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November 16, 2021

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Great powers should work together for common good

The opinion article in Monday’s Shanghai Daily by the honorable Chen Jiping from Xinhua news agency (“Time to Improve Global Governance”) was right on the money, both with respect to its stress on the need to refocus on the important matter of world governance and on the legitimate need to update and refocus the major institutions created in the aftermath of World War II to assist in economic recovery and the furtherance of lasting peace.

Chen Jiping notes, “Despite the evolving world economic landscape, the developed economies still retain their disproportionate voting share in the IMF, with the United States wielding a veto. And the tradition remains for the World Bank to be headed by a US citizen and the IMF by a European.”

While these arrangements made great sense 70 years ago, given the widespread destruction that was the legacy of that horrible war, things have happily changed a great deal in the intervening years. Not only has China attained (the deserved) status of a great world power, and is using her considerable economic strength to assist many developing economies in their efforts to move forward, but the full spectrum of the post-colonial and post-imperial world deserves to be more proportionately represented.

Furthermore, I wish the United States would reconsider its decision not to participate in China’s praiseworthy steps to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, for it is the kind of worthy effort that deserves a more united support. Indeed, by seeking opportunities to ally with others for the greater good of all of us, the great powers — especially China, Russia, the European Union, and the United States — can take important steps to turn from confrontation and suspicion to the kind of constructive cooperation that builds camaraderie and trust.

American leaders have shown a more inclusive vision in the past, for it was upon President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s insistence that China became one of the original permanent members of the Security Council of the newly formed United Nations.

A similar long-range view from American leaders today would be most welcome. Neither China nor the United States need put aside their respective concerns over national interest in order to embrace common interests but, interestingly, by placing greater emphasis on how we can work together for the larger good of others (and ourselves) it helps to place areas of national interest in a broader, healthier context.

Greg Cusack, Portland, Oregon




 

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