ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the three scenarios that are: Donald Trump’s state-centric international series of bilateral arrangements; Xi Jinping’s China-centric series of connectivities spanning the world; and the restoration the liberal economic international system, modeled on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It suggests that the development over the next decade or so will be a hybrid system of ad-hoc arrangements of a semi-liberal kind, designed to meet the functional needs of states and other entities. Xi’s presentation of himself and his country as a leader and upholder of globalization and the liberal international trade order is also mendacious, or it is based on self-deception. Liberalism may expand through the revisal of trade, but much would depend on how deeply the recent attachment of nationalism and populism have penetrated Western politics. At issue at the point is whether Trump’s transactional approach in favor of bilateral deals amounts to a viable approach for the international system as a whole.
