to curry favor, through corporate social responsibility programs (Darendeli and Hill 2016 ) or just lobbying (Keillor et al. 2005 ) can also be useful tools.

The fourth and final category of responses is to diversify the company’s business outside of the US and China. This diversification of business activities does not reduce the risk to a particular facility or supply source in the US or China, but it does enable the firm to have alternative(s) in the event of adverse policy moves by either of those governments. So, as with any diversification strategy, moving some activities outside of the two protagonist countries will enable a company to reduce the overall impact of adverse policies on its total business worldwide. An MNE also could aim to denominate more of its business in currencies other than dollars or renminbi, to avoid possible harmful exchange rate changes in response to policies in either the US or China.

This current reality suggests that companies should look to diversify their markets and supply chain activities. Already, a significant amount of reshuffling of offshore production in textiles and electronics has seen assembly activities move from China to other countries in Asia such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as India (Hufford and Tita 2019 ). China’s large market remains very attractive to many multinationals, but India’s market has grown faster in several recent years and provides possible diversification opportunities. And on the other side of the Pacific, the US has recently used policies to dissuade companies from dealing with China, so that a strategy of focusing more on Europe, Japan, and non-China emerging markets makes sense as well for multinationals, even though a significant decoupling of the US and Chinese economies seems unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Each of these strategies implies a move to greater emphasis on risk management and less focus on lean supply chains that has dominated in recent years. In fact, multinational firms would be well-served by implementing a range of risk-management tools, as suggested by our Proposition 2 and shown in Fig.  7 and Table 2 in the “ Appendix ”.

An open global economy does not mean that companies should naive the risks associated with international business in the context of a changing world order. More short-term trade or investment barriers could be implemented, as the US and China use these policies to compete with one another in various areas of international business and international relations. The bilateral jockeying for position in the international system between China and the US will be a feature that firms will need to contend with for the foreseeable future. Additionally, trade and investment diversion stemming from new bilateral and regional economic agreements must be factored into firms’ assessments as they identify suppliers and consider investments.

6 Long-Term Dual Hegemonic Stability

There are challenges to the long-term persistence of dual hegemonic stability. These include political tensions between the United States and China, the rise of political nationalism around the world, and the COVID 19 pandemic. The first challenge is the emerging tension between the US and Chinese governments. Tensions over China’s economic policies generated a serious trade dispute between the two countries, which has been partially resolved with the 2020 Phase One trade agreement (Setser 2020 ). These economic tensions are likely to reemerge and other disputes will surely arise as well. If tensions become sufficiently intense, there is a possibility that the countries will engage in a Cold War-type standoff, perhaps leading other countries to trade intensively with one party or the other. As discussed above, we do not see this as a likely outcome, given the membership of China and the US in the WTO, as well as the enormous economic benefits that both countries obtain from allowing the open economic system to operate. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning, as this outcome is seen as likely by some analysts (e.g., Khong 2019 ).

The second challenge is the rise of political nationalism around the world. In the latter half of the 2010s, nationalist governments came to power in the United States, Brazil, countries of Western Europe, the Philippines, Turkey, and elsewhere (Snyder 2019 ). China’s government may also be described as nationalistic (Economy 2014 ), even though it sometimes shows support for global governance (Kastner et al. 2020 ). Despite some new tariffs, this political nationalism has not led to widespread protectionism, but it has been accompanied by efforts (some successful) to undermine organizations like the WTO (Brown and Irwin 2019 ). If political nationalism leads to more sustained economic nationalism, particularly from the United States and China, which are the world’s two largest traders, then it may lead to a deterioration of hegemonic stability. This is not currently in the interest of either state, but interests may change in the future.

Military conflict, such as a possible skirmish in the South China Sea, is also conceivable. Any attack by a Chinese ship or plane on a US ship operating in international waters that the Chinese claim as their own could lead to escalation of some sort. Ramped-up military attacks are not likely, but economic sanctions certainly are. This would push each hegemon to raise more economic barriers on the other, and hurt MNE interests. While this is far from a Pearl Harbor or a frontal attack on the other hegemon, still such skirmishes are likely, and their policy implications are something that companies should plan for.

COVID 19 may exacerbate the first two challenges. The virus appears to be worsening relations between the United States and China, at least in the short term (Buckley and Myers 2020 ). Likewise, there are some indications that COVID 19 is encouraging countries to turn inward, in an effort to increase self-sufficiency (Irwin 2020 ). However, it is too soon to say how exactly the 2020 pandemic will affect global commerce in the coming years and decades, and there are reasons to suspect that its long-term impacts on globalization will not be severe (O’Neill 2020 ). Nevertheless, this unprecedented challenge must be acknowledged.

These possibilities notwithstanding, the most likely scenario for world order in the twenty-first century is ongoing economic globalization, led by two states that have persistently supported and benefited from this status quo. Continuing to support globalization is in the best interests of both of these states, and so we expect them each to continue providing global public goods that incentivize global trade and investment. Therefore, contrary to the increasingly common journalistic narrative, globalization should persist for the foreseeable future. Even with a continuation of globalization, companies need to be prepared to deal with bilateral frictions between the US and China, so the four-pronged risk management strategy described above can help them to manage future shocks.

It should be noted that there are dissenting opinions to this emerging conventional wisdom, as some analysts are skeptical of US decline (e.g., Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a , b ), others are skeptical of China’s rise (e.g., Lynch 2019 ), and still others propose that a multipolar world order has emerged (e.g., Mearsheimer 2019 ).

While one could debate the appropriateness of R&D spending as a measure of innovation, the US-China dual leadership also is evidenced by patents and trademarks granted, and by other measures collected by the World Intellectual Property Organization ( 2019 ). While no measure of innovation is complete, the various indicators all point toward US-China leadership.

US-China trade was valued at $578 billion, with a US deficit of $347 billion, in the last year of the Obama administration (2016). US-China trade was valued at $558 billion, with a US deficit of $345 billion, in 2019.

“More Americans than Gallup has seen in a quarter century view foreign trade positively, with 79% calling it "an opportunity for economic growth through increased U.S. exports" (Saad 2020 ).

