Anxious eagle , patient dragon

The thunders of the coming chill

The recent declarations by president Obama during the recent ASEAN summit implying that “America is back” is reminiscent of an ageing rock star who after conquering the World with his voice had given in to inertia , leisure , drugs and booze and had held himself very firmly in the clutches of hubris and arrogance. Suddenly a new youngster arises in the horizon and the ageing rock star has to swing back into action, if only to redeem himself in his own eyes.

This particular metaphor of an ageing rock star suits the recent American exhortations against the rising China very aptly. America after her victory in the cold war took a break from observing mundane World events by thinking that the wheels of history had come to a standstill.

America probably thought as a global sheriff, the rest of the World would continue to put up with her “norms and regulations” till “the kingdom come”. However, history had other ideas.

If 9/11 did challenge American assumptions of eternal security at home, the rise of China makes her feel her global economic overlord ship being threatened.

After the shock of 9/11, America quickly went to action in Iraq and Afghanistan, convinced that she could rebuild the region into “peaceful democracies” as she did after the conclusion of the Second World War.

A decade on from the events of 9/11 West Asia has defied American wish. The recent revolutions notwithstanding one thing is clear from the events in the Muslim World , the people in this extremely diverse and complex region wants to live according to their own ideals and identities and not by the allure of any models that America thinks best fits the region.

In the meantime, China has marched forward by taking giant leaps throughout the decade. China is the fastest growing economy in the World and soon to be predicted to overtake America, thereby ensuring that for the first time in last three centuries whereby a nation not using the Roman alphabet would be on top of the Economic value chain of the World.

America on the other hand, has seen her own economic dreams and foundations crumbling through the massive amount of debts that she incurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the differences between the have’s and have-not’s expanding ever so surely.

This ensures that America has to lash out to the Chinese that her authority is not yet over. She has to signal to her ever-so weary allies in Asia that she still means business and can make things happen. This explains the recent thunder of Mr. Obama in Asia. As the thunder reverberates across the World, the World is holding its breath as it can feel the coming chill of another cold war.

The man considered “World’s most wanted” till may, 2011 and currently lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean would probably feel justified. After all he was the one to say “everyone goes for the strong horse”


Anxious eagle; patient dragon

Unlike the previous one, this coming cold war has got different motives. In the previous one both the Soviets and their American counterparts believed in remaking the man in their own images. In short, it was a war for ideas and influence.

In this current version of the old product unlike the Soviets, Chinese are not talking about remaking the World in their own images. Historically, China has never ever been very comfortable in remaking other societies. Nurtured in the environment of Confucian thought, China thinks more about securing its material interests and looks for self-sufficiency more than winning over converts and remaking foreign societies.

There was a time when China seriously looked into exporting her ideals beyond her boundaries. That was the time of Chairman Mao. But ever since the death of Chairman Mao, like many of his ideas, China has shelved the idea of missionary propagation of ideals.

Modern China wants to be successful and rich. Instead of thinking of winning converts in foreign lands, China thinks about purchasing their minerals and selling them cheap Chinese goods. China now days talks more in terms of trade surpluses and infrastructure investments and less in terms of “classless society” or “encircling cities through villages”.

It is this recent Chinese success in generating more and more wealth and its never ending pursuit of more wealth and influence that has put the existing superpower of the World in this anxious and ready-to-leap-into-action mode. Henceforth, America talks about ensuring China knows her place in the current global system of rules and regulations and that forces president Obama to place marines in Australia.

If we do a SWOT analysis of both the belligerents in this emerging new cold war, we can see the main weapons of America in her kitty are well… her advanced and superior military weapons systems and her continuous ability to send her armies all over the globe in rapid quick timings ensuring her enemies and adversaries are always on their toes.

America also leads China in terms of cultural attractiveness. Millions of people from all over the World dream to go to American shores and make it big notwithstanding what the tea-partiers and occupiers-of-wall-street have to say. According to a recent report, even a lot of newly-rich in China wants to educate their kids in America.

But China has got a much bigger advantage which counts most in the real World. She has a fat and ever-increasingly fatter checkbook. Even America looks to China as her biggest foreign investor since Chinese own the most number of American government bonds in the whole World.

Another of China’s advantage is that since it does not look into the political belief of its prospective trade partners as long as they are ready to trade on China’s terms, it can trade with almost any one in the World barring a few small statelets in the Pacific who are still prepared to recognize Taiwan as the “real China”.

This allows China to do business with countries that may be at each other’s throats all the time. China can be the biggest trade partner of India at one hand and the “all-weather friend” of Pakistan on the other. China can purchase oil from Iran and at the same time purchase more oil from Saudi Arabia and weapons from Israel. China can be the last port of call for North Korea whereas ink a free-trade pact with South Korea.

America can never do this since unlike China, America still thinks the World in terms of allies and rogue states. As America continues to belief in her own exceptionalism, she would need a never-ending pool of enemies to justify the righteousness of herself to her own eyes.

This is a beneficial factor for China. It can hope to nurture ties with regimes in Sudan, North Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela and Iran whom America sees as the “rule-breakers-of-the-international-system” and continue to get material and strategic benefits from them.

With its fatter checkbook, China can hope to lure rich and talented from the Western world into its fold considering the recent antagonisms facing the super-rich in America and in general rich in the Western world.

If the rich in the Western world decides that their own governments are conspiring to tax them so that the have-nots in the Western world can have some more badly-needed money then they may very well decide to vote with their feet alongside their checkbooks.

There is one country which they will definitely consider at that moment and that is China.

The rich in the Western World if they ever happen to migrate in a country like China will be happy in the sense that they do not need to spend billions of dollars in lobbying efforts as well as keeping the politicians in line in a country like China with no elections.

In short, America is anxious about her future status as the “indispensable nation” while China waits patiently; sharpening her tools and making sure others know it.

The coming cold war will certainly be an interesting affair alike the previous one.