Monday, November 16, 2009

Welcome, comrade Maobama


By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"....
Dear comrade, you may have noticed that the Washington Consensus is for all purposes dead. What has emerged is what we might call the Beijing Consensus. China has shown the global South that "there is an alternative" - a "third way" of independent economic development and integration to the global order. We have shown that unlike the Washington Consensus "one-size-fits-all" package, economic development has to be "local" in every case. Our beloved Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping would have called it "development with local characteristics".....

You may also have realized why China has consistently beaten hands down the elitist economic and financial institutions controlled by the North. After all, we offer countries all over the global South much better deals to access their natural resources. We have been engaged in vast, complex infrastructure projects that invariably end up costing less than half the price charged by countries in the North. Our loans are more carefully targeted; they are impervious to political misunderstandings; and they don't come with exorbitant consultant fees attached...... "

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