Well, well, well, take it easy, Tom. Am no China- or East Asian- expert! Just posted that article to elicit comments, criticisms and debate. Didn't mean to ruffle the feathers of any American patriot!
As for the East Asians telling the US and the IMF to go piss in the pot, as you have suggested, I think the US and the IMF won't let them and will still insist on helping them even if they did. Why? Simply because if the East Asians and South Koreans are left to their own devices, the 'contagion' will eventually arrive at our shores and 'infect' us with dire consequences all around. Clearly, the US and the IMF cannot allow this to happen and so they chose to act PDQ! As a matter of fact, the powers that be had originally decided to let Korea 'fail' but they had a change of heart a few days later because they realised it would cost them dearly, politically and economically, if they did nothing. Also, it cannot be gainsaid that the US does not like to see the Asian nations nudge closer to China or see China gain influence and surge further ahead in development. (Napoleon in the 1800s once said that China was a sleeping dragon which when awakened would get a lot of folks worried.....). Apparently, China is now observed by many to be rousing itself from its slumber and is becoming a force to reckon with.
Rightly or wrongly, I am inclined to believe that the mess in South East Asia was something that was allowed to happen. Such is the nature of geopolitics. But apparently, the perpetrators never foresaw the severity of the toll of the crisis. IMHO, those movers and shakers could have manipulated things such that the Asian crisis would have been essentially a non-event. But apparently, they are in a hurry as they have an important agenda that has to be fulfilled before this millennium is out.
The US is now the world's only superpower! Lord Acton once wrote that "All forms of power corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." How the US will wield its absolute power is something that bears watching. Already the scandals involving the head honchos inside and outside of the White House would tend to make one watchful. |
