IV. International
(3-16-09)
.
In 4 months, port
traffic has fallen by double digits, not only in
Norfolk, Long Beach and Savannah, but in Pusan (South
Korea), Bremerton (Germany) and Hong Kong. Air hubs
from London to Singapore fell 5.6%, investment and trade
are seeing a sharp reversal of fortune. Air cargo
nose-dived 23.2%.
.
Remittances (financial lifeline sent home by foreign
workers) are falling, from Latin America to Central
Asia.
The drop has been so
sharp in Kyrgystan which relies on remittances for 27%
of it GNP which relies on remittances for 27% of its
GNP, that the UN World Food Program was asked to rush in
emergency food aid in November for the first time since
1992.
. Juggernauts like
China still maintain huge cash reserves. But other
nations are sinking. Investors are fleeing South Korea
so fast that its short-term debt may surpass dwindling
reserves by the end of the year. The EU faces a severe
test of unity over how, or whether, to bail out member
states on the verge of collapse.
.
The global recession
has been marked by a steady onslaught of lay-off
announcements around the world. Even in Japan, once the
home of lifetime employment, big-name firms like Sony
Corp and Toyota Motors Corp have eliminated tens of
thousands of jobs in recent weeks.
.
Some other countries and companies are also attempting
to stave off job cuts by asking workers to scale back
hours, take pay cuts or schedule time off without pay.
Last month, Ford Motor Co Chair Bill Ford and CEO Alan
Mulally agreed to take 30% cuts in salary for 2 years to
help union support for capping wages.
.
Many developing countries still study South Korea
because of the way it embraced global trade and built
local firms into world-class competitors in industries,
such as electronics, cars and steel. Iraqi president
Jalal Talabani spent 4 days in Korea visiting factories
and learning about its rapid economic development.
.
A summit of SE Asian
nations got off a rocky start (2/28) when leaders of
Burma and Cambodia threatened to walk out of a meeting
on human rights if activists from their countries were
included. Activists reluctantly withdrew and the meeting
went ahead.
.
The ASEAN members are Thailand, Burma, Cambodia,
Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines,
Singapore and Vietnam. The PM of Thailand (where the
summit was held) said that the protection and promotion
of human rights and fundamental freedoms is “a key
feature of our community.”
.
The refusal of Burmese and Cambodian authorities to
engage with their critics will bolster skeptics who say
the organization has always put the principle of
non-interference out of its promise to better the lives
of 570 million people who live in the 10-member
countries.
.
The FBI believes agents
from China are increasingly infiltrating and
spying on American businesses, with 2600 Chinese front
companies in the US.
.
Intelligence collection is no longer likened to
classified national defense information but now includes
targeting of the elements of national power, including
our national economic interests. Critical National
Assets are any information, policies, plans,
technologies or industries that, if stolen or modified
by an adversary, would seriously threaten US national or
economic security.
.
The Maldon Institute think tank reported the Chinese had
stolen $24 billion worth of secrets over a 3-year
period, and that many of the items enabled China to
accelerate its space program.
. Taiwan’s
president (Ma
Ying-jeon) ruled out any near-term prospect of peace
talks with China saying relations are tenuous to
consider discussing political or military issues. At
this stage, it will only talk about economic and trade
issues.
.
Taiwan was responding to
new calls for discussion between Beijing and Taipei made
by Chinese premier Wen Jaibao at the opening session of
the annual National People’s Congress. Since Ma
took office in May, cooperation has increased
dramatically. Both sides have worked together to launch
direct flight and postal service.
.
Chinese officials have said the continued support of
Taiwanese factory owners is important to their country’s
manufacturing sector, and Taiwan has said it hopes to
remove barriers so that wealthy Chinese can begin
investing more easily in the other direction. China is
Taiwan’s 3rd largest trading partner, wit
volume of more than $130 billion each year.
. Singapore
is a window into the
reversal of forces that brought unprecedented global
mobility to goods, services, investment and labor. With
the world trade plummeting for the first time since
1982, the long-bustling port has become a maritime
parking lot with rows of idle freighters from Asia,
Europe, US, South America, Africa and Middle East
stretching for miles along the coast.
.
Thousands of foreign
workers, including London School of Economics graduates
with 6-digit salaries and desperately poor Bangladeshi
factory workers are streaming home as the economy here
suffers the worst recession in SE Asia. Singapore is the
epicenter of “reverse migration.”
.
