The second most powerful person in the world flew in yesterday. Not
to Heathrow, but to Birmingham Airport. No red carpet. No Prime
Minister to greet him (nor even Deputy Prime Minister, nor even
Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor even anybody governmental at all).
No guard of honour by the army with gold braids or even the local
constabulary with silver braids. Just a bunch of seedy-looking
executives from the nearby MG car factory.
After a tour of the factory, he visited William Shakespeare's
birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon and then soliloquized on a garden
seat about his country's reverence for "the greatest writer in the
world". Where he stayed the night I don't know. The local Travel
Lodge perhaps? No, surely not. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham would by
then have bestirred himself and found him a place where at least they
serve a Full English Breakfast.
Which, come to think of it, the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, might
be eating right now as I write this piece. But soon he'll be whisked
down the M1 and then given the full treatment, no doubt. Photos with
David Cameron at the front door of 10 Downing Street and, this
afternoon, tea and biscuits with Queen Elizabeth and the Duke at Buck Palace.
"What on earth are you here for?" David Cameron (or the Queen) will
certainly not be asking him. "Oh, I was just passing by and thought I
would drop in," Wen Jiabao will certainly not be replying.
So I'll have to surmise. Could it be that this isn't a state visit,
but much more important than that? Could it be that David Cameron
was ensconced yesterday somewhere over the Channel with all the other
prime ministers and chancellors of Europe desperately trying to save
the Eurozone? The general strike in Greece tomorrow might bring about
a full-scale collapse of its government and its default -- and
possibly the unpeeling of the Eurozone itself as bond investors flee
the whole show.
But why didn't Wen Jiabao drop into France or Germany? After all, as
a pretext for a visit, those countries no doubt keep the birthplaces
of Voltaire and Goethe in good repair. But I'm being facetious. The
fact is that Premier Wen has been back and forth between Beijing and
Berlin and Paris many times in the last six months, telling them that
China wants the Eurozone to survive. At least that's what China has
been letting known publicly -- and increasingly so recently.
No doubt President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel have got the message
by now. But perhaps David Cameron has been . . . well . . just a
little too obstreperous recently. Although England is not in the
Eurozone itself, it's in the European Union. It's also a member of
the IMF. Either way, we'll have to fork out yet more billions of
pounds if Greece is bailed out with yet more loans. And, increasingly
aware of his own rocky political tenure here, Cameron has been
sounding off recently that we're not going to play ball.
Oh, and I almost forgot! Premier Wen also had a chat with BBC TV's
business editor, Robert Peston, yesterday. In effect, and in the
nicest possible diplomatic language, Wen was saying that if only the
UK government would sort itself out a bit then we could have oodles
and oodles . . . and oodles . . . of engineering exports to China. We
could be as prosperous as Germany! It was the gentlest slap on
Cameron's wrist. Later this morning, and inside 10 Downing Street,
Wen will probably deliver a full-scale bollocking. (A crude word, I'm
afraid, but the exact one for this occasion.)
China needs the Eurozone to survive. It's in its interest to -- at
least for a few years longer while its renminbi (yuan) rises to
parity with the euro and the dollar. My guess is that David Cameron
will scuttle back to Europe later today with a completely changed
attitude. My guess also is that Greece's Prime Minister will send
Evangelos Venizelos, his strong-man finance minister (and recent
minister of defence) back to Athens to get the troops out and make
sure that tomorrow's rioting crowds don't tumble into their
Parliament and take over -- as they did in Georgia not so long ago (2003).
Will I be right? Will Greece be saved for the Eurozone (even if, as
has happened before in Greece, it will actually become a military
dictatorship in the guise of a civilian administration)? As an old
has-been industrial chemist I believe in the scientific method --
that any hypotheses worth speaking of must be testable. I'll know tomorrow.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/
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