Day of Reckoning by Patrick J. Buchanan

Author:Patrick J. Buchanan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

The Asian Century

With the combined Asian economies now as large as that of the United States or European Union, there is talk of an Asian Economic Community, knitting together East and Southeast Asia. At present levels of GDP and population growth, an AEC could soon become the dominant economic bloc. Could this be the way to an Asian Century?

The difficulties with an AEC are immediately apparent. Who leads?

Japan or China? They are fierce rivals. Would Taiwan be included? India? Russia? Australia and New Zealand? Or would it be a club closed to all but Asians? As the United States holds the security umbrella over Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia, would America be excluded? How might America respond to her exclusion? With the United States running trade deficits of $700 billion to $800 billion—and China and Japan the largest beneficiaries, with a combined $321 billion in trade surpluses with America in 2006—an Asian bloc that excluded the United States would cause a nationalistic reaction on this side of the Pacific. Asia's free nations would be cutting their own throats. For the United States still has the largest single bloc of affluent consumers on earth and the world's most open markets. For Asians to put this at risk would seem suicidal.

Given the fears in India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines of the growing power and hegemonic and territorial ambitions of Beijing, an AEC, with China at its helm, would seem less like an Asian copy of the European Union than a Chinese copy of the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of Hirohito's Japan. Put down an Asian Economic Community leading the world in the twenty-first century as improbable at best.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.