On Monday, July 5, 2005 a Coalition of nations, led by China and Russia, demanded that the U.S. withdraw it's military from central Asia and Afghanistan. U.S. MSM has supplied no background concerning the SCO summit, or the "oberver" status of India and Pakistan. Together, this new alliance has the potential to represent half of the world's population.
This link provides search results about countries with membership or an interest in joining the new strategic alliance:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...nG=Search+News
Quote:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/05/news/stan.php
U.S. is urged to leave Central Asia
By C.J. Chivers The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2005
MOSCOW Russia, China and four Central Asian nations issued a declaration Tuesday calling on the United States to set a deadline for withdrawing from its military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
The wording in the declaration by the six nations, which are members of a regional alliance known as Shanghai Cooperation Organization, was veiled but clear, and it marked the shifting diplomatic ground in Central Asia since an uprising and antigovernment demonstration in Uzbekistan in mid-May were put down by force.
The nations said that they continued to support international coalition's operations against terrorists in Afghanistan, and had provided access to air space and ground territory to assist in these efforts.
But they added that they had seen signs of stabilization in Afghanistan and now "regard it as essential that the relevant members of the antiterrorist coalition set final deadlines for the temporary use of said infrastructure facilities and for the presence of military contingents of the member countries."
The United States operates two airbases in the region, both of which support continuing military operations and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. German troops are also deployed at a river port and rail terminal in Termez, along the Afghan border. France has a military presence at an airfield in Tajikistan.
The declaration on Tuesday, made at a meeting of the regional alliance in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, followed weeks of Western criticism of Uzbekistan's handling of the uprising in May, which ended, survivors said, with Uzbek security forces firing into mixed crowds of gunmen and civilians.
Several Western governments and organizations have urged Uzbekistan to allow an independent investigation of the uprising and crackdown, which President Islam Karimov has refused.
As the West has pressed, Uzbekistan has found support from China and Russia, and the nations have increasingly pushed back in public, at times adopting a defiant tone, and scolding the United States for what they portray as meddling in other nations' affairs.
President George W. Bush, whose administration has signaled that it wishes to maintain a military presence in the region, is expected to meet at the G-8 summit gathering in Scotland this week with two of the leaders of nations who backed the declaration, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China...
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China and Russia both currently enjoy foreign currency reserves of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. The U.S. foreign trade debt will near $2 trilllion by the end of 2005. Our unrelenting importation of 13 million barrels of oil per day adds $285 billion to our 2005 projected trade deficit near $700 billion.
We depend on reinvestment by Chinese and other Asian dollar holders to fund our $500 billion annual federal budget deficit by their buying of U.S. treasury bills and by tolerating our growing trade deficit by extending credit to the U.S. Now the Chinese are buying major U.S. domeciled businesse, Maytag, IBM's PC business, and are attempting to buy the third largest US oil company, Unocal, for $18.5 billion.
If the U.S. ignores the demands of these large countries, can Russia demand Euros in payment for their signifigant oil exports, and cause the dollar to drop in value due to lower demand for it as a reserve currency? Can China press U.S> interest rates higher by curtailing treasury bill purchase, while simultaneously divesting it's $300 billion plus dollar portfolio accumulated via it's trade imbalance with the U.S. by purchasing U.S. and Canadian oil and other raw material assets?
The U.S., lacking an energy conservation policy, and any policy to reduce the trade or federal budget deficits, seems to have very little leverage against a coordinated and unified effort to devalue the dollar, or press U.S. interest rates higher, increasing the risk of popping the bubble in the U.S. housing market. Dollar devaluation orchestrated by Asian countries and oil exporters, combined with CHina acting on U.S. pressure to remove the dollar peg on China's currency, could put China in a position to purchase even more U.S. assets with a Chinese Yuan that rises in value vs. the dollar.
Are U.S. oil imports, and total consumption, 25 percent of all oil consumed, by just 6 percent of the world's population, sustainable? Germany produces twice the amount of GDP from each barrel of oil consumed than the U.S. does.
Why is this situation not given attention as the real threat to our national security that it actually is. Is there any solution that is practical, or is it too late, given current U.S. policy and leadership?
Quote:
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Featured/Las.html
..........America grows poorer – both relatively and absolutely. In absolute terms, her expenditures exceed her income by more than 6% per year (based on trade deficit figures). Asian, Eastern European and Russian economies grow – with positive trade balances. Wages, per hour, barely rise in the U.S. In these new competitors, they soar.
The trade gap figures show that much of this increase in wages overseas happens at the expense of U.S. incomes. People in the U.S. spend; people in Asia earn. Incomes rise in Asia; in America, they fall.............
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Quote:
http://dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2005/DRUS070405.html
.........n Congress, for example, the peoples' representatives have asserted a right to take a close look at China's bid for Unocal. Free trade is all very well - as long as it comes out in your favor. Even Congress is noticing that it doesn't. The House of Representatives is also threatening to impose a 27% across-the-board tariff on Chinese-made goods, if the Chinese don't revalue their yuan.
The two ideas are at odds with one another. If the yuan is revalued, it gives China even more purchasing power for U.S. assets.
But the whole thing has politicians perplexed. The occasion calls for lies. This is no problem in itself; they've devoted their entire careers to telling lies. The problem is that they don't know which lies to tell. They can tell voters that the United States has the greatest, most dynamic economy in the world. But that exposes them to the obvious question: What do we have to worry about? So what if the Chinese buy U.S. companies, in other words; they buy them because they're the world's greatest, of course. Or, they can tell voters the opposite lie - that we need to protect U.S. resources and American jobs. But that raises its own unpleasant questions: What is going wrong with the U.S. economy that we cannot compete on the world market? And, isn't it Chinese protectionism that we were complaining about in the first place; how can we rail against the Chinese for protecting their own markets while we simultaneously tell the world that ours needs protection, too?
No American politician is going to admit the truth: that Americans work harder than any other group on the planet - but they get less from it.
Both Europe and North America are faced with the same challenge - competition from the East. Low wage countries in Eastern Europe and Asia are dragging down wages in the West. Europe struggles to preserve its standards of living with high rates of capital formation, high wages, high unemployment, expensive social services, and rigid controls. Europe's roads were clogged this past weekend - as were those of America. But in Europe, the roads were clogged with people leaving for weeks, not days. The entire period - from the 1st of July to the 31st of August - is one long vacation season. It is hard to get anything done in Europe - so many people are away on holidays. Families reunite. Resorts fill up. The quality of life remains relatively high, even as many people work short hours.
In America, people work harder and longer to try to meet the Asian challenge. Most of the income gains realized by American households since 1971 have come from more hours of work - not from increases in per hour compensation. But people also came to believe a lie - that the key to prosperity was to spend money, rather than earn it. Consumption rose faster than earnings - made possible mostly by increases in property prices.
The extra consumption - incited, aided, and abetted by the Federal Reserve - gave Asian competitors a big boost; Americans bought more than ever, far more, in fact, than they could afford. It left huge profits in Asia...which are now coming back to the United States in the form of bids for U.S. corporations and resources.
Who wants to tell Americans on Independence Day that it is their own damned fault? Or, that the tide of economic history has turned against them? Or, that their system of imperial finance works against them, not for them? Or, that they might want to learn to speak Chinese?
Many firecrackers will go off today...but not that one.
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