This is not to deny the real trade barriers that have been imposed on US-China trade by President Trump since 2017, and the retaliation by China’s government. These restrictions, mainly tariffs, have had some impact on that trade, though it continues fairly similar in volume and value to previous years, with some exceptions.

Of course, this does not take into account the impacts of COVID 19 on global trade.

It would be logical to expect Hong Kong, or even Shanghai, to join London and New York as the chief global financial centers. For several reasons, mainly to do with political risk of the Chinese government in Hong Kong, this last center has not (yet) developed on the level of the London or New York.

If the company is changing an existing activity, such as moving production out of China, or contracting production to a third party, then this is adaptation. If the company adds new operations outside of China or the US to deal with this geopolitical risk, then this would be diversification, as discussed in the next category.

Bank for International Settlements (2019). Triennial Central Bank Survey. https://www.bis.org/statistics/rpfx19_fx.pdf . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Beeson, M., & Li, F. (2016). China’s place in regional and global governance: A new world comes into view. Global Policy, 7 (4), 491–499.

Google Scholar  

Brennan, D. G. (1971). Strategic alternatives: I. New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/24/archives/strategic-alternatives-i.html . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Brooks, S. G., & Wohlforth, W. C. (2016a). The rise and fall of the great powers in the twenty-first Century: China’s rise and the fate of America’s global position. International Security, 40 (3), 7–53.

Brooks, S. G., & Wohlforth, W. C. (2016b). The once and future superpower: Why China won’t overtake the United States. Foreign Affairs, 95 (3), 91–104.

Brown, C. P., & Irwin, D. A. (2019). Trump’s assault on the global trading system: And why decoupling from China could change everything. Foreign Affairs, 98 (5), 125–136.

Buckley, C., & Myers, S. L. (2020). From ‘respect’ to ‘sick and twisted’: How Coronavirus hit U.S.-China ties. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-united-states-cold-war.html . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Cao, C., Suttmeier, R. P., & Simon, D. F. (2006). China’s 15-year science and technology plan. Physics Today, 59 (12), 38–43.

Cao, H., & Paltiel, J. (2015). Facing China as a new global superpower: Domestic and international dynamics from a multidisciplinary angle . Singapore: Springer.

Crawford, J., & Laird, S. (2001). Regional trade agreements and the WTO. The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 12 (2), 193–211.

Dai, M., Yotov, Y. V., & Zylkin, T. (2014). On the trade-diversion effects of free trade agreements. Economic Letters, 122 (2), 321–325.

Darendeli, I. S., & Hill, T. L. (2016). Uncovering the complex relationships between political risk and MNE firm legitimacy: Insights from Libya. Journal of International Business Studies, 47 (1), 68–92.

de Haas, H., Czaika, M., Flahaux, M., Mahendra, E., Natter, K., Vezzoli, S. Varela, M. (2019). International Migration: Trends, Determinants, and Policy Effects. Population and Development Review , 45 (4), 885–922.

Dreher, A., Fuchs, A., Parks, B., Strange, A. M., & Tierney, M. (2018). Apples and dragon fruits: The determinants of aid and other forms of state financing from China to Africa. International Studies Quarterly, 62 (1), 182–194.

Economy, E. C. (2014). China’s imperial president: Xi Jinping tightens his grip. Foreign Affairs, 93 (6), 80–91.

Economy, E. C. (2018). The third revolution: Xi Jinping and the new Chinese state . New York: Oxford University Press.

Edgecliffe-Johnson, A., & Waldmeir, P. (2018). US business leaders warn on impact of Trump tariffs. Financial Times . https://www.ft.com/content/61f0ace4-7102-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Fajgelbaum, P. D., Goldberg, P. K., Kennedy, P. J., & Khandelwal, A. K. (2020). The return to protectionism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135 (1), 1–55.

Fish, I. S. (2017). Is China becoming the world's most likeable superpower? The Atlantic . https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/china-jinping-trump-america-first-keqiang/529014/ . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Gallagher, K. P., & Porzecanski, R. (2010). The dragon in the room: China and the future of Latin American industrialization . Redwood City: Stanford University Press.

Gamso, J. (2019). China’s rise and physical integrity rights in developing countries. Review of International Political Economy, 26 (4), 722–748.

Gamso, J., & Grosse, R. (2020). Trade agreement depth, foreign direct investment, and the moderating role of property rights. Journal of International Business Policy . https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-020-00061-x .

Article   Google Scholar  

Gamso, J., & Nelson, R. (2019). Does partnering with the World Bank shield investors from political risks in less developed countries? Journal of World Business, 54 (5), 100997.

Gandel, S. (2016). Donald Trump says NAFTA was the worst trade deal the U.S. ever signed. Fortune . https://fortune.com/2016/09/27/presidential-debate-nafta-agreement/ . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Garnaut, R., Song, L., & Fang, C. (2018). China’s 40 years of reform and development: 1978–2018 . Acton: Australian National University Press.

Hofmann, C., Osnago, A., & Ruta, M. (2019). The content of preferential trade agreements. World Trade Review, 18 (3), 365–398.

Hufford, A., & Tita, B. (2019). Manufacturers move supply chains out of China. Wall Street Journal . https://www.wsj.com/articles/manufacturers-move-supply-chains-out-of-china-11563096601 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Ikenberry, G. J. (2005). Power and liberal order: America’s postwar world order in transition. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 5 (2), 133–152.

International Monetary Fund (2020). GDP in Current Prices. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD . Accessed 13 May 2020.

Irwin, D. A. (2020). The pandemic adds momentum to the deglobalization trend. Peterson Institute for International Economics . https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/pandemic-adds-momentum-deglobalization-trend . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Johns, L., & Wellhausen, R. L. (2016). Under one roof: Supply chains and the protection of foreign investment. American Political Science Review, 110 (1), 31–51.

Kagan, R. (2017). The twilight of the liberal world order. Brookings . https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-twilight-of-the-liberal-world-order/ . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Kastner, S. L., Pearson, M. M., & Rector, C. (2020). China and global governance: Opportunistic multilateralism. Global Policy, 11 (1), 164–169.

