David Cameron is cosying up to the Chinese to try and get them to buy British and Obama is in India making the right noises to get them to stock their shelves with things stamped with 'Made in America' on the bottom.
China has just overtaken Japan as the World's second largest economy and Human Rights always takes a back seat when we are in salesman mode. China executing more people each year than the rest of the world combined is conveniently forgotten if we can flog them a few million barrels of whiskey which is one of the biggest exports Cameron is trying to push on them.
Just like the British leader, Obama is obliged to say all the right things to get the Indians signing on the dotted line.
Today, he stated that India should be awarded a place on the permanent members bench in the United Nations. Not sure how that will go down in Pakistan but Pakistan isn't rich so nobody much cares. Come back when you have a few Pakistan rupee's spare.
I'm not convinced about India taking its position as a superpower anytime soon, for one it is one of the largest recipients of aid of anywhere around the world.
The 2009 IMF list of the globes largest economies has India in 11th place, China in 3rd, and the Governments official development aid document shows India was handed $2.1 billion in aid and China $1.5 billion.
The UK alone donated £402 million in 2008 and since 1998, it has donated more aid to India than any other country.
Now i don't pretend to be an economist and i am all for sharing around the wealth but why are we giving money to a country in the top 3 economies and even more to a country in 11th place?
We are cutting half a million fireman, teachers and police officers jobs to save money but we are shovelling money towards India and China?
Both countries spend billions on space programmes, nuclear missiles and shiny new military toys but they still hold their hand out for aid? And we give it to them!!
If we have to tighten our belts i know exactly where the first cuts should be.
5 comments:
It's all a battle for control of the world, Lucy. Currently, America is out in front with all its military bases and huge armies but it's overstretched and China and India loom large.
America, with its imperial 'endless war' policy is an anachronism which, hopefully, will self-destruct soon!
Then the world might be able to talk about peace.
I totally agree with a policy of economic engagement with China. Their government is far from perfect of course, but the question is: Can we help change the situation from without? By boycotts and official opprobrium from other governments? Very doubtful. It's not South Africa.
And there's no doubt that China has come a long way in recent years (economically more than politically, admittedly).
I'm interested where you got your information that China executes more people than the rest of the world put together... I found this, from 2007, which suggests it's just under a third. Do you have more recent data?
Obviously this is just documented cases in which the death penalty was used. No doubt in a lot of these places, people also just go 'missing'.
The general thought David is that China, if and when it become the biggest global power, will not be as militaristic as America has been during its time as top dog but i think it will only with different targets. Hope i'm wrong though.
It was the part about us giving China and India aid that gobsmacked me Cheezy.
The line about China executing more people than the rest of the world put together comes from a March 2010 Amnesty document:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ACT50/001/2010/en
'Eighteen countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of 714 people; however, this figure does not include the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China'.
I take your point about the aid. It's nice to be a good citizen of the world, but it's probably a good time to scale it back a bit.
Thanks for the Amnesty link. The only thing I'd say about it is that although a lot of other countries might be more forthcoming than China with official death penalty statistics, it's a given that the Chinese aren't the only ones who do away with political opponents on the quiet, leaving the actual figures a bit of a mystery.
I did find the phrase 'that were likely to have taken place in China' as possibly a bit weak but i put my faith in Amnesty (and can therefore blame them if China sue me)
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