Athletes shouldn't be our China policy
Should our athletes boycott this year's Beijing Olympics? Nick Cohens in a reasonably interesting article says
yes.I don't know whether he is appealing to individual athletes or to the Government to impose something, but in both cases I am more persuaded by the objections he lists in his final paragraph, which basically are that in the absence of any economic or financial sanctions, I think tellin, or even expecting, athletes to boycott the Olympic Games is rather unfair [1]- putting all of the onus on them rather than us.
There doesn't seem to be enormous pressure on anyone else in the country to make the slightest effort or suffer the slightest cost in their relations with China, or must desire to do so either. All of us interact with or benefit from China via various forms of trade, e.g. buying a flat screen TV or microwave (I'm writing this on a computer made in China), getting cheap new clothes, visiting the Great Wall, having an account at Morgan Stanley, etc. All of these are reliant on the Chinese government to some degree or another, and all of them can be reduced at a relatively small cost.
For athletes this is not really the case - the Olympics is the pinancle of many athletes' careers, and only comes around ever four years, so it's not like they will get many chances at performing in it. Furthermore it's not the athletes fault that it is in Beijing.
One might argue that the Olympics is linked to the government and the government's prestige, but so are the major industries and state investment funds.
It's not that I don't believe in sporting boycotts per se, but surely they must be an addition to economic and financial boycotts [2], not as something done instead? If the government can lead trade missions to China, the public buy masses of cheap imports, and investment banks - with large operations in the UK, if not actually British owned - receive cash injections, why can't or even shouldn't an athlete perform at the Beijing Olympics? [3]
[1] It's of course possible that Nick Cohen might have reduced his expenditure on China-linked goods and services to a bare minimum, which would certainly give him the right to demand similar actions of others.
[2] I don't think we should impose financial or economic sanctions on China as a country.
[3] There is also the question of how much they would care if it was limited to us, but I'm not sure that is the main point of such a boycott.
Labels: China, sport
Dollars
The Independent has one of its
front-
pages today on the dollar. Pretty superficial stuff, and I'm not sure whether I agree with the usually good Hamish McRae's argument that one reason for dollar weakness is declining US share of global GDP, which seems to me to be more a function of dollar weakness rather than its cause.
My own currency speculation, now up to something near $2,000, has obviously a negative return so far. It's going to get worse, probably, as McRae points out - even if the dollar is undervalued it can get more undervalued. I wouldn't say I was worried particularly as I've always valued the saving part of investment more than the return - an investment with a 10% negative return is still worth 90% more than if the money had been used for consumption.
Anyway I'm off to India to check out the rather more laggardly rising star of the economic world. Back Wednesday.
Labels: Attempts to talk up the dollar, China, economics, india
US Treasuries
Over
here, rather inconclusively, I've been arguing whether the US would be able to renege on its public debt (US Treasuries) held by China in the event of a war between the two countries. I'm not sure how practical it is, as in whether the Treasury knows which bonds are held by China (although it must know where to send the coupon payments) and of course what the impact would be on the reputation of Treasuries as a safe asset.
There must have been something similar, if one a much smaller scale (gold was stil the reserve asset of choice) during World War II, but I can't find anything on the internet about it. I've just bought a book about the Nazi economy in WWII so maybe that will mention it.
You can get too bogged down in financialmarketism here, and forget the basic problem, which is the US Treasury would be paying large amounts of money (if it's 5% p.a on $500bn that's $2bn a month) to a country it was fighting a war against. I can't see how that would be allowed to happen.
Labels: China, economics, usa
When you get to the top (nearly but unquestionably) there's nowhere else to go but down
James Rogers, who famously two years ago
declared that Britain was 'unquestionably the world's second strongest power' seems to have been a little
unnerved by recent developments, and is demanding more EU military co-operation.
Given the geopolitical changes under way, what seems crystal clear is that Britain's power and authority in the world is going to decline in the coming years, as an expansive China, a growing India, an increasingly wild and truculent Russia and a myriad of regional powers assert themselves on the world stage. And as the United States becomes more concerned with Asian politics and security, Europeans are likely to be left on their own
.
Have faith, James! Also
please note despite appearances, this is his personal view and not that of the H'S'JS.
Labels: China, Decent Left, Scoop
650 die in Chinese floods
Blimey.
Labels: China
