Great Power Competition, Economic Fragmentation and the Global Order

Bruegel Annual Meetings, 6-7 September 2023: A symphony in progress: shaping a new agenda for Europe

Great power competition is rising. The US and China, at the centre of this competition, are feeding an already ongoing process of slowbalisation. The EU and India are pushing for a multipolar world and especially in the case of the EU, the return to multilateralism. How can the EU navigate this new reality, which includes mitigating economic fragmentation while still paying attention to excessive dependence on a single source, which is the core value of the EU’s current policy on China? Meanwhile, India would like to usurp China as the leader of the global South. How these trends affect the US’s and China’s ambitions?

Syaru Shirley Lin, chair of the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation (CAPRI), speaks at the Bruegel Annual Meetings this year on the topic of “Great Power Competition, Economic Fragmentation and the Global Order.“

As nations and global alliances pursue their own agendas, China has fallen into a narrative that the world has decoupled from them. When countries have their own systems and mindsets so different from each other, it’s no surprise economies have failed to converge. “We are living in a world where rules are changing very quickly, and while China believes they are on the right path to help the South gain prosperity…the simple matter is values and interests conflict.”

Lin pushes for countries in Asia to stand on their own feet rather than depend on superpowers too occupied with their own agenda. This preface led to the establishment of CAPRI–to improve governance and resilience in the Asia Pacific by creating an international platform connecting the region with the rest of the world.

The session is chaired by Alicia García-Herrero, Senior Fellow of Bruegel and a board member of CAPRI, and joined by Sunjoy Joshi, chairman of Observer Research Foundation and a member of CAPRI’s International Advisory Council. Other panelists include Brad W. Setser, Whitney Shepardson senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Guntram B. Wolff, Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Visit the website of Bruegel Annual Meetings 2023