Keillor, B. D., Wilkinson, T. J., & Owens, D. (2005). Threats to international operations: Dealing with political risk at the firm level. Journal of Business Research, 58 (5), 629–635.

Keohane, R. (1984). After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Khong, Y. F. (2019). The US, China, and the Cold War analogy. China International Strategy Review, 1 (2), 223–237.

Kindleberger, C. (1973). The world in depression: 1929–39 . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kolstad, I., & Wiig, A. (2012). What determines Chinese outward FDI? Journal of World Business, 47 (1), 26–34.

Krasner, S. D. (1976). State power and the structure of international trade. World Politics, 28 (3), 317–347.

Krasner, S. D. (1983a). Regimes and the limits of realism: Regimes as autonomous variables. In S. D. Krasner (Ed.), International regimes . Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Krasner, S. D. (1983b). Structural causes and regime consequences: Regimes as intervening variables. In S. D. Krasner (Ed.), International regimes . Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Lake, D. (1993). Leadership, hegemony, and the international economy: Naked emperor or tattered monarch with potential? International Studies Quarterly, 37 (4), 459–489.

Liao, N. C. (2018). Winds of change: Assessing China’s assertive turn in foreign policy. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 53 (6), 880–895.

Lin, J. Y. (2018). China’s rise and opportunity for structural transformation in Africa. Journal of African Economies, 27 (1), i15–i28.

Lynch, D. C. (2019). Is China’s rise now stalling? The Pacific Review, 32 (3), 446–474.

Maher, R. (2016). The rise of China and the future of the Atlantic alliance. Orbis, 60 (3), 366–381.

McBride, J., & Chatzky, A. (2019). Is ‘made in China 2025’ a threat to global trade? Council on Foreign Relations . https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2019). Bound to fail: The rise and fall of the liberal international order. International Security, 43 (4), 7–50.

Montgomery, E. B. (2014). Contested primacy in the Western Pacific: China’s rise and the future of US power projection. International Security, 38 (4), 115–149.

Morton, K. (2016). China’s ambition in the South China Sea: Is a legitimate maritime order possible? International Affairs, 92 (4), 909–940.

Murphy, J. P., & McLarney, C. (2018). Regionalism in the multilateral trading system: The role of regional trade agreements. In A. Presenza & L. R. Sheehan (Eds.), Geopolitics and strategic management in the global economy (pp. 1–18). Hershey: IGI Global.

OECD (2018). China's Belt and Road Initiative in the Global Trade, Investment and Finance Landscape. https://www.oecd.org/finance/Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-in-the-global-trade-investment-and-finance-landscape.pdf . Accessed 25 Aug 2020.

Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

O’Neill, J. (2020). Reading the COVID 19 market. Project Syndicate . https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-economic-implications-stock-market-prices-by-jim-o-neill-2020-04 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Petersmann, E. (2019). How should WTO members react to their WTO crises? World Trade Review, 18 (3), 503–525.

Pham, S. (2020). Trump administration wants to purge Chinese tech from US networks. CNN . https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/tech/pompeo-tiktok-chinese-apps-us-intl-hnk/index.html . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Robertson, P. E., & Sin, A. (2017). Measuring hard power: China’s economic growth and military capacity. Defence and Peace Economics, 28 (1), 91–111.

Russ, K. (2019). What unilateralism means for the future of the U.S. economy. Harvard Business Review , https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-unilateralism-means-for-the-future-of-the-u-s-economy . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Saad, L. (2020). Americans’ vanishing fear of foreign trade. Gallup . https://news.gallup.com/poll/286730/americans-vanishing-fear-foreign-trade.aspx . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Schelling, T. (1966). Arms and influence . New Haven: Yale University Press.

Scissors, D. (2019). USMCA ‘trumps’ China. American Enterprise Institute , https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/usmca-trumps-china/ . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Scobell, A. (2018). The South China Sea and US–China rivalry. Political Science Quarterly, 133 (2), 199–224.

Setser, B. W. (2020). Lessons from phase one of the trade war with China. Council on Foreign Relations . https://www.cfr.org/blog/lessons-phase-one-trade-war-china . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Shambaugh, D. (2015). China’s soft-power push: The search for respect. Foreign Affairs, 94 (4), 99–107.

Shifrinson, J. (2018). Should the United States fear China’s rise? The Washington Quarterly, 41 (4), 65–83.

Shirouzu, N., & Jourdan, A. (2018). China to scrap foreign ownership caps on automakers by 2022. Automotive News China . https://www.autonews.com/article/20180417/GLOBAL03/180419785/china-to-scrap-foreign-ownership-caps-on-automakers-by-2022 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Snidal, D. (1985). The limits of hegemonic stability theory. International Organization, 39 (4), 579–614.

Snyder, J. (2019). The broken bargain: How nationalism came back. Foreign Affairs, 98 (2), 54–60.

Soong, J. (2018). China’s one belt and one road initiative meets ASEAN economic community: Propelling and deepening regional economic integration? The Chinese Economy, 51 (4), 291–297.

Steinberg, R. H., & Josling, T. E. (2003). When the peace ends: The vulnerability of EC and US agricultural subsidies to WTO legal challenge. Journal of International Economic Law, 6 (2), 369–417.

Swanson, A. (2020). U.S. delivers another blow to Huawei with new tech restrictions. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/business/economy/commerce-department-huawei.html?searchResultPosition=2 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Tayloe, S. C. (2017). Crossover point: How China’s naval modernization could reverse the United States’ strategic advantage. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 4 (1), 1–25.

Thayer, C. A. (2011). Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and southeast Asian responses. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30 (2), 77–104.

The Economist . (2017). Reshape or shatter? The pitfalls of renegotiating NAFTA. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2017/02/11/the-pitfalls-of-renegotiating-nafta . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Toje, A. (2018). Will China’s rise be peaceful? Security, stability, and legitimacy . New York: Oxford University Press.

Tunsjø, Ø. (2018). The return of bipolarity in world politics: China, the United States, and geostructural realism . New York: Colombia University Press.

Turcsányi, R. Q. (2018). Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea: Power sources, domestic politics, and reactive foreign policy . Berlin: Springer.

