#deglobalisation

Deglobalisation: The US Withdrawal as Global Protector and why its leading to a more militarized international political world

The driving force behind deglobalisation is the decrease in the size of United States destroyers in terms of the available numbers to patrol global shipping lanes and protect international shipping not just for the United States and its allies but also for non-aligned nations, including Russia and China. As of writing, the United States has 150 destroyers and 11 supercarriers, insufficient to…

‘Take Biden’s focus on boosting America’s chip-making capacity. While semiconductors may be strategically important in “out-competing” China, they aren’t particularly labor-intensive. Reshoring traditional manufacturing sectors would benefit US workers much more—but it’s not their needs that are driving policy. As the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik writes: “It is good that we are now moving away from [hyper-globalization], given how damaging it was to our social fabric. … Unfortunately, the great powers seem to have chosen a different, even worse path. They are now handing the keys to the global economy to their national-security establishments, jeopardizing both global peace and prosperity”...

‘Deglobalization is an opportunity—both for the United States and China. It could help address the structural flaws of both economies: China needs to boost domestic demand and reduce its dependence on exports, while the United States needs to boost domestic production and reduce its dependence on imports. The needs of the two countries are potentially complementary, meaning that trade between them could be diminished in the context of peaceful relations. But this isn’t the path currently being pursued by the US establishment, which views deglobalization as another form of empire-building.’

The article nowhere mentions "hartals" in Bangladesh following our democratic transition of 1990.

A hartal is violence unleashed on innocent bystanders by the opposition to bring down the government (“strikes-cum-blockades enforced by partisan thugs” was The Economist’s tortured definition).

80% of all hartals after 1947 occurred between 1990 and 2011. Of the 721 national hartals recorded by the Banglapedia (online) since the country came into being as East Pakistan in 1947, 591 occurred after the democratic transition of 1990 – that is, 82% in a mere 21 years (1990 – 2011).

How many people were burnt alive or beaten to death? No records exist.

But consider a single episode from the night of June 4, 2004 when a double-decker public bus full of passengers in front of the Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka blew up in flames.  Six people were incinerated inside the bus, and a burnt man jumped to his death; two others, including a two-year-old child, Meem, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (The Daily Star, June 5 2004).

Economy News The Covid-19 pandemic that brought the world to its knees and triggered nation-wide lockdowns across countries since the past few months can lead to deglobalisation alleviate some woes, such as worsening inequality.

But it could come at the cost of impairing productivity, raising prices, slowing the growth of emerging markets (EMs) and triggering even worse regional conflicts, argues a July 13 report from Nomura titled 'The world after Covid-19'.

ALSO READ: Covid-19 Factoid: India has added 300,000 new coronavirus cases in 13 days

“We expect the vacuum in global leadership, tense US-China relations and deglobalisation to continue, and EMs to face a more challenging medium-term outlook.

PM Theresa May of the UK, uttering what might be the most decisive phrase of this century so far. These words, which could only have been produced by a fringe nationalist just a few years back, have now been spoken by a radical opportunist.