Opening arguments
(II)
By
Sampson I Onwuka
Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz opens his essay in (Vanity
Fair, Jan. 2015) with a laconic 18th Century English
rondo, (1) “When the history of 2014 is written, it will
take note of a large fact that has received little
attention: 2014 was the last year in which the United States
could claim to be the world’s largest
economic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where
it will likely remain for a very long time, if
not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held
through most of human history.” China he said
will likely remain in ‘top positon’ ‘for a long time’, ‘if
not forever.’ We suggest that this point is more of a
punch line than a main focus, a hyperbole perhaps, but
rendered in Economics it is a combination too
far. Looking at the basic outlines of his essay and how he
roved from statistics showing that China has
superseded USA in GDP, he moves into an argument about the
politics of Washington, which was based
on our knowledge of his opposition to the issue of
Washington Consensus which may be suggesting too
much that one perhaps, he was moving from right of
International Politics and trade to Washington
which needed to moderate its official policy in several
parts of the World. Only to the extent that we
notice politics from policy and why in the major economies
of the world do better than others, can some
redemption be possible in showing that International
policies help define a people, any people.
The Professor mentioned that issue is important, that (2)
“The world economy is not a zero-sum game,
where China’s growth must necessarily come at the expense of
ours. In fact, its growth is
complementary to ours. If it grows faster, it will buy more
of our goods, and we will prosper. There has
always, to be sure, been a little hype in such claims—just
ask workers who have lost their manufacturing
jobs to China. But that reality has as much to do with our
own economic policies at home as it does with
the rise of some other country.” Perhaps the cultural age of
China gave way to the Industrial reality and
as they move from home front to global market, the world saw
explosion of growth that they have
never seen since the Muslims and their Islam turned the
world – most of it – as their footstool. I cannot
disagree with Stiglitz on his tutored analysis of the
Chinese Century, which should be taken seriously in
spite of its gaps and actual grappling with reality, on the
condition that China head to tail with US, China
has more people than the U.S, a matter of numbers and vital
human energy and value given the
Population economies. We may suggest also that tail to head
Chinese population ratio to U.S is three
times when American immigrants are rested here, all the
Americans if not four. Why do we parry a
China who only lately after long and exhausted currency
rotation and Government spending and world
isolation now meets us at the market place with both hands
full of it. It is not clear how to proceed on
this matter, for if argument about clashing cultures reaches
a new political levels, we may let on but
doesn’t seem like the chain of relation between new and old
empires yielding to the new is suggestive
that China is a new World Order.
On China by Henry Kissinger @ 2011, “American exceptionalism
is missionary. It holds that the United
States has an obligation to spread its values to every part
of the world. China’s exceptionalism is
cultural. China does not proselyte; it does not claim that
its contemporary institutions are relevant
outside China. But it is the heir of the Middle Kingdom
tradition, which formally graded all other States
as various levels of tributaries based on their
approximation to Chinese cultural and political forms, in
other words, a kind of cultural universality.” “On Mao
death, America’s total trade with China amounted
to $336 million, slightly lower than the level of America’s
trade with Honduras and one-tenth of
America’s trade with Taiwan, which had approximately 1.6
percent of China population. “
Warring States periods 475 – 221 B.C “treasure ships” of
Admiral Zheng He – (JAVA, India, the Horn of
Africa and the Strait of Hormuz, at the time of Zheng’s
voyages, the European age of exploration had not
yet begun. Deng Xiaoping to Carter who ended his speeches
that the Soviet must be resisted, that
“(w)herever the Soviet Union sticks its fingers, there were
must chop them off.” Tibetan, Uighurs,
Manchu and Mongols, tribes in China and We qi – ‘name of
surrounding pieces’ , Mao Zedong, Ho Chi
Minh and Vo Ngoyen Gigs ---he argued were said to have not
disguised their problems with Asia history
and the past, above all, there were concerned with domestic
issues. The government could not prove
that it looked and acted differently, it was not easily to
expect certain changes in normal economic
conditions without domestic transformations.
