Every dollar counts in shrinking the Gap
Thomas Barnett
¦"Emerging-market indicators: Remittances," The Economist, 26 November 2005, p. 116.
Great data point from The Economist: Remittances from ex-pat workers back to emerging markets and developing countries totals $167 billion this year. This is the equal of foreign direct investment in these countries (basically Gap + New Core, in their categorization scheme) and twice the value of Official Developmental Aid from the Old Core, or West.
Moreover, it's estimated that maybe this number is low, with 50% more coming in money flowing through informal channels not tracked.
The leaders? India and China and Mexico and Philippines (three New Core and the Seam State with the highest percentage of its labor working abroad)d
Fascinating stuff that shows that individuals matter a lot in shrinking the Gap.
Ripped from the pages of BFA . ..
¦"Chemical Disaster In China Fuels Pollution Worries: Environmental Minister Quits After Initial Slow Response; Russia Braces for the Slick," by Rebecca Blumenstein and Jason Dean, Wall Street Journal, 3-4 December 2005, p. A1.
In the Conclusion "Blogging the Future," in the "by 2010" entries:
“China's 'Black Summer' Triggers Unprecedented Social Unrest; Tipping Point Seen”
I spent one long, hot August traveling through China last year, and I can personally vouch for the fact that it suffers the most amazingly high levels of air pollution I have ever endured. Guangzhou, described as China's “Los Angeles,” suffers smog that effectively blots out both sky and sun, even on what are theoretically cloudless days! Between the constant headaches, sore throats, and stuffed heads, it is simply hard-physically-to live in Guangzhou. Not surprisingly, nineteen of the twenty-five most polluted cities in the world are located in Asia, with nine in China alone. A tipping point is coming on environmental stress in China, one we've seen before in industrializing countries as the masses simply begin to recognize a clear trade-off between that extra slice of GDP per capita and the instinctive desire to be able to suck in a chestful of air without it burning. The grassroots environmental movement is growing in China, and eventually some horrific example of mass suffering will trigger an explosion in political demands for something better.
Okay, so not as big as I posited, yet the international aspect angle will elevate it dramatically. In terms of political dynamics, this comes off like the SARS outbreak: usual Chinese repression of news, then political leaders get nervous, sack some leaders, and try to come clean PR-wise.
Watch this dynamic happen again and again, especially in the environmental realm, but also watch for a growing series of enviro debacles in China triggering increasingly more open tolerance by the government for grass-roots political activism on this subject.
Yes, it will be ugly, and get uglier over time, but remember, most progress and most pluralism comes through disasters and scandals--just like they did here in the States.
A legal rule set in which Dirty Harry would revel
Kahn is a good reporter on China. Solid piece.
December 3, 2005
Torture Is 'Widespread' in China, U.N. Investigator Says
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING, Dec. 2 - A high-level United Nations investigator condemned the "widespread" use of torture in Chinese law enforcement and said Beijing must overhaul its criminal laws, grant more power to judges and abolish labor camps before it can end such abuses, according to a summary of his findings released Friday.
The investigation, by Manfred Nowak, the special rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, noted some progress by Chinese officials in reducing violence against prisoners since the country signed an international covenant banning torture in 1988.
But Mr. Nowak said that "obtaining confessions" and fighting "deviant behavior" continued to be central goals of China's criminal justice system. The police and prison guards are pushed to extract admissions of guilt and are rarely punished for using electric shock, sleep deprivation and submersion in water or sewage, among other techniques the Commission on Human Rights considers torture, to obtain them, he said.
"The use of torture, though on the decline, particularly in urban areas, nevertheless remains widespread in China," Mr. Nowak said at a news briefing in Beijing. "There is a need for much more structural reform to address the problem" ...
China's legal system reflects its socialist past far too much. Way too titled against the accused, much like the Russian one still. A system Dirty Harry would love, but it has a pre-Miranda feeling to it: busting heads to get confessions is no problem. Add in the political aspect of some prosecutions, and it's a bad mix for business.
No arguments with this piece: it just places China's legal system many decades into our past. The question we need to ask is, "What is the best way to pull China's legal system forward?"
Is it hectoring? Or pushing further economic integration that triggers more social and business demands for legal transparency in the system?
Well, think for a minute . .. how did our system come about?
Go here for the full story: nytimes.com
Perhaps the most interesting comparison right now is between how America is choosing to wage the Global War on Terrorism and how China typically works criminality in its system. Scary how similar they are, yes?
A SysAdmin contract to die for, if you're not careful ...
Here's the editorial in the NYT today noting this amazing USAID contract offering:
December 3, 2005
Editorial
Iraq Fixer, No Exp. Needed, $1B-up
Anyone who caught a glimpse of President Bush's speech on Iraq this week - delivered from an elaborately decorated stage confidently plastered with "Plan for Victory" placards - may have thought the administration believes that a detailed victory plan is in place. But there's still work to be done, especially if you're in the business of blue-sky consulting.
As the president's speech was being headlined, a far quieter government announcement from the Agency for International Development, the main pipeline for Iraq reconstruction, was offering a $1-billion-plus opportunity for interested parties to dream up "design and implementation" plans for stabilizing 10 "Strategic Cities" considered "critical to the defeat of the Insurgency in Iraq" ...
Go here for the rest: nytimes.com.
Not a good sign this deep in the process, but reflective of a growing U.S. Government realization of the need for what I call the Development-in-a-Box process.
The templating, as Enterra likes to say, is just beginning.
But the government needs to be real on this: just hiring some firm to try and nail this all on its own is a bit too monolithic. We need the matrix, as Steve DeAngelis likes to say. We need marketplace competition and the culling of best practices. We have a host of different NATO countries leading the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, bringing a variety of approaches. In that marketplace, the best practices can be derived and templated for future use. That's more matrix-like, but hiring one big firm to do it all? Sounds scary and rife for abuse. Even ten firms at $100m each is hard to imagine, but that's at least spreading the risk some.
A process that bears watching, but good to see the attempt and the strategic realization behind it.
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