It is no surprise that China has become such a potent force in the 21st century world. Even Napoleon characterised the country as being a sleeping giant even more in his times of the late 18th and early 19th century. It can easily be argued that China would have assumed its role of a Power in the world far sooner if it had not had a string of poor rulers and policies which have disrupted its economy and led to starvation and millions of deaths. China was a victim of imperialism both in the 19th century from European powers notably the British, French and Germans and in the 20th century from the Japanese conquest of much of the country 1931-45. However, it has long had the largest army in the world and exploded its first atomic bomb in 1964 and its first hydrogen bomb in 1967. It was a superpower alongside the USA and USSR but aside from small conflicts with the USSR which fortunately did not escalate into anything larger, its focus was generally internally, especially when the ideology and internecine fighting of the Cultural Revolution 1966-76 disrupted so much of the economy and society of China.
With the death of Mao Zedong and leaders from the era of the final phase of the revolution of 1945-50, China began to look out into the wider world and effectively became a Communist state with a capitalist economy. Its huge resources notably of workers meant that it was destined to always be a strong player in the world an if it had not been for Mao's insanities it may have reached this position in the 1960s rather than the 1980s and 1990s. What has not changed is the political structure which has overseen this vast economic growth. There has been the liberalisation of things such as where people are allowed to live, necessary to allow the rural-urban migration which has brought cheap workers to the cities though periodically older regulations are enforced to clear out slums. Anyone who has done business in China knows that influence with leading local members of the Chinese Communist Party is vital for achieving anything. This political power over economic activity unsurprisingly, as in so many other states, has led to corruption. Again periodically the corrupt are purged (often facing the death penalty) in some propaganda seeking attempt to reassert the supposed values of Communism but this does nothing to reverse how corruption is an integral part of the economic boom of China. Of course, there is a lot of ingenuity and hard work done in China, most of which was choked off in the past, so it is unsurprising that the economy prospers.
Despite all the economic shifts in China it remains a totalitarian state that Mao would still recognise. The suppression of the Tianamen Square protests in 1989, continued occupation of Tibet, suppression of the Falun Gong religion and of Uighur nationalists are all characteristic of a country unwilling to tolerate any political shift especially from ethnic and religious minorities. People forget that China has 56 ethnic minorities which are highly over-represented in terms of absolute poverty, i.e. earning less than equivalent to US$1 per day. Thus, while people become multi-millionaires in Shanghai, in Xinjiang province they are as poor as in Third World countries. Despite the strength of its military and its vast economy, which is now the second strongest in the world, China continues to pretend somehow that it is a poor, defenceless countries bullied by the old Western imperial states.
This dichotomy between China's real strength and how it expects to be treated in the world has come out on a number of occasions recently. In the 1960s, despite being a Communist superpower, China tried to present itself as being in the 'non-aligned' group of nations. However, it was as happy to spread its ideology, a rural-focused brand of Communism to developing countries, feeling it was more appropriate than the heavy industry focused Soviet Communism. Similarly these days China still portrays itself as a victim of imperialism, though the last imperial forces left in 1945 and even if you count the British and Portuguese leaving Hong Kong and Macao as late as 1997 they have all gone now. Chinese people become indignant if you suggest that actually China is behaving like a (neo-)imperial power. They characterise their investment especially in African states like Zimbabwe and Sudan as being utterly different from the neo-imperialism through investment that the USA, Britain, France and the USSR adopted in the 1970s, when in fact it is no different. Chinese staff supervise Zimbabwean workers on Chinese projects in the country. The Chinese steps to secure raw materials across the world even in developed countries does not differ from the efforts of the UK, France and the USA to secure natural resource supplies. However, always, China says that it is different and is still a victim of imperialism when in fact it is now an imperialist power itself. Do not even mention the Spratly Islands where the imperialism is even more old fashioned.
China is a totalitarian state. People seem to keep forgetting that so it is worthwhile emphasising. It has possibly over 1.6 million prisoners, second only to the USA, with 2.3 million, which has about a quarter as many people. The difference for China is that the 'crimes' of many of these people are political and they are being 're-educated'. Bizarrely unlike the US system that seems to think people cannot be changed, the Chinese prison system believes that they can, though to the bulk of us the methodology would appear like brainwashing and certainly involves torture which the USA has only comparatively recently adopted as a method and then only for its political prisoners. The US population should be utterly ashamed that, as a supposedly liberal democracy, they can be bracketed with a totalitarian regime in this respect. Anyway, China has censorship, it always had. With the expansion of the internet promoted in a large part by the rapid economic growth the country has experienced in the past three decades, this censorship has had to expand to the internet. Singapore has struggled to maintain its censorship system when dealing with the internet. China with its vast resources has been more successful using a combination of electronic means such as the police officers that appear on screen when you access certain websites, to arresting blogging dissidents, to compelling Google to ban the searching of certain phrases. Now, in its hacking into Google accounts of dissidents and the launching of a sophisticated cyber attack the Chinese authorities have even angered Google which is now holding back on introducing a new generation of mobile phones to the country. The Chinese have found that there are sometimes limits even to the powerful renminbi (the Chinese currency often still called the yuan). The Chinese have not said 'well, we are a totalitarian dictatorship, so we censor' again they have whined that they are victims of imperialism. They complain that there is an imbalanced 'global information order' again in favour of the West which is trying to impose its culture on China. In fact China is giving heart to those who want to censor internet activity (of course, leading this is the USA with its desire for a war on terror in all facets) and the UK which has long monitored all email traffic. China whines that it is being bullied, when in fact we are suffering as a result of the dictatorial, suppressive measures it is pressing on the world.
