Page 20 - CSA Speaker Bulletin January 2017 | CSA Celebrity Speakers

US ELECTIONS
The Changing
BALANCE OF POWER
The economic transformation of
China is the most important
global economic event of the
past forty years. It has changed the
balance of power on the Eurasian
landmass, in ways we are only
beginning to comprehend.
China has an increasing number of
well off, high spending, consumers.
The Boston Consulting Group recently
estimated that what it calls the “upper uneven distribution of the fruits of
middle class” (a group that can afford
regular foreign holidays) in China will
rise from 53 million today, to 102
million by 2020. At the other end of
the scale, China has not got a well
developed welfare system. The income
gap is very wide. Stress is high. There China in the driving seat, as far as
is a two tier labour market, under
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which long established city residents
qualify for social support, but recent
arrivals in the same cities do not, and
can remain in a precarious situation
for years. This presents a problem of
political management.
One can thus foresee the use of
Chinese nationalism by the Communist
party leadership, to shore up support,
and distract from the ill effect of a very immediately after the latter’s success
prosperity.
Europe and the United States should
be cautious in their response to
China. The decision to abandon the
Trans Pacific Partnership may leave
trade policy in East Asia is concerned.
Adding a conflict over the status of
Taiwan to this mix could have really
unpredictable results.
If the US moves closer to Russia, the
EU may find its interests aligned more
with those of China in some fields, like
climate change. It would reinforce the
anxiety many of the central European
members of the EU feel about Russian
intentions. Russia has traditionally
been hostile to the EU, because it felt
itself excluded from pan European
security structures.
On the other hand, the US, in the
past, has been a strong supporter of
European integration, notably under
the Administrations of Harry Truman
and George HW Bush. The incoming
Trump administration seems to be
headed in the opposite direction, giving
visible support to political parties that
would break up the EU.
President elect Trump’s decision to give
an effusive welcome to Nigel Farage,
before any other European leader, and
in engineering the first ever exit of a
country from the EU, sends a clear and
hostile signal.
A disunited Europe could become
a playground for the outworking of
great power rivalries. Notwithstanding
their notional “sovereignty”, individual
European countries could be used as
pawns in a wider struggle, in the same
way as the religious factions in Syria
are being used.
There are many ancient and buried
antagonisms that could be exploited,
if European unity is broken. The UK,
which did so much to defend the
liberty of Europe in 1914 and 1939,
forgot this when voting in their recent
referendum. n
John Bruton is a former Prime
Minister of Ireland (Taoiseach)
and a renowned expert on global
economic issues.