Globalaffairs

Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Moises Bolekia

Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area has become one of the major industrial centers in Northern China, achieving a similar importance as the Special Economic Zones as Shenzhen, or Shanghai’s Budong. Over 60 enterprises and multinational of the top-500 global Fortune have set up 129 enterprises in TEDA; the most remarkable are, for instance, the Americans Motorola, IBM or Coca-Cola, the European Schneider, Wella or Nestle, but the Asian companies have a major presence: Samsung, Panasonic, Toyota, Yamaha, Hyundai, Fujitsu and many others. Accumulatively, TEDA had approved 4,299 enterprises founded by foreign capital, including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan by the end of 2006 (1).

The present paper wants to focus on TEDA’s key role in regional and Chinese national economy due partially to its geographical privileges. First, we will discuss the main features of Free Economic Zones (FEZ) as TEDA is. Secondly, we will provide some interesting economic statistics from the official sources like the annual report of TEDA, focusing our attention on Information Technology’s (IT), probably the pillar and key industry for TEDA.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Lionel Kpenou-Chobli

The debate between France and its former colonies, particularly those of Africa is aggravated for long months by the new policy of immigration envisaged by the president Sarkozy Nicolas since its passage to the Home Office. We will try to analyse the perception of this policy of “chosen immigration” in Benin, country traditionally connected to France and were President Sarkozy delivered his speech-program on immigration in 2005.

Benin was a French colony from the end of the 19th century to 1960. The country had the reputation to be the “Latin district of Africa” and as such supplied numerous civil servants to the colonial administration. Both countries kept very important links on political, economic and cultural areas. Numerous Benineses (around 500.000) live in France. Most of the Beninese leaders and elites made their studies in France and their children follow the same route. Everybody in the main cities of Benin have a relative, a friend in France. The French is the working language and the French culture is much spread. Generally, during the big sports events for example, people support the French teams as if it was their own national squad.

Beninese (settled) in France transfer a great deal of resources towards the country. They finance the education within their family, the expenses of health and insure a decent pension for their parents. That is to say that the dream to immigrate to France is widely shared within the population. However young persons at a loose, the students or even civil servants hope to join the hexagon at the first opportunity.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By I. Máñez

If a butterfly flaps in Beijing, New York climatic systems could change next month. This idea known as “butterfly effect” is a visual example of world repercussion of the USA mortgage crisis. Due to a current globalized world, economy cannot escape from this parable. Thus, if the first world power is in recession, the rest of world economies will be also affected somehow or other. This was the case of Spain with six funds and five investment companies affected by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Flapping beginning

Unlike other North-American crisis where terrorism or the technological bubble explosion have been immediate causes, the present one is related to property market in the extremist way. This time the butterfly flapping is provoked by the increase in subprime mortgages non-payment, also known as “garbage mortgages” because they are soft in concession conditions but hard in interests. Non-payment has increase in 14% in such mortgages (given between 2003 and 2004 to people in a high-risk financial situation) together with housing prices nosedive in the USA have provoked the present crisis hitting the main world parquets.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Dimce Bukreski

The foundation of NATO dates back to the years of rising fear from the growing danger of communism. It was based on “right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations” – article 51 of the UN Charter (1945). Throughout the Cold War the main aim of the Alliance was collective defence of the western liberal-democratic countries from communist ideology and the rising power of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Then, apart from maintaining its unity, NATO was solely concentrated on adapting its strategy and building capabilities to counter its main threat coming from the East. During that period of balance of power, the security interest of the Alliance around its geographical domain was important, however, it was impermissible to jeopardize the core task of collective defence by out of area destructions.

After the end of the Cold War and collapse of communism and its main pith - the Soviet Union, the Alliance was relatively quick in detecting the emergence of a new threat, which “had been transformed from being direct and deliberate to one that was indirect and perhaps unintended” (McCalla 1996 p.459). Realising that its primary threat does not come from a specific nation but from unstable nature of the post-Cold War era, the Alliance has become conscious of the newly emerged security circumstances and without delay started its transformation and expanded its functions and purposes. Among else, NATO has adapted its Strategy to a newly emerged security environment in the Euro Atlantic region and downsized and restructured its military forces into true joint multinational forces capable of undertaking out of area operations.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Naiara Cáliz

Some weeks ago Israel labelled the Palestinian land of Gaza as enemy state. The continuous flow of Al Kasam missiles from the border between both territories has made the situation uncontrollable for the Israeli government that has decided to stop the problem and whose statements, despite violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all international laws, make him strong facing the enemy. For greater security, Israel is backed up by the government of governments, the USA.

Once more the good communication campaign of the American government over the evil axis has been successful. Palestine is also included and a few changes can be regarded as encouraging.

The Oslo treaty identified Jerusalem as neutral city but when someone visits this city can realize that especially in Eastern Jerusalem Muslim suburbs and its citizens are subdued. At twilight when there are a lot of people in streets the soldiers occupied the streets. Arms are present for controlling the law enforcement. From the Damascus Gate next to the Eastern Lamentations Wall, a soldier guards a crowd of people from the old wall. Just a simple children game ends up with a punishment for one of them, a teenager that is becoming fed up of the situation. He forced him to sit down behind him as a punishment for an action that the soldier dislikes. He feels stronger when humiliating the weakest. This is the daily routine of Palestinians. Submission to an imposed army and to orders from individuals whose land is not their land.

Issue 5/October-November 2007
By Roger Casas

The mass protests spurred by the sudden increase in oil prices –provoked in turn by a government decision to end oil subsidies, a measure previously recommended by the International Monetary Fund–, has put Myanmar (the official name for Burma after 1989) at least momentarily on the spotlight of the international media and public opinion. The participation of thousands of monks in particular has made these protests the greatest challenge to the Burmese military, in power since 1962, in almost 20 years.

