Myanmar’s Elections: A Turning Point?

Posted on May 13, 2012 by troy

Leaders of the opposition taking their oath in the same hall as the military, the very people that once shut them up.

On the 1 April 2012, landmark by-elections in Myanmar handed over a decisive victory to the National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s main opposition party, headed by the renowned Aung San Suu Kyi. Although no real power was gained by the opposition (as they occupy less than 10% of Parliament), the elections were held as a landmark because the government actually honoured the results. However, just days before the new Parliament was to convene, Myanmar’s opposition party abruptly took issue with the need for an oath for all parliament members to swear to “safeguard” the existing constitution, which hopelessly defies any conventional definition of a democracy. Thein Sein, the President, firmly resisted calls for a change in the wording of the oath to read “respect” instead of “safeguard”. Shortly after the NLD gave in, and their MPs took their oath on the 2 May 2012.

Most commentators and leaders around the world have welcomed the move, lauding it as a “new chapter” in Myanmese politics and a sign that political compromise rather than deadlock would be the new norm. However, one must bear in mind that if the compromise comes largely from one side, then it’s not a compromise. Thein Sein had cleverly taken the opportunity of the NLD’s complain to remind them of their limits. In reply to their request to change the wording, he refused and told her it was her choice to take up the seat in parliament. Yes, it is true that had Thein Sein given in, he would be the one who looked like a weakling. Nevertheless, the fact that he brusquely brushed aside the NLD’s request seems to me that he is not so much concerned about being reasonable as he is about being able to dictate his terms.

Another interesting point that I have puzzled over is the reason for the government’s holding of a free and fair election in the first place. Perhaps the government did not expect to be so thoroughly thrashed, but even so why did they even allow such elections to be held? In the history of Myanmar, government concessions tended to be triggered off by domestic unrests. In 1988, the massive uprisings shocked the government, who massacred protesters before holding elections although they declared it void when they lost. A constitutional referendum (albeit fraudulent) was held in 2008 to pave the way for a “disciplined, flourishing democracy” after a massive uprising in 2007. Yet what could have precipitated the 2012 by-elections? A genuine desire for democracy? Not likely, given that in 2010, the same government held a blatantly rigged election. The same government oversaw the beating up of unarmed monks by soldiers and pro-government thugs in 2007.

What then could have precipitated this change of heart? It is difficult to say, as  information on the country’s leaders personal thoughts are hard to obtain. However, I would hazard a guess that the Arab Spring worked as a reminder to the ex-generals that merciless reprisals would follow should their regime ever fall by force, and that Western governments may intervene in limited but significant ways to turn the tide of an open military conflict. Dictatorships may sometimes be more excited than the people they oppress about remote revolutions. See this link. Let’s hope the Myanmese government truly start to see that their own interests coincide with that of democracy in the country.

–Loh

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The ‘Vision Thing’

Posted on May 9, 2012 by troy

Now, what to do...

The Socialist Party’s victory in France’s presidential election says much about the state of the Left. The most basic problem remains that the Left has lacked a programme since the demise of Marxism in the 1980s. It cannot be just a vehicle for distributing largesse from the public purse to various clients on an ad hoc basis: protecting public pensions, lowering the retirement age for some, making teachers’ unions happy. Instead, one requires the ‘vision thing’. To what aim should wealth be redistributed? What should these programmes do?  How will the Left make society better, fairer, happier, more sustainable? This remains unclear. Yes, the Right is horrible, but at least the neo-cons and neo-liberals have a consistent worldview.

The lack of such vision explains the sharp contrast of this year’s election compared to 1981. There was dancing in the streets because a guy with a ‘vision thing’ was coming to power. It provided energy that allowed François Mitterrand achieved the rare feat of defeating an incumbent president, who, moreover was not nearly as detestable as Nicholas Sarkozy. A lack of vision explains why the Socialist Party picked François Hollande, a boring political operator. It explains why Hollande won by only the slimmest of margins against a loathed president heading an exhausted party that had been in government for sixteen years. It explains why a National Front, which offered a coherent though despicable worldview (rehashed anti-cosmopolitanism), did so well.

