The highly publicized dispute between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal in recent weeks has become yet another reminder of the ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. The upheaval began when a former U.S. coast guard ship refitted by the Philippines navy attempted to detain Chinese fishermen off the shoal.
In her new book The China Threat, the distinguished American diplomatic historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker combed manuscript collections, searched through oral histories, conducted interviews in both Beijing and Washington, and reviewed numerous other published documents to present the memories, myths, and the realities of the 1950s and 1960s.
Two parallel narratives surround globalization and the trade imbalance between China and the United States. One side moans that competition with China has squeezed traditional U.S. manufacturing jobs and caused the middle class to disappear. The other side declares that a new Chinese middle class is riding the wave of China’s inexorable economic boom. A particularly hyperbolic headline in Forbes, for example, proclaimed the rise of China’s middle class to be “The Biggest Story of Our Time.”
Asia is currently in the middle of an unprecedented arms race that is not only sharpening tensions in the region but also competing with efforts by Asian countries to address poverty and growing economic disparity. The gap between rich and poor—calculated by the Gini coefficient that measures inequality—has increased from 39 percent to 46 percent in China, India, and Indonesia. Although affluent households continue to garner larger and larger portions of the economic pie, “Children born to poor families can be 10 times more likely to die in infancy” than those from wealthy families, according to Changyong Rhee, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank.
Apple, the most profitable company in existence and one of the most popular brands ever created, has gotten used to being the glowing center of attention. The release of the next iPhone or the new iPad invariably stirs an orgy of conspicuous consumption. Recently, however, a series of exposés have shifted some attention to the darker side of Apple, shining a light on the working conditions at the Foxconn factories in China where its products are made.
Behind the political crisis that saw the recent fall of powerful Communist Party leader Bo Xiali is an internal battle over how to handle China’s slowing economy and growing income disparity, while shifting from an export-driven model powered by cheap labor to one built around internal consumption.
Western China’s Sichuan province, where most ethnic Tibetans reside, has recently become the epicenter of more than two dozen self-immolations by Buddhist monks, nuns, and lay Tibetans. These protests against the policies of the Communist regime in the region not only has stunned exiled Tibetans but has also shocked the world community. The latest self-immolation came on March 17when a 44-year-old Tibetan farmer set himself on fire in northwestern Qinghai province. There have now been 30 self-immolations since February 27.
Both Mike Daisey and Jason Russell are storytellers. But they’re not just storytellers. Like Mark Twain, who was infuriated by Belgian colonial policies in the Congo, Daisey and Russell want to provoke us into doing something. And they have carefully crafted their stories toward that end.
And now, virtually simultaneously, both Russell and Daisey are under fire for not adhering to the literal truth.
As anxiety about the end of American hegemony abounds and the U.S. unemployment rate remains high, talk about the necessity of out-competing China is on the rise. The leading presidential candidates have zeroed in on China as a major threat to U.S. economic security and have vowed to ensure that the United States remains on top of the global economic ladder.
When Hu Jintao took over as the leader of China in 2002, U.S. companies welcomed his accession as a “good sign for American business.” Political analysts described Hu as a fourth-generation member of the Communist party leadership who might very well turn out to be a “closet liberal.” Playing it safe, the media tended to portray him as a pragmatic enigma. In the wake of 9/11 and high-level cooperation on counter-terrorism, Hu proved to be a reliable U.S. partner, prompting Colin Powell to remark in 2003 that U.S.-China relations were the best since 1972.