Global trends to watch out in 2011

This New Year has started with a bang which no one in the world expected. The dictator of Tunisia, a longtime friend of the West and the sole superpower in the World, has fallen from power thanks to spontaneous popular protests by the people of that country. The same protests can be seen on the streets in most of the other parts of the region like Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan or Yemen.

I believe the main reasons behind these popular protests are public outrage over the economic misery in these countries as well as the continuing inability and unwillingness on the parts of the governments in these countries to do something about in alleviating the economic misery of their own peoples.

All the countries in question have a large population of educated and unemployed young man who do not see any hope of changes in their miserable lives. These people are educated but without any jobs and the governments in these countries are oppressive and corrupt. The governments in these countries are also unable to control the rise in prices of essential commodities in their countries. This is a dangerous mix which goes on to produce the types of revolutions which overthrow even the most and tyrannical regimes the world has ever seen.

The phenomenon of internet and social networks have also played their parts in organizing and orchestrating people into action against what they perceive to be their common enemy: their tyrannical governments. I believe we need to look very closely into events from the West Asia throughout the year of 2011. As someone said “things are really interesting …. Things are just hotting up”.

On another part of the world, Washington DC saw the summit meeting between the leaders of the USA and China, the incumbent sole superpower and the upcoming power. I believe the main issue that will dominate the discussions between these two potential rivals will be economic in nature. That issue is: how much the Chinese are ready to accommodate to help American multi-nationals set up their shops in China. As we all know that China is the fastest growing economy in the World and the lure of lucrative Chinese market in terms of key economic sectors like green technology, information technology, commercial aviation and automobiles is too great for American corporations to ignore.

China is not only a lucrative market in terms of consumers but it is also very lucrative in terms of labor costs and easy credit availability. In deed many high end American corporations (like the one here) are thinking about moving their production bases to China for these reasons.

American corporations now days derive most of their potential revenues from places outside USA like China and they are increasingly looking to shift more of their business operations to that part of the World. Indeed that makes sense from an economic viewpoint.

But doing business with China can also mean that you need to share your niche technologies and ideas with companies who in future may become your competitors. Indeed that is the condition that Chinese government is increasingly attaching alongside any lucrative offers to business in China. The year of 2011 will see more of this.

Ultimately it will boil down to how much each side in the bargaining: i.e. the Chinese and the American multi-nationals are ready to offer to each other. Now I believe this is the relationship between the American and other western multi-nationals and the Chinese which is going to decide the future in this century.

So these two trends i.e. the popular uprisings in the Western Asian region as well as the relationship between the Chinese and American multi-nationals are going to dominate the rest of 2011. I would like to quote Robert Fisk in terms of final outcomes in both these two trends: “We do not know what comes next. Perhaps only history can answer this question.”