All eyes on Asian nations

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

 

With President Barack Obama winning a second term and the Chinese Communist Party picking a team headed by Xi Jinping to lead the country for the next 10 years, the men who will steer the world’s most powerful nations in the immediate future are in position.

While the Chinese party congress, held once in five years, was on, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta were in the Asia Pacific region, which Obama had identified last year as the new pivot in US foreign, economic and security policies.

How the two nations tackle their internal problems will have its impact on the world. If the US fails to negotiate the fiscal crisis smoothly, it may slide into recession, pulling down others with it. China’s economy has slowed down but is still robust enough to play a big role in global recovery.

Xi, the new General Secretary who will replace Hu Jintao as China’s President next March, Li Keqiang, who will succeed Wen Jiabao as Prime Minister, and Wang Qishan, Vice Premier in charge of economic affairs, are cautious reformers. The others elected to the powerful seven-member Politburo Standing Committee are said to be conservatives. Two strong reformers and the lone woman candidate were defeated.

Experts feel that the emphasis the US and China place on continued expansion of exports may limit their ability to play a constructive role in the global economy recovery.

India last month marked the 50th anniversary of the disastrous China war of 1962. As usual, the media discussed the event without reference to the right-wing jingoism which had forced the government into ordering forward troop movement, which angered Mao’s China, which was itching for some action anyway. China did not rekindle war memories the way India did.

India realises there is no possibility of an early resolution of the border dispute which precipitated the war. However, it expects economic preoccupations to help maintain smooth bilateral relations. The two countries are working together in multilateral forums like BRICS.

There are sore points, though. China suspects that India, like Japan, may be drawn into the US game plan for the Asia Pacific region, aimed at containing it and preventing it from playing its role as a global power. India is gingerly watching Beijing’s efforts to boost its presence in its immediate neighbourhood, particularly Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Clinton and Panetta were in Australia for the annual security meeting with that country’s leaders. Ahead of their visit former prime minister Kenneth Keating talked of the limits on Australia’s foreign policy options resulting from the ties with the US. Clinton found it necessary to state that Australia does not have to choose between the US, its long-time ally, and China, its biggest trading partner.

Later, making his third visit to Asia in five months, Panetta attended a meeting of Defence Ministers of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia. He also visited Thailand for talks on strengthening military ties.

The high point of the ongoing US activity in the region is this week’s visit by President Obama. On his itinerary are Cambodia, venue of the East Asia summit, Thailand and Myanmar. It was only in July that the US resumed diplomatic relations with Myanmar which were snapped a decade ago to pressure the military junta to move towards democracy.

The annual East Asia summit brings together leaders of 18 nations, including the US, Russia, China, Japan and India.

Playing down the China angle in the US activity in the region, a State Department official accompanying Hillary Clinton said: “We want to work with China. We recognise that the Asia Pacific region is big enough for both of us.”

However, different signals too have emerged. The US-China Economic and Security Commission, in a report to Congress, said China, which is modernising its military at a remarkable rate, may have advanced land, sea and air nuclear delivery systems in the next two years. It wants the US to “get a better handle” on the size of China’s nuclear arsenal and nuclear doctrine. There are reports of renewed activity in the abandoned US bases in the Philippines and attempts to secure new bases elsewhere in the region.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 20, 2012.

BRICS seeking greater say

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), who will gather in New Delhi this week for their annual summit, are expected to pitch for a greater role in world affairs in keeping with their growing clout as newly emergent economies. The main item on the agenda of the summit, scheduled for March 28 and 29, is global governance. While China is not keen on early reform of the United Nations system, it shares the BRICS partners’ enthusiasm for reform of the global financial institutions.

As it happens, the summit takes place ahead of a meeting of the World Bank to choose its next president.  Since the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the end of World War II, the former has been headed by an American and the latter by a European.