At the recent Copenhagen climate change conference, powerful China was again portraying itself as the weak country in need of support from the supposedly rich West (even though China's economy is now more powerful than all Western states bar the USA). It was seeking financial support for steps to ameliorate the impact of climate change, despite China having US$2.272 trillion in foreign currency reserves in September 2009. This tactic help divert attention from China's appalling record on industrial damage to the environment which has caused poverty and disrupted the lives of millions of its citizens and no doubt contributes heavily to global climate change. The fact that the government ceased traffic flow during the Beijing Olympics because the air pollution was so severe, indicates the impact of China's booming industrial and transport sectors that have barely been affected by the global recession. China should be one of the industrialised states looking to reduce its pollution but instead it whines that it is only a developing country which needs support to do this. The amount of money the USA owes China is sufficient for China to effectively buy the whole US economy and close down every factory and stop every vehicle there, that is not a country which needs help reducing its pollution impact on the world, it is one that needs to be leading the way.
China is immensely strong in so many ways, but it seems constantly to pretend that it is the victim and rebuff any claims that it should comply with international standards on the basis this is bullying by other states. I have not even mentioned its unwillingness to comply with copyright law. There is unsurprisingly, given the nature of the regime, an immense arrogance from China that it can behave with impunity in the global context and that its stated values, i.e. censorship, freedom to exploit people and the environment, imprisonment on issues of conscience, continued occupation of a foreign country, should not even be challenged by the world community. Of course, many powerful states engage in these kinds of policies, but perhaps the irritation with China is that it somehow pretends that it is the best society and that any criticism is based on myths and motivated by a desire to imperially suppress China. It attacks other states for in fact things it is doing itself. I guess this is one reason why we find taking official China's statements so hard. They are both hypocritical and seek to conceal atrocities that we all know are going on beneath an incredibly pathetic line that China is weak and a victim of bullies. All of us who support freedom of thought, contact, communication, conscience, must keep challenging China (as well as the USA, UK and other states that are doing wrong) and one first step is for the Chinese state to actually admit it is a bully, not a victim.
Showing posts with label imperialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label imperialism. Show all posts
Friday, 22 January 2010
Friday, 6 June 2008
The US Empire Expands - 19th Century Imperialism Lives On
Just when I thought we were beginning to witness a bit of maturity in US politics with the primaries for the Democratic candidate which seemed to suggest parts of the American public were putting aside some of the bigotry and narrow-minded attitudes that they have become renowned for, suddenly we find that with the last gasp of his regime George Bush is busily expanding the American empire. Of course the Americans have never liked to be categorised as imperialists because they feel they were the first nation to throw off imperial rule when they defeated the British in the American War of Independence. However, they were really no different from Japan which came from at least a degree of imperial control in the mid-19th century to begin carving out their own empire in China and elsewhere in East Asia. Of course a lot of people assume that imperialism is all about colonies with the country being totally controlled by the imperial power and settlement by that power. The old empires like the British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese did this across the world, but what people forget is that there are many forms of imperialism and it is some of these other forms that the USA carried out and is still, it seems carrying out today. Of course the USA still has clear imperial control over Guam in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean as those countries have their laws made in Washington, but the empire is expanding elsewhere in less controlling forms.
Before looking at different forms of imperialism, it is important to note one issue that I will come back to later that tends to be common to anywhere which is coming under any form of imperial control, that is 'extraterritoriality' which means that if you are from the imperial power or one of its friends, then you are immune to local laws no matter what you do in the country. This applies to all diplomats, but when there is imperialism going on it is extended to soldiers, business people and so on. This is always controversial as it means that people from the imperial state can commit what would be seen as crimes and get away with it or only be punished by the rules of their home country. Having extraterritoriality removed was a goal of Chinese nationalists and Communists right through the first half of the 20th century.
Imperialism breaks first of all into 'informal' and 'formal' imperialism. Informal imperialism is effectively economic dominance of a country and this was what tended to happen to developed societies in the 19th century for example in China, the Ottoman Empire and South America where states had shaken formal imperialism of Spain and Portugal by the 1820s only to come under informal imperialism from Britain and the USA. Informal imperialism is very common nowadays. Developing countries have their economies distorted so that they provide the resources that the Western world needs at cheap prices. Once it was things like fruit, sugar and coffee, increasingly it is becoming bio-fuels. Until they asserted their autonomy in the 1950s-70s even the rich oil countries of the Middle East were under such control. Interestingly like the Japanese 150 years ago, the Chinese are now turning from exploited to exploiters and carrying out informal imperialism not only in Africa but also Australia and Canada. The advantage of informal imperialism is that it is pretty cheap and does not look like imperialism, but this was the form that the British and the Dutch East India Companies began with in the 18th century in India and Indonesia, only later did it become more formal, state-run imperialism. The USA was carrying out informal imperialism in Central and South America from the 1820s onwards and moved into East Asia during the Cold War. Alongside states it ran informally there were ones like Cuba, Panama and the Philippines which it controlled more formally. In China whilst none of the colonial powers conquered the whole country in the 19th century they did rule directly over small areas or particular cities, especially the treaty ports, where their law rather than that of China prevailed.
