2017 Will Be The Year Of A Geopolitical Recession: Eurasia Group

If 2008 was the year of global economic recession, then 2017 can be characterized as a year when the world faces a geopolitical recession. That's the word coming in from Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the Eurasia Group, a leading columnist and political scientist.

Speaking to NDTV's Namrata Brar in Davos, Switzerland, where the global elite have gathered for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Mr Bremmer said the election of Donald Trump to the White House had "decisively repudiated the idea of American exceptionalism", and there was no other country in the world willing to take America's role as a global leader from a military, security and trade standpoint.

"What we see this here is actually a lot of volatility a lot of uncertainty and a geo-political vacuum," said Mr Bremmer. "Xi Jinping only expresses power economically on a global stage, not in terms of the military, certainly not in terms of diplomatic power, not from the technology perspective and not from and energy perspective."

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be the first Chinese leader to make an appearance at the annual meeting in the Alpine town, leading the largest-ever Chinese delegation.

Amid growing protectionist rhetoric from Mr Trump, who will be inaugurated in Washington as the 45th US president on Friday, the Chinese president is expected to make a strong defence of globalisation in a much awaited speech. But while China will make a case for globalisation from a consumerist standpoint, they are not particularly interested in the "globalization of citizenship", or a long-term view that looks at making the idea work for everybody, believes Mr Bremmer, who also dismissed the idea that globalisation was dead.

"Globalisation is not dead," he said. "Americanisation is."

With all eyes on China and the US, the world's interest in India has decisively cooled off at Davos this year, where a slew of disappointing reports, including a growth downgrade by the IMF, has led the country to lose its tag as the fastest growing economy in the world. But Mr Bremmer was a rare optimistic voice about the country's prospects. Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "strong leadership", he said that while still not a global player of consequence, India had displayed an ability to "develop a longer term economic planning", as evidenced by the reforms undertaken on the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The government's incremental federal approach to growth also came in for some praise from Mr Bremmer who said that the "the fact that PM Modi is building India with leaders from the BJP state by state, province for province" was a "much more sustainable way to grow an economy even if it takes a lot longer".