Tuesday, July 21, 2009

China’s Ethnic Violence

Tibetans and Uygurs chose the 2008 Olympics as the event to highlight their plight and heat up Beijing’s political kitchen.

Uygur militants gained international attention in August 2008 after an attack on a police station in the Silk Road city of Kashgar killed 17 police on the eve of the Beijing Olympics.

The Muslim Uygurs, who like many Tibetans are seeking independence, opted to also heat up Beijing’s political kitchen on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic to publicize their grievances against China’s rule. The massive parade and pageantry planned for the commemoration in Tiananmen Square is set to eclipse the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. On such occasions Beijing likes to make a point of celebrating its ethnic minorities, who it says have benefited greatly from the economic and social progress that has been brought to China by the ruling Communist Party.

The riots in Urumqi and other cities across Xinjiang were triggered by the sexual molestation of Chinese Han women by Uyger workers in a Hong Kong-owned factory in Shaoguan, northern Guangdong that ended with two Uyger workers being killed.

The resulting explosive ethnic violence in Urumqi, that killed at least 156 and left more than 800 injured, the worst known bloodshed in China since June 4, 1989, was another reminder of the widespread social vulnerabilities and concern confronting the Communist Party ─ shared with the world when China’s Hu Jintao left the G8 summit in Italy before it started ─ an unprecedented move by a Chinese leader. Never before has a Chinese leader shortened an overseas trip because of domestic concerns.

China cannot afford a restless Xinjiang because the resource rich region makes a significant contribution to the mainland’s energy security. The province sits atop as much as 20 percent of domestic oil reserves and is expected to account for one-fifth of the mainland’s coal output. Xinjiang’s long borders with oil-producing Central Asian countries is what differentiates it from Tibet.

Beijing’s aggressive and ambitious plans to construct refineries, pipelines and power grids across the region could backfire if these facilities became terrorist targets. In addition, much of the oil and gas extracted in Kazakhstan is transported inland via a 3,000 kilometer pipeline that passes through Xinjiang.

Such has been the scale of the influx that Han, who accounted for just six percent of Xinjiang’s population in 1949, now make up more than 40 percent of the total population. Uygur resentment has grown increasingly nationalistic and separatist, emboldened by the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the independence granted to three neighboring Islamic soviet republics.

Uygurs seeking independence used the Guangdong factory incident as the spark for the unrest in restive Xinjiang, an energy and resource rich province which accounts for one-sixth of the country’s territory, where the majority Uygurs feel exploited because the Han Chinese dominate economic and political life ─ a good reason for Chinese president Hu Jintao to leave the G8 summit in Italy before it started ─ to tend to the melting tip of the explosive ethnic iceberg in Beijing’s kitchen.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The G8 Wake

The annual G8 summit meeting started out in France in 1975 as a “fireside chat” with French delicacies and wines known as the G7 for the leaders of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, UK, Italy and Japan and became the G8 when Russia joined in 1997. The “G” stands for group. The July 8-10, 2009 G8-plus-5 that took place in L’Aquila, Italy ─ the five being Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa ─ plus Australia, Indonesia and South Korea who belong to the Major Economies Forum, Egypt and another 22 from Africa, Asia and the Middle East for a “Grand” total of 39 proved its outdated desperate efforts to remain relevant.

The so-called cordial chat around a fire turned into a talkfest around a bonfire in military barracks in the worst performer country in the G8 that failed to meet its commitment made in 2005 at the UK-chaired summit in Gleneagles to double aid to Africa by 2010, in an earthquake shattered city hosted by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, embroiled in a very public divorce and lurid sex scandals ─ all very appropriate metaphoric backdrops of the rubble of the G whatever outdated irrelevant numbered structure it is for the 21st century ─ just as the irrelevant dated definitional classifications of so called “developed” and “developing” countries are today.

C’mon, how can a three day “chat” with 39 ego-maniacs and their “sherpas” devote the time needed to address a daunting agenda that included the worst global economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, climate change, energy security, food security, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, resuscitation of Doha, development and elimination of poverty ─ with special emphasis on Africa and world trade ─ not to mention Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea that surely had to be discussed, be properly addressed, especially when the host nation did not prepare an agenda that was hijacked by the U.S. in China’s absence?

I agree with Nick Deardon, director of the London based Jubilee Debt Campaign, who says the G8 “should by rights be dead and buried, [It] harks back to the days when a handful of countries could happily control the world economy without interference.” He accurately described the summit in L’Aquila as just an “annual photo shoot.” Commitments made at the last few G8 meetings didn’t last the time it took the leaders to make it to the airport to leave. Their rapid ascent and departure from L’Aquila in helicopters means the 2009 promises will be broken quicker.

The 2009 G8 in earthquake scarred L’Aquila should be remembered as the groups wake.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Yellow Bric Road

When the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China ─ known by their acronym Bric ─ held their first standalone meeting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on June 16, 2009 it was a wakeup call ─ and a shake down for the dollar and global financial system. On the second day of the summit, the U.S. dollar fell sharply indicating the Bric nations had found the magic power of making the dollar ride a roller coaster with only a few words.

The Bric leaders proposed investing their reserves in each other’s currencies, settling bilateral trade in domestic currencies and striking currency swap agreements. It was even suggested to include the five central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan within the framework of using the yuan as a settlement currency, which some point to as an attempt to create a miniature European Union type of arrangement in Central Asia.

The idea of replacing the dollar as a global currency with the yuan or other currency does have some significant traction. “The Bric countries can lead the world towards global monetary stability by supporting the researching and planning for the next global currency to replace the U.S. dollar,” said Morrison Bonpasse, president of the Single Global Currency Association, a U.S. think tank. Mr Bonpasse believes that “when such a single global currency supports a number of countries with 40-50 percent of the world’s GDP, the ‘tipping point’ will have been reached, and other countries will join quickly.”

The handwriting of the new global currency menu is on the Bric wall and road. Bric nations already account for 50 percent of world growth, based on purchasing parity power. While collectively their gross domestic product amounts to only 14.6 percent of the $60.7 trillion
global economy, within 20 years, it is estimated that it will reach 50 percent. Their collective populations account for 42 percent of the world’s total and 26 percent of the world’s landmass. Goldman Sachs now predicts that in 20 years, the four could together, dwarf the Group
of Seven leading industrial nations, and that China’s economy will overtake that of the U.S. in size.
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