[Text/Feng Shaolei] Today, the discussion on the world order has become a hot topic. It is closely related to at least two aspects. First, every change of world order in history is related to a global crisis. What crisis are you facing now? A global epidemic crisis, energy crisis

[Text/Feng Shaolei]

Today, the discussion on the world order has become a hot topic. It is closely related to at least two aspects. First, every change of world order in history is related to a global crisis. What crisis are you facing now? A global epidemic crisis, energy crisis, globalization crisis, or a crisis in Sino-US relations? Second, given the current high dynamic nature, the judgment of crisis depends on another question, namely, what state the world order itself is in. If the world order itself is in a period of rising or stable, then no matter how dangerous the crisis is, it cannot shake the order; if the world order itself is already in turmoil, then the crisis will accelerate the change of the world order. At present, it is likely to slide to the latter trend.

Overall, what we are currently facing is a comprehensive comprehensive crisis that occurred during the transition period of the world order.

First of all, a large-scale epidemic that has not been encountered in a century triggered a cliff-like decline in the world economy, oil prices fell sharply, and the US stock market broke down four times; then, the United States launched a public opinion siege against China, and the relationship between major powers showed a confrontation, globalization regressed across the board, and the situation could not even be ruled out that the situation would further deteriorate. Now we see two situations: one is that the crisis occurs during a highly uncertain transition period of the world order transformation, and the other is that this is a comprehensive crisis that erupts simultaneously in multiple fields.

Faced with such a complex situation, I want to discuss it from three aspects. First, how are crises in history and world order related to each other. In other words, how do crises act on the replacement of world order? Second, what are the characteristics of today's international order and what basic state is the world order that is under the impact of crisis? Third, where will the future world order go?

1. World Order under Crisis

Let’s talk about the first issue first, crisis and world order are related. International crises are diverse. The crises we discuss here generally refer to crises that affect the overall situation, last for a long time, and are large-scale, rather than local short-term small-scale crises. Similar crises can be divided into four categories:

The first category, war and revolution , the relationship between large-scale war and the construction of world order is the closest, and war is often interconnected with revolution, which has profound influence on the world. Since the establishment of the modern international system, every new world order has been established through war and revolution. First, in the early 17th century, an extremely cruel 30-year war broke out between different religions, different regions and different interests in Europe. Finally, the Westphalian system was established in 1648, announcing the beginning of the European nation-state system. What is the meaning of the establishment of the new system? The Holy See no longer commands the world, and nation-states are supreme, that is, internal affairs of the state are no longer dominated by external intervention. This principle has generally continued to this day. Nearly two and a half centuries later, after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Napoleonic War that lasted for many years, the Vienna system was established. This is the second important international order in modern European history. After the Great Revolution, Napoleon called himself emperor and made a constitution, while on the other hand, launched a European war and promoted the revolution. European monarchical countries at that time, such as Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austro-Hungary, etc., were unwilling to be overthrown by the established order and jointly defeated Napoleon. After negotiations in 1814, the Vienna system was established. The core of this system is the four-nation alliance composed of Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary. It achieves a balance of power through mutual restraint, maintains European territory unchanged, and resists threats to the domestic systems of various countries. At that time, it was mainly the monarchy system. At the same time, it will absorb major powers, including the defeated country France, and handle international affairs through multilateral meetings.

Because the post-war matters were handled properly, the defeated country France did not humiliate it, maintain its integrity, and impose excessively severe fines, so France accepted the Vienna system. At that time, when Tsar Alexander I, the autocratic monarch of the victorious Russia, entered Paris, was welcomed by the citizens and soldiers of Paris who were defeated but still very proud. This scene is very strange. Because even though a great war has just passed, countries have a better grasp of the degree to handle post-war affairs, and coupled with the guarantee of the power structure of checks and balances, each of them has its own advantages.The Vienna system maintained a full 100 years of peace in Europe.

Compared with this, after the end of World War I, the victorious countries were harsh in handling the defeated countries, and Germany was dissatisfied with it. On the other hand, the Versailles system established after the war did not have a strong guarantee system to curb disputes between the great powers, so the war broke out soon after. As a correction of history, the Yalta system was established after World War II. First, the five major powers of the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia formed the Security Council and became the supreme authority of the United Nations; second, although the United Nations system is dominated by major powers, it also has a UN General Assembly mechanism of one country and one vote; third, it is guaranteed by a series of mechanisms such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Even so, the "Cold War" that lasted for half a century was not avoided. The Yalta system was directly promoted by war, so despite various conflicts, peace and stability were maintained overall. This is a change of the world order directly driven by revolution and war.

The second category is the restructuring of the international pattern caused by the international economic crisis. Under the war of , Stalin said that the tanks can establish their own system wherever they drive. However, the economic and financial crisis is different. Its impact on the change of the world order is more realized through the reconstruction of the international and domestic economic and financial systems.

For example, the Great Depression of the United States from 1929 to 1933 saw GDP drop by 30%, more than 100,000 companies go bankrupt, and 15 million workers are unemployed. Since the US economy had widely affected Europe in the 1920s, once the US economy collapsed, a large amount of funds flowed back, which also faced serious threats to the European economy. By 1931, Britain was forced to abandon the gold standard and the dominance of the pound had to give way to the United States. The famous left-wing historian Hobsbawm believes that the Great Depression divided the world into three parts, the Soviet Union gained its foothold, and the new capitalist model of government intervention emphasized by Keynes began to become popular, and at the same time the rise of fascism directly laid the foundation for the advancement to World War II.

Asian financial crisis broke out, South Korea's country went bankrupt, and received IMF's bailout. Photo from AFP

We will turn our attention to the end of the 20th century, and the Asian financial crisis from 1997 to 1998, and in fact, Russia needs to be added. Although the crisis occurs in emerging countries, it has a global impact. After the Cold War, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by the United States, played an important role in developing and transitional countries on the one hand because of its strong funds. On the other hand, the IMF forcibly promotes countries to open up domestic financial markets. When international oil prices were severely impacted by international hot money, the IMF asked countries to continue to implement strict austerity policies, which caused East Asia and Russia to suffer a heavy blow. East Asia region lowered its exchange rate in an avalanche in order to protect itself. Only China insisted on maintaining stability in Asia, and at the same time supported Hong Kong to withstand the blow of international hot money. At that time, China won wide trust and praise from the international community.