The trick as we some third economies is toe the lines of
transformation without heading towards the
land of confiscation, predetermined prices, government
control of choice and issues of International
trade. Yet the future of any economy which is what we
learned from these Professor Stigliz is the
competitive economy and advantage and in the history of the
United States.
Harry Gelber (2007) American entered into trade with China
in 1784 had been done through the East
India Company through England 1784; chiefly interested in
Aphrodisiac from England and Ireland
(Yohembe bark) and was introduced to the major ship routes
by ‘Empress of China’ entered through
Canton to New York, Harriet and Hope.
“One of the first shipmasters on that route was Amasa
Delano, a great-grandfather of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. When he sailed to Canton he was vastly
impressed. ‘China is the first for greatness,
riches and grandeur of any country ever known’ was a
statement attributed to Amasa Delano who
traded with his son – Warren, who joined the ‘House of
Russell’ Americans bought Turkish Opium at
Smyrna on the Mediterranean and through the tans-continental
Banks under the contracts with Scots
Jardine and Matheson, transferred deep resources to world
power and resources. The history of
American ship going exercises especially in the South remain
a test of process in globally factoring the
size of Chinese power at the turn of the 19th century,
especially the longest running magnate between
Asia and privateer ship owners who loaned ships to U.S Navy
and in time rent from the Government,
populated the major businesses and items and sometimes opium
production which are over emphasized
in Texas perhaps and perhaps in Florida as the first of
American States.
This early contacts explains a late reasonableness of
American business in China and in Asia. We may yet
argue that the collapse ancient power was due local
resources and focus which characterized Chinese
economy.
Beijing Consensus
Natural regional government and exercise of government is
casualty in Communist government and for
China, it is a product of the last century. For all intent
of international trade through Taiwan and Canton
and San Francisco, Americans were late comers to Asia in
principle, arrived when the Napoleonic wars
had ravaged the world and its people. The wars divided Asia
and explicate the reasons why Canton and
South China was destined to be controlled by Britain and the
East Indian Company or the Royal Dutch by
proxy. A penetration into India and Cambodia was due to the
English and French presence in Canton and
in the district leading to Yellow Yangzi and Hunan province
where the earliest conflict between Sino-
Chinese and Westerners were effectively launched.
It is not here in Canton that the seeds of Vietnam wars were
planted, but in command which the Seas
offered these arrivals from Europe and Africa following the
ends of the hostility from Spain and Portugal
adds meaning to a period of Muslim rule and Moors who
brought Cathay to the nearer Mediterranean
demographic and India. There is no one interest in the world
history at this period, interested in
reconstructing ‘the great divergence’ or now – ‘the great
convergence’ that will not fail to grasp that
seeds of 19th century were planted through the areas long
forgotten, that the revolutions in U.S and in
Europe forced a linear conversion of one major aspect of
productive lifestyle and military existence to
give Europe wings it didn’t have. Yet the political
consequences of French in debacle – however brief –
do not juxtapose the economic consequence of a compromised
Yangzi River. In the end, the problems
which bedeviled China were through and through local and
domestic, through and through
international.
It matters it is a story undisguised from reality and with
meaning which will define the century, that
China with long traditions was destined to be humbled by
unlettered outsiders who were almost
pedestrian in their want of goods and newly mechanized
appliances delivered separately in Europe and
the Americans. We are able to understand the minds of
Chinese at this point, for how could an empire
struggling to defend itself of territory against Russia and
the World, with maps of showing a China bigger
than a certain place called Europe be forced to accept the
slippery nature of International Trade and
business relationship, that overtime local return of rate –
however superefficient was not dependable,
for obvious it was not tested. A test of process in the
Russia 1950 treaty with China for economic
expansion for 30 years, submerged China in of itself into
doldrums of Russian Shield and China defense,
a fact too military to ignore that Russia arrived slightly
early in redemption of Shanghai and Beijing from
the hands of Japanese acting in with pleasing disguise as
friends of the Americans.
