Emerging of New Poles of Economic Power in the World

Abstract

In a globalized and multipolar world, the concept of “regional leader” represents a core element. Gradually, besides the USA as “a universe unto itself” for more than five decades, there emerged other poles of power, initially under the form of regional leaders. Among the main regional leaders, we can mention: Germany, France and United Kingdom in Europe, Japan, China and India in Asia, Russia at the confluence between Europe and Asia, Brazil in Latin America. Simultaneously, it appeared and deepened different forms of alliances, associations and unions characterized by different degrees of economic integration. Taking into consideration its ascension during the last decades, we can assert that China has the vocation of a global leader.Resorting to a set of indicators and indexes and shares in the world GDP, trade and investment flows, we demonstrate that the EU, USA and China are at present the three major poles of economic power in the world. While the first two are recording a decline in terms of their shares in the global GDP, trade and investment flows, by contrast, China is marking an accelerate rise in the field of trade in goods but a moderate one at the level of trade in services and FDI. The financial and economic crisis emphasized furthermore some trends, pointing out the major challenges induced by the relocation of the poles of economic power in the world.