The idea of The People’s Republic of China (PRC,
alternately Zhong Renmin Gonghegou) fleshing out an economic strategy to
benefit its neighbors and the world at large as written by Michael Spence
(China’s international growth agenda, World View, PDI, June 22, 2015) sounds
vastly irreconcilable with how China handled a number of things.
We start with China’s provocative stance regarding
territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
It could be remembered that the US mediated the
Scarborough Standoff between the Philippines and China in 2012 where it
recommended withdrawal of forces locked in a deadly game of chicken. Only the
Philippines withdrew however, in the process losing its grip on its claim. The
Philippines now finds it hard to retake what it lost with effective occupation
still the rule of thumb in any claim dispute. The biggest lost is Chinese
forces driving away hapless Filipino fisher folks from their traditional
fishing grounds in a show of control, consequently exacerbating our poverty
position.
No doubt, the Chinese issued a challenge against
all counter claimants in the Spratley Islands, extending even to the Pivot to
Asia strategy of the US, with its mammoth land reclamation called ‘the great
wall of sand’ in the Mischief reef. While Mr. Spence paints a picture of China
as a sovereign merely ensuring unrestricted trade routes via the modern day
‘silk roads’ (maritime and overland) supposed beneficial to its neighbors and
to the world, its actions, however, definitely say otherwise. As far as can be
seen, the maritime component of the Silk Road is almost at total Chinese
control with the effective occupation of the Paracel islands and the ‘great
wall of sand in place. There already exist restrictive policies in the use of
areas in the immediate vicinity of those controlled by China. As for the
overland component, China and Russia already built a railway system that
connects China with Europe.
As for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB), it would rival the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for sure and there are
suspicions that the race for financial dominance might lead to less than stringent
rules for environment protection and safeguard of habitat. For one, there's the unmitigated pollution in China and another, the substandard products under the 'knock off' variety that China has continuously churned out, remember milk made of melanin and now rice made of plastic resins.
All these actions: the sealing of important trade
routes and casting a global financial net, indicate a Chinese bid for a new
world order with them at the helm.
On one hand, we count as a point, the
Chinese slashing their poverty by as much as 60% in 30 years with an
unprecedented economic growth. But then, the growth experienced came as a
result of western corporate greed. Left on their own, the Chinese economic
advancement originates from their capacity for ‘knock-offs’. With the
saturation of this technology, it lost its capability for expansion; for
providing more jobs. What then happens to the 20% under their poverty line
which translates to over 260m people? And in the event of the occurrence of a
Kondratieff cycle, that stipulates a long haul recession after successive
growth decades, how many will fall back under their poverty line?
Most regard the specter of China’s influence in
geopolitics and world trade like a dark cloud against freedom and the
protection of the environment. I don’t know the end game but there are other
more horrible prospects such as the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square on
a global scale. I can’t imagine a benevolent China.