The massive implication of the Burmese Sangha (the community of Buddhist monks and nuns) in the protests started on September 5, when at least three monks were injured by army soldiers during a demonstration in Pakokku, around 500 km north of the old Burmese capital, Rangoon (at present officially called Yangon); about 300 members of the Sangha had taken part in the demonstration as a way of supporting the local population, deeply affected by the latest of the economic crisis in the country. As a response to the aggression of the military, that day hundreds of monks from a local monastery burned several official vehicles and took 20 members of the security forces as hostages; the hostages were freed shortly after, and the next day the Burmese government, in a rare gesture of good will, freed in turn one political activist arrested on August 28 during a similar protest in Yangon. In the following days, screening of monasteries and pro-democracy activists on the part of state security reportedly increased.

However, the crisis did not end there: The following week, an unknown organization self-designated “the Alliance of all Burmese Buddhist Monks” distributed a leaflet calling on the Burmese junta to issue an official apology regarding the events of Pakokku before September 17. If the apology did not take place, the monks threatened with taking to the streets and issuing a “patam nikkuijana kamma”, a rejection of alms which denies the donor the merit every donation to the Sangha involves, affecting members of the military.

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Issue 5/October-November 2007
By I.Manez

It’s 18.15 pm October the 1st, the National Day of the People’s Republic of China. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese coming from the adjacent provinces of Beijing gather at Tiananmen Square waiting patiently for the lowering of the Chinese flag. This official ceremony closes off the most important day for Chinese people. Among the crowd, an elderly Chinese man, dark-skinned because of the work in the fields, attracts the attention of the crowd when he takes off his jacket, showing a complaint in Chinese characters.

I don’t know the name of this man, looking quite and peaceful, but I do know what the Chinese characters hand-drawn on his jacket mean. They denounce the fact that police had evicted him from his traditional home in order to allow The Great China/Dragon build one more road. This was a real demonstration in one of the cities, Beijing, and one of the places, Tiananmen, the most controlled place by Chinese authorities.

The man dressed in white is aware of it. His words remain silent, but the awareness of the consequences of his peaceful demonstration could be seen doubtfully at a glance.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Gustavo Ayala

The Latin-American scenario

One of Ecuador’s biggest challenges is to change its position in the international system, which delimits the frames of its domestic policies. Ecuador is an exporting primary country, very vulnerable to international fickleness. It has a small and depressed domestic market and an excessive commercial openness; its social profile indicates deep fractures, high levels of poverty and inequality. All of these factors have been reinforced with neoliberalism.

Besides, there is a drastic reduction of the spaces for international action, which is emphasized by the geopolitical strategy of the United States. The US is consolidating their influence in Latin-America as a mechanism to improve their competitiveness against other blocks of power, to overcome their economic decline and to consolidate their military supremacy. All its regional projects should be understood under this perspective: “Plan Puebla Panama”, the “Andean Regional Initiative - Plan Colombia” and the Free Trade Agreements (FTA).

Nevertheless, there is a real possibility, which is now open in South-America, of an integration process which would allow Ecuador and the subcontinent a wider scope of international action.

Unlike other experiences, especially the European, an integration process in Latin-America cannot be backed up by conservative political forces, as their interests echo those from Washington. Sadly enough, not all the progressive governments of the region have built an international policy, beyond the Latin-Americanist rhetoric, which is coherent with the objective of regional integration. And this is essential to any post-neoliberal transition, especially for the viability of small countries such as Ecuador.

Sub-regional integration processes are in a crisis and redefinition phase. The Andean Community (CAN) is facing its worst moment and, apparently, it is deadly wounded as a result of the scarce progress of its integration, the commercial disputes due to the non-fulfilment of agreements, and the negotiations of two of its members in order to sign the FTA with the United States.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Eva Díez Ajenjo

The concept of security should be expanded beyond considerations of military force. Security can no longer be viewed as an independent national problem based on limited self-interest as realists preach. Moreover, in the agenda of international relations other issues such as migration and environmental degradation as threats to security have been incorporated. For instance, Loescher (1995, p.559) notices that ‘The UN Security Council’s Summit Declaration of 31 January 1992 acknowledged that threats to international peace and security can originate from ‘non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields’, and that such conflicts fall within the Security Council’s sphere of action’.

From a realist perspective, as a result of the evaporation of the Cold War and its overarching preoccupations, security issues considered less important could be expected to appear more important. However, realists suggest that in order to make the management of these issues possible, it is necessary the commitment of the USA. On the other hand, Wirtz (2002, p.310) mentions that neo-institutionalists in the new security issues would probably add the important role played by new forms of transnational management such as IGOs because they push global issues on to national agendas and help co-ordinate international responses to transnational problems.

The global security issues suggested in this paper are: environmental degradation, migration and the spread of diseases. All of them constitute a threat to human security.

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Issue 5/ October - November 2007
By Jaime Mateu

The word “astronaut’s families” was born in the early 80s in the XX century to describe a new migratory situation. The traditional Chinese emigration motivation was the need of finding a new economical source to send money and keep their families that were still living in their home land. These emigrants could remain abroad until their contracts finish or they could settle down in the new destinies looking for new life conditions.

The first peculiarity of the astronaut families is that they are centred in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The first case has a special importance due to, for the first time, migration does not start in a independent state but in a British colony and in a “rebellious Chinese region”. Preferential destinies of this migration are Australia, Canada, New Zealand and in the last place, USA.

The outstanding characteristic of these new families is the distribution of several of their family members among different countries keeping the family links which remain in the origin land. Usually heads of family are the persons in charge of travelling to different countries to oversee that the family interests are secure. Meanwhile, women stay in the arrival country looking after their children. In case women would work, grandparents are the persons who would be the guardian.

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