Loath as I am to use this word, there’s a sobering column in today’s Times of India on the chances of conflict between the US and China. Here’s the meat:
As the financial crisis of 2008-09 has shaken the confident foundations of a new global economic order and caused considerable havoc, relations between China and the US have deteriorated.
On virtually any issue one can think of – trade, finance, investment, intellectual property rights, security, morality, human rights, climate change – we are seeing what has been termed “escalating reciprocal demonisation.”
This combination of economic havoc – especially stubbornly high unemployment – and geopolitical tensions between the rising and the established powers is cause for alarm.
The rest of Jean-Pierre Lehmann piece reads like a laundry list of liberal global do-goodism, on how to prevent any and all wars and have a happy shiny globe. The real worry — and I think he’s pinned down the causes just so — is for increasing economic conflict between our two nations. Remember, the Great Depression didn’t go global, and didn’t reach its depths, until after Congress started a global trade war to help “solve” our domestic economic troubles.
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