By Alejandro Del Rosario
Manila Standard Today
Manila Standard Today
The world was witness to two recent major events—the US presidential elections where Americans voted to give Barack Obama another mandate and the once-in-a decade leadership change in China with Xi Jinping looming as the new “great helmsman”.
Both events bore a distinct difference in how the two most powerful countries in the world choose their leaders. The US elections had all the hallmark of how Americans select the man they want to lead them. The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, and despite the prefix “people” connoting popular will, chose a new leader behind closed doors in an election exercised by a chosen few.
Which political system is best for the economic well being of a nation’s people?
Europe, despite its strong political institutions, is in economic decline. The United States, steeped in its democratic values, has an economy on the mend.
Does this century then belong to Asia?
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in a recent policy speech, said “the Asian century is not only unstoppable, it is gathering pace.” In synch with its role as a Pacific nation with a large Asian community, Gillard added that Australia must be ready to embrace the Asian century with every child able to speak Mandarin, Hindi or Japanese.”
Nations in the region accept a rising China assuming a leadership role. But Beijing’s assertive stance on the South China Sea has also given rise to apprehension that China could start a conflagration. In a South China Sea potentially awash in oil and mineral, it would be like having someone light a match in a room with a gas fume leak.
There are flash points in the region—the conflicting claims in the South China Sea among China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei and lately, a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island. Notwithstanding this wrangling over maritime borders, there is still reason to be sanguine that these disputes would be settled peacefully There is so much at stake, if only the willingness to share the possible wealth under the seabed is accepted by a dominant China.
China’s gross domestic product slowed to 7.4 percent in the third quarter of this year because its manufacturing sector slumped. But three decades of an unprecedented average 10-percent growth catapulted China over the international competition, making it the world’s second biggest economy.
India,Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia are all experiencing steady economic growth. Even the Philippines, the erstwhile economic laggard of Asia, has shown a 6.4-percent GDP growth to validate the region’s prosperity amid a global climate of uncertainty. Japan, still feeling the effects of last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, is slowly recovering.
Xiaobo Lu, a political science professor at Barnard College of Columbia University, has analyzed for CNN the internecine clash of ideologies in the politburo leading to the 18th China Communist Party Congress on Nov.8
With the departure of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, China‘s future and destiny are left in the hands of new leader Xi Jinping. This, after the downfall of once-touted future leader Bo Xi Lai, a casualty of the opaque workings of Chinese power play.
“China needs a soul,” posited Professor Lu in his CNN piece as he analyzed the “three strands of Chinese ideology.” These are: The neo-Confucian traditionalists who lament the loss of a moral compass; the neo-liberal reformists who seek to liberalize the economic and political arenas to reverse the expansion of the state; and the neo-Maoists who want to strengthen the state and break what they perceive as a state capitalist alliance between the rich and powerful.
China’s leadership change on Nov. 8 came in convergence with US elections on Nov. 6 . Indeed it is a November fraught with challenges, not only for the two countries with the biggest economies, but also for the rest of the global village.
What does the leadership change in China augur for the Philippines and how will it impact the conflicting claims over the South China Sea?
At the Tuesday breakfast news forum at the Edsa-Shangrila Hotel Edsa, Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing said China wants a peaceful solution to the impasse over Scarborough Shoal. We responded that Filipinos also want a diplomatic denouement as it would redound to the region’s stability.
After the Asia-Europe summit meeting in Vientiane, the Association of South East Asian Nations Summit Plus 5 will also be held in Phnom Penh with heads of state of the 10 Asean members plus China, Japan, India , Russia and the US expected to attend.
Whether Cambodia, which hosted last April’s Asean Foreign Ministers meeting, can redeem itself from the unprecedented failure to come up with a communiqué and a Code of Conduct on the South China Sea depends largely on how beholden Phnom Penh is to Beijing. Diplomatic observers saw the Chinese hand over the host’s handling of the meeting’s agenda that did not include the controversial SCS issue.
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