🚀 go-pugleaf

"ElaineJ" <demeter547opine@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1121218153.043357.17040@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>     http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/071105LA.shtml
>
>     The Chinese Cat
>     By Serge Truffaut
>     Le Devoir
>
>     Thursday 07 July 2005
>
>     When Sony acquired Columbia during the 1980s, several American
> voices were raised to demand that a protectionist policy be adopted.
> Today, we hear analogous proposals ever since China made known its
> intense interest in a California oil company. History repeating itself?
> Certainly not.
>
>     Not long ago, the management of the Chevron company presented an
> offer to purchase Unocal. Two weeks went by before CNOCC, two thirds of
> the shares of which belong to the Chinese state, imitated Chevron and
> added 2 billion dollars to the offer. Up until then, almost no one had
> criticized or attempted to counter China's financial acts and gestures
> on American soil. But then, when the stakes were this petroleum
> considered a resource relevant to the security of the State, the echo
> of protectionism reverberated once again within the walls of the
> Congress.
>
>     Before giving satisfaction to these partisans of economic
> nationalism, the authorities in charge will have to think about it
> twice. It is certain that they will weigh the pros and cons at some
> length. In fact, the Chinese autocrats have many means at their
> disposal to put a stick in the spokes of the United States' economic
> wheels, particularly its financial wheels.
>
>     In fact, the deficits that the Bush administration accumulates with
> a constancy that borders on irresponsibility have allowed China to haul
> itself up to the second rank of the United States' main creditors,
> behind Japan. Beijing holds 230 billion dollars of American Treasury
> bills. Selling only a tenth of these would be enough to send the dollar
> into a serious dive. In the case that concerns us today, an essential
> fact must be retained: Beijing's desire to get a hold of Unocal is that
> much firmer because its economy's thirst for primary materials is
> inextinguishable.
>
>     If ever the Chinese dictators should be thwarted, we shall witness
> a revision of a policy the sources of which go back to the middle
> 1990s. Following the policy of two systems decreed by Deng Xiaoping - a
> capitalist economy and a one party state - China experienced such rapid
> growth that it forced Beijing to revamp its strategy entirely. That
> exercise has opened out into the elaboration of a policy described as a
> quiet orderly progression. For the mechanism necessary to realizing the
> plan, the authorities opted for a Gulliver strategy. I shall explain.
>
>     To imprint an influence equal to its power on Asia, Chinese
> diplomacy went door-to-door from the middle of the 1990s to the
> beginning of the 2000s. It multiplied meetings with big as well as
> little nations, with the objective of signing a maximum number of
> bilateral and multilateral agreements. Adding up all these agreements,
> China reached its goals: to produce as many constraints or restrictions
> as there are treaties. That's what the experts call the Gulliver
> Strategy, which - among other advantages - allows them to ensnare
> everyone.
>
>     The clear result: all the Asiatic countries as well as Australia
> are now involved in high-volume trading with Beijing. The statistics
> speak for themselves. In 1990, Japan exported 2% of its production to
> China, versus 14% today. What has been observed with Japan is also true
> for India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and
> Thailand. In short, they've gone from little more than nothing to a
> thousand times more.
>
>     With the United States, the data are still more striking. The
> products that China manufactures for Wal-Mart alone make this company
> the sixth export market behind ... all of Germany! Last year, the
> Americans bought 11 billion dollars worth of clothing made in China and
> more than 180 billion dollars worth of different goods, notably
> clothing.
>
>     Following the dispute provoked by the Unocal affair, the American
> authorities are confronted with a dilemma. If they should ever oppose
> the transaction, China could create a multi-pronged counter-offensive.
> Apart from the possible weapons already mentioned (we think of the
> debts), we must emphasize this one: the commercial partners with which
> Beijing has woven links that are vital for all of them will certainly
> step up to the plate to reverse the American efforts. Including
> Australia, which has signed an agreement with the Chinese CNOCC for the
> exploitation of natural gas.
>
>     When he opened the spigots to capitalism, Deng whispered this:
> "What difference does it make whether the cat is black or white, as
> long as it catches the mouse." And that, without any cheese.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>     Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie
> Thatcher.
>