It should be pointed out that it was the financial crisis of 1997-1998 that directly led to China and Russia turning to bid farewell to the Washington consensus, and while continuing reform and opening up, it gradually moved towards strengthening independent development and innovation. In fact, China originally planned to speed up the opening of the exchange rate system, but after this crisis, it gradually turned to stability. Russia has also begun to turn to a government-led economy.

Next is the 2008 international financial crisis. In the summer of 2007, the US subprime mortgage crisis broke out, and companies that invested excessively in financial derivatives went bankrupt one after another, and severe credit tightening broke out around the world; in September 2008, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and Merrill Lynch was acquired, marking the full outbreak of the crisis. As the disaster of the virtual economy spreads to the real economy, economic growth in various places slows down and the unemployment rate has increased sharply.

A key change that occurred at that time was that at that time, President Obama, President Sarkozy, General Secretary Hu Jintao and others held telephone consultations one after another, and decided to establish a G20 group outside the original G7 group and establish an international coordination mechanism between emerging countries and developed industrial countries. This is a key measure.

However, today, in the face of disaster, the international consultative leadership mechanism has lost its effectiveness. At the end of March, the UN Secretary-General asked the G20 leaders to issue a joint statement on fighting the epidemic. China's request was to write about the role of the WHO, but the United States firmly disagrees with this clause, and the joint statement was eventually aborted.

In short, after the international financial and economic crisis, the international force pattern is usually reorganized and the world order is adjusted through key institutional and mechanism reforms at the international and domestic levels. Although the result is different from the war, the changes in the world order after the crisis are also quite profound.

The third crisis, I call it the crisis caused by "anti-institutional forces". Over the past half century, anti-institutional forces that have appeared in the East and the West have different forms and different goals, including social protest movements, extremism, terrorist activities, etc., but they have one common feature, which is that they oppose the current international and domestic systems.

Let’s first talk about the student movement in 1968, which was a vigorous and spontaneous anti-system movement that spontaneously formed across major campuses in Europe and the United States. At home, opposing monopoly capitalism's overall control of social life, internationally, opposing the United States' Vietnam War, opposing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and ultimately, it really brought about an international easing situation. The 1968 movement clearly pointed out that the decline of European and American national machines and their ideology directly challenged the rationality of Western liberal values. The young students made it clear at the time that the theories we learned in college seemed to be value-neutral and scientific, but in fact they were all used to maintain the ideology of industrial capitalism, so the slogan of the movement was to end the ideology of capitalism.

1968 movement also reflected the transformation from modern to postmodern, that is, Western industrial society began to move towards post-industrial and post-modern societies that deconstruct the existing structure in various aspects. This change was very great. The movement also led to the decline of European communism, creating conditions for the rise of Western conservatism since the late 1970s.

It is particularly important to point out here that today is no longer young people, but ideological theorists who dominate these thought history. Although the movement in 1968 did not and could not overthrow the Western system, according to the left-wing Wallerstein, this was even a more significant historical turning point than the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War from 1989 to 1991, because it embodies profound changes at the ideological level.

1968, France's "May Storm". The picture has been pushed back several decades from AFP

to the 9/11 incident at the beginning of this century. This was the first time that the United States was attacked by foreign enemies since World War II. At that time, it was also called a historic event that changed the world. Indeed, taking "911" as an opportunity, the rise of American neoconservatism. Neoconservatism believes that first we must take the initiative and safeguard the security interests of the United States; secondly, forcibly promote the Western democratic system, and international strategies based on this are very popular. Recently, Ronaldinho, who was once the adviser to President Obama, had a reflection and said something interesting, "911" made the United States make a mistake, stretching its hands too long, thus accelerating the decline of superpowers.

However, "911" has another side. Because "911" was attacked by the United States by terrorist, there was a temporary cooperation between China, the United States, Russia and other countries in jointly combating terrorism. I remember that on the day of "911", I happened to return home from Moscow on a business trip. On that day, the person who took me to the airport was a retired chief engineer and intellectual from a large state-owned chemical enterprise in Moscow. I asked him what he thought about what just happened. He said without hesitation while driving, knowing very well that this is a terrorist crime against humanity! On that day, a large number of Moscow citizens spontaneously went to the US Embassy in Russia to pay their respects with flowers in their hands. Before the officials of various countries announced their official positions, I was deeply impressed by the performance of the civilians in Moscow and left a revelation for future generations: human feelings are the same under the crisis, and great powers can still cooperate closely.

html Since the turn of the 0th century, social protest movements have been continuously spreading everywhere. On the one hand, since Seattle's anti-globalization demonstrations, "Occupy Wall Street", "Yellow Vest Movement", etc., anti-institutional protests have emerged in various Western countries; on the other hand, in emerging countries, since the Kosovo crisis overthrew the Milosevic regime, taking advantage of the serious corruption, gap between the rich and the poor, and bureaucracy in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other issues, the West has promoted the so-called "color revolution" and organized street protests continuously, which has triggered regime change one after another, and was once rampant.

In recent years, the Western publishing community has published some research works on color revolution, revealing that Western governments and non-governmental organizations use various secret or public means, such as organizing street riots, spreading online rumors, making slogans, cartoons, and even printing tagged T-shirts, establishing so-called "revolutionary academy", and specializing in training and inculcating opposition backbones to instigate color revolutions in emerging countries, which is shocking.

In short, anti-institutional forces are different from wars and revolutions, and from financial and economic crises. Instead, they are mobilized from the bottom to the top to protest the people, or challenge the current system in violent terrorist forms, affecting world affairs by transcending national boundaries, unconventional, ideological criticism or modern information dissemination methods.

The fourth crisis, the world order under the influence of international catastrophe. disasters and epidemics are the most illustrious enemy. They are dangerous and unpredictable and unexpected, causing unimaginable serious consequences.