The Left cannot just be reacting to its clients or recent events (e.g. against austerity), but requires ideas and goals to keep the movement together and energised. Otherwise, what’s the point?

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Wander, Ponder No Longer

Posted on April 20, 2012 by troy

Walking into lampposts is just one of the dangers

Smart phone plague, an epidemic that started only a few years ago, has already caused a secondary infection—stuffy moralising. Self-righteous luddites say smart phones are bad because people cannot socialise anymore. IPhones and their ilk cause constant interruptions, making conversation impossible. Even worse, humans cannot compete with smart phones in terms of being interesting, so people just sit around fingering their phones rather than conversing. Here’s an article on this and a lecture.

I want to talk about something else. Smart phones are bad because addicts are no longer capable of taking a walk to have a good think. Instead, they are chatting, thumbing, or listening to music (is it some kind of evil irony that it’s never been so easy to listen to music, just as music has become terrible?). Walking aids digestion of both food and thought. Teodor Fontane, a nineteenth century novelist even entitled one of his greatest books Walks through the March of Brandenburg (Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg). How many religious fanatics had to wander through the desert before having their revelations? A good walk is good for the brain.

One does not even need to stroll; just having some solitude to think suffices. George Bernard Shaw once remarked ‘few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.’ A friend of mine once told me she relished train rides because it was a chance to ponder for a few hours without any distractions.

Are inner monologues so boring? Is day-dreaming becoming extinct? How many good thoughts have never risen to consciousness because of ‘Angry Birds’ or Katy Perry (I blame everything on Katy Perry). It’s sad that one has lost the facility to be social because of smart phones (truly a misnomer), but also losing the ability to be alone–the ability to think deeply–is just as pernicious.

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Whither ASEAN?

Posted on April 20, 2012 by troy

This is a post by our new contributor, Loh:

Maybe ASEAN would be more successful if they weren't all a bunch of slackers. Get a haircut, you hippie.

The recent ASEAN summit in Cambodia, predictably failed to produce any concrete agreements despite all its usual fanfare. Notably, there was a lack of any consensus over a code of conduct for resolution of the Spratly Islands dispute with China. The Bangkok Post has derided the summit as dismal, and called for better use of the millions of dollars spent on it yearly.

Indeed, although all the leaders in ASEAN see the advantages of co-operation, they have always been slow at hammering out concrete agreements, particularly political ones. Why is this so? Well, firstly the ASEAN states have different strategic interests. Cambodia desires to get cosy with China because of their close economic ties while the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore hope to see greater US interference in the region. Indonesia and Malaysia are most keen on regional independence. These differences make it difficult for a common political stand in ASEAN, particularly with regards to the South China Sea where the egos of both the Americans and the Chinese have to be carefully considered. Secondly, previous quarrels continue to hurt present relations. Malaysia and Singapore were previously embroiled in military confrontation with Indonesia and leaders continue to squabble and swipe at each other mostly for the amusement of their electorate. Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, have been fighting for centuries and in recent decades the bad blood continues with Thais and Cambodians killing each other over an ancient temple ruins that has in fact actually been demarcated as belonging to Cambodia already.

The fact that these countries can, in fact, have yearly multilateral meetings is encouraging, considering how the majority of the citizens in the individual countries often do not like their immediate neighbours. A concrete agreement seen to benefit a traditional foe more than their own country (even if both benefits) is political suicide. A Thai foreign minister’s attempt to compromise on the Temple dispute led to his resignation and failed anyway as Thai nationalists protested at the border even after the concession was formally made.

