Welcome President Obama to the Philippines, we need more investments & trade, not just arms & alms

Welcome Pres. Obama, we need more investments & trade, not just arms & alms

I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency…They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. --- Barack Obama

            Welcome to the intellectually brilliant, eloquent and well-intentioned U.S. President Barack Obama to Asia’s most fun-loving country the Philippines. I urge Obama to please prioritize promoting more American investments, trade and tourism here, not just rosy speeches and effusive photo-ops, not just free U.S. military access to our archipelago, not just aid, not just more sales of military weapons.

It is sad that not many of our politicians realize that the true bulwark of national security and the best foundation for our democracy is a vibrant, self-reliant and globally-competitive Philippine economy, not just more new warplanes or ships.

Image above of President Barack Obama sourced from en.wikipedia.org

            President Obama’s desire for a strategic pivot (or “rebalance”, as the White House has seemingly renamed it after supposed panic and complaints from close allies in the Middle East and Europe) to Asia should hopefully be more vigorous economically, not just on the diplomatic, military and political aspects.

Help nudge our leaders to push economic democracy

I hope pro-poor President Obama can nudge our political leaders to push more decisive socio-economic reforms such as a Theodore Roosevelt-style anti-trust law and Senator Grace Poe’s Freedom of Information (FOI) bill. How can our economy be truly dynamic if it is agriculturally semi-feudal and industrially oligopolistic?

Also, on April 22---Earth Day, ecological champion Senator Loren Legarda and director Brillante Mendoza launched a riveting documentary on the destruction of the priceless marine biodiversity in our many coastal areas where millions of the rural poor live. I urge Obama to give technological and financial aid to our environmental projects, especially since logging, mining and other huge extraction of our natural resources grew under U.S. colonial rule and mostly by the multinationals.

Despite the gitzy malls and many new condominiums in our cities, we in Philippine society still have a long way to go economically. True, we’re politically an American-style constitutional democracy, but not yet an economic democracy.

In fact, it was a tragedy that U.S. colonizers had failed to implement agrarian reform and end feudalism in the Philippines the same way they did in postwar Japan under General Douglas MacArthur. I recall reading that MacArthur once even said that if he were a Filipino, he’d most likely have been a Huk rebel in the 1950s.

True, we’ve enjoyed investment-grade ratings upgrades and high economic growth rates, but the benefits have not yet trickled down fast enough. The small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are still not yet very energized. I hope the civil libertarian Obama can nudge our leaders to push inclusive economic growth and help make the Philippines a true economic democracy with a broad-based middle-class.

U.S. once helped build up Philippine economy to No. 2 in Asia

Image above of USA and Philippine flags sourced from finestflags.com

Before at the residence of then U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney, I told her that in our ethnic Chinese family’s over two centuries here in the Philippines---including the Spanish colonial era, the brief interlude of Japanese military occupation and the post-war decades of independence---family elders say that the half-century American colonial period witnessed the rise of the Philippines into Asia’s second richest and most developed economy. Can the U.S. again more vigorously support the Philippine economy with preferential import tariffs, more investments and tourism?

            This need for stronger U.S. economic engagement with Asia should hopefully be uppermost in the agenda and priorities of Obama during his trip. We in the Philippines have received the least amount of economic aid, investments and trade from the U.S. compared to the three Asian countries Obama is visiting such as America’s former World War II foe Japan, South Korea and even Malaysia which used to be led by harsh U.S. critic ex-Prime Minister Mahathir.

More USA investments & trade with ex-foe Vietnam than ally Philippines

Image above of overlapping USA and Vietnam flags sourced from flamenkitaviajera.com

Even Vietnam, another war foe which even dealt the United States its first ever military defeat in history, has in recent years amazingly received more American investments, aid, trade and tourists than we here in the Philippines despite our “special relations”, our being the only former U.S. colony in Asia, our being staunchest U.S. ally since World War II, our fluency in American-style English as well as our having better U.S.-style legal and accounting systems here.

According to the U.S. Embassy in Manila: “The United States is among the Philippines’ top trading partners, and it traditionally has been the Philippines’ largest foreign investor… The stock of U.S. foreign direct investment in the Philippines exceeded $5 billion.”

