International Reports

Dear Readers, Power shifts are a fundamental phenomenon underpinning global politics. In 1990, as the bipolar world order finally unravelled, US political scientist Joseph S. Nye wrote: “Just as farmers and meteorologists try to forecast storms, so do leaders and analysts try to understand the dynamics of major changes in the distribution of power among nations.” Today, the world finds itself in a phase of major upheaval once again. The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated and expedited certain geopolitical developments that have been brewing for some time and are associated with a fundamental shift in the international order. The rise of the People’s Republic of China to become a great power is not the only expression of this change, but it is perhaps the most obvious. These changes have not blown in like a sudden storm, instead, they reflect the slow tectonic shifts of the earth’s crust - and these shifts create tensions. (fragment)