First talk about the Black Death in the 14th century. From 1347 to 1353, the outbreak began in Sicily, Italy, and the great plague that affected the entire Western Europe, causing one-third of the population to die, and even spread to the cold Nordic and Russia. The Jews who have been persecuted since the Middle Ages were also seriously blamed, becoming the target of various rumors and slander, and were expelled and persecuted. The plague not only impacted European agriculture, but also stimulated the textile industry and animal husbandry, changed the appearance of the city, and stimulated the foreign trade of the Lufthansa League at that time. By the end of the 14th century, Europe quickly entered a period of rapid development after the Black Death, and the Italian Renaissance also reached its climax during this period, so the Black Death left a deep impression on European history.

The 1918 flu, almost 100 years ago, is directly related to the post-war world order arrangement. Epidemiological studies have proved that this new influenza virus originated in Haskell County, Casas, USA in early 1918. Because of the war, countries strictly kept it confidential, and only the neutral country Spain released the influenza information. Unfortunately, this virus is commonly known as the Spanish virus. Through long-distance transportation of troops and warships, it has been transmitted to all parts of the world, including Shanghai, China. According to records, the patient is in great pain and coughs violently, which even causes the ribs and chest muscles to tear. At that time, the world's population was 1/3 of today, and about 50 million people died. Even according to epidemiological records, the number of dead may reach 100 million. It should be noted that only 25 million soldiers died in World War I.

The US delegation attending the Paris Peace Conference, the picture shows US President Wilson. Pictured from Wikipedia

1919, US President Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference with illness, with a temperature of up to 39.4 degrees. He was already unconscious when negotiating with the heads of state. He even imagined that his residence was full of French spies. Because France and Germany are enemies, Wilson is more cautious and does not agree with the French president's proposal to punish Germany, a defeated country, in a very strict manner, and demand compensation from Germany and bear all the responsibility for the war. But unexpectedly, he did not notify others or discuss with his staff, and suddenly gave up the principles he had adhered to, including the coal mines in the Saar region belonging to France, the Alsace and Lorraine occupied by Germany during the French-Prussian War were handed over to France, and West Prussia and Potsnan were given to Poland. Germany was therefore in a state of serious decline and division, which greatly stimulated the Germans. In addition, Wilson also made concessions to Italy's requirements and Japan's requirements for Germany's privilege in China. The Paris Peace Conference, the division of spoils between the empires, ended in Wilson's vague response.

In fact, by the end of World War I, the epidemic in various countries was severe and had to end in a hurry.Although US President Wilson never acknowledged the existence of the flu, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, who was watching on the side, said in commenting on Wilson's state that Wilson's mental state had collapsed during the meeting. At that time, some people said he had a stroke, but Wilson's trusted assistant Grayson confirmed that he had the flu, and that was the reason why Wilson finally collapsed. It can be seen that the 1918 influenza directly led to the Versailles system, especially the severe punishment for Germany. The system ultimately failed to maintain peace for long, and World War II broke out again after more than a decade later.

A big flu almost wiped out human civilization. Serious biographer John Barry wrote in his famous book "The Big Flu", what was the lesson of 1918? Those authoritative people who hold important positions cannot be allowed to alienate and divide the entire society. Those in power must cherish the public's trust in them. The most important thing is not to distort the truth, to distort the right and wrong, and not to try to manipulate anyone. No matter how terrifying the truth is, leaders must make it public.

By the end of the 20th century, the Chernobyl incident must be mentioned. On April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred in the Soviet Union and now the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine near Belarus. The radiation dose released was 400 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion, and the loss was as high as more than US$200 billion. This is the worst nuclear power accident in world history.

I myself went to the Soviet Union to study about three months after this accident and witnessed it with my own eyes that the disaster brought a huge impact on the political economy and the mental state of the late Soviet Union, especially the people. At that time, everyone witnessed with their own eyes that the nuclear weapons possessed by the United States and the Soviet Union could destroy humanity hundreds of times, so Chernobyl was also the driving force for the reconciliation between the United States and the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and it mainly came from the Soviet Union. The disadvantages of the Soviet system were exposed in the nuclear disaster. For example, when the crisis broke out, Chernobyl could not even find an instrument that could accurately reflect the amount of nuclear radiation.

In short, huge disasters often work together with other social changes to directly or indirectly promote changes in the world order. The harms brought by huge catastrophes, such as the number of deaths and sudden subversive damage to society, often greatly exceed the harm caused by human premeditation.

Overall, first, compared with every transformation of the world order in history, the COVID-19 crisis is a comprehensive and large-scale multiple crises that occur under the background of the highly uncertain transformation of the world order. The past crises were relatively single, and there has never been such a large number of crises in almost the same time. Therefore, the current crisis may have a profound impact on world affairs, and it may not be an exaggeration to evaluate it anyway.

Secondly, since modern times, every change in the world order has almost always seen a diverse, diverse and multi-level force participation, or even a world order under the joint leadership, which is very important. The Westphalia system in 1648 was a preliminary manifestation of diversification within Europe. The Vienna system in 1814 meant coexistence among major civilizations across the Eurasian continent. The Yalta system in 1945 included the diversified coexistence of major civilizations of the United States, Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union. The transition from the G7 to the G20 in 2008 did not end the situation of the United States dominance after the Cold War, it highlighted the strong momentum of diversification and multipolar progress. Under the law of political and economic imbalance, the crisis triggered by changes in power has driven almost every change of the world order to diversify to varying degrees, rather than hegemony. This was the case back then, and this situation is very likely to occur in the future.

Third, a valuable asset of human civilization is that whenever there are crises or order reorganizations, rational and neutral procedural arrangements have appeared to replace the tense religious, ideology, civilization and even sharp conflicts between races. They all deal with the confrontation between major powers with mutual respect, tolerance, understanding, moderation and long-term thinking attitudes. Everyone is reviewing what the popular Western theory of international relations lacks. What is lacking is the maintenance of national dignity and prestige, and what is lacking is the in-depth discussion of the concept of culture. Why can the Vienna system generally maintain "century-year peace" in Europe? The reason is that it can focus on the above issues.