In January this year, a firm identified with America’s prominent Rockefeller family announced a massive new investment in Vietnam. Rose Rock Group, a Rockefeller family-backed alternative investment management firm, said it shall help develop a $2.5 billion residential and hotel project in on the south-central coast of Vietnam.

This Vung Ro Bay development shall cover 200,000 square meters (2.15 million square feet) and to be developed with Vung Ro Petroleum Co. This huge undertaking will include 350 marina berths, hotels of over 760 rooms, 4,300 residential apartments, 100 townhouses and retail shops.

            On bilateral trade, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said: “The Philippines was the United States’ 33rd largest export market in 2012 and its 35th largest supplier. Goods exports totalled $8.1 billion; goods imports totalled $9.6 billion.” Two-way trade between theU.S. and the Philippines totalled US$17.6 billion. In comparison, bilateral trade volume between former enemies U.S. and Vietnam in the same year 2012 totalled US$ 24.890 billion dollars.

            President Barack Obama, let us substantially expand bilateral economic relations between the Philippines and the U.S. and help in our war against poverty.

British author Dr. Martin Jacques lecture on Nov. 19 (Monday) at 1 pm at the Intercontinental Hotel Manila in Ayala Avenue, Makati City, Metro Manila, The Philippines. Topic: The Rise of China as Superpower and how the World should adjust to this phenomenon (Note: Please read Philippine Star columnist Billy Esposo's piece on Dr. Martin Jacques below after this news)

The Philippine Star newspaper is one of the sponsors of this lecture, so it must be good! Join & tell others.

            British economist, Cambridge University graduate and scholar Dr. Martin Jacques, author of the global bestselling book “When China Rules the World”.

Dr, Martin Jacques is a columnist for Britain’s The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and New Statesman. He is visiting fellow at London School of Economics Asia Research Center, visiting professopr at Japan’s Aichi University, at China’s Renmin University and a visiting fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Martin Jacques will deliver a lecture with the same title and on how the rest of the world should adjust to this new phenomenon of a rising China. His lecture will be on November 19, Monday, starting at 1 pm at the Hotel Intercontinental in Ayala Avenue, Makati City.

Among the reactors in the lecture will be Filipino experts on China like the Emmy award-winning journalist Chito Santa Romana.

The Philippine Star is one of the sponsors of this lecture.

National Bookstore and Powerbooks will also sell Dr. Martin Jacques’ bestselling book, and there shall be an autograph-signing session at Hotel Intercontinental on November 19.

For inquiries about the lecture, text or call 09175373051.  

Below is a column by Billy Esposo of the Philippine Star about this British author and scholar:

China to overtake the US sooner than you think

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR, By William M. Esposo

Updated August 1, 2012 - 12:25am The Philippine Star

 

Martin Jacques, the author of the book “When China Rules the World”  is also an economist and columnist of the Guardian and New Statesman.

He recently spoke before a TED Salon in London (link: http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_jacques_understanding_the_rise_of_china.html  about how China  is going to overtake the US sooner than most people think.

What Martin Jacques had outlined in his lecture is of great importance to us Filipinos who are caught in the big geopolitical power game between the US and China. Per Acting Foreign Affairs Secretary, Albert del Rosario, we will continue our “sole strategic partnership” with the US.

Jacques narrated that even before the Western Financial Crisis Goldman Sachs had already projected that the Chinese economy will soon surpass that of the US and that in 2050 the Chinese economy will be double the size of that of the US.

Citing BNP Paribas projections, Jacques stated that the post-crisis date when China overtakes the US is now 2020. “China is going to change the world in two fundamental respects. First of all, it’s a huge developing country with a population of 1.3 billion people, which has been growing for over 30 years at around 10 percent a year,” Jacques said. He added: “Never before in the modern era has the largest economy in the world been that of a developing country, rather than a developed country. Secondly, for the first time in the modern era, the dominant country in the world — which I think is what China will become — will be not from the West and from very, very different civilizational roots.”

