China's Friends and Allies
Well, that's us too, of course. We are all friends of China. We are also very ardent supporters of China. Aiding and assisting her in her bid to become the world's pre-eminent producer of universal goods, and in so doing accepting her products, superior and shoddy alike, to enable her to become the economic, political, trade giant she aspires toward. And she's right on track.China's immense population base; hard-working, intelligent, capable and industrious faces production challenges with great alacrity and determination. Yes, there does result, from time to time, problems related to short-cuts in ingredients replacement and product tampering, but these are all inconveniences that will be ironed out in time.
We've kind of worked ourselves into a corner, come to think of it. Who else has the capacity to supply the international community with such an unbelievable array of consumer products? Traditional sources from whom we've bought and traded have been unable to compete with China's clever production methods (low wages) and cheap pricing.
We've become addicted to a plentiful supply of all manner of products, many of which are redundant to our needs, and others which represent necessities to our way of living. We like their availability, and simply adore their uncompetitively low prices. There's an unfortunate spiral of cause and effect in all of this. To be able to produce on such a large scale, there must be a reliable energy source.
China scours the world for materials and energy sources, and she has made for herself some interesting alliances in her ongoing need for greater sources of energy. She has herself, through the traditional use of her own natural resources - coal , hydro - irremediably compromised her geography and her atmosphere and by so doing created a bio-unfriendly environment for her people.
Isn't there an interesting old saying that you know people by the company they keep? Countries such as brutally repressive Burma, aggressively nasty North Korea, genocidal Sudan, world-destabilizing Iran, are all client states of China, those with whom she consorts, gives aid and comfort to. All human-rights abusers, all posing threats to their own people and to the world at large.
One can only wonder how a country with such an incredibly ancient heritage and brilliant culture could descend to that position of moral obloquy. Certainly the Chinese people deserve better than to be represented by a government whose ethical underpinnings have become so degraded...?
Now we learn, at a time when the world is on edge over China's behaviour in Tibet, that she has been caught in a bit of a bind and has confessed to having assisted Iran in that country's quest to fashion nuclear weaponry. Documents seized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in February demonstrate that Beijing handed over blueprint instructions for fashioning uranium metal into warheads. Giving them also priceless scientific knowledge in testing high explosives used in the detonation of radioactive material, and the procuring of dual-use technology.
Amazing, that a darkly inhumane country like North Korea could invest incalculable amounts of state funds into the development of nuclear technology, while its people starve. Astonishing that a country like Pakistan with its avowed dedication to human rights and democracy allowed a rogue scientist to assist in nuclear proliferation in politically and socially unstable countries.
Downright incredible that China felt no compunction whatever in assisting a dynastic theocracy of Islamist thugs to acquire nuclear technology, enabling them to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons. Establishing a close understanding and companion interests between a Communist-irredentist, staunchly irreligious dictatorship and an fundamentalist religious totalitarian state.
Dictators and tyrants will deny on the one hand, accusations of wrong-doing, while on the other, brutally assert whatever activities they engage in, however they rule, is right.
One bartering uranium enrichment technology and the other oil, resulting in a happily bilateral ballistic missile trade-off.
Labels: Technology, Traditions, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, April 03, 2008
<< Home