An interesting question to consider is why is it that the EU has been so much more successful at unity despite their not-too-friendly past? In fact, the wars in Europe have been far more bitter and more devastating. It is for that reason, however, that Europeans make sincere efforts at unity, determined never for a world war to occur again. Southeast Asian states have not had anything quite so horrific in their psyche. The Cold War helped as well, of course, making the Allies eager to reconcile with the Axis Powers and provided a dangerous enemy to unite against. Once a degree of co-operation has been established and the rewards of which are apparent, it tends to continue.

Also, given all these bad blood, why do ASEAN leaders meet? They meet because they know they are a collection of small countries who would benefit from closer ties that give them more clout and talking power to other big countries or international groups around the world. However, because of the political sensitivities of their electorate and an inability to reconcile strategic differences, they dare not commit too much too quickly. What we can hope is that, as leaders get to become homies and more personal with each other, relations will improve between the states. It is generally more impolite to hurl insults at people that you have previously had dinner and held hands with and certainly we can notice an increase in restraint and prudence among Southeast Asian states as ASEAN met more regularly. (NB: ASEAN leaders typically link arms as a sign of unity at each summit) To see a photo of this tradition click here.

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To Be Protected and Serviced

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Gregory

The shooting of Trayvon Martin is a confluence of race, crime, and institutionalized injustice – hence irresistible to both media and politicians. These are sensitive issues that the white American people generally prefer not to think about. America has lots of murders (partly because it is awash with guns, drugs and poverty), but most individual murders aren’t newsworthy. Martin’s death is sensational because he was a young black man killed by a white Hispanic* for the crime of walking in the rain while wearing a hoodie, i.e. man bites dog. Yet, not all of the facts of that case are in and one should not rush to judge the shooter George Zimmerman.

 At least, that’s what we are supposed to do. That’s what should happen in a just country in a just world. When someone is shot dead, the police should take every measure to investigate what actually happened. Without proper investigation, murderers would be more likely to walk and justified shooters would live under clouds of suspicion. There is every indication that the Sanford Police Department did as little as possible to investigate the shooting of Martin.

 Canvassing police officers “corrected” witnesses who claimed they heard Martin calling for help, not Zimmerman. The police didn’t interview Martin’s girlfriend, even though she was on the phone with Martin just moments before he was shot. No photographs of Zimmerman’s injuries have been released (or else we would have seen them if they were damning). Next to no forensics were performed. The lead homicide investigator actually suggested that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter, but the DA refused because of insufficient evidence – evidence the police could have collected. Instead the department has been leaking irrelevant details of Trayvon’s life, like his suspension from school for possessing an empty dime bag, as if that makes his death A-okay.

 Could evidence come to light which would vindicate Zimmerman? Of course, but we haven’t seen it yet. Instead the police basically took Zimmerman’s word and let him go. It was only public outcry that prompted the temporary resignation of the Sanford Police Department chief and public outcry that kept the investigation open. The case is an unwelcome reminder to (white) Americans that the police only protect the right sort of people. Dave Chappelle nailed it back in 2000. Blacks know the cops aren’t on their side, even though they suffer disproportionately from crime.

 The police certainly were not on Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.’s side. For the “crime” of accidentally activating his medical alert pendant, the police broke into his home, tasered him, shot him with a beanbag round, and then killed him with live rounds. Then the cops naturally lied about it and only because the whole incident was recorded by the medical alert monitor is there even a case against the cops. Blacks and other minorities know what it is like to not have privilege. The privileged aren’t even aware of it, and viscerally react to even considering its existence. That’s why every benefit of the doubt was given to Zimmerman and not Martin. Zimmerman had the privilege of being white, while Martin didn’t, facts of the case be damned.

 *Hispanic is an ethnic designation, not racial. Don’t tell me that Anderson Silva isn’t black or that blonde Mexican soap opera stars aren’t white.

