China to play major role in new world order: Egyptian scholar

PEOPLE are currently witnessing the emergence of a new multipolar world order and China will play a major role in that, said Samir Ghattas, president of the Cairo-based Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies.

Ghattas said so Friday during a conference themed “Determinants of the New World Order in Relation to Conflict or Dialogue of Civilizations” in the Romanian capital of Bucharest.

Ghattas said that the world is evolving into a multipolar one and that there is no chance to return to the unipolar or bipolar world order of the past.

A new world order, he said, will be defined by the emerging economies, including China. “The question is how will the economy of the new order look like, because we have seen lately China’s tremendous economic strength, exceeding any other country.”

The scholar said the free market economy in Western democracies and the centralized economy “have already proved their weak aspects,” so there must be a third model that works best — the one that has proven successful by China, he said.

“China has exceptional economic achievements with the centralized political power of the Communist Party of China. It will be interesting to see how this system, which has yielded fabulous economic achievements, will survive in the new world order,” Ghattas said.

He mentioned in particular China’s Belt and Road Initiative. “China is the biggest investor in the development of the Suez Canal, for instance, which will become a big hub and will be connected to the Belt and Road.”

“I consider the Belt and Road Initiative a very important project and lots of countries will benefit from it,” he added.

The scholar acknowledged that chaos will occur while the new world order takes shape, a process he said will see Western powers “do their best to preserve their supremacy” while the emerging powers “do their best to become major actors.”

However, Ghattas rejected the idea of a “clash of civilizations” and favored instead the notion of “dialogue of civilizations.”