Formal imperialism is when a country takes over the other country and runs its economy and foreign policy, though as I discuss below this may leave a lot of autonomy in the hands of local elites. There are various grades of formal imperialism.
Spheres of influence: with these you are not far away from informal imperialism. An example was Persia (now Iraq) in the 19th century and up to the end of the Second World War. Neither Russia/USSR or the UK actually took control of Persia but it was accepted that the Russians would be dominant in the North and the British in the South; Russian and British companies would be the ones getting all the contracts and in the case of trouble it would be the Russian or British who would intervene in their respective areas. To some extent the French still have this kind of relationship with much of West Africa and the French military intervenes if there is unrest. The British do this on a smaller scale, as with former colony, Sierra Leone. It is argued that during the Cold War Western Europe was effectively the US sphere of influence and Eastern Europe much more clearly the Soviet sphere of influence.
Dominions: this is a very British mode of imperialism and is often a legacy of tighter control. It is for countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, that were heavily settled by Europeans so that the indigenous cultures almost disappeared and they are now considered 'White' countries. These states though independent in domestic and foreign policy retain the British monarch as their head of state rather than having their own president and they refer
Dependent Territories: these can be defined differently and have a particular technical meaning when talking about the UK. These are countries, often small ones, which effectively cannot subsist without the economic input of the imperial power. They run their own affairs but are heavily dependent on trade with the imperial power and may be compelled to be guided on things like defence and foreign policy. They may also provide military bases for the imperial power. Ironically this is what Cuba had become for the USA before Fidel Castro pulled off the revolution in 1958 and even then the US base at Guantanamo Bay remains a legacy of that imperial relationship that even Castro could not remove.
Protectorates: this was a common form of imperial rule over much of the British and other European empires in the 19th century, notably the Netherlands over Indonesia. It is not as expensive as a full blown colonisation and in theory the protectorate enters into an agreement for protection though in reality it was generally forced. Some people use the supposed voluntary entry into being a protectorate to compare that form of imperialism positively compared to the formation of 'Mandates' by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War which was imposed on these countries when they were removed from control of Germany and allocated to other colonial powers. However, the treatment was much the same in both cases. What distinguishes protectorates and mandates from colonies is that local rulers stay in control, though they have to deal economically with the imperial power like dependent territories and have their defence and foreign policy and often many other policies determined by the imperial state. Large areas of India such as Mysore, Hyderabad, the Rajput States and Baluchistan (now inPakistan) were such protectorates, under local princes rather than direct British control like the rest of India.
Colonies: in the British Empire these became 'Crown Colonies' to designate that control moved from the hands of companies, notably the East India Company which lost control of its parts of India in 1858 and they were run by the British government. The Belgian and German governments were also obliged to take over colonies started by companies in Africa in the late 19th century as it proved impossible for anything less than a state to run colonies. As the name suggests, the aim was generally for settlers from the home country to colonise the imperial territory. This generally happened far less than was expected as people preferred to emigrate to the Americas. However, there were notable exceptions such as South Africa, Kenya, French Indochina and especially Algeria, where by the time of independence 1 out of 9 of the population was European. In colonies the imperial power ran everything replacing government of the country by governors and the military and large chunks of the economy came under direct control of the imperial state. In extreme cases, as with Algeria for France, the colony effectively became part of the metropolitan country; in 1945, 12% of the members of parliament sitting in Paris were elected from the colonies. Other countries did not engage so closely with their colonies, though there were discussions in the 1950s about Malta returning MPs to parliament in London.
Right, so with terms established, why do I think the American Empire is expanding. Well, we all know, as I was predicting last year, that it is in Iraq. This is a country which was under the Ottoman Empire until 1918 but the Germans were attempting informal imperialism there in the 1900s. After 1918 it became a mandate of the British until gaining seemingly gaining independence in 1945 when it became a full member of the United Nations. The British had re-invaded the country in 1941 to suppress uprisings and presumably fearful of the country's oil falling into German hands. As we know the USA invaded Iraq in 1991 following its recapture of Kuwait (a state Iraq had claimed sovereignty over as early as 1961) and then again in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It appeared that there were steps to Iraq again becoming independent, but it seems that it is not the level of independence it had up until 2003. Bush is negotiating for the USA not to just have a single military base in Iraq but 50 bases across the country. In addition US troops would have extraterritoriality but not simply to go about their business but to carry out arrests and military activities without referring to any Iraqi government. This is the kind of power Austria-Hungary asked Serbia to give in July 1914 and the Japanese demanded of China in 1937 which in both cases led to war. It is like the power foreigners had in Japan in the late 19th century which led to unrest in the country and a coup in 1867, the so-called Meiji Restoration. A new twist for the 21st century is that the USA wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet (about 9700 metres). In addition to all this, US companies since the war have been the key economic players in the country and will continue to be so even if this so-called 'Strategic Alliance' is not signed and you can guarantee that the US will have an effective monopoly on sale of Iraqi oil.
