Most of us seem to have forgotten the popular street movements against globalization that had sent visible tremors across the rich world, especially in Europe and the US during the second half of the 1990s. These movements then tapered off soon after 9/11 as the attention of the world at large was fixated on what was called the global war on terror. Now that the war against terror is being seen to be tapering off except in some pockets like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria where it is at its violent worst the global antagonism against globalization seems to have reared its ugly head once again. And this time the movement seems to have caught many, especially the Western and the US academia and the media by surprise as instead of displaying its antipathy towards globalization on the streets of rich countries it has emerged from inside the ballot boxes.
The Brexit referendum and the November, 2016 polls in the US have virtually struck the death knell for globalization. The year 2008 had heralded the beginning of the end of globalization as the recession that followed the financial mayhem of the year before had caused the economy of the Eurozone to almost buckle-in with that of countries like Greece keeling over, world markets going haywire with many a trade deal getting stalled and a war-like confrontation seemingly in the offing between the West and Russia on the one hand and on the other making of a bitter trade war between the US and China looking almost imminent. It is in this scenario that the UK has received ballot approval to leave the European Union and the majority of the US Electoral College had voted in Donald Trump who has promised to roll back globalization not as perceived by its authors but as vulgarised by its practitioners.
Europe seems still in a kind of shock as it readies itself trying to cope with the double whammy - the UK exit from EU and the victory of Donald Trump in the US. Russia seems decidedly happy. In fact the CIA has recently come up with a (questionable?) report which alleges that Russia had intervened in the US election in favour of Trump. China has so far kept to itself its reaction to the paradigm shift the world economic order is expected to experience following the Brexit and the advent of Trump.
China was a primary target of Trump during the election campaign as he accused Beijing of enriching its populace at the cost of US manufacturing sector and American jobs. However, Trump has also promised to do away with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement proposed by the Obama administration, which would surely be welcomed by China as the TPP has been designed to deny China the vast Southeast Asian markets located in its neighbourhood. And Trump's promise to abandon the age-old US' interventionist foreign policy would certainly relieve the pressure on Beijing's South-China Sea ambitions.
However, following the recent statement of Trump expressing doubts about continuing to abide by the 'one China' policy Beijing has made it very clear that it is "seriously concerned" at this statement indicating its willingness to strongly oppose such a move by Washington.
Under the 'One China' policy, the US has formal ties with China rather than the island of Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway province. The "One China" understanding has been crucial to US-China relations for decades.
While one expects this unexpected and unwanted twist in US-China relations to impact hackers used the SWIFT network to send fake orders requesting the transfer of nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Fed.
Many of the transfer orders were blocked or reversed but, after a series of oversights and miscommunications, the New York Fed ultimately sent $81 million to four fake accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines. Most of the funds then disappeared into Manila's loosely regulated casino industry.
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