Rantle

by Eric E. Anschutz, January, 2007

It is more apparent every day that American priorities in the use of its power and wealth are tragically wrong. Not only is our unnecessary and destructive war in Iraq creating more and more enmity around the world; it is keeping us from constructive investments that could make us the envy of the world. To get a sense of what we could achieve by reversing our priorities, we might well look to the example of China. This developing, and in many ways still poor and primitive, country has for the past two decades or so devoted its resources almost entirely to economic development. Because its investments span the globe, China is gaining favor worldwide, while promoting a better standard of living for its own people.

Just look at the record:

While the US remains bogged down in Iraq, while we spend some $10 billion-plus every month fueling our war machine, while our militant and aggressive (and hapless) foreign policy continues to antagonize and alienate people all over the world, while our government’s attention is fixated on exporting “democracy,” China is making its international presence felt in a very different way. Chinese construction firms are building train lines to link remote Angolan towns to the deep harbor in Luanda, Angola’s capital. All across Africa, China is investing in roads, railways and harbors; and it is building and operating textile factories, and digging oil wells. In Brazil, China has entered into trade agreements to export soy and beef. In Thailand, Chinese engineers are blasting reefs on the Mekong so that large boats can take Chinese-manufactured goods to markets in Southeast Asia. In 2004, China’s President Hu Jintao spent two weeks in South America, more time than our president has spent there during his entire presidency. China has pledged billions of investment dollars in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Cuba. China’s Premier Wen Jibao visited some 15 countries last year, everywhere seeking commercial arrangements and friendly relationships. In December, China signed a $16 billion contract with Iran to buy natural gas and to help develop oil fields.

To facilitate transport of China’s products to Southeast Asia, Chinese contractors are building roads from Chinese cities to Hanoi, Mandalay and Bangkok, and along the edge of the Mekong River whose channels abound with boats carrying Chinese goods. All this aid and commercial activity is of course bonding China with its Southeast Asian neighbors. President Hu has also pledged to double trade with India by 2010, and to bid jointly for global oil projects on which India and China had heretofore been competing. Last October, Hu met in Beijing with Japan’s new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, a visit that the Chinese have termed a “turning point” in China/Japan relations.

Some months ago, then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld expressed concern about the buildup in China’s military forces, noting that military spending there has increased substantially in the last decade, from 1.08% of its GDP in 1995 to 1.55% in 2005. But, by contrast, the US spends 3.9% of its GDP on defense (not counting the war in Iraq), and the US economy is five times the size of China’s. Thus, our annual military spending, not counting the war, is some 12 times greater than China’s. We are clearly in no position to complain about the increase in China’s defense budget.

China knows that it cannot achieve economic primacy unless and until it joins the ranks of nations at the forefront of technological innovation. Accordingly, steps are being taken to transform its classrooms so students become more innovative. China’s Vice-Minister of Education reminds us that the Chinese people are innately innovative, that the China of old developed the compass, paper-making, printing and gunpowder. “Creative thinking and entrepreneurship,” he added, “are the exact issues we are putting attention to today.”
The challenge to America’s technological leadership is a reality today, from all across Asia. Japan’s Toyota has built a formidable lead in hybrid technology for automobiles, and Korea’s Hyundai cars lead the world in reliability and consumer satisfaction, and provide the longest guarantee period, 10 years. China too is now rushing to develop a world-class “green” diesel engine for passenger cars in pursuit of their ambition to become technology exporters rather than importers. To shield its already overburdened environment from the emissions of the growing number of cars on its streets, China urgently needs low-emission cars for domestic reasons. But a small, low-cost, environmentally non-intrusive car could be a big seller in US markets. And the Chinese know it.

Microsoft Research Asia (MRA), established in Beijing, in 1998, employs 200 Chinese engineers and scientists. In the 2005 convention of the world’s premier conference (Siggraph) on computer graphics and interactive technologies, attended by researchers from all over the world, China’s Microsoft Research Center had nine papers published (out of 98), beating out MIT and Stanford. But this Center is not devoted merely to abstract thought or pure science; it is responsible for 100 new technologies applied to current Microsoft products, from Xbox to Windows. Bill Gates has stated that he views Microsoft’s China center as a vital contributor to the company’s technological future.

China is giving great emphasis to development of “green” technologies, and aims to become an exporter of such technologies to a world rapidly trending to environmentally and ecologically sound construction materials and methods. China already produces pavement bricks made of fly ash, a by-product of coal-burning, which allows rain water to pass through to the aquifer; it also manufactures photovoltaic cells of Chinese design, and concrete building blocks filled with insulating foam to minimize energy-demands on heating and cooling systems. A Chinese botanic center employs a solar-powered composting toilet; another building houses water-free urinals. All of this is potentially exportable.

I do not write to laud China. I write, instead, to prod America to take actions now that will secure for us all that is good and strong about our country. Despite its current surge forward, China remains a relatively poor nation with per capita income some twenty times less than ours. The Chinese are burdened with an almost overwhelming set of problems, both human and environmental, and it remains to be seen whether China’s startling two decades of economic and diplomatic progress will bring ultimate success to its 1.3 billion people. It remains entirely possible that its soot-filled skies and polluted rivers and disenfranchised peasantry and increasing political unrest will in the end impoverish that nation, and could lead China’s Communist leaders to stifle emerging free markets, and bring about a retreat from its recent tolerance for dissent, returning to Maoist suppression and economic slowdown to solve its problems.

The United States, on the other hand, despite our own numerous problems, is still the richest, most open, most tolerant and freest economy in the world. Our universities, particularly in science, are of unparalleled excellence. And our silicon valley (now essentially nationwide) remains the world’s center of vibrant technological creativity and innovation. But these important strengths, which allow us today to live well and with the illusion of endless well-being, are threatened on a number of fronts. They include ineffective elementary and secondary education, an ever-growing budget deficit (our government spends more than it takes in), an out-of-control balance of trade deficit (we buy more from abroad than we sell), a health-care system that saps our energies and our economy by denying or compromising care for many citizens, dependence on the Mid-East, Africa and Latin America for oil, the war in Iraq that drains our spirits and our resources, and a vulnerability to Islamic hatred and the threat of terrorism that we have no effective way of combating militarily.

So, what to do? The answer, my friends, is peace. By moving away from war and a war-burdened economy, our resources and our energies could be brought to bear on domestic threats (economic and cultural) to national security rather than on the counterproductive militarism that is our current focus. The most promising way for America to export democracy and the many freedoms we enjoy is not by war, but rather by the example of our own success as a nation. Generous foreign aid, aggressive and open commerce, a vibrant US economy, a tolerant multi-racial and multi-ethnic society, world-class education for our children, and universal health care – all are the kinds of things that would benefit from a shift from war to peace. The $1-2 trillion spent (counterproductively) on Iraq could have bought more influence in the Middle East and across the world than might have been won even had the war been a success. That of course is water over the dam. But, whereas past is prologue, we do have an option where the future is concerned. I, for one, vote for a future where peace is the goal, and where war is truly only a last resort, and is entered into only after extensive Congressional debate and with a super-majority vote for war in both houses of Congress.