Iraq is already a dependent territory of the USA and the agreement would solidify that. The ongoing military presence and the extraterritoriality plus the supposed 'agreement' smacks very much of a protectorate being formed. One could envisage this being 1888 rather than 2008 with the USA having overthrown some local despot, restoring some local elites but effectively running the country as their own. Certainly the influence of any other power, notably Iran, is being excluded. The USA has seen the Middle East as to some extent in its sphere of influence since the Eisenhower Doctrine of the 1950s, but what we are now witnessing is not a kind of 'new imperialism' talked about during the Cold War, this is simply reheated 19th century imperialism. People argued that the Cold War was a natural development in history and when it ended a certain phase was concluded, but to me, it appears that the Cold War was an aberration and in fact there are more continuities between the world in 1908 and 2008 than there ever were between 1948/58/68 even 1978 and today. Predictions of American, Russian (notice their colonial moves on the seabed of the Arctic and the UK doing the same in the mid-Atlantic) and China as dividing up the world seem more accurate now than ever. Imperialism is not dead, we are witnessing it occurring this very moment.
Before looking at different forms of imperialism, it is important to note one issue that I will come back to later that tends to be common to anywhere which is coming under any form of imperial control, that is 'extraterritoriality' which means that if you are from the imperial power or one of its friends, then you are immune to local laws no matter what you do in the country. This applies to all diplomats, but when there is imperialism going on it is extended to soldiers, business people and so on. This is always controversial as it means that people from the imperial state can commit what would be seen as crimes and get away with it or only be punished by the rules of their home country. Having extraterritoriality removed was a goal of Chinese nationalists and Communists right through the first half of the 20th century.
Imperialism breaks first of all into 'informal' and 'formal' imperialism. Informal imperialism is effectively economic dominance of a country and this was what tended to happen to developed societies in the 19th century for example in China, the Ottoman Empire and South America where states had shaken formal imperialism of Spain and Portugal by the 1820s only to come under informal imperialism from Britain and the USA. Informal imperialism is very common nowadays. Developing countries have their economies distorted so that they provide the resources that the Western world needs at cheap prices. Once it was things like fruit, sugar and coffee, increasingly it is becoming bio-fuels. Until they asserted their autonomy in the 1950s-70s even the rich oil countries of the Middle East were under such control. Interestingly like the Japanese 150 years ago, the Chinese are now turning from exploited to exploiters and carrying out informal imperialism not only in Africa but also Australia and Canada. The advantage of informal imperialism is that it is pretty cheap and does not look like imperialism, but this was the form that the British and the Dutch East India Companies began with in the 18th century in India and Indonesia, only later did it become more formal, state-run imperialism. The USA was carrying out informal imperialism in Central and South America from the 1820s onwards and moved into East Asia during the Cold War. Alongside states it ran informally there were ones like Cuba, Panama and the Philippines which it controlled more formally. In China whilst none of the colonial powers conquered the whole country in the 19th century they did rule directly over small areas or particular cities, especially the treaty ports, where their law rather than that of China prevailed.
Formal imperialism is when a country takes over the other country and runs its economy and foreign policy, though as I discuss below this may leave a lot of autonomy in the hands of local elites. There are various grades of formal imperialism.
Spheres of influence: with these you are not far away from informal imperialism. An example was Persia (now Iraq) in the 19th century and up to the end of the Second World War. Neither Russia/USSR or the UK actually took control of Persia but it was accepted that the Russians would be dominant in the North and the British in the South; Russian and British companies would be the ones getting all the contracts and in the case of trouble it would be the Russian or British who would intervene in their respective areas. To some extent the French still have this kind of relationship with much of West Africa and the French military intervenes if there is unrest. The British do this on a smaller scale, as with former colony, Sierra Leone. It is argued that during the Cold War Western Europe was effectively the US sphere of influence and Eastern Europe much more clearly the Soviet sphere of influence.
Dominions: this is a very British mode of imperialism and is often a legacy of tighter control. It is for countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, that were heavily settled by Europeans so that the indigenous cultures almost disappeared and they are now considered 'White' countries. These states though independent in domestic and foreign policy retain the British monarch as their head of state rather than having their own president and they refer
Dependent Territories: these can be defined differently and have a particular technical meaning when talking about the UK. These are countries, often small ones, which effectively cannot subsist without the economic input of the imperial power. They run their own affairs but are heavily dependent on trade with the imperial power and may be compelled to be guided on things like defence and foreign policy. They may also provide military bases for the imperial power. Ironically this is what Cuba had become for the USA before Fidel Castro pulled off the revolution in 1958 and even then the US base at Guantanamo Bay remains a legacy of that imperial relationship that even Castro could not remove.
Protectorates: this was a common form of imperial rule over much of the British and other European empires in the 19th century, notably the Netherlands over Indonesia. It is not as expensive as a full blown colonisation and in theory the protectorate enters into an agreement for protection though in reality it was generally forced. Some people use the supposed voluntary entry into being a protectorate to compare that form of imperialism positively compared to the formation of 'Mandates' by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War which was imposed on these countries when they were removed from control of Germany and allocated to other colonial powers. However, the treatment was much the same in both cases. What distinguishes protectorates and mandates from colonies is that local rulers stay in control, though they have to deal economically with the imperial power like dependent territories and have their defence and foreign policy and often many other policies determined by the imperial state. Large areas of India such as Mysore, Hyderabad, the Rajput States and Baluchistan (now inPakistan) were such protectorates, under local princes rather than direct British control like the rest of India.
