Regarding Richard K. Moore's posting on Gunder's remark:
against Gunder's remark
>That region (East Asia) is now Regaining its
> >'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese
> >'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.'
Now, I don't agree with Gunder on this either - it will still be a very,
very long road for the Chinese economy to pass either that of the USA or
the EU by - and I pretty much predict they'll stumble on the way. If
there's one major power to rival the USA in future it's going to be good
old Germany in my view. However, I strongly disagree with R.K. Moore's
representation of events.
> Allow me to briefly review a few well-known historical
>`incidents' to illustrate what I mean...
>
> 1) Opium War. We had a situation where Britain was importing more
> tea than could balance its exports to China. In other words,
> China's natural economic dominance was beginning to display
> itself, as you `predicted'. But what happened? A specific act
> of _agency is what happened! Q. Victoria launched a specific
> imperialist war to achieve a specific enonomic objective: by
> forcing China to import opium, a mechanism was created that
> reversed the balance of payments and allowed the West to retain
> its economic dominance for another century.
>
That is not true - the opium-war arose because England (or rather British
India) was exporting more opium to China than China exported in tea - so
that Manchu officials wanted to curtail opium - imports (and for other good
reasons as well).
> 2) WW-2. This time Japan was the focus of Asian power stirrings.
> Japan's dynamism allowed it to create a world-class industrial base,
> a navy that could challenge the US Navy, and an economic sphere that
> rivaled those of the Western great powers. Gunder - this _was the
> emergence of the "'traditional' dominance" that you describe!
> It has _already happened! And what was the Western response? The
> response was again a specific and decisive act of _agency. The
> Western powers made the decision to suppress this uprising, rather
> than welocme Japan as another great imperial power. This led to
> the `Pacific Theater' in WW-2, the destruction of Japan, and the
> systematic rebuilding of Japan in such a way that it became a player
> in the Western-controlled imperial system, able to compete econom-
> ically, but not able to participate in geopolitial management.
>
Now this is what I mainly find a very objectionable passage - Japan was not
`the center of Asian stirings' - it was simply another foreign imperialist
power for the rest of Asia. The Pacific war arose because of the war in
China - one Asian power against another and Communist guerilla's against an
imperialist power.
And, as to the European powers uniting to destroy Japan: Japan was
originally aided by Britain - who needed an ally in the Far East against
Russia - then aided by Germany and Italy and I do think that Japan's
alliances with the axis was THE major reason for US-hostility. Not that
Japan was in Asia - the US was helping the Guomindang, remember, and
Roosevelt would have liked China to be one of the four `world-policeman'.
There is a wider point here which I find VERY objectionable in virtually
all WST-writings and that is arguing as if the outcome of world war II - a
US-victory - was somehow certain before it even started. If Germany would
have (God forbid !) defeated the USSR in 1942 and England in 1943 (and it
might well have happened) the outlook for the US would have been very, very
grim indeed.
I therefore think that the Roosevelt - administration was sincere in saying
that it was fighting Nazi-tyranny and was not `ultimately' pursuing some
other aim (access to raw materials, replacing the British etc.). Much of
the `revisionist' historiography of world war II benefits too much from
hindsight.
Japan was welcomed as a great power in 1900. That the US then turned
against Japan after 1932 was because of Japan's imperial ambitions in China
- an inter-imperialist quarrel but certainly not `Europe' turning against
Asia. Britain was always reluctant to follow the US for example. If
Britain's supreme interest would not have been to preserve the US-alliance
it might wel have acquisced in Japan's greater Asian prosperity zone (and
so probably would the US without the German alliance).
This whole passage seems to me to be repeating propaganda of the Imperial
Japanese army in the interest of `objectivity'. If we want to represent
either side's case objectively in world war II why not also talk about a
Jewish/plutocratic-capitalist/bolshevist conspiracy against the heroic
German army which wanted to liberate Europe from the yoke of the City and
Wall Street ?
> 3) Containment of Red China. Again we had a situation where an
> Asian power was declaring its independence of Western hegemony,
> and aiming to assert itself. The _agent response in this case
> was military, economic, and technological containment, which
> succeeded in keeping China's influence and economic power down for
> decades.
>
Sorry - I find this mumbo-jumbo too: China had to be contained because it
was communist and allied to the USSR, not because it was Asian, and when it
turned against the USSR the USA helped China instead. Let's please take
anti-communism in the 1950's seriously and not start looking for some
`real' pursuits of the Eisenhower and Truman administration. Again, that
the USA was to win over the USSR was in the 50's by no means a foregone
conclusion or at least so it seemed then. Communism then seemed to win in
the third world and the US-administration sincerely tried to whipe out the
perceived `communist conspracy' everywhere. It was not pursuing some
`other' `real' interest.
> 4) SE-Asian currency crisis. Again an Asian power-nexus developed
> in Asia, this time the `tiger economies' of SE Asia.
The governments of the `tiger states' were all US-pawns and all of them are
now economically comparable to minor West European countries.
And again
> this uprising was squelched by Western agency, this time by
> pulling out investments precipitously and systematically
> rebuilding the economic and social structures under the guiding
> hand of the IMF (dominated by the same Western banking interests
> that control the international financial system and who pulled the
> plug on the tigers). What took MacCarthur, so to speak, a gener-
> ation to accomplish in Japan is being done in a fortnight by
> the IMF in SE Asia. And recent developments indicate Japan itself
> may be brought to its knees in the same way, and of course it
> will be re-programmed in the same way by the IMF.
