Introduction
Globalization has entered a critical stage, as the ongoing economic disruptions have prompted many of us to reexamine its promises. The world today is characterized by pronounced fragility and heightened uncertainty, fed by external shocks and multiple crises that are dangerously reinforcing. Against the backdrop of these unprecedented challenges we are witnessing an economic and geopolitical power shift from the developed to the emerging world.
By 2030, most of the world’s largest economies will be non-Western and more than half of the world’s 1,000 largest corporations will have their origins in the emerging countries. This will directly impact the way globalization works. As emerging economies rewrite the rules of globalization, the West is overtly advocating more protectionism.
One of the main criticisms made of globalization by its detractors has been that it is Western-driven and Western-centric—in other words, that the West calls the shots and that most benefits go to Western players. Yet, as globalization was gathering momentum, it assumed new and striking features that ran contrary to that Western-focused characterization.
Non-Western players started to emerge as vital sources of energy and initiative in globalization; they have become its new engines, and their companies are strengthening their global positions at an unprecedented pace.
China is the leader of the emerging world.
In the year 2010, its share of the global manufacturing exports reached 13.7 ...
