The international political and economic system is under reconfiguration, and China is fundamental for this process. China has for decades been a rapidly surging economic power, but will it continue? The country faces many challenges, and there are, as always, China observers predicting doom. This is nothing new. But just because doom-sayers have been wrong up to now, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong again. However, they probably are.

We are in the middle of big changes in the global world order. As is often the case, it is difficult to perceive the magnitude of what is happening when you are in the middle of it. It is like not being able to see the forest for all the trees. But the changes are big, and I think the years 2023-2024 will afterwards be seen as the watershed years. The winners are the countries of the Global South, China and Russia. The main loser is the European Union.

Mention Bolivia, and for the last decade it has been difficult not to mention Evo too. Evo Morales was elected as president for the first time in 2005 with 54% of the votes, and he can now celebrate 10 years as president. An absolute outsider, brought forward by social movements of mainly indigenous farmers, workers and small traders, with a tough anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist discourse, he horrified the traditional economic and political elite and the “international community” alike. His government has lived through conflicts and crisis, bordering to civil war, but at the same time it has brought a decade of economic prosperity, dramatic reduction of poverty and a revaluation of the country's indigenous ethnic and cultural roots.