United States Trade Representative. (2020). Industrial Tariffs . https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/industry-manufacturing/industrial-tariffs . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Walt, S. M. (2016). The collapse of the liberal world order. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/26/the-collapse-of-the-liberal-world-order-european-union-brexit-donald-trump/ . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Wang, Y., & Zhao, L. (2017). Outward foreign direct investment from China: Recent trend and development. The Chinese Economy, 50 (5), 356–365.

Witt, M. A. (2019). De-globalization: Theories, predictions, and opportunities for international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 50 (7), 1053–1077.

World Bank (2020a). World Development Indicators . https://databank.worldbank.org/World-Exports-World-GDP-(Current-US$-Billions)/id/d1c0bbdb . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

World Bank (2020b). Cross-Border Portfolio Flows, 1960-2018. https://databank.worldbank.org/Cross-border-portfolio-flows-(US$-millions)/id/ef67b7b8 . Accessed 13 May 2020.

World Intellectual Property Organization. (2019). World Intellectual Property Indicators 2019 . https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_941_2019.pdf . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Wu, M. (2017). China’s export restrictions and the limits of WTO law. World Trade Review, 16 (4), 673–691.

Xie, Y., Zhang, C., & Lai, Q. (2014). China’s rise as a major contributor to science and technology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111 (26), 9437–9442.

Xinhuanet (2020). China unveils revised regulations for foreign banks. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/04/c_138677857.htm . Accessed 12 Aug 2020.

Xuetong, Y. (2019). The age of uneasy peace: Chinese power in a divided world. Foreign Affairs, 98 (1), 40–46.

Yang, J. (2020). China grants approval for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley to control securities units. Wall Street Journal . https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-grants-approval-for-goldman-sachs-morgan-stanley-to-control-securities-units-11585318469 . Accessed 1 Dec 2020.

Zeng, J., & Breslin, S. (2016). China’s ‘new type of great power relations’: A G2 with Chinese characteristics. International Affairs, 92 (4), 773–794.

Zhu, J. J., Tse, C. H., & Li, H. (2019). Unfolding China’s state-owned corporate empires and mitigating agency hazards: Effects of foreign investments and innovativeness. Journal of World Business, 54 (3), 191–212.

Zhu, Y., & Sardana, D. (2020). Multinational enterprises’ risk mitigation strategies in emerging markets: A political coalition perspective. Journal of World Business, 55 (2), 101044.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mark Casson and Rob Spich, as well as the editors of MIR, for their very helpful comments on this paper.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Robert Grosse, Jonas Gamso & Roy C. Nelson

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Grosse .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Grosse, R., Gamso, J. & Nelson, R.C. China’s Rise, World Order, and the Implications for International Business. Manag Int Rev 61 , 1–26 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-020-00433-8

Download citation

Received : 27 October 2020

Revised : 21 November 2020

Accepted : 03 December 2020

Published : 03 March 2021

Issue Date : March 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-020-00433-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Dual hegemony
• International business
• Global integration
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Sub Journals
• Peer Review Policy
• Short Guide to New Editors
• Retraction Guidelines
• Research Institute
• Recommendations for the Board of Directors
• Editor Research Audit and Service Assessments
• Guidelines for Journals Publishers
• Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers
• Commandment in Social Media
• Suggestions
• Authorship Disputes
• Rights and Responsibilities
• About the Publisher
• Call for Papers
• Editorial Team
• Submissions

New World Order: 2022 as a Turning Point

José Filipe Pinto

world order, USA, China, Russia, hegemony, multi-order world

In February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and this act represents a turning point in the world order because it was a step toward the expansionism of Putin s Eurasian Order to challenge the hegemony of the Liberal Order ruled by the United States of America The so-called special military operation aims not only to force Ukraine to reject any approach to Western Europe namely to NATO and European Union but also to fight against American hegemony and to replace the present world order with a new model in a conjuncture when China defends an alleged post-hegemonic world and uses both its sharp power and its wolf warrior strategy to reach it This fact explains China s position toward the war in Ukraine because despite its appeals to peace China never refers to the conflict as a war or an invasion Moreover China has opposed European and North American sanctions on Russia and even saying that Beijing does not provide weapons for the Russian army Xi Jinping refuses to break its no-limits partnership with Russia This chapter proves that this fight against American hegemony represents a strategy to change the world order but not with a post-hegemonic goal In the first moment revisiting the Cold War bipolar order and in the second phase towards a multi-order world also involving a religious dimension

• Article PDF

How to Cite

José Filipe Pinto. (2023). New World Order: 2022 as a Turning Point. Global Journal of Human-Social Science , 23 (F3), 31–41. Retrieved from https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/view/103767

Download Citation

• Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)

Copyright (c) 2023 Authors and Global Journals Private Limited

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Thought Papers

Written by industry leaders and in-house research experts, our papers provide actionable insights for government, policy makers and business leaders to effectively manoeuvre the political and business landscape of India and the world.

• Research Papers

The Myth Of A New World Order

Joseph S. Nye

Fmr Dean, Kennedy School at Harvard Uty

There is now a new myth regarding how terrible things are going to be in the future. We’ve been told that the US is in decline, but I’ve written a little book this year called “Is the American Century over?” saying it’s not a very useful concept.  You have to distinguish between absolute decline and relative decline. Absolute decline is what happened in ancient Rome which succumbed not to another empire but to hordes of Barbarians against which it could not protect itself because it had no productivity in its economy and was torn by warfare. Now whatever you say about the grid-lock in Washington today it is not a very good description of what is happening in the US. The US isn't going through an absolute decline.  Now let us consider a relative decline. This describes a situation where a country could be doing well in absolute terms, but not as well as it does when compared to others. Here, the interesting question is - Who will replace the US?

To read the full research paper, Subscribe.

G.K. Pillai Former Home Secretary, Government of India

Uncovering trends in security.

P.C. Haldar Former Director of Intelligence Bureau, GoI

Lt. Gen. Philip Campose Former Vice Chief of the Indian Army

Optimal warfare.

