Powerhouse players

Although China has dismissed a proposed ‘G-2’ agreement, it has clearly indicated that it plans to work closely with both the US and Europe, writes Li Zhaoxing

WITH economic globalisation and the advent of a multi-polar world, China and other emerging countries are clearly set to play much more important roles not only in 2012, but in the coming decades.

As China’s economic power and influence in the world economy have increased following the financial crisis of 2008, the idea has been floated that China and the US should co-lead the world under some sort of “G-2” arrangement. But such a G-2 framework is not consistent with China’s independent foreign policy, nor with the general trend towards wider dispersion of geopolitical power within the international community.