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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rational who wrote (496)	1/6/1998 5:48:00 PM
From: Rational	Respond to of 9980

China sees a plot in U.S. aid to battered Asia 03:06 a.m. Jan 06, 1998 Eastern BEIJING, Jan 6 (Reuters) - By imposing harsh terms on financial aid to troubled Asian nations, the United States was forcing into submission economic rivals in the region, the People's Daily newspaper said on Tuesday. China's Communist Party mouthpiece portrayed U.S. intervention in the Asian currency crisis in cynical terms and said it indicated a new relationship between Washington and countries in the region. Once Cold War-era allies, East Asian nations now posed an economic threat to the world's only superpower, it said. ''The United States is certainly not offering a new Marshall Plan to East Asia,'' the article said. ''By giving help it is forcing East Asia into submission, promoting the U.S. economic and political model and easing East Asia's threat the U.S. economy.'' The U.S.-led Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe's shattered economies after World War Two. The newspaper said the United States was stressing the authority of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the crisis to further its own strategic interests. ''Troubled East Asian countries have no alternative to swallowing the bitter medicine prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, and under harsh conditions contract internally and further open up externally,'' it said. China often accuses the United States of trying to subvert its communist system by insinuating ideas of free markets and democracy. The article said the United States ''stood by and watched with its hands in its pockets'' when the crisis first erupted in Thailand, believing it was a regional problem that signalled the victory of the U.S. free-market system over an outdated East Asian economic model. The regional turmoil started when Thailand stopped trying to defend its targeted exchange rate for the baht, which immediately collapsed. At that point, the People's Daily said, Washington was not prepared to bail out nations that were in long-running disputes with the United States over trade and market access. Only when the crisis began rocking international stock markets did the United States step in by participating in an IMF bailout for Indonesia. ''The crisis is both an opportunity and a challenge for the United States,'' the article said. If the crisis was not resolved quickly, countries in the region could be thrown into recession, reducing the flow of U.S. exports. Cheap currencies in East Asia might also prompt a new wave of exports to the United States, exacerbating trade tensions, the article said. ''If East Asian nations dumped their enormous U.S. bonds holdings, and pulled their investments out of the United States, America could face financial panic and it could prompt a crisis in the global financial system.'' China chipped in $1 billion to the IMF bailout for Thailand and at one point said it was considering a contribution to help Indonesia get back on its feet. The country has largely escaped contagion by the Asian financial ''flu,'' partly because its capital markets are sealed to the outside world.