Colonies: in the British Empire these became 'Crown Colonies' to designate that control moved from the hands of companies, notably the East India Company which lost control of its parts of India in 1858 and they were run by the British government. The Belgian and German governments were also obliged to take over colonies started by companies in Africa in the late 19th century as it proved impossible for anything less than a state to run colonies. As the name suggests, the aim was generally for settlers from the home country to colonise the imperial territory. This generally happened far less than was expected as people preferred to emigrate to the Americas. However, there were notable exceptions such as South Africa, Kenya, French Indochina and especially Algeria, where by the time of independence 1 out of 9 of the population was European. In colonies the imperial power ran everything replacing government of the country by governors and the military and large chunks of the economy came under direct control of the imperial state. In extreme cases, as with Algeria for France, the colony effectively became part of the metropolitan country; in 1945, 12% of the members of parliament sitting in Paris were elected from the colonies. Other countries did not engage so closely with their colonies, though there were discussions in the 1950s about Malta returning MPs to parliament in London.
Right, so with terms established, why do I think the American Empire is expanding. Well, we all know, as I was predicting last year, that it is in Iraq. This is a country which was under the Ottoman Empire until 1918 but the Germans were attempting informal imperialism there in the 1900s. After 1918 it became a mandate of the British until gaining seemingly gaining independence in 1945 when it became a full member of the United Nations. The British had re-invaded the country in 1941 to suppress uprisings and presumably fearful of the country's oil falling into German hands. As we know the USA invaded Iraq in 1991 following its recapture of Kuwait (a state Iraq had claimed sovereignty over as early as 1961) and then again in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It appeared that there were steps to Iraq again becoming independent, but it seems that it is not the level of independence it had up until 2003. Bush is negotiating for the USA not to just have a single military base in Iraq but 50 bases across the country. In addition US troops would have extraterritoriality but not simply to go about their business but to carry out arrests and military activities without referring to any Iraqi government. This is the kind of power Austria-Hungary asked Serbia to give in July 1914 and the Japanese demanded of China in 1937 which in both cases led to war. It is like the power foreigners had in Japan in the late 19th century which led to unrest in the country and a coup in 1867, the so-called Meiji Restoration. A new twist for the 21st century is that the USA wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet (about 9700 metres). In addition to all this, US companies since the war have been the key economic players in the country and will continue to be so even if this so-called 'Strategic Alliance' is not signed and you can guarantee that the US will have an effective monopoly on sale of Iraqi oil.
Iraq is already a dependent territory of the USA and the agreement would solidify that. The ongoing military presence and the extraterritoriality plus the supposed 'agreement' smacks very much of a protectorate being formed. One could envisage this being 1888 rather than 2008 with the USA having overthrown some local despot, restoring some local elites but effectively running the country as their own. Certainly the influence of any other power, notably Iran, is being excluded. The USA has seen the Middle East as to some extent in its sphere of influence since the Eisenhower Doctrine of the 1950s, but what we are now witnessing is not a kind of 'new imperialism' talked about during the Cold War, this is simply reheated 19th century imperialism. People argued that the Cold War was a natural development in history and when it ended a certain phase was concluded, but to me, it appears that the Cold War was an aberration and in fact there are more continuities between the world in 1908 and 2008 than there ever were between 1948/58/68 even 1978 and today. Predictions of American, Russian (notice their colonial moves on the seabed of the Arctic and the UK doing the same in the mid-Atlantic) and China as dividing up the world seem more accurate now than ever. Imperialism is not dead, we are witnessing it occurring this very moment.
Friday, 8 June 2007
The G8 - the Imperial Powers continue to meet
When I began this blog I had so much in me that I was furious or disappointed about and that I wanted to get out of my system. A month on I seem to expelled so much of it from me. I can understand why the average life of a blog is 3 months because that gives you time to send off all the things that have been bugging you. Maybe, also, it is a consequence of the time of the year, what journalists used to call the 'silly season'. Also we are in limbo, Blair has left but he is still here and so without current pricks from the advance of dictatorship in the UK or other behaviour to make me indignant, my fuel source wanes. I did find out this week that there is no point trying to us a mobile phone on the train between Sheffield and Leeds as you can get no signal at all. Just in case you happen to be travelling that way. This was even the case on a Virgin Trains train which claimed to have better connectivity. Anyway, that is hardly an issue to form the basis of overthrowing the government!
It is a time for conferences and the most noticeable one is the G8 summit. It is interesting that more attention is paid to this than anything that ever goes on at the United Nations. The G8 are the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada. It used to be the G7 until Russia abandoned Communism. Aside from Canada, the members of the organisation are the same as if you had assembled the leading imperial powers in 1907. I think this reinforces my point made in an earlier post, that views of the world being divided between the empires put forward before the First World War retain relevance today. Personally I have always argued that the Second World War and the Cold War was like putting a 'freeze frame' on developments in the world and with the end of the Cold War this came off and we are back to the issues of the Edwardian period (strictly 1901-10, but usually seen as stretching to 1914). Some argue that the ideologies of the Cold War simply concealed a much longer term tension between the two continental powers Russia and the USA, going back to the 1860s, particularly over control of the third - China.
It is more than likely that China will become the ninth power to join the G8, not least because it is so economically tied to the USA. The USA is in billions of dollars of debt to China for things it has imported. In turn China is seeking to invest in the USA as it already has in Canada and Australia as well as in Africa and South-East Asia seeking raw materials. As at the end of the 19th century, the USA portrays itself as being democratic in the face of Russia's non-democratic perspective. In turn Russia feels weak and seeks to reinforce its position by blustering militarily.
