Commentary

11th April 1999

Sole superpower wars

By Mervyn de Silva

After the triumphant Kosovo conflict-resolution operation, NATO or no NATO, Uncle Sam earned the unique title sole superpower. But now is it about to slip on a banana skin?. True it did claim an imperial title for over a century as the master of many banana republics, the outstanding exception a defiant Castro's brave Cuba.

But what's this? The U.S. has been caught up in a fierce row with its European allies and Japan an economic superpower.

What could it do? The obvious option was trade sanctions against the European Union, its strongest and staunchest ally. The trade conflict between the European Union and the US. over bananas deepened when Brussels bitterly attacked a decision by Washington partially to implement sanctions on more than five hundred (500) million dollars of E.U. exports wrote a British correspondent Guy de Jonquiers from Brussels. The sole superpower was in quite a quandary agreed Francis Williams, another British reporter from Geneva.

In the post-cold war ear, the nature of conflict has changed, certainly in the under-developed countries the vast market for the capitalist camp, trade and investment. Aid is often a carrot. Identity, race and religion, rather than Ideology, the of Cold war, capitalism and communism. The under-developed exploited for centuries. Nehru found a useful ally in Tito, to fashion a foreign policy that could severe these billions best non-alignment. An independent foreign policy freed the ex-colonies from the ideological struggle of the new rival camps, led by the US and the Soviet Union. Neither socialism nor non-alignment could save Tito's Yugoslavia after Tito. Now it was the Serbs, Croats, ethnic Albanians. Tito asserted their separate identities. The result. Bosnia, Kosovo etc.

What took command? The economy stupid. And so the banana skin for the political elite.

China - Japan

There are two countries China and Japan which can defy American hegemony, a hegemony exercised through the Breton Woods twins, the World Bank and the I.M.F. Recently India's defiance - a successful nuclear test was a clear signal that India will claim its rightful place in the global power-structure of the next century.

Japan, haunted by recent history, does not wish to join the club, though it has the capacity to do so. An economic superpower - Japan is satisfied with the present status, for now. Richard Fisher, deputy trade representative in the Clinton administration declared recently that "Success in the area of de-regulation is necessary in order to have a successful meeting between Prime Minister Obuchi and President Clinton in the US next month. His remarks suggest that the US would like to see Japan "move more aggressively to liberalise its markets.........." before the Clinton - Obuchi encounter.

Japan's manufacturers have questions to pose since they have problems of their own.Car and truck sales dropped by 12.5 to last year. Our burden is larger than the "Big three" US. manufacturers face, says the director of NISSAN.

Banana Regime

The Chinese reaction is not based entirely on economics but "human rights". It is in the name of human rights that the US impose sanctions and justify internment. The Chinese case was presented quite thoroughly in a special document circulated by Hsinhua. It quoted the Chinese foreign minister who rejected the US attempt to link human rights and trade. US - China relations were multi faceted and to link issues arbitrarily was "not wise"

No economic sense

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, declared Martin Wolf, a columnist of the Financial Times in an essay titled Going Bananas.

"The European Union casts the blame on the US. decision to go ahead with the retaliatory sanctions on EU. exports. The US has indeed made a grievous error. It has lost the moral high ground, it has shifted attention from EU. malfeasance and it is doing potentially irreparable damage to the (WTO) world trade organisation itself."

The Jungle Telegraph

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