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How the Scandinavians Ruined Music (again?)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by troy

Rihanna, queen of po(o)p music (two things: firstly, I couldn't find a non-flattering picture of her, secondly, I'm not above poop jokes)

I’m a lefty, so of course I read The New Yorker (though one could debate how ‘left-wing’ relates on an international spectrum). I’m also a curmudgeon, so I find popular music these days a travesty. It’s a mess of rap, house, and sugary pop. Worse, song writing deteriorated into a stream of refrains rather than true verse. Anyways, this article from The New Yorker provides a recent history of pop music.

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Sex and Politics

Posted on March 23, 2012 by samantha

This month, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, signed into law a bill that bars all Texas clinics affiliated with abortion providers, even if they do not actually perform abortions themselves, from receiving public funding. In response, the federal government, saying that Texas’ move violates Medicaid regulations allowing women to choose their own health care provider, will stop subsidizing the state’s low income women’s health program, operated through Medicaid, that provides low income women with access to cancer screening, birth control, and regular checkups (the federal government provides about ninety per cent of the funding for this program). Over forty per cent of the women who participate in this program go to Planned Parenthood which is the main target of Texas’ new law. Because Planned Parenthood, as an organization, provides abortions (though even before this new law’s passage no state or federal money could be or was used for those abortions), all Planned Parenthood clinics, whether an individual clinic provides abortions or not, will stop receiving public money and many will be forced to close. This will effectively take away access to healthcare for millions of women throughout the state and will certainly make it much harder for some to receive health care. In some instances, Planned Parenthood is the only women’s healthcare provider in the area and without health insurance many low income women will go without the health screenings and yearly checkups that they need to ensure that they are healthy.

Something must be done about this situation but, looking at the current topics of debate in US politics, especially in the Conservative Right, this latest move in a thoroughly conservative state is only the most recent in a worrying trend. For some time now, the Republican Presidential candidates and the conservative-oriented media, in their debates and discussions, have taken particular exception to a portion of President Obama’s healthcare bill which mandates that the health insurance provided by employers (including institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals, that are run by religious organizations though excepting churches) to their employees must include access to free birth control. The Republican Presidential candidates, conservative media outlets, and religious organizations (most notably the Catholic Church) have vigorously attacked this provision and many, including Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, have labeled this provision a ‘war on religion’ and an attack by President Obama on religious freedom. This rhetoric is worrying and absurd. In fact, it would almost be funny if they were not actually serious simply for the fact that according to research done by the Guttmacher Institute, 83 per cent of Catholics use condoms, IUDs, birth control pills, or sterilization as a form of birth control (68 per cent use highly reliable forms of birth control such as the pill, IUDs, or sterilization) and the percentages are similar for both Mainline and Evangelical Protestants.

On top of these attacks, a Congressional hearing was held by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to discuss access to birth control versus religious liberty. While in and of itself a Congressional hearing on the topic may not have made the debate more absurd, the fact that the hearing featured an all male panel and the Republican Chairman of the committee barred anyone who supported women’s access to birth control from giving testimony made this hearing a complete farce. What kind of debate is this? Surely, it was a one-sided one. Where are the women? After all, the discussion was and is over women’s health and shouldn’t we women have a say in that? Because of this serious oversight, House Democrats invited Georgetown Law Center student Sandra Fluke, who had been barred from testifying at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting, to testify at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee meeting on the subject of women’s health and contraception. In this hearing, Ms. Fluke supported the healthcare mandate for the provision of birth control and testified to the benefits of birth control that extend beyond preventing pregnancies (birth control pills are used to lessen the cramps many women feel during their menstrual cycle so that they are able to function better, to prevent heavy bleeding during the menstrual cycle and prevent anemia, to control ovarian cysts, to prevent acne, need I go on?). For this, she was called a slut and a prostitute by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh (a frequent rant-er) and told that if she wanted the government to pay for her birth control (not really at all what the issue actually is) so that she could have sex, then she should have to put tapes of herself having sex on the Internet for all to see (yes, he really said this and has since removed the recorded transcript from his show archives due to huge backlash and a drop in support from advertisers though you can see it here). To make things worse, the Republican presidential candidates, while disagreeing with Mr. Limbaugh’s semantics, did not disagree with his message and some conservative pundits even defended Mr. Limbaugh while framing the issue as a conspiracy by Democrats and the President to make conservatives look bad during an election year (believe me, they are doing a well enough job on their own with respect to this issue).

