«Aprile è il più crudele dei mesi» cantava Thomas S. Eliot, ma se guardiamo alla storia degli ultimi 7 anni dobbiamo concludere che il poeta angloamericano si sbagliava: il mese infausto è settembre. Un detto popolare avverte: «Settembre, porta via i ponti o secca le fonti». Il cronista ne fa tesoro e annota due date: 11 settembre 2001–15 settembre 2008.
Due eventi aprono un nuovo capitolo della storia contemporanea: l’attacco alle Torri gemelle (11 settembre) è l’incipit della guerra tra l’Occidente e il terrorismo islamico, il fallimento di Lehman Brothers (15 settembre), la quarta banca del mondo, è l’inizio di una crisi finanziaria che ridisegna il potere globale. L’epicentro del terremoto è nel cuore dell’impero, gli Stati Uniti. La domanda nei santuari del potere e nelle stanze del semplice cittadino è una sola: che fare? La prima mossa è quella di cercare di comprendere cosa sta accadendo. E gli strumenti migliori continuano a essere i libri. La crisi stimola la rifles­sione e l’analisi.

È terreno fertile anche per la fiction, capace di pre­vedere scenari futuri. Quando Jules Verne scrisse nel 1865 Dalla Terra alla Luna, nes­suno poteva pensare che si trattasse di un’anticipazione della storia dell’uomo. Ma quando Neil Armstrong posò il piede sul terreno lunare, fu chiaro che il romanziere francese aveva visto quel futuro. Ieri come oggi saggisti e romanzieri tentano di interpretare i segni che s’agitano nella sfera di cristallo.

Se volete cercare di cogliere come sarà il mondo fra un secolo, potete leggere The next 100 years di George Friedman (Doubleday), dove il fondatore del centro studi Stratfor, dopo aver pre­messo «non ho la sfera di cristallo», ci conduce in un mondo dove nel 2050 si scatena una guerra tra Stati Uniti e un’alleanza dell’Est composta da Turchia, Polonia e Giappone; gli Stati Uniti nel 2060 conoscono una nuova età dell’oro ma nel 2100 vedono la loro leadership contesa dal Mes­sico.
Fantasie? Vedranno i posteri. Ciò che sta emergendo è un «riallineamento dei poteri» che Thomas P. M. Barnett descrive in Great Powers, America and the World after Bush (Putnam), dando al lettore la chiave per aprire la porta dei «sette peccati mortali commessi dalla pre­sidenza Bush-Cheney». Barnett, già autore di un libro di culto (The Pentagon’s New Map, Putnam), non si iscrive al club degli apocalittici e pensa che l’agenda delle libertà (libero commercio e non protezionismo obamiano) sia ancora l’arma migliore degli Stati Uniti per guidare il mondo.

Non cede alla tentazione millenarista Pino Arlacchi, uomo di vasta esperienza internazionale che per Il Saggiatore ha scritto un corposo libro intitolato L’inganno e la paura. Arlacchi snocciola dati concreti sulla diminuzione della violenza e delle guerre e teorizza che la grande paura contemporanea sia in fondo figlia di un grande inganno. Da tenere sul comodino a fianco di un René Girard che in Portando Clausewitz all’estremo (Adelphi) annuncia «un libro bizzarro» dove «la violenza non produce ormai altro che se stessa».

Sì, ma intanto l’America finché è alle prese con il «bubble trouble», il guaio della bolla, dovrà rinunciare al suo ruolo guida, obiettano gli apocalittici. Vero, e non sarà facile uscirne in poco tempo, perché leggendo The Subprime Solution di Robert J. Shiller (Princeton) scopriamo che «è impos­sibile pre­vedere la natura e la dimensione dei danni provocati dalla situazione economica attuale e dal disordine che ha creato».

Shiller, profes­sore a Yale e già autore del fortunato Irrational Exuberance (Doubleday Business) - tradotto in Italia dal Mulino, Euforia irrazionale — fotografa la situazione con una parola d’origine greca, «dysphoria», uno stato depres­sivo che coinvolge non solo la materia ma anche l’anima. Il sentimento opposto dell’euforia. In ogni caso, uno stato ecces­sivo rispetto alla realtà.
Chi vuole capire l’origine della crisi deve leggere The Subprime Solution e spingendosi più in là può mettere gli occhi su Animal Spirits (Princeton), un altro libro scritto a quattro mani da Shiller con George A. Akerlof, docente a Berkeley, un viaggio nella devastante «imperfezione delle decisioni umane» e nella cieca fede (davvero mal riposta) in alcune teorie economiche che ci hanno condotto fino a questa crisi.

