For the sake of all of us, Hu Jintao and George Bush need to get on
The meetings between the US president and the Chinese president are now the most important events on the international calendar. The former represents the most powerful country in the world, while the latter represents the second largest economy and the next superpower. They need to meet and, for the sake of us all, they need to get on. But the mood music surrounding this latest meeting is a reminder that there are growing tensions and conflicts in the US-China relationship.
The issue that most preoccupies is economic. There is mounting pressure within Congress for tariffs against various Chinese imports, together with demands that China revalues the yuan. The problem is not China. It is the fact that the dollar is seriously over-valued. Nor will tariffs mean that the US will make the goods that China now exports. The real problem is not China but the fact that the US economy is living beyond its means with its huge budget deficit and trade deficits. These economic tensions, however, aren’t going to go away. On the contrary, they seem likely to grow more serious.
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Increased contact with other countries has led many to believe that the western model should be applied everywhere
I have just read Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. It is a classic. Published in 1947, it analyses the nature of Japanese culture. Almost 60 years and many books later, it remains a seminal work. Like all great works of scholarship, the book manages to transcend the time and era in which it was written, ageing in certain obvious respects, but retaining much of its insight and relevance. If you want to make sense of Japan, Benedict’s book is as good a place to start as any. Here, though, I am interested in the origins and purpose of the book.
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Ronaldinho is now the highest-earning footballer in the world. It is a victory for both his footballing genius and skin-colour.
Good news, for a change. I read this morning that, according to the magazine France Football, Ronaldinho has overtaken David Beckham as the highest paid footballer in the world. Good news for two reasons.
First, it is good to think that the greatest footballer in the world is also the highest paid in terms of salary, sponsorship and the rest of it. Beckham is a player of distinctly limited talent: he probably never rated in the world’s top 20 in terms of ability, and certainly does not now. His value has been to do with his looks rather than his skill. Beckham is about celebrity, about the Hollywoodisation of football. On the eve of the World Cup, it is good to think that footballers are, above all, appreciated for their footballing skills. And Ronaldinho is a magician who is about to delight hundreds of millions of people around the world with his special brand of magic.
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We turn a blind eye to Berlusconi, but a huge amount is at stake in this weekend’s Italian general election.
With just a few days to go, there is a profoundly discomfiting fact about the Italian general election: Prodi is only three points ahead of Berlusconi. The result remains on a knife edge. I make no apology for returning to the subject of Berlusconi. He is the most dangerous man in Europe and poses a profound threat to democracy in Italy. The attitude displayed towards him by western leaders like Blair and Bush – treating him as a friend and ally – has been nothing short of disgraceful – the word appeasement is buzzing around in my head. While they busily denounce “extremists”, terrorists and “authoritarianism” around the world, they turn a blind eye to the corrosion and degeneration of democracy in one of the historic centres of Europe, not to mention one of the most important countries in the European Union. Berlusconi represents an incipient fascism, a fascism born of the conditions of our age rather than the interwar period. I choose my words carefully, without hyperbole.
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The disastrous foreign policies of the US have left it more isolated than ever, and China is standing by to take over
‘Our power, then, has the grave liability of rendering our theories about the world immune from failure. But by becoming deaf to easily discerned warning signs, we may ignore long-term costs that result from our actions and dismiss reverses that should lead to a re-examination of our goals and means.”
These are the words of Henry Hyde, chairman of the House international relations committee and a Republican congressman, in a recent speech. Hyde argues that such is the overweening power of the US that it may not hear or recognise the signals when its policy goes badly wrong, a thinly veiled reference to Iraq. He then takes issue with the idea that the US can export democracy around the world as deeply misguided and potentially dangerous. He argues: “A broad and energetic promotion of democracy in other countries that will not enjoy our long-term and guiding presence may equate not to peace and stability but to revolution … There is no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion. We can more easily destabilise friends and others and give life to chaos and to avowed enemies than ensure outcomes in service of our interests and security.”
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Liberal imperialists, 1990-2006, RIP? Hardly, but their tails are down. And so they should be. I am referring, of course, to a school of thought associated with the left that took wind after the end of the cold war and came to believe that the US was a benign power that could intervene around the world for the good of democracy and human values.
In the mood that prevailed after 1989, it was perhaps not entirely surprising: the left felt defeated, and many busily took the road of rejecting everything from their past as mistaken. This, for some, included the warm embrace of the US. The first Gulf war was easy to support, and so was American intervention in the Balkans tragedy. The US was not just the global policeman: it was the friendly bobby down the street, waiting to deliver good sense and virtue to some faraway country.
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Europeans and Americans fail to realise that the future lies in the east
I feel sometimes as if I live in two worlds. When I am back in old Blighty, I am surrounded by the old and familiar concerns: New Labour, Europe, the Middle East and the rest. If you live in Britain, you will know what I mean – except you won’t, because you will take it for granted that this is what the world is all about. But it provides a very misleading perspective. Why? Because we are increasingly a sideshow, living on the margins of the forces that are transforming the world. When I am back home I sometimes feel as if I am living in a time warp.
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Blair’s friend and ally lies in direct line of descent from Mussolini and poses a toxic threat to democracy
We should not be surprised that New Labour has become embroiled in a scandal that involves Silvio Berlusconi. There is something entirely predictable about it. Tony Blair was perfectly happy to embrace Berlusconi, together with the former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar as an ally at the time of the breach between Europe and the US in the months prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. He has seen Berlusconi as a valuable ally in pursuit of his pro-Bush foreign policy. In fact, he has consistently been closer to Berlusconi than to centre-left leaders such as the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. This sense of affinity has even acquired a personal and family dimension, with the Blairs accepting Berlusconi’s hospitality and taking their vacations with the Italian leader at his holiday home.
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