New Delhi: Imagine the world like a video game. To win the game, the most powerful players need to not only build virtual worlds, but also maintain the ability to change the game’s settings whenever they want, just like what engineers call God Mode.
That’s how geopolitics is today for Portuguese politician and philosopher Bruno Masales. And he said the winner of this video game will be the next Hegemon.
Maçães recently spoke to Shivshankar Menon and Shyam Saran, a diplomat and former foreign secretary at the Indian International Centre, in his book, World Builders: Technology and the New Geopolitics. The lecture, entitled Geopolitics at the end of time, centers around the way technology emerging new world orders.
View the full article
“The current world order has been clarified,” Mother explained. “Who is going to win, the US or China? The game is still clear, so we don’t know yet.”
Technology and geopolitics are the same for him. Being a technology leader means geopolitical control, and geopolitics represents a country seeking power in the technology world. According to Maçães, it depends on the technical advantage, as it includes all the world order from millions of financial transactions that are instantaneously made on the Internet every second.
“Geopolitics is about creating and creating the world, and technology is the same,” Masan said. “It’s the virtual world today, and controlling this world is more important than controlling the physical realm.”
A new energy revolution
Traditional methods of exercising power and hegemony have been altered with the introduction of nuclear energy. It is not as easy to exchange hegemony as in the past.
And China is aware of that, Masales said.
“We’re waiting for an energy revolution to take place,” he emphasized. “And I don’t know who will win.”
The panel spoke about the previous energy revolution that changed the way the world works. We talked about the 19th century British coal and the deadly industrial revolution, and the electricity and factory models of American production. 20th century.
The new energy sources to be capitalized today are solar energy and artificial intelligence, Masan said. That’s why China invested so much in developing new technologies, and why Deepseek’s innovations have so disrupted the Western world, he stressed.
“In many ways, the countries that are trying to rule the world are the countries that connect and function together: solar energy and AI.”
The panel discussed why China is such an interesting touchpoint for other parts of the world. The question everyone was asking was whether China would become a completely self-dependent technical force, and how it would affect other parts of the world. Machos said that now it’s lace, who moves faster, China or America.
That is what makes China’s idea of being a global leader so convincing in the coming years. Menon pushed back Mount Masa’s theory that world order must exist to maintain balance. But both chains of debate gathered on the idea that China actually has its hands on “building” a new world.
“All great powers must rule the world, whether they want it or not. You either rule or are controlled,” Masash shrugged. I did.
Read again: China’s strategy is working. India’s neighbors are drifting
Where does India fit?
The question for India, which the panel agreed to, was how to move to new technology.
“India is actually a better candidate to join the US and China in the technological world than Europe,” Masales said, referring to the innovations taking place within the country. He also explained how China has overtaken several other Western countries when it comes to technological innovation. “Don’t be surprised if society is attracted to Chinese technology or Chinese solutions.”
The topic of Trump 2.0 and its destructive impact have come and go into the debate. Donald Trump has not expressed the clarification of the world order, the panel agreed – the war between Ukraine and Gaza. Trump represents the moment when American power is no longer recognized as legitimate at the global stage, and instead is perceived as heavily dependent on power and attack.
Trump has significantly changed the world order, panelists agreed. It can no longer be divided into “west” and “non-west.” He paved the way for other countries to take fair shots in power redder scaling.
“Everyone sees the short term,” Saran said. “The Chinese are happy to have Trump because he really has more space for them.”
Masan, who writes his next book in India, spoke about how he stands out in the world order. Therefore, countries need to determine what their national identity represents.
He spoke about the 2011 meeting with Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, when both were vice presidents. Jinping asked Biden to explain the United States in a word. He chose the word “possibility.”
Unfortunately, Biden did not ask questions. After that, Maçães and Menon began to discuss the terms they chose for China. They landed in open “government”, “nation”, or “party”. All of these revolve around collective power as a principle of organisation.
As the lecture ended and the audience began to diminish, the issue of the best words to describe India was born.
“Hope,” Menon whispered, smiling.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
