2022.08.30伊恩-布雷默认为2032年将是什么样子

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By Invitation | The world in ten years
What Ian Bremmer thinks 2032 will look like
Don’t fret over conflict with China, says the political scientist. Worry about a developing-world debt crisis

Aug 30th 2022

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As we advance deeper into our crisis-plagued 21st century, east-west conflict is driving headlines. But a closer look reveals that tensions between the West and the Global South, which broadly includes regions in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific, will pose the most important threats and challenges over the next decade.

The received wisdom is that the next superpower conflict will pit America against China. But there is not, and will not be, a global cold war between the two countries. That is because their 21st-century interdependence will not be undone by 20th-century threats. It’s true that trust between Washington and Beijing is in short supply. But there remains a consensus within America’s government that the country still needs China to succeed. America’s closest allies in Europe, Asia and the Americas want absolutely no part of a great-power conflict. Trade with China is too important to their futures.


A dangerously destabilised China would create mutually assured economic destruction. China remains America’s largest trading partner in goods, its largest supplier of goods imports and its third-largest export market. America remains both China’s largest goods-trade partner and its biggest export market. And Xi Jinping knows that the Communist Party’s monopoly on domestic political power depends on continuing to meet the expectations of China’s people. To keep living standards rising, Beijing needs to sustain robust commercial relations with the eu, America and Japan, which together buy nearly 40% of China’s exports.

Continuing interdependence leaves east and west in the same boat toward a common destination. Unfortunately, many poor countries in the Global South are those most vulnerable to the world’s political and economic turmoil. India, which projections suggest will be the world’s most populous country by next year, is among them. Such countries are adrift, and may become a source of millions of migrants and refugees over the next decade. That will exacerbate global turmoil in turn.

Broken supply chains, rising interest rates and surging inflation, combined with falling growth and fewer remittances, create conditions for a developing-world debt crisis this decade. That is in spite of the fact that in recent decades cross-border flows of ideas, information, people, money, goods and services have sharply reduced wealth gaps between rich and poor countries and created the first global middle class (defined as those with incomes five to ten times higher than the World Bank’s global poverty line).

The pandemic bears some of the blame. It has pushed already-indebted poor countries into dangerous territory. The World Bank has warned that 58% of the world’s poorest countries “are in debt distress or at high risk of it”. Middle-income countries will be next.


Russia’s war in Ukraine has added price volatility and shortages of food and fuel to the mix. Given the high likelihood that an unstable stalemate in Ukraine will feed further uncertainty for years, that problem will widen the gaps between west and south over much of the next decade. America and Europe insist that the economic pressures the war has added on poor countries are the result of naked colonial aggression by Russia. Countries in the Global South see Western hypocrisy. They believe American and European outrage is reserved for crimes committed against white people and for the plight of white refugees. For the rest? Not so much.

Poor countries are also less well prepared to limit the harm done by increasingly erratic weather patterns than rich ones. This is especially true in Africa and the Middle East, where surging temperatures will more often test the limits of human endurance, and in Central America, a region already plagued with poverty and violent crime.

Wealthier countries will respond to these crises in coming years with steps designed mainly to protect themselves, an approach as predictable as it is short sighted. High inflation and recession fears in America and Europe will reduce already-limited political appetites for expensive investments in emergency management and debt restructuring in other regions. Concerns over continuing threats from Russia will further distract Western leaders from existing conflicts and crises in Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Plans to limit climate damage will focus on disasters and dislocated people at home. Western-led institutions, such as the imf, will have to make tough choices on where to invest resources made increasingly scarce by the swelling number of local emergencies.

In response, poor countries will either find ways to act as a bloc within international institutions to demand more help for themselves, or they will spoil consensus, creating the conditions for more economic and political instability within their borders, more violence and more forced migration.

In this fractious environment, India will emerge as a leader of the Global South. At present it is allied with American efforts to contain China’s expanding influence, but there are too many commercial opportunities to be had from China and Russia to ignore them. And when it comes to trade, technology and climate change, India’s experiences fall strongly alongside the developing world. How will Narendra Modi’s government respond in the coming years to the increasingly crippling economic challenges his country will face? India’s present alignment with America is probably at its high water mark.

To meet all these challenges over the coming decade, the countries of the West must co-ordinate their plans as much as possible. And rich countries must invest generously in global stability, whether through debt relief, technology transfers or through programmes for climate adaptation. Is there any kind of co-operation to be had with China when it comes to the needs of the Global South? For now that appears to be a pipe dream. But as the world’s largest creditor, China is a country with even more to lose from chaos in developing markets than America or its allies. Ultimately, more constructive east-west engagement may be the only way to keep the Global South from melting down. ■

Ian Bremmer is the founder and president of Eurasia Group.





