The Age of Multipolarity: A New World Order, in order?

Do you remember how globalisation was really a thing back then? For an example, let's look at the case of GAP, which originates from the U.S. but produces their clothing in Bangladesh, using the country's labourers. Although that may not be a very decent example as it marks the atrocious side of globalisation, it still indicates that globalisation is there for us to notice. The world has never been this borderless, but it is true that now we should consider the possibility of using the word was to globalisation, since there are signs to the end of our globalised world. But, is it true though? And what's in for us then?

The Fault(s) in Globalisation 

During the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, many finance ministers from participating countries enunciated that globalisation hasn't reached its own end. Globalisation, a process that has taken us this far in connecting people and businesses all over the world, is going to be maintained as they said and some proven its benefits to every progress in our lives. In support of that, the leader of China, Xi Jinping, expressed his admiration towards globalisation and emphasized his commitment in an open global economy. However, what might seem to be a growing commitment towards globalisation will soon turn into "deglobalisation" as some (powerful) countries use its benefit for their own dominance. In the case of this paradoxical event, China has been a great example since they are most likely to be the partisan of 'globalisation' to realize its main agenda on how to go global without really opening up. 

We also need to realise that the product of globalisation kills itself and drives this world to another concept of inter-states' relationship. That perceivable product is inequality. Although inequalities between nations, for example between Eastern and Western countries, have narrowed in recent decades, evidence suggests that inequality within nations is rising. This can be seen from the fact that in everyday lives, we can see stark differences in wealth and living conditions within nations in this world. The distribution of income in South Africa for example, according to Palma ratio, shows that it has the world's highest gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 40% of the population's share, scoring 7.0 during 2010-2017 (Human Development Reports, UNDP). Another thing worth noticing is that even between adjoining neighbourhoods, which are Nogales in Arizona and Sonora, have perplexing unequal economic development, despite the fact that they have the same people, culture, and geography (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012).

Furthermore, globalisation still has another missing part to begin with since the central body to shape itself is still absent (O'Sullivan, 2019). Aside from World Economic Forum, which we don't know yet if it can fulfill the function to shape globalisation, this world can't provide the governing body to supervise those rapid changes. 

Entering Multipolarity

It may still be hard for some of us, even with those explanations, to digest the possibility of globalisation's departure as people don't want to relive the moments when their activities are  walled-off internally. Worry not, it seems like they have the right to be comforted that it won't happen -- at least in the near future. It is because the symptoms that are apparent in today's world don't really indicate the growing country-inwardness to replace globalisation; instead, the signs are directing more toward what it's called as multipolarity. Multipolarity can be described as a condition in which the world has several centres of power that lead to a diffused distribution of supremacy. In this matter, understanding multipolarity is crucial because it will produce one basic behaviour pattern amongst nations, which is the arithmetic of coalitions in both small and big matter.

Multipolarity will be a significant event for nations that have consequential power to build their own legacy, whether geographical or economical, to support their expansion. That's why as mentioned before, the urge to form coalitions will be more visible than ever. But only until the start of 2018, multipolarity has grown into something not merely theoretical, but rather observable, through some courses of events. Those events are trade tensions, technologies' advancement, and others that have separated this world into several distinct coalitions. According to Michael O'Sullivan in his book titled "The Levelling: What's Next After Globalization", a fully multipolar world is manifestly underway via distinct working's characteristics in three large regions: the U.S., China, and European Union (EU). Moreover, the concept of multipolarity, in this case, will be different from the concept of multilateralism because in multilateralism, although you have a different method, you can still work things together. While in multipolarity, regions will do things completely distinct and different. 

The signs of multipolarity are developed from time to time, rather than crashing through the course of time all of a sudden. Before the growing existence of multipolarity, this world has experienced other structures, such as bipolarity by the Soviet Union and the U.S. during the Cold War as well as unipolarity by the U.S as a result from their victory in the Cold War. As the concept of multipolarity is pretty fluid, we can see the development in today's world from unipolarity to multipolarity through the rising power of China and the EU to be on par with the U.S. 

