Sunday, October 26, 2008

Don't expect China to get the West out of this mess

Will Hutton
The Observer, Sunday October 26 2008

"With the markets crashing once more and the last rites being pronounced over Western capitalism, the consensus is that autumn 2008 is when global economic power will have been seen to pass to Asia in general and China in particular. This is the new economic powerhouse. Its growth may slow a little while the West flounders, but it will emerge from this recession as the world's centre of economic and financial gravity. Goodbye, USA. Hello, the Chinese Communist party.

It is fashionable foolishness that ignores some brute realities.The first is that Asia, except Japan, remains in essence a subcontractor to the West. Two-thirds of China's exports, for example, are made by foreign companies who essentially reprocess imports of semi-manufactured goods that are then shipped to Europe and the US....."

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