China no longer needs to move mountains or reclaim seas, as in ancient legend. Through technology, infrastructure, trade, finance, people and government policies such barriers have long since vanished. The BRI does, however, revive an essential ancient spirit.

The recent G7 summit in Hiroshima and the subsequent G20 tourism meeting in Kashmir underscored the stark contrast between the two groups’ rhetoric. While

China and Canada share a complex and strained relationship that have only worsened i n recent years. Despite increasing scrutiny of China, Canada’s government seeks to maintain economic ties in a manner consistent with Canadian values and interests.

Hiroshima highlighted the decline of Western influence in global economic governance. The group’s inherent inadequacy arises from the desperate effort by a small group of member nations to maintain their dominant position in the world.

Political posturing shifted from “How to avert a debt crisis” to “How to get tough on China.” The squabble also reflected misgivings about China’s growing influence, as countries move away from the U.S. dollar and toward the yuan as a settlement and reserve currency.

While the United States is experiencing dramatic levels of inflation, China is facing very low levels. Assessing various forms of economic stimuli, such as quantitative easing, is important to understand and mitigate current levels of inflation faced by economies all over the world.

“The old is dying and the new cannot be born,” the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote in the early twentieth century. We seem to be living in a similar interregnum today, likewise marked by “a great variety of morbid symptoms,” including, not least, the breakdown of global supply chains and the return of inflation. The only way forward is to support the development of new markets, industries, and institutions. But who will finance this effort?

The multipolarization of the global reserve currency system is accelerating. Ironically, Western sanctions against Russia have intensified the move away from the U.S. dollar.

Lip service notwithstanding, what Washington has been doing over the years is a form of decoupling with China — in the guise of national security. Top American officials have not articulated any boundary between decoupling and what they say are moves to “de-risk” the relationship. In many ways, they look the same.

The EU’s pursuit of becoming an autonomous and influential global power, while balancing relationships with the U.S. and China, was jolted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The EU aims to collaborate and compete as an equal with both powers, while improving its domestic strength, ensuring reciprocity, and linking trade to geopolitics, foreign policy, and security. And the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, executing the EU strategy in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and establishing a collective defense structure with operational objectives, are three projects that could help achieve these goals.