Fourth, we currently value GDP, focus more on strong ships and powerful guns, and value the comparison of comprehensive national strength of data, but the role played by conceptual forces, ideological forces, unconventional events, and unknowable catastrophes in world changes have not been fully paid attention to. The reflection on Western ideology reflected in the student movement in 1968 had profoundly influenced the changes in the world afterwards; then look at how neoconservatism used 9/11 to promote global expansion, and such issues have just begun to be discussed further.

Trump changed the "new coronavirus" in the speech to "Chinese virus" from Lianhe Zaobao

2. Characteristics of the current international community

Second question, what is the situation of the international community we are in today? To sum it up in one sentence, it is in the transition period of the world order. The evolution of a peaceful world order is different from that of war, but it should be noted that the competition in peacetime is not inferior at all. Competition in each field is thrilling, including the use of unconventional methods such as street revolution, mixed war, cyber attacks, and terrorist attacks.

The most prominent phenomenon at present is to use hegemony, long-arm pressure, sanctions or extortion. Some time ago, Trump and Pompeo went barefoot in battle, taking turns to attack China on the pretext of tracing the virus. This is very extreme, very typical bullying. At that time, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in a public interview: I heard that some people in London had calculated the losses caused by the epidemic. China owed the EU 3.7 trillion euros or US dollars. This figure is close to China's entire foreign exchange reserves, including the US Treasury bonds it bought. Some even advocated that if China does not pay the compensation, it will seize assets outside China. When I heard such words, I even stood up.

This shows that the existing system of the international community is still there during the transition period, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the World Health Organization, but at the same time, these existing orders are being seriously damaged and even hegemony is rampant. Why do these phenomena occur in ? I think this is a gradual evolution of three basic trends in the past few decades after the end of the Cold War.

First, The overall transformation of the global order paradigm, which includes three elements: international governance, domestic structure and diplomatic strategy, which are integrated into each other.

First, international governance. In the early 1990s, the United States' intention to dominate the world was very obvious. I remember that at that time, we received a group of American delegations to visit Shanghai, China. They explained to us what is the current world order: the current world order is like a concentric circle, and the center of the circle is of course the United States; draw a circle again, it is its ally; then draw a circle outside, which is the so-called general partnership. But this situation has changed significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, and the international governance structure shifted from G7 to G20.

Secondly, domestic structure. At the end of the Cold War, regardless of the East and the West, people generally imitated the way of national construction in Europe and the United States, emphasizing civil society, multi-party system, small government and large markets and other models, but then gradually turned to establishing the autonomy of each country and seeking a governance model that conforms to their own national characteristics. Here we can give an example. Around 2003 and 2004, China and Russia were the main representatives of emerging countries, and both began to take important measures to strengthen important steps for the development of their own state-owned enterprises. For example, in 2003, China established the State-owned Assets Management Committee. At about the same time, Russia took the largest private oil company into the hands of the country.

Again, diplomatic strategy, it should play a connecting role between domestic and foreign structures. Changes in diplomatic strategies reflect trend changes, from the world to the region, and from coexistence to struggle on the other hand. In the 1990s, the United States used globalization to promote the Washington consensus, and at the same time, the United States promoted NATO's eastward expansion, which was arrogant.But at the turn of the century, the situation changed. The Iraq War in 2003 was a turning point, and there was controversy between the United States and China, Russia and Europe. Almost at the same time, a situation generally occurred in various regions: the EU has been upgraded from integration to a monetary alliance, East Asia is eager to try cooperation, and China-Russia cooperation has also announced a major breakthrough in the establishment of the Cooperation Organization, so regional affairs have gradually risen. Of course, it has also entered the high incidence of regional conflicts. In the context of overall peace, we see regional conflicts of all sizes, the Kosovo War, the Georgian crisis, the Ukrainian conflict, the Syrian war, and a series of continuous color revolutions, the South China Sea dispute, the Taiwan Strait crisis, etc.

The so-called global paradigm transformation we see is first of all, the internal structure, from learning from the West to pursuing autonomy in emerging countries, diplomatic strategies move from cooperation to cooperation and competition coexist, and then the change of the world order from G7 to G20 is a paradigm transformation, with fundamental changes from rules, behavioral methods to basic structure.

It is disturbing that paradigm changes are currently out of control. This is related to the following question, is the second feature of the transformation period, and the power balance has undergone a major turning point. The most critical factor in this aspect is that the West begins to decline from its peak.

In the early 20th century, Toynbee, Spengler and others also proposed the decline of the West. But at that time, not only did the West not decline, but it also went to glory again and again after World War II, especially after the Cold War. However, the context of talking about the decline of the West this time is different. Wallerstein once said a very important thing, saying, "We should not be busy extracting the historical significance of the end of the Cold War." The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War are not only the Soviet Union's problem, but also the end of the United States' hegemony. Because one characteristic of the United States is that it always needs the existence of external opponents to preserve its own ideology. So, what is the significance of the end of the Cold War to the United States? Although Russia's challenges to the United States are hidden and sometimes relive, the substantial challenges are profound.

From an empirical perspective, some of the positive and key factors that have supported the development and progress of the West over the years have begun to reverse, and there are signs of self-disintegration. First, as the core of the Western democratic system, elections, are now elected to be a group of populist figures who are poaching themselves. Second, as the two-party system based on the Western democratic system, Fukuyama once said that the two-party system was a product of the emergence of the West in the era of the industrial revolution, and now the information age will naturally gradually disintegrate. I once asked him about this question in person, but he still insisted on this view; and today it seems that some of the two-party systems in European countries have indeed become unrecognizable. I visited the United States in 2012. At that time, Obama and the Republican candidate were very fierce. At that time, everyone discussed whether the two-party system in the United States was still meaningful? Bookstore windows are filled with books with titles of this kind.

Third, freedom of speech is the pride of Western democracy, but now it is full of false information and lies. The ruling people were actually fueling the fire. Fourth, the openness of the Western system, just because of a refugee issue, almost caused the basic EU system to shake, and finally Brexit. Last August, French President Macron publicly acknowledged the decline of the West at a diplomatic envoy meeting; in February this year, the annual report of the Munich summit clearly raised the "loss of the West" and confirmed that the primary issue came from within the West.

