Will China ship inferior goods to EU and USA?
–They dare not.
–Why?
–EU and USA have an alternative. They will reject the goods, drastically curtail trade with China, refurbish their own machines and resume manufacturing these goods for themselves.
–Can’t Nigeria do the same?
–Nigeria can’t.
–We don’t have the know-how and we don’t have the machines?
–No we don’t. . . You see, after independence from Britain in 1947 India spent the next 50 years industrializing, learning how to operate every machine and how to make everything, absorbing the deep sciences of production processes of all sorts, giving their youth a first-rate education in science and technology, importing, copying, reproducing and refining manufacturing machines of all sorts, and internalizing modern industrial culture, thereby transforming their society for better and for worse.
–Wooo! What did Nigeria spend its first 50 years after independence doing?
–You tell me. I’m sure you learned it in school.
–Apparently, what China did in secret, India did in the open—since it was an unapologetic and enthusiastic operator of the Westminster model of democratic governance as well as a maniac for cricket.
–Yes indeed. India believed in “non-alignment.” Proudly autonomous, it was nobody’s camp follower. It took from the east, it took from the west. It openly underwent tutelage from both warring camps of sworn rivals for world dominance—borrowing from the Soviets first their Five Year Plan system of economic development and finally their nuclear technology, and from Euro-America their manufacturing and agricultural technology.
–India seems to have been more deft in relating to its rival mentors. It was only a generation ago, as I learned, that the Chinese were absolutely wild, making enemies in every direction. They bit the Soviet Communist hand that fed them, denouncing the USSR at every turn as “revisionists”; they threw defiance at the West, calling America a “paper tiger”; they confronted India at their common Himalayan border, stopping just short of war; and they harassed their own domestic opposition, calling them “imperialist running dogs” and “capitalist roaders.”
–Yes, it was Deng Xiaoping, chief of the “capitalist roaders,” that eventually threw down the bamboo gates and ushered China onto the world stage as a modern industrialized economy and a nuclear military superpower.
–It seems they shed all that harsh rhetoric, along with their dull grey Mao suits, and donned a new “garb of innocence”—the Euro business suit.
–That’s right. The West (EU-USA) long ago learned to conceal their relentless dagger whose single goal is continued global dominance, first in the voluminous folds of their imperial Roman tunic-toga and later in the modern 10-pocketed business suit, diverting attention from their aims with tireless, suave media preachments concocted from Christian religious cum liberal democratic cum UN human rights cum GATT free trade economic rhetoric.
–Could it be that when they donned the business suit the Chinese also concealed in its ten pockets the equally sharp and relentless dagger of their ambition for global dominance?
–Yes. They dropped the bellicose rhetoric and adopted the technique, said to be golden, of silence: play deaf (don’t understand your language, didn’t hear what you just said) and dumb (can’t speak your language and you can’t comprehend mine). So there’s a supposed “communication deficit,” really an artificial barrier; and behind that barrier they just keep doing what they are doing.
–So far so good . . .
–So while the US Congress and every presidential candidate generates heat and burns energy pushing anti-China legislation and trade controls, the Chinese stand aloof and carry on as if nothing is happening and it’s none of their business. China is paying the West in its own centuries-old coin. The old “opium war” is fought over and over and decided again and again in China’s favor so far.
–So far?
–So far. No condition is permanent. The West pretends to be prostrate before China’s onslaught while biding its time and quietly preparing a counter-attack.
–But surely China is not deceived. They are as pragmatic and cunning as their Western rivals.
–Perhaps more so. But the West has prolonged experience in ruthlessness and destruction.
–As Sun Tzu advises in The Art of War, the ideal is to so circumscribe your opponent that he submits without a fight, isn’t it?
–Indeed. This is an “extreme gladiator combat” that your children and grandchildren may be called to witness . . . .
ONWUCHEKWA JEMIE
ojemie@s19080.p615.sites.pressdns.com/en
0805-209-7838
Jemie is the Editor-in-Chief of BusinessDay
