国际英语新闻：A decade of economic evolution out of crises and prosperity

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- In the sphere of the world economy, the first decade of the 21st century was characterized by the coexistence of crises and prosperity, of destruction and progress and of declines and rises.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The classic words by British novelist Charles Dickens seem quite appropriate to describe the world economy during the past 10 years.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

If the world was still in chaos in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, then the fabric of global economic development has become increasingly clear in the first decade of the 21st century.

For the 10 years, the world economy continued to evolve along a variety of development paths. The international financial crisis that started in 2008 on Wall Street demonstrated that with its inherent drawbacks, the Western economic and financial system was not a globally applicable paradigm.

On the other hand, the majority of developing countries have chosen their own development modes in accordance with their national conditions, and have emerged as a positive force to promote the world's economic recovery.

On the whole, this was a decade without total war. Though the world economy was bookended by the U.S. dot-com bubble burst and the financial crisis and experienced a lot of setbacks in between, the decade managed to maintain growth, with increases in world output, expansion in international trade and a deepening of international industrial labor division, globalization and regionalization.

Benefiting from science and technology, especially communications technology, a new round of globalization has significantly sped up since the 1980s.

More people, more local markets and more resources have been included in the global economic system. Wealth created by mankind has increased, economic exchanges among countries have expanded, and the living standard of most people has improved.

Meanwhile, bubbles can also have upsides. Thomas Friedman, author of "The World Is Flat," pointed out that it was investment during the Internet bubble period in Internet infrastructures like the transoceanic fiber optic cables that laid the material foundation for additional development of globalization after the crisis.

Currently, it is widely expected that international financial regulations should be strengthened and international economic and financial systems should be reformed.

The concept of green, low-carbon, environmental protection and sustainable development has become more popular. All this can become the driving force for the world economy during the next 10 years.

CHANGE OF INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES

In the background of continued development of the world economy as a whole, the development of each country and each region over the past decade has been quite different.

Developed countries led by the United States began the first decade of the new century with a crisis and ended it in the aftershock of a bigger crisis.

From the Internet bubble to the housing market bubble and then to the financial crisis, and from a crisis to prosperity and then to a larger crisis, this was a somewhat struggling decade for the developed countries.