While the agreement would help combat some long-standing global problems, it would also curtail many countries’ competitiveness and undermine their tax sovereignty in the long run.

The OECD is projecting an uneven K-shaped economic recovery from the pandemic in 2021. Richer countries with more extensive vaccine rollouts that can afford to reopen and reflate their economies will do so. Poorer economies will struggle to stay healthy and avoid debt crises. But the mantra that “no one is safe until everyone is” highlights the need to spread health, wealth, and self-respect to all. An increasingly prosperous China can and should play a central role in this effort.

The post-pandemic era provides paths that, if followed, will catapult the country into first place globally by mid-century. It will open wider, increase cooperation with international partners and make even greater contributions to the world economy.

The period of transition amid centennial changes is full of risks and crises. Great changes call for great wisdom and initiative. The world needs to be reevaluated. The path forward needs to be reconsidered.

As the United States repeatedly weighs in to block reasonable reforms and interfere with long-standing, consensus-based processes, China is on another track. It knows that reforms are needed and is working constructively to realize them.

The People’s Bank of China is pressing forward with a digital yuan, which leaves China’s digital currency plans significantly ahead of western nations’. While the U.S dollar has dominated global trade since WWII, the yuan, whether digital or analog, will have a leading role in challenging the hegemony of the dollar.

Just as China led the world in economic recovery in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, it is playing a similar role today. Its post-COVID rebound is gathering momentum amid a developed world that remains on shaky ground. Unfortunately, this is a bitter pill for many to swallow – especially in the United States, where demonization of China has reached epic proportions.

Private businesses are taking on massive amounts of debt, kicking the can down the road for an extreme depression later on. What both China and America need is a program of unprecedented public investment.

In the midst of a global economic slump, China is looking to expand its domestic markets. Not only might this keep China’s economy competitive, but it might also shed China’s “factory of the world” moniker, emerging as the most sophisticated global consumer market.

By disrupting the world’s interconnected economic, social, and geopolitical spheres, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed just how fragile and inequitable the institutions that govern them really are. It has also highlighted how difficult it is to address systemic fragility and inequity amid escalating national-security threats.