The just-concluded APEC leaders’ summit in Lima, Peru, was very much the affair of one giant, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), leaving pretty much everybody else to vie for a rare spot in the light.
China’s shadow was especially long this time around as everybody either waited to see what contributions it would make to reviving the slumping global economy or sought to ink various trade or military agreements with it.
Such attention did not go unnoticed, prompting fears among other powers that China may be gaining too much of an advantage and too quickly filling a vacuum in places like South America for their comfort. As the world’s second-biggest economy and a contender for leadership in Asia, Tokyo has been especially sensitive to Beijing’s opportunism, with fears that China’s GDP could surpass Japan’s within as little as 15 years.
Although China has also suffered from the global economic downturn, there is a universal expectation that it is somehow better equipped to deal with the situation, or at least that it can provide harder-hit economies with precious lifelines. More than just its economic clout, however, what has compelled world leaders to turn to China — or to sing in Chinese, as Cuban President Raul Castro did during Hu’s visit to Havana ahead of the summit — is Beijing’s political consistency.
In the churning seas of economic uncertainty, people’s reaction is to seek symbols of stability. With its tight grip on critical sectors of the economy and even more pervasive control over politics, Beijing provides that coveted stability. As a result, countries will be tempted to ignore authoritarian excesses, reports of systematic torture, or findings that Beijing is intensifying its electronic warfare efforts, for a chance to strike deals with it. In the eyes of the world, Beijing’s non-democratic system is nothing to be feared or criticized. It is, rather, an advantage.
Here again, Japan serves as the perfect contrast. As the world’s No. 2 economy, Japan would be the next logical option for countries seeking investment or free-trade pacts such as the one China signed with Peru last week. The main difference, however, is that while China provides a sense of continuity, democracies like Japan are hampered by uncertainty: While Hu was feted and made deals, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso was beleaguered by domestic problems, battling an opposition that is stalling legislation in parliament and calling for snap elections. While Hu did not have to worry about public opinion or electoral challenges, Aso’s every move at the summit was seen as a test of whether he can boost his support as the country prepares for general elections by next September.
It is this uneven playing field — a democracy, with all its systemic red tape and friction, and an authoritarian regime — competing for leadership that prompted Yoshinobu Yamamoto, professor of international politics at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, to say: “China is picking up momentum in terms of diplomacy [while] Japan has been stalled [and] may not be able to return to a competitive position in the race for Asian supremacy.”
Beijing is fully aware of the great opportunities the global financial downturn has created for it. If it ever needed confirmation that the world would be willing to put on blinders to do business with it and that it need not worry about having to mend its ways to meet standards of global citizenship, that confirmation was provided by the manner in which world leaders bent over backwards for a chance to shake Hu’s hand.
In a moment of weakness, it may be tempting to seek China’s help. But the long-term consequences for democracy could be serious.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) has repeatedly voiced concern over the weakening cost competitiveness of its US fabs and challenged the US’ “on-shore” policy of building domestic semiconductor capacity. Yet not once has the government said anything, even though the economy is highly dependent on the chip industry. In the US, the cost of operating a semiconductor factory is at least twice the amount required to operate one in Taiwan, rather than the 50 percent he had previously calculated, Chang said on Thursday last week at a forum arranged by CommonWealth Magazine. He said that he had
The Twenty-Four Histories (中國廿四史) is a collection of official Chinese dynastic histories from Records of the Grand Historian (史記) to the History of the Ming Dynasty (明史) that cover the time from the legendary Yellow Emperor (黃帝) to the Chongzhen Emperor (崇禎), the last Ming emperor. History is written by the victors. These histories are not merely records of the rise and fall of emperors, they also demonstrate the ways in which conquerors embellished their own achievements while deriding those of the conquered. The history written by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is no exception. The PRC presents its
In August 2013, Reuters reported that Beijing had been gaining soft power with investment commitments and trade with countries in Latin America. However, instead of jumping on the chance to make new allies, China stalled requests to establish diplomatic relations with the countries to avoid galling Taiwanese voters. Beijing was also courting then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and the tactic left China with a trump card if cross-strait relations turned cool. China had rebuffed at least five countries’ requests to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, the report said, quoting a China analyst. Honduras could become the ninth diplomatic ally, and also the fifth
OpenAI has announced a major upgrade to the technology that underpins ChatGPT, the seemingly magical online tool that professionals have been using to draft e-mails, write blog posts and more. If you think of ChatGPT as a car, the new language model known as GPT-4 adds a more powerful engine. The old ChatGPT could only read text. The new ChatGPT can look at a photograph of the contents of your fridge and suggest a dinner recipe. The old ChatGPT scored in the 10th percentile on the bar exam. The new one was in the 90th. In the hours since its release,
RSS