The world is looking on uneasily as China challenges the United States as a technological power, but a zero-sum game is not an inevitability. Governments, businesses, and civil society can come together to help the world break out of this duopoly for a more sustainable future.
What makes a currency global? The Spanish peso that started circulating internationally in the 16th century offers a case study. The opening of new trade routes and security innovations made it the world's most widely demanded currency. It facilitated the integration of China, the Americas, and Europe into a world economy, creating a status quo that lasted until the 19th century.
The continents-spanning Belt and Road Initiative may appear to be a leviathan, but a closer look at both it and China’s global quest for resources tells a more nuanced story. Even for the most authoritative of actors, situations don’t always work out as they do on paper.
Their environment leaves them little space for personal expression, but Hong Kong’s domestic workers have found ways to engage in politics and pursue their own paths of leadership.
As Xi Jinping begins his second term as president, the "new era" that he intends to install is becoming clearer to observers. It features a richer and more assertive China, better equipped with a modern military, at the center of the global stage.
Among the many unacknowledged examples of “Asia the global” is the inspiration Western second-wave feminism derived from revolutionary China. Though not wholly influenced by Chinese ideas, second-wave feminism found in aspects of revolutionary China an ideological and practical model.