Vision & Global Trends presence at Latin American

conference
This November 19 Vision & Global Trends – International Institute for Global
Analyses- was present (in virtual format) through its analysts Zeno Leoni, Juan
Martin González Cabañas and Emanuel Pietrobon at the First Latin American
congress (summit) of “World Crisis and Geopolitics: Thinking Multipolarism for a
New World Order” organized by the CIEPE at the discussion panel on “the rise of
China in contemporary world geopolitics”.

Click here for the video of the event

In their joint presentation “strategic continuity - tactical change: the Limits of

USA Grand Strategy towards China” Leoni and Cabañas approached the topics
of the tension between national and global interests within the framework of the US
(grand) strategy.

The vision of both agrees with those of the American neo-realist scholars, in which
the overextension of the US foreign commitment has weakened it relatively, but
they rather emphasize that the grand US strategy of Liberal Hegemony has
contributed to the emergence of systemic rivals, such as China recently. It was
argued that the rise of China as a relevant international actor has made this
exercise of synthesis between nationalism and globalism an extremely challenging
task for the United States because China has become both a partner and an
enemy. In particular, the hegemony of the United States is challenged by China's
strategic intertwining between political power and key industries (State-Owned
Enterprises). Therefore US political decision makers from Obama to Trump
understood that Chinese state capitalism is their main source of power, and
therefore a threat. Under this analytical scheme, the differences between the
Obama and Trump administrations in their approach to foreign economic policy
towards China were demonstrated. Although they adopted radically different
tactics, both Obama and Trump pursued similar strategic goals. Obama, however,
put more emphasis on multilateralism, while Trump preferred a bilateral and more
confrontational approach.

While Pietrobon in his presentation “ChinAmerica: The Inevitable Split” argues

that the Sino-American hegemonic confrontation may be the result of elements that
go beyond geopolitics, and touch a more intimate sphere and have a deeper origin,
namely the very social and legal foundations on which the two countries are based
and modeled accordingly shape their worldviews. Assuming the validity of this line
of thought, the end of the symbiotic relationship between the two world-largest
economies was only a mere matter of time. Indeed, no true strategic partnership
can exist between the US, which is politically, culturally and economically liberal
and is devoted to the promotion of its system across the globe since the early
decades following its independence, and China, whose conception of state role in
domestic and world affairs is totally different from the European and American one
and is the combination of a millennia-old complex and rich history.