Despite all of this, I will not say that in making the issue of women’s birth control a political issue and by framing it in the way that they have the Conservative Right is waging a “war on women” because I believe that this rhetoric is poisonous and detrimental to the political system. Such rhetoric polarizes the debate and makes it even harder for the two sides to form a compromise on this and on other issues. On top of this, I do not believe that such a comment would be true. However, I will say that this debate and the way that it has been handled is biased against women. When the issue is brought up, the commentators are almost always men, when a woman did have her say she was called a prostitute for doing so, and I do not see a debate over condoms and their dissemination at Catholic universities or clinics.

This last point brings me to another (though bar far not the last) issue that I have with this whole debate over the provision of birth control. Recently, the news media have started to compare and equate women taking birth control pills to men taking erectile dysfunction drugs. The comparison is that if health insurance plans are not required to provide erectile dysfunction drugs to men free of charge then they should not be required to provide birth control free of charge to women. This comparison is completely absurd. Birth control pills and erectile dysfunction drugs do not serve the same purpose and have entirely different functions. Unlike what has been frequently said by conservative presidential candidates and the conservative media, birth control pills do not allow women to have sex and by providing them for their female employees, religious organizations are not paying for those women to have sex. As I outlined above and as many doctors have testified to, birth control pills have many vital uses aside from the prevention of pregnancy. In addition to this and more to the point, women can choose to have or not to have sex regardless of whether or not they take birth control pills and despite what many conservatives say, women will have sex regardless of whether they take birth control or not. It is just more responsible for them to have sex while taking birth control. After all, pregnancy out of wedlock is another pet peeve of religious organizations, is it not? In addition, because birth control is expensive and those that are unable to afford it (thus a large majority of those accidentally getting pregnant) are also unlikely to be able to afford to take care of a child, unplanned pregnancies would also be an increased burden on the social safety net and the healthcare industry thus costing tax payers and hospitals more money (if you really want me to put it bluntly).

On the other hand, unlike birth control pills for women, pills to help with erectile dysfunction are prescribed so that the men who need them are able to have sex (this is not to say that I do not want health insurance plans to provide coverage for such pills and in fact I have no issue with them doing so at all whether these plans come from religious institutions or not). These men, unlike those women who do not use birth control pills, would not be able to have sex without them. If these medications were part of the health insurance plans provided by religious institutions then here, in fact, those religious organizations would be paying for (or at least subsidizing) men to have sex. This is because erectile dysfunction drugs are taken to enable men who cannot have sex to do so and are often taken just for that purpose and only when sex is desired (unlike birth control pills which are taken regularly and not just when women desire sex). If a better male counterpart is needed to the provision of birth control pills for women, then perhaps it should be the provision of condoms which are often disseminated for free at universities (those run by religious organizations or not) and provided free of charge at many health clinics. Like birth control pills for women, men can still have sex without condoms and like birth control pills for women, it is safer and more responsible for men to have sex while using one. So why then, is the debate not about condoms? And what about the birth control medications for men that are currently being developed? Why is this debate not about that?

Beyond my above objections (and the many more that I did not outline) to the trajectory that this issue has taken, I am truly baffled about why this is even a political issue. Women’s health issues especially relating to birth control have not been so for decades now and it is worrying that they are so again. As an American, a resident of Texas, and as a woman, I am worried about the path down which my state and the Conservative Right have taken. While I am fortunate enough to have health insurance, what about those millions of women in Texas who do not and who must rely on clinics such as Planned Parenthood for their yearly checkups and women’s health needs? Where will they go now that Planned Parenthood has been forced to close its doors in Texas, a state that has the highest percentage of people without health insurance in the country according to the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as one of the highest percentages of people living below the poverty line (click on each state to see the percentage of people in that state living under the poverty line)? The answer is something that I shudder to think about.

