Asia's Great Economic Strides

Shri Vikram Nehru and Shri Jeffrey Sachs, the former a World Bank’s expert in Chinese affairs and the latter Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, have expressed their views that it would not be difficult for India and China to maintain sustained economic growth at least at the rate of 6 per cent per annum (Organiser, 23-11-97). This opinion is perfectly in tune with that of Dr. C. Rangarajan’s who has just retired as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. At the concluding session of a seminar on global finance held in Mumbai recently, Dr. Rangarajan’s said that with her present industrial infrastructure, India had the potential to achieve economic growth at the rate of 7 per cent per year. He also affirmed that though the above target could not be attained during the first six-month of the current financial year, the deficiency could be made good comfortably during the second half of the year.

The economic experts of the west are now looking on present rapid Asian growth as the irresistible growth of a teenager and expect that it would continue for the next few decades till it reaches its middle age. On the contrary, the symptoms of a declining economy in the West are clearly discernible. In fact, the western countries became rich by looting wealth from every part of the globe through colonization and inflicting inhuman torture on the people of their colonies. One may recall their barbaric acts in Africa starting from the days of slave trade right up to the recent past. They had practically wiped out the aborigines of the north and the South America, Australia and New Zealand to occupy their land. One may also recall the cruelty and torture they let loose upon the farmers of Bengal during the days of indigo plantation and atrocities with which they destroyed the crafts of making world’s finest fabric—the muslin. Furthermore, they starved millions of Indians farmers to death by creating man-made famines.

Regarding the plunder of India by the British, H.G. Wells writes:  “it (the East India Company) came to buy and sell, and it found itself. Achieving a tremendous piracy. There was no one to challenge its proceedings. Is it any wonder that its captains and commanders and officials, nay, even its clerks and common soldiers, came back to England loaded with spoils?” (A Short History of the World, ch. 53). After the battle of Plassey, the East India Company shipped a large treasure of gold and jewels, illegally seized from the royal treasure of Murshidabad and private collections of begums, to England. The value of that treasure, according to a rough estimate by Shri R.C. Majumdar, stands at Rs. 300 crore at the market price of 1900 AD. So one can easily imagine how many thousands of crores of rupees it would be at the present market price. Apart from that, Clive’s personal acquisition of wealth was so fabulous that the British Parliament had to pass a vote of censure upon him in 1774, and ultimately he had to commit suicide to escape public condemnation.

Today, big American MNCs are downsizing their business in USA and coming to Asia with billions of dollars. They are throwing millions of Americans out of jobs leading to considerable decline in American standard of living. To tackle the resulting crisis the US Government has to lower the minimum wage level and drastically cut welfare programmes for the poor.

But the days are changing. As the colonies have gone out of hand, the affluence of Europe is on the wane and now Europe is trying to save its terribly declining economy by creating the European Union and a common European market. The glorious day of the British empire have gone and the ‘great’ United Kingdom is now painfully disintegrating. Scotland has already decided to become independent and in an opinion poll held on September 18 this year, a large majority of the people of Wales expressed their desire in favor of setting up their own government.

The affluence of USA has also started declining. In 1994, USA owed $65.5 billion to Japan as trade deficit and at present the figure has certainly gone up. To arrest this frightening trend, it had to impose a 100 per cent import duty on 13 models of Japanese luxury cars by shamelessly trampling the sacrosanct principles of WTO, the body created by USA itself. The trade between USA and China is also in favor of China and very recently America’s trade deficit to China has crossed $10 billion owing to the excessive import of Chinese toys and other gift items for the forth-coming Christmas time.

Today, big American multinational corporations are downsizing their business in USA and coming to Asia with billions of dollars to invest in and earn the greatest profit utilizing the cheaper Asian labour. They are throwing millions of Americans out of jobs leading to considerable decline in the American standard of living. To tackle the resulting crisis the Federal Government of USA has to lower the minimum wage level and drastically cut welfare programmes for the poor. Many American firms are now being taken over by Asian companies. Last year, the US Senate and Congress rued bitterly when a South Korean firm, L.G. Electronics, took over the oldest American TV-making company, Zenith Electronics. Also the last year, the largest civil airplane-making company of the world, Boeing Corporation, yielding to the Chinese pressure agreed to assemble 20 Boeing-747 airplanes in China, ordered by China. Otherwise, the order would have gone to Boeing’s archrival, the Airbus of Europe. The incident sparked much debate among the American politicians and the US Congress expressed serious concern over that trend of snatching jobs from American workers. Similarly, South Korea has also started snatching jobs from American workers as 40 F-16 warplanes, ordered by Korea, are now being assembled by Samsung Corporation, a South Korean MNC.

According to economic experts, Asia is now heading for the same “auto boom” as occurred in Europe and America at the beginning of this century. So the ‘Four Bigs” of Detroit along with other big carmakers of Germany, Italy and France have started coming to Asia with billions. This is the reason for present brisk activity that is going on in the auto-making field in our country. Almost everyday a new car-making firm is coming up declaring its collaborations with a foreign car-maker. But the difficulty is that the Indian, or rather the Asian, roads are not fit enough to accommodate so many cars. To overcome this difficulty, the World Bank and the IMF are coming up for providing funds to make the new wider expressways and modernizing old ones.

All these facts suggest that the 21^st century is going to be a century of prosperity for the Asians while for the Europeans and the Americans a century for doing penance for the past sins. Recent visits of the western dignitaries and heads of states to their previous colonies and their polished endeavors to redress their past misdeeds and atrocities show that spring is not far behind.