V. Balachandran Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GOI

Reorganizing urban disaster management .

Praveen Swami National Editor, The Indian Express

India's capacity crisis.

John Bruton Former Prime Minister of Ireland

Withdrawing from the international system.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

New World Order

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Save to Library
• Last »
• Illuminati Follow Following
• Conspiracy Theories Follow Following
• Computer Application Follow Following
• Globalization and New World Order Follow Following
• Perpajakan Follow Following
• International society Follow Following
• Transatlantic relations Follow Following
• Teaching Political Science and International Relations Follow Following
• Spanish Foreign Policy Follow Following
• American Foreign Policy Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Your browser is not supported

Sorry but it looks as if your browser is out of date. To get the best experience using our site we recommend that you upgrade or switch browsers.

Find a solution

• Skip to main content
• Skip to navigation
• hot-topics Extras
• Newsletters
• Reading room

Tell us what you think. Take part in our reader survey

Celebrating twenty years

• Back to parent navigation item
• Collections
• Water and the environment
• Chemical bonding
• Antimicrobial resistance
• Energy storage and batteries
• AI and automation
• Sustainability
• Research culture
• Nobel prize
• Food science and cookery
• Plastics and polymers
• Periodic table
• Coronavirus

• More from navigation items

First regular molecular fractal in nature

• No comments

A natural protein has been reported to self-assemble into one of the best-known regular mathematically complex fractals – a Sierpiński triangle. This is the first time such a discovery has been made at the molecular scale in nature.

Source: © Franziska L. Sendker et al 2024

The team from Germany was surprised to discover that a bacterial protein could form a Sierpiński triangle

Fractals are geometric shapes that are made up of repeating smaller structures that resemble the whole. These shapes are constructed using simple mathematical rules – the patterns are self-similar across multiple length scales – resulting in geometries that are both complex and beautiful. Macroscopic fractals are common in nature – like snowflakes, river networks and mountain ranges – but are restricted to synthetic systems in molecules. Most natural fractals are irregular as their structures at different scales do not exactly match. Synthetic Sierpiński triangles have been created before on the molecular scale but these require precise experimental control.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Marburg have now discovered a natural metabolic enzyme found in a cyanobacterium is capable of forming a Sierpiński triangle in solution at room temperature. Lead author Georg Hochberg says that they wanted to see what different organisms’ citrate synthase enzymes could do ‘so, we pick what we thought was a pretty boring enzyme’.

However, mass photometry of the enzyme gave the researchers a surprise. It revealed that the enzyme from the cyanobacterium S. elongatua s formed an unusually large complex for this family of bacteria. ‘We decided to take images of it with electron microscopy and out jumps this fractal,’ says Hochberg. What followed was hard analytical work to determine the origin of these structures and what they might do.

Electron microscopy revealed that a citrate enzyme could form fractal structures. The team hypothesise that as the structures have little impact on the enzyme’s activity that it’s an evolutionary accident

‘We had some theories that seemed pretty plausible based on what similar enzymes do in other organisms … and none of them turned out to be correct,’ Hochberg says. So they modified the microbe so that the fractal wasn’t formed and found that the bacterium was still able to produce citrate just fine. They then tested the theory that it was just an evolutionary accident – it is easy to evolve and so doesn’t need to serve a specific purpose. ‘This could just be some weird evolutionary accident. And such accidents can happen if the structure in question isn’t too difficult to build … as long as it’s harmless,’ adds Hochberg. They found that the fractal structure appeared quickly and was shockingly easy to make requiring only one single mutation. ‘We think this enzyme just stumbled into an unusual symmetry.’

The findings suggest that evolutionary transitions in self-assembly are more common than structural databases suggest. ‘It means that even aesthetically pleasing and very beguiling structures are so shockingly easy to evolve that we should expect them to sometimes exist for no good reason at all,’ says Hochberg.

‘I strongly believe that it will encourage further explorations of more natural fractal molecules in the future,’ says Kai Wu , a researcher who has constructed synthetic molecular Sierpiński triangles . ‘We obviously have to remain humble to learn from nature the aesthetic balance of complexity and simplicity.’

FL Sendker et al , Nature , 2024, 628 , 894 (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07287-2 )

More from Zahra Khan

Intelligent ionotronic wood device can keep an eye on people’s health

New ‘supermolecule’ demonstrated for the first time at record-breaking ultracold temperature

China conducts nationwide audit of research misconduct after thousands of papers retracted

• Structural biology
• Supramolecular chemistry

Related articles

Leap forward for molecular computing as DNA executes six-bit algorithms

2019-03-20T18:00:00Z

By Philip Ball

Molecules grown into largest fractal triangle

2017-09-21T14:29:00Z

By Katrina Krämer

Molecular Sierpinski triangles get stability upgrade

2015-08-17T00:00:00Z

By Jennifer Newton

Eureka moment in supramolecular chemistry

2015-06-19T00:00:00Z

By Matthew Gunther

Fractal first as molecules form Sierpinski triangles

2015-03-30T00:00:00Z

Screening reveals thousands of ‘undrugged, yet druggable’ proteins

2024-04-29T14:00:00Z

By Andy Extance

No comments yet

Only registered users can comment on this article., more from news.

Chemists funded to cut the environmental footprint of their labs

2024-04-29T13:30:00Z

By Rebecca Trager

Study raises questions about media used for in vitro tests on nanomaterials

2024-04-29T09:50:00Z

By Charlotte Pugsley

Programmable liquid hints at widespread applications

2024-04-26T14:38:00Z

By Tom Metcalfe

Metal swarf transformed into electrodes for hydrogen production

2024-04-26T10:39:00Z

By Kate Tustain

New mechanism identified that is potentially linked to very early stages of Alzheimer’s

2024-04-25T13:30:00Z

By Tosin Thompson

Structural disorder key to high-capacitance carbon electrodes

2024-04-25T08:30:00Z

By Tim Wogan

• Contributors
• Terms of use
• Accessibility
• Permissions
• This website collects cookies to deliver a better user experience. See how this site uses cookies .
• This website collects cookies to deliver a better user experience. Do not sell my personal data .
• Este site coleta cookies para oferecer uma melhor experiência ao usuário. Veja como este site usa cookies .

