Tagged: America
Who’s Afraid of the Big, Black Cat?
Opinion
By Mutoni Karasanyi, 25 September 2012
In 1961, Chinese political leader Deng Xiaoping famously stated, “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a white cat or a black cat; a cat that catches mice is a good cat.”
These words marked a pragmatic path towards development, later resulting in nearly 30 years of economic growth of over 9 per cent, and most importantly, raising 400 million people out of poverty. As economist Jeffrey Sachs put it, “China is the most successful development story in world history.”
As the American presidential race heats up, this week both candidates have boasted about their anti-China efforts, while criticizing their opponent’s record for ‘losing’ American jobs to China. As economists argue about not if, but when (whether 2020 or 2030), China will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy, politicians have, once again, manipulated Americans’ fears for their own political gain.
While many intellectual leaders, such as Thomas Friedman in his book “The World is Flat,” have encouraged Americans to focus on higher-paying, more innovative industries (finance, IT, software, etc.), the more common debate is over how to protect American farmers and factory workers from global competition. It’s ironic, therefore, that President Obama’s WTO case against China is over their protectionist policies.
Let’s be clear though. America’s growing fear of China has to do with much more than jobs, and involves maintaining their influence over the hearts and minds of people around the world. As an article in TIME magazine aptly stated, “China is not just competing with the U.S. in world markets, but offering up an entirely different economic and political system, one that at times seems better at creating growth and jobs… China is succeeding based on ideas that Americans despise.”
Nowhere has this ideological battle been more exaggerated than on the African continent, where China has already overtaken the US as Africa’s largest trading partner, with a trade volume of over $166 billion in 2011.
Western observers increasingly warn African leaders to be wary of China’s intentions and do more to capitalize on their investments. However, those on the ground have broken away from this false narrative to report on the ‘win-win’ partnerships China has forged through mutual respect and trust.
Currently, China is the largest, foreign owner of America’s debt, with over $1.3 billion (8 per cent) in US treasuries; yet, no one seems worried that China will begin influencing American politics. However, when China constructed a building for Rwanda’s foreign ministry in 2009, President Kagame was questioned about China’s influence by Fareed Zakaria; to which he replied, “If they have control over our foreign policy, it will be our failure… We should be free to transact business that is in the interests of Rwanda and those we transact business with. And it doesn’t matter where they come from!”
Indeed, whether in US dollars or in Chinese renminbi, an investment towards development is a good investment. When China builds shoe factories in Ethiopia, no one cries about ‘losing’ Chinese jobs, because they help make Chinese firms more competitive, just as Chinese factories have enabled American companies for decades. Thus, rather than illuminating China’s political intentions, the western pessimism towards China-Africa relations has only reflected its own political perspective. It all reminds me of another quote, this time by Marcus Aurelius, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Source: The New Times
is Obama starting to sound a bit bushy…?
Talking about reordering our World (We dont need justice but a new Order!!), funny the Boston Globe just had that printed:
Obama pledges more global cooperation!
I’d like to say a few things to that.
1) (…) President Obama yesterday pledged to shape a new “international order’’ as part of a national security strategy that emphasizes his belief in global institutions and America’s role in promoting Democratic values around the world. (…)
I remember hearing him say :
(…) I know — I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.
(…)Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone (…) But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere (…)
That’s paradox. Promoting american values in countries which are already having troubles to reorder their own values (after years of wars and unstructured government) is stealing the freedom of people to live as they choose!!
2) (…) “The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times,’’ he said, “countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds.’’ (…)
Look who’s talking?!? First the US is THE throwaway society plainly and still one of the biggest consumer (in every single section), talking about changing climate and substaining global growth. I’m sick of hearing celebrities (or actually really important people like senators!) talking about ecology while their own lifestyle show no ecological awarness at all.
Plus, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons…. talking about that…
(…) The United States is still one of the five recognized nuclear powers under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (“NPT”). As of September 2009 it possessed 5,113 warheads operationally deployed, in active reserve, or held in inactive storage. This figure compare to a peak of 31,225 total warheads in 1967 and 22,217 in 1989, and does not include “several thousand” warheads, we don’t know of, that have been retired and scheduled for dismantlement.
In 2006, the Bush administration also proposed the Reliable Replacement Warhead program and initiated its design and development. The program, intended to produce a simple, reliable, long-lasting, and low-maintenance future nuclear force for the United States, encountered opposition due to the obligations of the United States under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the United States has signed, ratified, and is bound by, and which obligates the five nuclear weapons states who are bound by it (of which the United States is such a state) to work in good faith towards nuclear disarmament.
The Reliable Replacement Warhead was designed to replace the aging W76 warhead currently in a life-extension program. It was to incorporate a well-tested and verified primary SKUA9 and a new fusion secondary. The device would be built much much more robustly than its predecessors and should require longer periods between service and replacement. It will use insensitive high explosives, which are virtually impossible to detonate without the right mechanism. The new insensitive explosives can hit a concrete wall at Mach 4 and still not detonate. The device would also use a heavy radiation case for reliability. Since this weapon will supposedly never be tested via detonation, as has every weapon presently in the US arsenal, some fear that either the weapon will not be reliable, or will require testing to confirm its reliability, breaking the moratorium that has been observed by the recognized nuclear powers (the recognized nuclear powers include the US, Russia, the UK, the PRC, and France; they do not include the generally-recognized but undeclared Israel, nor the declared but unrecognized India, Pakistan, and North Korea) and was disliked by several elements of the Bush Administration, who believed nuclear tests ought to be conducted routinely; indeed, the Reliable Replacement Warhead was seen as the first step in the implementation of the US nuclear weapons laboratories’ plan, called “Complex 2030“, to rebuild dismantled nuclear weapons infrastructure so as to ensure that nuclear weapon design continues to be a field of research in the US through the mid-point of the 21st century.
In 2005 the U.S. revised its declared nuclear political strategy, the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, to emphasize the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons preemptively against an adversary possessing weapons of mass destruction or overwhelming conventional forces. Whether the Single Integrated Operational Plan(“SIOP”) has been revised accordingly is uncertain, but possible.
However in 2009 and 2010 the administration of Barack Obama declared policies that would invalidate the Bush-era policy for use of nuclear weapons and its motions to develop new ones. First, in a prominent 2009 speech, U.S. president Barack Obama outlined a goal of “a world without nuclear weapons”.[27] To that goal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new START treaty on April 8, 2010 to reduce the number of active nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550.[28][29] That same week Obama also revised U.S. policy on the use of nuclear weapons in a Nuclear Posture Review required of all presidents, declaring for the first time that the U.S. would not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear, NPT-compliant states. The policy also renounces development of any new nuclear weapons. (…)
Obama’s administration is very strict on retracting every other nuclear power disarmament, but we still have no insight of how the five US-States are doing.
3) (…) The administration is set to officially release the president’s first national security strategy this week, and Obama’s preview yesterday suggests it will be far different from the first one offered by his predecessor in 2002. In that prior document, President George W. Bush formally called for a policy of preemptive war and a “distinctly American internationalism.’’ (…)
So, what’s the difference… can we know??
sources:
Obamas speech II: Globalism, Realism and Democracy
4u by mwoogie
Amakuru 