At a talk in Toronto to accept the Globalist of the Year award from the Canadian International Council, George Soros focused on China, according to a report in the Globe and Mail:
Mr. Soros devoted much of his talk to China because the country’s rapid rise is taking place at the exact same time that the U.S. is losing its global economic dominance. “There is a really remarkable, rapid shift of power and influence from the United States to China,” Mr. Soros said, likening the U.S.’s decline to that of the U.K. after the Second World War.
Because global economic power is shifting, Mr. Soros said China needs to change its focus. “China has risen very rapidly by looking out for its own interests,” he said. “They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well.”
Mr. Soros even went so far as to say that at times China wields more power than the U.S. because of the political gridlock in Washington. “Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States,” he said, a hard statement for him to make because he spent much of his life donating to anti-communist groups in Eastern Europe.
Looking forward, Mr. Soros said global governance is a pressing concern, but it is hard to implement. “Whereas globalization and deregulation spread like a virus, regulation is extremely difficult to achieve on an international scale,” he said.