On Friday President Barak Obama named Jim Yong Kim, an American of South Korean origin, as the US nominee for the post. Two other candidates are also in the field: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, whose sponsors include South Africa, and Jose Antonio Ocampo of Colombia, who has been nominated by Brazil.

China recently suggested that a non-American must head the institution. It is not clear if the BRICS nations can agree on a common non-American candidate. Even if they can, the US may be able to ensure the election of its nominee as it continues to wield considerable influence in the global financial system. However, the ideas the BRICS nations are working on may make reform of the system inevitable.

As an institution charged with the task of making resources available to member countries to tide over balance-of-payments difficulties, the IMF has a critical role in helping Europe to overcome its distress. The BRICS nations have already injected a large amount of capital into the IMF but some Europeans are asking for more.

“BRICS’ voice in the IMF must be enhanced if the European countries want it to provide more capital,” a Russian government spokesman said last week. At the New Delhi meet, the group is expected to work out a strategy to link increased participation in the European recovery programme to restructuring of the IMF’s capital base to bring it in tune with the new financial realities.

A parallel initiative envisages the setting up of a development bank of the BRICS nations. A proposal made by India in this connection has evoked a favourable response from Russia and China. India views the proposed bank, which will facilitate indirect investment of foreign exchange reserves of the central banks of the member countries, as an institution with the potential to become a powerful player in global decision-making.

For China, the BRICS development bank offers a platform to expand the international role of its currency, the renminbi. It has been facing criticism from other countries for manipulating the value of the renminbi to maintain export competitiveness.

With the Western economies in the doldrums, the BRICS nations are now the most favoured investment destinations. Their efforts to forge common strategies have set alarm bells ringing in some Western financial circles, particularly investment promoters.

One investment research group, in a recent report, bemoaned that countries like Indonesia and Mexico, which are beginning to rival some BRICS nations in terms of growth and investment strength, are often overlooked in favour of them.

Smaller markets such as Malaysia, Poland and Peru are also surging in importance although their total size is tiny compared to the trillion-dollar economies of BRICS, it said, adding they could be interesting picks for investors.

Against this background, the decision of leading stock exchanges of the five countries to establish the BRICS Exchanges Alliance assumes significance. Beginning March 30, members of the Alliance will begin cross-listing benchmark equity index derivatives on one another’s trading platform.

Initially, members of the Alliance aim to expand their product offerings beyond their home markets and give investors exposure to the other BRICS economies.

While in New Delhi for the summit Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to formally declare 2012 as Year of India-China Friendship and Co-operation. With memories of the disastrous end of the Hindi Chini bhai bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) era, inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru and Chou Enlai, still fresh in mind, this slogan is sure to be viewed with scepticism by many people. But the good that can result from renewed friendship must not be lost sight of. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 26, 2012.

Castro on Obama's Asian odyssey: "a science fiction story"

FIDEL CASTRO
Countercurrents.org

I very much regret to have to criticize Obama knowing that there are in that country other could-be presidents worse than him. I am aware that that position in the United States is today a major headache. The best example of this is the report in yesterday’s edition of Granma that 237 US members of Congress, or 44%, are millionaires. This does not mean that every one of them is an incorrigible reactionary but it is extremely difficult that they feel like the many million Americans who do not have access to medical care, who are unemployed or who need to work very hard to earn their living.
Of course, Obama himself is no beggar; he owns millions of dollars. He excelled as a professional and his command of language, his eloquence and intellect are unquestionable. Also, he was elected president despite his being an African American, a first time occurrence in the history of his country’s racist society, which is enduring a profound international economic crisis of its own making.

This is not about being an anti-American as the system and its huge media intend to label its adversaries. The American people are not the culprits but rather the victims of a system that is not only unsustainable but worse still: it is incompatible with the life of humanity.

The smart and rebellious Obama who suffered humiliation and racism in his childhood and youth understands this, but the Obama educated by the system and committed to it and to the methods that took him to the US presidency cannot resist the temptation to pressure, to threaten and even to deceive others. He is a workaholic. Perhaps no other American president would dare to engage in such an intense program as he intends to carry out in the next eight days.

