Any optimism in the Chinese 'Rooster Year?'

LONDON - As the world is preparing to leave 2016 behind as a year fraught with political surprises, financial crises and market volatility, governments and businesses including those in Turkey have started to set their eyes on what the next 12 months have in store for them politically and economically. 

Clearly, global risks are more elevated and more interconnected than we have ever seen before and demand a proactive and integrated response to address potential impacts. To refresh your memory, since the end of the Bretton Woods order in the 1970s, there have been serious financial crises every seven years over the past 40 years: 1987, 1997, 2007.  If you ask me whether the global crisis which has been brewing in the last few years could erupt in 2017, my answer would be yes. 

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Let me reflect on some serious risks and challenges that we are likely to encounter in the Chinese "Year of the Rooster":

- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's policy priorities, management style, controversial team and "America First" approach will affect us all one way or another. He says he will encourage U.S. growth, but his rhetoric of revisiting the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Trade and Investment Partnership talks and NAFTA, as well as his views on climate change, are worrying. If his words turn into deeds and trade wars with China occur, protectionist trends will rise as a result, leading to a further shrinking of world trade, investment volume and the global economy. Turning back the clock on trade will only deepen and prolong the world economy's current doldrums. Unfortunately, when the $18.5 trillion U.S. economy coughs, we all become infected.

 There are estimates that U.S. bonds and stocks are overvalued at 80 percent more than they should...