As the United States actively retreats from global cooperation in favor of unilateralism, the rest of the world needs to adapt to this new reality and double down on its commitment to United Nations-based multilateralism, said a senior US economist.

“China, a fundamental pillar of multilateralism, should have its position reinforced,” Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned professor of economics and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, told China Daily in an exclusive interview in Hong Kong on Thursday.

The Trump administration said this week that it will pull the US out of UN cultural agency UNESCO for the second time — having previously broken ties with the agency in 2017 under the first Trump administration — following its withdrawals from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization.

“The US is turning its back on the UN and undermining its role,” said Sachs, adding that he expects to see a greater UN presence in China, with the world’s second-largest economy hosting a significant UN campus focused on sustainable development and energy transformation.

Hong Kong’s strategic role as a bridge between East and West should take on new significance, as the embrace of multilateralism continues apace and Chinese mainland is acting as a natural leader and the most important producer of key technologies and solutions for sustainable development, said Sachs, who also serves as the president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

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The rest of the world will also become a “main source of export growth” for China in the coming years, said Sachs, who sees “no real stability and much less true cooperation between the US and China” over the next several years.  

“The US mindset is not conducive to cooperation,” warned Sachs, adding that the country’s outmoded Cold War mindset and containment strategy against China is here to stay.

He attributed the self-imposed isolation and growing obsession with unilateralism to the fact that the US and Europe have become accustomed to global dominance and global power. “This makes them lose the art of diplomacy. And to me, this has been a delusion,” Sachs said.

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He delivered a speech themed “Sustainable Development in Hong Kong and East Asia” on Thursday in the Hong Kong SAR at an event hosted and organized by the Hong Kong Association for External Friendship. The event, co-organized by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School, the Hong Kong WTO Research Institute, and the International Academy of the Belt and Road, attracted over 300 attendees.

Contact the writer at sophialuo@chinadailyhk.com