2026 JANUARY
GLOBALIZATION 2.0
A JOURNEY OF FAITH, HOPE AND GRATITUDE
PART 2
Written by Andrew Sia
Share this article !
From the Desk of the Publisher
Globalization is challenged this time by the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Right now, there is a conflict between Iran with the U.S. and Israel that led to the bombing on Iran on multiple countries in the Middle East. For shipments going to the European market, it has to reroute through the Gape of Good Hope, Atlantic before entering into the Mediterranean. This has taken up 10-14 days and higher shipping cost.
Middle East plays the important role of providing the sea route into the Mediterranean. It is not a manufacturing destination and having said that it is still very important to assure the shipment to arrive to the European market where it is also a very important global economy.
For the Globalization 2.0 we want to promote faith, hope and gratitude the world, and we have observed fair trade can bring us together.
We will continue to write about globalization and encourage this concept, and we emphasize “No man is an island.”
We wish the world in the Middle East can stop and the world cam ne at peace. This morning, I heard that the oil has hit $100 a barrel, but Trump said that it is just a “blip.”
Current Conflicts in the Middle East
On February 28, the U.S. missiles, drones, and Israeli fighter jets began their striking of Iran. Iranian’s counter retaliation had expanded the conflict regionally and struck targets in several hosting U.S. bases in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Oman, and Azerbaijan.
We read that fighting resumed between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. European countries are deploying naval forces to protect shipping.
The geographic spread now covered much of the Persian Gulf, Levant, and the Red Sea region.
Shipping companies like Maersk and others have diverted ships away from the Red Sea and the Suez Camal route. Instead, they are using the Cape of Good Hope to reach to Europe. This is to avoid the combined risk of Iranian retaliation, and the Houthi militant threats in the Red Sea.
Our world has been caught up in this Middle East conflict as a geographical event. I look it as a potential war, and if it is not handled and ended swiftly, it would become a world war which none of us would like to watch it happen. It is the well planned of the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, who is not highly regarded in Israel because of his corruption. He has been cleverly trapped the U.S. President, Trump, to team up for the invasion in Iran.
Traditional sea route from Asia would sail through Red Sea, and Suez Canal, before entering into Mediterranean. And now it has to go around Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa, Atlantic, before entering into Mediterranean. This adds 10-14 days to the voyage and increases the shipping cost.
To the apparel industry, we have experienced a major supply-chain stress test, and the impact is already visible across those Asian manufacturing hubs. There are garments piling up in South Asia as air cargo routes through Gulf hub are facing serious disruptions due to the missiles and jetfighters in the region. The shipping routes through the Middle East region is unsafe as well.
The buyers are forced to start to evaluate sourcing locations based on the three factors—supply-chain resilience, delivery reliability, and operational agility. It is no longer the consideration of manufacturing, but more the reliability in the supply chain.
Manufacturers are important to have the strong structure in the different areas, such as:
Manufacturing countries for moving the production across in case of any disruption that may incur. We can name so many of those countries for manufacturing and they have to play compliment to one another to assure the resilience of the supply.
Skillset of the production which has to match with each production location. The technical support and continuous technical training are important.
Factory compliance and manufacturing manual need to be in place for any factory audit in order to meet the need of the brands. Everything has to be very transparent and the attention for sustainable manufacturing is becoming very important.
We hope to guide the industry away from price competitiveness and it shouldn’t be considered as the only thing. Factory efficiency, capability, quick response, and a strong and reliable management team and a skill workforce is important to this volatile and unpredictable market. Now we have to add another consideration, which is the geopolitical challenge, and it has made our supply chain to become more challenging.
Entering into Globalization 2.0
We noticed that globalization in the Middle East had led us into significant economic, cultural, and political changes. The oil-rich countries, particularly those in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have experienced substantial growth due to oil revenues which have facilitated investment in infrastructure and development. However, many of the countries in the region are still struggling with high unemployment rates and over dependency on oil exports. The oil export countries need to diversify their economies.
The region has no connectivity with the apparel industry, and there is the lack of cultural and traditional value, except the passage that the shipping lines can use, that is to use the Suez Calan and the Red Sea before entering into the Mediterranean where the European market is located.
Except with the latest development of the data center for the artificial intelligence where the high-tech companies have invested there for the cheap land cost, and also oil price. Some of the data centers have suffered from the air strikes and the high-tech companies are taking the necessary precautions.
We hope that Globalization 2.0 can bring more regional balance in trade and can build stronger trust networks. We want to emphasize the human-centered economics.
In our narrative of faith, we want to mention faith is meant for human cooperation that can overcome conflict, it can build bridges, and more important people across cultures can work together.
We look upon hope through reinvention. We went through period of disruption historically and we built global cooperation like the United Nations after the World War Two. We saw that global trade expanded after the Cold War ended. We want to see Globalization 2.0 for the next reinvention.
Gratitude is something that comes from inside. Even with tensions, globalization still allow the sharing of resources to those poorer countries. Transfer of knowledge can share and bring up the standard of the product to the next level. The collaboration of people across continents can collaborate openly. Gratitude is a power attitude for helping one another and the willingness of sharing without any reserve.
We have come to know now that globalization was never meant to run like a machine forever. We have to take globalization as a human journey, that was started with imperfect, fragile, and looking for evolving. Every disruption reminds us that connection is not guaranteed, but it needs to rebuild again and again through faith, hope, and gratitude for the fine turning.
It reminds a quote that I have heard when I was young, and it goes like this “No man is an island.” And I did some research and have the following to share with you.
“No man in an island” was written by John Donne, a poet, in 1624 in a spiritual medication titled “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.”
It is a part of a longer quote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
It tells us that humanity is one continent, not isolated islands, what happens in one region affects the whole world. Connection is both economic and human.