International Affairs

I started to respond to one of the comments in Ralf’s entry, but it got out of hand. Besides, that savage Anglo-Saxon capitalism has me working my flabby butt off and I haven’t been posting.

There is no reason to doubt that the Muslims will successfully integrate, given the chance. The US had its own “unassimilable” religious minority; poor, ignorant, violent, and superstitious; resistant to the civilizing norms of society; an alien culture that could never be compatible with ours. I am speaking, of course, of the Irish Catholics who arrived in great numbers after the famines of the 1840’s. Their gangs and their riots inspired widespread fear. They were suspected, with some reason, of forming a potential fifth column. In reaction, a nativist political party gained power in several states and cities, which is more than Le Pen has been able to do. Among others, there was a Know-Nothing mayor of Chicago, Levi Boone.

Americans have a bad habit of lecturing the rest of the world on the virtues of assimilation. In doing this, we are demonstrating the blessings of pragmatism and a short memory. We learned to assimilate because we had to, and have forgotten that it ever was otherwise. Now it seems perfectly unremarkable, at least as far as past successes are concerned (there are several incomplete projects, of course). My own ancestors got here some 300 years later than the Pilgrim Fathers, but they are my Pilgrim Fathers now, too. Sooner or later, France will have to raise a generation of French Muslims who will speak without irony of “nos ancêtres les Gaulois.”

Bill Rice at Dawn’s Early Light recently considered Sino-Japanese energy geopolitics. While the disputes over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea are well-known, less well-known but, as Bill points out, equally contentious, are the disputes over gas fields in the East China Sea:

What is at stake is over 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves. China already has developed stations at Chunxiao (Shirakaba), Duanqiao (Kusunoki) and Tianwaitian (Kashi) that are starting this month to produce natural gas. Japan had floated a proposal to jointly develop the sites, but only after China agreeing to stop drilling and submit to Japan its internal surveys of where the natural gas is coming from (See the Asia Times Online file for an in depth analysis).

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Most of you are more than familiar with my views on international affairs and politics, and some politely disagree with me. Looking forward, however, I think there are things that people of good will on both sides can work on together. The Economist reports on ripples of liberalism in the Middle East, using the recent Egyptian elections as the backdrop. What needs to be pointed out is the following:

Most Arab reformers warm much more to the caustic critiques of American filmmaker Michael Moore than to George Bush’s “forward strategy of freedom”. Most believe that when push comes to shove, America’s thirst for oil will exceed its democratic principles.

Yet there is little doubt that American influence has helped to tip the balance of regional forces in favour of reform. A coincidence, perhaps, but it was shortly after Condoleezza Rice, America’s secretary of state, abruptly cancelled a scheduled visit to Egypt that Mr Mubarak announced his initiative to hold contested presidential elections. Later, speaking in Cairo, Ms Rice won over even a few Egyptian sceptics by appealing to their pride, suggesting that their country should lead the region in political progress as it has led before in pursuing peace. Lebanon’s dramatic overthrow of veiled Syrian rule this spring was only made possible by American-led moves to de-claw and isolate Syria’s regime. And these moves were made possible, in turn, by the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

There are lessons there for everyone. You don’t have to have agreed with the reasons, whether official or publicly promoted, for the war in Iraq. But you can take a look at some of what’s been going on, and see an opportunity. For the Democrats in particular, this is a chance to sell themselves as the party most naturally suited in helping sclertoic autocracies face the democratic future. After all, it’s in their very party name.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

Modernization has apparently driven prices up in China, so that many of its Taiwanese investors are thinking of pulling out. Don Lee of the Los Angeles Times reports:

Thousands of foreign businesspeople, primarily Taiwanese, helped turn this southern Chinese city into one of the world’s busiest export manufacturing centers.

Now, amid rising wage and pension costs, energy shortages, tighter government regulation, traffic bottlenecks and other concerns, some of them are starting to look elsewhere. Their restlessness reflects a dark side to China’s economic boom, as growth pains and other issues prompt companies to reconsider starting up or expanding in China.

Chang Han Wen is having second thoughts. He came here from Taiwan in early 1991 when the area was still largely farmland, launching a shoe assembly line with 200 workers. He has since opened five factories, including three shoe plants that employ 3,000 people and produce 1.5 million pairs of specialty boots and high-end shoes a year for export to the United States and Europe.

But his sixth plant, a garment operation, sits empty. Chang has indefinitely postponed its opening, anxious about China’s tense trade relations with the West and the threat of more quotas that would limit clothing exports. That’s only part of his worries.

This year Dongguan’s minimum wage jumped more than 27%. Even with the increase, employers are struggling with worker shortages. Government inspectors are making the rounds at factories, enforcing work-hour rules and pension contributions that officials paid little attention to in the past. Electricity is in short supply, as is fuel.

All in all, Chang says, things have gotten so much tougher that his next investment may be in Vietnam, where many Taiwanese have gone.

“For manufacturers here, the golden period has passed,” he said.

China has often tried dangling the carrot of lower capital costs to attract foreign investment from Taiwan. Beyond the obvious uses for modernization, this also tied Taiwanese business closely to Chinese interests, and made Taiwanese investors in the mainland pliable to suggestions that they rein in nascent “independence” programs. Now that capital flight is happening, the Communists may be losing even more influence in Taiwanese politics.

However, supporters of Taiwanese independence should be careful. Loss of such influence may indicate a willingness on Beijing’s part to push its political agenda “by other means”, as Clausewitz would have appreciated.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds and Naruwan Formosa]

Fast on the heels of yet another Republican-led attempt to withhold membership dues partially, should the UN not address some reforms that are of keen interest to its biggest underwriter, a bunch of former US ambassadors to the UN are saying, essentially, that pay should not be based on performance:

Eight former U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations sent a letter on Tuesday urging congressional leaders to reject a bill that would link reform of the world body to payment of American dues, warning that the legislation could actually strengthen opponents of reform.

The UN groupies cite the following precedence:

The United States is the biggest financial contributor to the United Nations, paying about 22 percent of its annual $2 billion general budget. After the U.S. government fell millions of dollars behind in arrears in the late 1990s, the United States almost lost its voting rights in the General Assembly.

The letter said that withholding money again would “create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform.”

“The fact is reforms cost money and withholding dues impair the U.N.’s ability to make the changes needed,” it letter said.

So, let me get this straight: If the US pays up, reform will be had? Really? We’ve been paying for about 60 years now. Where’s the reform? The UN fell from the vision of its founders pretty much as soon as Uncle Joe decided that Eastern Europeans didn’t need human rights. “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung had no use for the UN, and the UN participated in the little chaos he started only because the Soviets thought an absence meant a veto, and Uncle Sam led the countercharge. The UN did nothing while Fidel flirted with fortune. The UN stood by while Israel was invaded on more than one occasion, and at every turn denounced Israel for fighting back. The UN did nothing for Afghanistan. Nothing for Tibet. Nothing for Kashmir. Nothing for Northern Ireland. Nothing for anyone unless some plucky nation had the courage to lead, like the Americans in Korea, the Americans in Kuwait, and the Australians in East Timor.

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