It is a fact that after the end of the Cold War, the globalization of the world economy has been occurring at an extraordinarily rapid pace. Accompanying the process of globalization, however, it has appeared as a trend counter to the benign vision of economic and political harmony from more open borders. While it is true that in terms of national welfare, greater openness to competitive market forces, including competitive market forces from abroad, and greater freedom from artificial market restrains are closely associated with higher economic growth, as well as higher standards of living, there are basically five areas posing a serious challenge to economic globalization and the triumph of economic liberalism. These include high-tech trade rivalry, trade discrimination, unpredictable economic crises, North-South inequalities, and illicit market. As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the areas in the options are posing a serious challenge to economic globalization and triumph of economic liberalism.

• High-Tech Trade Rivalry: As opposed to the predominant win-win nature of conventional trade interactions, special concerns have arisen about trade competition in high-tech sectors, such as telecommunications, advanced materials, computers, bio-chemicals, and so on. Economies of scale dictate that only a few countries actually enjoy the presence of a critical industry that has important economic and defense ramifications. From any country’s point of view, strategic trade industries are valuable not only because they incorporate a large proportion of high-wage, highskill jobs, but also because they are likely to generate economic, social, or defense-related benefits. Therefore, countries generally desire to ensure the presence of their own country’s companies in strategic industries.
• Trade Discrimination: As the world is moving toward internationalism fast in the post-Cold War era, it has become fashionable to argue that trade discrimination among nations is now over. This argument was also supported by the successful completion of the Tokyo (1973-1979) and Uruguay Rounds (19861994) of trade negotiations in the past. However, the observable reality is quite the otherwise. Even not counting the impact of natural determinants of trade patterns, such as geographic proximity or absolute size of the nations in question, we have seen the emergence of great trade blocs in Europe, the Western hemisphere, and Asia in the post-Cold War period.
• Unpredictable Economic: Crises Another serious issue is unpredictable economic crises. As argued above, international economic relations have become truly global in the post-Cold War world. Communications are instantaneous and the world economy operates on all continents simultaneously. Thus, wherever the origin of a crisis arises, it inevitably affects almost all countries of the world.
• North-South Division: The post-Cold War period also witnessed the resurgence of North-South economic antagonism, resulting from deep inequalities between the two sides. Not counting exceptions, the North, in general, refers to developed northern hemisphere countries, while the South refers to underdeveloped or developing southern hemisphere countries. Indeed, the North-South confrontation is not new. It has occurred before in international arena. However, in accordance with the decline of ideological clashes, it has recently begun to occupy a more significant agenda in international affairs (Yılmaz, 2012: 91).
• Illicit Market: Finally, the clandestine side of globalization in the post-Cold War era has showed itself in the rise of illicit market, or sometimes called black market. The illicit market refers, in a generic sense, to economic activities that circumvent the institutional rules. To be more specific, what makes a market illicit can either be the illegal nature of goods and services themselves, or the illegal ways of their transaction. Thus, illicit market activities may include the illegal movement of commodities to evade tariffs, trade restrictions and sanctions, or the illegal movements of the banned materials, like drugs, human organs, endangered species, even protected intellectual property.