Geopolitics

The slowdown in Chinese growth (from 10% to 6% of annual GDP) incites commentaries in Western press regarding a crisis in this Asian country. Faced with stagnation and the crisis of the Western social, economic, and political system, the Chinese alleged misfortune (perversely) encourages Western spiritless elites. Largely, it involves a projective defense mechanism, those that once Freud used to study. Two in distress make sorrow less, the saying goes. Reality is different: China is transforming from a factory with cheap labor force exporting surpluses to the world to a modern society of services and innovation, focused on better domestic living standards with sustainability. Challenges are huge but are no match to the Western impasse. Certainly there are motives for worrying in the West: China’s change accelerates current crisis in Europe and decreases US world power. Latin American countries must also adapt to this new reality.

In 2016, a spectrum haunts the white peaks of Davos: social protest against a dysfunctional and ill-formed globality. Which is the sign of this protest? Who is scared by the primary mobilization of those moving up and the secondary mobilization of those moving down?

The international agreement on weather signed in Paris by 195 nations is a first step for the entire humanity in preventing and mitigating the disastrous effects on the environment of the economic and population growth. Facing the intrinsic difficulties of every collective action for the common good, the agreement is aimed at developing awareness in the public opinion and building a new solidary subjectivity.

A state of emergency has the virtue of revealing reality. The reality it reveals in France and the entire Europe is far from flattering. The crisis shows a lack of integration in each country and among them as a whole.

A geopolitical world without a center risks anomic dispersion and violent disorder.  Our previous US “star,” flawed as it was, is now fading.  A new negotiated balance needs to emerge, or chaos will ensue.