How three US monopolies in globe are challenged?

On May 25th and 26th, 2024, the 10th China and Globalization Forum, hosted by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), co-organized?by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), and supported by the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies (ACCWS), was held in Beijing

Below is the transcript of the opening roundtable speech "Rethinking globalization and global governance: Silver linings in the dark clouds,by one of the guests,Mr. Vuk Jeremic, a weathered politician,President of Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development(CIRSD), Former President, of the United Nations General Assembly and Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia presents his ideas in this event:

Thank you very much, Henry, and thanks for all the excellent work that you've done over the past 10 years. Thanks for the invitation to this distinguished forum. Good morning, everybody. My name is Vuk Jeremic, and I know it's a very difficult name to pronounce. I used to be in domestic and in national politics. I'm no longer and this gives me far more freedom to speak, which I'm going to use this time around speaking about globalization and the challenges of globalization.

Globalization used to be very simple, and the rules-based order, essentially run and guaranteed by the United States, was also simple. The first rule of that rules-based order was: here are the set of rules which everyone is expected to embrace and honor without exception; except from us, when we choose to break these rules because we see this fit. Well, this kind of world is no longer with us.

Globalization is no longer that simple. It has become very complicated. All the conduct of globalization over the past 20 years has brought us into a situation which we are now, and that is a situation of a recession. I do not refer to economic recession; I refer to geopolitical recession. My opinion is that geopolitics is similar to the economy in the sense that it is cyclical; it comes in cycles. The difference is that the cycle in geopolitics is much longer. Once you are in a recession like we are right now, I'm afraid it is going to stay with us for quite a while. In geopolitics, recessions tend to last for decades, and we are only in the first decade of our geopolitical recession. So I fear that we have not touched the trough of this recession yet.

I think that there are three important monopolies on which the U.S. rules-based order was based. The three monopolies of the United States are all now very seriously challenged. The first monopoly was the monopoly on the use of force. It was only the United States that was supposed to use force, regardless of whether there was a Security Council decision or no Security Council decision. And you can think of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and other examples.

Now, this monopoly is very seriously challenged in Ukraine. Mr. Putin has challenged it. I think that one of the reasons why there's such strong opposition in the United States and most of the U.S. allies when it comes to this war in Ukraine is that it is essentially a challenge of the monopoly. If Mr. Putin gets away with this, the monopoly will have been broken. Somebody else will use the military in order to advance its national interest with little regard for international law.

In the past, this privilege was only reserved for the United States, and now others are starting to use it. Whether there are gonna be more countries using it in the future remains to be seen, but it's certainly more likely as a result of the developments in Ukraine.

The second one is the U.S. Dollar. The monopoly of the US dollar is being used extensively right now in defense of the first monopoly. Some people here talked about sanctions, and how sanctions didn't work in this case. I think that one of the serious consequences of the current developments is the weakening of the monopoly of the U.S. dollar as a result of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions that manifestly failed in the case of Russia.

The third one is technological monopoly. Now, the technological monopoly was broken. We sit in this country, which is one of the big challengers to the technological domination of the United States.

The globalization of the future, I think, is going to be driven primarily in two axes, in two directions. First, the global transition to a post-carbon world in economy where China is going to have the lead. The second one is artificial intelligence, where I expect, despite all the difficulties that the United States is facing, that the United States is going to have a lead, which in my opinion, is going to give rise to a certain balance. How do we counter the continuation of American decline in all three fields that I mentioned? When it comes to China, I'm just gonna say two words, and that's how I'm gonna end, and that is Sun Tzu*. Thank you.

Sun Tzu is a legendary military strategist who revolutionized war and combat as we know it. Not much precise information is known about him, but he is most famously known for?his book The Art of War, a guide on how to successfully engage in conflict and battle.