Quale? La vulgata dice che siamo di fronte a un altro Ventinove e per questo c’è chi riscopre gli insegnamenti di John Maynard Keynes. La sua dottrina economica è stata scelta come soluzione chiavi in mano e allora di questi tempi val la pena di rileggere Le conseguenze economiche della pace (Adelphi) e il formidabile esperimento saggistico-narrativo del Secolo americano (Adelphi) di Geminello Alvi. Per un viaggio nel crollo che fu, la Bollati Boringhieri offre la crisi del Ventinove raccontata da John K. Galbraith (Il grande crollo).

Rivisitazioni, echi del pas­sato, ricette buone ieri ma insufficienti oggi. Un senso di pre­carietà che alimenta l’attesa per un nuovo libro di Giulio Tremonti. Il ministro dell’Economia, dopo il grande successo di La paura e la speranza (Mondadori), sta valutando l’idea di scrivere un altro saggio, una via alternativa e una soluzione ai guasti del turbocapitalismo.

Capire grazie ai saggi, (pre)vedere con i romanzi. Nel ciclone ci sono sempre gli Stati Uniti. Leggere Man in the Dark (pubblicato dalla Henry Holt e tradotto in Italia dalla Einaudi, Uomo nel buio) di Paul Auster ci pro­ietta in un futuro dove non c’è mai stato l’11 settembre e l’America è piombata nella guerra civile. Scenario infernale nel quale ci catapulta Brian Francis Slattery con il suo Liberation (Tor Books), un romanzo dove il dollaro crolla, gli investimenti stranieri si ritirano e il paese piomba nel caos sociale fino a disintegrarsi. È qui che la fantasia di Ray Bradbury si incontra con la prosa on the road di Jack Kerouac. Visti i tempi che corrono, speriamo resti quel che è: pura fiction.

© Panorama

Last week we discus­sed the impact that crime, and specifically kidnapping, has been having on Mexican citizens and foreigners visiting or living in Mexico. We pointed out that there is almost no area of Mexico immune from the crime and violence. As if on cue, on the night of Feb. 21 a group of heavily armed men threw two grenades at a police building in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state, wounding at least five people. Zihuatanejo is a normally quiet beach resort just north of Acapulco; the attack has caused the town’s entire police force to go on strike. (Police strikes, or threats of strikes, are not uncommon in Mexico.)

Mexican police have regularly been targeted by drug cartels, with police officials even having been forced to seek safety in the United States, but such incidents have occurred most frequently in areas of high cartel activity like Veracruz state or Palomas. The Zihuatanejo incident is proof of the pervasiveness of violence in Mexico, and demonstrates the impact that such violence quickly can have on an area generally considered safe.

Significantly, the impact of violent Mexican criminals stretches far beyond Mexico itself. In recent weeks, Mexican criminals have been involved in killings in Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, and Mexican criminals have been arrested as far away as Italy and Spain. Their impact — and the extreme violence they embrace — is therefore not limited to Mexico or even just to Latin America. For some years now, STRATFOR has discus­sed the threat that Mexican cartel violence could spread to the United States, and we have chronicled the spread of such violence to the U.S.-Mexican border and beyond.

Traditionally, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations had focused largely on the trans­fer of narco­tics through Mexico. Once the South American cartels encountered serious problems bringing narco­tics directly into the United States, they began to focus more on trans­porting the narco­tics to Mexico. From that point, the Mexican cartels trans­ported them north and then handed them off to U.S. street gangs and other organizations, which handled much of the narco­tics distribution inside the United States. In recent years, however, these Mexican groups have grown in power and have begun to take greater control of the entire narcotics-trafficking supply chain.

With greater control comes greater profitability as the percentages demanded by middlemen are cut out. The Mexican cartels have worked to have a greater pre­sence in Central and South America, and now import from South America into Mexico an increasing percentage of the products they sell. They are also diversify­ing their routes and have gone global; they now even traffic their wares to Europe. At the same time, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations also have increased their distribution operations inside the United States to expand their profits even further. As these Mexican organizations continue to spread beyond the border areas, their profits and power will extend even further — and they will bring their culture of violence to new areas.

Burned in Phoenix

The spillover of violence from Mexico began some time ago in border towns like Laredo and El Paso in Texas, where merchants and wealthy families face extortion and kidnapping threats from Mexican gangs, and where drug dealers who refuse to pay “taxes” to Mexican cartel bos­ses are gunned down. But now, the threat posed by Mexican criminals is beginning to spread north from the U.S.-Mexican border. One location that has felt this expanding threat most acutely is Phoenix, some 185 miles north of the border. Some sensational cases have highlighted the increased threat in Phoenix, such as a June 2008 armed assault in which a group of heavily armed cartel gunmen dres­sed like a Phoenix Police Department tactical team fired more than 100 rounds into a residence during the targeted killing of a Jamaican drug dealer who had double-crossed a Mexican cartel. We have also observed cartel-related violence in places like Dallas and Austin, Texas. But Phoenix has been the hardest hit.

