http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7838.htmsnip>
In other areas of global moral and institutional reform, the US today is a follower rather than a leader. Human rights? Europe has banned the death penalty and torture, while the US is a leading practitioner of execution. Under Mr Bush, the US has constructed an international military gulag in which the torture of suspects has frequently occurred. The international rule of law? For generations, promoting international law in collaboration with other nations was a US goal. But the neoconservatives who dominate Washington today mock the very idea of international law. The next US attorney general will be the White House counsel who scorned the Geneva Conventions as obsolete.
A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.
It is true that the US remains the only country capable of projecting military power throughout the world. But unipolarity in the military sphere, narrowly defined, is not preventing the rapid development of multipolarity in the geopolitical and economic arenas -- far from it. And the other great powers are content to let the US waste blood and treasure on its doomed attempt to recreate the post-first world war British imperium in the Middle East.
That the rest of the world is building institutions and alliances that shut out the US should come as no surprise. The view that American leaders can be trusted to use a monopoly of military and economic power for the good of humanity has never been widely shared outside of the US. The trend toward multipolarity has probably been accelerated by the truculent unilateralism of the Bush administration, whose motto seems to be that of the Hollywood mogul: "Include me out."
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Meanwhile the rest of the world begins to work together...
Call to end exit tax within Asean regionhttp://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/1/27/nation/10005972&sec=nationsnip>
“It is hoped that by the end of the year, any point of entry by Indonesians to Malaysia will not be subject to exit tax.
“Neighbours in the region which currently impose exit tax may perhaps want to review the requirement to promote intra-Asean travel,” he said.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said tourists, whether they were from South-East Asia or outside the region, should enjoy a single visa privilege for easier travel within the region.
“It will be wonderful to be able to travel in South-East Asia with one visa, one procedure and one special lane,” he said, adding that such an arrangement would benefit Asean.
Dr Mahathir said in his keynote address at the Asean Tourism Forum here that travel would be made easier via a single visa.
“Of course there is the security aspect to consider but we must also address the issue of promoting travel,” he said.
He also suggested that Asean countries introduce a common form of greeting to distinguish South-East Asia from the rest of the world.
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Dec 26 tragedy brings Asean closerhttp://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/33185Apart from it, we also saw the opportunistic instincts of donor nations whose promise of relief aid was preconditioned, either with the cessation of rebellion in Aceh or an eye for political mileage.
For South East Asia, the impact of the disaster was also indeed an ‘opportunity’. As how Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono put it, it is a chance to build on the ‘culture of solidarity’, which over the years has been notoriously absent.
How much of inkling there was to that ‘culture’ can only be seen in the pre-1997 days. Then the region ‘abetted’ by the depreciation of the Thai baht triggered a series of financial meltdowns throughout South East Asia, capped memorably by former Malaysian premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad’ vitriol that pointed to a Jewish conspiracy theory.
When that was not enough, a series of spats involving Malaysia and Singapore put relations deeper into a freeze, highlighted by some unpleasant moments when Singapore athletes were jeered at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
The tenuous state of relations plunged further after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. And when the United States took retaliatory military action against Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, the drift among Muslims and non-Muslims states in the grouping widened even further apart.
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China becomes Japan's major trade partner in 2004 (MENAFN) According to its Finance Ministry, China replaced the United States as Japan's largest trade partner in 2004 for the first time since World War II, AFP reported.
Japan's trade with China, including the administrative region, totaled $214 billion last year, outpacing the $48.4 billion with the United States.
Low-priced Chinese-made goods have been flowing into the Japanese market while Japanese firms are boosting their factory capacity and sales networks in the neighbouring country.
U.S.-Japan schism over China possible at G7http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050127-083852-3525r.htmsnip>
Until recently, whatever differences the G7 nations, namely the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada, may have had among themselves, they have largely been united when it came to how they viewed China. But as the world's most populous nation keeps growing as an economic power, differences in opinion on how to deal with China are beginning to emerge among the G7.
For one, the fact that China is being invited to take part in the G7 talks for the second time is evidence of the country's ever-growing economic clout. So while the United States continues to insist that China's fixed foreign exchange regime is one key reason for the ever-growing U.S. trade deficit, especially as its current account deficit with China keeps reaching record levels, other member countries might tend to side more with the Chinese rather than with the United States.
That's because for Japan, China is not just a trading rival, but also a major trading partner as it continues to be a major destination of Japanese exports. In fact, the Japanese finance ministry announced earlier this week that China overtook the United States for the first time as Japan's single biggest trading partner in 2004, as exports and imports between the two Asian nations reached $213 billion last year.
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