In some ways the G8 wield the powers over other parts of the world that their predecessors did. For example, the fate of millions in Africa is still determined by them. Who gets AIDS drugs, what levels of debt will countries face, who will be sold arms? All of these things have parallel to the imperial period. Climate change is often presented as something new, but those of the 19th century with their factory filled cities knew about it. Rules about fires in cities like London date back centuries. People since the Stone Age have been witnessing deforestation and particularly since the 18th century saw industrial revolutions. The imperial powers, despite concepts such as the 'white man's burden' in that they should contribute something to the developing countries, have mainly focused on pushing their economies forward and that remains the issue today. This is the key reason why Bush remains hesitant on doing anything regarding emissions.
Given the approach Al Gore has adopted on climate change and his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006), it is an interesting to speculate on the 'what if?' of if he had scraped sufficient votes in 2000 to have become president. My guess is that he would have been tied down heavily by US industry not to pursue as strong restrictions as he now advocates. The twist of this 'what if?' may not be played out yet. Sitting here in 2047 we may say 'well wasn't it a good thing Gore lost the presidency because he was able to make far greater an impact on climate change than if he had done'.
We have 8 leaders now assembled, they seem powerful and probably are more so than another selection of 8 leaders one might pick (there are some candidates such as Brazil, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, India and certainly China who would probably outrank countries like Italy and Canada in terms of 'power') and yet, do they truly hold power? I would argue no. Some have more power than they have the intelligence to use, notably Bush. However, the others are shackled by big business, its wealth, its connections. Even when they have the foresight, understanding and will to bring about change such as reducing global poverty, developing world debt or to provide reasonably priced drugs, they often cannot. Their abilities to act are hampered by business leaders who run companies that have held such power now for over 100 years and have gone through wars often with minimal harm. Imperialism is still around, but note as V.I. Lenin suggested, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalisms, hence it is the capitalists, not the politicians, who are the highest imperialists.
Coming all rather old school there at the end, which was unexpected. Maybe anti-globalisation is much older than current campaigners and myself think and so may the responses are older too? I will give this some thought.
It is a time for conferences and the most noticeable one is the G8 summit. It is interesting that more attention is paid to this than anything that ever goes on at the United Nations. The G8 are the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada. It used to be the G7 until Russia abandoned Communism. Aside from Canada, the members of the organisation are the same as if you had assembled the leading imperial powers in 1907. I think this reinforces my point made in an earlier post, that views of the world being divided between the empires put forward before the First World War retain relevance today. Personally I have always argued that the Second World War and the Cold War was like putting a 'freeze frame' on developments in the world and with the end of the Cold War this came off and we are back to the issues of the Edwardian period (strictly 1901-10, but usually seen as stretching to 1914). Some argue that the ideologies of the Cold War simply concealed a much longer term tension between the two continental powers Russia and the USA, going back to the 1860s, particularly over control of the third - China.
It is more than likely that China will become the ninth power to join the G8, not least because it is so economically tied to the USA. The USA is in billions of dollars of debt to China for things it has imported. In turn China is seeking to invest in the USA as it already has in Canada and Australia as well as in Africa and South-East Asia seeking raw materials. As at the end of the 19th century, the USA portrays itself as being democratic in the face of Russia's non-democratic perspective. In turn Russia feels weak and seeks to reinforce its position by blustering militarily.
In some ways the G8 wield the powers over other parts of the world that their predecessors did. For example, the fate of millions in Africa is still determined by them. Who gets AIDS drugs, what levels of debt will countries face, who will be sold arms? All of these things have parallel to the imperial period. Climate change is often presented as something new, but those of the 19th century with their factory filled cities knew about it. Rules about fires in cities like London date back centuries. People since the Stone Age have been witnessing deforestation and particularly since the 18th century saw industrial revolutions. The imperial powers, despite concepts such as the 'white man's burden' in that they should contribute something to the developing countries, have mainly focused on pushing their economies forward and that remains the issue today. This is the key reason why Bush remains hesitant on doing anything regarding emissions.
Given the approach Al Gore has adopted on climate change and his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006), it is an interesting to speculate on the 'what if?' of if he had scraped sufficient votes in 2000 to have become president. My guess is that he would have been tied down heavily by US industry not to pursue as strong restrictions as he now advocates. The twist of this 'what if?' may not be played out yet. Sitting here in 2047 we may say 'well wasn't it a good thing Gore lost the presidency because he was able to make far greater an impact on climate change than if he had done'.
We have 8 leaders now assembled, they seem powerful and probably are more so than another selection of 8 leaders one might pick (there are some candidates such as Brazil, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, India and certainly China who would probably outrank countries like Italy and Canada in terms of 'power') and yet, do they truly hold power? I would argue no. Some have more power than they have the intelligence to use, notably Bush. However, the others are shackled by big business, its wealth, its connections. Even when they have the foresight, understanding and will to bring about change such as reducing global poverty, developing world debt or to provide reasonably priced drugs, they often cannot. Their abilities to act are hampered by business leaders who run companies that have held such power now for over 100 years and have gone through wars often with minimal harm. Imperialism is still around, but note as V.I. Lenin suggested, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalisms, hence it is the capitalists, not the politicians, who are the highest imperialists.
Coming all rather old school there at the end, which was unexpected. Maybe anti-globalisation is much older than current campaigners and myself think and so may the responses are older too? I will give this some thought.
Friday, 4 May 2007
Oil, what's it good for? War!