Site powered by Webvision Cloud

Advertisement

Supported by

Judge Questions Credibility of Trump’s Lawyer as Witness Details Coverup Allegations

Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan is off to an ominous start for the former president, and it might not get any easier in the days ahead.

• Share full article

By Jonah E. Bromwich ,  Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman

The judge questioned his defense lawyer’s credibility. The prosecution accused him of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election. And his former friend corroborated that accusation, delivering hours of gripping testimony about their secret plot to protect his campaign.

The judge presiding over the case, Juan M. Merchan, is expected to rule soon on a request from prosecutors to hold Mr. Trump in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors alike. And the first witness — David Pecker, longtime publisher of The National Enquirer — will return to the stand on Thursday after the trial’s weekly Wednesday hiatus.

Mr. Pecker, who was once close to Mr. Trump, is expected to face hours of additional questioning from prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, before Mr. Trump’s lawyers get a chance to cross-examine him.

Already, Mr. Pecker has delivered some compelling testimony, transporting jurors back to a crucial 2015 meeting with Mr. Trump and his fixer at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.

Prosecutors called it the “Trump Tower conspiracy,” arguing that Mr. Pecker, Mr. Trump and Michael D. Cohen, who was then Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, hatched a plot at the meeting to conceal sex scandals looming over Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Their effort led Mr. Pecker’s tabloids to buy and bury two damaging stories about Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen purchased the silence of a porn star, a deal at the heart of the case against the former president.

From the witness stand on Tuesday, Mr. Pecker recalled how Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump asked what he and his magazines — fixtures of American supermarket checkout lanes — could do “to help the campaign.” The account bolstered the prosecution’s argument that the men were protecting not just Mr. Trump’s personal reputation, but his political fortunes.

“I would be your eyes and ears,” Mr. Pecker recalled telling them, as he explained the tabloid practice of “catch and kill,” in which an outlet bought the rights to a story, only to never publish it.

Mr. Pecker’s testimony came after a bruising hearing for Mr. Trump and his legal team, as prosecutors argued that the trial is threatened by Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks on witnesses and jurors, mostly launched on social media and his campaign website. They urged the judge, Juan M. Merchan, to hold Mr. Trump in contempt over what they said were 11 violations of a gag order that bars the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives.

When Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, claimed that the former president was trying to comply, Justice Merchan upbraided him, replying with words that no lawyer wants to hear: “You’re losing all credibility with the court.”

The case against Mr. Trump, the first American president to face a criminal trial, centers on Mr. Cohen’s $130,000 hush-money payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say he paid Ms. Daniels at Mr. Trump’s direction during the 2016 campaign to keep her quiet about a sexual tryst she said she had with Mr. Trump. He denies ever having had sex with her.

Mr. Trump who faces up to four years behind bars if convicted, is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for the way in which he accounted for the $130,000 repayment to Mr. Cohen. Each count reflects a different false check, ledger and invoice that, according to prosecutors, Mr. Trump used to disguise the reimbursement’s true purpose.

Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?

The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.

Mr. Trump, 77, who is once again the presumptive Republican nominee, faces three other criminal cases in three different cities on charges that he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss and mishandled classified records once he was no longer president. But with those cases delayed, the Manhattan case may be the only one that makes it to trial before Election Day.

The Manhattan case, in just its sixth day, has become a media and political spectacle as Mr. Trump’s campaign-style attacks on Mr. Cohen and the jury test the limits of the legal system and the judge’s patience.

The gag-order hearing, held with the jury out of the courtroom, demonstrated a jarring reality for Mr. Trump as he seeks to reclaim the White House while under indictment: His political reflexes, and the norm-busting ethos that has defined the Trump era, often clash with the letter of the law.

Witnesses in the case “rightly fear” being subjected to the former president’s “vitriol,” a prosecutor, Christopher Conroy, told the judge. He rattled off statements that Manhattan prosecutors believe crossed the line, including calling Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels “sleaze bags” and reposting an attack on the jury pool. That happened the night before a juror who had already been seated asked to be excused.

“What happened here was exactly what this order was meant to prevent, and the defendant doesn’t care,” Mr. Conroy said.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, argued that Mr. Trump’s posts were not personal and did not violate the order, because he was simply responding to “a barrage of political attacks.”

But Justice Merchan bridled, imploring Mr. Blanche to stick to the facts and the law.

“I need to know what is true,” Justice Merchan said, underscoring Mr. Trump’s penchant for using social media to spread lies.

It then got worse for Mr. Blanche, who appeared flummoxed by the judge. At one point, Justice Merchan called one of his arguments “silly.”

Prosecutors have asked Justice Merchan to fine Mr. Trump $1,000 for each statement, although Mr. Conroy wondered aloud if Mr. Trump, who has sold campaign merchandise with his mug shot, was actually angling for jail time. The judge, whose daughter has been among Mr. Trump’s targets, did not immediately rule.

The case against Mr. Trump commenced Monday, when both sides delivered opening statements that offered dueling visions of Mr. Trump and the evidence. A prosecutor accused the former president of orchestrating a “criminal conspiracy and a coverup.” Mr. Trump’s lawyer proclaimed, “President Trump is innocent.”

The prosecution then called its first witness, Mr. Pecker, who returned to the stand on Tuesday for a second day of testimony.

In about two and a half hours of examining Mr. Pecker on Tuesday, the prosecution placed him firmly in Mr. Trump’s orbit, as a longtime fan and friend who became an extension of the 2016 Trump campaign. His closeness to Mr. Trump — and his gentle, almost grandfatherly affect — appeared to bolster his credibility.

“I would call him Donald,” Mr. Pecker recalled, adding that he had “a great relationship with Mr. Trump over the years,” and that he had launched a magazine with him called “Trump Style.”

Mr. Pecker described a symbiotic relationship between Mr. Trump and The National Enquirer during the former president’s turn as a reality television host on “The Apprentice.” Mr. Trump would leak details of the show to the magazine, which in turn would run stories on the contestants.

The relationship took on national significance after the crucial 2015 meeting at Trump Tower.

