What lies ahead for the world economy? A plausible answer is that it has started to splinter. This is the argument of Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, in his thoughtful new book The Fractured Age. Fracturing, he notes, is not the same as “deglobalising”. Trade and other forms of globalisation might not shrink by much. This should be nothing like the collapse of the 1930s. But trade with rivals will shrink and trade with friends will rise. In particular, he suggests, the world will divide between a US-centred bloc and a China-centred one, with a number of unaligned countries stuck in between, trying to do their best.
Large parts of the US political elite already see China’s rise as the challenge of the age. Indeed, this seems to be almost the only point on which both parties mostly agree. Xi Jinping also drew a parallel between modern-day US “hegemony” and the “arrogant fascist forces” of 80 years ago, before a summit with Vladimir Putin last May. This is fighting talk.
Shearing also argues that the US would come out ahead from such a fracturing of the world economy. The main justification is that America’s allies are more economically powerful than China’s because they include almost all advanced countries. Meanwhile, Russia is China’s only significant ally. At market prices, the US bloc’s share of world GDP is 68 per cent, against the China bloc’s 26 per cent. Even at purchasing power parity, the US bloc’s share is 50 per cent, against the China bloc’s 32 per cent.