India and China Are Poised to Share Defining Moment

[varun]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/international/asia/10asia.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=ecb81e140f4f56c2&hp&ex=1113105600&partner=homepage

NEW DELHI, April 9 - Wen Jiabao, prime minister of China, began a four-day visit to India on Saturday just as the two countries - a third of humanity - are coming into their own at the same moment, with the potential for a dynamic shift in the world's politics and economy.

The impact on the global balance of power, the competition for resources and the health of the planet is causing many analysts and political leaders to sit up and take notice.

"Both countries have waited 3,000 years for this moment," said Gurcharan Das, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India and now an author.

Onetime rivals who went to war in 1962, India and China today find their economies growing at a remarkable clip. Both have a giant appetite for energy. Both are hungry for new markets. And both, it seems, are now gingerly testing the possibilities of doing business together...

[candy]

1. The very young will eventually emigrate to one of these countries.

We are rapidly going to become a nation of emigrants,not immigrants.

With a great big "Thank you" to all of the billionaire CEO's that are making it happen.

[oneighty]

2. It is just a matter of time before

the people of India and China get a taste of progressive thought and they get to thinking uppity thoughts (like a piece of the pie) and just maybe their lives will get a little bit better and with just a little bit of democracy tossed in for good measure; anything can happen.

Our leaders will not like it. Perhaps we will not either.

180

[HereSince1628]

3. That's the prob I see their life gets a wee bit better at the expense

of ours getting relatively much worse.

It seems like a simple matter of the laws of diffusion. Our small population has accumulated a relatively high standard of living based on an accumulation of relative affluence that is going to be spread around the world to a whole lot more people.

Unless exponential increases occur in the generation of existing value, individual workers in the US are going to get a lot poorer, while workers in other places get only a little better off.

In this system, under this application of the rules, I am afraid Bush and the DLC have it right. Getting ahead isn't going to happen for workers, its going to happen for capitalized investors.

[oneighty]

4. The real meaning of

drum roll.'The New World Order'

180

[leesa]

5. Bush and the DLC are the ones that made it happen.

[drduffy]

10. Bush et. al.

are shitty because they are not 'up front' with the Americans and because they only really support the corporate wealthy.

BUT.....this 'leveling' goin' on in the world was gonna happen one way or another. I just worry about my son in this 'brave new world'.....aka corporate hegemony. I'll probably be dead when the worst comes. My main purpose in life right now is to help prepare him to survive.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. India is already a democracy,

and some regional and local governments are quite progressive. Just, for the most part, poor.

[oneighty]

8. Yes, of course.

180

[cliss]

12. Not much we can do about it.

Fact #1: the US comprises about 3.8% of the world's population. We have, up until now, jerked around the other 96%. They are getting tired of it.

Fact #2: We continue to burn through 25% (or more) of the world's oil reserves. We sit on our obese asses and squander the remaining reserves, as if there is no tomorrow. The rest of the world sees this.

Fact #3: The US is not doing well economically. Our jobs are migrating to other countries. Our industrial base is becoming gutted. We manufacture less and less. We are outsourcing everything except information technology, our last Ace. Our economy is on life support. The world is readjusting.

Fact #4: The US has been the World Hegemon in currency, for the past 50+ years. Our currency has been the international standard. All other currencies traded against a baseline of the dollar. Oil purchases were made in dollars, called Petrodollars. The dollar is swirling in the toilet, as we speak. The world is switching over to Euros.

Fact #5 (most important): The US has been able to back up the $Dollar$ with military superiority all these years. In fact, the back of the dollar bill should say, "In Bombs we Trust". Iraq is proving that we are NOT invincible.

In fact, we are losing the war in Iraq, against a wrecked country with NO military. This is the most dangerous message we're sending across the world, without a doubt.

Notice also how other countries are taunting the US right now; like Chavez teasing Bush ("lipstick of a clown"), N. Korea calling Cheney ("a pile of garbage") and so on. THIS has done more to create instability in the world than anything else.

[damntexdem]

6. China and India on the way up -- U.S. on the way down:

salute them as we pass: wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[fujiyama]

9. India who needs them?

After all, rather than building closer relations with them we're selling a bunch of F16s to Pakistan, a military dictatorship that sponsors terrorism.

Either way, the growth of these two nations was inevitable. People all over strive for a better life. The economic achievements of these two nations is quite impressive and hopefully this will lift millions of their people out of poverty, and prove to be somewhat of an inspiration for other impovershed nations. Hopefully it also won't mean a lower standard of living for us, though with the economic policies of this administration, I'd say our standards are already falling.

[argyl]

11. If India and China can form an alliance the Russians will probably

be joining them as well.

Since British withdrawal from the subcontinent and the formation of India and Pakistan these two countries have been enemies, with several wars having been fought.

India's traditional ally has been Russia while China has sided with Pakistan.As noted, India and China have fought a war and there is much enmity between the two countries.

Should these two countries ally themselves, having the Russians,whose relationship with China has been improving due to the mutual efforts of both, come aboard would be a logical next step.



With economic alliance a military alliance would probably be forthcoming. That leaves the US allied with Pakistan, a country whose stability is questionable at best.

It's a New World Order all right. It just may not shake out as the PNACers envisioned.