The systemic challenge for the U.S. is not China but the worst inflation in 40 years. In fact, fragmentation does not seem to be happening in the real world. Even an Asia-Pacific version of NATO will not likely divide the region, as China will continue to be a major trade partner.

The American economy will inevitably experience a Volcker-style contraction — think early 1980s — and it will have a global impact. Today’s inflation is stubborn and structural, and it will be virtually impossible to bring it down to 2 percent without tipping the economy into recession.

Europe has taken a strategic stance when it comes to its relationship with the U.S. and with China. While the U.S. has strengthened ties with its European allies to contain China, Europe also supports China’s monetary ambitions regarding the RMB.

Globalization is at a crossroads. Compounded by U.S. geopolitics and the cost of economic development, de-globalization has huge economic and human damages.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has provided new impetus to the centennial change in global order. Combined with the impact of global pandemic, this conflict has accelerated the transformation of international economic order from a US-dominated globalization process to the globalization driven by coexistence of multiple parallel systems.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an essential component of Beijing and Islamabad’s economic relationship, but the CPEC has faced extensive pressures internally and externally, including strong criticism from the U.S. and India.

A robust semiconductor supply chain without China is out of question, while complimentary China-U.S. cooperation would make the global supply chain both complete and resilient for years to come.

In The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War, historian Nicholas Mulder reminds us that even when Britain and Russia were savagely battling each other during the 1853-56 Crimean War, they continued to service their debts to each other. Likewise, when hedge funds launched predatory attacks on Asian currencies during the 1990s Asian financial crisis, they ultimately still played by the rules (even though their unethical behavior brought some East Asian countries’ economic progress to a halt).

Vietnam and India still have a long way to go to compete with China. Control of the pandemic, selective resumption of production and continued strengthening of its supply chains globally will keep China on top for some time.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, the world seemed ready to undertake meaningful reform of the international monetary system. But the promised structural changes never happened. And the recent spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank indicated that the current bout of global economic upheaval will similarly fail to spur transformation.