Sunday 11 September 2011

THE US AND CHINA AFTER 9/11

The Times of India

UNCLE SAM’S DECLINE AND RISE OF CHINA

Indrani Bagchi

The Times of India, September 11, 2011

The most enduring images of what is known as the "9/11 decade" are of suicide bombings, Predators, dead al-Qaeda leaders and new al-Qaeda leaders. But did we miss another, equally powerful image? Yes, that of China, growing unhindered and becoming a superpower in its own right, when the US was busy fighting its wars?

Ten years since 9/11, the jury is still out on whether the US is winning the war against al-Qaida. But there is no doubt that in the past decade the world has found a new fulcrum. As Lionel Barber wrote in the 'FT' , the three most important words in the last decade was not "war on terror" but "made in China" . Derek Scissors, economist at conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation says, "The US met the narrow security challenge of 9/11 but meeting any security challenge has an economic component. The US lacked the political courage to pay the economic price, weakening America's global position and making China a more serious challenger than it otherwise would be in 2011." The year 2001 was the zenith of America's unipolar status. Ten years later, the world is talking about Pax Sinica. After the 9/11 attacks, the US decided to go after the guys who planned and executed the terror plot. But instead of hot pursuit , US decided to go after Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which was a war of "choice" . But despite pouring billions into its war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaida and Taliban remain a potent threat to the US and a drain on an imploding US economy.

All this while, China stayed in the background. They did not have to spend murderous amounts of money, or send thousands of soldiers to die in a war where their main ally was also their main enemy. China retained its "all weather " friendship with Pakistan - on the cheap. China never spent the kind of money America did in Pakistan, yet its influence with Islamabad was disproportionately high

(...) [artículo aquí]

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