Racing for development hegemony

As the “Economic Iron Curtain†looms, the “Grand Chess†game is between China and the United States. The competition between the parallel developing financing systems is eventually turning into the race for global development hegemony. The US-China trade war involves not only trade disputes, but IP theft, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer, government subsidies, market barriers, and structure reform. It has expanded to energy, technology, media, human rights, currency, and financial areas. Furthermore, the two big powers have fundamental disagreements in human rights, principles of the rule of law, and core values. The RMB internationalization, which covers RMB trade settlements, currency swap agreements, petroyuan, and DCEP, is the key for China’s ambitious global plan of OBOR and de-dollarization. Meanwhile, China’s financial market have accumulated tremendous financial risks. This situation has undermined China’s sustainability in financing ongoing and subsequent OBOR investments, especially after the trade war and the coronavirus crisis.