Nations and Global Economic Competition: Variable and Zero Sum Games

Abstract

The new China plan for a major state sponsored investment in Pakistan confirms that governments do not simply leave the nation’s competitive edge to the market. The competition between nations in the global market is not merely an ocean variable sum game, but it involves also zero sum games, or conflicts. Thus, one may wish to reflect upon the key concepts involved in the enquiries into economic competition, focussing in particular upon the struggle among nations to promote their material interests or national favourite firms. One may examine the various models employed in economics and the social sciences to capture how they model key features of the global market economy with regard to competition. A new form of economic warfare is China’s broad penetration of African country economies, involving a large set of transactions–often long-run, trading infrastructure, mining projects and finance against natural resources, securing long lasting imports to China and at the same time promoting exports from China. We must analyse how nations position themselves in the global market place, protecting so-called national interests in their economic niches, fearing the zero sum implications in the conflict among economic interests.