According to plan, he will take an extensive tour of Alaska where he intends to address the troops stationed there. He will be visiting Japan, Singapore, the People’s Republic of China and South Korea. He will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and that of the Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He will hold talks with the Prime Minister of Japan and His Majesty Emperor Akihito in the land of the Rising Sun as well as with the prime ministers of Singapore and South Korea and the presidents of Indonesia Susilo Bambang, of Russia Dimitri Medvedev and of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao. He will be making speeches and giving press conferences. He will be carrying with him his nuclear briefcase, which we hope he will have no need to use during his hasty tour.

His Security advisor has said that Obama will discuss with the president of Russia the continuance of the START-1 Treaty set to expire on December 5, 2009. There is no doubt that some reductions of the enormous nuclear arsenal will be agreed upon, albeit this will be of no consequence to world peace and economy.

What is our distinguished friend planning to discuss during his intense journey? The White House has made its solemn announcement: climate change and economic recovery; nuclear disarmament and the Afghan war; and, the risks of war in Iran and in the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. There is plenty of material to produce a science fiction book.

But, how can Obama unravel the problems of climate change when the position of his representatives during the preparatory meetings of the Copenhagen Summit on the greenhouse effect gas emissions was the worst among those of the industrialized and rich nations, both in Bangkok and Barcelona, because the United States chose not to sign the Kyoto Protocol and the oligarchy of that country is not willing to really cooperate.

How can he contribute to the solution of the grave economic problems afflicting a large part of humanity when at the end of 2008 the total debt of the United States --including that of the federal, state and local administrations, the businesses and families—amounted to 57 trillion dollars, that is, over 400% of its GDP, and that country’s budget deficit reached almost 13% of its GDP in fiscal year 2009, an information that Obama is certainly aware of.

What can he offer Hu Jintao when his openly protectionist policies have been aimed against the Chinese exports and he is demanding at all costs that the Chinese government revaluates the Yuan, an action that would adversely impact on the growing Third World imports from China?

The Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, who is not a disciple of Karl Marx but an honest catholic among others who are not willing to cooperate with the imperialism in Latin America, has recently said that “….we are risking our destruction and the devastation of life’s diversity.”

“[…] almost half of humanity is living today under the poverty line. The wealthiest 20% are consuming 82.49% of all of the riches on Earth while the poorest 20% are living on a tiny 1.6%.” He also quotes the FAO as he warns that “…there will be in the upcoming years from 150 to 200 million climate refugees.” And then he adds that “humanity is consuming today a 30% above the regenerating capacity…the planet is giving unmistakable signs that it can stand it no more.”

What he says is true, but Obama and the US Congress have yet to find out.
What is he leaving to us in the hemisphere? The shameful problem in Honduras and the annexation of Colombia where the United States will set up seven military bases. They also established a military base in Cuba more than one-hundred years ago and remain there by force. It was in that base where they installed the horrible torture center widely known around the world; the same that Obama has been unable to close, yet.

I hold the view that before Obama completes his term there will be from six to eight right-wing governments in Latin America that will be allies of the empire. Likewise, the US extreme right will try to limit his administration to one term. Once again there will be a Nixon, a Bush or the like of a Cheney in the White House. Then, the meaning will be clear of those absolutely unjustifiable bases threatening today the South American peoples with the pretext of fighting drug-trafficking, a problem created by the tens of billions of dollars that organized crime and the production of drugs in Latin America receive from the United States.

Cuba has shown it only takes justice and social development to fight drugs. In our country, the crime rate per 100,000 people is one of the lowest in the world. No other country in the hemisphere can exhibit such low rates of violence. It is known that, despite the blockade, no other country can boast our high education levels.

The Latin American peoples will resist the onslaught of the empire!
Obama’s trip seems a science fiction story.