Posted in Ideology, Religion, USA, Women's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Worst. Warship. Ever.

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Gregory

The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, as is evidenced by the USS William D. Porter, which is probably one of the most incompetent warships in history. So incompetent that they almost killed President Franklin D. Roosevelt, among other things. You could never be as bad as this crew.

The trouble started before the boat even left the dock. Specifically, someone forgot to raise the anchor up all the way, and as they backed out ever so slowly, they dragged the anchor along the moored deck of her sister ship. Picture an anchor scraping along railings, lifeboats and thousands of dollars’ worth of war shit like a coked up toddler in a candy store. Picture the looks on the faces of the newbie sailors as they watched it happen a) on their first day on the job and b) on the way to meet the freaking president.

No matter how unqualified you may feel, you are nowhere nearly as bad as this crew.

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Biological Warfare of a Kind

Posted on March 17, 2012 by troy

One down, how many to go?

This post has nothing to do with current events. Instead it is a new way of looking at an old and excessively studied subject: how Germans waged war in 1914–18. I’m studying environmental history, so I will be using a perspective that emphasise the role of nature as a agent (birds, bees, trees, fleas) in shaping the limits and mindsets of human societies.  This approach allows me to propose an unifying explanation for German tactical failures in three seeming disparate domains: food production, attritional warfare, and the u-boat blockade. The underlying problem was that military planners assumed that they could model natural processes and calculate how to destroy some of these natural inputs to improve Germany’s strategic position. If it’s not clear by now, by biological warfare, I don’t mean anthrax, but rather the role of the environment in war. I’ll sketch a few examples:

Schweinemord (pig massacre). Britain imposed a naval blockade on Germany during the war, a heavy burden as Germany was a net food importer. To overcome food shortages, planners argued that pigs were ‘co-eaters’—competing with people for limited grain supplies—so therefore hogs should be destroyed. Some nine million were, which led to a flood of pork on the market, then a dearth thereafter (Germans were loath to abandon dietary habits), while depriving farmers of sufficient fertiliser for their fields. All of these problems without increasing grain supplies, as farmers responded to price mechanisms better than fiat.

U-boat war. German planners calculated with great precision that Britain would be starved within six months if u-boats could sink 600,000 tonnes of shipping a month. Germany managed to do that, and even exceed this target, but it underestimated Britain’s ability to modify its environment to decrease its dependence on imports. In Britain, domestic timber was used rather than relying on bulky imports (leading to the cut of half of the island’s forests), while marginal land was farmed. Britain survived Germany’s blockade, while Germany provoked the US into entering the war.

Verdun. German commander von Falkenhayn sought victory through additional warfare. By killing three Frenchmen for every German, France would be bled white. I argue this is a form of biological warfare because Falkenhayn was targeting the organic matter of the French nation itself—its men. He chose Verdun as a point of attack because he knew France would be willing to transfer men as necessary to defend this symbolically important site. The German assault seemed to be going well, but the geography of the battlefield favoured the defenders on a high ridge. Nor could Germans out-kill the French, but merely achieved little more than parity.

Thus attempts to base strategy on models of nature and number crunching failed because the Germans consistently overlooked the complexity of ecosystems, which eventually invalidated their original assumptions and calculations.