Narco­tics smuggling and drug-related assas­sinations are not the only thing the Mexican criminals have brought to Phoenix. Other criminal gangs have been heavily involved in human smuggling, arms smuggling, money laundering and other crimes. Due to the confluence of these Mexican criminal gangs, Phoenix has now become the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the United States. According to a Phoenix Police Department source, the department received 368 kidnapping reports last year. As we discus­sed last week, kidnapping is a highly underreported crime in places such as Mexico, making it very difficult to measure accurately. Based upon experience with kidnapping statistics in other parts of the world — specifically Latin America — it would not be unreasonable to assume that there were at least as many unreported kidnappings in Phoenix as there are reported kidnappings.

At pre­sent, the kidnapping environment in the United States is very different from that of Mexico, Guatemala or Colombia. In those countries, kidnapping runs rampant and has become a well-developed industry with a substantial established infrastructure. Police corruption and incompetence ensures that kidnappers are rarely caught or succes­sfully prosecuted.

A variety of motives can lie behind kidnappings. In the United States, crime statistics demonstrate that motives such as sexual exploitation, custody disputes and short-term kidnapping for robbery have far surpas­sed the number of reported kidnappings conducted for ransom. In places like Mexico, kidnapping for ransom is much more common.

The FBI handles kidnapping investigations in the United States. It has developed highly sophisticated teams of agents and resources to devote to investigating this type of crime. Local police departments are also far more proficient and profes­sional in the United States than in Mexico. Because of the advanced capabilities of law enforcement in the United States, the overwhelming majority of criminals involved in kidnapping-for-ransom cases reported to police — between 95 percent and 98 percent — are caught and convicted. There are also stiff federal penalties for kidnapping. Because of this, kidnapping for ransom has become a relatively rare crime in the United States.

Most kidnapping for ransom that does happen in the United States occurs within immigrant communities. In these cases, the perpetrators and victims belong to the same immigrant group (e.g., Chinese Triad gangs kidnapping the families of Chinese busines­speople, or Haitian criminals kidnapping Haitian immigrants) — which is what is happening in Phoenix. The vast majority of the 368 known kidnapping victims in Phoenix are Mexican and Central American immigrants who are being victimized by Mexican or Mexican-American criminals.

The problem in Phoenix involves two main types of kidnapping. One is the abduction of drug dealers or their children, the other is the abduction of illegal aliens.

Drug-related kidnappings often are not strict kidnappings for ransom per se. Instead, they are intended to force the drug dealer to repay a debt to the drug trafficking organization that ordered the kidnapping.

Nondrug-related kidnappings are very different from traditional kidnappings in Mexico or the United States, in which a high-value target is abducted and held for a large ransom. Instead, some of the gangs operating in Phoenix are basing their business model on volume, and are willing to hold a large number of victims for a much smaller individual pay out. Reports have emerged of kidnapping gangs in Phoenix carjacking entire vans full of illegal immigrants away from the coyote smuggling them into the United States. The kidnappers then trans­port the illegal immigrants to a safe house, where they are held captive in squalid conditions — and often tortured or sexually assaulted with a family member listening in on the phone — to coerce the victims’ family members in the United States or Mexico to pay the ransom for their release. There are also reports of the gangs picking up vehicles full of victims at day labor sites and then trans­porting them to the kidnapping safe house rat
her than to the purported work site.

Drug-related kidnappings are less frequent than the nondrug-related abduction of illegal immigrants, but in both types of abductions, the victims are not likely to seek police assistance due to their immigration status or their involvement in illegal activity. This strongly suggests the kidnapping problem greatly exceeds the number of cases reported to police.

Implications for the United States

The kidnapping gangs in Phoenix that target illegal immigrants have found their chosen crime to be lucrative and relatively risk-free. If the flow of illegal immigrants had continued at high levels, there is very little doubt the kidnappers’ operations would have continued as they have for the past few years. The current economic downturn, however, means the flow of illegal immigrants has begun to slow — and by some accounts has even begun to reverse. (Reports suggest many Mexicans are returning home after being unable to find jobs in the United States.)

This reduction in the pool of targets means that we might be fast approaching a point where these groups, which have become accustomed to kidnapping as a source of easy money — and their primary source of income — might be forced to change their method of operating to make a living. While some might pursue other types of criminal activity, some might well decide to diversify their pool of victims. Watching for this shift in targeting is of critical importance. Were some of these gangs to begin targeting U.S. citizens rather than just criminals or illegal immigrants, a tremendous panic would ensue, along with demands to catch the perpetrators.