Then it matters now it does that economic corporation
between nations are forged through big
corporation with leniency of International Corporation and
Free trade agreement. It matters that some
measure of this agreement several controlling influences for
Chinese integration with the rest world
until the ends of the treaty and embargo with Russia in 1980
or thereabout. It does not deny here that
part of the reasons why Mao Zedong was limited to the local
market and exchange of goods was due to
the problems of control China had, yet in all, the
restriction to overseas was not such a control devise as
they were the outcomes of a necessary existence. In Hong
Kong much of the later struggles between
KMT and the Mao forces wagered, the territory was entirely
under the cultural diction of United
Kingdom who signed sometime in 1860 a Beijing agreement with
China concerning their rule in Hong
Kong and their sovereignty exhausted in 1997.
All domestic issues apart and all respective apart did not
meet with meaning on international trade;
China relied mostly on experts on Western trade to free
engage the rest of world. If these conditions are
destined are prerequisite for smooth transition into free
economy, it should be taken seriously and
perhaps into account that between the North China and
Russia, Japan, and… ‘The Dragon and Foreign
Devils’ “People from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Persia and
Western Asia came to China’s cities and the Tang
empire was hospitable to communities of Nestorians,
Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jews, Arabs, Persians,
Mongolians and others. Nestorian Christianity founded by
Bishop, Nestorians or Constantinople, who
have fled the east.”
Free Fall by Joseph E. Stiglitz – points to reaching to
Housing Bubble, “…securitization had one big
advantage, allowing risk to be spread…” but generates
imperfect information. “Those buying a
mortgage-backed security are in effect lending to the
homeowner about when they know nothing. They
trust the bank that sells them the product to have checked
it out, and the bank trusts the mortgage
originator. The mortgage originators’ incentives were
focused on the quantity of mortgage originated,
not the quality. They produced massive amounts of truly
lousy mortgage.”
“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be
complicated. But as long as the music is
playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still
dancing.” Chuck Prince, Financial Times --- July 9th,
2007.
Joseph P. Quinlan (2011) ‘The Last Economic Super Power’,
“By early 2010, the Chinese economy was
growing at a 12 percent dip, a torrid place well above the
rest of the world and one that unequivocally
proclaimed that China was emerging no longer. It had
arrived.” “The Irony is that China is not entirely
comfortable sitting at the pinnacle of power. It has not
been shy about criticizing the United States for
its part in triggering the global recession, going so far as
to broach the topic of replacing the U.S dollar as
the world’s reserve currency.”
“But in terms of proactive measures of its own, China has
been coy about stepping out onto the global
stage. It almost feels as if China’s moment has arrived too
early – for Beijing and the world at large
Beijing, in many Cases, would still rather follow that
lead.” Deng Xiaoping – “…remain free of ambition,
and never claim leadership” and Barely – (1989) a “The world
accepted the Common refrain from Beijing
that China, despite decades of near 10 percent annual
growth, was still developing, was poor, and was
incapable of leading the world given its own massive
internal domestic challenges.”
Kishore Mahbubani author of the Great Divergence, States
“Given…overwhelming domestic concerns,
the Chinese leaders have little appetite to lead the world.”
Too early to praise China and its resource allocation and
too early to the kick for and against Global
investments opportunity, “The exotic global investments of
the past are likely to become less exotic and
more mundane, in addition to being far more constrained.
Since the crisis global financial reform has
become the primary rallying cry of politicians around the
world.” How financial landscape will evolve the
global structure is a subject of some
significance….especially Nicholas Sarkozy (French President) and
IMF who are increasing call for Ne Bretton Wood System.
China has opted for a different kind of world
money order to U.S, that “Germany has opted for a unilateral
ban or short selling for all stocks and Euro
– currency derivatives should sale be for speculative purposes.
“Naked” short selling has also been
restricted.”
Dodd Frank ‘Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
of 2010’and Governing dynamics,
American Policy and miscellaneous and in the process
document the issue in terms of the business that
remains active in everyday business life and opportunity. It
needs be compared from the past that a look
at the resolutions of Russia during and after the Bolshevik
resolutions, points a China there was in
disrepute, rotten to its quick by the British preliterate
ideologue and their proliferate French that barred
each other’s way but with understanding suckered China into
a local and under-developed market. With
the rise of Russia, especially under Stalin, was a China
riddled with uncertainties between Kuomintang
and the Ming or Red Party led by Chairman Mao. The drug
ragged Shanghai and the double functions of
Du Yueh Sheng, the total collapse of Shanghai under finance
minister and premier T.V Song and head of
states Chiang-Kai-shek and his elder and younger sisters;
Ai-ling and Mei Song summarizes
determination under Chairman Mao and eventually Hua Guofeng
who opened China to the rest of
world.
