Articles/World News
The world is an ever changing organism which will either sustain itself or will become an un-inhabitable planet in future times. This part of the Newsletter will therefore look at major issues that will influence the destiny of humankind.
Socio-economic issues:
China and the East Asian economies are developing at a phenomenal rate compared to the industrialised economies of the West.
% change on year ago | last 12 months $bn |
Nation | GDP | Industrial Production | trade balance | foreign reserves |
latest | 12 months ago |
China | +9.4 Q1 | +11.9 | +27.1 May | 114.0 | 82.7 |
Indonesia | +7.8 (1996) | +18.0 Q3 | +7.1 Mar | 19.0 | 15.0 |
India | +7.0 (1995) | +2.6 Feb | -5.3 Apr | 23.0 | 17.4 |
Malaysia | +8.2 Q1 | +9.0 Mar | +0.4 Apr | 26.1 | 23.1 |
Taiwan | +6.8 Q1 | +7.3 May | +12.7 May | 88.8 | 82.6 |
These figures can be simply explained as they are ‘emerging’ economies but technological advancement is being created and given by the industrialised West at an alarming rate. For one example alone, NEC’s $1 billion chip-making factory in China could have a startling effect on China’s young high technology industries as NEC have the worlds most advanced technology in Semiconductors - They are by far in advance of any of their marketplace rivals.
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Purchasing power parity or what the market will pay puts a fresh light on the world economies as the graph represents. China is already the second largest purchaser internally on the world markets and India(No.5) and Indonesia(No.10) are both in the top ten. |
Military:
According to Ivo Dawnay, Washington Correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph ‘China plots to bug West’s defences’ (15 June 1997) China has created an elite military corps charged with devising ways of planting disabling computer viruses into American and other Western command and control defence systems. The People’s Liberation Army high command in January concluded that conducting warfare with computer viruses is more effective than using nuclear weapons. This was recently revealed to the US House of Representatives’ task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare. Dawnay went on to say that in May 1997 the US State Department confirmed to the US Congress that China had supplied Iran with cruise missiles capable of targeting shipping in the Gulf. Furthermore for Richard Fisher, a senior Asia policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank, there is now indisputable evidence that China’s great leap forward in military hardware is far more advanced than most think.
He said recently, "As the Clinton administration looks the other way the world is witnessing perhaps the most geo-strategically dangerous transfer of power since Germany and other states helped create the early Soviet Union’s military-technical base".
Together with this Dawnay says that Beijing is also close to perfecting a highly mobile cruise missile delivery system with a 5,000-mile range that could target multi-warhead missiles on California. Comment: Military power is only diluted by technological supremacy.