February 10, Berlin, Germany, Wolfgang Ishengel, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, attended a press conference. The 2020 Munich Security Report sets the theme for the 56th Munich Security Conference - "The West is Missing". Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ren Ke

At the same time, emerging forces "rise for the second time". Why do you say "second time"? Because these emerging countries have dominated the country in history, they are still showing a trend, not only GDP or economic aggregate, resources, and potential, but also their progress is quite systematic.

For example, the path of Sino-Russia cooperation is the first step to establish a bilateral constructive strategic partnership.President Yeltsin visited China in October 1996. At that time, the documents signed by the heads of state of the two countries had been agreed upon, called a constructive partnership; but when Yeltsin's special plane was about to fly over Beijing, suddenly, an official from the Russian Embassy in China called China, saying that Yeltsin had read the documents on the plane and believed that the original positioning of China-Russia relations was not enough, so he crossed out the original words and wrote "Equal Trust, Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century." Although this incident happened quite suddenly, China immediately responded positively and made a major breakthrough in the relationship between the two sides.

From 2001, China, Russia and Central Asian countries established the SCO. This was a long time ago before the 9/11 incident, and the concept was very advanced. Next are the BRICS countries. The current president of BRICS Bank is an Indian. He proposed that BRICS Bank can spend about $10 billion to support countries in fighting the epidemic. By 2008, it will be the G20, participating in world affairs together.

For China and Russia, it is a crisis after crisis, driving the proximity between China and Russia. During the financial crisis of 1997-1998, China and Russia simultaneously felt the pressure of the US-led IMF and the complexity of its relationship, which promoted the two countries to get closer.

Throughout the 1990s, Russian people once had a very high support for the relationship between the United States. However, by the 1999 Kosovo crisis, the approval rating plummeted. Just because the United States ignored Russia's concerns about traditional Balkan allies, bombed Yugoslavia, the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia was also innocently suffered, making China and Russia unable to help but approach each other. China and Russia have repeatedly coordinated their positions in the subsequent 9/11 incident, the Iraq War in 2003, and a series of war conflicts in the Eurasian region.

It should be noted in particular that the West is facing decline and the second revival of emerging forces is a very long-term process. Regarding the alternation between old and new in world history, the United States' GDP exceeded that of Britain in the 1880s and 1890s, and its financial strength exceeded that of Britain in the 1820s. The United States endured it until the end of World War II in 1945, and even after the Suez Canal War in 1956, that it truly confirmed its dominance. It took 80 years. From another perspective, in the process of fighting for hegemony and maintaining hegemony, the United States successively dealt with the old imperialist Britain, defeated the powerful enemy of Germany and Japan in World War II, and after the beginning of the Cold War, it destroyed the Soviet Union, which was on par with it, and once again knocked down the pursuer Japan at the end of the century. Therefore, as the overlord, we must pay attention to the accumulated experience and means of dealing with latecomers. This also proves that the alternation between old and new is a very difficult and long process.

Speaking of this, everyone should also pay attention to some structural phenomena. In the process of changing the world order, on the one hand, there is a game between emerging forces and traditional industrial countries. On the other hand, the trend of world multipolarization is also affected by many structural characteristics.

What was very different in the past is that today's world is restricted by multiple networks and links. The network, economy, finance, and information are very complex, making the transition period tortuous and changeable. This power structure is neither the concentric circle of the "New Roman Empire" in the early 1990s nor the bipolar confrontation during the Cold War.

So, what are the characteristics of the new structure? First, various networks and links restrict the multipolar structure, and the world itself becomes a big network, with me and you in me. Until the end of 2019, the bilateral trade volume between China and the United States, China and Europe and the United States was a huge scale of around 600 billion US dollars, so it is not easy for Trump to decouple from China.

Second. Since the new century, there have been many forms of trilateral relations, such as China-US-Russia, China-US-Europe, China-Russia, China-Russia, China-US-Japan, etc. From a regional perspective, there are combinations such as China-Japan-South Korea, China-Russia-Central Asia, China-US-ASEAN, China-Indian-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-South-Russia-South-Russia-South-Russia-South-Russia-South-Russia-South-Russia-South-Rus These trilateral relations compete with each other and restrict each other. On the one hand, they are balanced with each other, and on the other hand, they are easy to seek rent, breaking the original balance. For example, China's 5G cooperation intentions with European countries have been greatly disturbed and pressured by the United States; in the future, the UK and the EU will remain neutral between China and the United States and avoid choosing sides, which will be a very common trend.On April 24, an international conference on joint anti-epidemic initiated by the EU did not invite China and the United States to express the EU's independent intention; some people say that this is under the situation of anti-epidemic, and Europe wants to take the third path.

But then again, when the EU saw that the extreme political power of the United States became increasingly outrageous, it was also adjusting; a year ago, the EU positioned China as a comprehensive institutional competitor with a tough wording, but now, especially Prime Minister Merkel's active adjustments have gradually shifted to a more seeking dialogue and cooperation attitude.

This is the trilateral relationship between China, the United States and Europe under the current situation. This is also a trend that almost all countries have gradually expressed in addition to China and the United States. On the one hand, they are neutral and do not choose sides. On the other hand, the United States does too much and will move closer to China. Therefore, the game between China and the United States will inevitably be greatly affected by online links or third parties. This means that China and the United States cannot simply fight alone.

Fukuyama, "What determines a country's ability to resist the new coronavirus?" "Atlantic Monthly" March 30

The third feature of the transition period of the world order is that ideological and theoretical disputes are very active. The drastic changes in Eastern Europe After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Fukuyama proposed the "end of history", Huntington proposed the "clash of civilizations" in the 1990s, the Washington consensus and globalization disputes emerged in the late 1990s, authoritarianism and democracy in the transformation of former socialist countries, and at the turn of the century, there were disputes about democratic peace theory in the West itself, there were major debates about neo-imperialism and neo-conservatism before and after the Iraq War, and there were populist discussions in recent years, etc.

