Ron,
Thank you for your detailed & informative response.
I had gotten the impression from the Senate Committee hearings back in March, that some government agencies were already quite deeply involved in monitoring the Y2K crisis in Asia, notably the State Department's Inspectorate. And the World Bank (although it is not, strictly speaking, a US agency, ha, ha).
But even then, the same facts could be, and were, interpreted different ways. For example, the State Department's Inspector General thought that prolonged infrastructure failure was unlikely, given the relatively low level of computerization in key sectors in Asia. According to the World Bank, however, even in the poorest Asian countries essential services are so computerized that any failure would seriously threaten the well-being and security of the people.
You say "we're seeing an attempt to create an environment where it is
ackowledged grudgingly that there will be problems, but that they have identified them and can present a list of workable contingency plans to perform work-arounds."
What I think you are saying is that the U.S. is trying to get the Asian countries to identify their problems and develop a list of "workable contingency plans to perform work-arounds." If so, just how confident are you that they will do so?
And what about China and all that pirated software it's using -- and thus can't fix?
jbe
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