“I received a call from Michael Cohen telling me that the boss wanted to see me,” Mr. Pecker recounted for the jury.

Afterward, Mr. Cohen routinely contacted Mr. Pecker, checking in weekly, or even daily. The purpose of their conversations was often to protect Mr. Trump from negative stories, including a doorman’s apparently false claim that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. Mr. Pecker, who purchased the story, testified that Mr. Cohen had told him “the boss would be very pleased” to have that story suppressed.

Mr. Pecker, who later also bought a story from a former Playboy model who said she had had an affair with Mr. Trump, explained that Mr. Cohen was “physically in every aspect of whatever the campaign was working on.” But, in a detail that the defense may seize on, he testified that Mr. Cohen, who was not a campaign employee but Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, may have “injected himself” into the campaign at times.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have not yet cross-examined Mr. Pecker, but when they do, they are likely to seize on that description of Mr. Cohen. A central theme of Mr. Trump’s defense is to portray Mr. Cohen as a renegade and a liar, and to distance the former president from the most problematic evidence.

Yet Mr. Pecker’s testimony placed Mr. Trump directly in the middle of their conspiracy. And in a sign that at least Mr. Pecker knew that their arrangement was problematic, he noted that he wanted to keep it “confidential.” When a prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, asked why, Mr. Pecker explained that he did not want it to “leak” that he helped the campaign.

Under questioning, Mr. Pecker acknowledged that he did not merely spike detrimental stories but promoted helpful ones. Mr. Cohen, he explained, would feed him information about Mr. Trump’s Republican primary opponents, and The National Enquirer would sometimes “embellish” them.

The tabloid, for example, ran stories about Mr. Trump’s primary opponents, including Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The prosecutors illustrated the point for jurors, posting several lurid headlines on screens: “Donald Trump Blasts Ted Cruz’s Dad for Photo with J.F.K. Assassin,” “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!” and, in a moment of ironic foreshadowing, “Ted Cruz Shamed by Porn Star.”

At the Trump Tower meeting, Mr. Pecker said, he had indicated that he expected many women “would come out to try to sell their stories” about Mr. Trump, because he was known as “the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women.”

Mr. Trump was not, in fact, a bachelor. He had married his third and current wife, Melania Trump, in 2005.

Kate Christobek , Alan Feuer , Wesley Parnell and Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

News and Analysis

The criminal trial of Trump featured vivid testimony about a plot to protect his first presidential campaign  and the beginnings  of a tough cross-examination  of the prosecution’s initial witness, David Pecker , former publisher of The National Enquirer. Here are the takeaways .

Dozens of protesters calling for the justice system to punish Trump  briefly blocked traffic on several streets near the Lower Manhattan courthouse where he is facing his first criminal trial.

Prosecutors accused Trump of violating a gag order four additional times , saying that he continues to defy the judge’s directions  not to attack witnesses , prosecutors and jurors in his hush-money trial.

More on Trump’s Legal Troubles

Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations  at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.

Case Tracker:  Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases  involving the former president.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Could he go to prison ? And will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know , and what we don’t know .

Trump on Trial Newsletter: Sign up here  to get the latest news and analysis  on the cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

What the data says about crime in the U.S.

A growing share of Americans say reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress to address this year. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) hold that view today, up from 47% at the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency in 2021.

We conducted this analysis to learn more about U.S. crime patterns and how those patterns have changed over time.

The analysis relies on statistics published by the FBI, which we accessed through the Crime Data Explorer , and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which we accessed through the  National Crime Victimization Survey data analysis tool .

To measure public attitudes about crime in the U.S., we relied on survey data from Pew Research Center and Gallup.

Additional details about each data source, including survey methodologies, are available by following the links in the text of this analysis.

With the issue likely to come up in this year’s presidential election, here’s what we know about crime in the United States, based on the latest available data from the federal government and other sources.

How much crime is there in the U.S.?

It’s difficult to say for certain. The  two primary sources of government crime statistics  – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) – paint an incomplete picture.

The FBI publishes  annual data  on crimes that have been reported to law enforcement, but not crimes that haven’t been reported. Historically, the FBI has also only published statistics about a handful of specific violent and property crimes, but not many other types of crime, such as drug crime. And while the FBI’s data is based on information from thousands of federal, state, county, city and other police departments, not all law enforcement agencies participate every year. In 2022, the most recent full year with available statistics, the FBI received data from 83% of participating agencies .

BJS, for its part, tracks crime by fielding a  large annual survey of Americans ages 12 and older and asking them whether they were the victim of certain types of crime in the past six months. One advantage of this approach is that it captures both reported and unreported crimes. But the BJS survey has limitations of its own. Like the FBI, it focuses mainly on a handful of violent and property crimes. And since the BJS data is based on after-the-fact interviews with crime victims, it cannot provide information about one especially high-profile type of offense: murder.

All those caveats aside, looking at the FBI and BJS statistics side-by-side  does  give researchers a good picture of U.S. violent and property crime rates and how they have changed over time. In addition, the FBI is transitioning to a new data collection system – known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System – that eventually will provide national information on a much larger set of crimes , as well as details such as the time and place they occur and the types of weapons involved, if applicable.

Which kinds of crime are most and least common?

Property crime in the U.S. is much more common than violent crime. In 2022, the FBI reported a total of 1,954.4 property crimes per 100,000 people, compared with 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.  

By far the most common form of property crime in 2022 was larceny/theft, followed by motor vehicle theft and burglary. Among violent crimes, aggravated assault was the most common offense, followed by robbery, rape, and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter.

BJS tracks a slightly different set of offenses from the FBI, but it finds the same overall patterns, with theft the most common form of property crime in 2022 and assault the most common form of violent crime.

How have crime rates in the U.S. changed over time?

Both the FBI and BJS data show dramatic declines in U.S. violent and property crime rates since the early 1990s, when crime spiked across much of the nation.

Using the FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2022, with large decreases in the rates of robbery (-74%), aggravated assault (-39%) and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter (-34%). It’s not possible to calculate the change in the rape rate during this period because the FBI  revised its definition of the offense in 2013 .

