Two days ago, Wen Jia Bao, the suave Chinese Prime Minister, after a particularly successful visit to India,pronounced that a new era of cooperation between the two Asian giants will usher in the New Asian Century.Given the dominance the two countries are establishing in manufacturing and service industries worldwide,that statement does not seem like an exaggeration.With their growth rates approaching ten percent annually,the two countries appear to be well on their way to meeting or surpassing the US and Europe in economic power in the next two decades.What is different about these two powers is that they have torn a page from our own book and all their growth is coming from reliance on entreprenuership and, especially in India’s case is based on assaulting the high technology industries with an educated intelligentsia.
Wen also brought up the issue of collaborating with India on exploration for oil and natural gas, alluding to their partnership with Iran and Saudi Arabia.He also talked about establishing a Euro based oil bank, threatening the US monopoly on oil transactions worldwide.
It seems that Bush’s nuclear deal with India was to keep India from breaking away into an Asian Common Market which seems to have powerful emotional and regional appeal to India and China.Time will tell if Wen or Bush succeed in their efforts.India and China are also spearheading efforts to bring Brazil and Russia into an alliance that will cover fully one half the human race.That may well spell the end of American dominance that has been the norm for the past fifty odd years.
The independence that China and India are signaling is already a reality for Latin America where one nation after another that was the target of OS subversion has thrown the rascals out and now, no politician anywhere in Latin America that is tainted by association with the US has any credibility left.Even the cries of wolf about Chavez are falling on deaf ears.
To my untrained eyes, all this looks like Uncle Sam is on the run everywhere, Bush’s big talk about Democracy and Freedom notwithstanding.I even suspect that the violence unleashed by Bush on Iraq is a sign of desperation that the old tricks are no longer working,the people of the world have woken up and he is confronting countries like India and China which cannot be pushed around.What is more the worst is yet to come as these countries strip away American economic dominance and the bills for our wars come due.
I am sure that Wen and Singh are having a big laugh looking at the idiot in the WH posing as Democracy’s champion, when Singh, as the PM elected by the people of the world’s largest Democracy, looks on.Truly our Leader has no clothes and no sense of irony whatsoever.
A funny thing happened on the way to achieving the PNAC agenda.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch…
in the USA from himself.
That ‘democracy for the world’ campaign of his is the made up retroactive excuse for invading Iraq when the WMD lies were discovered.
I was reading a piece yesterday in the Asia Times, China stakes its Middle East claim, which concludes with the following observations:
The entire structure of the post war American Empire seems to be unraveling at a fast pace.The cooperation between India and China and their determination to break the monopoly of Western Nations on hydrocarbon resources will be a crucial step in furthering the dissolution of Empire. Since China and India do not come with the colonial baggage or the racist attitudes,the Mideast is alos likely to become a fertile ground for transformation.
In fact, without serious military conflicts between the Asian giants, one of the key markets that will prop up our economy, arms sales, will be in decline.
All in all, Wen and Singh are sending the message to the Cheneys and Rumsfelds your fifteen minutes are over.Move aside.
The corporate elite of this country will continue to do quite well, thank you, despite the rise of India and China.
One reason for the so-called global economy, fostered on us by the corporate elite of this country and others, is to undermine the gains of workers, and workers’ rights.
This is a factor you aren’t considering. The workers of China and India have serious issues also. View “Mardi Gras made in China” for a peak at that little piece of the global economy.
This is the honeymoon period for China and India in the global economy. The same issues regarding workers here, and in Mexico, will catch up to them one day as well.
I agree that the multi national corporations will do very well because the sudden emergence of a well educated two billion workers in the markets will push domestic wages in the US downward.Ther is no way US workers will ever enjoy the leverage they once had because the mobility of corporate facilities has greatly expanded permitting corporations to relocate to China or India at the drop of a hat.
I believe it will be a long time before wages in India or China will come anywhere close to ours because the availability of new workers is enormous and that should hold wages down.
You missed my point though. I know more about conditions in China in factories than I do about India, but I suspect conditions aren’t much better.
China and India remind me right now of American in the 19th and early 20th century. I think conditions could become ripe there for a workers’ movement. It’s something to watch for, and something we can be in solidarity with…given what we’ve all been through here…regarding our own history of workers in America.
You should check out ” Mardi Gras made in China”, but China, and I’m pretty sure India as well, are full of potentially explosive issues: the environmental degradation, workers’ rights, housing, women’s rights…just to name a few.
They are properous…at the expense of whom? Everything has its cost. And in the capitalist system, costs are often inflated.
I agree that conditions both in India and China favor the elite educated classes at the expense of rural uneducated masses, a typical early capitalist phenomenon. That will change as education spreads to rural communities.Given the sheer masses that need to be brought into the new society in both countries, it is going to take a long time.The capitalist managers will have a windfall of cheap labor as far as the eyes can see.Two billion new workers is a tempting target for the multinational corporations.
It is, of course, the low wages that are a tempting target. There will be opportunities to join with the workers of both of those countries in protest of the global economy that benefits a few at the expense of the many. I hope we are all cognizant of those opportunities.
Also,this
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 17, 2006
The Pentagon is moving strategic bombers to Guam and aircraft carriers and submarines to the Pacific as part of a new “hedge” strategy aimedat preparing for conflict with China, Pentagon officials said yesterday.Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, told a congressional commission that the response to the emerging military threat from China is part of the White House national security strategy made public yesterday.
Although U.S. relations with China are good, “both sides
understand very well that there is a potential for a conflict,
particularly in the Taiwan Strait,” Mr. Rodman said during a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
China’s arms buildup in recent years altered the U.S. “strategic calculus” for defending Taiwan from a mainland attack and shows that “a prudent hedging policy is essential,” Mr. Rodman said.
China is playing a shrewd game with respect to Taiwan.Its constant threats is to remind the people on Taiwan that they are a part of China and no amount of American statements to the contrary will change that.
The long term strategy of China is to simply annex Taiwan with Taiwan’s consent when the economics of doing business with China becomes obvious to the Taiwanese.