Karen, At 18:02 30/10/02 -0800, you wrote: >Keith wrote: We live in interesting times! > >Don't we though? So what do you guys think will happen in the Japanese and >Chinese markets/economy when the US attacks Iraq? What about Wall Street? >Will a New Year's timing make any difference?
I'm beginning to wonder whether Bush will, in fact, attack Iraq! In view of his previous bellicosity, Bush has been surprisingly 'philosophical' over the resistance of the French and others to the sort of UN resolution that he originally wanted. I wonder whether Bush has not been panning all this out just for the sake of the current elections -- and that, when they're over, Bush will relax and accept the resumption of inspections as under existing UN resolutions. Incidentally, one of the most perceptive and experienced Labour MPs over here here, Tam Dalyell (who, very courageously and almost single-handedly, vigorously attacked Thatcher's decision to sink the ancient Argentinian battletub, General Belgrano, as it was steaming away from the war zone during the troubles down there), thinks that Bush and Cheney have private commercial designs on Iraqi oil. Unless I misunderstood him speaking on the radio yesterday, Dalyell considers Bush's Presidency as having been an out-and-out "commercial coup" against the American government and people and nothing more. I'm inclined to think he's right, but that 'decent' Republicans (I like to think there are one or two) are afraid to speak their mind about the possible large-scale criminality of Bush/Cheney/Thomas/etc.(with Bush père working the strings behind the scene). But anyway, let me write a few words about China. China has the same sort of NPL [non-performing loans = bad debt] problem in their banking system as does Japan. Whereas Japan can't sort these out without, probably, causing unemployment of something like 5 million, China has about 200-300 million of excess state-industry workers to worry about -- with a further 200-300 million young people in the countryside who will be making their way to the coastal provinces in the next few years. So, despite the immense dynamism of the Chinese in Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shanghai, etc. a lot more jobs are still needed. And they need to be *new* jobs, too, not more of the same sort because the prices of most manufactured products in the affluent parts of China are already being driven downwards by a ferocity of competition that the world has never seen before. China is already well beyond the children toys' stage of industrialisation and is already at the forefront in several advanced technologies (biogenetics, microprocessors, missiles). But this won't be enough to absorb the millions of highly educated engineers and scientists, etc who are now pouring out of Chinese universities. China is going to be increasingly desperate for totally new technologies that we can only dream about at present. Given the immense capacity for innovation that China has shown at least three times previously in its history (300BC, 700AD, 1400AD, with the beginning of a resurgence in the early 1800s that was nipped in the bud by the west) of a quality and diversity far beyond anything comparable elsewhere, then I think that present-day necessity will drive them into new areas of invention very quickly. For example, if Craig Venter's idea of DNA-controlled production systems has any scope (as I strongly believe it does have) then I think we can be sure that the Chinese will jump onto this -- if they have not already done so. Quite apart from the immense advantages of such systems that have already been discussed here and elsewhere, they will have particular attractions for China in view of its immense tracts of desert and mountainous areas -- and they would also help to restrain internal population migrations. The Chinese inherited a very flimsy banking system from former Communist times. If they can hold this together, and truly "let a hundred flowers bloom" as Mao Zedung once promised but didn't deliver, then America (and Europe) is going to be shaken rigid in the next decade or so. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
