Chinese on the menu

December 10th, 2007 Written by Biz

Its funny how two diverse and seemingly unrelated pieces of news can have a common thread running through them and today, this phenomenon has re-occurred. Panama has been in the forefront of the news recently due to its location as a bolt hole for John Darwin, the resurrected canoeist and his wife Anne; but now it has featured again for an entirely different reason…language teaching in schools. The other piece of news is the horrendous prospect of Britain being ringed by over 7,000 wind farms. 

 

Panama, it seems, is about to make the teaching of Mandarin compulsory in all of its schools; already, the Panamanian National Assembly has given provisional approval to a Bill to ratify the said measure. Panama’s commercial links with China run to some $1bn dollars annually and with China also being the biggest user of the Panama Canal, supporters of the Language Bill, say that by massively increasing the number of Chinese speakers in the country, Panama’s business competitiveness will be assured. 

 

Whilst acknowledging that English is the international language of business, advocates of the Bill recognise that China’s increasing influence worldwide will make Mandarin an indispensable language. 

 

Meanwhile back home, by 2020 the coastline could be detrimentally and irretrievably changed beyond all recognition by the installation of some 7,000 wind turbines (equating to about two turbines to every mile of coast). The move is part of a Government drive to become less dependant on other countries for our power needs and is part of a general move towards the increased use of renewable energy sources and also nuclear power. 

 

All very well and good…in theory. It is a fact though that all major renewable energy sources (wind, solar, wave power and bio fuels) actually utilise more conventional power and are a bigger drain upon the environment in their creation than any utility we derive from their use. Now I’m sure that hordes of quiche eating, tree hugging, poncy, liberal, Greenpeace supporting eco folk will be up in arms at this, but what I say is a fact…within the EC, solar power generation, for example, is subsidised by some 575%…and yes…we the tax payer pay for it. 

 

So what has all of this got to do with the Panama story…what’s the link? In a word, China! 

 

Now our Government is correct in one sense; in a world of diminishing resources, we need to secure our supply for energy security; but whilst the Government seems intent on destroying our coastline and condemning us all to a sad twilight world of low power energy saving light bulbs; the Chinese have been doing what we should have been attending to and will have grabbed the lions share of natural resources by the time that our Government realises it. 

 

During the past few years (whilst we have been concentrating on bringing truth, justice and the American way to the Middle East), China has been forging a vast range of alliances with resource rich countries in Africa and the Southern Americas, such as Panama. They have found happy and willing entrants to their circle of newfound friends, as they have employed a cunning strategy. They have been offering to build huge infrastructure projects within these countries or alternately when preferred, they offer vast but very low interest loans in exchange for preferred supply deals. The really ‘clincher’ to these deals though, is that unlike America or indeed the EU, China does not lay down any pre-requisites for the supply of their aid; they do not demand social reform, democracy or any changes to the way recipient countries are run…only trade deals. 

 

One final interesting point that might be worthy of some thought; have you noticed the increasing rhetoric and pressure being brought to bear by the US against Iran? In a surreal replay of the Iraqi “can launch in 45 minutes” story, the Iranians are pictured as being a threat to world peace and it is conceivable that they might be attacked by America. 

 

Now referring back to those worldwide Chinese trade deals: China is actually a major trade partner of Iran…in fact it derives some 30% of its oil supply from Iran. Whilst I don’t claim to be overly perceptive, I can’t conceive that China would take too kindly to having 1/3 of its oils supply cut off without something major to say about it. 

 

If a situation like that ever arises, I can tell you; I certainly won’t be standing shoulder to shoulder with our best allies…I’ll be well out of it. 

 

Where will I go? 

 

I’ll be ‘bigging it up’ out of harm’s way in Panama happily downing a 67, a 43 and a 28…yep…Sweet and Sour Pork with Egg fried Rice and Prawn Crackers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entry Filed under: Rants & Views