Jacques cited the “widespread assumption in the West that, as countries modernize, they also Westernize.” He said: “This is an illusion. It’s an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not; it is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.”

To understand China, Jacques suggests that we should not apply conventional approaches and Western yardsticks. He offered three building blocks for understanding China.

Civilization and not nation State

Jacques asserted that China is not really a nation State. Jacques said: “what gives China its sense of being China, what gives the Chinese the sense of what it is to be Chinese, comes not from the last hundred years, not from the nation state period, which is what happened in the West, but from the period, if you like, of the civilization State.”

He amplified: “I’m thinking here, for example, of customs like ancestral worship, of a very distinctive notion of the State, likewise, a very distinctive notion of the family, social relationships like guanxi, Confucian values and so on. These are all things that come from the period of the civilization State. In other words, China, unlike the Western states and most countries in the world, is shaped by its sense of civilization, its existence as a civilization State, rather than as a nation State.”

Jacques cited two profound implications of being a civilization State, rather than a nation State, as follows: “The first is that the most important political value for the Chinese is unity,” the maintenance of Chinese civilization. He recalled how Europe had fragmented after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and had remained divided ever since. “China, over the same time period, went in exactly the opposite direction, very painfully holding this huge civilization State together,” He added.

The second implication that Jacques cited was that China will naturally evolve into a single civilization with many systems, with Hong Kong as a good example.

Different conception of race

For his second building block, Jacques said: “The Chinese have a very, very different conception of race to most other countries. Do you know, of the 1.3 billion Chinese, over 90 percent of them think they belong to the same race, the Han. Now this is completely different from the other world’s most populous countries. India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil — all of them are multiracial. The Chinese don’t feel like that. China is only multiracial really at the margins.” He added: “A history of at least 2,000 years, a history of conquest, occupation, absorption, assimilation and so on, led to the process by which, over time, this notion of the Han emerged — of course, nurtured by a growing and very powerful sense of cultural identity.

Jacques cited a down side of this conception of race — “They really believe in their own superiority, and they are disrespectful of those who are not.” He mentioned the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs and the Tibetans.

The State is a patriarch

Jacques cited the Chinese State as his third building block — highlighting how State and society are viewed differently in China compared to the West. He said: “Now we in the West overwhelmingly seem to think — in these days at least — that the authority and legitimacy of the state is a function of democracy. The problem with this proposition is that the Chinese State enjoys more legitimacy and more authority amongst the Chinese than is true with any Western State.”

Per Jacques, the State in China “enjoys a very special significance as the representative, the embodiment and the guardian of Chinese civilization, of the civilization State. This is as close as China gets to a kind of spiritual role.” He added: “for 1,000 years, the power of the Chinese State has not been challenged. It’s had no serious rivals.” Jacques noted that the Chinese views the State as “the head of the family, the patriarch of the family.”

Cautioning the West about their arrogance and ignorance, Jacques explained that East Asia is where a third of the world’s population lives and it is the largest economic region in the world. He added that: “people from East Asia, are far more knowledgeable about the West than the West is about East Asia.

Jacques added: “What is happening is that, very rapidly in historical terms, the world is being driven and shaped, not by the old developed countries, but by the developing world. We’ve seen this in terms of the G20 — usurping very rapidly the position of the G7, or the G8.”

He warns of two consequences. The first is that the West is rapidly losing its influence in the world. The second is “that the world will inevitably, as a consequence, become increasingly unfamiliar to us, because it’ll be shaped by cultures and experiences and histories that we are not really familiar with, or conversant with.”

“For 200 years, the world was essentially governed by a fragment of the human population. That’s what Europe and North America represented. The arrival of countries like China and India — between them 38 percent of the world’s population — and others like Indonesia and Brazil and so on, represent the most important single act of democratization in the last 200 years. Civilizations and cultures, which had been ignored, which had no voice, which were not listened to, which were not known about, will have a different sort of representation in this world. As humanists, we must welcome, surely, this transformation. And we will have to learn about these civilizations,” Jacques said.

We are indeed entering the China century. The big question that must be posed is this — why is our foreign policy still glued to a sole strategic partnership with the US?

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