Discussion: Read the following article and discuss with your partner whether you agree with the speakers.

Reglobalization vs.Deglobalization 

2020-06-01 13:01

https://www.sohu.com/a/398988950_116132

1,2 Editor's note: Dr. John Gongis a TMTPost Columnists, is a professor at the University of InternationalBusiness and Economics and a research fellow at the Academy of China OpenEconomy Studies at UIBE.

The naysayers of globalization have finally found an excuse –COVID-19 – as purportedly solid proof of the inherent pitfalls ofglobalization, as if this pandemic would not have touched their backyardwithout their country being touched by globalization.

3,4 But the fact of the matteris that they have been opposed to globalization all along way before COVID-19ran amok these days.When U.S. President Donald Trump declared in that famous speechat the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2019, “The future doesnot belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots”, the fate of those “patriots”– patriots as famously referred to by Samuel Johnson – is pretty much sealed.

The naysayers of globalization are saying that globalization islargely responsible for a handful of cases in the city of Wuhan in Chinaturning into a worldwide pandemic. Some even fabricated fake news that theChinese government discontinued all domestic flights in and out of Wuhan aspart of the lockdown but intentionally not international flights. But theydon’t tell people that there was no globalization in the mid-14th century whenthe Black Death wiped out one third of the European population, nor there washardly any globalization in 1918 and 1919 when the Spanish flu killed 30-70million people worldwide.

5.6 The naysayers of globalization are warning that globalizationhas resulted in a supply chain network too much concentrated in China that issusceptible to shocks of a pandemic nature. But now they are all reticentfacing the reality that China remains to be the bastion of the world’smanufacturing factory, particularly for mission critical medical supplies, andthat China now is not even among the world’s top ten countries in terms ofinfection numbers, even though China has the world’s largest population with1.4 billion people.

7,8 The naysayers of globalization are calling for “economicsovereignty” that prescribes autarky in supplies of an ever-expanding list ofgoodies that concerns so-called national economic security, including not onlymasks, PPEs, and other medical supplies that are critical for fighting thisvicious virus, but also canvass, hats, boots or anything that are needed for afoot soldier in a war. But they don’t give a damn about what manysmall-population countries would do if every country in the world goes downthat path.

9,10 The naysayers of globalization would like to put anideological stamp on every container crossing the sea as if competition in theglobal market can be won by reciting some obscure constitutional amendments ofa country thousands of miles away. But then they don’t talk about free marketand free trade anymore when their own oil rigs are faltering financially oneafter another in the wake of oil prices hovering around $20 a barrel.

11,12 Globalization has brought about a fortune to the world,period. In the last thirty years, most countries have indisputably benefitedimmensely from globalization in terms of more exports, more jobs, more income,and more GDP. With globalization, goods, including immediate and final goods,are more likely to be shipped around to seek global efficiencies, and peoplealso travel more. This creates economic opportunities in countries that are notresource-rich or have extensive manufacturing. At least it beefs up tourism.Everyone gets to make a buck, and everyone’s life gets better.

13,14 But like any game there will be winners and losers. In thegame of globalization, while the winners are the majority, especially inemerging-market countries, the few losers are mostly those in the developedworld whose jobs are gone because they can’t compete. That doesn’t mean thatthese people do not need help; they do, but certainly not in the form ofturning the clock back to the time before the First World War.

15,16 Like any beneficial social and economic objective,globalization as in its current stage is not perfect with plenty of room forimprovement. Yes, we need to address a list of issues manifested in thisoutbreak, the issue of establishing robust and resilient global supplynetworks, the issue of quick global virus mitigation and containment responsethrough the coordination of the WHO, the issue of helping countries withinadequate and fragile medical infrastructures, and etc. The list goes on. Butdeglobalization is certainly not the solution. When a doctor tries to cure aCOVID-19 patient, he does everything he can to save his life, with medicine,ventilator and eventually ECMO. But the doctor never kills a patient to kill avirus.

17,18 Unfortunately deglobalization does appear to be a majorpolitical banner in some countries, at least in the United States. PresidentTrump’s “America First” motto and his declaration about the future belonging tothe “patriots” pits squarely the liberal global economic order that the U.S.itself established after the World War II against the U.S. domestic partisanpolitics based on protectionism and localism. Trump’s courting of losers ofglobalization as his political base essentially hijacks America’s politicalleadership in world governance.

19,20 From the developing world’s perspective, deglobalizationis also something that regions already boiled in religious and political warsand instabilities cannot afford to be attuned to, because of the risks of evenmore wars and instabilities.

21,22 As early as 2010, Evan E. Hillebrand issued the direwarning in a paper published in “Global Economy Journal” that “While a retreatinto protectionism may improve income equality in some countries, it willreduce incomes of both the poor and the rich and poverty headcounts will beincreased. In addition, political instability will rise in a majority ofcountries and the probability of interstate war will increase.”

23,24 Let’s honestlyadmit that globalization has its problems that we need to address, problemsnevertheless that are all addressable. The world needs to move onto the phase two of the globalizationprocess, which I call “reglobalization,” such that when the next pandemiccomes, say in a hundred years, we will have even less infection and casualty.