This is making the IMF into an economic power equal to Japan! The IMF is
NOT a power in its own right it's simply an instrument of the US-government
(or the Fed). The IMF or the USA will NOT bring Japan to it's knees, the
Japanese system of government may well achieve this on its own however. The
Asian crisis was, I think, mainly a result of slow Japanese growth over the
last five years and an inevitable stalling of the growth of productivity in
the `tiger economies'. Certainly no result of a conspiracy of `western
banking interests'.
> 5) The coming confrontation with China. China is gearing up to
> establish itself as Asian hegemon. It has said as much, it has
> asserted its `right', and it is launching on a `leap-frog'
> military upgrade, aimed especially at neutralizing the flagship
> of the US Navy, the carrier task force. In the meantime, the
> US is racing to upgrade its C4 warfare technology to enable it
> to overcome whatever the Chinese are able to come up with, gain
> `control of theater', and do to China what it did to Iraq.
>
Pentagon - mumbo jumbo: the military always needs an enemy to justify its
expenditures (and, anyway, planning for a war against an enemy in the
distant future is the work of the miltary so they always perceive enemies
everywhere). I think China is much too occupied with its own problems to be
contemplating even a limited war with the USA and, anyway, who would be the
big loser ? Much of the economic growth of China derives from US-firms and
their Japanese subsidiaries investing in the special economic zone's. I
think that `China is asserting itself as Asian hegemon' is a good example
of typical slogans used in the internal US-policy where the weapon-lobby
has always to justify its existence by pointing to some alien power
`gearing up to destroy the US local interest'. First it was Islamic
fundamentalism, now we have China, who knows what next ? or yes - we know
already - now it's `hindu nationalism' !
> The strategic key to this coming confrontation is _tempo, and in
> that regard all the cards are held by the West.
At the current
> moment the US could readily `win', under some definition of
> `acceptable losses', a military confrontation with China.
More apparent Pentagon mumbo jumbo - China could use nuclear weapons in a
confrontation - I think neither China nor the US are seriously
contemplating this. Do you really think the US would contemplate a nuclear
war with China in which hunderds of thousands of marines would die when the
US pulled out of Somalia after four marines were killed ? Or that China
would seriously consider waging a nuclear war on its own soil ?
> beginning now, the US can track Chinese developments, monitor
> its own progress with C4 deployment, and _choose the moment of
> conflict to its own advantage, never allowing China to get to
> the point where it might `win'.
China is a nuclear power unlike Iraq which is why India is busily arming
with nuclear weapons not to become another Iraq.
The US-engineered India-Pakistan
> conflict can be viewed as `keeping the pot simmering' vis a vis
> US plans for decisive intervention in Asia.
>
India and Pakistan have enough reasons for quarreling without the USA
interfering.
>
>So there you have it. The power struggle between Asia and the West has
>been going on uninterrupted since 1800.
No - you don't have it here: these categories are much too general. The US
and Britain have heavily supported Japan in several cases primarily as a
bulwark against Russia - and the US has helped China as a bulwark against
the USSR. And the `tigers' as a bulwark against Vietnam, North Korea and
against communist movements in their own country.
>I therefore find the following statement highly misleading and in urgent
>need of retraction or substantial refinment:
There is
>indeed a relevance, Asian dyanmism is part of the equation, but your
>predicted `rise' has been occurring ever since 1800, has been
>systematically managed and controlled by the West, and this regime promises
>to continue indefinitely, just as has the domination of what we
>euphemistically call the Third World, most of which, as Parenti points out,
>should be `naturally' quite wealthy and prosperous.
I agree with the last point which is precisely why I don't think the `West'
is trying to subvert China or SE Asia. If the `tiger' industries were
really becoming a major independent threat to US or European industry these
would start either to claim for protection or try to take over their
competitors (with the help of government-subsidies). Southeast Asia and
China are not really a `competitor' to the USA or Europe since most of the
investment there is by European or US multinationals. (By the same token
Mexico should emerge as a threat to the US briefly).
I do know a case, though, where European and US multinationals WERE facing
an industry which was directly in competition with them and produced some
high-tech products and virtually all raw materials cheaper than either the
USA or Western European concerns did. I'm obviously talking about Eastern
Europe and Russia here. European concerns have ever since 1990 either
bought and then demolished potential Eastern European competitors or have
tried to destruct their sales by anything from slander to dumping. The
Russian military aviation-industry which potentially could take over the
world market is a case in point here. MIG produces at one-fourth of the
price of Boeing, one-fifth of British aerospace yet Boeing and BA - sales
have soared while MIG-sales have slumped. Don't you think all the attention
in the media to Russian aviation-disasters may not be serving a certain
interest ? (That of the advertisers for one).
If there is ONE country which is, and remains, a potential threat to the US
either because it can wipe it out in a quarter of an hour (no minor threat
this) or because its labour is as well schooled but paid one-hunderth of
the US it's good old mother Russia. And if there is one country which the
USA and Europe are trying to subvert and weaken it's Russia. I found out
I'm in agreement with Solshenitzyn (of all persons !) on this, today.
With good reasons - suffice to remind you, Richard, that if the Ukraine and
Russia could get their act together practically the entire Canadian economy
would be out of business. Since there is nothing Canada can sell which
Russia can't produce cheaper (grain haah ... aluminimum haah ... steel haah
....) Fortunately for Canada that is not going to happen since Canadian
farmers and industry would immediately claim for protection should Russia
try to compete `unfairly' with Canada.
>Sorry to be so confrontational about all this, but I just _hate it when
>knowledgeable people sell mumbo jumbo disinformation to the masses.
Yep. Much of this talk on the Chinese threat and European conspiracies
belongs in an X-files episode - `if the impossible explanation is the
obvious you must look for the impossible explanation' agent Fox Mulder.