The Chinese connections are indeed important. To its credit the Singapore govt had recognized in the late 1980s the Chinese potential and so it established the East Asia Institute under a brilliant Chinese of Indonesian origin scholar Wang Gungwu at the National U of Sing. It's a research outfit with academic and policy research focused on China. This year a new Institute of South Asian Studies (focused solely on India) has been established. Singapore feels vulnerable--how many hard disk drives are they going to produce? They need to integrate with the bigger regional economies and socially the enthnic connections are already at work: Chinese and Indians (mainly Tamils).
On another note, Walmart had opened stores in China selling Chinese made products! Is this a product of the Chinese government?
anthony
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Comparative International Development South Asian and International Studies Programs University of Washington Campus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
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On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
Marvin Gandall wrote:
Of course, there's global capitalist interpenetration at the higher levels which can work to offset particular rivalries between countries and trading blocs lower down.
True, but this NYT article was in no small part about Chinese-centered networks displacing US-centered ones in business and education. E.g., a very sophisticated (and rather glamorous too, by the accompanying pic) young Singapore development official who got her MBA in China rather than going to the US. Ok, the biz school program was a joint venture with MIT, but the point was that the Chinese connections were thought to be very important.
Doug
