The rising power of Chinese globalisation

So i've just finnished watching this weeks programme of The Chinese are coming from last night which i blogged about last week about how the Chinese were exploiting Africa and African workers in its pursuit of global dominance.

This weeks show was very interesting as they went to South America and Brazil in particular showing the absolute devestation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest where Chinese and Brazilian companies have got together to extract large amounts of whardood out of the forest area. THe programme and the guy who was presenting the show i dont remember his name sorry, Justin i think it was traveled with a Greenpeace activists in a helicopter over the land where such huge deforestation has taken place and still is taking place across Brazil.

The programme also visited a small indigenous tribe in the rainforest, one of the few remaining in the rainforest there in Brazil. Although this tribes land has been protected by the Brazilian government the area of the forest where they do a lot of their hunting is under huge threat from deforestation and charcoal kilns being set up all over the place near where they hunt.

The programme highlited some excellent humanitarian issues and exploitations which stood out for me. The huge iron ore mines some of the biggest in the world are in Brazil and as China demands huge amounts of steel now to build its fast growing econmy and its new cities popping up every dahy pretty much it has turned to Brazil and its better quality iron ore. But the devestation and exploitation occuring for this to happen is just unreal. It frankly scares me what China is doing to places like the Amazon jungle which is effectively the lungs of the planet.

As later in the show a guy rightly said the British in their quest for imperialism with their own British Empire back in the day was just as blunt and devastating in their quest for domination in country after country.

The Chinese product which we all know so well in Britain today is flooding the worlds markets now and even in say Brazil there are chinese shops selling chinese products to Brazilians. This has a hugely negative impact on the local Brazilian economy and its people. The Brazilians may benifit in the short term from dirt cheap products possibly not of same quality as their own home made products but as with most consumers the cheaper the better it seems.

The rise of China is being felt hugely now in America, The United States as others call it. The impact of a rising China is having a big impact and this was shown when Justin visited a school in California where young pupils aged 10 to 13 were learning basic Mandorin/Chinese for want of a better word.

This practise was met with anger by parents and local campaingers who felt the influence of China is becoming too much and they wanted to fight back. This struck a worrying chord with me as the people they interviewed. Redneck Americans i could only make out were slagging off commonism and Chinas attempt to corrupt young American school children into their ways. This struck me of a little like waht the Tea party would be saying and i expect to hear much more of this in the future. The fact is and a one of the leading foreign affairs speakers in America was interviewed eleuded to it is not that Americans are scared of Chinas commonism it is the fact Americans are more scared of China's capitalism . Very telling really as the fact that America and teh majority of the western world are in economic down turn the rise of China becomes even more apparant when companies based in the UK and the USA for years including many industrial companies are taking their factories to China where the production costsa nd labour costs are so much more cheaper.

So as a result of our global financial crisis which i have blogged about endlessly on this blog countries like the US and the UK will be facing huge challenges to even to compete against the powerhouse that is China.
Another thing which struck me with the American children in the school i mentioned earlier was the fact that this highlights capitalism even more the fact that Americans will go to this length to as the guy even put it who was running the class's to enable the next generation to compete says it all. It is all profit over people now. I really do think America could drive itself into the ground trying to compete with a massive and ever powerful China. I think China is one step ahead of the game in so many ways. It will be hard to see this ever swinging back now. The tide is turning i'm afraid and like it or not China is here to stay and will be the next super power on the world stage.

This is why alot of countries, including our own are sucking up majorly to the Chinese for work and business opputunities. We sent David Cameron our prime minister on a envoy trip with alot of British business leaders in a attempt to bring good things between Britain and China in terms of business relations.

I really dont think China see us as a big player anymore. Its america they have their sights on. This was no more apparent with the Chinese military becoming armed and flexing its military might by investing hugely in misiles and military technology whether they intend to use these one day i really do hope not for everyones sake. But their long range misiles can already reach Taiwan, Japan and even a lot of the South Pacific Ocean. Worrying indeed if this ever gets to anything.

My last point was about this idea of a potential trade war between America and China which i may do a blogpost on itself one day as i think it will deserve one. But just to make the point that America has already started the economic fightback against dirt cheap Chinese workers and products by slapping import tax's on Chinese products. China has retaliated by doing the same to American chicken feed for example so i will say watch this space as i can see a real all out trade war kicking off there in a few years time.

So all in all i've really enjoyed this series of documentaries and i've tried to fill you in on the show if you havent seen it. If you havent yet i do recommend catching it on the BBC I player called The Chinese are coming. really worth a watch about possibly how the world will look in the next century onwards as the balance of power economically shifts eastward.