There are a lot of people blogging about current events in the Gulf region of the Middle East so I thought I would add my view. Thinking over it, my perspective now seems pretty old fashioned, probably back to the late 1910s, though surfing around it seems that in the age of globalisation, such ideas are coming back in fashion.
So, here is my take on why the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 was not for defeating terrorism (more on how and how not to respond to terrorism in later postings) nor to overthrow a dictator (the USA has put in place and sustained so many dictators it seems perverse to pick one to remove, or maybe like Noriega in the 1980s he just came up in this decade's 'who shall we depose' lucky dip at the White House), but to get control of the 5th largest oil reserves in the world. US interest in the Gulf region goes back to before the First World War, when battleships moved from being coal to oil powered, but US policy only really began to be directed that way (a few decades after the British) with the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957. That was in the context of the Cold War and it was supposedly about defending the Middle East from Communist intervention, this was not simply about ideology, it was about a time when the USA's own oil was becoming expensive to extract and drying up and yet US fuel consumption was rocketing in the prosperous 1950s. Whilst the doctrine's aggressive approach was shelved in 1959 recently it seems to have been dusted off. To some extent the increase in Venezuelan oil which is short haul to the USA made it unnecessary. Venezuela under dictator Juan Vincente Gomez and later the pact between the AD and COPEI parties from 1958 onwards which meant a safe supply of oil for the USA.
The big shock to the western world over oil came in 1973 when Middle Eastern oil producers quadrupled prices as a way to put pressure on the USA and certain European countries not to back Israel, which despite expectations was proving hard to rub out. The price rise ended the post-war economic boom and led to the inflation and unemployment of the 1970s. The fear was that most of the oil came from 'unstable' states in the Middle East and Africa (notably Nigeria which had suffered a bitter civil war). Fortunately for the Americans they got on well with the owners of the largest reserves, Saudi Arabia and stability was soon returned to the region. They supported what was basically a monarchical state medieval in outlook, as they and the British do today. Though the vast oil company profits were reduced a little and more money went to the Saudis and other Middle Eastern leaders, the oil companies remained richer than many countries in the world.
Why then in the 2000s was all of this insufficient? Well, instability from the US perspective is spreading. In 1979 they lost the pro-western Shah's government in Iran. Iraq remained an ally during the Cold War, but when that ended it was no longer necessary; in addition it has three as yet untapped oil fields. Saudi Arabia What has changed in particular in the last decade is the increased demand, especially from China which has a population four times larger than the USA and its demand for fuel is rising. China has been making investments in raw materials across the world from Australia, Indonesia (also a big oil producer), Canada (also has certain oil reserves) and into Africa, buying influence and the fuel it needs.
Another US policy doctrine was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 which said that Central and South America was out of bounds for any other Power, bar the USA and over the years the Americans have contested intervention there, especially from the USSR. Since the start of the Cold War the policy has been focused on keeping out 'outside' ideologies as well as other countries, notably Socialism and Communism or even local nationalist flavoured populism which seems to offer the people a little something and can be tarred with the Communist brush. Now, Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1998 he began moving the country down a left-wing path. In the past as in Guatemala 1953-4 and in Chile 1973 the US government and US corporations such as United Fruit and ITT has intervened in Latin American countries to head off nationalisation of their assets through staging coups. Chavez has faced general strikes an approach tried in Chile to oust Allende in 1973, in that case they were successful and led to Allende's death and a period of dicatorship under General Pinochet. Experts behind US interventions in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s had been advising those who tried to pull off a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002. Anyway, with a left-wing government in Venezuela which is unsurprisingly unsympathetic to the USA, the Americans are concerned that another prime oil supply is going to be limited or cut off for them.
President George W. Bush effectively admitted this need for oil in April 2005. The USA still has domestic fuel prices lower than much of the world (half what we pay in the UK) and yet huge vehicles are increasing and demanding more. A rise in fuel would shoot inflation up very rapidly and there is the spectre of a depression hanging over Bush's shoulder, especially given its budget deficit, so as in the 1920s a depression or fuel price rise affecting the rest of the world will also come to haunt the USA even if it avoids a local depression.
At the top I said these ideas date to the 1910s and this is because of Vladimir Lenin's book of 1916 'Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism' though the man who lay down the foundations was J.A. Hobson in 'Imperialism, a Study' (1902) though he tends to get forgotten. Anyway, the argument was at the start of the 20th century there were very few countries outside Europe which were not ruled either formally or informally by one of the European powers, the USA or Japan. Even supposedly independent states like Argentina, had their economies run by other states, in this case, the UK. So the portrayal of the world was that there would be completing blocs of power across the world with developed nations taking raw materials from their imperial territories and selling manufactured items back to them. Of course the blocs would shift over time and in the 1900s it was the USA, Germany and Japan who were rising in power to challenge the more established British, French and Russians. The argument is 100 years on little has changed. The Cold War provided an interlude when military power over-ruled economic power, but things are now back to the early 20th century system with economic penetration the key weapon. Germany, Britain and France are all part of the EU itself a bloc, the USA, Japan and to a lesser extent Russia are still there. China is shaking off its status as a territory for colonial penetration and becoming an economic power to match the military power it built up during the Cold War. So, the war in Iraq is rather like a move on a game of 'Risk' done simply to secure resources (and markets too, as many US companies are making millions rebuilding Iraq too). The tragedy is that it is not plastic pieces or a computer graphic eliminated in the 'play' rather people's lives and futures as they are used like atoms on the pawns that are their countries.