Such a shift would bring a huge amount of law enforcement pres­sure onto the kidnapping gangs, to include the FBI. While the FBI is fairly hard-pressed for resources given its heavy counterterrorism, foreign counterintelligence and white-collar crime caseload, it almost certainly would be able to reas­sign the resources needed to respond to such kidnappings in the face of publicity and a public outcry. Such a law enforcement effort could neutralize these gangs fairly quickly, but probably not quickly enough to pre­vent any victims from being abducted or harmed.

Since criminal groups are not comprised of fools alone, at least some of these groups will realize that targeting soccer moms will bring an avalanche of law enforcement attention upon them. Therefore, it is very likely that if kidnapping targets become harder to find in Phoenix — or if the law enforcement environment becomes too hostile due to the growing realization of this problem — then the groups may shift geography rather than targeting criteria. In such a scenario, profes­sional kidnapping gangs from Phoenix might migrate to other locations with large communities of Latin American illegal immigrants to victimize. Some of these locations could be relatively close to the Mexican border like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego or Los Angeles, though they could also include locations farther inland like Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or even the communities around meat and poultry packing plants in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. Such a migration of ethnic criminals
would not be unprecedented: Chinese Triad groups from New York for some time have traveled elsewhere on the East Coast, like Atlanta, to engage in extortion and kidnapping against Chinese business­men there.

The issue of Mexican drug-traffic organizations kidnapping in the United States merits careful attention, especially since criminal gangs in other areas of the country could start imitating the tactics of the Phoenix gangs.

Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

© Stratfor

Ivan, sei anni, figlio di David Cameron, è morto. Era un bimbo malato, soffriva di epiles­sia e para­lisi cerebrale. Ma era vivo, era una persona, era una fonte di gioia.  Non riesco neppure a immaginare il dolore del papà e della mamma, dei fratellini, di una famiglia che ha sempre rispettato la vita e di una comunità intera che oggi spero — almeno oggi — trovi il tempo per interrogarsi sul grande mistero della vita e della morte.



Ho letto le parole di David Cameron sul piccolo Ivan, le trovo bellis­sime e indimenticabili:

He is a magical child with a magical smile that can make me feel like the happiest father in the world.

We adore him in ways that you will never love anybody else, because you feel so protective.

His smile — sometimes slightly crooked, sometimes accompanied by a little moan –can light up a room. It never fails to make me both happy and immensely proud of him.

Questo è il mes­saggio del primo ministro Gordon Brown alla famiglia Cameron:

Our condolences go out to David, to Samantha and the Cameron family.

I know that in an all too brief life, he brought joy to all those around him and I know also that for all the days of his life, he was surrounded by his family’s love.

Every child is pre­cious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure.

Politics can sometimes divide us. But there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compas­sion at times of trial and in support for each other at times of grief.

Sarah and I have sent our condolences to David and Samantha and I know the whole country — our thoughts and our prayers — are with David, Samantha and their family today.

Brown durante il suo intervento indos­sava una cravatta nera, il suo sguardo era quello di un uomo sinceramente colpito dal lutto del suo rivale.

Il destino ama incrociare le vite degli uomini e quelle di Brown e David Cameron condividono una terribile esperienza. Gordon Brown conosce il dolore del suo avversario: ha perso la sua prima figlia, Jennifer.

Ieri sera alle 23.25 ho aggiornato così il mio stato su Facebook: “Meglio leggere e cercare di capire come ripararsi dal diluvio universale che sta per arrivare ”. Subito dopo sulla mia bacheca un po’ di amici hanno espresso il loro commento. Caterina Bedini e Ales­sandro Tapparini hanno manifestato il loro apprezzamento. Antonello Simbula s’è interrogato su una mia propensione al millenarismo: “ Mario, ti sei convertito a Geova?”. Maria Chiara Giudici ha messo in campo l’ansia: “… ma leggere dove e capire che cosa? Trovo il tuo mes­saggio inquietante!”.  Gian Damiano Manca ha sfoderato l’ottimismo con un incipit in sardo: “itta manera… alla faccia dell’ottimismo, pes­simismo cosmico stavolta, un novello Leopardi, va là che sta uscendo il sole!!”.

Opinioni diverse, legate da un filo di inquietudine, un basso ma persistente rumore di fondo che accompagna il nostro viaggio nella storia contemporanea.

Cerco di sciogliere il mio stato su FB in qualcosa di più compiuto, per quanto possa esserlo il mio pensiero in una fase così perigliosa del nostro tempo.