These debates are not just talk. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is showing a trend of politicization, and behind it is the support of ideological and theoretical controversy. Therefore, the debate on ideological and theoretical issues is actually inaccessible, especially the debate between democracy and autocracy. Can we use “democracy and autocracy” to divide the world today? The classic Western democratic system is naturally different from the democracy in the exploration and practice of non-Western countries. But we see public opinion in Europe and the United States very frequently, and are accustomed to dividing the international community into completely opposite democracy and autocracy, without distinction, every hand is taken and stomped. In fact, the democratic pursuit of Eastern countries also has deep potential. Yu Yingshi, a well-known Chinese scholar at Princeton University, once said that the famous Chinese classical saying "Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you" is a unique expression in China's democratic ideological tradition.

Recently, it is also worth noting that Fukuyama, who once proposed the "end of history", was asked in an interview: You once predicted that liberal democracies would win after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Can you explain why they now seem so unbearable when facing the virus? Fukuyama's answer is that I do not think there is any correlation between the type of regime and the effectiveness of the fight against the epidemic, that is, there is no necessary connection between democracy or authoritarianism and the effectiveness of the fight against the epidemic.

In fact, Fukuyama only inherited the views of his teacher Huntington. Huntington even tended to transcend ideology since the 1960s and put whether the government can effectively govern it. So, when the reporter asked Fukuyama: Despite all kinds of doubts about China's anti-epidemic measures, does it once again provide a truly substitutive model for democratic countries? Fukuyama's answer did not give up criticism of the Chinese system, but he clearly affirmed China's performance in the fight against the epidemic. His original words are: This is the most successful non-Western democratic model. It can be seen that Fukuyama's thoughts are changing.

In addition to this, we can also see a so-called democratic peace theory, because it is directly related to war and peace issues. This theory emphasizes that only Western democracies will bring peace, and quotes classics that this statement comes from Kant. Kant did write an article "Eternal Peace", but in fact, after reading the original work, you will know that what Kant is most worried about is the tyranny of excessive democracy in the French Revolution. He tends to be a republic in which administration and legislation are inseparable from peace.

If we look at historical facts, World War I suddenly broke out and parliaments of various countries passed a democratic vote before they made up their minds to join the war.The Iraq War in 2003 was the two democratic countries of the United States and Britain defied the UN Security Council, lied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and launched a war. This matter has not been clearly stated yet, who will be responsible. In 2007, a delegation of scholars from Princeton University in the United States visited Shanghai. I consulted Robert Keohan, a well-known American neoliberal theory expert on this issue. He answered me very seriously that the theoretical basis of democratic peace theory is not solid.

In short, the lack of international norms and organizational dispersion under the "semi-order" were once exhausted from dealing with sudden disasters. But once people have a certain understanding of this disaster, they can also take advantage of the transition period to change dynamically and face the opportunity of multiple choices, turning danger into safety, turning enemies into friends, and turning crisis into opportunity.

3. Where will we go in the future?

The third problem is the description of the current international order. After the epidemic, will the international community, as Kissinger said, the previous world order will no longer exist? I tend to think that the epidemic will indeed reshape the world, but not necessarily that everything will no longer exist and many things are still difficult to change.

If you look at from the perspective of long-term, medium-term and short-term periods, first of all, the tradition of civilization diversity that has existed for thousands of years in the long-term period will still exist for a long time; at the same time, the influence of geopoliticality will not disappear. From the perspective of international order, in the hundreds of years from the 15th century to the mid-19th century, American scholars recently proposed a very empirical conclusion that the frequency of wars in the Asian international order is much lower than that of the European international order, even after the establishment of the Westphalia Treaty; in terms of relationships between countries, except for the European nation-state, that is, "nation state", if the vision is expanded, in the East or semi-Eastern, in 1689, almost after the establishment of the Westphalian system, Tsarist Russia, which was not a so-called modern democratic country, but an authoritarian monarchy, signed the Treaty of Nebchu with the Qing Dynasty, maintaining peace from 1689 to the decline of the Qing Dynasty in the late 19th century and Tsarist Russia's massive expansion of the eastward direction. It can be seen that although the West once dominated the world order, non-Western civilizations have always been an important supplement to the Western world order in regional structure and relations between major powers, and will still have an inertial influence on the future.

Geopolitics will of course continue to exist. In a comparative academic terms, the opposite difference between the "spatial continuity" of continental geopolitics and the "spatial barrier" of marine geopolitics always exists. How to understand

? For example, the overseas colonies of Commonwealth countries in the last century were independent of each other and would not cause turmoil and revolution in the British mainland; while the Soviet Union, located on the mainland, declared independence one by one at the end of the last century, triggering an avalanche chain reaction, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Because mainland countries live next to each other, and most marine countries face each other across the sea, marine geopolitics will always differentiate and dismember the Eurasian continent and avoid any threats from the Eurasian continent as its main geopolitical goal. Mainland countries will do the opposite and will definitely prevent external intervention and maintain European stability as their geopolitical goals by strengthening the connection between various sectors within the Eurasian continent.

Now the United States is worried that its partner Germany will carry out energy cooperation with Russia and establish a subsea energy pipeline. Merkel said that the energy cooperation between us and Russia has been going on for decades, and Trump immediately asked back: Is it the same as during the Cold War? But the United States cannot control Germany either. Therefore, the epidemic cannot eliminate geopolitics. On the contrary, there will definitely be people who take advantage of the competitive situation between different civilizations, countries and ideologies to make trouble by taking advantage of the epidemic.

Kissinger: The new crown pandemic will change the world order forever. The Wall Street Journal on April 3

Kissinger vaguely expressed his concerns in the book "On World Order". He said that there is only one world order, and all major civilizations come to this world with their ambitions. The conflict between civilizations will lead to uncontrollable geopolitical struggles.I think it is a very dangerous tendency to be the resurgence of civilization, geopolitics, and even racism at the moment. Therefore, in the long run, these things will not be easily excluded from the international community.

