The following text excerpt originally appeared on food-service.de.
"We are living in a time that represents an enormous challenge for politics, business and society. Probably the challenges have never been as big as they are today. At the same time, a turn of the times has occurred," the former foreign minister of Germany opened his speech.
The real turning point, Gabriel continued, was that the old post-war world order of the 20th century had come to an end. After World War II, according to the social democrat, it was quite simple in the mind of the Americans: “Russians out, Americans in, Germans down,” was the credo of the U.S. at the time. In this way, they would have quickly risen to become the all-encompassing world police.
Today, however, the United States is no longer the sole dominant power, nor does it want to be. Instead, countries that used to be condescendingly referred to as the Third World and that until now sat at the cat's table of the global order are demanding their place.
China, India, but also the states of Africa, Asia and Latin America scratched tremendously at the long-standing world power structure. After all, these countries represent 60 to 70 percent of the world's population.
After 600 years, the Atlantic era has come to an end, Gabriel said. "This is a real turning point." For centuries, all major innovations had come from Europe and the United States. “But that age is over.”
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