New chapter emerging, as East meets West again

The pact is dead, almost: US and China are still negotiating their trade war but as the New York Times reported last week, Chinese investment in the US has plummeted nearly 90% since President Donald Trump took office and the 'world’s two largest economies are beginning to decouple after years of increasing integration'. (From left US representative Robert Lighthizer, Chinese Vice Premier Liu and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin after yet another unfruitful talk.) - Reuters

AND so we have come to the end of the End of History. Remember Francis Fukuyama? He was the American professor who declared in a book of that title, that the ferocious competition of political “isms” – capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism – which so plagued the world and ravaged societies for much of the 20th Century was over, with the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.

Liberal democracy had triumphed. Mankind had reached the final stage of socio-political evolution, with political and economic liberalism as the ultimate system for governing modern societies.

Significantly, as the New York Times reported last week, Chinese investment in the US has plummeted nearly 90% since President Donald Trump took office. The fall, it said, reflected a growing distrust and how “world’s two largest economies are beginning to decouple after years of increasing integration”.