This article provides a response to Brantly Womack’s article in this issue on a multinodal view of the global world and China’s rise within it. Has globalization ushered in a new and stable structural system based on connectivity and multinodal networks?
I argue here that globalization may be more fragile and beset with system-level risk than in Womack’s view. Its future depends on investment in global institutions and global governance by states and networks of private and sub-state actors. Likewise, states may increasingly be caught in networks of interconnections and dependency, while at the same time they must deal with great social forces and struggles that could yet break key links in the system. In sum, agency, political leadership, and institutions matter. The system is dynamic and interactive. It is vulnerable and dependent on active coordination. Even China’s trajectory within this system can take very different paths, based on the political choices of its leaders and other players.
世事無常：大國崛起、系統性風險以及機構与企業的作用—對布蘭特利·沃馬克“中國在一個多節點的世界秩序中的未來”一文的回應
世界及中國在全球的崛起所提出的多節點視圖進行商榷。全球化真的已經迎來了一個基於連通性和多節點網絡的嶄新爾穩定的結構體系嗎？我認為，全球化可能比沃馬克所想象的更為脆弱，它被很多制度層面的風險所困擾。它的未來取決於對全球性機構的投入程度以及國家、私有及次國家行為體所組成的網絡所進行的全球治理的效果。同樣，國家可能越來越多地陷入相互關聯依賴的各種網絡中，而同時必須面對尚能打破全球化系統的關鍵鏈接的巨大社會力量和鬥爭。總之，即使由於其領導者及其他政治角色所作出的政治選擇爾使中國在這一系統內的軌跡不同尋常，能動性、政治領導力和機構等因素都很重要。因為全球化系統是動態爾交互式的，脆弱並依賴於不斷的積極協調。
Translated from English by Xin Huang