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| Sunday, 25 September 2005 |
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Must India invest in 'Great Wall'? Solemn Thoughts by Wendell Solomons The portions of the Great Wall you can see today were built in China in the late 15th Century. Has the time arrived for India to invest in its Great Wall? If such a venture exists in the unconscious mind could it be taken up for real-world study? That prospect arose when I opened my eyes to what the Times of India reflected from Delhi on a US brains-trust group: "A recent study by Foreign Policy, journal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace," concludes that "...apart from Sri Lanka, every one of India's neighbours is a failed or failing state. Bangladesh is in a critical state at 17th place, while Pakistan is at 34th along with Nepal at 35th while Myanmar and Bhutan are at 23rd and 26th places, respectively, with Afghanistan in the dangerous category at 11th place.' "Pakistan is failing on economic, political and military parameters, while Bangladesh remains well in danger levels on numerous criteria. The worry, the study says, is not about states amassing power, it's the absence of it." China's Ming dynasty chose the Great Wall to keep problems of the neighbourhood from flowing in. Could this be repeated by India's `Sethu Samudram' project that will dredge shallows like Hanuman's Bridge so as to deepen the sea wall between India and Sri Lanka? To proceed onwards, would India build Great Walls to keep Kashmir and Bangladesh border problems away? Out in post-World War II Europe, the US-mooted Marshall Plan helped solve problems. That plan helped reconstruct and develop a Germany that was in ruins after Hitler's fascism. Later in time in North America - with no impediment in its way - Canada softened the problem of boat-rocking French-speakers in Quebec. Likewise, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan suffered no obstacle in Asia in their early attempts to develop socially and economically. We see, on the other hand, a different picture of reconstruction and development in post-colonial South Asia. It was one of the regions on which was unleashed the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The omniscient doctor's prescriptions come from the formula book of the man who holds the position of the US Secretary of Finance. The Cabinet position controls the major shareholding of the World Bank. For the part of India, thanks to its large internal market, the nation managed to focus on the development of domestic production. India's market was protected by Customs tariffs. Only too glaringly - industrial protection was the blueprint for success of the generation that evolved America's economic base from the 1860s using the strategy suggested by Henry Carey to President Abraham Lincoln. While most other nations in South Asia fell under the spell of `reconstruction and development' from the book of the US Secretary of Finance, it was India that progressed. In the cover-up for that neo-colonial book, of late arose the "Failed State" concept of US brains-trusts so as to leave out of sight the undermining acts of a powerful predator. There are certain other US actions that we cannot ignore. To becalm India as regards the naked abuse of superpower weaponry in the proclaimed `US Century' - as exhibited for example in Afghanistan and Iraq - the US administration began to woo India by inviting it to joint military exercises. However, India was to draw the same lesson as the legendary editor of Egypt's `Al-Gumuriya' newspaper, Mohammed Haykal. He said that the US is best explained as a huge dog wagging its tail in a china shop. After what befell New Orleans we can tag on: for Mobil Oil, Haliburton, Bechtel and other disguises of one and the same hoary, London-cloned, first-cousin-married finance capital clans. The same finance clan domination helps explain the Susan Sontag quote, "The White race is the cancer of human history." The ruthlessness of attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq say why India moved to reinforce its defence position by entering the Shanghai Co-operation group. This new group contains the rapidly industrialising China and petroleum-rich Russia (with military technology and nuclear-deterrent potential). With India's entry we see a triad that will become, to predators in Asia, a force to reckon with. The grouping is supplemented by four Central Asian nations. It responded to US guile by asking the latter to leave its two recently formed military bases in Central Asia. Let us now return to regional South Asia. Is there a lesson it can draw from the US? The US uses its entry visa system to filter in skilled workers from poor nations. The Brain Drain brings in required professionals (yet, the US also has a leaky borderline that its businessmen use to obtain labour for hazardous and ill-paying occupations). Next, the US uses indebted nations by bullying them into serving as proxies for US strategies. In a next method worthy of mention here, US capital has been moving overseas to use the cheaper labour of poor countries. What was not foreseen was that this also transfers strategic skills overseas. In 2005 India and China began co-operating in computers and thanks to India's software linkup with China's hardware, the two nations will in time exhaust the existing US edge in microprocessors (in transport and other industries, in office and home equipment; all around the economy). Could India pursue similar policies such as: (1) Selective filtering in of specialist labour it desires from neighbouring weaker nations; (2) Maintaining indebtedness in countries of the region so that they could serve as proxies; (3) Setting up industries overseas. Dr. Mahathir Mohamed evoked a memorable idea when he was invited to speak in 2005 by two organisations in Sri Lanka. He said Malaysia had a choice to make. It decided to pursue something other than "Beggar thy neighbour." Malaysia found it wiser to make your neighbour prosper. Dr. Mohamed's strategy bears fitting with US policy (3) that is, setting up business away from home. India, we may also observe, has long selected business investment in neighbouring countries. For the part of countries such as Sri Lanka it not only welcomes Indian investment; its President during a recent visit invited China into joint ventures. Japan called it 'Co-Prosperity' but this process is best not left to fail as a slogan as it did for Japan in the 1940s. Later, through the work of its Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) post-war Japan did author equipment, from the photocopier to the digital camera, that is now standard in many an office or home. This MITI shortlisted and co-operated with Japanese firms that were sent overseas. Through the process, MITI reduced environmental risks such as the disaster spawned by Union Carbide in Bhopal. MITI's experience provides ideas on selective filtering of the best companies into industrial ties in South Asia. Therefore while the process of creating defence safeguards for South Asia gains recognition by predators, favourable experience is very much at hand for consolidating joint, regional, harmonious development. |
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