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> Replace Japan with China and he's spot on. ...except for the prosperous and peaceful part, right? And oh yeah...everything else? I think you will find yours

by quesera 14y ago

> Replace Japan with China and he's spot on. ...except for the prosperous and peaceful part, right? And oh yeah...everything else? I think you will find yourself just as wrong about China as Glashow was about Japan.

nl 14y ago
...except for the prosperous and peaceful part, right? Prosperous: clearly people in Asia & Africa are much, much more prosperous than in 1987. In the developing regions, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 47 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent in 2008. [snip] The number of extreme poor in the developing regions fell from over 2 billion in 1990 to less than 1.4 billion in 2008.[1] Even in the US and Europe income per person has grown substantially since 1987[2]. Don't let the current economic problems overshadow longer-term trends. Peaceful: If you live outside central Africa the last 25 years haven't been bad. In 1987 Iraq was at the end of the Iran/Iraq war and Afghanistan was in the middle of attempting to expel an invading superpower. Not much change there. Of course, the various central African wars have been a complete disaster - only WW1 & WW2 have been comparable. OTOH, there hasn't been a nuclear war, which was what people expected in 1987. [1] http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/mdg1/ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goa... [2] http://www.bit.ly/SWICYq http://www.bit.ly/SWICYq (Sorry about the short URL - it goes to a Flash Gapminder page)
- quesera 14y ago
  Good points, but I would argue that there is a vast difference between being raised out of extreme poverty and being "prosperous". Also, be careful with top line income stats for the US and Europe, they just don't reflect conditions on the ground. As for peaceful, Glashow's reference to a Pax Japanica implies that, at least within its economically-annexed countries, there would be genuine peace over and above what he observed in 1987. Since the establishing event didn't happen, I guess it doesn't make sense to analyze the effects...but I'll grant you that for several years between 1987 and now, the international rhetoric among nations with large standing armies has cooled. But this isn't the Golden Age of anything, certainly not Japan. Regarding the OP, China has nothing to do with any of it. Their assertions of economic influence in Africa and South America are just a shift in patron and beneficiaries from the old world order. Great for some countries (at least in the short term), less so for others.

by quesera 14y ago

nl 14y ago

...except for the prosperous and peaceful part, right? Prosperous: clearly people in Asia & Africa are much, much more prosperous than in 1987. In the developing regions, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 47 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent in 2008. [snip] The number of extreme poor in the developing regions fell from over 2 billion in 1990 to less than 1.4 billion in 2008.[1] Even in the US and Europe income per person has grown substantially since 1987[2]. Don't let the current economic problems overshadow longer-term trends. Peaceful: If you live outside central Africa the last 25 years haven't been bad. In 1987 Iraq was at the end of the Iran/Iraq war and Afghanistan was in the middle of attempting to expel an invading superpower. Not much change there. Of course, the various central African wars have been a complete disaster - only WW1 & WW2 have been comparable. OTOH, there hasn't been a nuclear war, which was what people expected in 1987. [1] http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/mdg1/ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goa... [2] http://www.bit.ly/SWICYq http://www.bit.ly/SWICYq (Sorry about the short URL - it goes to a Flash Gapminder page)

quesera 14y ago
Good points, but I would argue that there is a vast difference between being raised out of extreme poverty and being "prosperous". Also, be careful with top line income stats for the US and Europe, they just don't reflect conditions on the ground. As for peaceful, Glashow's reference to a Pax Japanica implies that, at least within its economically-annexed countries, there would be genuine peace over and above what he observed in 1987. Since the establishing event didn't happen, I guess it doesn't make sense to analyze the effects...but I'll grant you that for several years between 1987 and now, the international rhetoric among nations with large standing armies has cooled. But this isn't the Golden Age of anything, certainly not Japan. Regarding the OP, China has nothing to do with any of it. Their assertions of economic influence in Africa and South America are just a shift in patron and beneficiaries from the old world order. Great for some countries (at least in the short term), less so for others.