But new sensation that China is besting invokes the past
triumphs of powerful states that in the last 50
years has seen Russia rise and in debacle – a debacle
further complicated by the new measures of
President Putin in separating Russia from certain areas of
the world market. It was not a best way to
replicate on a world sanctions, the better approach was to
challenge the procedure in court, collectively
as the United Nations, G-20, BRICS economic block, the MINT
and individual members of the signatory in
Courts of appeal of their individual nations. Such long
process will meet the sanctions half way, enough
to redeem what is left of sanction. Russia did not do this,
yet there will already struggling from the total
collapse of the long and powerful empire which they
inherited from the Turks and ruled with their help.
The Japanese would be the next great wave whose export power
and production hub transformed Japan
and in fact Asia into one of the world’s leading technology
areas. Japan came very close to overtaking
the US in 1980-1982, but failed just by whiskers largely for
the role of a SIC (V) Insurance Company
called these days AIG. The spread of AIG into Asia;
Philippines, Japan and China, was so charismatic that
it may breathe easy on my comparative separation of quantity
of money as a physical property and the
use of digital cash-less technology not exactly like the
Cards. Japan’s rise heralded its decline. Its reasons
why so different from Russia ascending and descent, that new
falcon on the block that would surpass
America was said by Robert Mundell not to be easily
available. In limelight of the actions performed
against third world economies with more than a share of
Tiger money to buttress, for instance money
derived from cash crop may have found its way to the hands
of those in power, may have found it way
as a form of default and above all, it looks like the saying
is equally correct that the idea behind regional
formation of currency may have been based on John Nash’s
‘Governing Dynamics’ which from his
essays, seem to dovetail on the fact that in chain of ….in
other to release the forces held by the
Fareed Zakari drew economic landscape of Iraq, Afghanistan,
Somalia, that “Over the past quarter
century, the global economy has doubled every 10 years,
going from $31 trillion in 1999 to $62 trillion in
2008. Recessions have become tamer ever before average eight
months rather two years. More than
400 million people across Asia have been lifted out of
poverty.” Kishore Mahbubani (Dean of the Lee
Kuan Yew school of Public Policy), that ‘The last two
hundred years of world history has been a major
historical aberration” ‘this is a key point that people in
the West have a hard time wrapping their minds
around. From the year 1 to the year 1820, China and India
consistently had the two largest economies in
the world. When you think about, it’s quite amazing that a
small continent like Europe was able to
conquer and colonize the world. In many ways this global
domination by the West, continued for a
surprisingly long time. But I think it’s finally coming to a
natural end. So the challenge for the West is,
will it accept its loss power in the global system wills it
resist the transfer of power?
From the optimism raised by the Kishore Mahbubani ‘2014’
(The Great Convergence), which lack some
degree of pronounced and specialist depth, but scores of the
collective advantages of Global markets
without defeating its actual meaning it did not mention that
the Global is not easily accessible. In the
context of Applied General Equilibrium, the themes of the
Global Market is not new – net outflows
correlating net inflow; Outsourcing within the specific
industrial sectors that levitate the diminishing
returns in one crop of real dividend at a bifurcation of an
entirely or sub-ordinate alternate. There is no
ending to the acceptance that the ‘World is Flat’ in which a
certain Thomas Friedman writes for the
larger playing field of world market which for him was
inter-connected, gradually plain and flat rhetoric
about the business of everyday industries, about the idea
that cultures of the world have a trade-in bias
for majority of the companies in the world. Therefore a
process of meddling services needing more open
systems like judicial activity in handling Child worker
cases in India and in how well some cultures of the
world attend to the….. What these men and women arguing for
a flat world market is a market
condition where there are no profits for smaller companies,
where there is no ending to mercantilism
and a market where the government of any type, can
essentially dump any the rest of world market
without barriers and regulations.
