Revista de Economie Mondiala/ Journal of Global Economics

5-36

Authors: Ana-Cristina Bâlgăr, Sarmiza Pencea

Since the Cold War, German foreign policy has been guided by the classical liberal concept of “change through trade” as a catalyst for integrating into the global economy, leading to prosperity, peace and political liberalism. This axiomatic principle has been at the heart of establishing and deepening the economic relations between Germany and China, coming to govern the mutually beneficial partnership of the two states for several decades. Nevertheless, a series of measures and actions undertaken by the Chinese government in recent years have led to the cooling of bilateral ties and prompted the German authorities to decide to develop a new foreign policy strategy, focused on reducing the economic dependence on this country with diverging political interests. To better understand the reasons behind the current paradigm shift, our article takes a historical look at the evolution of German policy towards China, seeking to identify the main determinants and particularities of each of the successive stages that have unfolded from the times when the mutual interdependence of the two began to develop, to the current phase, that calls for extensive policy readjustment.

52-64

Authors: Cristian Moisoiu

Since the 2000s, the European Union has proclaimed itself a forerunner of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. The EU has adopted extremely ambitious targets and objectives ever since, with a view to accomplishing its transformation into a low-carbon economy. In the current context of instability and crisis, the climate policies and the structural reform decisions, mainly in the energy and manufacturing sectors, seem to bear on the international competitiveness of the European economy and on the living standards of a large number of the European citizens. From another perspective, the wave of crises that hit the European economy might be interpreted as a window of opportunity for the governments and businesses to promote innovative solutions in order to leapfrog from energy intensive industries towards more performant, higher value-adding ones. The present article will expound the EU low-carbon economy model and the main policies it suggested, as well as the challenges and risks that occur in this tense context.

5-39

Authors: Sarmiza Pencea

Semiconductors or (micro)chips are the most complex, sophisticated, knowledge-loaded and amazing in terms of their performances, technological accomplishment ever attained by mankind. Both the current and the future technological civilization are rendered infeasible without these components essential for any modern device, while globally, any hierarchies established between the great powers already are and will increasingly become dependent on their capacity of designing and producing microchips. This paper offers in its first chapters the information strictly needed to understand the language of the field, what these components are and how they are produced, and then it analyzes the global semiconductors industry with the typical ecosystem of the companies involved and its peculiar organizational way. The research proceeds further to the analysis of the Chinese microchip industry, its development gap versus market leaders, its technological war with the USA, Taiwan’s strategic place in the world’s chip industry, as well as of China’s challenges, ambitions and risks encountered in its endeavor to take over the global semiconductor’s market leadership.

60-76

Authors: Andreea - Emanuela Drăgoi, Anca - Cătălina Dragomir

In the current international economic environment, shaped by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and by the global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of "clean"/”green” energy is a constant concern for both the states with advanced economies and for those with emerging economies. China, one of the fastest growing economies, has set out to become a world leader in this field, hence within its "Made in China 2025" Strategy the development of renewable energies occupies a central place. Taking into consideration all the mentioned factors, the purpose of this research is to highlight the place and role of nuclear energy in the mix of “green” energies in China, while also emphasizing the premises of the technological advance registered by the Chinese nuclear industry. Our article underlines both the challenges for the development of Chinese nuclear industry and the remarkable progress made in recent years, presenting, through a comparative analysis, China's position in the ranking of current nuclear powers, but also the main goals of the Chinese authorities regarding the development of nuclear energy and increasing its role in the national energy mix.

90-104

Authors: Octavian Șerban

The COVID-19 sanitary crisis has triggered a series of turbulences in the market, with adverse effects on the economic and social life at global level. Under the circumstances, productivity and competitiveness suffered, and governments had to revitalize economies by rethinking the circuit of resources reallocations to the sectors and fields of activity strongly affected by the crisis. In order to avoid any distortion of competition and inappropriate use of the productivity concept, governments must establish a set of measures that identify the sectors, fields, or economic entities able to perform well under normal circumstances, but having productivity and competitiveness levels dramatically declining under the adverse efects of the crisis. In this article, we try to find the proper approach of a fair resources reallocation to overcome the adverse effects of the sanitary crisis at the global level, starting with adaptating the theory of "creative destruction" to the new context and elaborating the concept of "collaborative complementarity".