Economic Multipolarity

The types of powers to acknowledge multipolarity's development can be seen in several factors, such as economic, financial, and geopolitical power. The economic factor is one unique determinant in the age of multipolarity as the use of this factor is very visible in today's world, making it easier for us to spot this occurrence. As aforementioned, countries will be pivoted around either of the three major poles, namely: the U.S., China, and the EU. First, we can see that China is currently a hot topic to become the rising power, levelling the U.S., and triggered it to start creating tensions in trade sector. This has already signalled one of the general patterns of great power behaviour, in which the U.S.believes that the safe way to improve their relative position is by pursuing policies to weaken others (China). China itself has proven its worth in becoming a consequential power and soon enough will form its own alliances with other nations. This is validated by IMF Data which stated that in comparison with 2011, during 2018 countries in Asia (Myanmar, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh) traded more with China rather than the U.S. This also applies with Australia in which from 2012-2017, their total FDI from China increased 21 percent per year, compared with 6 percent from the U.S. Additionally, China has also spread its wings to the Middle East region under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the signing of the Declaration of Action on China-Arab States Cooperation. This declaration marks growing and deeper relationship between China and the Arab States. With these, China can be considered as capable in persuading other countries to be a part of its orbit.

Aside from China, it is also evident for the EU to become another major pole in this structure. It can be seen from the effort to expand their economic power through trade means. According to WTO, the EU remains to be the most dynamic regional trade agreement with the share in export of manufactured goods reaching 34.3 percentage point in 2017. Furthermore, the EU has shown signs of expanding their economic territories outside the Blue Continent, which is to Latin America, through agreed trade deals with Mercosur just recently. Mercosur is a trading bloc consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The deal between the two regional blocs is said to be able to bolster economic and job growth for their estimated 770 million populations who live in both continents. On top of that, the EU might reap more benefits through the small coalition made inside their continent, particularly consisting of Northern European countries, called the Hansa League as a possible vehicle in integrating EU's trade traditions. 

After knowing that China and the EU are throned to the other major poles, what will happen to other nations, perhaps the mid-sized countries, like India, Japan, Russia, or even the U.K., that are potential to be the next major poles? Well, it's still unarguably hard to determine whether such a big nation like India will have their own pole or in opposition, follow other major poles in this matter. In the case of India, it will depend on their degree of development and also, on how they can utilize their large number of populations to further support their economic growth. But it is with no doubt that New Delhi is targeting to be the next major pole and will be serving as a political and cultural bridge between China and the U.S . This strong drive to be the next major pole will also prompt India to form partnerships with various countries as an effort to maximize its authority. But in order for India to do that, it may seem more plausible for India now to pursue beneficial outcomes that come from partnerships with the U.S. to face the growing power of their (possibly) opponent, China, due to their history of hostile ties. It is also because the U.S. has been a historically-mutually beneficial partner in terms of exports, remittances' source, and even the well-known Indian diaspora matter. As for other countries like Japan, Russia, and the U.K., although they are becoming ambitious enough to be the other major poles, current circumstances show that they're still at crisis with their own identity simply because they're still lacking in terms of convincing other nations to follow their lead. On top of that, they're even still struggling to establish their own power in this world's economic competition. 

Ready or Not

Given those multipolarity signs that have mainly been discussed through an economic perspective, it has taught us that a new world order that we're talking about is going to happen, whether we're ready or not. There will also be a growing tension caused by unstable system in multipolarity between different major poles (The National Intelligence Council, 2008). It's because multipolarity is very complex and has wide options for the expansionist to expand and search for their opportunities. On top of that, this new order will further be coloured by two major tenets that will characterise the poles, which are market-based and state-managed society. Their opposing meaning will eventually add more tensions to emphasize the distinct nature of different major poles. 

In dealing with the multipolar systems, countries should be aware that building a coalition and participating in this game can be a preferable alternative, rather than isolating themselves. Finding and securing allies -- along with trying to improve their own coalitions and challenge the opposing ones, will be the kind of efforts we are bound to see in the near future, or starkly, now. In this matter, government will play a central role in related transition. Further, in the wake of the end of globalisation (or some people believe it as a new era of globalisation), this world needs to realise that we can't maintain current international institutions and order because they will grow to be defunct. It is best to consider forming or maybe, reforming, needs-based and more adapted international institutions to better serve the whole new society.