The FBI data also shows a 59% reduction in the U.S. property crime rate between 1993 and 2022, with big declines in the rates of burglary (-75%), larceny/theft (-54%) and motor vehicle theft (-53%).

Using the BJS statistics, the declines in the violent and property crime rates are even steeper than those captured in the FBI data. Per BJS, the U.S. violent and property crime rates each fell 71% between 1993 and 2022.

While crime rates have fallen sharply over the long term, the decline hasn’t always been steady. There have been notable increases in certain kinds of crime in some years, including recently.

In 2020, for example, the U.S. murder rate saw its largest single-year increase on record – and by 2022, it remained considerably higher than before the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary data for 2023, however, suggests that the murder rate fell substantially last year .

How do Americans perceive crime in their country?

Americans tend to believe crime is up, even when official data shows it is down.

In 23 of 27 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993 , at least 60% of U.S. adults have said there is more crime nationally than there was the year before, despite the downward trend in crime rates during most of that period.

While perceptions of rising crime at the national level are common, fewer Americans believe crime is up in their own communities. In every Gallup crime survey since the 1990s, Americans have been much less likely to say crime is up in their area than to say the same about crime nationally.

Public attitudes about crime differ widely by Americans’ party affiliation, race and ethnicity, and other factors . For example, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are much more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year (68% vs. 47%), according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

How does crime in the U.S. differ by demographic characteristics?

Some groups of Americans are more likely than others to be victims of crime. In the  2022 BJS survey , for example, younger people and those with lower incomes were far more likely to report being the victim of a violent crime than older and higher-income people.

There were no major differences in violent crime victimization rates between male and female respondents or between those who identified as White, Black or Hispanic. But the victimization rate among Asian Americans (a category that includes Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) was substantially lower than among other racial and ethnic groups.

The same BJS survey asks victims about the demographic characteristics of the offenders in the incidents they experienced.

In 2022, those who are male, younger people and those who are Black accounted for considerably larger shares of perceived offenders in violent incidents than their respective shares of the U.S. population. Men, for instance, accounted for 79% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, compared with 49% of the nation’s 12-and-older population that year. Black Americans accounted for 25% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, about twice their share of the 12-and-older population (12%).

As with all surveys, however, there are several potential sources of error, including the possibility that crime victims’ perceptions about offenders are incorrect.

How does crime in the U.S. differ geographically?

There are big geographic differences in violent and property crime rates.

For example, in 2022, there were more than 700 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in New Mexico and Alaska. That compares with fewer than 200 per 100,000 people in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, according to the FBI.

The FBI notes that various factors might influence an area’s crime rate, including its population density and economic conditions.

What percentage of crimes are reported to police? What percentage are solved?

Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. are not reported to police, and most of the crimes that  are  reported are not solved.

In its annual survey, BJS asks crime victims whether they reported their crime to police. It found that in 2022, only 41.5% of violent crimes and 31.8% of household property crimes were reported to authorities. BJS notes that there are many reasons why crime might not be reported, including fear of reprisal or of “getting the offender in trouble,” a feeling that police “would not or could not do anything to help,” or a belief that the crime is “a personal issue or too trivial to report.”

Most of the crimes that are reported to police, meanwhile,  are not solved , at least based on an FBI measure known as the clearance rate . That’s the share of cases each year that are closed, or “cleared,” through the arrest, charging and referral of a suspect for prosecution, or due to “exceptional” circumstances such as the death of a suspect or a victim’s refusal to cooperate with a prosecution. In 2022, police nationwide cleared 36.7% of violent crimes that were reported to them and 12.1% of the property crimes that came to their attention.

Which crimes are most likely to be reported to police? Which are most likely to be solved?

Around eight-in-ten motor vehicle thefts (80.9%) were reported to police in 2022, making them by far the most commonly reported property crime tracked by BJS. Household burglaries and trespassing offenses were reported to police at much lower rates (44.9% and 41.2%, respectively), while personal theft/larceny and other types of theft were only reported around a quarter of the time.

Among violent crimes – excluding homicide, which BJS doesn’t track – robbery was the most likely to be reported to law enforcement in 2022 (64.0%). It was followed by aggravated assault (49.9%), simple assault (36.8%) and rape/sexual assault (21.4%).

The list of crimes  cleared  by police in 2022 looks different from the list of crimes reported. Law enforcement officers were generally much more likely to solve violent crimes than property crimes, according to the FBI.

The most frequently solved violent crime tends to be homicide. Police cleared around half of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters (52.3%) in 2022. The clearance rates were lower for aggravated assault (41.4%), rape (26.1%) and robbery (23.2%).

When it comes to property crime, law enforcement agencies cleared 13.0% of burglaries, 12.4% of larcenies/thefts and 9.3% of motor vehicle thefts in 2022.

Are police solving more or fewer crimes than they used to?

Nationwide clearance rates for both violent and property crime are at their lowest levels since at least 1993, the FBI data shows.

Police cleared a little over a third (36.7%) of the violent crimes that came to their attention in 2022, down from nearly half (48.1%) as recently as 2013. During the same period, there were decreases for each of the four types of violent crime the FBI tracks:

• Police cleared 52.3% of reported murders and nonnegligent homicides in 2022, down from 64.1% in 2013.
• They cleared 41.4% of aggravated assaults, down from 57.7%.
• They cleared 26.1% of rapes, down from 40.6%.
• They cleared 23.2% of robberies, down from 29.4%.

The pattern is less pronounced for property crime. Overall, law enforcement agencies cleared 12.1% of reported property crimes in 2022, down from 19.7% in 2013. The clearance rate for burglary didn’t change much, but it fell for larceny/theft (to 12.4% in 2022 from 22.4% in 2013) and motor vehicle theft (to 9.3% from 14.2%).

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Nov. 20, 2020.

• Criminal Justice

John Gramlich is an associate director at Pew Research Center

8 facts about Black Lives Matter

#blacklivesmatter turns 10, support for the black lives matter movement has dropped considerably from its peak in 2020, fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted in 2022, before release of video showing tyre nichols’ beating, public views of police conduct had improved modestly, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy