Archive for the ‘Natural Resources’ Category
Australia’s Natural Resources
The big story this week is Obama’s trip to the Middle East and his speech in Cairo to address the “Muslim and Arab World.” However, this story caught my eye in the NY Times today. Kevin Rudd (Labor), Australia’s Prime Minister, is fluent in Mandarin, served as an Ambassador in China, and has vowed to make Australia the West’s most “Eastern Fluent Country.” His idea is sound considering India and China prominence in the 21st century, however, fears are beginning to emerge in Australia that it will become a mining colony for China. From the article:
The government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, which generally favors the sales, has been savaged as naïvely cozy with China, a view some in his own military appear to share. Opposition politicians have flogged the specter of an Australian future more or less as a giant open-pit mine in which the locals toil, but Beijing takes the profits.
The poignant part of the article is how Chinese corporations are not really like corporations found in the West. Save General Motors as of Monday, there is has historically been minimal government involvement in Western corporations. The Chinese Communist party has extensive control Chinese corporations. The article claims that there is some autonomy between the Communist party and Private industry, but the same people that are the CEOs, COOs, etc. of China’s big corporations come from the Communist party and have extensive contacts in the Communist party.
This theme of countries becoming more wary of China’s emerging hegemonic power in the Asia-Pacific region will continue to emerge as an important story for the next quarter century. China is the world’s biggest creditor, before America became a global power it was the worlds biggest credit, before the United Kingdom came to power it was the world’s biggest creditor. I cannot foresee how this cycle will not continue with China. As China continues to invest in the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, etc. their influence will continue to increase, and their influence within the government of smaller powers such as Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Nigeria, etc. will be hard to ignore.
How long can China continue its so called peaceful rise to power as the world’s resources increasing face nationalism at home and scarcity globally.
Source:
Australia, Nourishing China’s Economic Engine, Questions Ties
Michael Wines
NY Times June 3, 2009