From the perspective of the period, first of all, competitive cooperation between different ideological countries will inevitably exist for a long time. The key reason is that the balance of power has not changed fundamentally, whether between the East and the West, or between traditional industrial countries and emerging forces. Secondly, "globalization" can also be considered a mid-term phenomenon. There is still debate on what state of "globalization" after the epidemic; one view believes that a globalization crisis has occurred, another view believes that globalization will end and regress, and there is also a more optimistic view that globalization will still appear at a high level. This debate is very important, and I still have a cautious and optimistic attitude. Some aspects of "globalization" in the traditional sense may be interrupted and eliminated; but the reason why the globalization situation appears is that it represents the needs of human interactions, and globalization that is high-quality, high-level, and more in line with human needs will continue to deepen. For example, the network will not terminate, but will develop to a higher level.

From a short period of time, first of all, regardless of race, civilization, concept, system, or national size, they are currently facing the challenges of epidemics. Overcoming difficulties together is not a slogan. In the next one or two years, mankind will need to share risks and protect the international community through international cooperation. Second, for the sudden outbreak, all countries have a process of deepening their understanding and considering response measures, which are the same in the differences. Generally speaking, they mainly focus on blocking and isolating and wearing masks. Regarding the resumption of work and classes after the epidemic, joint communication far exceeds conflicts of interest. Of course, given the stubbornness and prejudice, there are always some people who will come out to raise trouble.

Second, let’s talk about it here. During the epidemic, there are some deep-seated problems to deal with, the relationship between people, the relationship between people and nature, and the relationship between people and institutions.

Let me first talk about whether the relationship between people can form collective immunity through the so-called "Buddhist" and natural elimination method. I prefer Academician Zhong Nanshan’s opinion that technology has become so developed, and we can no longer exchange the so-called improvement of collective immunity and the elimination of vulnerable groups at such a huge cost. Russian thinker Kroppertkin once said that it turns out that strong people will become neither the strongest nor the smartest after famine or epidemics; although they survive by chance, you can find that their health has been seriously damaged. For example, bears starve to death before cats, cats starve to death before ants, and this is exactly the reason why dinosaurs are extinct and the rise of mammals. He also specifically asked, on this issue, who is the adapter in the competition? This question is often mistaken.

The relationship between people and systems under the disaster, especially the mutual relationship between people and democratic systems. I was recently studying the work of David Lanciman, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Cambridge. He has two conclusions about this group of relationships. First, in democratic societies, it is difficult to convince people to focus on the risks of things that have not yet happened. Voters often tend to prioritize the risks they have known when voting; second, democracy is one of the important things we should save as we do our best, because it makes people worth living, but this is not the same as democracy is something that can preserve our lives. In other words, human existence is more important, just like Jefferson expressed in the Declaration of Human Rights, "Man is born equal", the first thing that talks about is human right to survive. This is a general explanation.

But now even a small mask can cause huge controversy, and the closure of the seal is also highly politicized. But in the end, we must obey reality and strive to overcome the epidemic as our ultimate goal. Both in the United States and Europe, anti-epidemic measures have improved greatly, but unfortunately it is a little late.

Finally, the relationship between man and nature. Since the Renaissance and Enlightenment, people-oriented has been advocated, which is a major progress in history. But in some occasions and some scholars overstated man’s conquering nature, so what the ecologicalists later said was that man is just an equal member of nature.What a person does should be unified and respect for nature, not opposite to others.

Third, under the disaster, the economic recession will surely have a great impact on the future international community. at least, there are three pressing problems. 1. There are many debates on whether the industrial chain is interrupted. One of the prominent points is that the industrial chain itself is sticky, unlike the switch, press it and read it immediately. Some people say that Apple has the most experience. China focuses on the mid-to-low-end manufacturing and assembly lines, while Japan and South Korea focus on chips, integrated circuits, display materials, etc. If all these things are returned to China, it will take years of preparation and re-raisal, which is not easy.

The most important thing is consumers. The existing links play a great role in controlling inflation and maintaining consumers' consumption levels. In the past 30 years, the median actual wage income of Americans has not changed. If there is another impact, the consequences will be really worrying. Not only will the middle class begin to shake, but the lower class will also be greatly impacted. As for whether the industrial chain can continue, it is probably more of a market choice for enterprises. According to statistics from the General Chamber of Commerce of the United States, most American companies in China are still willing to stay in China, which is a relatively optimistic message; but it cannot be ignored that the United States and Japan have indeed begun to make intense plans to help companies return to China through government funding. So there is still a tough battle in the future.

2. Will economic recovery appear in the form of V-shaped, L-shaped or W-shaped? At least, the United States is now receiving great attention. On the one hand, due to the closure of markets and blocking traffic, the entire economy has been greatly challenged, and the stock market has soared again after the plunge. Apparently, it was stimulated by the impending lifting of the lockdown. But in the medium term, it is almost impossible for some important pillar industries, such as aviation, to fully recover when the global economy is threatened by the epidemic. It should be noted that the industry that the US government prioritizes support this time is the aviation industry. Therefore, V-shaped recovery is not very realistic. So, will there be an L-shaped recovery? It mainly depends on how long the epidemic lasts. If it continues to delay, a long-term downturn will occur. Is W-type recovery possible? History has learned from the past. For example, during the Great Depression, Roosevelt adopted economic stimulus methods just like today, but the stimulus measures basically stopped in 1936. Once they stopped, the economy fell immediately. After the 2008 financial crisis, Obama initially adopted quantitative easing. Because of concerns about inflation, quantitative easing temporarily stopped in 2011, and the economy also fell. The next few months may be key, and it also depends on when the vaccine will appear.

3. The three common problems of the current international economy are whether there will be crises between employment, energy, and food? Employment is a concern for all countries. The unemployment rate in the United States has soared to 14.7% (Note: this is the statistics in the speech in early May), and Canada has also risen to 13%. If the unemployment rate cannot be suppressed, it will not only cause economic depression and industrial bankruptcy, but also cause social unrest. An empirical proof is that the countries that have undergone color revolutions since this century, such as Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, have all had a good GDP indicator, and some have even increased slightly; but their income levels, especially the unemployment rate, are very strong. As soon as the unemployment rate rises, especially young people, there is nothing to do, the damage caused to these underdeveloped countries in transition is very dangerous.

