The world is uneasy as it faces a turning point towards a new era.

Báo Quốc Tế•01/01/2024

One might have thought that after a year of unexpected events and unimaginable occurrences in 2022, the world in 2023 would be calmer and more predictable. However, 2023 continued to demonstrate that the world today remains full of uncertainties and increasingly surprising events.

The global economy is facing difficulties in its recovery.

Economically, the world entered a recovery cycle with optimistic signs towards the end of 2022, partly due to adaptation after the shocks of energy and food prices and inflation in 2022, and partly due to the prospect of China's recovery after Covid-19 helping to revive the global economy.

However, the reality shows that there was no miraculous recovery in 2023. From the beginning of the year, the chain of bank failures in the US and Switzerland pushed global investors and consumers back into a defensive stance, deepening concerns about a widespread economic recession, especially in the US.

Previous forecasts regarding China's development trends in 2023 have also been somewhat inaccurate. The prospect of a strong recovery for China after the 20th Party Congress following two years of Covid-19 lockdowns remains unclear, given the continued challenges facing the economy, including difficulties in the real estate market, local government debt crises, and youth unemployment, making the economic recovery process challenging.

Although the world has had to adapt to the disruption of energy supply chains caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the energy market remains unstable, with the unexpected outbreak of conflict in the Gaza Strip further exacerbating existing instability in the Middle Eastern oil region. Meanwhile, the food supply chain has yet to recover as food security becomes increasingly crucial, prompting many countries to reconsider their food import and export policies. Climate change, with the highest global temperatures in 125,000 years, further exacerbates concerns about food security.

The breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence was one of the most notable technological events of 2023. However, the initial excitement that ChatGPT-4 would drive new economic sectors was quickly replaced by concerns about its negative impacts, especially the possibility that AI will replace many intellectual jobs in the future, including highly skilled workers in analysis, creation, and design. Therefore, instead of quickly leveraging and developing AI technology, the world is now seeking to control and establish regulations for this cutting-edge field.

The West-East and North-South shifts are becoming stronger.

In 2023, the world continued to witness shifts in the balance of power and a "pivot" in multiple directions, especially the West-East, North-South shifts, and a pivot towards Asia from various angles. Asia continued to lead global growth, reaching 4.7-5%, higher than the world average of approximately 3-3.2%. Many countries continued to issue or update visions, strategies, and action plans focused on the Indo-Pacific region. To date, over 20 large and medium-sized countries have strategies for this region, with promoting relations with Southeast Asia and ASEAN considered important components.

2023 witnessed a rise in the role of the Southern powers. This was primarily due to intense competition among the Northern powers, causing the "major global rifts" that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guiteres has repeatedly warned about. The polarization among the Northern powers has raised hopes that the Southern powers will both be a driving force for global economic growth, contributing solutions to global problems, and act as a mediator to somewhat mitigate the widespread geostrategic competition.

Along with the aforementioned major shifts, new or renewed power blocs are emerging. Many new, tripartite or quadrilateral blocs with specific goals and flexible formations are taking shape in the Asia-Pacific region. Some of these blocs are appearing for the first time in the region, such as the trilateral summit between the US, Japan, and South Korea at Camp David (US, August 2023); and the quadrilateral cooperation between the US, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines (dubbed the "new Quad"), demonstrating the US's active efforts to consolidate its position and influence at the center of this global growth.

Meanwhile, China strives to project itself as a global power by consistently concretizing its initiatives and vision with specific plans and actions. China's White Paper on "A Global Community Sharing a Future," issued in September 2023, is the clearest and most concrete document outlining the world order that China desires and calls upon the international community to build. China is attempting to demonstrate that it has solutions to global security issues and conflicts based on its own unique Chinese philosophy and culture.

Great power competition is intense but does not lead to direct confrontation.

Competition between major powers, especially between China and the United States, continues to be the most important relationship impacting the international economic and political landscape in 2023. The "hot air balloon" incident at the beginning of the year dashed hopes of resuming high-level US-China exchanges to mend the turbulent relationship between the two countries surrounding the Taiwan Strait in 2022. The US report showing that the two countries nearly clashed 300 times since September 2021 (an average of one clash every two days) indicates that tensions and the risk of conflict between the two countries are at a very high level.

However, 2023 also demonstrated the efforts and determination of both countries to control competition and prevent friction from escalating into direct confrontation. Numerous meetings, both public and private, took place between foreign ministers, national security advisors, and their counterparts to maintain rapprochement and control relations, preventing competition and confrontation from going too far. Therefore, the high-level meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in San Francisco on the sidelines of the APEC Summit unfolded as expected, helping the two countries resume defense contact and manage strategic competition.

Nevertheless, US-China competition remains intense, especially in new spaces (such as the air and sea), and subtly in shaping global institutions. While China strives to shape new institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the BRICS group, alongside multilateral institutions created by the West after World War II, the US seems to advocate for "tear down and rebuild" new institutions, especially economic ones. US National Security Advisor Jake Sulivan, in a speech at the Brookings Institute in April 2023, expressed a vision of new, overlapping, chaotic structures, like the architecture of Frank Gehry, rather than the straight, orderly system of the Breton Woods system after World War II.

Will 2024 be a year of big waves and strong winds?

A multipolar, multicentric world is emerging. The transition to this new geopolitical landscape will be far from easy or smooth. Shifting the balance of power among major countries will inevitably lead to changes in the calculations and strategies of the countries involved, creating new power blocs and conflicts of interest. During this transition, new rules and regulations may emerge, but the old ones will not disappear.

2024 will be a crucial turning point in the transition to a new global landscape, against the backdrop of projected slower global economic growth, major countries like Russia and the US entering important elections, and potential power transitions in countries and territories in the region such as Singapore, Indonesia, and Taiwan (China).

In this uncertain world, Vietnam needs to be extremely vigilant, anticipating unexpected events, but also needs to remain calm, confident, and cautiously optimistic in order to quickly seize even the smallest opportunities to consolidate the peaceful situation and environment, and promote cooperation to serve national interests and the common interests of the region and the international community.

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