LONDON, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- The world economy will welcome a rules-based globalization which looks "very different" from that of the 1990s, said an article published in the Financial Times earlier this week.

There will be a new trade policy that focuses on trade promotion in the service of extending the regulatory reach of big economies which set the rules, the opinion piece said, noting that "signs of this shift already abound."

Amid the looming regulatory battle, smaller economies will be squeezed when the big ones insist on their standards, leaving little choice for emerging countries but to acquiesce to the demands of the world's biggest markets and to align entire sectors with one of the largest economies, it said.

What's more, since "rules increasingly cover the whole process of production," the big economies will compete with each other to make sure it is their rules that are chosen.

"It is a mistake to think of this as protectionism," the article pointed out. "It is rather a deeper form of globalization ... This re-regulation of cross-border economic flows is a natural, and potentially healthy, consequence of the earlier mistake of conflating globalization with deregulation."

The article foresaw four possible outcomes of the regulatory battle. The first is harmonization, where countries agree on similar rules. A second is that countries outside are absorbed into the one that they are closest to in terms of economy.

Splintering is also possible when the world's big economies are "irreconcilable" and unlikely to settle, the article noted, referring to the third outcome.

However, as a more optimistic possibility, countries might also converge on the most demanding standards, it said.