Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Power has already shifted from west to east and that shift is going to continue. 

Singaporean Official, Professor Kishore Mahbubani offers examples: the European Union in 1980 was ten times larger than China in economic terms. Today, china has achieved parity with the EU. By 2050, the EU will be half the size of China economically. That is the trajectory. A massive structural shift is taking place under all our noses. 

One hundreds ago, a hundred thousand Englishmen ruled three hundred million Indians. In 1990, UK GDP was four times greater than India’s. Today India’s GDP is greater than the UK’s by half a trillion Dollars. By 2050, India’s GDP will be four times greater than the UK’s. 

The days when the west enjoyed exponential economic and political power over the rest of the world have ended. Today ex colonies and vassals in Asia are achieving economic and political parity and expected to overtake the west in a decade. 

Vladimir Lenin stated once upon a time that decades can pass and nothing happens, then days pass and decades happen. 

Technology has shrunk the world. Today, right here in the Virgin Islands we are witnessing seismic changes that we cannot escape. It is not pessimism asserting it appears the world is spinning out of control. It is fact. 

The greatest challenge the world faces today is the challenge of leadership. The great danger in 2025 is the reality that the effective political leader and diplomat is missing. The patient, restrained, and thoughtful leader has disappeared. In its place, we are witnessing the rise of hubristic, nationalistic, and aggressive strongmen. 

However, just as in the 1930s, it will take the likes of a Nelson Mandela, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Mia Mottley, to manage the seismic changes we are all experiencing in a world gone haywire. Men and women who think deeply. Leaders who adopt a sober approach to international affairs.

Tragically, there is no leader on the horizon able to avert the march to a catastrophic world war. 

Ironically, China’s Xi Jing Pi is the single leader who appears to possess the maturity of the type of leader the world requires at this critical time in spite his desire to invade Taiwan. Xi is patient and restrained. Much more so than his western counterparts, so it would appear.