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Asia's coming surge


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By Edward Neilan
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

October 20, 1999

TOKYO -- Does Asia matter?

Eurocentrists ready to write off any promising growth future for Asia point to the prolonged financial crisis, questionmarks concerning China, the lingering Korean Peninsula impasse, stalemate over Taiwan, uncertain politics in Indonesia and Pakistan and unresolved missile and nuclear questions as examples of regional instabilities that are likely to go on and on.

Then there is the problem of corruption and cronyism, by whatever name, that is endemic throughout Asian nations.

Even regional leader Japan, with the world's No..2 economy, seems to have lost much of its dynamism, some Europeans are saying.

Other worrisome trends on the horizon are working against a continuing Asia boom. One is the spectre of neo-isolationism hinted in the United States after its "no" vote on the nuclear test ban treaty.

American refusal to pay its United Nations dues and the mini-boom of "America first" politician Pat Buchanan are other unsettling straws in the wind.

The litany of negatives about Asia should not overlooked. Nor should the hyperbolic raves about the "Coming Asia Century" be thrown overboard in their entirety.

Just remember that Europe's -- and certainly the United States' -- occupancy of the world's centerstage has been relatively recent and brief. The invention of the steam engine changed a lot of things.

All of this is an extension of the argument first raised by London scholar Gerald Segal this past summer in his Foreign Affairs magazine article "Does China Matter?" It has given pundits far and wide a fresh controversy on which to chew.

Segal's evidence centered on facts like China's development numbers won't even match Brazil's until well into the next century. But China has the enthusiasm of nationalism with "recovery of Taiwan" as its centerpiece.

If the Taiwan issue were suddenly solved, Beijing would have to invent "another Taiwan" to rally and inspire the military and the masses to drive ahead toward growth targets.

Some view Segal's comments, part truth but part tongue-in-cheek, as giving some perspective to the spectacle of "China experts" falling all over themselves on the October 1 China 50th anniversary of just being China.

I wrote at the time that it was doubtful if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would be around in its present form to celebrate a 75th anniversary.

Statesman Henry Kissinger, partying in Shanghai, put it less bluntly: "The Communist Party will change in the next 50 years as much as it has changed in the past 50 years."

If even half of the Chinese population achieves the level of an average American's income and lifestyle, the strain on theworld's resources will be unbearable.

Does China matter? Does Asia matter?

Sure they do. Don't listen to faraway investment fund managers with strange-sounding portfolios hyping the Iberian Saturday Growth Fund. Every region in the world has its problems; few have the prospects and potential, as Asia does, "to get it all together."

China's economy has been expanding by nearly 10 percent a year since 1980 with no slowdown in sight. Asian talent seems particularly drawn and adaptive to the Internet and other high tech avenues.

Instead of listening to the critics, pay attention to positive voices which represent big stakes in Asia: "I have no doubt the Asia-Pacific nations will come roaring back--and be among the leaders of this new century." That's Rick Wagoner, President and Chief Operating Officer of General Motors, speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on October 18.

So, be ready for Asia's next surge, despite the naysaying gnomes of Zurich.

Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

October 20, 1999


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