Po ‘The great convergence’
Kenneth Pormeranz (2001) ----The Great Divergence, “The
mines in Xuzhou and Suxian in Northern
Jiangsu, not too far from the Grand Canal, might have been
the best positioned among the few mines
potentially within reach of the Yangzi Delta; but even in
the Xuzhou mines, the cost of coal in Qing lines
doubled by the time it reached the country seat, which was
also the canal port.”
Yangzi River, ‘lower Yangzi and Upper Yangzi’, Country of
Anhui, Guangdong and Fijian ----
The Endgame of Middle Story Management….,“The Merchants and
bankers in these trading nations of
Asia could not turn their investments into sphere of public
interest protected by law and encouraged by
the state. Members of the public who invested their money in
the bonds of the Republic of Venice or
Genoa or the Bank of Amsterdam were not free from financial
risks. But the bonds had the qualities of
legal recognition and of mortgage value.”
The Communist Community based Utility Complex propels
productions, shrinks its consumer based
market and offers all sorts of challenge when there are
materials cases separating a Communist
economy from a Capital economy. This is a big concern since
in the immediate circumstances of world
market, or World Market as is, there are still gaps in
consumer markets that can be explored, but a level
is not without reach and a Global Convergence in a
Globalized world market not without Plateau, which
in recent times is incidental to Great Depression where the
absence of disparity between Europe
markets and US created a flux in the primary direction of
price movement. Momentum achieved
through Keynes leads mainly to Divergent market dynamics and
not it’s Convergence. We may
understand how Globalization works from Jagidish Bhagwati’s
‘Defense of Globalization’ and ‘Why
Globalization Works’ by Martin Wolf, these two are well
known theorist of Global Free trade. William
McGuaghey (1993) lavished on Bhagwatti essays which appeared
in Foreign Affairs where he quoted
Bhagwatti’s defense of GATT over NAFTA, that “If the United
States turns foolishly away from the world
to her own backyard, the European Community’s likely
reaction would be; fine, get buried in it.”
But from at least the regimes of the arguments which we can
referee from Mabhubani ‘Great
Convergence’ is his citation of Eswar Prasad (Cornell
University) lecture on Global Market and
Globalization that “The notion of a single global economy is
a big step from the high level trade and
financial integration we now observe. As we are seeing from
Europe however, you need an institutional
framework that is global in nature to manage a global
economy as a single unit. You would then a
unified political system or at least a high level of
coordination at the political level.” A careful read
through on the plain discourse on the political activity of
a global market is shortened by the sight to a
global political network – not exactly dissimilar to a
smaller Communist system dynamic, but seem from
long and tenured official position of Prasad on Europe,
leads him to see without necessarily accepting
that the role of Government in selecting and moderating
price no less dissimilar in history to socialism as
the vitae of a Globalized future world. It is necessary to
the extent of not diminishing the driven roles of
individual efforts and companies towards the actualization
of profit.
Such markets without friction and are flat, are markets that
are not essentially real and are prone to
damages and devoid of the laws of comparative advantages
away from Says, Ricardo, Jevon, and in
recent times,…, such world is a world of zero
accountability, judicial inactivity or interferences, and in
Free Falling (Stieglitz)…. There are objections to the land
field theorem of a large, burgeoning and
expanding world where all and everything is possible. The
timing of these scheduled execution of
businesses in between the member states of various
organization and less than independent Labor
Union. Paul Blustein (2010) stated in his Misadventures of
the Most Favored Nations, that U.S Steel
companies can impose “….as high as 30 percent on imported
Steel, based on “safeguard” rules that
allow countries to raise such duties when suffering from a
sudden flood of imports”. In his case against
WTO, the problem of flooding markets with cheap imports in
the name of resource allocation was
essentially creating a labor gap which the safeguard through
tariff did not fill, that the issue bothers on
geographical indication where the 135 members of World Trade
Organization varied in their profits and
losses towards achieving a more resourceful economy.