Forging a global Chamerican dream?
- By Earl Bousquet
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 1, 2013
Will President Xi and President Obama forge the kind of working relationship which will allow them to transform Sino-U.S. relations in ways which would make the world a better place for all during their respective first and final terms in office? This question is being asked the world over ahead of President Xi's first official visit to Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica, Mexico and the USA in just nine days (May 31 to June 8).
The visit is the latest in an intense round diplomatic activity that's already taken the Chinese president to Russia, Africa and other parts of Asia, while Premier Li Keqiang undertook his first visits to India, Pakistan and Europe.
The two presidents will have the eyes of the world on them when they renew their acquaintance during their upcoming two-day meeting at a California ranch. They first met on February 14, 2012 in Washington on the eve of the U.S. Presidential election and the upcoming 18th CPC National Congress in China. While American couples exchanged love and affection on that Valentine's Day, Vice President Xi and President Obama faithfully promised to strengthen personal ties and pursue closer Sino-U.S. relations with more international cooperation. The stage was therefore set 15 months ago for their second encounter next week, on a more equal footing.
Three days before President Xi's scheduled arrival in the Caribbean, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden paid a 21-hour visit to Trinidad & Tobago, during which he met Prime Minister Kamla Persa-Bissessar and other CARICOM leaders. On May 27, they discussed regional security matters and signed a bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). But Caribbean leaders didn't leave the Biden meeting as happy as they would have hoped.
The U.S. Vice President's brief visit was the first high-level contact between the U.S. and CARICOM's leaders since President Obama was first elected in 2008, with all regional efforts to initiate a CARICOM summit during his first term ending in failure. The CARICOM leaders had gone to Port of Spain with a long list of outstanding "security issues" they had hoped to discuss with the U.S. Vice President. But they were asked to "prioritize" their agenda items for the three hours the Caribbean Presidents, Prime Ministers and other ministerial representatives of the 15-nation Caribbean Community were allowed with Biden.
Many LAC countries remain at this crossroads today – especially CARICOM's mostly smaller island economies. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in mid-May disclosed that among the average Borrowing Member-State (BMS) in 2012, growth was less than 3 percent; losses due to natural disasters increased from 0.9 percent of GDP per annum in the 1980s and 1990s to 1.3 percent of GDP; more than 21 percent of the population lived below the poverty line; the overall fiscal deficit of almost 4 percent was "unsustainable"; and public debts of 8 percent of GDP represented "a serious drag on economic growth".
Their complaints are real: Many LAC nations' annual national economic performance reports show welcome signs of statistical growth. But these supposed signs of progress actually work against the "growing" countries, as their traditional aid and assistance needs are subsequently downgraded by UN and Western aid agencies on the basis of their supposed "graduation" to so-called "middle-income economy" status. Those affected hope that China's own experience with over-reliance on GDP as a true measurement of growth will help to convince the international financial bodies that these types of floated statistical economic upgrades do not necessarily reflect general real-life improvements on the ground.
With an eye on the future, the leading international financial institutions are today telling the world's leading investors that the LAC region will be the place to be in less than two decades time.
A new World Bank report predicts that "in less than a generation, the LAC group will be among developing countries dominating global saving and investment." The Bank's Global Development Horizons (GDH) report says that "by 2030, half the global stock of capital, totaling US$158 trillion, will reside in the developing world, compared to less than one-third today, with countries in East Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) accounting for the largest shares."
The recently published report explores patterns of investment, saving and capital flows as they are likely to evolve over the next two decades. It projects that "developing countries' share in global investment will triple by 2030 to three-fifths, from one-fifth in 2000."
President Xi said before leaving Beijing that China and the U.S. "should explore a new type of relationship between major countries." He proposed that "both sides should now build on past successes and open up new dimensions for the future." Similarly, U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon assured the Chinese leader that "President Obama is firmly committed to building a relationship defined by higher levels of practical cooperation and greater levels of trust, while managing whatever differences and disagreements that might arise between us."
Recent Sino-U.S. history has shown that no differences have been big enough to prevent the flowering of bilateral trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. The world depends on these two major nations to resolve existing global finance problems, enhance international trade, address and resolve problems related to energy and climate change and generally make the world a better place for all. There is also a general acceptance that the old ways no longer work and these new times require new approaches to old problems.
The LAC region has a collective abundance of untapped renewable energy resources. In addition, the sunny Caribbean islands – several of which are "approved destinations" – still have largely untapped nature tourism resources just waiting to attract even the smallest percentage of the hundreds of millions of Chinese who travel and spend annually.
China and the U.S. can adapt their political and economic policies to better help the LAC region make that quantum leap from the past to the present and prepare for a future that's already dawned.
The possibilities are innumerable. China-USA-LAC collaborations could include, but not be limited to scientific and technical knowledge transfer arrangements, increased communication, building and strengthening people-to-people ties and university collaborations. China and the USA can help those LAC states in need tap deeper into their combined network of global knowledge to create marketable products, processes and services. They can initiate creative and innovative cooperation via workable venture capital partnerships through which they can assist the region to harness its untapped sources of renewable energy.
A new global order in which China and the USA would join hearts and hands with other nations in the North and South to make the world a better place for mankind would certainly be an integral part of President Xi's "Chinese Dream". It would also be in keeping with the central ethos of the "new relationship of new dimensions between major powers." Many are hoping, and even praying, that the visiting President will successfully persuade his friendly American counterpart and host of the necessity and possibility of building that "new relationship."
The two Presidents have all of four years to turn these hopes and dreams into reality. The watching world must wait to see if they will be successful.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://china.org.cn/opinion/earlbousquet.htm
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