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ASIA STEELS FOR CHALLENGES AHEAD

Francesco Sisci

Asia Times, October 15, 2009

BEIJING - On October 10, China's state-run Xinhua news agency saluted the meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Premier Yukio Hatoyama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, as "a new starting point for tripartite cooperation". The meeting explored the idea of a free-trade pact, inched closer to deeper regional integration, and foreshadowed a possible Asian union modeled after the European Union.

China, Japan, and South Korea declared they were "committed to the development of an East Asian community", agreeing to expand cooperation across a wide range of issues, including climate change and sustainable growth.

Economic forces and threats were at work. Recovery from the financial crisis shows strong signs in Asia, carried by China, while the economy is still very sluggish in America and Europe.

David Goldman, who writes for Asia Times Online under the pseudonym Spengler, believes that unless something changes very soon, the United States - still by far the largest global economy - is headed for a long period of stagflation (stagnation plus inflation) [1] like the one that began in Japan in 1989.

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