Week 28 Year 1 - Monday, April the 30th 2012
Metropoli 5 “Global effects”
News broadcasts have been reporting the same old war bulletin we are so getting used to in Europe, only with a new possible worst scenario hypothesis: the collapse of the European Union. A lot depends, they say, on the outcome of the French presidential elections and, on the most powerful woman in Europe today, Angela Merkel. Will she withstand a foreseeable rupture with current dance partner, Nicolas Sarkozy? Who will Angela Merkel choose to tango with next? Seriously, it’s crazy. In any case, should the European project collapse at this point and time, we may as well start praying. Italy is so small it could fit tens of times in the USA, China, Russia or even Africa which does not worry me too much only because it is politically so fragmented still. But China isn’t at all. As a matter of fact, there’s a little detail that comes to mind. I was going over some local news, in Milan (Italy) and found out to my surprise, from an official ranking of the 100 most popular surnames in town, that the second most popular on the list is the Chinese HU. Mr Hu Alessandro, a clear indication that we’re talking about an Italian citizen. Not a problem at all. It’s just that, coming back to how many times Italy would fit into China, what happens if we reverse the process? What would it take them to blow us away? We’d be fed noodles instead of pasta in no time.
China is a country of impressive dimension and numbers. It’s also the only nation, that is enjoying a double figure growth while the rest of the globe is short of breath. China is hosting most of our production lines, surely because of cheaper labor costs, and some other reasons, one of which appears to be their monopolistic position in the production of rare metal elements. These are vital elements for our, defense, electronics and renewable energy industries (even our lamp bulbs need them). In short, all high tech production lines, just about everything we produce nowadays, require the use of these elements. China is currently the only producer (97% of the global output) and is said to maneuver in such ways as to “encourage” manufacturers to shift production to China. It does so by restricting its exports, setting lower prizes for Chinese manufacturers, and increasing export prices (quadrupled over the past few years, that is a lot!). China is performing so much out of natural resources that it has decided to expand its holdings. It is buying out entire reserves of precious metals, oil and so on in African countries, like Angola where it has financed development over the past ten years,or its newly signed three year plan for the supply of 1.1 million tons of sulphides per year extracted in Papua New Guinean, and on the same line, a shady operation in Tanzania, made to look as if it were interested in air traffic to cover up an illicit oil licensing deal. I’m confident that other players on the international power chessboard have their own assets up their sleeves, but for the time being, China is stocking up a treasure and, to use an all Italian saying, is getting ready to grab the world by the "-----", how was it?.
Years ago I used to play a computer game called Age of Empires. From stone-age to star wars. Having selected an era, civilization and nationality to start from, we proceed with developing and expanding our domain to the highest possible status, through demographic growth and the development of agriculture, technology and defense industries. To survive we need to preserve an aggressive stance. It is of vital importance that, while keeping an eye back home making sure things run smoothly, we proceed with conquering as many reserves of natural resources, rare elements, gold and so on, located on our world map, as possible. We need also invade our neighbors’ space before they develop technologies thus becoming difficult to deter and take possession of their resources. Eventually, it is sometimes possible to join forces through commercial and diplomatic agreements. Now, you can choose to be good or bad. I, for instance, used to fight for control, to establish peace in the region. But the point is, whichever way we approached it, the quest was so intense that in the end, good or bad, we’d inevitably run out of resources, systematically. I don’t know, maybe the recycling concept was overlooked. It just didn't make any sense. That’s why I got bored with it. But I still can’t help thinking that game had an educational purpose. Only it looks as if instead of learning from it, we’re blindly copying the process.
Note 1 - about SUB ref. Monday, December the 5th 2011 "About a Druid and his mushrooms"