Singapore’s exports collapsed by a stressing 35% in
January mirroring much of the rest of Asia! The export
boon was tied to credit-funded buying spree in the US
that stopped abruptly and may take years to return. Only
4% of its exports,
including circuitry, micro-chips and food-processing
materials, are bought by China’s hundreds of million of
new customers.
.
Shimchang Electronics
Co. offered
union leaders in South Korea a proposal that will
reduce wages at the auto parts company by 20% in
exchange for no layoffs among its 810 workers. Eight
days later the union agreed.
.
The deal is one unusual way South Korea is grappling
with the global economic crisis. Across the country,
executives, salaried employees and hourly workers at
companies from banks to shipbuilders are joining to
slash
wages and other costs
with the goal of avoiding layoffs.
. The govt.
passed a new law in Feb 1998 that let companies impose
layoffs at will. But because of union pressure, no S.
Korean company attempted to do so until July of that
year, when Hyundai Motor Co. announced it would fire
1,600 of its 36,000 workers. In response, the union shut
down and occupied its main factory for a month. The
strike ended when Hyundai agreed to lay off only 277
workers, mostly from its cafeteria service.
.
About 1 in 8 people in
the Philippines work abroad. Millions of families
depend on money they send back. But a growing number
(already in the thousands) are being forced home because
their jobs have evaporated. Many are returning home
without finishing their contract. Many factories are
closing and the first casualties among their workers are
the Filipinos. They worry that they may have to stop
sending their kids to school. Some have worked for
different factories in Asia and the Middle East but now
there are more applicants than available work.
.
The relocation of the urban poor evicted from Manila to
Bulacan has become a further source of corruption. Since
2002, entire communities of urban poor have been
forcibly relocated to Bulacan to make way for Pres.
GMA’s never-to-be-completed rail & road developments.
This is the most expensive road/railway in the world as
they cost millions of pesos to progress just a few
meters.
.
Since 2005 these urban communities have faced aggressive
military repression. The military has begun hunting down
community organizers and activists, tagging them
“Communists.” A number of youth were picked up and
tortured by the military. Some have gone underground to
save themselves.
.
After “Buy American”
provisions won support in US as part of the stimulus
package, Indonesian authorities fired their own
salvo. They ordered all civil servants in SE Asia’s
largest economy to consume food, clothing, shoes and
other products made only in Indonesia.
. Pres.
Obama called his Indonesian counterpart Susilo B.
Yudhoyono to express Washington’s willingness to involve
Jakarta in tackling global issues, including the
environment and the financial crisis.
.
The Democratic Party
remains seemingly unperturbed about a possible coalition
between the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI-P) and the Golkar Party.
. Malaysia
is expelling
100,000 Indonesians as part of a new policy to put
Malaysian workers first as the recession sparks job
losses.
.
Carrefour Malaysia will not renew the contracts of
its foreign workers (350 from Indonesia and Bangladesh)
when they expire and will fill in the vacancies with
locals, its managing director said.
. Cities in
China top the list of travelers’ 5 favorite
destinations, with Beijing heading the list at
the 3-day MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tours & Travel
Agents) Fair which ended 3/15. London was a close
second, followed by Shanghai, Kunming and
Sydney, said Malaysia Airlines.
. Pakistan
has beaten the
Taliban in a major stronghold close to the Afghan
border, and is close to victory in another. It expects
to pacify most of the remaining tribal areas before the
end of the year, commanders said.
.
America’s key ally in
the fight against al-Quaeda and the Taliban plunged
deeper into turmoil after its Supreme Court disqualified
popular opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from running for
Parliament.
. Pres.
Zardari deepened the crisis by dismissing the provincial
administration in Punjab, which had been led by Sharif’s
brother and was his party’s only foothold in Pakistan’s
patronage-based political system.
.
A squad of terrorists
armed with grenades, rockets and rifles opened fire of a
busload of visiting Sri Lankan cricket players in
Lahore, Pakistan. The assailants seemed bent on
destroying what remains of South Asia’s civic and
sporting goodwill.
.
Sri Lanka had agreed to play in Pakistan in part
as a goodwill gesture after India pulled out of the
tournament in response to the Mumbai attacks. The
tournament was cancelled after the attack, and Sri
Lankan authorities arranged to have the players return
home immediately.
.
The attackers benefited
from the unfolding political crisis in Punjab in which
top political leaders of the province were removed in a
power struggle with Zaduri who comes from a rival party.
Security might have been tighter if the provincial
government had not been in disarray.