应邀参加｜十年后的世界
伊恩-布雷默认为2032年将是什么样子
这位政治学家说，不要为与中国的冲突而烦恼。担心的是发展中国家的债务危机

2022年8月30日



随着我们更深入地进入危机四伏的21世纪，东西方冲突成为头条新闻。但仔细观察就会发现，西方和全球南部（大致包括亚洲、非洲、拉丁美洲和太平洋地区）之间的紧张关系将在未来十年构成最重要的威胁和挑战。

公认的智慧是，下一个超级大国冲突将使美国与中国对立。但是，这两个国家之间没有，也不会有全球冷战。这是因为他们21世纪的相互依存关系不会被20世纪的威胁所破坏。华盛顿和北京之间的信任确实是短缺的。但美国政府内部仍有一个共识，即美国仍然需要中国来取得成功。美国在欧洲、亚洲和美洲最亲密的盟友绝对不希望参与大国冲突。与中国的贸易对他们的未来太重要了。


一个危险的不稳定的中国将造成相互保证的经济破坏。中国仍然是美国最大的货物贸易伙伴，它最大的货物进口供应国和第三大出口市场。美国仍然是中国最大的货物贸易伙伴和最大的出口市场。习近平知道，共产党对国内政治权力的垄断，取决于继续满足中国人民的期望。为了保持生活水平的提高，中国政府需要与欧盟、美国和日本保持强有力的商业关系，这些国家总共购买了中国近40%的出口。

持续的相互依存关系使东方和西方同舟共济，走向共同的目的地。不幸的是，全球南方的许多贫穷国家是最容易受到世界政治和经济动荡影响的国家。印度就是其中之一，据预测，到明年它将成为世界上人口最多的国家。这些国家正在漂泊，并可能在未来十年成为数百万移民和难民的来源。这将反过来加剧全球动荡。

供应链断裂、利率上升和通货膨胀激增，加上增长下降和汇款减少，为本十年发展中国家的债务危机创造条件。尽管近几十年来，思想、信息、人员、资金、商品和服务的跨境流动大大缩小了富国和穷国之间的财富差距，并创造了第一个全球中产阶级（定义为收入比世界银行的全球贫困线高五到十倍的人）。

这场大流行承担了部分责任。它把已经负债累累的穷国推到了危险的境地。世界银行警告说，世界上58%的最贫穷国家 "正处于债务困境中，或者有很大的风险"。中等收入国家将是下一个。


俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争使价格波动以及食品和燃料的短缺问题更加严重。鉴于乌克兰不稳定的僵局很有可能在数年内滋生更多的不确定性，这个问题将在未来十年的大部分时间里扩大西部和南部之间的差距。美国和欧洲坚持认为，战争给贫穷国家带来的经济压力是俄罗斯赤裸裸的殖民侵略的结果。全球南方的国家看到了西方的虚伪。他们认为美国和欧洲的愤怒是针对针对白人犯下的罪行和白人难民的困境而保留的。对其他国家呢？没有那么多。

与富国相比，穷国在限制日益不稳定的天气模式所造成的伤害方面也准备不足。这在非洲和中东地区尤其如此，那里的气温飙升将更经常地考验人类的耐力极限，而在中美洲，这个地区已经饱受贫困和暴力犯罪的困扰。

在未来几年，较富裕的国家将采取主要是为了保护自己的措施来应对这些危机，这种做法既可以预测，也是短视的。美国和欧洲的高通胀和经济衰退担忧将降低其他地区对应急管理和债务重组的昂贵投资已经有限的政治胃口。对来自俄罗斯的持续威胁的担忧将进一步分散西方领导人对阿富汗、也门和其他地区现有冲突和危机的注意力。限制气候破坏的计划将集中在国内的灾害和流离失所的人。西方领导的机构，如国际货币基金组织，将不得不做出艰难的选择，将资源投入到哪里，因为当地紧急情况的数量不断增加而变得越来越稀缺。

作为回应，穷国要么想办法在国际机构中成为一个集团，为自己要求更多的帮助，要么就会破坏共识，为其境内更多的经济和政治不稳定、更多的暴力和更多的被迫移民创造条件。

在这种分裂的环境中，印度将作为全球南方的领导者出现。目前，它与美国结盟，努力遏制中国不断扩大的影响力，但从中国和俄罗斯获得的商业机会太多，不能忽视它们。而当涉及到贸易、技术和气候变化时，印度的经验与发展中世界并驾齐驱。纳伦德拉-莫迪的政府在未来几年将如何应对他的国家将面临的日益严峻的经济挑战？印度目前与美国的结盟可能正处于高水位。

为了应对未来十年的所有这些挑战，西方国家必须尽可能地协调其计划。富国必须对全球稳定进行慷慨投资，无论是通过债务减免、技术转让还是通过气候适应计划。当涉及到全球南方的需求时，是否可以与中国进行任何形式的合作？目前，这似乎是一个梦想。但作为世界上最大的债权国，中国在发展中市场的混乱中的损失甚至比美国或其盟国更大。最终，更具建设性的东西方接触可能是使全球南方不至于融化的唯一途径。■

Ian Bremmer是欧亚集团的创始人和总裁。