Il punto chiave è quella che per sintesi chiamerò Grande Crisi.

C’è chi pensa che siamo di fronte a un problema meramente economico e chi – come chi scrive questa nota – ha invece una visione non riduzionista ma olistica del problema che abbiamo di fronte. Jan Smuts, padre dell’olismo, secondo l’Oxford English Dictionary, dava questa definizione della sua filosofia: “La tendenza, in natura, a formare interi che sono più grandi della somma delle parti attraverso l’evoluzione creativa”.

Se teniamo ferma la bus­sola su questa rotta, non pos­siamo fare a meno di notare che la Grande Crisi non è figlia solo di cattive scelte fatte nel settore dell’economia. E’ il frutto di eventi complessi, shock culturali e storici che oggi stanno dispiegando i loro effetti sulla bio­sfera in maniera rapida e drammatica.

Dal mio piccolo punto d’osservazione, individuo due date fondamentali che costituiscono uno shock culturale: l’11 settembre 2001 e il 15 settembre 2008. La prima data, l’attacco alle Twin Towers, segna l’ingresso del mondo nella dimensione della guerra totale, dell’arte della guerra teorizzata da Karl Von Clausewitz verso un “estremo” finora sconosciuto che ci pro­ietta nel tempo della Quarta Guerra Mondiale; la seconda data, il fallimento di Lehman Brothers, è il vero principio di una crisi finanziaria che si è trasformata in una crisi economica globale di dimensioni inimmaginabili fino a ieri e dagli esiti imprevedibili per l’ordine mondiale.

Un terremoto che ha un solo epicentro: gli Stati Uniti, il cuore dell’impero che guida il mondo o, meglio, l’ha guidato dal dopoguerra ad oggi in condizioni di pace relativa – non pos­siamo dimenticare la Guerra Fredda, la Terza Guerra Mondiale – e prosperità mai conosciute.

L’ordine internazioanle imperniato sugli Stati Uniti scricchiola a causa del cocktail micidiale di questi due eventi-chiave e della sfida di nuove potenze che stanno emergendo.

L’Oriente ha sviluppato una sua visione alternativa del capitalismo e della democrazia (penso al modello proposto dalla Cina), un dinamismo della conoscenza e della creatività che valorizza il talento e crea ricchezza (l’esperimento con l’India), una compres­sione della libertà e un’espansione territoriale accettati in cambio di una crescita quantitativa del reddito (la dottrina delle sfere d’influenza coniata per la Grande Rus­sia). Mi limito a questi tre esempi – ma potremmo aggiungere al mazzo di carte sul tavolo anche la Turchia e la Polonia – per aprire il nostro orizzonte ad Altri Mondi che influenzano in maniera decisiva il sistema. Il complesso delle loro azioni non è una semplice sommatoria, il risultato è qualcosa di più grande, qualcosa di cui per ora non riusciamo a vedere i contorni, ma solo i primi effetti.

Di fronte a questo scenario gli uomini di buona volontà si pongono una sola domanda: che fare?

La risposta ha due livelli: capire e agire. Il primo livello ha bisogno di elaborare i dati a disposizione e non parlo solo di quelli numerici – in appros­simativo divenire – ma dei dati culturali, psicologici e naturali di questa crisi. Il secondo livello pre­vede il pas­saggio succes­sivo, quello che conduce dalla teoria alla prassi. Il mio mestiere mi porta naturalmente a privilegiare il primo livello, quello della comprensione, ma non mi esime dalla ricerca di una soluzione da applicare alla mia personale dimensione di giornalista e padre di famiglia.

Capire il pre­sente e cercare di vedere il futuro. Obiettivo ambizioso, ma senza quest’orizzonte sarebbe impos­sibile dare un senso alla vita dell’uomo. Ecco perché gran parte delle mie energie intellettuali sono rivolte alla ricerca e alla lettura. I libri, amici cari, rappresentano uno strumento insostituibile per interpretare la realtà. Saggi e romanzi offrono una visione ben più grande di quella che oggi può dare la politica. Quest’ultima rappresenta il mondo della prassi, ma senza una rifles­sione teorica di base le scelte della politica sono destinate a una fatica di Sisifo, a un continuo lavoro di prova ed errore che alla fine può portare il sistema all’esaurimento della sua potenza.

Pensate ai vari salvataggi tentati in questi mesi dagli Stati Uniti, dall’Europa e dalle banche centrali sul sistema finanziario: prima si è adottata una strategia del caso per caso con un’infusione di liquidità nelle banche; poi si è pensato alla creazione di un veicolo per accogliere i titoli tos­sici; infine si procede con la nazionalizzazione di fatto delle istituzioni finanziarie. Sono trascorsi quasi sei mesi e la fine del tunnel non si vede, la dispersione di risorse è enorme. Mentre scrivo queste righe, la fiducia degli americani è al minimo storico e la Federal Reserve pre­vede una ripresa fra tre anni. Un tempo lunghis­simo nel quale continueranno a emergere forze antagoniste in grado di indebolire ulteriormente l’Occidente e sconfiggerlo sul suo stesso terreno.

Ecco dunque i libri galleggiare in questo mare in tempesta, una zattera pos­sibile — non certa — per chi non vuol essere sommerso dal diluvio. “Cosa leggere?” chiedeva Mas­simo De Falco su Facebook.

Non sono un dispensatore di consigli, posso solo raccontare cosa sto leggendo io, quali volumi accompagnano la mia veglia e il mio sonno. Una decina di giorni fa ho pensato che poteva essere utile condividere queste letture. Così sul pros­simo numero di Panorama, in edicola da venerdì, potrete leggere un articolo che vuol essere una guida per chi vuole intraprendere un viaggio tra alcuni libri (pubblicati soprattutto negli Stati Uniti e in attesa di un editore in Italia) che per me sono uno strumento insostituibile di coscienza e conoscenza. Sono certo che molti di voi troveranno spunti per capire, conoscere, criticare e apprezzare le idee degli autori che oggi stanno compiendo il ciclopico sforzo di interpretare la nostra storia.

Due in large part to fears of dire consequences if nothing were done to tackle the economic crisis, China rushed through a 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) economic stimulus package in November 2008. The plan cobbled together existing and new initiatives focused on mas­sive infrastructure development projects (designed, among other things, to soak up surplus steel, cement and labor capacity), tax cuts, green energy programs, and rural development.

Ever since the package was pas­sed in November, Beijing has recited the mantra of the need to shift China’s economy from its heavy dependence on exports to one more driven by domestic consumption. But now that the sense of immediate crisis has pas­sed, the stimulus policies are being rethought — and in an unusual development for China, they are being vigorously debated in the Chinese media.

Debating the Stimulus Package

In a country where media restrictions are tightening and private commentary on government officials and actions in blogs and online forums is being curtailed, it is quite remarkable that major Chinese newspaper editorials are taking the lead in questioning aspects of the stimulus package.

The question of stimulating rural consumption versus focusing the stimulus on the more economically active coastal regions has been the subject of particularly fierce debate. Some editorials have argued that encouraging rural consumption at a time of higher unemployment is building a bigger problem for the future. This argument maintains that rural laborers — particularly migrant workers — earn only a small amount of money, and that while having them spend their meager savings now might keep gross domestic product up in the short term, it will drain the laborers’ reserves and create a bigger social problem down the road. Others argue that the migrant and rural populations are underdeveloped and incapable of sustained spending, and that pumping stimulus yuan into the countryside is a misallocation of money that could be better spent supporting the urban middle class, in theory creating jobs through increased middle-class consumption of services.

The lack of restrictions on these types of discus­sions suggests that the debate is occurring with government approval, in a reflection of debates within the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the government itself. Despite debate in the Chinese press, Beijing continues to pre­sent a unified public face on the handling of the economic crisis, regardless of internal factional debates. Maintaining Party control remains the primary goal of Party officials; even if they disagree over policies, they recognize the importance of showing that the Party remains in charge.

But, as the dueling editorial pages reveal, the Party is not unified in its assess­ment of the economic crisis or the recovery program. The show of unity masks a power struggle raging between competing interests within the Party. In many ways, this is not a new struggle; there are always officials jockey­ing for power for themselves and for their protégés. But the depth of the economic crisis in China and the rising fears of social unrest — not only from the migrant laborers, but also from militants or separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang and from “hostile forces” like the Falun Gong, pro-Democracy advocates and foreign intelligence services — have added urgency to long-standing debates over economic and social policies.

In China, decision-making falls to the pre­sident and the pre­mier, currently Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao respectively. They do not wield the power of past leaders like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, however, and instead are much more reliant on balancing competing interests than on dictating policy.

Party and Government Factions

Hu and Wen face numerous factions among the Chinese elite. Many officials are considered parts of several different factional affiliations based on age, background, education or family heritage. Boiled down, the struggle over the stimulus plan pits two competing views of the core of the Chinese economy. One sees economic strength and social stability centered on China’s mas­sive rural population, while another sees China’s strength and future in the coastal urban areas, in manufacturing and global trade.

Two key figures in the Standing Committee of the Politburo (the center of political power in China), Vice Pre­sident Xi Jinping and Vice Pre­mier Li Keqiang, highlight this struggle. These two are considered the core of the fifth-generation leadership, and have been tapped to succeed Hu and Wen as China’s next leaders. They also represent radically different backgrounds.

Li is a protege of Hu and rose from the China Youth League, where Hu has built a strong support base. Li represents a newer generation of Chinese leaders, educated in economics and trained in less-developed provinces. (Li held key positions in Henan and Liaoning provinces.) Xi, on the other hand, is a “princeling.” The son of a former vice pre­mier, he trained as an engineer and served primarily in the coastal export-oriented areas, including Hebei, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai.

In a way, Li and Xi represent different proposals for China’s economic recovery and future. Li is a stronger supporter of the recentralization of economic control sought by Hu, a weakening of the regional economic power bases, and a focus on consolidating Chinese industry in a centrally planned manner while spending government money on rural development and urbanization of China’s interior. Xi represents the view followed by former Pre­sident Jiang Zemin and descended from the policies of Deng. Under that view, economic activity and growth should be encouraged and largely freed from central direction, and if the coastal provinces grow first and faster, that is just fine; eventually the money, technology and employment will move inland.

Inland vs. the Coast

In many ways, these two views reflect long-standing economic arguments in China — namely, the constant struggle to balance the coastal trade-based economy and the interior agriculture-dominated economy. The former is smaller but wealthier, with stronger ties abroad — and therefore more political power to lobby for pre­ferential treatment. The latter is much larger, but more isolated from the international community — and in Chinese history, frequently the source of instability and revolt in times of stress. These tensions have contributed to the decline of dynasties in centuries past, opening the space for foreign interference in Chinese internal politics. China’s leaders are well aware of the constant stres­ses between rural and coastal China, but maintaining a balance has been an ongoing struggle.

Throughout Chinese history, there is a repeating pattern of dynastic rise and decline. Dynasties start strong and powerful, usually through conquest. They then consolidate power and exert strong control from the center. But due to the sheer size of China’s territory and population, maintaining central control requires the steady expansion of a bureaucracy that spreads from the center through the various administrative divisions down to the local villages. Over time, the bureaucracy itself begins to usurp power, as its serves as the collector of taxes, distributor of government funds and local arbiter of policy and rights. And as the bureaucracy grows stronger, the center weakens.

Regional differences in population, tax base and economic models start to fragment the bureaucracy, leading to economic (and at times military) fiefdoms. This triggers a strong response from the center as it tries to regain control. Following a period of instability, which often involves foreign interference and/or intervention, a new center is formed, once again exerting strong centralized authority.

This cycle played out in the mid-1600s, as the Ming Dynasty fell into decline and the Manchus (who took on the moniker Qing) swept in to create a new centralized authority. It played out again as the Qing Dynasty declined in the latter half of the 1800s and ultimately was replaced — after an extended period of instability — by the CPC in 1949, ushering in another period of strong centralized control. Once again, a more powerful regional bureaucracy is testing that centralized control.

The economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping at the end of the 1970s led to a three-decade decline of central authority, as economic decision-making and power devolved to the regional and local leadership and the export-oriented coastal provinces became the center of economic activity and power in China. Attempts by the central government to regain some authority over the direction of coastal authorities were repeatedly ignored (or worse), but so long as there was growth in China and relative social stability, this was tolerated.

With Hu’s rise to power, however, there was a new push from the center to rein in the worst of exces­ses by the coastal leaders and business interests and refocus attention on China’s rural population, which was growing increasingly disenfranchised due to the widening urban-rural economic gap. In 2007 and early 2008, Hu finally gained traction with his economic policies. The Chinese government subsequently sought to slow an overheating economy while focusing on the consolidation of industry and the establishment of “superministries” at the center to coordinate economic activity. It also intended to put inland rural interests on par with — if not above — coastal urban interests. When the superministries were formed in 2008, however, it became apparent that Hu was not omnipotent. Resistance to his plans was abundantly evident, illustrating the power of the entrenched bureaucratic interests.

Economic Crisis and the Stimulus Plan

The economic program of recentralization and the attempt to slow the overheating economy came to a screeching halt in July 2008, as skyrocketing commodity prices fueled inflation and strained government budgets. The first victim was China’s yuan policy. The steady, relatively pre­dictable appreciation of the yuan came to a stop. Its value stagnated, and there is now pres­sure for a slight depreciation to encourage exports. But as Beijing began shaping its economic stimulus package, it became clear that the program would be a mix of policies, representing differing factions seeking to secure their own interests in the recovery plan.

The emerging program, then, revealed conflicting interests and policies. Money and incentives were offered to feed the low-skill export industry (located primarily in the southeastern coastal provinces) as well as to encourage a shift in production from the coast to the interior. A drive was initiated to reduce redundancies, particularly in heavy industries, and at the same time funding was increased to keep those often-bloated industrial sectors afloat. Overall, the stimulus represents a collection of competing initiatives, reflecting the differences among the factions. Entrenched princelings simply want to keep money moving and employment levels up in anti­cipation of a resurgence in global consumption and the revitalization of the export-based economic growth path. Meanwhile, the rural faction seeks to accelerate economic restructuring, reduce dependence on the export-oriented coastal provinces, and move economic activity and attention to the vastly underdeveloped interior.

Higher unemployment among the rural labor force is “proving” each faction’s case. To the princelings, it shows the importance of the export sector in maintaining social stability and economic growth. To the rural faction, it emphasizes the dangers of overreliance on a thin coastal strip of cheap, low-skill labor and a widening wealth gap.

Fighting it Out in the Media

With conflicting paths now running in tandem, competing Party officials are seeking traction and support for their programs without showing division within the core Party apparatus by turning to a traditional method: the media and editorials. During the Cultural Revolution, which itself was a violent debate about the fundamental economic policies of the People’s Republic of China, the Party core appeared united, despite major divisions. The debate played out not in the halls of the National People’s Congress or in press statements, but instead in big-character posters plastered around Beijing and other cities, promoting competing policies and criticizing others.

In modern China, big posters are a thing of the past, replaced by newspaper editorials. While the Party center appears united in this time of economic crisis, the divisions are seen more acutely in the competing editorials published in state and local newspapers and on influential blogs and Web discus­sion forums. It is here that the depth of competition and debate so well hidden among the members of the Politburo can be seen, and it is here that it becomes clear the Chinese are no more united in their policy approach than the leaders of more democratic countries, where policy debates are more public.

The current political crisis has certainly not reached the levels of the Cultural Revolution, and China no longer has a Mao — or even a Deng — to serve as a single pole around which to wage factional struggles. The current leadership is much more attuned to the need to cooperate and compromise — and even Mao’s methods would often include opportunities for “wayward” officials to come around and cooperate with Mao’s plans. But a recognition of the need to cooperate, and an agreement that the first priority is maintenance of the Party as the sole core of Chinese power (followed closely by the need to maintain social stability to ensure the primary goal), doesn’t guarantee that things can’t get out of control.

The sudden halt to various economic initiatives in July 2008 showed just how critical the emerging crisis was. If commodity prices had not started slacking off a month later, the political crisis in Beijing might have gotten much more intense. Despite competition, the various factions want the Party to remain in power as the sole authority, but their disagreements on how to do this become much clearer during a crisis. Currently, it is the question of China’s migrant labor force and the potential for social unrest that is both keeping the Party center united and causing the most confrontation over the best-path policies to be pursued. If the economic stimulus package fails to do its job, or if external factors leave China lagging and social problems rising, the internal party fighting could once again grow intense.

At pre­sent, there is a sense among China’s leaders that this crisis is manageable. If their attitude once again shifts to abject fear, the question may be less about how to compromise on economic strategy than how to stop a competing faction from bringing ruin to Party and country through ill-thought-out policies. Compromise is acceptable when it means the survival of the Party, but if one faction views the actions of another as fundamentally detrimental to the authority and strength of the Party, then a more active and decisive struggle becomes the ideal choice. After all, it is better to remove a gangrenous limb than to allow the infection to spread and kill the whole organism.

That crisis is not now upon China’s leaders, but things nearly reached that level last summer. There were numerous rumors from Beijing that Wen, who is responsible for China’s economic policies, was going to be sacked — an extreme move given his popularity with the common Chinese. This was staved off or delayed by the fortuitous timing of the rest of the global economic contraction, which brought commodity prices down. For now, China’s leaders will continue issuing competing and occasionally contradictory policies, and just as vigorously debating them through the nation’s editorials. The government is struggling with resolving the current economic crisis, as well as with the fundamental question of just what a new Chinese economy will look like. And that question goes deeper than money: It goes to the very role of the CPC in China’s system.

Rodger Baker and Jennifer Richmond

© Stratfor

Primo viaggio di Hillary Clinton: Cina. Il segretario di Stato americano cerca di tenere aperte le porte dell’Oriente. L’Europa sarà bypas­sata, farà il coccio tra i vasi di ferro (se non crolla tutto). Ecco il discorso della Clinton alla Asia Society a New York il 13 febbraio scorso. Spiega bene perchè gli Stati Uniti cercheranno di rafforzare le alleanze guardando verso il Pacifico.