In his January 2017 address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping positioned himself — unusually for the leader of Communist China — as a defender of globalisation and free trade. Without a doubt, Xi’s remarks were directed at US President Donald Trump, whose campaign rhetoric stressed resistance to globalisation and signalled an increasingly nationalist, isolationist and protectionist US administration.

But the rising nationalist and protectionist tide in the West is not a foregone conclusion. A series of mitigating factors are impelling the great powers to cooperate, if only instrumentally and in the short term.

…See Seng Tan is Professor of International Relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and is concurrently Deputy Director and Head of Research of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at RSIS.