Trade Beyond Boundaries: The Unrestricted Struggle Toward Humanitarian Global Trade

Abstract

In 1999, two colonels in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army published a book titled Unrestricted Warfare. The book explored the possibilities for a developing nation such as China to defeat a developed nation such as the United States. True to the literal Mandarin meaning of its title (“War Beyond Bounds�?), Unrestricted Warfare cogently illuminates the interconnectedness of the modern world, and hypothesizes strategies for making use of those connections to achieve political and military ends. This paper will explore those interconnections and their implications for global trade and human rights. It will be structured in parallel to the original work, but rather than examine military approaches, it will bend Unrestricted Warfare’s principles to the cause of international trade. It is the author’s hope that, much as Sun Tzu’s Art of War came to become a blueprint for modern corporate business culture, Unrestricted Warfare might serve as a map for navigating the economic environment of the coming century.