The energy crisis is also a serious problem at present. Recently, we discussed with Russian scholars how to deal with it. Energy prices have fallen for the third time since this century, and have fallen sharply after 2008 and 2009, and have fallen sharply in 2015 and 2016, and it will be another in 2020. This is a great challenge for oil-producing countries. Although China is an energy consumer country, our challenges are different from them in general. But if this situation continues for a long time, it is definitely not a good thing.

Agricultural issues, due to the European border blockade and the pause of the Schengen Agreement, hundreds of thousands of workers who had originally traveled to Western Europe were blocked in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe. If spring plowing stops, you can imagine what will happen in Europe this fall. Some time ago, the Food and Food Agency of the United Nations issued a warning that it had warned before the crisis that about 150 million people would be threatened by famine, and the data will be raised to more than 200 million in the near future.The Ministry of Commerce of China also issued a clear message that under the current circumstances, ensuring employment and maintaining the stability of the energy and international financial markets is the goal of our joint efforts. Whether it is oil-producing countries or consumer countries, whether it is agricultural exporting countries or agricultural importing countries. This is our common responsibility.

The fourth question, and the most critical question, is the direction of the future world order. At present, the domestic political process of major countries may have a significant impact on the direction of the world order, especially the United States. Although the United States has a so-called two-party consensus stance towards China, presidential candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties compete to take office by "smearing red" each other, and they also strive to maintain their ruling position in this way. The fierce party struggles before the election will more seriously affect the stability of the international order. On the one hand, they will look for foreign enemies, and on the other hand, the two parties have many conflicts on domestic issues, such as whether to wear masks during the epidemic, whether to isolate, when to lift the lockdown, and resume work and production. The confrontation between the red and blue is very clear.

What choices will the future international order face?

One, return to the "free international order"? In 2009, John Ikenbury, a well-known American liberal theorist, proposed that the liberal international order was promoted around the world from the proposal of President Wilson to the end of World War II, and history has proved that this has played a role in the development of the West and the confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union. He even stressed that the US-led Western countries are willing to transfer dominance to emerging countries as competitors. After the 2008 financial crisis, key changes occurred between the G7 and the G20. In fact, traditional industrial countries share part of leadership with emerging industrial countries. Of course, Eckenbury also said that the United States will never give up its dominance in the military strategy field, which is also a fact. Therefore, there is basically no hope for whether we can return to the optimist model of the liberal international order.

So, will it return to the Cold War state of bipolar confrontation, or the "new Cold War"? At least from the US's perspective, the purpose of shifting the blame to the epidemic is to further decouple from China and accelerate the formation of a tense confrontation with China, which will at least be beneficial to the votes in the near future. Is China following the logic set by the United States and following the trap, or is there another best strategy? If the two strong forces duel, the Chinese people will definitely welcome this confrontation without hesitation. However, based on the current balance of power, this fierce battle is likely not to be a complete battle, but will be a very long-term comprehensive war of resistance. Are people fully prepared in all aspects? It is not a bad thing to be confident before a large-scale confrontation, but once the social and economic life caused by the conflict is completely regressed, from international precedents, elites can still find a way out, but the grassroots people are the first to bear the difficulties.

Secondly, the general logic under semi-order transformation, except for the two strong, almost all third-party actors may support justice, sympathize with the wronged and suppressed party, but they will tend to be neutral, and there will basically be no ideological alliance like the Cold War period. In addition, Western alliances will be relaxed, but they cannot be underestimated. They still have the opportunity and mobilization ability to form cliques, and structural factors will still exist for a long time.

The third type, the worse situation is that if the two strong forces confront each other out of control, it will inevitably trigger a melee between the centers of forces in the world, causing the entire international community to enter anarchy. This is the most terrifying thing.

In contrast, while giving up any fantasy and preparing to face difficult challenges, we will do everything possible to maintain the multipolar, diversified and diversified development trend under the still-existing cooperation space. For example, on the one hand, the United States is still fiercely debated on the 5G issue, and on the other hand, it repeatedly communicates with China's official authorities, hoping that the results of Sino-US trade negotiations can be maintained.

More importantly, in the long run, China's goal is to make greater contributions to the world while rejuvenating the Chinese nation and practice the great ambition of a community with a shared future for mankind. We need to explain China's affairs more clearly and express in a dignified manner that the Chinese people must not only develop themselves, but also live in peace with the world.

Therefore, the future is to live together rather than fight each other, to fight rather than duel, to learn from each other rather than being solemn. This is a choice that is closer to reality.Obviously, traditional industrial countries have leading advantages in scientific and technological innovation, strategic strength, public opinion dissemination, alliance relationships, etc., and will not disappear overnight. Therefore, it takes a relatively long time for the cooperation and competitive potential of emerging countries to truly transform into real power.

I think that relying on the strong tradition of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, we will continue to have an inertia since the reform and opening up, and maintain an enterprising attitude of independence and self-revolution, especially with the courage of self-revolution, down-to-earth, and focus on the comprehensive improvement of the socialist modern system and governance capabilities required by the country. The meaning of this sentence is self-revolution and comprehensive reform. At the same time, we must firmly manage the surrounding relations of the "Belt and Road" and strengthen connectivity.

is more specific. We should allow the spirit of science and pragmatism to play a key role in the decision-making system, so that talents and wisdom in professional fields can display their talents more, and enable management departments at all levels to overcome bureaucracy and departmental barriers. Instead of waiting for leadership, they should give full play to the spirit of being more proactive and responsible for innovation. Let the courageous new generation not prepare for duels with a mentality of earning their contributions, but face challenges with a more perseverance attitude. At the same time, provide more space for young people, give more understanding and respect, and provide more communication methods that they like.

If we can do these things, the Chinese people can achieve the goal of long-term struggle and committed to the world's advanced nations.

(The relevant content of this speech has been reduced to an academic paper for publication, see "Cultural Zongheng" Issue 3, 2020.)

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