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Economic Reins on Superpower Conflict

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Gregory

By: Samantha Lee

In the not too distant past, a visit to the United States by a Chinese Vice President and probable future leader of China would not have attracted a significant amount of attention. While such a visit would have been mentioned in the media, the minute details of such a trip would only have captured the attention of those most interested. It is a testimony to just how much China has grown in importance and power (and thus in the eyes of many as a threat), to see the importance and attention that was placed on Vice President Xi Jinping’s recent five-day trip to the United States. US government leaders met with the probable future leader of China and analysts and the news media scrutinized Mr. Xi’s every move and response. Concern over Chinese policy stances (over human rights, Iran, and Syria to name a few), dismay over expectations of political change in China following Xi’s promotion to the Presidency, and unease over China’s further development abounded in the many reports covering his trip. China has bounded into the thoughts and concerns of the wider American public and for many it is the idea of a “China threat” looming on the horizon that worries them (an idea no doubt fed by the media’s ominously prophetic and overblown tone on almost any subject related to China).

The problem, however, is that the prophecies of a “China threat” do not paint the entire picture. Too often, the media focuses on the aspects of Chinese policy that have the potential to threaten the United States or policies with which Americans do not agree. We rarely see stories that explain the circumstances that might mitigate a potential conflict between the US and China and these are undoubtedly important. The public should be accurately informed both about what might incite a potential conflict and what might lessen the potential for one to begin (economic integration being one of them).

According to the majority of evidence, the scale of economic integration that exists between two countries has a significant effect on the chances that a military conflict might occur. In fact, most studies have found that the more economic integration that exists between two countries (i.e. FDI and trade), the less likely they are to enter into military conflict with each other. After all, a conflict between two countries, especially ones as large as the United States and the PRC, is bound to produce uncertainty and risk which often greatly affects an investor’s desire to invest (not to mention the fact that military conflict also often comes with trade embargoes and a disruption of supply chains) and can have a significant and negative affect a country’s economy (something that is rarely politically popular). In the case of the United States and China, this should be no less true especially when one considers the vastness of US-China economic relations. According to the US Census Bureau and UNCTAD, the total value of trade in goods between the US and China in 2010 equaled $456.8 billion or about 14.2 per cent of China’s total trade value (making the US China’s second largest trading partner after the EU) and about 11.3 per cent of the United States’ total trade value. In addition to this, twenty per cent of all Chinese exports come to the United States, 10.5 per cent of all Chinese inward FDI stocks originate from the US, at the end of 2011 China held $1.1 trillion in US Treasury Securities, and the US runs a $273 billion deficit with the PRC.

Taking the scale of economic relations between the US and China into consideration, it is unlikely that either country wants their relationship to spiral into open military conflict especially with all the economic consequences that it would bring. Indeed in The China Threat, Graham Richardson proposes, with respect to the United States and China, that “the nuclear balance of Mutually Assured Destruction between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union has been replaced by…a ‘balance of financial terror.’” Though this may be a slight hyperbole, the idea no doubt has significant merits (especially when one considers the added consequences for losing economic relations of respective allies in such a conflict) and looking at current US-China relations, both countries try hard not to piss the other off to any significant degree.

This is not to say, however, that things cannot change. Who knows what will happen in the future and political and economic relations between the US and China could gradually diminish until they provide little to no incentive against military conflict. At the same time, some unexpected event could occur to influence the minds of leaders in both countries that tip the scales of the cost benefit analysis in favor of conflict. Yet it must be remembered that greater economic integration does help weigh those scales in favor of diplomatic solutions and we must continue to nurture those connections. Even if, for example, a conflict were to erupt on the Korean Peninsula, the United States and China would be far more likely to use diplomatic solutions to solve a conflict if economic ties exist between them than if none existed at all. While some in politics and the media may view reluctance to challenge China as a major weakness in potential candidates for political office (the presidential race comes to mind), they must remember that less integration with the world both political and economic provides less incentive to maintain peace and that the potential consequences of conflict could be dire. Instead of urging for hawkish challenges to China, politicians should instead work to maintain a positive relationship with the PRC while further drawing it into the world’s economy.

Posted in China, Economics, USA | Tagged , , | 3 Comments