For developing countries, is a flattening world an opportunity or a trap?

The World Is FlatGlobalizationDeveloping CountriesEconomic DevelopmentOpportunities and ChallengesInternational Relations
Created At: 8/15/2025Updated At: 8/17/2025
Answer (1)

Hey, that's a really great and profound question. It’s something many people are discussing. To put it plainly, "the flattening of the world" represents both a rare opportunity and a potentially devastating trap for developing countries.

It's like a razor-sharp double-edged sword – it all depends on how the wielder uses it.

Let's break this down separately, keeping things as straightforward as possible.

First, the "Opportunities": A Whirlwind of Good Fortune

Imagine this: decades ago, it was nearly impossible for a village in Africa to sell its handmade baskets in Europe. But now? The "world is flattened," meaning many barriers have disappeared.

1. Hopping on the Globalisation Express

  • Working for the World from Your Doorstep: The classic examples are China's "World Factory" and India's "World Office." Because the internet, phones, and transportation became fast and cheap, American companies could easily move production lines to China and set up call centers in India. This brought massive employment opportunities, capital, and technology to developing nations. Ordinary people could earn previously unimaginable incomes without ever leaving their home country.
  • Local Specialties Can Go Global: A craftsperson in Peru can sell their creations to a white-collar worker in New York via Etsy or Amazon. Coffee beans grown by a Vietnamese farmer might end up in a Parisian café. The door to the world market is wide open. If your product is unique and competitive, finding buyers isn't a problem.

2. An Opportunity for Leaping Ahead ("Overtaking on the Bend")

  • Adopting the Latest Tech Directly: In the past, a country aiming to develop technologically had to progress step-by-step, from steam engines to internal combustion engines to electrification. Not anymore! Many African nations skipped landlines altogether, jumping straight into the mobile payment era. They can directly learn and apply cutting-edge technology like 5G, AI, and renewable energy, bypassing decades of trial and error.
  • Knowledge Stops Being a Luxury Item: A young person wanting to learn coding, whether in Bangladesh or Nigeria, can access MIT OpenCourseWare and engage with top programmers worldwide on GitHub – as long as they have internet access. Barriers to knowledge and information have been drastically lowered.

Now, the "Traps": The Deceptively Smooth Path

The flip side of opportunity is challenge and risk. That piece of fortune pie might taste good, but it could also make you choke.

1. The Endless Race to the Bottom ("Who's Cheaper?")

  • The "World Factory" Job isn't Set in Stone: How do many developing countries attract foreign investment? Cheap labor. But this advantage is precarious. Today, your labor is cheap, factories arrive; tomorrow, Vietnam or Cambodia offers cheaper labor, and the factories move without hesitation. You remain perpetually vulnerable to being replaced, struggling to build genuine core competitiveness, forever stuck earning marginal returns at the lowest rung of the global supply chain.

2. Talent and Wealth Get "Siphoned Off"

  • The Brain Drain ("Peacock Flies Southeast"): A flattened world allows capital and talent to flow freely. Top doctors, engineers, and scientists, painstakingly trained by a developing country, are easily lured away by developed nations offering higher salaries and better environments – the "brain drain" or "siphoning effect." The result? Developing countries educate talent for the world but find themselves critically short-handed for their own nation's development.

3. Local Businesses Get "Crushed"

  • Big Fish Eat Small Fish: When multinational giants like Walmart, Amazon, or Starbucks enter a developing market, their immense capital, advanced management, and brand power easily overwhelm fragile, small-scale local retailers or cafes. The local economic ecosystem can be severely disrupted.

4. Economic Lifeblood Held by Others

  • Catching a "Cold" and Getting "Pneumonia": When your economy depends heavily on exports and foreign investment, your lifeblood is in someone else's hands. The 2008 US financial crisis was America "sneezing," yet countless export-dependent developing countries caught "severe pneumonia," resulting in factory closures and worker layoffs. Developing nations have far weaker defences against such globalized risks.

Conclusion: Opportunity or Trap? It's Up to You

So, you see, the "flattening" of the world is a neutral trend in itself. It provides a platform and a set of rules.

  • For developing countries that are prepared, wise, and strategic, it represents a massive opportunity. They can use this platform to rapidly learn, accumulate capital, cultivate talent, and develop uniquely competitive industries, ultimately achieving transformational growth (as seen in China's journey over recent decades).

  • For countries that are unprepared, short-sighted, and riddled with internal problems, it can very easily become a trap. They risk being locked into the low end of global value chains, hemorrhaging talent and wealth, ultimately becoming economic dependencies of developed nations.

Ultimately, the track is leveled, but you are still the driver. Success on this flattened, yet fiercely competitive, racing circuit ultimately depends on each developing nation’s own efforts, reforms, and wisdom.

Created At: 08-15 04:01:34Updated At: 08-15 06:43:03