Friday, November 19, 2004

 

China

Should China be offered membership of the G7/G8? It's surely capable of sharing the responsibilities of leadership in global security and economic matters.

China's involvement in Asia. The growing influence and power play is shown here. http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040828/ZNYT03/408280416

Beijing is pushing for regional political and economic groupings it can dominate, like a proposed East Asia Community that would cut out the United States and create a global bloc to rival the European Union. It is dispersing aid and, in ways not seen before, pressing countries to fall in line on its top foreign policy priority: its claim over Taiwan. . . American military supremacy remains unquestioned, regional officials say. But the United States appears to be on the losing side of trade patterns.

China's involvement in South America. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/international/asia/20china.html?oref=login

The United States, preoccupied with the worsening situation in Iraq, seems to have attached little importance to China's rising profile in the region. If anything, increased trade between Latin America and China has been welcomed as a means to reduce pressure on the United States to underwrite economic reforms, with geopolitical considerations pushed to the background.

Driven by one the largest and most sustained economic expansions in history, and facing bottlenecks and shortages in Asia, China is increasingly turning to South America as a supplier. It is busy buying huge quantities of iron ore, bauxite, soybeans, timber, zinc and manganese in Brazil. It is vying for tin in Bolivia, oil in Venezuela and copper here in Chile, where last month it displaced the United States as the leading market for Chilean exports.

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