Decoupling, de-risking just political weapons

Editor's Note: The following are excerpts of an address New Development Bank President Dilma Vana Rousseff, former president of Brazil, made at the 11th World Peace Forum in Beijing on Sunday, as translated from the Chinese reports about it:

The current global macroeconomic situation is in a very uncertain moment, facing the impact of inflation, debt and many other issues. In this disturbing situation, political and institutional building and adjustment have become urgent and necessary. We should seek inclusive and sustainable development and create an environment of common prosperity and peace for the benefit of people of all countries. There can be no peace without inclusive and sustainable development, and no stability and security without peace.

The idea of cooperation and consensus is different from the rhetoric that seeks to impose an antagonistic perspective on the development of civilization, human rights and democracy. Some political models derived from the experience of a particular country were once promoted as the "sole standard" of the world and enforced. Those who do not accept these imposed values would be punished accordingly, with wars, coups, sanctions. The richness and diversity of human civilization is simply abandoned in this way, and the model of different development paths pursued by different peoples is ignored.

"Decoupling" and "de-risking" have been the buzzwords on the international stage recently. The impact of these concepts has not only weakened economic globalization and financial relations, but also been used as a political weapon to prevent the rise of new players on the international stage.

Globalization itself, although less dynamic, has been producing deep interdependence between economies and different parts of the world, and this interconnectedness has grown in equal proportion as trade has increased, global value chains have expanded, and capital flows have doubled.

Cutting the world off has become impractical. Trying to erect insurmountable barriers between countries is tantamount to a return to the "Iron Curtain" and is anachronistic. Under such influence, all countries should make a choice: to divide the world into camps or to promote common prosperity, to embrace the Cold War mentality or to adhere to multilateralism, to copy other countries' development models or to go their own way in light of each country's national conditions, to address climate change through effective resource allocation or to simply maintain the status quo.

One of the most serious threats in the world today is the new protectionism, such as curbing the development of emerging countries. This has been the case with containment policies aimed at China — whether it is unilateral tariff increases, moves to shame the World Trade Organization, or the US CHIPS and Science Act, which has disrupted the global semiconductor industry chain.

It is necessary for countries to seek reform of the global governance to break protectionism and unilateralism, so that they can have a consensus based on the principle of shared prosperity, while condemning all forms of unipolar models.