So, here is my take on why the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 was not for defeating terrorism (more on how and how not to respond to terrorism in later postings) nor to overthrow a dictator (the USA has put in place and sustained so many dictators it seems perverse to pick one to remove, or maybe like Noriega in the 1980s he just came up in this decade's 'who shall we depose' lucky dip at the White House), but to get control of the 5th largest oil reserves in the world. US interest in the Gulf region goes back to before the First World War, when battleships moved from being coal to oil powered, but US policy only really began to be directed that way (a few decades after the British) with the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957. That was in the context of the Cold War and it was supposedly about defending the Middle East from Communist intervention, this was not simply about ideology, it was about a time when the USA's own oil was becoming expensive to extract and drying up and yet US fuel consumption was rocketing in the prosperous 1950s. Whilst the doctrine's aggressive approach was shelved in 1959 recently it seems to have been dusted off. To some extent the increase in Venezuelan oil which is short haul to the USA made it unnecessary. Venezuela under dictator Juan Vincente Gomez and later the pact between the AD and COPEI parties from 1958 onwards which meant a safe supply of oil for the USA.
The big shock to the western world over oil came in 1973 when Middle Eastern oil producers quadrupled prices as a way to put pressure on the USA and certain European countries not to back Israel, which despite expectations was proving hard to rub out. The price rise ended the post-war economic boom and led to the inflation and unemployment of the 1970s. The fear was that most of the oil came from 'unstable' states in the Middle East and Africa (notably Nigeria which had suffered a bitter civil war). Fortunately for the Americans they got on well with the owners of the largest reserves, Saudi Arabia and stability was soon returned to the region. They supported what was basically a monarchical state medieval in outlook, as they and the British do today. Though the vast oil company profits were reduced a little and more money went to the Saudis and other Middle Eastern leaders, the oil companies remained richer than many countries in the world.
Why then in the 2000s was all of this insufficient? Well, instability from the US perspective is spreading. In 1979 they lost the pro-western Shah's government in Iran. Iraq remained an ally during the Cold War, but when that ended it was no longer necessary; in addition it has three as yet untapped oil fields. Saudi Arabia What has changed in particular in the last decade is the increased demand, especially from China which has a population four times larger than the USA and its demand for fuel is rising. China has been making investments in raw materials across the world from Australia, Indonesia (also a big oil producer), Canada (also has certain oil reserves) and into Africa, buying influence and the fuel it needs.
Another US policy doctrine was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 which said that Central and South America was out of bounds for any other Power, bar the USA and over the years the Americans have contested intervention there, especially from the USSR. Since the start of the Cold War the policy has been focused on keeping out 'outside' ideologies as well as other countries, notably Socialism and Communism or even local nationalist flavoured populism which seems to offer the people a little something and can be tarred with the Communist brush. Now, Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1998 he began moving the country down a left-wing path. In the past as in Guatemala 1953-4 and in Chile 1973 the US government and US corporations such as United Fruit and ITT has intervened in Latin American countries to head off nationalisation of their assets through staging coups. Chavez has faced general strikes an approach tried in Chile to oust Allende in 1973, in that case they were successful and led to Allende's death and a period of dicatorship under General Pinochet. Experts behind US interventions in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s had been advising those who tried to pull off a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002. Anyway, with a left-wing government in Venezuela which is unsurprisingly unsympathetic to the USA, the Americans are concerned that another prime oil supply is going to be limited or cut off for them.
President George W. Bush effectively admitted this need for oil in April 2005. The USA still has domestic fuel prices lower than much of the world (half what we pay in the UK) and yet huge vehicles are increasing and demanding more. A rise in fuel would shoot inflation up very rapidly and there is the spectre of a depression hanging over Bush's shoulder, especially given its budget deficit, so as in the 1920s a depression or fuel price rise affecting the rest of the world will also come to haunt the USA even if it avoids a local depression.
At the top I said these ideas date to the 1910s and this is because of Vladimir Lenin's book of 1916 'Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism' though the man who lay down the foundations was J.A. Hobson in 'Imperialism, a Study' (1902) though he tends to get forgotten. Anyway, the argument was at the start of the 20th century there were very few countries outside Europe which were not ruled either formally or informally by one of the European powers, the USA or Japan. Even supposedly independent states like Argentina, had their economies run by other states, in this case, the UK. So the portrayal of the world was that there would be completing blocs of power across the world with developed nations taking raw materials from their imperial territories and selling manufactured items back to them. Of course the blocs would shift over time and in the 1900s it was the USA, Germany and Japan who were rising in power to challenge the more established British, French and Russians. The argument is 100 years on little has changed. The Cold War provided an interlude when military power over-ruled economic power, but things are now back to the early 20th century system with economic penetration the key weapon. Germany, Britain and France are all part of the EU itself a bloc, the USA, Japan and to a lesser extent Russia are still there. China is shaking off its status as a territory for colonial penetration and becoming an economic power to match the military power it built up during the Cold War. So, the war in Iraq is rather like a move on a game of 'Risk' done simply to secure resources (and markets too, as many US companies are making millions rebuilding Iraq too). The tragedy is that it is not plastic pieces or a computer graphic eliminated in the 'play' rather people's lives and futures as they are used like atoms on the pawns that are their countries.
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