preamble
preamble
Recently, the rapid evolution of the new crown epidemic has had a wide range of social and economic impacts on a global scale. More and more scholars and media have begun to focus on the intensifying protectionism and geopolitical conflicts, and discuss the deglobalization issues facing the world today.
Although the concept of de-globalization has only recently become familiar to the public, indicators of globalization such as global trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) have stagnated a decade ago. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, the benefits of globalization have weakened, and distributional conflicts have gradually intensified. With the promises of some globalists falling short, protectionism and populism have begun to rise in many countries around the world and are becoming more and more intense.
However, looking at the history of modern human development, it is not difficult to find that globalization is actually a tortuous process. Although globalization is currently facing some challenges, we still firmly believe that continuous technological and social development will continue to strengthen and promote international cooperation and integration.
This article will explain how blockchain will become the antidote to anti-globalization in this era of uncertainty from three aspects: historical review, current situation analysis and future exploration.
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Review the history of globalization
The development of scientific and technological productivity and the political and economic system are the two main factors driving the process of globalization. Along these two lines, let us first trace the origins of the process of globalization.
The initial prototype of globalization actually emerged thousands of years ago when the land silk road and the maritime silk road were established. The eastern and western worlds communicated with each other by land and sea, and began to transport and trade rare goods such as silk, porcelain, sugar, spices, medicinal materials and precious stones. With the continuous development of science and technology and the political and economic system, the increasingly mature navigation technology has made global exploration possible. Explorers from countries such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have been on voyages since the 15th century, discovering many new continents and shortening the distance between different regions of the world.
In the second half of the 18th century, the world economy entered a new stage. The Industrial Revolution changed the mode of production and relations of production, and greatly improved human productivity. Since then, both wealth accumulation and regional exchanges in the world have grown exponentially, unprecedented in history. Since then, every change in technological productivity and political and economic structure will set off a new wave of globalization. On the other hand, in every zigzagging process of globalization, there are conflicts and re-establishment of balance.
Referring to the above figure, it is not difficult for us to summarize several laws about the process of globalization from history:
1 From the perspective of the entire historical cycle, the process of globalization has risen in stages, full of twists and turns, but has never stopped;
2 Every technological innovation and political and economic structure change will set off a more violent wave of globalization;
Although the current process of globalization faces many obstacles, we need to be more aware that human beings are already on the verge of the fourth industrial revolution. This revolution will blur the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological worlds, and will once again change the way the world produces and collaborates.
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Optimism about the deglobalization situation
After the global financial crisis in 2008, the strong resistance to globalization triggered the rise of trade protectionism and populism in developed countries and emerging markets. In order to find the outlet to break the situation, it is necessary for us to deeply study the internal logic that triggers this trend.
These incidents seem to be sending a signal: the wave of anti-globalization has arrived. But as mentioned above, the process of globalization has always been moving forward amidst twists and turns. Under the current international situation full of uncertainties, we should regard it as an opportunity. The continuous maturity of technology has helped us reduce the impact of each deglobalization and is creating a new global paradigm. With the rapid maturity of technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, Internet of Things and blockchain, this digital revolution will push the world structure to the next equilibrium point by reshaping productivity and political and economic structures. It can be said that it is more important than ever to establish a cooperation mechanism based on trust in today's society. As a distributed, transparent, and autonomous value exchange system, the blockchain will surely become the cornerstone of the future society.
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The role of blockchain in the current situation
The changing social and economic landscape in today's world makes us live in an environment of weak trust and uncertainty, which has accelerated the trend of deglobalization. However, the existence of the blockchain has opened up a new path for us, helping us achieve certainty without trust. Blockchain is essentially a distributed network based on mathematics and cryptography. Adhering to the principle of "code is law", blockchain technology can avoid disputes and differences in human society, allowing everyone to be in the same language system and reach consensus with trustless algorithms. Facing a potential global recession, the world desperately needs new productivity leaps to power the digital revolution led by new technologies. Blockchain technology aims to become the underlying architecture of this new technology stack, and blockchain will become one of the backbone forces that will transform the global political and economic forms.
So, how will blockchain power the next wave of globalization?
A New Paradigm of International Collaboration Empowered by Technology
Looking back at history, international institutions have always played an indispensable role in the process of globalization. But over the past decade, traditional international institutions such as the WTO, the WHO and the UNFCCC behind the Paris climate agreement have all faced the dilemma of how to maintain their influence and representativeness. In times of crisis, international cooperation is often hampered by the surge in protectionist sentiment among countries, coupled with the absence of a neutral third party. For example, during the COVID-19 epidemic, the United States withdrew its sponsorship to the WHO, while 80 WTO member countries also chose to restrict the export of masks and other supplies. To solve these problems, blockchain can be a new method for building international collaborative alliances.
Using blockchain technology, international organizations can effectively protect the interests of multiple parties and promote collaboration without the need for a neutral third party. For example, we can establish a carbon emission agreement organization based on a blockchain network in the form of a consortium chain, and tokenize carbon emission credits. On this basis, carbon emission credit transactions can be traded in a fair and open manner on the chain, and the sustainable development of such institutions can be ensured by reducing collaboration resistance.
A Resilient Governance Framework to Advance Social Equality
Over the centuries, we have witnessed several scientific and technological leaps. In contrast, however, our social governance framework has lagged behind. In today's rapidly changing society, we urgently need to inject more scientific and technological power into government governance to improve the flexibility and granularity of social policy formulation and implementation processes.
As we digitize more and more assets, identities, and activity trajectories, we are essentially building a comprehensive, continuous, and real-time updated socioeconomic super-distributed database. In this network, data privacy and ownership can be protected by cryptographic algorithms. Such a network will be able to effectively carry various entity values from the world to specific countries and regions, and even everyone. On the other hand, we will equip the network with a deep decision-making framework to facilitate broader and effective citizen participation, and a set of automated policy enforcement tools with optimal granularity and precision. Through the blockchain, we will be able to reach new heights in terms of governance flexibility and social equality.
An open, efficient, and trust-anchored financial system
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epilogue
epilogue
As the era of the digital economy is approaching, we are confident that the world will continue to collaborate to achieve the integration of nationalism and globalism. Continuously reducing the global gap between the rich and the poor is an inevitable obstacle to be overcome in the process of globalization, and the blockchain, as an important part of the technology stack that promotes the digital revolution, will provide value mobility to the world economy more efficiently. The most important thing is to convey confidence in future development to human beings in a period of weak trust and uncertainty.
Finally, I would like to quote a quote from Davos Forum founder Klaus Schwab:
